Friday Ephemera

AI-generated 1970s sci-fi pulp covers.
The color schemes are pretty spot on, the fonts? Meh and the artwork is way too mixed up, wavy and you can’t tell a monster from a spaceship. Sci-fi pulp of the era was garish, sometimes abstract, but still pretty much recognizable.

He doesn’t respect you, alas.
Call it even.

See also.
Not entirely unrelated.

Old school alternative.
*awards dad points*

Between bites and sips
Last October I managed to keep a mask off 3 out of 4 hours on a Las Vegas to Nashville flight. At one point an attendant was about to address me and I quickly smiled, held up my nearly empty coffee cup, and asked, “Can I get some more?” This seemed to trigger her trained auto response, so off she went and came back with another cup of diversion for me.

He doesn’t respect you, alas.
Then what happens when one transperson doesn’t find another transperson attractive and wishes not to fuck them? Is that akin to dividing by zero?

[ Quietly fixes Stephanie’s catastrophic and mortifying runaway-italics blunder. ]

Did Stephanie make some kind of horrifying and terrible runaway-italics blunder?

How bad was it?
Ever the gentleman, I couldn’t say.
It would be embarrassing for Stephanie. And we can’t have that.

For those who don’t scroll down. According to commentator Lord_Snow77:

“Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally – their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can’t afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently… Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they’re fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio… There’s a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother’s anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn’t helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury… should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.”

For those who don’t scroll down.
You’re really stamping any residual cuteness out of that one. Before setting it on fire and rolling it off a cliff. Into molten lava.

stamping any residual cuteness
Hey. Don’t shoot the messenger!

Wait, it still doesn’t.
The fetching lass claims one of her “alternate identities” shagged her boyfriend (poor bastard). It is the bogus dissociative identity disorder that has become a fad among the Tik-Tac set of late along with bogus Tourette Syndrome the interesting thing of which is that virtually all of the Tourette Tik-Takers are female, and real Tourette Syndrome has an overwhelmingly male prevalence. Oops.

Dangers of Ice Fishing.
So, er, are the prostitutes under the ice, or just lurking by the shore, possibly behind some shrubs?
I fear I may have missed something.

Dangers of Ice Fishing
His expression when he discovers walleye depletion is actually not what the mayor’s on about…

They just fell right out of the sky.
Unless, of course, he means the burly fishermen will be corrupted into prostitution and end up offering hot and sexy times to any passing… er, well, whoever would be passing by, on a frozen lake.
Again, I may be missing something.

Common thread to 414,415 and 416? Nah, if you see one then you are a racist, neo-Nazi, KKK noose-tying somabich.

AI-generated 1970s sci-fi pulp covers.
Richard Powers paintings, done by people without any talent whatsoever.

Common thread to 414,415 and 416? Nah, if you see one then you are a racist, neo-Nazi, KKK noose-tying somabich.
Ever since the 2020 riots, some leftists have been insisting that all or nearly all the looters are white. So yes, if you see the common thread you are a racist. And if you carefully cite statistics on the racial makeup of looters and smash-and-grab thieves you are still a racist.

How bad was it?
Everybody slows down to look at the car wreck. Packet traffic get backed up all the way to the last router.

The thrill of mental illness
Kinky. That boyfriend is playing with fire, and yet…

They seem to be swinging around to problematizing the principle of sexual consent.
Or at least, “If you don’t find us attractive, we will call you the kinds of names that could put your employment in jeopardy, if not today then maybe quite soon.”

Very much related to both, truly an impenetrable mystery.
Step 1: Be crazy.
Step 2: Shun people who tell you that you are messed up and need help.
Step 3: Associate only with people who praise your insanity and encourage you to make bad decisions.
Step 4: Get crazier and make irrevocable bad decisions.
Step 5: Wonder why virtually everyone in the world avoids you.

“A transgender 4 year old is like a vegan cat. We all know who’s making the lifestyle choice.”

I like how the dude getting his ass tattooed in public is reading a yellowed pulp paperback book while the tattoo artist works on him.
It does elevate the scene to a much classier level.

we will call you the kinds of names that could put your employment in jeopardy, if not today then maybe quite soon.”
Not soon. Now.
https://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2022/02/trans-rights-supersede-all-other-rights-and-concerns.html

Um … can someone explain to me under what statute or on what legal grounds can the Canadian government STOP people from giving their own money to truckers???
Darlene, welcome to my nightmare. Here’s a twitter thread that explains what the government did with an assist to the courts.
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1491937125868220417
And just like Australia and the UK the police are now monitoring social media in the absence of any complaints.
https://twitter.com/JFN1971/status/1491945622743703573

Dangers of Ice Fishing
As a decades-long resident of Minnesota, I can say with confidence that ice fishing exists almost solely as a method and an excuse for men to get the hell out of their tiny houses and away from the wife and kids for a few hours of peace. Bringing a woman into an ice fishing house* is the sort of thing that will get you kicked out into the cold (if you’re lucky) or dunked through the hole into the water (if you really have it coming).
* Exceptions may be made for brief visits by women bearing beer and chili.

“AI-generated 1970s sci-fi pulp covers.” so….AI programs take acid?
Canada taking your money: they declare that the convoy is illegal and therefore contributions to the truckers are illegal. Interesting that you can still donate to legal defense funds for criminals or to BLM or Antifa in Canada. Selective prosecution? nah.
“Power to the people!”
truckers get power
“Not those people”

School teachers “asking 11-year-olds if they’ve drafted a suicide plan…”
If you haven’t already, you should listen to James Lindsay’s podcast series on Critical Education Theory. This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
https://newdiscourses.com/2022/02/critical-education-what-is-culturally-relevant-pedagogy/?utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=ND_-_2-7-22_-_Critical_Education%3a_What_Is_Culturally_Relevant_Pedagogy%3f&utm_medium=email

I may be missing something.
Lo, it has been written, and we all know: such outdoor activities are part and parcel of white supremacy, and white supremacy is the peanut butter to misogyny’s jelly.
Thus do we know that it is ideologically true that these ice misogynists shall innevitably lead underprivelaged sex workers, particularly those Of Color, to their fash-shacks for a bit of the old in-out and ultra-violence. Following this, the spirits of these victims shall certainly come to haunt the very lakes in which they are disposed of. Verily, these spirits shall have no outlet for their grief, but to lure the the ice misogynists back to the lake once more, to entice and then drown them.
Thus is the life cycle of the rusalki complete. Or something.
Koalas are fucking horrible animals.
I have also heard it told that, since the leaves they consume contain psychotropic chemicals, koalas would recieve no functional benefit from a brain that was capable of any task more complicated eat, sleep, shit, and fuck anyway.

for men to get the hell out of their tiny houses and away from the wife and kids for a few hours of peace
This is one of the great truisms that “modern” feminism (aka toxic femineity) screams Patriarchy! Misogyny! over and tries to stamp out.
Men and women aren’t fungible, and we each need our own space. Men especially need a man-cave to retreat to. Thoughtful women know this, recognize it and encourage it because it makes our men happy and pleased when they return.
We’ve lost SO much by this insistence that there are no inherent differences between the sexes, only “social constructs”.

Looks like Trudeau is doubling down on threats.

Props to GiveSendGo telling them to go pound sand.
The Canadian government assuming that anyone outside of Canada gives a flying fig what we do here is pretty de rigueur. The national inferiority complex is strong and deep roots.
Again, I may be missing something.
Here in Canada, prostitution qua prostitution is not illegal, but solicitation, “living off the avails of prostitution” and “keeping a common bawdy house” are. This means a prostitute can’t ply her trade in a building she owns/rents, nor can she hire security (since they’re paid via the “avails”). Prostitutes have to walk the streets and make use of john’s cars or unsecured buildings if they don’t want to be arrested and lose their home.
I would guess something similar is at play in Ohio. Also, a bit of digging indicates that the Hudson police had a significant problem in the past with ice shanties being used for prostitution before permitting was restricted, and this is what the mayor was referring to. The context of the discussion is allowing unrestricted permitting.
Yet another Seinfeld blood-in-the-laundry joke.

Yet another Seinfeld blood-in-the-laundry joke
Ah, thanks. My knowledge of Ohio’s ice-adjacent prostitution underworld is somewhat limited. As you can imagine.

Also, a bit of digging indicates that the Hudson police had a significant problem in the past with ice shanties being used for prostitution
[ Jaw drops. ]

Jaw drops
Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless the urban core abuts right up against the shoreline or something. Or perhaps the proposed site is a city park’s lakeshore.

“Dans l’épisode excitant Canadien d’aujourd’hui de ‘Comment diable faire ces personnes élues’”
For some reason, they didn’t teach us the French for “twat” in school, so I’m unable to comment.

…they didn’t teach us the French for “twat” in school…
Talking about me or the one in the video? If the latter, mr. internet says the word is “con” which seems rather appropriate…

Wouldn’t those ice fishing shacks be awfully cold?
A space heater and a cot and you’ve got yourself a nice little Love Shack Fishing Shack.

Men especially need a man-cave to retreat to.
Or a pub, where you can drink several pints, without talking to anyone.
While sitting alongside silent pint-drinking men.
And go home feeling that you have had a night out.

@pst314, I intended to post that since we don’t actually have a national storage location that is open (Yucca Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository notwithstanding), that thing being given the post meant nothing.
Then I followed a link from the above wiki article…https://www.wsj.com/articles/escape-from-yucca-mountain-biden-administration-promises-progress-on-nuclear-waste-11620984602
Given that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is an absolute tool, I sadly do not doubt that the worst possible action will be promulgated by those cretins.

Nuclear waste: I worked around projects involved in the yucca mtn repository. The nuclear waste was to be glassified (mixed with molten glass) and poured into stainless steel cannisters. These were to be put into yucca mtn way way below the ground. [some details omitted due to time] The project was killed because they could not guarantee that the stuff would stay put for 10,000 years. I shit you not. If civilization still exists in 10,000 years I will eat one of those cannisters (haha, they will not be radioactive any more). So it is ok to leave spent fuel rods sitting around nuclear reactors in pools of water instead of safely in stainless steel and glassified? This is what passes for decision-making in gov

The project was killed because they could not guarantee that the stuff would stay put for 10,000 years.

10K years ago, humans didn’t know how to make pottery.
I believe the pushback was more around Senator Reid wanting more of the mordida versus any science.
Zounds.

The pair [Allan Cole and Chris Bunch]were probably best known for their Sten science-fiction book series as well as a critically acclaimed 1987 Vietnam novel, A Reckoning for Kings, about the 1968 Tet Offensive.

I first knew of mordida from the The Return Of The Emperor novel that they had written back in 1990. Mr. Bunch died on July 4, 2005. Mr. Cole died (unknown to me prior to this post) on April 1, 2019.
I have enjoyed reading the Sten series as well as A Reckoning for Kings. Your mileage may vary; when I was a cadet back in 1976-1980 and then a serving officer, I met many a soldier who had served in Vietnam and had some clue about what it was to be shot at.
Of course, the lessons learned in Vietnam weren’t that applicable to how one would fight against the Soviet Union; it took almost a decade to refocus the Army to the existential threat the Soviet Union provided versus whatever the NVA could do. While our 20 year waste of effort in Afghanistan is similar to the lesser time we spent in Vietnam, the ARVN at least fought. In the best case, the US Army might be able to fight against a peer force in ~10 years. Our enemies know that.

the idea that if you aren’t impressed by Laurie’s latest book, and even if you explain at length exactly why, quoting her verbatim and teasing out the errors, then the only explanation is that you’re “transphobic,” or just beastly. No other possibilities could exist, you see.
She does this every time.

Many thanks to my host. I was not even aware that I had committed some horrific misuse of italics. Mind you, I only read this blog at approximately 4:00 am Eastern Standard Time, so I may be a tad groggy.
Why so early? Asscat, aka Seamus the Orange Tabby, who insists upon breakfast at that time, thus waking up the puppies, who then whine that their bladders need relief. And . . . I’m the mom so up I get.
As I type this, Seamus is meowing to be let in, not even an hour after meowing to be let out, and with 4-month-old and 7-month-old Weimaraners snoring on my lap, Asscat can wait outside with the coyotes for awhile.

Either way, a lifetime of remorse and ignominy awaits.
To quote Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, from a few months ago: “Nah.”

Regarding GETTR, I now have Jesus over there following me. Hopefully this won’t go to my head.

“Talking about me or the one in the video?”
Oh, sorry, Farnsworth. Him, obviously.
(And yeah, I did actually know that. I was attempting humour. I’m told it can be very effective. Can’t seem to get the hang of it myself.)

I was not even aware that I had committed some horrific misuse of italics.
David keeps a list of such offenders, and it’s pretty long. Most of us manage to get on with our lives with no more than an occasional nightmare about spray bottles and correction booths.