Friday Ephemera (685)
The thrill of Scotland. || Snaking and mortar. || Interspecies teamwork gets results. || Today’s word is suboptimal. || Bus crash-testing. || Fly the skies in comfort. || He’s in a lesbian relationship. || He’s called Knickers, you know. || A machine’s dream of 1920s Star Trek. || “Dissipates heat, conforms to body.” || Feel free to discuss. || Why dogs don’t rule the Earth. || Good to know, I guess. || Today’s other word is gratitude. || Price-checking dispute. || Tap of note. || Parenting. || Please don’t eat my shoes. || Made of pencils. || It could, I dare say, use a woman’s touch. || Neighbourhood scenes. || An interview with Helen Joyce. || And finally, via Julia, the thrill of carrier bags.
Why, yes, I can be followed on Twitter.
And should you be inclined, there are buttons below the fold.
OT re yesterdays trans pride march through central London.
A few decades ago Peter Tatchell could arguably be seen as an intelligent and brave campaigner for equal rights for gays and lesbians. For this I respected him if not his often nasty “shaming and outing” tactics.
Flash forward and he now proudly marches alongside convicted criminal blokes in skirts who gleefully exhort the crowd to “punch a TERF (a group with a high proportion of lesbians) in the face”. Once he fought against lesbians being coerced into having sex with men, now he’s on the side of the men and it’s the lesbians who are the bigots.
Why you can’t have nice things.
A few decades ago Peter Tatchell could arguably be seen as an intelligent and brave campaigner
His attempt to effect a citizen’s arrest of Mugabe (en route to Harrod’s) was a highlight. Fended off, alas, by the goons.
Same basic rule as when driving through Woburn Safari Park, don’t stop anywhere near the monkeys.
Modest ping as penance for my increasingly grumpy posts over the past week.
Bless you, sir. Should you be obliged to watch a Bette Davis film, may it be All About Eve, not The Man Who Came To Dinner.
Re-reading the thread, I see that Minnow disagreed. Of course.
Coincidentally, I am dealing right now with an individual who wants to enact organization-wide policies to prevent and punish “discrimination” against psychologically damaged and behaviorally defective persons. In her eyes, none of these “fashion” choices could be signs of poorly socialized personalities. Pay no attention to ostentatious signals that “I am not like you” and “I reject your culture” and “I am so damaged that I must disfigure myself”.
It should be entirely legal to drive through such crowds, at speed, at the first sign of violence. No matter how many bodies one has to drive over. In such situations the driver should enjoy the presumption of innocence.
“I make really bad choices. How dare you not want to hire me!”
“I reject your culture and norms. Hire me!”
Note that in societies where the left is in total control, ostentatious nonconformity is not tolerated. It is only in free societies where the left elevates such antisocial displays into a virtue. This is sometimes expressed as an explicit desire for tribalization.
In spiteBecause of the fact that tribalism leads to distrust, friction, growing hostility, a cycle of ever more tribalism, and eventually war. Civil war is a useful route to the seizure of authoritarian power.This has apparently been running for three months, but I was spared it until yesterday.
From the comments of the can’t have nice things thread:
I can almost guaran-damn-tee you that Mikey boy is a conservative…”conservative”. Just like my California neighbor or my (soon to be former) town’s cops. And more than a few of my conservative …”conservative” friends. So bloody sick of this sort of idiotic mentality being accepted. People like Mikey are a as much the problem as the leftists.
In such situations the driver should enjoy the presumption of innocence.
Welcome to Florida HB1:
Also applies to riots and scenes as at the link.
I think you mean something like Now, Voyager for the latter. Switch off after her nervous breakdown. Old Acquaintance is even worse in that you have to sit through almost the entire movie to get to the one good bit.
Quite a few ‘ifs’ hidden in there, I think. The assumptions of choice, of practical alternatives, of clairvoyance, of not being caught off guard by sudden, wildly irrational behaviour.
Over the years, we’ve seen mobs of ‘protestors’ rushing onto a motorway, in the dark, to terrorise random, unsuspecting motorists. And we’ve seen mobs of “anti-Trump protestors” filming a lone female motorist whose car has been surrounded and merrily recording her alarm as they use baseball bats to smash the windscreen into her face.
And much of the ‘progressive’ legal unrealism – and the subsequent fear of doing what is needed – seems based on an assumption that the wellbeing of the gleefully malevolent is somehow of equal value to one’s own.
A faulty premise.
Right, off to have lunch with family. Heavy gorging ahead. Also, I suspect, wine.
Play nicely. Use coasters.
I think we need Daniel Ream back to tell WTP that Mikey is the way he is because he was molested as a boy.
Re-reading the thread,
I get the impression from the anguished replies that Minnow may be the proud owner of ostentatious tattoos, piercings, and other frippery while being at best underemployed because of same. OTOH, maybe just a jerk.
pst314: Note that in societies where the left is in total control, ostentatious nonconformity is not tolerated.
For example, in Best Korea, there are only a few legal haircuts. No, dreds not one of them. Under Mao, clothing was strictly mandated.
Someone in the WEF is reportedly saying that in the future everyone will wear the same clothing–some sort of Mao suit, I suppose. Sorry, I did not save a source link and did not try to track down the original. But given that Klaus Schwab has a bust of Lenin, anything is plausible.
Someone in the WEF is reportedly saying that in the future everyone will wear the same clothing–some sort of Mao suit, I suppose.
Maybe from here, but a PDF of the actual report is here.
Some highlights from both – by 2030 “ambitious targets” you only get to buy 3 articles of clothing/year, no meat, no dairy, no POVs, one 940 mile round trip flight every three years, 7 year lifespan for a laptop (already exists, going to show what geniuses these are).
These restrictions will, of course, not apply to the self proclaimed “elite”, IOW “Soylent Green” dystopia as a manual.
In the gloriously more equitable future everyone will be molested as a child. You will get a molestation first from a man, then a woman. At least one being a family member. Thirdly from a person picked in a pronoun lottery. It’s how we will fund social security.
you only get to buy 3 articles of clothing/year, no meat, no dairy,
One of the attractions in our new home (we did the opposite of most retired couples … we upsized) is that I have the bonus area over the garage as my studio/office space. I’ve been busy consolidating and organizing my fabric and yarn stash and work area and I realize I can make a killing teaching sewing skills and making clothing. Maybe getting rid of home ec wasn’t such great idea.
That.
Chestfeeding.
See also pretentious concern for the wellbeing of habitual burglars and muggers.
Those nasty “outing” tactics put him beyond the pale.
Even more, his support for lowing the age of consent. Okay, groomer.
Maybe there was always a malevolent core to his motives. I have known many leftists who used to be very careful about just how far left they were and only later and slowly let slip their truly Stalinist intentions.
It is extremely common (near universal?) for liberals to worry far more about the well being of vicious criminals than about their victims.
Meanwhile, across the North Sea from California, it seems a contest was held.
Ah, but there’s more in-group kudos to be had in being morally perverse, and that’s what matters. As seen quite vividly in the examples linked above and, for instance, in the contortions of the Guardian’s Zoe Williams:
And these are by no means outliers.
Not where I saw it, but thank you very much.
Perhaps it should be legal to eat WEF members when you cannot get beef and chicken. 😃
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, those who would deny all human rights to others deserve none for themselves.
An pertinent cartoon, via A Blue Canary
The rot set in when they got rid of Latin.
The only comfort, cold though it be, is knowing the ‘transgressives’ will be the first purged when the eschaton is immanentised.
Don’t think any of them would pass the meat inspection. BSE would be the least of the concerns.
Perhaps it should be legal to eat WEF members…
“No, no, no, I said roast SQUAB.”
Meanwhile in the Big Apple, “I got him girls…”, “assisted” is a odd way to spell “took over”.
Or it’s siding with the bully in hopes that you won’t get punched in the face next.
More laughably inadequate lady cops. Yay.
See also, this.
More laughably inadequate lady cops.
Not just lady cops, but LGBQ lady cops, for the inclusivity because diversity is our strength.
Needless to say, these are not signs of empowerment or progress, or a basis for feeling affirmed. These are signs of ideology trumping reality.
As Tim Newman put it,
And the only people affirmed and emboldened by such scenes are criminals and thugs.
These are signs of ideology trumping reality.
Indeed, just like the guy in need of orthodontia who was chosen as Miss Netherlands while the government collapses as our betters always are focused like lasers on the important things.
Migrants contribute so much to America.
If it weren’t for “compassionate” liberals, these drug addicts would already be either in prison or dead.
No. Because that will not make criminals less likely to target you.
More likely, because you believe your safe neighborhood makes you free from the consequences of your leniency. Sometimes it is because your friends and relatives are criminals.
They are conducting medical experiments on children who as a result will never be able to have children themselves:
“We’ll know more in 5-10 years. It will be fascinating to see how these young people fare.”
It will be fascinating to see if their young victims later go after these Dr. Mengeles.
Nah, bro. You’re missing the beauty of the system. By cutting off their gonads and by poisoning their hypothalamus the victims will lack the wherewithal, the drive, the desire to seek any kind of revenge. That’s assuming they don’t kill themselves first. So, win-win.
Female cops: I am an average guy. I do not think I am big enough to be a cop. A cop should always be at least 5 ft 11in. As an average guy, when I shake hands with other guys, the handshakes are firm or even too much. I have never shaken hands with a female where I was worried they would hurt my hand. In fact, I always take it easy so I don’t hurt them. And they are going to arrest a drunk hoodlum? ahahahaha. yes indeed, you may not care about reality, but reality is still out there.
A cop should always be at least 5 ft 11in.
There is a definite need for female cops — to respond to calls where females are victims — rape, assault, domestic disputes — BUT, they should never be “average” in either height or strength and they should never patrol alone or partnered with another female cop. Even male cops can find themselves outmatched by the mentally ill or drugged up. However, males are much more likely to backdown and cooperate with a male cop than female.
It is why the best single mom in the world might find themselves outmatched by a teenaged son where a dad could easily handle. We just have to work with human nature rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
Again, Niall Gooch:
Needless to say, other, less law-abiding parties have also noticed.
Tempted to. Yet presumably he didn’t. Wonder why not? Is there something wrong with stating the bloody obvious?
From the link:
I never watched Buffy, but I did see Serenity, and was put off by the conceit of a waifish 5’4″ girl killing many dozens of big berserker men. (Is this science fiction? Or a comic book fantasy for childish boys and girls?) Most of my
sfsci-fi fan acquaintances were not bothered and a large fraction of them saw nothing wrong with the push to recruit physically inadequate women for such demanding roles as police, firefighter, and the military. That such policies could have have downsides was angrily denied.Sir Robert Peel had strict standards for the muscularity of constables.
Wait, what? *counts*
If my math is correct, 54 years before Star Trek premiered on CBS, the Kaiser was head of state of a militant but as-yet peaceful German Empire, and 54 years after Star Trek went off the air was last month.
The USA Strategic Air Command, the biggest physical threat on the planet, ever, has as their motto “Peace Is Our Profession”.
I wrote “has”. I wonder, is it still?
Back in about 1970, when women were first becoming significant police officers on patrol, my father remarked that the function and benefit of a big, physically intimidating cop was to *deter violence by mere presence*.
You can see clearly in the “2 girls one guy” clip that he is absolutely unphased until the security guy shows up, at which point there’s a flash of “oh shit ima get punched In my face”.