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.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s greatest export
I’m five minutes in and I’m already amused at this trans-Pia Zadora.
Mission: Impossible tickets booked for the 16th.
I laughed and I’m not sorry.
Again, not sorry.
I have more.
Punks are still doing this?
Cultural enrichment in Sweden.
A shared interest.
I’m five minutes in and . . . I’m out.
Loving the hair, madam.
A shared interest.
Mossy Oak™ camo in the Namibian desert among lions. What could possibly go wrong?
I believe that’s what’s called in the UK a bell-end?
Something like that.
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
I’d like to think that Muslim culture is dying, but I have my doubts.
Loving the hair, madam.
Looks like a curious face melding of Maggie Smith and Lauren Bacall. Creepy.
I absolutely adore that bus crash testing video. Watched it at least 3 times and want to save it to watch forever.
Meanwhile in London’s Haringey and Enfield.
Desperado of note.
I do like the dreamlike quality. And the alien horse-things.
And as someone notes in the YouTube comments, the original Star Trek series is now closer to 1920 than it is to today.
I read this paragraph three times and while I think that I know what it means, I still don’t think that I know what it means.
“Teaching institutional racism as fact”..
Maybe discriminating against whites was a case study?
I did not see Maverick and I won’t see Mission Impossible simply because it will a banner day when people like Tom Cruise and his angry dwarf friend, David Miscavige, assume room temperature. Scientology is a dangerous cult that has resulted in the ruin of lives, and Tom Cruise’s money supports it.
I was thinking somebody transplanted Katharine Hepburn into an episode of Space: 1999.
Real discrimination of the worst sort.
Apparently, charging everyone the same is “regressive,” but charging people for a service they may actively dislike – and consequently not use – is totally fine.
Having held only one job in her life, and only for a short time at that, how are “three new inkings each week” being paid for? Tattoo artists (don’t see much artistry in evidence here but that’s another matter) don’t work for free.
There might be a bit of context missing.
Trainee tattoo artists are probably happy to work for free if they find sometime daft enough to let them.
(don’t see much artistry in evidence here but that’s another matter)
True enough, there may be, but with her face being an actual palimpsest, who could tell?
Palimpsests can be scraped clean. You’d need a flensing knife for those tattoos.
The BBC licence fee.
I have long wondered why so many science fiction writers were and are utterly silent about this evil cult. Indifference?
Who are you referring to? I am not aware of any prominent SF writers who are Scientology cultists other than L. Ron himself, and he died about 40 years ago.
Potential parenting, sort of.
1) Yes we paid for the kid, but if it is not perfect, we don’t want it, and certainly no preemies, sorry about your cancer.
2) We said no preemies, and no adoption, we don’t want “our” DNA out there (I am not sure these guys understand the “one sperm wins” concept [NPI] even if they both, shall we say, contributed to the effort).
(Music plays “March Of The Lawyers”)
A new bolgia needs to be created for ‘parents’ like this.
Farnsworth:
To amplify your point #2:-
We don’t want the child to be born prematurely despite the fact there are alternative parents who have already agreed to adopt it. We want it aborted or failing that if it is born prematurely to be denied potentially life-saving medical support (because California state law gives us that power). Then once the inevitable happens we want a death certificate ASAP so we avoid having to pay the mother – you know, the one with life-threatening cancer.
And yet it’s a racing certainty the surrogacy industry will find these two utter Jeremy’s another willing vector to perpetuate their worthless DNA.
As Steven Tyler sang, if you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin, well mister you’re a better man than I. Of course, most people are.
schools will fund the lessons for children from black and black heritage families
Presumably “black heritage” should also include descendants of slave traders/owners?
I was talking about silence, not cult membership: I used to know a lot of sf writers, a few of them somewhat well, and I noticed that when L Ron Hubbard was mentioned it was very rare for a writer to comment even obliquely upon the “dubious” nature of Dianetics and Scientology. And Scientology’s Writers of the Future contest was started in the early 80’s and in part garnered some favorable publicity for Scientology.
There was also a news item very recently about a heavily tattooed man with the same complaint that nobody wants to hire him. Imagine that, employers pay attention to red flags.
Apparently, charging everyone the same is “regressive,”
Per a bill passed in 2022, Californians are going to be paying for electricity not just on what they use, but all other charges (maintenance, upgrades, settling lawsuits) will come from a “fee” based on income.
Which is easy for CA to determine as it has a state income tax — and when you file your state income tax you must include a full copy of your fed income tax.
Sure, bivalve molluscs normally burrow under the sand, but why would anyone be surprised at seeing a clam at the beach?
(apologies to the ladies, alas my Nomex and asbestos coat is at the cleaners)
https://twitter.com/JebraFaushay/status/1677699913461710848?s=20
I hope he isn’t considering hiding his winkle in a clamkini.
It’s not so much that Western civilisation (what’s left of it) is suffering from arrested development but that the development seems to have stopped around the age of two.
I hope he isn’t considering hiding his winkle in a clamkini.
Target™ probably doesn’t have a tuck version yet. Yet.
Aye, they’ll pay for their hedonistic abandon in the life to come, you mark my words.
Oh, I do, I do. There are signs at the all the gates of my local park which read, “CYCLISTS GIVE PRIORITY TO PEDESTRIANS”. Do they hell as like. You can’t walk in the place for two minutes without some lycra-clad twat pinging his stupid little bell at you. When I was a nipper they used to chuck you out for riding a bike. Those were the days.
Oh, dear. I seem to be particularly grumpy this week. Here’s a funny animal video.
Damn. I was hoping for video of a cat devouring a Critical Masshole.
Darleen,
CA electric fee plan is a great example of how schizophrenic the “official” attitude toward PG&E is. When disaster strikes (fire, system failures so common these days) they’re an “out of control private company”.
The rest of the time, they’re a government (badly) managed semi-private cash cow, supporting at least a half-dozen state regulatory bodies and their parasitic staffs.
Such lovely people. I certainly want to share a locker room with him.
Wait, what? *counts*
Ditto “non-binary” woo.
It’s territory we’ve touched on before, regarding ostentatiously disfigured earlobes. Apparently, the self-preoccupied can send the rest of us a message announcing their own self-satisfaction and immense non-conformity, their disdain for bourgeois norms, but the rest of us aren’t meant to notice that same message, and process it, and then respond accordingly. Say, by hiring someone else.
Heh. I know, right.