Friday Ephemera (715)
And then he gets indignant. || The Ogmios School of Zen Motoring. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || An unhappy angle. || Notable ceilings. || Cheeeldren of the night. || Coffee time. || Worried cucumber. || Condiment cunning. || “What is in your freezer?” 1976. || They’re made of British. || Because you demanded it, AI music. || I bring you art. Related. || “Someone who is unable to pinpoint their gender due to the stress of the questioning process.” || The progressive retail experience, parts 542, 543, 544, and 545. || Protect your Cybertruck from “electromagnetic pulse disturbances.” (h/t, Things) || Dawn chorus. || “Deeply weird,” indeed. || Question asked, answered. || Children speak of things to come, 1966. || Giraffe and chiropractor. || And finally, scenes of emergency service.
If inclined, you can follow me on X / Twitter.
To register with the blog and thereby enable extra commenting options – including @username mentions and live notifications – scroll down to the black ‘Meta’ box at the very bottom of the page. It’s free and quite painless.
Depraved, even. Or how else to explain sympathy for sadistic monsters?
I did? When?
A British atrocity.
They’re made of British.
Are they made from real girl scouts?
People who accidentally found their doppelgängers in museums – a thread
He seems to understand.
Question is asked.
Protect your Cybertruck…
Somehow I am thinking that the ultimate doomsday vehicle isn’t going to be one that needs electricity from the grid taken out by the EMP that you need a truck cover for.
OTOH, all the doomsday EMPs in the world won’t do squat to an F-100 – OK maybe take out the AM radio, but other than that…
Mark Twain raises his hand.
A symptom of a corrupt ruling class: NYC mayor Adams: “We’re the safest [subway system] on the globe!”
How to get boys interested in geography.
re: Faraday cage for the Cybertruck.
It occurs to me that the cage would also prevent unauthorized remote commands and other mischief from external sources.
I hate the single point of failure that going all-electric represents. A couple years back the power went out so the furnace did not work, and I went out to my car and ran the engine/heater for a bit. (I also have a portable kerosene heater if necessary.)
I want options for generating heat or power. OPTIONS.
A British atrocity.
At first glance, I thought it was caramel and peanuts.
Well, it is Seattle.
Kendall Gilding
A taste:
A tale of woe
The end of the Gilding article:
If she’s after sympathy it won’t be coming from me. An article of narcissism wrapped inside idiocy inside a bucket of spew.
“Cheeeldren of the night.“
Yikes! And she doesn’t drop a single stick of firewood!
Because he’s never been told the world doesn’t revolve around him.
That’s usually a father’s job.
Morning, all.
“That’s what thee said.”
“A strong sense of self.”
Miracles of the modern world.
[ Slurps coffee. ]
Don’t know what to call that but I like it.
I suppose it’s a new genre of calming dashcam video. Which is about as improbable as it sounds. Whether he’s pondering the size of a Lexus or the importance of a little acknowledgement, or navigating the street dancing of Hasidic Jews, he manages to conjure a dreamy quality. And I do like that he’s transformed what most people would regard as an infernal ordeal and something best avoided – driving around London – and turned it into… well, whatever that is.
I see what you did there.
What the hell is “British flavoured”?
Ah, the flavour of Britain. Nommy-nommy-nom. Unless, of course, they mean “British, flavoured.” Which is still worryingly non-specific.
That was a hard watch.
But also one I feel better for having seen.
A lot can happen in 90 seconds. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
Ogmios zen made my day
Positive vibes, as I believe they say. Though not often around here.
Perhaps.
But on the whole I think it’s something else, rather more extreme.
Children raised mostly or even wholly by other children – siblings, cousins, ‘cousins’ (i.e. other children from the same block or housing estate) – will never not be disastrous.
This is especially true where the only mature and sensible adults present are:
See 543 for how this plays out in real time.
And this is even more true when those children raised by children in this environment have their own children and, God help us, grandchildren.
By that stage, egocentrism, callousness, cruelty, pettiness, emotional incontinence, are so ingrained in everyone and everything that his indignation should hardly come as a surprise to anyone.
The only real question is whether or not the process is irreversible and, if it is, do those in power have the will to put it in reverse?
And Friday Ephemera makes my week 🙂
Ah, my raison d’etre for a Friday morning . . .
More peeved, if you ask me.
What the hell is “British flavoured”?
Beans on toast.
Meanwhile, a debate among the “don’t dare call us unstable” “trans” community.
At the same time, over in the Pacific, this seems a reasonable goal.
Then again, maybe not.
Work smarter, not harder.
I’m now pondering the concept of a “transethnostate.”
Didn’t see that coming.
Meanwhile, at Planet Fitness, where anything goes.
There’s something particularly unseemly about criticizing your spouse in print for millions to see.
I’m now pondering the concept of a “transethnostate.”
Me too, I’m not sure you can run a national economy based on drag shows, “pride” parades, identity flags, and ginned up indignation.
For some reason, this came to mind:
The star of the drama, Gemma Hartley, is “a freelance writer and poet.” And, needless to say, an AWFUL*.
*Affluent, white, female, urban liberal.
Didn’t see that in the link, but assume it means invading women’s intimate spaces. What a bizarre reinterpretation of an old human rights expression.
A particularly female sort of nastiness–although I have seen a few men do it too.
Oh, don’t be such a negative nelly. How will we know unless we give it a shot. Put them on an island somewhere and see what they can do. I suggest Haiti.
Damn you “climate change”!
It is amazing how many senior corporate officers embrace this evil. A continuing question: Are the ones who rise to such positions that politically naive, having narrowly focused for so many years on marketing and etc? Or amorally willing to be leaves in the wind of perceived public opinion? Or fearfully ready to comply with pressure groups? In my limited personal experience, they do tend to be pretty damn clueless, with opinions derived from whoever controls the industries of news and culture.
Oh, don’t be such a negative nelly. How will we know unless we give it a shot.
I am not at all against giving it a shot, but only if there is zero foreign aid from anywhere.
This problem was apparent 30+ years ago when they got wrapped up in mandatory diversity training, sexual harassment training, etc. wasting corporate resources not just buying the diversity and such “products” but also by distracting and wasting the time that they were paying their employees (supposedly) to work. Tying any of that crap to the bottom line was BS and a form of groupthink coming out of Inc and Forbes and other BS management magazines and other dogma sources. And those corporate officers were, for the most part, “conservatives”, Republicans. Probably many still are today.
A common problem across many specialty domains. Many top doctors, scientists, engineers, etc. spend so much time focusing on their specialty that they neglect their social and civic and even family responsibilities. There’s only so many hours in a day, after all. They also consequently live in bubble societies/communities for similar reasons and thus don’t interact much with people outside of their station. It’s a very serious problem that I noticed decades ago as making such people vulnerable to these very kinds of charlatans and such.
Also bullshit touchy-feely corporate “retreats” and “workshops” and “sharing of feelings” which have nothing to do with the business and everything to do with useless consultants peddling therapeutic hokum.
Faith Popcorn anyone? The company I worked for back then actually hired her for a conference they were hosting. The sort of mid-wit executives who run most of our Fortune 500 to Russel 2000 companies fall for this crap. Quite the grift she ran for decades.
Only a fool would hire someone with a name like that.
Everything must be redefined, comrade. Also,
pleasenote that ‘Social Engineering’ now means maliciously obtaining someone’s login credentials, not whatever it meant in the before times. You will hand in your remaining dictionaries to the local Language Commissar.I now regret not buying more dictionaries and other references before the 1990’s.
It seems passing odd that it takes derangement enhanced by with synthetic hormones to resurrect a familiar mode of address.
July 4, 1954: meat rationing ends in the UK. Nine years after the war ended.
I have something in my eye.
Absent a ‘trans’ Anthony Fauci ‘gain of function’, it’s hard to see how 0.5% of the population is going to pull off a genocide.
1971 — Heh.
“That’s what thee said.”
Short for Banjaxed.
I blame glossy, in-flight magazines.
That one is hilarious, barkeep.
*hits tip jar*
“It’s not just gift wrap disarray, you know. Shoes are also left untidily. Sorrows accumulate.”
Someone once remarked that separate bathrooms and closets facilitate marital harmony.
But I think separate homes are necessary when “emotional labor” enters the picture.
You’re very kind. Actually, I was re-reading it earlier and I did make myself laugh. Not sure I should tell you that, in case it reflects poorly on me, but there we are.
Bless you, sir. May your bathroom sink plughole be unobstructed by gunk, clag, and other unspeakable beastliness.
But not before bringing about some memorable letters in 84, Charing Cross Road (good book; dunno about the movie).
And babies.
The endearing fantasies of the left, or how I stopped thinking of them as well-meaning fellow citizens.
When you end up in the bucket.
This is why owners of rental apartment buildings pay plumbers to clean out the waste lines every year.
Let’s not forget that Ms Hartley is a woman who insists that “women aren’t nags,” while complaining, at great length, in a national magazine, about how “exhausting” it is to hire domestic servants to clean her bathrooms for her. A woman supposedly oppressed by the booking of holidays, the writing of shopping lists, and the brushing of her own daughter’s hair.
A woman who thinks that her farcical bitching makes her a sympathetic figure.
I’m guessing marital harmony was never on the cards.
Separate homes. Weekly conjugal visits during which she remains gagged at all times.
Hey, I’m just offering helpful suggestions.
“Deeply weird,” indeed.
It’s social shaming and hybristophilia (which is just a form of alpha male mate selection). Progressives are women. Simple as.
Recognize anyone?
I agree: Respond accordingly.
It’s now de rigueur that all arrests include an appeal to St. George of Floyd.
At first glance I thought they’d got the flavour wrong.
Or should they be offered a tenured professorship at Northwestern University?
And the obligatory “I can’t breathe”.
Turning them into mulch surprisingly not offered as an option.
Mulch is a laudably “green” option.
Among other colours.
True.
Mulch is a laudably “green” option.
The Soylent Green option.
From over at Ace’s, a public defender.
More like something the public should be defended from.
You can now minor in anti-black racism when you major in anti-white racism.
…and anti-asian racism, anti-Jewish racism, anti-hispanic racism…well, really, anti-everthing-not-black racism.
From over at Ace’s, a public defender.
I wondered what had happened to Kayla Lemieux. “She” clearly found a competent cosmetician.
I have no trust at all in what diverse Chicagoans might have done to the ketchup or nozzle of a public ketchup dispenser.
There is no woman officer of the court — DDA/ADA or PD or private attorney who would be allowed in a courtroom so attired. Courtrooms have dress codes and an attorney (female) who showed up like this would be escorted out by the bailiffs and barred from it until they came back in appropriate clothing.
This LARPing male is demonstrating his contempt for court and showing how these trans-bullies are intimidating/daring anyone to object.
Well, it’s a weird thing to see, especially first hand. Over the years, I’ve had several exchanges with people who were, shall we say, to my left, whose outrage was misplaced to a degree that seems perverse. Such that their expressions of annoyance and moral indignation were reserved, not for the feral creature once again bringing horror to the innocent, but for the police who brought the horror show to an end, decisively, with a bullet. As if it were somehow a needless death.
As if you should be able to repeatedly rob and menace others, at gunpoint, or repeatedly stab women, or rape them in the street, in broad daylight, and somehow be spared any risk of decisive consequences. As if people – other people – should be infinitely patient and infinitely accommodating of feral behaviour and mortal danger, and simply tolerate enormous risk, whether to themselves or others.
Presumably, on grounds that the monstrous and incorrigible should be given a fifteenth chance. And thereby emboldened.
[ Added: ]
From the post about Zack Ford, linked above:
Answers on a postcard, please.
The machines dispense ketchup packets, like any snack vending machine. But your point is well taken about the more obnoxious Chicagoans–who are not all “diverse”, by the way.
From that comment thread:
Also: mediocre minds lashing out at society for not giving them sufficient recognition and remuneration. I am a Superior Being! I should be pulling down a big salary doing big things at a big institution, yet here I am doing routine tasks at this ordinary place!
OK, this is from 2021, but it is a headline for the ages.
The lede is also one for the record books.
He really screwed the pooch.
That.
Well, extending to habitual criminals an unwarranted (or perverse) leniency, and generally not following through on repeated warnings, doesn’t strike me as a sure-fire way to encourage civilised behaviour.
There’s also, I think, an assumption – common among progressives – that being civilised somehow means that you should be ostentatiously lenient towards the undeserving, the incorrigible, and the dangerous. As if appreciating a high-trust society, and being suited to living in one, means that you shouldn’t be willing to see that high-trust society maintained. A maintenance that necessarily entails a fairly low tolerance of those who violate it.
I laughed and I’m not sorry.
Very much related.
“Why, this makes perfect sense. Lefties are the only people who immediately tell everyone about their politics. People elsewhere on thd political spectrum don’t need to be told that a neighbourhood Facebook group isn’t the appropriate place to spam others with political opinions.”
Indeed. I have personally witnessed this, where leftists would insert leftist political talk in groups and email lists which were supposedly supposed to be strictly non-political. And when I objected, I was told by other leftists that I was being “too sensitive”.
Another example, one of many.
The example immediately above was relatively innocuous, compared to many others, but it follows the familiar pattern – the same presumption and tone-deafness. A failure to read the room. With the result that others are then obliged to decide whether to be polite, say nothing, and hope the presumption won’t be repeated, or to point out the obvious – that the political noises are incongruous and unwelcome – and thereby risk the thing becoming an issue.
It’s just… rude.
These things do have a tendency to cascade. On a baseball group where the post was about the numerous mistakes and disasters that the Cincinnati Reds had made in their history, I noticed that their one time…problematic?…owner Marge Schott was missing, so I casually mentioned her. Then someone pointed out to me that the post indicated, somewhat hypothetically, that being “owned by the most terrible person one could possibly imagine” would be worse. For all her faults* I really didn’t think that “the most terrible person one could possibly imagine” was meant specifically to refer to her. So I said I the most terrible person I could possibly imagine would be some like Chairman Mao. Ooh, I made the post “political”.
* She was an incredibly cheap owner at a time when salaries in MLB were skyrocketing, though she was trying to keep prices for tickets and hot dogs low for the fans. She got into public spats with players whom she criticized for not playing when hurt and often made disparaging racial comments about their efforts. She really caught hell when she said the problem with Hitler was that he went too far.
Quoting White House press briefings will get you nowhere.