Friday Ephemera (729)
It’s all about a heightened awareness of the road. || Welding helmet of note. || Massage, drumming, and fire, together at last. || Skillz. || Not skillz. || I have concerns. || Assisting the encore, or lady not left hanging. || Surprisingly calm, considering. || Some clutter, toilet needs attention, £80,000. || I’m told it can get competitive. || Parenting. || Night vision. || New Doctor Who monster detected. || Scenes of duck up-picking. || And in pub-purchasing news. || The progressive retail experience, parts 566, 567, and 568. || Airbending attempted. || At last, the statistics of simultaneous blinking. || A little kicking required, methinks. || Incoming. || Incoming 2. || Lost flock of sheep found. || He had four hamsters in his pants, not gerbils, as stated. || And finally, fear not, he has jugs and jugs of it.
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It’s here. Took 3 minutes to cross the Atlantic. Not quite speed-of-light.
Put her in prison for life. Take her children away and give them to childless human beings.
Only a little? How about an emergency-room-level beating followed by 35 years in a prison work farm?
Related.
Also related:
She was beyond gracious.
See Not skillz. above for reference.
The black thief does not care if she harms others.
I have a friend in Minsk
Who has a friend in Pinsk
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk
Whose friend somehow is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk
I wonder if they would have blamed the van if the moron rode smack into a Van of Color.
HDR welding helmet – the most inspiring thing is the handyman’s secret weapon holding it together.
I expect this sort of commie claptrap from this guy, but why does he cross his legs like that, and how the hell does he do it?
FAFO
Massage, drumming, and fire, together at last.
Hard to believe it took so long.
Not skillz.
Some sort of glory hole? I kept waiting for the money shot.
Surprisingly calm, considering.
I worked for a company that used a tiger as part of it’s corporate identity and logo. Someone thought it would be a good idea to bring a live, adult tiger into the office for a promotional photo shoot. The tiger was ushered into the main reception area where it promptly lifted it’s leg and pissed all over the company’s signature wall and logo. Before my time, but I’m told it took weeks to get the smell out of the area.
I’m told it can get competitive.
For it to be completely fair, you’d have to pit a righty versus a lefty.
Airbending attempted.
I’ll bet he can throw lightning too!
Incoming 2.
No one wants to get goosed.
He had four hamsters in his pants, not gerbils, as stated.
Richard Gere could not be reached for comment.
but why does he cross his legs like that, and how the hell does he do it?
I’m told he employs a tuck.
Matthew 19:12 tells us:
“For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom …”
Trudeau is the latter.
One small sample from a thread on all the wonderful things in Project 2025.
Would watch.
Morning, all.
I’m assuming there’d be some kind of betting.
Yes, it’s definitely not the done thing, even during a fourth encore, and it could have gone horribly wrong. But happily…
It’s hard to construe the behaviour as anything other than reprehensible. Even if the thing is prearranged and the car we see is the only one sprayed, and even if the car has some protective film or whatever, the message being sent – sent by our influencer – is still utterly delinquent:
FUCK YOUR PROPERTY. MY SELF-ABSORPTION TRUMPS ALL ELSE. NOW SUBMIT TO MY CHILDISH EGO. AND EVERYONE APPLAUD ME.
Or,
ISN’T IT FUNNY THAT YOU’RE SCANDALISED BY MY SCANDALOUSLY DELINQUENT BEHAVIOUR? I’M SO COOL.
But hey, “San Luvs Ya.”
“Multiple gerbils recovered…” 🤣
“Don’t worry, madam. It’s a relaxing fire.”
Anatomy quiz.
I’m assuming those are belly folds. Though, frankly, I’m guessing.
[ Tilts head, squints. ]
Baby rotation.
Progress:
Too much stubble for a belly.
It looks like a knee at both ends of that Gabe limb. Unless at top-right we have a particularly egregious cankle.
How to edit a video for your boss.
This is not how I imagined I’d be spending my morning.
I wish I could say this was satire, but alas …
and ping!
Bless you, madam. May you always remember birthdays.
And from another thread … is there anything Project 2025 can’t do?
Correia is a treasure.
[ Considers third mug of coffee. ]
zolpidem kicks in
“Requires clearance.”
Hours of fun. Or possibly arguing.
Only Lobachevsky can explain how the sheep got up there?
That’s a rather hyperbolic claim.
Competitive consumption, women’s division.
With or without an ounce of booze?
It’s all about a heightened awareness of the road.
NGL, I had a friend with a growing cycling channel who in private revealed himself to be an anti-Semite (even worse, he is a London Metro cop). Imagining him, this clip made me laugh.
Hope the van’s okay.
OK…again…where is this IQ data coming from? The source article has a certain IFLS quality/narrative to it, though admittedly the BS narrative raised so many questions, I gave up. Apparently it’s a Canadian study though they make reference to American universities as well. Also references a “recently published meta analysis”…yeah….great. But again (again)…the IQ thing.
When the opportunity (rarely) presents itself, I ask people if they have ever been given an IQ test. Not taken out of curiosity or to fulfill some job requirement, but mandated like in school. Some don’t remember taking one or they vaguely recall take ONE test just ONCE. No one seems to know what their score was, or is lying and afraid I might ask. I know I was never told and my wife’s experience was the same. Perhaps the tests are legitimate measuring tools, or as legitimate as we can reasonably expect, but the application and inferences drawn seem extremely BS to me. Now again, my American take on this. Perhaps they are more commonly and professionally applied elsewhere. But when this article (from a publication calling itself “Real Clear Science”) casually mixed references to Canadians and Americans, my BS detector started blaring.
[ Contemplates alternatives for evening feed. Opts for meatballs, pasta, and a spicy arrabbiata sauce. ]
Gift idea.
Lehrer seemed more apt than Zelazny.
Is that a reference to Zelazny’s poem “Lobachevsky’s Eyes”?
Yup.
Though, really, the original association was seeing the incident took place in Omsk. It just sort of pinballed from there.
I didn’t even notice that.
I was making an arch reference to the fact that Lobachevskian geometry is hyperbolic geometry. Can we get any more obscure?
Not without straining something.
Meanwhile, at the Canadian Museum of History.
Lobachevsky’s Eyes, Roger Zelazny
Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare.
She curves in here, she curves in here. She curves out there.
Her parallel clefts come together to tease
In un-callipygianous-wise;
With feweer than one hundred eighty degrees
Her glorious triangle lies.
Her double-trumpet symmetry Riemann did not court-
His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort!
An ellipse is fine for as far as it goes,
But modesty, away!
If I’m going to see Beauty without her clothes
Give me hyperbolas any old day.
The world is curves, I’ve heard it said,
And straightway in it nothing lies.
This then my wish, before I’m dead:
To look through Lobachevsky’s eyes.
(found in Doorways in the Sand and To Spin is Miracle Cat and Nine Black Doves: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Vol 5.)
If you like Zelazny, go buy The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. Nesfa Press, hardcover and ebook editions.
Future scholars will decry the lunacy that pollutes academia, saying “There were some people doing solid honest research, but you’ll have to wade through rivers of sewage to find the gems of knowledge.”
Lobachevsky’s Eyes, Roger Zelazny
Lobachevsky, Tom Lehrer,
Remember Nora the socialist, the deep thinker from Quebec? The one who tells us that a third conviction for car theft shouldn’t result in incarceration, or any meaningful impediment to further, bolder car theft? Because the victims aren’t actually victims and can always “get new cars”?
One for her, I think.
Not entirely unrelated.
Well aren’t you the optimistic one…
That.
Note that Mr Karakatsanis is a civil rights lawyer and the author of Copaganda.
Which brought to mind this:
From this, which some readers may have missed.
is there anything Project 2025 can’t do?
You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.
What I see is lots of time devoted to vacuuming out pet hair, crumbs and spare change to keep that channel working.
Darleen is wise.
[ Passes Darleen enormous feathered headdress, denoting High Oracle status. ]
[ Adds flashing fairy lights. ]
[ Fetches glitter. ]
There is such a thing as too much glitter.
from the link:
Somewhat like the sainted Trayvon Martin, perhaps.
It’s important to be understanding of human nature: We all are impulsive at times, eating a second donut, buying something we don’t need, robbing a pedestrian, carjacking a young mother, shooting someone who annoyed us.
The demand that we celebrate the rainbow leads to absurdities. Ok, fine, gay people exist. Who cares anymore? Kids do not need to know all the details. We even spare kids the details of hetero sex because they can’t handle it. Nudists also exist and probably outnumber trans–do we need a nudist month? There are lots of other kinks–must we celebrate them all? urghle
I knew he was beatified but missed the canonisation.
You take that back. You take that back right now.
[ Adds baubles, more glitter, to Darleen’s imposing headdress. ]
Mind the chandelier. You may have to stoop a little.
Depends on the church.
[preens … walks slowly down staircase]
Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup …
…or is that Busby Berkeley?
Hush, child.
It’s not, I grant you, altogether practical, but somehow you make it work.
[ Researches cost of having ceilings raised. ]
Obligatory reference.
But that will summon the spirit of Carmen Miranda.
Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup …
…or is that Busby Berkeley?
Or Carol Burnett, perhaps.
The demand that we celebrate the rainbow leads to absurdities.
No one captures that zeitgeist quite like Norm Macdonald.
[ Orders wind machine. ]
Initially read ‘plants’ as ‘pants’.
Nah.
This is the obligatory reference.
Ready when you are C.B.
You take that back right now.
Good Lord! Glitter costs more than black truffles and Sevruga caviar. It better be FABULOUS!
Oh FFS. Everyone knows he was an “indigenous” two spirit.
This bovine excrement oozes out in public every ten years or so, after the last “OMG Abe was GHEY!” flames across the media, is summarily dispensed with, and goes back to sleep until another group of willing ninnies is ready to freak out.
Lincoln was straight. End of story.
Biden shits his pants, Biden says stupid things, the media gets exposed for the lying scum that they have been for…decades, Kamala Harris is a bloody moron and nobody remotely serious thinks she’s a viable alternative, Biden says stupid shit again, Kamala says stupid shit when nobody is even paying attention, Biden says stupid shit at NATO conference, Biden calls Zelensky ‘Putin’, the media gets exposed…yet again…for being lying liars who even lie about their lying lies, Biden shits his pants again…Biden embarrasses himself at his “Big Boy” presser, the media and Hollywood try to dump him but fail to convince the idiots that they have brainwashed so well, the string pullers having played every tiresome song in their playbook…
HEY EVERYONE! REMEMBER WHEN WE MADE UP ANACHRONISTIC BS ABOUT LINCOLN BEING GAY? HE WAS GAY YOU KNOW!!!!
IFHE. It’s all so…
About that “Abe was GHEY!” documentary. Meet Serious Scholar #3.
The last one I remember was “Abe was gay because he sometimes shared a bed with another man”. After which it was pointed out that in many circumstances people had to double up due to the shortage of beds.
As for this one, in prior centuries it was not uncommon for men to use the word “love” when speaking to or about a good friend.
Related: I believe racialists will point to a historical description of someone as “black” although at the time “black” meant “black hair”. Or, on occasion, blackened faces of coal miners and game poachers. And the very white author Patrick O’Brian described himself as “black, choleric and married.”
Carmen Miranda is looking a bit seedy.
This one really…high school championship meets, traveling out of town/state, 4 guys/girls to a room. 2 guys/girls in each bed. Late 1970’s. I know I ain’t gay because there’s no f’n way I would put up with women were it not for the curse of my heterosexuality. Go tell the other three guys on those trips that they’re gay. Go ahead. I want to see that.
High self-esteem.
Everything he said there was quite apparent to me upon observation of people when I was a teenager. That it applied more significantly to black people was kinda obvious/clear to me but I didn’t as much see the exaggerated self-esteem problem in a racial context as much as I saw it as a function of short-man’s disease. Yet even that, while I saw it rather clearly I was brainwashed into believing that I was a bigot for thinking that I saw it thanks to the Randy Newman hit song, Short People.
Preferably when there are no security cameras to record the response.
Queer studies, women’s studies, black studies: They all are cabals of liars with gravely serious psychological defects.
It does seem to be a serious problem, often manifesting as extreme narcissism.
And yet “researchers” tell us that criminals suffer from “low self esteem” for which the cure is inordinate praise. Do these scholars research anything but their own rectums?
Theodore Dalrymple, having extensive experience with criminals, wrote:
Self-esteem is odious, where it exists, for example among most criminals, and anyone who even thinks about his self-esteem has sunk into a swamp of self-regard. Self-respect imposes a discipline and obligations; self-esteem is a kind of flabby, bullying solipsism.
Needless to say, self-esteem is the concern of our age. Whenever a patient claimed to suffer from insufficient self-esteem, I said to him that at least he had accurately understood his own worthlessness. Far from evoking anger, my remark evoked laughter and a sigh of relief. It’s a fair cop, gov, and I don’t have to pretend any more.
I got into some altercation with a bully in school (6th grade maybe?), don’t remember much about it. Probably wasn’t much more than a shoving match that got us separate stern talkings-to. The only thing I remember about it (probably the only reason I even vaguely remember it) was being told that I was supposed to feel sorry for the other kid because he had low self-esteem. I puzzled on that for years. Especially when I saw these sort of “researchers” spouting that crap in newspapers and magazines over the later years.
Dear lord, my grandpa (born 1901 in Pennsylvania) left school after 8th grade and with 2 of his closest friends worked their way across the country to California. They slept THREE to a bed! (grandpa was barely 5’5″ and said he was short enough to sleep across the foot of the bed)
The prevailing theory has been that bullies are just paying forward their own abuse. That they’re traumatized and so they take it out on weaker kids.
In reality, bullying is a way for kids to establish and enforce social hierarchies. It’s the high-status kids (or those who aspire to high status) who bully the dorky kids as a way of enforcing the social order.
I also have to wonder if there’s an instinct in our lizard brains to attack members of the flock that show signs of weirdness or weakness, the way chickens peck to death a chicken that appears to be sick — to prevent the sickness from spreading.
If it is a lizard-brain thing, it’s maladaptive (like so much of our hard-wiring), so it has to be socialized out, but if the bully is already a sociopath, good luck with that.
No matter how many times I watch it I can’t seem to find the reason it’s the van’s fault. The knucklehead on the bicycle pedaled right into a huge stationary object. A stationary object with bright flashing lights, no less.
No, no. We mustn’t judge. It’s easily done, apparently.
Instant arse.