Honesty Box
With the nights drawing in – and with bills for renewing hosting, domain registration, security, and so forth all upcoming – it’s time to remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there are three buttons below the fold with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. If what happens here is of value, this is a chance to show it.
If one-click haste is called for, there’s a QR code in the sidebar, at which you point your phone, and my PayPal.Me page can be found here. As requested, I’ve added SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions.
Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link, or via the button in the sidebar, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Feel free to buy things wildly and in bulk.
For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last seventeen years, in over 3,000 posts and 200,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that.
Do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.
As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company.
By all means consider this an open thread.
Oh yes. The buttons:
Tip jar pinged. Thanks, barkeep.
Ker-ching!
Bless you, sirs. May your bread fit into the toaster regardless of orientation.
PING!
Bless you, sir. May you plug in the correct charging cable, not the really old one, thereby avoiding a helpful message that your device will be fully charged in 35 hours.
#TrueLifeDrama
I suppose the moral of the story is to throw out all of the charging cables from deep in antiquity. As opposed to hoarding the bloody things.
Lest farce ensue.
Ping. 🙂
Bless you, madam. Should houseguests descend, may your bathroom be pristine and your toilet paper plentiful.
As opposed to what happened last time.
Kaching!
Bless you, sir. May you not be confronted by the prospect of returning home with a vastly inferior brand of white sliced loaf.
#TrueLifeDrama
Have you thought about doing a (paid) Substack?
Oops forgot. PING!
I thought about it, briefly, a couple of years ago, when looking for an alternative to Typepad. But Substacks, as a platform, a format, strike me as fairly generic, and I wanted something more distinctive, and more flexible. I follow a handful of writers on Substack, but, again, the uniformity of presentation doesn’t help me to keep them in mind. Even the good ones, sadly. I tend to forget they exist.
Also, paywalls are a risky business and you can simply find your readership shrinking dramatically without much obvious financial benefit. Many people are now accustomed to reading things for free, indefinitely, which isn’t ideal, given what it takes to keep a place like this running. And adverts would just bog everything down, look like shit, and generate negligible income. Hence these fundraisers, during which I attempt to exert cheap emotional leverage.
Bless you, sir. May your toast never be scorched beyond all salvation.
Hope that clears my tab. Keep up the good work, barkeep.
I will continue my measly subscription but I insist the money be used for more cooking tips and maybe instituting a Blogging Thong renewal fund. That old one must be pretty crappy by now.
Sent a small ping of appreciation.
Bless you, sirs. When grocery shopping, may you not pick the trolley with the randomly defiant wheel.
We’d soon exhaust my repertoire.
[ Strokes well-thumbed velour blogging thong. ]
Now pondering whether I should attempt The Other Half’s sea-bass thing. Just baked in foil with a little oil or butter, spring onions, a bit of garlic, and a drop of unsweetened lime juice. Great with some posh bread. Nothing else needed, really.
Ping!
PING!
Ooh sea bass. Nommy.
Bless you, sir, and bless you, madam. May you be spared the indignity of realising that the long and rather stylish coffee scoop you’ve just bought doesn’t actually fit the equally stylish but not quite tall enough coffee container.
LOL. I feel your pain.
Lately, I seem to have encountered quite a few shopping trollies with defiant wheels, resulting in a continual struggle to prevent the damn thing veering into the shelves or crippling some small child. I’m developing forearms like Popeye.
Though I did laugh at the exchange of knowing glances when I passed a lady who was evidently locked in the same life-or-death struggle.
Pinged.
Pinged.
Bless you, sirs. Should a neighbour knock at your door one evening, due to being in desperate, slightly amusing, last-minute need of garlic, may you be able to oblige.
My usual and one for yourself. 🙂
One pint of advocaat coming up.
And bless you, sir. May your oven be pre-heated.
Thanks to all who’ve chipped in so far, or subscribed, or done shopping via the Amazon link, including all those much too shy to say hello. It’s much appreciated and is what keeps this place here.
PING
(Now having sea bass for dinner.)
Should a neighbour knock at your door one evening, due to being in desperate, slightly amusing, last-minute need of
garlican antique charging cable, may you be able to oblige. 😀consider your tip jar pinged.
I feel neglected: It’s been ages since David has cast aspersions on any aspect of American food preferences.
Bless you, madam, and bless you, sir. May changing the duvet cover be a feat of élan, akin to ballet. Not the usual cack-handed farce.
My influence is terrifying.
I hover above such petty things, obviously.
I do sneer quietly, if that’s any comfort.
Is ‘XX’ the new swastika?
Cold comfort at best.
*ping*
Bless you, sir. May crowds part for you. In a good way, I mean.
Would it help if I mentioned that some of my ancestors were … French?
[snarls at Amazon for ruining a perfectly good thing for US residents]
Since I can no longer do any shopping in support of this blog, I’ll wait until I get home and use the credit card that is less likely to freeze my assets for who I donate to, a la BoA and the Trudeaupian response to the covid trucker protests. This blog still seems to be off the radar for now, but given the current governments of both the UK and the US, and their treatment of people slightly to the right of Chairman Mao, I’m extra paranoid.
I’m pretty sure my tab has gotten fairly large of late – let this be a reminder to settle that bill forthwith.
Another Amazon annoyance: Kindle editions becoming unavailable. My bookshelves being over-full, I thought I’d buy the Kindle edition of Toynbee’s A Study of History, but although volume 2 is available volume 1 is not: “This edition of this title is not available for purchase in your country.” What nonsense is this?
I’ve never thought of this place as particularly radical. That’s certainly not something I’d consider a goal, or an end in itself. If anything, I think of it as pretty obvious stuff, rather matter-of-fact. But maybe I’m not the one who’s moving in a radical direction. Maybe the scenery has moved.
From the point of view of many of the liberals I know, you’re an effing Nazi.
I’d be surprised if many knew of this place, glorious as it is. They don’t often drop by.
Still, I suppose I should grow a moustache, if only to twirl it.
@aelfheld: A meme that perfectly encapsulates what the left has done.
Can’t quite picture you as Snidely Whiplash.
See, I even had to look up who that is.
Or this:
They don’t. My comment was based on the people and ideas they demonize as fascistic, white supremacist, etc, etc.
The self-ratcheting tendency of leftist psychology has been noted here more than once:
Many illustrative links therein.
Not entirely unrelated.
Is ‘XX’ the new swastika?
TBF it is the old swastika too…
Large ping to make up for no donation in 2023.
[sneaks in after hours under cover of night, pings tip jar]
As promised, Barkeep, a few coins towards my tab.
I wish it were more, but with the exchange rate as bad as it, a good rummage in the sofa cushions doesn’t yield as much in Sterling as it used to.
For what it’s worth, though, yours is the only blog I have ever donated to.
Let’s not get too hasty.
*PING*
Regarding the self-ratcheting effect mentioned above, this came to mind:
See also,
It’s a tale of niche agony, a “drenching sense of guilt”:
The phenomenon is so common, I could paste half the bloody archives here.
Bless you all. Should you take delivery, via Amazon, of a multipack of emergency Pot Noodle, may you make it to the bin with the packaging before the neighbours see.
If only people would list all the ways in which I’m amazing. It’s all I ask.
Another illustration, from Harper’s Bazaar, in which the scrupulously woke Gemma Hartley bemoans the chore of getting her multiple bathrooms cleaned by someone else:
If it occurs to you that the endless, contrived whining is not about reality, or any actual injustice, but is merely a function of having an appalling personality, hold that thought.
See also this:
Ms Heffernan boasts of her unwarranted resentments in the Los Angeles Times, while presenting herself as some righteous heroine. A victim of the drama happening in her head. And remember, this isn’t just one unhappy progressive woman, of which there are so many. This is a staple, a recurring theme.
Presumably, Ms Heffernan’s editor is somewhat sympathetic and didn’t see a need to have a quiet word about the impression being given. Say, that the article makes her sound churlish, spiteful and generally insufferable. Frankly, a bit of a cow. Ms Heffernan evidently thinks this is what makes her look good. This, then, is the ideal.
Tangentially related – a progressive head-scratcher:
Note that “people of colour” make up a majority, about 70%, of New York’s population – which may shed some light on the matter. Though, oddly, this detail isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Gothamist article. Also unmentioned, the possibility that racial groups don’t break the law in exactly the same ways at exactly the same rates.
Perhaps the 30% of New York’s population that’s problematically white should be given more jaywalking tickets, regardless of whether or not they actually do any jaywalking.
And this question-begging claptrap, peppered with improbable omissions, is churned out relentlessly.
From the link immediately above, this fairly typical feat of contortion:
And this is the default mindset. A mental limbo dance.
Equity!
Jordan Peterson has spoken more than once about finding a significant correlation between “woke” opinions and toxic personality traits–specifically the Dark Triad.
Have stuffed a few quid in your blogging thong.
Bless you, sir. May you know the sausage-related benefits of an air fryer.
And again, thanks to all who’ve chipped in so far, or subscribed, or done shopping via the Amazon link, including all those much too shy to say hello. It’s much appreciated and is what keeps this place her
Does the amazingly bad selection of bar snacks count?
Hey, DON’T HARSH MY BUZZ, MAN.
Have you tried our range of… er, jerky?
It’s spicy.
[ Slides jerky platter towards aelfheld. ]
That took me eventually to posts about liberal fantasies about “deescalation” in connection to New York police shooting a knife-wielding criminal. Liberals never angrily demand that criminals “deescalate” (maybe by not committing crimes? Not assaulting their victims?)
Thus:
and:
Hey everyone, I’m running out to the kosher deli for a pastrami on rye. Anyone want to order? Their salami is also great and their reubens are perfection.
Not entirely unrelated:
It would, I think, explain a lot.
Yeah. No. That’s an imaginary world that exists entirely within the writer’s head. Unless by “high scores” they mean…I dunno…scores. And that’s putting aside the meaninglessness of the term “graduate high school”. Even those who are aware of how bad/stupid things are sugar coat their observations because seeing the world as it really is is both too painful and especially too unpopular to state plainly. Hence even more sugar coating.
[ Raises eyebrows ]
Try that at Sarah Hoyt’s and you might lose your hand.
What is that smell?
It is, indeed, a remarkable fantasy. Of course, my college “experience” also depended on being set in a crime-free neighborhood in a city which did not tolerate criminals.
But even so, there was some crime on campus: Pilfering of food from communal refrigerators, theft of Dad’s old army jacket during a dance, and various other occasional “petty” crimes.
But on the other other hand, all this can fall apart when “affirmative action” programs bring less “reliable” people into the mix, as was seen starting in the 60’s. Also when the surrounding neighborhood changes or law enforcement slacks off, as illustrated by Temple University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and many others.
Thanks for some very entertaining reads, David.
*ping*
Small token etc.
Sent you a little something to go towards refreshing the bowl of toenail clippings.
–Bad News
Bless you, sirs. May you never be obliged to drink a gin and tonic without ice or a wedge of lime. Like some fucking savage.
Progressives have a few basic premises:
1) All humans are infinitely malleable (ie there is no basic human nature)
2) But our natural condition was paradise (noble savage)
3) All bad things are due to oppression
4) economics is zero sum, so if you got rich you must have stolen it
They studiously ignore/deny basic economics/social science:
1) law of supply and demand
2) slippery slopes of authoritarianism
3) law of unintended consequences
4) effect of incentives for organization employees (serve the org rather than the public) and the incentives of profit for benefiting the public (new inventions)
5) ratcheting effect of regulations
In this framework, the only explanations for so many things are absurd. For example, it is not possible that parents see basic unfairness in boys competing in girls sports. Oh, no. It is violence to even suggest that by wearing XX armband, the new nazism.
Oh, and ping.
And with every failure of their policies, their adherence to their delusions becomes more fanatical and their reactions to dissent become more violent.
Bless you, sir. May your boots be thoroughly waterproofed before the first snow falls.
[ Desperately tries to think up new blessings. ]
Hey, I’ve been doing these damn tip-jar blessings for nine chuffing years.
Seemed a good idea at the time.
Oh, look, that thing that doesn’t happen happened again.
He’s going to need bigger pearls.
Also, good doggo. Bitey, bitey.
You could rehash from the beginning. I still have my list but can’t recall the starting date.
At some point, you’re going to be explaining the fact that you have a list to a psychiatrist or a bewildered-looking judge.
But I have this!
A fair accounting. I would add opportunity costs.
Would that be this list?
From that list:
Useful for trolls and drunkards. But don’t forget the sock full of sand.
And:
The Dell keyboards that I bought in the 90’s and 00’s never wore out in any respect. The letters are already wearing off the ones I bought in the last 5-10 years.