This Shimmering Oasis
Patrons are reminded that where you are right now is made possible by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to ensure this place exists a while longer, and remains 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, there are SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions. Should you be gripped by an urge to express encouragement via currency, by all means succumb.
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.
For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last eighteen 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.
Oh, and consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
“Masculine wind music”
Get yer John Phillip Souza right here!
The Ivies, crown jewels of US universities.
“Veritas”.
Remember, the example is set at the top. ahhahahha Pres plagiarism cough cough
I expected something along the lines of the Cameroonian/German marshmallow experiment, where regardless of what the experiment actually measured, the takeaway point for NPR/NYT headlines, TED Talks, and Malcolm Gladwell book deals was that your common sense about the differing consciousness and future time orientation of human groups is ignorant and racist.
But this is just silly – an experiment that can be gamed for a higher participation fee, but where it’s suggested to participants at varying points that there’s an honor code in operation. Earthlings already know when appeals to honesty tend to work, and when people are just going to take advantage. What was the contribution to human knowledge even if she didn’t unsurprisingly have to manipulate the data to get her desired nudge theory result?
https://vwgoe.at/events/call-for-papers-internationale-konferenz-maennlichkeiten-in-der-blasmusik-von-8-bis-9-mai-2025/
Is it surprising or bad that music is inseparable from voice, physical energy,body language, individual and group expression, and therefore that, God forbid, interesting sex differences might emerge when you let people assemble freely to make music? If we suppress the sex differences, do we get better, gayer, or more ooompa-loompa bands, and do we care?
Disneyworld ladies loos, 10/10, bravely he peed standing up.
What the fuck is GPB
Oh,it’s 8:38 pm not 1:32 am
Rage bait? Elsewhere this Nicholas Decker was posting bullshit replies to Wanye Burkett‘s posts, replies which increasingly seemed like bait calculated to to get time-wasting traffic and attention.
Followed by a disquisition on Cluster B glasses.
And the rest of academia, too.
All that pious talk about the sacred trust of honest scholarship? Don’t make me laugh.
Anybody recall the name of this grad student and her professor?
I love that Daniel Knauf, talented Hollywood showrunner, gives the best answer.
That’s his whole schtick. He’s a provocateur, and not a bad one, but it does get old fairly quickly.
As for them boids, the tail length suggests Quiscalus major, the boat-tailed grackle.
Heh:
Over the years, the subject of what were dubbed Far Side glasses has cropped up here quite a few times. Needless to say, the people who chose them, pointedly, have been a little odd.
Most recently, an endlessly self-filming cross-dressing man named Emerald – employed as a schoolteacher, obviously – who claimed, rather implausibly, that he “doesn’t indoctrinate kids,” while decorating his classroom with symbols of mental illness and surgical mutilation, while imagining himself as Barbie, and while insisting that the children in his care mouth his fabulist pronouns – they/fae/she – and pretend that he is a woman. Lest they be punished.
As EmC noted in reply,
Which you’d think would scarcely need saying. Yet here we are.
And speaking of the psychologically marginal.
Note the “I’m not touching you” line, discussed previously.
And if a Great Moment In Irony is needed, I have just the thing.
Encouragement sent.
Bless you, sir. May you know the simple pleasure of refilling the bird-bath-cum-watering-bowl in the garden and, less than five minutes later, seeing a squirrel making use of it.
What EmC said.
*clears bar tab*
*continues lurking*
Bless you, sir. May your pillowcases be freshly laundered and cool to the face.
And in baby-changing facility news.
All that pious talk about the sacred trust of honest scholarship? Don’t make me laugh.
Iowahawk with a new tool to speed your path to tenure.
Does it work? Res ipsa loquitur.
Yeah…that wasn’t the boob I was looking for. Though I should have…nevermind..
Some difficulty making a donation this morning. Will have to get back to you after being properly caffeinated.
[ Fetches enormous magnifying lens, almost a metre across, carefully positions it in front of face, adjusts lighting. ]
[ Does innocent face. ]
Bait thieves. Annoying little b@st@rds.
Rapid response.
OK…pinged. My Discover card, which I just used yesterday and which looks fine on its app kept refusing. Anyone else donate via Discover from the US?
Bless you, sir. While rummaging in a cupboard for that new, very sharp cheese grater, may you not discover just how well it grates human flesh.
#AlsoTrueStory
Speech codes for thee, but not for me.
Don’t thank me; thank Rick Derringer.
Heh. I knew what that video was going to be before clicking the link. There’s a whole story behind who she is, was misidentified, etc…
And as clear of an indication as any that these people are not mentally well. Not all of them, per se. The ones who understand that they themselves have a problem are a separate concern. The ones with this sort of a mentality where they cannot recognize that they themselves have a problem are really not the problem either. They’re close to a symptom. They’re just not mentally competent by the very meaning of the term. The problem lies with those who are competent, responsible, educated, etc. who encourage this sort of thinking and those who tolerate those who encourage it. Tolerance has its limits. Kinda the definition of tolerance.
I was kind of hoping for an avalanche of sympathy. With chocolates, get-well-soon cards, possibly flowers.
[ Holds up poorly finger. ]
[ Fetches enormous magnifying lens, almost a metre across, carefully positions it in front of finger, adjusts lighting. ]
[ Makes sympathetic grimace. ]
I can get this shabby treatment at home, you know.
[ Holds up poorly finger. ]
[hands over Band-Aid/sticking plaster and bacitracin ointment – the good kind with Lidocaine in it]
There ya go. Give it a wash first, then cover it up and you’ll be right as rain in no time.
Still peeved at Amazon for dissing US customers. Currently enjoying a cuppa Yorkshire tea – builder’s strength ’cause I forgot to set up the coffeepot last night and was running late this morning – bought with David’s US link back when he had one.
May he rest in peace.
Will these do instead?
Here are just a few examples:
[ Emerges from behind bar, stands in street, flags down passing black cab. ]
[ Shows cab driver poorly finger. ]
[ Shows cab driver poorly finger. ]
Slap some mercurochome on it and carry on. Stiff upper lip and all that.
BUT SOMEONE HAS TO KISS THE BOO-BOO TO MAKE IT ALL BETTER. Won’t work otherwise.
Carry On Blogger
None of that, thank you.
None of that, thank you.
Even money that alleged lexicographer can’t even pronounce lieutenant correctly.
Arthur’s dim sister?
Carry On Blogger
That’s nightmare fuel…
judging books by covers: A couple years ago I saw a short video of a young black man S side Chicago who put on a coat and tie for some reason (funeral? church? can’t remember) and stopped at a fast food place. He was stunned by how nice people were to him and someone even held the door for him. He did not grasp the reason. People assume, generally correctly, that someone dressed like that is not a threat.
Seattle protests: If I am not mistaken, the Christian rally was told to rally in the CHAZ area ….where they would be the most subject to Antifa. The police are unable to protect them (“unable”).