Friday Ephemeraren’t

I’d like to see the geese’s version of that last one.

how to fight geese, an illustrated guide
Real geese are dangerous. Here in Canada, you’re not allowed to so much as touch one since they’re a protected species. I think that’s more for our benefit than theirs; they can do serious damage if so inclined.
The swans in Stratford, Ontario have been getting so aggressive that the tourism office is warning people off of feeding them; a mature swan can beat a man to death with its wings.

The People Speak, once given a little clarifying inspiration . . .

Morning, all.
Thread.
In short, it does matter, quite a bit, who gets to educate your children.

a bold hypothetical;
As if anyone in Hollywood would have the nerve.

Further commentary from The Times:

Welcoming his new fellow primate in York, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that he was “deeply intimidated” by Stephen Cottrell’s talent for speaking. This is a good thing. As Justin Welby explained: “The definition of an archbishop is someone who can speak while working out what he has to say.”

Further commentary from . . . .

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” The Patrician raised his hands in a conciliatory fashion. “It seems to me,” he went on, taking advantage of the brief pause, “that what we have here is a strictly magical phenomenon. I would like to hear from our learned friend on this point. Hmm?”
Someone nudged the Archchancellor of Unseen University, who had nodded off.
“Eh? What?” said the wizard, startled into wakefulness.
“We were wondering,” said the Patrician loudly, “what you were intending to do about this dragon of yours?”
The Archchancellor was old, but a lifetime of survival in the world of competitive wizardry and the byzantine politics of Unseen University meant that he could whip up a defensive argument in a split second. You didn’t remain Archchancellor for long if you let that sort of ingenuous remark whizz past your ear.
“My dragon?” he said.
“It’s well known that the great dragons are extinct,” said the Patrician brusquely. “And, besides, their natural habitat was definitely rural. So it seems to me that this one must be mag—”
“With respect, Lord Vetinari,” said the Archchancellor, “it has often been claimed that dragons are extinct, but the current evidence, if I may make so bold, tends to cast a certain doubt on the theory. As to habitat, what we are seeing here is simply a change of behavior pattern, occasioned by the spread of urban areas into the countryside which has led many hitherto rural creatures to adopt, nay in many cases to positively embrace, a more municipal mode of existence, and many of them thrive on the new opportunities thereby opened to them. For example, foxes are always knocking over my dustbins.”
He beamed. He’d managed to get all the way through it without actually needing to engage his brain.
—Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Attention, parents. A role model for teenagers who are gay.

F*cking hell.
For those of us who recall a world of Larry Grayson, Mr Humphries, and endless lisping nancies, this does not look much like progress. But apparently, being a gay teenager means you should identify with lurid, cartoonish cross-dressers. It’s like The Black & White Minstrel Show, but for gay kids.
And oh yes, your license fee at work.

A role model for teenagers who are gay.
A great Thread on why Drag Queens are being forced into children’s lives.
(both via Colin Wright)

Baceseras 2020: What, you want some of my juice?
https://mobile.twitter.com/KassyDillon/status/1281417336818290688

Notdivulgingmtlastnamenotthatitsthatbigofadeal 2020: Up, up!

Gary Larsen is back
Thank you, Hal. Seriously that’s a much needed development and you bringing it to my attention is appreciated.

Meanwhile, in woke academia.

The Church has found a way to get people interested in scripture in the 21st Century:
“Sorry, we’ve acquired a friend this morning.”

Done.

@ Sam Duncan
If Ballantine’s distillery outside Dumbarton really does use Drag Queens as guards I salute them. There is a remake of “Charlie’s Angels” right there.

Gary Larsen is back
Thank you, Hal.
Yer welcome!—One should have a peer at everything a good deal, being monofocused is for insects.
I don’t ever watch the news, I can read far faster than some git can recite from a teleprompter, and even in that I just skim headlines, usually, and generally keep going that way all around . . .

My comment at 16:37 no longer makes sense, but it’s a great thread anyway, regarding This piece of cowardice.

And cowardice is often functionally indistinguishable from corruption
It certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to a protection racket.

…on why Drag Queens are being forced into children’s lives.
Short version: The enwokened see something they do not control and have an urge to destroy it, as not being under their control it does not flatter what they see in their reflection. Their way of destroying it is to hollow it out until it echoes their minds.

Is it odd that I tried to control the man in the goose-fighting video as though it were a classic Flash game?

Muldoon 2020 – Shut The Fuck Up !

From reddit, group r/BlockedAndReported” (for discussing a podcast by that name, from leftists who recognize some of the insanity): “2020 cancel culture absolutely called by the Freak Brothers in 1973”
https://old.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/hk2lop/2020_cancel_culture_absolutely_called_by_the/

If the Church of England names a black person as primate, will that be more or less racist?

Insofar as drag queens are funny, or meant to be funny, to adults, it’s because they’re lurid and grotesque. That a grotesquely cartoonish figure – a male parody of a woman – has become a go-to shorthand aimed at gay youngsters, supposedly to make them feel good, feel normal, is… a little odd.
That.

Heh. Quite.

Right, the Black LLano of Manchester they shall be then.

@ Farnsworth M Muldoon
Maybe the Grey Cliffs of Dover as a compromise?

Maybe the Grey Cliffs of Dover as a compromise?
The Chalk (or chalk) Cliffs of Dover. Sigh (signifying giving up).

Not-of-Color Dales-of-Dover.

OK, let me try this again without being so anal as to kill the joke:
WTP 2020 : What the hell are YOU staring at?

Not-of-Color Dales-of-Dover.
The problem is “Dover” itself problematic, because there are places in England without cliffs, so they are marginalized, plus “Dover” comes from the Latin name of the river, and we know how they were with slaves.
Of course if you really want problematic English features, it is high time the Rude Man of Cerne was cancelled.

This talk is well worth the time.
The Truth About Critical Methods | James Lindsay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSHL-rSMIro
It lays out the motivations and goals behind Critical Theory, and cuts through a lot of obfuscation. It clarified a lot of things for me.

Always respect the media.
“I find myself wondering who they think is playing these games.”
You, clearly. 🙂
In all seriousness, Traveller’s Tales, which develops the LEGO games, was founded by a bunch of people who cut their teeth developing demos and games in the ’80s. I think they know their stuff is for people like them as much as the kids of today.

This can’t be real, can it?

most of the Lego games have something for all ages
True, but the usual motivation is to provide the parents with something to chuckle at while playing games with their kids. From the very first TT Lego game, the interstitial video clips have been silent comic shorts. This is the first one I’ve seen that references specific pop culture, and it’s reference points that I can’t see anyone exposed to the game even getting, unless you assume grandma and grandpa are in the room while the grandkids are playing. I’m pushing 50[1] and none of my friends with kids would recognize these movies.
[1] Which is why I play them. I haven’t the reflexes to play anything that doesn’t have an Easy Mode any more

“crickets chirping”
Yeah, funny how you never hear about the “occupied territories” in Constantinople, isn’t it? Sure, the Turks have been there for a hell of a long time, but when exactly does the statute of limitations run out on these things?

Chutzpah:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/erdogan-rebukes-west-for-islamophobia-amid-criticism-over-turning-hagia-sophia-into-mosque/

crickets chirping
Welllllll, no.
The Turkish conservatives are indeed quite pissed off about the museum getting taken over, because Erdogan is pandering to the right wing rather than being a conservative leader of conservatives.
Outside of Turkey, rather a lot of other conservatives are also pointing out that the loss of a museum is a bad thing.
And, in turn, while opposing right wing factions are indeed complaining loudly, the only reason they are complaining is because of having to watch a rival right wing faction get to use Hagia Sophia as a typical right wing mosque and right wing propaganda puff piece.
—As usual, when playing Dungeons and Deacons, the only permissible D&D ruleset is one’s own, all other rulesets are never to be acknowledged.
But, geographically, politically, and generally speaking, that is merely what is going on this week. Whether this week, next week, the following week, no amount of handwaving is going to make reality go away:
Formerly, Hagia Sophia was some variety of Christian cathedral for about 916 years, then was a mosque for 482 years.
Most importantly, for the last 85 years, Hagia Sophia has been a museum, and Erdogan has no way around that.

Like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Erdogan is a strongman ruler who has to win an election every four years. Putin is perennially popular in Russia and wins easily, but Erdogan usually scrapes through with just over half the vote. The country is divided down the middle, and the other half loathes him and his Islamist policies.
. . . .
He used to be a fairly competent strategist, but he has been in power too long (17 years) and he has finally lost the plot. This is megalomania.

Soo, while not quite next week, at some point in the near future, a very safe expectation is that Hagia Sophia will indeed return to its now established primary purpose of the last 85 years, that of being a museum.

Let’s de-colonise Istanbul and make it Constantinople again.

Hal, as usual, being both voluminous and dense.
Yes, html linking does allow one to hand off what’s practically a fractal variety of shorthand.
As needed by whichever reader, that reader can thus do whatever amount of informational unfolding . . . .

Pub landlord installs electric fence around bar