Saucy. // At last, a sorting-Skittles-by-colour machine. // How large would a building need to be to store 7.4 billion human beings? // On the origins of tosspot, ramsquaddled and booze. // Bachelor pad. // When baby tortoises attack. // WWII aviation photographs. (h/t, Damian) // Fingers of steel. // Your fake tan is oppressing me. // Feminist fantasy and reality. // Reading room. // “For readers who disagree with the message, the comics portray them as the enemy.” // Improvisation. (h/t, dicentra) // Have you met my eleven puppies? // Cover version of note. // Single-use shaving cream sachets. // Steam turbine of note. // Good deed. // I suspect his dog is better behaved than yours. // And finally, via Obo, if you laugh at this thing here, then there’s something wrong with you.

Yes, as of today, this blog is officially ten years old.

I have to say, back in February 2007, I had no idea what I was doing and no expectation that I’d still be doing it a decade later. Much as I’d like to applaud my own obstinacy, the fact that I have a slightly better idea of what to do, and am still doing it, is due in very large part to you heathens. Without readers and commenters, and feedback and inspiration, and links to news items about exploding toilets, I doubt this disreputable establishment would still be here.

So, er, group hug.

And now that we’re all feeling warm and fluffy and well-disposed, I’m going to slyly remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant for a while longer, and insert a coin for the dancing monkey, there are buttons in the sidebar with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. For those wishing to express their love regularly, there’s a monthly subscription option top left. Additionally, any Amazon shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, 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 decade, and in over 2,000 posts and 60,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start. If you can, 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.

Again, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. 

Meanwhile, in other twenty-first century news, 

A family in Bangladesh has been arrested after using a fake penis to trick villagers into believing a genie had performed a sex change on their teenage daughter. “The girl and her parents have set up a profitable business promising to heal people with a genie,” Monzur Murshed, the local police chief, said. As news spread that the girl had not only been transformed but undergone a mystical circumcision, villagers flocked to seek the genie’s intervention with their own medical woes.

Via sk60.

Following the recent scolding by her crab-bucket comrades, Laurie Penny wishes to reassert her leftist credentials: 

All very pious. Though it seems to me those credentials were amply visible immediately after the rioting and thuggery at UC Berkeley, covered here, when Laurie was letting her followers know just how brave she is for mixing with conservatives and college Republicans, i.e., the people under attack, who are apparently “vicious and vengeful.”   

Well. Here’s an interview with Kiara Robles, one of the “far right” women surrounded and assaulted, repeatedly, by the righteously left-leaning Berkeley ‘protestors’. It seems that merely wearing a hat with the words “Make Bitcoin Great Again” is enough to make you a “Nazi,” a “fascist,” and therefore a target of physical abuse. And here’s an interview with another woman – sorry, “Nazi” – who was repeatedly assaulted at UC Berkeley, along with her husband, who was severely beaten with metal bars.

These ladies, then, are some of the people of whom Laurie Penny is, and I quote, “fucking terrified.” 

Update:

Meet Yvette Felarca, a middle school teacher and one of the organisers of the Berkeley rioting. “The left has been far too timid for far too long,” says she. 

Update 2: 

Here’s Yvette Felarca and her goons getting ‘hands-on’ in Sacramento. And again, watch the police.

Ian Miles Cheong on the mob thuggery at UC Berkeley and its ‘progressive’ cheerleaders: 

Vocal members of the progressive left took to social media to voice their support for the riot, dubbing it a legitimate resistance movement against the Trump administration. Feminist film director Lexi Alexander, who has directed episodes of Arrow, Supergirl and American Gothic, encouraged rioters to set the campus on fire. Her calls to “join the resistance” were echoed by comedian and actress Sarah Silverman, whose outspoken calls for violent insurrection have only escalated with each passing day… Polygon senior editor Ben Kuchera expressed support for the violence, saying it was okay to punch anyone who mocked safe spaces. And Arthur Chu, the perpetually “woke” male feminist ally, invited his followers to cheer about the brutalisation of a young woman who was assaulted as she conducted an interview.

See also this thread from yesterday.

Somewhat related, this screeching creature – apparently a professor – was rendered outraged and hysterical when some of her leftist associates were arrested following an unprovoked assault on the writer Gavin McInnes. She seems to believe that she and her comrades should be able to assault people, as they deem fit, with impunity.

Also related: Laurie Penny, who has yet to comment on the UC Berkeley thuggery despite being at the scene, is now letting her followers know just how brave she is – for – wait for it – mixing with conservative students. Because unlike masked far-left rioters who are armed with iron bars and who smash windows and punch women, conservative students and Trump supporters are “vicious and vengeful.” And she’s “fucking terrified of them.” *