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For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last thirteen years, in close to 3,000 posts and over 100,000 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.

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.

As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. Also, open thread. 

In the land of the ludicrous. || Yes, darling, it’s an emerald. || Dolls for the different. || Lion-deterring technology. || Tommy and Tuppence: By the Pricking of My Thumbs. || Imperfection detected, solution devised. || I did not know these existed. || “Nail-scratching genuine-tapestry weave.” || Woke engineering class. || Guardian not happy. || His skateboard is longer than yours. || Houseguests ahoy. || Harrods for everything. (h/t, Things) || A real-time map of lightning strikes. || Explanatory graphics of note. || Beach fashion of note. || Volleyball from above. || The snore of the hummingbird. || October 30, 1961. || “Soon the Earth will be smashed to atoms!” || And finally, a very short quiz.

Lifted from the comments, and further to this, more Mao-ling loveliness.

As someone quipped on Twitter,

If you’re comfortable screaming in someone’s face, for any reason, it means you haven’t been hit in the mouth enough.

Which sounds about right.

And that’s the thing about the kind of tribal, collectivist psychology we’re seeing – there’s no interest in, and an overt denial of, personal responsibility. In the eyes of those possessed, people – at least white ones – are merely types. The cells of some identitarian organism. Something to poke and abuse. There’s no reciprocity, at all, and no regard for personal boundaries, except as something to violate, repeatedly and gleefully. It’s a game of domination and quite literally dehumanising. 

Also, sealing doors with concrete and trying to burn people alive.

For “social justice,” no doubt.

I’m dealing with delivery chaps and a glorious new oven, so you’re getting an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

Oh, and via Perry de Havilland, a toilet-roll holder of note. 

Lifted from the comments, regarding recent scenes from Portland. Though it applies to the Mao-ling left more generally.

This is what happens when malevolent narcissists don’t get slapped and thrown to the ground. The kind of psychology we’re seeing, over and over again, overwhelmingly from the left, is an exercise in bad faith, a fundamental dishonesty. It therefore isn’t amenable to correction with facts or debate, or appeals to reciprocity or some higher purpose. Tolerating such behaviour – and worse, deferring to it – will only encourage an escalation of vanity, malice and sociopathy. It may, however, be discouraged with reminders of physical consequences. Ideally, physical humiliation. A reminder that nasty little egos can be publicly broken.

These are people who will lie as readily as breathing in order to excuse their antisocial urges. They aren’t being obnoxious reluctantly, in desperation, or under duress. They harass, provoke and delight in domination because it gives them pleasure. It makes them feel important and powerful. Power being conceived solely as power over others. It’s a focus for their spite. Anything else is a fig leaf, a pretext. Among Portland’s mentally uniform radicals, the ones exulting in the alarm and misery of others, there is no good faith. And so, you can’t engage with such creatures on their own ostensible terms.

Because that’s not what it’s ultimately about.

Update, via the comments:

In the video linked above, note the planning, the efforts to maximise the imposition and its somewhat menacing implications. Someone sat down and thought, “How can we really aggravate hundreds of random people, ordinary families, about whom we know nothing, and make them feel unsafe in their own homes?” And then, other, like-minded people agreed, presumably with enthusiasm.

This isn’t politics. This is recreational sociopathy.