For newcomers, more items from the archives:  

The Cupcake Menace. 

Tiny cakes are exploitative, demeaning and emotionally crippling. You didn’t know?   

After telling us at length just how terrible and mind-warping these tiny fancies are, at least among women, Mr Seaton adds, “I don’t want to ban cupcakes.” And yet he feels it necessary to say this, as if banning miniature sponges would be an obvious thing to consider, the kind of thing one does. And after banning them in his own office.

The Humble Among Us. 

Attention, world. Novelist Brigid Delaney wants a nicer flat. 

You see, creative people, that’s people like Ms Delaney, must live in locales befitting their importance, not their budget. You, taxpayer, come hither. And bring your wallet. Creative people, being so creative, deserve nothing less than special treatment. I mean, you can’t expect a creative person to write at any old desk in any old room in any old part of town. What’s needed is a lifestyle at some other sucker’s expense. 

Monbiot And The Morlocks. 

The Guardian’s George Monbiot encounters the underclass. Things go badly wrong.

George believes in sharing, by which of course he means taking other people’s stuff. Yet he’s remarkably unprepared for that favour being returned. Say, by two burly chaps with neck tattoos and ill-tempered dogs. And as these burly chaps were members of a “marginalised group,” and therefore righteous by default, George was expecting noble savages. Alas, ‘twas not to be.

There’s more, should you crave it, in the greatest hits. Also, open thread.

Paranormal phenomenon, or possibly ants. || The owl and the pussycat. || The thrill of prepared slides. || WindowSwap. (h/t, Mick) || Today’s words are feminist media studies. || Also, ethnomathematics. The consequent drop in test scores is a good thing, apparently. || Scuba divers pinged by sonar. || South Korea’s lady divers. || Dog outwitted. || His day was worse than yours. || A brief history of the washing machine. || The washing machine museum. || The thrill of Victorian hygiene. From unhappy toilet arrangements to lead hair renewer. || Los Angeles, July, 2020. || Jigsaw of note. || Evacuation solution of note. || This, it turns out, is a thing that exists. || And finally, almost unbearably, tension mounts.

In Portland, a gentleman grows weary of the round-the-clock Antifa LARPing. 

Also, open thread.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown, writing in Reason:

Here’s some fun new research looking at “the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper—from University of British Columbia researchers Ekin Ok, Yi Qian, Brendan Strejcek, and Karl Aquino—details multiple studies the authors conducted on the subject. Their conclusion? Psychopathic, manipulative, and narcissistic people are more frequent signallers of “virtuous victimhood.”

I can hear you gasping as I type. 

The so-called “dark triad” personality traits—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—lead to characteristics like “self-promotion, emotional callousness, duplicity, and tendency to take advantage of others,” the paper explains. And “treated as a composite, the Dark Triad traits were significant predictors of virtuous victim signalling.” This held true “even when controlling for factors that may make people vulnerable to being mistreated or disadvantaged in society (i.e., demographic and socioeconomic characteristics) as well as the importance they place on being a virtuous individual as part of their self-concept,” the researchers note.

The authors also note that pretentious victimhood and feigned piety “may be used as a social influence tactic,” a “resource-extraction strategy”:  

Claiming victim status can also facilitate resource transfer by conferring moral immunity upon the claimant. Moral immunity shields the alleged victim from criticism about the means they might use to satisfy their demands. In other words, victim status can morally justify the use of deceit, intimidation, or even violence by alleged victims to achieve their goals. Relatedly, claiming victim status can lead observers to hold a person less blameworthy, excusing transgressions, such as the appropriation of private property or the infliction of pain upon others, that might otherwise bring condemnation or rebuke.

The psychological dynamics and nakedly spiteful inclinations of “social justice” devotees have of course been illustrated here, quite vividly, on more than one occasion. And if I can be excused for quoting myself:

It’s interesting just how often “social justice” posturing entails something that looks an awful lot like spite or petty malice, or an attempt to harass and dominate, or some other obnoxious behaviour. Behaviour that, without a “social justice” pretext, might get you called a wanker or a bitch. A coincidence, I’m sure.

Via Protein Wisdom. 

Yes, a chance to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll set the ball rolling with a film script waiting to happen; some candid bathing scenes; a bold hypothetical; the Vespas of Indonesia; and captured for posterity, grace in victory. 

Oh, and how to fight geese, an illustrated guide.