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Ephemera

Friday Ephemera (786)

September 26, 2025 119 Comments

Dry hard. || Columbo: the board game, 1973. || No longer oppressed by shoes. || Today’s word is logistics. || At last, transparent stairs. || “Do not be disrespectful,” says bewigged man barging into women’s toilets while filming himself. || On the “dynamic authenticity” of Mr William Shatner. || Unrequested motion. || Models of the Moon, 1874. || Incoming. || It matters who comes. || Leamington College, a learning environment. || “A less crazy candidate,” says she. || On the corruption of Wikipedia. (h/t, Dicentra) || Hot pebble eggs. || Piggyback. || Squidginess. || Grooming scenes. || Chart of note. || Today’s other word is trajectory. || “We are willing to socialise only with people who support our beliefs.” || Yes, but other than the noise. || Foundling. || And finally, on files, bedsheets and wooden guns.

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Written by: David
Reheated

Reheated (115)

September 23, 2025 153 Comments

From the archives, some items of possible interest:

Where Perversity Is Status.

In academia’s Clown Quarter, being happily married is “white supremacy.”

The meaning of the term “marriage fundamentalism” – a term used repeatedly – isn’t made entirely clear, and its allegedly racist and life-crushing particulars are, inevitably, “hidden,” “invisible,” and conveniently vague – despite the loudly announced use of “an intersectional lens.” But it seems to mean something like the tendency of many adults to see marriage as of mutual benefit and an optimal way to raise children.

Stripped of contrivance, I’m assuming the above is a roundabout admission that, on average, people who find marriage an alien concept and much too demanding, and who opt instead for transient partners, fatherless children, and unstable relationship trash fires, tend to do less well in life, along with their offspring. Though I’m not sure why the response should be to blame those who get their shit together, marry, and raise children more successfully.

If little Don’t-Know-Who-My-Dad-Is is starting fires at school and looks destined for a life of delinquency and crime, this is not obviously the fault of the happily married Mr and Mrs Jefferson and their two non-fire-starting children. And no amount of chest-puffing about “heteropatriarchy,” “unequal power relations” and “white supremacy” seems likely to alter that fact.

I Axe You. 

The appearance of morony is hailed as an achievement. At a university.

Dr Strouse tells us what it is we need to do. We, he says, “need to think critically about the conventions that govern academic speech.” Well, okay. But what about the teenagers who haven’t mastered even basic standard English and who are excused from even trying, for fear that any correction will upset them? How “critically” will they be thinking – say, about their employment prospects?

While Dr Strouse is revelling in how exotic and ethnic his classroom sounds, are his students narrowing their options in the job market? Unless it turns out that in the real world every employer wants their company’s memos and public literature, and their customer interactions, to include lots of double negatives, unfinished words, mispronunciation, and mangled tenses. Oh, and aks instead of ask. That always looks professional.

And let’s not forget this farce at the Writing Centre at the University of Washington, Tacoma, the stated goal of which is to “help writers write and succeed in a racist society” – a feat to be accomplished by dismissing spelling and grammar as “racist” and “an unjust language structure.” And whose director, Dr Asao Inoue, took over a year to write a simple, 500-word press release.

Apparently, students with brown skin needn’t be articulate, verbally self-possessed, or precise in their thoughts. And that ungrammatical job application, the one enlivened with incomprehensible sentences and lots of inventive spelling, will do just fine. And by the time the real-world consequences of this “social justice” posturing become difficult to avoid, Dr Inoue will have been paid – and will be merrily exploiting the next batch of suckers.

And so we arrive at a familiar question: If you wanted to harm the prospects of minority students, to diminish their chances in life, while congratulating yourself and being applauded by your peers, what would you do differently?

It’s Trivial When The Victim Is Someone Who Isn’t Me.

Habitual car theft is “a victimless crime,” says Nora the socialist.

Nora doesn’t think that a third conviction for car theft should result in incarceration. Because, and I quote, the victims “get new cars though.” “I write books and I know things,” says Nora, who lives in Quebec, where, in the last year, the rate of car theft has practically doubled.

I wonder if dear Nora has ever paused to consider what stolen cars are very often used for – besides, say, joyriding and endangering other road users. And whether those doing the stealing might often belong to criminal gangs, whose anti-social activities spill over into other areas. Say, smash-and-grabs, and forms of liveliness requiring a getaway car.

Or, as Michael Rothe of the Canadian Finance and Leasing Association points out, “A large majority of thefts are actually being orchestrated by organised crime rings, who use the profits to finance illegal activities like drug and gun trafficking, and human smuggling.”

But hey, no biggie.

Perhaps it would be ungentlemanly to wish on dear Nora some first-hand experience of the crimes she so merrily diminishes when inflicted on someone else, someone who isn’t her. Though it is, I think, tempting.

Bright Lights, Big City.

Transport For London promotes assisted suicide, with remarkable enthusiasm.

Very on-brand, I’d say. Almost too on-the-nose. I mean, if London’s buses and tube network were suddenly to be plastered with huge posters saying END IT ALL NOW, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, it wouldn’t be entirely inexplicable, or entirely dissonant with the customer experience.

It’s perhaps worth noting that Transport For London has a staff training centre, complete with fake station and platform, and “suicide pits,” where employees learn how to manage what are euphemistically referred to as “passengers taken unwell” or “disruptions to the tube service.” Events that occur on average once or twice a week.

As someone who’s experienced first-hand the soul-withering properties of attempts to travel in London – and would not care to repeat it – there is, I think, an unhappy irony. It’s also worth noting that TfL, supported by London’s leftist mayor, Sadiq Khan, has been quite eager to forbid adverts on the tube for foods deemed insufficiently healthy and life-affirming, including artisanal cheeses.

For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Policing

Recurring Urges

September 21, 2025 74 Comments

As noted here many, many times, progressives often have a wildly inaccurate conception of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves. A conception so inaccurate, one might call it perverse.

On the subject of prison and its occupants, Inquisitive Bird shares some corrective statistics while poking at one or two common myths:

Prisoners have not only typically committed serious offences, they have also typically committed many offences. The figure below shows the number of prior arrests for people admitted to state prison (including the arrest that led to the prison sentence)…

The median number of prior arrests was nine. More than three quarters have at least 5 prior arrests. Having 30+ prior arrests was more common than having no arrest other than the arrest that led to the prison sentence (i.e., 1 prior arrest)…

As striking as these figures are, they still understate prisoners’ criminal histories. This is because of the dark figure of crime—the amount of unreported, undetected, or undiscovered crime. A highly replicated finding is that criminals self-report having committed many offences for each police contact. That is, they readily admit to having “gotten away with” many offences.

One study of 411 males found that the self-reported number of offences was over 30 times greater than convictions. For sexual offending, studies have estimated the dark figure to be anywhere from 6.5 to 20 times the official figure. In a recent study of American delinquent youths, the self-reported number of delinquent offences was 25 for every police contact.

However large the dark figure of crime exactly is, it is undoubtedly practically significant. Prisoners’ criminal histories are therefore substantially more extensive than their criminal records would suggest.

There’s much more to be had in the linked piece, along with some eyebrow-raising charts.

Unsurprisingly, a similar pattern is found here in the UK:

UK data show that 70% of custodial sentences are imposed on those with at least seven previous convictions or cautions, and 50% are imposed on those with at least 15 previous convictions or cautions.

And then there’s Sweden:

But perhaps the most illustrative study… used Swedish nationwide data of all 2.4 million individuals born in 1958–1980 and looked at the distribution of violent crime convictions… They found that 1% of people were accountable for 63% of all violent crime convictions, and 0.12% of people accounted for 20% of violent crime convictions.

Another notable fact: approximately half of violent crime convictions were committed by people who already had 3 or more violent crime convictions. In other words, if after being convicted of 3 violent crimes people were prevented from further offending, half of violent crime convictions would have been avoided.

In short, before ending up in prison, the vast majority of the perpetrators, the supposedly downtrodden and marginalised, have at least five prior arrests, with almost half having 10 or more, and one in seven, 20 or more:

Indeed, having 30 or more prior arrests when admitted to state prison was more common than having no arrest other than the arrest that led to the prison sentence.

At which point, the phrase that comes to mind is the nature of the beast. Conceivably, other phrases may occur to readers. 

Those with a taste for grim humour are steered towards this rather vivid indication of how a crime rate can improve when just three burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – flee the police in a stolen car before colliding with something solid and ceasing to be.

An illustration, one of many, of how a very large fraction of crime could be prevented by dealing decisively with a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders.

And as commenter Geoff quipped, following this:

I don’t think people understand it takes a lot of work to end up in prison.

Well, indeed.

For those of you with X accounts, Inquisitive Bird can be followed here.

Update, via the comments:

MarkL quotes this,

progressives often have a wildly inaccurate conception of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves.

And adds,

Don’t know whether to be depressed or burst out laughing. They just don’t have a clue.

The mismatch of progressive assumptions with the perpetrators’ own stated motives, the way their minds work, is quite something. The idea that carjacking, for instance, is done for reasons of survival, to meet basic needs, and only done in desperation or under duress, because of some supposedly oppressive and racist social system, is darkly funny. Perverse to the point of absurdity.

As illustrated, vividly, in the study linked above – say, by the female carjacker named PoPo, who terrorised a random woman, stole her car, her purse and her wedding ring, then “bought some drink and… weed and… got my hair did.” Because, you know, hair.

Or her fellow carjacker, Little Ty, who, contrary to progressive assumptions, had no need of money – “We don’t need money, we have money” – via means one might guess at – but who simply finds pleasure in violating others. Or the ferals named Loco and Corleone, who boasted that financial security wouldn’t stop them from indulging in carjacking because they just like doing it. Because it’s exciting.

Pretty much by default, the mental process – such as it is – is see it, want it, take it. The fear and degradation of the victim is just icing on the cake. A point expanded on by a carjacker named Tall: “It’s a rush thing… when you’re pulling someone out the car… Just a rush come over me… I mean, I feel good.” And likewise, Big Mix, who found his victims’ terror a “kick,” and indeed “hilarious.” And the aforementioned PoPo, who boasted, “It’s funny just to see them shaking and pissing all over theyself.”

And yet progressives will conjure elaborate explanations, outright fantasies, that bear no relation at all to the motives stated by the criminals themselves. The reality of their nature.

It must be that progressive empathy we hear so much about.

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Written by: David
Ephemera

Friday Ephemera (785)

September 19, 2025 148 Comments

I believe this is called making biscuits. || Tape bowing ensemble. || Big thing incoming. || It’s a Bay Area vibe, man. || Heavy breathing detected. || Deed. || I was unaware of Amish weed. || World Diddling Championship, 1974. (h/t, Mr Snowdon) || Fondling the faucet. || I think these ladders must be faulty. || Discourse was attempted. || The end of cash, 1969. || Change of heart. || Quiet part, out loud. || A searchable archive of 10,000 historical children’s books. || Newcomerliness. || Invitation of note. || Space-age pad, 1976. (h/t, Things) || The unspanked – or if you prefer, the unpunched. || Proverbial knife to a gunfight. || Plot twist. || The progressive retail experience, parts 667, 668, 669 and 670. || Instructions of note. Or, wisdom hard won. || And finally, fun for all the family.

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Free-For-All Pronouns Or Else

Validation, You Say

September 18, 2025 50 Comments

And from Australia, more thing-that-never-happens news:

Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis… highlighted Harper’s “gender dysphoria” and experiences with “transphobia” as mitigating factors, and appeared to accept the defence’s argument that he only committed the abuse to be “validated… as a woman and a sexual person.”

And for some, validation trumps all else.

Because of our thrillingly modern sensitivities, Mr Harper – who favours the name Autumn Tulip Harper – is currently being held in a prison for women.

The details of the case are, I should add, particularly vile.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.