Friday Ephemera

London wildlife. (h/t, Holborn) || Interspecies communication. || It’s a chemical art. (h/t, Matthew) || “As languages develop, they create colour names in a certain order.” || Packaging of note. (h/t, Obo) || Debra Soh on transsexuality, fetishes and gaydar. || Nocturnal time lapse. || Heh. (h/t, Julia) || Her bad day was way worse than yours. || The big bitchin’ choons of the ancient world. (h/t, Pogonip) || For working dogs. || In Missouri, sideboob and underboob are banned in public. || Tapping tape. || “The size of Dan’s scrotum affects every aspect of his daily life.” || Holedown is a game. || She’s a druid, obviously, and a feminine chaos dragon. || And finally, I think you’ve got a little something on your face.

Comments

[Cathal]

Hello David,

As a long time fan, well since 2013 when I discovered your very seedy dive, I would like to pay a little off from my bar tab. But Firstly, I've asked you before as you long ago mentioned a book, and I am becoming sorely tried in the waiting.

Where is it? You know you have it in you.

You have a marvelous way about you, and you have a great set of regulars and occasionals, and as you often correctly say, the ATL's are really only the springboards for what's to follow.

Now, I'm going to tickle your big fat glistening belly, and throw a few jinglers into your moth-eaten bowler hat. Also give me more Laurie Penny, I like Laurie, she is a ludicrous fool, but I wouldn't mind getting on her case...

*Tickles David's Big Fat Glistening Belly, and hopes for more of my Lovely Laurie...Sigh...*

[R. Sherman]

It's magic!!!

[Daniel Ream]

She’s a druid, obviously, and a feminine chaos dragon.

That's an impressive Hapsburg chin on that gentleman.

[ComputerLabRat]

She’s a druid, obviously, and a feminine chaos dragon.

My first thought was Austin Powers' "That's a man, baby!"

[Spiny Norman]

Now, I'm going to tickle your big fat glistening belly...

Oh, gawd. You're gonna make him post that creepy Jeff Goldblum gif.

[drinks up]

[picks up hat]

[exits]

[Darleen]

Snowflake running for Congress.

[David]

Morning, all.

As a long time fan, well since 2013 when I discovered your very seedy dive, I would like to pay a little off from my bar tab.

See, that’s a sentiment I can get behind, and much appreciated.

You know you have it in you.

It isn’t so much the writing of one that’s an issue, but the selling of one. As a use of time and effort, writing a book – almost any kind of book, and certainly the kind I’d write – isn’t exactly lucrative. Such things rarely sell in numbers that make sense and are generally done at a loss as part of an attempt to build a wider media career, which is not an enticing prospect. Besides, anything that would be in one is probably already here, albeit in bits.

Also give me more Laurie Penny

I’m sure she’ll make an appearance before too long. Being, as she is, so reliably wrong.

Oh, gawd. You're gonna make him post that creepy Jeff Goldblum gif.

This one?

What?

[Chester Draws]

I suspect any book would require careful libel checking before a decent publisher would touch it. Writing a book to give money to a lawyer seems a bad proposition to me.

(Books get taken for libel actions in ways blogs don't because publishers have real money. )

[David]

Writing a book to give money to a lawyer seems a bad proposition to me.

Yes, that’s pretty much what would happen. When the clear implication is that certain statusful academics and media figures are dishonest, hypocritical or hilariously incompetent, it’s a publishing minefield, even when you can prove each point with the subject’s own words and actions. For the kinds of small publishers that might find such content appealing, it’s simply not worth the expense, when challenged, of proving each unflattering statement.

[David]

The tolerant left, part 4,091.

He’s an educator, you know.

[Ray]

Re London wildlife, I've been away for a while now, is it normal for pedestrians on Leytonstone High Street to go barefoot?

[Hector Drummond, Vile Novelist]

It isn’t so much the writing of one that’s an issue, but the selling of one. As a use of time and effort, writing a book – almost any kind of book, and certainly the kind I’d write – isn’t exactly lucrative.

Nonsense! My recent campus satire The Biscuit Factory is bringing in hundreds of pennies, and I'm now planning a slap-up trip to a Harvester to celebrate. Might even be able to afford to take my wife as well.

[David]

Might even be able to afford to take my wife as well.

Let’s not go crazy.

[Tom]

“The size of Dan’s scrotum affects every aspect of his daily life.”

Nope. Not a chance. (sweat breaks out on brow while struggling to fight the overwhelming urge to CLICK THE LINK!)

[David]

(sweat breaks out on brow while struggling to fight the overwhelming urge to CLICK THE LINK!)

Embrace the fear.

[Jugra]

Sandifer has been a notoriously unpleasant cunt in that unholy crossover between doctor who fandom and sjw-dom for many years so it's no surprise to see he's now claiming to be a woman

[David]

Our educated betters:

Via Ben Sixsmith.

[sH2]

Our educated betters:

Always a blue tick.

[David]

Always a blue tick.

I suppose it’s possible, in theory, that one might almost feel pity for them - the endless contortion and neurotic posturing must take a toll. It all seems rather soul-withering. But not being a saint, I can’t get past the fact that they’re so nauseating and socially corrosive.

[Pogonip]

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/08/09/drunk-irritable-wasps-britain/

[svh]

"Homeless people wearing barcodes to accept cashless payments"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/08/homeless-people-wearing-barcodes-new-project-increase-donations/

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

“The size of Dan’s scrotum affects every aspect of his daily life.”

Bright lights and cold steel. There are people out there called "urologists" who can fix this, but then one actually has to want to be cured.

Debra Soh on transsexuality...An abbreviated response to the transgender business.

In Skullbone, a woman may not “pleasure a man” who is operating a motor vehicle.

Be safe, if you drive, wear a condom, and if you have sex, use your seatbelt, remember, coming and going don't mix.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Heh.

Maintaining Teh Narrative™.

This is nifty - Wind powered animals. More here where you can buy kits for mini-versions.

[David]

I denounce myself.

[WTP]

An abbreviated response to the transgender business.

While I agree with much of what she is saying, I don't find her argument sufficiently convincing. She's glossing over the hermaphrodite and chimera factors. Not that those factors are close to explaining 100% of the transgender issue, and I agree that much of it is a form/manifestation of some sort of mental illness, but I don't think she's doing justice to her main point in framing her argument in that simplistic manner. As DNA testing becomes more widely used, we may find that a lot more of these cases have slipped under the radar. She also seems a bit too dismissive of the genetic factors, especially in regard to common genetic mutations, in human behavior/sexuality.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

...I don't find her argument sufficiently convincing. She's glossing over the hermaphrodite and chimera factors.

That is but a two minute snip of this longer video interview in which these are mentioned, bearing in mind "intersex" is the PC term du jour for actual biological variants caused by errors in transcription which cause these variations.

[Sam Duncan]

“Wind powered animals.”

Former Mythbuster Adam Savage builds a Japanese knockoff, his own (pedal-powered) knockoff, and meets the real thing.

[Hal]

Hipsters on parade.

[Hal]

(Books get taken for libel actions in ways blogs don't because publishers have real money. )

An issue with blogs.

[David]

Friends don’t let friends piss away money on “Whiteness Studies.”

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Friends don’t let friends piss away money on “Whiteness Studies.”

At the completion of this subject, students should gain the following generic skills:

- ability to produce high quality written material real genuine frontier SJW gibberish in a timely manner.

Slight correction for accuracy.

[dw]

This is good (despite being in The Atlantic)...

When the top man at The New York Times publishes a sober statement about a meeting he had with the president in which he describes instructing Trump about the problem of his “deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric,” and then three days later the paper announces that it has hired a writer who has tweeted about her hatred of white people, of Republicans, of cops, of the president, of the need to stop certain female writers and journalists from “existing,” and when this new hire will not be a beat reporter, but will sit on the paper’s editorial board—having a hand in shaping the opinions the paper presents to the world—then it is no mystery that a parallel culture of ideas has emerged to replace a corrupted system.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/why-the-left-is-so-afraid-of-jordan-peterson/567110/

[David]

This is good (despite being in The Atlantic)...

With identity politics off the table, it was possible to talk about all kinds of things—religion, philosophy, history, myth—in a different way.

That, as they say. I scarcely need to point out that woke posturing is horribly narrowing and its conclusions are usually predestined - well in advance of any mental activity that might accidentally occur. It practically strangles thought. Which I suppose is why some people like it.

[Sam]

In Missouri, sideboob and underboob are banned in public.

The linked post, titled "The Most Absurd Sex Laws in the US", includes:

Spouses can sue if their partner gets an abortion without their consent.

alongside such things as requiring a no-kissing notice on reptile sales and the like. Sorry but...isn't allowing civil action against a married women who surprises her husband with an abortion imminently reasonable? I'm sure the linked website thinks that alimony is equally absurd, right? Right?

Sorry to piss on the Ephemera Parade with abortion AND men's rights virtue signalling, but a tiger can't change his stripes, ya know?

[Pogonip]

This belatedly occurred to me. The Norfolk, VA police dept got most of the attention...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywAz5ba9Qs

[Adam]

To go while coming was a "thing" in the late 1970s. Nelson Rockefeller made it.

[Adam]

"...it's like carrying a ball and chain..."

More ball than chain, a lot more.

[Adam]

As long as the package graphics do not inadvertently write "Allah", I'm good with it.

[Monty James]

Me: I'm not a Nazi! Will you please listen? I am not a Nazi, do you understand? Honestly!

SJW: Only a true Nazi doesn't like my amazing haircut.

Me: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am a Nazi!

Leftists: He is! He is a Nazi!

Me: Now, FUCK OFF!

Found here:
https://twitter.com/ElSandifer/status/1027636345546661896

[Sam]

You know, I'm surprised that more people when faced with the riposte "but white people can't be racist because racism = prejudice + power yada yada yada" don't simply respond with: "OK, but being an asshole to someone simply because of their skin color is wrong."

I know the severely educated would try valiantly to justify the behavior, but it's one of those things that most (think 90%+) of people understand fundamentally, and therefore any bullshitting around it would be seen as such.

[David]

If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll rattle the spam filter.

[Squires]

real genuine frontier SJW gibberish in a timely manner.

As was pointed out farther down, the tweeted line was hardly gibberish. The author’s well groomed lack of self awareness, unfortunately, merely prevented them from aiming it at the more fitting target.

[Monty James]

Thanks for the rattling, David.

[R. Sherman]

Ok, trust me on this. In the process of assisting my spouse find some audio visuals for a history class she teaches, I opened a new tab on the computer and located this: this. So, while it was playing in the background, I scrolled up through the comments and noticed that the video sort of synced with the Goldblum gif.

Bottom line: That's enough internet for today.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

SJW: Only a true Nazi doesn't like my amazing haircut.

I was unaware that male pattern baldness was a haircut, but then, I guess if he thinks he is a woman, he probably thinks that purple mess is a Farah Fawcett mane.

[Pogonip]

That guy with the purple lipstick needs lessons on how to apply same. Lipstick, I mean. The lesson on how to apply bright purple lipstick is “Don’t, except on Halloween.”

[WTP]

If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll rattle the spam filter.

I'm having trouble with that last picture appearing...because it's appearing. Yikes. How many credit notes do I need in order to purchase a pickled "egg"?

[David]

How many credit notes do I need in order to purchase a pickled “egg”?

You’re in luck. There’s one left in the ashtray, barely touched.

It’s on the house.

[neal]

The good doctor seems to have Zhits nose punched sometime in the past.
I am sure that is nothing a little makeup will fix up in a jiffy.

Of course, men can be ugly women too. Only haters would object.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

From Ace and apparently the only sane sociologist in California, how to tell rayciss microaggressions from woke SJW talk.

[Pogonip]

David, you can’t give away THAT pickled “egg”! We’re throwing it a Sweet Sixteen party tomorrow for its birthday!

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

I'm starting to think looking into the Hungarian real estate market might not be a bad idea...

[Darleen]

Craziness in Seattle... I mean major league crazy

[David]

how to tell rayciss microaggressions from woke SJW talk.

As the thread there makes clear, the intellectual inconsistency is quite spectacular.

And again, as they brag, these are educated people.

And so the question arises – have these expensively educated journalists, for Vox, Slate and Salon, spent their time and money learning how to lie opportunistically, with a bare-faced disregard for any kind of standards, or just learning how not to think clearly, in case it undermines the “social justice” ideology in which they’ve invested?

[David]

And not entirely unrelated.

Note the preening tone, by now so familiar, of Dr Marsha Henry, our “feminist, academic.”

Also note Dr Henry’s repeated and unironic retweeting of Crystal Fleming, another woke academic, Harvard educated, and whose departures from reality have entertained us more than once.

Via Julia.

[Captain Nemo]

Puzzling cabinet of note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWYexjYqinU

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

...or just learning how not to think clearly, in case it undermines the “social justice” ideology in which they’ve invested?

Seeing as how all they do is spout the same boilerplate, I believe the issue is learning how not to think period, or, as Patton put it, "If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking."

Speaking of regurgitating boilerplate and not thinking, SJW ideology 0: Real World 2.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Racist breakfast.

One customer named Aoneilly moaned: “You shouldn’t hide these tooth pick flags in food their [sic] dangerous and nearly chocked [sic] me...

A) I am a bit confused how one "hides" a toothpick with Union Jack on it. I suspect Aoneilly may be a few beans short of a full breakfast.

B) I am likewise confused why someone knowingly ordering a full English breakfast, in London, would find a UK flag in said breakfast "racist".

C) I remain confused about the whole concept of why people actually eat a full English breakfast, but that is a separate issue...

[David]

I remain confused about the whole concept of why people actually eat a full English breakfast...

[ Starts handing out pitchforks and burning torches. ]

[Natalino Otto]

the intellectual inconsistency is quite spectacular.

They're consistently anti-white. They're upfront and proud of their anti-whiteness, which is a founding principle of their intellectual system, not an anomaly.

If you replaced "white" with "Jews"/"blacks"/etc it would be regarded as "racist", but that's just restating the axioms of the anti-white activists, it's not catching them out being untrue to equalist principles (that they don't claim to have), or going overboard with rhetoric (they mean what they say).

Euphemia Ephemera.

[Jacob]

"Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips traveled to Columbia University, an Ivy League school, and offered $20 to any person who could name all five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Not one student was able to list the five freedoms, which are freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, and petition. While Phillips reported that many students were able to name one or two of the freedoms, many were seen on camera struggling to name even one."

https://www.dailywire.com/news/34179/watch-millennials-try-explain-first-amendment-ryan-saavedra

As our host would say, "Our betters".

[David]

They’re consistently anti-white.

It does seem to be the only imperative. All roads must end there.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

[ Starts handing out pitchforks and burning torches. ]

[Slides plate of biscuits and gravy, sausage, and hash browns down the bar to convert the savages]

[R. Sherman]

From Farnsworth's link, we find this quote, which exemplifies the mindset of the "elite" who graduate from college with degrees in the (modern) humanities and presume to lecture the rest of us:

Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own.

How one can be exposed to recorded human history and or, the daily news feed on one's iPhone and reach that conclusion is beyond my comprehension. And, BTW, I sincerely doubt the author of that statement would apply it to his dealings with POTUS or the "deplorables" who support him.

[JuliaM]

Darleen: "Craziness in Seattle... I mean major league crazy"

Ir's unthinkable that this could happen after 9/11. How does a mechanic get to steal a plane & not get shot down before he's retracted the undercarriage?

[David]

[Slides plate of biscuits and gravy, sausage, and hash browns down the bar to convert the savages]

See, the problem is, for a Brit, the word biscuits calls to mind images of Digestives, Hobnobs, or perhaps a Custard Cream. Things you might dunk in tea.

[Pogonip]

Are those BAKED BEANS in that cup?

I recognize the egg and the link sausages. The triangular things look like deep-fried toast points? And what’s the rest of that stuff?

[Ten]

Ir's unthinkable that this could happen after 9/11. How does a mechanic get to steal a plane & not get shot down before he's retracted the undercarriage?

What?

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

See, the problem is, for a Brit, the word biscuits calls to mind images of Digestives...

No, no, those are cookies or crackers, and I am not talking about the things you pull at Christmas.

[Sam Duncan]

“I am likewise confused why someone knowingly ordering a full English breakfast, in London, would find a UK flag in said breakfast "racist".”

I'm confused as to why the Union Jack is racist today when it was all “Cool Britannia” back at the turn of the century. And in the 1960s. I certainly remember it being racist when I was at school, right enough. It's really hard to figure out any pattern here.

[WTP]

I challenge you to watch the whole thing. Fortunately they fast forward through some of the boring parts.

https://youtu.be/VWKt4AOM5Yw

[Pogonip]

Crunchy things you dunk are cookies. Tooth-breaking hard things you dunk are biscotti (Italian for “cookie,” if I remember right). Biscuits are little round quick breads you bake; you either mix up a batter yourself, in which case they are homemade biscuits, or get them out of a can with a spiraling seam in it, in which case they are whomp biscuits, because after the little tear-strip that is supposed to open the can tears off in your hand, you have to whomp the can on the edge of the counter to break it open.

There will be a quiz later.

Whomp biscuits can also usually be opened by pressing a spoon into the seam on the can. But please don’t call whomp biscuits spoon biscuits, because there is a souffle-like concoction called spoon bread, and we don’t want to make this any more confusing than it already is.

[Pogonip]

After the pickled “eggs” have sat in the ashtray for a few years, they become whomp eggs.

[Darleen]

“We read Orwell as a warning; they read Orwell as a textbook."

[David]

“We read Orwell as a warning; they read Orwell as a textbook.”

Paywalled, sadly.

[Darleen]

Paywalled? That's weird. Hmmmmm... Maybe if you follow through the link on Jordan Peterson's tweet

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Paywalled, sadly.

David, you can get to it here. Hit the link in the top tweet in the caption under the screencap.

The basics:

On Thursday, Victorian Minister for Transport (and censorship) Jacinta Allan banned Sky News from television screens at Metro Trains stations because one host conducted one interview with far-right ratbag Blair Cottrell last Sunday...But the Labor government banned an entire news organisation so that train commuters “can see something they may be a bit more comfortable with”...

Victoria’s Nineteen Eighty-Four moment a week earlier involved the state’s Department of Health and Human Services telling public servants what pronouns to use, with the first Wednesday of each month set aside as “They Day”...

Language police in the ACT Labor caucus want to do away with references to Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms in the ACT parliament.

Much more at the link.

[David]

Maybe if you follow through the link on Jordan Peterson’s tweet

Ah, thanks. “I think we should be really, really clear about this…”

[Darleen]

Farnsworth

I watched the indignant Jacinta Allan sputter and gulp at being challenged to state one objectionable thing broadcast in the stations after it was pointed out to her that the Cottrell interview did not air in the stations. Absof**kingamazing.

[WTP]

Not being an Ozzie and thus not familiar with Sky New, I presume they are like Fox News? While I’m sure these government weasles would be quite fine with leftist friendly news programs at those stations, I do see the point in general. Personally one of the things I find most annoying about flying in the US the last 15-20 years or so is the ubiquitous nature of CNN in damn near every airport on screens right by the gate where you are generally stuck for 30 minutes or so in the boarding process. I’ll never forget changing planes at George Bush Airport and having to listen to CNN talking heads blather on and on about what a fascist George Bush is. I could do without that myself. Assuming it was applied equally. Which I’m sure it wouldn’t be.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Absof**kingamazing.

Indeed, such a "long list" she couldn't name one. I am still recovering from "They Day", however, and the fact of its attendant "enforcement officer".

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

More fresh hell from the clown quarter."Male, pale and stale university professors to be given 'reverse mentors'"

Male, pale and stale university professors are to be given “reverse mentors” to teach them about unconscious bias, under a new Government funded scheme...Prof John [sic] Rowe, who is overseeing the project at Birmingham University, said he hoped the scheme will allow eminent professors to confront their own biases and leave them “feeling quite uncomfortable”.

I see. An old white, male, expert, will be assigned a young, ethnic, female, non-expert "mentor". Yeah, I can see nothing possibly going wrong with this.

[R. Sherman]

...[T]he scheme will allow eminent professors to confront their own biases and leave them “feeling quite uncomfortable”.

In Humphrey Cobb's novel Paths of Glory, a young lieutenant is ordered to submit the names of men in his platoon who will be tried for cowardice, regardless of their actual behavior on the battlefield. Instead of complying, he writes to the general that he's pleased to report that none of his soldiers are cowards. He then goes riding and is unavailable to further comply with the order.

I would suggest that such eminent professors take the same approach. Tell the dean, "I'm pleased to report, I have no biases," at which point, they take a vacation.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Tell the dean, "I'm pleased to report, I have no biases," at which point, they take a vacation.

Reporting you have no biases is just proof that you have so much bias you can't see your biases.

That is some catch, that Catch-22.

[Sam Duncan]

“reverse mentors”

Unintentionally apt nomenclature there.

[David]

Male, pale and stale university professors to be given ‘reverse mentors’

I think that one deserves a short post of its own.

[Captain Nemo]

Punctuation mark of note:

https://twitter.com/ImACultHero/status/1027997956438478848

[David]

Punctuation mark of note

Heh. Open for business, as one wag quipped.

[Captain Nemo]

Presumably the restaurant in question is accessed by the rear entrance. What?

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

Ir's unthinkable that this could happen after 9/11. How does a mechanic get to steal a plane & not get shot down before he's retracted the undercarriage?

It's our TSA heroes in action.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

It's our TSA heroes in action.

Much as I loathe those clowns, in this instance the guy was a baggage handler/ground ops so he had full access to the ramp area and therefore the planes, this one can't be blamed on their general fecklessness.

[WTP]

Hopefully this guy wore a cup. Don’t see any references to him ever having children, so perhaps not?

https://youtu.be/_Jflun5CyIc

[fnord]

It practically strangles thought. Which I suppose is why some people like it.

=====
IncSoc smiles.

[fnord]

It practically strangles thought. Which I suppose is why some people like it.

====
IngSoc smiles.

[Pst314]

there is a souffle-like concoction called spoon bread

Ambrosia.

[ftumch]

Lions and tigers and bears... oh my

https://twitter.com/SirBasilBrush/status/1028590825025032192