I’m Only Thinking Of You

With the season of bonhomie fast approaching, patrons are reminded that any festive shopping done via the following Amazon links – here for the UK, and here for the US – results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

Write a list. We wouldn’t want you to forget anything, especially if it’s expensive.

Also, open thread. 

Comments

[Pogonip]

Former U. S. President George H.W. Bush has died at 94. Another WW II veteran gone.

[Aus_Autarch]

Can you also provide an Amazon Australia link?

[David]

Can you also provide an Amazon Australia link?

The problem is, the Amazon affiliate programme doesn’t allow you to consolidate the earnings from various countries into one usable balance, and so, having multiple overseas accounts isn’t very practical. I’m pushing it already.

There is, however, a PayPal button, top left.

[ Edited. ]

[Pogonip]

Me. Me! Meeeee! It’s all about MEEEEE!

Those poor babies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/opinion/sunday/stay-at-home-mom-two-kids.html#

[Pogonip]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/30/pelosi-barbara-lee-house-democrats-1037024

I have nothing against Rep. Lee—hadn’t heard of her till 2 mins ago—but is passively accepting a make-work position created for you because of your race and your sex “leadership”? I don’t blame her for accepting the sinecure, I’d love one myself, but I wouldn’t call it leadership!

[David]

“Where are the kids?”

[Darleen]

“Where are the kids?”

I would have smacked the husband so hard ...

[Darleen]

Those poor babies.

Hubby & grandparents aren't helping at all ... no one seems to understand at all what to expect out of stay-at-home parenting.

The same people who will spend the time to learn to golf or do yoga or any number of highly skilled hobbies seem to believe they'll know what to do when babies come via instinct.

The one small glimmer of hope for her is that she believes she'll come out a better person on the other side of this trial. If she keeps that attitude, she will because having child DOES grow most people up. It needn't have been this hard, though.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

“Where are the kids?”

Reason 128 to have a shooting iron handy in the house. I haven't decided if the cat is brave, or very, very stupid.

[Andrew Rowe]

Proof at last of condescension.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/White-liberals-dumb-themselves-down-when-they-13433699.php

[Darleen]

Have anything negative to say about migration? Shut up, or else.

[Spiny Norman]

Migration as a "human right"? That effectively abolishes all international borders.

I used to think the "New World Order, Global Government" nutters were, well, nuts. (o.O)

[Pogonip]

And you were right!

[Tim Newman]

“Where are the kids?”

Proof, if any were needed, that man never quite grow up completely.

I would have smacked the husband so hard ...

It would still have been worth it.

[Clam]

"Educated"

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1068991028148035585

[David]

“Educated”

As one wag puts it,

1. Go to college.
2. Accumulate debt.
3. Pick stupid major.
4. Graduate with useless degree.
5. Play victim.
6. Blame society.
7. Vote Democrat.

An example, one of many in the archives.

Also this, via Dicentra.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

"Educated"

Alas, she is far from alone.

[David]

I feel I ought to have a secret wine cellar.

[Spiny Norman]

"Educated"

The Groucho Marx eyebrows take the cake. (o.O)

Was she mental before Gender Studies, or is that the actual cause?

[Spiny Norman]

Also this

The sign-carrying, black-masked protestors in the replies seem... well, disappointed in the "ignorance".

[WTP]

Also this

From the comments:

Matthew Manning
@manning_matt20
·
Nov 30
The rest of the responses to this are disappointing. Higher education and knowledge need to be encouraged, free thinking needs to be encouraged, challenging the status quo needs to be encouraged. It's how you become better in all facets of life.

Challenging the status quo needs to be encouraged indeed.

[David]

Was she mental before Gender Studies, or is that the actual cause?

You do have to wonder why anyone in their right mind would pay for a “gender studies” course – a subject that’s widely and rightly ridiculed as intellectually flatulent, actually stupefying, and which is generally taught, badly, by someone whose sole qualification is in English literature, rather than, say, biology or neuroscience or evolutionary psychology.

Though there’s little if any maths, or much of anything too demanding, which may hold some appeal.

[Darleen]

Someone pass the Dramamine

[Captain Nemo]

I feel I ought to have a secret wine cellar.

You mean you don't already have one at the Guild of Evil™ Headquarters? I'm disappointed - no lair worth the name should be without one.

[David]

Someone pass the Dramamine

I’d thrive in that situation.

What?

[David]

You mean you don’t already have one at the Guild of Evil™ Headquarters?

Alas, no. But we’ve repurposed the never-used dishwasher to serve as a glorified wine rack. Albeit one that’s also cluttered with takeaway menus and bewildering blender attachments, the functions of which, even now, years later, have yet to be determined.

[Spiny Norman]

WTP

From the comments:

Yeah, that's one of the severely educated twerps I was referring to.

[Darleen]

"Are you willing to die for YouTube shit? ... Death is coming to you."

[Pogonip]

It appears that feminism causes weight gain. 😶

[pst314]

"Are you willing to die for YouTube shit? ... Death is coming to you."

The willingness of "moderate liberals" to tolerate and defend such thugs shows that liberals are not the moderate and reasonable fellow citizens that they pretend to be.

[David]

“Are you willing to die for YouTube shit? ... Death is coming to you.”

Sociopaths gonna sociopath.

[WTP]

“Are you willing to die for YouTube shit? ... Death is coming to you.”

And the police do nothing. The “justice system” does nothing. Yet shoe on the other foot and it would be a watershed moment for the history books. I’ve seen this day coming for 20 years. When I spoke up about it, to “conservative” people no less, I was the one with problems processing reality. Don’t ask what I see 20 years from now. Hopefully I’ll be dead. Prolly will be one way or another anyhow.

[David]

Hopefully I’ll be dead.

That’s the spirit.

[Trevor]

With the season of bonhomie fast approaching ...

Bonhomie? Sweet Baby Jesus, please don't tell me there's going to be bonhomie.

[David]

please don’t tell me there’s going to be bonhomie.

Rather depends on the gathering, I suppose.

Failing bonhomie, there’s always heavy drinking. Though that could go either way.

[Squires]

It appears that feminism causes weight gain.

It’s a feedback loop, a mechanism for both sowing and harvesting energy from disattraction, as it were.

[Lancastrian Oik]

Bonhomie?

[Pogonip]

Well, if I can’t bring my famous Kazhakstanian bonhomie recipe, I guess i’ll just have to bring eggs pickled in hump fat!

[Pogonip]

And on cue...

https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/01/your-figure-everyones-issue/

I’m overweight, I admit it, and blaming the entire world will not make me one ounce thinner.

I will assign David some of the blame for serving hump fat.

[Chester Draws]

But most of all…

6. It’s an individual’s own decision to decide what is best for themselves, their health, and their body.

I agree completely, but then I'm of a rather Libertarian viewpoint.

Do EF really want to run with that? I rather fear that they haven't started to thing through the consequences of thinking that people should be in charge of their own lives.

The rest of it is nonsense. I don't judge a person's obesity based on their BMI, because I don't know their BMI (but I do know how fat they look). I do judge people on other aspects of their health, such as their management of stress and sleep (albeit I keep it to myself). I do consider overweight but active people to be managing themselves better than skinny unhealthy people. I doubt I am alone in that.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

5 Reasons Not to Bring Up ‘Health Concerns’ in Fat Acceptance Discussions

But she was more interested in her artwork and challenging stereotypes about plus-size people.

OTOH, maybe we should discuss risk vs. benefit, not that there is much, if any, of the latter.

[Governor Squid]

It’s an individual’s own decision to decide what is best for themselves, their health, and their body.

It's funny that decisions about diet and exercise and other lifestyle behaviors (e.g. sex, drugs, rock'n'roll) are strictly individual and not to be questioned, but the health consequences of these decisions are a societal problem requiring the participation of all (or at least everybody with money).

I've argued with quite a few people that they really don't want me to be in charge of paying for their health care, because I'm not going to take on that responsibility without also taking on the management of their lifestyle so that I might more effectively control my costs. (They generally don't appreciate that line of reasoning.)

[Damian]

The Guardian: The Wizard of Oz is a grotesque predictor of Trump’s America

L Frank Baum’s original novel was written in 1900 and the film was made in 1939. Yet all the themes of Trump’s America are there. We can read the catastrophic effects of climate change into the tornado that sets the narrative off, see the opioid crisis in the characters’ drugged sleep in Oz’s Powell and Pressburger-esque poppy field, and empathise with the mangy Lion, rusty Tin Man and understuffed Scarecrow’s search for organ donors and reliable medical support in an Oz without a solid welfare state.

Also, Mongolian folk-rock.

[WTP]

L Frank Baum’s original novel was written in 1900 and the film was made in 1939. Yet all the themes of Trump’s America are there.

Because the “allegory about the gold standard” BS was all played out. These are smart people. They went to college and stuff. Can’t do much real, productive work but they can allegory like there’s no tomorrow.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Also, Mongolian folk-rock.

Related, Paul Pena blind US musician and noted for the song Jet Airliner (not Steve Miller spit), taught himself Tuvan and traveled there to learn Tuvan (Mongolian) throat singing.

"Genghis Blues" is a documentary of his trip which includes his award winning performance mixing throat singing with some good old Resophonic backing, well worth watching.

[Boatswain's Mate]

I’m overweight, I admit it, and blaming the entire world will not make me one ounce thinner.

I will assign David some of the blame for serving hump fat.

No refunds. Credit note only.