Okay, given that I’ve fucked up and forgotten links now and then, I decided to bust Mexi’s balls a touch. I’m going to enjoy this until I forget again, in a week or two.
Links?
JACK SMITH HATES THE CONSTITUTION!!! Just giving it the Drudge touch with all caps.
I’m sure this has nothing to do with Ukraine.
Of course Elon has a Barrett .50cal.
Hip-firing my Barrett 50 cal pic.twitter.com/OkNnjWid0r
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2023
Given the quality of the modern day recruiting class, I hope they’re looking for a positive test.
There is a masculinity polycrisis, people. I expect you give this the due respect it deserves.
Don’t dick around with another man’s cows.
This would be an awesome development.
France is finally ready to deal with it’s migrant scourge.
Okay, that’s it for today. Cool and drizzly means it’s time to fire up the pizza oven.
The trains are running on time again!
Show off
Spud is giving me an article almost worthy of my Firsts. Or at least, an article timely enough for one.
I’m happy to have irritated you, as always,
The Government’s proposed order restricting the parties’ statements under Local Criminal Rule 57.7(c) is necessary and appropriate to protect the due administration of justice in this case.
In other words, “Our kangaroo court might not get the desired result if the defendant keeps shedding light on our shenanigans.”
“Bad men who are Orange should face criminal charges for pointing out the criminal charges are bullshit!”
Accused of bleaching images of male genitalia and other markings onto their neighbor’s cows, a Crook County father and son are now facing felony-level property destruction charges.
I can’t believe that a loving father would steer his kid wrong like this.
And that’s no bull
It’s what happens when two guys have a beef.
Did you heifer hear of such a thing??
Udderly ridiculous.
It cud by sweet, like a long, forgotten dream.
Fuck yeah, some good news
The shutdown was wanted by the Davosians because it helps stem capital outflow from Europe. Avoiding the shutdown and corking Ukraine funds will put heavy pressure on EU bond yields come Monday. This is a win.
Elon is my favorite billionaire psychopath, by far.
You’d think he could afford optics.
I never bothered putting optics on my fifty before I sold it.
Now I’m trying to scrape together ten grand for one of these: https://strictlyoffensivekit.com/products/mars-lc
He might be the next John McAfee.
I’d go with favorite billionaire aspie with situational Tourettes. 😉
Today, men are craving answers, purpose, and family. If that’s unachievable, we can expect much worse than fantasies about bygone empires.
Does that mean we can expect more of these collections of randomly distributed sentences?
There is something about this that smell a bit like bullshit to me.
Not myself nor any of the men around here are sitting around thinking about the Roman Empire. Maybe…just maybe…because we are already masculine men?
There is no prog bullshit around here that I am aware of. The women like masculinity, schools still stick to readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic, etc. etc.
I was baffled the first time the Babylon Bee went on about men constantly thinking about that empire. I was thinking, “Who does that, except history professors?”
So this is another 4chan prank?
Over the last few years, my (very liberal) wife has made remarks about things feeling very late Roman Empire. I haven’t though much about it, as she is massive Robert Graves fan, but, maybe it is a thing?
Until it became a meme I hadn’t exactly been counting every time I thought about the Roman empire, but I’d bet it’s probably once a week or so, only because of my general interest in history and politics. I’ve probably read at least one article a week drawing some nonsensical, ignorant, ahistorical analogy between late Rome and American party politics since I was around 16 years old.
I briefly think about the Roman Empire when I’m playing Fallout New Vegas, as I’m trying to stop Caesar’s Legion.
My one computer game is Rome:Total War and I am a history geek with a bookshelf of Roman history and philosophy. Plus my work has connections, so I think about SPQR a fair amount. But then I also have a library on the Norse culture and another on the history of the SW United States. I don’t draw any wider conclusions about men in general and Rome.
Daddy’s home!
——–nothing follows———
Nice. Enjoy the break.
I go back out Monday, but its an Ohio job. For once.
I hope Elon is shooting at a picture of Zuckerberg.
**HEAVY SIGH**
Just a *picture*? Dream big, man.
The black-pilling of Elon these last 10 years or so has been great to watch. It’s just too bad he helped Amber Heard procreate
That was Grimes/Claire Boucher. Which, to be fair, is just as bad. The man has terrifying taste in women.
Oh no – Amber Heard’s kid is Elon’s too. Came up in the Depp trial.
He’s the only one who can afford to stick it in crazy.
I hope he didn’t damage any quail eggs.
*Golf clap
History is a myth
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may be done raising interest rates, but the real damage to the economy from the highest borrowing costs in two decades may be yet to come.
The Fed is projecting that rates will remain elevated through 2024, dashing investors’ hopes for relief as inflation eases and subjecting the economy to a lengthy stress test over the next year. The fallout is already being felt with falling stock prices and soaring debt costs.
That presents a potentially treacherous backdrop for President Joe Biden as he points to still-healthy growth and a robust job market to make his case for reelection. The economy has been strong enough to handle higher rates, but it’s not designed for them to stay that way for long after a decade and a half of ultra-low borrowing costs.
“Everything was built around cheap money,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now head of the American Action Forum. “Every business in America is now thinking about their financial structure differently, and they should, but those are costly adjustments, and some people will not make it.”
This sea change is already slamming the most interest-rate-sensitive sectors of the economy such as housing and commercial real estate, while debt costs for consumers, businesses and the U.S. government are climbing.
Nobody ever had to deal with interest rates over 1% before. The economy will never survive!
God, I hate economics reporting. I’ve been reading the same recycled shit since the heady days of The Economist (pre-1990s). Replacing journalists of all stripes with AI can’t happen fast enough.
I don’t think replacing natural stupidity with artificial intelligence is going to get us where we need to go.
They’re basically bitching about the highly predictable consequences of devaluing money in a spending spree. “We don’t want consequences for doing stupid, short-sighted things!!!”
Two WHOLE DECADES? Didn’t you read that? The generations that matter now – that’s practically their whole lifetime!!!
Paul Volcker laughs from the great beyond.
No one is happy with the trajectory of modern society, left or right.
The left can’t quite connect this to the rise of the girl boss mythos they’ve created.
At work, I deal with all of our European countries. So let’s see…I work with Ukraine, Kosovo, Serbia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Fun times.
Lazy fuck Zoom reminder. Although Mojeaux, sloper, and I had a ton of laughs just the 3 of us last week, my tummy is feeling better and I may actually drink to excess tonight, so come join the fun. It was the cromulentest of times, it was the cromulentest of times.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87821224358?pwd=eW55MTRDbDNtQkh2aHd3M1Nmenlzdz09
Is that what you kids are doing on Zoom nowadays? Tell me its like late 1990s era Seattle Public Cable Access!
You’d think he could afford optics.
He uses self-targetting rounds.
Self-targeting sentient rounds, if you please.
Elon ain’t no low-rent hollaback boy.
My god that song is heinous. I saw them open up for the B-52’s. (Really.)
YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!
THAT SONG IS LEGENDARY!
Yeah, there are worse songs to have stuck in one’s head for four decades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dfzWXhPQM
YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH, TOXTETH!
Hey, man, there’s chicks here. Settle down.
Pistoffnick is correct, I was once a Prince hater (it wasn’t cool to like him in the metal/rock crowd I ran with) but once I put my prejudices behind me I had to admit that the man was a genius.
I like Prince OK. The tediousness of PR the song I have been mocking since I was young.
I hated Prince for the same reasons. And then I saw this.
Sorry, my html skills have deteriorated the more drunk I get
Not a Price hater, but the lady is correct w.r.t. PR. It’s a dirge.
I don’t care for “How Soon is Now?” either, despite liking the Smiths.
*stands next to Nick, giving Toxteth the side-eye*
(it does go on a bit long)
Somebody had to say it.
Huge fan. Hate that song.
I slow danced with Chris Sn*der to that song. She let me put my hands in her back jeans pockets. You can’t take that away from me!
“Dear Mr. and Mrs. Snqder…”
Frederick deBoer says the quiet part out loud:
***
But in order to afford the kind of social state that we want, taxes have to be raised on people who make $125,000-$275,000. But below $400,000—that’s the sort of space the Democrats have essentially adopted as a no-go zone for raising taxes, for a variety of reasons. But one of the biggest one of those reasons is that’s the base of their donor class.
Those people that I’m talking about are people who are all for justice in an abstract sense. But it’s not enough to ask them to support just causes—they have to pay more into the pile if we’re going to afford what we’re talking about.
I want to squeeze the one percent as much as possible, but as much money as they make, it’s just not enough to make something like Medicare For All happen without tax increases on the upper middle class: People like me. People who are merely affluent and not “rich-rich.”
***
The Marxists had their best shot in decades to take over America and while they made some progress – the wild success of the BLM fraud comes to mind – normal folks largely saw through their shit and aren’t having it.
Your optimism is hilarious. I must have missed that pushback in 2022 or the fact that Biden is cruising to reelection in spite of everyone realizing he’s senile.
I said normal folks aren’t having it.
I didn’t say the Dems won’t cheat their way to another “victory”.
The fortification of 2020, even among people who believed the election was stolen, fades from memory on a daily basis.
It’s hard to really gauge just how many of them there are versus everyone else. I live in a red area so I’m biased. I don’t know of anyone, though, who actually ever liked Biden. Even the anti-Trumper’s. If my mother is saying she may not vote, I can’t buy that Biden is on his way to any easy victory in the next election.
I am not buying that Biden is cruising to reelection either. The Dems are visibly scared shitless. I still think they’re going to shove Gov. Greaseball in there and that will be their cruising to victory. The guy has so obviously been groomed for this his entire life that nobody will question it.
It is sooooooooo fucking rigged. You can’t tell me that Scranton was THE MOST FUCKING POPULAR president in modern history with a straight face. The guy has never worked a day in his life.
Right now they are scare shitless because they thought they had 2020 dead and buried, but like a zombie, it keeps dragging itself up. Partly this is the D’s fault by small time prosecutors going after Trump, but also Kari Lake and Trump et al just won’t shut up about it. Which, frankly, is a good thing. The Dems are, supposedly, the party of the people, and if they are seen by too many people as the party of lying cheats and tyrants, then they can’t keep the illusion of “good governance” around them; to many people see the true face at that point, and it all crumbles. It is a house of cards, and they have been pulling too many from the bottom of the stack to have a solid foundation.
“There will be no tax increases on anyone who makes less than $400k a year! …Well, less than $125k a year…and we get your firstborn son… and whatever else we might want.”
They don’t want JUST the firstborn. If you are doing to be so disgusting and selfish as to reproduce, all your kids are theirs.
Ah FdB, the nicest communist who just finished shopping for a suburban semi-detached and is looking to install a pizza oven on the patio.
In all seriousness, he is guy who can see the problem, but is so blinded by ideology he is kinda useless.
I disagree with him but I have to give him credit for calling it like it is.
The Obamacare supporter who was so happy about it until he found out he had to pay for it. But, but, but – doing good is supposed to be paid for by other people!
More true colors being shown:
***
What do you do when the number of your voters is going down? Why, you make it harder for the voters of the opposing party to vote. What do you think the panic in the Republican Party over immigration is about? They know immigrants coming over the Southern border aren’t taking jobs from American citizens. They know immigrants don’t commit more violent crime than American citizens – in fact, it’s the opposite. What scares Republicans is that the immigrants who crossed the border yesterday fleeing oppression and poverty and seeking asylum and opportunity will become voters not tomorrow, but soon enough. And they will remember who was on their side as they struggled to better their lives and eventually become citizens.
***
damn, I keep forgetting how to do html tags
take 2, action!
The left openly states exactly how they go about what they’re doing and then on CNN the next day, they say you’re crazy for believing it.
Tomorrow, this same guy will probably spew forth an article on how crazy white supremacists are for talking about replacement theory.
I hadn’t seen a good demographic destiny rant from the left in a while because someone woke up and realized it was shitty optics to say it aloud. This guy didn’t get the memo.
Pure sociopathy. Remember, they openly advocated for slavery for all, not just the blacks, back in their beginnings. It took them a little while to figure out that didn’t sell well. Sociopaths cannot tell ahead of time how people are going to react to any given idea. They have to throw it out and watch carefully how people behave towards it. Then they try to sugar coat it a bit and try again. Eventually the square peg gets it’s corners whittled down.
A human being has empathy, can imagine how other people feel and tailor their message to that ahead of time.
“But not Cubans or Venezuelans — they will vote the wrong way because they don’t love socialism enough!”
From Derpy’s link:
In the mid-2000s and 2010s, I was vocal that there was a lot happening on campus that looked really illiberal and unhealthy. And I’m an academic. That’s where I grew up—on a college campus. I spent most of my life [studying and teaching] on college campuses. I care about this kind of space intrinsically, I don’t need for it to be a symbol of everything that’s happening in society.
So I would document all these examples. Oberlin students tried to get professors fired because of their political opinions. Amherst students tried to get their peers formally disciplined by the university for criticizing them. At Wesleyan, a student wrote an op-ed that supported the Black Lives Matter movement in its goals but criticized its strategy. And the response from the students was so violently angry that they attempted to get the 100-year-old-plus campus newspaper shut down.
Well, here’s the thing. Those people go on to become the ruling class of this country.
Kids who go to elite colleges, exclusive colleges, and competitive colleges are going to go on to staff the nonprofits that pressure politicians and write position papers and help direct the policy conversation. They’re going to become members of the elite media. If you look at the biggest newspapers and magazines, there’s an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of people who went to elite colleges in their ranks. These people are gonna stay in academia as professors. They go into government as experts at various departments. They graduate out and staff all of our institutions.
These illiberal rabidly doctrinaire imbeciles will inherit the earth.
Splendid.
The Long March Through the Institutions continues:
***
The long march through the institutions (German: der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen) is a slogan coined by socialist student activist Rudi Dutschke around 1967 to describe his strategy for establishing the conditions for revolution: subverting capitalist domination of society by entering institutions such as the professions.[1] The phrase “long march” is a reference to the prolonged struggle of the Chinese communists, which included a physical Long March of their army across China.[2]
***
And they’re now “enjoying” the consequences of their Long March.
Fuck ’em. My only regret is they’re taking a lot of ordinary folks, who wanted — and benefit from — none of this, down with ’em.
Well, that’s what walls are for.
Hiya Spud.
Perfect musical selection.
I’m proud of us Glibs, we were talking Stoicism long before this Roman Empire trend.
I always enjoy a good Prince song. Thanks!
I did not know Prince was involved with that abortion.
No wonder he used a pseudonym.
“Wyoming Ranchers Accused Of Bleaching Penis Shapes Onto Neighbor’s Cows”
Maybe it was meant as an insult to the brand inspector.
It never gets old- the Flathead County crime update!
3:30 a.m. A man carrying nunchucks was doing laps around a parking lot.
“A man was picking plums from someone else’s tree.”
That’s how you do euphemisms.
Euphemisms
Grant Parish sheriff’s blotter;
*Ring ring* – Yes, Mr. Suthenboy, how are you doing this morning?
Me – I am fine Brenda, how are you this morning?
Brenda – I’m fine except I am afraid my dog is getting pretty old. I dont know if I should have him put down or not.
What is your trouble this morning?
Me – I was on the porch drinking coffee just as the sun was coming up and a calf surprised me. It ran by me before I could put my coffee down and catch it.
Brenda – Oh….I know who that belongs to. That is Mr. Robinson’s calf. I will call him and send him over.
Me – Thank you Brenda. Tell him it is no hurry.
*Click*
Ten minutes later Robinson showed up, I showed him the tracks and he and his son went off. They were back in five minutes with calf in tow.
I guess I live in a town just about like Kalispell. I like things that way.
@ Rhywun: OK, once only post: congratulations.
I’ve been moderately miserable all day since I checked the score when I woke up this morning.
The fuck? The schedule site said it was on tonight. I clearly wrote down 12:24 tonight after midnight because that is what it said.
Oh well.
Huh. Yeah my phone was telling me the same yesterday.
I’ve been so busy with a move and then back to work this week that I didn’t follow any of the finals and maybe I misread the schedule.
You’re a Brisbane supporter IIRC?
Sorry 😀
No, Carlton. When I was younger, Carlton/Collingwood was like Red Sox/Yankees, Michigan/Ohio state etc.
My two goals at the start of any season are (I) go Carlton and (b) ABC – anyone but Collingwood
The news comes as Paris gets ready to host the 2024 Olympics Games, but officials say they are not worried.
“There is no threat to the Olympic Games,” Gregoire said.
“Bedbugs existed before and they will exist afterward,” he added, saying the games were an “opportunity” for everybody to work together on the issue.
Oh boy.
So far I have yet to find a reason to visit Paris, and plenty of reasons to avoid it.
I flew through Charles de Gaul once. I’d rather not do that again.
Paris can be charming – and it can be a complete shithole at the same time. And I say that after living in NYC for 25 years.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged, for starters.
I haven’t been in 25 years, but even then, c’était vrai ce que tu dis. 👍
Pauvre petit! in which arrondissement was that?
Steps from the Eiffel Tower. At night, and I had taken a shortcut outside the street lamps.
Oh, I hope you weren’t blessé.
Paris is lovely.
Eh, Haussmanized. The Marais, maybe.
Haven’t spent much time there, but everyone was always polite to me.
“Preserved in aspic”, some 20C travel writer called it.
That was my reaction to Venice.
“Disney-esque”
Florence felt like a city people actually lived and worked in.
No there there in Venice. Florence was my fave Italian city too.
My wife went on a running tour and said more far flung bits looked more interesting, but I’m in no rush to return.
Which came first? Venice or Disney?
That’s funny, I think I also liked Florence the best, at least it of actual cities. I liked the countryside/small towns more.
Okay, well, it might have been 1988, but I loved Paris and I want to go back. Y’all can take your noses down out of the air now.
Mine was 1986 lol.
Did I mention that dudes in cars kept propositioning me – and so did my mugger?
Maybe it was something in the air that winter. I could have had more strange in that three days than in the following ten years in the U.S.
Like any city, there are lovely parts, and there are shit holes.
France is a beautiful country. IMNSHO, stay out of Paris and Marseilles. Normandy, the Mediterranean coast, lovely country, nice people. Spend some time in Provence, with it’s easy transition from the seashore to the mountains.
I’m wary about almost all cities these days.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/725992.Eloise_in_Paris
Merci beaucoup and charge it please–
Don’t need to have poor hygiene to contract bedbugs, but it helps.
CNN headline
Pentagon determines Ukraine training and support exempt from potential government shutdown
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/21/politics/ukraine-training-support-pentagon-shutdown/index.html
How convenient.
JFC what a transparent fucking scam.
Are you paying attention, the American voter?
Well ain’t that just dandy?
Relate this to the news I posted yesterday where they aren’t going to air football on AFN. Only one channel and it will be “news.”
WTF? I just got 3 emails from Amazon that look very realistic claiming I ordered “gift cards”. I’m usually pretty good at identifying these scams but shit these look realistic.
Did you order Amazon gift cards when you were drunk?
Hey, Trilogy of Terror is on. The final story just started. It’s on Svengoolie.
I don’t get MeTV for some reason. 🫤
That’s sad.
It makes no sense. It’s there, meaning there is an affiliate attached to one of the local channels in this region, but they want me to pay extra for it. I get Cozi, Antenna, etc. – all the other ones that are available here.
No mawr Toony?? Denied?!
Get an OTA antenna?
It’s not even Amazon. It’s three other brands. And no, I have not been that drunk in the last decade at least.
Ah, Amazan, Omazon, and Amozan? They’re reputable outfits.
No. Hotels.com, Google Play, and Mastercard.
Does Amazon even sell gift cards for them? I doubt it.
Just checked all my accounts and no unusual payments.
Same thing happened to me.
I had ordered something from Amazon tonight, so I went back and checked my orders and found no Mastercard or Hotels.com gift card purchases.
I just figured the scams are getting slightly more sophisticated.
“Dear customer:
We regret to inform you that your shipment of
Passion Lubes, Natural Water-Based Lubricant, 55 Gallon Drum/7040 Fl Oz
Has not been shipped due to bad information. Please click the link and correct your payment and home address and Social Security number. If you did nor order this, click the link, enter all required information, and then click Decline.”
https://a.co/d/hhvWIj2
Obviously bogus. A friend tells that only comes in 20 gal. drums.
I only know about such things due to Glibs:
https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Lubes-Natural-Water-Based-Lubricant/dp/B005MR3IVO/
That is one of the funniest things I have ever read.
Todays the day.
https://ibb.co/yy3vt2N
New Puppy?
Yep. 8 week old. Just came home this afternoon.
Cute.
Be careful, they get big fast.
Congrats! I remember your frustration in finding one.
Thank you! Yes, took a while. Ended up being from someone we wrote off and not what we were looking for.
Adorbs.
Degreased the air fryer.
That was fun /sarc
I swear that thing has more internal surface area than an open rectangular prism of its size has any right to.
What tools/cleaners did you use?
I printed out two scrapers on the filament 3D printer for anything that looked like it needed scraping.
I couldn’t find any of the recommended degreasers, so I got Easy-Off, which has a warning against using it on aluminum, so I moved the aluminum pans to the sink. I used the easy-off only on the fixed surfaces, and applied paper towels to mop it all up.
In the sink, I applied Dawn and Comet along with elbow grease and a blue scrub sponge under hot water until I got as much of that off the aluminum pans and steel grills as I could.
The steel grills are soaking now because they have nooks and crannies that didn’t yield their crud the first time around.
You are very thorough!
“Anal” is the word I was thinking of, but “thorough” works, too.
You don’t set out to get something clean when you set out to clean it?
There’s “clean” and then there’s you apparently trying to refurbish it back to as-new condition.
There’s “shoddy job” and then there’s “Mojeaux’s Mom clean,” and UCS apparently is channeling my mother.
Good job.
In between “shoddy” and “Mo’s Mom” is “clean”. As in, will not make you sick or impart off flavors into your food.
Heh. So my first job was as a Shoney’s salad bar attendant. I was told to clean the aluminum slats that held the containers of food. So I set to work. A half hour later, my manager comes over to me and says, “Done yet?” Mind you, I’m 16, it’s 2 a.m. and we all want to go home. I said, “No, it’s going very slowly.” He saw what I was doing and laughed. “No you don’t have to clean all that baked-on grease off or make them sparkle, you just have to wipe them down and get the latrst film of grease off.”
I don’t think I had ever been so scandalized up to that point in my life.
When I played paintball I was notorious for being the guy who would ritualistically tear down his gun after a day of play and ensure not a speck of paint, shell, dirt or grime was anywhere inside or out. Sometimes I’d end up spending 2 hours and half a box of cotton swabs. When I do tech work for other people I can’t usually afford to be that thorough, and it really, really bugs me leaving things any less clean than I would make them for myself.
That having been said, I have a conventional deep fryer, and there is quite simply no getting the grease off of it. I long ago gave up trying. I only use it once a year or so now anyway.
You were a unit armorer in charge of weapons turn-in in a previous life, right?
I couldn’t get some of the stains off the aluminum. It seems to happen with all my aluminum cookware that I can never get it back to the shininess it originally had.
Not even with Barkeeper’s?
I don’t believe I’ve tried that yet.
I’ve had good results with a baking soda paste followed by a spritz of vinegar and a microfiber polishing cloth, but that’s with stainless, not aluminum.
Found a great documentary called Empire of Dust about Chinese construction projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the 6:54 mark of the video linked below, the Chinese foreman, while complaining about lack of discipline, says “Our country is more advanced, so our social position is higher.”
Multiculturalism in practice is not as pretty as it’s often portrayed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFWLmRYQVvA
I suspect the attitude of a typical Congolese worker there is something like: first the Belgians came and ripped us off, then our own leaders after we got independence, and now we get a chance to rip off some foreigners. Why not? We’re poorer than they are.
Still, China has a pretty good reputation in Africa. They come, build something useful like a stadium or a railroad, and then they leave. Everyone can see what they left behind. Of course, in exchange for that the Chinese expect things like mining rights.
The chinese are rapidly losing whatever goodwill they had in East Africa. The locals are getting sick of their shit.
The US has a firm lead in pissing off locals over there, at least based on this:
***
The United States Embassy in Ghana has defied Ghanaian legislations that frown on the promotion of Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual, Transgender Queer (LGBTQ++) activities in the country by hoisting a pride flag on its premises.
The defiant action is prompted by the heated debate over legislation in the Ghanaian parliament seeking to criminalise the promotion of LGBTQ activities in the country.
It is unclear if the US Embassy and its Ambassador Stephanie Sullivan had received any clearance from Washington DC before hoisting the flag in an act that is designed to offend the sensitivities of the highly conservative Ghanaian society where the majority is against the open promotion of LGBTQ activities.
In 2019, the US State Department rejected all embassy requests to hoist rainbow flags outside the mission buildings during LGBTQ Pride Month.
However, some U.S. diplomats across the world clandestinely defied the State Department and hoisted Pride flags in Seoul, Channai India, New Delhi, Santiago, Chile, Vienna Embassy, etc.
***
And here is the twit ambassador herself in local garb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVdpd4jkyG8
I’m not a mind reader, but I suspect the average Ghanaian who saw that was thinking: she wears our clothes and speaks her language to tell us how our culture sucks? Do Americans hire shitty diplomats on purpose or are they just retarded as all fuck?
At least she did Peace Corps in Zaire back in the day. Wikipedia says she speaks French, Spanish, and Lingala.
Clandestinely? Would be pretty obvious once it was done. I doubt anyone was disciplined for those deliberate acts of insubordination.
You know where they didn’t hoist those flags?
The Middle East. Can anyone guess why?
These little shits are real brave when they aren’t scared of facing actual repercussions.
Kevin Smith was asked if he would make a movie about Islam to go with Dogma and I guess he had parts of it written, but after 911 he was asked again and he said no because he didn’t want to have to fear for his and his family’s safety.
Book of Mormon the Musical. What does the church do? Put up billboards going along with the joke. “You’ve seen the play, now read the book!”
Why is there no Koran the Musical?
As I typed that put, I had a thought, though. Not “Why are they such sticks in the mud?” I now ask myself, “Why aren’t the other religions as serious about their beliefs?” Is that even a valid question? I don’t know. It’s late, I’m tired, I’m pissy about wokeness (doing an ebook project with woke before woke was cool), and not entirely sure what point I’m trying to make
Islam is the only religion that was founded with expansion at all costs built into it.
I’m a cynic. Muhammad was a guy who had experience with Christianity and Judaism, and built off both. Only, he was coming from a tribal culture where low level warfare was a constant aspect of life. I think Islam was his answer to uniting his people, and as soon as that happened that energy had to be directed outwards (this happens time and time again when nomadic tribal cultures are united). I believe this was very intentional, though I could never prove such a thing.
Basically, the only way to keep early Arabs united was to direct their violent tendences outward.
The guy was a visionary and I’m guessing a hell of a conman/leader.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
To give direct evidence of that, Muhammad purposefully asked the heads of 4 clans to each take the corner of a rug while moving the sacred stone in the Kaaba. It was straight out of Genghis Khan’s playbook, and I don’t think either of them was much more of monster than Napoleon or Alexander the Great.
***
According to Islamic belief Muhammad is credited with setting the Black Stone in the current place in the wall of the Kaaba. A story found in Ibn Ishaq’s Sirah Rasul Allah tells how the clans of Mecca renovated the Kaaba following a major fire which had partly destroyed the structure. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed to facilitate the rebuilding work. The clans could not agree on which one of them should have the honour of setting the Black Stone back in its place.[38][39]
They decided to wait for the next man to come through the gate and ask him to make the decision. That person was 35-year-old Muhammad, five years before his prophethood. He asked the elders of the clans to bring him a cloth and put the Black Stone in its centre. Each of the clan leaders held the corners of the cloth and carried the Black Stone to the right spot. Then, Muhammad set the stone in place, satisfying the honour of all of the clans.[38][39] After his Conquest of Mecca in 630, Muhammad is said to have ridden round the Kaaba seven times on his camel, touching the Black Stone with his stick in a gesture of reverence.[40]
***
In Afghanistan, the pre-Islamic code of Pashtunwali still holds sway. One of its principles is badal (revenge). The others are courage, hospitality to strangers, and mercy to a defeated foe.
*recalls The Beast*
I’m not convinced that “willing/inclined to inflict violence upon those who criticize/question/poke fun at their religion” necessarily means “serious about their beliefs.”
Not wrong. I just got to thinking and people who philosophize at midnight in the dark aren’t necessarily the wisest people ever.
When your faith includes and admonition towards forgiving wrongs done to you, going head-chopping at the slightest provocation just doesn’t have the same degree of piety to it.
It’s down to the tenets of the faith and how the faithful interpret them.
I’ve watched a few bits of that, haven’t had time for the whole thing.
I know it’s the source of a meme:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-all-so-tiresome
Tolkien – great story teller and great writer.
George RR Martin – good story teller and mediocre at best writer
https://wordcounter.net/blog/2017/12/04/103207_the-daily-word-counts-of-19-famous-writers.html
There’s an interesting range among daily word counts of famous writers. 1,000 words per day is typical. Crichton wrote 10,000 a day. Twain preferred 1,400 or so. Most wrote for 6 hours or less per day. Stephen King has problem written more than any other English-speaking author and he sticks with 2,000 words per day. On the low end, we have Hemingway with 500 words per day and Wolfe with 135 words per day.
Martin said he wrote the first 100 pages of Game of Thrones in a summer. We’ll call that 100 days. 293k words in 694 pages works out to 422 words per page or 42,200 words for the first 100 pages. So Martin was writing about 400 words per day at the time. He writes as fast as Hemingway but lacks the latter’s gift for brevity.
problem —> probably
Proofreading is my kryptonite.
Depending on level of inspiration, I can get anywhere from 100 to 10,000+ words per day.
I appear to have lost the spreadsheet that had my output for Beyond the Edge of the Map, so I can’t cite my peak wordcount.
My record so far is 7,000 words in 24 hours. I wrote my autobiography in 4 days in 2022. That was about 5,000 words a day for that period.
If I ever do better than that, great. I’d like to make money from writing, and I think I can. The other day, after some thought, I decided that I’d keep writing even if I never made a penny from it. It’s simply enjoyable for me.
I write because I can’t not write.
I just wish I could finish more of what I start.
Hemingway chose every word he put on paper carefully. He wrote slow because he was deliberate. His writing is built on subtext.
Martin writes at like a 5th grade reading level.
The numbers check out. The Flesch Reading Ease score for his work is 87, which is in the “Easy” category. Academic papers are usually in the 30 to 50 range. Very technical subjects are less than 30.
In the same way that Mojeaux describes the difference between story tellers and writers below, there is a difference between a teacher and a person who just lays out the facts.
The essence of teaching is to take a concept the student understands and make analogies from that concept to the concept that the student does not understand. If your analogy is good the student will experience that pleasurable “Ah hah!’ moment. Sometimes that happens right away and sometimes it has to steep in their brain for a while before it sneaks up on them.
Much to my annoyance I have noticed that lots of yootoob videos are narrated by AI. I can spot them almost instantly. Their language is bereft of the genuine emotion and experience that having a body and living in the world with that body imparts. For instance I recently saw a video of a moose fighting off a bear attack. It seems the peckish bear had bitten off more than it could chew, so to speak. My description of a moose would include how large they are, what it feels like to stand next to such a beast. How small it makes you feel. I would liken it to the elephant of NA. I would describe the unique odor that only members of the deer family have, a smell that permeates their milk, skin, breath and manure. The deep whoosh of it’s breath and how large the steamy clouds it exhales are. I would include the vibrations in the ground you feel when it stomps its massive hooves. The breadth of it’s giant antlers and their palm-like pattern.
The AI narrating the video merely said “A moose is a large horned forest creature that battles bears.” The AI has no experience with having a body and living in the world and the emotions such experiences give rise to. It will never feel wind blow through it’s hair, never feel it’s breath taken away by that feeling in your gut when being confronted with danger and awe.
I liken their thinking to crystalline structures that no matter how complex will always break along those structural lines, where human thinking is more of a super cooled liquid breaking in random non-patterns.
Good God, I must need more sleep. What a rambling mess I just spat out.
Where do I land on the Flesch Reading Ease score?
I am guessing it is like pistol shooting. You have good days and bad days and it is nearly impossible to sort out the variables that cause that.
Great teachers also have “it”.
No, I don’t know what “it” is…. but I know it when I see it. My geometry teacher had “it”. The whole year, she never once told anyone to be quiet, yet everyone was quiet. She never had to even mildly rebuke anyone. Everyone bought in, paid attention, did the work, tried their best… and I never saw her lift a finger to make it happen.
The same core group of students had our favorite teacher for biology the very next period. She was a wonderful lady and we all loved her. And we were a bunch of wild animals for her class.
No clue what the geometry teacher was doing. But she had “it”.
Might have been a witch….
I published (not wrote, published) 1,959,000 words in 12 years. That’s a little better than 3 pulp novels a year (generally pulp == 50,000 words). My unused snippets files per book are bigger than some pulps.
But I don’t count my words per day. I’m not a production-line writer (I don’t have the skillset or the patience) and I don’t have anything to prove, so when I don’t feel like writing or I have nothing to say, I don’t say anything.
If there is a day you can’t do better than 135 words, that’s fine. If you’re the kind that has to have that discipline, that is also fine.
The only real question for a fiction writer is, can you write a good story? Lots of good storytellers aren’t very good writers, and lots of good writers aren’t very good storytellers. I can turn a good storyteller into a better writer. I cannot turn a good writer into a good storyteller.
Can you identify bad storytellers who are good at adhering to the social orthodoxy of the day? Because a job in management at Disney might be right up your alley……
A good storyteller can commit many writing sins without being called out.
I just saw Sam Harris on Bill Maher’s show. I had never heard him before. What is the big deal about this guy? He seems like an intellectual in love with his own thoughts and unable to respond to contrary evidence.
Progressives are intellectually bankrupt and seek out people who will comfort them. The smarmier and more self-sure they are, the better.
There are precious few on the left remaining who can engage in debate. It’s all about spouting off the right words as if they are magical incantations that protect one from wrong think.
It appears that intellectual bankruptcy goes hand in hand with moral bankruptcy.
As Derp points out below, Afflect, in addition to being an intellectual giant, is a paragon of morality and respect.
I liked his first book, The End of Faith, though there weren’t any surprises in it. It was nice to see him criticize Islam years ago on the same show despite the denunciations of that great public intellectual Ben Affleck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60
And just like that Derp gives me my first laugh of the day. Kudos for you, good Sir.
That conversation with Ben Affleck was amazingly familiar from my personal life. Arguing with the memes in his head instead of what was being said.
“He seems like an intellectual in love with his own thoughts…”
There is a good reason for your impression of him.
An update on my conjecture which whiz proved some time ago:
There are composite numbers which when squared and have 5^2 subtracted from them give a result that is divisible by 24. I don’t know what the smallest of such numbers is, but 10,006,723 is one of them. However, if you do the above, take the square root, and the result is not an integer, that number is definitely not prime.
10,006,721 is prime and if we find (10,006,723^2 – 10,006,721^2)/24, we get an integer, 1,667,787.
Still, the square of any prime number p which is 5 or greater can be written in the form of p^2 = 5^2 + n*24, where n is an integer. That still counts for something.
Good morning all!
Since Ghostpatzer was not familiar with Laurie anderson prior to yesterday’s music links, here are two pieces from her first album, Big Science.
First, her ‘breakthrough hit’, O Superman.
Then the title piece, Big Science
As I said yesterday, not to everyone’s taste, but so it goes.
The New York arts scene. I prefer the no-wave movement, but I am often known for liking the, how you say, difficult music.
But, to go with yours, John Zorn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJz1Xiejzlw&t=1868s
Good morning, crazy people.
Got home from my bestie’s hotel about an hour ago (2 am pacific). We’d worked Saturday so needed a break. Went to dinner at 8:30 after work, then to the hotel.
He was tired but I “kept him up” a while—such torture!! Finally we both napped a few hours, and now I’m back at my apartment with a furry four legged basketball lying on top of me. She’s cute though—I’ll give her that.
Later this morning I’ll do laundry and housework, watch some football and chillax.
Then the bestie and I will go back to work so that I can swap out the JFETs on the prototype trigger board I wire wrapped.
Nerd love is good love. ❤️
I am very happy for you. If anyone deserves it, you do. All love is good love sweetheart. Get as much as you can. It is kind of in short supply in this world.
Amen, brother!
(best if read in Hulk Hogan voice)
http://beckett-www.s3.amazonaws.com/news/news-content/uploads/2017/03/Hulk-Hogan-Tearing-Shirt.jpg
Good morning Glbs!
🌞🍳
I’ve linked up two from this band recently.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rVxTsXRjNTw
🎶🎶
Yes, that is who you think she is.
I feel like that short story may have been more of a metaphor for some larger topic.
rhywun on September 30, 2023 at 6:16 pm
“The left openly states exactly how they go about what they’re doing and then on CNN the next day, they say you’re crazy for believing it.”
Someone should write a virus that modifies every web browser to insert this quote at the top of every web page at every news site.
I first noticed this in the 90’s when Newt was up against Clinton. Clinton told the press he was going to shut down the government and blame Gingrich and the republicans. Tom Brokaw told me so. So did Sam Donaldson.
2 weeks later, he shut the government down. He made a rose garden speech blaming the republicans and Newt. Every one of those news outlets told me that Gingrich and the republicans shut down the government. All of the talking heads on Crossfire, etc. told me that this was true.
It would be one thing if they kept the conspiracy part secret…. but telling you the conspiracy before they carry it out, then calling you crazy for mentioning the conspiracy? That takes a pair.
And it was during the shutdown that Monica got Clinton’s DNA on her infamous blue dress.
He must have been laughing at the way he was giving the country the middle finger.