My return to the US this week was fraught with non-adventure. If you think OUR airport security theater is bad, you ain’t seen some of the foreign ones. At Istanbul, flying back to Toronto, after the main passport control and x ray/metal detector security screening, including photography and image recognition, the gate had its own security screening- within about ten feet, we had to go through three more passport and boarding pass checks, manual patdown, and manual ripping apart of carry-ons. I felt much safer, and after all, it’s how you feel that’s important, right?
Mercifully, the crossing back into the US from Canada was moderately painless, though the superannuated guard in the booth demanded to know the population of my town of residence, a rather odd security question.
Birthdays today include a guy who may have invented the chemistry set; a guy who was hot, hot, hot; a guy who was no sadist; some uggo chick with a tiara; a guy who was nothing great but sure better than his predecessor; Matt Gaetz’s spirit animal; a guy who stuck Detroit in the toilet and made the first flush; a woman who fit perfectly into the Chicago mayoral tradition; my personal hero; and a guy with the distinction that every cover of his songs was better than the original.
Nothing is better than Original Links, however.
I predicted that the shooter would be Luigi-fied. That did not take long. The Left is truly horrible.
Kick that school in the purse. Insert Bobby Hill joke here.
When is an agency not an agency?
“…and next, I’m creating MY new OnlyFans page.”
And in related news, this is fucking hilarious.
My solution: have the embassy offer abortions.
Politicians know better than businesses how a business should be run. Because they’re politicians.
The Old Guy went two weeks without American music. So of course, that’s the theme here. And in case anyone forgot how great the Tonight Show band once was… anyway, Clark Terry does two songs, and I need say no more.
Mea culpa, I accidently set the time to PM instead of AM.
Thank you, Links Fairy! 😁
Ahem, I am 100% straight.
Thank you Links Ferry
If he eats the candy waiting for the kids in the back of the van — is he a hyper transport layer?
If he eats the candy then he would be a fat old man without candy.
What’s a little jet lag between friends?
Damn, you weren’t content with just the weather, you need to control time itself now?
,blockquote>demanded to know the population of my town of residenceWho knows that?
I suspect if pressed I might within one thousand… but yes, that’s a very odd question to expect an accurate answer to unless you’re talking to the city comptroller or something.
I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Do you mean my town? Or Greater Boston? Or the Boston Metropolitan Area? You see, when people say ‘Boston’ they’re usually not thinking about, say, Dorchester, which is part of Boston but they are thinking about Cambridge, which isn’t. And then you’ve got the distinction between Boston Proper and Greater Boston…”
“Sir, please drive through. Please.”
Fuuuu…. The comma/left angle bracket key now gives betwee 0 and 3 keystrokes per press. I wager it’s another bad solder join.
I’m going to have to open this keyboard AGAIN!
Do not ever buy Keychron,, their quality is CRAP
Admit defeat. Move on.
I have not yet begun to be stubborn.
I can reflow all of the key socket solder joins and add my own solder. Then it will hold.
With the Y key also misbehaving now, I’m going from joking about resolding all the sockets to “That is probably the best idea.
You have a gun now. Shoot that keyboard and get a new one.
I fix things.
Your “Solution” isn’t fixing.
UCS is the worst Motie Engineer ever.
Not sure if I have ever told this story here, but when I was 11, back in ’82, my father was giving a paper at the IHC, which was in Hamburg that year. Anyway, flying into Germany, I was in line for passport control with my parents, and as part of the whole process, I was taken into a little cubicle, with my mother as I was a child, with two men. One wanded me and then patted my down, the other, from about a foot away, kept an H&K MP5 pointed at me, finger on the trigger. Which, to a little boy fascinated with guns was the most interesting thing.
Much more drama to fly into West Germany at that point then to get through Northern Ireland.
That’s not good trigger discipline.
That kid might go ninja and kill both of them!
It’s HK, probably a 10lb+ trigger pull.
Who doesn’t need a sub machine gun to handle an 11-year-old?
That is nuts.
I don’t remember any drama getting into West Germany in ’85.
Entering East Germany was a bit more interesting.
You were saying? (I know, I know.. not precisely related — but that one really got my blood boiling this morning and I wanted to share
the pain…)The only excuse I could justify forcing Apple back on-shore is for security in communications (i.e. the backdoor chips would be the NSA’s backdoor chips, dangnabbit!). Since there are competitors anyway and I don’t think the military solely relies on iPhones for communications… that doesn’t really apply. I’d prefer more on-shore stuff, sure… but unlike steel, shipfitting and domestic chip production for military lines — I don’t think this is really a national security concern (yeah yeah… if they’re on shore it is easier to have fabs economically for the milspec stuff, I know… but too far in that direction and you end up in planned economy space and I’m not that kind of a loon.)
JFC! Please do this and watch all the hotels close. I will LMFAO at the stupid commies.
As for Apple… I wonder, where are the demands for Samsung or Google et al. to double or triple the price of their phones?
Trump did address that too. He included Samsung, and others. I saw the clip.
Oh, OK.
You know, his commie noises lately are getting rather tiresome.
It’s fun watching LA destroy itself. Every Olympic visitor will get to experience it in person.
Trump is a mercantilist. Ergo, he is an economic idiot. I’m already tired of him.
Yeah, the whole Palestine thing is totally not about Jew hate.
Totally.
It’s also about promoting Maoism.
If it was on the west coast, I would have the embassy park a food truck outside. That seems to be the only thing that works out here.
Silicone Saturday returns with a vengeance!
https://archive.is/i9kpg
One and done.
Security checks: One time back in the early ’80s? the border patrol had set up a road check going out of the keys.
After handing over my license he asked in a serious tone “Are you a US citizen?”
“No dude. I got this accent growing up in….Tibet. Or maybe it was Mongolia, I can never keep those two straight.” I answered in a serious tone.
He gave me a dirty look, handed my license back and told me to fuck off.
The last one I went through (BP on the highway, 2023, maybe early 2024?), my only response was “Is this where I get my credit card and free plane ticket?”. He probably should have told me to fuck off, but he laughed and waved me on.
Back pre-9/11, I had a one day training in Chicago. The company I worked for decided to fly me there and back the same day (it’s about an hour flight). This was the late 90’s, I was a long haired guy who was wearing a black trenchcoat, since I was going there and back the same day, I didn’t have any luggage. I get up to check in to the flight and start getting the three questions:
1) Did you pack your bags yourself?
-“I don’t have any bags.”
2) Were your bags in your possession the entire time?
-“I still don’t have any bags.”
3) Did anyone give you anything to put into your bags?
-“Yes. Someone gave me a clock to put into my non-existent bags, which still don’t exist.”
I was admonished not to joke about such things, I stated that I wasn’t joking, I don’t have any bags. This did not go over well.
“Four weeks before graduation, Wright attended her school’s prom — held at an off-campus venue — where she was allowed to bring a guest who didn’t attend the school, but was threatened with expulsion after the dance.
Wright chose to bring a transgender male friend of hers to prom and received the required parental signature from her mother….
Wright and her date attended the dance without any problems, but she was sitting in the principal’s office two weeks later….
“I was asked, ‘Is there anything we should know about the guest you brought to prom?’ And I knew exactly what they were talking about, so I said, ‘Yes, he’s transgender,’” Wright told the outlet.”
https://nypost.com/2025/05/24/us-news/georgia-high-school-senior-emily-wright-withdraws-from-north-cobb-christian-school-over-transgender-prom-date/
I’m guessing the “transgender male friend” is actually female. So besides bad journalism, isn’t girls dancing with each other socially acceptable?
I’d say girls dancing with girls, or girls pretending to be boys, or anyone else is socially acceptable. Just don’t try and force me to call her a him.
I honestly don’t get the big deal about pronouns either way.
I don’t like people expecting me to repeat their lies for them, Tater.
“Transgender female” is a new one. Female and male were used as objective biological terms, with man and woman used for the presenting as/subjective/gender terms.
Intended solely to further obfuscate, confuse, and ultimately demoralize, as with the rest of the tranny nonsense.
I honestly don’t get the big deal about pronouns either way.
For me, it’s not about pronouns per se. It’s about demanding, and being willing to use force to accomplish that demand, that I recognize your delusion – the words themselves are just sounds. It’s the demand that I accede to and participate in the lie. To me that’s largely what’s behind the push for pronouns – for many people it’s just narcissism and virtue signaling, but the underlying drive is the lie and making people participate in it. And, to the best of my ability, I will not do that because I firmly believe that that way lies tyranny.
One little cut is no big deal. A thousand or a million piled on top of each other, each demanding the denial of your mind and living the lie (TIMMAH!) destroys a functioning society and I don’t want to see the world they plan to substitute for that dismantled society come to fruition.
“I don’t like people expecting me to repeat their lies for them”
I never got that argument how it’s lying.
“Intended solely to further obfuscate, confuse, and ultimately demoralize”
That’s complete nonsense. It’s way more confusing in casual conversation to use the pronoun opposite the way someone presents. Going as far back as the Ben Shapiro/Blaire White “debate”, even Ben admitted that if he was trying to point her out from across a room he would say “she”.
“For me, it’s not about pronouns per se. It’s about demanding, and being willing to use force to accomplish that demand…”
ISTR that was the position that got Jordan Peterson called onto the carpet – he’d use preferred pronouns to be polite, but not under threat of punishment.
“It’s about demanding, and being willing to use force to accomplish that demand, that I recognize your delusion”
I’m against demanding, and certainly against use of force. That’s all far leftist stuff. Extremely few of those people are trans, and extremely few trans people are activists.
Not sure what the “delusion” is. That they present as the opposite gender is objectively observable. Just like their biological sex can be objectively determined.
It’s lying because its repeating a falsehood.
“It’s way more confusing in casual conversation to use the pronoun opposite the way someone presents.”
We had an employee who went the whole “use my declared pronouns” route. Everybody immediately began referring to her by her name when you would ordinarily use a pronoun, usually after a few stumbling attempts at using the “required” pronouns. And these were all good bubble residents, who would have loved the virtue-signaling karma points of pronouning. But it just didn’t fucking work.
The big deal is the demand, and I think you do get that. Back before it became a demand I used the pronouns matching the person’s appearance without a second thought. But if you arrogate to yourself the right to demand I conform to your whim I will resist.
I never got that argument how it’s lying.
Please stop, it hurts my eyes to roll this hard. You cannot change your sex, and requiring others to affirm something untrue by using a pronoun converts a pronoun from a verbal act without truth content to an affirmation of an untruth. Which is to say, a lie.
Blair White puts a lot more effort into the act than most.
Anyway, when it comes to pronouns, your pronoun is “you”.
What I call someone behind their back is none of their goddamn business.
I never got that argument how it’s lying.
It’s a lie because he/she *represent* biological human males and females respectively in the English language. Requiring that I assign a male designation to a female and vice versa is a lie. Language is arbitrary in the sense of definitions and sounds, but the underlying reality they represent is *not*. And by demanding that use language in such a way so as to deny the underlying reality is the most fundamental of lies.
Ben admitted that if he was trying to point her out from across a room he would say “she”.
There’s a vast difference between being unable to determine male vs female in a casual encounter and whether acting in a given way is appropriate for a given social situation and demanding that we distort the language as a representation of reality – that is what the pronoun battle is about, not being polite in some social situation to any particular mentally ill person.
A subjective belief (of sufficient scope/intensity) that is at odds with objective reality is a delusion. The fact that this belief is objectively observable doesn’t change that it is at odds with objective reality.
Now, if you choose to go along with it, that’s fine. And I have done so myself on one or two occasions, when the person in question was obviously committed, in good faith, etc.
But since the tranny thing became an aggressive, anti-female movement, well, actions beget equal and opposite reactions.
“It’s lying because its repeating a falsehood.”
Tautology. What exactly is the falsehood?
“But it just didn’t fucking work.”
Sounds like that person didn’t present well enough.
Not sure what the “delusion” is. That they present as the opposite gender is objectively observable.
That’s exactly the delusion. “That they present as the opposite gender”. That they do so is objectively observable – true. That they, for whatever reason, feel the need to present as such is the delusion. No matter what you ‘present’ as, you are not the underlying reality that is encapsulated in the English term ‘she’. From what I can see, humans have a difficult time dissociating the language from the underlying reality – seems to be the way our brains work. I will not accept, to the degree possible, the separation of the description from the underlying reality as that way lies, as RC has said “demoralization” and confusion and that makes for a broken system in the long run along with all the disfunction that comes with that.
Tater – it is cos-play. No one is actually changing their gender, it’s what you are born with – save some rather rare circumstances. All of this is pretending to be something/someone you aren’t. How is that not denial of reality?
I’ll be real fucking blunt – have you ever encountered someone transgender that wasn’t a walking ball of mental health disorders?
Blair White is the person who really made me realize that the whole thing is just piles of lies. BW might physically pass as a woman at a distance, but as soon as he speaks you know that is not a woman. Why? Because everything that makes a female go from girl to woman, both physical actions such as menstruation and breast development, and societal reactions to those events didn’t happen.
It is all play acting, and forcing society to say it is totally natural is forcing society to lie.
“It’s a lie because he/she *represent* biological human males and females respectively in the English language.”
Nope. Pronouns are literally gender.
“Please stop, it hurts my eyes to roll this hard. You cannot change your sex, and requiring others to affirm something untrue by using a pronoun converts a pronoun from a verbal act without truth content to an affirmation of an untruth. Which is to say, a lie.”
Yes, you cannot change your sex. We’re not talking about a requirement. I’m talking about using whichever word best communicates who you are talking about. No idea how that “converts a pronoun from a verbal act without truth content to an affirmation of an untruth”. Pronouns are not a statement of sex.
No amount of hormones or surgery can change your chromosomes; that’s why it’s a lie. Casually, and in cases of well-presenting trans, go ahead and use the pronouns that make sense.
That said: costume =/= identity. There are certain immutable characteristics that denote the essence of a human, sex being one of the most fundamental. Dressing up like the opposite sex (or a dinosaur, or a toilet, or Mars) doesn’t change that essence. Coercing someone into pretending that it does is, again, a lie and tyrannical.
All that said, it comes down to respect. If someone treats me with respect, I will do my utmost to return it.
I explained what I meant in the part not quoted. Calling Blair White ‘she’ is not lying. Calling the “Call me Ma’am” guy she is. The difference is that Blair is not attempting to force me to do so, and therefore is not turning my use of the feminine pronoun into an affirmation of a set of propositions that are not true which I am being intimidated into providing. You say we are not talking about a requirement, but that is deliberately obtuse, since the bulk of the thread is people explicitly saying that our objection is based on the attempt to require us to use the pronoun, not the use of the pronoun.
The “tolerance” also only goes one way.
https://x.com/JustACineast/status/1642493263188836353
Nope. Pronouns are literally gender.
And gender is at the 90th percentile – at the very least – sex. And whatever technicalities one wants to pull out about gender vs sex, that’s not how the human brain works. People pushing the pronoun stuff, consciously or not, understand that and the underlying reason for the insistence is the dissociation from reality and the social lie along with instability that brings.
whichever word best communicates who you are talking about.
Exactly, we agree. I’m talking to a biological male, I will refer to them as “he”.
And with that, I hear stirrings. Time to make breakfast. As seems to be the pattern – it two weeks in a row can be considered a pattern, I wish you all a lovely remainder of your Saturday.
“I’ll be real fucking blunt – have you ever encountered someone transgender that wasn’t a walking ball of mental health disorders?”
Yes.
“Blair White is the person who really made me realize that the whole thing is just piles of lies. BW might physically pass as a woman at a distance, but as soon as he speaks you know that is not a woman. Why?”
Because you already know she’s trans. Her voice is a bit clocky, but there are females, such as Kim Kardashian, who sound way more masculine than she does. The issue here isn’t that there is no way to tell if someone is trans, but the best way to refer to someone. Which shouldn’t be political, but unfortunately is.
“Now, if you choose to go along with it, that’s fine. And I have done so myself on one or two occasions, when the person in question was obviously committed, in good faith, etc.”
That’s what I’m talking about.
“But since the tranny thing became an aggressive, anti-female movement, well, actions beget equal and opposite reactions.”
Then take that against the transtrenders and leftist activists, not committed “transsexuals” acting in good faith who had nothing to do with that movement.
“Calling Blair White ‘she’ is not lying.”
Agreed.
“You say we are not talking about a requirement, but that is deliberately obtuse, since the bulk of the thread is people explicitly saying that our objection is based on the attempt to require us to use the pronoun, not the use of the pronoun.”
Not sure how their strawmanning — as I’ve often wrote I’m against it being required — is me being deliberately obtuse, but OK. You seem to be saying that if it’s required it’s lying, but if you do it voluntarily it isn’t? I guess that has some validity as you are being compelled to say something you don’t mean.
Almost, it’s not just that I am being required to say something I don’t mean. It is more that the demand itself adds content to the utterance because the people making the demand in many, if not all, cases intend the untrue proposition that a transgender person is factually the sex they identify as. Transwomen are women is untrue. Presenting the demand that I use she as a part of a set of propositions which includes the proposition Transwomen are women makes using that pronoun an affirmation of the untrue proposition.
I don’t care about your pronouns. You aren’t important enough to talk about.
Girls dancing with each other? I think some people pay good money for that.
Also, these stories reek of shit stirrers stirring shit. Whatever, go to the school of your choice. You dont get to tell other people how to run theirs.
At a Christian school? Yeah, this is someone trolling, and getting the reaction they wanted and expected.
Maybe she honestly wanted to go to the prom with that person?
Maybe she did, but if so maybe she should have attended a school without an explicit religious affiliation opposed to homosexuality. There are such things, even in Georgia.
Jarflax:
There’s a chance that her parents made her go to that school, so I’ll give a little leeway in that case. Even in that case, she knew the reaction that was going to come, and that was the purpose behind it. I remember going to Catholic school quite well.
I think her mother joining in the ‘outrage’ argues against that likelihood, but maybe. My real point is that I am deeply tired of the idea that the more traditional set of beliefs is required to go to any length to accommodate the more modern set, while the more modern set is celebrated for deliberately picking a fight with the more traditional. As a heterosexual agnostic I’m not really in either camp, and I get annoyed when either tries to demand that I conform to its rules. When I was a kid the more traditional set of beliefs did more demanding and I was hostile to it; now things are reversed, as is my hostility.
“The suspected terrorist charged with gunning down two Israeli embassy workers in Washington Wednesday is associated with radical socialist groups funded by the far-left Chinese sympathizer, millionaire Neville Singham and his activist wife Jodie Evans.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, who allegedly confessed to killing the couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum and chanted “free, free Palestine!” was part of that network through his association with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Communist political organization that has fielded presidential candidates since 2008.
In 2018, Rodriguez also raised $240 in a GoFundMe campaign to join the March to Fight Poverty in Washington DC and took part in demonstrations and protests around Chicago as a member of the ANSWER coalition around 2017 and 2018, another radical socialist group, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Both the PSL and ANSWER Coalition are connected to People’s Forum – a Manhattan-based non-profit which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party – through funding from Singham, 71.
All three groups have been involved in anti-Israel protests, with the People’s Forum having a cadre of operatives embedded at Columbia University — an epicenter of protest — according to previous reports….”
https://nypost.com/2025/05/23/world-news/israeli-diplomat-shooter-had-links-to-neville-singham-funded-radical-anti-israel-groups/
Not these assholes again.
I’m not quite sure where I’m at with the blanket blocking of international students at Harvard. Surely there at problems with both the international student system, and that many take advantage of it, and I’m sure Harvard is a place in dire need of an ass kicking back to real people world. But this seems a lot like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or some other such metaphor.
Tbf, 1 out of 5 is a ChiCom spy. That’s pretty fucking substantial.
Tbf, 1 out of 5 is a ChiCom spy. That’s pretty fucking substantial.
At this point China has to know all the secrets of Gender Science. It’s probably too late to cut off their access to the Ivy League.
I don’t like this either but yeah, there is that.
At this point I think the Trump admin thinks we have to burn the whole thing down and build from scratch. The infestation has gotten to the point where the exterminator puts a giant bag over the whole house and gases the hell out of the whole thing.
Ordinarily, I would say it’s overkill.
Given the combined rolling disasters of immigration and higher ed, I say “why not”? There are undoubtedly thousands or tens of thousands of foreign students who apply but don’t get accepted every year. I don’t see how it’s a humanitarian catastrophe if that number gets increased by a few hundred or even a thousand per year for awhile.
Two unrelated thoughts:
1: these are the students who pay full-freight, so this is a major blow to Harvard’s income. I suspect that’s the primary driver.
2: why can’t these students continue their studies remotely, as they did just a few short years ago?
I will say it’s clever. Sounds like the Secretary of State has the ability to approve or not approve do whatever international students he wants.
It’s even a bit more subtle than “get out”, it’s “we will not be renewing your permit for next year”.
Places usually lose that permit if they don’t enforce class attendance of foreign students but I’m sure there have been other reasons, too – i.e., failing to provide requested documentation, as in this case.
My buddy spent several years at a local language school that was mostly filled with rich, foreign kids; I remember him talking about how the feds did not fuck around and he had to be strict about documenting absences, etc. They could definitely lose their permit if the documentation was incomplete or, worse, fabricated.
(Also, the Saudi kids were all arrogant assholes)
But we can’t exploit those students for political gain, Slumbrew.
No kidding.
A few days ago my wife did something I have seen a number of people do. She finally admitted to herself that the democrats are not well meaning but mistaken. They are actually evil. Not just stupid or simply bad, they are outright evil.
That the left is condoning the murder of innocent people is not surprising. Is is one of those “Of course they are” developments.
“Attention-starved men are dropping huge sums of money on their favorite OnlyFans models — not for raunchy content or online liaisons, but for simple conversation.
According to a new report from Supercreator, a management platform, 78% of chats between creators and their top spenders are about everything except doing the deed….
Her top fan, Charley — a married American man — has shelled out over $6 million over two years, but rarely asks for nude pics.”
https://nypost.com/2025/05/23/lifestyle/heres-what-men-really-want-to-talk-about-with-onlyfans-models/
$6 million over two years??
Related:
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-kills-husband-before-cooking-35277714
“The woman admitted to the grisly crime a few days late and said she killed him out of revenge after discovering he was buying adult content from woman on Instagram, according to the police.
She also said she cooked her husband’s genitals with beans and tasted the depraved dish “out of curiosity”. The case remains under investigation as the woman remains in custody.”
Totally not an overreaction.
I was wondering where she falls on the hot/crazy matrix but the page is loading very slowly…
Love the stock image at the beginning of the article.
There was a French joke I heard many years ago where the punchline was, “…well, it tasted so terrible when he was alive, I wondered if it was better after cooking.”
Need a friend? Someone to talk to… Just dial 1-900…*
*Calls may be charged .90 @ minute…
One and done. That’s really sad.
When I was young and dumb I used to frequent a strip club – with co-workers – before we headed off to the bowling league.
There was one stripper I really liked – just my type! – but only in the deep recesses of my mind did I want to actually have a relationship with her.
The one stripper I knew – in later years – was pretty blunt about the whole transaction. Boobs for $$$.
Put together “Temptation Island” with “Virgin Island” and you might really have something.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/im-31-year-old-virgin-35240654
Judging from the picture why not pair these complete sex rookies together and see what happens?
Somehow we all got our start at some point. Even libertarians figure things out after a while.
figure things out
Figure what out?
Tab A, Slot B, repeat as needed.
Tab A, Slot B, repeat as needed.
Huh, that explains it. I’ve been confusing Slot B and Slot A – “That’s not it”.
Hey, I don’t judge, enjoy yourself.
Greetings Glibs…we’re back in “exercise” season for the Navy…4 days of 12 hour shifts (normal) two weeks ago…then 5 days of 12 hour shifts this week (night shift) and a day and a half off before 5 days of 12 hour days (day shift) next week….but at least the staff weenies get their 4 day weekend. Might not be so bad if the traffic here wasn’t such crap.
Still waiting to see the schedule for June, but I am taking a week of leave to do some local sightseeing, etc. Still getting caught up on reading glibs during shift but no chance to post responses to most stuff…
I did order a Tilley hat recommended by GT – hopefully get that in time for sightseeing…getting warmer here. Not very humid at all compared to VA this time of year. The big thing last night was Napoli beating Cagliostro (or some similar team). Traffic wasn’t too bad heading in to work – thankfully quiet on the drive back this morning.
🤠👍 I hope the hat works well for you!
In the dead thread I mentioned the movie the Gorge.
I know not too many of you do Apple TV. Here’s Pitch Meeting covering it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT4W_dkxicU
🤣😂
On my list.
ISTR Drinker liked it well enough.
@JI, look, about high society schmigh schmociety, you’re talking to a woman who wrote 800 pages around ONE DRESS, and a character (of many) who loves fancy clothes, so y’know, expect some scenes where she can actually wear those clothes.
I know people think I write porn, but they don’t think about what KIND of porn. EVENING GOWNS and SHOES. Fuck you all, I like it.
How did you get to 800 pages? At that point I’d have to start describing individual stitches.
UCS did you ever read the Wheel of Time? I think Jordan totaled out around 1000 pages of one girl tugging her braid, admittedly not sequentially.
I said “around.”
She has the dress. She has to have a place to wear the dress. She has to have a reason for the event where she is wearing the dress. She will want to have a companion to accompany her to this event where she can wear the dress, for the reason the event is being held.
There have to be other people there for the reason the event is being held where she can wear the dress. Those other people have their own agendas for being there at the event where she can wear the dress, and some of those agendas may directly interfere with HER reason for being at the event.
Voilà: Agendas: A Novel.
I would recommend against ever reading anything by Theodore Dreiser.
That is solid advice from the white van!
On the topic of clothes porn, I I need some inspiration for a couple of locales in my fantasy setting. I have a story where a Prince is on a diplomatic grand tour, and I don’t want to courts to be cookie cutter imitations (though some will influence each other.) As one who does not regulary seek out such content, any recommendations?
Maybe here? That is, if the links within the site provide enough useful information that you wouldn’t have to go there in person.
Do you mean clothes, architecture, or interior design?
Protip: Clothes thematically follow architecture trends.
In any case, you need to be trawling Pinterest.
😃😂🤣🤣🤣
“I’m smuggling a table out of the banquet.”
Oh, the Emijis are a link.
@Mo – I mean clothes. Architecture I got, but that lasts longer than the clothing fads.
A Knight’s Tale did this, and did it pretty well.
I suppose that skirt makes going through doors marginally easier than full round hoop skirts, but…why??? 🤔
So that skirt, very mid 18th century, is what my pirate would be wearing. Among other things, it’s a canvas to show off all the baroquey stuff and other doo-dads you can fit on it.
The wider the skirt, the richer you were.
I have a scene in my pirate novel where the women of society were crushing hard on Captain Fury and had their dresses made to look like ships.
Sartorial shit like this DID happen.
The neck pain must have been something awful.
Yes, and they used lead in their makeup. Think zinc oxide, but not as bright.
As an aside, there was a point where I researched a lot of the excesses of Versailles. I did see the ship wig/hair. One of the things I have sketched into my notes is a birdcage (along with some of the downsides of one having a live bird)
[chuckling] Like a trout hitting a dry fly.
😛
You can’t expect someone who has a low tolerance for conformity to admire the operation of social institutions demanding the highest level of conformity. Granted, a slight relief that it is England and not the French court of the same era. That they are engaging in a fraud upon it is amusing. Just consider me more like the grandson in The Princess Bride.
Dude, it is not that deep. It’s only about the clothes.
Clothes deliberately chosen to create a specific effect? From a modiste of talent but unable to rise to a station fitting that talent?
Ride the ride. See where it goes. 😉
The sign says “Bridge out of order”. I think it might go into the river. I hope the car floats.
You aren’t riding the ride. JI is. He can stop at any time, but I suspect he’s a lookie-loo.
Ride the ride.
I’m obviously on board, and enjoying it enough to stay with it.
And you will never know how much I really appreciate it.
Erotic – Pornography
Two different words because they are two different things.
I’ve always defended genre romance on that basis (one of many), but honestly, to dudes, it looks like word porn. I get it. Twilight didn’t help. But then I happened on these tweets (very recently) and they are wonderful.
“Hey, baby – wanna coregulate our nervous systems?”
Technically, isn’t a romance novel about undress?
Why do you hate people with leather, lace, latex or other attire based fetishes?
Obligatory.
There sure is a lot of parsing and discussing upthread about pronouns.
I think I can cut to the heart of it: Dont tell me what words I am allowed to use.
There, discussion over.
It’s the daily Tater Tranny Talk, which some of us, myself included, seem unable to resist rehashing.
I think Tater does a good job of presenting a good faith “steel man” argument on the whole pronoun thing. The root of it, I believe, is the creation? Disassociation? Of gender as a thing independent of sex, which is actually a recent phenomenon. At one level, gender is a social presentation of subjective self-perception*, which is indeed not the same thing as the hard coded objective biological reality. From there, you can academically reason your way to “someone’s gender is whatever they say it is, and refusing to accede to that is wrong”.
The other side of this is “we don’t typically go along with people’s self-perceptions and social presentations that are at odds with reality, at least when those have impacts on other people (the invasion of women’s spaces buy men, say)”. The gasoline on the fire here, of course, is the use of this as a demoralization tool by the far left.
*leaving aside for the moment the aggressive bad-faith use of trannying
The word “gender” has always been used to say the word “sex” when people are too embarrassed or couth to say “sex,” e.g., “the fairer sex.”
The word “gender” has been coopted for political purposes.
As I stated repeatedly above, my entire objection to the pronoun thing is the demand. I believe that demanding that I use the pronoun of choice is intended to force me to acquiesce to a set of propositions which go beyond any subjective gender presentation and include the false proposition that one can change one’s sex. I find Tater’s refusal to acknowledge, or even address, that distinction dishonest because it attempts to shift the meaning of my statement from a nuanced objection to attempts to force, or intimidate my compliance to a blanket refusal to use the pronoun matching appearance. It appears to me that in his (or her, I don’t know Tater’s gender) zeal to defend the sincere dysphoric he (or she) misses that I am explicitly NOT talking about interactions with said sincere dysphoric unless they have joined the crowd of political activists demanding my compliance.
A couple of examples: One of the range masters at the range we go to is an older man, but goes by a woman’s name and has some light presentation as female (I mean, about as much as you can as an older man serving as a rangemaster; you can’t really wear evening dresses). When we chat with him, I use his name and “you” (of course). If I was to refer to him by pronoun at the range, I would probably use “she” out of civility and courtesy. Obviously, out of earshot I refer to him as “him”.
By contrast, we had some asshole at the hospital when the tranny movement was kicking off who decided he wanted to play tranny and started using the women’s locker room. He liked parading around with his dick out. He didn’t get the civility and courtesy thing from me. While my proposed rule of thumb – ”no cocks in the women’s locker room” wasn’t adopted, a way was found to deal with him and keep him out.
Moje, the cooption of “gender” for political purposes was the conversion of it from a euphemism for “sex” to a term for subjective (self-perception) and social (presentation) purposes. As ever with the weaponization language, it used the synonym with “sex” as a skinsuit for demoralization purposes.
The cooption of “gender” for political purposes was started by third-wave feminists in order to attribute the supernatural to their gender. There is nothing magic about biology.
@RCDean, yes, I like your refinement.
There, discussion over.
But then what am I supposed to do while waiting for people to wake up so that I can cook breakfast and then go outside and start breaking shit?
I am clearly ahead of you. I am off to buy weedeater fuel. Y’all try to behave while I am gone. Or dont.
Well thanks Suthen for reminding me of the yard chores I’ve been putting off this morning.
Yard maintenance is not merely conformity, it’s conformity to a standard derived from British aristocratic estates… 🙂
Trash conformity all you want, but sometimes conformity and order is gorgeous. And sometimes, conformity and order pretending to be rebellious is gorgeous.
Tangentially, conformity does have its virtues, e.g., social norms and tradition, where “tradition” of unknown provenance is actually a solution to a problem we forgot existed.
Time and place. Time and place.
Conformity is a fundamental human social reality. We have to have some conformity or we aren’t a social group. I just tend to sit on the low end of need/tolerance for that, for knowing my place in the social order. Which makes me an outlier. Fortunately, I have this peer group that isn’t too different from me.
Hey I was taking a shot at JI in your defense here! I feel betrayed! More seriously I am considering replacing my grass with some sort of flowering ground cover.
“Fortunately, I have this peer group that isn’t too different from me.”
Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble.
“Fortunately, I have this peer group that isn’t too different from me.”
Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble.
Huh, no idea how I managed that.
I am more of the English Garden type but with just enough order to proudly proclaim my colonialist roots.
A lot of people find my yard a bit odd because I have chosen all natives and cultivated them in a semi-orderly fashion.
Note: the best tasting native fruit on the gulf coast is Elliot’s Huckleberry. I have planted them for porch hedges in the front of the house.
Large-scale English landscaping (perhaps the best example on this side of the pond is Winterthur, the DuPont museum/estate in Wilmington, DE) is essentially a savannah (open grasslands with large trees), arguably the ideal environment for people.
So it’s unlibertarian of me to force my blades of grass to conform with each other?
My dream house would be in a lot with enough trees around the perimeter to block the view of the house and its immediate surroundings from the road and any adjacent neighbors, but with enough distance between the trees and the house to minimize the amount of leaves/evergreen needles that end up in the gutters. I would probably be inclined to allow the treeless area immediately around the house remain as natural as practically possible. If I can keep it under control with a cordless electric trimmer, so much the better.
😘
I just kind of go about doing my own non/conformist things, thinking my own non/conformist thoughts, and living my life as boringly as possible, conforming to societal norms and writing drama so I don’t have to live it, and being generally able to like/appreciate different things as they come along.
I’ve grown really fond of the “time and place” maxim. Am I going to speak up in Sunday school and present my twisted take on theology if asked? Sure. Am I going to call out someone preaching false doctrine? Yep. Am I going to foment apostasy? Nope.
If I go line dancing, I’m not going to wear a ball gown because it displays ignorance at best and contempt at worst. I’m going to use the right fork and spoon for the right course because not doing so displays ignorance at best and general dickishness at worst. Yes, I care what people think, and I have my own agenda for complying.
Am I going to write books with unconventional heroines? Sure. But even THEY use the right forks and spoons if it suits their purpose.
replacing my grass
Calling my yard “grass” is being rather euphemistic. I often threaten to tear it all up (and regrading most of it) and have a proper lawn, and the wife rolls her eyes and sighs. I even explored the idea of having a putting green (I have a nice spot for one) but the maintenance for such is absurd.
I had a nice lawn in the back of my house, but it never really recovered from the county mandated replacement of my septic system and it is now mostly weeds. I tried to get creeping thyme going, but the ground is too wet and shaded.
No. What I should have said is, I’m going to write my unconventional heroines in compliance with best storytelling practices.
@Jarflax, moss.
Well thanks Suthen for reminding me of the yard chores I’ve been putting off this morning.
I’m putting them off too… but that’s because the rain just stopped here… for now.
and sedum
I ffluuuvvvvv sedum.
Some varieties, you do still have to mow.
Halftime and Sheffield United is up 1-0 on Sunderland in the most valuable game in soccer…the promotion playoff final from Championship to Premier League.
I forget just how many millions it is worth to the winner.
Google says +£200 Million.
Another article says between 140 and 300, so 200 seems a good estimate.
“This is a controversial opinion but I don’t believe coming clean will solve anything.”
https://archive.is/NRKoQ
Another one of those cases where if the sexes were reversed I suspect her advice would be quite a bit different.
off to buy weedeater fuel
I need to finish the carb swap on mine.
“Diddy’s bizarre cheeseburger topping has sickened the court after it was exposed during his blockbuster sex-trafficking trial.
Former assistants took to the stand in Manhattan and revealed more of the rapper’s habits as they spilled his secrets on the witness stand.
Instead of the usual ketchup and mustard combo, it was revealed he tops them with applesauce,”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14744739/diddy-sex-trafficking-trial-stomach-churning-cheeseburger-topping-revealed.html
That’s worse than the freak offs.
Straight to jail.
We have especial jail for those who put applesauce on the hamburger.
Juris: A very sad experience I had once has stuck with me for nearly 40 years. I am checking out of a hotel in Newcastle, England and I notice the very attractive young lady working the counter has the same last name as mine. I casually remarked “Ah, you are a Suthenboy”
She hung her head looking at her shoes and said “I know my place”.
I was shocked. And pissed off. I did not hang my head.
I defiantly said “Yeah? Well I am a Suthenboy too and I know my place. I am an American.”
She looked up, made eye contact and said in a meek little pleading voice “Take me with you”
For a few seconds I was a hair’s breadth from doing just that. I can be impulsive like that sometimes. To this day I wonder what if I had?
I know this, I would have sharpened her teeth and she would have never hung her head again.
The English have much more of a tallest poppy mentality than most Americans realize.
The US does have a class problem, just not the same one the Brits have. Our class problem involves people who know their class (station), don’t like it, proclaim themselves to be higher up on the scale with no money to back it up,* then get pissy when others correctly identify their class and treat them that way.
None of this is ever spoken.
*Except old money vs. new money.
I am a pretty firm believer that the signal value/virtue of this republic is that we are the world’s greatest collection of misfits (from their native lands/cultures).
A (once) friend of mine used the word “malcontents,” which I love.
You are both correct. We are a country and culture of square pegs. Turns out that is a recipe for the greatest strength and prosperity the world has ever seen.
I will let everyone draw their own conclusion about what that means.
OnlyFans’ gross revenue hit $6.63 billion for the year ended Nov. 30, 2023, up 19% from the year prior, according to a U.K. regulatory filing. That means OnlyFans creators earned total payouts of $5.32 billion for fiscal 2023. Net revenue increased 20%, to $1.31 billion (with two-thirds of that from the U.S.), while the company’s pre-tax profit jumped 25% to $658 million.
I figured it would have been more as the Internet is for porn.
Old Guy Music is good.
I suspect OnlyFans is less a new form of porn, and more a new form of strip bar. Strippers aren’t really providing the same thing porn is. They are more about providing fake companionship than fake sexual gratification. Porn is sex fantasy. Strippers/OnlyFans are relationship fantasy.
I see your point, but it’s close enough to porn for me to make the comment I did.
Exodus
During the 12 months leading up to March, more than 6,000 US citizens have applied to either become British subjects or to live and work in the country indefinitely – the highest number since comparable records began in 2004, according to data released on Thursday by the UK’s Home Office.
Over the period, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship – with more than 1,900 of the applications received between January and March, most of which has been during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second US presidency.
The surge in applications at the start of 2025 made that the highest number for any quarter on record.
The figures come as British authorities under a Labour government are trying to reduce immigration to the UK, with Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, vowing to take “back control of our borders” and warning that uncontrolled immigration could result in the country “becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.
Fleeing oppression and genocide. Let them in.
Ive crossed many a border in my life, in Western and Eastern Europe, South and Central America and Asia. Land borders are always a bit interesting, those liminal spaces that demarcate countries are often very strange places, often dangerous or just weird. By far the biggest pain in the ass crossing that didn’t involve a deportation was going from Bulgaria to Turkey by vehicle. The entire process took around 5 or 6 hours and involved multiple stamps in my passport and signing of documents and standing in various lines in several buildings and kiosks, without any direction from officials, just having to follow other travelers and hope for the best. At one point I thought we had gotten to the end but was sent back a step that cost another hour of time as we somehow missed one signature from a surly official. Don’t ever go by car into Turkey, and don’t even consider selling said car in Turkey, they really really don’t like that.
I once spent a few hours at the border between Slovenia and Croatia because some people in our group didn’t get the necessary cost-free visa before our trip. Because I can make myself understood at a basic level in Croatian insofar as it is similar to Slovak, I had to do the negotiations. One woman in our group was crazy for the Croatian motorcycle cops in leather pants. As I walked down the road to the border crossing she yelled, “Tell them I go down easy!” Eventually we got through without having to blow the border guards.
the signal value/virtue of this republic is that we are the world’s greatest collection of misfits
The country was built by people who didn’t know (accept) their place.
That was my point when I said “I am an American”
‘My place’ is where I say it is.
People that hose things down with pesticides and herbicides to have grass that looks like a golf fairway have a lawn.
I have a collection of every plant* indigenous to SW Ohio. Therefore I have a yard.
*admittedly since this part of town is known for dandelions and wild onions, I do spray 2, 4, D in the spring.
Nature Mysteries:
Our house was build in 1961 – still has the original wood siding and soffits. Some Starlings decided to move into (after widening) a hole in the soffit. They were busy raising their noisy brood – to the point where we called an animal removal and repair company – when… dum dum dum… we found in the afternoon one Starling dead on our back porch, underneath their nest.
And then an hour later, another Starling was dead.
Hawk? Owl?
Next day there were two more dead Starlings. Baby birds are no longer calling for food.
My guess is a racoon – a few years ago we had one living in the chimney until it was recapped.
That is sad about the starlings. They eat a shit-ton of bugs.
I make houses for wrens and put them all around the yard…more bug eating machines.