I stopped listening to Vivek when he was speaking with Jordan Peterson about the campaign money that candidates get, and was talking about how Trump spent relatively nothing by force of his personality. No, you idiot! Trump got billions’ worth of free air time from every media outlet ever. He didn’t HAVE to spend any money. Either he was being deliberately obtuse/evasive or he hadn’t considered it, both of which are nonstarters in my book.
And he’s not the first candidate I’ve turned my nose up at for one stupid thing that stuck in my craw. I was all in for Ross Perot—until he dropped out, then got back in again with [insert incoherent Bush conspiracy theory here] as his excuse.
I noped right out, but it didn’t faze my parents and brother, who all voted for him. Like, this is crazy talk. Even if [insert incoherent Bush conspiracy theory here] true, and his response is to drop out, that does no speak well of a leader.
R.J.
on November 1, 2023 at 8:49 pm
Ross really did start getting threats against his family. At the time I thought it was silly he said Bush was behind it. I don’t think it was silly any more. The Bush family was/ is deep in WEF’s pockets.
That might be true, and I wouldn’t blame Perot for cutting and running. But he CAME BACK. Why? The conspiracy is he was a Clinton plant, and just needed to take away enough Bush votes to get Clinton elected. Maybe he was doing TOO well.
I could respect that he got spooked. Normal people would. I could not respect that he came back with a “Woopsie daisy! Never mind!” The return felt so cavalier.
Chafed
on November 1, 2023 at 10:48 pm
I remember all of that and felt the same way. Dude, you’re running for president. All this shit comes with it.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 10:52 pm
“No one who leads so many could possibly kneel so quickly.”
In that case, I’d like to hear more about meal plan.
Common Tater
on November 1, 2023 at 11:32 pm
Hey, I’m Mr. Jewish People, not King of the Jews.
Chafed
on November 2, 2023 at 12:13 am
There’s plenty of hummus, falafel, couscous, and pita.
milo
on November 2, 2023 at 1:48 am
I’m not sure how to say this. I am not a Jew. Nor am I am an evangelical Christian.
Judeo-Christian ideals mean more to me than what the other sides’ grievances keeps screaming about.
They are the people that are more likely to leave me alone now.
Let’s pick our battles.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 8:38 pm
He has some nonsensical ideas, like raising the voting age back to 21 with an exception for military veterans. Maybe he got that idea from Starship Troopers.
Would you like to know more?
His idea would require a constitutional amendment which would undo the one that lowered the voting age to 18.
I can respect him for graduating some elite schools. He’s the same age as me. Teddy Roosevelt remains the youngest president and he did everything Vivek did and then some.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 8:41 pm
Getting your ideas from Starship Troopers is no more ridiculous than getting them on college campuses these days.
DEG
on November 2, 2023 at 5:56 am
He and Barak Obama must have gone to the same school of public speaking. His mannerisms and way of talking are similar to Obama’s.
Allegedly 55% of Americans want to send our troops to defend Israel. What psychos.
rhywun
on November 1, 2023 at 8:17 pm
It feels like there should be more choices than “send our troops to defend Israel” and “wipe them off the face of the earth”.
Lackadaisical
on November 1, 2023 at 8:41 pm
Is ‘not sticking our dick in the hornets nest’ an option? That’s the one I’d choose.
Sadly, sending all our money to Israel is apparently an option too.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 8:28 pm
On a related note, I talked to Army and Navy recruiters about rejoining. I told them I knew they needed more warm bodies. They said I’m ineligible, but that my change in a few months. They were impressed when I showed them proof of my perfect score on the ASVAB from 2015. The Navy is currently inducting people who score in the 10th percentile on the ASVAB. It’s depressing that high school graduates could do so badly on that test. I gave them some cards for my tutoring business. Maybe I can help someone else join. People who care about learning usually study before seeking a tutor. It’s the parents of high school students that usually seek out the tutors.
I saw a poll just now that 57% of Americans oppose sending US troops to fight Hamas. I guess there are people who want US troops there, but don’t want them to do anything. Makes about as much sense as the helium reserve. We don’t want the Kaiser’s zeppelins to get the jump on us again.
***
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States, which once held over 1 billion cubic meters (about 170,000,000 kg)[a] of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome[2] reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the Helium Act of 1925. The strategic supply provisioned the noble gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Cold War and Space Race.
…
By 1995, a billion cubic metres of the gas had been collected, and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting Congress to begin phasing out the reserve in 1996.[5][6] The resulting Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–273) directed the Department of the Interior to start selling off the reserve by 2005.[7]
Helium gas production on March 8, 1923
Government sales flooded the market with cheap helium, causing much of the private helium industry to shut down; the facility remained in government hands.[8] The Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 mandated higher prices but a continued selldown to 3 billion cubic feet remaining by October 1, 2018, which was achieved with auctions.[9] It also set a deadline of September, 30, 2021 for sale of the reserve. BLM transferred it to the General Services Administration (GSA) as surplus property, but as of early June 2023, a 2022 auction[10] failed to finalize a sale.[11] On June 22, 2023, the GSA announced a new auction of the facilities and remaining helium.[12] The auction of the last helium assets is due to take place in November, 2023.[13]
***
So the helium reserve is almost gone…90 years after it should have been phased out.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 8:32 pm
*may change – my re-entry code is 4, meaning there is no current waiver that could get me in again
Fine by me. I like having a beard and long hair. I was just curious to see if it was an option. I identify with the author of Tarzan:
***
Burroughs drifted across the United States until he was thirty-six, holding seventeen consecutive careers before he published stories.
***
Fourscore
on November 1, 2023 at 8:46 pm
None of my business but is the reason for not allowing you to rejoin because of an age limit? As I said none of my business.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 8:56 pm
I got a general discharge, Chapter 9 (alcohol abuse treatment failure), though my company commander recommended an honorable one. At least that’s what the papers say. The somewhat longer answer is I got tired of being mistreated, so I gave them an excuse to get rid of me. More details will be revealed in the Story of My Life posts that I have been publishing here.
I walked my way into the Army and I drank my way out.
Yeah and about the same percent support a cease fire.
These people just support whatever the surveyor asks if it sounds good.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 8:45 pm
You ask most of those people of their opinion on the Wakanda situation, and they’ll give the same answers.
Chafed
on November 1, 2023 at 10:53 pm
Lol. You’re right.
creech
on November 1, 2023 at 11:04 pm
Maybe ever since “what’s a leppo?” no one wants to appear ignorant?
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 11:07 pm
Most Americans didn’t and don’t know what Aleppo was or who Gary Johnson is let alone what he said about it.
prolefeed
on November 1, 2023 at 11:47 pm
I’ve got an Aleppo Pine in my yard. It is literally the only thing of value originating from that city. Gary Johnson inadvertently gave the best answer about what to do there, which was to not know or do anything about that particular hornets nest the other candidates were eager to stick their genitalia in.
Toxteth O'Grady
on November 1, 2023 at 11:55 pm
A pepper.
Chafed
on November 1, 2023 at 10:53 pm
That’s a weird poll since Israel isn’t asking for troops.
Rat on a train
on November 2, 2023 at 4:59 am
The US didn’t ask for Israel’s opinion just like it didn’t ask for Syria’s.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say it applies to all the up-and-coming TransAGPs (autogynephiles), who seem to be coming out of the woodwork at an alarming pace.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 8:49 pm
A former co-worker of mine just announced they identify as transgendered and were changing their name. It’s a 300 lb white guy with facial hair (which he did not shave) and a party-city wig.
groat scotum
on November 1, 2023 at 9:03 pm
It hasn’t been an issue for me yet, but: I don’t want to indulge it. I’ve lived my entire life an atheist. If someone comes to me talking about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I will be polite but I am not interested in joining his church. I’m not going to join your flat-earth message board. I’m not going to sign your petition condemning Israel. So much of these social movements are premised on denying or obfuscating material reality (which is fine) to assert some greater good (which is also fine), but I feel like I’m entitled to reserve my skepticism and not indulge a belief system out of social nicety. Transgenderism is a belief system premised on mystifying sex and gender. I’m not going to kneel at that alter. I’d be willing to lose my job over this.
Life is like that parlor game, you have to figure out what I am based on what clues I give you only if you make a mistake I will chastise you publicly.
Even more cynical is the alternative: these are disaffected but well-meaning twerps who bought into the lie themselves and genuinely, good-heartedly expect you to repeat what they consider truths. They’re as much victims of the deconstructionists as you are when they get you fired for not calling them by whatever pretend pronouns they’ve adopted.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 9:30 pm
We are talking about very weak willed individuals who are desperate to belong to something and fit in. They have little sense of self. I doubt they’d recognize the will to power in their actions, but they are same as disaffected youths who joined any movement to belong. It’s just a lot funnier. Having some semblance of power in how other people interact with you through the institutions is part of it, even if not consciously.
In China, the phrase “point at a deer and call it a horse” means obeying a powerful person instead of saying or doing what’s right.
***
Zhi Lu Wei Ma
(Calling a Deer a horse)
Qin Er Shi, the son of Shi Huang Di of Qin Dynasty was not a bright king. Zhao Gao, the prime minister wanted to replace Er Shi as king. To test the loyalty of the officials, Zhao presented a deer (Lu) to the king, calling it a horse (Ma). Er Shi laughed and rebuked Zhao, saying that it was a deer. Zhao turned towards the officials, asking for their opinion. Most of them looked away from Zhao and did not answer. Some tried to curry favor with Zhao and said it was a horse. There was a small number of officials who told the truth. Zhao remembered all those who favored the king and have them executed.
Applications: This term is commomly used to describe someone who is unreasonable, forcing his opinion on others. Note that the Japanese has a term called ‘Baka’ which originated from this story. ‘Baka’ means someone who is stupid; can’t tell a horse from a deer. However, Zhao Gao, the master of all ‘Bakas’ was not stupid at all. He was shrewd and crafty instead! (Zhi means to point; Wei means is.)
***
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 9:47 pm
The kanji for baka are the characters for horse (ba) and deer (ka).
馬鹿
groat scotum
on November 1, 2023 at 9:53 pm
After reading the first two Remembrance novels, I can confidently say: I can’t tell Chinese names apart at all, or remember them after twenty minutes.
rhywun
on November 1, 2023 at 9:59 pm
I can’t tell Chinese names apart at all
I had the same problem trying to read “Battle Royale”.
The Dalrymple quote is spot-fucking-on.
groat scotum
on November 1, 2023 at 10:12 pm
So much of those novels are terribly silly and either there’s something lost in translation or the Chinese mind is truly foreign. The reactions people in power have are often very silly. Even sillier are the reactions people have corporately, which verge on Biblical. I get that he pitches the one guy as messianic at the end of the second novel, but it’s ludicrous that people would congregate and then just disperse like he describes. So either it’s insight into how hive-minded Chinese culture is, or there are levels there that his translators couldn’t capture.
hayeksplosives
on November 1, 2023 at 10:25 pm
Thanks for that post, slumbrew. Definitely truth in it.
Explains why forcing us to acknowledge pronouns and gender identity is so freaking important to the same crowd.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 10:26 pm
It’s a similar premise to the Foundation series where Hari Seldon says that large groups of people behave just as predictably as masses of molecules.
I forget who said it, but the quote is something like “when scientists write sci-fi, the most interesting characters are computers”.
Common Tater
on November 1, 2023 at 10:35 pm
I’m going to take a wild guess that 99.9% of people using the word “autogynephile” never read Blanchard or Bailey (who were both wrong).
Not that I recommend it. It’s mostly crap. Including his drooling over “HSTS” in Chicago gay bars. Although from what I’ve read from him recently, he is right about FTM rapid onset gender dysphoria.
Just like Debra Soh, who is often right about things, is a fan of Blanchard.
As far as I can tell, “troon” has little to do with whether a MTF is androphilic or gynephilic (HSTS or AGP in Blanchard’s parlance), but just that they aren’t sufficiently feminine presenting.
Not Adahn
on November 2, 2023 at 6:22 am
Except… autogynephiles clearly exist.
It’s like claiming hickory trees don’t actually exist, and that people who think so are pushing their own bigotry onto pecans.
Toxteth O'Grady
on November 2, 2023 at 12:20 am
Dr. Drew recently attributed that to a subtype of narcissism (but when doesn’t he?).
Does SF have his Wednesday stories indexed somewhere? I fell quit keeping up with the site early 2022 and want to catch up on the madness, and the WP backlog function isn’t very comprehensive.
God bless Jamsheed and everyone who lives in his house. If he wasn’t helped during and after the withdrawal, shame on those who bungled it.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 9:01 pm
The MSheU is so real that Marvel won’t even let itself make a movie staring a black dude. The Blade movie, the production of which has been a disaster, was reportedly all about women.
Hamas uses a drone to drop a bomb on a group of Israeli soldiers. Those Merkava tanks don’t have a gun that can point up high enough to shoot them, but the soldiers do. Why weren’t any of them looking up?
What is the Abomination that Causes Desolation, and what is the nature of the “temple” in which it will be set up?
hayeksplosives
on November 1, 2023 at 10:35 pm
I used to wonder idly what role the US would have in the apocalypse (if it’s a prophecy that can relate directly to earthly polities), but now I think it’s increasingly likely that the US will be irrelevant by then, a non-entity on the world stage.
rhywun
on November 1, 2023 at 10:30 pm
I *hate* teams named after a state.
Surely there is more than one baseball team in Texas?
hayeksplosives
on November 1, 2023 at 10:32 pm
How about teams named after whole regions? New England Patriots. Carolina Panthers.
rhywun
on November 1, 2023 at 10:45 pm
Them too.
slumbrew
on November 1, 2023 at 10:52 pm
You may blame the NFL for one of those:
The following year, the Patriots moved to a new stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which would serve as their home for the next 30 years. As a result of the move, they announced they would change their name from the Boston Patriots to the Bay State Patriots, after the state of Massachusetts.[35] The name was rejected by the NFL and on March 22, 1971, the team officially announced they would change its geographic name to New England.
Chafed
on November 1, 2023 at 11:01 pm
Was the league holding out for Commonwealth of Massachusetts Patriots? That rolls right off the tongue.
How do you feel about the Houston Texans? Are the Yankees and Mets named for a city or state?
Gender Traitor
on November 2, 2023 at 6:23 am
And what about those football teams that don’t even play in their nominal state??
Not Adahn
on November 2, 2023 at 6:25 am
The Mets are named for The Metropolis, which is of course another name for London.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:01 pm
Jormungandr walhallaensis…finally, a prehistoric creature named after Norse mythology, discovered in Walhalla, ND
***
The species was described in 2023, and the genus is named after the world serpent Jörmungandr from Norse mythology. The specific name references Walhalla, North Dakota, which itself is named after Valhalla from Norse mythology.
***
I have never been stopped from Firsting by any squirrels. Not once. The Great Firster cloaks me in sacred oils and I slide right in through server errors. But I am the chosen one.
Also fuck the media apologists calling it the Israel-Hamas war. Pick one or the other. Likud-Hamas war, if that’s going to be the style.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:21 pm
Technically, Hamas is the political party and the Al-Qassam Brigades is their military. But Hamas is quicker to say and takes up less space, so Hamas it is.
slumbrew
on November 1, 2023 at 11:28 pm
Then it’d be the IDF – Al-Quassam Brigades war. Likud-Hamas would be the correct equivalent.
milo
on November 2, 2023 at 1:07 am
Let’s stop the funding. No more weapons…both sides.
Tell the UN to eat a bag of dicks in a dark corner.
No more “humanitarian aid”.
Ahhhh…that’s the stickler.
Cut the borrowed money off.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:29 pm
weird hypothetical
With Syria weakened, Turkey could march on Israel with little opposition. If Turkey and Israel went to war, the rest of NATO would be forced to fight Israel. I don’t expect that to happen, but it’s an interesting geopolitical chess problem to contemplate.
If the war in Gaza gets bloody enough, the people of Egypt might rise up and overthrow their government. The new guys in charge might decide to rush to Gaza’s defense. I don’t expect that to happen either.
***
Potshot is a term that refers to a shot taken at an animal simply to ‘get it in the pot,’ that is, not for sport or marksmanship and with little heed paid to the preservation of the animal. The term has its origins in the idea that casual shooting is unbefitting a true sportsman, and is in fact characteristic of a hunter whose effort is wholly pragmatic—to get something for the cooking pot. The term was first used in 1836.
***
Hezbollah will probably keep taking potshots at Israel as long as the war in Gaza lasts.
Brochettaward
on November 1, 2023 at 11:31 pm
With Syria weakened, Turkey could march on Israel with little opposition. If Turkey and Israel went to war, the rest of NATO would be forced to fight Israel. I don’t expect that to happen, but it’s an interesting geopolitical chess problem to contemplate.
Do you really believe America would support Turkey in a war with Israel, treaty be damned?
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:35 pm
No, but we’d be in violation of the treaty. It would effectively end NATO since no other member would fight on Turkey’s side.
Not Adahn
on November 2, 2023 at 6:27 am
I’m pretty sure you can’t be the aggressor and call for Article 5.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:41 pm
Greece and Turkey were both in NATO in 1974 when they briefly went to war over Cyprus.
***
The Turkish Foreign Minister Turan Güneş had said to the Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, “When I say ‘Ayşe[b] should go on vacation’ (Turkish: “Ayşe Tatile Çıksın”), it will mean that our armed forces are ready to go into action. Even if the telephone line is tapped, that would rouse no suspicion.”
***
Ah, idiot codes. Surprisingly effective.
***
An idiot code is a code that is created by the parties using it. This type of communication is akin to the hand signals used by armies in the field.
Example: Any sentence where ‘day’ and ‘night’ are used means ‘attack’. The location mentioned in the following sentence specifies the location to be attacked.
Plaintext: Attack X.
Codetext: We walked day and night through the streets but couldn’t find it! Tomorrow we’ll head into X.
An early use of the term appears to be by George Perrault, a character in the science fiction book Friday by Robert A. Heinlein:
The simplest sort [of code] and thereby impossible to break. The first ad told the person or persons concerned to carry out number seven or expect number seven or it said something about something designated as seven. This one says the same with respect to code item number ten. But the meaning of the numbers cannot be deduced through statistical analysis because the code can be changed long before a useful statistical universe can be reached. It’s an idiot code… and an idiot code can never be broken if the user has the good sense not to go too often to the well.
Terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp said that the men who carried out the September 11 attacks on the United States used basic e-mail and what he calls “idiot code” to discuss their plans.
***
slumbrew
on November 1, 2023 at 11:35 pm
NATO members have a mutual self-defense pact – Turkey invading another country wouldn’t obligate other NATO members to do shit.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:46 pm
Turkey’s tried to invoke Article 5 before in 2012:
***
The downing of an “unarmed” Turkish military jet which was “13 sea miles” from Syria over “international waters” on a “solo mission to test domestic radar systems”. On 25 June, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister said that he intended to raise Article 5.
…
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that “The tomb of Suleyman Shah [in Syria] and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land… Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary”.
***
***
On 20 March 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) threatened to attack Turkey’s territory tomb site unless the Turkish troops guarding it were withdrawn within three days. The Turkish government reacted by saying it would retaliate against any such attack, and did not withdraw its guards. However, the threatened attack did not take place. Due to (such) tensions, the garrison at the tomb was increased to 38 men, in 2014 or earlier.
***
So yeah. Turkey already has a bunch of troops and proxies in Syria.
slumbrew
on November 1, 2023 at 11:50 pm
Turkey can try and invoke Article 5 all they want, invading another country wouldn’t trigger it.
You’ll note the lack of NATO obligations when the US invaded Iraq.
Derpetologist
on November 1, 2023 at 11:56 pm
Good point. But NATO did send troops to Afghanistan.
slumbrew
on November 2, 2023 at 12:06 am
Aye, but not due to any treaty obligation.
CPRM
on November 1, 2023 at 11:52 pm
Side Note:
I’ve been listening to an audiobook version of the unabridged version of Dracula at work. A lot of talk about his fighting the Turks. I think that’s all cut out of the abridged version (for certain not in any movie until the Coppalla version in the 90s), leading to ‘stunning finds’ 100 years later about the real Dracula being a real guy who fought the Turks! OMG!
Also, the contrivance both books use is that they are journal entries. good thing such great writers were involved in these events!
“Today I took a shit so long it was as a great snake, coiling in the chamber pot until it bit me the arse! Haha, I’ll have to remember that one next time the boys come round. Oh, there was this one fair maiden I saw who’s garments had been quenched with water, I could see her rises and dimples! Huzzah! Oh, and I made a 7 foot tall monster, but he ran away.”
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:21 am
I suspect most actual diaries are not that interesting.
***
Robert William Shields (May 17, 1918 – October 15, 2007) was an American minister and high school English teacher best known for writing a diary of 37.5 million words, which chronicled every five minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997.[1][2] Shields’s diary, which filled 91 boxes, was longer than those kept by the journalist Edward Robb Ellis (21 million words) and the poet Arthur Crew Inman (17 million words), and 30 times longer than that of Samuel Pepys (1.25 million words).[3]
…
Believing that discontinuing his diary would be like “turning off my life”,[1] he spent four hours a day in the office, on his back porch, in his underwear, recording his body temperature, blood pressure, medications, describing his urination and bowel movements, and slept for only two hours at a time so he could describe his dreams. The New York Times summarized the journal as being about anything “from changing light bulbs to pondering God to visiting the bathroom”.[3] He also left behind samples of his nose hair for future study.[3] After his stroke in 1997, Shields tried to continue the diary by having his wife write what he told her to write, but she lacked the compulsion and energy to do so and stopped shortly afterward.[3]
***
***
King kept a very candid diary from 1893, when he was still an undergraduate, until a few days before his death in 1950; the volumes, stacked in a row, span a length of over seven metres and comprise over 50,000 manuscript pages of typed transcribed text.[147] One biographer called these diaries “the most important single political document in twentieth-century Canadian history,”[148] for they explain motivations of the Canadian war efforts and describe other events in detail.
***
Now future Canadians have a thorough record of how boring their country is.
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:02 am
Vampire is garbled Hungarian for witch/wizard.
The more you know…
I read Dracula and don’t remember Turks being mentioned, but I trust that they were. My grandpa painted me a portrait of Vlad the Impaler and gave it to me as a birthday present. If I teach again, I will hang it on the wall of my classroom.
Guess the only book I actually have by him right now is the Al Qaeda reader, but I may need to pick up a few of his more recent ones.
CPRM
on November 2, 2023 at 12:16 am
“Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.’ Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the ‘bloody sword,’ or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.”
That’s in the beginning, before they realize he was THAT Dracula. Then they talk a lot more about it in the 3rd act.
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:22 am
Bravo! You tracked that down quick. There’s a government agency that hires people like you and me.
CPRM
on November 2, 2023 at 12:31 am
people like you and me.
Drunks?
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:36 am
[ponders 3rd Gennessee Cream Ale of the night to my right]
CPRM
on November 1, 2023 at 11:47 pm
I was thinking the other day about how in the last 40 years it has become increasingly difficult to get baby seats in cars. It must be hell on earth for parents that don’t have a car and rely on taxis/uber/lyft. Bur the ones who ride a bus or a train? they ain’t gotta worry bout shit. They can just hold the baby in their arms or leave them in stroller that will roll right down the aisle in the event of an accident.
Chafed
on November 2, 2023 at 12:11 am
If the government says it’s safe, then it’s safe. That’s just science.
CPRM
on November 2, 2023 at 12:33 am
My siblings have been all about strapping their kids down, except when we’ve been in a motor home. Then the tikes can run around freely. But in a car, my G*d you need the seat!
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:35 am
***
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 59% of car seats are not installed correctly. A study found that nearly half of kid’s car seats are installed incorrectly, with the most common mistakes being incorrect recline angle on rear-facing car seats, loose installation on forward-facing car seats, tether anchor not used on forward-facing convertible, and lap belt sitting on child’s abdomen when in a booster seat.
***
Those incorrectly installed seats make injury more likely. Whatever, it won’t stop. Same dynamic as placebo COVID masks.
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 12:15 am
amusing
***
Norman Partridge (born May 28, 1958) is an American writer of horror and mystery fiction. He has written two detective novels about retired boxer Jack Baddalach, Saguaro Riptide and The Ten Ounce Siesta. He is also the author of a Crow novel, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was adapted in 2005 into the fourth Crow movie, bearing the same name.
Mr. Partridge’s 2006 novel Dark Harvest, published in a limited edition of 2000 autographed copies and 24 lettered edition copies by Cemetery Dance Publications, was voted one of Publishers Weekly’s 100 Best Books of 2006. It also won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction, and has been nominated for two more awards in 2007. Dark Harvest was made into a film in 2023.[1]
His short stories are collected in the volumes Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, Bad Intentions, and The Man with the Barbed Wire Fists.
***
He seems like a successful writer by any standard.
***
Partridge works as the library’s evening circulation supervisor at Saint Mary’s College of California.[2] He gave a campus reading of Dark Harvest on October 30, 2019.[3]
***
But not so successful so as to give up his other job.
I was chatting with someone on Twitter the other day about Labyrinth and linked him the Glib article I wrote about it. But THEN, just TONIGHT, I came across this: https://youtu.be/5jSgvRTIFo0?si=fVCdINuOCmsXzl9L Made me guffaw in places.
CPRM
on November 2, 2023 at 1:08 am
I watch his stuff sometimes, but the whole ‘why did our parents let us watch this!?’ thing is something I don’t get. Granted, I’m not a parent, but my parents never really told me not to watch something*. And I turned out just fine…
*We had Nightmare on Elm Street on Beta, and my mom said not to watch it to 5 or 6 year old me because it would be too scary, but I did. There was no consequence.
CPRM
on November 2, 2023 at 1:24 am
To connect this to my mention upthread of Frankenstein, there is a mention in the video of INCELs. Frankenstein’s monster is an INCEL. I should write an article about that and sell it to some site.
milo
on November 2, 2023 at 1:35 am
I’ve been reading incessantly for 50 years or so. I am so amazed about how much I have not read.
NSA ANALYSTS WENT ON STRIKE IN 1970S BERLIN AFTER GETTING DISCIPLINED FOR SMOKING WEED
***
Why have so few people ever heard of this remarkable organisation?
When anything goes wrong, we generally attribute it to the CIA. Then most of the installations are manned by military personnel and resemble signals bases, so they are [unintelligible].
Why does NSA want to remain secret?
The interception of telephone conversations violates the local laws of most countries and the interception of diplomatic traffic violates Geneva conventions.
…
[NSA employees in Berlin went on strike.] A strike over what?
The NSA personnel in Berlin were part of the Army Security Agency and came under army administrators for discipline. About 60 or 70 percent of NSA were smoking pot — a lot of them while on duty. It’s very relaxing, particularly when you’re bored with the Russian or East German traffic that is coming through.
The army didn’t like pot?
Well, the new colonel in charge, called Hamilton, who came from Army Airborne, wanted to arrest everyone that smoked it. DIRNSA, the director of NSA, its head in Fort Meade sent out a message saying that the colonel shouldn’t do anything that would endanger the security of the country, meaning he should lay off. During those days NSA Berlin brought out an alternative newspaper called Up against the wall. A congressional inquiry followed with a senator and two generals on it but it too didn’t become public.
…
Don’t people want to stay with the NSA?
That was one of the things behind the Berlin strike. A lot of people got disillusioned. They get trained intensively for two years, they are sent out thinking they will do important work and within a month they find out that it’s mostly bullshit.
***
A coworker had a copy the NSA beer policy of 1970 on display on his filing cabinet. Basically, it said NSA employees are allowed to drink beer from the vending machines in the Fort Meade cafeteria.
***
It was produced starting in 1947 by an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer, the results of which were then carefully filtered and tested before being used to generate the table. The RAND table was an important breakthrough in delivering random numbers, because such a large and carefully prepared table had never before been available. In addition to being available in book form, one could also order the digits on a series of punched cards.
…
The main use of the tables was in statistics and the experimental design of scientific experiments, especially those that used the Monte Carlo method; in cryptography, they have also been used as nothing up my sleeve numbers, for example in the design of the Khafre cipher. The book was one of the last of a series of random number tables produced from the mid-1920s to the 1950s, after which the development of high-speed computers allowed faster operation through the generation of pseudorandom numbers rather than reading them from tables.
***
Cue INCEL VOLCEL stupidity I wrote but did not send.
I apologize for contacting you this way. This isn’t the way in which I would prefer. However, my department does not look kindly on interaction with other departments during working hours. It all has a tinge of the schoolyard, where you can’t be seen with someone from other groups. But it is my job. I thought perhaps when I was promoted that would give me a bit more leeway to make a proper introduction, however things have not progressed as such as of yet. We have spoken briefly over the years, in a very shallow capacity, my remarks above will show why. I however would very much enjoy getting a chance to know you, if you would afford me the chance. I apologize for the floweriness of my language as well. I am heart at writer, and I’ve been listening to audiobooks of Frankenstein and Dracula for Halloween, so I may have adapted some affectations.
I don’t know how to talk to people
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 2:40 am
It’s better to apologize than ask permission. Take the plunge and do it face to face. Use a joke:
Why did the pizza burn the hipster’s tongue?
Because he ate it before it was cool.
Derpetologist
on November 2, 2023 at 3:02 am
Or don’t. The woman I thought was the love of my life put a restraining order on me after I proposed marriage to her via a text message in which I quoted from Terminator. All this and more will be revealed in my later posts here.
I’ve been doing online dating for 13 years which now qualifies me to be a tour guide in hell. During that time, I’ve gone on dates with about 50 different women and 4 of them became my gal pals. 1 more and I qualify as an ace.
Maybe it’s homeowner’s fault for thinking we still live in a high trust society.
Ghostpatzer
on November 2, 2023 at 6:04 am
Thanks. Just what I needed to start my day.
When the accumulation of any amount of wealth is spun as “taking” from the “exploited”, it becomes morally justified to “take back” from the oppressors. That family was merely doing what they have been taught is the righteous thing to do.
Ghostpatzer
on November 2, 2023 at 5:57 am
Mornin’, reprobates!
Gender Traitor
on November 2, 2023 at 6:02 am
Good morning, ‘patzie! (And Stinky and DEG!) How are you and yours today?
Ghostpatzer
on November 2, 2023 at 6:09 am
Mornin’, GT. As you well know, it’s the time of the season for open enrollment. Since we are changing providers we need to enter everything from scratch. So there’s that. Also, the annual Employee Engagement Survey which I filled out yesterday. It’s anonymous, so I was totally honest 😂😂😂
Oh, open enrollment. I have to get that done. I’ve been ignoring most things about my job except… my actual job of writing code. And running meetings for my boss while he’s on vacation.
And how’s your health and wife’s? I remember poking around these early bird posts long after the thread died. The kidney stone is gone? And your wife was having more hip trouble?
Ghostpatzer
on November 2, 2023 at 6:20 am
Thanks. Stone is no more, finally. Having a stent in lace for a month was no fun. Mrs. Patzer will be having her second hip replacement in 2 weeks, and it can’t come too soon.
To: Sensei
From: Employee Engagement
RE: Survey Response 3rd Request
We are reminding you that while we may be tracking your lack of response to our survey it will be totes anonymous.
Your feedback is very important to us.
Ghostpatzer
on November 2, 2023 at 6:12 am
Hey GT, how’s that toe?
Gender Traitor
on November 2, 2023 at 6:19 am
Well, the nail’s about a quarter of an inch narrower than it was this time yesterday, but thankfully, it doesn’t look abnormal, and it doesn’t (::knocks wood::) hurt! I’ve graduated from a thick ball of gauze (strapped my right Mary Jane shoe to the bottom of my foot like a sandal) to just a Band Aid and Neosporin!
R.J.
on November 2, 2023 at 6:48 am
What happened to your toe?
Gender Traitor
on November 2, 2023 at 7:00 am
Ingrown toenail and a bit of an infection.
DEG
on November 2, 2023 at 6:14 am
Mornin’
Kinda sleepy. Gotta get my ass to the gym.
DEG
on November 2, 2023 at 6:11 am
Mornin’ all.
I slept in a bit today. It’s time to head to the gym.
Brain herpes!
Nothing a good old Firsting wouldn’t cure.
Better than space herpes?
That was a weird movie. I should re-watch.
Which movie?
Ice Pirates staring Spencer for Hire.
Correct.
Feast your eyes: https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c6/5f/3f/c65f3f25f8caa2614aeab1789c724156.jpg
That’s the second gayest thing I’ve seen today.
It’s got Ron Pearlman, a man who thinks it’s an ‘OWN’ to piss on his own hand before shaking someone elses’
It’s crazy that’s Angelica Houston
HAHAHAHA!
Aren’t we all dying of brain herpes in this day and age?
I’m sure Pfizer would develop a vaccine for Brain Herpes for a cool $50B.
They already have a test for it: If you pay them to develop a vaccine, you have a raging case of Brain Herpes.
Personally, I prefer some bushes in the landing area.
Who the hell is Irish Cow Hat?!
That’s Chicago Bears fan hat. Not sure of the actual name, but he’s been around. Definitely reminds me of Chicago Bears fans.
Da Bears!
lol Bears, Irish. same diff
A generic upper midwest farmer accent. He represents the Farm Lobby portion of this group.
Great episode!
I noticed that sentient hats are not part of the Cryptid Wiki. Clearly that wiki needs a lot of work.
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Cryptid_Wiki
Thanks, CPRM, always a good show and I saved the price of a ticket
Brain herpes. Nice twist.
Watching ‘the Pacific’.
Basilone’s wife goes and makes him dinner after sex. What a woman.
Didn’t even know (maybe remember?) That he was from Buffalo.
https://youtu.be/HCBN7lyLT4w
So many voices! How do ya keep ’em straight?
Good stuff, CPRM.
Vivek is still trying to make his “Truth.” hat a thing. https://www.vivek2024.com/product/truth-white-mesh-trucker-hat/
“Stop trying to make ‘fetch'” happen.”
There is something skeezy about him I can’t quite pin down.
The fact that he’s a con man?
Maybe it’s just something about getting stupidly rich that young and doing a lot of public speaking.
Yeah, I’ve heard from multiple sources that he is precisely that.
He exudes fake and talks fast.
Just check his statements about anything. Today’s position is the opposite of tomorrow’s.
One of his startups got lots of money from the Feds to work on Covid tracking.
That’s it. I knew there was something vid related but couldn’t remember what.
I stopped listening to Vivek when he was speaking with Jordan Peterson about the campaign money that candidates get, and was talking about how Trump spent relatively nothing by force of his personality. No, you idiot! Trump got billions’ worth of free air time from every media outlet ever. He didn’t HAVE to spend any money. Either he was being deliberately obtuse/evasive or he hadn’t considered it, both of which are nonstarters in my book.
And he’s not the first candidate I’ve turned my nose up at for one stupid thing that stuck in my craw. I was all in for Ross Perot—until he dropped out, then got back in again with [insert incoherent Bush conspiracy theory here] as his excuse.
I noped right out, but it didn’t faze my parents and brother, who all voted for him. Like, this is crazy talk. Even if [insert incoherent Bush conspiracy theory here] true, and his response is to drop out, that does no speak well of a leader.
Ross really did start getting threats against his family. At the time I thought it was silly he said Bush was behind it. I don’t think it was silly any more. The Bush family was/ is deep in WEF’s pockets.
That might be true, and I wouldn’t blame Perot for cutting and running. But he CAME BACK. Why? The conspiracy is he was a Clinton plant, and just needed to take away enough Bush votes to get Clinton elected. Maybe he was doing TOO well.
He was ashamed he got spooked.
I could respect that he got spooked. Normal people would. I could not respect that he came back with a “Woopsie daisy! Never mind!” The return felt so cavalier.
I remember all of that and felt the same way. Dude, you’re running for president. All this shit comes with it.
“No one who leads so many could possibly kneel so quickly.”
-General Zod
https://youtu.be/_xUiCNlDeJk?si=Y2LQbOljZdM4LlHS&t=79
Vivek’s twix about Israel having some divine right seemed way too extreme. And I’m Mr. Jewish People.
(((I’ll))) prepare your sash.
Not a crown of (((thorns)))?
Not for our supporters.
In that case, I’d like to hear more about meal plan.
Hey, I’m Mr. Jewish People, not King of the Jews.
There’s plenty of hummus, falafel, couscous, and pita.
I’m not sure how to say this. I am not a Jew. Nor am I am an evangelical Christian.
Judeo-Christian ideals mean more to me than what the other sides’ grievances keeps screaming about.
They are the people that are more likely to leave me alone now.
Let’s pick our battles.
He has some nonsensical ideas, like raising the voting age back to 21 with an exception for military veterans. Maybe he got that idea from Starship Troopers.
Would you like to know more?
His idea would require a constitutional amendment which would undo the one that lowered the voting age to 18.
I can respect him for graduating some elite schools. He’s the same age as me. Teddy Roosevelt remains the youngest president and he did everything Vivek did and then some.
Getting your ideas from Starship Troopers is no more ridiculous than getting them on college campuses these days.
He and Barak Obama must have gone to the same school of public speaking. His mannerisms and way of talking are similar to Obama’s.
“The General” has died.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/38796141/legendary-basketball-coach-bob-knight-dies-83?platform=amp
I hope they follow his request: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS20_JesSq4
They play the news at work.
Allegedly 55% of Americans want to send our troops to defend Israel. What psychos.
It feels like there should be more choices than “send our troops to defend Israel” and “wipe them off the face of the earth”.
Is ‘not sticking our dick in the hornets nest’ an option? That’s the one I’d choose.
Sadly, sending all our money to Israel is apparently an option too.
On a related note, I talked to Army and Navy recruiters about rejoining. I told them I knew they needed more warm bodies. They said I’m ineligible, but that my change in a few months. They were impressed when I showed them proof of my perfect score on the ASVAB from 2015. The Navy is currently inducting people who score in the 10th percentile on the ASVAB. It’s depressing that high school graduates could do so badly on that test. I gave them some cards for my tutoring business. Maybe I can help someone else join. People who care about learning usually study before seeking a tutor. It’s the parents of high school students that usually seek out the tutors.
I saw a poll just now that 57% of Americans oppose sending US troops to fight Hamas. I guess there are people who want US troops there, but don’t want them to do anything. Makes about as much sense as the helium reserve. We don’t want the Kaiser’s zeppelins to get the jump on us again.
***
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States, which once held over 1 billion cubic meters (about 170,000,000 kg)[a] of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome[2] reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the Helium Act of 1925. The strategic supply provisioned the noble gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Cold War and Space Race.
…
By 1995, a billion cubic metres of the gas had been collected, and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting Congress to begin phasing out the reserve in 1996.[5][6] The resulting Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–273) directed the Department of the Interior to start selling off the reserve by 2005.[7]
Helium gas production on March 8, 1923
Government sales flooded the market with cheap helium, causing much of the private helium industry to shut down; the facility remained in government hands.[8] The Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 mandated higher prices but a continued selldown to 3 billion cubic feet remaining by October 1, 2018, which was achieved with auctions.[9] It also set a deadline of September, 30, 2021 for sale of the reserve. BLM transferred it to the General Services Administration (GSA) as surplus property, but as of early June 2023, a 2022 auction[10] failed to finalize a sale.[11] On June 22, 2023, the GSA announced a new auction of the facilities and remaining helium.[12] The auction of the last helium assets is due to take place in November, 2023.[13]
***
So the helium reserve is almost gone…90 years after it should have been phased out.
*may change – my re-entry code is 4, meaning there is no current waiver that could get me in again
Fine by me. I like having a beard and long hair. I was just curious to see if it was an option. I identify with the author of Tarzan:
***
Burroughs drifted across the United States until he was thirty-six, holding seventeen consecutive careers before he published stories.
***
None of my business but is the reason for not allowing you to rejoin because of an age limit? As I said none of my business.
I got a general discharge, Chapter 9 (alcohol abuse treatment failure), though my company commander recommended an honorable one. At least that’s what the papers say. The somewhat longer answer is I got tired of being mistreated, so I gave them an excuse to get rid of me. More details will be revealed in the Story of My Life posts that I have been publishing here.
I walked my way into the Army and I drank my way out.
Thank you, sir.
When are they auctioning off the facility? I want my own Venture compound.
Planet Express
Good news, everyone!
Oooh, good call.
Oh, fuck yeah.
Yeah and about the same percent support a cease fire.
These people just support whatever the surveyor asks if it sounds good.
You ask most of those people of their opinion on the Wakanda situation, and they’ll give the same answers.
Lol. You’re right.
Maybe ever since “what’s a leppo?” no one wants to appear ignorant?
Most Americans didn’t and don’t know what Aleppo was or who Gary Johnson is let alone what he said about it.
I’ve got an Aleppo Pine in my yard. It is literally the only thing of value originating from that city. Gary Johnson inadvertently gave the best answer about what to do there, which was to not know or do anything about that particular hornets nest the other candidates were eager to stick their genitalia in.
A pepper.
That’s a weird poll since Israel isn’t asking for troops.
The US didn’t ask for Israel’s opinion just like it didn’t ask for Syria’s.
Word of the day: Troon
I can’t imagine that describes more than a handful of people. Does it really need a word?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say it applies to all the up-and-coming TransAGPs (autogynephiles), who seem to be coming out of the woodwork at an alarming pace.
A former co-worker of mine just announced they identify as transgendered and were changing their name. It’s a 300 lb white guy with facial hair (which he did not shave) and a party-city wig.
It hasn’t been an issue for me yet, but: I don’t want to indulge it. I’ve lived my entire life an atheist. If someone comes to me talking about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I will be polite but I am not interested in joining his church. I’m not going to join your flat-earth message board. I’m not going to sign your petition condemning Israel. So much of these social movements are premised on denying or obfuscating material reality (which is fine) to assert some greater good (which is also fine), but I feel like I’m entitled to reserve my skepticism and not indulge a belief system out of social nicety. Transgenderism is a belief system premised on mystifying sex and gender. I’m not going to kneel at that alter. I’d be willing to lose my job over this.
They want their fetish validated.
No one has to validate my Firsting.
He could go to a side show as a fat bearded lady.
Life is like that parlor game, you have to figure out what I am based on what clues I give you only if you make a mistake I will chastise you publicly.
I’m glad I’m old
The cynic in me says that’s the point: wielding a petty but vicious power over others. Repeat my lie or suffer the consequences.
Even more cynical is the alternative: these are disaffected but well-meaning twerps who bought into the lie themselves and genuinely, good-heartedly expect you to repeat what they consider truths. They’re as much victims of the deconstructionists as you are when they get you fired for not calling them by whatever pretend pronouns they’ve adopted.
We are talking about very weak willed individuals who are desperate to belong to something and fit in. They have little sense of self. I doubt they’d recognize the will to power in their actions, but they are same as disaffected youths who joined any movement to belong. It’s just a lot funnier. Having some semblance of power in how other people interact with you through the institutions is part of it, even if not consciously.
I’ll once again pull out this gem:
In China, the phrase “point at a deer and call it a horse” means obeying a powerful person instead of saying or doing what’s right.
***
Zhi Lu Wei Ma
(Calling a Deer a horse)
Qin Er Shi, the son of Shi Huang Di of Qin Dynasty was not a bright king. Zhao Gao, the prime minister wanted to replace Er Shi as king. To test the loyalty of the officials, Zhao presented a deer (Lu) to the king, calling it a horse (Ma). Er Shi laughed and rebuked Zhao, saying that it was a deer. Zhao turned towards the officials, asking for their opinion. Most of them looked away from Zhao and did not answer. Some tried to curry favor with Zhao and said it was a horse. There was a small number of officials who told the truth. Zhao remembered all those who favored the king and have them executed.
Applications: This term is commomly used to describe someone who is unreasonable, forcing his opinion on others. Note that the Japanese has a term called ‘Baka’ which originated from this story. ‘Baka’ means someone who is stupid; can’t tell a horse from a deer. However, Zhao Gao, the master of all ‘Bakas’ was not stupid at all. He was shrewd and crafty instead! (Zhi means to point; Wei means is.)
***
The kanji for baka are the characters for horse (ba) and deer (ka).
馬鹿
After reading the first two Remembrance novels, I can confidently say: I can’t tell Chinese names apart at all, or remember them after twenty minutes.
I had the same problem trying to read “Battle Royale”.
The Dalrymple quote is spot-fucking-on.
So much of those novels are terribly silly and either there’s something lost in translation or the Chinese mind is truly foreign. The reactions people in power have are often very silly. Even sillier are the reactions people have corporately, which verge on Biblical. I get that he pitches the one guy as messianic at the end of the second novel, but it’s ludicrous that people would congregate and then just disperse like he describes. So either it’s insight into how hive-minded Chinese culture is, or there are levels there that his translators couldn’t capture.
Thanks for that post, slumbrew. Definitely truth in it.
Explains why forcing us to acknowledge pronouns and gender identity is so freaking important to the same crowd.
It’s a similar premise to the Foundation series where Hari Seldon says that large groups of people behave just as predictably as masses of molecules.
I forget who said it, but the quote is something like “when scientists write sci-fi, the most interesting characters are computers”.
I’m going to take a wild guess that 99.9% of people using the word “autogynephile” never read Blanchard or Bailey (who were both wrong).
Here is a short read: https://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-CaseAgainstAutogynephilia.pdf
Thanks. Will read.
You could also read Bailey’s book for free here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281747420_The_Man_Who_Would_Be_Queen
Not that I recommend it. It’s mostly crap. Including his drooling over “HSTS” in Chicago gay bars. Although from what I’ve read from him recently, he is right about FTM rapid onset gender dysphoria.
Just like Debra Soh, who is often right about things, is a fan of Blanchard.
As far as I can tell, “troon” has little to do with whether a MTF is androphilic or gynephilic (HSTS or AGP in Blanchard’s parlance), but just that they aren’t sufficiently feminine presenting.
Except… autogynephiles clearly exist.
It’s like claiming hickory trees don’t actually exist, and that people who think so are pushing their own bigotry onto pecans.
Dr. Drew recently attributed that to a subtype of narcissism (but when doesn’t he?).
(errrr, autogynephilia, that is)
That is utterly believable. LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
Zoom is happening.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87821224358?pwd=eW55MTRDbDNtQkh2aHd3M1Nmenlzdz09
Does SF have his Wednesday stories indexed somewhere? I fell quit keeping up with the site early 2022 and want to catch up on the madness, and the WP backlog function isn’t very comprehensive.
Indexed how? If you click the Jomala tag it will bring up all the jomala post in reverse chronological order*.
* is there a word for that, seems like there should be a word for that.
I do see the point. There is a topic for SugarFree, but it doesn’t bring up all his work. So use Joemala, and SugarFree?
Suggestion: Go to “About Us,” and scroll down to SugarFree. When you click on that you can see all 500+ of his posts.
I have trained the YouTube algorithm well:
Patriarchy Chicken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UuyhLZJsdM
It’s kind of like Robot Chicken, only pathetic and kind of sad.
recent Hamas combat footage; Israeli troops stay behind cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhUdZLAvRic
Jamsheed, the RPG – the fearless Afghan who fought with US troops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfx74JBz2EI
God bless Jamsheed and everyone who lives in his house. If he wasn’t helped during and after the withdrawal, shame on those who bungled it.
The MSheU is so real that Marvel won’t even let itself make a movie staring a black dude. The Blade movie, the production of which has been a disaster, was reportedly all about women.
Man, I specialize in hunting black vampires, I don’t know what the PC name for that is.
I don’t even have to click through. Good choice.
“The Order Of The Triad!” in your best Orpheus voice.
+1 light blue windbreaker
Orpheus doing that overdramatic community theatre enunciation vs. The Master just being H. Jon Benjamin always gets me.
Hey, will you let me enjoy this?! Damn, don’t you know how good this feels?! Oh no, wait – I’m sorry, your wife left you because you don’t know how good this feels!
Hamas uses a drone to drop a bomb on a group of Israeli soldiers. Those Merkava tanks don’t have a gun that can point up high enough to shoot them, but the soldiers do. Why weren’t any of them looking up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAfVqGKcmpQ
Qabdah means fist in Arabic and is also slang for a hand-held radio or walkie-talkie, because you make a fist when you push the talk button.
Here’s something to give you a taste of what I listened to night after night at NSA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PG79oCUTbQ
The methods used to collect such traffic are impressive. I was impressed with the ingenuity.
It was dull enough reading transcripts all day. I can’t imagine how bad it was transcribing all day.
First me like you’ll never let me go
‘Cause I’m leavin’ on a First
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I love to go…
glibz after dark
https://archive.ph/nf9Qn/dbfd04cb9f4cda22fae4dd0042e346da0621efa4.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.ph/ltyTl/078c13d20fa3a4101fd965afb6318fa4c354eb2b.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.ph/rqNS9/b82ef956c84040604fe662cf04e797f45188afc3.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.ph/VvJWx/bbde5a256c3ade32d4fce7ae57fc58de126e0b24.jpg
NSFW.
Fake tiddies have progressed lightyears in the last twenty years.
I’m sensing a theme.
I had this issue as a lad.
That was great! Although I still miss Space Hat.
What happened to Space Hat? Is he working for Mossad?
His space capsule lost control, he’s waiting for NASA to get it’s new rockets done to come and get him.
Well well. Texas Rangers won the world series. I didn’t think I’d see it in my lifetime.
Next up, Browns win the Super Bowl.
Then the trumpets sound and the world ends?
Who/what/where is Babylon?
Looks like Magog might be Russia after all.
What is the Abomination that Causes Desolation, and what is the nature of the “temple” in which it will be set up?
I used to wonder idly what role the US would have in the apocalypse (if it’s a prophecy that can relate directly to earthly polities), but now I think it’s increasingly likely that the US will be irrelevant by then, a non-entity on the world stage.
I *hate* teams named after a state.
Surely there is more than one baseball team in Texas?
How about teams named after whole regions? New England Patriots. Carolina Panthers.
Them too.
You may blame the NFL for one of those:
Was the league holding out for Commonwealth of Massachusetts Patriots? That rolls right off the tongue.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Who knows WTF they were thinking.
Bay State Patriots
The one hit wonder of “Sunday Afternoon”?
How do you feel about the Houston Texans? Are the Yankees and Mets named for a city or state?
And what about those football teams that don’t even play in their nominal state??
The Mets are named for The Metropolis, which is of course another name for London.
Jormungandr walhallaensis…finally, a prehistoric creature named after Norse mythology, discovered in Walhalla, ND
***
The species was described in 2023, and the genus is named after the world serpent Jörmungandr from Norse mythology. The specific name references Walhalla, North Dakota, which itself is named after Valhalla from Norse mythology.
***
Count Dankula covers Ruby Ridge. A lot more detail than I had seen before.
Fuck you squirrels.
I have never been stopped from Firsting by any squirrels. Not once. The Great Firster cloaks me in sacred oils and I slide right in through server errors. But I am the chosen one.
cloaks me in sacred oils and I slide right in
Sounds more like the Great Fister.
Silly, boy. The Great Squirrel will eat your additions.
Also fuck the media apologists calling it the Israel-Hamas war. Pick one or the other. Likud-Hamas war, if that’s going to be the style.
Technically, Hamas is the political party and the Al-Qassam Brigades is their military. But Hamas is quicker to say and takes up less space, so Hamas it is.
Then it’d be the IDF – Al-Quassam Brigades war. Likud-Hamas would be the correct equivalent.
Let’s stop the funding. No more weapons…both sides.
Tell the UN to eat a bag of dicks in a dark corner.
No more “humanitarian aid”.
Ahhhh…that’s the stickler.
Cut the borrowed money off.
weird hypothetical
With Syria weakened, Turkey could march on Israel with little opposition. If Turkey and Israel went to war, the rest of NATO would be forced to fight Israel. I don’t expect that to happen, but it’s an interesting geopolitical chess problem to contemplate.
Erdogan sabre-rattling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHyhB6lODtM
If the war in Gaza gets bloody enough, the people of Egypt might rise up and overthrow their government. The new guys in charge might decide to rush to Gaza’s defense. I don’t expect that to happen either.
***
Potshot is a term that refers to a shot taken at an animal simply to ‘get it in the pot,’ that is, not for sport or marksmanship and with little heed paid to the preservation of the animal. The term has its origins in the idea that casual shooting is unbefitting a true sportsman, and is in fact characteristic of a hunter whose effort is wholly pragmatic—to get something for the cooking pot. The term was first used in 1836.
***
Hezbollah will probably keep taking potshots at Israel as long as the war in Gaza lasts.
Do you really believe America would support Turkey in a war with Israel, treaty be damned?
No, but we’d be in violation of the treaty. It would effectively end NATO since no other member would fight on Turkey’s side.
I’m pretty sure you can’t be the aggressor and call for Article 5.
Greece and Turkey were both in NATO in 1974 when they briefly went to war over Cyprus.
***
The Turkish Foreign Minister Turan Güneş had said to the Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, “When I say ‘Ayşe[b] should go on vacation’ (Turkish: “Ayşe Tatile Çıksın”), it will mean that our armed forces are ready to go into action. Even if the telephone line is tapped, that would rouse no suspicion.”
***
Ah, idiot codes. Surprisingly effective.
***
An idiot code is a code that is created by the parties using it. This type of communication is akin to the hand signals used by armies in the field.
Example: Any sentence where ‘day’ and ‘night’ are used means ‘attack’. The location mentioned in the following sentence specifies the location to be attacked.
Plaintext: Attack X.
Codetext: We walked day and night through the streets but couldn’t find it! Tomorrow we’ll head into X.
An early use of the term appears to be by George Perrault, a character in the science fiction book Friday by Robert A. Heinlein:
The simplest sort [of code] and thereby impossible to break. The first ad told the person or persons concerned to carry out number seven or expect number seven or it said something about something designated as seven. This one says the same with respect to code item number ten. But the meaning of the numbers cannot be deduced through statistical analysis because the code can be changed long before a useful statistical universe can be reached. It’s an idiot code… and an idiot code can never be broken if the user has the good sense not to go too often to the well.
Terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp said that the men who carried out the September 11 attacks on the United States used basic e-mail and what he calls “idiot code” to discuss their plans.
***
NATO members have a mutual self-defense pact – Turkey invading another country wouldn’t obligate other NATO members to do shit.
Turkey’s tried to invoke Article 5 before in 2012:
***
The downing of an “unarmed” Turkish military jet which was “13 sea miles” from Syria over “international waters” on a “solo mission to test domestic radar systems”. On 25 June, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister said that he intended to raise Article 5.
…
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that “The tomb of Suleyman Shah [in Syria] and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land… Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary”.
***
***
On 20 March 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) threatened to attack Turkey’s territory tomb site unless the Turkish troops guarding it were withdrawn within three days. The Turkish government reacted by saying it would retaliate against any such attack, and did not withdraw its guards. However, the threatened attack did not take place. Due to (such) tensions, the garrison at the tomb was increased to 38 men, in 2014 or earlier.
***
So yeah. Turkey already has a bunch of troops and proxies in Syria.
Turkey can try and invoke Article 5 all they want, invading another country wouldn’t trigger it.
You’ll note the lack of NATO obligations when the US invaded Iraq.
Good point. But NATO did send troops to Afghanistan.
Aye, but not due to any treaty obligation.
Side Note:
I’ve been listening to an audiobook version of the unabridged version of Dracula at work. A lot of talk about his fighting the Turks. I think that’s all cut out of the abridged version (for certain not in any movie until the Coppalla version in the 90s), leading to ‘stunning finds’ 100 years later about the real Dracula being a real guy who fought the Turks! OMG!
The Coppala produced Branagh version of Frankenstein didn’t stay nearly as close to the source material however. What a turd.
Also, the contrivance both books use is that they are journal entries. good thing such great writers were involved in these events!
“Today I took a shit so long it was as a great snake, coiling in the chamber pot until it bit me the arse! Haha, I’ll have to remember that one next time the boys come round. Oh, there was this one fair maiden I saw who’s garments had been quenched with water, I could see her rises and dimples! Huzzah! Oh, and I made a 7 foot tall monster, but he ran away.”
I suspect most actual diaries are not that interesting.
***
Robert William Shields (May 17, 1918 – October 15, 2007) was an American minister and high school English teacher best known for writing a diary of 37.5 million words, which chronicled every five minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997.[1][2] Shields’s diary, which filled 91 boxes, was longer than those kept by the journalist Edward Robb Ellis (21 million words) and the poet Arthur Crew Inman (17 million words), and 30 times longer than that of Samuel Pepys (1.25 million words).[3]
…
Believing that discontinuing his diary would be like “turning off my life”,[1] he spent four hours a day in the office, on his back porch, in his underwear, recording his body temperature, blood pressure, medications, describing his urination and bowel movements, and slept for only two hours at a time so he could describe his dreams. The New York Times summarized the journal as being about anything “from changing light bulbs to pondering God to visiting the bathroom”.[3] He also left behind samples of his nose hair for future study.[3] After his stroke in 1997, Shields tried to continue the diary by having his wife write what he told her to write, but she lacked the compulsion and energy to do so and stopped shortly afterward.[3]
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_diaries
***
King kept a very candid diary from 1893, when he was still an undergraduate, until a few days before his death in 1950; the volumes, stacked in a row, span a length of over seven metres and comprise over 50,000 manuscript pages of typed transcribed text.[147] One biographer called these diaries “the most important single political document in twentieth-century Canadian history,”[148] for they explain motivations of the Canadian war efforts and describe other events in detail.
***
Now future Canadians have a thorough record of how boring their country is.
Vampire is garbled Hungarian for witch/wizard.
The more you know…
I read Dracula and don’t remember Turks being mentioned, but I trust that they were. My grandpa painted me a portrait of Vlad the Impaler and gave it to me as a birthday present. If I teach again, I will hang it on the wall of my classroom.
Raymond Ibrahim has put out some good stuff before.
https://pjmedia.com/raymond-ibrahim/2023/10/31/count-dracula-undead-bloodsucker-or-anti-jihad-hero-n4923475
Guess the only book I actually have by him right now is the Al Qaeda reader, but I may need to pick up a few of his more recent ones.
That’s in the beginning, before they realize he was THAT Dracula. Then they talk a lot more about it in the 3rd act.
Bravo! You tracked that down quick. There’s a government agency that hires people like you and me.
Drunks?
[ponders 3rd Gennessee Cream Ale of the night to my right]
I was thinking the other day about how in the last 40 years it has become increasingly difficult to get baby seats in cars. It must be hell on earth for parents that don’t have a car and rely on taxis/uber/lyft. Bur the ones who ride a bus or a train? they ain’t gotta worry bout shit. They can just hold the baby in their arms or leave them in stroller that will roll right down the aisle in the event of an accident.
If the government says it’s safe, then it’s safe. That’s just science.
My siblings have been all about strapping their kids down, except when we’ve been in a motor home. Then the tikes can run around freely. But in a car, my G*d you need the seat!
***
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 59% of car seats are not installed correctly. A study found that nearly half of kid’s car seats are installed incorrectly, with the most common mistakes being incorrect recline angle on rear-facing car seats, loose installation on forward-facing car seats, tether anchor not used on forward-facing convertible, and lap belt sitting on child’s abdomen when in a booster seat.
***
Those incorrectly installed seats make injury more likely. Whatever, it won’t stop. Same dynamic as placebo COVID masks.
amusing
***
Norman Partridge (born May 28, 1958) is an American writer of horror and mystery fiction. He has written two detective novels about retired boxer Jack Baddalach, Saguaro Riptide and The Ten Ounce Siesta. He is also the author of a Crow novel, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was adapted in 2005 into the fourth Crow movie, bearing the same name.
Mr. Partridge’s 2006 novel Dark Harvest, published in a limited edition of 2000 autographed copies and 24 lettered edition copies by Cemetery Dance Publications, was voted one of Publishers Weekly’s 100 Best Books of 2006. It also won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction, and has been nominated for two more awards in 2007. Dark Harvest was made into a film in 2023.[1]
His short stories are collected in the volumes Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, Bad Intentions, and The Man with the Barbed Wire Fists.
***
He seems like a successful writer by any standard.
***
Partridge works as the library’s evening circulation supervisor at Saint Mary’s College of California.[2] He gave a campus reading of Dark Harvest on October 30, 2019.[3]
***
But not so successful so as to give up his other job.
Probably because he’s not in a union./
I was chatting with someone on Twitter the other day about Labyrinth and linked him the Glib article I wrote about it. But THEN, just TONIGHT, I came across this: https://youtu.be/5jSgvRTIFo0?si=fVCdINuOCmsXzl9L Made me guffaw in places.
I watch his stuff sometimes, but the whole ‘why did our parents let us watch this!?’ thing is something I don’t get. Granted, I’m not a parent, but my parents never really told me not to watch something*. And I turned out just fine…
*We had Nightmare on Elm Street on Beta, and my mom said not to watch it to 5 or 6 year old me because it would be too scary, but I did. There was no consequence.
To connect this to my mention upthread of Frankenstein, there is a mention in the video of INCELs. Frankenstein’s monster is an INCEL. I should write an article about that and sell it to some site.
I’ve been reading incessantly for 50 years or so. I am so amazed about how much I have not read.
Oh, how I laughed.
https://privacysos.org/blog/nsa-analysts-went-on-strike-in-1970s-berlin-after-getting-disciplined-for-smoking-weed/
NSA ANALYSTS WENT ON STRIKE IN 1970S BERLIN AFTER GETTING DISCIPLINED FOR SMOKING WEED
***
Why have so few people ever heard of this remarkable organisation?
When anything goes wrong, we generally attribute it to the CIA. Then most of the installations are manned by military personnel and resemble signals bases, so they are [unintelligible].
Why does NSA want to remain secret?
The interception of telephone conversations violates the local laws of most countries and the interception of diplomatic traffic violates Geneva conventions.
…
[NSA employees in Berlin went on strike.] A strike over what?
The NSA personnel in Berlin were part of the Army Security Agency and came under army administrators for discipline. About 60 or 70 percent of NSA were smoking pot — a lot of them while on duty. It’s very relaxing, particularly when you’re bored with the Russian or East German traffic that is coming through.
The army didn’t like pot?
Well, the new colonel in charge, called Hamilton, who came from Army Airborne, wanted to arrest everyone that smoked it. DIRNSA, the director of NSA, its head in Fort Meade sent out a message saying that the colonel shouldn’t do anything that would endanger the security of the country, meaning he should lay off. During those days NSA Berlin brought out an alternative newspaper called Up against the wall. A congressional inquiry followed with a senator and two generals on it but it too didn’t become public.
…
Don’t people want to stay with the NSA?
That was one of the things behind the Berlin strike. A lot of people got disillusioned. They get trained intensively for two years, they are sent out thinking they will do important work and within a month they find out that it’s mostly bullshit.
***
A coworker had a copy the NSA beer policy of 1970 on display on his filing cabinet. Basically, it said NSA employees are allowed to drink beer from the vending machines in the Fort Meade cafeteria.
Cue drinking scene from Falcon and the Snowman.
5-digit code groups…war…war never changes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Random_Digits_with_100,000_Normal_Deviates
***
It was produced starting in 1947 by an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer, the results of which were then carefully filtered and tested before being used to generate the table. The RAND table was an important breakthrough in delivering random numbers, because such a large and carefully prepared table had never before been available. In addition to being available in book form, one could also order the digits on a series of punched cards.
…
The main use of the tables was in statistics and the experimental design of scientific experiments, especially those that used the Monte Carlo method; in cryptography, they have also been used as nothing up my sleeve numbers, for example in the design of the Khafre cipher. The book was one of the last of a series of random number tables produced from the mid-1920s to the 1950s, after which the development of high-speed computers allowed faster operation through the generation of pseudorandom numbers rather than reading them from tables.
***
the scene referenced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rxncDh6io
NSA alcohol poster
https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NSA-93-1200×1538.jpeg
Cue
INCELVOLCEL stupidity I wrote but did not send.I don’t know how to talk to people
It’s better to apologize than ask permission. Take the plunge and do it face to face. Use a joke:
Why did the pizza burn the hipster’s tongue?
Because he ate it before it was cool.
Or don’t. The woman I thought was the love of my life put a restraining order on me after I proposed marriage to her via a text message in which I quoted from Terminator. All this and more will be revealed in my later posts here.
I’ve been doing online dating for 13 years which now qualifies me to be a tour guide in hell. During that time, I’ve gone on dates with about 50 different women and 4 of them became my gal pals. 1 more and I qualify as an ace.
I love that 100 octane advantage.
https://www.allposters.com/-sp/Thanks-for-that-100-Octane-Advantage-Posters_i8179642_.htm
The meat of the text was “in the words of my favorite killer robot, come with me if you want to live”.
https://youtu.be/x3hGMgd2X14?si=shovYmJSZFTd3wlX&t=200
Terminator is a sci-fi romance for guys.
Good morning all!
Today we have:
Gentle Giant, The Runaway.
Supertramp, Crime of the Century.
Share and enjoy!
Good morning Beau and the rest of y’all.
☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xIYJ7VaSxYY
🎶🎶
Not bad.
Good morning all.
Are we doing music now to start the day?
Fine…give this a try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OflpWQCPQOw
I find that a lot of covers beat originals.
Good morning, Suthen, Sean, Beau, and on the off chance you’re still awake and around, CPRM and Derpie!
Morning.
Good morning, U! How are you today?
Sleepy.
The sentence that led to confusion in the snippet I sent was actually incomplete.
I suspected that might be the case. Got the correction. Thanks!
Very nice!
A nice synopsis of many of the country’s problems or just good old fashioned tragedy of the commons?
https://twitter.com/CatchUpFeed/status/1719689370100510932?
Maybe it’s homeowner’s fault for thinking we still live in a high trust society.
Thanks. Just what I needed to start my day.
When the accumulation of any amount of wealth is spun as “taking” from the “exploited”, it becomes morally justified to “take back” from the oppressors. That family was merely doing what they have been taught is the righteous thing to do.
Mornin’, reprobates!
Good morning, ‘patzie! (And Stinky and DEG!) How are you and yours today?
Mornin’, GT. As you well know, it’s the time of the season for open enrollment. Since we are changing providers we need to enter everything from scratch. So there’s that. Also, the annual Employee Engagement Survey which I filled out yesterday. It’s anonymous, so I was totally honest 😂😂😂
“Anonymous”
^^^ This guy gets it.
Oh, open enrollment. I have to get that done. I’ve been ignoring most things about my job except… my actual job of writing code. And running meetings for my boss while he’s on vacation.
And how’s your health and wife’s? I remember poking around these early bird posts long after the thread died. The kidney stone is gone? And your wife was having more hip trouble?
Thanks. Stone is no more, finally. Having a stent in lace for a month was no fun. Mrs. Patzer will be having her second hip replacement in 2 weeks, and it can’t come too soon.
Oy. May the medical issues end after this.
To: Sensei
From: Employee Engagement
RE: Survey Response 3rd Request
We are reminding you that while we may be tracking your lack of response to our survey it will be totes anonymous.
Your feedback is very important to us.
Hey GT, how’s that toe?
Well, the nail’s about a quarter of an inch narrower than it was this time yesterday, but thankfully, it doesn’t look abnormal, and it doesn’t (::knocks wood::) hurt! I’ve graduated from a thick ball of gauze (strapped my right Mary Jane shoe to the bottom of my foot like a sandal) to just a Band Aid and Neosporin!
What happened to your toe?
Ingrown toenail and a bit of an infection.
Mornin’
Kinda sleepy. Gotta get my ass to the gym.
Mornin’ all.
I slept in a bit today. It’s time to head to the gym.
Clearly there’s a rash of that. I just barely managed to log in to work on time.
This popped up in my youtube feed when I listened to Sean’s song. I have queued up for later viewing but I think the title says it all.
LAPD Suspended From YouTube for “Violent Content”