QotD

“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy our economy ” – Chris Hedges

Via Clusterfuck Nation

My thought exactly

It doesn’t matter whether they can skate. The evil is mocking us, with a clear slap to our face.
It is not the trannies who have no balls, it is US. We are impotent to do anything about it. We just have to sit back and take it. We’ve no power to stop it.

This is why this shit gets stupider every day. It’s just starting.

No link, search it yourself, тов. майор

Roku honeymoon

Installation turned out to be super-easy.
It is getting Verizon to admit I returned their priceless* equipment (the technician who disconnected me from TV took it and left a receipt) – that’s almost impossible to achieve. 3 phone calls and 2 online chats, and they even gave me a “confirmation number” stating they’ve removed a penalty notice from my account – but when I log in after 2 weeks, it’s still there, and the deadline approaches. Naturally, their “customer service” has no email address, and phone robots transfer you endlessly from one mocking automation to another.
But I digress.
So far I’ve added: Roku Channel, BritBox, EpochTimes, something else starting with W, and local news. Watched up to 8th season of Seaside Hotel, House of Eliott,  a few British Classics, and saved a few more, for a sunday binge. Life is good!

*first quote was for $375, now it magically changed to $190. The notice is still there, arrrgh

International of ODDs

I got a compliment! See thread

PS

just saw on L-I someone’s profile description:
Analyst by training | Contrarian by vocation

Наш человек!

Диаложец

-Hello? I am Tom from Central Research. Today we are conducting a survey on a few topics to measure political views and would like you to express your opinion

-Certainly – how much are you paying?

-What? Excuse me?

-How much are you offering to pay me for my time and opinion?

-Hehe! [ drops the call]

Medical codes, etc

Repost from TGP.

Bot-anika

Заметила на linkded-in-е жуткое количество дурацких ботов. Как дискуссия в 20+ комментов, там и они. С сообщениями типа “call me urgent”, ” see you to-night”, “let connect”, “thank you sharing”, &&&. Всегда можно вычислить без клика на профиль, по грам. ошибкам и отсутствию контекста. Типичный профиль – фотка кокетливой барышни по имени аника, или сумера, или гвендолин

Сегодня – новое место встречи.
Записалась на интересный вебинар: R.E. trend – Creating  Residential Housing from Office Buildings.
Через час получаю письмецо от некоей анжу:
Hello sir,
I went through your profile & found it very interesting. Bring your profile at a prominent level , Get the [линк] professional certificate.

Через два – ещё одно, от шамайры хан (lead engineer/ HR/ specialist):
Hello sir/mam [научилось гендеру!]
How are you
Sir are you looking any kind of certification
like us.

Вот прямо даже интересно, неужели находится кто-то, кто кликает на их говёные линки?

Muzzled up

WTH is going on with Post comments threads? Checked on Opinion columns, where I saw, with my own eyes, upwards of 200 comments on Fri, – and there are none now, only mocking invite to “post a first comment”

Update 1.18: …aaand they are back. Guess that was some website glitch or maintenance. Don’t panic!

Ай, умница

Konstantin Kisin at Oxford Union Society

Believable. Very.

Book for a long weekend

---

Nina Stibbe, Man at the Helm

Don’t remember where did I got her name,  but what I read on Goodreads of her books sounded interesting, so I ploughed the local library ebooks for a sample.

Man at the Helm is reminiscent of the Darrells saga, even has a family member who’s fond of animals (never-named big sister, about 12yo).  Charming, funny tale, ranging from slapstick comedy to a grief-mute drama.Told with simplicity that is is the kind of haute-couture cut dresses. Totally relatable to a reader who suddenly recalls herself at 10 and 12 see the inevitability of the plot turns. Sincerity, loyalty, sudden age-inappropriate responsibility, logic, observation, critical thinking, optimistic faith in happy endings. Ability to notice, memorize and correct one’s mistakes. Unsentimental courage.

Recommended. With pleasure, totally.

Трансакция

Из Dreamwidth у F-o-F:

B:

Моя концепция – это то, что ребенок, рожденный в Украине, должен знать украинский язык.

S:

А моя концепция – это то, что мой ребенок, рожденный в Украине, ничего вам не должен. Наоборот, это вы ему должны. Это из его налогов вы получили $3.8 миллиарда лендлиза. И этот долг вам прийдется отдавать. Но об этом мы поговорим позже.

R:

Рожденный и живущий в Украине, разумеется, а не ребенок трамписта.

B:

Хрен вам, мы его вам отдаем кровью.

R:

Не обращайте на него внимания, это какой-то залетный жадный американец-провокатор, скорее всего – трампист, который против ленд-лиза, он даже у меня не в друзьях.

Забавные какие рогули: они думают, нам их кровь нужна зачем-то. И мы, типа, будем обкрадывать наших детей и внуков, увеличивать и так неподъёмный гос.долг до бесконечности – чтоб тратить на войну каких-то восточных европейцев между собой. Ага, нашли лохов.

И как им трамп всрався! Забыли, что при нём у них войны не было, респ. администрация русских агрессоров сдерживала,  а обе войны “случились” при дем-правительствах.

Эта коммунальная логика мне напоминает советских инвалидов войны: вопли из очереди за водкой “я за вас кроффффь проливал!”

Коммуняки эти меня уже несколько подз…достали.

Times, they are…

*Ended my decades-long dependence to cable for more dynamic and less expensive model: fios internet+ streaming service.

*Canceled my pay-pal acct. We are not pals anymore.

*Downloading contents of my fli-kr, directly to my external memory drive, deleting sets from Albums as I go along. As soon as I move everything – time to say goodbye, forevah.

Sunday browsing pleasure

*At Eudaemonist:: even if disagree with the sentiment, you’ll rejoice by a [reliably] delightful turn of phrase like ” louche leers of self-loathing lechers”

*The Frame Blog reposts an illustrated history of Rafael’s Madonna’s ornate frame

*Stephenesque steps into 2023 in sartorial (bespoke?) splendor. Attempts to, at least

*Dennis at SDA contemplates a list of cvd19 fallacies, one of which – “that consensus is the measure of truth” should be obvious to anyone outside of the USSR (or maybe it’s the one place remaining where it IS obvious – but I digress); readers are encouraged to join

*Charley Parker delights with today’s Eye Candy, an illustrator’s work on fantastical architecture.

*Speaking of which, Gerard Michel continues to amaze -stun- astonish, &&& with his mastery

 

Concrete evidence

The post [via Instapundit]  reminded me of my own tangential on Roman Concrete. The theme seems to be eternal – like the Eternal City herself.

Long echo

A comment just fell into my inbox – to one of mine left in a long-forgotten post at Iconic Photos. Interesting thread there.

 

QotD

Calling Florida a “promised land of sanity” in a sea of cities being destroyed by woke ideology, DeSantis noted that “Many of these cities and states have embraced faddish ideology at the expense of enduring principles. They have harmed public safety by coddling criminals and attacking law enforcement. They have imposed unreasonable burdens on taxpayers to finance unfathomable levels of public spending. They have harmed education by subordinating the interests of students and parents to partisan interest groups.”

“They have imposed medical authoritarianism in the guise of pandemic mandates and restrictions that lack a scientific basis. [applause] This bizarre, but prevalent, ideology that permeates these policy measures purports to act in the name of justice for the marginalized, but it frowns upon American institutions, it rejects merit and achievement, and it advocates identity essentialism,” said DeSantis.

The crowd went wild when he declared: “We reject this woke ideology! We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy! We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional. We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die!”

Twice-governor DeSantis in his inauguration speech

С неумолимо наступающим!

Стараясь не думать о белой обезьяне, пожелаю вам – и себе – словами классика

Burns Grace at Kirkcudbright

written in 1787

Some have meat and cannot eat,
Some can not eat that want it:
But we have meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Boom!…Rang!

Pizza box recycling quips:

Andrew Tate “asks someone off-camera to bring him pizza and “make sure that these boxes are not recycled” as he’s handed two pies from Jerry’s Pizza — a local chain in Romania – which led Romanian police in full tactical gear to storm Tate’s villa with a battering ram.”  He and his brother then got arrested on rape and kidnapping charges.

Not-so-Little-Gretling: “This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes”

head-of-kangaroo @Post thread:

“Greta should be recycled.”

I clicked the 15th like.

 

Oxy…what?

Неделю тому назад поставил себе второй бустер. Будем надеяться на него и собственный здравый смысл.

Hilarity, unintended

Iain Pears, Dream of Scipio

Читать было тяжело. Делала перерывы, занимала мозги-глаза-совесть чем-н. ещё. Потом возвращалась к вечному повторению той же истории: с вариациями, параллелями, недоговорённостями и туманными определениями постулатов неоплатонизма. Suspending disbelief, делая поправки на tearjerking, мычание обязательных священных коров, додумывание нелюдской логики.

Кажется, в последние дни декабря мне досталась книга года.

Acquisition de jour

Small Dead Animals is added to the roll (see the right margin) for concise wit, persistent common sense and quality of their commentariat.

An example of which, dated today:

HiHo: The guy who coined the phrase “Never ascribe to malicious intent that which can be ascribed to stupidity” did so with malicious intent, and I can very confidently ascribe stupidity to people who throw that phrase around as if it were some kind of truth.

Обвал

VDH:

How ironic that universities are rushing to erode meritocratic standards — history’s answer to the age-old, pre-civilizational bane of tribal, racial, class, elite and insider prejudices and bias that eventually ensure poverty and ruin for all.

From the thread:

John Lap:

They are achieving exactly what they want..less men in universities…ignorance of history…illiterate..or graduates with poor vocabulary so they can be grossly manipulated…high percent of women graduates who will obey and comply and carry out agendas with blind willingness to please…and this is what’s happening…women bosses who are cold ruthless and calculated micro managers who care only about their position and pleasing their bosses

What does it tell you?

[excerpt from “Browse Subjects” webpage at Brooklyn Overdrive library website. Figures indicate number of books available]

Риторически, в сторону

Скажите, меня одну раздражает вышитый бандеровский трезубец в виде лого на псевдо-милитари свитере Зеленского?

Rec from Sgt Mom

…and some more in the thread.

Now that I’m on a holiday leave, I intend to “fall into you-toobe rabbit hole” and enjoy the gawking. Although my own selection will be a bit different.

And I second MCS comment:

I’ll observe that watching someone combine wheat on my computer is much more enjoyable than actually doing it.

$100BLN: кто больше?

But Vova won’t give up. In fact, he can’t give up. It’s far better (for him!) that numberless orcs get fed into the meat grinder than for him to admit defeat–and thereby risk getting fed into the meat grinder himself.

Meaning that there is no end in sight. Not just because Putin won’t accept defeat, but because Zelenskyy won’t accept anything but total victory, and indeed Russian failure and Ukrainian success has fed Zelenskyy’s ambitions. As I said probably 9 months ago, the core is empty: there is no mutually acceptable set of terms to end the conflict, even a limited end such as a cease fire or an armistice.

That said, part of the reason that the core is empty is that the US (and Europe) are encouraging Zelenskyy. Or at least, they are afraid to put him in his place, apparently never having learned who pays the piper calls the tune.

I get that giving Putin even the simulacrum of victory presents dangers for the future. But in my mind those are outweighed by the dangers of the present, not least to Ukrainians, but to the world economy, and potentially to the world–for who knows what a desperate Putin will resort to.

Professor is right

My cheeks are red

Alas, the woke brigades have discovered that intimidation—moral, economic, and (less often, but not therefore to be despised) physical—works very well. Throughout the Western world, academics are now frightened to speak their minds if their thoughts diverge from the latest orthodoxies and are faced by an unenviable choice of either ruining their careers by speaking out or despising themselves for their own cowardice and pusillanimity in failing to do so.

Anthony Daniels (of T.D. fame), in recent book review at New Criterion

Cindy the fearless

Poem:

On the 12th day of Christmas the US gave to me: 12 states still voting, 11 counties still counting, 10 Democrats fibbing, nine lawyers filing, eight deadlines passing, seven votes outstanding, six judges finagling, five assistants quitting, four CIA guys spinning, three recounts, two candidates and an empty presidency.

Mafia! Mob! мешпуха!

I remember hearing something resembling same disgusting claim from a highly erudite, liberal, extraverted ex-Newsweek editor, of 2Blowhards fame. I recall my response was along the lines “if you can do the job better, why don’t you?”