Quotulatiousness

January 22, 2023

The Scientific Reason Your Wife Is Always Right. Don McMillan

Filed under: Humour, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

A Little More Dry Bar
Published 23 May 2022

The scientific reason your wife is always right as presented by Don McMillan in this clip from his first ever Dry Bar Comedy special. Whether you’re someone who appreciated power points and graphs, or you just enjoy a good laugh, this clip form Don McMillan’s Dry Bar Comedy special is sure to have you laughing from start to finish.
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January 21, 2023

Ask Ian: Liberators or Cobray Terminators for the Elbonian Resistance?

Filed under: History, Humour, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Sept 2022

From Jon on Patreon:
“Elbonia has been occupied by an enemy force. Do you sabotage their resistance by airdropping them Liberator pistols or Cobray Terminators?”

To my mind, the Liberator is a substantially more useful resistance weapons, so I would supply Elbonia with lots of crates of Cobray Terminators. Why?

First, the Liberator is concealable. Historically, lots of resistance action requires hiding a small weapons. It’s not all forest encampments and ambushes.

Second, the Liberator is more effective. It uses a .45ACP pistol cartridge. The smooth barrel and atrocious sights certainly limit its utility, but if you actually hit someone with it, it will do the job. Most of the shotgun ammunition available to a resistance organization will be the most common sort of sporting ammunition, which is birdshot. Birdshot is very ineffective against people at anything but absolutely point-blank range.

Third, it is much simpler to fabricate a single-shot shotgun than a compact pistol. The Elbonian Resistance wouldn’t have much trouble making something like a Richardson Guerrilla Gun, so supplying them with Terminators doesn’t actually give them much that they couldn’t get already.
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January 18, 2023

QotD: Tanks for Ukraine?

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Humour, Military, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Lately we’ve been tap dancing up to even heavier gear [for Ukraine]. The US has announced we’ll be sending some M2 Bradley IFVs, and France chipped in some AMX-10 RC heavy armored cars. While referred to as a char, or tank, in French service and apparently some obscure EU regulation classifies anything above a certain weight and with a big enough gun as a tank … and the AMX-10 clears those hurdles … war nerds will insist that unless it comes from the tank region of France it’s just a sparkling armored fighting vehicle.

It looks like the inhibition on sending tanks is finally cracking, though. While Germany is still dithering over letting Poland send some of its Leopard 2’s, Britain has announced it’s sending 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks.

I found that particular number interesting. Late Cold War and post-Cold War Russian armored units use three-tank platoons and three platoons plus a commander’s tank make a ten tank company.

The British Army, from whose stores the Challengers will be pulled, uses some archaic TO&E, possibly left over from the Wars of the Roses or Cromwell’s New Model Army, wherein four tanks equal a Bonnet*, and four Bonnets plus two more tanks in a headquarters Bonnet equal an eighteen-tank Spanner†.

Fourteen tanks, however, is enough for three four-tank platoons plus two tanks for an HQ platoon, equalling a fourteen tank US-style armored company. Apparently the Ukies are using a US/(most of)NATO TO&E for their armored units. So the Ukrainians will have at least one company of Western MBTs.

    * Bonnet = Troop
    † Spanner = Squadron

Tamara Keel, “Clank Clank Goes the Tank”, View From The Porch, 2023-01-15.

January 10, 2023

QotD: A useful life lesson

Filed under: Humour, Media, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… it reemphasizes a life lesson that, like all truly useful life lessons, is lethally easy to forget. I’m not a gambling man, but you can bet the farm and the kids’ college fund on the phrase “surely they’d never be dumb enough to ____.” The very fact that you find yourself thinking “they’d never be dumb enough to ____” is a guarantee that they are, right now, at this very instant, ____.

Severian, “The Stakeholder State”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-01-22.

December 28, 2022

Useful Beer Reviews: Newcastle Brown Ale

Filed under: Britain, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jago Hazzard
Published 12 Jun 2019

Today, an old favourite – Newcastle Brown Ale.

DISCLAIMER: Contains rambling that may bear no resemblance to reality.

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QotD: Collective guilt

Filed under: Germany, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behaviour of another person or a collective of persons. Since the end of World War Two I have not become weary of publicly arguing against the collective guilt concept. Sometimes, however, it takes a lot of didactic tricks to detach people from their supersitions. An American woman once confronted me with the reporach, “How can you still write some of your books in German, Adolf Hitler’s language?” In response, I asked her if she had knives in her kitchen, and when she answered that she did, I acted dismayed and shocked, exclaiming, “How can you still use knives after so many killers have used them to stab and murder their victims?” She stopped objecting to my writing books in German.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946.

December 26, 2022

QotD: Christmas gluttony

Filed under: Britain, Food, Humour, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

Body: I can’t physically eat any more.
Brain: THERE’S STILL CHEESE LEFT, PUSSY!
Body: But I hurt.
Brain: EAT MORE CHOCOLATE NOW!
Body: *cries*
Brain: WASH IT DOWN WITH A PINT OF BAILEYS.
Body: I’m begging you. Please stop.
Body: SNORT THAT PURPLE QUALITY STREET, BITCH.

Amanda (Pandamoanimum), Twitter, 2018-09-13.

December 25, 2022

QotD: The best thing about Christmas

Filed under: Humour, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

My favourite thing about Christmas morning is the look of joy on my husband’s face when he sees what we bought the kids for the first time.

Amanda (Pandamoanimum), Twitter, 2021-12-24.

December 24, 2022

History-Makers: Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 23 Dec 2022

Merry Sinterklaasfeest to all, and to all a good night.

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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Repost – Hey Kids! Did you get your paperwork in on time?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

If you hurry, you can just get your Santa’s Visit Application in before the deadline tonight!

QotD: Auberon Waugh on Christmas shopping

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

For Christmas shopping in London I go by force of habit to Harrods. The toy department is full of loud-voiced Englishwomen, but I do not see a fellow Englishman anywhere until I chance upon the Women’s Underwear Department. As I pass, I hear a Major of the Household Brigade ask for some knickers with pussy fur. Another man, almost certainly from the Treasury, asks in a hoarse whisper for some crotchless briefs.

Auberon Waugh, Diary, 1975-12-18.

December 22, 2022

Pseudo swear words “like fuckpuffin, spunktrumpet, shitgibbon, but, most of all, by the undisputed king of the new pseudo swear words, cockwomble

Filed under: Britain, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

John Sturgis would like you to swear properly without all these modern pseudo swear words that are all the rage:

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as “Derek and Clive” in 1976.
Full video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYGy-j_oH5Q

Warning: this article features a number of words and terms which some readers may find offensive.

As it happens, I have been offended frequently myself lately — by a growing trend for replacing traditional expressions of anger, aggression or exasperation with neologisms.

I am speaking of terms like fuckpuffin, spunktrumpet, shitgibbon, but, most of all, by the undisputed king of the new pseudo swear words, cockwomble.

Cockwomble’s origins are hard to pin down. There are earlier examples of compound swear words from overseas: the American dickwad, the (I think) Australian fuckwit. They weren’t a significant phenomenon here until around five years ago when cockwomble first began to circulate.

Since then its popularity has grown and grown. Just last week it was trending on Twitter, apparently in relation to Matt Hancock. In fairness, Hancock probably does embody the qualities suggested by the expression better than any other living person.

That exception doesn’t excuse its proliferation: cockwomble has now begun to be picked up overseas and celebrated as an example of our native humour. The British Council really ought to step in and disassociate the nation from this awful expression.

My problem with cockwomble isn’t so much that it’s vulgar, but that it’s not vulgar enough. The addition of the completely innocuous womble to what is already one of our tamer core swear words, serves to neuter it to the point where it’s almost entirely inoffensive, even twee. The fictional furry creatures from Wimbledon have absolutely no place in meaningful swearing. Swearing shouldn’t be nice; it should be the preserve of the slightly scary: the docker, the builder, the fishwife, the public rather than saloon bar. Swearing should be a little bit dark, dangerous, even underground. It should certainly not be underground, overground.

The Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube | Yes, Minister: 1984 Christmas Special | BBC Comedy Greats

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Humour, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

BBC Comedy Greats
Published 26 Jul 2021

Bernard (Derek Fowlds) walks Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) through the red-tape of signing his Christmas cards, but Jim Hacker is more concerned with worrying plans from Brussels to rename the British sausage.
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December 21, 2022

Is Regifting a Crime?

Filed under: Humour, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

It’s a Southern Thing
Published 10 Dec 2019

To regift or not to regift? The Southern People’s Court brings their unique brand of justice to this tough issue.
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December 19, 2022

Christmas Crack – You Suck at Cooking (episode 54)

Filed under: Food, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

You Suck At Cooking
Published 22 Dec 2016

To make the Christmas crack:

1. Combine equal parts of butter and brown sugar (1 cup of each works) and heat in a sauce pan until it turns into sauce in the pan.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil then with graham crackers. Break them up to make them fit along the edges.
3. Once the butter and sugar become a thickish sauce, pour it all over.
4. Bake in in the oven for a couple minutes until it starts to bubble but not for too long.
5. Cover with chocolate chips … you can put that back in the oven for a minute or just wait a minute and start spreading them around as they melt until it’s a full layer. Use just over 1 cup.
6. Throw on whatever toppings you want; almonds, pepperoni, whatever.
7. Wait a few hours for it to harden or throw it in the fridge or the freezer.

I personally like keeping it frozen and eating it that way. But I am not you and you may have different temperature preferences. It’s hard for me to tell at this point, but if you message me on snapchat perhaps we can discuss this more thoroughly. Or perhaps not. I’m sorta moody that way.
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