The withdrawal of the Roman legions to take part in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (due to a clamour among the Romans for pompous amusements such as bread and circumstances) left Britain defenceless and subjected Europe to that long succession of Waves of which History is chiefly composed. While the Roman Empire was overrun by waves not only of Ostrogoths, Vizigoths, and even Goths, but also of Vandals (who destroyed works of art) and Huns (who destroyed everything and everybody, including Goths, Ostrogoths, Vizigoths, and even Vandals), Britain was attacked by waves of Picts (and, of course, Scots) who had recently learnt how to climb the wall, and of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who, landing at Thanet, soon overran the country with fire (and, of course, the sword).
Important Note
The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).
The brutal Saxon invaders drove the Britons westward into Wales and compelled them to become Welsh; it is now considered doubtful whether this was a Good Thing. Memorable among the Saxon warriors were Hengist and his wife (? or horse), Horsa. Hengist made himself King in the South. Thus Hengist was the first English King and his wife (or horse), Horsa, the first English Queen (or horse). The country was now almost entirely inhabited by Saxons and was therefore renamed England, and thus (naturally) soon became C. of E. This was a Good Thing, because previously the Saxons had worshipped some dreadful gods of their own called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
November 24, 2018
QotD: The Anglo-Saxon invasion
November 23, 2018
QotD: Inactivist bumper stickers
I’ve received several hundred suggestions for inactivist bumper-sticker slogans and, as befits the situation, I’ve been slow to read them. Still, I like some of them quite a bit:
Visualize me ignoring you.
How about “let’s not.”
Don’t honk if you can’t be bothered.
Don’t Act, NOW!
If not now, whenever.
Leave well enough alone
Slacking: It’s not just for kids.
YOU Save the Whales!
Practice Random Acts of Self-Restraint.
Ask Not.
Future Site of Political Statement.And so on.
But there’s a problem. Many readers segued too easily from celebrating inactivism to championing outright sloth. For example, “Practice Random Acts of Self-Restraint” is a fine inactive motto. But “They can have my channel changer when they pry it out of my cold, dead hand,” while very funny is off point. “Don’t Mess With Stasis,” doesn’t quite rhyme but it’s got the right idea. “Think globally, act loafally,” meanwhile, has the wrong idea — except insofar as it mocks people with stupid bumper stickers.
The funny thing is that inactivists are actually very active people. I would bet that — this is a broad generalization-the folks who find inactivism politically appealing probably work harder and are more successful then people who find conventional activism attractive. Inactivists didn’t boycott the Million Mom March simply because they had better things to do. They stayed home because they believe the Million Mom March was a vast, peripatetic parade of propaganda. Inactivists don’t fail to mobilize solely because we’d rather watch a rerun of Matlock than chant for vegetable rights and peace at city hall. We actually don’t believe in vegetable rights. We want our carrots to remain as chattel.
I agree that sloth is funny. And I suppose that’s why so many people want Homer Simpson to become the inactivist spokesperson. I laugh whenever I hear Homer Simpson speak admiringly of Teamsters: “Oh, I always wanted to be a Teamster. So lazy and surly… mind if I relax next to you?” And his campaign slogan when he ran for garbage commissioner was pretty good. “Can’t someone else do it?” The best line from that episode was when he told Springfield voters “Animals are crapping in our houses and we’re picking it up! Did we lose a war?” But still, Homer’s wrong when he tells his kids “You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try.”
Jonah Goldberg, “Let History Come To You”, National Review, 2002-07-24.
November 21, 2018
The wisdom of Zim Tzu, post-Bear-mauling edition
After every game, even a putrid excuse for a game like the Sunday night contest in Chicago, the NFL requires that all head coaches make the time to talk with the local (and sometimes national) sports media about what the hell just happened. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer is rumoured not to enjoy this particular part of his job, and as a result tends to carefully craft his words to cloak their real importance from the smelly, small-minded hoi-polloi he has to face from the rostrum. Fortunately, the Daily Norseman employs the world’s top expert in Zimspeak, Herr Doktor Professor Theodore “Ted” Glover, BA, MA, Ph.D, etc. Every week, Herr Glover works tirelessly to decipher, decode, decrypt, and de-everything-else required to dig down to the primal essence of coach Zimmer’s koans for we weak-armed, weak-willed, and weak-minded normies.
The Vikings warrior poet coach dispenses his words of wisdom
ED NOTE: This has bad words. Most of the other things we write on here usually don’t, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our articles—Ted
When you’re a warrior poet, you have to be on the lookout for self-fulfilling prophecies from your troops. Self fulfilling prophecies tell you that you can’t do X because of Y, based on past history. You can’t invade Russia in the late summer because of the Russian winter, or that you can’t masturbate without arms, for example. And as much as you tell your troops there is zero correlation between X and Y, because you have a cousin without any arms and he says he did just fine in that department thank you very goddamn much, once your troops believe weird shit happens in Chicago and that you’ll lose, when weird shit does happen in Chicago and you do lose, your troops are almost relieved. But you can’t let them walk around thinking they’re a bunch of no arms whacking reverse Nostradamus fap gods though, because then everything you’ve worked for is lost, and you’re on the street looking for work in someplace other than Cleveland. Yeah, fuck The Land, which is quite possibly the dumbest nickname for any city I’ve ever heard. Except for Green Bay, which is known as the toilet paper capital of the world, and that’s the most accurate nickname for any city ever.
Because you are Zim Tzu, The King In The North, Emperor of the Motor City Feline Tribe, Grounder of Airplanes, Defrocker of Cardinals, Subduer of Equestrian Excrement Consumers, Nightmare of Clan Fromage, Breaker Of Gold Fever, High Septon Of Eagan, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress TCO, Honorary Elder Of Mankato and Protector Of The Realm.
And when the Great Unwashed want to know how to keep their fears from becoming a real life Ouroboros, you must speak, to calm them and make them throw up their own ass, so you can get things back on track. And that is where we come in, your friends at The Daily Norseman.* We take what is said in the day after a game press conference, regurgitate what is really inferred,** and then everyone can walk away happy with an understanding of what’s to come.***
*I have no friends.
**We do nothing of the kind. The law firm of Franklin, Bash, and Bateman gently reminds you that this is a work of satire, and any and all interpretations are just mindless bullshit that have no inference on actual words of Mike Zimmer, spoken or otherwise, and they can sue you and take Ted for all his money in exorbitant lawyer fees if you try to sue him.
***If you understand any of this, seek professional medical help.
November 17, 2018
Alistair Dabbs on the “Church of Failure”
He says he’s a recent convert:
“Work out loud,” my prospective new employer tells me, adding that “we are a team, not a family”. Sister Sledge need not apply.
I try to keep my best poker face but I can sense my left eyebrow raising by itself. When I first entered the work market in the 1980s, the prevailing language of corporate bullshit rolled its tongue around paradigm-shifting and envelope-breaking. Today, we talk about “high-bandwidth collaboration” and “it’s OK to fail”.
Come to think about it, my prospective employer just said something about “failing quickly and cheaply”. Earlier, they pontificated that “failure breeds success”. Clearly, failure is the key skill they’re looking for in an employee. I’m their man.
I come well-prepared for this onslaught of hipster interview gibberish: I grew some stubble, put on a lumberjack shirt, boned up on my IT certifications (just in case) and, most important of all, learnt the language of corporate culture decks. You too can master modern marketspeak for the digital era by reading Culture Decks Decoded by Brett Putter.
Unfortunately, the interviewer is now talking about “pseudo-harmony” and has just invited me to be “a no-ego doer”. My left eyebrow feels like it is travelling towards the back of my head.
It’s when he says “date the model, marry the mission” that I realise I couldn’t possibly keep up the pretence in such a workplace for more than five minutes. I can control it no longer. Visibly shaken by my sudden and uncontrollably explosive yell of laughter, my interviewer wishes me a good day. No worries, there are plenty of other organisations out there who’ll pay me handsomely to fail for them – quickly, cheaply and even frequently if that’s what’s required.
I am a recent convert to the Church of Failure. Previously, I regarded failure as undesirable and unnecessary if there was an option of not failing. My LinkedIn profile would list items under the “Experience” heading thus:
Provided consultancy to major newspaper group on how to maximise digital publishing productivity at minimal cost; was ignored; watched helplessly as six-figure sum poured needlessly into incompetent alternative system that inevitably failed; left company to work elsewhere; those who instigated embarrassing disaster received promotion.
Now I get the picture: bosses can forgive and even admire a brave failure, no matter how avoidable… but absolutely nobody likes a smart arse.
November 14, 2018
Ronnie Barker – British Rail
T.V Allsorts
Published on 13 Apr 2016
November 13, 2018
QotD: Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain
The first date in English History is 55 B.C., in which year Julius Caesar (the memorable Roman Emperor) landed, like all other successful invaders of these islands, at Thanet. This was in the Olden Days, when the Romans were top nation on account of their classical education, etc.
Julius Caesar advanced very energetically, throwing his cavalry several thousands of paces over the River Flumen; but the Ancient Britons, though all well over military age, painted themselves true blue, or woad, and fought as heroically under their dashing queen, Woadicea, as they did later in thin red lines under their good queen, Victoria.
Julius Caesar was therefore compelled to invade Britain again the following year (54 B.C., not 56, owing to the peculiar Roman method of counting), and having defeated the Ancient Britons by unfair means, such as battering-rams, tortoises, hippocausts, centipedes, axes, and bundles, set the memorable Latin sentence, “Veni, Vidi, Vici“, which the Romans, who were all very well educated, construed correctly.
The Britons, however, who of course still used the old pronunciation, understanding him to have called them “Weeny, Weedy, and Weaky”, lost heart and gave up the struggle, thinking that he had already divided them All into Three Parts.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
November 10, 2018
Remy: I Love L.A. (Parody)
ReasonTV
Published on 9 Nov 2018Remy updates the iconic Randy Newman anthem for 2018.
Parody written and performed by Remy
Camera and editing by Austin Bragg
Music tracks, background vocals, and mastering by Ben KarlstromReason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
—-
LYRICSNice fall day
In L.A. County
Sitting watching all the leaves change
Temperature dipping into the low 70’s
I dress accordinglyRoll down the window
Put down the top
You know what
Maybe roll it up on second thought
That guy was higher
Than the pension of a state employeeCan’t use straws here
No fois gras here
You can’t park here
Lots of laws hereEvery toilet
Barely flushing
But the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another bill to payI love L.A.
We Love it“Definitely recommend this crystal here.
Oh and this one is our number one seller.”
“What’s that for? Anxiety?”
“No. Typhus.”
“Ah”Public school graduates
Can barely read
And when they try to park
Well this is what they seeSweet regulations
Ain’t nothing like em nowhereBeachside
We love itMountainside
We love itRiverside
We…eh….Fixed streets
We love em
We love L.A.“Unfortunately I’ll have to fail your restaurant.
I found a rat in the kitchen.”
“That wasn’t a rat that was my, uh,
emotional support rodent.”
“Well why didn’t you say so!”“And this right here is a great hemorrhoidal crystal.
Uranus is in retrograde.”I love L.A.
We love it
November 3, 2018
QotD: “Do you want to be married, or do you want to be right?”
Shortly before I got married, I received a piece of sterling advice that I have been mulling a lot over the last year: “You have a big decision to make: Do you want to be married, or do you want to be right?”
Even a good marriage offers a lot of opportunities for grievance. Suddenly, you cannot make any major decision without consulting this other person — who will, inconveniently, often have very different ideas from yours about where to live, what to spend the money on, how to raise the children, and whether to turn the basement into a home theater space or a library. (The correct answer, for those who are wondering, is “library.”)
The more determined you are to win every battle, the more likely you are to lose what’s important: the person you love so much that you have chosen to spend the rest of your life with them. And so every time you have a real disagreement — the kind that cannot be finessed by agreeing that tonight you’ll order Indian, and next time you’ll get Chinese — you have to think carefully before you decide to have that fight. Is this really the hill that you’re willing to let your marriage die on? Because if not, now’s a good time to shrug your shoulders and let them paint the ceiling teal. How often do you really look up there, anyway?
You have to decide this even when the grievances are more important than paint colors: Your partner snaps at you when they’ve had a bad day, leaves their junk lying around for you to pick up, spends too much money on things you don’t need, or vanishes whenever your family comes over. Some hills are worth dying on. But a lot of them are of no strategic value in gaining your ultimate objective: a long and happy partnership.
If you spend your marriage trying to ensure that everything is always rigorously fair and just, and grabbing the flaming sword of righteousness every time some minor wrong is done to you, you may soon find that you spend more time fighting than you would have picking up their towels or going into the other room to watch a movie because your spouse is in a bad mood. Or you may find that you have a peaceful, clean house that’s exactly as you want it — because you’re living there alone.
Megan McArdle, “Can This Political Union Be Saved?”, Bloomberg View, 2016-12-30.
November 1, 2018
QotD: Game theory
“Guys,” he writes. “It’s time for some game theory.” Game theory, for the uninitiated, is a branch of mathematics that uses computational models to predict the behavior of human beings in potentially conflictual situations. It’s complex, involves a lot of formal logic and algebra, and is mostly useless. Game theory models human actions on the presumption that everyone is constantly trying to maximize their potential gain against everyone around them; this is why its most famous example concerns prisoners — isolated people, cut off from all the noncompetitive ties that constitute society. One of its most important theoreticians, John Nash, was also a paranoid schizophrenic, who believed himself to be the target of a vast Russian conspiracy.
Sam Kriss, “The Rise of the Alt-Center: Why did establishment liberals fall in love with a deranged Twitter thread? It’s time for some game theory”, Slate, 2016-12-16.
October 31, 2018
QotD: Pumpkins
If it wasn’t for Halloween, this grotesque and useless gourd would be extinct. And good riddance.
Let’s. Review.
Somewhere dotted about the fruited plains of America something like lebenty-leben gazillion acres of pumpkins are planted every damn year. Then care and water and chemicals are slathered on these fibrous tumors causing them to grow big. Some very big. Some so big that they can be hoisted into the air, dropped onto a car and obliterate said automobile.
Many are midget pumpkins. This year I’m seeing teeny-weeny baby pumpkins ripe for pumpkin abuse. But most are middle to large hunks o’ pumpkin by the time they are “ready for the harvest.”
Sounds so pastoral, doesn’t it? “Ready for the harvest.” Except that when you actually “harvest” a plant the assumption is that, somewhere, somehow, some people are actually going to eat the thing.
This is the fate of only a smidgen of the pumpkins harvested. And even among those that actually eat of the pumpkin almost all are lying through their seeds when they say they like it. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, even (shudder) roast pumpkin — all foul concoctions fit only for the martyr mothers among us.
I know that many will claim to adore pumpkin pie, but that too is mindless. Give me any thick paste and let me pour tons of cream, evaporated milk, pounds of sugar, scoops of cinnamon and nutmeg into a butter-laced and crisp pie crust and you’ll love it even if the base plant was black mold from the basement.
No, the pumpkin is not an acceptable food. But do we plow it under and eradicate it from our list of things we use farmland for? No. Because anything worth doing in America is worth overdoing, we expand the acres devoted to this parasite.
Gerard Vanderleun, “The Big Pumpkin (Dump)”, American Digest, 2018-09-22.
October 26, 2018
An old-fashioned Fisking
The always-entertaining David Thompson harks back to the early days of blogging by indulging in what used to be called “a Fisking“:
In the pages of the New York Times, a philosophy professor named George Yancy is gushing his little heart out:
It is hard to admit we are sexist. I, for instance, would like to think that I possess genuine feminist bona fides, but who am I kidding? I am a failed and broken feminist.
Upon which revelation, I suppose we could all just stop and go home. But no, let’s press on.
More pointedly, I am sexist. There are times when I fear for the loss of my own entitlement as a male. Toxic masculinity takes many forms. All forms continue to hurt and to violate women.
The word toxic, by the way, is deployed no fewer than nine times, excluding various synonyms, as if it were an incantation. Now brace yourselves for some full-on testosterone-jacked beastliness.
For example, before I got married, I insisted that my wife take my last name… While this was not sexual assault, my insistence was a violation of her independence.
To reiterate. Asking a fiancée if she’ll change her surname upon marriage, as is still the custom, perhaps to avoid confusing people as to whether you’re actually married or not, and possibly to avoid imposing on any children lengthy hyphenated surnames… this is not sexual assault. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.
[…]
Or, as our educator puts it, tearfully, his face reddened with shame,
When I was about 15 years old, I said to a friend of mine, “Why must you always look at a girl’s butt?” He promptly responded: “Are you gay or something? What else should I look at, a guy’s butt?” He was already wearing the mask. He had already learned the lessons of patriarchal masculinity.
Yes, adolescent butt-watching. Oh calamitous woe. And which, apparently, girls never indulge in. Presumably, we should only be sexually attracted to personalities, and never the fleshy packaging.
There was no wiggle room for me to be both antisexist and antimisogynistic and yet a heterosexual young boy. You see, other males had rewarded his gaze by joining in the objectifying practice: “Look at that butt!” It was a collective act of devaluation.
Or possibly the reverse.
The acts of soul murder had already begun.
I’ll just leave that one there, I think.
QotD: Mis-using statistics
You’re like that crazy hobo on the subway demanding everyone justify the moon ferrets. But moon ferrets aren’t real, so why waste a bunch of time explaining that to a stinky hobo. But I’ll try, because I’m a retired accountant, and when people like you try to use stats it is like watching a monkey humping a football. So amusing, but kind of sad.
Larry Correia, “Run Forrest Run!”, Monster Hunter Nation, 2014-11-05.
October 25, 2018
Every publication in Canada must have had lots of volunteers for this story
In the National Post, Marie-Danielle Smith gets high for science!
I just remembered I am supposed to be writing.
I am stoned on legal weed, which finally came into my hands this morning after six days of waiting. Thank you, government!
It is a different thing to get high alone — to get high alone for work reasons, right after question period. I’m sitting at my dining room table, drifting off every now and then to examine the patterns on my stuccoed walls or to focus, intensely, on the album I am listening to, the one that Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett collaborated on. It would be a different thing to get high with the two of them.
The first thing you notice, after opening the cardboard box, which is just a little too large for your knapsack (backpack? knapsack? backpack?) … uh, you notice how much packaging there is. Tape. Crumpled-up papers. A box with government warnings and the logo of the licensed weed producer. A plastic bottle inside with a child lock cap that reminds you of Advil.
“She’s so easy,” sing Courtney and Kurt, repeatedly. Such a good album. This song has been on forever. Time stretches out. I’ve smoked a sativa-heavy hybrid strain called “Super Sonic,” which is supposed to make you feel creative rather than sleepy. On the Ontario Cannabis Store website, it’s described as having “a strong, earthy, sweet aroma, reminiscent of Quantum Kush.” I don’t know what Quantum Kush is but maybe our prime minister can explain it? (Remember that time? Anyway.)
Of course, not everyone is impressed:
I’m thinking of trying to write one sober, see how that goes https://t.co/woerC0verT
— Colby Cosh (@colbycosh) October 24, 2018
October 24, 2018
How long can you go without sleep? | James May’s Q&A (Ep 14) | Head Squeeze
BBC Earth Lab
Published on 5 Apr 2013James May talks us through how long you can go for without any sleep.
October 20, 2018
Don’t waste your time coming up with something original … use this map for your next RPG campaign
The Only Fantasy World Map You’ll Ever Need
by EotBeholder
Thrown together on a whim, yet meeting the needs of busy (or lazy) Dungeon Masters to this day, EotBeholder’s epic “Only Fantasy World Map” has all your role-playing game geography requirements covered.
Here’s something I threw together for the game I’m running with some coworkers. I plotted out where everything was going to go on a world map then decided, yknowwhat, let’s just keep the serial numbers filed off, so now it’s a map good for every RPG setting ever. Starting in the Tiny Bickering Fiefdoms is traditional but anywhere works. (My players are mostly from Tortuga.)
EDIT: Wow, almost four years later and this thing just exploded. The internet is a thing of mysteries. Thank you all! A lot (well, a number) of people have requested a blank version so they can add their own names… yeah, sure thing. To anyone asking for permission to use this for their own campaigns… I mean it hardly qualifies as “original”, so as long as you’re comfortable stealing from someone who steals from the people who only steal from the best, knock yourselves out 🙂
If I could make some additions (which I suppose I could, but, nah) I’d call out the Boring/Doomed Pastoral Village somewhere in the Tiny Bickering Fiefdoms or the Land of Poncy Knights, and also add a Giant Wall to Keep the Monsters Out. Giant walls are so hot right now.
H/T to Rob Beschizza for the link.
