Gaelic (or anything Goidelic or Brythonic) is lost, and for a very simple reason. Once one sees it written down, one loses heart. One doubts that anyone could ever have spoken it aloud. Every word of this “mouth music” looks plainly unpronounceable; and proves unpronounceable to those unprepared from birth to speak it, not only from the centre of the mouth, like an Englishman, but from both sides, and every other part of the anatomy. (Compare: desert Arabic.)
David Warren, “Of mercy & forgiveness”, Essays in Idleness, 2016-06-02.
January 12, 2018
QotD: Gaelic
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January 10, 2018
JourneyQuest S03E09 – “Black Robe Stuff”
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
Published on 9 Jan 2018Watch the complete, uncut season on Amazon Prime or ZOE Premium (http://www.zombieorpheus.com) and be sure to follow us on Facebook for the latest updates (http://www.facebook.com/zombieorpheus)
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Re-partitioning Australia
Jessica Brisbane posted this to Facebook:
[Click to embiggen]
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Rowan Atkinson – Interview with Elton John
SlugBalancer
Published on 23 Mar 2009Rowan Atkinson interviews Elton John at Hysteria 3 (1991)
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January 9, 2018
QotD: Moderation
Three kraters [bowls used for wine] do I mix for the temperate: one to health, which they empty first, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to hubris, the fifth to uproar, the sixth to prancing about, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth brings the police, the ninth belongs to vomiting, and the tenth to insanity and the hurling of furniture.
Eubulus, attributing the words to the god Dionysus
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January 5, 2018
QotD: Revolutions and revolutionaries
People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn’t be a revolution or a riot. It’d be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning, and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn’t try to bite the sheep next to them.
Terry Pratchett, Night Watch, 2002.
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January 4, 2018
“This is what you get when you touch the Orb”
Jonah Goldberg thinks he’s identified the moment our timeline went screwy, sorta:
Ever since Donald Trump touched the Orb, praise be upon it, I’ve been making “This is what you get when you touch the Orb” jokes.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll tell you: On his trip to the Middle East in May, President Trump, along with the Saudi king and the president of Egypt, laid his hands on a glowing white orb for two minutes (which strikes me as a long time to touch an orb).
The image was like a mix of J.R.R. Tolkien and 1970s low-budget Canadian sci-fi. It looked like they were calling forth powerful eldritch energies from the chthonic depths or perhaps the forbidden zone.
Ever since then, when things have gotten weird, I’ve credited the Orb. For instance, when the Guardian reported that sex between Japanese snow monkeys and Sika deer may now constitute a new “behavioral tradition,” I tweeted, “the Orb has game, you can’t deny it.” When Roy Moore, the GOP Alabama Senate candidate, was plausibly accused of preying on teenagers and many evangelical leaders rallied to his defense, invoking biblical justifications for groping young girls, I admired the Orb’s cunning. And when the bunkered Moore decided to give one of his only interviews to a 12-year-old girl, I sat back and marveled at the Orb’s dark sense of humor.
But I know in my heart that it’s not the Orb’s fault things have gotten so weird, for the simple reason that rampant weirdness predates the Orb-touching by years.
I have a partial theory as to why, and it doesn’t begin with Trump. It begins with a failure of elites and the institutions they run.
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January 3, 2018
JourneyQuest S03E08 – “One Simple Thing”
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
Published on 2 Jan 2018Watch the complete, uncut season on Amazon Prime or ZOE Premium (http://www.zombieorpheus.com) and be sure to follow us on Facebook for the latest updates (http://www.facebook.com/zombieorpheus)
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Oregon reacts in horror to the idea of pumping their own gas
Full-service gas stations have been on the endangered list for a long time … I can’t remember the last time I saw one in my travels. Apparently, if I’d been to Oregon, that’s all I’d have encountered because it’s one of two states that forbid drivers to pump their own gas. At least, that was until the start of 2018, when Oregon allowed certain rural gas stations to allow self-service, and you’d think the world was about to end, based on these Facebook comments:
Click to see Facebook comments.
Sandy Franklin I don’t even know HOW to pump gas and I am 62, native Oregonian…..I say NO THANKS! I don’t want to smell like gasoline!
Cathy Dahl No! Disabled, seniors, people with young children in the car need help. Not to mention getting out of your car with transients around and not feeling safe too. This is a very bad idea. Grrr
Tina Good Not a good idea, there are lots of reason to have an attendant helping, one is they need a job too. Many people are not capable of knowing how to pump gas and the hazards of not doing it correctly. Besides I don’t want to go to work smelling of gas when I get it on my hands or clothes. I agree Very bad idea.
Kyle Allen One time, my dad came to Oregon and pumped his own gas. The street immediately lit on fire and he caused massive recession countrywide because he took away 20 billion jobs by pumping his own gas. I was in the back seat when brother was nabbed through the locked door by a transient creeper who raised him to be his human ottoman. My dad then tried wiping his windshield but the stuff he used turned out to be sulfuric acid. The car exploded with me in it and I died. My dad lost 3 parenting points because he was 2 feet away fueling his car when he could have had someone else do this very simple task for him.
Joseph Kimrey It’s official.
Oregon is full of mentally defective, full grown children, incapable of the most mundane of adult tasks.Chris Donnelly Apparently most people in Oregon assume that in order to pump gas you must first remove all people from the vehicle and stand in the open while thugs attack from all angles, all while being sprayed with gas
Mike Perrone I’ve lived in this state all my life and I REFUSE to pump my own gas. I had to do it once in California while visiting my brother and almost died doing it. This a service only qualified people should perform. I will literally park at the pump and wait until someone pumps my gas. I can’t even
Shifty McQuick If your only marketable job skill is being able to pump gas, by god, move to Oregon and you will have reached the promised land.
Kelsa Freitas Yuck! Pumping my on fuel in freezing temperatures and handling a nasty ole fuel nozzle that 50 other people have touched that day (and who knows what cooties are on there), no thank you. It’s nice to not have to pump your own fuel.
H/T to M.A. Rothman for linking to the original post.
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BAHFest London 2017 – Louie Terrill: Why the Kessler Syndrome is key to humanity’s future
BAHFest
Published on Dec 11, 2017Watch Louie Terrill at BAHFest London 2017 present his theory, “Making sure we’re all in this together: Why the Kessler Syndrome is key to humanity’s future.”
BAHFest is the Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses, a celebration of well-researched, logically explained, and clearly wrong scientific theory. Additional information is available at http://bahfest.com/
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QotD: Middle-aged seduction
” … this next song is about middle-aged seduction. It’s not quite true-to-life however — there’s no begging.”
Roar of laughter from the predominantly middle-aged audience.
“Do I know my demographic or what?”
Garnet Rogers onstage at the Vital Spark Folk Society, 2004-10-03.
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January 2, 2018
How To Get Your Shoes Shiny – James May’s Man Lab
James May’s Man Lab & Toy Stories
Published on 7 Jan 2014Grubby shoes? Then you are not a man. But don’t fear, we’ve flown in Platoon Sgt. Mark Buckingham to set the bar for shiny shoes. So shiny he can see the Queen’s face in them.
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January 1, 2018
QotD: Edmonton in winter
Winter [in Edmonton] appeals to the (decidedly narrow) ascetic side of my temperament, but right now this place is pretty Dantean — empty, forlorn, and still, all sound half-absorbed by the snow. On the days when there’s no cloud, the sunlight hits the street with a blinding chemical whiteness that makes you wonder if God is screwing around with Photoshop filters. Most days, the sun is obscured by a gray-pink gauze that leaves you uncertain what planet you’re on. Heroin has never been a popular drug here: we all already know what it’s like to be dead.
Colby Cosh, “White City”, ColbyCosh.com, 2004-10-26.
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December 30, 2017
Congressional New Year’s Resolutions
ReasonTV
Published on 29 Dec 2017In this special holiday edition of “Mostly Weekly” Andrew Heaton comes up with some out-of-the-box New Year’s resolutions for our legislators.
As 2017 thankfully limps to its conclusion, we turn our sights to 2018 and ways in which Congress can be less awful. In this special holiday edition of “Mostly Weekly” Andrew Heaton comes up with some out-of-the-box ideas for our legislators:
•Find out what’s inside the stuff they vote on
•Quit hemorrhaging money like a drunken sailor
•Balance mental health with Mr. Trump’s twitter account
•Find healthy outlets for pint up sexual energy otherwise directed at staffersAnd, of course, what to do about that shrimp running on a government-funded treadmill.
Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind.
Script by Andrew Heaton with writing assistance from Sarah Rose Siskind
Edited by Sarah Rose Siskind and Austin Bragg
Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.
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December 27, 2017
JourneyQuest S03E07 – “The Unspeakable Nature of My Existence”
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
Published on 26 Dec 2017Watch the complete, uncut season on Amazon Prime or ZOE Premium (http://www.zombieorpheus.com) and be sure to follow us on Facebook for the latest updates (http://www.facebook.com/zombieorpheus)
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