Meme - "Seen a lot of crazy shit in the last few years but nothing prepared me for a sconce in the porta potty"
Kristen Bell Said Her Daughter Threatens To Kill Her, But She's Not Sweatin' It - "her three-year-old daughter "is nuts."... with a gun. Like, if Kristen tells to stop eating a candy bar, her daughter will threaten her... But Kristen said she's not too worried"
Kareem Rifai 🌐 on Twitter - "Opinion | I'm America's most passionate fighter for press freedom: here's why I accepted citizenship to a foreign regime that pushes journalists out of windows. By: Edward Snowden"
All the people claiming he's persecuted for exercising freedom of speech need to have their nudes and private correspondence published online for everyone to see
Meme - "Dear visitor, In order to protect my concentration and sanity I have decided to implement a door policy
Door open: Very welcome to knock and come in, yes I would love to have a chat!
Door closed: Please do not knock at my door or come in unless you have urgent business.* I am extremely easily distracted and I will talk to you until the end of time instead of writing my dissertation.
Never: come in without knocking.
*List of things that are urgent business:
- the building or someone is on fire
- you're bringing me coffee
- revolution
- there is a dog"
Meme - "Writers, if you're not sure how to tie up the loose ends of a story, it's always good to remember that Wilde Collins ended The Haunted Hotel like this"
"Is that all? That is all. Is there no explanation of the mystery of The Haunted Hotel? Ask yourself if there is any explanation of the mystery of your own life and death.—Farewell."
"Mark Twain, "A Medieval Romance""
"The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found in this or any other publication, either now or at any future time. The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularly close place, that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her) out of it again--and therefore I will wash my hands of the whole business, and leave that person to get out the best way that offers--or else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to straighten out that little difficulty, but it looks different now."
Lynda Carter on Twitter - "Sci-fi is when Wonder Woman fights villains from outer space, fantasy is thinking Wonder Woman will go on a date with you."
Amy Louise on Twitter - "Fantasy is when Irish words are randomly thrown into conversation and Sci-Fi is when all street signs are in Japanese hope that helps"
Judd Karlman | Black Lives Matter on Twitter - "Scifi is when the organization is based on a geek's misconceptions about the Navy. Fantasy is when the organization is based on a geek's misconceptions about European feudalism."
Joe Sondow on Twitter - "Let me clear it up for you. Sci fi is when you have a sword made of light because the author believes that’s possible, and fantasy is when you have a sword made of light because the author believes that’s impossible. Hope this helps."
dc guevara 🗡💋 on Twitter - "Lemme clear it up for you. Sci-fi is when your currency is called credits, and fantasy is when it's called coin."
zeddy on Twitter - "Fantasy is when it's filmed in a forest on the outskirts of Vancouver. Sci-fi is when it's filmed in a rock quarry on the outskirts of Vancouver. Fantasy is when The One is an allegory for Christ. Sci-fi is when The One is a critique of religion itself."
Lincoln Michel on Twitter - "Okay here's an earnest one: Science fiction is when magic is explained by fake science. Fantasy is when magic is explained by fake religion. (Horror is when magic is unexplained?)"
Jessica Ritchey on Twitter - "No, no. Fantasy is when you really want to fuck an elf, and sci-fi is when you really want to fuck a robot. Hope this helps."
AC Stuart - Get Awoo! Volume 1! Link in bio on Twitter - "Sci-fi is when they explain why the furries exist and fantasy is when no one cares why the furries exist."
Carly Lane-Perry on Twitter - "Fantasy is when there's an entire chapter dedicated to describing food, sci-fi is when there's an entire chapter dedicated to describing transportation."
Darth J.D. on Twitter - "Sci-Fi is when Liam Neeson looks like White Jesus. Fantasy is when Liam Neeson looks like Lion Jesus."
Sacha Coward on Twitter - "Lemme clear it up for you. Sci-fi is when the big dirty city is called Fallen Star, and fantasy is when the big dirty city is called Fällėnstâr."
THE DARK ROOM twitch.tv/robbotron #paxaus on Twitter - "Fantasy is when something that can't fly flies because of magic Sci-fi is when something that can't fly flies because we rerouted the quadilateral converter into the gideon matrix"
the thicc husband & father on Twitter - "let me clear this up right now. sci-fi is when you have an abandoned, fucked up sphere hidden deep in outer space and fantasy is when you have an abandoned, fucked up library hidden deep in a poison swamp"
🏳️⚧️ kytty🏳️⚧️ sexualizing autism on Twitter - "sci-fi is when we call it unobtanium and fantasy is when we call it mithril"
Gwdihŵ 🦉 on Twitter - "sci-fi is when you drink blue milk. fantasy is where you drink brown soup"
📡beep boop spookybot 🤖 on Twitter - "Fantasy is when the weird deer is magical. Sci-fi is when the weird deer is a mutant. Horror is when it doesn't matter what the weird deer is because it wants you dead."
Librarianshipwreck on Twitter - "Let me clear it up for you: sci-fi is when you’re depressed about the future, fantasy is when you’re depressed about the past, and literature is when you’re depressed about the present."
harvey MILF on Twitter - "Fantasy is when she removes her jousting helmet to reveal her luscious hair, and sci-fi is when she unzips her flightsuit to the waist to reveal her skintight tanktop"
Today Years Old on Twitter - "Today I learned that in Denmark, babies are left outside to sleep in their strollers without the fear of being kidnapped. Imagine feeling this safe in a country."
Or maybe Anglo moral panic about child abduction is just stupid
Sarah Haider 👾 on Twitter - MM Kaufman 🫧 on Twitter - "I'm a Fulbright scholar. I have a Master's Degree. I have 19 publications. I'm a managing editor for a great lit mag. I finished the first draft of my novel. And last night I cried after my dad said my life was directionless because I don't have a PhD. He didn't finish college."
"I think her real problem is that despite all evidence to the contrary she still allows others to determine her sense of self. I know what it’s like to have parents you can’t please. My parents place no value at all on my achievements. So what? Other people don’t exist to validate you, nor should you let them."
Who Owns the Media?* - "We examine the patterns of media ownership in 97 countries around the world. We find that almost universally the largest media firms are owned by the government or by private families. Government ownership is more pervasive in broadcasting than in the printed media. We then examine two theories of government ownership of the media: the public interest (Pigouvian) theory, according to which government ownership cures market failures, and the public choice theory, according to which government ownership undermines political and economic freedom. The data support the second theory."
I’ve just begun reading Tales of Genji and I’m thoroughly hooked for probably the wrong reason: its absolutely hilarious! : literature -
"The wet sleeves, the (what feels like) off-the-cuff poetry, the getting angsty over someone’s handwriting: it all feels like a soap turned up to 11"
Florida man missing after he tried to ride his jet ski to the Bahamas - "Charles Walker, 52, was last seen on Pompano Beach a week ago (23 September), where he was planning to begin the journey from Florida... Officials have now warned against making the dangerous journey, even in normal weather conditions."
Sex, Mental health, Weird and Intimacy: Very strange behavior - FML - "Today, my girlfriend and I were having sex. Right as she orgasmed, she screamed out Megatron's name. When I later confronted her about this, she said that she always had a crush on him and wanted to be queen of the Decepticons. I've been dating this lunatic for a year and half now. FML"
The slow decay of the Conservative Party - "this Tory government appears to be in its death throes. Much of the blame is being heaped on hapless new prime minister Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. Trailed as a sign of the duo’s ‘radical’, tax-cutting intent, their ‘mini-budget’ has appealed to precisely no one. It has plunged the markets into turmoil, it has been feasted on by an already antagonistic media and it has further estranged the working-class, Brexit-supporting voters on which the Tories’ 2019 General Election success rested. But the problems go beyond Truss and Kwarteng. For what we are witnessing right now is the decomposition of the Conservative Party itself... It began under the leadership of David Cameron, who sought to align the Tory Party with the values and attitudes of the new elites, before Brexit ripped that alignment apart. And it has continued under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, who failed to realise the promise of Brexit and take these new elites on. The result is a party that increasingly represents no one at all. And now it has produced a leader and set of policies to match. In the 2000s, a new establishment, having begun its ascent in the 1960s, had consolidated itself at the apex of British political and cultural life. Long gone was an elite sustained by openly class-bound privilege, and justified in terms of tradition. Instead, the new elite was ostensibly meritocratic, the homogenous product of an ever-expanding university system rather than Britain’s increasingly maligned public schools. Its politics, embodied by New Labour, was technocratic, therapeutic and globalist. These people spoke in the value-laden jargon of ‘openness’, ‘inclusion’, ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’. And they were concerned with global warming, identity politics and individual wellbeing... Historians of the party have since characterised this project of ‘modernisation’ as ‘an oddly empty revolution’, lacking ‘intellectual ballast’ and ‘a core doctrine’... ‘modernisation’ was never meant to provide a guiding idea or core doctrine. Rather, it was an attempt to bring the party’s values and worldview into line with the values and worldview of the new establishment. As Michael (now Lord) Ashcroft’s 2005 pamphlet, Smell the Coffee, put it, the Tories had to forge a new ‘election-winning coalition of professionals, women and aspirational voters’... prime minister Cameron pushed through the legalisation of gay marriage in 2013. The Guardian called it Cameron’s ‘detox symbol’ – a signal of the Tories’ embrace of the worldview of the new elites. As it turned out, Tory modernisation was less about embracing genuine social liberalism than it was about embracing the regressive, identitarian values of the new establishment. Such was Cameron’s commitment to supposedly progressive causes that his government launched the Women and Equalities Committee in 2015. Under the auspices of its Tory chair, Maria Miller, it quickly set about revamping gender-recognition laws – beginning a process that would undermine women’s rights in the name of trans rights.. trying to turn the Conservative Party into just another vehicle for the new establishment came at a cost. It effectively stigmatised the values and attitudes of a large portion of Tory MPs and the party’s shrinking membership. This disoriented the party and hollowed it out. Social conservatism was cast to the wind. The party’s embrace of what we now call woke values would also draw the ire of the genuine liberals within Tory ranks... Cameron was turning the party into just one more flavour of technocratic politics to sell to an increasingly apathetic electorate. All this would have continued were it not for the vote for Brexit in 2016. This singular event utterly transformed British politics... Johnson’s Tories therefore had a completely different mandate to that which they had under Cameron. To ‘get Brexit done’, certainly. But it was more than that. Just four years prior, they had been a party aspiring to be part of the new establishment. Now they were the party representing the populist revolt against the new establishment. It was an incredible opportunity. As awkward a re-alignment as it was, with the Tories now representing the interests of large swathes of working-class England, it was a chance to make a lasting political difference. A chance to further democratise national life. To aid the rejuvenation of those parts of the UK long looked down on by the metropolitan centres. And a chance to resist and roll back the seemingly relentless, illiberal assault on those who hold different values to those of the new elites. It was all there for the taking – a chance to fight back in what had for too long been a one-sided culture war. It was never going to be easy. Despite Brexit, the new establishment remains potent... the Tories may have been in office, but they weren’t necessarily in power... as difficult as it has been for the Tory government, it still had one overwhelming factor in its favour. It had democratic authority on its side... it could have done more to ‘Level Up’ – in reality rather than in mere rhetoric. It could have stood up to an increasingly poisonous identity politics, pushing reactionary ideas under the guise of progress. It could have challenged the woke dogma that prevails in schools and universities, and feeds into the unthinking illiberalism of so much of our public life... the Tory Party completely blew it... Its leading figures, Johnson included, have lacked the political will and wherewithal to seize the Brexit day. This is not just a personal failing. It also touches on a deeper intellectual and political incoherence. A party that has spent much of the past 20 years fighting to become part of the new establishment found itself unable to fully reorient itself in opposition to the new establishment. MPs from one era have frequently found themselves at loggerheads with those from another. Here is a party that has ceased to be one thing, but has failed to become another. It is neither establishment nor populist."
Too bad the media isn't pretending the unhappiness with the Tories is about racism and sexism
Of course the radical overhaul didn't stop the left bashing them as "fasicsts". They need an enemy, after all
The working class isn't who you think it is - The Hub - "“Will defining “working class” be the 2020s version of defining the “middle class?” A new paper (co-authored by Renze Nauta, Sosina Bezu, and me) published by the Cardus Institute aims to answer this question. It uses a definition of the working class—namely, someone who works in a non-management, professional, or technical job that generally doesn’t require post-secondary education—to understand who comprises Canada’s working class, what jobs they do, and how they’ve done over the past 20 years or so. Our basic goal is to ensure that the growing political interest in the working class is rooted in facts rather than nostalgia. What do we find? Today’s working class is more female than male, more likely to be an immigrant or racial minority, much more likely to be in service-sector jobs than “blue-collar” jobs, and frequently has more educational experience or credentials than is typically required for its jobs... While Canada’s working class is shrinking (its share of the working population has fallen from 42 percent in 2000 to 34 percent today), it’s still the largest share of workers in the Canadian economy... The old image of blue-collar men on the manufacturing assembly line is no longer representative. Today nearly half of the working class is in sales and service jobs such as retail clerk, food counter attendant, or personal support worker. This is up from just over 30 percent in 1990 and is more than double the labour market as a whole. As one American policy scholar has described these trends: the modern working class has gone from “making stuff” to “serving and caring for people.” One of our major findings is that even though we define working class based on occupations that generally don’t require post-secondary experience or credentials, 53 percent of working-class Canadians (excluding full-time students) actually have post-secondary certificates, diplomas, or degrees. This may reflect various factors including individual preferences, foreign credential issues, a skills mismatch, or even employer discrimination. The upshot though is a prima facie case of large-scale underemployment that carries opportunity costs for individuals and the economy as a whole... The interests, concerns, and aspirations of a female personal supporter worker necessarily differs from those of a male worker in the manufacturing sector. A modern working-class agenda must account for these differences. It will need, for instance, to speak concretely about issues like health and dental benefits, labour standards, housing, childcare, and immigration."
Butter Boards Are Spreading Across TikTok - The New York Times - "“This is essentially a glorified stick of butter,” said Justine Doiron, a recipe developer in New York who blogs under the name Justine Snacks."
Yonge Street Mall: The fun and failure of pedestrianizing Toronto's iconic strip during the 1970s - "the pedestrian mall was everything downtown Yonge Street was — crowded, commercialized, and full of life — only more so. Inevitably, this created conflicts, and by 1973 the project’s public image was beginning to lose its lustre. Some merchants were frustrated by unlicensed vendors cutting into their business; a growing number felt the mall was really only benefiting taverns and restaurants. Meanwhile, members of the public complained of explicit advertising for body rub parlours and strip shows, aggressive panhandling, and groups of directionless, probably degenerate, “hippies” and other non-conformist youth. A couple from Ohio wrote to newly-elected Mayor David Crombie to express their shock at being victims of a con game (the old bait-and-switch, an annual attraction on the mall) in such a safe, friendly city"
This won't stop the car haters pretending pedestrianisation is a utopia.
Meme - "I'm so old, thought this was Bert from Sesame Street"
Meme - "*Roof with melted snow* 2018: Weed grower
2020: Crypto miner
2022: Lottery winner"
Meme - "When you die but your cats still want to meow at you at 3AM for food"
Mel C addresses Robbie Williams tryst rumours after joke he’d slept with 4 Spice Girls - "in 2016, he backtracked and tried to downplay what he’d once said, claiming: "I told a joke a long time ago and it sort of got out of hand. "On one particular [Take That] tour before [Back For Good] I introduced it by saying, ‘I am very fortunate to have been in Take That and four out of five of the Spice Girls.’ That was my intro to the song and it was a joke and the joke went too far."... It appeared though, that the rumour wasn’t far from the truth, with Mel B seemingly confirming what had happened. She said: "He actually publicly apologised to me for all that mess. Saying he had apparently gotten it on with all five Spice Girls... He wishes. "I was the one he never did. He’s a friend of mine. Yuck! He had been with my friends – I don’t want sloppy seconds.""
tara on Twitter - "When I used to work at Starbucks our store policy was to decaf all cops"
Hopefully they got robbed multiple times
Meme - "My 72 year-old mother just informed me she is going to her first "sex party" and doesn't know what to bring. After some delicate questioning, "Gender Reveal, Mom. It's called a Gender Reveal.""
Meme - "Why did anyone let me leave the house looking like this? Disney themed day at my then high school. I wanna erase this from history but also dying laughing, so please join in cringing with me *Donald Duck*"
Meme - "WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE
*Pope*
GOD DOESN'T PREVENT TERRIBLE THINGS BECAUSE
A: HE CAN'T
B: HE DOESN'T WANT TO
C: HE CAUSES THEM
D: HE DOESN'T EXIST"
Meme - "A guide to the average European country elections
Tax Haven Party
- Incumbent prime minister
- Ran on an anti-corruption platform, most corrupt PM in history
- Gets re-elected despite a 15% approval rating, flying on Epstein's plane and holding cocaine parties during covid
- Highly respected pragmatic statesman according to wikipedia
Right Wing Populists with basic optics Party
- Party is a glorified fan club of popular right-wing leader of the month
- Leader is called "The Trump of insert country" despite having been in politics since the 90s
- Grew from fringe basement group to second largest party after new "no more Hitler salutes" policy
19th century Social Democrats rebranded as gay neolibs Party
- Union leader turned technocratic banker
- Party hasn't been relevant since 2008
- Doesn't get why "more muslims and trans children" isn't popular with working class voters
- 10th party leader in 2 years
Green karen Party
- Wants to make meat and gas more expensive during crippling economic recession
- Will seethe in pain if you ever mention nuclear energy
- Wants to lower voting age to 16 because that's the average age of their supporters
Slowly dying Christian Democrat Party
- Only remotely conservative stance they still hold is supporting a completely powerless constitutional monarch
- Doesn't matter how terrible they do in elections they WILL get into the coalition somehow
- Entire party is sustained by the votes of 120 year old elder liches in 500 pop villages
That one single issue Party
- Is either about animal rights, pensioner's or European ethnic minority group
- Nobody really knows why they exist and who votes for them
- Has 1 or 2 seats"
A Map of Saintly Place-names in Europe - "Virtually every profession has a patron saint (1), but not so cartography (2)... France, now a beacon of ‘laïcité’ – the French version of secularism – in previous centuries prided itself on being ‘la fille ainée de l’église’ (the oldest daughter of the church). And its Christian heritage still shows in the sheer number of saintly place-names, from Saint-Denis and Saint-Cloud near Paris to Saint-Brieuc in Brittany and Saint-Laurent-du-Var in the Provence. No less than 43% of the European total of ‘Saint(e)’ names occurs in France, with areas of higher density in Normandy, and the Loire and Rhône valleys. The north, northeast and southwest seem to have been less touched by holy topography. Runner-up, by about half of the French total, is Spain. With 4,444 ‘San’ or ‘Santa’ topographies, it represents 21.5% of the European total. But here the regional distribution is more skewed than in France, or any other country for that matter: most of Spain is actually fairly saint-name-free, except for a smaller concentration in northeast Catalonia, and a massive communion of saintly red dots in Galicia. That northwest corner of Spain is also home to Santiago de Compostela, a destination for pilgrims from all over Europe from the early medieval period onward. Which may explain the extraordinary concentration of saintly place names in that region. With 2,638 cities and towns named after saints, Italy ranks third on the list (12.7% of the European total). The dots are distributed fairly evenly across the country, with higher concentrations in Veneto, the area around Venice, and the Po valley, and lower concentrations in Sicily and the south of the Italian mainland. Portugal is a distant fourth, with just 3.8% of the European total. Its ‘holy’ place-names are mainly coastal and northern. Portugal is just a few dozen place-names ahead of Greece, where a central zone across the mainland and the island of Crete seem responsible for most saintly topographies... whether or not it has to do with the effects of the Reformation or reflects one of the causes of it, especially northern countries seem to lack towns or cities named after saints. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark only have four between them – only one less than tiny (and Muslim-majority) Kosovo."
'Saint Bartholomew Flayed' – Milan, Italy - "Commonly referred to as “Saint Bartholomew Flayed,” the sculpture was originally crafted in 1562. It stands at the left of the altar of Duomo di Milano and is considered the most notable piece of art in the cathedral. At first glance, the saint seems to be just a skeletal man wearing a stole, but upon closer look, visitors may notice that it’s actually his flayed skin he is holding. All of Bartholomew’s muscles, veins, and tendons are exposed across the statue. The sculpture was likely less of a piece of Christian faith and rather an artistic essay on human anatomy, offering a stunning Renaissance-era depiction of muscles and body structures."
Foreign brides marrying Singaporean men are older, better educated: MSF - "Foreign brides who marry Singaporean men are becoming older and better educated than in the past... While MSF did not provide a breakdown of the brides’ countries of origin, the data showed that in 2019, they came from:
Asia (96.4 per cent)
Europe (1.4 per cent)
Oceania, which consists of Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea (0.6 per cent)
North America, which consists of the United States and Canada (0.5 per cent)
Others (1.1 per cent) ...
While more Singaporeans were marrying foreigners — 6,153 in 2019 versus 4,823 in 2000 — the increase was more pronounced among Singaporean women in the last two decades. The number of Singaporean women who took non-resident grooms in the last two decades had jumped by 75 per cent — from 989 in 2000 to 1,727 in 2019. This is in contrast to the 15 per cent increase in the number of Singaporean men who took non-resident brides in 2019 compared to 2000 — 4,426, up from 3,834... The foreign grooms in 2019 came from:
Asia (60 per cent)
Europe (20 per cent)
Oceania (6 per cent)
North America (6 per cent)
Others (7 per cent)...
Ms Margaret Thomas, president of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware), highlighted a study that pointed out the distinct socio-economic advantages enjoyed by families with a migrant father over families with a migrant mother. “Transnational families with a migrant father have the highest monthly per-capita family income (S$3,062) among all types of families. They also have a larger proportion of working mothers (80 per cent) than the other types of families”"
Playing brain training games regularly doesn't boost brainpower - "“For every study that finds some evidence, there’s an equal number of papers that find no evidence,” says Bobby Stojanoski, a cognitive neuroscientist at Western University in Ontario... Now, in perhaps the biggest real-world test of these programs, Stojanoski and colleagues pitted more than 1,000 people who regularly use brain trainers against around 7,500 people who don’t do the mini brain workouts. There was little difference between how both groups performed on a series of tests of their thinking abilities, suggesting that brain training doesn’t live up to its name... “They put brain training to the test,” says Elizabeth Stine-Morrow, a cognitive aging scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While the study doesn’t show why brain trainers aren’t seeing benefits, it does show there is no link “between the amount of time spent with the brain training programs and cognition,” Stine-Morrow says. “That was pretty cool.”... “No matter how we sliced the data, we were unable to find any evidence that brain training was associated with cognitive abilities,” says Stojanoski. That held true whether the team analyzed participants by age, program used, education or socioeconomic status – all were cognitively similar to the group who didn’t use the programs."
