Seventh eve is at least dry,

which makes the chilly easier to deal with.  So let us now adjourn to the usual visuals for this night

6th eve is

cloudy and damp and chilly.  Therefore,

"Yes, you lit your candles, now put it away. Because if the ferals we've tolerated

damage it or attack you it will look bad for us."

Higher effing Education.

Well, 'tis the season

Interesting piece about what feminism has become

One bit from it:

I think what you were talking about, though, also has everything to do with such hubris that human beings can do a lot better than God. God doesn’t exist. We can construct; we can perfect; we can improve all social reality, no matter how many hundreds of millions we have to kill to do that, to perfect it. And we’ve seen that tried, and yet that ideal remains. Also, there’s a disbelief in evil, an absolute refusal to see that, “Oh, evil does exist and can’t quite be legislated away with money, without money.”

So, I think partly a religious point of view would not look at any of these subjects the way an anti-religious person would. I think you’re right, though, this also the performative, the Judith Butler stuff, you can’t understand a line that they’re writing. They have no courage. They don’t wish to be understood because then they might have to pay some consequence for what they’re saying. And it’s so affected the mandarin language that it’s hopeless. But there’s this belief that the narrative on the page, the performance of self or of narrative, trumps reality. It’s quite a bubble that is not good to be in. I never was. But it has certainly taken over the academy, hasn’t it?

The Wardens are just too happy being dictators, and far too many Australians

are happy with being prisoners.
Thus the government was using taxpayer money to commission research from a private consultancy into grading people according to their Covid compliance score, in order to devise a strategy to persuade them into following government directives and obey government orders. Addressed chiefly as a public health matter, the primary concern would have been the health and safety of the people. Instead the primary motivation was clearly political control and moulding public opinion for partisan advantage.
...
The website explains that customers’ carbon footprint is measured by considering the spending transactions made on their personal CommBank accounts, including transactions, credit cards and digital payments, against averaged industry carbon emissions data for the fashion and transport sectors. Meaning collecting my data for any fashion products and travel tickets purchased by credit cards, payment for which is linked to my CBA account.

Understanding individuals’ carbon footprint is the first step in learning about how to become more environmentally conscious. The feature records information on how customers’ emissions are associated with personal spending habits and additional insights on the relevant categories that contribute to a personalised footprint output.
Unfortunately there's too damn many here who were thrilled  with the .gov wanting to control their whole life.  And desiring anyone who disagreed be shipped off to a camp, their kids taken, and forcibly vaccinated.

To say I'm sick of this crap from the Stupid Party is understatement

The swamp screamed "Disaster if you won't let us keep illegally spying on people!" when reform of Secton 702 of FISA was brought up.  Because of course it would be a disaster- for them- if they were made to stop.

My Rep. had this to say today: "I agree that critical reforms are needed to ensure that we are protecting the privacy of American citizens. However,"...  Emphasis mine.  Because letting the usual "But there are things I approve of in the NDA, so screw fixing this" happen- again- is so much easier.

Ms. Bice, this doesn't even rise to the level of Stupid Party, this is "Screw the voters, I want this other stuff passed so let's let the criminals keep violating their oaths and the law" garbage.

'Disappointed in you' is a great understatement as well.

Why am I not surprised the bastards behind this are from the Dark & Fascist State

of New Jersey?
That Street Cop Training checklist, which offers handy excuses for officers keen to conduct searches for drugs or seizable cash, figures prominently in a recent report from Kevin Walsh, New Jersey's acting comptroller. The report criticizes the New Jersey company for encouraging officers to make or extend stops without reasonable suspicion and for promoting a "warrior" mentality that fosters the excessive use of force. "We found so many examples of so many instructors promoting views and tactics that were wildly inappropriate, offensive, discriminatory, harassing, and, in some cases, likely illegal," Walsh said when he released the report this week. "The fact that the training undermined nearly a decade of police reforms—and New Jersey dollars paid for it—is outrageous."
It's basically "Here's how you can use ANYTHING someone does as an excuse to screw with them."

Not to mention 'Screw with people just because you want a 'baseline' to work from."
Another speaker at the conference, Boston police officer Tommy Brooks, suggested pulling over "20 people in a row for the sole purpose of asking them a series of questions," such as where they are coming from and where they are going. That experiment, Brooks said, would establish a "general baseline" of "how people answer questions," which the officer could later use to identify "weird" responses from other drivers. Helpful or not, the research project that Brooks recommended would be blatantly unconstitutional. "Without an objectively reasonable basis for the stop," Walsh notes, "those stops, as described, would violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable seizures."

Crap like this has spread over time, and it's a big reason- especially in some places- nobody wants to deal with the cops: you don't/can't trust them to follow the rules.  And, when they get caught and slapped down, they can claim Qualified Immunity and not pay any personal price, while you've been screwed over and had to pay a price even though you were innocent.

Among the things that will start a argument/fight on social media:

"What's the best oil for my bike?"
"What's the best gun oil for my (fill in the gun)?"
And a big one:
"THIS is the way to season cast iron."

"Yes, everything still costs more, but the rate of inflation is down, and you idiots

just don't understand how good you have it!"
When that's your explanation for why people aren't happy, you're the idiot.

A David Drake story

When son was on his first deployment to Iraq, one of the occasions he was able to call, when I asked if he needed anything, he said "Books. I need stuff to read, sci-fi, adventure, stuff like that." So, to the used bookstore.
Note: 19 paperbacks would fit in one large flat-rate box without too much bulging.*

One thing I included was the five books of 'The General' series by Drake and Stirling, which I did tell him I wanted back, as two of them were just about impossible to replace.  Well, two reasons for those five: damn good stories; =second was that in the first book a unit on a raid in enemy territory(desert, muslim enemy government) had seized a bleepload of checked scarves that became a unit symbol, and I'd suggested he find a similar scarf and get a picture of himself with it.  He did, in full battle rattle.  I found a email address and sent the pic to Drake labeled 'Sgt. X, on detached duty from the 5th Descott'. Day later he replied "I love it!"

When son sent the books back I contacted Drake again, told him about them and that I planned to ,give him the set when he got back, and asked if he'd be willing to sign them, "Send them to me. I'll get Steve to sign them, too." He did, and they were duly presented when son got back.

David Drake was a good guy.

*Told me later that someone stuck his head into his container to ask him something, "Hey Sarge, you kno- you've got books?  Can I read them?"
"When I'm done."  So a line developed: he'd finish one and give it to that guy, who'd give it to another guy, etc.  Total between me, his mom and sister, and the grandparents, he got a few cases of books and- with the exception of 'The General'- they were read to death.

Well, when you hire for political reasons instead of skills and abilities,

this is what you get.
In four papers published between 1993 and 2017, including her doctoral dissertation, Gay, a political scientist, paraphrased or quoted nearly 20 authors—including two of her colleagues in Harvard University’s department of government—without proper attribution, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis. Other examples of possible plagiarism, all from Gay’s dissertation, were publicized Sunday by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo and Karlstack’s Chris Brunet.

The Free Beacon worked with nearly a dozen scholars to analyze 29 potential cases of plagiarism. Most of them said that Gay had violated a core principle of academic integrity as well as Harvard’s own anti-plagiarism policies, which state that "it's not enough to change a few words here and there."
And I'll bet Harvard knew about at least some of this.  But she checked all the proper DEI boxes, so they made her the President of the place.

That worked out well, didn't it?

Stolen from Old NFO, Bible Stories according to kids

 Bible stories…

As interpreted by children…sigh

Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. The following 25 statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been retouched or corrected. Incorrect spelling has been left in.

1. In the first book of the bible, Guinness. god got tired of creating the world so he took the sabbath off.
2. Adam and eve were created from an apple tree. Noah’s wife was Joan of ark. Noah built and ark and the animals came on in pears.
3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night.
4. The jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic genitals.
5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.
6. Samson slayed the philistines with the axe of the apostles.
7. Moses led the jews to the red sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread without any ingredients.
8. The egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up to mount cyanide to get the ten commandments.
9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.
10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
11. Moses died before he ever reached canada then Joshua led the hebrews in the battle of geritol.
12. The greatest miricle in the bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.
13. David was a hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in biblical times.
14. Solomon, one of Davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.
15. When Mary heard she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the magna carta.
16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived they found Jesus in the manager.
17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.
19. Jesus enunciated the golden rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained a man doth not live by sweat alone.
20. It was a miricle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.
21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.
22. The epistels were the wives of the apostles.
23. One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.
24. St. Paul cavorted to christianity, he preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.
25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

They were able to survey the sea floor near the Tonga eruption site,

and it made an even bigger mess than thought.

Fastest reloading musket

I'd not heard of this one before.  And with the date, it puts a stake through the heart of the 'The founders could never have conceived of rapid-fire guns like those that threaten us today!'

Well, dammit. David Drake has died.

From what I've heard of his health probably better now than later, but dammit.

Colleges like Harvard and MIT aren't where free speech goes to die,

it's where they murder it.
In the hearings, President Gay actually said, with a straight face, that “we embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.” This is the president whose university mandates all students attend a Title IX training session where they are told that “fatphobia” and “cisheterosexism” are forms of “violence,” and that “using the wrong pronouns” constitutes “abuse.” This is the same president who engineered the ouster of a law professor, Ronald Sullivan, simply because he represented a client, of whom Gay and students (rightly but irrelevantly) disapproved, Harvey Weinstein.

This is the same president who watched a brilliant and popular professor, Carole Hooven, be effectively hounded out of her position after a public shaming campaign by one of her department’s DEI enforcers, and a mob of teaching fellows, because Hooven dared to state on television that biological sex is binary. This is the president of a university where a grand total of 1.46 percent of faculty call themselves “conservative” and 82 percent call themselves “liberal” or “very liberal.” This is the president of a university which ranked 248th out of 248 colleges this year on free speech (and Penn was the 247th), according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Harvard is a place where free expression goes to die.
As the man says, there's only Approved Free Speech for the leftists who follow their rules, everyone else is supposed to shut up.  Or be shut up and ruined.

I wonder if, while these college presidents were playing their word games, they even realized there would be an actual problem with their definitions of 'free speech'?