Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 5:14:56 AM

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vxbush 7/7/2021 5:32:24 AM

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vxbush 7/7/2021 5:42:37 AM

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Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 5:53:06 AM

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In #3 vxbush said: OR, thanks for posting that Arthur C. Clarke short story. That was interesting more as a snapshot of the time it was written but still interesting. 

Actually, I posted it in response to OR. And for the "snapshot of the time", that's why I included the year in the link text.

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 6:03:52 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 2:

I've been paying for an upgrade to Dell support (PRO support), and get people who know what they are doing.

I've had a couple of good experiences elsewhere, like someone who knew I had already run the first steps.

But I've had complete idiots on the other end, too. One Dell system that I got years ago without Pro support had problems. It would blue screen 30 minutes after booting, so I started running diagnostics first. Then those failed. These are the ones that run before booting. Idiot told me to reinstall the operating system. I pointed out the failure occurred before it had booted. He talked to someone else, and had me send it in. Turned out the heat sink wasn't bonded correctly and the CPU was overheating.

vxbush 7/7/2021 6:15:33 AM

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More evidence of woke insanity in math instruction. 

It's a Twitchy thread focused on responses, but it does include links to the cringeworthy documents for California educators. 

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 6:24:42 AM

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Haitian president killed in his own home by as-yet unknown attackers.

Forget it, Jake, it's Haiti. 

No one knows what to do with Haiti. 

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 7:33:43 AM

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In #7 Occasional Reader said: Haitian president killed in his own home by as-yet unknown attackers.

They didn't just make a voodoo doll and rip it apart?/////////

JCM 7/7/2021 7:38:13 AM

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'I need those guns put down': SPD chief pleads with city after alarming spike in shootings

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 7:40:38 AM

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Il Duce Cuomo seizes emergency powers over NY "gun violence crisis".  

Note that he keeps referring to a soaring violent crime rate as "injustice", rather than... you know... crime.  

That's a code word, of course.  It means it's your fault, middle-class Whitey. 

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 7:51:34 AM

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In #9 JCM said: 'I need those guns put down': SPD chief pleads with city after alarming spike in shootings

He said neither "please" nor "Simon says", so I don't think that will work. 

JCM 7/7/2021 7:52:07 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 10:

Key words "Public Health".

Didn't I postulate that when COVID died down they would pivot the "Public Health" emergency powers to gun violence.

JCM 7/7/2021 7:55:32 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 11:

Seattle's Prosecutor Pot Head Pete Holmes (he was first in line to buy pot when it was legalized), pleads most gun charges down to misdemeanors. So criminals are MORE likely to have a firearm, we know how much self control and training they have.

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 8:03:05 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 10:
If they really wanted to cut down on "gun violence", they'd go after the gangs and their illegal guns. That means more police, and actually locking up criminals, not letting them back on the street.

Legal guns aren't the problem, and the US is not the only country that makes guns. Plenty of countries make them, and even some third world countries can crank out cheap crude guns, which are just as useful to gangs as quality ones, and a lot cheaper.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 8:06:23 AM

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Reply to JCM in 9:

Reply to Occasional Reader in 10:

Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 14:

This is a job for...social workers!

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 8:09:16 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 14:

None of what Il Duce is doing has anything to do with actually fighting crime.  It's just about power. 

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 8:12:59 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 16:

Andrew Cuomo, despite his famous "no-one needs ten bullets to kill a deer" line a few years ago, understands that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to make him crap his pants with fear if/when he overreaches---and he is trying to pre-emptively eliminate the source of that fear.

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 8:25:33 AM

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In #16 Occasional Reader said: None of what Il Duce is doing has anything to do with actually fighting crime.  It's just about power. 

I know. That is clear from their not actually going after the real causes of gun violence.

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 8:30:15 AM

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In #18 Kosh's Shadow said: the real causes of gun violence.

There is no such thing as "gun violence".   Don't use their Orwellian language. 

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 8:41:25 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 18:

In contrast, Boston has a "gun violence" initiative, in which police and community leaders are working to get gangs and their guns off the streets.

Unfortunately the Suffolk County DA is a leftist who believes in no bail. (And is taking her sweet time deciding whether the stabbing of a rabbi by an Egyptian who overstayed his student visa, and whose former Jewish roommate had to take out a restraining order against because of his Jew-hatred, is a hate crime.)

JCM 7/7/2021 8:45:42 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 19:

Hard not to use their shorthand, but then we allow them to choose the ground of the discussion.

Violent crime.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 8:51:50 AM

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In #20 Kosh's Shadow said: an Egyptian who overstayed his student visa, and whose former Jewish roommate had to take out a restraining order against because of his Jew-hatred

My first semester at law school, my roommate dropped out of school after the first few weeks, and the school, strapped for space, tried to get me a new roommate. 

I scared the first few hopefuls away by receiving them in my smoking jacket, with the light-up base of my 1930s smoking-stand illuminating the room.  They then tried to get me to take a Middle-Eastern Arab, whom I refused on religio-ethnic grounds.  

Alas, I then got stuck with a nasty little Venezuelan undergrad.  We had a whole bunch of Venezuelans come in---the dorm was mixed grad (lawschool) and undergrad---one of whom endeared himself to his roommate by constantly tossing his used toilet paper in the wastebasket instead of flushing it.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 8:58:45 AM

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Reply to JCM in 21:

Interesting: the NPR thread just vanished from WZ.

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 9:00:07 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 22:

In college, we had a bunch of Venezuelans. They were nice, actually. We got along well with them. The Arabs, however, were not liked.

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 9:12:30 AM

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In #22 buzzsawmonkey said: by constantly tossing his used toilet paper in the wastebasket instead of flushing it.

I'm not surprised, it was likely force of habit.  Up through the 80s (and to some extent still today), it was fairly common in a lot of South America that the plumbing systems couldn't handle toilet paper.  The little wastebasket next to the toilet, for such a purpose, was common. 

JCM 7/7/2021 9:30:20 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 23:

It's not "posted" but still exists, I pulled it up in my history.

Interesting....

JCM 7/7/2021 9:31:02 AM

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Reply to JCM in 26:

It was in my cached, it's gone.....

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 9:32:57 AM

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In #21 JCM said: Hard not to use their shorthand, but then we allow them to choose the ground of the discussion.

The worst example of this is "occupied territory" or worse, "occupied Palestinian territory". These imply the so-called Palestinians actually possessed the area. The correct term is "disputed territory". The last country to possess the area as part of itself, and whose possession was internationally recognized, was the Ottoman Empire. (Jordan's occupation of Judea, Samaria, and the eastern part of Jerusalem, was recognized by the perfidious British and by either Iraq or Pakistan, or both.)

Although to me, "occupied territory" applies to the areas of Israel currently occupied by the so-called Palestinians. They were given over 75% of the land that was supposed to be the Jewish state, and they can go there. (Jordan)

JCM 7/7/2021 10:00:35 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 28:

We should work on a conservative dictionary.

Restore the original meanings to words.

liberal, democracy, gay, ......

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 10:02:05 AM

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In #29 JCM said: Restore the original meanings to words. liberal, democracy, gay, ....

Special

vxbush 7/7/2021 10:03:37 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 28:

This is a repeated issue that keeps cropping up more and more these days--either using incorrect terminology or, more often, intentionally redefining a well-defined term to make the discussion grayer and intentionally keep people confused. 

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 10:07:20 AM

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In #31 vxbush said: This is a repeated issue that keeps cropping up more and more these days--either using incorrect terminology or, more often, intentionally redefining a well-defined term to make the discussion grayer and intentionally keep people confused. 

Or coming up with a new term that sounds like an old one so that it becomes accepted - "human rights".

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 10:18:03 AM

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In #29 JCM said: Restore the original meanings to words. liberal, democracy, gay, ......

"Gay" is Victorian slang; "the gay life"---i.e., the unconstrained, licentious life---was the funhouse-mirror image of the "strait life"---the constrained, respectable life.

"Strait"---as in "the strait and narrow path"---has been corrupted to "straight" by modern-day Biblical illiterates.

"The gay life," or "the life" (a term still used by prostitutes today) in Victorian times encompassed theatre people, prostitutes (who were often out-of-work theatre people), drug addicts, bohemian artists, and the homosexually-inclined. As the open prostitution of the Victorian era was suppressed in the 20th century, and as theatre people (stage and film) became more respectable during the same time, the slang meaning of "gay" came to apply primarily to homosexual behavior, enough so that it was used in song and film in this context by the mid-1930s.

Tellingly, a gay-news program which used to run on PBS some years ago was called "In the Life," i.e., "in the gay life," a harking back to the Victorian origins of the term.  Homosexual behavior was a matter of concern in England in the 19th century because of various homosexual-activity scandals in British "public" schools. Most of the draconian "sodomy laws" which were on the books in the US until the Supreme Court voided them were drafted in the 1840s, as were the British sodomy laws.

Homosexual scandals in the British "public" schools are addressed in Tom Brown's School Days, by Thomas Hughes, which deals with the school of Rugby in the 1830s, and in Kipling's Stalky & Co., a slightly-fictionalized account of his time at the United Services College from the late 1870s through the 1880s. It is also alluded to, obliquely, in Dickens' Oliver Twist.

The pseudoscientific invention of "homosexuality" as an alleged "status" or "condition" began among British practitioners of homosexual behavior in the late 19th century, in parallel with the pseudoscience of psychology/psychiatry. It took about 80 or 90 years for the two pseudosciences to converge, but they have certainly done so now.

Homosexual references and allusions were common in early films, and it was expected that the audiences would understand them. The use of "gay" as a homosexual reference---a carryover from the Victorian "gay life" slang---appears, as I've said, in film and song by the mid-30s---and before that, during the speakeasy era of the Roaring Twenties, there was a "Pansy Craze."

Unabridged dictionaries of some vintage---say, mid-20th century---generally include "dissolute, licentious" as one of the definitions of "gay" behavior. And in early-20th-century American slang, "getting gay" with someone meant getting rowdy, truculuent, or rambunctious---i.e., picking a fight with someone or being troublesome at work.  The association of "gaiety" with being "lighthearted and carefree" referred to being unconstrained, i.e., to breaking free, for a time, from the many restraints most people experienced in their lives.  It is a short space from that conventional definition to the definition of "the gay life," referring to living a life which, if not wholly unconstrained, at least seemed to avoid most of the straits of conventional moral/respectable behavior.  In early-20th-century American slang, by the way, "getting gay" with someone meant getting rowdy, truculent, or rambunctious---i.e., picking a fight with someone or being troublesome at work.

JCM 7/7/2021 10:19:26 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 32:

My peeve... "our democracy"... "democracy"

Only because they are using democracy correctly but using the word as a substitute for Republic incorrectly. The intent is clear they want to replace Republic with democracy not only linguistically but in reality.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 10:26:39 AM

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Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 11:00:31 AM

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In #34 JCM said: Only because they are using democracy correctly but using the word as a substitute for Republic incorrectly. The intent is clear they want to replace Republic with democracy not only linguistically but in reality.

Only in the sense that only ideas the elite want supported will get voted by that democracy. Wrongthinkers will not have the right to vote.

doppelganglander 7/7/2021 11:17:47 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 33:

The Flintstones had a gay old time, but I'm pretty sure Fred and Barney were just pals.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 11:34:07 AM

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In #37 doppelganglander said: The Flintstones had a gay old time, but I'm pretty sure Fred and Barney were just pals.

The regular, non-slang meaning of the term---but the slang meaning of "rambunctious, combative" appears in the 1922 Sherwood Anderson short story "I'm a Fool," and in the Louis Armstrong/Mills Brothers song "W.P.A" from the early-mid 1930s.  

The use of the term to mean "promiscuous, licentious, dissolute" is something I've seen (but not catalogued) in various stories; there is an interesting interview by the late jazz critic Chris Albertson, interviewing Bessie Smith's aunt about a trip to a "buffet flat," i.e., an "open house" brothel apartment which featured sex shows.   The aunt eagerly recounts a seeing "a faggot that was so great, people would come and pay good just to see him make love to another man. Yeah, he was real great---he'd give 'em a tongue bath and everything."  Albertson was clearly uncomfortable with his interviewee's choice of language, and suggested, sort of timidly, "So this was a ...gay place, right?"  The interviewee responded---this is priceless---"Oh, very gay.  It was everything, you know?  Everything that was in the life." In other words, she was using "gay" in its classic-slang sense, wholly inclusive, in the way it was used before the "licentious" slang term narrowed.

The narrowed slang term---i.e., "homosexual"---appears in the mid-'30s film "Bringing Up Baby," where Cary Grant, asked why he's dressed in a feather-trimmed negligee (his clothes are being cleaned), replies with exasperation, "I just went gay all of a sudden!"  The other mid-'30s reference is Cole Porter's song "Farming," which is one of his usual celebrity-dish "list" songs; he runs through a whole lot of celebrities and makes sly cracks about each of them.  One of the verses is, "Don't inquire of Georgie Raft/Why his cow has never calved/Georgie's bull is beautiful, but he's gay..." Now, you may take this as a reference to the bull, if you want to, or take it as Porter slyly outing Raft's alleged sexuality and tweaking him for concealing it, but either way it uses the word in a homosexual context.

Occasional Reader 7/7/2021 11:39:49 AM

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In #37 doppelganglander said: but I'm pretty sure Fred and Barney were just pals.

Are you sure?  They pranced about wearing animal-skin dresses. 

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 11:40:55 AM

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In #37 doppelganglander said: The Flintstones had a gay old time, but I'm pretty sure Fred and Barney were just pals.

Did they ever get stoned?

lucius septimius 7/7/2021 12:21:20 PM

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In #37 doppelganglander said: The Flintstones had a gay old time, but I'm pretty sure Fred and Barney were just pals.

Don't worry, I'm sure they're doing a reboot where they are gay. And black.  And disabled.

Kosh's Shadow 7/7/2021 12:35:27 PM

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In #41 lucius septimius said:

Betty and Barney will undergo transgender treatments and then marry Wilma and Fred in a polyamorous wedding.

doppelganglander 7/7/2021 3:52:11 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 41:

Disagree. It'll be about what Betty and Wilma get up to when Pebbles and Bam Bam go down for a nap. Put a record on the pterodactyl, brown chicken brown cow.

doppelganglander 7/7/2021 3:53:58 PM

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In #38 buzzsawmonkey said: The narrowed slang term---i.e., "homosexual"---appears in the mid-'30s film "Bringing Up Baby," where Cary Grant, asked why he's dressed in a feather-trimmed negligee (his clothes are being cleaned), replies with exasperation, "I just went gay all of a sudden!" 

I noticed that line the last time I saw Bringing Up Baby a few months ago. That movie never gets old.

buzzsawmonkey 7/7/2021 4:14:38 PM

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In #44 doppelganglander said: That movie never gets old.

Indeed not.  

The "gay" reference there is kind of pivotal.   While there were certainly plenty homosexual jokes in the movies prior to that---the "Make it a Pansy" line from "Palmy Days," Jolson's "Boys will be boys!" in "Wonder Bar," the duet between Dick Powell and Frank McHugh in "Footlight Parade," to name just a few---"Bringing Up Baby" is, as far as I know, the first time "gay" was used in mainstream media in its now-ubiquitous manner.