CRANKY OLD FART'S
BROWSER HISTORY
#374 [archive]
10/22/2023
Every click on this page is personally guaranteed! If you skip even one link, your life will be lessened by never knowing the marvels you've missed.
• Extroverts more likely to resist vaccines, study shows
My prejudice is right out in the open: Of course extroverts are more likely to resist vaccines. They talk and talk and talk, thus do less listening, which has to mean less learning. That's *not to say extroverts are stupider than we quiet people, however.
(They are, but it's not nice to say it.)
• "No normal seasons any more": seed farmers struggle amid the climate crisis
Well, gosh, this could be a problem (that we knew was coming years and years ago).• Stephen Rubin, publisher of 'The Da Vinci Code,' dies after 'sudden illness' at 81
I'd never heard of Stephen Rubin, but the article says one of his "notable projects" was Bill O'Reilly's series of fake history books, so his corpse can fuck off and die all over again. He doesn't even qualify for my dead people round-up at the end of this page.
I'm linking to his obituary only to mock the bad journalism in this line from paragraph 3: "Book publishing is hard to imagine without the raspy-voiced Rubin…"
Book publishing is certainly not "hard to imagine" without this schmuck I'd never heard of. Hyperbole much? Did the author have their nose way up this Rubin character's butt? Does AP have no editors?
• BBC confirms policy change on describing Hamas as terrorists
Being the only big-time outlet to avoid using the loaded term
‘terrorist’ was solid journalism by BBC, so of course that had to go.
That said, Hamas certainly is a terrorist group by any sane definition, and so’s the Israel Defense Forces.
• The Onion stands with Israel because it seems like you get in less trouble for that
• The American Museum of Natural History holds 12,000 bodies — but they don’t want you to know whose.
• An Alabama woman was imprisoned for 'endangering' her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower.
• The road less travelled in every state
• Pigeons can tell the difference between paintings by Monet and by Picasso• Amusing, Interesting, Outrageous, or Profound
This is my Lemmy page, for anything that's (in my opinion) amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound. It's mostly a rough draft of this page, but you're invited to stop by.
📸 IMAGES 📸
• Notificator, the public robot messenger board from the 1930s
♫♬ MUSIC ♫
• Another Brick in the Wall — Luther Wright and the Wrongs
• Concentration Moon — Frank Zappa
• Good Morning, Starshine — Hair
• Ooh La La — Dustbowl Revival
❔ MYSTERY LINKS ❔
• Click
• Click
• Click
• Click
• Click
👁 VIDEO 👁
• We need more pies. A whole lot more pies.
• "Poison doesn't always come in bottles." —Vincent Price"Ladies and gentlemen, poison doesn’t always come in bottles, and it isn’t always marked with the skull and crossbones of danger. Poison can take the form of words and phrases and acts: the venom of racial and religious hatred.
"Here in the United States, perhaps more than ever before, we must learn to recognize the poison of prejudice and to discover the antidote to its dangerous effects.
"Evidences of racial and religious hatred in our country place a potent weapon in the hands of our enemies, providing them with the ammunition of criticism. Moreover, group hatred menaces the entire fabric of democratic life.
"As for the antidote: you can fight prejudice, first by recognizing it for what it is, and second by actively accepting or rejecting people on their individual worth, and by speaking up against prejudice and for understanding.
"Remember, freedom and prejudice can’t exist side by side. If you choose freedom, fight prejudice."
• This is your life, Boris Karloff
🕸 WEB WISDOM 🕸
• I grew up poor in the 1980s, and it beats 2023.
• I'm back from a week at my mom's house, and now I'm getting ads for her toothpaste brand.
⚰️ OBITUARIES ⚰️
• Judy Balaban10/22/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to the AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Kottke,org, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, MetaFilter, Miss Miriam's Mirror, RanPrieur.com, @soberscientistlife, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
You have spoken against bothsidesism in US politics, but you practice it for Israel and Palestine. Hamas is a terrorist group you say and so’s the IDF. Palestine fights for its very existence. Israel kills to end them. These are not equals.
ReplyDeleteProbably you're right, but already I'm tired of (a) talking about Israel and Palestine and especially (b) people who earnestly want to talk about Israel and Palestine.
DeleteI have an opinion that comes closer to your opinion than johnthebasket's opinion, but my strongest opinion anywhere near this topic is that there's no solution to Israel and Palestine until both Israel and Palestine want a solution, which is never, so what's the point even talking about it? I've mentally changed the channel.
And people get upset if I say I want them *both* wiped from the face of the earth! This has been going around and around for thousands of years - stick a fork in it, it'll never be done until they're both annihilated. I will gladly press the button. To paraphraze a notable dolt: There's bad people on both sides.
DeleteYou can't equate Hamas with Palestine though, Hamas fights for nobody's freedom.
ReplyDeleteI can equate anything to anything. I hereby equate the crucifixion of Christ with a bowl of spaghetti.
DeleteI don't think that anon's misuse of the word "equate" justifies your non-sequitur. You can construct a sentence out of random words, but that doesn't make it a sentence. And Christ didn't have access to spaghetti. The entire argument about Israel and its surrounding nations and displaced people (who everyone calls Palestinians) needs to be parsed to make sense, and then it doesn't make sense.
DeleteAnd nobody has mentioned that the state of Palestine was created one year before the state of Israel. There are several million displaced people around Israel who are called Palestinians and as long as everyone understands that that doesn't refer to either the ancient city state of Palestine nor the 1947 created state of Palestine, I don't have a problem with it. I do have a problem with a terrorist group like Hamas calling itself freedom fighters, but terrorist groups have always called themselves freedom fighters.
And no, because you're a bright, informed person, you don't get to equate anything to anything. Sorry.
John
Margaret Sanger fancied eugenics. Martin Luther King was an unfaithful husband. Republicans freed the slaves. Palestine was created only a year before Israel.
DeleteIn debate club, there's probably a term for stating a fact that's factual but irrelevant, in order to muddy the conversation. *My* term for it is 'get bent'. Time's a wastin', and this morning I won't be explaining the context of history to someone who already knows it.
Thank you Mr A for dismantling the switcheroo in the previous paragraph.
ReplyDeletejtb
This is all good and all but I want to know more about the old poop in your bucket.
ReplyDeleteDean's been working on a recipe for it
DeleteUnsalted butter makes defecation a pleasure.
Deletejtb
Thought I'd written this, but as it's boring as hell guess I deleted it. The poop and litter bag went into the dumpster a week or so back. No living bugs were visible, though I'm sure I inhaled a million microscopic ones. Of slight interest, all the dead bugs seemed to have died on the top of their environment, stuck to the underside of the lid, which I wiped clean with a moist towelette.
Delete