Homily

 

Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish, and he will burn the boat as firewood, chop up the net for bumswipes, and come to you whingeing that the nights are cold, his arse is sore and can you dob him another fish.

The Very Model of a Modern Intellectual

 He has attitude and empathy, he knows about stimulus and impetus, application and implication, dramatic presentation, filmic transposition, flexible formulation, and the other aids to radical renewal, he has experience and perspective, indeed for both reality and vision, he has zest for life and world philosophy, he approves of ethos and pathos but also mythos, he supplies subordination and integration into the living space and working space of the nation, he embraces the emotional realm of community and the vitalism of personality, he professes loyalty to kith and kin and international solidarity and favours synthesis, he transmits stimuli and tentatively explores parameters before arriving at the central modality, in order to fathom latent potential and accentuate the problematics of intellectuality, he knows all about fossilised tradition and burgeoning creativity, he values willpower, recognises purposive achievement, such as the artifice inherent in artistry, he acknowledges fluidity, accessibility, and significant form and can distinguish between the expansive and the convulsive, indeed I suspect that he is oriented in the cosmic; at all events he recognises potential for development and defines emotionally the type that, inescapably, in the final analysis must surely eventuate in trend-setting hegemony and knows that when the build-up of will-power precipitates willed conformity and hence collective action and cultural symbiosis, dynamism and rhythm form prominent parameters, and that then the goal is totality, though in the first instance steely romanticism—in short, you can’t fool him about anything…

Alas, such a paragon of talent and energy is no longer to be found in the contemporary Intellectual sphere, whose denizens are able to perform simple mental functions such as determining that golf, milk and earthquakes are racist but unable to rise above stamping a few simple categories into the human face as if they were boots.

Karl Kraus, in The Third Walpurgisnacht (1933), describes in Josef Goebbels a figure of a stature we can only sigh for today.

Act of War

The mouth of hell, from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, ~1440.

The mouth of hell, 27th September 2022.

Update: a suggestion is that methane hydrate forms as a solid plug in a methane pipeline where gas is present but not flowing (e.g. the Nordstream pipelines). If the pipe is depressurised at (only) one end to clear it

what generally happens is the hydrate plug will still melt at the plug/wall junction, but when it does, the pressurised side will launch the plug (five feet in diameter, and the same density as water ice) at almost 200 miles an hour down the pipe towards the depressurised side.

When this plug bullet hits a bend in the pipe — well, it doesn’t stop, nor does it change direction easily. It’s going to make a hole.

Thanks to The LawDog Files for this, which seems more plausible then any warry explanation.

Dirty Work, But Somebody's Got To Do It

 A "stay at home social media activist"? So this is who writes th'Twitters.

"Dr" Carol X Lunz 's own bio is a riot'o'larfs in a small room, but the stuck wedding ring is splendid. Many varieties of ape have evolved the capacity to use simple tools, the Lunzes apparently not. All "Dr" Carol can do is fling a GTFOH at anyone who asks if the sister is married because she is wearing a wedding ring.

Is this a parody account? I think it must be but I remain in hope that I'm wrong.

Do Squareheads Have a Sense of Humour?

September 2018 at the United Nations General Assembly. The Krauts are certainly enjoying a whisk of the Tickling Stick

June 2022 and Boche Economy Minister Habeck is pantomiming like there's no tomorrow. Of the bad economic consequences of current shortages. or of Russia turning off the tap altogether, he says

This is "the best breeding ground for populism, which is intended to undermine our liberal democracy from within," Habeck said, adding that Putin's plans must not be allowed to work out.

Any apparent anger or discontent on the part of the German people must be the effect of "populism" (booo!) propagated by the Putin (he's behind you!) and could not possibly be actual discontent or anger (oh no it isn't!) on the part of the German people at the comedians who govern them.

And of course the villain's (booo!) plans will be thwarted, it's just a matter of waiting for the Fairy Godmother to appear at the End.

A Well-Deserved Rest

Manifesting lunacy at a frenzied maximum for any length of time is a draining enterprise. That the Powers That Be have kept it going and steady for two years and more is testimony to an unparalleled Robustitude, Prevailance and lack of Sagacity: but all things have their term and faltering point.

For the next short while, then, we may expect a lull as cesspits are replenished and loins re-girded. And soon, forth into the fray with renewed Persistence!

Inside A Modern Government

A few lines from a Daily Sceptic article on the West's response to Ukraine...

While this strategy may work, I’ve yet to read a cogent defence of it.

In fact, the strategy could have a number of negative second-order effects – i.e., unintended consequences – that haven’t been properly thought through.

As several people have observed, the West’s response seems to have been slapped together on the fly amidst a storm of social media outrage, as opposed to being carefully devised after consideration of all possible eventualities.

...a more concise primer on the Art and Practice of Modern Government would be hard to find.

The quality and competence of the Modern Governor may be gauged from such as

whose interest was clearly not piqued by any notion of assessing Russian strengths, weaknesses, intentions and so forth in the run-up to the war, which had started the previous day.

The declaration that Alphabetti Sphagetti Rights are the crux of Western civilisation, as well as He/him's inability to get the letters right, is eerily reminiscent of the US embassy in Kabul's flying the rainbow flag a few days before the catastrophe in Afghanistan.

For myself, I have grown bone-weary of the Stupid and of their interminable vigour. I am old enough to remember when it was considered a shameful condition - what a fogey!