Word Wednesday.

Gauche

Adjective.

1a: lacking social experience or grace; also not tactful: crude.

1b: crudely made or done.

2. not planar.

– gauchely adverb
– gaucheness noun

[Origin: French, literally, left]

(1751)

“I got out of my car, map of Glasgow in hand, and asked her for directions I did not need in an English I hoped was gauche and charming.” – Irene, Pierre Lemaitre.

At The Dairy Goat Show.

From Kestrel, click for full size!

Nubian doeling back in the pens where the goats are kept prior to going into the ring.

A La Mancha doe standing at ringside. No, no one cut off her ears; they are born this way.

A contestant listens carefully to the judge’s comments at the end of his class.

Nigerian Dwarf does waiting at ringside for their turn to go in the ring and shine before the judge. They really are that little. Their backs do not come as high as my knees and I am not exactly what would be called tall.

When the judge directs you to stand in the front of the line, and no one else is in front of you… that means you just won the class. But since you are at a show, you must keep concentrating on your goat and keep her looking good.

This truly gorgeous and very personable doe went Best In Show. A well-deserved win.

© Kestrel, all rights reserved.

A list of 100 things liberals hate about America.

I mentioned this list of stupid by Michael Snyder the other day, and it does leave people with an itch to respond thoroughly, so, the big list of stupid. Feel free to expand or leave your own answers or peeves about any or all of it. As noted previously, the list is obviously, desperately padded, because Michael really couldn’t think of much more than 5 things, but “A list of 5 things liberals hate about America” isn’t terribly catchy. A good portion of this is going below the fold, because this is going to get long. Very long.

1.  The U.S. Constitution

I don’t hate the constitution. I don’t worship the damn thing, either. I do think it is superannuated, and in dire need of rewriting. A good deal of it was written with the interests of the ruling classes and slave owners in mind, and that shit needs to go. The nonsense about militias needs to go, as well, as it was to protect slave owners.

2. Liberty

Uh … I’m fine with liberty. No problem at all.

3. Freedom

Yeah, you know, don’t you, that liberty and freedom mean the same thing? Maybe I was wrong about that ‘five things’ business.

4. Success

No problem here, I court the fickle lady of success. I don’t want success at any cost, however, and my personal principles and ethics keep me on track. Sometimes, that’s a shame, because in so many cases, it would be so eeeeaaasy to take advantage of gullible right wingers.

5. Big Trucks

What are we talking here? Semis? They’re needed for transport, and while I wish there were better methods of transport, eh, not something I get all frothy about. Now, if we’re talking monster trucks and SUVs, yeah, I have a problem with them, as in most of them are not fucking needed by the jackasses driving them, they pollute and increase dependence on fossil fuels. Smart cars and bicycles for everyone!

6. Capitalism

I don’t like capitalism gone amok, like it has here in uStates. Most everything is more important than money. Don’t get me wrong, I like money, I keep chasing it, trying to convince I would give it a very good home. That said, the pursuit of money to the exclusion of all else is a formula for a rotting society, and that’s what we are seeing right now.

7. Free Markets

Oh, aarrggh, blecch. People who parrot ‘free market’ generally don’t have the slightest fucking idea of what they are talking about, witness all the witless libertarians tossing this about as if they were erudite. Tell you what, Michael, when you can prove, to my satisfaction, that you understand what free market means in the wider context of economics, we can talk.

8. Wealthy People

Okay, you almost have something here. I don’t hate any of them, but I’ll cop to despising and loathing. Filthy rich people tend to be plain filthy, in respect to ethics or principles. They freely indulge in their hatred of the masses, and they will fuck any and all over in the name of another thin dime to add to their pockets. Yes, there is the occasional filthy rich person who manages to hang onto things like sense and empathy, but they are a rare breed. Filthy rich people tend to all come to one end: their money leads them to an addiction to power.

9. Economic Prosperity

Oh, FFS, how many of these are we going to have? I’m pretty sure most people, including myself, enjoy economic prosperity. That said, you don’t get that when you’re busy funneling all available monies into the pockets of filthy rich people and corporations.

10. The Rule of Law

Oh, do I sense a lover of technicality here? Laws are fine. Well, most of them. Many of them are in dire need of revisiting and rewriting. Laws might be important, but justice is more important, every time.

[Read more…]

BOTulism.

Twitter Audit.

Bots have always been a problem. They are now a much bigger problem, on Twitter in particular. Too many people are gullible, and far too many people simply do not take minutes out to fact check things. Fact checking can be tedious, but it’s part and parcel of being informed these days. Twitter bots have gotten a bit more sophisticated, not much, but enough to fool people, and that’s really all they need to do. This makes it much more difficult to refute all the fakery and Trakery™ out there. Bots can also outperform people, so there’s much more nonsense than valid information on the loose.

A bot will write on Twitter in clunky English, reciting paragraphs of propaganda or fake news in compartmentalized tweets, often featuring rudimentary linguistics and nondescript profiles. Unlike computer programs, frustrated citizens and real people online engage with the context of specific posts, respond to counterpoints and typically use profiles that reflect human personalities. “They’re yelling fools,” Philip N. Howard, a sociologist at the Oxford Internet Institute, told the New York Times, “and a lot of what they pass around is false news.”

But bots—including those designed to support the Trump presidency—are continuing to invade social media and create chatter at such a rapid speed, that the differences are becoming blurred for many users attempting to keep a grasp on reality in 2017.

[…]

But as of recently, many of those bots appear to have one common and undeniable goal: to protect and defend the 45th president of the United States.

[…]

The Trump bots are active virtually 24/7, and especially during times when the president is furiously tweeting.

“A bot army can be utilized for a number of dishonest purposes, chief amongst them, misrepresenting public sentiment about whichever topics the controller has interest in,” Brad Hayes, fellow at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab’s Interactive Robotics Group, told NY Daily News Saturday. “If 3 million people started tweeting in favor of or against a particular topic, would it shift public perception? What if those same 3 million people targeted every source you use for information? It’s fair to say that this kind of written ‘show of force’ can certainly alter perceptions.”

There’s much more at Raw Story.

Male Scorpion Fly.

What an awesome beastie! From Charly: Dramatic looking but harmless insect. And it was moving all the time, wandering out of focus and turning around at the precisely wrong moment – like they all do. Pictures made with the help of a diy flash-light diffuser. Click for full size!

© Charly, all rights reserved.