From the San Francisco Call, November 14, 1913.
“Spug” is the unattractive nickname of a society which is doing a useful service in discouraging the giving of useless presents. The full name of the organization is the “Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving,” or S. P. U. G., “spug.” The society was organized last year and has just begun its 1913 campaign to discourage the habit of indiscriminate and unnecessary gift making.
Jean Meslier
Did not a famous theologian recognize the absurdity of admitting the existence of a God and arresting His course? “To us,” he said, “who believe through faith in a true God, an individual substance, there ought to be no trouble in believing everything else.
From Gene Wolf’s “The Shadow of The Torturer”:
I put on the cloak… the hue fuligin, which is darker than black, admirably erases all folds, bunchings and gatherings so far as the eye is concerned, showing only a featureless dark.
I’ve always been interested in naval hijinks, mostly because navies are the premier means of “projecting power” for nation-states.* And, of course, gathering intelligence as well. The US’ military has a huge emphasis on naval force-projection because of the logistics of having a navy: a carrier task force group is a movable city with its own inner supply chain. As mentioned elsewhere, you can tell a lot about the purpose of a nation’s military by its force structure.
The initial headline:
“China ‘seizes US vessel’ in S China Sea” (link) isn’t quite deliberately deceptive, though if you look at the page the first thing you see is a great big white non-military-looking ship; you have to read in more detail to realize that it’s a drone that was seized.
I stumbled on this back when the “news” first broke and concluded it was a “wait and see” kind of thing. I’m still waiting and I still haven’t seen. Allegedly someone bought one of William Shakespeare’s books on Ebay for $400.
If you’re a Shakespeare fan (i.e.: you speak English) and you haven’t ever heard of this before, I’ve probably just altered your holiday gift request list.
Because, once you’re a billionaire, your political views matter. They should matter. Right?
I sure hope they post some of the videos from this!!
Over at Pharyngula, PZ pokes at the simulation hypothesis and finds it wanting.
I’ve never understood how it’s gotten so much traction, anyway. As PZ Says: “That is the wrong question. He asserts The odds we’re in base reality is one in billions.
Instead we should ask, “what simulated ass did you pull those odds out of?”, because he’s got no rational justification for that claim.”