Splendid Isolation

Overreaction?

From Reader Mike L. comes this little tale from (where else?) Floriduh:

Police responded to a home in reference to a shooting Thursday morning.  When officers arrived, they found a man with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators determined that the suspect, Patricia Whitehead, and the victim shared a residence.  She became angry with the man, saying he “did not clean up after himself,” police said.

Authorities said the victim was leaving the home when Whitehead heard him slam the door. She then went and grabbed her gun from her bedroom, left out of the door, and shot the man multiple times, according to police.

I guess that was just one slam too many.

I’m not taking this loony old tart’s side, but I bet there’s more to this story than is being reported.

Or she’s just a loony old tart.

The Glass Tube As Architecture

Here’s one from London that gets me chuckling:

Mansour Namaki wants to link his Grade I-listed Regency villa – which was designed by James Burton in 1828 – to the mews house that also sits on the land.

Fair enough.  He owns both properties and the land between them, and it makes good sense to link them rather than have to walk through the garden (in British Weather) just to get from one to the other.  But then it all went pear-shaped:

He has hired Gherkin tower designer Ken Shuttleworth to design a ‘striking’ glass walkway that will join the two properties in the Regent’s Park Conservation Area.

Ah yes… the Gherkin:

…a.k.a. the Glass Suppository, which all by itself made London look… uglier.

What did he expect would happen?

Well, this is what would happen:

…so needless to say, the Usual Suspects and Busybodies got involved:

According to the council, the walkway’s ‘sculptural form would be a deliberately striking intervention which would over-compete with the architectural forms of the historic building and would demand attention.’

Richard Simpson, chair of Regent’s Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee said: ‘We asked the council to reject it and they did. Now we are waiting for the appeal decision.

‘It’s a very interesting house historically. 

‘This walkway would be a completely inappropriate addition both in terms of its scale, as it is two storeys, and its design. Its exotic curvy glazing which is really quite inappropriate.

‘It’s possible that an application for a walkway could be accepted. We are not saying he can’t as several others have but they should be much more modest. The buildings need to be respected.’

And another:

‘The rules are there for a reason. These houses are Listed and the rest of us have to abide by the restrictions. If Historic England has refused to approve it then they will have valid reasons for doing so.

‘The plans aren’t in keeping with the architecture. If he wants to build something modern he shouldn’t have bought a Listed home – they are very strict in the conservation area about what can and can’t be changed.’

And I agree. This bullshit is all about “Well I bought something so I can do anything I want with it” is typical rich-man’s solipsim and arrogance.

Anyway, that glass tunnel looks like something a pervert would use to insert a rat up someone’s anus.

The only good thing I can say about this silly man is that his wife would look really good in a Regency-era ballgown.

No permit needed for those.

As If I Needed Another

…reason not to install the latest “upgrade” from Windoze:  here it is.

Microsoft will soon begin pushing adverts into the Start Menu of Windows 11 with the inclusion of ‘recommended’ apps.

And why not?  It’s where users are at their most vulnerable, so to speak:  right at the beginning of the process.  It’s like starting your car, but before the engine fires, you first have to listen to a 15-second advert for “recommended” tires, Bud Lite or windshield washer fluid.  But of course, it’s being pushed as a helpful benefit:

Microsoft says the ads are aimed to enable users to find ‘some of the great apps that are available’.

That’s Microsoft all over:  just trying to be helpful, as is someone who will pass you a bucket of lighter fluid instead of water when you’re trying to put out a house fire.

Although the update [KB5036980] is currently optional, it will soon roll out to all Windows devices within the coming weeks.

Of course it will — coercion is one of Microsoft’s major strengths.  But:

Luckily, there is an easy way to turn off the pesky adverts with a simple change to your device settings.

Luckily.  Until that feature too is disabled in future “updates”, depending on how much blast-back Microsoft gets from customers — not that they’ve ever paid much heed to that in the past, unless the storm of protest was overwhelming.

I have generally made it my personal policy to skip generations of Windows OS — I never used Win 9, for example, going from 8 to 10, and then only because someone I trusted not only chided me but actually forced me to make that change, having to do it himself because I flatly refused to do so.  (Thanks, Dan.)  And I was only able to have him do that because I was a house guest at the time.  Unfortunately, he lives about two states away from me so I won’t be able to do that again this time.

And in any event, I’m going to get this fucking “feature” when I get my replacement PC* later in the year.  Let’s hope there really is an “easy way” to turn the thing off, or else the laptop’s durability will be sorely tested as it slams into the opposite wall.  (My new apartment doesn’t overlook the pool this time, so the laptop’s waterproofing will not be called upon.)


*In response to my earlier woes, several Readers sent me their older laptops to try to help me out — and thank you, every one — but I was never able to make them work for me, even with considerable input from Daughter, who is a pro at this kind of thing.  Sadly, it’s a new one I’ll be getting, or else I’ll just go back to using my older Dell which, although slower than a carthorse on downers, is at least still capable of closing without needing engineering manipulation of the Rubik Cube degree.

En Passant

In yesterday’s funnies I featured a meme which contained the following pic:

Am I the only guy who hates this “style” with a passion?  It’s a modern one — it certainly doesn’t appear in any art or photographs before the 20th century — and I can only think that whoever first came up with it must have hated women, a lot.

Missing: Self-Respect

Dalrymple talks about how everyone’s all concerned about self-esteem, but completely lacking in self-respect.

Not only do people fail to make the most of themselves, they seem determined to make the worst of themselves, as if they were setting a challenge to others not to remark on them or pass a judgment about the way they look.

Actually, it’s worse than that. People are so caught up in their self-esteem that they think it’s more important than self-respect — in other words, that how they feel about themselves is more important than how others feel about them, and missing the point that both are important.

T.D. talks about clothing:

In England, fat young women (of whom there are lamentably many) squeeze themselves into unbecomingly tight costumes, like toothpaste into a tube. It is as if they were intimidating you into not noticing how hideous they look.

Well, yes;  it’s the classic mark of the narcissist.  And that attitude is just as prevalent in these here United States.

Look, I understand all that:  goths, hippies, biker gangs, Mods ‘n Rockers (yeah, I’m dating myself badly here) and all the so-called fashion trends that bedevil every generation.

All of them, however, have one thing in common:  they denote that the wearers are societal misfits.

Since I passed the age of adolescence, where such nonsense was important, I’ve always had one or the other of these self-imposed restraints on myself whenever I leave the house:  would my Mom / wife / grandfather be ashamed to be seen in public with me, dressed as I am? 

If the answer is even marginally “yes”, I change my outfit.

And quite frankly, if there’s anyone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me, that would be me.  But I care, deeply, about what my close family and -friends think of me, and that reflects itself in many aspects of not only my dress but also in my behavior.

Alone with my male buddies, I’m a total lout.  In polite company, I’m a different person altogether.

It is the habit of a lifetime, drilled into me by parents, boarding school, the army and wives;  and frankly, I’m too old to change my ways now.

In a business setting, for example, I’m always well-dressed (suit, tie, polished shoes and all that) and likewise groomed (neat hair, trimmed beard, clean-shaven and nice-smelling).

So when I go to a company and see a bunch of men with scraggly beards, clothing which looks like they were slept in and with body odor to gag a vulture, I honestly don’t care about their self-esteem;  I just find them repulsive — and no matter what, I can’t take them seriously.

Judgmental?  You bet your fucking life I am.

Our Northern Neighbor

Here’s an interesting story:

Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was booted from the House of Commons for the day on Tuesday after a heated exchange where he refused the House Speaker’s request that he remove from the record his comment calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “wacko” and “extremist.”

So much for that “parliamentary privilege” thing in Fidel Trudeau’s Canukistan, eh?

Firstly, under parliamentary privilege, the House Speaker can only “deplore” or “censure” scurrilous language — expulsion for expressing an opinion is strictly disallowed in a parliamentary setting — and secondly, even without parliamentary rule, it’s an abridgement of the politician’s freedom of speech.  (I know, I know:  foolish Kim for believing that such things still exist.)

I guess none of that applies anymore in Castro Country.