I Can Haz Baggages!
Sep. 29th, 2015 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribI made it back to Chicago Sunday night, but my checked bag didn't. Fortunately, there was nothing I needed in said bag, so it was more of an annoyance than a problem. Well, Southwest eventually cracked the code and found the bag, and I woke up this morning to find it on my doorstep. Yeah! To celebrate, have a couple of links.
1) An interesting article by Megan McArdle on what Republicans (should) learn from losing Boehner. Money quote: Imagine that you tried negotiating for a car by announcing that you intended to pay no more than $2,400 for a fully-loaded new truck. Would this improve your bargaining position? Of course not; the salesman would decide that you were wasting his time, and go find another customer.
2) The novel Ancillary Justice has been bashed vigorously by conservatives on the grounds that it promotes lack of gender distinctions. But as this fellow points out, the people in the novel doing the no-gender thing are the bad guys! It's like arguing that Star Wars promotes chocking people you disagree with.
1) An interesting article by Megan McArdle on what Republicans (should) learn from losing Boehner. Money quote: Imagine that you tried negotiating for a car by announcing that you intended to pay no more than $2,400 for a fully-loaded new truck. Would this improve your bargaining position? Of course not; the salesman would decide that you were wasting his time, and go find another customer.
2) The novel Ancillary Justice has been bashed vigorously by conservatives on the grounds that it promotes lack of gender distinctions. But as this fellow points out, the people in the novel doing the no-gender thing are the bad guys! It's like arguing that Star Wars promotes chocking people you disagree with.
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Re: $2,400
Date: 2015-09-29 06:26 pm (UTC)Such a statement is nothing more than a good starting point.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that famous
city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and notable, and
all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was so long
with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and the captain's
merchandise was all displayed, and a merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking
at it. And the captain had his scimitar in his hand, and was beating with
it in anger upon the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the white
planks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that
the captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods,
whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to be
dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness,
showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought not at all,
but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to whom he wished to
sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible, leaving no
remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly the thick
toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the floor, and
tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if he
offered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their toomarunds when
the winter came, and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he and
his aged father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted his
scimitar to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and that
nothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lifting his
beard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and said
that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had
conceived an especial love when first he saw the manner in which he handled
his ship, he and his aged father should starve together and therefore he
offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his gods
that they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart—to his little
lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain wept,
for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant also wept,
for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of how he soon
would starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and eyed the
tollub again between his fingers. And so the bargain was concluded, and the
merchant took the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of a great
clinking purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and three of the
merchant's slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. And all the
while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon the deck,
eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction arose among
them, and they began to compare it among themselves with other bargains
that they had known…
Lord Dunsany, “Idle Days on the Yann”
Sad Rabid Rabbit
Date: 2015-10-01 04:15 pm (UTC)Y' know, 'tis glad I am that I don't need to mess with any of this (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PB-O1yT5EYg/SiR9a70c-aI/AAAAAAAAk7c/xwz4bApGwRA/s1600/ace_d479_1960_earthmangohome_tombaughstation.jpg).
Else I'd be just a bit peeved - at BOTH the People's Socialist Justice commissars AND the people who are trying to overthrow their entrenched stranglehold, for being such jerks.
As is - no worries.