Living Planet

[flatandy]

May 10, 2021 7:17:51 GMT perrykneeham said:

Some more poor buggers have been shot by a bloke in Colorado Springs, I see. It's a sad reflection that it's barely newsworthy.

It’s the biggest mass shooting in Colorado in 6 weeks.

I’ve said it before - there’s something about Colorado that makes it even more prone to mass shootings than the rest of the US.

The missus has also said that she reckons there’s going to be a lot of going postal mass shootings this year as we come out of covid. People have lost what few social skills they have, are not used to being in crowds, or workplace environments. And when they are customers rather than workers their expectations are going to be too high. And lots of people are on the edge already.

Another reminder why it’s absolutely nuts to let any old random person have a wide range of firearms.

[perrykneeham]

"It’s the biggest mass shooting in Colorado in 6 weeks."

Haha. Nicely put.

[ootlg]

We've just had a gendarme shot in the face in Avignon. Now there's talk of civil war.

[voice]

Saw the army might be heading for revolt. Won't be the first time.

[ootlg]

There's a lot of anti-muslim feeling. And LePen's neck and neck in the polls.

[voice]

Meanwhile spring is morphing into summer slowly here, nice hike yesterday

[ootlg]

It was here until last night when we had a mini-monsoon, and this morning it's cold again.

[flatandy]

It definitely looks like early summer here. Sun's out, leaves are bright green, animals are everywhere - a turkey keeps wandering around behind the house and we think she's nesting in the woods; I saw a beaver (not tittering at the back) run across the road in front of my bike a couple of days ago, the chipmunks and squirrels are going crazy, the rabbits are breeding like rabbits...

Yet the temperatures are no different to what they were in November. It's cold cold mornings, and even in the middle of the day it's still chilly.

[voice]

So much for global warming eh?

iTs a ScAM wAkE uP sHeEpLe ThE wArMiStS and Scientists ArE lyInG...

[ootlg]

No no no... It is a fact of neuroscience that everything we experience is a figment of our imagination. Although our sensations feel accurate and truthful, they do not necessarily reproduce the physical reality of the outside world. Didn't you know that?

[wetkingcanute]

click

[mids]

It's weird that cats do that.

[perrykneeham]

Funny handshake, anyone?

"The Freemasons is an organisation that conjures up images of secret handshakes, men-only rituals and power and influence wielded from behind closed doors.

Now in a bid to be more open, the organisation has published its first internal report about the state of Freemasonry in 300 years.

There are about 200,000 members across the UK, with the vast majority men aged between 65 and 80.

But the new report showed those aged 18-34 were the most favourable towards Freemasonry, something the organisation said it was keen to capitalise on."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-57059148

You get these puff-pieces about freemasonry from time to time. I must say that it seems to be a dying cult, as the membership figures suggest.

Anyone here case to fess up to a rolled-up trouser leg?

[mids]

Nah. A couple of my uncles are and many years ago, my dad suggested I might join for the purposes of career advancement. I'm not a "joiner" so I didn't. I also used to go to the Mason's Club in Edinburgh now and again with people from work- again years ago. A social club and not a lodge. It was all right. Pretty much as you'd expect. Mostly old, working class Scottish blokes with non-woke views.

[mids]

Those last 3 words are a bit redundant, to be fair.

[perrykneeham]

I was proposed by my boss and sort of felt obliged to go along in my early twenties. They were mostly nice enough old buffers but I didn't really get why it was necessary and couldn't see a good reason to continue with it, especially as quite a few of the members appeared to be the sort of unreliable, shady geezers that I don't care to be associated with.

It certainly didn't do my boss any favours as he went bankrupt a couple of years later. I think it was largely a drinking club.

[mids]

I do wonder if this whole thing about career and other sorts of advancement is a bit of a myth, not denied by the Masons themselves. See also Chief Constables, judges etc beholden to shop floor workers.

[reverend]

May 11, 2021 14:32:49 GMT ootlg said:

No no no... It is a fact of neuroscience that everything we experience is a figment of our imagination. Although our sensations feel accurate and truthful, they do not necessarily reproduce the physical reality of the outside world. Didn't you know that?

neuroscience is a figment of your imagination though!

[reverend]

May 12, 2021 7:33:00 GMT perrykneeham said:

Funny handshake, anyone?

"The Freemasons is an organisation that conjures up images of secret handshakes, men-only rituals and power and influence wielded from behind closed doors.

Now in a bid to be more open, the organisation has published its first internal report about the state of Freemasonry in 300 years.

There are about 200,000 members across the UK, with the vast majority men aged between 65 and 80.

But the new report showed those aged 18-34 were the most favourable towards Freemasonry, something the organisation said it was keen to capitalise on."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-57059148

You get these puff-pieces about freemasonry from time to time. I must say that it seems to be a dying cult, as the membership figures suggest.

Anyone here case to fess up to a rolled-up trouser leg?

My mate Spencer is a mason, and he will straight up tell you it's a social club, he's put on a stone since joining with all the do's,

[ootlg]

Masons favour masons when there's a big money tender going. Or at least they normally do - if they don't it can get murderous. Don't know about nowadays though. I was asked to join Maidstone Lodge years ago but turned it down not being an ambitious type.