Hello arboreal chinchilla rats,
Preface:
This first bit might get a bit ranty. "That's not like you, Tap. Surely not" Yeah, yeah :-D
Don't worry. After all this long writey bit, i'll get on to fanreptiling The Chaser, and other stuff :o)
Young persons' shitsorm alert!!!
[sirens: woo-ooo woo-ooo woo-ooo]
Someone's done something they shouldn't have, and now they've been condemned for it.
No, it's not ISIS - they're still at large, and the Islamic brand of religion that they exist to propagate is still a threat to humanity. But the young people have decided that there is something even more important:
A former Big Brother contestant called Sam Pepper has made some videos in which he's touched some young ladies' bums. That's not weird - there are loads of derivative videos all over the place. I mean, i'm sure i saw a video of a cat touching up a piano once. No shit.
But this is where the humour has to leave, because the story gets very serious.
'Some people' (we can guess what their common politic might be) flagged his videos (so YouTube took them down); he's now, apparently, been banned from attending VidCon events (where YouTubers get together and slap each others backs, meet fans, and generally pretend they're important); and the Linear Media has chimed in, as they seem increasingly wont to do nowadays.
{They finally noticed that Social Media are providing free content for them to plagiarise. The 'join the conversation' tactic can only get so much free labour out of people!}
Essentially, a huge bandwagon - no, cortege - no, stampede - has built up, with huge numbers of people calling for Sam to be arrested... on the grounds of... well, what evidence?
If you've heard about the subject, you'll have heard a lot of claims about a lady-bum-touching video, but you'll have heard a lot less about the fact that he made two videos - one of boy-on-girl prodding, and one of girl-on-boy prodding. Both have been taken down.
Obviously, with both videos censored, it's more difficult to ascertain who's in the right. What was the timeline? Was the third video a Sam's-ass-covering? Did he have time to do that? Having censored the supposedly-egregious content, we can't really know.
Deleting evidence, in general, is a bad thing. Whether it's YouTube videos, or drug-performance evidence. [coughs "Roche"].
But ultimately, this entire stampede is funded by non-existent evidence. Non-existent evidence of the glorification of harassment.
And worse than that, the 'some people' have decided that this absence of evidence justifies death threats! Because when you're weighing up two potentially-traumatising behaviours, death threats are clearly lesser in comparison, to being touched on the bum. <s>
So what does the monstrous menace in the middle of all the accusations think about all this? Well, i'll quote him for you:
"Now to why i posted this video in the first place. As a lot of you might know, if you've been following me for long enough, i don't just post pranks. I post videos that change your opinions on something, how you think about something, and i draw attention to smaller situations that might not normally be seen. Many of us, me included, can get stuck in repetative thought patterns, and assume that our view of the world is right and fair, and that's not always the case."
Well, that sounds like someone who never thinks, doesn't it <s>. It gets better:
"Female on male domestic abuse is pretty taboo. Many people hold the misconception that men are the stronger of the species, so they can't find themselves in situations like that. It doesn't occur to them that a woman can terrorize a man."
And even better:
"In many cases people would be outraged at an act aimed towards a woman, but then just laugh it off when it's a man... In the video of the women getting pinched, the comments were mainly against the video, which was great... In the video with the men... there was a lack of anger, even for the people who thought it was wrong. No-one seemed to care as much"
Odd words from someone who's glorifying sexual harrassment, as the feminists would have you think!
Now i'm not so sure staged versions of real events are really the best way to prove their real-world presence... because they're obviously not! But to condemn this man for harrassment, when the intent of the video (as far as all available evidence presents) was to decry it... that's just moronic!
The harm of sexism has come from his assailants - not himself. Laurbubble is a popular YouTuber who joined in, and someone i know relatively well, by being subscribed to her content. She has unthinkingly condemned him, as have many other opinion-leading names, who should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0_57jtaHYg&google_comment_id=z12gxptgrvzjd5fb504cebbpmm32tnwhdxg0k
Notice that the link there is to a comment. My comment. It sums my feelings up pretty damn well so i'm going to reiterate it here, just in case it gets removed (you never know what might happen).
"Alright, Laura, i'm going to call your bluff. This video is part of an experiment, to see whether people will condemn your sexist bullshit, right?
You have no excuse for not watching Sam Pepper's explanation video: http://youtu.be/Kf2beNubWj4 <- There's another chance. He made it quite clear that he staged the entire thing, to see whether others would stand up for victims of harassment, male or female, and they did... but mostly for the women.
The ENTIRETY of your video is about defending women only. The women who have already been vouched for, hundreds of thousands of times over. You make no consideration for the men. Know what treating one sex with a different rule to the other is called? Yeah: sexism.
But i notice that where his video's description box contains links to an abuse support helpline, YOURS DOES NOT. Odd, that.
So who's really the monster? The person who stages some videos, with a cogent explanation; or the person who engages only in febrile and divisive rhetoric just to slutshame a man?
Thankfully, Laura, we 'know' this egregious character to be a monstrous aside from your usual frivolous content, and we very much hope for a hasty return to it."
I've never seen such a tsunami of moronic ire-ridden groupthink since... well, GamerGate earlier this year, actually.
So much for the better informed, modern generation!
Mob rule, apparently, is a phenomenon they are just becoming familiar with... and they like it. They've tasted blood, and they've decided they want more. Even when there's no justification for anything they're doing.
Here are some links to evidence of their aggressive, vindictive behaviour, towards Sam Pepper:
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98097964311
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98144661201
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98097922376
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98099399896
http://anonsurvior111.tumblr.com/post/98389247384/before-you-tell-me-im-lying
{Bear in mind that there's no evidence either of the last two are genuine, either}
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98389249316
{"I know what you've done" - a classic intimidatory line. Very trite. Thanks, Laci}
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98411850551
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98495585301
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98595564836
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98388752556
{This twitter response doesn't even exist! Why fake repudiation?}
https://twitter.com/sampepper/status/514500377623142401
{Here's the genuine tweet, with even more bilefuelled responses}
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/98387986096
https://twitter.com/coollike/status/514321436014829568
{These were not all written by GSL - he just reposted them}
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/09/youtube-star-sam-peppers-butt-grabbing-prank-video-slammed-by-pretty-much-everyone.html
Now, do you remember, way back up ^ there, when i quoted him as saying "...i don't just post pranks. I post videos that change your opinions on something, how you think about something..."
Well, this video is currently featured on his YouTube homepage... and it was made months ago, so it's not an attempt at reconciliation!
'60 SECONDS THAT WILL CHANGE HOW YOU THINK'
http://youtu.be/6KNCkuUOwoQ
Can you watch that video, and then tell me that you think he's a menace to society? An honest menace to society??
Even the videos that his assailants have bothered to cite as evidence, do nothing of the kind. This one, for example, is from the 4th link down:
"the guy is a dick. the above is just my personal experience, not to mention his videos where he handcuffs himself to girls and forces them to kiss him before he lets them go..."
Watch the actual video. You'll realise that that description is almost entirely erroneous. Only one girl really panicked, and he certainly did not force anyone to kiss him!
So which 'side' are you going to advocate? The one that unwisely made a 3-part video series without prefacing it with a disclaimer; or the one that seeks to destroy the former's entire life, based on claims of faith, despite demonstrable evidence of their deception?
Which are you going to trust? And whom will you defend?
Taking a step back, now, this whole subject makes me think of something else... and that thing is Richard Dawkins.
Not because he's a former Big Brother contestant with a YouTube channel consisting mostly of prank videos... because i'd have to be genuinely psychotic to think that that description actually fitted him... but because he is subject to similar behavioural demands.
Both have been subject to the expectations of uninformed witnesses, who have decided to blame the victims of their misunderstandings for their misunderstandings, rather than accept that they themselves are to blame for their misunderstandings.
Everyone who has condemned Sam Pepper for glorifying harrassment failed to understand the situation, and merely jumped on a bandwagon of bile.
Before the 3rd video of the series (linked above) had been posted, they couldn't have understood it - they had deliberately been presented only part of the story.
In Pepper's case, he has to take some blame, however - for failing to demonstrate an aforesuggested preface. His crime was to lack foresight - not to glorify abusive behaviour.
What makes the lambasting from popular people like Laurbubble and Charlie McDonnell particularly infuriating, is that they came after the 'reveal' - they had no excuse for not understanding the context, the motivation, etc etc etc.
Similarly, Richard Dawkins' opinions have been very succinctly enunciated by himself, on numerous occasions, and yet there are still ideological Dawkins-bashers who take him to task for opinions he blatantly does not have.
They say that he should know better than to use less than 141 characters on Twitter, because <141 characters is seldom enough to deal a concise argument.
So f*ck**g what?!? That's how Twitter works, you morons. [steam erupts from ears]
If you haven't recalibrated your expectations to Twitter-compatible perspicaciousness settings, then you are the idiot.
{Similarly, don't condemn that ^ sentence as necessarily wrong, simply because you don't know that 'perspicaciousness' means 'ability to understand'}
Don't be so presumptuous. Don't think you've got the full story from 8 words. It's not their fault. Your presumptuousness is, however, your fault.
Both people have been subject to passionate and vicious attacks; and those attacks have been pseudo-justified on the basis of the victim's demographic - a pale-skinned, racistly-white, male homo sapiens.
"So what if i'm wrong? They can take it. It doesn't matter." - a rapist
Ironically, this is exactly the kind of prejudice that the antagonists would likely claim to be challenging.
But it's not equality you will get, if you treat any group of people with less compassion than the rest.
That is how to do egalitarianism. You are not a good egalitarian if you fail to care about Pepper, or Dawkins, and thereby don't even consider that you might be wrong. When it comes to their arguments, in the words of Pepper himself: "No-one seemed to care as much".
In fact, even ISIS/ISIL/ISIF/ICIF/CIF/Cillit Bang/whatever they're called now, can be pitied for sincerely believing that violence and mass-deception can make a better world.
For those who did manage to be so level-headed: don't feel too smug -- evidence says personal praise undermines motive :-P
But also that 'process praise' enhances it, so "well done".
And now, with the fury over, here's the bit of me fanreptiling The Chaser:
The Chaser are back, with a new programme - 'The Chaser's Media Circus' - starting on the 15th of October 2014. W00t w00t w00t w00t w00t :-)
'The Chaser: A pre-emptive apology'
http://mumbrella.com.au/dr-mumbo-252359
"“It’s a shame that all the ABC’s good work for Mental Health Week (5-12 October) will be immediately cancelled out by the return of the Chaser team,” said ABC Director of Television Richard Finlayson."
ROFL. Can't wait :-D
In-and-on-or-around-this-date-or-time-of-year:
The 28th of September marks the 149th anniversary of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's becoming the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain.
In other news:
The same company that tries to sell us “drinkable sunscreen” has now brought out the completely-different and utterly original “harmonised water”. So, they're selling magic water... the very definition of 'snake oil'. I wonder: do they think it distinct from homeopathy's magic water? And how would they prove that their water is different to homeopathic magic water? I'm guessing they'd just tell everyone to 'faith it'.
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/09/its-not-magically-harmonized-water-just-snake-oil/
This is a frankly terrifying story. Especially if you're scared of needles! Acupuncturists are famous for their obsession with stabbing things, and chests are no exception. For a demo of how masochistic they are, just Google "dogs acupuncture" - you'll never see more morose looking pooches. But back to the bigger horrors. The linked article relates to a video demo of an acupuncturist explaining how not to cause one particular side-effect of stabbing - punctured lungs! I kid you not. And in this video he manages to puncture someone's lung. Again, i kid you not. And he does all of this with bare hands (forbidden, in the world of real medicine) with which he wipes the blood from the wound. Never go to an acupuncturist - the infection hazard is too great. And with Ebola in the News so much, i'd expect you to be at least slightly tetchy about that!
http://sfsbm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=452:pop-goes-the-lung&catid=45&Itemid=435
More people with a prejudicial belief in ghosts have seen a smudge on a camera lens and employed all their intellect to infer it to be... a waffle. No they didn't - they decided they'd seen a ghost. Because when the thing you're looking at looks exactly like an out-of-focus insect on the lens, the ovbious conclusion is not-an-insect-on-the-lens but instead the presence of something that doesn't exist at all. And these people are Police! Cripes :-D
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/09/espanola-police-conclude-ghost-is-the-only-possible-explanation-for-an-insect-on-the-camera/
UFO Alert: Scientists Puzzled by Green ‘Alien Eggs’ Found on Sydney Dee Why Beach? No. They're the seaweed equivalent of tumbleweed. Tumbleseaweed, if you will. Cute and very interesting, but certainly not UFOs, and certainly not puzzling scientists!
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/09/green-alien-eggs-on-sydney-beach-are-not-extra-terrestial/
Boobies! Some people have third nipples, but Jasmine Tridevil's claimed to have a third boob - surgically implanted. Unfortunately for her, the hoax was exposed pretty swiftly. Unfortunately for some, her breasts were not. Maybe one of the biggest giveaways was that she said she got it done, because she wanted boys to not look at her. Um.... To know how she was fully exposed (not like that!) just read the Snopes article linked:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/bodymods/jasminetridevil.asp
Is there really evidence that the Sandy Hook mass murder was a hoax, perpetrated as a 'false flag' by the State? No. The popular screenshot might be real, but surely the FBI would be complicit, anyway? I'll let snopes explain, again. This evidence turns out just to be evidence of the incompetence of conspiracy theorists :-D
http://www.snopes.com/info/news/sandyhoax.asp
Scientists find 'extinct' cat-sized mammal in the shadows of Macchu Picchu? Yes! It was identified by bones, discovered in 1912, and pottery engravings dating back to when it was thought to have gone extinct - five centuries ago. But the steeply-inclined mountain forests of Peru provide many niches in which a rare species could survive, and there it was found, in 2012, along with a lizard species and four frog species. To see pictures of the Machu Picchu arboreal chinchilla rat, just follow the link:
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0925-hance-inca-rat.html
You might remember that at the Water Closet 2014, there was an exciting new innovation, that was on everyone's lips. Well, not on their lips - it was on the turf. That white foamy spray-y stuff might have been allowed at the WC, but in die Deutsche Bundesliga they have higher standards. Apparently, it might not be allowed, in the forthcoming league season, because the can bears no flammability warning, and has no indication of volume. But much more seriously than that, the mixture within also contains incredibly high proportions of greenhouse gases - way beyond German regulations. If referees use it, they might get fined.
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/vanishing-spray-deemed-too-dangerous.html
Researchers have found a fossil that provides evidence of limb regrowth, earlier than ever before known - 300 million years ago. Modern salamanders can regrow limbs, and biologists are researching ways to recreate their abilities for the sake of amputees, scar patients, etc. But where is the potential for our genomes to recreate this ability? This fossil of an ancestor suggests that all vertebrate species should be capable of body regeneration, because they all have common genetics. So this is a really cool fossil, for anyone interested in body regeneration research.
http://phys.org/news/2014-09-fossil-evidence-limb-regeneration-million.html
The dessicated carcasses of prehistoric fish are fertilising the lush environment of the South American Amazon rainforest. Saharan dust fertilises the Amazon when it's blown over the Atlantic (by trans-atlantic winds, obviously) and part of that dust consists of phosphorus-rich apatite from the fossilised remains of fish that used to live in the Bodélé Depression of the south Sahara. That's before it dried up and became desert, obviously!
http://phys.org/news/2014-09-fish-africa-amazon.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'AIR TRAVEL 30X NORMAL RADIATION LEVELS! *MEASURED*'
http://youtu.be/RSsMRkN99aE
'Are chemicals really bad for you? - A Week in Science'
http://youtu.be/S2TJ05gPR8U
'Brady Numbers - Numberphile'
There is nothing special about the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio!
http://youtu.be/D8ntDpBm6Ok
'NASA | Many Views of a Massive CME [HD]'
http://youtu.be/_N7bVewdxDo
'Earth from Space: Athens on the Radar [HD]'
http://youtu.be/IwtjuwTiS2k
'GOCE Senses Changing Gravity'
ESA's GOCE, and NASA's Grace satellites are so sensitive that they can detect the minute changes in gravitational field strength caused by mountain ranges and ice sheets!
http://youtu.be/3hFr-WNwMtA
'Lava sobre hielo' (Lava on ice)
I'd like my molten rock... on the rocks ;-)
http://youtu.be/Ca88K3-hSJI
'Sisters Episode 3: Perfect Pitch {The Kloons}'
http://youtu.be/zMYab4bVzG4
'Le Décodeur (Lucien Maine)'
Awww :-D
http://youtu.be/zzLMU3SOXnM
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: snafus -- a confused or chaotic situation or condition
Fact Of The Week: There's five times as much water in the atmosphere of Earth as there is in all the planet's rivers; but there's seven times as much water in all the planet's freshwater lakes as there is in the atmosphere. There's 0.007% of Earth's water in freshwater lakes, 0.001% in the atmosphere, and 0.0002% in rivers. The rest is in aquifiers (underground) and the salty seas, and most of the freshwater is locked up in icesheets.
Quote Of The Week: "When your back's against the wall, it's time to turn around and fight" - John Major, former Conservative Prime Minister of the UK
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'New Impossibly Tiny Landscapes Painted on Food by Hasan Kale'
http://inviniteweirdo.tumblr.com/post/89743077292/jedavu-new-impossibly-tiny-landscapes-painted
'The Art of Organization...'
http://inviniteweirdo.tumblr.com/post/69409475452/beben-eleben-the-art-of-organization
'Girlie Glasses: A Peep Show With Your Beer'
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/girlie-glasses-a-peep-show-with-your-beer/
'Quítate todo'
This is what happens when the decal ^ rubs off, LOL. Very clever, though.
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/98349993400/quitate-todo
'Morecambe & Wise - Positive Thinking'
https://audioboom.com/boos/463154-morecambe-wise-positive-thinking
'Morecambe & Wise - Greig Piano Concerto'
https://audioboom.com/boos/463083-morecambe-wise-greig-piano-concerto
'Tom Lehrer - The Vatican Rag'
https://audioboom.com/boos/1265685-tom-lehrer-the-vatican-rag
'Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go'
An orchestral version! I've never heard this before :-)
https://audioboom.com/boos/833508-tom-lehrer-we-will-all-go-together-when-we-go
'Tom Lehrer - (I'm Spending) Hanukkah In Santa Monica'
https://audioboom.com/boos/488504-tom-lehrer-i-m-spending-hanukkah-in-santa-monica
'Michael Bentine - Je T'Aime'
https://audioboom.com/boos/959550-michael-bentine-je-t-aime
{'Je T'aime' (I Love You) was banned in several countries for its explicit content. Presumably for the sake of the people who could understand French. Want to know why Michael Bentine kept saying "kidneys"? Because 'reins' translates both as 'kidneys' and as 'loins'. It's a very sexy song, LOL}
'Mr Cockcheese sings in the rain'
Odd child.... ROFL :-D
https://audioboom.com/boos/561589-mr-cockcheese-sings-in-the-rain
'Ronnie Hazlehurst - That's Television Entertainment'
Here's a medley of TV theme tunes. How many can you recognise?
https://audioboom.com/boos/529332-ronnie-hazlehurst-that-s-television-entertainment
'Eric Idle and Neil Innes - Song o' the Continuity Announcers'
https://audioboom.com/boos/514044-eric-idle-and-neil-innes-song-o-the-continuity-announcers
'George Melly - Nuts'
"Have you heard George Melly's nuts?" "Really? I always thought he was a bit bonkers" :-P
https://audioboom.com/boos/505672-george-melly-nuts
'Harry South - The Sweeney (Main Theme)'
https://audioboom.com/boos/450036-harry-south-the-sweeney-main-theme
'Marty Feldman - Cautious Love Song'
https://audioboom.com/boos/437349-marty-feldman-cautious-love-song
'Mike & Bernie Winters - Tiptoe Through the Tulips'
https://audioboom.com/boos/433877-mike-bernie-winters-tiptoe-through-the-tulips
'Shadows - River Deep Mountain High'
https://audioboom.com/boos/365422-shadows-river-deep-mountain-high
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