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It just gets better and better.

A grand total of 11 Labour MPs voted not to fuck the Union over this.

Three members of the Scottish National Party, whose flagship policy (which I support) is to fuck the union—and one from Alba, an anti-"woke" pro-union-fucking party that splintered from the SNP along with its creepy former leader (both of their two MPs were elected as SNP candidates and later defected)—abstained. Turns out when it came to choosing between defending a direct attack on Scottish autonomy and fucking over trans people, they reached straight for the union jack bunting.

There is a lot of chatter from folks convinced this means Scotland will walk away easily.

As a chattering Scottish independence supporting person, sadly, I don't think that silver lining is there (and wouldn't justify legitimising transphobia if it was.) All of the trans people I know in Scotland, and most of the cis queer people, are already vocally pro-independence; maybe if there were any trans unionists, they'll switch sides, but I doubt there are enough to make a dent. The next independence campaign will be able to point to this as a good example of Westminster undermining our autonomy when we do something they don't like, but people who care about that are already on side. And the next anti-independence campaign will have a nice supply of moral panic to dish out with the "better together" crap.

And that's if we get another shot at independence at all, which both the Tories and Starmer's Labour have made clear they've no intention of "letting" us have, despite the Scottish parliament having a pro-independence majority (SNP and the Scottish Greens) and several recent polls showing majority public support for independence. And Brexit has made a prospective independent Scotland even more prospectively fucked from the get-go (which the same politicians who claimed and still claim Brexit is the best thing since World War II will use as an anti-indy talking point.)

I'm sorry this is happening, and I'm sorry trans right are being used as collateral. Hope you're as safe as possible.

How would the rest of us be able to see her, or is he imagining us too? Has he gone total brain-in-a-vat?

(EDIT: this was about Musk pretending Grimes wasn't real, I seem to have fucked up replying/quoting, or imagined I have)

further ETA: Would this make her divorcing him his psyche rebelling against itself, like the bit in Red Dwarf where they play the Better Than Life total immersion game and Rimmer ends up getting them all buried in sand and eaten by ants because he can't imagine a world in which anyone likes him

I didn't think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board

At least 9 of them must have been on his own side, then

If you want to reach new people, video is one of the easiest ways to do it, people love the meaty vlog style vids, or even shorter ones for generation ADD.

I have ADHD (and I wish it was a "generation". I might have got diagnosed before age 40) and I bloody hate the tendency for everything to be videos now, especially when I'm looking for a how-to for some quick thing—household fixes, how to do something or other in Photoshop, whatever. Text is skippable, skimmable, reread-particular-bits-without-fiddling-about-able, forget-and-refer-back-to-while-you're-doing-the-thing-able. I don't want to sit still through a 6-minute video and then forget it all immediately, when I could have found and read the relevant bit in 2.

This probably doesn't apply to less immediate and specific stuff like a potential BIP vid though. I liked scribbly's video script in the other thread, and I can see how that being a video could add things that aren't there in the text alone.

Apparently the previous record is 133 ballots over two months, in 1855. Let's see if they can smash that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64178794

They eventually changed the candidate and agreed to elect a speaker by plurality, but that seems to have been a one-time thing.

(multiple edits: I found that weird, because presumably (i) they'd have needed a majority to agree to accept the plurality ruling, and (ii) the majority wouldn't have agreed to accept the plurality ruling without knowing "their" guy would win a plurality; so how could it work unless there was already a candidate with majority support? The reason seems to be that the cause of the no-majority problem that year was a huge number of third-party congressfolk, following the splintering of the Whig party.)

Please, no more winning

It then took a month to get my energy levels back to approaching normal. I am fairly certain it was Covid, despite the test coming back negative.

There are definitely false negatives. I know several people who've recently had a horribly bad cold that totally wasn't covid because an LFT was negative.

My partner and I both got it back in March or April 2020, shortly after it officially came to the UK. There weren't any vaccines or self tests. Masks were in short supply, and it wasn't yet clear if it was a good idea to buy them or to leave them so there'd be enough left for the nurses. I got sent to a hospital and made to wait in a chalk square outside, then someone in head-to-toe PPE asked me some questions and watched my breathing, without any physical contact. It's weird to remember it being taken that seriously. They said I'd probably had it and we should both isolate for a week. I don't remember much from that week except being absolutely fucking knackered. I'm also pretty sure it made me less mentally sharp for months. No fun.

We're both up to three or four jabs now, I've lost count.

[ARTICLES OF CANONIZATION]

I found out this guy a while ago and he seems like a candidate for Discordian sainthood. A Scots-born officer in the British, Portuguese and Venezuelan armies who later made up a country and made a living selling nonexistent land to would-be colonisers.

The formal Articles of Canonization is attached (this is a PDF with the same text as the rest of this post, but some slightly fancy formatting and a picture of MacGregor.)

-----

ARTICLES OF CANONIZATION

I. Pontifical Bullshit

By the Power invested in Us as Supreme Pope of Eris, We hereby nominate Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845), variously styled as Baronet, General, Colonel, Knight of the Order of Christ, and Cazique of Poyais; military officer, explorer, adventurer, turncoat and confidence trickster (hereafter "the Candidate", "Gregor", or "this guy") for Canonization to the rank of Discordian Saint (Second Class), Order of Quixote.

Other Supreme Popes of Eris are free to ratify, amend, redefine or ignore these Articles by the power invested in them.

II. Life of the Candidate

A great-nephew of Scots rebel leader Rob Roy, born in Stirlingshire to a disfavoured clan and unimaginative parents, the Candidate joined the British Army at age 16, conceivably with the intent of sowing chaos within the imperialist ranks in vengeance for his own family's mistreatment at British hands.

He fought, sweet-talked and/or bribed his way to the rank of Captain; thereafter, he repeatedly abandoned his posts and turned coats, allying over the course of his career with several European powers fighting over the right to pretend bits of South America belonged to them, and causing chaos which set back the colonisation of the continent by an unknown number of years. He tried exploring, but didn't find anything. He eventually found himself ingratiated with Simon Bolivar and became a general in the revolutionary army of Venezuela.

In 1820, "King" George Frederic Augustus I of Miskita, a politically powerless puppet of the British Empire, "granted" the Candidate an area of uncultivatable land on the Mosquito Coast. Gregor dubbed this area "the Poyais" and himself its "cazique", a word which he claimed translated as "prince". Gregor MacGregor sailed back to Britain.

The Cazique of Poyais appeared in London in 1821, handing out neat pamphlets which documented the Poyais as a wondrous land of exploitable forest, rolling pastures, rivers containing literal gold balls, and animals that practically threw themselves in front of your hunting rifle. Under his prudent caziquing, the Poyais now had a flourishing capital city, a functioning government, and its own currency, of which he carried several rolls of banknotes and was happy to trade for pounds or dollars at a very generous exchange rate. The Cazique attended high society dinners and balls, and made a living for many years selling nonexistent land and government bonds in Poyais to gullible would-be colonisers.

("Real" explorers did the same thing, of course; Gregor just skipped over the step of actually stealing a bunch of land beforehand.)

Two ships set sail for Poyais carrying eager colonists. About a quarter of them made it back to London. Some were after Gregor's blood. Others defended him to the end, insisting that the reason they found an uncultivatable swamp where the Republic of Poyais should have been was the result of sabotage by jealous agents of the Spanish or Portuguese.

The authorities eventually caught up with the Candidate and tried him for fraud. He prepared an elaborate and completely false 5000-word defence, and was acquitted of all charges.

The Candidate later returned to Venezuela. He died in 1845 and was buried in Caracas Cathedral, with full military honours in recognition of his service during the War of Independence, which may or may not have been accurately recorded.

III. Virtuosity

I'm not at all sure he had any. On the other hand, he probably fucked up for the bad guys more often than he did for the good guys.

IV. Miracles

As per the Ancient and Immalleable Rules Governing Canonization of Saints Which I Just Made Up, ascension to Sainthood requires evidence of at least five (5) miracles performed by the Candidate before, during or after their death. A miracle is defined as an act inexplicable by natural or scientific laws, or at least damned hard to pull off.

Miracles attributed to Candidate Gregor MacGregor include:

    I. The (briefly) successful capture of Amelia Island in 1817 by a single ship, commanded by the Candidate and carrying a few dozen men; the Spanish garrison there, which easily outgunned the invader, was so incredulous that anyone would be foolish enough to attempt to capture the island with a single ship that they assumed it must be leading a much larger force, and surrendered with no shots fired;

    II. The spontaneous creation in 1821 of an entire country, the Republic of Poyais, complete with a democratic system of government, civil service, and functioning infrastructure, in 1821;

    III. The transubstantiation of the aforesaid country, by which it assumed the spiritual nature of a well-governed republic rich in minerals and opportunity, while maintaining the outward substance of an uninhabitable malarial swamp, making it impossible to distinguish from the latter by mundane means;

    IV. The instantaneous transportation of large amounts of money into his own bank account from those of various rich British marks;

    V. The continued support of many of the aforesaid marks for the Candidate, even after they had paid him the aforesaid large amounts of money, sailed to "Poyais", found an uninhabitable swamp, and barely made it back to Europe racked by typhoid and jaguar bites.

V. Verdict

After an extensive five-minute period of pineal consultation on the merits or otherwise of the above Articles:

Congratulations! Saint Gregor MacGregor, Cazique of Poyais, is formally admitted to the Second-Most Holy Order of Second-Class Saints and the Order of Quixote, as Patron Saint of explorers, imaginary countries and confidence tricksters.

Can anyone do a quick Explain Like I'm Five And/Or Stupid for the non-Americans? I see McCarthy keeps losing the vote, but apparently that doesn't mean somebody else wins, or even that he's out of the running? Are they planning to just keep on holding votes until people change their minds out of boredom?

Is this because he said the 2020 election result was legitimate?

I should have added: I like your script, it made me think about Discordianism in ways I wasn't already, and I would definitely watch it.

I haven't been able to find any alt right Discordian links - any chance someone could point me in the right direction?

There was a discord channel linked from r/discordian (the last time I followed it the link had expired, but they might have updated it.) I lurked there for a short time before I saw some anti-vaxx and pro-Jan 6th bullshit and peaced out. I can't say for sure it was the prevailing attitude, but it went unchallenged, and you know what they call 10 guys hanging out with a nazi.

I don't know that he'd do it *just* to appease terfs, but he'd do it to put Scotland in our place if he thought it'd succeed. We're already a constitutional crisis.

This is where I'm really hoping Scotland can put the breaks on things.

It's a big embarrassment for them. One that every part of the media is trying to downplay, but it's still going to hurt them.

I hope so too, but even here in Scotland I'm seeing far more "SNP splinter over controversial gender bill" than "Scottish government passes trans rights bill" in the news. And the pro-independence Scottish government doesn't care much about sending a message to the rest of the UK, unless it's "We don't want the same things as you, so please let us go to do our own thing."

Last time we took a shot at independence, the UK government did try and show how nice they were by rushing through a same-sex marriage bill for England and Wales before ours (which had already passed, but hadn't been signed into law yet.) But they used the speed and cover to sneak a *spousal veto* for trans recognition in E&W in the same bill, so.

If it breaks up the UK I'll take that as a consolation prize, but it has been nice to end the year on a W.

I don't know, but my feeling is that this is going to be used more the other way round: anti-independence groups pointing to trans rights as the sort of out-of-touch woke wacko stuff that the crazy nationalists are obsessing over When They Should Be Focusing On Kickstarting The Economy or whatever. (There's already a rightwing splinter pro-independence party, "Alba", who are almost certainly doing more harm than good for the cause of independence, and probably don't care because hurting trans people is more important to them anyway.)

I DO think it is extremely funny that Sunak has already been hinting that he will invoke a never-tested procedural process to block the King giving assent to the law, triggering a constitutional crisis and likely hastening the breakup of the UK.

I didn't know that, but I wouldn't put it past him at all. Certainly one of the prize categories in the Tory leadership contest, and in UK elections for that matter, is who can ignore Scotland the hardest.

JK Rowling's good buddy flashed the viewing gallery with a merkin and shouted "If you won't be decent then I will be indecent" as she did it.

[first posted as a twitter thread; expanded here]

I went looking for pictures of Eris in classical artwork. It turned out there are a lot more than I thought. I haven't seen a collection of these in a Discordian (or any other) context before, so here goes.

Firstly, the ancient Greek image of Eris that you're most likely to have seen, because it's used on the Wikipedia pages for Eris and Discordianism:

In Grecian times, Goddess posed for a few vases to pay the bills. This is a tasteful shot for a blackfigure kylix, around 550 BCE. Killer heels.



Redfigure vase, c. 450 BCE, showing Eris with Themis, goddess of wisdom and good counsel (whom you can identify with Aneris if you like). I assume Eris is the one on the left, just because the names were in that order. Nice dress.



Another redfigure vase, c. 400 BCE, in which Eris looks through a magic window into the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (pretty much all images I could find of Eris were in scenes of That Wedding), drawn by someone unfamiliar with boobs.



No Eris in this one, but it's a rather nice 2nd Century BCE mosaic of the Paris judging the Beauty Contest of the Goddesses, stolen from Antioch and currently held hostage in the Louvre. I think that's the Golden Apple at the top.



Engraving of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on a sarcophagus, c. 120 BCE (as reproduced in Drury's History of the Greeks, 1886). It's not known who all of the characters are, but one lady is carrying what might be an apple and appears to be setting fire to the guy's foot next to her for a laugh, so.


Eris then seems to have avoided the limelight for a long period. I next found her in a 15th-century illuminated manuscript (which I couldn't find at a higher resolution, alas.)

She seems to be handing over the Apple rather too politely, but at least she's wearing a Pope hat and suitably outre colour malcoordination. She's also brought her dog with her, opening new possibilities in veterinary theology.


Ladies, gentlemen and nonbinary pals, we are about to enter the Renaissance period. Things may be about to get a bit Naked Where's Waldo.


Jans Brueghel's The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (between 1583 and 1625). As in a lot of paintings from this period, Eris likes to float upside down 10 feet above the crowd, just as I would at big social gatherings if I could. Here she is depicted as a weedy androgynous teen with bat-wings.



A 1589 engraving by Jacques de Gheyn II, showing Eris as a saggy-boobed Cthulhu-Medusa. Look, I won't tell her if you don't.



Gillis van Valckenborch's The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (1590-1622). Eris arrives on a stormcloud, looking blurry and draped in hippie shawls.



Jan van Balen's The Marriage Feast of Peleus and Thetis (1605-1642). Only about half the guests are naked. Maybe marrying a sea-nymph is like marrying a Betazoid. Eris seems to be manifesting as a weird fiery vulture-eagle.



Hendrik de Clerck's The Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus (c. 1606) Eris is painted as a larger woman of colour, probably for Highly Problematic reasons, but maybe unintentionally pretty cool? As well as the Apple, she carries a bellows—for fanning flames, geddit?—which I don't think I've seen in any modern Discordian depictions.


And now we get to this guy.

Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638) depicted Eris and/or the Apple of Discord so many times that I can only assume She was fucking with his head. I found at least five relevant paintings, made over a five-year period starting in 1610.




(seen here with her sidekick, Five-Legged Baby)


The fact that he seems to have painted (or revised?) so many of these, and they are all either called "The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis" or "The Judgement of Paris", makes it appropriately confusing to try and find them all. Dude could have done with a version control system. His style reminds me of the Josh Kirby cover art for the earlier Discworld novels.



Jacob Jordaen's The Golden Apple of Discord (1633). Eris looks a little confused herself, maybe because Jesus has just caught the Apple.



Abraham Bloemaert's The Feast of the Gods at the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (1638). Eris once again travels by stormcloud.



Giusepe Pietro Mazzola's The Marriage of Peleus (1789). I'm not certain this was the artist's intention, but I like to think Eris is the one giving the couple the finger and then leaving to go bowling with her pals.


And my personal favourite.

Edward Burne-Jones's The Feast of Peleus (1872). It's like The Last Supper if shit was about to go DOWN. (Okay, different shit.)

Just. Look at Her.

The kooky indie-chick bodystocking outfit. The metal-as-hell bat wings. The wry malicious smile of a woman about to unleash holy fuck on a bunch of polite assholes. And they're all terrified of her.

EDIT: after positing this I noticed that Hermes/Mercury, who is the crouching figure wearing nothing but a bright blue helm and bright blue winged sandals so he looks like the stripogram, is holding a (non-gold) apple in one hand and a scroll in the other that reads DETUR PULCHRIORI, a rare Latin translation of Kallisti. If this is because Eris has not delivered the Apple personally but is using Hermes as a mail carrier, it would make this the original Jake.

This Eris appears to be painted after Burne-Jones's favourite model, the artist Maria Zambaco

(Portrait by Alexander Cassavetti)
Burne-Jones and Zambaco had had a scandalous affair a few years earlier. He continued to paint her in sorceress/temptress/dangerous lady roles for the rest of his career. I've given her a sainthood for her troubles.

Almost as if east Asian countries have experience of respiratory coronaviruses, and it's easier to shut down the air routes you have a state monopoly on.

(I don't think it's a particularly wild notion that they put the safety of China before the safety of everywhere else, but that hardly singles them out.)