Diplomatic leak - USA ambassador to the UK

Followuing the leak of messages from the UK ambassador to the USA Sir Kim Darroch, your humble correspondent is pleased to report a rare coup [I'm totally making this up] of message intercepts from the USA's ambassador to the UK.

Let me repeat for the benefit of intelligence agencies, this is totally made up. If it turns out to be mostly correct, that's not my problem.

From: UKAMB Matthew W. Barzun 
Date: June 23 2016
Subject: Brexit

OK, I totally didn't see that coming. 

Are USA diplomatic personnel strictly liable for debts to UK bookmakers?
Asking for a friend.


From: UKAMB Matthew W. Barzun 
Date: July 10 2016
Subject: UK Conservative party leadership contest

Met with one of the Conservative leadership contenders, one Treesa May.
Polite, inoffensive, educated, terrible poker player. No chance she'll win unless
the Conservative party members have lost their senses. Mind, they picked
D Cameron previously, so who knows...


From: UKAMB Matthew W. Barzun 
Date: July 12 2016
Subject: Welcome to the new UK Prime Minister

Tell Barack to brush up a bit on the rules of poker, but he can take the UK to the
cleaners whenever he wants.


From: UKAMB Matthew W. Barzun 
Date: November 7 2016
Subject: Future diplomatic assignments

Everything's looking good from my end. Theresa is available for the ritual congrats
call whenever HRC wants. Thinking about a public leak of the convo - female Pres to
female PM, looks good to the voters both side.

Brooke's getting a bit tired of London and worried about the kids' accents. I hear
rumors that Janie H has had enough of Paris - any chance we could swap? Just a
thought.


From: UKAMB Matthew W. Barzun 
Date: November 9 2016
Subject: Fuck

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Fuck.

Any chance of a judicial review?

How's HRC taking it?



From: DCM Lewis Lukens
Date: January 18 2017
Subject: Testing

Is this thing on?

Any suggestions on format of messaging that DJT likes to hear?

Current assessment on the ground is that Theresa will spring an election on the country
in the next few months - and she'll cruise to victory, because the Opposition Leader
is a less hygienic and more socialist version of B Sanders. Going to put a few $$ on
a 50+ seat win at William Hill, anyone who wants in on the action pls send money in the
next diplomatic bag.


From: DCM Lewis Lukens
Date: June 9 2017
Subject: Predicting the future is hard

I don't have access to replies to UKAMB Barzun, what was the advice re his query
on UK bookmaker liability?



From: UMKAMB Robert Wood Johnson
Date: August 22 2017
Subject: UK catch-up

Anyone who says that they know what's happening with Brexit is a liar. This is
the shit-show of all shit-shows. Theresa managed to lose her majority to a guy who
would be pushed to win a minor role in Seattle politics.

Say hi to Melania!


From: UMKAMB Robert Wood Johnson
Date: Jan 15 2019
Subject: Clean-up

Had a friendly poker game with Theresa May (alleged national leader),
Olly Robbins (head of Brexit negotiations), and Philip Hammond (does
something with the UK Treasury, I hear). Cleaned up nicely. .

Hearing rumors about a leadership challenge if things go screwy before the March
deadline. Frankly, this lot couldn't score in a brothel if they had $100
bills jammed in their orifices, so who knows what they'll do.


From: Woody Johnson
Date: May 24 2019
Subject: Thank fuck for that

Theresa has finally thrown in the towel. Only about three Goddamn years overdue
but she was never a quick learner.

I had $1000 on Boris J as Brexit PM back in 2016, and intend to roll this over to
2019. Anyone else wants a piece of the action, you know the drill - cash up front.

Suzanne and kids are enjoying the increased buying power of the $. Tell DJT that
now is a great time to visit, if he can stand the weather....

Life of an actuary: more exciting than you might believe

When I was in university and hanging around the mathematicians - those students who dedicated their life to math(s), and I use "life" in the loosest sense possible - the standard joke was that the really successful ones would get involved in professional gambling^[1], most of them would be accountants, and the ones who couldn't handle the excitement of accountancy^[2] would become actuaries.

At least two of the three were true. Approximately the majority of the mathematicians I knew ended up in accountancy or related consultancy, and the actuaries were definitely around the low end of the social scale in the subject. Given the starting point of a mathematics degree, that's a scale needing very fine calibration. Anyone who chose optional courses in computer science ended up working for Big Tech and making out like a bandit.

Today I stumbled across a site Be An Actuary, which is (as far as I can tell) not a spoof site. It contains invaluable advice and guidance on what to do if you feel that actuarialism^[3] is your calling, and a critical piece of information is what a day in the life of an actuary is like.

Before reading these quotes, you may wish to equip yourself with a spoon^[4].

So far today, I've researched the applicable accounting rules and written a report for a client who's acquiring a small life insurance company.

Be still my beating heart.

I am constantly asking myself "Does this make sense?".

I'm assuming that "this" doesn't apply to "my terrible career choice". But it should.

In a midsize company like mine, there is also opportunity to price a new product, which takes creativity, or respond to an insurance department inquiry, which requires communication skills and tact.

Or, in despair at my life, throw myself through a 10th floor window, which requires a good run-up.

I currently manage three reserving analysts and we spend most of our time doing reserve analyses and projects like catastrophe modeling, loss modeling for some of our low frequency/high severity lines, and supporting our Corporate Actuary as he writes Actuarial Opinions and Reports.

You should spend some time on serious introspection on how your life got to be this way.^[5]

If you still have more than one eye remaining to view the remainder of this blog post, you're a more resilient person than me.

[1] Specifically, running the numbers games in the casinos rather than playing them.
[2] Yes, that's irony.
[3] Probably not a word, at least I hope not.
[4] Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more.
[5] Probably, you have Korean/Indian/Chinese parents and you paid more attention to their ambitions than your desires.

How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked by James Damore's lawyer

With apologies to Chris Rock

CEOs of major tech companies often worry that they might be the victims of political conservative persecution, so as a public service the Hemiposterical Blog proudly presents:

How not to get your ass kicked by James Damore's lawyer

Have your firm ever been face-to-face with a James Damore lawsuit and wondered, "Is his lawyer about to kick my ass?" Well, wonder no more. If you follow these easy tips, you'll be fine.

Communicate with care

You've heard people say, "Man, I wouldn't say that shit if I were you." Well, here’s some of that shit:

• Calling people Nazis
• Threatening to punch Nazis
• Blocking contact with co-workers
• Blacklisting co-workers
• Denigrating men
• Calling for people with non-liberal views to be fired

You know, you probably won't get your ass kicked in a lawsuit if you just use common sense.

If you make an intemperate comment about diversity then you might just get off with opprobrium from Breitbart; but if you allow a systematic campaign against white people in general and men in particular in your company then, maybe, you need your ass kicked.

Turn that shit off

Here's a no brainer: if your company's employees are spending half their time making SJW postings, then find the bulletin boards and mail lists generating those prejudicial posts and turn that shit off. Giving free rein to employees to make memes about punching Republican co-workers is just ignorant.

Filter your candidates

You want to hire a new employee? Not so fast, your candidate might be crazy! Before you let the candidate in the company, ask them these questions:

• Do you tweet 20+ times a day on social justice issues?
• Do you write ill-conceived rants on public blogs and forums?
• Do you regard 60%+ of the country as basically Nazis?

If you want to hire a new employee, get a libertarian. They don't care what anyone else does as long as they're left alone.

If you get sued

And in case you do get sued, remind your employees to do this one thing:

Shut the fuck up!

If you follow these simple pointers, you probably won’t get your ass kicked by James Damore's lawyer.

Denatonium Benzoate loses its crown

Also known as Bitrex, Denatonium Benzoate held the record for the most bitter substance on earth until 24th June 2016. A teaspoon of the substance added to an Olympic size swimming pool (volume 2.5M litres) makes the water noticeably bitter. Bitrex has been a very successful additive to poisonous substances to prevent accidental ingestion, such as car antifreeze.

Sadly for manufacturer Macfarlan Smith, since 24th June Bitrex's record has been overtaken by the UK Guardian opinion page. One opening paragraph has the same bitterness impact as approximately 300ml of Denatonium Benzoate. Rumours suggest that Macfarlan Smith has opened negotiations with Jonathan Freedland, Nick Cohen and Polly Toynbee for purchase of their spleens as a manufacturing source of the Bitrex successor.

It is serendipitous that the name "Bitrex" is an anagram of the new product: "Brexit".

How to build the perfect man bun

Note: this is not to be confused with how to build the perfect man buns, which is an entirely separate topic and not one I will be addressing any time soon in this blog.

1. Grow your hair out to at least 10 inches in length. This may take you a while. Any length above this is also fine.
2. Wash your hair. Yes, this really does matter. Any shampoo will do, but do not use conditioner or a shampoo+conditioner combined product - you don't want smooth conditioned hair.
3. Blow dry hair, thoroughly. Comb out so that it is moderately straight. Don't add any styling product.
4. Obtain a pair of hairdressing scissors, either new or well sharpened.
5. Visit any workplace with large rotating machinery.
6. Holding the scissors firmly, carefully lower the end of your hair into the rotating machinery. Once it obtains a grip, frantically shear away at your trapped hair with the scissors until your head is free.

The net effect should be a lifelong aversion to having long hair at all, let alone a man bun.

Courageous journalism at the BBC

I kid, obviously. When describing the current controversy over the Washington D.C. Metro refusing to take any "issue-oriented" adverts until next year just so that they can avoid showing the prize-winning "Draw Mohammed" cartoon, the BBC resorts to words rather than a picture to describe the salient image.

The advert calls for Americans to support free speech and features a bearded, turban-wearing Muhammad waving a sword and shouting: "You can't draw me!"
In reply, a cartoon bubble portrays an artist grasping a pencil and saying: "That's why I draw you."

How odd, you would have thought that they would have included an image of the cartoon rather than laboriously describe its contents.

Just to make the point, here's the image in question:

The spineless BBC writer isn't shy of displaying their orientation towards issues:

Ms Geller insists the cartoon is a "political opinion" which does not contain any violence.

Ms Geller is of course correct. There's no violence in that picture: the gentleman depicted is holding a sword, but that's as far as it goes. Yet the writer takes particular care to use reported speech and quotes, presumably to demonstrate that he or she is emphatically not in sympathy with Ms Geller or (mysteriously unnamed in the article) artist Bosch Fawstin.

Deary me. Truely, the BBC has resigned from actual journalism in order to be at the back of the line when crocodile feeding time comes around.

I'm really not keen on Pamela Gellar, but the rest of the world seems to be bending over backwards to make her admittedly extreme opinions seem really quite rational and reasonable. And we are surprised when Muslim extremism is emboldened by this obvious cowardice?

Breaking veganism - the new hotness

Tomorrow I'm going to break my usual diet and have toast (unbuttered) with orange juice and coffee for breakfast, a nutburger with lettuce and pickles for lunch, and pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. This will officially qualify as a vegan diet, and so make me a vegan. I'll keep this up for three more days. The day after, I'm going down the diner and having brunch incorporating every animal on the menu. This will officially qualify me as an ex-vegan and thus eligible for the ex-vegan list:

Please do not post names that fall under the following categories:

• Was never vegan
• Pretended to be vegan
• Was vegan for 3 days then sold out.
• SOMEONE WHO IS STILL VEGAN.

I would have thought that last point somewhat redundant given the "ex-" prerequisite, but hey what do I know?

Why do I care? Well, I would love to be listed on exvegans.com, a site dedicated to the persecution of those who have crossed from the (skinny, pale, underfed, too-much-time-on-their-hands) righteous to the animal-eating murdering blood-dripping-from-mouth unrighteous. Extracting a random entry from their hate list:

Jack Scuncio: Once upon a time Jack completely rejected all forms of animal product and was one with nature, now he has embraced the love of murder in such a wholehearted way that he now rejects the consumption of plants almost entirely. He wears leather (and fur!) whenever he can and consumes copious amounts of burnt carcasses, even partakes in gatherings some know as BBQ, but what I would like to call "Murderocalypses"

I hope that this entry was satire - or, indeed, added by Jack himself, but I fear it may just be in earnest. For something beyond satire, I offer you the ex-vegan take on Natalie Portman:

Vegan from 2009 to 2011. Stopped when she got pregnant, and had some ignorant concerns about the health of her unborn child. Her statement on the subject was very uninformed. Having kids isn't vegan anyway.

I'm not sure where you can start on that.

The twistedness of the contributors is captured perfectly in Why People Hate Vegans. When this site publishes contributions like:

The spirits of the billions murdered have risen to deliver: The Vegan Sellout List – an online directory of those who have regressed from moral consistency to moral depravity.

even the most considerate animal-loving pacifist feels a primeval urge to bludgeon the nearest tasty animal to death and eat it. "When an Irishman drives a pig, he ties a string to the pig's rear leg - the pig reacts by running forwards." Ironically, ex-vegans may be just that pig.

Provoking Kirchner - you can't win

The DT reports that inviting Argentine Premier Cristina Kirchner to Thatcher's funeral is "another provocation":

Héctor Timerman, the Argentine foreign minister, has previously accused the British government of inflammatory gestures over the Falkland Islands, including the "militarisation" of the South Atlantic.
"Why do they invite me to a place I hadn't planned to go?" he told local radio after Baroness Thatcher's family invited the Argentine government to send a representative, saying it would be "amusing".

I wouldn't be surprised if there are bouquets in the shape of West and East Falkland, just to ram home the message.

Napolitano chutzpah

Who is the USA's greatest ally? Britain? Canada? Poland?

Apparently, the answer is France:

According to the l'Express report, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano reportedly did not deny the allegations [about hacking French government emails] when asked point-blank about them.
"We have no greater partner than France; we have no greater ally than France," Napolitano reportedly answered, at the opening of an interview with l'Express.

Speechless. A little hyperbole to extract oneself from a sticky situation is acceptable, but this is comparable to the President of Poland reminiscing about the congenial border relations with Germany, or the Chinese Premier inviting the Japanese Premier for a cordial tour of Nanking to celebrate their nations' shared past.

For the record, I don't think that even the most ludicrously optimistic and Europhilic UK government minister would have made this claim. Quite why Napolitano thought she'd get away with it is beyond me.

Physicists against interpretive dance

Well, not really, but very similar. Artists against fracking:

Dear Governor Cuomo,
I have concerns about the impact of fracking upon our water, our air, and our local communities in New York State. I believe that fracking for shale gas is a danger to all New Yorkers. Please don't frack New York.

Well, I've visited Manhattan and Brooklyn, and I'd say that the only risk from fracking is a distinct improvement in the quality of the environment. Or lower power bills.

I see that noted bipolar druggie Carrie Fisher supports the cause, for instance. Well, with that level of engineering and scientific expertise, I'm convinced. Truly, "Artists against fracking" have jumped the shark. What's next? "Lawyers against nut allergies"? "Pensioners against co-sleeping"? Kittens against apartheid?

Oh Boris, don't ever change

Q+A with Boris Johnson:

Q: Why don't you give Ken a chance?
BJ: I gave him two excellent chances.

How to date posh girls

Pity poor Tom Beardsworth, Oxford university student who penned a rather amusing piece on how to date posh girls in the Oxford student newspaper "Cherwell":

"If she does brave it and travels north to see you, be sensitive. As she disembarks the train, refrain from mocking her attire (wellingtons and a ski jacket – 'but I thought it'd be freezing') and instead congratulate her on having made it thus far."

Tom, a PPE student who went to a Manchester grammar school and who therefore is in a good position to know what he's writing about, duly created the mother of all furores with professionally outraged women blasting the alleged slights against their sisters. I wonder what the reaction would have been if he'd written it from the other perspective - advising posh girls on how to date a hard-up northern boy.

The usual suspects were out with their rent-a-quotes:

Sarah Pine, 20, the women's officer of the student union, said: "Treating women like objects that lack any autonomy in who they date or sleep with is outdated and boring. If this article is trying to be funny, the author needs to realise his audience won't be impressed with such irrelevant stereotypes about women."

Well, Sarah, we must congratulate you on perpetuating the stereotype of OUSU women's officers. I rather think that Tom was trying to entertain rather than impress, and from the excerpts in the DT he seemed to be doing a good job. I note that you too are a PPE student - perhaps you were jealous that someone two years younger could write better than you?

The editors of "Cherwell" didn't really help the cause of journalism, promptly and spinelessly rolling over and withdrawing the piece:

In a statement the editors of Cherwell said they were "very sorry" if offence had been taken, adding the piece was intended as satire of sexist dating guides found in the mainstream media. They did not wish to create a poor impression of the university for new students, they added.

If I were a self-respecting student looking at this ugly affair, it wouldn't be Tom's piece that gave me a poor impression of the university.

I took the liberty of Googling Ms. Pine and located her OUSU Women's Officer manifesto:

We need to maintain string links with organisations engaged with social justice across Oxford... I will make links with the Oxford Feminist Network... founded an open feminist group... Wadham LGBTQ officer...

Tell you what, Tom, why not write your next article on how to date a radical feminist? If you're going to go down in flames anyway, you might as well do it with style.

CSI Balamory?

Pure genius from Uncyclopedia: CSI: Balamory:

CSI: Balamory! CSI: Balamory!
Here is the First/Second Miss Hoolie to tell us that story but how does is all begin?
Cut in half, shot in the head or whacked in the face with a bottle of gin?
Is today to die at home or get beaten because you're gay?
Drowning in a pool or spying on the kids at the Nursery?

I was pleased^[1] to see they kept the rhyming scheme at the end there.

The episode also addresses important points that the CBeebies series neglects. Who does the MOT on Edie McCredie's bus, if she owns the only garage on the island? Who interviews rape victim on the islands if PC Plum is the only officer? However, I'm not convinced by the Archie back-story; a man wearing a skirt in a pink castle with a posh English accent? He's clearly trying way too hard to appear effeminate. There's something murky going on there.

^[1] No, not really.

Kicking a man when he's down

It must have been rather disheartening for the late Osama bin Laden to hear the helicopters hovering next to his compound, the bark of rifle fire and the bangs of breaching charges, and realise that he was going to meet his maker without ever seeing the prospect of the Caliphate restored. Still, win some, lose some.

What must really irk him is that now anyone with $325 can re-enact the Operation Neptune's Spear raid in a paintball game:

... once enough adrenaline is flowing the participants are lead to confront terrorist Osama bin Laden in his secret hideout - which also doubles up as a bare room in Sealed Mindset's 10,000-square-foot studio.
Weapons poised, the Navy SEALS boot in the door and then kill Osama bin Laden in reign [sic] of bullets - paintballs.

I note two widely-smiling un-burka'd women toting M-16s and AR-15s in the article photos. That's really rubbing salt in the wound, no?

The French have a sense of humour

The creative development agency "Early Flicker" from Paris have registed a headless suited figure and the slogan "We are Anonymous, We do not forgive, We do not forget. Expect us." Understandably, the "real" Anonymous are somewhat miffed. Unusually for this situation, they are not loudly threatening court action, for some reason I can't quite fathom at the moment (ahem).

A cursory check indicates that ovh.net are hosting them, and they're being served off Apache 2.2 - I hope ovh.net's BOFHs have pre-girded their loins... Incidentally, if the eflicker.fr webmaster is reading this, your page also claims to be xhtml1-transitional which is a total lie.

I do like the sheer cheek of this, a creative agency arranging to make sweet cash out of Anonymous's images and slogans. The irony meter is pushing past 11.

Social is hard

When you see a headline such as Police force tells residents to stop reporting crimes on Facebook then you know you're going to enjoy the story. Apparently the ease of posting on Northants Police's Facebook "Wall" has led to a huge wave of real but vague, dubious and odd, and outright fake crime reporting there. Who'd have thought?

I particularly enjoyed:

Earlier this year Strathclyde Police announced the arrest of Andy Coulson, the former Downing Street communications chief and News of the World editor, on its Facebook page.
But because of the design of the site, it was unable to stop members of the public clicking on a button to say they "liked" the development and adding comments about it.

When they say "the design of the site", of course, they actually mean "a fundamental property of Facebook". Oopsie.

I've long wondered whether 999 should charge a standard £1 for calls from private and mobile phones (with the proviso for mobiles that if you're under £1 of credit then you can make the call but the charge is made when you next top up). If something bad enough to make you call the police has happened, you really won't mind spending that money.

Katy Perry made my day

Not a phrase I ever expected to write, but it comes from Katy's new video Part of Me where she runs away from a no-good cheating boyfriend to join the USMC. Entertaining enough if you like that kind of thing, though not something I'd normally blog (except to nitpick that I'm sure her Gunnery Sergeant Major would make her cut her hair a lot shorter than in the video).

Except... it seems that Katy has really got Naomi Wolf's goat:

The whole videography of the scenes at Camp Pendleton – in which Perry crawls through an imaginary minefield, trains underwater, learns she can do the impossible, etc – is straight out of Leni Riefenstahl: the same angled, heroizing upward shots, the same fetishization of physical power, of gleaming armaments, and of the rigor and mechanism of human beings cohering into living militarized units.

I'm not sure Leni would have focused on the mud quite so much. That log carrying, being shouted at, bayonetting, buddy carrying, range shooting, getting wet and sandy lying in the surf and standing neck-deep in water in body armour looks rather uncomfortable and unglamorous to me, and the armaments all looked pretty camo'd; any gleam would draw the attention of snipers for half a mile around. I guess Naomi wouldn't recognise glamour if it bit her on the arse.

My "rant" was portrayed on Fox News as anti-Marine, "military-hating" and unpatriotic. A backlash seeded itself across military websites, and I got plenty of hate mail, ranging from epithets like "commie", to, randomly enough in this context, "lezzie".

Unusually, I'd say Fox News pretty much nailed it. I'm sure the mail abuse was unnecessary, but really Naomi what did you expect?

Naomi, I can wholeheartedly recommend that you view the trailer for Act of Valor or better yet rent the film itself when it comes out. If that doesn't make your head explode, I don't know what would.

[If you liked the Katy Perry video, you'll love mixed martial arts practitioner Tim Kennedy's spoof.]

Blog of the day: Minimum Knife Pricing

Over at Mr. Wadsworth's, a wonderful spoof on minimum knife pricing:

Ministers say the proposal would not affect responsible restaurants or diners. But they predict that it could significantly change the behaviour of those who cause the most problems for hospitals and the police, by making it more expensive to stab somebody.

Go read the whole thing.