One of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; the search for a superior moral justification for minding everyone else's business

This is why UK voters rejected the Labour Party and its Nanny-State interference in their private lives:

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years..." Cameron said.

"A passively tolerant society says to its citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone."

It sounds like hell.

If your dewclaws could be spirals*

Cats can be cruel sometimes. Just one little accident with the Christmas Ale, and suddenly all the other felines are all "Ha ha, look at her, it's Helix the Cat!"
They'll be sorry when the effects wear off.

* Cf.

The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria

Right: Fooling around with trebuchets is all
very well until a plummeting mutant injures
an innocent T'ao T'ieh. Here at Riddled we
condemn irresponsible stunts no matter how
often you call the result a "Freak Accident".

Posting about trebuchets, B⁴ links to an account of the trebuchet constructed by Cortez and his cohorts during the siege of Tenochtitlan:

However, the Spanish forces failed to aim the unit correctly, and it launched a boulder straight up. When the rock fell back to earth, it demolished the trebuchet.

There is something strangely appealing about machines whose function is only to destroy themselves.

"My theory," said Another Kiwi, signalling to the bar for another spirulina daiquari, "and it is mine, is that Jean Tinguely borrowed the Riddled time machine to travel back to 1521, where he posed as a veteran and talked the conquistadors into providing him with the materials to construct one of his self-dismantling art installations disguised as siege machinery.* Also he may have traded with the Aztecs for chocolate, which is why there is now a faint dusting of cocoa all over the keyboard in the cabin, which totally wasn't me."
"The interesting thing," I said, "is that in The Conquest of New Spain -- the only first-hand description of the siege -- there is none of this:

So they placed a suitable stone in the sling, but all it did was to rise to the height of the catapult and fall back to its original place.
Cortez [...] at once ordered the catapult to be taken to pieces..."

Naturally I started wondering when the 'self-demolition' aspect attached itself to Cortez' story. It appears, for instance, in a 2006 paper in the Estonian Journal of Archaeology, which focuses mainly about Estonians' familiarity with having things thrown at them; but in passing it does refers us to a 1995 paper in Scientific American in which the self-demolition embellishment is firmly in place:

The machine took several days to build, and at the first launch the stone went straight up, only to return and smash it.

I can't be arsed looking for any earlier examples so let's say that Scientific American** is Patient 0 in this particular example of the human ability to reshape history into pleasing narratives.

Bonus self-destructing mechanism from Yves Tinguely.

Chavedden et al. go on to describe 1521 as "The last instance of trebuchet use", but Someone is Wrong on the Internet:

The last known case of trebuchet use for military purposes was in 1779, when the British used it to bomb Spaniards who were on a position at the bottom of a gorge inaccessible to cannons.

In other news, Danish archaeologists get all the fun.

"You are still loonies," said Evangaline Van Holsteren, head barmaid. "How about you take a break from the hard stuff and have a nice chili-and-jellyfish hot chocolate instead?"
-----------------------------------------
* Speaking of time machines, who gave the builder of a 1185 trebuchet the idea of calling it "Their Mother"?

** Back when it was still funny.

A Nest of Typers

"Lawks" I'm browned off" I vouchsafed to the office at Riddled HQ. "Chiz chiz" But no one care.
"I wonder what has happened to intrepid Kiwi cameraman Olag Wiig lately" asked Smut Clyde fresh from a train spotting and  whiskey inhaling tour on the island of Sodor.
So one got the key from the executive key disbursement centre and toddled onto the jolly old interwebs, what!
On searching for the latest instalment in the career of Mr. Wiig (which, one might venture to say, is never dull) one found that he is a tool of Hezbollah! This will probably be a surprise to his employers at FOX TV.
But anyway the site for this revelation appears to a New Zealand's own Libertarian forum called (and this is their choice) Solo with the URL Solopassion. I assume they have a discount optician site affiliated to them.
The forum appears to be inextricably interwoven with the blog of Lindsay Perigo a Libertarian personage of some standing in these parts. One can read of his upcoming TV interview show which will apparently be a beacon onna hill to forestall the barbarian hordes talking with normal Kiwi accents around him.
One shivers with an-tici-payshun.
I especially like the way that the topic "What laws shall we repeal" is followed by "New rules for Rand Criticism".
Because the heart recoils from further investigation we can only wonder at the SOLO Passion Food whose last comment was 3 years and 8 weeks ago. Hard to have a solo passion and share it, I guess.
But the whole golden cornucopia awaits you as we swan off to the Olde Entomologist for Yiddish karaoke and Lamington trebuchet (FIXED spellings, sorry all) night.
It's a bit odd to think of these people, who look very normal in their photos, in the community at large, walking around hugging themselves with glee about how super clever they are and one day, comrades, one day, we will be free to ignore each other.!!

If your gearwheels are constructed from a Fair Isle knit, you're doin it rong

Some syndicated nimrod:

Dubai unravelled like clockwork, as did Kuala Lumpur in 1997 with the twin Petronas Towers, Chicago in 1974 with the Sears Tower and New York in the 1930s with the Chrysler and Empire State buildings.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a new "Woolpunk" genre, combining Victorian technology and comfy cadigans.

Faith Healer*

As any Complementary Therapist will tell you, It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between the Mind and the Body.

* Cf.

House decoration

We're so middle-class.

UPDATED: Now contains bonus Symbolist glove.