The Worst Bannerfests I've Seen

When I bought my new HP notebook, I decided to use Microsoft Edge instead of Chrome that I have been using for years.

Edge comes with tabs that are full of news articles and advertisements from a huge number of media sites, even those as disreputable as The Guardian.

Among them are some of the worst Bannerfests I have ever seen such as that shown in the image at left.

What's a Bannerfest?

It's a site that pretends to be providing an information/media service, but is really a sales site focusing on generating income from dozens of banner links. In the image above, you can see that two separate adverts for the same product even appeared at the left simultaneously.

Usually, one gets sucked into opening the bannerfest by noticing a headline of interest. You click and find that the page that appears is chock full of banners. The article you wanted to read has several paragraphs and then you have to click a button to continue to the next part of the article that is again short.

This process goes on ad nauseum until the end of the article if you stick it out for that long, which I don't. A common strategy is to use a headline with images, perhaps of beautiful women in bathing suits. You then have to click to move to each image working your way through the bannerfest.

I make it a practice never to click on any of the advertising banners and usually only view page one before deleting the page. You should do the same.

Robin

America's Dark Winter

Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming US elections, it's highly possible that the US will find itself in a Dark Winter of violence.

For decades now, Marxists have been working to undermine the US and everything it stands for. Extreme Right Wing goons have been trying to turn the US into a totalitarian regime. In the middle are the people, trying to keep the US a decent place to live and a good world member.

Stella Morabito in the following article expresses it much better than I ever could:

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/26/7-open-leftist-threats-that-political-terror-is-coming-to-america-whether-trump-wins-or-not/

My guess is that Military Law will need to be invoked shortly after the US election.

I hope both Stella and I are wrong. The last thing the world needs is a grossly dysfunctional USA.

Robin

Now I have a new descriptor ...

Not only am I a white, aged, heterosexual, married, Australian male, I'm also cissexual.

I always knew I was the "I" in the acronym LGBTQI - Intosex, but not until recently did I become aware I'm also cissexual. What does that mean? I identify as the gender with which I was birthed ie, male.

Obviously, I could have chosen to identify as one of the other 72 genders, but being male was good enough for me and it's continuing to be good enough. I'll die a male, it's too late to change now.

I have a wife, two children and a grandson who all know me as a male. My friends know me as a male.

I have enough trouble buying men's clothes that fit, how in hell would I cope with some tight-fitting gym slacks or a dress? And whatever I chose, I'd never, ever look as beautiful as Miss Bo (?) whose photo appears here.

Look at that lovely slim, shapely body. The smooth, flat stomach, the lovely lips and nice breasts. Wouldn't it be heartbreaking if she decided to think of herself as a male or any of the other supposed genders?

I don't know about you, but I think she is perfect as is.

Stay well.

Robin

No Rest in Peace Here!

My relatives have strict instructions about what to do with my body when I no longer need it: send it to the crematorium and scatter my resultant ashes somewhere in the beautiful ancient hills of my beloved Northern Territory.

Nobody will be able to dig up my coffin in 2,000 years and probe whatever is left of me. 

While we often make the comment "Rest in Peace" about our dead, we aren't happy to let our ancestors' bodies rest in peace. No, we pull them out of their comfortable coffins and meddle with them.

It is good that we learn about ancient civilisations and the DNA that led to us and those who have rested in peace for so long, probably won't care that we meddle with them for purely scientific and archeological reasons. They're well past that!

But, should we expect that we have the right to do so?

If these deceased thought that 2,000 years later someone would pull them out of their caskets and slice pieces of their skin and hair off for DNA examination, would they have agreed? Or did they, like some of our religious, believe that their bodies would ascend into some utopian realm to live happily ever after?

We will never know, but we assume ownership because the original owners of the gravesites are no longer with us. And we don't care whether these ancestors rest in peace or otherwise.

You can read more here.

Robin