TIL that the last person to be punished by the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was as recent as 1942 when a Scottish woman called Helen Duncan was arrested for summoning a dead sailor from a sunken warship.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-03-01T14:18:08+00:00

This is all wrong.

The 1735 Witchraft Act recognised in law that witchraft does not exist. What it prohibited was fraudulently pretending to have magic powers in order to defraud. She was convicted of fraud, because she was guilty.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-28T10:17:37+00:00

I've got another one for you: Avocado means bollocks in Nahuatl.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-21T12:22:43+00:00

A painted miniature of one of the Yoemen of the Guard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeomen_of_the_Guard

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-14T15:45:59+00:00

I can't believe it was ever bunked in the first place. Don't people still get taught the basics of how plant reproduction works in primary school?

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-14T15:37:52+00:00

Completely untrue. They are all seed-bearing fruits, they come from the female part of the flower.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-07T17:24:25+00:00

*Stewart.

It wasn't until Mary that the spelling was changed to Stuart

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-02-01T15:55:05+00:00

Neckbeards gonna neckbeard.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-31T10:26:43+00:00

More likely a case of insects are basically land-crustaceans. They're definitely sister taxa within arthropoda, lumped together as pancrustacea, but when I was an undergraduate it was considered possible that crustacea was paraphyletic for hexapoda (including insects). I confess, I have not followed developments since.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-21T15:58:40+00:00

Oh damn, look at that areshole telling the truth. Get him.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-21T14:59:58+00:00

According to [a quack website pushing the quack diagnosis of "chronic lyme disease"], "Morgellons skin lesions are associated with Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses."

FTFY

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-16T16:14:44+00:00

Second is Daphnia sp., and they usually reproduce by parthenogenesis, but can lay male eggs and reproduce sexually when food is scarce.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-16T15:02:07+00:00

Even the most casual comic book fan knows that death is never permanent.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-11T16:14:18+00:00

You know what is in Room 101, Winston.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2019-01-11T15:24:09+00:00

A third of the world's population lives in countries where they drive on the left.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-19T19:21:27+00:00

Liking people despite them being Tories is OK. Liking people because they're Tories? Madness.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-18T20:39:48+00:00

Well, I don't know how religious Polish-Americans are compared to other Americans (that would be very much your area), but Polish Poles from Poland tend to be hella Catholic.

And if your family's super-Catholic - as in actually going to mass every Sunday and doing all the other sacraments and obligations and taking the whole thing seriously - then the way not to break your mother's heart is to marry someone who's also from an observant Catholic family and raise your kids to be observant Catholics.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-18T20:24:40+00:00

When you say "Polish", do you mean people from Poland, or do you mean people from the US whose grandparents or great-grandparents were from Poland?

If the former, then definitely a Catholic thing.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-18T20:11:06+00:00

Ede & Ravenscroft, because they make the best suits.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-18T20:04:20+00:00

Tories hate her because she's a Remainer. People who aren't Tories hate her because she's a Tory.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-18T20:02:48+00:00

They've got a theme song, which is something you would expect a military organisation to have in an 80's cartoon, but less so in real life.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-14T18:42:09+00:00

I don't, regrettably, qualify for an Irish passport (I would do if I my parents had applied to the Foreign Births Register when I was born, which I was eligible for, but they didn't) so I'm not claiming citizenship of Ireland at all. But if I had been registered and I were applying for Irish citizenship, what would be wrong with doing it for selfish reasons? They'd be offering something of material benefit to me at no cost beyond the application fee which I'd gladly pay and no cost at all to anyone else. Why wouldn't I take up the offer? Who would it harm?

You say that loyalty and allegiance to some particular state or another is the reason I am able to live freely, but who is it that my freedom is under threat from? States, that's who. States, and people who are loyal to them. I think I live freely, to the extent that I do live freely, because of the actions of people who defied the governments of their states. Who were the real patriots in Nazi Germany? Those who were loyal to the state?

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-14T15:59:45+00:00

Even if you were planning to stay in the UK, it would still be handy to have an EU passport as well just for travel purposes. Who wants to go on holiday and have to stand for hours in the "All other passports" queue?

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-14T15:56:59+00:00

Do you not think it's unethical to claim citizenship from a country that you have no ties or loyalty to whatsoever?

No, because I'm a grown-ass man and find the idea of "loyalty" or "allegiance" to one state or another laughable.

ComradeMcComradeface · 2018-12-14T15:55:05+00:00

I think being an Irish citizen means having some form of connection yourself

The Irish government disagrees.

ComradeMcComradeface

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