Gussied Up

The origin of "gussied up" is unclear, but it probably stems from the American and Australian slang term "gussie," a nickname for an effeminate or weak man, or someone overly focused on appearance.

And from there to the the adjective "Gussy" meaning overly dressed, which later became the verb "gussy up" (to dress or decorate elaborately) around 1906 in Canada and 1952 in the US.

Rubbish

 "If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you should feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants!"

~Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943)

Yet does not believe it dogmatically

 "The fact is you cannot be intelligent merely by choosing your opinions. The intelligent man is not the man who holds such-and-such views but the man who has sound reasons for what he believes and yet does not believe it dogmatically. And opinions held for sound reasons have less emotional unity than the opinions of dogmatists because reason is non-party, favouring now one side and now another.

That is what people find so unpleasant about it."

- Bertrand Russell, Mortals and Others, Volume Il: American Essays 1931-1935, On Orthodoxies (1933) p. 58. Image: Bertrand Russell, 1935.

Comment

Sounds like Eric Hoffer's description of The True Believer

I Blame The Editors

I blame the editors, I have for many years -- the ones who edit out our failings, our embarrassments, the faltering in the portrayal of our perfection. The result is that we don't want to look.

Looking at the arc of history, we have become (at least in our own minds) individuals without community, relying on our own judgement in a sea of competing narratives. At the same time, we are filling up the world, beguiled by comfort, and rather than venturing off somewhere when we can't stand one another, we have nowhere to go except to bump into one another on the path to cooperation or destruction. 

Shamati 206

 One will never ask about pleasure, "What is the purpose of this pleasure?" If even the smallest thought about its purpose appears in one's mind, it is a sign that this is not true pleasure, since pleasure fills all the empty places, and then of course there is no vacant place in the mind to ask about its purpose. If one does ask about its purpose, it is a sign that the pleasure is incomplete, since it has not filled all he places.

So it is with faith. Faith should fill all the places of knowing. Hence, we should imagine what it would be like if we had knowledge, and to that very extent there should be faith.

One Night Or Two Nights

 Passover (Pesach) is on the 15th night of the month of Nisan, which is the night of a full moon. The Hebrew calendar is lunisolar - months go by the phases of the moon around the Earth and years go by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

Nowadays, when everyone knows the time wherever they are on the planet, Pesach could be celebrated on one night everywhere. But in the days when people weren't sure what date it was, priests in Jerusalem would judge the date and send out the official news of the night of the new moon to the provinces, and people outside the capital celebrated two nights to be more sure they celebrated on the correct night.

UK Coal From Japan

 The United Kingdom imports coal products from Japan, specifically coke and semi-coke. In 2023, the UK imported approximately 616,000 metric tons of these materials from Japan, valued at over $250 million . 

Coke and semi-coke are processed forms of coal primarily used in industrial applications like steelmaking and chemical processing. While the UK has significantly reduced its reliance on coal for electricity generation - culminating in the planned closure of its last coal-fired power station in 2024 - it continues to import coal-derived products for industrial purposes.