“Seriousness of the charge” quote

 blather, history, Hmm..., politics  No Responses »
Dec 022020
 

I’ve seen these lines pop up here and there recently:

The seriousness of the charge mandates that we investigate this.
Or…
Even though there is no evidence, the seriousness of the charge is what matters–Thomas Foley (D, WA)

The sentiment there has been repeated, in spirit if not in exact quote, many times over the last few decades. Witness, for example, the sexual assault witch hunt against USSC nominee Kavanaugh, the insistence upon investigating Trump as a Russian assert. Both were claims asserted without evidence, both were taken seriously enough to consume months to years of effort by many, many journalists and investigators and politicians.

Now it is being turned around to justify everything up to an including negating the recent election, overturning the results and calling for a new one. Granted, that just ain’t gonna happen. But once you accept the notion that simply *claiming*  that A Very Bad Thing Happened mandates a full investigation and an assumption of guilt prior to an actual establishment of guilt, you can’t really argue that the claim that the election was fraudulent or tainted or stolen isn’t worth worrying about.

Thing is: I can’t quite seem to find a primary source on that quote from Rep. Foley. Closest I could find was this LA Times article from 1991:

“We have no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, but the seriousness of the allegations and the weight of circumstantial information compel an effort to establish the facts,” said House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) in a joint statement.

This was in reference to the conspiracy theory that Reagan & Bush delayed the Iranians turning over the hostages in order to win the 1980 election. This same line of thinking asserted without evidence that Bush hopped on board an SR-71 and used it as a private SST to get to Paris to negotiate with Iranians without being missed back home.

So are the Foley “quotes” at the beginning of this post accurate, or are they paraphrases of the “joint statement?”

 Posted by at 11:44 pm

Why do we need heroes?

 AARRRGH, art, blather, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., history, Hmm..., humor, politics, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 022020
 

Some might consider it sad that a drunk YouTuber knows more about not only the history of heroic literature, but also the importance of heroic myths and tales, than the “professional” story tellers who are paid to actually tell stories about heroes.

The video starts off with appropriately smartasssed mockery of some questionable decisions being made by major comic book publishers, then turns serious and thoughtful on the subject of what heroes our culture celebrates. This is a subject that interests me greatly. In my own dabblings with writing literature I almost never include a Lance Squarejaw action hero, but try to write more or less normal folk who try, to varying degrees, to do what seems to need doing. But so much of modern culture denigrates even that, mocking the very notion of the “hero.” The very traits that in past generations would be seen as not only heroic but necessary for a vital civilization are now “problematic” and “toxic masculinity.” John Wayne is despised while the media celebrates Ellen Page rebranding her/himself as Elliot Page. Restraint and rationality are sneered at while children twerking is touted as high art.

I used to love the show “Adam Ruins Everything.” But when he got to the episode on “Cowboys” and the conclusion that tales of a heroic ideal should be wiped form our culture, I was out.

 Posted by at 3:26 pm

“Lair:” this sure *seems* like a good idea

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, books, drawings, science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 012020
 

Amazon sorta randomly suggested a book to me:

Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains

I’m not generally an architecture aficionado, but somehow this does seem to kinda appeal to me. I suspect it’s the black and white diagrams, the sort of thing that has *always* appealed to me:

It sure looks interesting and well produced. but then you read the customer reviews and, man, some of them are brutal. It seems that for a lot of people the choice of silver ink on a black background was disastrous. Something that looks great in the photos apparently comes off as difficult to see in real life. This would not be the first time that a neato book project was damaged by a Cool Idea that turned out to not work as well as hoped.

Still… kinda interested.

 Posted by at 1:00 pm

If true…

 AARRRGH, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 012020
 

So, it seems that the Dominion voting machines that have become of such interest since Biden “won” the election… they’re apparently owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

THE CHINA CONNECTION: Parent company of Dominion Voting Systems Received $400 million from Swiss Investment Bank — 75% owned by the Chinese Government

“Staple Street Capital, which acquired Dominion Voting Systems in 2018…. On Oct 8, 2020, Staple Street Capital filed SEC Form D offerings and sales amount of $400,000,000 with the Sales Compensation Recipient identified as UBS Securities,” states the investigation, which also notes that another payment of $200,000,000 was received in December 2014.

And as for UBS Securities… they are 75% owned by the ChiCom government, 25% by a Chinese investment bank. But not being a business major… “Sales Compensation Recipient?” Does that mean “buyer,” “seller,” “loan shark,” what?

 

 Posted by at 10:54 am

Arecibo has collapsed

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., history, news, photography, politics, science, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 012020
 

Ain’t no repairing it. The 900-ton instrument platform formerly suspended near the dish’s focus by cables, has fallen.

Arecibo telescope collapses, ending 57-year run

This was an inevitable result of the National Science Foundations divestment from Arecibo funding, indicating a desire to decommission the place as far back as 2015. it is not now repairable; it is only replaceable. And it really should be: the Chinese FAST scope is bigger, but not only does it not have Arecibos radar capability (thus is can;t search for things like incoming asteroids), it has also been horribly mismanaged in the way that only greedy communists can do 9they built a cell-tower equipped tourist city right next to the damn thing).

So the question would be *where* to build a replacement. Might make sense to build on the footprint of the old, right there at Arecibo. But politically it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to help shove Puerto Rico out into the world on its own as an independent nation… it has been an unincorporated US territory quite long enough. No, it is time to do what should have been done in the seventies: build radio telescopes on the moon. SpaceX’s Starship program will, if it works, provide cost effective lift capability of the kind needed for such a venture.

 

 

 Posted by at 9:39 am

Will he be on the Biden cabinet?

 Hmm..., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 302020
 

I think he has some  ideas about how to order an economy to deal with the pandemic that would mesh well with BidenHarris’s goals for America.

 Posted by at 5:58 pm

APR: November 2020 rewards

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 302020
 

The rewards for APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers have been sent out. Included in the November 2020 rewards package are:

1: A diagram of a proposed DC-9 aft propfan research configuration

2: A Kaman K-Max brochure

3: A preliminary draft/outline for a report on F-108 employment

4: A CAD diagram of the M61A1 Vulcan

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 4:43 pm

Yay!

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, Forward!, humor, politics, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 292020
 

Professor Tosspot is back! It’s a review of the live action “Mulan” that Disney CCP excreted out onto pay-per-streaming a while back. I’ve got approximately zero interest in Mulan (haven’t seen it, don’t plan to see it, haven’t seen the original), but a review by the ol’ Prof is always worth watching.

 Posted by at 11:51 pm
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