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S.1911 – Flag Protection Act of 2005

 Forward!, history, Hmm..., politics  4 Responses »
Dec 022016
 

A few days ago I called out President Elect Giant Middle Finger for suggesting in a  tweet that there should be legal consequences for flag burners. Well, looky here:

S.1911 – Flag Protection Act of 2005

“(c) Flag burning.—Any person who shall intentionally threaten or intimidate any person or group of persons by burning, or causing to be burned, a flag of the United States shall be fined not more than $100,000, imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both.

Hmmm. Now, I wonder who might have sponsored that bit of (ultimately failed) legislation.

Sponsor: Sen. Bennett, Robert F. [R-UT]

Cosponsor Date Cosponsored
Sen. Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY]* 10/24/2005
Sen. Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] 06/27/2006
Sen. Carper, Thomas R. [D-DE] 06/27/2006
Sen. Pryor, Mark L. [D-AR] 09/28/2006

Hmmm.

HMMM.

Now, one might argue that the caveat here is that the law specifies that the flag burnin must be done as a threat or form of intimidation. Well, guess what: like being offended, intimidation is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. If you burn an effigy of *me,* I could take that as intimidation. Well… as an American, I could interpret burning a flag as a symbolic burning of the US, which means you’re burning all of the US in effigy, which I could theoretically take as intimidation. Plus, there’s this:

“(b) Actions promoting violence.—Any person who destroys or damages a flag of the United States with the primary purpose and intent to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace, and under circumstances in which the person knows that it is reasonably likely to produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace, shall be fined not more than $100,000, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

Burning a flag is free speech. But it is arguably also “fightin’ words.” If you burn a flag within sight of a veteran, for instance, chances are good he’ll take the opportunity to apply boot to ass… and you know this. So if you burn a flag and get your ass handed to you by a PO’ed biker, under Angry Grandmas Flag Burnin’ Law, you could *also* get fined a hundred grand and tossed into the hoosegow for a year.

 Posted by at 12:38 am

Guess what’s racist *now*

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, THIS is why Trump won, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Dec 012016
 

If you said “overpriced impractical skivvies for hot chicks, non-hot chicks who think they’re hot chicks, and exceedingly creepy dudes,” then step up and collect your prize!

Victoria’s Secret Accused of Featuring ‘Racist Lingerie’ in Fashion Show

Featuring everyones favorite new form of social justice warrior idiocy, “cultural appropriation.”

Sadly, the original Cosmo article…

Why Can’t Victoria’s Secret Stop Designing Racist Lingerie?

… seems to have been dumped down the memory hole.

 Posted by at 11:31 pm

Religions, meet ET

 Hmm..., religion, science  26 Responses »
Dec 012016
 

Here’s an interesting, if brief, piece on how various religions might handle intelligent aliens showing up:

How Will Our Religions Handle the Discovery of Alien Life?

For each of the rather few religions described, two reactions are described:

  1. Can the religion handle the idea of intelligent aliens
  2. Will the religion try to convert the aliens

The Buddhists, for example, are presumed to be perfectly cool with the idea of ETs, and will not be overly interested in converting them. Jews will accept aliens just fine, and have no interest in converting them. Muslims will accept aliens, but *will* want to convert them. Creationists will have some serious difficulty in accepting aliens. Catholics seem to be a mishmash.

Not listed: Mormons, Hindus, Shinto, standard Protestants, various pagans. And then there are the newage religions, the modern UFO cults, the Scientologists.

Feel free to speculate away!

 Posted by at 5:23 pm

XP-82 Twin Mustang

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, news  5 Responses »
Dec 012016
 

One of the odder aircraft to see combat was the Twin Mustang. It originally began its life as a design for a long range escort made from two P-51 Mustangs joined by a common wing section, but by the time it flew a number of other major changes were made so that its, strictly speaking, not *exactly* two Mustangs joined together. It served well enough in Korea, but it was a piston plane in the era of jets, and was obsolete almost immediately.

Fortunately, one of the XP-82 prototypes is being refurbished with the goal of making it flight worthy. Unclear if they would actually fly it; I’d be a nervous wreck if I was involved in the project and someone decided to take it into the air. Still, if they do so it’d be a hell of a sight to see.

XP-82 Twin Mustang Restoration Project

 Posted by at 1:14 pm

Clone Troopers

 critters, Hmm..., news, science  2 Responses »
Nov 292016
 

Two caveats:

1) It’s from the Daily Mail

2) It’s from Russia

So accuracy is not assured.

The CLONED dogs of war: Russia unveils genetically-enhanced canines which will work with Putin’s Special Forces and were created by scientist attempting to restore woolly mammoths

The notion of cloning special dogs for certain roles is interesting, but it’s very likely to be of dubious practical value. The utility of a dog for sniffing out drugs or explosives comes down to their breed and training, and cloning does frak-all to pass on training for anything more advanced than a flatworm. And if you happen to like a particular breed, there are easier ways than cloning to get more of ’em. A male and a female, some mood lighting and Barry White playing over the kennels PA system would not only be sufficient, it might be argued as being a bit excessive for the goal of getting more of that breed.

And cloning is still a sufficiently new practice that it’s not at all clear than the clones will be as healthy or long-lived as the original.

 Posted by at 11:08 am

That’s… not how the Constitution works

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., politics, ಠ_ಠ  14 Responses »
Nov 292016
 

Trump suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags

Sigh.

Flag burning is a Supreme Court Ruling Protected form of free expression. It may be rude, it may be dumb, it may be offensive… but that’s what the 1st Amendment is *for.*

 

 Posted by at 10:58 am

EM Drive

 Hmm..., rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  7 Responses »
Nov 292016
 

I’ve not devoted much cogitation to the EM drive, mostly because it just strikes me as bunk. There has recently been some renewed interest due to the appearance of a peer reviewed paper that seems to back up some of the claims… but when the thrust level for 100 watts is measured in *micro* newtons, I just can’t scrape up much interest. Especially when the guy behind the idea was claiming that it would be able to power flying cars (capable of VTOL) and space launch boosters, requiring an improvement in T/W on the order of ten to a hundred MILLION times. And, oh yeah, overturning the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever something claims to do that, I tend to tune out.

If the EM drive actually works (and it seems more likely that it works like a radiometer), then it’s kinda like everything else that has ever been touted as actual functioning magic. Yeah, sure, great, you can bend that spoon with your mind. But look at the effort required; using magic, you’re doing it the hard way.

Here is a good if lengthy explanation of why the EM drive most likely doesn’t work, and even if it did, why it sucks:

 Posted by at 2:45 am
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