Nov 032022
 

David DePape is an illegal alien, having come from Canada through the Mexican border and overstayed his visa. But he was in California, a “sanctuary state,” and more specifically San Francisco, a “sanctuary city.”

I wonder if Pelosi will ever wonder if the immigration laws were enforced, maybe this wouldn’t have happened? But then, how can you possibly hold back the vast, virtually infinite tide of illegal alien nudist drug addicted BLM supporting pride flag flying hippie MAGA supporters? There are so many of them that they pose a threat to democracy.

Not a threat to democracy:

 

 

 Posted by at 3:02 pm
Nov 012022
 

This guy tells a joke, the short from of which is that learning about science in school is useless, because he didn’t become a scientist. Now it could well be that he doesn’t actually believe that; perhaps a longer video with more context has him redeem himself later. But the basic notion expressed here grates on me more than a lame joke by an unknown standup comic really aught to. It would be better by far for kids to learn about science and math and then have them not go into STEM fields, than to replace science and math with the latest trendy identity politics subjects. Because even if the kids *do* go into the fields of gender studies or LGBTQ studies or racial grievance activism… society is *worse* off. Learning math helps a kid order their mind. Learning science helps a kid learn skepticism. Learning critical race theory helps a kid become a racist monster. Learning about the latest innovation in pronoun-invention helps a kid become schizophrenic and sterile.

 Posted by at 8:20 am
Nov 012022
 

A Mil-8 got thwacked by a MANPAD and set alight. It flew in a controlled and sensible manner for a lot longer than I would have expected given that it seemed to be a raging inferno, but the end was kind of a bummer for the crew. I suspect the passengers were already out of the picture by that point. Gotta wonder why the pilot kept it in the air that long. I would have thought “Ground. Now.” would have been the overriding priority.

 

 Posted by at 2:00 am
Oct 312022
 

Back in the Bad Old Days, a whole lot of people were trapped as serfs. While not technically slaves, they kinda were… they were legally trapped onto a particular piece of property and had to work for the landowner (generally some flavor of “nobility”). You could get in a *lot* of trouble if  you just decided to get up and walk twenty miles away. It’s a good thing that that concept is dead and buried. Right?

Right?

Behold the “15-Minute City.” As described on Wikipedia, this is straightforward enough… a form of civic planning where the bulk of your necessities – groceries and such – are available within a short walk (you can walk there in “15 minutes”). It *sounds*… well, maybe sorta kinda nice enough, maybe, on a limited basis; probably more so for people who have never actually known wide open spaces, but there are of course large sections of urban areas where groceries and medicine and whatnot are *not* available anywhere near you. But whether it was the intention of the people behind it or not, the “15-minute city” concept is a lead-in to modern serfdom. Gentlemen, behold:

Anger after travel chief announces traffic filters are ‘going to happen, definitely’ ahead of decision

Mr Enright explained in the Sunday Times that the heart of the traffic filters policy was to turn Oxford into “a 15-minute city” with local services within a small walking radius.

The new traffic filters on St Cross Road, Thames Street, Hythe Bridge Street and St Clements would operate seven days a week from 7am to 7pm.

Two more filters on Marston Ferry Road and Hollow Way would operate from Monday to Saturday.

People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.

 

Translation: if this comes to pass, people within these “15 minute cities” will only be allowed to freely leave their plots of land 100 days out of the year by means of their own vehicles. Sure, you can walk out… but how far can you walk, carrying all your property? Sure, you can ride public transportation… which goes where it goes, not necessarily where you want to go. And I look forward to seeing people try to carry their beds and fridges and libraries on the bus. And sure, you can leave 100 days out of the year. Then 90. Then 75. Then 50. Then “papers please.”

The process seems to be to slowly acclimate Brits to accept that where they are is where they’ll stay.

Curiously, at the same time the British citizens are being trained to become sedentary, to reduce their horizons to little further than they could throw a rock (not that they’ll be allowed to throw a rock, of curse), they are also being trained to accept that an Englishmans Home Is Not His Castle:

Homeowners are being offered contracts to take in illegal Channel migrants as govt hotel bill rises to £2.4bn-a-year

As Britain continues to be colonized by military age males from the third world, Brits are being conditioned to not only accept these world travelers into their country, but into their homes. Right now the British government is attempting to get this done via bribery. When that fails to take care of the problem, I’ll but utterly unsurprised when eminent domain is used to appropriate second homes, unoccupied apartments and other currently-unoccupied places. And when *that* fails to solve the problem – and why the hell would it, as the British government would be throwing the door open to a full invasion, providing room and board to the latest waves of colonizers – then people who are deemed to have Too Much House will be required to share. Got a barn? Not anymore. Got a spare bedroom? Not anymore. Got a living room? Not anymore.

 

Haha. I got me a 3rd Amendment, chumps!

 Posted by at 11:59 am
Oct 282022
 

There are few facts as yet. Chief among the missing facts are the identity of the attacker and what his motives were. I suspect that those little details will determine if this becomes Big News or just sorta fades away.

Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attacked with hammer at home

Option A, this becomes Big News: the attacker will prove to be a whacko right winger

Option B, this fades away: the attacker will prove to be a left winger, or a drugged-up nut.

In either event: expect there to be a drive to further increase the security of government officials and their families. This security will doubtless extend to armed guards… armed with the sort of weapons that Speaker Pelosi would use the power of government to prevent *you* from having with which to defend your own family against hammer-wielding nuts.

 

UPDATE:

Well, here we go…

David Depape, Paul Pelosi Suspect: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

David Depape is a Berkeley resident. What are Depape’s politics and was he on social media? On a blog and website, he was fixated on censorship and made anti-Semitic comments. In one post, he ranted about government attempts to control information, calling for the arrest of journalists from prominent news organizations. Online records give Depape’s age as 42.

OK. In some ways, this guys *screams* Left Wing Nut… lives in Berkeley, sells hemp jewelry, hangs out with nudism activists. On the other hand, his views are straight out of Hollywood Central Casting for a Right Wing Nut… ranting about the Jews, Qanon, Covid conspiracies, Commies, Trump support, etc. There’s enough here to paint him as a Far Right Extremist, and so I expect that’ll be the narrative going forward. This story should thus now become Big News. Just in time for the election, as it happens.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:25 am
Oct 272022
 

I honestly have no idea what the future of Twitter and other online sewers holds… other than some glorious chaos.

Elon Musk fires Twitter’s top brass after closing $44 billion deal: reports

A source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety were fired. Musk had accused the three of misleading him and investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

Womp-womp.

I would expect to see a series of glitches. Musk has promised to can 75% of the Twitter workforce; I would be unsurprised if they try to sabotage the system on their way out the door. Of course, it is entirely possible that that 75% is made up entirely of B-Arkers, hired not to actually build the code of the app, provide tech support or run the required hardware, but to fill quotas and determine “policies.” The kind of people who banned Trump but kept terrorist groups from Jihadis to Antifa, don’t need to remain in their current position.

 Posted by at 10:01 pm
Oct 272022
 

Russia warns West: We can target your commercial satellites

Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, told the United Nations that the United States and its allies were trying to use space to enforce Western dominance.

“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Vorontsov told the United Nations First Committee…

It is impossible to know how much of that is bluster and how much is legitimate threat. It is the sort of risk that the DoD has known about for decades, every few years running some program or other to develop low-cost fast-reaction satellite launch capabilities in the event that a surge in replacement satellites (communications, recon, navigation) is needed. These studies blow a bunch of money, chew up a great many man-years, then get cancelled, resulting in paper and incomplete hardware. It may soon prove that the repeated lack of followthrough over a span of decades just might have been a mistake. SpaceX could doubtless throw up a number of replacements satellites, given time… but there would still be a span of likely months with a gap in capabilities. And who knows if there are warehouses of replacement satellites ready to go in the first place.

Bonus round: an attack on space infrastructure could be legitimately seen as an act of war. Loss of space superiority would be disastrous in case a full blown war breaks out, so a strike on satellites could easily result in a full retaliation.

Neato!

Remember just a few years ago, when the worst thing we had to worry about was mean tweets? Ah, good times.

 Posted by at 10:24 am
Oct 262022
 

It’s a long video, but it’s interesting to listen to an artist rail against AI text-to-image art generators. The guy knows that his field is as endangered as a factory workers; even if AI never get *quite* as good as human artists (doubtful), the sheer volume of art – images, music, videos, whole movies – will simply overwhelm the pitiful output that a finite number of humans can produce. Hell, my “War With The Deep Ones” stories, currently something like 400 pages, could be overwhelmed by ten thousand pages of adequate AI-generated content on the same subject in a matter of seconds. Once AI “writers” are there, I stand no chance of making a dime off fiction. I suspect it won’t be too long before “US Supersonic Bomber Projects” could be written and fully illustrated by an AI, with a thousand-page tome full of readable, factually accurate descriptions and beautiful general arrangements and inboard profiles and full-color 3D renderings. Humans like myself have some current advantages due to the fact that most of the archives are not scanned and available online… but *that* probably won’t last long. On the other hand… as AI start taking history-writing jobs away from humans, these humans will have neither the incentive nor the funds to go to archives or pay archives to scan stuff. So it may be that a number of archives end up closing the doors and turning off the lights due to lack of interest. And thus history that *could* be written won’t be.

Hmmm.

 Posted by at 7:25 pm