These shows are, in retrospect, kinda silly (and often rather cringy… acting, stories, ham-fisted plotting, cardboard villains, over-reliance on stock footage, etc.). But the theme songs… they kick ass. Fight me.
Yeah, the 80’s weren’t perfect. But I dare you to suggest that any decade before or since has or will have such a plethora of pop culture monsters.
Honorable mention: missed it by 2 years.
One of the more imaginative and incredibly unlikely concept cars was the Ford Nucleon, a 1950’s idea for a nuclear powered car. Apparently this was pretty much a complete art and sales project, without much actual engineering; it was based on the notion that not only could nuclear reactors be scaled down small enough to fit in a car, they could be made not only wreck-tolerant, but that lightweight and virtually magical radiation shielding would be invented that would allow said reactor to hum away at full power mere feet from paying customers without roasting them or giving them explosive ass cancer. It was, let’s face it, wholly ridiculous… and entirely awesome.
Photos of models of the Nucleon have been available since the 1950’s, but diagrams have been lacking. An article posted online a few days ago included a few specifications for the proposed vehicle, finally nailing down some of the dimensions. And for reasons that seemed good to me (and which are probably obvious), I slapped together a quick side view. I think my side view is *reasonably* accurate based on numerous photos of the scale model Ford built and the dimensions given. What I’m not certain about is whether *Ford* truly understood their vehicle.
Here’s the side view using the 200-inch (16.7 ft) length specified by Ford, accompanied by two normal-sized humans:
The driver doesn’t even come *close* to fitting. So I scaled the Nucleon up until it seemed to look right, with the end result being that the car is now about 26 feet long:
That’s by no means a small vehicle… but then, it’s nuclear. Scaling it up by a factor of about 1.55 makes the cab big enough to fit actual full-size humans. But scaling it up that much makes the 77.4″ width (6.45 ft) into 120 inches, or ten feet. Good luck squeezing *that* onto the road; the Hummer H1, known as an uncomfortably wide vehicle, is a mere 87 inches wide.
Does anyone have any information to contradict and correct the Ford specifications? Or is it just another case of the art department kinda ignoring reality?
There are lots of “movements” that are kinda nutty. But outside of the religious or occult, it’s hard to get more downright delusional than “sovereign citizens,” especially the ones who base their bad behavior on patently ridiculous re-writings of history.
Short form: a member of a “Moorish” sovcit group broke into a woman’s home in New Jersey, changed the locks and claimed that it was *his* because, as a “Moor,” he has ancestral rights to all the lands in the US and doesn’t have to obey US laws. He apparently thought that that would be the end of it, that the rest of society would accept his actions and let him keep the house. This is not just wrong, it’s loopy and stupid; anyone with a functional brain would have told him:
The local police responded correctly: a bunch of guys with guns showed up to convince him of the errors of his ways. Fortunately they got him out without shooting up the joint.
I can easily see a lot of other homeowners being a whole lot less patient with this nonsense. It’s your home; I can’t imagine that there are legal issues with you breaking down your own door. If you break down your own door and find someone unwanted in your home, Castle Doctrine would now be in play, I would expect. If said homeowner is a popular person, gifted with many friends and family given to muscles and enthusiasm, the home invader may find himself in a spot of bother.
I had already heard about this news story before I heard it described on NPR today. Specifically, the tale of a militia that starts at about 1:38 in the recording below:
The story describes them as a “heavily armed militia…” and no further. This leaves the listener to make assumptions. And given that this is NPR, a normal listener will probably assume that these are Dangerous MAGA Folk.
And then there’s the CNN coverage:
This story *also* does not describe the “militia members,” or name the militia organization they belong to. They show no photos of those arrested. There are quotes from a MA state police spokesman where he says that the group is vocal online about their ideology, but doesn’t say what that ideology actually is. So once again, the reader is left to make assumptions. And given that this is CNN that has screeched to high Asgard about the dangerous insurgents who almost managed to topple American democracy without F-15s and nuclear weapons, the readers are doubtless meant to make a certain sort of assumption.
Buuuuuuuuuuttttttt…….
The video coverage available on the CNN page does make one tiny slipup. The coverage does not show video or photos of those arrested, nor does it describe the militias ideology. But the woman being interviewed manages to slip in the *name* of the group, though she gets it wrong. She calls it the “Moorish American Army,” but it seems their name is “Rise of the Moors.”
Huh.
Other sites actually bothered to dig a little deeper:
“Rise of the Moors” are one of those whackadoodle “Sovereign Citizen” groups. in this case, they are black supremacists who somehow think that they are immune to the laws of the United States, that the Moors got to America before Columbus and that that, somehow, exempts them from the law. The Moors, of course, were what medieval Europeans called North African Muslims… Berbers and Arabs and the like, not sub-Saharan Africans. So these folks are cultural appropriators if there ever were any, and they’re using that cultural appropriation to try to skirt the law. These are the folks who squat in abandoned (or just temporarily unoccupied) buildings and claim them for their own. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center has pointed out that these people are not exactly on the beam. They originated in the early 20th century from Yet Another Group Of Nuts who thought that their ancient ancestors were the Real First Americans.
What were they doing to get themselves arrested? They were traveling from Rhode Island to Maine (or back) to do paramilitary training and pulled over at the side of the road to refuel a vehicle. They carried spare fuel in onboard containers because they didn’t want to stop at gas stations in order to avoid raising suspicions…. which is weird, because they ended up pulling over on the side of the road in Massachusetts to do this while carrying long guns slung over their shoulders. Me, I’m cool with people open carrying… but Massachusetts isn’t. A cop saw a bunch of people at the side of the road in tactical gear (what do you want to bet they got it from Wish) with guns galore, so he pulled over to say “howdy” at which point a bunch of ’em scattered into the woods. This is *exactly* what you do if you want the fuzz to descend upon you en masse. These are not exactly the brightest bulbs in the box: racist, willfully ignorant of history and the law, cultish and just plain idiotic.
You’d think at least some of these details would be worth mentioning on NPR or CNN. I guess that goes against The Narrative, however.
I’ve never understood the adulation and exorbitant wealth that gets lavished upon some people who serve as entertainers. In particular, their thoughts on political or scientific matters; people who are professionals in running or beating the tar out of other people or picking up heavy objects seem unlikely sources of wisdom on more intellectual matters. But… this is the world we live in, so one must accept the reality of it.
Still, there are some athletes who are really quite awful people when it comes to their opinions and politics. There are athletes who want to burn the US flag on the Olympic podium; others who get pissy and stamp their feet when their own national anthem is played.
But then…
On the far left is the loser in the Women’s Hammer Throw of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials. She came in third and is annoyed that the anthem is being played, so she turned her back on the anthem, her team and her nation. But in the middle and the right are the first and second place winners, DeAnna Price and Brooke Andersen. Compare the losers petulant annoyance with DeAnna Price (from 2019):
Someone here seems like a happier person, less likely to be an insufferably fanatical wokescold, permanently angry about crap that happened centuries ago or because people believe differently than her.
Also, from the world of non-US athletes, showing US athletes how it should be done:
Usain Bolt. 2012 London Olympics. Interrupts interview to show Respect to The US National Anthem. THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!!! pic.twitter.com/myMmYnV52E
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@ilSharko) June 29, 2021
Hmmm…
“Those who say the blood of Patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government,” Biden said. “If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”
Considering that the whole point of the Second Amendment is to make sure the people can take on a tyrannical government, Biden just admitted that the National Firearms Act is unconstitutional. I *really* hope that this gets before the USSC.
I’d love to see “the Biden Act” get passed that wipes away all the nonsensical gun control laws and restores the Constitutional rights of the citizenry. The downside of that would be that the ammo shortage we’ve got now would be *nothing* compared to what it will be when people can go to WalMart and get themselves a full auto MP5, go to the gun range and blow through a few hundred rounds in under a minute. All thanks to one demented old kiddysniffer accidentally speaking some truth…
BIDEN: "Those who say the blood of Patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government.”
"If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons."pic.twitter.com/WVHUffpphP
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 23, 2021
The nation scrambled to buy F-15s and nuclear weapons after President Biden said in a speech Wednesday that you’ll never beat a government unless you have the fighter jets and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
All over the nation, American citizens were seen parking their brand-new F-15s in their driveways and garages. Some wealthier Americans purchased the F-22, while less fortunate citizens were forced to buy the F-35 joint fighter. But no matter what craft they chose, American citizens said they were just glad to finally be protected against a tyrannical government.
Image below not related. Or…. is it?
So apparently some kids set fire to a fireworks display at a HyVee in Eagan, Minnesota. I’ve seen fireworks fires before; when I lived in Colorado many, many years ago I came across the raging inferno that was a truck loaded with fireworks. It was a sight to behold, and the firefighters on scene did the only thing they could: stood the hell back. Fireworks come complete with their own oxidizer; you ain’t putting that ᛋᚻᛁᛏ out with water, believe you me. So when the HyVee fire started, an employee was spotted not doing a whole hell of a lot about it. Maybe because he couldn’t be bothered. And maybe because he was smart enough to know that there wasn’t jack he could do about it.
Side note: the news article I linked to points out that “youths” have been arrested for this. Hmmm. Eagan is part of Minneapolis, home of the Fentanyl Floyd Fires.
Photo at the link:
You can tell without even touching the link that this is the BBc because they insist on spelling “NASA” as “Nasa,” event though everyone else on the planet uses “NASA.” I imagine that the BbC has rules in place that they are supposed to use the preferred personal pronouns of everyone they report on, but for some reason they insist upon insulting NASA.
Bah.
And, oh, yeah, giant obsolete rocket.
So there I was yesterday, working on the computer, Buttons on a pillow next to me. As he often does, he was just laying there purring up a storm, happy to be alive and part of the team. Then suddenly, with no visible or audible prompting, he began growling and howling, raising a stink like he was *pissed.* His tail fluffed out. His eyes were wide open and dilated. This went on for seemingly forever, but probably around 15-30 seconds. Then… it stopped. Within a few seconds he was purring again… and drooling. Drooling *a* *lot,* for another quarter hour or so. Then everything went back to utterly normal.
Given how he was purring loudly at the time, I’m pretty sure he was awake when he went nuts, though he has been known to sleep-purr. But whether awake or asleep, it was *weird* to hear him pissed off. This is the first time I can recall *ever* hearing him actually angry; it’s just not his way. He is by nature a happy cat. I first thought that maybe he was in pain, something that came onto him suddenly; but poking and prodding afterwards elicited no pain response, and he has eaten and used the litter box just fine since then.
Another thought occurred: he’s around 12 years old, which is getting up there in years for a cat. Perhaps he had a senior moment… some form of dementia. A daydream of a threat, perhaps.
In any event: AAAAAAAARGH.
A New York City-based psychiatrist told an audience at the Yale School of Medicine in April that she had fantasies of “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.”
Dr. Aruna Khilanani spewed the race-hating virtual remarks … at the Ivy League institution’s Child Study Center on April 6.
…
“I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a f–king favor.”
There’s a lot of Really Interesting Opinions at that and other articles on the subject.
Her profile on the Independent Doctors of NY website seems, oddly, to have vanished. Fortunately, the internet never forgets, and archive.org has it archived from March and before:
Aruna Khilanani, MD, MA
Specialities: Psychiatry
Focus of Practice: Forensic Psychiatry, Grief, Self Esteem, Racial Identity
I am a female academic psychiatrist who has taught at Cornell NYPH, and run a process group for resident physicians at Harlem Hospital. I have a private practice in Morningside Heights of Manhattan, devoted to the treatment of mental illness, psychopharmacology, and psychotherapy. I am also a psychoanalyst. Here, I treat high functioning individuals who have jobs and significant relationships, but may struggle in certain areas that impact their personal or professional lives.
Also gives her address and phone number. Which I suspect will be changed soon, if not already. Now here’s the part that will shock, SHOCK, I SAY, you to your very core:
I completed a Masters of Humanities at the University of Chicago in critical theory, around issues of gender, race, sexuality, African American Studies, embodiment and class.
If you are one of those poor innocents who wonders why some people seem to be up in arms about “critical race theory” and are wondering why it should be excluded from government funding, programs and education… here’s why. CRT makes you racist, sometimes violently so.
Special Achievements/Awards:Arnold P. Gold Foundation: Gold Humanism Honor Society 2006
Golden Key Honors Society
Board Certifications:American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Forensic Psychiatry (Psychiatry and Neurology)
Somebody might want to look into those. A humanist fantasizing about genocide? Seems an odd mix.
An aside: is “psychiatrist goes insane and turns into a villain” a wider trope than just Harleen Quinzel? Of course given “Doctor” Khilananis course of study it seems she was cuckoo for CRT puffs before she started, so this seems to be more a matter of a loon taking up psychiatry.
