Well there’s yer problem

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Jun 212023
 

As is well known by now, Disney has been making a mess of many of the properties they’re in charge of. The Marvel movies/shows have plummeted downhill; Pixar movies stink; the endless CGI “live action” remakes are soulless cash grabs at best, and to all reports that forthcoming Indiana Jones movie is gonna be *terrible.* And then there’s the smoking ruin of Star Wars. Why is this happening? To an outsider, it looks a lot like sabotage… a vast organization that wants to tear down not only its own legacy, but poison the culture as a whole. That’s crazy conspiracy theory talk, of course. But then… there’s this:

Disney’s Chief Diversity Officer Latondra Newton Exits

The fact that Disney – or any corporation – has not just a “diversity officer,” but a *Chief* “diversity officer” is of course a stinging indictment about their wisdom and sanity. But there’s one line in the article that jumped right out at me:

Disney HR chief Sonia Coleman’s note to staff announcing Newton’s departure … She has been dedicated to ensuring every person sees themselves and their life experiences represented in a meaningful and authentic way.

Ah. No. That’s just… NO. Bad storytelling company. Bad. BAD.

I don’t want to see myself and my life experience in *any* sort of way in any sort of movie that Disney might make. I want to see stuff that would inspire me to emulate. I don’t want to see what I am; I want to see what I can become. Once again, there are two world views:

1: “Look, Captain Kirk is on TV. I want to be like Captain Kirk.”

2: “Look, Captain Kirk is on TV. I want Captain Kirk to be like me.”

Worldview #2 is the one known as “representation.” It is cancer. It should be mocked, spat upon, driven from polite society out into the wasteland to die shriveled and alone, huddled against some broken forgotten ruin of a statue of a long unremembered tyrant. “Representation” does not inspire people to greatness; at best, it inspires smug complacency. It does not bring people together; it only divides. Because if Person A finds themselves represented by Character A who shares all the “important” weird little identity politics quirks of Person A…  then Character A does *not* represent Person B who doesn’t share those quirks. Character A will only appeal to a thin slice of the audience… and then will not inspire those people to much of anything, because Character A tells them how awesome they Already Are. You don’t need to change, because you’re perfect just the way you are. (Unless, of course, you need to go on a risky series of hormone treatments and lop off your dangly bits.) And if Character A *doesn’t* share your identities, and in fact is quite different or even opposed, then you will feel outraged that someone isn’t catering to you.

So, yay for Disney getting rid of this one little symptom of the larger problem. Now get rid of the entire department, and let not the precepts of DEI ever be spoken of again.

 Posted by at 6:07 am

“The War Of The Rohirrim:” Well, I’m excited. Aren’t you?

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Jun 152023
 

In the appendix to the Lord of the Rings, Tolkein included a short story about Helm Hammerhand, a serious badass and one man wrecking crew who lived hundreds of years before the events of LotR. A few years ago Warner Bors annlunced that they were doing an animated film about the events described in that story… and as spinoffs of lotR go, that one made sense. it’d make a fun action flick, animated or no.

But wait. There’s less.

New Report Shows ‘The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim’ Will Inject Feminism Into Tolkien’s Classic Tale Of Helm Hammerhand

Basically: Helm Hammerhand, main character of the story… isn’t the main character of the story. Instead, it’s a female character who was so unimportant in the story that she didn’t even merit getting *named.*

The producer, one Philippa Boyens, claims that this effectively all-new character (named Hera, because the writers are such spectacular Tolkein experts that they know that the characters in Rohan are named after Greeks, not northern Europeans) is based largely on “Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians and daughter of Wessex king Alfred the Great.” OK, sure, great. It’s quite possible that a movie about Æthelflæd would be a spectacular thing. So… why not make a movie about Æthelflæd? Oh, right, because it’s easier to ride the coat tails of an existing property.

Who is this for? A movie about Helm would bring in the existing fans. This thing is likely to turn a lot of them away.

 Posted by at 8:01 am

Defining “Woke”

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Jun 062023
 

“Woke” has becoming an ever-present word in recent years, especially since the BLM/Antifa riots and city burnings of 2020. But what does it actually mean? The original meaning, apart from “past tense of wake,” as given by dictionary.com is this:

having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities

 

That meaning was used for some decades by those on the left, in particular black people. But recently the word has been taken up by people on the right as a term of disparagement, the second definition at dictionary.com:

Disparaging. of or relating to a liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially promoting inclusive policies or ideologies that welcome or embrace ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.
It’s that second definition that interests me. As written, it’s fair as far as it goes… but it doesn’t really go far enough.
“Woke” is kinda like “obscenity:” you know it when you see it. But a proper definition, reasonably accurate and objective, is important for all things especially when it comes to things that will be important for policy decisions. If some classroom assignment or book is “woke,” what does it really mean, especially if “woke” is meant to mean that it should be disallowed? The fact that some statement or book or person is an “inclusive progressive” is not sufficient to be defined as “woke.” To me, this seems better:
Disparaging. of or relating to a liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially promoting policies or ideologies that preference ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities and focus to an obsessive degree on largely or entirely imaginary oppression, threats, enemies or slights
A near-universal feature of someone that most regular people would look at and call “woke” is that they are multicolored, unhinged and divorced from reality. Often shrieking about how oppressed they are while their flags are flying from every government building for an entire month out of the year and they get to dominate any and all discussion, threatening the lives and livelihoods of those who not only express differing opinions, but who use “unapproved” words. it’s not about “inclusion” and “welcoming,” but domination and madness.
Thoughts?
 Posted by at 12:02 pm

Blog update

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Jun 052023
 

It seems that the issues that caused me to both ramp up use of Twitter and get the “backup blog” continue. It now appears that every weekend the servers at the hosting service get overloaded and I can’t log into the blog until Monday morning when the staff get in and clean things up. Last weekend was a three-day weekend, and the problem persisted until Tuesday. Consequently… no new blog posts on the weekend, it seems. So if you want to make sure to keep up with my thrilling adventures and opinions, this isn’t really the place for it. Instead:

https://unwantedblog.com/

The Unwanted Blog Twitter

 

 Posted by at 9:10 am

Target Targeted

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May 272023
 

It seems obvious by this point that a rational corporation would, when presented with the option of weighing in on politically decisive “culture war” topics, just stick their fingers in their ears and hum real loud until whatever -themed month it is ends, and spend their time trying to sell their normal merchandise to their normal customers. But, no. Due to the insidious and invasive influence of “woke” ideologies and diversity initiatives, companies have been led to believe that they *have* to build up their diversity social credit scores, or else… something.

Target stores are the latest to discover that attempting to appease a small group of weirdos ticks off a far larger group of people who don’t want to sterilize, mutilate and drive insane their children.A lot of customers have expressed outrage; a few by pestering the employees (these are just regular folk trying to earn a paycheck, leave ’em the frak alone); a few others by causing damage (come on, you’re not on the left… the law *will* go after you for vandalism). But by far, from Targets perspective the biggest threat to the corporation are the large number of customers who are simply not spending their increasingly thin dollars there. Apparently Target has lost about nine *billion* dollars so far. So Target has decided to move their displays of child-grooming-friendly products further back in the store where they’ll be less conspicuous. This, supposedly, is in response to threats to the stores, products and employees from customers who don;t like those products.

But now they’re getting threats from the *other* side… bomb threats from weirdos ticked off that Target is now attempting to appease right wingers.

 

You know who’s not getting bomb threats from *either* side? Companies that didn’t delve into goofy identity politics in the first place. There might be a lesson there.

 

Utah Target Evacuated After Reports of Trans Extremists Threatening to Bomb Multiple Target Locations for Removing Satanic Groomer Products

 Posted by at 8:32 pm

Republic? Democracy? Or something else?

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May 202023
 

So, what is the current form of American government? To the simple, it’s a democracy. To those who actually have *some* understanding of the theoretical workings of the US Federal government, it’s a representative republic. But to those who have watched how the Feds and a startling number of state and local governments work, a more accurate descriptor is one that most probably haven;t heard of… but rest assured, you *will* be hearing it a lot so long as the means of communications remain reasonably free and accessible:

Anarcho-Tyranny

Coined in 1995, “Anarcho-tryanny” is a form of government that is characterized by taking a hands-off approach to dealing with actual criminality at all levels… but exercising draconian oppression upon the average citizens. Sound familiar? Cities that let criminals loot and burn and protest and terrorize at will… but toss people who defend themselves into the hoosegow for show trials. States that do diddly to deal with gangs and murderers of all stripes, but ban common firearms and standard magazines. Federal law enforcement agencies that welcome in whole armies of invaders, and hire armies of armed bureaucrats to hunt down small business owners who might have made small mistakes on the deviously complex tax returns.

And then there are the “glowies.”

 

If you, as an average, law-abiding citizen who wants nothing more than to be left alone to live your life and pursue happiness, fear the government descending upon you more than the guy breaking into your car or shoplifting your store does… you may be in an anarcho-tyranny.

 Posted by at 8:24 am

A fair explanation of why Modern Trek doesn’t fit Classic Trek

 blather, Hmm..., science fiction  No Responses »
May 132023
 

Strange New Worlds’ Upgraded Tech Has a Canon Explanation

As readers of this blog are doubtless aware, I am unimpressed with Kelvin-timeline Trek and *especially* “Discovery” Trek. STD sucks on a whole multitude of levels, from bad writing and terrible characters, terrible politics and worse ideology; not a lot can fix that. But one thing that the article above *can* deal with is the fact that STD simply doesn’t fit canon-wise with TOS. And what is that explanation? Time travel. There has been a *lot* of time travel in Trek over the years. And Trek has demonstrated that changing the timeline is possible; the universe does not necessarily reset to some special chosen track.

So why does STD not fit with TOS? Because time travelers have mucked up the timeline and have, like in the Star trek: Lens Flare movies made post 2009, created offshoot timelines where things are different. And of course, if the relatively tiny groups of people followed int he shows and movies encounter time travel as often as they do, it’s reasonable to assume that the whole galaxy is filled with people and races constantly mucking up the timeline, unseen by Starfleet.

This seems like a compromise that trek fans should be able to accept: TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY were one timeline… one that got diverted for 2009 and again for STD. They are different canon. I’ve been saying *that* for a while, but here’s a fair in-universe explanation for it.

 Posted by at 9:54 pm

A light on the horizon

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May 102023
 

A new Supreme Court case seeks to legalize assault weapons in all 50 states

The Supreme Court could hand down a decision any day now in National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, a case that could legalize assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in all 50 states.

“Assault weapons:” Normal semi-automatic rifles

“High-capacity magazines:” the standard capacity magazines that come with the gun

Most of the article, apart form the above bit of Scare Text, is pretty straightforward. However, there’s this bizarre bit:

And there is good reason to fear that this Court could, at the very least, decide to make semiautomatic assault rifles legal throughout the United States.

“Fear:” a funny way to spell “hope.”

Anyway, “National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville” is on the Supreme Court “Shadow Docket,” which means they could issue a ruling without the usual trouble of oral hearings. This would speed things up a *lot.*

The concept of a Shadow Docket is a bit strange, and one I’m not entirely sure I’m entirely behind. However, I would accept any Shadow Docket ruling *IF* that ruling came down in favor of rolling back government power, impositions on the citizens or curtailments of rights. If s Shadow Docket ruling was in favor of the government, then it should automatically be set aside in favor of a full court proceedings.

 Posted by at 1:22 pm

Interesting times

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May 072023
 

Interesting times *here* and interesting times forthcoming. In the past day or so Texas has seen a mass shooting with 8 dead, and an SUV *apparently* intentionally rammed a group of “migrants” at a bus stop, killing at least 7. In both cases it appears that the killer was a narrative-busting Hispanic male. In the former case, the shooter has been ID’ed as one Mauricio Garcia… and HERE the narrative is being spun that this Hispanic guy, who had a prominently displayed tattoo for the “tango blast” Hispanic prison gang, was a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi. In the latter case the suspect has been arrested but not yet identified, but a potato-cam video of him being arrested *appears* to show a Hispanic guy, though that’s uncertain.

 

With hundreds of thousands to potentially *millions* of illegal aliens preparing to invade in the coming days and weeks, expect this sort of thing to only increase. You’ll get a vast increase in third-world cartel members in the US here to sow chaos, and who knows how many native Americans losing their minds and going buggo. When you couple that with the Just In Time For Summer deaths of a nutjob on a subway train in Manhattan and a thief in Oakland, BLM and related activists are getting ready to start up another summer of burning cities to the ground. Stock up on essentials while you can; if you live in cities, your favorite stores may well be ashes and bits of broken glass before you know it.

UPDATE: A photo reportedly of the SUV driver:

 

 Posted by at 8:14 pm

“2001” Laptop: TLAR 2

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Apr 282023
 

The tripod showed up. I do believe it is correct. Compare to the original prop. Here it’s fairly well hidden by the video camera, but the size seems about right in the case:

 

 

When extended one leg-segment, the top of both the prop tripod and the one on hand are right at the top of the opened briefcase lid.

 

 

Until I either find out what some of the remaining items are (the rectangular “buttons,” the TV screen, speaker cover, “light pen,” knurled knobs), this seems to exhaust my search for and procurement of vintage artifacts. However, the project proceeds. As can be seen, I’ve mostly removed the interior fabric liner and its card backing; that was some tough stuff. The boxes for the keyboard and the numeric/math board will be fabricated; this can be done pretty accurately given that I have the keys and fairly clear photos. The long space bar is going to be a challenge… the typewriter I have has one, and it’s in great shape… but removing it requires undoing some screws that I just can’t reach without an extensive disassembly of the typewriter. Instead, I think I can *just* manage to make a silicone mold of it in place and cast a copy right there.

Note also in the color photo of the prop: the keyboard is off-kilter. It looks like the bits and pieces were just placed into the case and not fixed down in any fashion. My replica will be different: the boxes and the phone will be designed to attach to a fiberglass board that fills the back of the case. There will also be something to attach the camera and the tripod to keep them from flopping around inside the case. Also note… there are no wires connecting the TV screen and memory components in the lid to the keyboard, phone and camera in the base. I suspect this was just a way to keep things neater for the prop (or even an oversight), but I would not put it past the prop people, or even Kubrick, to have made the decision to not have wires. Instead there might have been microwave, laser or radio links between the components. More complex, and needlessly so… but this was a world in which businessmen went to space stations to buy bush babies over the videophone and signed contracts on the moon with atomic-powered pens. So a laptop where the top and bottom communicated via Wifi rather than wires does not seem out of place.

 Posted by at 11:25 pm
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