I remember reading many years ago someone describing what would happen if a modern anti-ship missile was launched against a World War 2 battleship: after the explosion, a sailor would have to go out on deck and sweep up all the bits of the missile and dump them overboard and probably slap on another coat of paint. The point was that ships used to be massive floating armored installations, and thus required massively powerful incoming weapons to take them out, but more recent ships are lightly built and rely on active defenses (missiles and CIWS along with ECM) to avoid getting hit in the first place.
The war in Ukraine from time to time demonstrates this. For example, the Russians recently launched a “Lancet” loitering munition against a piece of Ukrainian artillery, an old Soviet-era D-20 howitzer. The advanced modern weapon made a direct impact… and blew out a tire. There is value in being built like an old cannon, it seems. The Lancet seems to use a warhead wrapped with bits of cut-up rebar; this doubtless does wonders against soft targets such as trucks and troops concentrations and playgrounds and hospitals and the like, but seems to do diddly-squat against actual armor. Other variants apparently include shaped charge warheads for use against armor; perhaps this was a failure of proper weapons selection.
That time was before beloved franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were converted into garbage message mechanisms for garbage ideologies. Now… anything that *might* be good is now viewed initially with skepticism, and more often than not finally with contempt.
So will “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” be any good? I have no reason for optimism. There are rumors that the plot involves time travel, and that the end of the movie has Harrison Ford’s Indy being erased from the timeline and replaced with Phoebe Waller Bridge as a female Indy. “The REAL Indy was a woman, all along!” This could be utterly wrong… but things have gotten so predictably bad that I won’t discount the distinct possibility.
For probably a quarter of a million years, the natural response to teenagers being moody, weird and uncomfortable in their bodies has been “Get over it, kid, it’s just a normal part of growing up.” Today, of course, we are now being informed in no uncertain terms that the proper response includes pharmaceuticals, hormones, massive life-altering surgeries including amputations and removals of evolutionarily vital organs and the celebration of contra-factual positions.
Canada is doing one better: making it not just legal, not just socially acceptable, but *praiseworthy* for teenagers who are depressed to seek out medical professionals to END THEM. The “MAID” (Medical Assistance In Dying) program is apparently advancing by leaps and bounds; it’s not just people with horrifying terminals illnesses that promise nothing but agony and degradation, but things as tenuous and potentially *temporary* as depression and PTSD. Something like 7.5% of the deaths on Vancouver Island are the result of doctors helping people off themselves.
Let Me Be Obama-Clear: if you want to off yourself, that’s your decision. If you are an adult of sound-ish mind and you don;t want to live on this planet anymore… it’s your life to do with as you please. Getting the government to help you out with that, though, gets a little weird. If you have a terminal case of explosive xenopolycythemic ass cancer eating you alive causing chunks of your flesh to drop off and detonate, then, sure, I can even get behind your decision. But if you’re just *sad?* If you are not yet an actual adult? Naw. There ain’t no role for the government helping out here, and a pretty big argument for the government trying to prevent that sort of thing.
The Canadian government getting involved here makes sense from a purely ledger-based point of view: make it acceptable and in fact praiseworthy for an increasing fraction of the populace to be euthanized, then you can go after the people you as a government *really* don’t want hanging around: those who consume but do not contribute. Elderly retirees living off pensions and social welfare. People in loony bins. The homeless. Criminals. Imagine a Canada where such people were peacefully marched into Carousel, never to be heard from or paid for again. From a bureaucrats point of view, it’s a spectacular system. (One wonder what happens when they realize what an economic drag “migrants” are.) From the point of view of a conscientious religious person, it’s demonic. From the point of view of a pragmatic skeptic, it’s equally horrifying.
Even Canadian clothing retailers are getting in on the action, producing public service spots extolling the virtues of ending oneself, with no actual valid reason given:
There are times when bringing on death is the proper course of action. But it is never a good thing; at best, it is merely the least bad option.
I don’t smoke. I don’t vape. And if I did, I would not have inhaled anything made in China. That decision came about well before I saw the video below, which purports to show the method of testing of vape products in a Chinese vape factory.
Gee golly gosh, it sure is a mystery how some epidemics seem to spread so quickly…
A day or two back I posted about “Established Titles.” In short… nah. I had wondered if the recent surge in interest in ET being less than entirely above-board might have some effect on any of the YouTubers who have been raking in sponsorship money from them… and lo and behold, one of the more entertaining YouTubers, “Casual Geographic,” posted this:
So as many of you have made me aware, a brand I’ve promoted twice has been exposed for pretty much being a scam (or at the very least, incredibly misleading). That’s obviously a massive failing on my part and on me and me alone. I can see now how the brand was meant to be intentionally misleading. For example, their website claims it’s a “fun, novelty product” but explicitly had us say things like “the first x people will receive a plot right next to mine” (which ,not gonna lie, should have been a red flag). Clearly implying that you’d be purchasing a physical plot of land, which clearly is not the case. So the two videos where I promoted them have been archived and I’m in the process of returning the money received from the partnership as well as cutting ties contractually. As soon as I can be sure I’m not in a position for the brand to come after me legally, I’ll repost them with the sponsored segments removed. I’m sorry for promoting what is essentially a grift and apologize to anyone that gave this brand money because they trusted me. Obviously it doesn’t really matter what my intentions were because either way I promoted it but I hope you all understand that I’d never willingly push a dishonest product and am genuinely sorry that I did.
Well done.
I don’t have much animosity towards those who were paid to promote this; the YouTube business model, much like the pre-Musk Twitter model, is seriously broken. Videos that could and should earn the makers *substantial* sums could and often did get demonitized on a whim, sometimes regularly; YouTubers who should make a good living by being entertaining and informative could find their incomes slashed due to false flagging and simple incompetence, with a heavy dose of shady politics. Thus it’s not unreasonable that they’d jump at the opportunity to sign on lucrative sponsorships, and the “buy a plot of land and be called a Lord” thing is sufficiently both weird and mundane that on first glance it probably seems fun and harmless.
If you’ve bought into Established Titles, or you “bought and named a star,” don’t feel bad. If you did so for the entertainment value, for the conversation value… then it’s worth what you feel it’s worth. If you bought in as an investment… well, that’s kinda dumb. Your financial planning is bad and you should feel bad. But speaking as a guy with a surprising number of toy spaceships and a vast number of model kits that will certainly never be finished, I’m not gonna knock someone for buying objectively useless stuff just because you want to. Where I get twitchy is when they sell it to you dishonestly.
Anyway good on Casual Geographics. I heartily recommend this feller. He talks about critters in a way that’s both informative *and* incredibly entertaining. A fair amount of nature red in tooth and claw, so be advised.
Oddly, the PBS special “In The Event of Catastrophe” from 1978 is age restricted. Click on it, it’ll take you to YouTube directly. Shrug.
“First Strike” from the RAND Corporation. A docu-drama depicting a Soviet first strike that effectively wipes out America’s nuclear retaliatory capability and leads to the capitulation of the USA. Bits of this were used in “The Day After” a few years later.
This one from the National Film Board of Canada runs kinda light on pointing out that the Commies are setting off the nukes. Instead, the nuclear explosions just sorta happen, some vague result of American actions.
And just for fun, here’s a German 1998 alternate history show (“Der Dritte Weltkrieg”) where 1990 goes a little differently:
Doutbless there are more than a few readers old enough to remember when “buying a star” was a thing. You’d send someone money, they’d send you a certificate telling you which of the bajillions of stars in the sky is now yours, and let you know that your name for it has been entered into some “star registry” or some such. I suspect most people of average-and-above intelligence knew that it wasn’t anything of any real seriousness; it had no force of law behind it and is wholly unrecognized by the International Astronomical Union. It was uncharitably a scam; charitably, a briefly amusing gag gift, maybe a nice gesture for a friend or family member.
Something similar has popped up in recent months: “Established Titles.” You can pay someone fifty bucks to buy one square foot of Scotland and call yourself “Lord” or “Lady.” The idea seems to have a *lot* of similarities with the star naming bit from decades past. I’m unschooled in British/Scottish law but I do know there’s this bit in the US Constitution:
Clause 8 Titles of Nobility and Foreign Emoluments
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
If I’m reading that correctly (who knows), this says two main things:
1) The UNITED STATES won’t issue titles such as “Lord” and “Lady,”
and
2) Nobody holding some sort of governmental office in the US will be allowed to accept such a title from a foreign power.
So (again assuming I’m reading this correctly), Joe Schmo can be freely granted a title of nobility from the Brits, no problem. But Representative Bill Yahoo or Senator Joe Schmuck is legally barred from doing so. It would, it seems, be a Federal crime for an officeholder to spend fitty bucks and buy themselves that one square foot. Shrug.
Me, personally, I’ve no interest in it. I’m an American; the basic idea of being called a “Lord” or being in any way associated with royalty is distasteful; any American who takes such a title seems to me to have something a little askew about them. But I have little problem with anyone else if they want to buy into this… just so they do so with adequate knowledge of what it really is.
YouTube has been *crawling* with “Established Titles” sponsorships for a few months now, rivaling the “World of Warships,” “World of Tanks,” “League of Legends” and “Raid Shadow Legends” sponsorships that lousy up so many videos. I’m just glad that YouTube has a fast forward function. > > > > Some YouTubers, though, are less sanguine about this. If you’ve been tempted to spend money on this, perhaps as Christmas gifts, maybe take a look. Some points:
1) These “souvenir plots” aren’t registered with the Scottish government, You don’t actually own the land.
2) You don’t actually become a “Lord” or “Lady.”
3) “Established Titles” is apparently a *Chinese* company. Send them $50, and you end up not actually owning a bit of Scotland, not actually being a “Lord,” and actually funding the Chinese Communist government.
Just try to imagine this happening in the US Senate or House of Representatives. We have much to learn from the enlightened citizens of Sierre Leone. I look forward with great interest to Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy throwing down. Of course this raises questions: would doing so be “cultural appropriation,” or would failure to do so be “cultural erasure?” Hmmm…
