Apr 032022
 

The video in this news piece has it all:

A month ago I mentioned (I think… that was a lifetime ago) that I thought it odd how tolerant the Russian soldiers were of Ukrainian civilian protestors. That has clearly come to an end. With Russian military defeats, failures and frustrations, the soldiers are falling back on old school barbarism… rape and murder on a virtually industrial scale. Once again, reality teaches us that people who screech about Nazis are not to be trusted… they stared into the abyss and the abyss didn’t just stare back, it moved in and set up shop.

 Posted by at 12:52 pm
Apr 012022
 

Some good news.

Buddy the cat officially upgraded to stable condition

Still no identification of the two responsible. This is likely due to them being juveniles, what with the judicial system erroneously believing that there’s some fundamental shift that happens when someone magically flips from “child” to “adult.” Even if these people cannot be help to account by the legal system, I would think it advisable for the public to be made aware of who they are so as to keep their pets, children and *jobs* away from them.

Once they are pout of whatever slap-on-the-wrist imprisonment they’ll get, they should be strongly encouraged to travel the world and never come back.

 Posted by at 2:26 am
Mar 312022
 

Bruce Willis *used* to be a Big Movie Star. He used to star in giant films, making buckets of money. But in recent years he’s largely kept himself to low-to-no budget terrible films, usually showing up for only a few minutes of screen time (long enough to end up on the DVD box art as a major selling point). And even then, his acting has been lackluster in the “I don’t give a crap” or “just phoning it in” variety.

Well, I guess now we know why:

Bruce Willis diagnosed with aphasia, ‘stepping away’ from acting, family reveals

Aphasia affects a personas ability to communicate and understand communications. People can start throwing unrelated words into sentences, sometimes gibberish words; and sometimes they lose the ability to communicate entirely. It sounds awful. And it’s the sort of thing that would make an actor… no longer a *good* actor.

Aphasia usually pops up after a stroke or other brain injury, but perhaps it can also sneak up slowly. If that’s the case, perhaps that’s why he’s been in so many films that honestly didn’t demand – or get – much from him. Looking at his IMDB page, he still has a lot of these Z-grade movies in development; the last major films he was in with sizable roles seem to be “Death Wish” from 2018 and “Glass” from 2019. Curiously, the last movie on the list, “Paradise City,” currently in post-production, had a respectable $20 million budget and Willis is the lead.

 Posted by at 11:11 am
Mar 312022
 

There’s a lot stupid about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The fact that it happened in the first place, of course. The fact that there are so many people in the west who think Putin is anything but a cheap villain. The use of inadequate weapons. The lack of preparation. The lack of logistics. The failure to dominate the skies first. And on and on and on. But this… this is on a whole new level of mind-boggling stupidity.

Russian Troops Suffer ‘Acute Radiation Sickness’ After Digging Chernobyl Trenches

And…

Workers at Chernobyl site say Russian soldiers drove through the highly-radioactive ‘Red Forest’ with no protective gear

Is the Russian leadership *trying* to destroy the Russian military?

Forty years ago, when Soviet missiles were pointed almost directly at my head, I would have cheered on Soviet soldiers being abused and wasted in this fashion. Now it’s just freakin’ sad.

 Posted by at 10:56 am
Mar 282022
 

Doomcock goes off about Will Smith’s coarsening of culture and suppression of speech:

There remains doubt over whether the slap was real. Both of those involved are actors, both have had action movie roles; both could doubtless have faked this successfully. But it *looked* real… looked real enough that the intent was to make it seem real. If it had been done as a joke, it would have come off as a joke, but it comes off as exactly what it seems. But real or not, the intent was to show that if you say the wrong thing, it is valid for someone to try to physically harm you. This is a Bad Message, but it’s one that many extremists in society today can get behind. This incident, if Will Smith goes unpunished (as it seems he will), can only lead to more violence against not just standard comedians, but especially those who traffic in political humor.

At least there will be some good jokes to come from this:

 

 

 Posted by at 5:28 pm
Mar 272022
 

… to keep the Oscars weird. This *seems* like it’s an actual example of him losing his cool and committing assault live on TV. It looks kinda like a scripted joke until he gets back to his seat and starts yelling FCC-unapproved profanities at Chris Rock. The problem seems to be that Rock made a joke about Jada Smith being bald, which is not a fashion choice but a medical issue and Will Smith – who initially laughed at the joke – apparently decided to leap to violence.

Ricky Gervais wasn’t the host, so I didn’t care to watch the Oscars (honestly… who does anymore?). But the YouTube algorithm decided that I needed to see this, so, so do you.

 Posted by at 10:40 pm
Mar 252022
 

Great-grandmother charged with second-degree murder after 7-month-old killed in Georgia dog mauling

Lots of “wrong” in this story. but what jumps right out at me: the “great grandmother” here is FIFTY SIX YEARS OLD. mean an average age at spawning of about 18. Certainly not historically or biologically unreasonable… it just seems weird and unwise.

Also what jumps out at me: the great-grandmother was attacked by the dog as well… and the dog wasn’t *her* dog. Important details are left out of the story, such as what the frak happened such that *she* is getting charged with murder for someone else’s dog going buggo on a baby.

 Posted by at 6:54 pm