Is the EU a suicide pact?

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Jul 122023
 

Will Turkey Become a Member of the E.U. Now? Here’s What to Know.

If Turkey becomes an EU member, it will immediately be the most populace EU member, with about 85 million compared to second-place Germany with about 83 million (some sizable number of which are actually Turks). Those Turks would have the right to go anywhere in the EU and settle; any “migrants” who get to Turkey – certainly easier than getting to Italy or France – would immediately be able to go anywhere in the EU and live on the local taxpayers dimes. This will flood Europe with non-Europeans (even more so than is happening already) who have neither the desire nor intention of assimilating into the local cultures. As Turkey is officially in Asia, not Europe, being in the EU would be just weird regardless of all other arguments.

The Turks in the form of the Ottoman Empire spent the better part of a millennium invading and attempting to conquer Europe; their main remaining success is Turkish-occupied Constantinople. If the EU admits Turkey, that conquest could finally be completed, without the need to fire a single shot.

 

Turkey seems to believe that they will finally receive EU membership after agreeing to let Sweden join NATO. Which, again, is weird… the EU is not NATO, NATO is not the EU. But if they are correct… better by far for Turkey to be booted from NATO and Sweden admitted than to let the Ottomans conquer Europe at long last.

 Posted by at 7:34 pm

The Quiet Star Wars Failure

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Jul 102023
 

Disney has done some amazing things with Star Wars since buying the property. In short, Disney turned Star Wars from a license to print money into a series of disappointments and flops and failures. These are generally well known… how “Solo” was the first Star Wars movie to actually lose money, how the sequel trilogy PO’ed the fans and got progressively less profitable, how “Galactic Starcruiser” shut down after only a year, how the various TV shows have ranged from occasionally quite good to generally awful.

But then there’s “The High Republic.” This was a brand-new income stream for Disney, set 200 or so years before the movies. The Jedi were supposedly at their prime, the galaxy was at peace, everything was awesome, and Disney would make a mountain of money from the books, comic books, movies and TV shows set in that timeframe. Disney spent something like a billion dollars promoting “The High Republic”

Chances are pretty good you’ve either never heard of THR, or you’ve forgotten that it existed.

The video below goes through the sales numbers for the books and, wow, they’re bad. The best seller – the first book – sold over 150,000 copies. The latest book sold less than 10,000. Now, I’d be pretty pleased if one of *my* books sold a mere 9,000 copies. But then, unlike Star Wars, nobody knows who I am. Unlike Disney, a billion dollars wasn’t lavished on publicizing my books.

Even that initial 150K seems pretty sad when you consider that Timothy Zahn’s “Thrawn trilogy,” novels published in the early 1990s which revitalized Star Wars at the time, and which were “de-canonised” when Disney bought Star Wars, have sold five million copies. Specifically, they’ve sold five million copies *since* Disney bought Star Wars. The Thrawn trilogy sold something like *fifteen* million copies before that.

The thumbnail image chosen for the video below is appropriate: it shows what I presume to be one of the main “High Republic” characters complete with a  modern Mental Illness Haircut. That’s who they marketed to, not the existing Star Wars fanbase. So they didn’t get the fanbase interested. One of the main authors actually told the potential customers that if they didn’t like her hyperactively leftist politics, don’t buy her books. “Okey-doke” the fanbase said.

Me? If you agree with or disagree with my politics… buy my books and other publications. If you like aircraft and/or spacecraft, you’ll like what I’ve produced. My politics and your politics will barely enter into it.

 Posted by at 11:22 pm

The worst “Star Trek” piece you’ll read today. Or likely any day.

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., history, Hmm..., Meh., politics, science fiction, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 092023
 

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Introduces Another Love Interest for Kirk That Still Isn’t Spock

The whole thing is some weirdo perv’s bleating demand that Kirk and Spock be made gay, because reasons. These people are sad and pathetic, but unfortunately they often have the ears of those in charge. Consequently, they often have the power to see to it that beloved cultural icons – Luke Skywalker, Jean Luc Picard, Indiana Jones – are converted into sad pathetic wretches, their legacies trashed and trod upon. The purpose of doing so falls somewhere between “the narcissism of a mentally ill person” and “the need to see civilization destroyed.”

One of the “arguments” that is made is that Kirk was a “lothario,” a “womanizer” who was nailing any female alien who wasn’t nailed down. And that is kinda the reputation the character has. However, if you look at his actual history of romancing the women on the show, there’s a whole lot less of it than you  might remember. From HERE: a list of Kirks love interests. I’ll trim out the non-canonical stuff from the nuTrek movies:

Ruth (Star Trek: TOS, “Shore Leave”): she’s not real, but a robot made in the image of a *past* romance of his.
Dr. Janice Lester (Star Trek: TOS, “Turnabout Intruder”) : a *former* interest of his. No interest in the episode.
Dr. Carol Marcus (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) : a *former* interest of his. No interest in the episode.
Doctor Janet Wallace (Star Trek: TOS, The Deadly Years) : a *former* interest of his. No interest in the episode.
Lt. Areel Shaw (Star Trek: TOS, “Court Martial”) : a *former* interest of his. No interest in the episode.
Lenore Karidian (Star Trek: TOS, “The Conscience Of The King”) : ok, kinda
Edith Keeler (Star Trek: TOS, “City On The Edge Of Forever”) : Ayup
Miramanmee (Star Trek: TOS, “The Paradise Syndrome”) : Ayup, though his memory has been wiped. Is it really *him?”
Shahna (Star Trek: TOS, “The Gamesters Of Triskellion”) : Ayup… but is it real romance, or a means of escape?
Antonia (Star Trek Generations): his off-screen wife. Is it “womanizing” to get married?

Not in that list:

Dr. Gillian Taylor (Star Trek IV): Flirts, but seemingly goes no further than that. For the purposes of saving the world.
Yeoman Janice Rand (TOS: “The Enemy Within”): Sorta. the “evil” Kirk assaults here. So, ummm…
Lt. Marlena Moreau (TOS: “Mirror, Mirror”): Kinda. Alternate universe, he plays along with the Mirror Kirk’s relationship as a way to survive/escape
Sylvia (TOS: “Catspaw”): not really… he puts the moves on her as a way to escape
Dr. Miranda Jones (TOS: “Is There In Truth No Beauty”): Naw… he flirts a bit, but gets nowhere.
Rayna Kapec (TOS: “Requiem for Methuselah”): Ayup: he falls for and puts the moves on a robot.
Elaan (TOS: “Elaan of Troyius”): Not really… he is *drugged* and mind controlled.

So by my count, there are approximately four “Ayups” in all of Star Trek. Does getting lucky four times (and it’s not entirely clear he actually got *that* far with any of them) over a span of 20 or so years make Kirk a “womanizing” “lothario?”

But more than that: there are around a dozen and a half examples of Kirk being interested enough in a woman to do something about it. In all those episodes and movies, there are zero incidents suggesting he had any such interest in a *male.*

 Posted by at 11:44 pm

Chernobyl 2: Radiological Boogaloo

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Jul 052023
 

So the Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are gonna blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and then blame it on Russia. That’d certainly be a neat trick for the Ukrainians, since the Russians occupy and control the place. Ukraine claims the Russians are going to blow it up and blame it on Ukraine, but it seems that the wind would tend to blow the fallout into Russia.

Ukraine, Russia accuse each other of planning to attack Europe’s biggest nuclear plant

There have been two similar “false flag” attacks in this war: the Nord Stream pipeline and the Kakhovka dam. Small problem… sober analysis seems to indicate that both of those were destroyed by incompetence and/or neglect rather than direct action. But the nuclear power plant is shut down; it should be nicely inert. So if it explodes… somebody exploded it. Who is more likely to do that, Ukraine or Russia? Ukraine could probably only pull that off with some sort of major assault… a lot of troops, planes and armor, aided by HIMARS and the like raining down. While possible, that could hardly be disguised as a Russian attack. And of course, Ukraine wants the reactor back. It’s theirs, after all. Never mind the environmental devastation of its destruction, it’s worth a bucket of cash. Repairing it would be cost prohibitive, and resuming power generation would be an economic boon.

On the other hand, the Russians could well have mined the place. At the push of a button their could turn it into garbage.

Why would they do something so crazy? I dunno. Ask Prigozhin. Why do Russian military/political leaders do *anything,* and is there anything resembling reason, logic or sense to it?

If it happens… things will likely get sporty. An attack on Ukraine is not an attack on NATO. But intentionally causing a reactor meltdown or setting fire to spent fuel rods? That *might* send clouds of fallout over Germany, Poland and the like. They could consider that a radiological attack, and might invoke Article 5. And then it’s NATO vs Russia.

 Posted by at 10:56 pm

WW84: Three or so years later…

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, Hmm..., Meh., science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 042023
 

That movie was utterly forgettable. Why bring it up? Because I was reminded of the trailer for the movie, went and watched it again, and checked out the comments. Grok.

Me after the trailer: “Life is good.” Me after the movie: “…that could’ve been better.”

 

Say what you will about the movie, but we can all admit this trailer is a masterpiece.
Whoever edited this trailer deserves a raise. I don’t know how you made that disaster look so badass here.
You can say anything about how bad this movie is, but this trailer is a piece of art. Perfect music, perfect editing, its sells the movie like no other trailer in recent memory. Two years later I still come back to it and have goosebumbs all over by body.
It’s like watching your wedding video after filing for a divorce.

 

Near the end, when the beat perfectly matched the Phalanx systems firing? Followed by Wonder Woman swinging through the sky by lassoing *lightning?* Utterly silly… and entirely awesome and badass. And then… the movie came out and it was forget-a-mess.

 Posted by at 11:42 pm

Red Rocks

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Jun 222023
 

The Red Rocks Amphitheater in the foothills west of Denver is a neat place. While I never went there for a concert when I lived in the are in the late 90’s, I went there often enough to hike around and test liquid biprop rocket engines in the parking lot when security wasn’t looking (what, was I going to test them in town? Don’t be silly). Along with concerts, something else I never experienced there was a hailstorm. Having seen the videos from last night, I’m just as glad that I missed out on that.

 

 

 Posted by at 8:52 pm

Keep your head on a swivel

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Hmm..., wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 192023
 

This video hit earlier today. It *appears* to depict (because it might be staged) a family at a gas station; as the video begins, the father, pumping the gas, is apparently acting strangely. It transpires that the father has seen something concerning, so he’s getting the hell out of there ASAP. Some commenters have suggested that he’s “fragile” or over reacting.

 

Over reacting? Well, maybe. Having seen the following video that came out later on the same day… the importance of situational awareness is driven home pretty clearly:

 

When it’s just you, being alert is important enough. When you have family depending on you…

 

 Posted by at 11:27 pm
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