Jul 092022
 

The sustainable cities made from mud

Where the BBC extols the virtue of buildings made from mud in a desert climate. “It is the architecture of the future.”

Every year the residents of Djenné gather together to repair and reclay the mosque, supervised by a guild of senior masons. … Everyone takes part. Boys and girls mix the mud, women bring the water and masons direct the activity. 

Because buildings that require the *entire* community, down to children, to labor to repair on an ongoing, annual and permanent basis… sure, that’s “sustainable.”

Much is made of the mud architecture of Yemen. Great. Ummm… what was the last great contribution to science or engineering or philosophy or medicine to come out of Yemen?

I imagine Britain will be seeing a lot of mud buildings soon enough. As modern Britain falls to the third world, the millions of invading colonizers will, after tearing down what the natives built over a course of centuries, construct their new mud-filled civilization using the wrack and ruin they stand upon. I’m not sure how great mud will be as a construction material on an island that gets fairly constant rainfall, but, hey, such questions are inappropriate in this new world of Other Ways Of Knowing.

 Posted by at 5:01 pm
Jul 082022
 

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been shot:

UPDATE: Not just “shot” but”assassinated.”

Shinzo Abe in Serious Condition After Being Shot

One hopes the security around members of the Supreme Court is on the ball.

 

UPDATE:

Japan ex-PM Abe assassinated while making election campaign speech

Attacker apparently used homemade gun – NHK

Huh. Abe was apparently shot *twice* with a homemade gun… so it clearly wasn’t an average zip gun.

 Posted by at 1:27 am
Jul 072022
 

First up, there’s this insanity:

Adults Who Still Drink Milk: Are You Okay?

Unless you’re a hungry baby, drinking milk on its own is unsettling behaviour.’

The British author tries to argue that milk is inappropriate for adults. The author only succeeds in demonstrating that she’s some kind of deviant perv. And as it turns out, the author looks pretty much like you’d expect she would. She seems about one face tat away from grabbing a rifle and going to a rooftop near a parade.

And then there’s this, also out of Britain:

Supermarkets put security tags on cheese blocks as stores tackle shoplifting amid soaring food costs

 

 

Ummm… are you ok, Britain? Things seem kinda wrong over yonder.

 

 Posted by at 11:12 pm
Jul 072022
 

 

Biden Sold a Million Barrels From US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China-Owned Gas Giant

At a time when gasoline is intensely expensive, selling gas to a foreign adversary seems a little weird. but then, there’s this “huh” detail…

Biden’s Energy Department in April announced the sale of 950,000 Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation. That company, which is commonly known as Sinopec, is wholly owned by the Chinese government. …  Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is tied to Sinopec. In 2015, a private equity firm he cofounded bought a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing. Sinopec went on to enter negotiations to purchase Gazprom in March, one month after the Biden administration sanctioned the Russian gas giant.

Huh.

HUH.

I kinda wonder who this would have gone over had it been Trumps kid…

 Posted by at 8:41 pm
Jul 062022
 

Two days after a looney bugman decided to shoot up an Independence Day parade, someone went and kerploded the Georgia Guidestones. If you don’t know what those were…  well, read up on ’em and marvel at the weirdness.

The Georgia Guidestones demolished after explosion ‘destroyed’ portion, GBI says

The lesson to be drawn:

 

And of course…

 

Not related apart from “what THE HELL is this noise?” The downfall of new York City continues apace as an old man (ah, crap, he’s younger’n *me*) is sent to jail because he defended himself against a violent assault:

Wild video shows NYC bodega worker allegedly stabbing man to death

New York City: not even once.

 Posted by at 7:09 pm
Jul 062022
 

Not lovin’ it! Fed-up Russians are served MOLDY burgers in their replacement McDonald’s restaurants after the chain left the country due to the invasion of Ukraine

Whoops.

The photos there are *not* appetizing. Of course it’s impossible to say that they are legit. All the photos there are closeups of moldy buns and insect legs in burgers and fries… none at least in that article show the food actually in context of being within the former McDonalds restaurants. The bug legs could be added in for effect; the burgers might be old. But it could all be honest reporting, too.

You wouldn’t think it would be *that* hard to maintain standards when you have the same facilities, presumably the same supply chain and presumably much the same staff. But I guess here we are.

 Posted by at 9:37 am
Jul 052022
 

So July 4 gave the media a new obsession… a mass shooting in Highland Park Illinois, just north of Chicago. Somewhat unusually, the shooter has been caught alive and uninjured, so this time they’ll at least be able to ask him why he did it. But I get the feeling that the answer will be something along the lines of God told him to do it by speaking through the neighbors dog. He’s got “crazy” written all over his face.

Inside the Sick Posts of July 4 Massacre ‘Person of Interest’

As yet there doesn’t seem to be a lot political there, just a bunch of random gibberish. He photographed himself wearing a Trump flag as a cape; he liked Biden posts. But the random gibberish comes off as someone whom the FBI and/or local cops should have been aware of. I suspect we’ll soon hear – quietly – that he was on the police radar, and that he was on psychiatric meds of some kind.

Interesting that just when the hoplophobes need to drum up fear of guns, the whackjobs come out of the woodwork to oblige.

 Posted by at 12:02 am