I posted a reply and was *instantly* locked out for twelve hours. Why? Because I pointed out that in Star Trek, society is post-scarcity (not socialist, as was claimed by the guy I was replying to) and that mental illness is largely a thing of the past (as evidenced by “Dagger of the Mind” and “Whom Gods Destroy”) and the whole gender madness we’re currently experiencing is long past (see “Enterprise” episode “Cogenitor” where it is made repeatedly and abundantly clear that humans have a grand total of two genders, and that a third is weird and alien and really kinda disturbing to a lot of folks). The vague Twitter message said something about violating the rules on advocating violence or some such nonsense.
So either the sensitive little soul I replied to was lightning fast on his “my feelings are hurt, make the bad man and his opposing viewpoint go away” button, or Twitter has a bot that does it automatically. In either case, the “Twitter is a free speech zone” claim looks a little dubious to me at the moment.
Update: Now Twitter says it could take more than a week for my account to be restored to functionality.
People who have lived in a place for centuries often hold eccentric, old, downright obsolete facilities in higher regard than people who hav4e just moved in and have no links to the place. Example: a centuries-old pub was sold to a developer. It was signed up for historic protection, but before the paperwork could go through a pile of rubble was mysteriously dumped into the road leading to it. And then it mysteriously caught fire, with the pile of rubble blocking the fire department. The brick structure remained standing, opening up the possibility of being restored; it was then very quickly razed to the ground mechanically. Gosh, I guess it’s gone, nothing left for it but to built cheap housing on the very valuable plot of land…
“The 13th Warrior” was, shockingly to me, one of history’s great box office bombs… budget was about $100 million in 1999, but it only made about $33 million domestically, less than that foreign. Counting marketing, it lost well over a hundred million dollars. I’ve never understood why this was so; it was a substantially badass movie, based on a Michael Chrichton novel (“Eaters of the Dead”) not long after the success of “Jurassic Park,” starring Antonio Banderas. It had Vikings fighting Neanderthals. What was not to like? Well, apparently the movie going public wasn’t interested. My ass was in the theater on opening weekend.
It had a DVD release, but never a valid Blu Ray. I’d be all over a 4K release.
Of my four cats, two (Speedbump and Banshee) like catnip. Buttons has never cared for it; Billy shows no interest, though he’s still young (cats apparently don’t become interested in catnip until sexual maturity).
Speedbump’s interest is polite. He will sit silently and watch me carrying leaves and stems and will gently take a leaf and gnaw upon it. Banshee, in contrast, goes bugnuts.
Academic researchers condemned students’ irreverent and offensive responses to an LGBTQ survey, claiming the pushback indicates “fascist ideologues” are “living ‘inside the house’ of engineering and computer science.”
In an article for the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, academics from Oregon State University wrote about their shock at receiving sarcasm and mockery in response to their research into undergraduate LGBTQ students studying in STEM fields. …
According to the article, when the “malicious” subjects were asked to fill out demographic data, “12 respondents (24%) indicated their gender as being related to a helicopter or aircraft” ranging from an “Apache Attack Helicopter” to a “V22 osprey.” In the section declaring one’s disabilities, responses ranged from claiming to be “illiterate” to lamenting “My country is run by communists,” or even declaring that identifying as transgender is a disability in itself due to “the inability to come to terms with biological reality.”
One respondent claimed to identify as a gift card as their gender. Under racial and ethnic identities they said, “I’m an ethnic gift card,” and for disability the answer was “I don’t have enough gift cards.”
There is hope for the future; these kids have their heads on right.
Are you questioning whether there is increased mental illness in Certain Special Groups? Maybe this bit will help you make up your mind on the subject:
The research team declared that the mockery they received “had a profound impact on morale and mental health,” particularly for one transgender researcher who was “already in therapy for anxiety and depression regarding online anti-trans rhetoric.” The paper claimed that “managing the study’s data collection caused significant personal distress, and time had to be taken off the project to heal from traumatic harm” of having to read students’ responses in the survey.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The whole article is entertaining as hell; the “researchers” are so screwed up that they think any mockery of their views is down to “fascism.”
I’ve probably mentioned bits of this before. But regardless, here is one of the few good things on Tumblr… and one of the truly great series of comments about Star Trek and humanity
Photos have emerged from the next Disney live action remake of one of their classic animated films, “Snow White.” You know, the one about the Germanic princess with skin so white it looked like snow, who ended up running around with seven dwarves? Well… about all that, Disney has decided to continue the unprofitable trend of de-whitening European folk tales.
There are claims that these *aren’t* the actual “dwarves.” But given that “Snow White” is to be played by a Hispanic woman… why assume that these *aren’t* an accurate depiction? And remember, Hollywood is hardly above lying to the public’s face. Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch *wasn’t* playing Khan? Or when all the remakes and reboots of classic animated series were supposed to be faithful continuations that the existing fans would recognize, love and appreciate? Yeah… lying liars who lie have a tendency to lie.
And… it turns out that those claims of “fake” are probably themselves fake:
Asked for comment on the brouhaha, a Disney spokesperson initially told The Daily Beast “the photos are fake and not from our production” and added that the Mouse House wanted a correction from the Mail.
Hours later, however, Disney’s PR shop completely backtracked and said the photos were from the production but were not official “photos”—chalking up the earlier statement to a misunderstanding.
Dear readers, consider this: somewhere out in the multiverse there’s a version of the Disney corporation that decided to do a live action remake of “Snow White,” and decided to try their hardest to make it look like the original animated classic. And somewhere else out there is another Disney that decided to do a “Snow White” remake that was faithful to the Grimm tale as written. And somewhere further down the multiverse line is a version of Disney that decide to say “Fark it” and make a truly messed-up remake that swaps out all the “disneyfication” for hard-core “let’s make this thing like Germans a thousand years ago would have made it, with friggen’ terrifying monsters and death and horror straight out of Teutonic legends and myths and folk tales,” likely directed by del Toro with the aid of the ghosts of Lovecraft and Giger.
Any one of those is something I would have been interested in. *This* worlds Disney? Nah.
Note: the “dwarves” from Norse/Germanic folk tales weren’t just short humans. They were a different order of being entirely.
Anyway, Hollywood is basically on strike now, with writers and actors on the picket line. I imagine this might effect “Snow White,” as well as every other movie and TV show out there. But you know what? Who friggen’ cares. Things have gotten so slow in Hollywood that people have come to expect *years* between seasons of shows… seasons with a tiny number of episodes. long gone are the likes of *good* Star Trek series where you could expect 20+ episodes every year. now… Eight? Ten? And with many shows, the gap between seasons lasting a number of years. When did season 3 of “The Orville” end? When will season 4 start… if it ever does? And let’s face it: there are a metric fark-ton of old movies and shows available for streaming, more than enough to tide most people over for the most extended of strike. And beyond even that… YouTube and the like are loaded to the gills with lone creators who are far more entertaining than quarter-billion-dollar productions. So you go right ahead and shut down production, Hollywood. if it strangles nonsense like “Snow White,” so much the better.
How long before I’m able to say “Hey, AI, make me a four-hour faithful adaptation of ‘Snow White’ Using the production team from “The Lord Of The Rings” and starring Marylin Monroe as Snow White’?” Because that’ll be the end of Hollywood.
Another instance of “this is not the dog to be afraid of.”
There are good reasons to fear Huskies: specifically, they can pierce your eardrums with the noise they can produce. But attacking you? They are not particularly aggressive, and are much more likely to be interested in *play* than fighting. Very LOUD play, of course…
I have no idea if it has been apparent or not based on recent blog/Twitter postings that the last few days have been frazzling for me. But the short form is that Buttons has been quite sick… and terribly miserable. Several days of vet visits finally culminated today in the conclusion that he *probably* is suffering from another bout of pancreatitis, though the initial symptoms were quite different from the earlier bouts. This time it seemed as if he was plugged up somehow, but a X-ray showed that he’s clear. Blood work revealed the infection markers of pancreatitis, so he was treated for that today… and he has shown improvement.
A vocally miserable cat is not something I recommend. Especially one so miserable that he chooses to remain inert and just wail. AAAARRRRGH.
This was him yesterday, looking hopeless.
This was at the vet today prior to the doc coming in. You can see just how absolutely thrilled he was.
X-ray of his innards. It reportedly shows that his intestines are largely empty. To me is seems to indicate that his abdomen is infected with a space-squid of some kind.
And this critter is “Ziggy” the French bulldog who was in the vet clinic waiting room as I was checking out. Friendly little guy even if he looks like he aught to be gnawing the foot off of a selfless dark age princess of Urland.
Buttons seems to be on the mend. He does not appear to be in agony anymore; instead he simply seems to be wore out. He didn’t eat or drink for several days; he has recent eaten and drank *some,* though not a lot. Progress, anyway.
This has cost a *lot.* I need to put a ton of stuff on ebay, both to cover this and my other rather voluminous bills, but if you’re of a mind to, feel free to hit the tip jar below…
The pendulum *may* be beginning to swing the other way on some issues. For a number of years the bulk of the populace has been cowed into obedience over LGBTQ/Pride stuff with threats ranging from being called names to losing their jobs… but more and more people are ceasing to care. Some of this is doubtless due to the over-use of Cancel Culture tactics. And a lot of it is doubtless due to people being fed up with the utter insanity that many weirdos are trying to normalize. “Drag Queen Story Hour” may go down in history as the moment when people, parents of small children in particular, said “enough.”
The video below describes a *lot* of recent events, both of the weirdos trying to threaten people for not going along with the ideology, and with normal folk pushing back.
