Child mortality: politics vs facts

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Jun 172023
 

Gropey Joe trotted out this old lie again:

Fortunately, the internet is full of fact checkers…

 

That lists firearms as the cause of 7.26% of child mortality in the US. But here “child” is “birth to 17.” A *lot* of those “children shot dead are in the upper age range… and were shot while committing crimes (“gang related,” no doubt). Shot by people defending themselves, shot by cops, shot by other criminals. These “victims” merit no sympathy, of course. Unfortunately, hard numbers are hard to come by, but there’s this:

 

 

 

 Posted by at 1:38 pm

Free RTGs, I guess

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Jun 172023
 

USSR Sprinkled More Than 2,500 Nuclear Generators Across The Countryside

These units used Strontium-90 (half life: 29 years) for the earlier ones, then Caesium-137 (half life 30 years) and Cerium-144 (half life 285 *days*). Half a century or more later the earlier units should still be kinda warm; those Cerium units will be dead as doornails (though perhaps the decay products might be spooky, not an expert). Probably some exciting weapons potential for those Stronium/Caesium units for go-getters with the gumption to go get ’em.

 

As good an idea as nuclear power is… this sort of thing goes to show what a nightmare a planned collectivist economy can be for the environment. You support socialism not only at your own peril, but everyone else’s.

 Posted by at 8:16 am

“The War Of The Rohirrim:” Well, I’m excited. Aren’t you?

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Jun 152023
 

In the appendix to the Lord of the Rings, Tolkein included a short story about Helm Hammerhand, a serious badass and one man wrecking crew who lived hundreds of years before the events of LotR. A few years ago Warner Bors annlunced that they were doing an animated film about the events described in that story… and as spinoffs of lotR go, that one made sense. it’d make a fun action flick, animated or no.

But wait. There’s less.

New Report Shows ‘The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim’ Will Inject Feminism Into Tolkien’s Classic Tale Of Helm Hammerhand

Basically: Helm Hammerhand, main character of the story… isn’t the main character of the story. Instead, it’s a female character who was so unimportant in the story that she didn’t even merit getting *named.*

The producer, one Philippa Boyens, claims that this effectively all-new character (named Hera, because the writers are such spectacular Tolkein experts that they know that the characters in Rohan are named after Greeks, not northern Europeans) is based largely on “Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians and daughter of Wessex king Alfred the Great.” OK, sure, great. It’s quite possible that a movie about Æthelflæd would be a spectacular thing. So… why not make a movie about Æthelflæd? Oh, right, because it’s easier to ride the coat tails of an existing property.

Who is this for? A movie about Helm would bring in the existing fans. This thing is likely to turn a lot of them away.

 Posted by at 8:01 am

There’s probably a lesson here

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Meh., news, politics, wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 142023
 

Maybe something like “you get what you repeatedly vote for.” In this case, Chicago repeatedly votes for the worst possible mayors (and, sadly for the rest of the state, the worst possible Governors). And Chicago suffers for it. Will they ever vote for “the other side?” I doubt it. Not until the city collapses utterly, the population drops by 90% and the survivors are replaced.

In First Month in Office Crime Jumps 38% Under New Chicago Mayor Johnson

Refuse to learn at your own peril.

 Posted by at 9:47 pm

Nerds of the world, unite!

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Jun 142023
 

Where the case is made that fandoms are composed not of people laser-focused on a single mono-topic, but who are *generally* nerdy, conversant in a range of fandoms, some related, some not, but all somewhat similar in having canon and lore and the like. The point being that when franchises and IPs are taken over by people who are *not* nerdy, they cannot relate to the fans, and end up making a mess of the product. They have fundamentally different worldviews.

 

 Posted by at 6:03 am

Disturbing if true

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Jun 122023
 

The story goes: an Amazon driver delivered a package. Nobody was home, but the automated doorbell made some sort of innocuous announcement. The driver, who was wearing headphones, misheard what the robot said, decided that the robot did a racism, reported that as such to Amazon… and then the homeowner had his Amazon account locked. This included “smart home” devices, locking out some of the functionality of his house.

 

 

This  story, if true, argues for several things:

1) Don’t have “smart” features that can be turned off by someone else on a whim

2) Perhaps companies should be prohibited from having this sort of authority

3) “Someone said something racist/sexist/offensive” should at the very least be accompanied by verifiable documentation of the incident before *anything* is done. False accusations should be met with punishments similar to but exceeding those that an accurate accusation would have resulted in.

 Posted by at 9:54 pm

They got that many prison cells?

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Jun 102023
 

Biden and ATF just created 29 million felons

Obviously they’re not going to try to arrest everyone who still has a small piece of plastic and metal that was perfectly legal when they bought or made it. They’ll go after a select tiny number, and do so very publicly, hoping to instill fear… and to instill a subconscious realization that we’re living in an anarcho-tyranny. The result of *that* will be a general erosion of respect for the rule of law and an increased acceptance of generalized criminality. That doesn’t seem like such a great thing to me, but then, I’m not in charge.

 Posted by at 12:11 pm

28th Amendment: how about no

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Jun 082023
 

The Constitution has of course been amended numerous times before. But amendment that curtail existing right have been few and haven’t gone well.

 

Governor Newsom Proposes Historic 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to End America’s Gun Violence Crisis

The 28th Amendment will permanently enshrine four broadly supported gun safety principles into the U.S. Constitution:

      • Raising the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21;
      • Mandating universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that could be used in a crime;
      • Instituting a reasonable waiting period for all gun purchases; and
      • Barring civilian purchase of assault weapons that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time – weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw.

 

Translation: deletion of the 2nd Amendment. The 1st Amendment will be “amended” shortly after, I suspect.

Of course, Newsom knows that this is going nowhere. An amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states; the map below suggests that that is unlikely at best. But these sort of announcements are always good; it’s useful to be reminded from time to time that some of our “leaders” are evil.

If Governor Newsom *actually* cared about gun crime victims, instead of making millions more citizens into criminals, he’d actually demand enforcement of existing laws, and would ensure that those arrested for any and all violent crimes would actually see justice. But that’s not what he’s doing.

 Posted by at 11:35 pm
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