Pointing a finger gun lands 12-year-old Johnson County student in handcuffs
Don’t you feel safer already?
Oct 102019
Oct 092019
A number of people have told me to try self-publishing my books on Amazon. Stories like this one just add to the pile of “why bother” reasons:
Amazon Bans ‘A Shifting Alliance’ Ad for Featuring “Inappropriate Display of a Weapon”
According to section 7.13 of Amazon’s Creative Acceptance Policies, which was updated in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso terror attacks, ads featuring weapons are prohibited in order “to protect our customers from uncomfortable or shocking experiences.”
Curiously, while Amazon explicitly prohibits “images of firearms demonstrated as firing or having been recently used (for example, bullets visibly exiting the weapon, smoke or other residue shown around the barrel),” it allows for “non-violent depictions of non-realistic firearms that are fantasy weapons, including fantasy/sci-fi firearms such as ray-guns and phasers.”
Of course, a more immediate road block for me self publishing is that I have absolutely zero talent or skill in the areas of graphic design or painting or anything relevant to the task of creating a good book cover. Shootin’ irons going kerblam wouldn’t really fit on a “Zaneverse” cover, but they’d be all kinds of appropriate for “War With The Deep Ones,” what with it being a war and all…
But then some power mad SJW scoldmonster would find – or invent – some rule that takes a giant ump on my work. Feh.
Oct 092019
Answer: yes. Razorfist explains, for those who still don’t get it:
Oct 082019
The first episode of “Primal” aired on Cartoon network/Adult Swim last night. On one level, it’s grade-A ridiculousness: an animated caveman’s adventures with dinosaurs.. The science is therefore just *awful.* And yet… the show is so damn good that my willing suspension of disbelief happily expanded to fit.
Even though it’s an animated show, it’s not a kids show. It’s filled with violence and gore and blood and death… and surprising pathos among what would be on a normal show shocking brutality. The main character, dubbed “Spear,” is a caveman in the mold of Conan the barbarian… a giant chunk of muscle with apparently no ability to speak; instead, he just roars and kills things, no dialogue or narration to help the story along. He is, bluntly, *not* the Woke Man. I’m looking forward to reading the complaints about how there’s insufficient LGBTQ representation, how the show celebrates toxic masculinity
Here’s a measure of how entertaining the first episode was: when it ended, I went, “Huh, it’s only a fifteen-minute show.” And then I realized that it was in fact a 30-minute show. One explanation for this is likely contained in this interview with Genndy Tartakovsky, the shows creator. With the lack of dialogue, the viewer is kinda forced to pay attention to the screen. No checking the phone or the laptop.
“I never realized how much we don’t watch and we just listen,” Tartakovsky told The Times in a recent interview. With “Primal,” “You kind of just get drawn in and you forget. And if you turn away, you’re going to miss a whole bunch.
“With everybody used to multitasking on their phones and everything, it’ll be interesting to see the effect,” he added.
Interestingly, I vaguely recall reading – probably more than 20 years ago – J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, explain why a lot of really important scenes went on without dialogue. As memory serves, it went something like this: “If you can leave the room and still follow along with the plot, it’s radio, not television.”
Imagine this feller in a Pinky Puᛋᛋy Hat, or ordering a soy latte. Can’t do it, can ya.
Oct 082019
Continuing…
In 1985 Rockwell considered the business possibilities of a range of Orbital Transfer Vehicles. The OTV, in its various forms, was a reusable upper stage designed to move sizable payloads from LEO to higher orbits such s geosynchronous. To facilitate reusability, some designs included aerobrakes to reduce the need to burn fuel when returning from high orbit to low. Some OTVs included manned options. The men were not needed for piloting the OTVs, but to perform missions such as satellite servicing in GEO.
Oct 072019
If you *ever* watch television, chances are real good you’ve seen commercials for those “Shen Yun” live dancing performances. From time to time the advertisements seem to be all over the place… according to Google they hit Salt Lake city in 2018 and 2019, and are due back in early 2020, before which there will be a wall-to-wall local advertising blitz. Beyond noting the excessive advertising, I’ve not really paid much attention to Shen Yun because… well, why would I? I can think of a few “entertainment options” more painful than “traditional Chinese dancing” (“A Night with Yoko Ono” springs to mind), but not a *lot* of them. I’ve no interest in *western* dancing shows or even western Opera, so I sure as hell don’t want to subject myself to weirder, lower-quality imports. So, I’ve never given Shen Yun any further thought.
Turns out it’s worth paying attention to. Not because it’s necessarily any good, but because it is a part of the propaganda arm of the Falun Gung cult. It’s not even “Chinese” as such, since the head office is (of course) in New York City, and the “traditional Chinese dancing” is about as authentically traditional as Disney’s Mulan. As such, Americans should avoid it. Sure, it’s great doing things that annoy the communist Chinese government, but a cult is a cult, whether it’s Falun Gong or Scientology or the Klan or the Hare Krishnas or the Transcendental Meditation weirdos or the Discovery Institute or PETA or some flying saucer religion or the Democratic Socialists. Such things are just plain unhealthy.
For all I know, the cultish nature of these Leapin’ Chinese Shows is common knowledge that I’ve some how missed (looking up “Shen Yun” and “cult” on google, there’s certainly a whole lot out there). But if not… here ya go. If your significant other starts harping on you to go to one of these things, state that as a proud American you’ll have nothing to do with this nonsensical nonsense.
Here’s an interesting write-up about it:
Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun
At some point in the show, which sounds like the sort of flashy, noisy pap that art snobs would wet themselves over in order to earn themselves a few Diversity Points, the narrator or whatever comes out and says:
“We follow Dafa, the Great Way,” he began, singing about a Creator who saved mankind and made the world anew. “Atheism and evolution are deadly ideas. Modern trends destroy what makes us human,” he sang.
ᛖᚪᛏ ᛗᚤ ᚪᛋᛋ, Shen Yun.
Falun Gon vs. ChiComs, LaRouchies vs. Democratic Socialists, Nazis vs. Commies: Let Them Fight. Just stay out of the middle of it.
Oct 062019
OK, here we go on getting rid of books. A *lot* of books. Starting off with paperbacks, the great majority of which are sci-fi novels. Rather than trying to sell them individually, I’ve packed them into boxes, roughly 12 to 14 per. Eight bucks per box plus postage, which seems to work out to about six bucks media mail… so, $14 per box. If you want four boxes of books, postage drops to$15, so call it $45 for four boxes of books. As always first come, first served, but going after four boxes will put you at the top of the line. Any left by mid week will be disposed of. Each box is carefully and artistically numbered with the very finest calligraphy (off to the left). If interested, send me an email: 
Sold: 5,9, 14,16, 17,18,19,21
Spoken for:
Available: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,15,20
Added a few more:
Oct 052019
Continuing…
An obvious one: an upper stage to fit in the Shuttle payload bay to move payloads into higher orbits… 12-hour GPS, GEO or escape. The illustration seems to show a single stage equipped with drop-tanks in a somewhat unusual arrangement.
Oct 052019
As is probably news to nobody at this point, a few days ago Bubbles Cortez had a public town hall event where a woman stood up and went on and on about how the Green New Deal was cool and all, but it didn’t go far enough. Rather, in order to save the planet, we need to EAT THE BABIES. As it turned out, the woman was not a generic crackpot, but a plant from the Lyndon LaRouche PAC.
As anyone who remembers the 1980’s can attest, LaRouche was…interesting. He ran for President as an independent and sometimes as a Democrat running on policies that were part arch-conservative, part conspiracy theorist. He touted space-based weapons and fusion power, but thought the Brits were ruling the world or something and had his people protest Richard Wagner concert Because Reasons. But the important thing to remember was that for about the first half of his life he was a devoted Communist; when the Commies basically booted him out for being too weird even for them, he, like Mussolini before him, turned from a devoted and devout far leftist into a pseudo right-winger. Never, EVER trust anyone who was ever a Communist or a Socialist. Even if they come around and adopt conservative or right-wing policies, the stain of the Commies points out clearly that their ability to make good judgements is seriously impaired. They might be fine people of good moral character… just don’t let them anywhere near politics. LaRouche died earlier this year, bringing to an end a long and bizarre political career.
Anyway, LaRouchies remain and are about indistinguishable from cultists. So seeing them trolling modern Socialists? HILARIOUS. Whackos vs. whackos… is there anything better?
Still, the crazy lady (the one in the t-shirt, not Bubbles) raises and interesting thought. We’ve always thought that the “Green” in “Green New Deal” referred to nebulous “green” environmental policies. But when the woman went on about “eat the babies,” note what Bubbles *didn’t* say: “You’re wrong, eating children is not only not helpful, it’s evil.” At most she was annoyed that someone was taking the spotlight off her. So maybe “Green” refers to a different green:
Perhaps what the LaRouchie Lady has done is to expose the Green New Deal for what it is: a secret cabal of Cthulhu worshippers whose end goal actually is to eat the children, or at least feed them to their dark god. It makes sense: it is known that when Great Cthulhu wakens from his death-like slumber in sunken R’lyeh, he will “clear off” humanity from the world, laying low all the works of Man. What could be more in line with the goals of the Green New Dealers?
Oct 042019
Ever since people started seeing “Joker” months ago the stories were that Joaquin Phoenix put on a hell of a performance and that the movie was something special. But once the “professional” critics started yapping about it within the last few days, many of them started trashing it, with “cultural experts” downplaying it. It would embolden incels to go violent; watch out for nuts with AR-15’s; toxic masculinity; blah, blah, blah. It seemed odd that a movie that seemed to have everything going for it would set off a noticeable subset of the critic community.
I saw it today. My own review: it’s a damned fine flick. It’s not really a comic book movie, but more like a 1970’s New York crime movie. Phoenix Play Arthur Fleck, a quite realistic sort of character… just one with some serious mental health issues. not criminally insane, just… disturbed. Through the course of the movie things keep going wrong for him; sometimes due to his own bad decisions, sometimes due to his psychological conditions, and many times due to external events and situations which he has little to no control over. As a result, he slowly transforms into the Joker.
Fleck has no political motives for his actions. He’s just a screwed up guy in a screwed up world. But…
Through no intention of his own, Fleck becomes the inspiration for a political movement. People wear clown masks, protest in the streets and in the end carry out acts of violence… not quite in his name, but with him as a figurehead. In the end, Joker becomes a Hero Of The Masses. And who are these masses? Essentially… Antifa, or the Democratic Socialists, the generalized far left. The protestors explicitly want to “kill the rich.” They wave around signs saying “RESIST!” Democrats and Republicans, capitalism and Socialism, these labels are not stated…but they’re implied. A leftist protest movement rallies around a delusional violent murderer.
Suddenly, the critic community’s ambivalence about this movie comes into focus.
Beyond that: Phoenix does not present as entertaining a Joker as Heath Ledger did. Arthur Fleck is, to be blunt, a damned depressing guy. But “Joker” only really comes along as such in the last few minutes of the movie; if there is a sequel, *then* Phoenix could potentially let loose a full-on nonstop Jokeriffic extravaganza of unhinged entertainment. But where Ledger was watchably wacky in all his scenes, he was really only in “The Dark Knight” for a matter of minutes. Phoenix is essentially the whole freakin’ movie. Offhand I can recall only one scene that he wasn’t in. It’s all Phoenix, all the time, and he does a fantastic job of depicting a mentally ill sadsack in one of the worst places imaginable: Gotham City (i.e New York City) in the late seventies or early eighties (the date didn’t seem to be stated explicitly, but at the end of the movie we see a family emerge from a theater showing “Zorro, the Gay Blade” which came out in 1981). Loaded with garbage strikes and street crime and slums and drugs and porn theaters and overpopulation and “super rats,” it’s a place that would drive healthy people to madness.