May 132019
 

But it’s a missile with fookin’ swords.

Secret U.S. missile kills terrorists with knives instead of explosives

The R9X is a modified version of the Hellfire. The warhead is removed and replaced with six deployable sword-sized blades. It kills the target not with an explosion, but with a hundred pounds of missile moving at the speed of sound slamming into the guys head, the blades just making sure that the target is super-dead.

 

The purpose of this is to limit collateral damage so that individuals can be targeted in urban areas without too much risk to surrounding civilians. Perhaps Representative Swalwell will consider using these rather than nuclear weapons when he fantasizes about murdering American citizens who dare exercise their constitutional rights.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 10:53 am
May 122019
 

… is about to go up in Illinois if the Legitimate Businessmen’s Social Club that runs the state government get their way:

Illinois residents could be charged $1,000 a year to own an electric vehicle under new legislation

The current annual fee to register an electric car in Illinois is $17.50. The claim is that dastardly electric car drivers are not paying into the gas tax base, and thus not holding up their end of the deal in paying for road repair.

Bonus round: Illinois gas tax is proposed to go up from $0.19 to $0.44 per gallon.

I have an alternate approach: Illinois should secede from Cook County. Let Chicago run things their way, let the rest of the state look to Iowa or Wisconsin for how to run things. Build a wall around Cook County and charge  fees for products going in and extremely large fees for residents who wish to emigrate. Probably unconstitutional… but this is Chicago. That’s how things are done there.

 Posted by at 8:00 pm
May 112019
 

Well, it’s about time:

‘The Orville’ Renewed For Season 3 By Fox

My first thought was that “at least it will last as long as the original Star Trek.” but then I remembered that Star Trek was shot in the days when a season had more than 20 episodes, rather than the dozen or so that seem to be the standard today. The Orville has had 26 episodes total in the first two seasons, while Star Trek had 80. To get to 80 episodes, The Orville will need to be around for more than six seasons… or Fox will have to start bumping up the number of episodes per season. Preferably, both.

 Posted by at 9:53 pm
May 102019
 

This article makes fun of a company that is flacking makeup for men. But while the company and its products are mockworthy, the critical article is itself also mockworthy. Because the article mocks the advertising strategy of the company, but never asks the most important question: “Dude, why the frak are you wearing makeup? You’re a guy. Knock that crap off.”

A brand called War Paint is using toxic masculinity to sell makeup to men

The purpose of actual war paint is to intimidate the enemy, but that’s not what they’re selling. They are selling makeup for men. The purpose of makeup is to make you pretty (or prettier). And that’s not a man’s function. Men aren’t meant to be pretty. Men are meant to be *functional.*

That’s why the phrase “chicks dig scars” is well known. Not, necessarily, because chicks truly dig scars, but because chicks dig the *stories* behind scars, they dig that you’ve Done Some Stuff. “Foundation”and “concealer” and all that goop does not aid in this. It just makes a guy look like a weirdo.

A man wearing makeup is like a back hoe with a nice floral pattern or an oil rig with eyelash extensions.

What kind of man wears makeup? The kind of man who colors his hair purple:

Don’t be that guy.

 Posted by at 1:02 pm
May 102019
 

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Blue Origin and Drax Industries describes the Blue Moon lunar lander his company has been working on for three years (at a sufficient state of development that he thinks they can return humans to the moon by 2024), as well as showing  somewhat longer-term goal for space development: O’Neill colonies.

 

Dreaming of space colonies measured in kilometers when you haven’t even orbited a golf ball yet? Perhaps rather a whole lot of hubris there. And yet…

 

 Posted by at 8:01 am
May 092019
 

The lightsaber duel between Obi Wan and Darth Vader in Star Wars is, by the standards of the later movies, pretty damn tame. The reasons for this are obvious: it was a small movie, not overloaded with martial arts training and certiainly no CGI, and Alec Guiness was certainly no spring chicken at the time. But it does stand out.

And so, leave it to talented fans to correct that. The below short film expands upon the short, stilted fight, making it much more in line with the sort of combat seen in later movies. It would have blown my tiny little mind had this been in the original Star Wars back int he day. Watch it fast and download if possible… wouldn’t surprise me if Disney decides to shut this down because it its few short minutes it has substantially more awesome than all the sequel movies put together.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm
May 082019
 

So yesterday there was a school shooting in Highland Ranch, Colorado, not far from Columbine High School. The fact that there were two shooter should make this Big News, with every last detail about the shooters splashed all over the headlines, with political hay being made left and right. Were these guys white supremacists? Were they republicans? Alt right? Clearly this was due to their toxic masculinity and misogyny. The wage gap probably fits in there somewhere.

But a few things have come out that should make the discussion more interesting than usual:

On social media, Devon Erickson, a registered Democrat, expressed hatred for some Christians, and shared posts criticizing Donald Trump and praising Barack Obama…

The Denver Channel wrote that multiple sources say “the second suspect, who is a minor, is a transgender male who was in the midst of transitioning from female to male.”

Huh. This should prove an endless source of amusement. Unless, of course, it gets stuffed into the news media memory hole.

Equally likely: this gets used as a way to excuse the event. “Boo hoo they were bullied by the mean normies.”

 

 Posted by at 7:44 am