Non-Americans and anti-American Americans are currently yammering on about how the US needs to get rid of the right to bear arms and other basic Constitutional rights, in the doomed pursuit of a slight decrease in the crime rate. Many of these people disdain “Constitutional absolutists.” But without that absolutism, you get this:
As described, if you “repeatedly view terrorist content online” you “could face up to 15 years behind bars.” Assuming the article is accurately written, simply viewing material that the government doesn’t like can get you tossed into the hoosegow. But worry not, gentle blog readers, the intent is narrowly focussed:
“I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online, including jihadi websites, far-right propaganda and bomb-making instructions, face the full force of the law”
So, only jihadi websites, anything to the right of Lenin and basic chemistry. What’s to worry about?
The world is full of places that have fallen into disuse and despair. Sometimes it’s because some idiots got likkered up and started messing around with an ancient nuclear reactor designed by Socialists, and they wind up trashing the countryside. Sometimes it’s a formerly vibrant auto manufacturing city that got wiped out by unions, politics and recovering post-war foreign auto manufacturing capabilities. And sometimes it’s a shopping mall that was once the hub of activity and is now abandoned and empty, because shopping malls have fallen out of favor, or because the local economy tanked, or because the people running the joint were idjits. Fortunately, there’s the Dead Mall Series on YouTube to show the world some of these dismal, empty reminders of times gone by. Some are truly abandoned, empty shells left to nature and vandals; some are still functioning, but on life support with only a tiny fraction of their stores still open.
If you are of my generation, the shopping mall was The Place To Be back in the day. It was where all the cool kids hung out. But of course if you have the misfortune of actually being like me, you weren’t one of the cool kids, so you didn’t actually hang out at the mall. And of course today a lot of the official function of a shopping mall has been taken up by WalMart, CostCo and Amazon; the socializing function has been taken up by Facebook and such. So there are a *lot* of malls that are now ghosts of what they once were, while still being perfectly decent enough structures. I’ve often wondered what could be done with a shopping mall to turn it, at minimal cost, into something else. Schools and hospitals and museums seem obvious choices, but I doubt there’s enough call for such. Some sort of office complex, maybe. Senior citizen or other assisted living facility with built-in gathering places, amusements, shopping (greatly reduced in scope, of course).
The Dead Mall Series gives tours of some of these places along with commentary, added music (the music *always* seems to fit right in with my 30-year-old recollection of 80’s malls) and often enough added vintage commercials with a few minor tweaks to make them a little more interesting. (The woman in the “Tan Perfect” commercial who doesn’t want wrinkles in this one, is, ummm… yeah.)
I’m not a big comic book guy, so I haven’t been as invested as some in being appalled at the SJW takeover of Marvel Comics. As someone who only paid a smidgen of attention to the issue, it was hard to tell if this problem arose within the staff of Marvel, or if there was an actual fanbase. Given that sales have apparently gone down as a result of the SJW-ification of many of the titles, I assumed that it was a problem within the Marvel offices. So when news came out that Marvel was teaming up with Northrop-Grumman in order to bolster STEM, I figured that the Marvel leadership was pulling its head out, and that the fanbase would approve.
The “backlash” came from an army of Twits who claimed to be horrified that a comic book company that has made billions of dollars off of fictional weapons designer Tony Stark would team up with a company that builds the weapons that keep their nation safe. And Marvel didn’t just cancel the presentation, they cancelled the partnership.
It may be that the Twitterbots who were complaining were that small portion of the fanbase who are thrilled with the neutering of characters like Iron Man, or if this is a larger symptom of idiocy among the fanbase.
And by “accommodate,” they mean “provide two tactile interpreters (people who lay their hands on the hands of the deaf-blind patron, using sign language which the patron reads through feeling) at the cost of several hundred dollars per showing.” And by “court” they mean the “3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”
So after the Mandalay Bay Massacre, the usual pack of political ghouls are pushing for a ban on “military style assault weapons” (i.e. guns that function) and “high capacity (i.e. standard) magazines. But they’re also going after bump stocks… simple bits of plastic that turn perfectly adequate semiautomatic rifles into high firing rate inaccurate bullet hoses. The usefulness of the latter for preventing future crimes is dubious. The sole purpose of a bump stock is to *legally* simulate full auto; if you want full auto and don’t care about legality, modifying your firearm is generally easy enough. Bump stocks just made it a little bit easier. If bump stocks suddenly vanished, criminals wanting full auto capability would simply modify their weapons some other way.
But if bump stocks went away and criminals decided they *really* wanted bump stocks, how hard would it be for them to make their own? As it turns out… not that hard.
It’s a small plane, seating only 12, designed to go about 700 miles at an airspeed of about 340 miles per hour. It is to use two electric motors running off batteries, with a backup jet fuel powered generator to extend range and keep the craft airborne when the batteries run dry. Improvements in battery technology would allow the plane to be fully electric and to eventually extend range. As a small aircraft it is meant to operate from smaller non-hub airports, theoretically shaving hours off actual trip time due to avoiding the nightmare that is modern airport security theater.
“Blade Runner 2049” is… meh. And I don’t mean “meh” in “it’s not everything it could/should have been” way, it’s”meh” in the “I sat through it, pointed my eyes at it, listened to it, and very little of it made any sort of impact whatsoever” way.
It was competent film making, I suppose. But the plot was muddled, the main character was the polar opposite of “interesting,” *everything* was dismal and depressing (the original was set in a rather dismal Los Angeles, but “2049” is actually a post-apocalyptic wasteland on the “Judge Dredd” side of “Mad Max”). The original had some amazing visuals; this one… not so much. The original had some impressive music; this ones soundtrack was, sad to say, pedestrian and utterly forgettable.
Oh, well. At least they didn’t redesign the Klingons…
There were a few interesting things, like the fact that the “Blade Runner” universe is apparently an alternate history where the Soviet Union is still a going concern (as is Pan Am). But on the whole… meh.
I have a number of new aerospace cyanotype blueprints available. Until I can repave the catalog page, I have slapped together a PDF catalog of the new items. Until Wednesday, I’m making these new 12X18 prints, as well as the earlier 12X18 prints, available. The earlier 12X18s are viewable HERE. The new items are in the following PDF file:
If any are of interest, Paypal to the email address in the PDF file, and add a note in the order which items you want…. AND what your mailing address is (PayPal doesn’t automatically add the address to payments like this).
After Wednesday the prints will be again unavailable for a little bit while I retool and work on some things.
UPDATE: over for now. After some retooling I hope to have all the cyanotypes, small and large old and new, available for regular sale.
