Hope failed. At about 4:15 this afternoon, Raedthinn died in my arms, peacefully, swiftly and painlessly. About half an hour later I buried him out back near Koshka, who was *his* favorite cat.
Raedthinn was the best of cats. He was a better person than most people. He was just about my favorite people.
I have exhausted my supply of rationality for now.
Buttons: seems to be back to normal. I think his problem was a bit wider-spread than just him… for several days Buttons, Fingers and Speedbump all refused to eat. When food came out they’d come running, but when they got to it they just wouldn’t eat. Finally this evening they all decided that they were in fact actually hungry and began eating again. Did thy have some sort of flu? A reaction to pollen or the smoke in the area (it’s “burn the farms to the ground” time of year out here)? Some other environmental problem? Dunno. But it seems to be over, at last.
Raedthinn: Mostly seems to be ok so far. Still has a good loud voice, but his breathing sometimes seems a bit more labored. It’s really hard to tell. Fortunately, the loss of his voice seems to be a good indicator that his lungs are getting squished. So, so long as he can complain good and loud, he *should* be ok. When that changes, *if* that changes, I’ll take him back to the vet. If it’s more than a few weeks since the last visit (we’re close to one week… less than 12 hours away from that milestone), then I’ll see if it’s advisable to get his chest cavity tapped and drained off. With any luck the problem will fix itself. I’m not stupidly optimistic about that though.
I gotta agree with Professor Tosspot again… “The Terror” is very definitely worth watching.
Y’all know how I feel that “The Orville” is the Star Trek show we’ve deserved for years. It is made by flat-out fans of Trek, and it shows; yes, Seth Macfarlane did it as something of an ego project, especially by casting himself as the captain… but so what. It works. Anyone who can build up a quality Star Trek show can cast themselves as the captain if they want.
And thus, one James Cawley built himself some Original Series Enterprise sets for use in a series of well-received fan films, “Star Trek: New Voyages.” A number of fan productions have built their own sets of variable quality; almost all of the papier mache and cardboard variety, the kind that end up in the trash or a bonfire when the filming is done. But in this case, the officially licensed sets have been made somewhat permanent and you may go on a tour of them.
That’s cool and all, but here’s where the nerd factor goes through the roof:
Watching the video, there are a whole lot of the same kind of people who, in the early/mid 1970s, showed up at the early Star Trek conventions in their Starfleet and Vulcan finest. But watching the video, one new thing is also clear: Trekkers, Trekkies, Star Trek fans, denizens of the 21st century… we are a tubby bunch.
The video below is kinda fall-down funny… but it’s also incredibly sad. What do we have?
So, passionate, demanding, unthinkingly profane, incapable of expressing himself beyond a few trite phrases and expletives and IGNORANT. He’s a one-man microcosm of modern political activism.
People are different, and I certainly understand and can even applaud enthusiasm over new experiences. But at some point enthusiasm become cringeworthy self parody. People need to learn to reign it the fark in sometimes.
OK, so, this:
This is Will Haraway a CCW @nra member. He asked @Alyssa_Milano’s security if he was armed (he was) and then asked Alyssa about it. Here’s what happened. (She comes to talk to him after this and I will post that longer video shortly). pic.twitter.com/qMsq6rbzDd
— Ben (@BenHowe) May 5, 2018
It’s a little difficult to see (by design), but the bodyguard has a pistol concealed under his coat, on his belt.You can see the firearm “printing” though his jacket starting at about the 1:00 point here:
So @Alyssa_Milano wants to see the unedited video of her and her armed guards “printing”. I have no idea who she is talking to at first, @rangerholton respectfully chimes in. Watch. Also Alyssa please answer why you lied about having no armed guards. #NRAAM2018 #nra @NRATV pic.twitter.com/BuHsvDB9BG
— Grant Stinchfield (@stinchfield1776) May 6, 2018
But even if he was unarmed, the guard is skilled in using his physical size and presence to expel unarmed law-abiding people from a public space, something most people cannot do. In an unarmed group, the big strong guy has an immediate and undeniable advantage over the smaller and weaker members.
A well-known statement on the limits of the First Amendment is something along the lines of “you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” But, in fact, you *can.* *IF* there is an actual fire, then it is perfectly valid to do just that. Being honest and truthful is always a pretty iron-clad defense against things like libel and slander as well. So, here’s my suggestion to those who would attend public speeches by politicians and celebrities who are there to convince the people to give up their rights: find the inevitable armed guard that they are owed and that you, the Little people, are not. Examine them closely. Get them to move, without touching them or threatening them (use a “sacrificial” member of your group kinda like the guy in the video above who asked the guard if he was armed, prompting the guard to hustle the guy away). Then, when you are sure that the armed guard is indeed armed… do like a modern leftie and scream: “This man has a gun!” DON’T scream anything like “he’s gonna kill us all,” but stick *strictly* to the facts. There’s a gun. He’s hiding a gun. Gun. GUN.
It seems perfectly fair to point out at high volume that in an anti-gun gathering that there is someone in attendance concealing a gun.
The material teaches that women can change their mind about consent the day after an encounter, effectively leaving women with the ability to re-write history and accuse sexual partners of inappropriate behavior despite receiving consent.
Yeesh.
You want wacko incels? Because this is how you get wacko incels.
Kinda in a bit of a financial bind here, so I’m going to sell off some stuff. The first thing up: a large format print of a scan of Model 2050E X-20 Dyna Soar in the final, as-almost-built configuration. This was printed off some years ago on good quality heavy glossy photo paper; I’d always wanted to have it framed and on my wall, but never got around to it. Plus, framing it properly would be a a bit of an effort due to the size of the print, but if it was done it’d look *great.* Waste not, want not: the full rez scan didn’t quite fill out the 24-inch-wide paper, so I added in some of my Utah panoramic photos to take up some of the excess space. So with a bit of trimming, if you buy this you not only get the Dyna Soar, but some Utah as well. The whole print is I think six feet long.
UPDATE: didn’t really seem to fly off the shelves, so I’m going to slice this up and put it on ebay at some point.
Photos:
The hits just keep on coming.
Day before yesterday, Buttons started a new thing: barfing. A lot. First he barfed up his food, then he barfed up foam. So today I took him to the vet. He was X-rayed and large gas bubbles spotted in his intestines. The vet suggests that the likeliest cause is some sort of blockage… quite possibly a string of some kind. Unfortunately, Buttons is a dumbass when it comes to string, gnawing on strings at every opportunity. It’s not a 100% certainty that that’s the problem, but if it *is* a problem, the string could cut through his intestines and kill him dead. So he’s spending the night at the vet; first thing in the AM the vet will look at him again, see if he has barfed or pooped or whatever, then decide what to do. Very likely there will be an operation.
I also discussed Raedthinn with this same vet a different one from a few days go, to get a second opinion. This vet has seen this problem many times. And every time it has ended with death.
So.
UPDATE, Saturday AM: The vet re-X-rayed Buttons this morning and found that things are moving. The progress is indicative of there *not* being a string in his bowels, so no surgery is called for and he has been sent home. However… the excessive barfing has not been explained. So I’m to keep a watch on him for the next few days and rush him back tot he clinic if the barfing returns. So… about halfway to good news, I suppose.
On Tuesday conversation with my vet indicated that unless the trouble with fluid buildup in his chest ended, Raedthinn had somewhere between hours to a few weeks. Through today, he’s had a good strong voice and easy breathing, which has given me hope that perhaps the problem had at least partially resolved itself. Watching him lay on my bed tonight, though, it’s starting to look like he has some complicated and labored breathing. Which would indicate the problem continues. Damn.