Nov 142019
 

As a followup to this

US-born ‘ISIS bride’ Hoda Muthana isn’t an American citizen and can’t come back, judge rules

Turns out that her father, a Yemeni diplomat, had diplomatic immunity at the time she was born in the US. And “if you’re born here, you’re a USA citizen” does NOT apply to the children of foreign diplomats, for reasons that should seem both good and proper. As a result, when she left the US to provide aid and comfort to enemy cultists, burning her US passport in the process, she tossed away her chance to live in the US.

Have fun in the utopia you chose, darlin’.

 Posted by at 3:13 pm
Nov 142019
 

I found this to be both informative and soul-crushing:

While the narrator is correct in pointing out that the corporate world and its products are soulless, the fact is that the major alternative is certainly not an improvement. Witness the technically fine yet humanity-devoid artwork produced under the direction of the Nazis or the screeching aural nightmares of North Korean “music” or the banal, lifeless and dispiriting visual propaganda cranked out by the likes of the Soviet Union, Antifa or the Warren Meme Team, and suddenly the worst corporate music starts to sound pretty good.

 

 Posted by at 9:48 am
Nov 142019
 

Two people just got the plague in China — yes, the Black Death plague

Actually, not *that* exciting. Pneumonic plague, the more doom-laden version of the same disease as bubonic plague, pops up with some regularity. But thanks to the anti-vaxxers and the masses of refugees fleeing crapholes like Syria and Guatemala and California and the like, diseases that had seemed to be virtually extinct are making comebacks. So along with measles and polio and typhus, expect to see plague return.

 Posted by at 7:44 am
Nov 142019
 

SpaceX successfully completes Crew Dragon engine tests without an explosion

The Crew Dragon ran a series of successful test firings of the Draco and SuperDraco engines. No word on what the schedule might be for a manned flight.

 

 Posted by at 7:33 am
Nov 122019
 

Scientists discover first new HIV strain in nearly two decades

Wonderbar. AIDS continues to mutate. I await the day it mutates into an airborne strain.

Had AIDS been dealt with as a usual non-political disease would have been, with quarantines and cultural acceptance of the fact that you actually make efforts to *avoid* spreading it, AIDS would now be a footnote in the history books. But… nope.

 Posted by at 1:01 am
Nov 122019
 

A cat to be respected. Quilty reminds me of Raedthinn who also was skilled in the art of opening doors that I’d just as soon he didn’t.

‘He will not be contained’: Quilty the shelter cat put in solitary confinement after repeatedly freeing other cats

Quilty will not be contained. And he has no shame.Quilty loves to let cats out of the senior room.Repeatedly.Several…

Posted by Friends For Life Animal Rescue and Adoption Organization – Houston on Tuesday, October 29, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 12:50 am
Nov 102019
 

In 1985, Rockwell suggested that there might be profit in turning the Shuttle into a tanker for refueling/and servicing other spacecraft. At the same time they had the idea of a space-based “spare parts bin,” which was just what it sounds like. The former makes a great deal of sense, but the latter… not so much. Today, however, a similar idea would probably include buckets of raw metal powder and some form of zero-g 3D printer to fabricate the needed parts. Otherwise, the number of parts that would be needed to service even the smallest fraction of satellites in orbit would be vast.

 

 Posted by at 10:35 pm
Nov 102019
 

The Color Out Of Space producers want to make a Lovecraft cinematic universe

Giggity!

First up, obviously, is “Color out of Space.” The next movie, production of which has apparently not begun, is “The Dunwich Horror.”

“Cinematic universes” are all the rage these days, thanks to the billions of dollars in profit that the Marvel movies have raked in. But as the “Dark universe” and “DC Universe” have shown, intentionally setting out to make a cinematic universe is tricky at best. The MCU worked in part because the first movie, “Iron Man,” was *not* really made to be part of a cinematic universe, while “The Mummy” and the Justice League” movies were. Thus they, unlike “Iron Man,” set out not to make a good movie, but to make a good *introduction,* and they pretty much failed at that. So on the surface it would seem that setting out to make a Lovecraftian cinematic universe might be a disaster.

But the thing is… many of Lovecrafts stories *were*  set in the same literary universe. “Dunwich Horror” existed alongside “Color out of Space” and “Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “At the Mountains of Madness” and, of course, “The Call of Cthulhu.” Hell, they even exist in the same universe as the “Conan the Barbarian” tales by Robert Howard. So, *IF* this is done properly, a Lovecraft cinematic universe *could* be a perfectly workable concept.

*IF.*

 Posted by at 6:49 pm