Aug 162020
 

In the “Dark Knight” movies, the League of Shadows is busy trying to destroy Gotham City. Partly because Gotham is rotten and corrupt, but also because destroying things is just what the League of Shadows does. The League used means both subtle (economics) and gross (chemical weapons and bombs) to achieve this, but of course Batman was there to stop them and let Gotham keep limping along.

In the real world, New York City has no Batman. But it *does* seem to have its own League of Shadows in the form of Bill Deblasio, Fredo Cuomo, AOC, Antifa and the Democratic Party.

NYC IS DEAD FOREVER. HERE’S WHY

New York (city and state) and its terrible politicians are not at fault for the WuFlu; that would be the Chinese Communist Party. But they are responsible for some of what has happened as a result. Lockdowns were pretty much inevitable. But what wasn’t inevitable were two week quarantines for people visiting the state (which pretty much precludes non-New Yorkers from even contemplating vacationing there), along with checkpoints where the police Ask For Your Papers. And at the same time that these checkpoints are being set up, and domestic terror groups like Antifa are ramping up their criminality… New York City just ripped a billion dollars out of the NYPD’s budget. And New York is releasing prisoners in large numbers in order to empty out the prisons (as a Wu Flu measure) at the same time that the shooting rate is spiking nearly 300% from the same period a year ago, while pretty much all crime is way up.

People and businesses are realizing that a whole lot of jobs do not require you to be in an office every day; you can work from home quite effectively. As a result, there is less need to be in a big expensive city like NYC. And given that the local economy is collapsing due to Commie Cough issues and democratic Party shenanigans, a *lot* of New Yorkers are either fleeing the city or being driven out. As they go, they will take their income tax and property tax with them, meaning that more and more of the tax burden will fall on fewer and fewer people… who will thus be further incentivized to bail the frak out of NY C and S.

It’s unlikely that New York City will become a true ghost town; nor is it likely that it will get bulldozed and returned to a state of nature. but New York city might well turn into Detroit writ large. And the League of Shadows will have won.

But you kinda have to wonder why they want to ruin NYC.

 Posted by at 8:44 pm
Aug 162020
 

… is apparently in the early stages of development.

Eh.

“Interstellar” was a visual masterpiece, but it was yet another one of those friggen’ mopey “space is awful, the future sucks, everything is bleak and doomed” flicks that Hollywood seems incapable of not making. And for a movie where so much was made of its scientific accuracy about black holes and how so much effort was made into making everything right, so damned much of it was nonsensical or outright bad/wrong science that it yoinked me right out of the story. For example: the “Ranger” spaceplanes that were launched into Earth orbit atop a heavy lift booster of some kind: sure, that makes sense. But then… the same spaceplanes were able to dive *deep* into the gravity well of a supermassive black hole, rendezvous with a planet, land on it, launch back into orbit and CLIMB BACK OUT of the black holes gravity well. The planet was so far in the well that time dilation was massive… years went by outside for every hour spent inside. This meant that this spaceplane not only had a phenomenal thrust-to-weight ratio, it had a delta V of a *large* fraction of the speed of light. Which means that not only would it not need a booster to get to Earth orbit, it wouldn’t take months to go from Earth to Saturn.

Bah.

At least it wasn’t “Ad Astra” though. Shudder.

 Posted by at 2:30 pm
Aug 162020
 

This is interesting… a simulation of unknown provenance depicting the possible flooding resulting from a collapse of the Three Gorges Dam in China. If this simulation is remotely accurate – and I have no idea if it is, so YMMV – if the dam collapses China is in for some interesting times. Interestingly, one of the cities slated for a watery erasure is Wuhan.

 

 Posted by at 1:15 pm
Aug 142020
 

This is what a derecho looks like sweeping across Illinois, as seen by the GOES-East satellite.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Tweets:

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 5:15 pm
Aug 142020
 

CBS All Access has plopped the first episode of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” onto YouTube. So… “enjoy,” I guess?

To say that it is “meh” puts it leaps and bounds ahead of STD and Picard, which actively hate Star Trek canon and the fanbase. Lower Decks seems canon-adjacent. But it’s still meh.

For all I know, Lower Decks will figure itself out and settle down into being a truly quality Trek series worthy of remembrance and celebration (I doubt it). But even if it did, CBS has spent so much time and money squandering fan goodwill that I doubt much of anyone will be there to see it. The fact that Lower Decks episode 1 was made freely available is likely evidence that not much of anybody cared much for or about it.

 

 

 Posted by at 4:58 pm
Aug 142020
 

A bunch of hippies apparently tried to block a McDonalds in Denmark because… reasons, I guess. Not everyone was having that, though.

Both his physical reaction to these genetic defectives *and* his verbal beatdown of them is spectacular and proper. These are the sort of morons who grew up never being told “no” and consequently think that their opinions and views are the only ones that should be allowed. What’s really remarkable is when reality doesn’t line up with their delusion… you can hear the gears grinding in their tiny little heads.

 

 Posted by at 1:43 pm