Update: Claimed to be a hoax. But as we’ve been told repeatedly in recent years, the seriousness of the accusation is more important than the accuracy of it.

Canada Has a Problem With Brandon

If this is accurate and not a hoax, this seems a rather remarkable abuse of power:

In a notice written late last week, a [REDACTED] official (see photo below) warned that “the use of the wording ‘Let’s Go Brandon” and any variation thereof under any circumstances is banned.”

“Violation of this policy,” the notice concludes, “will be grounds for immediate dismissal without recourse or labour union representation.”

If this is accurate, is there a complete list somewhere of things Canadian government employees must not ever say or write? If it has gotten all the way down to “Let’s Go Brandon,” you’d imagine that that list would be EXTENSIVE.

Also, it should be noted that whoever wrote that memo should be promptly fired without recourse. Note that it specifically says “the use of the wording ‘Let’s Go Brandon” and any variation thereof under any circumstances is banned.” That’s quite clear. We’ve all heard of cases where people have gotten fired/cancelled/demoted/threatened for saying A Bad Word, even when in the context of simply technically describing what the Bad Word is and how and why it’s Bad.

Also seemingly relevant: the Streisand Effect.

Canadian government workers must not say "Let's Go Brandon", or any variation thereof, in any communication.

😂#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/kDVpWQkqk3

— Peter McCaffrey (@peteremcc) October 17, 2021

As should now no longer be a spoiler of any particular note, James Bond dies at the end of “No Time To Die.” I cannot directly confirm this myself… this is the first Bond movie since the Roger Moore era that I will likely end up not seeing in the theater (the wokevertising that promised a Bond put in his place by a Mary Sue apparently turned out to not be accurate, but it turned me off to the flick). But the credits end with “James Bond will return.”

Now, there are a few ways this could happen, what with Bond being dead and all:

1: He’s not dead. An amazing escape, slid down an escape tunnel, beamed out by Scotty, survived under rubble, whatever. Presumably he received enough facial injuries that the reconstructive surgery will make him look like some completely different actor.

2: The old fan theory that the name “James Bond” is regularly passed along to new secret agents along with the 007 number. So Connery, Moore, Craig, etc. all exist in the same continuity.

3: A complete reboot.

Hard to say what it’ll be. Hard to say if the suits in charge of such things even know right now.

But here’s my suggestion: reboot. What’s more than that, remake some/many of the early Bond movies. Do this with A Plan: crank out the movies assembly line fashion so you get one Bond a year. Something like:

2025: Dr. No: A Chinese mad scientist working for SPECTRE farks with western space launches, risking a nuclear war.

2026: Thunderball: SPECTRE steals some nukes and threatens to evaporate some major cities, with the likely consequence of a nuclear war.

2027: You Only Live Twice: SPECTRE screws with space launches, threatening to spark a nuclear war

2028: Diamond Are Forever: SPECTRE builds an orbital weapon of mass destruction, threatening to spark a nuclear war; use of the weapon causes several nuclear detonations and reactor meltdowns.

2029: The Spy Who Loved Me: A megalomaniac sea-steader steals Russian and British boomers, with the intent of sparking a nuclear war; ends with multiple nuclear detonations at sea.

2030: Moonraker: And here’s the culmination. The remake goes much as the original; eccentric billionaire space industry tycoon steals a reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle from The Government, has a secret space launch complex hidden away in South America and plans to launch a bunch of craft all at once. Instead of manufacturing some weird poison, his minions are stealing nuclear warheads and plutonium pits. But when Bond is captured and the Evil Genius begins monologing, it’s none of that “I’m going to create a master race in space and will wipe out all mankind, muahahahaha” nonsense. It’ll be: “Have you seen what’s been going on lately? Ever since 2025 we’ve come within seconds of a global nuclear war like every friggen’ year! I’ve had plans in place to establish self-sufficient off-world colonies; but those plans were based on a thirty-year schedule. Last year multiple H-Bombs went off in the Atlantic! We don’t have thirty years! So damn right I’ve been stealing stuff; I’ve had to accelerate my plans. I’m getting the hell off this rock before it gets turned into radioactive ash by these crazy morons!”

In the end, Evil Genius successfully launches his hundred or so heavy lifters from the Amazon and sets up several self-sufficient O’Neill habs out in the asteroid belt. Bond goes along, hired as the new societies Director Of National Security. The numerous nukes and fissionables stolen by Evil Genius are used to create a range of reactors used to power spacecraft, stations and asteroid-munching factories. Enough power is available at the beginning that the factories are able to process out fissionables from the asteroids and mass-produce PV arrays, so the habs are able to not only self-support but reproduce. Since the thousands of people taken along have all been selected based on merit and STEM abilities, with no patience for “other ways of knowing” or kowtowing to “feelings” or “diversity mandates,” they are able to rapidly increase their technological base. They have functional fusion reactors and fusion engines within five years.

MI6 fires the now absent James Bond, hires a new nonbinary genderfluid dangerhaired Jamie Bond. On zer first mission, World War Five breaks out and the nukes fly; planetary population drops to a few hundred million in the resulting blasts, fallout and nuclear winter. Over the next few years, Original Bond leads a few missions to return to Earth scrape up technology, a few survivors, animals and plants. One exciting adventure where Bond leads a mission to raid the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Just a few months ago in February or so, I mentioned that I was working on a model of the “IXS Enterprise” warp drive ship for Fantastic Plastic. Currently planned for 1/288 scale, this is the most data-intensive model I’ve done so far… as shown below with only one of the two rings in place, the model is well over half a gigabyte, and my computer just laughs at me when I tell it to render the thing. The model nears completion; some “kitification” is needed on some parts and the two shuttles don’t exist yet.

In related matters, FP has released the model of the “Super Nexus” I CADded up a few years ago:

And the Convair “landing boat:”

And the Soviet LOK spacecraft:

That last one is of course in scale with the Soviet LK lunar lander I did for FP a while back:

Christmas is coming.

A couple of animations made apparently by *one* *guy.* Superior in many ways to studio animations from not all that long ago, showing that modern tech married to skill and talent can do wonders.

Uuuuuuuuuuugh…

The video, politics aside, is just horrifying in its cringiness. Badly written, badly acted, terrible plot. Kids – all actors of course, chosen seemign to tick diversity boxes – set about to build telescopes… but it’s never explained how scopes work. The science, physics, engineering of a telescope, or even the history of telescopes, is left out. but oh boy, they get to decorate them! Because that’s what kids desperate for STEM want: none of that “explanation” crap, bring on the glitter! NOTE: there are none of those evil, EEEEEVIL straight white cis males among the “team” of kids. Presumably they’re on their own team. That secondary team didn’t get any screen time and probably didn’t get to decorate their scopes. They had to make do with history and math lessons, and the heartache of designing and building their own equatorial mounts.

If for some reason you want to subject yourself to the whole thing unfiltered… don’t blame me, you wanted it. Here ya go, in all its ratioed glory.

Your tax dollars at “work.”

China Tested A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System That Uses A Hypersonic Glide Vehicle: Report

Short summary of Fractional Orbital Bombardment System:

Your typical ICBM lobs its payload onto a ballistic trajectory, an elliptical orbit that intersects Earth at two points: launch and target. FOBS, on the other hand, puts the warhead into a circular orbit like a conventional satellite. Typically a *low* orbit, but a circular orbit nonetheless. This is harder than an ICBM lob, but there are a few advantages. The biggest advantage is that, being in a low circular orbit, the warhead is below radar detection until it is almost on top of the target. At which point it fires a de-orbit motor and drops out of the sky with very little warning.

The reason why it’s called a “fractional” orbit is that it is generally assumed that it won’t complete a full orbit, but will de-orbit the first time it passes over the enemy. But that does not need to be the case; it could stay in orbit for some time, pretending to be, say, a weather, communications or spy satellite. Additionally, a FOBS system could theoretically launch in *any* direction; instead of Russian or Chinese ICBMs launching over the Pacific or Arctic to reach US targets, they could be launched south, pass over Antarctica and come at the US from Mexico or the Gulf where we have relatively little in the way of either early detection systems or missile defenses.

A disadvantage of FOBS is that the warhead, typically, must be aimed more or less directly at the target, as there is little cross-range to play with. Thus only a few orbits will pass close enough to the target; most orbits will be many hundreds or thousands of miles too far away. But by using a hypersonic glider as the warhead, cross-range is increased. So now something that looks like a mundane satellite launch that will pass nowhere near a US target will now sprout wings and fly right down Main Street.

The US and Russians have a treaty banning FOBS; the 1967 Outer Space treaty explicitly forbids the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space, which is exactly what FOBS does. The Chinese are on board with the OST, but hey, look, they don’t care. Shocker.

Glad we have a crack team of stalwart patriots and geniuses in the White House to deal with this.

Every mistake they could make, they’re running with:

Amazon has spent the better part of a *billion* dollars to explicitly trash Tolkeins creation. How does this make sense to them?

Are bodies supposed to go in the recycle bin?

Protestors violently invaded a government building in order to force the government to bend to their will (i.e subvering democracy through violence and intimidation). Will this insurgency receive the same level of media vitriol as the Mostly Peaceful Protest in January?

Violent protesters arrested after storming Interior Department, injuring officers

Doesn’t look like any of ’em got capped.

“Let’s go!” one protester yells while trying to climb in through the door. People cheer in support and crowd the steps as police continue to physically block the one entrance that is not locked. pic.twitter.com/aye5ydPKSa

— Ellie Silverman (@esilverman11) October 14, 2021

Climate protesters are pushing police, trying to force their way into the Department of the Interior where other activists have made it inside in an attempt to occupy the building. pic.twitter.com/IVhvPdTAYu

— Ellie Silverman (@esilverman11) October 14, 2021

B.C. woman nearly hit by meteorite that crashed through bedroom ceiling: ‘I’ve never been so scared in my life’

A rock that looks to be about half the size of a brick punched through her roof and landed on her bed. On the one hand, it’s a bother and of course scary. On the other hand…

A meteorite that hits a human-made object is sometimes referred to as a “hammer stone,” and that little detail accrues extra collectability points. The thing that got hit is a “hammer artifact,” and *that* can sell for a bucket of cash. For example, a ratted-out Chevy Malibu got hammered by a rock in the 1992 Peekskill, NY, meteor event; a car that had been recently purchased for $300 is now a protected museum piece. Consequently… yes, the woman in British Columbia should indeed get her roof repaired. But she should do it by having the roofers chop out one square yard or so of the roof around the hole, and then auction that sucker off.