The “Purge” comparisons seem apt

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 102022
 

It seems like anytime anyone mentions the new “SAFE-T Act” in Illinois, some reference to “The Purge” is made. What the Act will do, among other things, is end the cash bail system. There are good arguments for and against ending cash bail, where someone can pay a chunk of change to be able to go home and begin work on their defense. But what the Act does is *not* to end bail so that everyone arrested for a crime has to stay in jail, but instead to send a lot of violent offenders straight home. This is part and parcel of the “defund the police” movement and the “abolish prison” movement. It’s a step towards legalizing violent crime.

 Posted by at 11:58 pm

Well, there’s yer problem…

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 102022
 

Memphis had a spree shooting incident a few days ago. Why did the shooter, one Ezekiel Kelly, do this? Hard to say. But there’s a little detail that seems kinda important. A detail that had it been different, might have led to a very different outcome. From THIS LINK:

In February 2020, Kelly was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, possession of a firearm and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, court records obtained by Heavy show. A grand jury indicted on him on those charges in June 2020. He was 17 years old at the time.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in April 2021 and was sentenced to three years in prison. Kelly served only 11 months in prison and was released only about six months ago, authorities said in the news conference.

Huh.

For starters, he tried to murder someone and was sentenced to only three years… and then only served eleven months. If the justice system actually worked, he would still be in the early stages of his “life plus ninety days to help stink up the joint” sentence. Murderers – actual murderers, not people who kill in self defense, or purely accidentally, etc. – need to be separated from society *permanently.* And attempted murderers are simply murderers who are slightly less competent, and thus should receive the same sentence.

People need to start suing government officials responsible for letting murderers walk among us.

 

 Posted by at 10:18 am

So who will be the next King?

 Hmm..., news, politics  No Responses »
Sep 082022
 

Queen Elizabeth dies at 96, ending an era for Britain

Normally, the role should go to Charles. But this is Modern Britain. The idea of a white ethnically British male getting the job? Pffff.

From yesterday:

None of the UK’s top jobs is held by a White man for the first time. But British politics remains unequal, experts say

Britain went from being a globe-spanning colonizing power to being colonized by the globe.

 Posted by at 1:18 pm

Apparently being a man isn’t so great

 books, Crazy, Hmm..., news, politics, wisdom  No Responses »
Sep 082022
 

Nearly two decades ago, a lesbian named Norah Vincent decided to go through a substantial level of effort – working out, makeup, voice training, etc. – to be able to pass as a man. She spent 18 months being a “man,” and wrote a book about her experiences, the summary being “men have it hard too.” This was not exactly a shatteringly surprising conclusion for men, but it seemed to surprise a bunch of women who yammer on about “male privilege” and “patriarchy” and other such things that have never seemed to provide me with so much as a dime. Shrug. Well, she’s back in the news:

Woman Who Pretended To Be A Man Dies By Assisted Suicide After Realizing How Difficult It Was To Be One

To be fair, the story here seems to be missing a lot of details. For, example, *why* exactly she self-deleted. The author seems to conclude that her experiences as a man screwed her up… but that was a decade and a half ago. Given the dearth of details, there could have been a whole laundry list of other problems that cropped up in that time that led to her end. A New York Times article about her is similarly lacking in details.

 Posted by at 11:19 am

That’s a gigantic metaphor

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., My Fiction, news, ships, War With The Deep Ones, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 072022
 

Reminds me somewhat of DC’s recently finished-but-canceled “Batgirl” movie:

World’s biggest cruise ship is set to be sold for scrap before first voyage as owners go bankrupt: $1.6BILLION vessel was built with 20-decks and a WATER PARK

The “Global Dream II” cost more than *billion* dollars and is structurally complete but currently lacking in finishing touches (reportedly $200 million dollars to go). It’s 1,122 feet long and design to carry nine THOUSAND passengers. What astonished me the most, apart for the utter failure that this represents, is that it was apparently built indoors. The cruise line that paid for it went bankrupt and apparently could not find a buyer for the ship, so it’s to be broken up for scrap. The waste involved here is breathtaking. Think of all that could be done with a vessel like that. Granted, it’s a civilian cruise liner, and that comes with certain definite limitations; any idea of turning it into a combat vessel (it’s certainly big enough to be a creditable aircraft carrier) kinda go right out the window. But perhaps it could have made a dandy hospital ship. Or a floating apartment block.

 

It reminds me, because of course it does, of my “War With the Deep Ones” story “Champion of the Seas,” which you can get here:

War With The Deep Ones: Champion Of the Seas

 Posted by at 11:46 am

CAD diagrams such as these…

 aircraft, B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, drawings, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, projects, rockets, spacecraft, SR-71 Origins and Evolution  No Responses »
Sep 062022
 

I looked through a small fraction of my surprisingly vast pile of CAD diagrams for some I thought might look good in really large format. Some I’ve gone some distance towards formatting them that way already; some are still formatted for small sheets. There are more, of course. In no particular order.

Lockheed CL-400 “Suntan”

Lockheed M-21/D-21:

Lockheed A-12:

Lockheed SR-71A:

Lockheed YF-12A:

X-20 Dyna Soar/Titan III:

A number of 10-Meter Orion vehicles/sub-vehicles:

USAF 10-meter Orion:

General Dynamics “Kingfish:”

North American XF-108:

Lockheed A-12 concept w/canards:

Boeing B-47E:

Boeing B-52G:

Boeing B-52H:

Boeing B-52H + Skybolt:

Boeing DB-47E + Bold Orion:

Rockwell Star Raker:

Boeing “Big Onion” SSTO:

Boeing Space Freighter:

NASA Saturn C-8:

Lockheed STAR Clipper:

 

 

 Posted by at 4:47 pm
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