I know, I’m shocked too. It was well made, well acted and actually entertaining and *funny.* Not being a D&D aficionado, I don’t know if they did the lore justice, but I found it an adequately good movie. Certainly vastly better than the flick twenty-some years ago, and not as gawd-awful as the producers had promised it would be. Yeah, there’s some The Message casting going on, but that’s hard to get away from these days.
1: A Remington Rand Printing Calculator showed up today. I need it solely for the number keys. Damn thing weighs a ton. Not sure what I’ll do with it after… It’s not something I have a particular use for, nor am I likely going to be able to restore it properly.
2: I’ve figured out the “video camera:” it’s a Japanese “Monolux” telescope with a box wrapped around it. Some comparison shots between the prop and two copies of the scope I found on ebay:
The size is about right, the shape is dead on, the details are right, the colors are, within limits, correct. The “box” might have been an actual product, but it’s simple enough, and the seams look crappy enough, that making it from scratch seems fully warranted.
A song from five years ago is now made relevant again by this news about the “Trump-Russia Collusion” narrative falling apart even more:
As the kids say, it’s a “banger.”
It was produced by the same folks responsible for the Alex Jones “Gay Frogs” remix:
Whenever there’s an “incident,” no matter how horrifying, that can be used for political purposes, it *will* be used for political purposes. But sometimes those attempting to do so go about it in such a brazen and dishonest, yet bumblingly incompetent, manner that you just have to sit up and take notice.
For instance, the mass shooting in Allen, Texas. One of the first witnesses to dash before the cameras was one Fredd Steven Spainhouer, who said he rushed to render aid to the wounded, performing CPR on three of them.
He used this soapbox the argue against civil rights by way of disarming citizens:
He seemed to be out in front of cameras rather a lot. Turns out there’s a reason for that: he’s a Texas State Democrat Party Executive Committee member. It was an opportunity to not just tell his story, but to spin a political narrative. But there’s a problem, one the Allen Police Department has gone public with: he’s lying.
His history is not exactly an exemplary one. He fits in with the Dems just right, I guess.
He has also been indicted for tampering with government records, and terminated as a law enforcement officer.
Stratolaunch LLC announces it has successfully completed a separation release test of the Talon-A separation test vehicle, TA-0. The flight was the eleventh for the company’s launch platform Roc and the second time the team has conducted flight operations in Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Western Range off California’s central coast.
The former Marine facing a show trial for restraining a subway loonie has a GiveSendGo to fund his defense. It’s currently more than $1.3 million which tends to make one think that there are a lot of people on his side.
As readers of this blog are doubtless aware, I am unimpressed with Kelvin-timeline Trek and *especially* “Discovery” Trek. STD sucks on a whole multitude of levels, from bad writing and terrible characters, terrible politics and worse ideology; not a lot can fix that. But one thing that the article above *can* deal with is the fact that STD simply doesn’t fit canon-wise with TOS. And what is that explanation? Time travel. There has been a *lot* of time travel in Trek over the years. And Trek has demonstrated that changing the timeline is possible; the universe does not necessarily reset to some special chosen track.
So why does STD not fit with TOS? Because time travelers have mucked up the timeline and have, like in the Star trek: Lens Flare movies made post 2009, created offshoot timelines where things are different. And of course, if the relatively tiny groups of people followed int he shows and movies encounter time travel as often as they do, it’s reasonable to assume that the whole galaxy is filled with people and races constantly mucking up the timeline, unseen by Starfleet.
This seems like a compromise that trek fans should be able to accept: TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY were one timeline… one that got diverted for 2009 and again for STD. They are different canon. I’ve been saying *that* for a while, but here’s a fair in-universe explanation for it.
Your government, ladies and gentlemen. Priorities: not you.
Suggestion: give the homeless vets jobs. On the border. Repelling the invasion.
This fan-made prop is damned impressive. Had something like this been available *and* *affordable* back when Next Generation was still on, it would have some like Furbies that distribute crack.
After municipal and environmental laws failed, town officials approached Vermont State Senator Phillip Baruth for help. He quickly sponsored a bill making it a felony to operate a “paramilitary training camp” within the state.
Baruth, a liberal Democrat from Burlington, admitted he introduced the bill after Pawlet officials complained there was no state law that they could use to force Banyai to shutter his private ranges on his private property.
This week, Vermont’s Gov. Phil Scott – a Republican – signed the bill into law.
4071. PARAMILITARY TRAINING PROHIBITED
(a) A person shall not:
(1) teach, train, or demonstrate to any other person the use, application, or making of a firearm, explosive, or incendiary device capable of causing injury or death, or techniques capable of causing injury or death to persons, if the person knows or reasonably should know that the teaching, training, or demonstrating is intended to be used in or in furtherance of a civil disorder; or
(2) assemble with one or more other persons for the purpose of practicing or being taught, trained, or instructed in the use, application, or making of a firearm, explosive, or incendiary device capable of causing injury or death, or in techniques capable of causing injury or death to persons, if the person knows or reasonably should know that the practicing, teaching, training, or instruction is intended to be used in or in furtherance of a civil disorder.
It’s the “in furtherance of a civil disorder” that is the wedge in the door. Who could argue with a law against training someone to commit a crime? Well… how *exactly* do you determine what a civil disorder is? The law states: The term “civil disorder” means any public disturbance involving acts of violence by assemblages of three or more persons, which causes an immediate danger of or results in damage or injury to the property or person of any other individual. Three people in a fight is a “civil disorder.”
We’ve seen people arrested for committing acts of self defense. So is defending yourself against subway psychos (one psycho, two or three people holding him down) or mobs of murderous arsonists (one kid with a rifle against multiple armed assailants) “civil disorder?” I bet it can be to a creative prosecutor. And you can bet that if anyone who taught firearms safety, marksmanship or even basic self defense teaches the general public, chances are that one of their students will, at some point, use that training. And if there is a creative prosecutor, not only will the trainee get arrested… so will the trainer. Will the prosecutor win the trial against a guy who ran a karate school and who once taught a kid who then went on to karate chop another kid in a schoolyard brawl? Maybe, maybe not. But the prosecutor might well bankrupt the karate teacher in the process, so… that’s a win for the prosecutor, even if there’s a “not guilty” verdict.