The mark of good craftsmanship is that they make what they do look easy enough that anyone could do it. The mark of wise maturity is that you can look at that process and “haha, no, I ain’t gonna try that cuz I’ll screw it up.”
Jun 062022
Jun 062022
Jun 062022
We all agree that young men who shoot up schools and grocery stores and such should be investigated and understood, with the goal of understanding what led them to do it. The important thing to learn would hopefully be how to spot the same sort of whacko *before* he goes bugnuts. Some things seem obvious, such as “as a kid he loves to torture cats.” Such a lil dickens should be put under one hell of a microscope, up to and including institutionalization. Another possible marker of a whacko mind? Writings of a particularly creepy and violent nature.
Take, for example, this:
Visions From The Last Crusade
That’s a brief little tale written and posted online waaaay back in 1988, in the earliest days of Ye Olde Internet. As a story, it’s not well written. As a warning sign, it’s got kinda flashing neon lights. One would hope that the author of such a thing *today* would draw the attention of The Authorities. You would hope that the actual author would have been kept far from the reigns of power.
Jun 062022
I suppose the chances were good, but the commies finally got me. After starting to feel like garbage on Friday, I had one hell of an awful weekend and got to the drug store today to get the covid test today. Huzzah, positive.
Things are not so bad now, but Saturday was really something, with a fever high enough to make me loopy. The whole weekend was characterized by “inertia,” not just physical, but mental. It stripped me of anything resembling enthusiasm, initiative or creativity. I sat my ass in front of the computer all weekend to work on Book 3… and I plopped out a grand total of four sentences.
Things today are much less awful, though still awful. Temperature is all over the place, though no longer as high as Saturday. I’d like to think that the worst is passed… but who knows. So if I vanish… well, there ya go.
EDIT: I just noticed that I posted a surprising number of posts on Saturday.
I don’t remember any of them.
Huh.
Jun 042022
At first it looks like anger. On closer examination, I think terror might be closer to the truth. Either would be appropriate… but the latter is more likely as that critter is faced with incomprehensible cosmic horror.
📷by Pavel Volkov pic.twitter.com/xVE7xuDJr3
— Ǝ˥ԀOƎԀ (@DailyLifePeople) May 31, 2022
Jun 042022
Wow:
Linton-on-Ouse: ‘No decision’ in controversial asylum centre plans
In short… the British government plans to implant 1,500 military age foreign men into a village with a total native population of 600. Men from cultures *very* different from English, with whole different ideas about just how wrong it is to sexually assault girls (and probably boys as well).
There is no good end to this story. And the people in charge fully know this… and they’re not just doing it anyway, they’re accelerating it.
Jun 042022
It’ll be a while yet before Disney snaps up all the righted needed to make this happen. But when the day comes, the *idea* will be there. Whether the execution will be any damn good is another thing entirely.
Star Wars meets Star Trek – Han Solo and Uhura
Star Wars meets Star Trek – Kirk and Leia
Jun 042022
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tench_Coxe
Tench Coxe (May 22, 1755 – July 17, 1824) was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789, and a key anti-Federalist, writing under the pseudonym “A Pennsylvanian”.
Quotes
- The power of the sword, say the minority…, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans.[1]
- Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
Recently I’ve seen a lot of pundits and politicians yammering on about “the Europeans figured out how to ban guns, why can’t we?” Because… we’re not Europeans. Yes, we are descended from Europe; our history and much of our culture of course comes from Europe, as did, at least at one time, most of our people. But our reason for existence? That’s all us, baby. The foundational principle of the United States is “liberty.” Not “safety,” not “peaceableness,” not “conformity” or “quiet.” LIBERTY. How many other nations have foundational principles in the first place, rather than being based on “this here plot of land” or “this here ethnic group?” We’re built and based on a philosophy, the cornerstone of which is “leave me alone to live my life as I see fit.”
Jun 042022
Get off my lawn.
Jun 032022
