See, now *this* looks like a blast:
Mar 272022
Mar 272022
This makes no sense to me:
Ukrainian Snake Island sailors who shouted ‘Go f**k yourself’ at invading Russian forces before being captured are FREED in prisoner exchange with Moscow
Supposedly 19 Ukrainians from Snake island were traded for 11 Russian civilian sailors. Prisoner swaps occur all the time. But *these* prisoners seem like they’d be a propaganda coup for the Ukrainains. Trot these guys out on TV, on the radio, online, and in real life, and they’ll probably boost morale something fierce. Why the Russians would give them up is beyond me. Now if they all starting mysteriously dropping dead from never before seen diseases or Polonium poisoning… *THEN* it’d make sense.
Mar 262022
A compilation video of training launches of three of the more important weapons to come out of the first motnh of Putins folly:
Mar 262022
It turns out that Russia is littering the countryside of Ukraine with the bodies of dead Russians. One might think that the Ukrainians would be happy about that, but it turns out that there are *so* many dead Russians lying about that once it warms up and thaws, there could be a bit of a stink and the usual nonsense about diseases and such. And the Russians don’t seem to want them back. If I was a Russian citizen, I think I might find this strategy vaguely disturbing and unsatisfying.
The bodies of Russian soldiers are piling up in Ukraine, as Kremlin conceals true toll of war
Mar 252022
Great-grandmother charged with second-degree murder after 7-month-old killed in Georgia dog mauling
Lots of “wrong” in this story. but what jumps right out at me: the “great grandmother” here is FIFTY SIX YEARS OLD. mean an average age at spawning of about 18. Certainly not historically or biologically unreasonable… it just seems weird and unwise.
Also what jumps out at me: the great-grandmother was attacked by the dog as well… and the dog wasn’t *her* dog. Important details are left out of the story, such as what the frak happened such that *she* is getting charged with murder for someone else’s dog going buggo on a baby.
Mar 252022
Well, this makes the future look that much more sunny:
AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours
In short: an AI is used to weed out theoretical medicines because of side effects. That’s great. But the people running it decided “what if we ask it to do the opposite?” and it came up with thousands of innovative new ways to kill people. The AI invented existing nerve agents… and invented some new ones that the predictive modelling says should be *more* toxic than what’s currently on hand.
That’s… greeeeeeeaaaaaaat.
Just wait until the same techniques get used to dream up neato new viruses. Those sci-fi theoretical pathogens that seek out specific genetic markers… hair color, ethnic traits, intelligence, whatever, and kill, stupefy, disable? Yeah… might not be sci-fi for long.
Hurry the frak up, Elon. Humanity might be needing self-sufficient colonies separated by distances great enough that travel times alone provide a quarantine effect real soon.
Mar 252022
The two responsible for the mauling of Buddy the cat have turned themselves in:
12-year-old, 17-year-old turn themselves in to authorities following vicious attack on Buddy the cat
Sadly the two have not been identified because they are juveniles, which also means that they will very likely get a slap on the wrist at best. They came in to the SPCA with “a parent.” This probably means they’re brothers. And it raises the question “why not both parents.”
Interestingly, if you let the video embedded in the above link play, it cycles through a number of stories, including one about a skunk. Here, some people saw a skunk with a peanut butter jar stuck on its head roaming randomly in a panic; they called animal control who successfully got the jar off its head with nobody getting injured or sprayed. Ta-da. A more opposite sort of story would be hard to immediately invent…here, an animal that, unlike a cat, is generally *disliked*, finds itself in trouble and humans actually give a damn and go to some effort to provide aid to the animal. Granted, it’s not detangling a sharktopus from radioactive razorwire, but still… compared to two monsters taking joy in the destruction of a loved, harmless animal? It’s fricken’ Nobel material.
And unrelated to cats and critters, but related to Philadelphia:
Family members identify teen gravely injured after shooting in Wissinoming
The teen is 15, and by “gravely injured” they mean “brain dead, will die in a day or so.” Apparently he was merely a bystander to some sort of altercation that led to shots fired. Police think it might have something to do with an attempted robbery around the corner.
Philadelphia sounds like a nice place to stay the hell away from.
Mar 252022
The 4K remaster of the Directors Edition of Star Trek: the Motion Picture hits Paramount Plus on April 5. Lots of people dunk on TMP, and many of the complaints are fair… but damn, that there is one pretty, pretty movie. It also has one of the best scores *ever.*
Mar 252022
Before the Europeans got involved int he transatlantic slave trade, *they* were enslaved by Africans and Middle Easterners. This, of course, is inconvenient for The Narrative.
Mar 252022
As anyone who has ever had to deal with the myriad of medical maladies that can afflict them, cats are fragile. Conversely, they can be tough little bastards. I saw that years ago when Fingers was still an outdoors farmcat, stoically shrugging off a neck wound that would have utterly ruined a human. And Buddy the cat, set upon by two pit bulls and two “humans,” manages to continue to fight to survive.
Buddy the cat is ‘hanging in there’ after vicious attack by 2 dogs in Philly
There is a brief Facebook video embedded there showing that he is up and about, kneading. That would seem to be a good sign.
No word as yet whether the perpetrators have been found.