Remember when we used to be a country, with borders and laws and everything?
It is, of course, far too much to hope that they are being shuttled to a C-17 waiting to transport them to a holding facility in Tierra Del Fuego.
Feb 072022
Feb 072022
Sit back and laugh, folks:
Awkwafina Addresses ‘Blaccent’ Controversy and Quits Twitter
Few things more hilarious than groveling apologies by Hollywood types for *acting.* Plus, the idiots who screech about “cultural appropriation,” apparently unable to think more than one move ahead, failing to realize that if they got their way and the dominant culture suddenly stopped “appropriating” bits of this or that sub-culture, then soon enough those sub-cultures would, be *wholly* marginalized. Where would “hip-hop” be if only urban black people were interested in it? It would be essentially the modern minstrel show.
Feb 052022
A book I’ve been looking for for *years* and have come to assume doesn’t actually exist is one that collects diagrams of Civil War era ironclads… diagrams useful for model makers. I’ve seen books with good diagrams of sailing vessels, but it seems like the moment steam engines come into the picture, diagrams dry up. Has there been such a book? Would there be a market for such a book? And is there even adequate documentation to fill out such a book?
Something that collects diagrams of not just the Monitor and the Virginia, but the less well known vessels like the Choctaw, Essex, Keokuk, Lafayette, Mississippi, Albermarle and all the other vessels from that transitional and important era.
Feb 042022
In my lifetime there have been several noteworthy epidemics, but two stand out for their political nature. The Commie Cough, of course, has been wreaking havoc for a few years now, and opening the door for totalitarianism and mass Karening the whole time. But a generation earlier, another epidemic gained vast political clout and resulted in almost the exact opposite response. Where COVID has led to lockdowns of entire populations, mass testing and legal repercussions for not just ill-behaved people with the disease but well intentioned people without it… AIDS resulted in the opposite. AIDS is a disease that is 100% fatal barring the use of complex and expensive drugs that do not cure the disease but merely hold it in check; stop the drugs and not only do you probably die, you return to being a carrier. The entire planet was shut down to ostensibly deal with a disease that well over 90% of those who get it will survive. But AIDS? Go ahead and do what you like, because reasons.
Had the same policies now in place for the Pinko Pox been in place for AIDS thirty years ago – in particular, mass testing and quarantining of the infected – the disease would be a historical footnote, popping up about as often as Ebola. But no, any suggestion for doing such a thing is seen as homophobic, despite the fact that the bulk of the lives spared would have been that very demographic.
But behold, joyous news:
More aggressive HIV strain that leads to AIDS twice as fast discovered in Netherlands
By allowing the HIV to persist, rather than wiping it out decades ago, it had the opportunity to mutate into an exciting strain that not only transforms the infection into full AIDS faster, it also results in a higher viral load and is much more transmissible. This strain has been around for a while but is seemingly becoming much more prevalent. Coming soon: an airborne strain as transmissible as COVID.
Some will argue against the need for testing and quarantining because AIDS “cocktails” have been around for a couple decades now that allow people with the virus to live seemingly healthy lives, apparently for a normal lifespan. And for those that have the virus, this doubtless is a good thing. But this is only a good thing for as long as the drugs last. A global war? A major economic meltdown? A Carrington Event? Complex, expensive drugs could easily become quite rare. How long does someone need to be off their antiretroviral meds before the HIV decides to become resistant to the meds?
Feb 042022
“The Orville” had been slated to premiere on Hulu in March, but it has been pushed back to June. if this promo is anything to go by, the production team has used their time well. I’m more excited about this than I am with all the current and future crop of “official” Trek cumulatively.
Feb 042022
So, I had the opportunity to procure a box of vintage diagrams. This is not the sort of thing to be passed up. The shipper wanted me to pay the shipping cost, which is a wholly reasonable position to take; the most convenient shipping service for the sender was FedEx, so I got a FedEx account, created a shipping label through the FedEx website, emailed it as a PDF to the sender, he printed it out, stuck it to the box, dropped it off at FedEx on the 1st. It promptly appeared on the FedEx tracking site. Woo.
Delivery was scheduled for yesterday. It arrived in this state yesterday morning, with delivery scheduled by “end of day.” All plans for the day were put on hold to await the box; I have no desire for this thing to end up in the hands of porch pirates or drowned in rain. So 5 PM rolls around, no package. Perhaps “end of day” meant midnight. Sometime in the evening, the tracking info changed… now, “pending” and “no delivery date scheduled.”
Gah.
So I wake up this AM hoping that things will have changed. Nope. Noon rolls around, no change. So I called FedEx and spoke to a human. And here’s the problem. It got on a truck to be delivered to me, they scanned the label and found that the “to” address is the same as the “from” address on the account, and they got all confused, so they will sit on the package for a few *days* while they print up a new label and then ship it *back.* And since the “from” address is the same as where it was supposed to go in the first friggen’ place, “shipping it back” means sending it to me, where it was supposed to go anyway. Just delayed several days, because reasons.
Fricken’ bureaucrats.
Feb 042022
There are two possibilities with a story like this:
1) Someone who *used* to be popular and successful, looking to gin up some controversy as a hail Mary pass at returning to the spotlight
2) She’d bugnuts.
Susan Sarandon shares post comparing NYPD funeral turnout to ‘fascism’ in latest example of anti-cop vitriol
Specifically:
— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) February 1, 2022
I can’t imagine that comparing police at a funeral for other officers who were assassinated is going to do a whole lot for Ms. Sarandon’s career.
Here’s a hint for Hollywood types who get the sudden urge to slander or libel good people:
Feb 032022
So YouTube decided I needed to see a video from 2011, describing Whitney Houstons disastrous “comeback” tour in Europe. Like a lot of celebrities, her talent, such as it was, had turned to garbage due to drugs and ego, leading one critic to say (at the 37 second point) “she looked and sounded like a person who doesn’t have many years left to live.” Huh. I looked her up on Wikipedia: she died Feb 11, 2012 (in retrospect, that’s almost ten years ago, so maybe the YouTube algorithm is spooling up for the decade-festivities), about ten months after this piece originally aired. I hope the critic put in a bet at Lloyd’s of London about that…
Feb 032022
With that headline, this could have gone *way* different. The difference between an entertaining YouTube video and a national news story? Nobody, neither The Guy nor The Cops, acted like a jackass.
Moral of the story? Listen to Chris Rock. And when you go out armed, go out Freakin’ ARMED.
Feb 032022
I’m honestly a little uncertain about what the Canadian truckers are protesting. Something to do with mask mandates or some such.And while I might at one time have had a problem with people shutting down ,major highways in order to protest stuff that doesn’t make sense to me… 2020 pretty much burned me out: if I’m supposed to see racist morons burning and looting and murdering as “mostly peaceful protests for justice” then I can hardly get upset over truckers showing up somewhere in large numbers.
But the truckers don’t seem to be alone; Canadian farmers seem to be joining in. And the Canadian police, doubtless under orders from the feckless totalitarian “leaders” currently ordering the country about, seem to be trying to stop them. And farmers being farmers, they’re not overly concerned with such trifles…
I’ve heard people talking about a similar truck convoy that may head to D.C. I *really* don’t care what it might be that they’re protesting, but if enough tracks can get into that den of iniquity to shut the place down, and drown out anything Gropy Joe or Pelosi or any of those senile authoritarians might want to blather about, then I’m all for it. Too many of these politicians have used China’s viral gift to the world as a way to amass power; anything that stands up to them, I’m for.
Mandatory animation: