Biden gave Putin a list of high-priority targets for Russian hackers to take down. How did *anyone* think that was a good idea?
1: It comes off as weakness: “Please don’t attack us!” Thus inviting attack.
2: A list of stuff Biden thinks shoudl be off limits not only points out vulnerabilities, it’s the wrong frikken’ message. Instead of “please don’t attack these,” which implies that it’s ok to attack *other* entities, the message should be “we will respond in a way that seems good to us. Remember that you hare highly economically dependent upon things like pipelines. It sure would be a shame if the software controlling your pipelines causes an explosion. Again.”
According to court documents, Michael Scott Campbell told police he was sleeping in his Ford F-150 around 3:45 a.m. Saturday when he was woken up by someone attempting to saw the catalytic converter off his truck. Campbell told police he saw two legs sticking out from under the truck when he opened the passenger door and fired “straight down” at the suspected thief. Campbell said he then fired two more shots at the man, according to court documents.
The man attempted to get into his vehicle but collapsed, court documents say. Campbell told police he then tied the man to the ball hitch of the F-150. Campbell said he dragged the man into a nearby field and left him.
No heroes in this story. Also, no real victims. Campbell *clearly* went buggo. But the thief was… well, a thief. Such people are a burden on society. That one more is gone is…
Seems like this should’ve been standard from the get-go:
Hate, Pain and Discontent!
VMM-268 Red Dragons conduct training on the DWS weapons system. A belly mounted, remote controlled, mini-gun that specializes in punishing the enemy. VMM-268 leads the fleet in DWS operations with multiple aircraft outfitted with the system. #marinespic.twitter.com/d9TKdy5en1
The Walgreens here will likely either close down or institute new security procedures, such as locking up pretty much anything worth stealing. If it was up to me, I’d recommend the former. Close the doors, box everything up, move out of town and leave behind nothing but posters showing this incident and quotes from local politicians about Proposition 47, which effectively made it legal to steal anything under $950.
The season three finale of “Final Space” just aired. This show seems to be slipping under the radar, but I’ve become quite impressed with it. In short, it’s an animated sci-fi “comedy” show starring one “Gary Goodspeed,” a somewhat standard goofy loser type who gets into legal trouble while trying to impress a woman, takign control of a military spaceship and causing a great deal of damage to a spaceport because he has no idea what he’s doing. The first season started off pretty uneven; the attempts to be funny sometimes worked, sometimes seemed like they were trying too hard. But as the series has progressed, the humor, while still there, has settled down and the focus of the show has shifted to really quite effective Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
As the show proceeds, the “drama” transitions from a somewhat stock Space Opera bad guy in the form of the “Lord Commander,” to trans-dimensional demigods called Titans that can destroy worlds at a whim, and finally to an entity that terrifies the Titans. Characters grow and characters die, and it’s emotionally affecting when they do so. The good guys fail; whole worlds die; reality itself is warped and broken. Good characters turn villainous because they’re tragically flawed, traumatized and influenced by powers beyond their reckoning. There are some neat ideas; the sci-fi is good and the animation is at times spectacular. More than once my eyebrows popped up and I muttered “damn,” watching something vast that I kinda wish I’d thought of. The show does not try to be “Futurama,” fortunately, but is its own thing. Some people have a problem with the fact that this show tries to be funny and silly… but to me the dissonance of silliness mixed with some really horrific things *works.*
The first two seasons are on HBO max, DirecTV, Adukt swim and TBS; the third is on Hulu. The first two seasons are also on Blu-Ray.
Here’s the final scene from the season 3 finale. It is a bit spoilery, of course… but try to imagine *any* other western animated series ending a season with a scene like this:
The use of music, both the score written for the series and songs from elsewhere that they’ve used, is really very well done. It’s too spoilery to give the details but one scene is heartbreaking and powerful in no small part to the use of “Enter One:”
