Update on the Blyatskrieg

 Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire  No Responses »
Sep 132022
 

“IF” being the operative word.

Let’s say that the war somehow comes to a non-apocalyptic end, with Russia driven from Ukraine and tens of thousands of POWs left behind in Ukrainian custody. Ukraine needs a *lot* of work to rebuild; presumably those POWs would come in handy for that. I wonder about the legality of using them effectively as slave labor in construction camps. Or about “ransoming” them… put them to work, catalog and document who they  are, and send bills to not just the Russian government but the *families* of the POWs. “You can have Ivan back for ten million American dollars. He gets to turn big rocks into little ones, until either his ransom is paid or the rebuilding of Ukraine is complete, whichever comes first.” With higher dollar amounts based on, say, rank. I wonder if GoFundMe would work with that…

 Posted by at 12:14 pm

*THIS* is how you do a movie trailer

 art, Crazy, Forward!, history, humor, politics  No Responses »
Sep 122022
 

So “The Woman King” is a forthcoming “based on real events” movie about the “Dahomey Amazons.” It’s being spun as sort of a real-world Wakanda… an African nation that fought against evil European slavers. Small problem: Dahomey made its riches by selling other Africans into slavery. That’s pretty much what their economy was based on. But, whatever. The focus of the movie is on a corps of female warriors, “Amazons” who fought for their king. How’d that work out for them? Well, there is the official trailer… and there’s this lightly modified version:

What do you want to bet that that’s not exactly the spin the movie will produce…

 Posted by at 4:46 pm

Blue Origin New Shepard has a launch failure at Max Q

 AARRRGH, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 122022
 

An unmanned test flight of the New Shepard suffered a catastrophic engine explosion. The capsule seemed to successfully separate and landed normally, but that would have been a *damned* rough ride, with a bunch of eyeballs-out G’s for a few seconds.

On other launch matters: Firefly is gonna try to launch again today, not sure what time:

WHOOPS: scrubbed.

 

And NASA wants to try to launch Artemis on the 23rd.

Its maiden flight is now tentatively scheduled to take place on:

    • Between 6:47 a.m. EDT and 8:47 a.m. EDT on Friday, September 23, 2022.
    • Between 11:37 a.m. EDT and 12:47 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, September 27, 2022.
 Posted by at 3:59 pm

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

 AARRRGH, Crazy, politics, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 112022
 

Since this sort of scene is a common result of certain policies that have been pushed for years now… this is what the people pushing those policies *want.* When I lived in California, I only visited San Francisco a few times… it seemed a weird mix of the classy and the trashy. But that was going on 20 years ago. Any actual “classy” looks to have been swept away, and the “trashy” has devolved directly into third word S-hole status.

Someone looks at things like this and nods in satisfaction.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:20 pm

LazerPig explains the Moskva

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, Hmm..., politics, russian empire, ships, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 112022
 

Entertaining as always, but with a healthy dose of WTFery when he discusses the condition of the Moskva prior to being attacked. It’s… kinda astonishing. A ship that on paper was damned impressive, capable of dishing out heaps of violence, and able to defend itself from heaps of violence, turned out to be almost wholly inoperable. With an unforeseen diversion into the One True Cross, because apparently a chunk of it was on the Moskva. Whoopsie.

 Posted by at 5:55 pm

The “Purge” comparisons seem apt

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 102022
 

It seems like anytime anyone mentions the new “SAFE-T Act” in Illinois, some reference to “The Purge” is made. What the Act will do, among other things, is end the cash bail system. There are good arguments for and against ending cash bail, where someone can pay a chunk of change to be able to go home and begin work on their defense. But what the Act does is *not* to end bail so that everyone arrested for a crime has to stay in jail, but instead to send a lot of violent offenders straight home. This is part and parcel of the “defund the police” movement and the “abolish prison” movement. It’s a step towards legalizing violent crime.

 Posted by at 11:58 pm
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