...you're watching this on a computer. Or a cell phone.
So? What's your point?
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One of my favorite scenes from Firefly is when the crew is discussing the "modifications" that were made to River Tam, and Wash complains incredulously what that sounds like...only to have his wife remind him that they're in a spaceship. Only Wash doesn't see what she's saying.
Heh.
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Today they are putting a skin coat of asphalt on a street some two blocks away from Mushroom Street, yet I can hear the thrum of the vibrating compactors in the rollers quite clearly.
Going to run outside and get the front and side grass cut before getting ready for work, so the following ellipsis will represent not just a separation of topics but also the passage of time.
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Front and sides cut; on with the bloggeratin'.
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I cannot imagine a worse strategy than doubling down on identity politics, and that post shows why. Will the Democrats reliably unite behind their final candidate? They didn't in 2016; the selection of Hillary by the superdelegates soured enough Bernie Sanders voters that she lost.
So, let's say they fronted Harris after all was said and done. Black and woman, that ticks two of the "identity politics" check boxes and it hands them both the black vote, and the vote of women from moderate to leftist. But does it hand them enough of those votes to beat Trump?
Because Trump won't treat Kamala Harris the way McCain treated Obama in 2008. Everyone on the left already calls him "racist" so that gives him carte blanche to annihilate Harris on her record, which is questionable enough that she's not able to beat Joe Biden, at least not convincingly. Let's face it: there's enough evidence out there that she "slept" her way to power that anyone who is willing to fight has a trump card (pun intended) with that alone. To say nothing of her record as a prosecutor. No; absent some serious game-changer, Trump thrashes her in the general even with the support she draws solely by being black and female. And honestly, even if she came out as a lesbian after nomination I don't think that would help very much, either, since the people who would vote for a lesbian because she's a lesbian would already be voting for her because she's a black woman.
All of them are desperately trying to sell socialism to the millennials, because the millennials think that means they can go on working easy jobs and screwing off the rest of the time and still get free schooling and health care. They don't realize that in a socialist United States, they have to work much harder than they do now for that "free" stuff, and the general standard of living drops for just about everyone except the rich and powerful. (You cannot blame them for this; they were not taught anything useful by the socialized educational system. Certainly they did not learn any economics, which everyone in education is careful to characterize as "boring" so they never get interested in learning the subject.)
Besides socialism, identity politics is all the Democrats have. They cannot run on their record. They cannot run on immigration. They cannot run on an anti-establishment platform. They cannot run on anti-war policy. They must run against the economy, because it is doing better now than it did during the entire eight years of the Obama administration.
And this is why the New York Times has ramped up the "Trump is a racist!" rhetoric, why the Democrat-media complex is hammering that point as hard as they can. At the same time, it's why all the news outlets are asking, "Oooooh, are we due for a recession? I think we are!" Propaganda is what they've got, and lots of it.
"Ooooh! America is so racist! You don't want to be considered racist, do you? You'd better vote for a black woman, because if you don't, you're a racist!"
...except that no longer works.
Okay? It's been done to death. "Racist!" has been overused, and badly. It doesn't scare people any longer. Where once the response was cringing and apology, now it merits a roll of the eyes and sarcasm: "Yes, that's right, you got me, I'm drinking milk because I'm a racist."
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Indeed: Fuck off, Reg.
Elton [John]'s boast that he neutralised the pollution of the royals' luxury trip by making an 'appropriate contribution' makes him sound even more pompous. What he is effectively saying is that he is so goddamn rich, so up to his neck in cash, that not only can he afford to put his posh friends on a private jet but he can also pay to ensure their flights don't harm the planet. He is wealthy and therefore he is less sinful than the rest of us who fly to Alicante but never chuck a few quid to Carbon Footprint--because, er, we can't afford it. In the world of green virtue-signalling, the rich are more pure than the poor."Carbon offsets" are a scam, anyway.
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Larry Correia on the renaming of the "Campbell Award" to "Astounding Award".
See, John W. Campbell was an editor back in the glory days of SF, back before everyone was woke and realized how bad people used to be. Because Campbell was not a socially aware 2019 SJW--not even one time prior to his death in 1971--he's obviously a racist who needs to be unpersoned and disappeared as quickly as possible. Get it? Like pulling down statues of Confederate leaders, Campbell has to be removed, because racist.
Vox Day declares that science fiction is dead. I see where he's coming from, but I disagree. It's just that what's being published as SF isn't actually SF and the things that win the awards aren't SF. Organized SF isn't; and that's what's dead, for certain, however animated it may currently be.
But there are still people out there who write SF in the Campbell tradition. Who write stuff in the same vein as the greats that Campbell himself discovered and nurtured.
They say the heart of Science Fiction's still beatingAnd if you need me to tell you what song that should be sung to, you obviously didn't grow up in the 1980s.
And from what I've seen I believe 'em
Now the old boy may be barely breathing
But the heart of science fiction's
The heart of science fiction's still beating
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Still no employer indictments in the ICE raids in Mississippi. Businesses that hire illegals need to be penalized for it, no exceptions, or illegal immigration won't be stopped.
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Sometimes I think there should be a basic competency test administered to would-be politicians in order to screen out the ignorant fools who don't know how the country works, but who want to be in charge of it anyway.
A lot of people on the left love to screech about "democracy" but the United States was not meant to be a democracy, but a representative republic. It is true that our representatives are democratically elected, but that's not democracy.
"Democracy" is everyone voting on something--anything--everything. A referendum is a democratic vote--and people of Representative Horsteeth's ilk usually sue to overturn the outcomes of referenda because the people voted against their wishes.
So, in fact, Democrats are usually anything but democratic, but even if they were they still would be wrong about the system of government.
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This Vox Day piece doesn't really explain what procedural loophole Britain's new prime minister is using.
It's rather rich seeing the Remainers who have exploited every technical loophole and invented a few from scratch complaining about Prime Minister Boris Johnson utilizing a time-hallowed one to ensure Brexit is not delayed a second time[.]
This piece does. The PM is asking the Queen to suspend Parliament so Brexit can proceed uninterrupted.
Vox Day offers the following analysis:
Despite all their whining about democracy, the Remainers are loathe to take the obvious tactic that remains to them, which is a no-confidence vote that would trigger a new election. They don't dare utilize it because they know that a pro-Brexit Parliament would replace them. Their dilemma is that they have neither the spirit nor the letter of the law on their side.The Remainers share the American Democrats' disdain for the voice of the people. The referendum on Britain leaving the European Union was a democratic vote, up or down, on the issue, and the populace said it wanted out.
But the only way to get rid of Boris Johnson now is for a vote of "no confidence" to dissolve the sitting government and elect a new one. And the Remain bloc knows that if they pull that trigger, the populace will elect more pro-exit ministers, because although they are pretending mightily that the majority doesn't want Brexit, they know that the majority wants it and is becoming increasingly irate that it has not yet happened.
It's a fight they cannot win, so they choose to delay. But there are ways to fix that, too.
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Let's have another gander at NYC--
Rotten Chestnuts talks about the recommendation to NYC that they do away with "charter" and/or "magnet" schools--specifically, the entrance exams to them--because the high-performing schools are too white and too asian.
The problem is, though, that the water isn't any better in those places than it is at the regular schools. The problem is that some horses refuse to drink the water regardless of where it comes from.
But New York's mayor has made it clear that he's not "pro-choice" when it comes to schools. "I hate the privatizers and I want to stop them," he said.
Any bets on what kind of schools his kids went to? I've got a fiver that says if he indeed has had any children, they went to private schools. Because he doesn't hate school choice for his own children; he just hates it when you have a choice.
And what the hell is this shit? New York state has suspended its constitution? It has to do with rent control, I think, but the post doesn't really explain what's happening and the only link in it is to the actual bill, which I am not going to try to understand.
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New Jersey may be worse than Illinois. Or, at least, just as bad.
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So let's look at the proverbial "shit cities" on the west coast and have a little perspective:
The majority of the nation's homeless people now live in California. There are myriad causes at work, no doubt. But there was no "defecation crisis"...in the 1930s, even with unemployment at 25 percent, vagabonds roaming the country, and shantytowns and "Hoovervilles" springing up everywhere.Do you know why that is? Because, in 1935, if you'd copped a squat in the street, the local cop would have had you in jail before you could finish pulling up your pants. That was only if he didn't see you dropping your trousers and warn, "Not here, pal," emphasizing it by pointing the end of his billy club at you.
In 1935, there were laws against vagrancy; they were enforced, and no one questioned them, because they understood the need for them.
These days a cop who tells a vagrant not to shit in the street is likely to get sued by any number of left-wing "rights" organizations.
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This is why the war on drugs is a failure. Prescriptions aren't the problem.
$572 million in damages from the maker of a legal product, because people died who illegally used chemicals similar to that product.
In that post, Borepatch links to Aesop who provides the nitty-gritty details on why this is a stupid, stupid ruling.
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Speaking of the war on (some) drugs the idiocy of Illinois expunging marajuana convictions is manifest.
Here's the thing: sure, marajuana is legal now. (Or will be shortly.) But it wasn't always so.
Okay, so you got busted with a bunch of pot in 2009. In 2009, pot was illegal in Illinois. Just because pot is now legal does not change the fact that you broke the law in 2009. As Second City Cop points out, that law was passed by a legislature and signed into law by a governor; it was a constitutionally-enacted law. The fact that it has since been rescinded does not make your arrest for possession in 2009 a "wrong".
By calling it such, this fucking moron may have opened Illinois up for a whole slew of "wrongful arrest" and "wrongful conviction" lawsuits.
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"Some women have penises. Get over it." The person who said that probably believes that anthropogenic global warming is real "because muh science!", too.
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The politicians who are most eager to disarm the populace are the ones with the most heavily-armed bodyguards surrounding them.
Pity that linked article near the bottom is from Babylon Bee.
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Cry me a fucking river.
A Cameroonian migrant, Esteban Azu, 37, said he paid human smugglers $8,000 to get him into the U.S. He said his journey took him from his home country to Turkey, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally to Mexico, Animal Politico reported.So? Go back to Africa. I don't think the government of Mexico is stopping you from going back where you came from.
"I arrived in Tapachula a month ago. I left Cameroon and went directly to Ecuador. From there to Colombia. I climbed mountains, walked through the jungle, to find this shit," Azu expressed. "This shit! They don't feed me. They don't give me anything. I am very angry with the government of Mexico. This is not normal. This is bullshit. We need a solution. We just want to get out of here."
He wants to claim asylum in the US, but he does not get to do that. He can either claim asylum in Mexico, or he can go back to Africa. He has a choice. I am not sorry that neither choice is to his liking. If conditions in Africa are so horrible that he is fleeing them, I would think he'd be glad to ask Mexico for asylum, anyway.
But the fact that he paid someone $8,000 to get him from Africa to Mexico does not obligate the US to allow him entry and asylum. He is not an American citizen and the United States does not owe him anything. And complaining that Mexico doesn't feed him or give him anything? WTF, asshole, they didn't invite you there! Him sitting in Mexico and saying, "This is bullshit!" just shows an entitled mentality that we already have a surfeit of here in the US.
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By the way, dumbass, a plane ticket from Cameroon to a variety of American cities runs approximately a thousand dollars. Go get a passport, buy a ticket, and fly over here; then just toddle yourself over to the first customs officer you see and request asylum. A damned sight cheaper and easier than paying some schmuck $8k to have you walk five hundred miles through the fricking jungle.
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A few quick techno-blurbs:
Radiothermal generator can be throttled with a control rod, and uses Sterling engines to turn generators. Neat.
New Cray supercomputer is supposed to hit 1.5 exaflops. The Cray I hit 160 megaflops; the Core i7 processor in the typical desktop computer hits 60 gigaflops. Woot!
When I was starting tech school I fantasized about this. Didn't have the computing power in 1990 (see that last bit) but we sure do now.
No idea what the thing did in orbit for two years but it's back now.
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I'm skeptical.
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I used up all my energy already. *sigh*