Category Archives: Social Commentary

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Captain Video

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Lileks has a review:

Now. Let’s think. The escape portion is the rear. It has no controls or power, according to Captain Video. Yet that’s where the engine was. So the escape pod is powerless and rudderless even though it has the engine, and that’s what you get into to escape. From onrushing asteroids. How? By disengaging from the front half, which cuts off the engines, which makes the escape capsule fall.

Captain Video and the Ranger landed on the planet when the gravity of Atoma took their escape capsule and laid it down gently about 14 feet from the front door of the evil bad guy’s lair. What a stroke of luck! They dress up as natives. Aliens always dress like 19th century Arabs with big futuristic guns.

It was amazingly bad, almost Plan-9-like.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Shooter’s Politics

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An inconvenient truth:

While it has no bearing on this guy going nuts and killing 12 people, it’s rather ironic that he’s a liberal Obama supporter considering the left always jumps at the chance to paint a killer as a Christian or conservative.

And of course, if he was a Christian or a conservative, it would obviously be the motive.

[Update a few minutes later]

“If we’d had ammunition, we could have cleared that building.”

But it was an unarmed victim “gun-free” zone.

Oh, and here’s a bonus from that idiot Piers Morgan. The type of gun used is obviously very important, until it isn’t.

[Update a while later]

The media remains obsessed with AR-15s, even though the shooter didn’t use one, and didn’t even attempt to get one. Instead, he used a Joe Biden special.

[Late-morning update]

If Obama had a fan, he’d look like Aaron Alexis:

Now we learn that Alexis was a Prius-driving, African-American liberal who liked Obama. Facts aren’t much fun, eh, libs?

So now the MSM narrative will magically transform this mass murder from “yet another damning indictment of gun-toting, right-wing racist America” to “the completely isolated actions of a misunderstood victim of society.” Just watch. It happens every time. And every time, they think we won’t notice.

Meanwhile, their ratings and their circulation numbers continue to plummet, and they blame everybody but themselves.

What tools they are.

Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Noble, Objective Scientist

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…exists primarily in mythology:

There is deeply ingrained in American culture — particularly nowadays on the Left — the stereotype of the scientist as pure in intent and action, caring only for the Truth, let the chips fall where they may. The scientist works readily with other scientists (except when s/he is working alone, late into the night, thinking deep thoughts), accepts — nay, encourages — challenges to her/his theories and findings, welcomes new information and hypotheses, and is always willing to change his/her mind based on better data, models, and/or reasoning.

It is, to quote the late Douglas Adams, a load of dingos’ kidneys. A very large, steaming, rotting load of dingos’ kidneys.

Particularly when it comes to a politicized field like climate “science.”

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Fiction Imitates Life

A brief, but amusing review from Instapundit:

Set in an America that has become a corrupt state, run by an inbred political class drawn from just a few select universities and overseeing a populace of “cogs” who have no real legal protection against the state, while the civil government is sharply divided from the military, these science fiction books provide an excellent source of escapism from the unpleasant realities of today.

We laugh, so we don’t cry.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Modern Parenting

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…may hinder brain development.

On Saturday, we took a guided tour of the Denali Park HQ area. The ranger pointed out a rock where the children of the early park officians used to play, a century ago. “We’d never let them do that today,” she said. “Kids today aren’t as tough.”

I spoke up, and told her, “Kids today are just like kids in any other day. It’s the parents that are different.” Several of the (older) people in the group nodded.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Happy Marx Day

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So why do we have a Labor Day anyway? What is it about “labor” that deserves a day off (isn’t that ironic) and a three-day weekend, but not (say) Entrepreneurs Day, or “People Who Have To Meet A Payroll” Day?

I know, I know, it was a reaction to some of the brutal labor practices and strikes of the later nineteenth century, particularly Pullman. But as Detroit exemplifies, we went too far in glorifying labor, and we don’t seem to care enough about the people who actually create the jobs, to the point of abuse. It’s not surprising that, in the wake of ridiculous overregulation (capped by ObamaCare) they’re going on strike, and we’re becoming a part-time nation, at best.