August 13, 2020
Oh No
Oh no no no no.
The issue of China's food security is a problem that's been simmering for some time. However, as we pointed out back in January, "What we can be reasonably confident of is that the Chinese Communist Party, being a totalitarian state, is going to try to cover-up or minimize the situation to the maximum extent possible and even rather beyond credulity."
As we observed at that time with Corona-Chan, the fact that this grave blunder was being acknowledged and the public was not only being informed but enlisted to help deal with an issue, is a leading indicator that the Chinese government is scared of said issue. That proved a prescient observation regarding the beer-bug. This is why Xi's exortation to not waste food is so concerning.
On the face of it, one's typical reaction to troubles for a brutal, totalitarian, genocidal state might seem to fall somewhere between, "So!? We've got other problems....mostly Chicom problems.", and "feel good story of the day".
However it should be remembered that the Politburo is not going to miss a meal. Over a billion people will suffer and many of them will die horrifically if this famine comes to pass. But there is more to ponder than that.
'Fear not the angry man nearly so much as the hungry man.'
That applies to people mobs and nations.The politburo will do anything stay in charge and protect itself, and will go to insane lengths to alleviate, or at least distract from its people's suffering. China is a nuclear power...in possession of most of our manufacturing capacity. A short sharp war to distract from famine of capture some crops might seem like a good idea to scared officials holding angry mobs at bay.
As Seneca said: "A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers, or pleas for mercy."
Keep an eye on this situation. It may ultimately be the most consequential of this years curveballs. And keep a month of two's worth of food in your home at all times.
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August 07, 2020
Meanwhile On Bitchute
Nerdette finally snaps.
Watch on Bitchute
Nerdette's Newstand has been fairly solid in her reporting, but she's hardly a firebrand and I did not expect this.
The scary part of this video is the video she tacks onto the end. I think it is a Jon Birch film. But that's not why it's scary. It's scary because things have gone so very pear shaped that the Birchers were actually right and laid out everything that's happened.
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August 06, 2020
Recovery Proceeds Apace
Power was back on fairly soon after the storm and internet is no longer twitchy.
Isaias was a remarkably energetic event in contrast to what was expected.
Hampton Roads was on the eastern side of the thing as it ran north and its 20 to 35 mph forward speed was added to a wind speed of 60-70 mph when it arrived here. Add in a few tornadoes and the intense rain and the storm was able to make its passage known.
Pic via WAVY
I do have a bit of advice for Americans who live in disaster prone areas. The day to order your 95-150 pound generators is not right after the storm comes and cuts your power. Also try to not order those on the same day that 30,000 other people did. Your UPS driver will thank you and your order won't risk being delayed by choking the system with huge boxes that fill up all the trucks.
Note that my center did get all the packages out without rolling over or delaying anything, but it was a near run thing and, anyway, it's the thought that counts.
Just saying.
I'm going to ice my back now.
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August 03, 2020
Oh.
I'd heard he'd tweeted this set of words in this order, So I put on my hazmat suit and went to Twitter to check.
Sure enough.....
So it's not that they see 1984 as a 'how to' manual instead of a cautionary tale, it's that the reference is unknown to them.
Matt Taibbi is only 3 months younger than me, so it's not a generational thing.
Most people my age would assume 2+2=5 was a reference to Orwell (I think they would). In fairness however, this was not, strictly speaking a 1984 reference, at least not intentionally, but the actual reference is a stygian cesspit of foetidly, anfractous, terrifying stupidity that I'll not touch for now.
But 1984 wasn't even on his radar apparently.
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Whelp
Tomorrow will be moist.
This thing has stayed on track for almost a week. It's moved slightly west even. That is really unusual.
It's not a particularly bad storm, but it is looking to be rather wet, so while I'm not terribly concerned I expect problems with flooding. I'm actually more concerned about people in the Acela Corridor, Which this storm is straddling. It's going through areas with people who aren't familiar with how much flooding these things can cause.
Be safe everybody.
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In Today's Thrilling Episode of "2020"
Meanwhile, Scientists in Denmark have discovered an ancient ancestor to the bubonic plague that;
"Truly this is an example of a 2020 headline, but I'm even less concerned about this than the murder hornets."
Scientists in Japan have revived 100 million year old bacteria from Mesozoic mud deep the beneath the seafloor.
"Wait. I've...seen this movie."
1: was apparently not spread by fleas and...
2: is believed to have wiped out much of neolithic civilization in what may have been the first pandemic.
and
3: they've procured viable cultures from the teeth of victims, because, really, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?
"Are you frickking kidding me!?"
On the bright side, it appears that no one from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in any way.
Art is by 23 who is currently pushing his doujin, titled, I think, "Battling Nazi Monsters"
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August 02, 2020
Today I Learned Something
On a lot of sites the Disqus comment system is (quite reasonably) set to disallow posting images, except those in the Disqus menu of approved SFW pictures.
Today, to my astonishment, I learned that there are Lucky Star .gifs in that menu.
This has no bearing on anything, but made me laugh.
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Oh They Made It!
I was inordinately worried about this. This is the first time the U.S. has sent AND RETURNED astronauts on its own since the Space Shuttle was retired in the wake of the Columbia disaster, and, well, it's 2020, so having watched the destruction of Columbia and Challenger live I was on pins and needles.
And as I type this it's been 44 minutes they are concerned because there seems to be a fuel leak and they still can't open the door. That's new. Is it hydrazine?...I hope not.
UPDATE: No it's NTO. Which explains why they haven't gotten the deckhands the hell out of there.
UPDATE2: All good, it took an hour but they are both out of the capsule and fine.
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August 01, 2020
I Got Up This Morning and Fell Into a Rabbit Hole of Stupid
Twitch has permanently banned the V-Tube streamer OppaiPantsuu. It seems that after some years they realized that her channel name translates to "bosomy undergarments". The streamer behind the CGI model was perfectly willing to change the name and find out if anything else needed changing. But for Twitch this name is the line that must not be crossed. She'd done some appearances on IronMouse doing collab playthroughs and D&D sessions and is a fairly entertaining if lewd mouthed loon, Here she is covering various aspects of current year stupidity and being refreshingly devoid of any pretensions of respectability.
But it was the NAME that got her banned!
Also, this season appears to be a complete dumpsterfire of degeneracy.
I heard about this on IronMouse's stream and while looking it up, I blundered into this related bit of stupid, where another Twitch streamer got banned for referring to a character as transg*nder. I assume that there's an "E" behind that asterikx, but the headline and article uses an asterix and I can't imagine what other letter would fit...and if I found one it would likely be another of the 57 genders which would just make my morning even stupider. There's a happy ending...sort of....if you've never read Orwell. You see they modified their decision to be a 2 week ban and as this article reports...
Jinntty thought it was okay to use that word to describe the character after hearing so many other people talk about it. However, Jinnytty also used it in an aggressive manner after being annoyed with Abby's character portrayal and disappointment towards the Last of Us 2's story.
So she used the word to repeat what was reported in other media...but she used it in an "aggressive" manner and in the context of being annoyed with the aromatic bear spoor that is the game's story.
That's creepy.
This once, context matters...not obvious context but inferred context...
The Lives of Others is not a good model for IT support.
Twitch is just not reliable.
Someone needs to get to setting up a social media company that does streaming in West Virginia where one is not subjected to the intense mean-girl pressures of Silicon Valley. Is there some reason that everyone goes to Assholeville? Is it proximity to magic smoke mines in the redwood forests or something? It can't be strictly necessary. They have social media companies run out of Australia, and Australia has a random-encounter-table that's like Skull Island.
Guess what. It doesn't matter, because of China.
Yes it all gets stupider still, because a Chinese company has copyrighted the word Aheago...and is issuing takedown notices,
...though Fakku is fighting back.
If you have no idea what aheago is then congratulations!....You are a good person!
The rest of us must suffer from the stupidity.
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July 31, 2020
I'm Gonna Get Off the Fence and Make a Prediction.
Monday's going to be wet here.
This is not a particularly severe storm as these things go, and doesn't even seem to be particularly wet, though the ability to predict rainfall in these things is notoriously unreliable.
I did not get the grass cut today before the bottom fell out. I fear that I won't be able to do so now for a week, which will mean my yard will be a sniper hide before I can mow it.
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Herman Cain
2020 is not messing around.
One of my favorite politicians, albeit, a very part time one, he had come from absolutely nothing as the son of a maid and a chauffeur in the Jim Crow South. He went on to become an actual rocket scientist for the Navy working on guided missiles.
In his civilian life, he later saved Burger King and Godfather's Pizza from oblivion....and did so by actually saving the companies and their employees jobs rather than firing everybody, and selling off the physical plant like so many other corporate turnaround artists.
The successes of those two companies was so remarkable that he was elected to be head of the National Restaurant Association.
In that capacity, he saved us all.
You see, in a nationally televised Q&A on the glories and wonders of Hillarycare, he asked some pointed questions involving some esoteric sorcery called "math". In the course of a back and forth with President Clinton he laid out how the plan was unworkable and would destroy small businesses. He then pointed to the fact that the subsidies that Clinton talked about were not actually in the plan and moreover could not be added as they would be too expensive.
Between their lamentations, wailing and gnashing of teeth, Newsweek recounts the moment.
Cain transformed the debate when he challenged Clinton at a town meeting in Kansas City, Mo., last April. Cain asked the president what he was supposed to say to the workers he would have to lay off because of the cost of the "employer mandate." Clinton responded that there would be plenty of subsidies for small businessmen, but Cain persisted. "Quite honestly, your calculation is inaccurate," he told the president. "In the competitive marketplace it simply doesn't work that way."The switchboard at Godfather's was lit up with supportive calls. It was as if the small business community -- a very large and politically powerful group -- had been told to march on Washington. Cain, said Larry Neal, an aide to Sen. Phil Gramm, "was the lightning rod."
A lot of people on the right fetishize and covet the label "Reaganesque" but despite being frequently mocked by the those who consider themselves the arbiters of conservatism, Cain was one of the most Reaganesque politicians since Reagan, being extremely upbeat, positive and strident in his belief in America's potential while still being tough as nails in his focus on reform. Both came from media, Reagan being an actor and Cain a radio personality. Cain lost his bid for the presidential nomination in 2012 but continued to push for reforms like his 9-9-9 plan, which is really one of the more sane proposals for fixing the U.S. tax system and budget deficit.
Cain got crap from all sides but he remained a happy warrior 'till the end. He succumbed to COVID-19 yesterday morning.
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July 29, 2020
Wait. What in the FunkyTown Forrest is This Nonsense?
2020 is doing ALL the B-movies.
The headline explains the situation satisfactorily but, while the question posed is never answered, this quote stood out.
"We don’t want people opening those up, don’t put them in the mail, certainly don’t plant them. Contact us. Let us pick them up. Treat them like they are radioactive, like they are Kryptonite,†Miller said.
A bunch of seeds are showing up in peoples mailboxes, that the people did not order and nothing is known about except that they have been traced back to Communist Coronastan; yes; China.
This could be something as simple as an Amazon review scam, or it could be something more concerning.
I guess we'll know soon.
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Thing is, The Tracks of These Things Always Tend to Move East
Fortunately, I have a remarkable amount of hurricane/disaster supplies...for some reason.
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July 28, 2020
The Solution to the Mess That is 2020
Is obviously to rename it U.C. 1.
This is still a work in progress, it's not finished or untethered yet, but it is looking really impressive.
There's more on this here.
Once finished, the robot will feature an incredible 24 degrees of freedom, meaning this thing will be able to walk.
The thing is supposed to be fully operational by October, and while its schedule was thrown into chaos by CoronaChan, it appears that they have now caught up and an October debut is a real possibility.
So the giant anthropomorphic robot is being rushed into Japanese service during a time of growing military tensions punctuated by cyberwarfare developments was temporarily delayed by a global pandemic, reporting of which is being stymied by megacorporations censoring the reportage of news that might cut into the profits of pharmaceutical companies. While there is additional worrisome news like urban riots and most young people in the developed world being addicted to a brain prosthetic. There is also a strong push to immigrate off planet, perhaps having the first settlers on Mars by 2024.
Dude....the future we read about as kids is here!
"But it's not Olaf Stapeldon...It's Walter John Williams! "
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July 23, 2020
I'm So Vexed And Chagrined That I Might Cry
It appears that Twitter has run into a spot of bother regarding their ad revenue and the poor dears are considering a subscription service. That is, people will have to pay for the privilege of partaking in the Twitterverse.
One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes has some thoughts.
"Bwahahahahahahahahahaha."
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July 21, 2020
Your Anime Review Quote of the Day
I don't know how much the SAO anime deviates from the source material, but I sort of get the feeling that it's not doing it enough.
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Things That Make You Want To Say 共匪
There's a lot to unpack in yesterday's NTD report. It looks like the 3 Gorges Dam may not be long for this world, the WuFlu (or something) is spreading big way, However the most disturbing bit of information is that the Uyghur Population in Xinjiang has dropped by 80 percent in the last three years.
That's worse than the drop in the Jewish population in Europe in the 1940s which was a drop of between 60 and 70%.
A U.S. and Australian report also makes some additions to the list of companies benefitting from Uyghur slavery. They include Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and, to absolutely no one's surprise, Hugo Boss.
In other news it appears that malware embedded in chinese electronics and software is an even more pernicious issue than thought.
GoldenHelper, as researchers from security firm Trustwave dubbed the malware, hid inside the Golden Tax Invoicing software, which all companies registered in China are mandated to use to pay value-added taxes. The malware is able to bypass the User Account Control, the Windows mechanism that requires users to give their approval before software can install programs or make other system changes. Once that’s done, GoldenSpy can install modules with System-level privileges.
Golly.
Additionally, it appears that this mess in the Himalayas is not lost patrols or communications glitches, but the fact that China is seriously poking at India.
China is a nuclear power which should give everyone pause. However, it should be remembered that even at the height of the cold war the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. were able to come to the table and ratify arms control treaties. Logically, China should be welcomed into the ongoing nuclear arms limitation/reduction treaty negotiations. And indeed they would be, if they hadn't rejected that offer from America and Russias with prejudice.
China, with the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal after the U.S. and Russia, has maintained it will not join in talks with Washington and Moscow on reducing its number of warheads.
On the upside: The CCP seems to be having its own walk away movement.
So there's hope that there will be a reckoning for the 共匪.
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July 20, 2020
This is Awesome
A company that runs shopping malls is turning their mall parking lots into Drive-In Theaters. WallMart is already turning 160 of its parking lots into the same.
Image via Naught Shrubbery
Frankly, I'm surprised that AMC hasn't done the same with the huge parking lots at its multiplexes.
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2020 Needs New Writers
A Federal Judge just suffered her son being murdered and husband sent to the hospital in critical condition by someone posing as a delivery driver. She was either not home or in the basement depending on reports.
In what is probably completely unrelated, the judge had just been assigned to a case involving Deutsche Bank, money laundering and the late Jeffery Epstein (who did not kill himself).
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July 18, 2020
Nelson Mandela Nods
Two years ago there was an unfortunate customer relations incident at a Gamestop. One year ago, it was reported that Funko had graced its customers with this amazing Gamestop exclusive.
Now.
My question: Is this real?
It can't be real. All the Gamestops would have been burned down and their employees murdered by mostly peaceful transactivists. I've not been able to find any of the figures and most of the news articles have vanished into the memory hole. However, I can't find a single retraction or report that this was fake.
At this point it's about equally plausible that this was a brilliant hoax or that there was a short run of these things and the reports from major outlets have been purged as politically incorrect.
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