1 Can confirm, people in Illinois die from flan every day.

2 As someone who grew up in Ohio, I can confirm that it's hard to tell it apart from Nega-Ohio until it's too late. :-P

3 I'm from Wisconsin, and as I grow older I am indeed developing lactose intolerance...

4 Careful Siergen, it looks like that can be serious!

Hopefully, one day you'll scroll back through this blog's old posts and say "Oh look at what that silly twit was all worked up about back then."

1 Ebola is extremely scary, but not very infectious.  The main way it spreads it via unsafe handling of late-stage victims and corpses.  Standard medical and mortuary procedure in the West would go a great way to preventing it spread even if it wasn't immediately identified.


Influenza kills more people each day than this entire months-long outbreak of ebola.  Doesn't that make you feel better?  

2 I've seen this described as the most "virulent" outbreak ever, which would be a cause for concern except that I'm not sure the reporters quite understand what virulent means. 
I do note that a number of top flight doctors have gotten it in spite of PPE. The Nigerian Ebola specialist certainly knew what he was doing and I know some people working for Samaratain's Purse and they are professionals. OTOH having done HAZMAT response for 12 years,  I can well imagine that full PPE all day in Senegal  or Nigeria could cause mistakes to be made. 
But yes, unless this bug mutates goes airborne, the much greater likliehood of dying by suffocation or heart failure from Influenza is indeed reassuring, and both possibilities distract from the possibility of a general war breaking out, a Carrington event, or, of particular concern to me, those damnable dragons. 
Thanks Pixy.  

1

The good news is that Misaki (aka "Mental Out") doesn't show up again in the series except for a cameo in the last episode.

Which is good because in the canon she eventually does something really foul to Mikoto, which they didn't include in this series. I thought Mikoto would kill her for it, but I guess that's a step too far for Mikoto, who seems to be the only Level 5 who isn't a sociopath.

Misaki is a sociopath, and there's a strong implication that she is too old to be in middle school, but stays there by using her power to change everyone's memory, including administrators. (And if you think Misaki is a monster, wait until you see Accelerator.)

Her fawning cadre aren't that way because she's beautiful. She uses her power to rewrite their memories to make them that way.

The first 16 episodes this time are the Sisters arc, which is dark dark dark but has a good ending. The rest of the series (beginning ep 19) is the SIlent Party arc, which is great from start to finish.

2 I don't buy the party line on the protags in Railgun. In my opinion they are pretty awful [1], with lower ranks being less so. Railgun's lesbian friend is the only anime character ever who made me consider how I should kill her (my answer is the poison: can't teleport out of that). Of course, any such thinking is pointless and the main character magic will make them triumph. For that reason I'm not going to root for any antagonists like the girl pictured in the post: they are all puppets of the screenwriter, made to be sacrificed.
At least Naruto and Goku used the main character magic for good.
[1] (with the exception of a techer woman that seemed human)

3 Oh you get no arguments from me on Kuroko. She's a rotten human being.  In an earlier post I lamented

 (*She tries (and fails spectacularly) to drug and presumably molest Mikoto at least twice...I mean good Lord, she's pretty much horrible. The only reason she's a "good guy" is because she feels personally invested in her identity as a Judgement officer, likes the power she gets from the job and is the vector for getting Mikoto and the others involved in the larger story. Yes she's comic relief, but.... )

However, I think Mikoto is pretty decent. She's not perfect but just the fact that she's fairly she's down to earth is a major accomplishment given that everyone else we've seen on her level is corrupted by their power and they do not seem to be discouraged from that. 
She's also a "good guy" for the right reasons, as opposed to Kuroko who is on a power trip. 

4 What were they thinking? Something like this. (spoilers for Index, also quite dark...)

"The supernatural exists, including literal angels and literal demons. Some of these supernatural entities have as their objective the complete extermination of humanity. Those are -angels-, the demons are considerably worse. Disaster has so far been staved off only by the intervention of a power-mad church willing to plumb any depths of sin in order to preserve its own secret mastery. Humankind is at the precipice over a sea of horrors where the living would envy the dead.

We have discovered a method by which psychic powers can be induced in test subjects. The method only works on children. Our theories for why it works at all, and exactly what it does, are incomplete and patchy.

We do not have the luxury of time. We require that this potential be developed into weapons - weapons stronger than nukes. Your mission is to deliver those weapons in time to save the world. Any means will be tolerated. Balk at no ethical considerations. The only unacceptable outcome is failure. Get to work, Dr. Mengele."

No, of course not literally. But that's essentially a good description of the situation - in Index, the world is literally one Touma away from apocalypse at one point. If you were the sort of person who can be a nuclear strategist, this is kind of the ultimate nightmare scenario. Threats you do not understand, popping up according to logic you do not understand, responsive to no pressure you can bring to bear, some of which are pinpricks and some of which are mortal blows, and your only defense is an organization who won't talk to you and is willing to kill you just to hide its own existence...

In that situation, the existence of Academy City can be understood - a kind of Manhattan Project that refines little kids instead of uranium, ghastly if you have the right details, but happy enough on the surface that most people can fool themselves into thinking that everything is all right. Of course the scientists are evil - who else would, or could, do what they do? Yet if you believe that those things must be done, then all you can do is tell them to get to it and try not to watch how much fun they're having.

Railgun is about Academy City itself; Index sets it in a world that almost, almost justifies how monstrous it is. It's a shame that Railgun is just a much better show; by itself it's incomplete, but getting through enough Index to get the background means, well, slogging through Index...

5

 getting through enough Index to get the background means, well, slogging through Index... [/quote]
I was afraid of that. 

6

Railgun S pretty much overlaps the first Index series in time. Ep 15 of Railgun S covers the same event as ep 14 of Index. (Though there's a bit of Rashomon difference in the telling.)

I watched the first Index series but didn't watch the second one. And I didn't have any trouble keeping up with events in either Railgun series.

7 My headcanon for Index/Railgun (not having read the books), is that they live in a lesser creation - one in which the Creator left a crazy number of backdoors in his code, which angels, demons, and people have been using to run amuck throughout history.  Touma is a "reset" - his Imagine Breaker is identical with the intent of the Creator, which means only reality survives his touch.  All the various hacks, backdoors, and cheats, which the espers and magicians and so forth are using to work their will on the world, are egotistical alterations to the Creation as intended, perversions of the literal will of god, and are negated by his right hand.  
He's pretty much a walking relic, a saint.  It's a hell of a thing to hang on a teen protagonist, aligning him with the original will of god.  And people complain about "Jesus Yamato"!

8 They discuss that in pseudo-scientific terms in Index, actually. Essentially, the theory is that the esper generates a "personal reality" in which their power can function, and that the strength of the esper is largely related to how successful they are at superimposing that reality on consensus reality.

By extension, Touma is either extremely powerful, OR his power just has a much easier time of it (because he's not really modifying base reality, just reasserting it or disrupting the modifications to it that are made by others). Difference between pushing the boulder uphill and pushing it down, maybe?

Of course, that might not be what's actually going on (and, frankly, it's not directly contradicting your theory either, just couched in different terms.)

9 So (says The Brickmuppet, oblivious to the grammatical error he is committing), there's this new character that's been introduced (says The Brickmuppet with a hint of unease in his voice), and her first job is to clean up a "mess"in the testing room (says The Brickmuppet with a rising intonation). Oh my God, this just got grim (says the Brickmuppet unimaginatively blaspheming to emphasize his discomfort.)

10

Surprisingly, that verbal tic doesn't become ridiculously annoying.

1 They will charge you to call toll free 800 numbers? WTF?

1 He said it appeared the containment system worked. "It limited the problem to one faulty cell. It contained the problem and vented the fumes outside the airplane, as designed," he said, basing his comments on Japan Airlines' initial statements about the incident.

2 that's one of the more impressive spam non sequiters I've seen.

3 Seems to be clipped from an article about the improved 787 battery containment system.

1 After reading that, absolutely do not read this.

2 Note to self: When Pixy says not to click on something... Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right.  Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. Pixy is always right. 

3 I thought at first that was what the series of tweets was leading up to - at the end of the story would be the reveal - AND IT ALMOST HAPPENED!

But no, it's just a case of art being 15 minutes behind life.

Realizing my error, I recently gave it a shot and discovered that it is...different.

Meet Riko. She is an athletically inclined young lady from a modest middle class background. While not naturally gifted academically she has worked her  butt off and through sheer force of will succeeded in transferring into the prestigious Fuji Girls School. She's got a couple of things going for her, she's extremely athletic and has that "mysterious transfer student" vibe, and as such a number of the student body are in awe of her. Our heroine is oblivious to this or her nickname "Wild Rinko" in part because she has never been popular. As a kid she hung out with the boys, who she frequently beat up and earned a reputation as demonic horror wench...the fangs probably exacerbated this.

In any event, one day she is instructed by a teacher to drop some papers by the student council office, where, having forgotten to knock, she makes a horrifying discovery. 

First some background...Maki, the student council president, is extremely good at her job, a straight "A" student and greatly admired by the student body and teachers alike, so to walk in on her and find her making out with a comfort pillow named Huggy in the student council office is officially scandalous. 

Well it gets worse. It seems that Maki has been using the student council to conduct experiments, and role playing sessions (with Huggy). She's turned it into a Love Lab in order to prepare herself for...romance.

 The fact that any contact with boys is grounds for expulsion only makes this abuse of school facilities more scandalous and dark secrets must be kept. Riko is drafted into being the POTSC's aid, partly in order to keep Maki's secret and partly to give a non-pillow perspective on Maki's ideas. When Riko points out that most of Maki's notions are stark-raving cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,  Maki gets the impression that Riko's extensive experience with boys is actually extensive EXPERIENCE with boys. Riko's failure to clarify this complicates everything further and hilarity ensues as several other oddball students are drawn into this dark circle of depravity. 

Love Lab breaks no new ground but it has very high production values and is a thoroughly pleasant show. The soundtrack is minimalist but surprisingly effective. I laughed and enjoyed it though the series has very limited rewatch value  as most of the humor is based on surprises. It does get sappy towards the end as things begin to come to a head and some late series developments are not really resolved, I'm not sure if it was cut short or ran an episode too long. Nevertheless, I did not feel robbed or insulted and the show is upbeat, amusing and double entendres notwithstanding, not at all vulgar. 

No really...

That is a matter of personal opinion. 

A spirited discussion on this topic has sprung up in the comments. My latest reply went long so here are a couple of random observations and opinions on the topic..

Russia is being a jackass in the Ukraine. However, their interest in Crimea and Sevastopol in particular is of vital importance to their nation. The Crimea is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and Cossack so even if we were going by Wilsonian as opposed to Westphalian doctrine the ethnic self determination angle might give Russia a defensible position in that case. 

We don't HAVE a doctrine at the moment , Wilsonian, Westphalian or even Carteresque, so that's irrelevant. 

Which is one reason the parallels to 1930's Chekoslovakia cause concern.

Ukraine has grievances against Russia that are numerous and legitimate, including a large swath of their country that's uninhabitable for extended periods and mass graves filled by by Stalin with their brethren. 

However, Ukraine is not a bunch of angels, with some very vocal members of their polity having anti-semitic and even neo-nazi ties. They have been using the Balkan conflict as a how-to manual rather than a cautionary tale. They are also pretty much a failed state.

We (the US) have, in the 20th century, normally supported self determination as a matter of national policy and a big chunk of eastern Ukraine is ethnically Russian.

Russia, like us, is fighting islamic extremists and would be a natural ally in this endeavor. In fact Russia has given a lot of assistance in that regard including overflight privileges to facilitate our fighting in Afganistan and providing intel on Chechen terrorists in the US which we ignored, thereby facilitating the Boston Bombing.

The plane shoot-down was a dreadful calamity, but the airline ignored warnings not to fly over a FRICKKING WAR ZONE where 3 transports had already been shot down. I don't think that Russia intentionally shot down an airliner. I cannot conceivably have gained them anything.

Is this patch of black earth which is a huge ethnic and political mess a place we want to really get involved in? 

1 Basically agreed. The Ukraine makes a crappy ally, giving us no additional security or benefits, but legitimizing Russian fears that the US is happy to push the supposedly-not-aimed-at-Russia-anymore NATO alliance right up to Russia's doorstep everywhere.

That said, Russia does plenty of other stuff to tick off the US. Backing Syria, for example, doesn't really give Russia any internal benefits, other than keeping the US and other Western nations occupied with the resulting mess.

So, we can't effectively stop Russia from doing dastardly things in its near abroad, we don't really want to associate ourselves with the people those things are being done to, and we've got other things to worry about with them. Can't we even manage a little quid pro quo?  You know, troll hints that we'll happily sell the Ukranians a thousand MBTs at a discount, then say "you know, if you guys let Syria swing in the wind, we'll back off this one", kind of thing?

The alternative is to quit pretending that Russia is a friendly nation at all - at best an unfriendly rival, at worst still an enemy despite the fall of the Soviet Union. Treat 'em accordingly. Freeze them out of markets, disrupt their supply chains, isolate them politically, maybe even the sort of low-level sabotage that we used to get up to (good luck defending those pipelines, Putin...) Make it clear that pissing us off has a cost and that we're perfectly happy to go on screwing with them. If "well, we don't want to start World War 3" can be used to deter us from taking drastic action, surely it works in the other direction - and if the Soviet Union couldn't manage to win the Cold War, there's zero chance the Russians can pull it off on their own.

If we're not going to go that far, why piss them off at all?

2 Another basic unfairness that pisses me off is that we're perfectly willing to sell our best allies, Poles and Czhechs, while sticking our neck out for the useless bloody Ukrainians. It's as if all those Eastern Yrpians are one and the same for the sophisticated oafs in State Dept. and they can't tell them apart.

3 The basic issue there is that the basic mindset of the administration is that we don't have any enemies; any country that doesn't like us either has legitimate grievances caused by past imperialistic behavior (and thus can be appeased via good will and understanding). The security situation of the US is an artifact of past imperialistic actions and is thus shameful, yet also a basic fact of life which requires absolutely no effort to maintain and in fact draws money away from desperately needed social services for destitute women and children and toward corrupt white men in charge of defense industries.

Given that we don't have any enemies, nothing is an actual threat, and actually fighting is just an unjustified and barbaric use of our illegitimately-gained imperialistic power anyway, we don't actually have any use for allies. Unlike those who are opposed to us, who have legitimate grievances which we can appease, allies have interests in common with us and thus are fellow illegitimate imperialists, and also at fault for communism not taking over the world and even failing in Russia, where it would have worked except that we were too busy fighting it in order to preserve our own illegitimate imperial power. Furthermore, allies often have their own grievances which, while illegitimate, get in the way of us appeasing those who mistakenly think themselves our enemies except that they just haven't been fully appeased yet.

Eastern European allies are the worst, because their specific grievance is against communism, which is the worst of both worlds - their anti-communist attitude works directly against the idea that communism was a voluntary alignment which its peoples were happy with, and implies that other countries besides the US and its allies can be illegitimate imperialists instead of perfectly rational actors with legitimate historical grievances against Western imperialist offenses. Further, their embrace of Western capitalist values and forms of government and subsequent success can be taken as an implied endorsement of responsible and frugal government, and of capitalism as superior to communism, and is thus bad and shameful.

The Ukrainians don't have this issue because their government is hopelessly corrupt and a perfect example of why democratic and capitalist values are bad. But having them conquered by Russia is bad, because an expansionist Russia (despite having a historic grievance) makes our Eastern European neighbors nervous and they start demanding less appeasing and more concrete actions, which might put us in a position where appeasing the perfectly legitimate historical grievances of others would be politically difficult. Further, armed conquest of the Ukraine begs the question of why the Ukraine broke away in the first place, which goes to all sorts of places no liberal of good understanding wishes to pursue (especially as they relate to atrocities committed by the USSR and resolutely ignored by the left since). How much happier if the Ukrainians were to merely appease the Russians by simply ceding their entire territory, which would both appease the Russians and allow the spread of Putin's regime to additional area, further discrediting capitalism since everyone already knows how corrupt it is.

Furthermore, it's drawing political attention away from Israel, where the Palestinian tactic of using civilians to screen its rocket attacks will only work if people pay attention to the dead civilians that pile up after, and since the Palestinian cause is of course the world's Super Most Important Historical Legitimate Grievance, that's bad in and of itself. How can the evil Israelis, who of course have no legitimate historical grievance because they're allied with the West, possibly be pushed into the sea if nobody is paying attention to their atrocities while studiously ignoring the morality of firing unguided rockets vaguely in the direction of civilians due to your simmering legitimate historical grievance?

Good lord, that hurt to write.

4 Avatar - basically, it's a case of "No worse friend, no better enemy."

The appalling thing is that what you say isn't an over-the-top parody of government incompetence; it's how the present administration (and a significant proportion of the Western world) seems to think.

5 That was the hurty bit, yes.

6 Avatar, that was fantastic -- especially the first two paragraphs. I really do think you have nailed it.

7 Avatar:

Well....

1 The British sent another offer to moderate the dispute. It was passed along by Germany, but the German foreign secretary deliberately omitted a key bit...

That blows my mind completely.  First the German foreign secretary (along with the chancellor) lied to the Kaiser about the severity of the situation, then he lied again, by omission, to the Austro-Hungarian emperor, effectively torpedoing the last chance to avoid the carnage. What the hell was he playing at? Did he want a war?

People are complaining (and rightfully so) at the antics that some high-ranking members of the Obama administration have been engaging in lately.  As bad as those high crimes and misdemeanours are, though, they pale in comparison to helping to trigger a global war.  Never mind impeachment--IMO, the German foreign secretary deserved to hang.

2 One of the reasons the most recent post on the first shot fired is so short is that there seems to be some debate about what exactly was going on between the 27th and 29th. 
It does appear that the German Chancellor and some members of the General staff considered this to be both the ideal opportunity and last chance to take out France and Russia, which having just signed an alliance would represent an existential threat n a few years should they attack at once. 
Likewise, some in the Austrian court considered Serbia a threat out of all proportion ti its actual power because it was giving aid and comfort to ethnic secessionist movements in Bosnia that threatened to tear the empire apart. The big tipping point here was the Foreign Minister.
Emperor Franz Joseph was no pacifist. He'd fought in previous wars for long enough that he remembered when being commander in chief involved riding on a horse with a sword in front of the troops. However all those wars had given him a deep appreciation of how awful war was so he picked a very dovish man for foreign minister, a fellow named Berchtold (actually Leopold (Anton Johann Sigismund Josef Korsinus Ferdinand) Graf Berchtold von und zu Ungarschitz, Frättling und Püllütz  . He was mister peace and love until the two Balkan wars and was deeply humiliated by the fact that his peace efforts had failed and was widely derided as a result. Franz Joseph kept him on precisely because he had worked so tirelessly for peace on the grounds that that was not a bad trait for head diplomat. 
However, after 1912 Berchtold decided that peace with Serbia was a fools errand and the best way to secure stability was to completely conquer the Balkans, or at least Serbia. He secretly became a staunch ally of the most hawkish elements of the general staff. He worded the letter to the Serbs in such a way they had to reject it (Franz Joseph seems to have been appalled when he saw the final draft after the fact). The Emperor did not expect Mr. Peace to be the one who would conspire to bring about a war.
It does seem that Berchtold and the German chancellor were working to thwart any mediation offers. In fact the Austrian voices of restraint came mainly from members of the general staff concerned that an adventure in Serbia would bring about a war with Russia and possibly a far larger war. Berchtold ignored warnings about Russia, in part because of his monomaniacal focus on wiping out Serbia, which stemmed from his public ridicule for his pacifist views. 
The petty pique of a bureaucrat  can cause a great deal of grief. 
(Interestingly Berchtold did not stop being pacifistic on non-Serbian matters. He later offered a non trivial chunk of Austrian territory to the Italians in exchange for their not reneging on their treaty and invading Austria. This exceeding of his authority as well as his total failure to stop total catastrophe got him sacked a few months after the war started). 

1 They announced a Frozen Nendroid at WonFes today...

2 Babe-a Fett?

Graphics look similar to, but more advanced than the Clone Wars series.

And another Disney Orphan... that's what they bring to the table.

1 USSR had no-first-use promises made, but after its collapse there was some rethinking done in Russia.

2 Indeed. There was also the Kosovo operation which really annoyed the Russians and brought US and Russian troops to the point of very nearly shooting at each other. 

3 The USSR had no-first-use promises made, but frankly, nobody believed them. Nor should have!

That said, frankly we are probably better off staying the hell out of the Russian near-abroad. Certainly we don't have the ability to project power into the Ukraine or Georgia, there's nothing we have at stake there except abstract principle, and Russia would probably feel better with a little bit of a buffer; it's easy to say "why worry about invasion?" when your neighbors are Canada and Mexico. (Not that Germany is going to get up to anything...)

I've got to say, the Israelis probably owe Putin a letter of thanks. Can't really hammer them for going into Gaza when Russia's also being fast and loose with fighters over the border...

4 Kosovo is interesting in that it was exacly the same thing that's happening in Donetsk right now: the government wanting to expel an ethnic minority that served as a base for its opponents. That's why, for example, you can see an Ukrainian tank driving down the street and shooting at every house. It's not like there was a rebel with RPG sitting in each of them. The point is to make everyone in town to run for their lives, or die. Same goes for insciriminate bombardment.
When Serbs expelled Kosovars, we went and bombed Belgrad. When Ukrainians are eliminating Russians, we do not bomb Kiev. Instead, we're discussing helping them.
The difference is that Russians supported the guys who were doing the depopulation back then, and they are supporting those who are being depopulated right now. It shows very starkly that U.S. gives no consideration to "humanitarian" concerns whatsoever.
This is possible in part because of absolutely astonishing levels of lies, propaganda, and denial. I saw a number of Internet comments by Americans, which flatly deny that Kiev government was committing all the atrocities that are well documented. It's like the Moon Landing Hoax for them, and anyone who brings it up is Putin's stoodge. 

5 Yes, of course, how can we not have perceived that Kiev's taken the opportunity to engage in a bit of ethnic cleansing? Obviously the conflict was a matter of choice for them and not, you know, Russia snatching territory from a neighbor. Russia doesn't have any designs in the area and is completely content with the Crimea, any further Anschluss is mere rumor-mongering by a hostile foreign press!

I just re-read Shirer a month ago, and it's worrisome when someone uses that as an instruction manual.

It's completely fair to say that the US didn't really have any business mucking about in Kosovo; Pournelle has mentioned a few times that "there certainly hadn't been any legal immigration of Albanian Muslims into that region." It drove a wedge between the US and Russia that has colored everything since, and it took a hell of a lot of cheek for Hilary to claim a need to "reset" relations since the US participation in the conflict was largely prompted by her husband needing to displace his sex scandals in the news.

All that said, most Americans don't even realize that Ukranian is a separate ethnicity from Russian, so it's little wonder that they don't see it as an ethnic conflict.

6

"The USSR had no-first-use promises made, but frankly, nobody believed them. Nor should have!"

Well, yes. It was along the lines of their commitment to world peace, with world peace defined as an absence of opposition to global communism. 
I put the same confidence in the USSR's commitment to that as I do China's, which is bragging about the fact that by the end of this year they'll be able to wipe out a third of our population in an hour. 
The point I made about Kosovo was that when we went into Kosovo the way we did and when we did, it caused a major reassessment  on their part and they decided to openly proclaim that they were willing to use nukes to compensate for their conventional shortcomings, just like we did in the '70s.

7 I'd say that a lot of the actual reassessment came in the aftermath of the First Gulf War.

The Soviets had a quantity-over-quality strategy that called for a small number of top-of-the-line units backed by formidable numbers of outdated but pretty cheap units. This stuff was also the bulk of Soviet military aid to various ally nations/puppets/satellites. They weren't counting on it to hold off the best the US had to offer, but they WERE counting on it to be a serious threat in the kind of numbers that they could field.

Iraq had what had been regarded, at the time, as a decently-trained army. They got hammered, plowed under (literally, in some cases), humiliated. US forces attacked at a significant manpower disadvantage, not normally a recipe for great success, and... well, suffice it to say that it did not go well for the Iraqis.

This was extremely bad for the greater Soviet strategy. If second-line forces couldn't even inflict casualties or slow down attacking US forces, then the numerical superiority on paper was an illusion. Unable to afford first-line equipment in the kind of numbers it would take to match the Western democracies, unable to rely on the masses of second-line equipment for anything but mobile coffins, the Soviet armies just weren't a match for the West anymore, and effectively had no way out of that jam.

I've always felt that this was at least one factor in why the Soviet Union collapsed when it did. The army could have upheld the state for quite a lot longer, but with its self-confidence having taken that kind of beating...

(And, naturally, a Russia after the breakup has a completely different strategic situation from the USSR pre-breakup - very little international advantage to be gained from a no-first-use claim, false or otherwise, and at least some self-protection to be gained...)

It should be noted that Germany's Kaiser was on vacation during this time, golfing cruising on his yacht and was only gradually beginning to understand the gravity of the situation. Likewise, Franz Joseph returned from his retreat where he had been since the funeral of his nephew. He was 84...in 1914. Though he was aware of the negotiations with Germany and the seriousness of the Russian assurances of their Serb allies, he was reportedly quite surprised at the harsh language of the ultimatum sent to Serbia by his ministers. 

The episodes are a bit longer this time around (14:45 with credits) and they really have upped the production values. There is also quite a bit of action, though not at ALL what I'd expected. 

We do learn a few important things.

The preview trailer is somewhat misleading.

Soda cans in Vale are NOT made out of aluminum. 

It's strongly implied that Blake is in a lot more trouble than has been apparent. 

Turkey and scallions do not go together as well as I'd have thought. 

The voice acting is still uneven, but Jessica Nigiri does a very good job as Cinder (there was some speculation that her brief scene in last season's stinger was a fluke). 

Also, as a catch phrase, "Don't play with your food." is wanting.

However, this was, all in all, a very promising kickoff for the second volume. This is definitely on the watch list. 

1 And the new bad girl, Emerald. My goodness she's hot.

Searching DeviantArt already turns up a ton of bad fanart, but then there's this : Emerald Turnaround

2 I agree that this first episode was very good.  I hope they maintain the quality through the rest of this season.

However, Team Ruby is lucky that they were not serving breakfast in that last scene.  If there had been any pancakes present, Team Ruby would have been toast...

3 I dunno. It is not hard to imagine Ruby being able to weaponize toast. 

4 Turkeys, Watermelons, whole Swordfish, sausage links, soda the consistency of paint....

Fire the Chef.

5 I think the swordfish was an ornament. 

I'd seen this thing in some TV shows but I'd always thought it was a special effect. 

The Williams WASP was designed to meet an Army  from the 1970's.  It actually fulfilled all the requirements but twas not adopted as the Army beleatedly decided that the requirements were ill-considered. 

Good grief!  With a range of 30 miles it's really not all that much more impractical than a motorcycle for commuting. It can fly above traffic and the fact that it flies means it's significantly less dorky than a Segway.

This is the future we were denied!

Someone must make this happen. 

1 Whee!

Wonder how easy or difficult it was to control.  Also, how noisy it was.  Those are usually the big problems with devices like this.

2 It's Dick Tracy's one-man Air Car!

It probably is ungodly loud, and melts asphalt when it lands.  Those sound like selling points to me.

1 Two of my nephews were huge fans of Thomas the Tank Engine when they were little kids; I suppose I'll have to denounce them now.  (BTW, both these nephews are now well into adulthood, and one has children of his own.  Why yes, yes I do feel old...)