Blogging will be in hiatus due to jury duty and the courts prohibition on “social media”, local news, and blogging.
Update: They filled out the jury, so I didn’t get the opportunity to sit on the jury; Ironic since unlike almost everyone who did have to sit, I was actually looking for ward to it.
The game series “Watch Dog” which involves hackers in a surveillance state, the first set in a fictionalized Chicago and the sequel set in a fictionalized San Fransisco Bay Area. A third game has been announced… and the setting is the aftermath of a post-Brexit London.
Brexit has shifted London's place in the world, and the state of its people. Will you join the resistance in Watch Dogs Legion? #UbiE3 #E32019 pic.twitter.com/oBGtPV8CG5
— IGN (@IGN) June 10, 2019
The idea and setting were decided before the Brexit vote occurred, but the idea was indeed to examine the types of debate which caused the Brexit vote to happen.
News of the Week for June 23rd, 2019
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
The softening of the resistance to attacks on the Western tradition can in large part be found in casting a wide net towards putting up with the “avant garde” when it is used as a vehicle of replcement. An interesting examination of this by Buckley with Allen Gisnberg, one who was a leading figure of the “beat” counterculture.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Less Human Than Human.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
So obsessed are the environmental extremists that humans are almost like a virus that has infected “Gaia”, that short of genocide of all humans, they want to genetically engineer human beings to better fit into the “green” lifestyle that they declare that humans be forced to live. Such insane proposals include:
- Induce intolerance to red meat (think lactose intolerance), since livestock farming accounts for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions.
- Make humans smaller to reduce the amount of energy we each need to consume. This could be done by selecting smaller embryos through preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a technique already in use to screen for genetic diseases. “Human engineering could therefore give people the choice between having a greater number of smaller children or a smaller number of larger children,” they write.
- Reduce birthrates by making people smarter, since higher cognitive ability appears linked to lower birthrates. This could be achieved through a variety of means, including better schooling, electrical stimulation of the brain and drugs designed to improve cognitive ability, they propose.
- Treat people with hormones, such as oxytocin, to make us more altruistic and empathetic. As a result, people would be more willing to act as a group and more sensitive to the suffering of animals and other people caused by climate change.
Nevada, and especially Las Vegas, tends to be a rather transient state and a state more than many where humans with few educational credentials or those without higher level skills can nonetheless earn a living working in the casino industry. As is the case with the advancement of science and technology since the dawn of the industrial revolution, low skilled jobs that can be replaced with automation will be replaced with automation.
“MGM Resorts International this year plans to install at Las Vegas resorts an unknown number of automated beverage systems programmed to mix hundreds of different drinks – all at the touch of a button.
“It’s a job that for many years depended on the hands of living, breathing service workers. But as the incoming technology moves closer to Southern Nevada casinos, rank-and-file union workers can’t say for certain whether machines will force them to abandon jobs they’ve held for years – more than a decade in some cases – to develop new skills far from the threat of automation.
“…
“The coming of these machines has raised several important questions: What does a future with robots look like in Las Vegas? What will happen to a service industry hopeful that union powers will provide protection? Should workers be afraid?”
A Las Vegas run by machines would be most welcome, and certainly better politically than the situations Nevadans currently have to suffer through. Even the robot mob is better.
Robot Oscar Goodman, much like Robot Richard Nixon, is available for consult!
Between a victim of domestic violence and the perpetrator of domestic violence, whom would benefit more from the victim being disarmed in future encounters. If you said that the perpetrator would, congratulations for having a modicum of common sense; if you said the later, condolences, you are the Nottinghamshire Police.
“Nottinghamshire Police is piloting a scheme where victims of domestic violence will have their kitchen knives replaced with blunt utensils, to help stop partners attacking them in their own home.
“Around a hundred ‘no-point’ knives will be given to victims who have either been threatened or attacked with a knife.”
Taking away the means of a victim of domestic violence to defend themselves is objectively pro-criminal. If the perpetrator want to harm said victim again, they could just find some other pointy object (like a pointed stick), or, especially if they are stronger, use a blunt weapon or their bare hands to be in a physically dominating situation. Of course, if a person is considered so dangerous that you can’t trust them around pointy objects, why the hell are they left free to live in the same house as their acknowledged target for violence?
The hitherto unthinkable idea of child “drag queens” is not only becoming increasingly common with “drag kid” celebrities becoming more numerous, but the phenomenon itself becoming increasingly normalized, not just by “drag queen story time” as public libraries, but by more and more media outlets (all of the sudden in a short span of time) such as Huffington Post, VICE, and Mashable—going so far as to declare this the “future”.
If you wanted proof that the future is queer, look no further than this inspiring drag kid, Desmond Is Amazing. 🌈 pic.twitter.com/0P4XY5isZB
— huffpostqueer (@huffpostqueer) June 7, 2019
News of the Week for June 16th, 2019
Happy Flag Day!
There are many historical flags associated with the United States, particularly during the War of Independence.
One such flag is the Bedford Flag:
The Bedford Flag is the oldest known flag in the United States. It is associated with the Minutemen of Bedford, Massachusetts and the Battles of Lexington and Concord of 1775.
The painted-on design depicts an armored arm grasping a straight sword. The two sides are asymmetrical; the sword appears behind the motto on one side and appears in front of it on the other. The Latin motto VINCE AUT MORIRE (“Conquer Or Die”) reads from top to bottom on one side and from bottom to top on the other.
Page family oral tradition, later recounted for historians, held that the Bedford militia’s flag was in the custody of the Page family at the time of the American Revolution, and that Nathaniel Page took it into battle at Concord.
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