“Things are going in a bad direction! We have to do something!”
*begins the process of doing something*
“Naw this is way too hard. Let’s just feed our children to the communist cannibals instead.”
Do NOT be that guy.
So, basically, 500 million Europeans expect 300 million Americans to protect them from 120 million Russians who can’t even defeat 40 million Ukrainians while those 500 million Europeans don’t even realize they are being conquered by 2 billion Muslims who claim they are being persecuted by 8 million Israelis. Is that about right?
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This is just so true and brilliant, I had to share it when I saw it:
"500 million Europeans expect 300 million Americans to protect them from 120 million Russians who can’t even manage to defeat 40 million Ukrainians while failing to realize that they themselves are being conquered by 2 billion Muslims who claim to be persecuted by 9 million Israelis”
Patrick Stewart. Turned up so early and so unobtrusively to be a star in the reasonably priced car, we mistook him for a delivery driver and asked him to go round the back. Took his hat off and said, “But I’m the captain of the Enterprise”. Fucking nice guy.
The Jedi actually deserved to go extinct. Their entire ideology is inherently antithetical to life itself.
You’re not allowed to have attachments, show emotion, love anyone, be passionate about anything, or embody really any of the qualities that make a sentient living being a sentient living being.
Anything that’s life giving is attacked for being associated with the Sith, who would otherwise be completely correct about everything if it weren’t for their over the top cruelty and cartoonish villainy.
The entire core tenets of the Jedi Order almost perfectly match the late-stage liberal fantasy of a world where existential divisions are all papered over and everyone and everything is forcibly dissolved into a universalist soup managed by a supposedly apolitical priestly caste who wield absolute power while lying through their teeth about how they’re just defenders of democracy.
And like all Liberal orders, the Jedi are so dogmatically committed to the false promise of universalism, neutrality, proceduralism, and “balance” (aka not taking your own side) that they can’t see any existential threats until it is far too late.
There was once a shepherd who found a wolf caught in a snare at the edge of his pasture.
The wolf begged to be freed.
“I was hungry,” it said. “That is all. Spare me, and I will remember your mercy!”
The shepherd cut the rope.
The next night, three lambs were gone.
Again the shepherd found the wolf. Again it pleaded. Again the shepherd convinced himself that mercy was proof of his goodness.
By winter, half the flock was dead.
An old farmer finally asked him, “Why do you keep freeing it?”
The shepherd answered, “Because I refuse to become cruel.”
The farmer looked at the empty field and said, “Then understand what you have done. You were not merciful to the wolf. You were cruel to everything that trusted you to keep them safe.”
That’s the lesson.
Mercy without judgment isn’t virtue. When someone openly intends to destroy what has been entrusted to you, endless forgiveness doesn’t make you righteous. It makes everyone behind you pay for your vanity.
Tolkien created orcs to be so wholly devoid of good that no one could ever sympathize with them
They are the agents of evil, unthinking brutes driven only by a desire to destroy that which is good and beautiful because they hate that such things exist
So the left sides with them, naturally, and attempts to frame them as sympathetic characters, mainly because it wants to unleash such brutes upon us
Apollo astronaut Frank Borman was an incredible man, can you imagine the controversy if an astronaut said this today?
Nixon tasked him to go to college campuses after Apollo 8 to give talks and was only met with hatred then detailing how he had to be flown in by helicopters because they barricaded the doors. They also threw objects at him and dressed in gorilla suits to run him off stage so they could mock the first scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey
This is what I mean when I tell people that spaceflight interest to the average person has never mattered, these people are utterly deranged and hinder progress when listened to
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to:
Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund
https://t.co/luC5CdcWDy
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Caregiver Resources
https://t.co/zvNptfyuNd
Photo Credit: Tommy Garcia
What a heartbreaking week it has been. Sir Patrick Stewart was a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor. From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did. Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him. I was filled with affection and admiration for him and his work.
My heart goes out to Sunny and his family. He will be deeply missed.
Ok, so here's your ghostbusters reboot that can be Russ Meyer approved, and still deliver some scifi fun.
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTER HOURS
Forty years ago, four eccentric scientists saved New York City from an ancient supernatural god, a giant marshmallow man, and something involving a refrigerator. At least, that's the official story.
These days, most New Yorkers regard the whole Ghostbusters phenomenon as an elaborate publicity stunt, a forgotten government scandal, or possibly the most successful insurance scam in American history.
The original Ghostbusters are long gone, their equipment scattered among collectors, storage facilities, and government surplus auctions.
Enter four enterprising New York strippers, each with her own personality, ambitions, and spectacularly questionable judgment. With Halloween approaching and business slowing down, the women stumble upon a collection of authentic-looking Ghostbusters equipment at an estate auction. Proton packs, jumpsuits, ghost traps, etc
One of them has a brilliant idea: "Everybody remembers the Ghostbusters, right? What if we WERE the Ghostbusters?" Not actual ghostbusters, obviously.
Sexy Ghostbusters.
They establish a novelty entertainment service. Customers call about a "paranormal disturbance." and four gorgeous women arrive in modified Ghostbusters uniforms, carrying elaborate-looking equipment. They perform a little dance routine, investigate the "haunting." and then proceed to bust something considerably less supernatural.
Their first gig is a fraternity Halloween party. It's a tremendous success.
Their second is a private party for a group of cocaine-fueled Wall Street executives. Even more successful
Business is booming. Then comes the call everyone in teh audience knows is coming. An elderly woman reports strange noises, objects moving by themselves, and a terrifying apparition in her apartment.
The women arrive expecting another bachelor party. Instead, they encounter an actual, honest-to-God, floating-through-the-walls, ectoplasm-spewing GHOST.
Panic ensues.
One woman screams. Another attempts to negotiate with the apparition. A third tries to seduce it, reasoning that this approach has worked on practically every other difficult customer she's ever encountered.
The fourth accidentally activates her proton pack, And blows a hole through the apartment wall.
As it turns out, their equipment isn't theatrical. It's real. And it still works.
Unfortunately, so do the ghosts. Something beneath Manhattan is awakening, and supernatural activity is spreading across the city. The women suddenly find themselves possessing the only functioning ghostbusting equipment in New York.
The authorities dismiss them as publicity-seeking exotic dancers. The media treats them as a joke. Their former customers keep calling to request private performances. The ghosts don't particularly care what anyone thinks.
Realizing they're hopelessly out of their depth, the women track down a men with connections to the original Ghostbusters: a socially awkward paranormal physicist who's spent his career trying to prove the original events actually happened. A gruff, middle-aged engineer who once helped maintain the equipment. A blue collar guy who doesn't really care, but isn't afraid of gross goo. A book worm who knows all the lore.
The men are initially horrified. "YOU TURNED ON A PROTON PACK IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING?!"
"Well, nobody gave us an instruction manual!"
What follows is a spectacularly dysfunctional partnership involving scientific training, supernatural combat, romantic complications, sexual tension, and the discovery that the women are considerably smarter, tougher, and more resourceful than anyone (including themselves) initially believed.
The physicist develops an awkward romance with the team's most intellectually curious member. The engineer finds himself falling for their sharp-tongued leader, a woman who has absolutely no intention of being rescued by anybody, etc.
And while the men understand the technology, it's the women who understand people, improvisation, and how to keep their heads when everything goes spectacularly wrong.
As Manhattan descends into supernatural chaos, the unlikely team discovers that the original Ghostbusters didn't completely eliminate the threat forty years ago.
They merely postponed it.
Now, with the dead rising, the containment grid failing, and an ancient entity preparing to reclaim New York, four women who started a business to make a quick buck must decide whether they're willing to risk their lives to save a city that still thinks they're a joke.
They'll need science. They'll need courage. They'll need each other.
And, yes, they'll need the men, too.
Not because women can't save the world, but because saving the world is a hell of a lot easier when everybody brings something useful to the table.
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTER HOURS
They're here to bust ghosts. Busting anything else costs extra.