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Pat

The holding in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health says that the states have plenary power over abortions.

So the Vermont legislature just introduced a bill to allow abortions without restriction up to the 48th week of pregnancy.

In a separate bill, they define the moment of birth as when the umbilical cord is cut. (Nothing in US Constitution about umbilical cords, either.)

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= A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)

(public domain image per mediawiki commons)

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Not so retro, but it’s one of the best science fiction films ever made and aside from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, perhaps the very best. It includes an ensemble cast of some of the most accomplished actors in the world.

The breadth and depth of this film is enormous and the quality is completely uncompromising. It uses a nonlinear narrative (lots of flashbacks and flashforwards) with an intricate plot and the actors play multiple roles, so it may be confusing on first viewing. This film demands a lot work from the viewer – it will probably take you at least three viewings to begin to understand it. If that’s not your thing, then I’d recommend you go watch ‘Sharknado (2013)’ instead.

The primary philosophical conclusion reached by the film is absolute bunk, but that doesn’t detract from its story and entertainment value. (And the presentation of its thesis up to that point is sound.)

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Pat

(Bathroom doors image, flickr.com/photos/10058483@N00, CC-SA-BY-2.0, modified with fair use images from STNG)

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Pat

Happy solstice!

(As of about 6 hours ago...)

(Image from wikipedia commons, public domain)

Image not to scale. 🙂

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Pat

Economics chart of the day…

(Yeah, I know I don’t do one of these every day. I only make one when I want to.)

(Chart from wikimedia commons, data from stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data)

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Supercar (1965)

Here’s a short, two minute clip from a 1960s TV series about a flying car. Of note here are the use of virtual actors and references to string theory – way ahead of its time.

(I doubt if you’ll be able to find this series anywhere, it's not well known and you probably wouldn’t be able to sit through an entire episode anyway… I’m pretty sure this is the worst SciFi of the Week I’ve done so far, but I couldn’t pass up the metaphor presented here regarding the promotion of putt-putt cars.)

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Pat

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Dyslexic’s summary of the January 6th hearings…

“I thought he was a patriot, but it turns out he was just a parrot.”

(Image Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-4.0, by TapTheForwardAssist)

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Pat

Here's Dr. Fauci in 2020 talking about COVID-19. He said more than 20,000 cases per day was unacceptable.

Now we're having about 200,000 cases per day in the US...

Crickets.

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Metropolis (1927)

This film fell into the public domain in the US in 1953 when its copyright lapsed. More than 50 years later the US Supreme Court declared that it was back under copyright (retroactive to 1996), which of course is illegal to do in the US. Notwithstanding the court’s impotent proclamations, the film will indisputably be in the public domain at the end of this year. You will likely be hearing more about it at that time. It may remain under copyright in other parts of the world because Fritz Lang lived so long.

A decade after this film came out, Hitler exploited the sentiments expressed by the workers depicted in this film to implement socialism in Germany and take away the freedom of those very workers (and nearly everybody else’s freedom too).

A while ago I did a that referenced this film but I don’t think anybody understood it at that time (or only partial understood).

(Socialism and Nazism are just about the worst ideas ever and inevitably lead to the loss of liberty and justice.)

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Pat

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The truth is…

The Van Allen Belt is a of radiation (actually two or more bands) that hold charged particles within Earth’s magnetosphere in space.

Other bands may be created from time to time.

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= A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)

(image from: www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/1960120621; by Anirudh Koul; cropped; CC-BY-NA_2.0)

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Pat


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If you don’t like high gasoline prices, then you actually want more people driving electric cars, even if you don’t drive one yourself.

Every driver who drives an electric car is someone who is not competing with you to buy gasoline, and not creating more demand which drives up the price of fuel.

So please encourage more people to drive electric cars, so the price of fuel will go down.

(image: wikimedia commons; CC-BY-SA-4.0; attribution Adrian Grycuk)

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Pat

3D chess is actually 4D chess (unless all of the moves in a game are made simultaniously).

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Released during the height of MacCarthyism when many in Hollywood and government had lost their jobs and half the country was in a furor trying to find “subversives” under every rock, this film reflected the popular mood during that time. However, the other half of the country was appalled at the witch hunters for trampling on civil rights.

It’s uncertain whether the film was advocating for the witch hunt or mocking it. The filmmakers continued to deny that it was anything more than a thriller science fiction flim.

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

“I’ll be damned if I can find anything wrong with it, HAL.”

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Pat

Biden said US would get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if China attacks.

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Pat

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Congratulation to Karine Jean-Pierre on her promotion to White House Press Secretary.

Jean-Pierre is the first black woman and the first openly gay person to serve as White House Press Secretary.

Image: Karine Jean-Pierre at her first press briefing as White House Press Secretary; public domain image

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

The Atomic Submarine (1954)

Released in the same year that the first nuclear submarine was commissioned, this film has many of the classic features of 50’s science fiction – theremin music, corny dialogue, miniature model FX – but it’s also original within the genre with its unique subject matter and plot.

The film predicted underwater ICBM launches and submerged transit of the North Pole years before they would actually be achieved, and lots of other technical tidbits. It also predicted widespread use of merchant nuclear subs for trans-arctic commerce, which never happened.

It took less than two years for the US to construct the first nuclear sub, the USS Nautilus, which occurred just ten years after the first sustained nuclear chain reaction had been achieved. Ten years after the USS Nautilus was commissioned the US had a fleet of 26 nuclear subs. Today, with 70 years of experience building nuclear submarines, it takes the US more than 10 years to build a single nuclear sub.

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Pat

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Pat

I've run across a weird anomaly on qoto. In the thread (qoto.org/@Pat/1082682733928554), user @sturgman posted a couple toots but those toots don’t show up in that user’s profile page when I click “toots and replies”.

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Pat

#2022 Zealand

I just asked an acquaintance of mine who lives in New Zealand to go up a nearby hill during the sunrise and hold his hands up and make shadow puppets to see if I could see them on the moon from the US as the eclipse waned.

Didn’t work.

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