Speaking Of Paranoia

Or is it hypochondria? I spent Sunday and Monday wondering if, perhaps, I was fattening up a cold, hoping not, but by last evening, 'twas obvious.

Fever, chills, sinus congestion/drainage, cough, body aches, fatigue, headache of different form than the usual, hey wow! Dearie me, it fits H1N1, quick, panic!

...And the symptoms are typical of pretty much every other flavor of flu as well, plus good many colds. Haven't decided if I wanna go get nasal-swabbed yet, 'cos, well, what I'm reading is they haven't anything that works much better than hot tea with honey in it and plenty of rest, pretty much the standard home remedy for lo these last hundred years.

(Speaking of a hundred years and terrible wars, have you seen this? Blame it on Napoleon, it commemorates him gettin' shellacked).

Not Your Father's Poland

Poland remembers the opening innings of World War Two as few other nations can -- the mass murder of 20,000 officers at Katyn at the hand's of Stalin's soldiers, for instance.*

Russia's remembering things a little differently, as "good ol' Uncle Joe" gets a fresh coat of paint in time for the 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War.

Thing is, the historical record and the physical evidence favors Poland. And they're not shy about reminding the Russians.

Good for 'em. And shame on the Russians, who, by ignoring their past, are setting themselves up to repeat it.
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* The Nazi government, having stumbled on the mass graves, proceeded to use it in war propaganda as evidence of what inhuman brutes the Communists were, while their own death camps were in full operation. Words fail me.

Another Day, Part 14

(TO THE BEGINNING)

Security officers on a starship work in an environment that has more in common with Andy Griffith's Mayberry sheriff than most law enforcement types; while the ship is indeed leaping through the limitless cosmos -- or at least the Earth portion of the Hidden Frontier (less the worlds settled from France and China and, mostly, the two hardline ex-Soviet worlds) -- a starship between planetfalls amounts to a small town with no roads out. Additionally, Security answers to the Captain and ultimately to the Starship Company, not a Mayor and Town Council.

As a result, Security is more inclined to wait situations out and the officers are encouraged to apply logic and common sense instead of no-tolerance rules, to de-escalate instead of arrest, confrontation or other ways of bothering the Security Director. All of which goes to explain why there was not a lot of shouting and shoving; John stepped to one side of the opening through which he'd entered, saying, "Keep your hands where I can see 'em, Mister," adding, "--Alan, hang back," while keeping his attention on the seated man. "All right, whoever you are, we're going to take you out of here. 'S that a problem?"

"'Vill,' please, and I shall come along quietly. Do be careful of the urns."

"Stand up, slowly, hands in sight, do not move until I tell you; it's gonna be a lot easier getting back out if I don't have to cuff you - - Er, '...Urns?'"

(CONTINUES HERE!)

Not Green, Just Bloodless

How to open plastic clamshell packaging and not maim yourself!

Tiny Guns Of Canada

David Kucer Miniatures. Go see!

Found via a comment to this post at BoingBoing.

Paranostalganoia

(Say it three times fast with a mouthfulla ice cubes and win a set of plans for your very own fallout shelter!)

Tam links to a story about a bill that'd left the Feds officially pull the plug on this here Innernet. In one sense, it's silly to think this power doesn't already exist; The Phone Company has been deeply, madly in bed with the Feds for years, since before the tax on long distance to fund the Spanish-American War, even, and if Uncle Sugar were t'ring 'em up and say, "Internet. Off. Now," screens would go blank while the last syllable was still echoing.

It is nevertheless troubling when they wanna make it Official. Sort of sets it out of reach of serious censure in any public forum; like the hideously-misnamed USA PATRIOT Act, there might be plenty of whining 'round the edges but, "Hey, it's the Law," still commands inherent respect, same way my "The Revolution Will Not Be Telegraphed" T-shirt* gets narrow and suspicious looks at gun shows.

...And I can't help but remember that one of the things Claire Wolfe was blogging about (or was it in the old BBS?) before she decided to drop off the grid even more was how to get around a big ol' net.shutdown, by cranking the clock back to FidoNet or havin' a go at amateur packet radio (license required. Batteries not included).

The 'net is fine for fun but please remember, the blame thing is not all that reliable or trustworthy unless your name ends in .mil or .gov, and it never was; and I would not get too comfy with anything dial-up based, either.
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* Maybe they misremember the Gil Scott Heron tune?

Patches

Wired's Danger Room has been collecting "most awesomely bad military patches" for quite some time -- have to say my fave is the "W.W.J.S" at the top.

...Then there are the patches for classified satellite launches, some of which will make you wonder where you left that shiny, shiny hat. H'mm, so...didn't want 'em to be that secret, then? It's the highly-visible security camera trick: since some folks will only play nice if they know somebody's watching, make darned sure the watching is obvious.

Wiki/Web Wander

I did it the other direction but it works even better backwards: what does James Joyce have in common with a Purdue student?

...Bad friends, is what. However, Joyce had a better outcome and a very different venue.

Of course, that's just one example; the Brits had weirder than that. And,t come the next century, got odder still!

The idea returned later; when thing settled down, they found a new life. Eventually, one of the persons doing that decided he'd make new country.

And here's the thing: the endpoints of this arc are both in my blog.

Weirdness!

"When pigs fly:" Never gonna happen.

"Swine flew:" Unavoidable horror! Panic now!

--Oh, wait, that was supposed to be "flu." Still, odd convergence of opposites, innit?

Drones Droning About Drones

Bonus hysteria: the word "atomics" prominently featured!

The Nation soils itself over UAVs and whines the company that makes them is a cybernetic Blackwater. Oh, doesn't everyone involved just wish.

Srsly, were they not watching the last 20 - 30 years? The last 90? I admit, it took Bruce Sterling to show me them but that was in nineteen-frickin'-eighty-eight and he was describing hardware already flying. The first working UAVs appeared in 1916 and a later version blew up the first Kennedy of the generation just passed.

Oh, but it's suddenly a scourge now. 'Cos we might be blowin' up Muslim terrorists with them and everything is a surprise to the ignorant-of-history flutterati.

The Horror-Movie Cliche:

Just when you thought it was safe, there's another one of them!

Well, that was predictable.

Sadly, the story notes as routine that Senate openings are rare. Let's stop sending incumbents back. I don't care how happy you are with your guy, or me with mine (not. Not at all), give them a nice vacation: present your Senators and Representatives with a term off! C'mon, either they're such hard-workin' guys and gals they deserve it, or they're such meddling jerks they have it coming, right? We shouldn't have to be waiting for them to die before we check out new talent. It's hard to see how new blood could do any worse than what we've got now.

Update: I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Ted Kennedy Est Mortuus

I suppose it was heartless of me that my first thought was "Finally, something to get the media off Michael Jackson's corpse!"

I read with some interest, "Under state law, Kennedy's successor will be chosen by special election. In his last known public act, the senator urged state officials to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name an interim replacement. " For a supposed lifelong champion of The People, not to mention Democracy, this seems a tad askew. I guess the wisdom of the electorate is not to be questioned -- unless the outcome might not be to one's liking or the pause to accommodate it inconvenient. The late Senator is beyond such worries now, though we will have several weeks of Televised Mourning to endure; and perhaps with a little more dignity than the immediately previous celebrity death.