All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. For example, it is considered to be ‘materialistic’ and ‘greedy’ to want to keep what you have earned. But it is ‘idealistic’ to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself.
Thomas Sowell
This week and next are the last two stay at home weeks left for me. After that I’ll be half time in the office. And since Monday is Memorial Day I’m feeling very lazy and am looking for an excuse to think about non-political subjects. So today I made a point to take a little time and be at play in the fields of the Lord. I noted that the birds of the air were quite active. In particular I noted that some swallows have appropriated the bluebird house.
This accords with the low opinion I have developed toward the bluebirds. To borrow a phrase from the President they’re low-energy losers. But we have had some indigo buntings around this week. They are even bluer than the bluebirds and I think much more heroic. I noted a number of hawks flying above the fields and saw how this disturbed some of the smaller birds. I assume they were worried about the hawks attacking their nests. A couple of rabbits were spotted frolicking outside the former goat pen. What with the circling hawks I thought this surprisingly bold. Possibly they read Watership Down and took it to heart.
I noted a goodly number of frogs and salamanders drowned in the swimming pool which we opened last Friday.
The idea of amphibians drowning in water also leads me to a low opinion of their fitness to survive in the highly competitive future that we know is over the horizon. A number of years ago we had some blue spotted salamanders around the property. They’re good sized and I’d love to see them again sometime.
A very large snapping turtle was cruising around the pond and I was wondering if the mallard family might be at risk of losing a duckling if they weren’t careful.
The painted turtles were all hanging out on a fallen tree and looking fairly useless. I wondered if maybe they were afraid of the snapping turtle too. But more certainly the bull frogs and small fish were likely on the menu for grandpa snapper. I went to inspect the remains of the beaver dam that was abandoned when that buck toothed rodent disappeared last year. Well, it’s all gone now. And the pond is at a low ebb. More like a puddle than a pond.
There were a goodly number of deer travelling through the woods in the last week or so. They were grazing on the stringy weeds that cover the shallows of the pond but none of them were around today. Neither did any of the turkeys wander by as they have been lately.
After that black bear or Lovecraftian monster or whatever it was flattened our bird feeders last week I’ve been using the game camera to see what’s going on at night. The only thing unusual was a red fox. Last year we had grey foxes but this is the first red one I’ve seen.
After finding that hatchling milk snake I moved my tin to another location in hopes of finding some snakes near the rock wall.
The garter snakes I’ve been seeing near the retaining wall have disappeared.
The warmer weather must have allowed them to disperse from their winter hibernaculum in the wall. There was a northern water snake near a vernal pool last year but he wasn’t around today. I’ll hope to find him again this year. What I’d really like to find are some larger snakes, a black racer or even a black ratsnake. But we’ll see.
Insect-wise we have plenty of bees around.
There are the usual honey bees and bumble bees but also the always annoying carpenter bees. Because of the very extensive wood work on the structures on the property I am at perpetual war with these bees. We have had our first butterflies. There have been a number of painted ladies and today we had our first tiger swallowtail.
I noted with pleasure that the three small Giant Sequoias got through the winter well. They join their older and larger cousin in the southwest corner of the property. My own personal grove. The two metasequoias have also grown tall in the last five years.
The bristlecone pine tree I planted last fall unfortunately hasn’t done as well. It looks dead and I’ll have to replace it soon.
No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
Thomas Sowell
A Ukrainian judge ordered that Joe Biden’s name be explicitly listed as the perpetrator of a crime against the fired former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Victor Shokin. I guess Biden bragging that he coerced President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin to avoid losing loan guarantees from Washington was too much for the current government to stomach. Biden got Shokin fired because he was looking into kickbacks that Hunter Biden was getting from the energy company Burisma.
Ukraine judge orders Joe Biden be listed as alleged perpetrator of crime in prosecutor’s firing
Do you think the Ukraine could print out a wanted poster with Joe’s skeletal mug grinning from behind bars? Maybe they could have him dressed in one of those old timey striped prison suits. Could the Justice Department expedite the extradition to allow the Democrats time to select a different candidate for November? Curious Americans would like to know.
Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura go down to a planet whose inhabitants are called Halkans. Maybe the planet is called Halka, but who knows? The Halkans are lame looking pacifists who refuse to let the Federation mine dilithium crystals on their planet because they might use it for violence. The guy who plays the head of the Halkan Council had a strange looking head and is dressed like a girl as far as I could tell.
Kirk tells them to think it over and he calls the enterprise to beam them up. There is an ion storm (of course) raging in space and as the party is beaming up, they first appear in the Enterprise transporter room then disappear again. Immediately afterward we see the landing party materialize in the transporter room but something is wrong. The landing party is wearing uniforms that differ from normal. Uhura has a bare midriff and the men have different shirts and all of them have daggers on their thighs. Also, the ship has some kind of strange insignia and Mr. Spock is sporting a beard.
Kirk figures out that they aren’t on their own Enterprise and plays along with Spock concerning their apparent surprise. He claims that the transporter malfunction has shaken them up and they need to go to sickbay for Bones to examine them. Meanwhile we observe that on this Enterprise any mistakes are punished by means of a torture device called an “agonizer.” Using the computer Kirk discovers that in this universe the Federation is an Empire and Halkans will have to be massacred to pay for their refusal to allow mining of their dilithium crytals.
When the crew find out that Kirk declines to wipe out the Halkans they see their chance to overthrow him. Chekov and his followers attack Kirk as he heads for his cabin. Luckily one of Chekov’s men turns on the conspirators and disintegrates them with his phaser leaving Chekov to be hauled off to the “Agony Booth” where he should have been allowed to die but Kirk eventually spares him and sends him to confinement in his cabin.
Kirk and his landing party figure out that an ion storm has somehow cause a rift between parallel universes (of course) and their only chance to return is to trigger the same phenomenon artificially. To set this up Scotty and McCoy go to the engineering area and at the critical moment Uhura will have to throw herself at Sulu to distract him from his security board so he won’t notice the engineering changes. As soon as it is clear she then slaps Sulu across the face and pulls a knife on him to escape his very un-Takei-like behavior.
Meanwhile Spock has informed Kirk that even though he would prefer not being Captain he will be forced to assassinate Kirk if he does not comply with the Empire’s order to annihilate the Halkans. When Kirk reaches his cabin, he finds the Captain’s Woman, Marlena lounging on his bed and acting very familiar. She demonstrates the Tantalus Field device that Kirk uses to disintegrate his enemies at a distance. Kirk fences words and wrestles with her a little to show her he is still interested in her as a partner.
When Kirk and his group meet up in sickbay prior to going to the transporter Spock shows up and attempts to arrest the Captain but a fight ensues and eventually Kirk smashes a sculpture of a human skull over Spock’s head and knocks him unconscious. While McCoy stays in sickbay to save Spock’s life the rest of the group heads to the transporter room there they are met by Sulu and his hit squad who intend to kill Kirk and Spock and take over the ship. Marlena uses the Tantalus field and kills all the assassins except Sulu whom Kirk knocks out.
Meanwhile back in sickbay Spock regains consciousness and overpowers McCoy and uses the Vulcan mind meld to find out what is going on. Back at the transporter Marlena shows up and tries to force the landing party to take her along. Uhura overpowers her and takes away her phaser. Spock and McCoy show up and Kirk tells Spock that he should use the Tantalus Field to take over the ship and work to turn the Empire into a more logical and benign Federation. Spock allows the landing party to leave and they end up on the Federation Enterprise.
In the final scene on the bridge Bones tells Spock that he thought the beard was a distinct improvement for Spock. Spock informs them that the naked aggression and open dishonesty of the other landing party was distinctly refreshing. Finally, a new officer Marlena shows up and after an obvious look of recognition by Kirk that Spock notes, Kirk dissembles and says that she seems like a “nice, likeable girl.” And he thinks they might become friends.
Here was a chance for Chekov and Sulu to have some fun and be bad guys. Even Uhura was able to get some screen time playing around with Sulu and even getting tossed around during the fight with Spock. Kirk and Spock got to wrestle and tumble around sickbay and Scotty and McCoy also were given a few scenes. There was one scene on the real Enterprise where Spock is having the fake landing party tossed into the brig and fake Kirk is trying to bargain with Spock for his release, promising him power and threatening to string him up by his “Vulcan ears” if he doesn’t.
All in all, it’s kind of a fun episode. Let’s call it a 7. As far as Shatner mockery points, Kirk does swagger around in his sportier more swashbuckling uniform and he does act goofier than usual but I wouldn’t say more than a 5. That makes this a 7 // 5.
If you don’t control the borders, it doesn’t matter what immigration laws you have.
Thomas Sowell
If politicians were serious about day care for children, instead of just sloganizing about it, nothing they could do would improve the quality of child care more than by lifting the heavy burden of taxation that forces so many families to have both parents working.
Thomas Sowell
