All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Our true Deity is Mechanism. It has subdued external Nature for us, and we think it will do all other things. We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also.
Thomas Carlyle
I wasn’t a regular listener but Rush was a conservative institution and he believed in the things we believe in. Rest in peace.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rush-limbaugh-obituary-cancer/2021/02/17/id/1010398/
UPDATE – A tribute from one of Rush’s big fans:
And I just learned about an hour ago that my hero Rush Limbaugh passed away from his lung cancer. A legend in talk radio. He invented conservative talk. 30+ years I listened to his voice of reason. 20+ years of daily podcasts on my commute. I learned a great deal from him. When I first heard his voice during the gulf war I thought to myself, who is this guy who is saying everything that I think? I was hooked from that point forward. Read his books. Watched his brief TV show. Enjoyed his humor and satire. But most of hall, I enjoyed listening to the truth as he dispensed his common sense wisdom to tens of millions of listeners every weekday. I always felt like I knew him.
RIP Rush!
With his trademark acerbic style and acuity the ZMan talks about the origins of the Left’s decision to install Dementia Joe. Then he discusses how they may find disposing of him more of a problem than they bargained for. An interesting read.
And yet another iconic episode. Dr. Richard Daystrom is the genius who as a very young man invented the computer systems that are currently used on all Federation star ships. Now Daystrom has progressed to a new computer the M-5 that can run a star ship without a human captain or almost any crew at all. Commodore Bob Wesley has selected the Enterprise to test out the new system by setting up a war game between the Enterprise and four other star ships.
Daystrom comes aboard to set up the M-5 and continuously antagonizes Kirk and McCoy by stressing the fact that the M-5 will eliminate the need for a star ship captain and most of the crew. Spock on the other hand is very familiar with Daystrom’s work and once the testing of the system commences, he agrees that the M-5’s performance far exceeds the results expected from a human crew and captain.
But in route to the second war game trial, the M-5 randomly attacks and destroys an ore freighter that luckily had no crew. In addition, when Scotty’s engineering staff attempts to de-energize the M-5 the machine vaporizes one of the red shirts and employs a force field to prevent any human intervention in its control of the Enterprise. After unsuccessfully trying to outwit the machine and disconnect it from the ship’s controls they are forced to watch in horror as the M-5 attacks the four star ships with full powered weapons. One ship is completely incapacitated and its entire crew killed. Commodore Wesley gets permission to use his remaining ships to destroy the Enterprise. At this point we learn that the M-5 is acting illogically because it was constructed from the “engrams” of Dr. Daystrom’s own brain who as it turns out is mentally unstable. This explains Daystrom’s very personal relationship with the machine and his erratic behavior now reinforces the fact that M-5 is quite mad.
In a final attempt to prevent the M-5 from destroying the remaining star ships Daystrom attempts to reason with the computer. He attempts to convince M-5 that killing humans is murder and against the laws of man and God. But Daystrom begins to identify with his creation and begins justifying self-preservation as the M-5’s right. He begins ranting about the unfairness of how he was treated after his initial successes and finally he starts to gloat over M-5’s superiority over its human opponents. Finally, he has to be sedated and hauled away to sick bay.
Kirk takes over and finishes the job of convincing M-5 that it is guilty of murder. Unfortunately, he does too good a job and the computer decides to commit suicide by deactivating itself and thereby leave the Enterprise vulnerable to destruction by the Star Fleet squadron. Scotty is able to restore only the shields but not communications. Kirk orders the shields to remain lowered and he gambles that Bob Wesley will break off the attack rather than destroy the defenseless ship at least until the situation can be clarified. When this succeeds Kirk explains to Spock that he gambled on Wesley’s humanity. McCoy then uses this human virtue to assail Spock’s seeming preference for machines over humans. Spock reiterates his already stated preference for humans over machines but states that a computer that has McCoy’s mental makeup would spout so much illogic that it would be a great source of amusement. The End.
Everybody loves this episode. When the M-5 flawlessly passes the first war game against the star ships, Commodore Wesley congratulates the M-5 on its performance and also sends his greetings to Captain Dunsail. When he hears this Kirk storms off the bridge while the rest of the bridge officers look shocked. When McCoy asks “who the blazes is Dunsail?” Spock explains that dunsail is a term used at Starfleet Academy to describe a part serving no useful purpose.
McCoy goes to Kirk’s cabin to give him some medicinal alcohol. Kirk admits to feeling useless and asks McCoy whether he himself is guilty of vanity, fearing the loss of his prestige as captain McCoy tells him to ask Jim Kirk because Jim Kirk is an honest guy. But sixty million Americans were yelling that night at their tv’s saying, “Yes you conceited blowhard, you strutting prima donna, that’s what this is about!”
But Kirk does have one great line. When the M-5 shuts itself off. Kirk yells to Scotty to go down to engineering and permanently deactivate the M-5. His final words to the engineer are to shout, “PULL THE PLUG ON IT!”
The other attraction in this episode is the characterization of Doctor Daystrom. He has both delusions of grandeur and a persecution complex. At one point while he was reasoning with the M-5 he attempted to salve the computer’s feelings about being in error and when the machine stated its record of achievement Daystrom concurred stating, “Yes, I am great, you are great.” Then when he went completely bonkers, he started reciting his grievances against his colleagues, “They laughed behind my back at the boy genius and got rich on my invention, my work!”
I really like this episode. Two blowhards sharing the stage, Daystrom and Kirk. Wonderful.
9 // 6.
Update: Chemist had some good feedback that I thought I’d share:
“With all due respect Photog, you missed the best line in the show. It was McCoy’s to Kirk:
“Did you see the love light in Spock’s eyes? The right computer finally came along.”
Epic.”
The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.
Thomas Carlyle
I get some pretty wild rumors on the old boy network sometimes. Other times I hear ones which are wild on their face but when investigated, become more rational. The latest is that Pelosi and the Democrat leadership (along with the loonies such as AOC) instigated the “riot” in DC and made it possible. A false flag attack. After all, the left has tried that tactic before, claiming a democratic HQ was shot up by MAGAs when it turned out they did it themselves in a false flag attack.
Hear me out. Who was responsible for making changes to capital policing and security of the capitol itself right before the protest? Pelosi. The changes made it much easier for the protesters to get into the building and to do what they did. Why would she so change the security arrangements when she said she feared such a protest? How did they know just where to go? Who benefited more from the protest, the left or the right? (hint: the left) Why did AOC claim near rape and murder when no protester got within eye-shot of her and when she was, indeed protected by Capital police with drawn weapons? I know AOC’s a serial, compulsive liar, but still. Why did this look like so many Antifa and BLM riots?
Not all of the participants, or even most, have been positively identified as Trump supporters. Nor is there any real connection to White supremacy, despite the claims of the left. What is apparent from the footage is that the Trump supporters for the most part did no harm. It was the unidentified ones who did the damage. Who are they? Who paid for them to be there? Remember, Trump supporters are supposed to be subliterate, cousin f-ers who barely have enough money for trailer payments, beer and the NASCAR channel. To travel from Waycross Georgia or Bugtussel Tennessee all the way to DC, then find their way around that rabbit warren of a town, get past the normally quite efficient guards of the Capital police, and wreak havoc by knowing just where to go in that large and maze-like building? Hmmmm…doesn’t seem right.
Why did the police only draw their weapons to protect the House chamber, and not the Senate? Why was an unarmed woman shot when trying to climb through a broken window to the House chambers? If she had been a BLM rioter stealing televisions the cop would be in jail by now. Why were the supposedly gun crazy Trumpers not armed? The only shot fired was to the aforementioned unarmed White woman. True, one cop was beaten so severely he died, and I mourn his loss. If cops can shoot unarmed protesters who are not looting, does that mean that the Congress is an oligarchy who deserve better police protection than the rest of us, where cops are forbidden to shoot looting BLM rioters? That seems orthogonal to the constitution.
This appears to be orchestrated political theater of the highest sort. No members of congress injured or even touched. The one responsible for weakening security has her congressional chamber guarded with drawn weapons and a young woman was murdered by the gun-toting royal guards.
Why is Pelosi mad at Trump for not calling up the National Guard to disperse the rioters? Do you have any idea how long it takes to recall, muster, uniform, arm and equip a Guard unit made up of civilians with dispersed jobs? Then to lecture them on rules of engagement? Why call the National Guard at all, when you have a very highly trained, motivated and professional infantry regiment at your side? I speak of the Old Guard. Those who do ceremonies, guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and escort the President among other things. People forget they are also the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment and are a fully trained, well-practiced and thoroughly professional infantry regiment with the full armaments and ammo an infantry regiment possesses. Plus, they can be called out much quicker than the National Guard. Since DC is a federal city, the Posse Comitatus Act is not in effect.
Given all those “curiosities” I can see why the retired veterans are suspicious.
Over at Real Clear Politics Arthur Milikh of the The Claremont Institute’s ‘Center for the American Way of Life’ has an essay called “A New Conservatism Must Emerge.”
His thesis is that the Left has conquered all of the institutions of America not because of any inherent strength of its point of view but because the Right is so unaware of what it stands for that it never even knew when things were slipping away.
Actually I reject this thesis. I think we were sold down the river by the supposed conservative leaders of the Republican party who were really only part of the Left in disguise.
Now his solution to fight back against the current situation is to attack the institutions of the Left and to re-affirm the tenets of the “American Way of Life.”
Well, I guess so. But all of that is kind of vague. Mr. Milikh does list the symptoms of the disease that is now killing us but a more straight forward approach to how to save us from the Left is to say we need a leader to gather up the splinters of our resistance and shape it into a weapon with which to club our enemies into submission. Because no amount of defensive action is going to make them stop. Their teeth need to be pulled. Their ability to assault us needs to be neutralized. Someone with brains and guts needs to call a conservative convention to plot out a survival strategy. America has been turned into Orwell’s 1984 and people are acting like it’s just a slight inconvenience. We all know what must be done. But how can it be done and who can do it? It will take a bold leader who finds some strong position and fires the first shot and proves that he can’t be taken down by all the forces of the Left. If someone does that it will cause a chain reaction that will shatter the illusion of the Potemkin Village that the Left has built up like a strong wind blows down a house of cards.
So my short counter proposal is “We Need a Champion.”
Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster.
Thomas Carlyle
