Hardly any man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Author: photog
Dredd (2012) – A Fantasy Movie Review
Okay, let’s start with the basics. This is a comic book hero film. That’s the excuse for an action movie. The “universe” this takes place in has a city stretching from the Boston locale to where Washington D.C. was and is called very poetically, “Mega-City One.” It is walled in and surrounded by an irradiated desert. There must have been a nuclear war or something. Somehow it supports 800 million inhabitants and most of them seem to be third world refugees living awful lives surrounded by drugs, gangs and general depravity.
Law and order are in the hands of the “judges.” They are law enforcement officers who also can dispense justice as judge, jury and executioner at their own discretion. They ride around on motorcycles and have weapons that can dispense munitions ranging from standard bullets, to armor piercing rounds, to gas rounds to incendiary devices. They tend to kill a lot of criminals in the course of their work.
In this story a judge named Dredd is bringing a female rookie named Cassandra Anderson on a trial assignment. She also happens to be a psychic. This seems to be linked to her parents having died from the effects of radiation. She doesn’t wear her armored helmet the way Dredd does because it interferes with her psychic ability but mostly because we wouldn’t be able to see her blonde hair.
The gist of the story is that Dredd and Anderson have captured a member of the Ma-Ma Madrigal gang. Anderson can tell that he’s guilty of some recent murders so he’s being brought in for interrogation. But Ma-Ma knows that he would end up spilling the truth about her involvement in the deadly “slo-mo” drug distribution. So, they lock down the 200-story housing complex where she resides and traps the two judges inside. The rest of the story is Dredd’s fight to stay alive until help can arrive from outside.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
Alright, the spoiler alert is kind of silly. This is a comic book movie. Judge Dredd kills all his adversaries and ends the movie virtually the same as it begins, walking off to fight crime in Mega-City One. In between we meet Ma-Ma, her henchmen and a few of the hopelessly oppressed residents of Mega-City One. At the end of the movie Dredd approves Anderson’s probationary service. But when she hands in her shield at the end of her probation I couldn’t tell if she still wanted to do the work. Oh, and at the climax Dredd throws Ma-Ma Madrigal off the 200-story building to her death. Of course he did.
Alright, who is this movie for. Well, it’s for comic book movie fans. I guess most action movie fans will enjoy it. People who don’t like gratuitous gun violence probably won’t. By and large I’ll say I enjoyed it. It was mindless fun. A little crude and full of the usual vulgar language so not for kids but no harm for grownups. Your milage may vary.
14FEB2026 – Quote of the Day
The stamp of great minds is to suggest much in few words; by contrast, little minds have the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.
François de La Rochefoucauld
14FEB2026 – Photo of the Day
Trump Decriminalizes Carbon Dioxide. photog Claims He Never Inhaled
Trump, you magnificent bastard. You did it!!!
Read this Headline:
Trump’s EPA revokes scientific finding that underpinned US fight against climate change
Do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of rejoicing as sanity is restored to the American economy. And probably also the sound of a million climate activists crying as their funding disappears.
“The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to roll back climate regulations.”
“President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far,” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the endangerment finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.””
He’s right. There is such a thing as too much winning. But it’s too late I’m addicted to it now.
“Trump called the endangerment finding “one of the greatest scams in history,” claiming that it “had no basis in fact” or law. “On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world,” Trump said at a White House ceremony.”
Can’t you just feel the leftist rage boil?
“The endangerment finding “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin said. “The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.”
The endangerment finding and the regulations based on it “didn’t just regulate emissions, it regulated and targeted the American dream. And now the endangerment finding is hereby eliminated,” Zeldin said.”
This will have so many effects on lowering the cost of living for Americans. Gas prices and fuel prices will decline as regulation will be lifted over many parts of the production cycle. Automobile prices will decline as all the regulation can be stripped out of the process for selling cars with regular gasoline engines. When Trump ends the CO2 emissions requirements for power plants, the cost of electricity will also decline. Well, except in places like California and New England where they punish fossil fuel plants just for the sake of virtue signaling. This is despite the fact that places like New York State have recently admitted that their citizens just cannot afford to pay the energy bills their state has mandated in the absurd goal of eliminating everything but “renewables.”
And most importantly, Barack Obama will be sad. This monstrous law was his baby. He foisted it upon us and trillions of dollars were wasted in trying to fulfill the insane dream of powering the world on solar panels and windmills. Hopefully this revocation will help revive this country and educate people about how a modern industrial civilization works. It’s based on power density and not virtue signaling. Boy, I can’t wait for summer to fire up the grill and broil some rib-eyes. Man, those are good.
13FEB2026 – Photo of the Day
13FEB2026 – Quote of the Day
The mind is always the dupe of the heart.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 12FEB2026 – LOR OR VOR
There are 3 basic strategies to get to the moon. Direct is the is the first, the ship/capsule takes off from Earth goes to the moon, lands and then some part of that capsule/ship takes off from the moon and returns to earth. Because you’re carrying LOTS of weight you don’t need at various points (e.g. the reentry shield on the capsule is dead weight as you land on the moon) the whole thing is VERY heavy. The rockets to do this are immense (e.g. the early NOVA concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(NASA_rocket) later repurposed but never used for mars exploration). The other two alternatives are Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) or Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). In EOR, you go up to a waiting lunar specific lander board it and use it for the earth to moon trip land and return to your Earth/space vehicle. This is the Von Braun/2001 model. It’s one weakness is it usually requires in space refueling of your lunar transit/lander vehicle. This is kind of what I suspect the initial SpaceX model SEEMS to be headed for with a combination of Dragon Crew, Starship cargo/fuel ferry, and Lunar Starship for transit and landing. The Apollo (and current Artemis) use LOR, with Apollo sort of used a mixed model to keep the LEM as light as possible (for a great dramatiztion of this find episode 9 of From the Earth to the Moon, also good discussion of LOR vs EOR). I think SpaceX/Musk have realized lunar Starship is overkill for the task presented, thus making EOR more feasible. They also know Starship overall depends on refueling; if they can’t do that it is kind of game over for Starship for any purpose other than LEO delivery of cargo/ satellites.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) – A Movie Review
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is in a lot of ways the last great classic Western. Directed by John Ford, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne star with a swarm of excellent supporting cast including Vera Miles, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef. But heading up the supporting cast is Lee Marvin as the poisonously evil Liberty Valance. It is a tale of the closing of the old west when the cattle barons tried to hold onto the open range by standing in the way of statehood in some unnamed mountain western state; possibly Montana or Wyoming. Here the cowboys are the dead-enders holding off progress and the future is with the farmers and townspeople.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
The plot involves the coming to the town of Shinbone of the state’s senior United States Senator Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart). He’s come with his wife Hallie to attend the funeral of their old friend Tom Doniphon. The local newspaper owner wants to know what would bring such an important personage as Stoddard to Shinbone for the funeral of a complete unknown such as Doniphon. And the whole movie is a flash back to Stoddard’s arrival in Shinbone as a young man and how this changed his and everyone else’s lives.
Ransom is headed into town on a stage coach that is held up by infamous criminal Liberty Valance and his gang. When Stoddard attempts to stop the thieves from stealing a piece of sentimental jewelry from a widow he is savagely beaten by Valance, ending with a lashing from a whip that Liberty always carries with him.
In the next scene Tom Doniphon brings the seriously injured Stoddard into town on his buckboard for medical attention. Now we meet Hallie who helps treat Stoddard’s wounds. Meanwhile Stoddard insists that the town marshal Link Appleyard (played by Andy Devine) should arrest Valance for robbery and the assault. But we discover that Appleyard is too afraid of Valance to even consider arresting the outlaw. Doniphon explains to Stoddard that the only way to stop Valance is with a gun. But he also makes it clear that the only one Valance fears is Doniphon himself because of his superior gun hand. He advises Stoddard to leave town. We also find out that Hallie is Doniphon’s girl.
The movie moves on to a town meeting to appoint delegates to the state election convention where the representative to the federal government will be selected. Valance attempts to intimidate the townspeople into selecting him as delegate. But with Doniphon’s help Stoddard and the owner of the newspaper, Dutton Peabody (played by Edmond O’Brien) are selected. Valance explicitly tells Stoddard that he is going to come gunning for him that night and Hallie and Doniphon both warn him to leave town.
Valance returns that night and destroys Peabody’s newspaper office and beats him savagely. Stoddard finds Peabody and calls for the town doctor then gets his gun and heads onto the main street to shoot it out with Valance. Valance toys with Stoddard. He fires a shot at a flower pot hanging near Stoddard’s head from a long distance. Then he shoots Stoddard in his shooting arm, allowing him to recover his gun with his left hand. Finally, he says, “This one will be right between the eyes.” Stoddard fires first and Valance is hit and eventually dies.
Now Hallie feels guilty that Stoddard risked his life because of her disapproval of his idea of leaving town. And it becomes clear that she has shifted her affections from Doniphon to Stoddard. Doniphon sees this emotional change and goes to his ranch and burns down the home he had been building for his married life with Hallie.
Despite their wounds Stoddard and Peabody attend the meeting at the territory capitol and Stoddard’s name is advanced as a candidate. John Carradine plays an orator working for the ranchers who characterizes Stoddard as a murderer who does not deserve such a high office. Stoddard feels guilty for killing Valance and walks out of the meeting. Doniphon follows him out and confronts him about leaving. When Stoddard admits his feelings of guilt, Doniphon reveals the truth about the shooting of Valance. In a flashback scene we witness Doniphon shooting Valance from a side street with his rifle a split second before Stoddard’s ineffective pistol shot was fired. Relieved to know he hadn’t killed another human being, Stoddard returns to the meeting where he is selected representative.
The movie flashes back to Stoddard telling this story to the newspapermen. The editor thanks Stoddard but tells him he won’t reveal the truth about who shot Liberty Valance. He says, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Ransom and Hallie leave town after the funeral and it is clear that she still had very deep feelings for Tom. And they both decide to return from Washington and finish their lives in Shinbone. The parting shot occurs when a railroad official is complimented by Stoddard on the excellent service he had received on the train. The man replied, “Nothing is too good for “the man who shot Liberty Valance!”
I will say that this movie was something of a throwback for the year it was made in 1962. Despite younger stars like Vera Miles, Strother Martin, Lee Van Cleef and Lee Marvin this looked and felt like Golden Age Hollywood western. The biggest difference was the post-cowboy theme with the ranchers as the bad guys. And of course, Stewart and Wayne were a little long in the tooth for the characters they were playing during the flashback scenes of the movie. But I will say this is a very enjoyable film. I’d say the highlight is watching Lee Marvin getting his comeuppances on the streets of Shinbone. He does play a satisfying bad guy. I’ll call this movie highly recommended for anyone who likes a classic western.
Tom’s World – 11FEB2026 – Red Planet Blues
Getting to and from Mars is easy as long as you have Delta V. You need a velocity of approx. 7 mile/second to break earth orbit and around 20m/s to get to mars and more to match mars orbit. And that’s minimum energy, you’d probably want to double that at minimum to get the total ET down to something humans could handle.
I’ll leave it up to you to calculate the total energy requirement in joules or whatever to accelerate that much mass and fuel to a total Delta V of around 50-60 miles/second and how to do that with chemical reactions.
We got Voyager out of the solar system and up to 25-30 miles/second total energy but that’s when you have years to hop from planet to planet sling shotting around each to gain velocity.
Practical Mars will have to wait on fission at minimum or fusion and you still need reaction mass.
The moon is cool.
Back in the Apollo days of the early 70’s, I met a couple of students from U of Wisconsin on sabbatical traveling around the country and working odd jobs for cash. They were only here (Atlanta) for a couple of months before moving on and we got along save several heated debates on the Apollo program. It was their position that Apollo and all similar projects be immediately defunded until human perfection was achieved, though they didn’t state it in such stark terms, the implication was such had they the desire and ability to extrapolate. Even at the time I knew that was absurd and the purest fairyland fantasy because that condition would never be met and the net effect would be to condemn the planet to the darkness. It was my 1st exposure to hard-hard idealistic leftism. I had already left the Marine Corps but that train of thought and logic not common there then or now, I suspect.