No reason for this picture. Just something I snapped before landing. I'd be happy if the entire plane ride was spent at this altitude. But no, wE hAvE to gO iN tHe cLoUds

The tweet below is a few months old, but pertinent today, what with the hated man going into space for the wrong reasons. (Note: there are no good reasons. Also his ship looks like a penis, amirite? Ha ha stupid science) When I saw this I instantly thought: misanthropists are the most tiresome people in the world. At least athiests have to engage in metaphysics. These people are just sour grumps.

It's a video about a crab making a home with brisk efficiency.

It is possible to admire the crab and the sequence of events that produced the code on display without dumping on a self-aware species that is infinitely more creative and intelligent. The fact that the crab cannot judge any other species is why it is less advanced. It is only a matter of perspective if every species on the planet is running its programs. A species that can rewrite aspects of its program on the fly is so far above a crab it's like comparing an improvsing jazz musician to a box of records.

Oh, but don't you know, I'm just salty, so she has to clap back

BTW, I used to have a tent that could be assembled in minutes. If you didn't take all the poles out, you could unfurl the thing, pull down the metal handle at the top, and make a complete waterproof shelter in under two minutes. I remember using it for sleepovers. Sometimes we'd run an electric cord out to power the TV which showed movies broadcast over the air from a tower that stood 2000 feet tall on the prairie.

Aside from that she makes a good point.

What's that, you want more Twitter? Sure.

The great thing about Twitter is the way it allows corporations and nobodies to auto-clown in public in the same forum. Imagine picking up Saturday Evening Post in 1935, and there’s a big beautiful ad for a car, or a cigarette, or a bus trip. The height of the advertising craft, with a gorgeous illustration, elegant typefaces unique to the ad, attractive people engaged in the joy of the moment, all cares set aside. Directly across from the ad is a 27-word manifesto from Bob0323423 about how all pencils should be registered with the State.

“That’s impossible,” you say. “Bob couldn’t afford to buy the space.” True. Bob had to write a letter, and get it through the gatekeepers. Thus the magazine appealed to the widest possible audience, at least within the parameters it set, and Bob was resigned to writing his ideas on postcards and mailing them to everyone in the House of Representatives, where they were tossed, unread.

Twitter, let us agree, is not the Saturday Evening Post. Herewith some fun from the last week.

		I remember when they would take out ads for the purpose of selling cars.
		I remember when clothing stores took out ads to tell you how well their products were made, and how comfortable they were to wear. I regret to say I am not more likely to do the work, or read what Josh did to sacrifice, personally and consistently, in order to relate, totally.
		Yep, he’s the guy. And the other guy is the guy too. Did you know that little free libraries - having extra books, and setting them out for anyone to take them - is a hallmark of whiteness? It keeps getting worse, doesn’t it.
		Let’s get our big wobbly sloshy bag of collectivism out and pour it all over and demand things that use the power of the state to confiscate trillions of dollars in personal property.

But . . . he’s a professor! Surely that means we must give his ideas a bit more weight than the loon in Hyde Park demanding the abolition of private property, no? No. We do not. “Private homes violate democracy.” If 50.1% of the people vote themselves the right to take your home, declare it the property of “the people,” and require you to take in four people, I suppose so, but that’s why pure democracy is a lousy idea.

Of course capitalism is worse, because it gives rise to things like “home ownership.” Better to live in a socialist paradise, like Cuba, where there is no inequality, right? Good ol’ socialist Cuba, lighting the shining bath forward!

		Uh on It’s socialist when good, and capitalist when bad! Schrodinger’s Cat of countries.
		Speaking of Communism - and I wish we didn’t, ever, any more than we speak of the threat that the Ice Trolls may return when Odin is preoccupied - there’s this: It just seems so obvious! “We,” however that’s defined - the people of the village, a nation of 360 million, whatever; “we” will figure it out - sensibly decide what we need, and then . . . we make it! This is totally different from what we have now, which is neither collective nor sensible, and makes things like - well, you'll see.
		Oh boy it’s his latest! He does not like trucks for a variety of reasons, and will use the power of the state - I’m sorry, the voluntary consensus of the community to tell you what you may own. But hey, don’t think that this is one of those slippery-slope things. It’s just the trucks, and -
		Yes, we need to shift away from private vehicles entirely. I went to the linked page, and you have to pay $5 to read it. I gather it says cars are bad because we were duped into buying them in the first place - no one really wanted cars, but the marketing was too powerful to resist. As if our brains had been taken over by petroleum spores, we turned with sudden viciousness on the communal joys of the bus.

Also, they are destroying the planet, BUT, electrics aren’t the answer, SO, public transportation for everyone it is.

It won’t always go where you want to live, but it’ll always go to where you should live.

		As long as we’re banning things, how about kids #3 and #4? Also, in the name of We, you should have to beg the state to be able to buy a car bigger than Larry thinks you should have.

Anyway, does it really matter? What counts is that you will not be living under capitalism, which makes cars for millionaires but does not make tractors, which means school children have to toil in the fields.

Really.

This is the twitter feed for a history podcast:

		It’s like an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics in the 30s: make tractors at home! Big money!
		Here’s the zinger: it’s like he thinks the Soviets invented tractors and exported them all over the world while the US made 25 cars a year for the Rockefeller set.

Same account, a little later:

We eagerly await his latest.

It’s 1914.

Hoooo boy

Here's the story.

Henriette Caillaux (5 December 1874 – 29 January 1943) was a Parisian socialite and second wife of the former Prime Minister of France, Joseph Caillaux. On March 16, 1914, she shot and killed Gaston Calmette, editor of the newspaper Le Figaro.

Why? The editor had published news that was injurious to her husband’s political career. And so:

After being shown into Calmette's office, Henriette Caillaux exchanged a few words with him, then pulled out a .32 Browning automatic pistol she had been concealing within the muff and fired six shots, Calmette was hit four times and was critically wounded.

It was in all the papers:

The epilogue tragique.

Henriette Caillaux made no attempt to escape and newspaper workers in adjoining offices quickly summoned a doctor and the police. She refused to be transported to the police headquarters in a police van, insisting on being driven there by her chauffeur in her own car, which was still parked outside. The police agreed to this and she was formally charged upon reaching the headquarters. Gaston Calmette died six hours after being shot.

She was defended by the prominent attorney Fernand Labori who persuaded the jury that her crime, which she did not deny, was not a premeditated act but that her uncontrollable female emotions resulted in a crime of passion. The belief that women were not as strong emotionally as men resulted in her acquittal on 28 July 1914.

Looks solid enough to me.

		Meanwhile, in Blighty, they’re out of ice, but don’t seem to care.

A 46-reel drama! Good Lord!

Thanhouser, as in Edwin.

In 1909, Thanhouser and his family moved to New Rochelle, New York, where he leased space in an old wooden skating rink to start the Thanhouser Company. This pioneering movie studio released its first commercial film on March 15, 1910.

They made a lot of movies. This one was a 23-ep serial (two reels a week, hence 46 reels) and it was the top-grossing movie of 1914.

		Joe Slip, the book of the ages, the all-time classic, never to be forgotten You know, Joe Slip.

Here’s a strip I’d like to know more about:

Oh ho, look at this.

The significance of the strip lies not in its content; it's a fairly forgettable strip, one of the kajillion about a henpecked husband; but in the fact that it ran as a true daily right from the start. This makes it the very first 'contractual' daily strip, pre-dating by over a year what I claimed was the first, Scoop The Cub Reporter.

Finally, the news of the day - the one thing that tells you something about this otherwise rote compendium of human doings. It’s always telling to see what people could be arrested for doing.

I'd love to know the exact circumstances.

That'll do. See you tomorrow.