Showing posts with label Yelling At Clouds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yelling At Clouds. Show all posts

18 July 2025

I'm Siding With The Railroad Here

Miami Herald trying to deny Darwin His due.

It really is about education and people not knowing how trains work.

We've become so used to everything having a dozen warning labels and having padding that we forget that there's things that will bite you if you stop paying attention.

Playing on the train tracks is one of those things.

It will also sort itself out if you give it time.

It will be hardest on the slowest learning, but that's how it goes. 

16 October 2024

ONE MORE TIME!

In my never ending quest to explain that the government in Starship Troopers isn't any more fascist than our very own...

Fascism is:

Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition.

First!  It's not an autocracy.  It's a representative democracy with a different eligibility requirements for both the candidates and the voters.  Not enough information is given in the text to determine how centralized government power is, but we can infer that it's not too different from 1959 USA.

No evidence is given showing that the federation is any more (or less) nationalistic than 1959 USA.

We have Juan Rico's own father as an example that the regimentation of industry, commerce and finance are decidedly not following fascism.

Emilio isn't a citizen.  He cannot vote.  He's, therefore, not a Party member.  Yet he owns a company that manufactures something.  He mentions, in passing, that his business is not on a war footing in a way that says that it's his decision.  He makes his own arrangements to leave the business to Juan should he not survive his eventual decision to join the Army; he even got to choose his own caretaker while he was away.

Free speech is mentioned in little different terms than we would in regards to censorship.

By the standards of the people attributing fascism to Starship Troopers, Stripes is also fascist!

16 October 2023

Man Skirt

Someone on Facebook is asserting that if a kilt isn't in a tartan, then it's just a "man skirt."

What, exactly, does he think a kilt is?

It's a fucking skirt.  Worn by men.

Even if it's your family tartan.

Perhaps, especially so.

19 May 2022

That's An Odd Feeling

As of this year, there are people who can legally drink in the US who were NOT born last century.