Enjoyed the series growing up, some good plot lines, and some real yawns. That's all in a little box over there as too many of the actors/tresses have turned out to be real wankers who overshadow their characters too much. Gurney doesn't appear much the badass when you know the actor tosses himself to politics.
#10
Maybe Riker never really got those offers for promotion and star fleets socialist employee guidelines made it nearly impossible to fire him.
Maybe in a universe where anything can be created in replicators they found it very difficult to actually find folks willing to risk their life let alone command material.
#11
Grew up on STOS. Liked STNG a good bit. Sorta kinda liked STDS9. Can't even make myself watch any of the reboots since. Loved B5, having the "movies" use the same cast, sets and writers for what were basically long episodes worked well.
If I could rub a magic lamp I'd have Straczynski and the B5 team adapt The Gap Into books into 5 long movies.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/12/2019 12:30 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Actually the trombone solos were pretty good B. As a former player I'll tell you what, pretty hard to pull off the muffled soft tones.
Years ago, many, I played with Dave Graff. Darn good fun.
#13
Hit tip to you Woodrow. If you played with Graff, you must have been pretty good. I still have my old Bach. Lip is shot, but I enjoy a little Miller once in a while...when no one is around.
#15
Grew up on STOS, STG2 was ok - if a little tame. Enterprise was also ok and actually had a story arc.
Loved B5 though some of their episodes were really lame. Haven't really seen any of the recent remakes (Discovery?). Always wondered how many times can an alien take over your ship before you invent passwords or any kind of security.
The original Battlestar Galactia was good at the time (see it as pretty campy now that I'm much older...). At the time I also thought BG 1980 was terrible! (shudder!) The remake was also good.
Also like The Expanse. That seems a bit more accurate science-wise.
h/t Instapundit
The news came in a recent issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ): "Two years after President Trump's inauguration, the Germans have lost much of their trust in the United States." Eighty-five percent of respondents in an Atlantik-Brucke survey, reported FAZ, view the U.S. either "negatively" or "very negatively." Many Germans look more favorably upon Communist China than upon the U.S.; more than half would like Germany to distance itself further from the U.S., with only thirteen percent wanting a closer relationship. Germans aren’t big on NATO, either: Only a quarter of those surveyed think their country should pay its agreed-upon share of the NATO budget. Many support the idea of an EU army. Of all the major political parties, only members of the anti-immigrant AfD are favorably disposed toward America.
...But in fact German anti-Americanism has nothing to do with Trump. Of course anti-Americanism exists everywhere in the world, and especially in Europe, whose political and cultural elites viewed the democratic U.S. from the moment of its founding with aristocratic disdain. But contempt for the U.S. has always been especially intense -- and irrational -- in Germany, which has its own distinctive reasons (if that’s the right word) for despising the superpower across the sea.
...Most recently I was in Hamburg, where I stayed in a neighborhood in which half of the women wore hijab and the principal architectural feature was a gigantic mosque. Although the idea of traveling to Germany for pleasure hasn’t seemed too pleasurable since Angela Merkel opened up the floodgates in 2015, I’ve mostly enjoyed my trips to that country. But no matter who was the U.S. president or what issues were in the headlines, the anti-Americanism persisted, invariably attributed to some recent U.S. action. Still, as quick as Germans are to run down the U.S., it’s impossible to get an honest answer out of them when you ask about the Muslim takeover of their country.
...Of course, Germans also hate America because it’s a superpower -- a superpower, moreover, just to rub it in, that, being isolationist at heart, never really set out to be a superpower, and that has accepted that role only out of concern for the preservation of international order and freedom. Germany, on the contrary, has been aching to be a superpower from the git-go. It has longed to rule. Back in the middle of the last century it went all in on the effort to control the world and failed disastrously -- and America alone, through the Marshall Plan, helped it to get back on its feet, repaying genocidal megalomania with magnanimous generosity. Who could ever forgive that?
...Their ancestors fought wars of conquest, and they understand that; but they’ll never be able to fully process the fact that Americans actually fought a war to free them from a psychopathic dictator whom they had followed, in mindless obedience, to the gates of Hell. Imagine knowing that and having to live with it! How could a proud and arrogant people in such a situation not find their thankfulness toward the nation that saved them being twisted into a ghoulish hatred?
Yes, yes please leave NATO. Oh, we would hate that. Closing the bases and stopping spending for your defense at the expense of our own people? Please don't Germany.
Hacke argues that the United States is abandoning its long-standing internationalist commitment to Europe. But NATO is a military alliance. To have a military alliance, you must have a military. Germany doesn’t really have one, as Hacke points out. What’s more, it isn’t clear that Germany’s commitment to the alliance is unconditional. I was recently in conversation with national security experts from Europe and the United States. I brought up that if the United States had to rush forces to the Eastern European frontier, they would have to pass through military bases in Germany. I asked if the Germans would permit the free passage of U.S. military forces. The answers ranged from “probably” to “I don’t know.” I assume they would, but the idea that the question would even come up and be answered with less than an absolute “of course” indicates a lack of trust in Germany.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/12/2019 6:59 Comments ||
Top||
#2
This gem from the article:
"The Pew survey also showed that while only 38 percent of Germans “would be prepared to assist in the event of an attack by Russia on a NATO country under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty,” two-thirds of Germans assumed “that the United States would use military force and defend the beleaguered country.” In other words, Germans have no interest in defending anybody, perhaps even including themselves, but they take for granted America’s readiness to defend them. Yet instead of being grateful for this -- let alone ashamed -- they use it as an excuse to view themselves as peaceable and Americans as militaristic."
Yup. That's about the size of it. Tell me again why we're allied with people who clearly hate our guts?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/12/2019 7:05 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Either at your feet or at your throat. They hate us because they ain't us.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
02/12/2019 7:28 Comments ||
Top||
#12
There's so much nonsense in that article that I'm not even going to comment on it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/12/2019 20:04 Comments ||
Top||
#13
I always read EC’s comments, even if he “no comments”.
This is not a black and white situation. The article is a kind of click bait. Fake “news”.
Hey EC. :). I spent years working in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. I have a glimmer of insight. Maybe. :)
You have got to see the fighters flying really low along the Rhein, looking down from above. F-5’s as I remember.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/12/2019 20:34 Comments ||
Top||
#14
And Herb, I often wonder if you are sane, or just a troll.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/12/2019 20:36 Comments ||
Top||
#15
In this case I will comment, just for you
But in fact German anti-Americanism has nothing to do with Trump.
It has (almost) everything to to with Trump and his aggressive stance. And most of it is not "anti-Americanism", just as there hardly is any "anti-Germanism" in the U.S., just a critical view of Merkel's latest policies, and this for a reason.
Most recently I was in Hamburg, where I stayed in a neighborhood in which half of the women wore hijab and the principal architectural feature was a gigantic mosque.
That's BS. He won't name that neighborhood for a reason.
Still, as quick as Germans are to run down the U.S., it’s impossible to get an honest answer out of them when you ask about the Muslim takeover of their country.
What does he perceive as an "honest answer"? Most Germans have been concerned about Merkel's refugee policies and they will certainly be upfront about it. But few will think that 5-6 % of Muslims will take over Germany anytime soon.
Germany, on the contrary, has been aching to be a superpower from the git-go. It has longed to rule.
Not since 1945
The South and Southwest has traditionally been more US-friendly. Funny enough, these are the regions where people are constantly in contact with US-citizens. "Goulish hatred?" Yeah right, ask all those U.S. visitors (and troops) who just loved their time in Germany.
Yes Trump is hard to stomach, for me, too. I realize that many, if not most people on Rantburg favor Trump. But I'm still here, treated with every respect and tolerance, and I try to reciprocate.
My admiration and respect for America has never changed.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/12/2019 21:52 Comments ||
Top||
#16
I realize that many, if not most people on Rantburg favor Trump
I suspect that it is not Trump himself that people favor but what he is fighting against. To misquote Rumsfeld, "You go to war with the President you've got, not the President you might want or wish to have later."
[Breitbart] On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s "Hannity," Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated that he assumes the president will accept the amount of wall funding in the deal struck by the conference committee, which will be short of $5.7 billion, and then move around money to make up the difference.
Graham said, "[W]e’ve allocated money to deal with drug corridors, but there’s also language in the appropriations bill where you can move around $4 billion inside the Department of Defense in the discretion of the secretary and the president. So, there’s well over $4 billion available to the president under current law, in addition to what the Congress will give him in this deal. So, I would assume they would take the money in the deal. It won’t be enough. It’ll be well short of 5.7, and do what we talked about to make up the difference between the appropriated amount and the 5.7."
[Washington Examiner] Angered with efforts by House and Senate Democrats to cut funding for President Trump’s border wall and ICE facilities that hold criminal illegal immigrants, dozens of U.S. sheriffs are storming Capitol Hill Monday to more money to enforce immigration.
"We are at wits end on this," said Bristol County, Mass. Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. "This really is a catastrophe," he said of the anti-Trump proposal backed by Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Hodgson is one of 60 key sheriffs meeting with the House Freedom Caucus on the steps of the U.S. Capitol today before hitting individual House and Senate offices to lobby for wall and ICE funding. He spoke to Secrets from the bus transporting him and sheriffs from Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio to the Hill.
Over the weekend, Secrets reported that two national sheriffs groups, the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Major County Sheriffs of America, delivered letters to House and Senate immigration negotiators to warn against Democratic efforts to put a cap on the number of criminal illegal immigrants that can be held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The groups said that about 8,300 criminal aliens would have to be immediately released if the cap went into effect. They also said that about 90 percent of all illegal immigrants held by ICE in the nation’s "interior," versus border facilities, have criminal records.
The issue is one that has stalled negotiations, threatening a second government shutdown later this week.
Both sheriff groups are meeting in Washington this week.
[The Hill] Lawmakers said on Monday night that they had reached an agreement "in principle" to avoid a second partial government shutdown set to begin on Saturday.
"We’ve had a good evening. We’ve reached an agreement in principle between us on the Homeland Security and the other six bills," Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) told reporters.
Shelby announced the deal alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Kay Granger (R-Texas)‐the top members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committee.
The breakthrough came after the core four negotiators met three times on Monday night in a last-ditch effort to get a deal after talks appeared to unravel over the weekend with only days to prevent a partial government shutdown.
Negotiators refused to discuss the particulars of the deal with staff expected to work frantically to release the legislation as early as Tuesday. Lowey said she hopes for the bill, which she called a "good product," to be released on Wednesday.
A congressional source told The Hill that the bill will include $1.375 billion for physical barriers, the same amount included in the 2018 fiscal year bill. The tentative agreement, according to the source, also specifically prohibits the use of a concrete wall. But, senior Congressional aides separately noted that it will fund approximately 55 new miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley sector.
#1
You assholes. I need $10 Billion for this wall.
And none of this is about the money you disgusting pieces of democrat shit.
This is about Safety and I want everything Trump asked for.
[Daily Caller] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s difficulty in carrying out her judicial duties has encouraged informal wagering about whether she can continue until President Trump leaves office. This is in bad taste and overshadows recognition of her outstanding career.
The problem of justices outliving their judicial capacity has recurred throughout U.S. history. But it may be growing more acute, as advances in health care enable physical strength to outlive mental capacity.
We do not yet have a satisfactory mechanism for addressing the issue. No statute forcing justices to leave office would be valid because the Constitution specifies that they "hold their Offices during good Behavior." That’s a rough translation of the Anglo-Latin formula, "quam diu bene gesserit." It literally means "so long has he shall have conducted himself well." Justices serve until their death, retirement, resignation, or impeachment-and-conviction, whichever comes first.
One possible remedy is for family members or professional colleagues to pressure a failing justice into resigning or retiring. Another alternative is impeachment, conviction, and removal from office for "high ... Misdemeanors." In the constitutional context, this is a fiduciary standard, and is broad enough to include negligence or other breach of duty due to incapacity.
#2
I don't know. A SC justice that occupies a place on the bench like place holder, but never shows up for work? I'm looking for a downside here...
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/12/2019 7:37 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I don't know. A SC justice that occupies a place on the bench like place holder, but never shows up for work? I'm looking for a downside here...
Posted by ed in texas
Okay unless she's allowed to vote in absentia and her aides are interpreting eye blinks into votes.
One of the very best history books on the court's judges. Including several that were completely incapacitated and still (left) on the bench. Pretty chilling.
“America’s founding fathers had a clear and profound vision for what they wanted our federal government to be,” says constitutional scholar Mark R. Levin in his explosive book, Men in Black. “But today, our out-of-control Supreme Court imperiously strikes down laws and imposes new ones to suit its own liberal whims––robbing us of our basic freedoms and the values on which our country was founded.”
In Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America, Levin exposes countless examples of outrageous Supreme Court abuses, from promoting racism in college admissions, expelling God and religion from the public square, forcing states to confer benefits on illegal aliens, and endorsing economic socialism to upholding partial-birth abortion, restraining political speech, and anointing terrorists with rights.
Levin writes: “Barely one hundred justices have served on the United States Supreme Court. They’re unelected, they’re virtually unaccountable, they’re largely unknown to most Americans, and they serve for life…in many ways the justices are more powerful than members of Congress and the president.… As few as five justices can and do dictate economic, cultural, criminal, and security policy for the entire nation.”
#6
So for years and years SCOTUS for life has been a good thing while under Liberal control, now that Conservatives are getting the edge, it's not right to have SCOTUS for life!
RBG needs to show herself, this behind the curtain stuff isn't ok.
This just drives me nuts.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/12/2019 17:28 Comments ||
Top||
This is not Babylon Bee
Two social justice warriors are sitting side by side, high on a hill, above the noxious odor of cow farts, overlooking the fruited plain and discussing the things that disgust them most about the United States of America.
The topic turns to economic justice; climate change; and how to save not just the United States, but the entire world from the "literal Hitler" who currently occupies the White House.
The first SJW is young and inexperienced in the ways of the world but offers up her plan to promote economic growth while at the same time helping to end climate change. She points to an office building off in the distance with highly inefficient single-pane glass windows. She says, "let's run down there and throw a brick through one of those vile, environmentally destructive windows. By doing so, we'll start a chain reaction of economic growth, and thanks to current regulation, the window will need to be replaced with a new, environmentally friendly version."
The second SJWs, neither older nor wiser, but emboldened by her B.A. in economics and having been newly elected to Congress, believes she has a much better solution. Self-assured in her abilities (and knowing she'll never be seriously scrutinized by the MSM), she chuckles and tells her friend to slow down. "I've got a much better deal for the world ‐ a green one. Saving the planet and creating unimagined economic growth and prosperity can be a very simple task. Why run down there and do so little when I need only walk down to D.C. and propose legislation that would allow us to break and replace not only every environmentally destructive window throughout the U.S., but all the buildings attached to those windows as well? And that would be merely one of the many mandates and investments in my well thought out deal that would be fair and green and include free everything."
The first SJW loved the second SJW's plan but feared that no one ‐ especially Democrat presidential contenders ‐ would take this Green New Deal the least bit seriously.
While this may appear a crude blend of a funny story of two SJWs and wise parable about broken windows, there's nothing funny or wise about the Green New Deal. The moral of this story is that no sane person should ever take seriously any political party that would support an SJW selling repackaged communist ideas that, if enacted, would thoroughly destroy our economy and screw every American citizen. I'm afraid the author's definition of sanity has been rejected as another DWEM invention by the current young, highly educated, generation
[PJ] WASHINGTON ‐ CNN political analyst April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, said past U.S. presidents like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush refused to formally "apologize for slavery" because it would lead to some form of reparations for descendants of slaves. Marikana platinum mine "reconciliation" left 17 striking mine employees dead on 16 August 2012. The mines, defense industry, tourist hotels, casinos, and game farms will stay open, how else can we fund our foney gov't, do-nothing jobs.
"In my first book, I tackled the issue of reparations as a healing, as a possible healing, asking people... from the time I started at the White House, when the race initiative happened with Bill Clinton, oh my God, everybody was saying that’s the girl who is always asking, ’Mr. President, will you apologize for slavery?’ But it’s real. When he started that race initiative issue, people were thinking about, OK, if you are talking about race and healing, there’s this black-white dynamic that has to be healed and also a Native American dynamic that really wasn’t on the table like it should have been," Ryan said during a recent Race in America Today discussion to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
"But when it came to the black-white issue ‐ will there be an apology for slavery ‐ there were some blacks that were for it and some blacks that were against it. He was listening to a cross-section of black people and they never apologized. You know why? And this is the truth. It never came to that formal ’OK, we’re going to apologize or not.’ You know one of the main reasons why? Because if you say I’m sorry then you have to come out with some kind of healing ‐ that is reparations," she added.
Ryan continued, "How do you determine reparations, now or in, what is it? 1997, 98. What is it? It is not 40 acres and a mule ‐ and 40 acres and a mule now would equate to a house in Potomac and a Land Rover. So then you get into the question: Who is black now? And all of that was, yes, I am African-American, period, end of story. And if I do, what is it? Twenty-two or 23 [percent] in me, OK, fine, but I’m African-American."
Did 250,000 whites die to end apartheid?
Did the white South Africans fund over a trillion dollars of Great Society programs?
This is just Danegeld. Too much of your constituency is broken. The record shows that only they can solve their own problems. 'Free stuff' only continues the pathologies that undermine any real choice to act or fail.
#6
No one alive legally owned a slave; no one alive has been legally enslaved. If she knows of people being illegally enslaved, she should do more than demand an apology.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/12/2019 6:38 Comments ||
Top||
#7
and 40 acres and a mule now would equate to a house in Potomac and a Land Rover.
My advice...take the donkey, it's more reliable
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PJ] WASHINGTON ‐ CNN political analyst April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, said past U.S. presidents like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush refused to formally "apologize for slavery" because it would lead to some form of reparations for descendants of slaves.
