Dane-Geld

From a PJ Media article,

“Garcetti discussed his “defunding the police” plan of reducing the police funding by $150 million and moving another $100 million from other city budgetary priorities to hand over to the mobs for special placative programs.”

Because paying “protection money” to thugs works so very well, as Kipling noted:

Dane-Geld
A.D. 980-1016

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: —

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”

Interesting, but. . .

Filed under “That’s Entertainment”. . . or not. *sigh*

Watching Episode 1 of “Gogol”–a Russian serial featuring a fantasy take on Nikolai Gogol (19th Century Russian author) as a paranormal investigator–via Amazon Prime Video: mixed bag.

The good/not-so-good: great atmosphere for a pseudo-Gothic 19th Century paranormal piece. Sets, locations, dark videographing, music, even costuming, props and etc. All excellent. All dialog in Russian: good (perfectly suits the atmosphere). Subtitles: OK, but with some problematic idiomatic translation issues (English idioms, not Russian. My familiarity with Russian is scant, depending on a brief flirtation with 19th Century Russian art songs ~ 50 years ago.) The English subtitles sometimes intrude in a jarring fashion.

Not good: Details that irk: “business” that conflicts Scene 1: guy hits another guy on head with ladle. Guy hit grabs OPPOSITE side of head and ladle strike sounds wrong, as well–little things like that; only visible wound on a dead body high on the chest–“above her breasts” is the line. Nevertheless, the investigator, after cracking open the body’s chest says “the aorta is severed.” From the location and size of the visible wound, the ascending aorta would be difficult to reach. Unlikely. (The ascending aorta is not large in any case, and is not found in the almost exact center of the chest where the wound was shown. In addition, after cracking the chest, the investigator was NOT looking anywhere NEAR the wound which was a bit above the pulmonary trunk, but much lower, where the throacic and abdominal aorta could be seen. Hence, I thought when the line was uttered, “Doesn’t EVERYONE find this odd?” *shrugs*)

More? “It was a dark and stormy night. . . ” *heh* OK, as to atmosphere, it worked. “You can ride a horse?” Urm, no he cannot. Runs into a windmill and falls off. Clouds blowing through the windmill blades, and. . . they do not move.

*sigh*

Sometimes it’s just the little things that throw one out of suspension of disbelief, you know?

But, though more interesting than usual TV fare, I don’t think I am interested enough to watch more than one episode (and I had to take a break from the irritating “little things” to write this, so I might well not finish Episode 1).

Most amusing line so far, “We got carried away by the local flavor.”

OK, fast forwarded through #2. Caught the gist and ditched a lot of less interesting stuff. Blacksmith picks lock on mystery trunk toward the end of the episode. Needs a pick and a torsion wrench (or another tool to provide tension) to do it with but only used a pick. Sad. As I have said, it’s the little things.

Faster Internet? Don’t Need It

What I do need is a sensible approach to data transfers that has no caps or so-called “allowances.” What my ISP has done for the past couple of years is first institute a cap, or “allowance,” on my data usage, and then, all too often, either screw up tracking it or just flat out fake larger uses than I have recorded on my network logs. By a lot. Sometimes almost double.

After bitching about it over and over and over again, the last couple of months usage, according to my ISP, have fallen more or less in line with my record of my network usage.

And no, there have been no “leeches” piggybacking on my wireless network. Highest level of encryption; extremely strong password; AND network records detailing WHO has used the network: no, no leeches, ever.

I’m almost to the point of ditching cable internet entirely and going with a slower, “no caps” DSL that doesn’t have my Wonder Woman’s TV shows available, just to get away from the crap my cable company dumps on us. One small technical issue is a bump (our home telco wiring is Cat5E, properly wired, and I have to instruct the telco guys each time they come by with their own idiosyncratic “baling wire and chewing gum standard.” *sigh* At least they got the fiber to the house FINALLY configured correctly for the phone).

I think I could put up with the technical “bubba standards” and the slower “speeds” for no data caps, though. Thinking about it. . .

Interested in “Climate Change”?

If you have any interest in “climate change” at all, then you probably fall into one of two classes of persons interested in “climate change.” One class is comprised of folks who want hard numbers and replicable, real world research to verify or falsify hypotheses (or just refine wild-assed guesses so that hypotheses can be formed and tested). This class can contain both people whose personal inclination is to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real and potentially catastrophic, and those who doubt such a proposition.

As long as the above class seeks to gather hard numbers and perform well-designed, replicable research, then their interest is legitimate and to be lauded, no matter what they are predisposed to believe.

Then there is the second class: those who seem to belong to the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism. CACA acolytes DGARA about facts, replicable testing, etc., but simply have “faith” that mankind is killing Mother Earth. Because dogma.

Now, it they weren’t trying to compel folks to conform to CACA dogma against their consciences, they’d just be kooks. But these kooks are dangerous. And to compel others to conform to their religious beliefs is evil. Since CACA acolytes almost uniformly seek to impose their indefensible (a fair description, because I have yet to see or hear a defense of CACA dogma using replicable research based on verifiable, undoctored facts) beliefs on those they deem to be unbelievers, regardless of any reasons for scepticism. Indeed. condemnation of scepticism alone is enough to condemn this class of persons, because science without scepticism is just. . . unfounded dogma.

“Gun Violence” *mhwa*

[Extracted from a ub-thread of a discussion discussing the disparate topics of “mass shootings” and wrongful shootings by cops.]

To whatever extent wrongful shootings by police exists (and any is a Very Bad Thing, IMO), it can more easily be explained by Lord Acton’s pithy comment, Rudyard Kipling’s “General Summary,” or even the theological concept of universal moral depravity. Humans being what we are, any group of people is going to have apples that are, urm, “badder” than the norm, and unfortunately, there are bad apples in government jobs at almost any level (LEOs, run-of-the-mill bureaucraps, public “persecutors,” politicians, and corrupt judges), and they ARE be a problem, universally, to some degree or another. How to deal with the bad apples without crucifying the “less bad,” maybe even marginally OK apples? (“Marginally OK” because as long as their PEERS do not stop them, the “badder apples” will find it easier to abuse their authority.)

Well, that’s the nut, isn’t it?

Qui custodit ipsos custodes?

But as for being a “problem with guns,” well, it’s the same answer as to the issue of “gun violence.” Guns do not commit violent acts. People do. One way (really, AFAIK, the only legitimate way for governments that are not supposed to infringe on natural rights but protect them) is to make the punishments for serious violent acts serious punishment, pour encourager les autres, as it were, and those punishments should apply to ALL, with no weasel room for LEOs to argue “qualified immunity.” (“So I shot the guy seven times. I thought that UNARMED MAN SPREADEAGLED ON THE FLOOR was a threat, and how was I to know that I busted down the door at the wrong address? Qualified immunity” “Well, I thought that baby she was holding was a deadly weapons, so I killed her.” Qualified immunity. Etc.)

But, demanding that our faux “nobility” give up special privileges just isn’t going to fly, I don’t think. *sigh* Meanwhile, anti-gun folks argue that citizens should surrender their rights because of an almost vanishingly small number of bad actors. *smh*

Pet Win10 Peeve

There was once a time when Windows 10 was not as bad at managing local network connections. Sure, it was a couple of orders of magnitude slower than Windows 7 in doing so, but at least, once sharing & etc. were “turned on” things were fairly easily (if, again, slowly) “seeable,” but as the inevitable and very nearly unavoidable “update” cycles have progressed, access to local network resources has regressed.

If saving a file from the internet, for example, it doesn’t matter what browser I use, whether a VPN is engaged or whatever, if I want to save it to anything BUT my local machine, I have to type in the IP address of the resource I want to save it to. Then, it I only have to just twiddle my thumbs waiting on Win10’s execrably slow access of LAN resources.

Similarly, if attempting to access other LAN resources (computers, NASes, etc.) via “Windows Explorer” file management. . . no network resources available, no matter WHAT I have set up in “Network and Internet Settings.” In fact, every now and then, at apparently random times, the stupid “Network Discovery is Turned off” error pops up. I check, and no, it is turned on. Turn off/back on anyway. Semi-fixed: no error popping up, but still have to either use manually-created shortcuts placed on desktop, on toolbar, etc., or type in the resource address. (Yes, as a result of Win10’s stupidity, I have finally given ALL LAN resources fixed IP addresses).

Oh, and yes, I have made sure all the dependent services, etc., are set to start automatically and are running, and that–again–network sharing is set properly for a “private” network, etc., etc. Me$$y$oft’s Win10 still screws it up, usually sooner than later.

It’s as though Me$$y$oft engineers have sat and thought, and thought, and thought, and said (collectively), “Here’s something that will REALLY screw with users. Let’s do it!”

#feh

Why couldn’t Me$$y$oft at least be like Linux developers and fix something and then move on to creating more problems.

Staff Meeting!

Ever have one of “those” meetings? You know, one that explores such stupid topics as, “In a perfect world, in light of what your job description is, what would you do?” Answer: I would be doing my job without meaningless meetings like these wasting my time.