Don’t trust the cloud

Boy am I glad I keep offsite copies of everything. My main site (spleenville.com) has some missing sections, namely the category and tag sections. And that’s not all, I’m sure, but I’m too tired to go through the mess that is my entire website. That’s why I’m writing this here. I need to rant.

Good grief what is the WP.com now has “writing helper” stuff? Well I don’t think I need editing help for this nonsense but I can see that it would be helpful to others.

Edited to add: Jesus Christ this is the 250th post here and I just got a this big “congratulations” thing when I pressed “publish.” You scare me, WordPress.com.

Neglected blog is neglected

I have been ignoring this website of mine. I might switch back over
here from the Tumblr thing for my Who stuff; I’m not happy with
Tumblr’s recent changes. Or, I may not. We shall see.

This is just a test

Alas, I have neglected my posterous blog. But there are new themes and
things, so I want to play.

Site Not Dead

I updated the About page. Yeah, that’s about it.

And now for something completely horrendous

I watched the video.

 

I didn't want to. I'd read enough about it that I had a pretty good idea of what it contained, and after watching it, I knew that I had not been misinformed. It is thoroughly as vile as everyone is saying. Now I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of carbon footprint amelioration, though I will mention that rendering live human bodies into dead splattered gobbets isn't exactly a good way to rid the earth of excess carbon; after all, that splattered flesh will decay and give off nasty gasses, and cleaning up dead bodies from indoor environments usually involves harsh chemical cleaners. Well, it does in a sensible, normal world anyway, and the world depicted in this moment of vile film is by no means a normal one. Perhaps the world the 10:10 group wants to bring about will be one where classrooms and offices begored with the rotting remains of dissenters from consensus are considered normal.

 

But the hypocritical "green" propaganda (even the making of a small promotional commercial like this one has a bigger carbon footprint than, say, that of a kid who gets driven to his school instead of taking the bus or walking) and the gorey special effects don't bother me as much as the fact that the dissenters were blown up after everyone else had cheerfully acquiesced to getting involved in the carbon-footprint-lowering efforts. So you see, this was not so much a threat to those of us who may look at all this carbon-footpring AGW green nonsense as, well, nonsense — or if it was, it was merely as an afterthought. No, the main targets of this propaganda piece were the new joiners to the anti-carbon-life-forms movement themselves. And that message was: don't even think of backing out now. In other words, it's the same treatment totalitarian groups throughout history have meted out to their minions. I don't know about the entire environmental movement, but this 10:10 group (many internet commenters have pointed out, BTW, that the "reduce everyone's carbon footprint by 10%" is sure easily taken care of by the Roman practice of decimation) is yet another leftist, Marxist in method if not in philosophy, totalitarian organization.

 

But that's not what worries me. What worries me is the large amount of money behind these people, and the influence their members and supporters have — which comes from the large amount of money. And they are partially subsidized by the British government too, yay — more money. And Richard Curtis is a popular, even beloved movie director and scriptwriter (among other things he wrote the Vincent and the Doctor episode for the most recent season of Doctor Who, an episode I have not yet seen and now may never see because how could I enjoy it now?). And there also many popular celebrities signed on with this and seem to think its message is a-okay, though how they plan to have a career once the New Green Regime takes over I have no idea. So we have a combination of money and popularity being used to promote conformity enforced by fear of bloody death. I have been asking myself what were they thinking and but I'm not really sure I want to know.

 

By the way — no, it's not satire in the great British tradition of Monty Python or even in Curtis' own Blackadder; those shows poked fun at authority, conformity, and stupidity. This video celebrates authority (the ones who get the red button are 1) a teacher, 2) a member of upper management if not the CEO of a company, 3) a group of footballers against one lone man, and 4) a soundman at the control booth of a studio where Gillian Andersen's character is behind glass, vulnerable to seat rigged with explosives. Where is the authority and the conformity being mocked? Some might say that the piece mocks the stupidity of going against such an "obvious" problem as climate change, but how is killing the supposedly "stupid" people supposed to bring them around to the "correct" viewpoint? The answer is that it isn't; the 10:10 group isn't interested in changing anyone's mind, only eliminating those who aren't on board, and if you aren't already on board that means you have already been placed in the ranks of the unredeemable. In a way this goes beyond conventional totalitarian movements, who at least seek to bring dissenters into the fold instead of just killing them at the first sign of dissent.

 

(Posted everywhere because I am that appalled.)

30 Days of Who — all the rest of the days

Okay, for some reason instead of inserting my autopost from the Posterous site, it put in double copies of this photo from my gallery.

Whatevs — here’s the link to the post that was supposed to be here.

Reminder

To any WordPress.com members who might have wandered over here (from my comments on other WordPress.com blogs), my main site is now here: spleenville.com. That’s where all the latest juicy blog stuff is.

Kafkatrapping

A very long essay that is nevertheless worth reading. It pretty much demolishes the whole “you are guilty of [some bad thing] simply by what you are” argument. You know, that whole “you hate (trendy victim group) because you aren’t one of them” thing. It’s not really a tactic for anything but shutting up the opponent; once you use that you’ve basically said “you have no right to speak or even exist.” It’s the tactic of a loser, that nevertheless “wins” because there really is no comeback to someone who has basically told you that not only are you better off not existing, the universe would be better off if you never had existed.

It is interesting how many people who are “fighting for their rights” (and are usually self-proclaimed Kafka fans) are still willing to engage in the sort of emotional abuse they often claim they themselves have suffered from. If it’s for revenge, it’s not a valid argument. Anyway, read the whole thing.

Rose Tyler

fezzesaresocoollike:

top five female characters of all time | o2. rose tyler

“I made my decision a long time ago, and I’m never going to leave you.”

Where do I begin about this girl? Rose is by far my favourite companion of the Doctor ever. She’s kind, selfless, brilliant, sweet, isn’t afraid to speak her mind, knows what she wants, and is all around fantastic. I love everything about her character, from her relationship with Mickey, to the subtle glances shared with the Doctor, to the tragic love the two shared, to her reappearing in later seasons even though the Doctor told her they could never see each other again…and just everything else. I have no words for how much I adore her, for how much I wish I could be like her, and for the impact she’s had upon my life. I just love her.

via fyeahrosetyler.tumblr.com

Which Rose is this? I don’t remember this Rose. I remember a Rose that could occasionally be kind and concerned, depending upon who was writing the episode (generally her best moments were in Stephen Moffat’s eps The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances, and Girl In The Fireplace, and her worst ones were in the ones written by Russell T. Davies) but was more often jealous, selfish, and unhealthily possessive of the Doctor. There is so much fail here I don’t know where to begin. Let’s just start.

One: “She’s kind” — sometimes; “selfless” — as long as that “selflessness” didn’t mean she’d have to give up her happy fun time and space travel with the Doctor, maybe; “brilliant” — um, no; “sweet” — occasionally; “isn’t afraid to speak her mind” — not that I can recall her ever saying anything that interesting or insightful despite what we were always being told — not shown — by the writers; “knows what she wants” — well that much is clear, but just wanting something is not usually considered a positive characteristic — it’s what you want and why you want it that counts. Whatever it started out as, her desire to stay with the Doctor “forever” was finally not at all a good thing, for either of them.

Then it goes on, getting worse. Her relationship with Mickey was something this fan found wonderful? That just makes me worry about said fan’s significant others. Rose treated Mickey like dirt when she was with him, taking him for granted and generally making it clear that he had been replaced by the Doctor. Nice, after all his devotion to her. About the “subtle glances shared with the Doctor” to their “tragic love affair” I am not going to say anything because I can’t type and vomit at the same time.

Let’s get one thing straight: at first I liked Rose, and her character had promise. But her character arc took a nose dive when for some reason the show’s writers (well, writer — I’m pretty sure the only other writer for the show that RTD didn’t basically use like a puppet was the Moff, probably because would you try to tell the guy who wrote The Empty Child what to write?) decided that Rose was going to transform from a feisty yet sensible kid who was still a full-fledge Tardis crew member into a kind of kid sister figure whose only function when she was with the Doctor seemed to be as his combination muse and cheer squad. By Journey’s End the constant reiterating of Rose’s shade and then her reappearance in the flesh had become bizarre. Even the Doctor seemed truly tired of her. And notice how she treated Xerox Doctor — the same way she used to treat Mickey. Yeah, that’s healthy. Why would anyone want to be like Rose?

So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?

Heavy rains and thunderstorms just when I have to leave and go to my 2nd shift job?