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Question: What Do the Board of Harvard and the BBC Have In Common?

Posted: December 12, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Answer: The both decided their affirmative action hires (Claudine Gay & Jodie Whitaker) must not be seen as failures no matter what the results are.

The BBC saw the rating for Doctor Who crash and burn during the uber woke (as opposed to regular woke) years of her tenure but it would have been unthinkable for the first female doctor who Jodie Whitaker lovingly call Dr. Karen by the good folks at Nerdrotic so they continued to carry her allowing the crashing and burning to continue to the point where not even the return of David Tennant, Catherine Tate and Russell T Davies could saving the ratings numbers.

Now comes the Harvard board having the first black woman president of Harvard not only on national TV being unable to declare calling for the extermination of the Jews against Harvard policy but exposed as a serial plagiarist. Harvard is getting pilloried all over, donors are running for the doors BUT again the first black woman to be president of Harvard MUST NOT be allowed to be perceived as a failure, must NOT be shown to be unqualified and must NOT have the suggestion that she is causing damage perhaps irreparable, to the school’s reputation.

Therefore the Board of Harvard, while having concerns, has decided to stand by her leading Ed Morrissey to quip

Indeed. And now I wait with bated breath to see what Beege can discover on the question of how one gets fired at Harvard, if not for anti-Semitism and academic fraud. Any opposition to identitarian policies and DEI/CRT pedagogy would be an obvious guess

Unexpectedly of course

Déjà vu  Israel vs Hamas 2012 vs 2023

Posted: December 11, 2023 by datechguy in Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east
Tags: , ,

I was looking up an old post of mine from the internet archive and accidently came across this piece from 2012 concerning showing some things never change:

The Common Thread of the left: Today Israel & Hamas

by Datechguy | November 23rd, 2012

The latest in our series of the common thread of the left

As of this writing a “Truce” is in effect between Israel & Hamas. The left and media during this crisis has pilloried Israel

NBC News reporter Ayman Mohyeldin seemed to take a strong position, rather than just reporting, on the United States’ role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He effectively blamed the unresolved crisis on the United States’ refusal to recognize Hamas and for not doing enough to reign in Israel’s military actions.

This ignores the fact that this wasn’t a crisis when Israel was being shot at, it only became a crisis when Israel began shooting back. (emphasis not in original post DTG)

Item: The left claims Israel is an oppressor and our state department remains unwilling to critique Turkey for calling Israel a terror state, however if you want to know how they really feel consider this story:

Back in mid-June, during the great Paris weapons show, the Rafael pavilion was absolutely the busiest around, and everybody wanted to look at the new, exciting, Iron Dome system, the greatest achievement in rocket defense ever. But by the end of the show, Rafael hadn’t made a single sale. The Arrow sold well, other systems did great – Iron Dome wasn’t moving. So they contacted their big clients, the serious ones, and asked what gives. And those clients told them no one except Israel has any use for these things. Because in any normal, sane country, if some hooligans were to start targeting civilians with rockets – the army would go and kill them. emphasis mine

So in public Israel needs to show restraint, in private Hamas and their rocket firing friends are “some hooligans” than normal people would just go kill?

I object to the use of the term “Hooligans” it’s not like they are a bunch of bikers dragging their murdered people behind them as they ride…oh wait:

The six “were caught red-handed” with high-tech filming equipment to take videos of military positions, according to a security source quoted by the Hamas Aqsa radio. The men were shot.

Militants hooked the body of one alleged spy to a motorcycle and dragged him through the streets of Gaza City.

Yeah that sounds like “hooligans” to me.

If you are as old as me you remember when Reagan called the Soviets an “Evil Empire” the left went absolutely nuts. Speaking the truth aloud is just not done…but more on that tomorrow

Meanwhile back to today…

Hamas tortured and murdered 25-year-old Israeli hostage, Sahar Baruch, who was taken to Gaza following the October 7 terrorist attack, the Israel media reported Sunday. Baruch, an engineering student at Ben-Gurion University, was kidnapped by terrorist intruders from his family home in Kibbutz Be’eri, a small community in southern Israel.

Earlier this week, Hamas claimed that Baruch had died during a failed attempt by the IDF to rescue hostages. But the propaganda video released by the terrorist group after Baruch’s death show his disfigured face with eyes gauged out—showing signs of similar sadistic torture and mutilations carried out by Hamas during the October 7 massacre.

and

A Hamas spokesman suggested Sunday that the terror organization could kill all of the presumed 137 hostages in its custody if Israel does not accede to its demands.

Abu Obeida, a familiar spokesman for Hamas who had not been seen for several weeks, released a video in which he made the threat clear.

“Neither the fascist enemy and its arrogant leadership… nor its supporters… can take their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.

It is not clear if Hamas would deliver on that threat. The hostages are the only leverage that Hamas has over Israel, and it uses them as human shields. The Hamas leaders in exile — in luxurious accommodation in Doha, Qatar — would also likely to preserve the hostages alive to ensure that Israel negotiates with them, rather than killing them (as it has promised to do, eventually).

All of this comes down to calling evil good and pretending that objective truth doesn’t exist in order to win political points, oh and arab money freely flowing.

Doctor Who The Giggle Review (Spoilers near the end)

Posted: December 10, 2023 by datechguy in doctor who, entertainment
Tags: , , ,

Plot: Earth is going crazy the people are completely polarized can the Doctor, Donna and Unit save the day from one of the Doctor’s oldest foes? Or will he need some help.

Writing: Given Davies statement about pissing off fans I expected the absolute worst from this episode. I’ve never been so pleasantly surprised in my life. This had just about everything. A solid villain, old friends and a bunch of twists and turns to keep you guessing. It seemed both longer than it was and shorter than it should have been and while some of the things seemed recycled it still worked. The penultimate twists I’ll deal with at the end to try to minimize spoilers but put simply, everything worked. If h

Acting: I will be very disappointed if we don’t see Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker again, he did his best to steal every scene he was in. Jemima Redgrave’s Kate Stewart was excellent and her performance invoked memories of Nick Courtney (more on that later) Bonnie Lankford was a pleasant surprise and the potential of her Mel as a reoccurring character bodes well. Tennant and Tate continued to shine as for the newest member of the cast, well to steal a line from the 1st Doctor he did well, quite well, perhaps the future is in safe hands.

Best Moment: Lot’s to choose from here but being an old Doctor Who guy I’ll say the reuniting of the Doctor and Mel and her giving the story of coming back to earth.

Worst Moment: The Doctor’s speech inviting the Toymaker to travel with him seemed completely recycled from his offer to the Master back in Davies first run.

Annoying moment: This is going to sound odd but unless I missed something there was no apparent reason for the Doctor to realize where the Toymaker’s shop was or where the doll came from.

That’s a shame moment: The realization that Bernard Cribbins didn’t live enough to finish the scenes for this one.

Fun Moment: Donna’s job offer and the negotiation

Nostalgia Moment(s): Return of Mel, Kate Stewart blazing away, the toy store invoked the 8th Doctor Big Finish story Solitaire when the Toymaker fights Charlie in a toyshop. The tooth being picked up like the ring and the list of adventures.

The What’s the Hell’s going on? Moment: That line was seen an awful lot in the last year we finally saw it in action

The “I’ll tell you when Big Finish is canon or not” Moment: There have been at least 3 toymaker stories in Big Finish, one with the 6th that I’ve not heard, one with the 7th with Ace & Hex that was Ok and a companion chronicles with the 8th and Charlie Pollard that was first rate. This episode suggests none of those take place, in fact the very plot of this episode is dependent on them not taking place, although technically on the 8th doctor adventure it’s Charlie not the Doctor who wins the game. So maybe that cancels out the 7th doctor’s win to keep the score even.

The “Where’s Osgood?” moment: Osgood missing from Unit at that moment would seem odd, but then again the resolution might have been too much for her inhaler.

Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t notice: While the Toymaker was going through Smith & Capaldi’s companions none of the companions from the Whitaker era got a mention. Remember Davies was brought on for the 60th anniversary to stop the bleeding of the Whitaker era I suspect that while he’s going to embrace the new canon to show whose boss 13th Doctor instead of being lovingly called “Doctor Karen” is now going to be “She who must not be named.”

The Elephant in the Room Part 3: Are we expected to believe that the Doctor made a trip with Mel to the gilded age and with Donna’s kid to the moon and there was absolutely no alien invasion or deadly menace that happened to show up. Mathematically I guess that’s possible but just sayin…

The (Spock Must Die) Spoiler moment(s): At first I like everyone else assumed Davies had decided to be bold by having the regeneration 3/4 in but instead we got the whole “bi-generation” business. Very original, completely unexpected and it worked. Of course it leaves a lot of questions.

  1. When the Tennant Doctor Finally dies does he
    • Regenerate into The Current 15th doctor?
    • Regeneration into someone else?
    • Just die?
    • Depending on how it happens cause 15 to cease to Exist?
  2. Does Doctor 15 at this moment have all the memories of Doctor 14
    • Up to the moment the bi-generation?
    • To the moment of Doctor 14’s death?
    • Or does he remember them as they happen (See Out of Time Tennant 10 meets Baker’s 4th)
  3. Does this mean that Tennant’s 14th doctor will be a reoccurring character?

And that’s just the start of it. With the Doctor living with Donna’s family doesn’t that make them a sitting target for every enemy looking for revenge? But hey, the War Doctor business brought complications too. We don’t know it all, but that’s OK. We don’t need to.

The a Tad too far moment: The splitting the TARDIS into two, that’s kinda weak, I submit and suggest it didn’t split I think it means that it’s just one TARDIS at different points in it’s timeline.

The Doctor No Pants Moment: What’s with the no-pants stuff? The new doctor is going to get damn cold if he meets the Ice warriors.

Bottom Line: This story is a solid winner and frankly the only one of the three that is worthy as a 60th anniversary special in the sense that it’s more than a regular episode. I think 10 minutes more mixed in here and there might have worked better, but this is a really first class episode and 5 minutes of “Rose” at the dinner table and passing references to things I don’t like doesn’t mess it up.

5 stars.

Ranking in the current season (counting the children in need special) 1st of Four and by an awful lot. Perhaps the idea was to push the agenda heavy in the Star Beast then put it in the background so the increasing quality would sell it but if the Star Beast had been anything near as good as this one there would have been a lot less fuss. But regardless of the reason this one is a class act.

  1. The Giggle
  2. Destination Skaro
  3. The Wild Blue Yonder
  4. The Star Beast

Since we were comparing to the Capaldi years let’s do the same here. Unlike Wild Blue Yonder. This one definitely makes the list but in fifth place. Not because it is bad, but because those four episodes ahead of it were so damn good. I must confess I was close to putting it above the caretaker but that episode was just so damn fun.

1st The Husbands of River Song
2nd World Enough and Time
3rd. Last Christmas 
4th. The Caretaker
5th  The Giggle
6th. Extremis
7th. The Return of Doctor Mysterio
8th. The Girl who Died
9th.  The Witch’s Familiar
10th. Hell Bent

But as it’s a special episode let’s compare Apples to Apples, Specials to specials that I’ve reviewed which are from the Matt Smith and Capaldi Era 4th of 10 although it was a close thing between A Christmas Carol and this one.

1st The Husbands of River Song
2nd The Day of the Doctor
3rd. Last Christmas 
4th. The Giggle
5th  A Christmas Carol
6th.  The Time of the Doctor
7th.  The Return of Doctor Mysterio
8th.  The Snowmen
9th.  The Doctor, the Widow & the Wardrobe
10th. Twice Upon a Time

The BBC Chibnall / Davies BBC Doctor Who Completely Explained In Under A Minute Update: A Pleasant Surprise

Posted: December 9, 2023 by datechguy in doctor who, entertainment
Tags: ,

You had better sign those, they’re the ones paying your salary.

Jimmy Stewart 1968 on the set of Bandalero to Raquel Welsh when he heard her complain about signing autographs.

In an interview released this week Russell T Davies, who was briefly the great fan hope for the return of the Doctor Who franchise to what the fans loved for decades made it clear to all that this is not the case.

Russell T Davies has said that new Doctor Who episodes will upset die-hard fans of the science fiction franchise.

The Welsh screenwriter and television producer, 60, discussed the new release, which will be the centrepiece of the BBC’s Christmas Day line-up.

It would seem rather odd that Davies who was instrumental in the revival of the series that I’ve enjoyed for four decades and, like many other fans passed on that enjoyment to our children to be something in common as a family even as we’ve grown older, would be so callus as to spit in our faces and throw us away. But last night as I slept the explanation finally came to me, the truth of what Doctor Who is. It’s a rather ironic explanation that can be summed up in a just a few seconds below the fold:

(more…)
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