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Gabe D’Annunzio at Pintastic 2023 and taking the rest of the weekend off

Posted: September 8, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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1st Romana: Look, we haven’t got time for you to practice anything. We’ve got to find the fourth segment.
4th Doctor: You find it. I’m taking the day off.
1st Romana: The day off?
4th Doctor: Yes. After a journey of four hundred years and twelve parsecs, I’m allowed a rest of fifty years.
1st Romana: Where does it say that?
4th Doctor: Section ninety three, paragraph two, laws governing Time Lords. You look it up

Doctor Who The Androids of Tara Episode 1 1978

Well as you all know by now I’m at Pintastic NE 2023 at their new location at the Best Western Hotel in Marlborough Ma and as you might have guessed I have shot a bit of video today and yesterday like this:

And This:

So far I find I like this location better than the other one not only because of the close proximity of Linguini’s Italian eatery my favorite restaurant but because of new formats that will be made plain in other videos.

The biggest drawback however is the net which is considerably slower than our previous location which slows down uploads a bit and Rumble’s upload style which I’m still not used to.

But beyond all of that I find that I’m about as relaxed as I’ve been in many many months. For reasons I won’t go into things have been very tense for me and the complete lack of tension for me here was been a delight and a half.

And that why, dear readers I have decided I’m taking the next two days off. The nets too slow for the uploads and I don’t want to deal with the left, the Biden admin, the culture wars or anything else, This weekend belongs to my pinball with a good chunk of Rosaries and prayers in between because there are some things that trump even pinball.

Rest assured I’ll shoot and post some nice video but for now I’m going to spend the rest of today and tomorrow with my son and a bunch of pinball machines.

I might sneak in a post when my wrists need a rest (I have a particular way of playing that puts some strain on them) but after nearly 15 years of regular blogging it time for a day or two off.

The worries and the outrages of the world will still be there on Monday & Tuesday.

The needs of the individual always outweigh the needs of the many

Posted: September 7, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The Wrath of Kahn has always been my favorite Star Trek movie.  I’ve enjoyed everything about that movie, except for that one scene where Spock states emphatically that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of few”

That quote has always bothered me, even the first time I saw the movie back in the early 1980s.  This was well before my political enlightenment that led me to becoming a Libertarian.  I had read enough history then to know that totalitarian regimes always sacrificed the few and the individual, all in the name of the common good of the majority.

After my great political awakening, which consisted of reading a couple hundred books on all types of political philosophies, I now understand the evils and horrors of collectivism.  I know Spock’s quote reeks of collectivism.  That is not surprising since Gene Roddenberry was very much to the left politically.  Mr. Roddenberry should have read Ayn Rand, especially these two quotes about collectivism:

“Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”

I got the idea [for Anthem’s theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word ‘I.’

If Mr. Roddenberry had encountered this Ayn Rand quote, maybe Spock’s quote would not have marred an otherwise fantastic movie.

Individualism regards man – every man – as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights – and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

My COVID pledge

Posted: September 5, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

As the news media rumbles and rants over the rise in COVID cases, including that of Doctor Jill, it’s time to prepare for an onslaught of information that provokes fear and misunderstanding.

I have many regrets about what I did during the pandemic. 

I wouldn’t come to Temple University because of fears that young people were incubators of the disease. 

I didn’t visit a friend who was dying of cancer. I didn’t keep in touch with friends who died because they couldn’t get the treatment they needed.

I waited in line for the first COVID shots—not protesting the inadequate features of the drugs and the many side effects of the shots. 

I didn’t try to stop the politicians from passing laws to make voting easier without showing up at a polling station. I believe these laws were responsible for Trump’s loss, one of the worst outcomes of the pandemic. 

Now, I’m making a pledge to myself and others.

I will not wear a mask. Various studies have determined that masks made little difference in preventing disease, except Dr. Tony Fauci continues promoting them. 

I will not get shots. When President Joe said he requested federal dollars “for funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works,” it gave me chills. After the pharmaceutical companies created remedies that didn’t work well, why should the taxpayers pick up the tab again?

I will not carry around a card that lists my shots.

I will not socially distance. I will boycott stores and companies that require masks and social distancing.

I will vote against anyone who closes businesses and schools. Only recently, national surveys show that math and reading skills have dropped dramatically, and school absenteeism is roughly 10 percent each school day. 

I will never retire to a nursing home where thousands of my fellow seniors died during the pandemic, a disgrace that still goes unpunished. 

Many of us learned a few things during the pandemic. You really can’t trust the media, and you really can’t trust politicians!

Fortunately, I live in central Pennsylvania, where many people share my sentiments. It was a relief when my wife and I moved here in March 2021 to find signs that said masks were optional.

Matthew Hennessey of The Wall Street Journal agrees with me. He wrote recently, “In hindsight, I can’t help but feel I sold my God-given freedom too cheaply. I won’t get fooled again.”

In Honor of Mexico’s Berlin Wall Move Biden Should Vow Not to Prevent Any Person From Leaving the US Who Wishes To

Posted: September 4, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

At least that’s how I would handle this story:

Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero directed the 3-ton Cold War relic to be installed in Friendship Park in a project titled, “A World Without Walls.” Written on the slab of concrete is the inscription, “May this be a lesson to build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges.”

When asked why Caballero decided to erect the piece in Tijuana, the mayor said “How many families have shed blood, labor, and their lives to get past the wall,” according to the New York Post.

I must confess that having been born in 1963 and having a vivid memory of the cold war I don’t recall a whole lot of effort being made by the East Germans to keep people from entering, but maybe that’s just me.

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