Greetings from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where SP and I are, in the great tradition of 4th of July weekend, fighting the traveling hordes in Winnebagos and Airstreams. There’s some sort of baseball tournament happening here, and our hotel is packed with hyperactive 11-13 year old boys. They had a farting contest on the elevator, which was fitting punctuation. But Links must go on, travel or no travel.
This was inevitable, wasn’t it? I keep wondering how to say “schadenfreude” in Yiddish.
OK, I’m not a fan of bubble-gum punk, but I have to admit that I now love this guy. Best. Apology. Ever.
And in the holiday weekend theme… as we drove past a fireworks stand set up outside of a church, SP demonstrated yet another one of her considerable skills- she’s a walking encyclopedia of music. This song was inevitable. And brilliant.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ HAS HAD A GOOD WEEK. GOOD, HONEST GRAIN HAULING AND COUNTRY MUSIC.
ZARDOZ LIKES IOWA SO FAR
IF ZARDOZ STILL AROUND FORT DODGE AREA AROUND HARVEST TIME, HE WILL HAVE TO MAKE IT A POINT TO SEE LOCASH. ZARDOZ NOT CONCERNED WITH WHAT BRUTALS HE WORKS WITH SAY ABOUT FORT DODGE – ZARDOZ BELIEVES THEY ARE SIMPLY BRUTAL H8ERS, AS ARE MANY FROM FROM WATERLOO. HOW DO CHOSEN ONES LIKE ZARDOZ’S SICK IOWA BURN?
REGARDLESS, HERE ARE LINKS FOR HIS CHOSEN ONES, WHOM ZARDOZ LOVES A BUSHEL AND A PECK. AND A HUG AROUND THE NECK.
GERMAN BRUTALS AND TEXAS BRUTALS TAKE DIFFERENT POSITION ON SAME ISSUE
BRUTAL ROB LOWE CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN “WOOD APE” IN OZARKS. ZARDOZ’S FRIEND STEVE SMITH DENIES RAPING ROB LOWE IN WILD, BUT HAS FAMILY OUT THAT WAY.
When you first think about it, you probably wonder why you would ever want to take a gun into space. After you think about it a little more, though, you probably wonder why you would ever not want to take a gun into space. Thousands of miles from everywhere, in a hostile environment, with no chance of escape or rescue… sounds like exactly the kind of situation to require some ballistic backup. Whether you need to un-stick a broken escape hatch or simply quell an interplanetary mutiny, a gun is a must have for any space faring humanoid. Okay, in all seriousness, some astronaut crews did take a gun into space, at least for a period of time. They weren’t designed for use during the trip, however. Well, most of them weren’t, anyway. They were for use afterwards. The thinking was that if a capsule went way off course and landed in the middle of bumfuck nowhere the ‘nauts would have a survival weapon they could use to defend from predators and forage for food until the cavalry arrived.
The Makarov. Great against spies and dissident. Useless against bears.
Shockingly, the Americans are actually not the most tooled up group of people outside of the atmosphere. I can find no record of NASA issuing or allowing any sort of guns on shuttle missions or the space station. There is a possibility that at one point they were equipped with M6 survival rifles or even Beretta 9mm pistols, but I can’t find any definitive proof of it so your guess is as good as mine. The Russians, on the other hand might as well open up a branch of the NRA on the moon, cause as far as I can tell every fucking manned spaceflight they went on had a gun on board. Originally they started out with Makarov pistols. These reliable little handguns carry 8 rounds of 9×18 (similar to .380) in a very compact package. This went on for a few years, until a mission went a bit off. One of the capsules missed it’s landing area by about 600 miles and ended up in the middle of Siberia. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Siberia, but it’s a bit like Australia or Florida, in that everything wants to kill you. Unlike Australia or Florida, however, most of those things would laugh at you for pointing a 9mm pistol at it before mauling you and eating your steaming intestines like spaghetti while you were still alive and screaming. Thankfully, the cosmonauts survived, and one of them, Alexey Leonov, apparently developed a lasting impression of that particular feeling of terror since he mandated that a new survival weapon be developed for the space program after becoming a major general.
TP-82, with ammo and buttstock/machete.
Thus was born the first gun designed to go to space: The TP-82. I will give the commies credit, when they design a rifle they really go all out. The TP-82 is a triple barrel short barreled shotgun/rifle combo. The top two barrels are 12.5x70mm shotgun bore (roughly 38 gauge), while the bottom center barrel is chambered in 5.45×39, the common caliber of the AK 74 assault rifle. The gun has a detachable stock that doubles as a machete (no I don’t know how they fired it without cutting their arms off either) and came with birdshot, rifle rounds, and signal flares. This gun flew with all of the cosmonauts from 1986 until 2007, and even made it into the space station according to rumors. In 2007, Russia announced that there was no more shotgun ammo for the gun and no more could be produced, and the weapon was officially retired, with the cosmonauts returning to a standard semi automatic handgun. Let’s hope their search and rescue response times have gotten better.
An actual, honest to god, laser gun. Holy. Shit.
Don’t think for a second that all space weaponry was for boring old hunting and survival, though. It turns out that the reds are much more ambitious than we like to admit, because these sons of bitches went full fucking Moonraker on us and actually developed and fielded laser pistols. That’s right. Laser. Fricken. Pistols. Take THAT, John Browning! They were magazine fed and used flashbulb technology. Their reported function was to disable enemy spy satellites, but it is said that they could burn through a helmet or fry someone’s eyeballs at 60 feet. Whether or not this is actually true or a load of crap is anyone’s guess, but hats off to them for bringing energy weapons into reality.
The R-23 autocannon used on the Salyut space station.
So, what could top directed energy weapons in space? Oh I don’t know… how about an armed satellite? In the 1970s, the Soviets developed the Almaz program, which launched 3 manned reconnaissance satellites into orbit. These satellites were supposed to monitor comms traffic and do orbital imaging, but don’t think they were just for show either. Each one was fitted with a 23mm belt fed autocannon capable of 2000 rounds a minute. Of course, they didn’t carry very much ammo, but then again it doesn’t take much damage to really wreck your day in space. While they never actually attacked anything (there’s no record of it, anyway) they did successfully remotely test fire the weapon on multiple occasions.
All of this research has led me to one inescapable conclusion: The Russians will eventually own space and become fearsome interplanetary pirates, while our hopeless and disarmed astronauts fall victim to their merciless supply raids and wanton destruction. If only we hadn’t elected Trump…..
Brett has today off, so I’m going to keep this very short and oh so sweet. I have beef to cook and beer to drink. Happy early 4th, my fellow Americans. -PM
I've never seen anything like this : Each floor of the NYT newsroom is full of folks walking out in solidarity against the coming layoffs pic.twitter.com/6AgPDa8hKv
*looks up from book* Oh, it’s you. *frowns slightly, returns to reading*
SugarFree
Finished Mira Grant‘s Newsflesh trilogy–Feed, Deadline, Blackout–and the various in-universe short stories collected in Rise. All the novels and a few of the shorter pieces in Rise were nominated for Hugo awards so there has been quite a bit of buzz about this series since Feed came out in 2010, but they are set in a post-zombie apocalypse and I have been suffering rather severe zombie-fatigue. Set 20 years or so after a viral zombie outbreak that killed around a 1/3 of Americans, crusading bloggers are chosen to be in the press pool for a charismatic young Senator running for President of the United States. The CDC basically runs the country through strict containment laws and thick layers of security theater. Complications on the campaign trail ensue, as they always do.
The set-up is a bit derivative, stealing a bit of Bug Jack Barron via Transmetropolitan, but Grant does a pretty good job convincing even a cynic that such a thing as a honest reporter can exist. And that a public who is trying to survive in a much more deadly world would actually care what a reporter had to say. But in a literary universe where the dead walk, some suspension of belief is required up front. And the general anti-government and individualist outlook of the work will be pleasing to the libertarian mindset.
Grant is a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, who also publishes under her real name. The Newsflesh material is her one big hit and the in-universe short stories show her milking it for all it’s worth, and as a result the stories are generally-enjoyable-shading-to-disposable. But, overall, I look forward to reading more of her work.
jesse.in.mb
Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day: Always looking to up my baking game a bit, especially since the doctor I work for (a former professional chef) was convinced by his partner to get back into baking. I was actually led to Reinhart by Warty suggesting I make a struan. That shit’s tasty, yo. Artisan Breads Every Day does a solid job of simplifying some of the techniques he presented in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice although I’d like more details on prepping a wet sourdough starter into a stiffer biga or pâte fermentée. It’s times like this I was working with a paper book so I could math in the margins.
Ender’s Game Alive: A solid full-cast recording of Ender’s Game, I listened to this while frittering time in a Tucson hotel. It’s been a long-ass time since I read Ender’s Game and it made me want to try reading Speaker for the Dead again, but I remember picking it up getting bored as fuck and putting it back down almost immediately last time, so maybe not. Bonus points for it being under Audible’s gratis options.
Beach Lawyer by Avery Duff: This ended up being my Kindle Firsts choice and it was ideal airplane reading. The two attractive male alpha lawyers jockeying for position plot was a bit tired, but it’s always fun reading a novel that’s set in your stomping grounds and Duff’s descriptions of locale are vivid and right on.
JW
JW is currently reading his palm…wait, that’s not reading! Jesus, dude, get a room.
Old Man With Candy
SP gifted me with a copy of Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature, which has been reviewed and discussed so many times… wait a minute, it looks like she’s talking about it below. Damn, I can’t step on her toes or I’ll be catbutted.
And I am plowing into a couple of sci fi books that SugarFree gave me, starting with Up the Line by Robert Silverberg, a time travel novel which, unlike Heinlein’s later efforts, does not involve sex with the protagonist’s mother and daughters. But there IS plenty of sex because, after all, Robert Silverberg. The writing is slick and vivid.
Riven
In our last installment, I mentioned that I was still working on cracking the cover of Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison, recommended to me by SugarFree. I have since read every book and short story in “The Hollows” series except the lately published prequel, TheTurn, which I only just started yesterday morning. It was a fun and satisfying series: fantasy elements made modern, tastefully written smut scenes that only occasionally take place in bedrooms, and a bit of a who-dun-it feel. I haven’t been able to put them down since I started–even the short stories are compelling. The characters don’t always act in predictable ways (to the reader or to other characters) and wacky hijinks abound from misunderstandings, magical anomalies, and the like. You could argue that the books tend to be a little formulaic as time goes on: trouble rears its ugly head, tension builds, our plucky protagonist Rachel finds that the trouble is actually worse than we’d previously thought, but somehow, someway… everything ends up being alright. Or, y’know, especially difficult problems get carried over into the next book. Ongoing issues don’t just fade away; Harrison neatly wraps them up, sometimes in a book or three, sometimes spanning the entire series. Overall, this was a grand adventure of a series, full of capers and intrigue, a principled protagonist who stuck to her guns, and I’m sorry to see it end–even though I know it can’t go on forever, which is a lasting message from the series, itself.
Brett L.
I slogged my way through The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland and — how can I put this… Take the least interesting parts of The Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle and all of the knowledge dumping of Seveneves without the cool final two chapter payoff and that’s this book. If you have the rest of the summer to kill and don’t mind wandering through poor staging/narrator choices and far too many nerd jokes, this is a two-star effort from a five-star writer. The short, non-spoilerish version is that magic waned until a bright MIT guy invented a chamber where the quantum wave function can’t collapse (for those of you who know quantum mechanics, just stick with me here) like the Schroedinger Gedankenerfahrung that everyone has heard enough about to use as a plot device. Anyhow, time travel, not nearly enough adventure, and quasi-immortal German bankers. Its actually worse than it sounds. Seriously, don’t read it.
On the other hand, I just picked up Mark Lawrence’s latest work Red Sister, which is already better. If you’re not familiar with his post-apocalyptic, semi-magical Europe double trilogy (two trilogies telling two complete, but overlapping stories), I highly recommend them. Look for a more complete review next month.
Also reading The Haywire Heartby Chris Case, John Mandrola MD (an electrophysiologist I follow online), and Lennard Zinn. This is a very interesting look at how intense physical training can bring on arrhythmias in endurance athletes as they age. (I don’t personally need to worry about this particular problem.)
And, YEA!, the new Scot Harvath novel, Use of Force, from Brad Thor arrived. You should get it.
sloopyinca
Sloop is reading The Neverending Story and contemplating Xeno’s paradox.
I am currently re-reading The Dictator’s Handbook, which has shifted the way I approach business and marketing, as I’ve seen a lot similarities in the business world.
I’m also reading Hit Makers about how trends happen.
The Astros won a day game. The Twins lost to the Sawks. The Dodgers won and a Yankee blew out his patellar tendon in his debut…plus the pinstripes lost. Not much else happened as far as actual games yesterday. The Wimbledon draw is set and Federer is the #1 seed and faces a tough slate if he is to win.
In basketball news, expect there to be an NCAA investigation into Kentucky basketball soon. No other explanation exists for Calipari asking the Knicks if they’d like him to come coach them. And Carmelo Anthony would like to become a Cavalier. But I doubt Cleveland wants to deliberately catch cancer, so I can’t see them wanting him.
Football is coming soon enough, thank God. Until then, I’m gonna struggle to bring you sports in advance of…the links!
Happy Thursday. I get to call it a week after tonight. I’ll be driving across NW Florida for seemingly half of the 5 day weekend. Sadly, we have some family up there we need to visit, because they may not be around to visit by the holidays. On the other hand, I get to spend Monday and Tuesday on a giant beach that will be mostly empty, getting drunk and trying not to get killed by Florida Man’s fireworks displays. Anyhow, here’s the links.
Goddam. Do NOT mess with pregnant women. Dude is lucky he didn’t get that thing parked on his head.
Pigs run amok near Dallas. Just another day for the worst metro area in Texas.
17 year old male shot in dispute. Trans groups stampede to stand on the body and claim victimhood for, by the account given, had nothing to do with transgenderism and everything to do with young people with Y chromosomes being idiots.
NASA joins science denierists, claims coming solar minimum may decrease temperatures. Ha! Just kidding. Despite having a 400 year record of correlation between European temperatures and solar activity, that part isn’t mentioned once.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
That said, how did the beginning of this destruction happen? There are 3 things in play here: seatbelt laws, the drug war, and the erosion of the protections of the 4th amendment. Beginning June 30th, Arkansas’ seat belt law changes to permit a law enforcement traffic stop based on the primary violation of a motor vehicle driver or front-seat passenger who is not buckled-up.
You’re not from ’round these parts, are you?
What this means is that a police officer may stop any vehicle that he claims to observed an unbuckled driver or front seat passenger. This adds to the nearly infinite list of reasons for being stopped that already exist. It also serves as a good way to generate revenue for a department. My state (Arkansas) resisted making seatbelt violations a primary offense for many years. However they caved, in June of 2009, under federal pressure and a threat to withhold DOT funding if the legislature didn’t pass the law. I guess that’s the price you pay when you accept federal dollars. You must bow down to federal demands.
Preface by Swiss Servator: Only because this is so well written do I not intrude into this column to proclaim the obvious superiority of Rugby Union. I will get my chance in future, after we have done a couple more of these – stand by for an Aussie Rules “explainer” in our next thrilling installment).
A Brief History of the National Rugby League
The National Rugby League (NRL) is a club-based competition in Australia and New Zealand, generally considered the best such competition in the world.
Note the positioning of the official.
Rugby League vs. Rugby Union
Before embarking on a history of the NRL it may be helpful to explain the origin of rugby league and how it differs from rugby union. Many cultures have a history of games involving the movement of a spherical or ovoid objection. However, the specific origin of rugby comes out of England sometime in the mid-nineteenth century (sadly, the story of William Webb Ellis, the boy who “who with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it” at Rugby School is apocryphal). The Rugby Football Union (RFU) emerged in 1871 following a number of clubs in England refusing to adopt the rules laid out by the new Football Association. Rugby League broke from the RFU after a schism which resulted from disagreements over payments to players (won’t bore you with the details). Today, in England, rugby league’s heartland is in the Midlands and the north of the country. Because of the popularity of soccer and rugby union in England, in 1996, rugby league in Britain switched to a summer season.
Rugby spread to Australia (& other parts of the world) mainly through the agency of British imperialism. In Australia, there was a split in rugby in the early twentieth century, again over professionalism. Both sports faced competition in other parts of Australia. In large part, this stemmed from the country’s colonial past: each state was originally a colony with its own imperial government and with the main population centers far apart. Rugby League is the most popular football code in Queensland and New South Wales, but lags far behind Australian Football in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania.
To the uninitiated, Rugby League & Rugby Union appear similar and they certainly bear much closer resemblance to one another than they do to soccer or Australian football. There are three main differences: rugby union teams have 15 players, league teams 13; when the ball goes out of play in union, it leads to a lineout, in league, it usually leads to a scrum; in union, at each tackle, both teams can enter the ensuing ruck; in league, the team with the ball retains it uncontested through a maximum of 6 tackles.
A ruck.A lineout.
The National Rugby League Competition
(A completely unbiased account).
Beginning in 1908, the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), based in Sydney, organized a club competition. This was followed by multiple regional and city competitions. By the 1940s, there were two dominant club competitions. One was the NSWRL, an evil empire operated by very bad men and whose clubs raised money using corrupt instruments known as poker machines. The other competition was based in Brisbane and known as the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL). This competition was one of pureness and light promoting the highest levels of decency and eschewing the use of the evil poker machines.
Unfortunately, from time to time, some of the good men who played in the BRL fell upon hard financial times and in order to support their families (and for no other reason) accepted transfers to clubs in the NSWRL (for more on this, look up State of Origin series for the story of how good won a partial victory over evil). Over the decades, the NSWRL began to expand, first accepting new clubs from western Sydney, then from Newcastle and Canberra. In order to keep up with the growth of Australian Football, in 1998 the NSWRL eventually accepted a club from Brisbane. This led to the demise of the BRL although the governing body in Queensland established a successor state-wide competition known as the Queensland Cup.
The Sydney-based competition went through several names changes until adopting National Rugby League in 1998. Teams have left the NRL, gone defunct, and new teams have been added. Some of the current teams are mergers of teams from the old NSWRL days. Today the competition consists of sixteen clubs: eight in Sydney and the surrounding area and one each in Brisbane, Townsville, the Gold Coast, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle, Wollongong, and Auckland, New Zealand. Most clubs are run by corporate boards although some of the older Sydney clubs still have a local league club which has some say over the running of the club. All clubs sell memberships to individuals.
Since 1998, 12 different teams have won the championship. During the season each teams plays 24 games (along with 2 bye weeks) with the top 8 teams making the finals (think playoffs). Teams are awarded 2 points for a win, 2 points for a bye, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss. During the regular season, “golden point” is used if scores are level at the end of regulation. Teams play a maximum of extra 10 minutes, 5 in each direction. However, any score ends the game. A team losing in “golden point” receives no competition points.
The finals series is more complicated than the straight single-game process in the NFL. Teams placed 5-8 are eliminated by one loss, teams 1-4 would need to lose twice to go out. The last two teams standing meet in the Grand Final, played on the first Sunday in October. The 2016 Grand Final was watched by 3.7 million Australians (total population: 24.5 million). The extra time scenario is a little more complicated for the finals series.
Scoring: teams are awarded 4 points for a try (think NFL touchdown except the ball must be grounded rather than just being moved across the goal line), 2 points for conversion (think PAT but the kick must be taken on a line drawn perpendicular to the goal line), 2 points for a penalty goal (think field goal but only taken after a penalty has been awarded), and 1 point for a dropped (or field) goal.
This is a try.
The 2017 Season To Date & Round 16
The season started March 2. Among the favorites were: Melbourne, Canberra, Cronulla, Penrith, and North Queensland. On June 12, at the end of Round 15, the top 4 were: Melbourne Storm, Sydney Roosters, Cronulla Sharks, Brisbane Broncos. Position 5-8: Manly, St. George, North Queensland, Penrith.
Round 16 was played June 23-25 with 14teams in action (byes: South Sydney and Parramatta).
The highlight of the round was the Roosters (2) vs. Storm (1) game which was actually played in Adelaide, South Australia – another of the NRL’s almost certainly futile attempts to break into an Australian Football stronghold. In something of a repeat of the previous week’s close run against North Queensland, Melbourne took an early lead before blowing the game, giving up 13 points in the last 10 minutes. This time, Melbourne were unable to find a late game-winner. The Roosters’ win sees them close to within 2 points of the Storm.
The other highly anticipated game of the round was the match up between 3rd placed Cronulla and 5th placed Manly. However, the games turned out to be one-sided as Manly easily overcame last season’s premiers 35-18.
Seventh-placed North Queensland came into its crucial clash with #8 Penrith on the heels of the news that its superstar Johnathan Thurston (think Bart Starr levels of greatness) was out for the season. Trailing most of the game, the Cowboys scored a score-levelling try with 3 minutes left when winger Kyle Feldt caught a chip kick and managed to get the ball down. Ethan Lowe kicked the game-winning conversion.
The number 4 Brisbane Broncos travelled to Canberra to take on the Raiders who were just outside the top 8. After trailing 14-12 at half-time, the Broncos outscored the Raiders 18-6 in the second half for a 30-20 win.
Second from bottom Newcastle started strong against St. George-Illawarra building a 28-10 half time lead. However, form asserted itself in the second half with the Dragons scoring 22 unanswered points to win 32-28. The loss was Newcastle’s 22nd straight road loss setting a new record.
The 11th New Zealand Warriors took a big lead then held on to beat the 12th placed Bulldogs 21-14. The result led NZ media to declare the Warriors “within striking distance” of the top 8. While true (the win leaves the Warriors 2 points outside the playoff spots), it’s likely they will fade by season’s end.
In a near bottom-of-the-table clash, the 14th placed Gold Coast Titans—led by former NFL wannabe Jarryd Hayne—defanged the last-placed Tigers, 26-14. The Tigers have no chance of making the playoffs while the Titans win will serve to give their fans false hope for a few more weeks.
So, at the end of Round 16, Melbourne retain top spot but are now only two points ahead of Sydney. The Brisbane Broncos move to 3rd with Manly jumping to 4th ahead of Cronulla on points differential. Positions 5 thru 8: Cronulla, St. George, North Queensland, Parramatta. Position 3 through 7 are separated by only two points. A further 5 teams are only 4 points outside the Top 8.
Greetings from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where SP and I are, in the great tradition of 4th of July weekend, fighting the traveling hordes in Winnebagos and Airstreams. There’s some sort of baseball tournament happening here, and our hotel is packed with hyperactive 11-13 year old boys. They had a farting contest on the elevator, which was fitting punctuation. But Links must go on, travel or no travel.
