Deep Space Nine-Eleven

So a couple weeks ago I was watching the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-parter episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost. Both episodes are, of course, considered highly prescient in the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington by followers of the child molesting Satanic Prophet mohammed (worms be upon him as God damned him and his followers to burn in hell). As everybody and their dog knows, this happened on the 11th of September (a day the derka derkas picked with a certain historical flair) which quickly became dubbed "9/11" and was subject to a ton of numerology and pop culture evaluation.

Anyways, as I mentioned, the two parter is famous for predicting the response to 9/11 five years earlier.

Homefront and Paradise Lost finds Earth dealing with the aftermath of a horrific terrorist attack. According to Sisko, “A crime like this hasn’t been committed on Earth in over a hundred years.” Innocents are killed. More than that, the changelings are explicitly responsible. In the wake of the attack, more hawkish members of the military seize upon the opportunity to grasp power. Civil liberties are trampled, draconian measures are introduced. “With a Starfleet officer on every corner, paradise has never seemed so well-armed.”

Paradise Lost even demonstrates of the chilling effect of fear, the way that the immediate response to a horrific trauma is to seek security at any cost. While Joseph Sisko was a voice of reason in the face of the increasing militarisation of Homefront, the staged attack upon the power grid scares him into submission.

Of course it's always easier to look at this as an abstraction when you're removed from it. I haven't the energy to look it up, but I'll almost guarantee you that Darren Mooney was fully in favour of all the COVID rules and restrictions (as Mark Steyn noted the Patriot Act was a dry run for the Emergency Act), Ireland had to offer [and you would be right! -ed], and plenty of disdain for anybody who tried to look at the event from a different perspective despite him being all lofty on his perch in the post:

Building off themes that have been seeded throughout Deep Space Nine since the beginning, Homefront and Paradise Lost really engage with the idea that Starfleet is not the be-all and end-all of the larger Star Trek universe. There is not one right way to engage with the universe. The Sisko family is proof of that, with Joseph operating his own restaurant and Jake becoming a writer. The Sisko family provides quite the contrast with the Crusher family over on The Next Generation, where it seems that the only alternative to a Starfleet career is godhood.

During his big argument with his son in Homefront, Joseph draws attention to the fact that Starfleet is not an absolute; it is not the only lifestyle choice for an adult in the twenty-fourth century. “I didn’t take an oath to Starfleet,” Joseph advises Ben. “Neither did Jake or your sister or anyone in your family. We have rights, Ben, including the right to be as stubborn or thickheaded as we want.” There has often been an unspoken assumption that Starfleet is synonymous with mankind in the Star Trek universe.

Indeed another Star Trek media review (who occasionally had Mooney on as a guest), the Pensky Podcast look back at the pair of episodes brought up the public backlash behind the Boston Marathon Bomber lockdown -- as a pair of Boston boys, Wes and Clay were quick to defend what everybody else agreed was stupid and heavy handed and objectively failed to do what it was supposed to do when it was a guy breaking the strict letter of the law who found the fugitive. It's easy to think everything about 9/11 was an overreaction, but as Mooney might have done [no, absolutely 100% positively did, the leftist hypocrite... -ed] with the Wuhan Flu it seemed like a good and indeed popular idea at the time and in the place most impacted by it.

Anyways, the big thing I noticed about the episode, which I don't think anybody has noticed, is the 9/11 numerology at the beginning of the episode Homefront:

SISKO: Constable, take a seat.
ODO: Of course.
WORF: Ten minutes ago we received a recording of a high level diplomatic conference that took place between the Federation and the Romulan Empire on Earth a few days ago. Computer, begin replay at time index five nine eleven.

Yes, that's 5911 or five 9/11.

9/11. Aired in January of 1996.

@mokawima - Can a woman open a sandwich shop under communism?

Happy International Working Women's Day! Reminder that it was established by the USSR in 1917, & only adopted by the West in 1975 after they removed "working" from the name. Communism remains the central path for women's liberation. https://t.co/9rdgr45ZdM

— Mokawima (@mokawima) March 8, 2022

As you recall, I often make a sandwich joke on this (stupid) day.

But the belief that communism, which imprisons women who dare to make a profit, is the central path for women's success is a brain-dead idea that really could only be believed by an irrational woman.

@benshapiro prediction from 2021

I remember in 2009-2010 there was an article talking about how the next competitive Republican candidate would be "even worse than Bush". I never did track it down. 

We are approximately one hour from the media turning from "Trump is the worst person who has ever lived" to "[FILL IN THE BLANK 2024 COMPETITIVE REPUBLICAN] is even worse than Trump. I mean, at least Trump [FILL IN THE BLANK]."

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 20, 2021

So how's that coming along? Feel free to add in the comments your own examples over the past two years.

CBC tries to murder Jake Moffat

Huh, two "what the hell media" stories in a row.

Anyways, a couple of days ago Air Canada lost a small claims court case that made international headlines.

Jake Moffatt booked a flight to Toronto with Air Canada to attend his grandmother’s funeral in 2022 using the website’s chatbot, which advised him he could pay full fare and apply for a bereavement fare later, according to the decision by B.C. civil resolution tribunal.

But an Air Canada employee later told him that he couldn’t apply for the discount after the flight.

“Air Canada says it cannot be held liable for the information provided by the chatbot,” said tribunal member Christopher Rivers in his written reasons for decision posted online.

It “suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions,” he said Rivers. “This is a remarkable submission.”

When Moffatt asked Air Canada’s automated response system about reduced fares for those travelling because of a death in the immediate family, the chatbot answered he should submit his claim within 90 days to get a refund.

His total fare for the return trip was $1,640, and he was told the bereavement fare would be about $760 in total, a $880 difference, he told the tribunal.

So anyways, that's the Vancouver Sun story: "Air Canada responsible for errors by website chatbot after B.C. customer denied retroactive discount".

Global News had a similar story:

In 2022, Jake Moffatt was researching flights following the death of his grandmother and used a chatbot on Air Canada’s website that suggested Moffatt could apply for bereavement fares retroactively.

However, Moffatt later learned that Air Canada does not permit retroactive applications.

So meanwhile, in Alberta, angry sodomites are (falsely) insisting hey, a student's teacher telling his or her parents that he or she thinks he or she is actually a she or he? That's going to kill the kid.

So with this standard flowing through your head, if Jake Moffatt really is a tranny and he secretly is living as nonbinary, then CBC reporter Jason Proctor is trying to murder "they".

In a decision released this week, Rivers ordered Air Canada to pay Jake Moffatt $812 to cover the difference between the airline's bereavement rates and the $1,630.36 they paid for full-price tickets to and from Toronto bought after their grandmother died.

(this is just under a section called "misleading words" oddly enough)

Based on that assurance, Moffatt claimed they booked full-fare tickets to and from Toronto. But when they contacted Air Canada to get their money back, they were told bereavement rates don't apply to completed travel — something explained on a different part of their website.

Again, what's with all the they them gender neutral nonsense? Proctor starts his story as:

Air Canada has been ordered to pay compensation to a grieving grandchild who claimed they were misled into purchasing full-price flight tickets by an ill-informed chatbot.

Not "grieving grandson": grieving grandchild. Yet he directly quotes the tribunal ruling referring to "Mr. Moffat" yet refuses to address him by his (presumed) preferred and (obviously) accurate pronouns.

Is this some stupid new Canadian media guideline? Even Amy Judd of Global News gets into it:

Moffatt said in the Civil Resolution Tribunal that Air Canada must provide them with a partial refund as they relied upon the chatbot’s advice.

I know, I know, in the annals of "horrible things the CBC has published" this wouldn't make the top 175,000...even if you only counted the ones this decade. Still, this is one of them. Everybody in the world is reporting how Jake Moffat was wronged by Air Canada and how he has now gotten his money back. Only the CBC is trying to claim that he's not a man. Proctor's balls may not have been cut off yet, but if you see him out in the wild maybe perform this vital service for him.

Person loses job, later loses house. More on this breaking story as it develops...

 It's a good thing we didn't have CTV News in the early 80s in Alberta...

It all started two years ago, when she purchased a home in Jasper, Ont. along the Rideau River.

At the time, the property was listed for $465,000, but Hartmann says she paid $200,000 over the asking price.

"It was quite ludicrous, there were bidding wars and it was just really stressful," said Hartmann.

But just seven months later, she was laid off from her well-paying job at Microsoft and at the same time, soaring interest rates nearly doubled her mortgage.

"I said ok, I can’t afford this but then I started to default on my payments," said Hartmann.

Hartmann said she tried to sell her house through two different realtors and ended up handing the keys over to Scotiabank in November.

Hartmann couldn't afford her house after she lost her job. That's all tragic and such, but really this used to be why "man bites dog" was a maxim. Sure it caused people to have a distorted view of the world, but at least it was newsworthy.

Again, after Rat Bastard 1.0 brought in the National Energy Program the economy of Alberta was absolutely trashed, and huge numbers of people had to go through what Hartmann endured times ten, and they didn't get hagiographic writeups by the national newsmedia. The trends got mentioned, and they might throw a human interest story in to help sell the trend, but the "meat" of this story is Hartmann's, not the macroeconomic circumstances that make her story more and more common.

They did the thing!

A story out of Sweden confused a lot of people last week:

Shocking footage showed the installation at the Oceana Waterworld in Gothenburg ablaze as flames tore through the structure, sending a huge plume of thick, toxic black smoke trailing into the sky behind snow-covered houses. 

The fire prompted a mass evacuation of the area with firefighters at a loss as to how the blaze was triggered, reporting they could not bring the flames under control.

A lot of people were very shocked that a fire could break out at a waterpark. Not I. Because I'd seen this already, on an episode of the best British show of the 21st century, The IT Crowd:

Now we just need a corporate CEO to beat the living shit out of a tranny and all the hilarity that brings along for the ride.

I sure hope "popcorn" is some sort of sexual slang

The newly popular YouTube phenomenon of young people (typically hot chicks) watching 20-50 year old media properties has reached it's zenith with a gorgeous blonde getting way too excited about Ricardo Montalban's bare chest:

This day in (non-blog) history

Ten years ago today was the infamous Battle of B-R5RB.

So...2014? Was it involving Russia versus Ukrainian forces in the Crimea?

No? Oh, so it was part of the fight between Turkey and the Islamic State?

No? Oh, it must be part of the Syrian Civil War.

No, so it must be part of the rebel fights against the Djotodia government in the Central African Repub....

 It what?

No, seriously, it's what?

It's...part of a video game? Oh.

Internet spaceship fights don't get more immense than the battle of B-R5RB. CCP have collected up, totalled and explain what happened, providing a final battle report on the carnage.

The big numbers then. First, 75 of the colossal Titans fell across the 21 hours of fighting. For an idea of how one sided the war was, know that N3/PL lost 59 Titans to CFC/DTF's 16. While they were the biggest and most expensive losses, the battle also saw the destruction of 13 Supercarriers, 370 Dreadnaughts and 123 Carriers. In total, 11 trillion ISK was lost - with more than 8.5 trillion of that coming from N3/PL. CCP note that, according to some PLEX conversions, that's between $300,000-$330,000 of damage.

It was caused by...a software glitch. It sure puts the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in context, doesn't it?

Alliances can claim unoccupied corners of the universe simply by planting the flag, as long as they pay a monthly fee of around one billion ISK. With "sovereignty" over this part of space, they can be reasonably assured that their assets are safe.

Between sprints to the bathroom, Murph learned Pandemic Legion had somehow lost its sovereignty status in B-R5RB. Capturing a sovereign part of space is akin to attacking a well-defended castle. But if the guy holding the station loses sovereignty, it becomes a relatively simple matter of moving in because the owner is on the curb, the drawbridge is down and the gate is open. It was unthinkable that this could happen. But it had.

As thousands of players tally their losses and prepare for the next fight, many wonder how Pandemic lost sovereignty in B-R5RB to begin with.

The answer couldn't have been any more mundane.

It appears someone forgot to check "Automatic Bill Pay" in his game settings. Pandemic Legion insists the box was checked, raising the possibility an inattentive player, a spy or even a bug in the game was to blame. Whatever the case, the rent didn’t get paid. The biggest battle in the history of forever started with a clerical error.

Of course, ten years later the really weird part is how this giant battle (which was bested in 2020 by something called the "Massacre of M2-XFE") somehow featured both a pandemic-themed team and a group that's literally called Clusterfuck Russians.

Monday after Martin Luthor King day is "released from bail for MLK Day crimes day"

As we all know, Martin Luthor King wanted to live in a world where his offspring would be judged for the content of their characters instead of their skin colour.

It turns out, niggers shouldn't have taken that deal because it actually comes out worse for them. While King's own spawn (at least the ones from women who know the identity of their rapist) aren't exactly shining white (ha) beacons on the hill, his fellow spear chuckers can't even reach that bar.

We've been reliably told that the nigger is genetically incapable of living in a law abiding civilized manner. It's just not in their DNA: in fact for them DNA just stands for "Dumb Nigger Arrested" and has nothing to do with nucleic acid molecules at all. In fact, we were told this the day before MLK Day. Take it away, Fani Willis:

Black women aren't perfect, and I'm sleeping with the unqualified prosecutor I hired, and I'm on a political mission to throw Trump in jail. But you've gotta ignore all that, let me continue to sin and violate all professional ethics.

Okay, that was the NotTheBee summary of her comments but her point was literally that expecting a negress to follow the law is unacceptable. She makes it clear its not her humanity which caused her to do wrong: its that thick black tar flowing through her veins instead of the red blood that human beings carry. That's what causes her to break the law even as she's acknowledging that she is indeed guilty of any crime you might casually think she's guilty of.

Yeah maybe stick to being judged by your skin colour. At least in that circumstance we can understand and sympathize that we were asking you to be a better person than you're genetically capable of.

The "is he retarded or evil" debate has been settled

Well at minimum we know he's at least the latter.