The Real Bad Side of Joss Whedon

Looking back through old posts, you can see that I defended Joss Whedon against allegations of being a wife-beating rapist based on the content of Firefly. I'd say those defenses are still sound.

It has, however, come out that -- at least on the set of Buffy and Angel -- Joss Whedon was quite the creepy asshat. These are allegations that I find credible. Joss may be decent at the creative writing stuff, but he seems to be a horrible person behind the scenes.

"Hungarian" Cabbage Roll Soup

I'll have to see about getting pictures to add to this later. This ended up being a soup because I was feeling too lazy to deal with steaming and wrapping cabbage leaves. Since I went with a soup instead of rolls, I also left out the rice, which also makes this low-carb.

You will need:

• 1/2 pound of ground beef
• 1 onion
• Garlic (3 cloves for me)
• 1 quarter of a head of cabbage
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• Bone broth
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika

I used Auntie Arwen's Smoked Paprika; it's the good stuff. You can also add some mushrooms if you feel like it; we'll get to that.

It went like this:

1. Heat a saucepan.
2. Dice the onion.
3. Add some olive oil to the pan and heat that.
4. Add the onions to the pan. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.
5. Chop up the cabbage. Save one leaf.
6. When the onions are translucent, add the garlic and let it cook until the raw smell goes away.
7. Add the ground beef and brown thoroughly.
8. Take out some of the mix and wrap it in the cabbage leaf for a snack.
9. Add diced tomatoes and cabbage to the pan.
10. Add enough broth to just cover everything.
11. Add additional seasonings to taste.
12. Simmer for an hour or so.

At this point I realized I had an open container of mushrooms in the fridge that I needed to use, so I sautéed them in olive oil with salt, pepper, and paprika and add them to the soup. If you're eating vegetarian, you could go with mushrooms instead of ground beef.

This is a tasty soup just as it is, but adding a spoon of sour cream when you serve it doesn't hurt at all.

The Rise of Skywalker (Review)

I managed to see Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker within the first week of release. That's pretty good by my standards.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. I suppose there's the usual excuse that it would be hard for any movie to live up to this kind of hype. I think this one worked so hard to top everything that had gone before that it went too far.

It's as if this story went through 100 exaggerated retellings via oral tradition before anything was written down and made into a script. That, and some aspects of the writing seem a bit lazy.

That said, the acting is great, the visuals are amazing, and there are some neat Force-related events that add interesting twists to the story.

I'm going to give it three stars and say it's worth seeing.

Spoilerish remarks below the fold (mostly focused on the things that annoy me and keep this movie from getting five stars).

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PS4 Disk Ejection Error

Are you a Playstation 4 user?

Have you ever gotten the disk ejection error? You put a game disk in the drive, you start up the game, things are going well. You're kicking monster ass or winning races or whatever. Without warning, the game crashes and the disk pops out of the drive.

Maybe you can put it back in. Maybe you can't. Sometimes it won't accept the disk. Even if it does, and you get started playing again, the disk just ejects again a few minutes later.

You can try restarting your PS4, but that doesn't work.

You can look for instructions on the internet, but I haven't had much luck with that. The Sony site will tell you to turn the PS4 off, disconnect all the cables, then hold down the power button until you hear two beeps (about 30 seconds). Leave it unplugged for five minutes. Then hook everything up and try it.

That solution is utter BS. The PS4 will never beep, because it's not getting any power. The problem isn't solved, either.

Last couple of times this happened to me, I figured out something that seems to work.

1. Turn the PS4 off using the power management menu.
2. Press and hold the power button until you hear a whole lot of beeps in rapid succession. It won't take long. The PS4 will not turn on.
3. That may be enough. I unplugged everything and let it sit for a while just in case.

When I reconnected and put a disk in the drive, it started up and everything works.

No telling how long until the disk ejection error returns (seems to like happening every few months), but this solution will actually get you back to gaming.

I hope this helps someone.

UPDATE: This did not work as well as hoped. It was a matter of hours before the disk started ejecting again. Annoying. Still looking for a better solution.

UPDATE: I finally resorted to taking it to a local electronics repair shop. They replaced a sensor module for about $35. No problems since.

Chicken Paprikash

This isn't difficult, and I really didn't use any precise measurements. The ingredients are:

• Six chicken tenderloins
• Two small-to-medium onions
• Mushrooms
• Salt and pepper
• Plenty of paprika
• Sour cream

The pasta is just egg noodles, and the sugar snap peas are steamed for about 5-10 minutes in a little salted water.

That Darned Budget

I don't know how much readers know about me. I actually think that the US Federal Debt is the greatest threat to US national security that exists. That said, let's look at it.

Those numbers are the US Federal Deficit, including projections into the "near" future.

Yes. I see the massive deficit spike in 2009 when Barack Obama was inaugurated.

I also see the yearly decline after he took office.

What I don't see is a projection of smaller deficits after Dumb-Ass Trump took office, since he signed a huge tax reduction bill that mostly benefited people who were already doing very well in an already booming economy.

When the economy is doing well, that's when the government should be trying to PAY DOWN the national debt.

Instead, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell passed a budget that cuts taxes for individuals and corporations that are already doing great, which increases the federal deficit during an economic boom.

I don't get it.

I realize that Bill Clinton is an asshole on many levels, but at least he had enough sense (from listening to economic advisors like Alan Greenspan) to use the boom economy he was experiencing to pay down the National Debt.

But the controlling Republican party in 2017 decided that a massive tax break for corporations and individuals who were already doing well was more important than reducing the national debt.

My mind boggles.

I generally think of  myself as politically central, but Republican politics seems to only care about the profits of big corporations.

How are we going to reduce the National Debt if we run BIGGER deficits when the economy is doing well?

Fortunately, I'm old. I may not live to see the consequences of the current administration. I grieve for those younger than me, though.

The Fallen Ones (2005)

Apparently three years ago I watched The Fallen Ones starring Caspar Van Dien and did a live commentary. Heaps of badness below the fold.

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Fallout 4 Mario 60 - Defend the Castle

Fallout 4 Mario 58 - Mass Fusion

Skyrim 24 - Journey to Karthspire

Skyrim 20 - A Night to Remember, Part 3

Skyrim 19 - A Night to Remember, Part 2

Skyrim 18 - A Night to Remember, Part 1

Fallout 4 Nena 41 - Vault-Tec Among the Stars

Fallout 4 Mario 52 - The Battle of Bunker Hill

Dishonored 6 - Learn About Weepers

Blind let's play of Dishonored continues.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Abridged)

Found where this was hiding on Vimeo. I need to have a convenient link to it.

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Abridged) on Vimeo.

Skyrim 15 - A Blade in the Dark

Well, if YouTube is going to make it easy to share my goofy gaming videos to my blog, that' works for me.

Why Have a Car There?

This is a little meme going around on Facebook which gave me an excuse to put something on the sorely neglected blog.

Why would someone have a car on this tiny island? It makes no sense! What kind of insanity is this?

It's the kind of insanity that realizes...

• The boat dock is on the far side of the island from the (light)house for some reason.
• Sometimes you might need to move heavy things from the dock to the house.
• Sometimes the weather is cold and wet and nasty when you need to go from house to dock or dock to house.

That said, I hope the car is electric and they have solar power or wires to the mainland or something, because carrying gas is probably a bitch.

Note: I have heard suggestions that this might be photoshopped. I doubt it (for reasons listed above), but it's certainly possible.

Also: There's clearly no good place to dock a boat on the house side of the island. It may need to be on that side though, since it does appear to be a lighthouse, so the separation of the dock from house may be unavoidable.

New Facebook Nonsense: Expert says Humans are Aliens

Expert says Humans are Aliens—and we were brought to Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago

This came up in my Facebook feed. I love the person who posted it, but this is complete bollocks. The evidence that humans originated on Earth is so plentiful that it would take extraordinary evidence to prove otherwise.

What if Humans are the aliens we’ve been looking for all along? According to experts, humans were most likely crossbred with another species, perhaps from the star system Alpha Centauri –which is one of the closest solar systems to Earth—in the distant past, giving birth to modern humans.

I can’t wait to find out who these “experts” are and what expertise they supposedly have.

Tell Al-Uhaymir modern day Iraq, where the ancient Sumerian city of Kish used to be, archaeologists found one of the oldest ancient documents on the planet, the tablet of Kish which is believed to date back to the year 3500 BC.

That is a pretty old document.

The Sumerian king list states that Kish was the first city to have kings following the deluge, beginning with Jushur. Jushur’s successor is called Kullassina-bel, but this is actually a sentence in Akkadian meaning “All of them were lord”. Thus, some scholars have suggested that this may have been intended to signify the absence of a central authority in Kish for a time.

It sure would be nice if the author of this article would provide references. Who are these scholars and what are their reasons for making these “suggestions”?

This ancient document is believed to precede the cuneiform writing of the Sumerians, and the Egyptian hieroglyphs for almost one hundred years.

Cuneiform writing dates back to around 3600 BCE, a century before the King list (which is written in cuneiform) was created.

Developing the ability to express thoughts through written language is one of the first ways in which man differed from the animal kingdom.

Five thousand years since, humans have developed electricity, divided the atom, developed computers, and led man to the moon. We have achieved things that other species have still not. No other species on earth can attribute such unique achievements in such a short period of time. Interestingly, compared to other species of the earth, our ‘evolution’ is relatively short.

Our period of evolution is about 3.8 billion years, the same as for all other life on Earth. We didn’t emerge from nothing just a million years ago.

It has been a short period of time, most likely a few million years since the first hominid walked on Earth. Precisely this is one of the biggest scientific questions of all times: Why have only our species emerged to this truly advanced technological intelligence?

A key reason is a genetic flaw in the genes that make our jaw muscles develop. Our jaw strength is much less than that of other great apes, but the reduced force means our skulls can be larger. That’s just one piece of a large puzzle, but there’s no evidence that extraterrestrials were involved.

Evidently, there is nothing more advanced than humans on planet Earth.

How do you define “advanced”? Every other species that currently exists is just as evolved as humans. Human intelligence has allowed us to modify the environment to suit us instead of adapting to the environment, which has resulted in some impressive feats, but it also seems to be on the verge of biting us in the ass.

While there are different ‘intelligent’ species on Earth, none of them makes use of technology like us.

Just imagine for a second, if for some reason, mankind had to return to the jungle, and survive there. Many experts agree that most of them would not survive for a very long period of time.

One of the disadvantages of humans is that we need to learn just about everything about survival, unlike animals that instinctively know how to survive. The skills needed to survive in modern society are quite different from those needed to survive alone in a jungle, so someone used to living in a city could easily die in a wilderness survival situation, since they wouldn’t have time to learn what they need to do.

Many scientists agree that humans, in addition to their intelligence, are not very capable to occupy a wide range of environments. In other words, we are very limited when it comes to our planet.

Humans settled a wide variety of climates and habitats long before we had advanced technology. With NO tools we have problems, sure, but even with simple tools we can settle anywhere from Norway to the Polynesian islands.

In addition to our fascinating intelligence, biologists have also noticed contrasts between human physiology and that of other animals on earth. Many scientists agree that compared to other species on earth, humans are rather strange. For example, a baby horse when born, is able to walk and function almost independently, but this a human baby can not do, which makes us quite helpless. In other words, we are born before being neurologically ready for life.

We share that trait with all of the other Great Apes and many other primates.

Many researchers agree that there are many vulnerabilities that accompany our intelligence.

None that you care to name or reference, but I’m sure that there are many. I already described one disadvantage.

Humans on earth eventually became bipeds, which freed up our superior extremities allowing us to manipulate objects, create tools and much more. But for all this, experts believe that our species has paid an expensive price. Lumbar pain a sign that according to many experts could tell us a lot about our species. Curiously, other animals on Earth do NOT have this problem. It’s as if only humans are affected by some of these problems.

The upright stance of humans is a recent adaptation. Our spines had previously evolved to handle a quadrupedal stance. It’s no surprise that this change carries with it some problems, but they rarely keep us from reaching adulthood and bearing children, so they aren’t evolving away quickly.

So what does all of this mean? According to one expert, it means that we are the aliens we’ve we been looking for all along.

A new theory proposed by Dr. Ellis Silver states that there are several tell-tale signs present in the human race that suggest human beings did not evolve ALONGSIDE other lifeforms on Earth.

Finally a name. Unfortunately, it’s not clear that it’s the name of a real person. “I can’t find much of anything that suggests that Ellis Silver is even a real person, nevermind one with a doctorate in ecology from a US institution. Nothing turns up on Google Scholar for work by an academic by the name of Ellis Silver, and a regular google search just turns up countless links to Humans are not from Earth….”—Tulpesh Patel

The book called ‘Humans are not from Earth: a scientific evaluation of the evidence’ is basically a resume of theories for and mostly against man’s evolution on Earth. In the book, leading environmentalist and ecologist Dr. Ellis Silver goes through an evaluation of thirteen leading hypothesis and seventeen factors which suggest HUMANS ARE NOT FROM EARTH.

Leading environmentalist and ecologist? If he’s a leader in these fields, why is it so hard to find any publications from him in reputable scientific journals? Why is this one book that credits him as the author apparently the ONLY reference to him on the entire internet? Does he teach at a university? Which one? If not, what does he do for a living? What organization funds his research?

Mankind is supposedly the most highly developed species on the planet, yet is surprisingly unsuited and ill-equipped for Earth’s environment: harmed by sunlight, a strong dislike for naturally occurring foods, ridiculously high rates of chronic disease, and more said Dr. Ellis in an interview.

The same could be said of any species. Look at all the carnivores that can’t survive by eating plants! Look at all the herbivores that can’t digest meat efficiently! Birds that can’t swim! Fish that can’t walk! They are all unsuited to living on Earth!

According to Dr. Ellis, humans might suffer from back pain because our species initially evolved on another planet with a lower gravity, adding to the mysteries, Dr. Ellis also indicates that it is strange that newborns have large heads and make it difficult for mothers to give birth, which can result in fatalities for both mother and child.

Humans are hardly the only species that can have birthing problems, and I expect that the cetacean ancestors that still had vestigial legs had problems with them.

So where do we come from? According to Dr. Ellis, Neanderthals were most likely crossbred with another species, perhaps from the star system Alpha Centauri –which is one of the closest solar systems to Earth— in the distant past, giving birth to modern humans.

If this had happened, we would be able to trace the alien DNA. We have mapped the whole human genome, after all.

According to Dr. Ellis, there are millions of people around the globe who ‘feel’ that they do not belong on Earth.

Mostly teenagers, no doubt.

Dr. Ellis explains: “This suggests (to me at least) that mankind may have evolved on a different planet, and we may have been brought here as a highly developed species. One reason for this … is that the Earth might be a prison planet since we seem to be a naturally violent species and we’re here until we learn to behave ourselves.”

All predatory species are naturally violent. Many herbivores (like hippos, for example) are also naturally violent.

Dr. Ellis concludes that mankind did not evolve from that particular strain of life, but evolved elsewhere and was transported to Earth (as fully evolved Homo sapiens) between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago.

That’s a conclusion that does not follow from any evidence.

Furthermore, as noted by Robert Sepher, according to modern DNA sequencing, it is demonstrated that humanity as we know it, isn’t just ONE single ‘race’ that descended from the same ancestor in Africa, but a hybridized species, with a far more enigmatic truth behind it all.

Robert Sepher appears to be a fringe quack, but at least a bit of search shows him to be a real person.

Many questions have been raised in the discussion about Rh negative blood. If mankind did, in fact, evolve from a mutual ancient African ancestor, theories state that everyone’s blood would be compatible, but regrettably, this is not the case. This raises numerous questions that science alone has not been able to fully answer. Where did Rh negative blood come from? And why is it that a Rh negative mother carrying Rh positive children tries rejecting her own offspring? Is it possible that this can be explained by a rather controversial theory? A theory which suggests that humanity isn’t in fact one race, but a hybridized species.

Which theories “state that everyone’s blood would be compatible”?

As for this controversial “theory”, I would like to see it stated clearly. I would like to see predictions made based on this theory. I would like to see tests performed to see if the predictions match reality. I would like to see the findings published in reputable journals. I would like to see the tests repeated by other reputable scientists. I would like to see these “scientists” do what scientists do when they think they have made a discovery. Publishing sensationalist books for the general public is what quacks and hoaxers do.

The book was written by Robert Sepehr, Species with Amnesia: Our Forbidden History tells us more about the enigmatic blood type Rh-negative. Not only does Species with Amnesia suggest mankind is, in fact, a hybridized species, the author suggests that highly advanced civilizations have been on Earth before us, just to be destroyed by some great global catastrophe, as mysteriously, history tells us.

Getting tired of this worthless blather now.

Sepehr argues that for each race that has died out, another has taken its place, with a selected few holding on to the memories and sacred knowledge of the past race. In our vanity, we think we have discovered some of the great truths of science and technology, but we are in fact only just beginning to rediscover the profound wisdom of past civilizations. In many ways, we are like an awakening Species with Amnesia, yearning to reclaim our forgotten past.

Oh, great. Now we have “wisdom of the ancestors” woo, too.

The Basque people of Spain and France have the highest percentage of Rh negative blood. About 30% have (rr) Rh negative and about 60% carry one (r) negative gene.

“There are 612 primate species and subspecies recognized by the international Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN), and not one has Rh negative blood”. – Robert Sepehr, Species with Amnesia: Our Forbidden History

The article ends there. No summary or any proper conclusion. It just stops. Pretty terrible writing, in addition to being full of nonsense.

Humans evolved on Earth. There is no way that aliens from Alpha Centauri or anywhere else could interbreed with Earthly life. You’d have a better chance of cross-breeding a Neanderthal with a carrot.