• 0 Posts
  • 234 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle




  • Franco did not sire the entire Spanish population.

    No, but he did kill, or drive into exile or poverty and political irrelevance anyone who didn’t share his views.

    Most of the surviving population, especially the ones with economic and political power, were fascists. Their children were fascists. Their grandchildren were fascists wearing progressive masks. And their great grandchildren are fascists who’ve taken off their masks.

    When the bastard said he left everything “tied up and well tied up” he wasn’t kidding.


  • Germany was forced to clean up house, though.

    Franco died in bed (in extreme agony, apparently; the only good thing the bastard ever did; but still), naming his successor, whose son is the current unelected parasite on the throne. The dictator’s children and grandchildren are public figures, celebrated and followed by embarrassingly large portions of the population.

    The murderers and torturers who worked for him kept their jobs, were forgiven all their crimes, and their children and grandchildren succeed them (old money and contacts in high places go a long way towards winning elections).

    The supposed “transition” merely put some new wallpaper on top of the existing structures, with a watered down constitution voted under military threats: vote for it, or else, even going as far as staging a coup attempt so that Franco’s successor could “save the day”, become a hero, and water the new supposed democracy down even further.

    Do not compare Spain to Germany. It’s extremely insulting to Germany.



  • Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper:

    I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

    (…)

    [through his cigar] Mandrake,

    Group Captain Lionel Mandrake:

    Yes, Jack?

    Ripper:

    Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?

    Mandrake:

    Well, no I… I can’t say I have, Jack.

    Ripper:

    Vodka. That’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water?

    Mandrake:

    Well I… I believe that’s what they drink, Jack. Yes.

    Ripper:

    On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.

    Mandrake:

    Oh, ah, yes. I don’t quite… see what you’re getting at, Jack.

    Ripper:

    Water. That’s what I’m getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth’s surface is water. Why, you realize that… seventy percent of you is water.

    Mandrake:

    Uhhh God…

    Ripper:

    And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.

    Mandrake:

    Yes. [chuckles nervously]

    Ripper:

    You beginning to understand?

    Mandrake:

    Yes. [chuckles, begins laughing/crying quietly]

    Ripper:

    Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?

    Mandrake:

    Well it did occur to me, Jack, yes.

    Ripper:

    Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation? Fluoridation of water?

    Mandrake:

    Ah, yes, I have heard of that, Jack. Yes.

    Ripper:

    Well do you now what it is?

    Mandrake:

    No. No, I don’t know what it is. No.

    Ripper:

    Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?

    (…)

    Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake. Children’s ice cream?

    Mandrake:

    Good Lord.

    Ripper:

    You know when fluoridation first began?

    Mandrake:

    No. No, I don’t, Jack. No.

    Ripper:

    Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard core commie works.

    Mandrake:

    Jack… Jack, listen, tell me, ah… when did you first become, well, develop this theory.

    Ripper:

    Well, I ah, I I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

    Mandrake:

    [sighs fearfully]

    Ripper:

    Yes a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: loss of essence.

    Mandrake:

    Yes…

    Ripper:

    I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women… women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.




  • Blade Runner was very much a product of its time (though Syd Mead’s visuals were outstanding).

    There was something floating in the late seventies / early eighties zeitgeist that would become the cyberpunk genre, and it sort of condensed in several spots simultaneously.

    William Gibson had just published Burning Chrome, and was finishing writing Neuromancer (which would be published in '84 and be considered a foundation of the genre).

    Ridley Scott and Syd Mead independently adapted a (very different from the film) book by Philip K. Dick into a film that looked and felt like it was set in Gibson’s Sprawl.

    In Japan, Kasuhiro Otomo had just begun publishing Akira.

    Frank Miller was probably in the process of writing and conceptualising Rōnin, which DC would start publishing in '83.

    Bruce Bethke had come up with the term cyberpunk in 1980, but that short story wouldn’t be published until '83.

    Over the next few years many other authors would create other works clearly set in the same genre, though at this point they probably had some influence from Gibson and Blade Runner and each other.

    Mike Pondsmith was drinking it all up and coming up with a role playing game with that title, to be published in '88.

    And, all over the eighties and nineties, the genre exploded, and was everywhere.





  • leftzero@lemmynsfw.comtocats@lemmy.worldSitting Pretty
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    9 days ago

    This Terry Pratchett (GNU) quote pretty much explains it (he uses the term “(Discworld) elves”, but given that Lords and Ladies is clearly based on A Midsummer’s Night Dream the quote equally applies to any kind of fae, and not necessarily, for instance, to Tolkien or DnD elves):

    Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
    Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
    Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
    Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
    Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
    Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

    The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

    No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.




  • Trump overspends because he doesn’t know the value of money.

    Trump “overspends” because he doesn’t understand the concept of actually paying a bill.

    He’s spent all his life refusing to pay a single bill, and somehow getting away with it.

    It doesn’t matter if the money is his or the government’s (until he steals it). He won’t pay. If he has anything remotely resembling principles, not paying is his main one.

    He’s as capable of intentionally paying a bill as he is of growing a second head. Or bigger hands.