The Arsenal Of Summacracy

How's Your Latin?
Conrad has a somewhat ambiguous relationship with this deadest of dead languages, given that it's still around and has shaped the English language so much LATIN YOU WORD ZOMBIE YOU!   
     Thus I have made up the word "Summacracy", from the Latin for "Strict", as it applies to the world of Judge Dredd and Mega-City One.  For there is precious little democracy in the Big Meg, since it's citizens are uniformly bonkers and shouldn't be trusted with a fork, let alone nuclear weapons.  We'll get to that in time.

Speaking of which ...

     Part the second of Conrad's efforts to educate you about the world of Judge Dredd continue; you'll thank me later, and so will your grandchildren when they grow up in tomorrow's radioactive dystopia.  Something to look forward to!
     Okay, you have the Judges.  These chaps (and chapesses, no discrimination in 2200) are tooled up so much they are the Big Meg's first line military force.  Typically a Judge carries a multi-ammunition handgun,

<Conrad can be heard breathing heavily>

 a baton, and a knife, with a rifle carried on his motorbike, which also mounts a laser and cannons.  

I like this bike!

     If that's not enough he can call on flying vehicles that also mount lasers and cannons, as well as a version of a tank, plus a really BIG tank if things kick off majorly.  Not to mention "The Mega-City Boot", a.k.a. Riot foam, which sets like concrete in seconds, or Stun gas, which does what it says on the tin.  Oh, and the "Stub Gun", a hand-held laser that will burn through anything in it's way instantly, for up to a mile.
     Then there are the nukes ...  The biggest baton the Judges have is the "Total Annihilation Device", a thermonuclear-tipped ICBM with sufficient yield to completely destroy a mega-city - yes, East-Meg One, we're looking at you.

Dredd, packing Stub

     I think that'll do for today's update.  Or you might like to consider it a foretaste of tomorrow ...

Enough of the grim and grotty, time to enthuse the readers with a photograph of Edna.  Art?

"Reduced to this," thought Edna.  "In the fat man's Sekrit Layr."

     This was last Saturday evening, demonstrating what a wild weekend I had.  All alone, I was dog-sitting, and busy typing, so Edna had to give up her comfy dog bed downstairs, with rather a lack of grace, I thought.  She did get a walk out of the arrangement later.
     How can you stand this searing pace and leering look into a madcap lifestyle!*

WHAT!
Conrad is fond of science fiction novels, as you may have guessed - and the last part of The Expanse novels ought to be out in paperback by now - but he doesn't really want to be living in one, which is what I thought when perusing the BBC website last night.  Art?  The evidence, please -

Gadzooks.

     Banish thoughts of The Death Zone on Gallifrey; this is a real place, although they exaggerate when saying "with" the robots, because the radiation levels inside the THermal Oxide ReProcessing - THORP - plant are so high you'd get a fatal dose in seconds.  Robots only.  The plant used to extract nuclear fuel from fuel rods - Art's favourite snack! - and as a consequence the whole place is lethally contaminated.**  It will take a very long time indeed to decommission and demolish the place.  Those grandchildren of yours might get the chance of a guided tour, perhaps, when it's been rendered safe.

One of the robots in question. 
(Don't mention "Red Dwarf" or the skutters)

     The above has a yellow cast to it thanks to the lighting, and also the yard-thick leaded glass it's being viewed through, as otherwise the onlookers would - ah - die.     
     Hmmm.  Sometimes real life can be surprisingly dangerous, don't you think?

It's The End Of The World
 - as we know it.*** Take a gander at the first picture portrayed before your eyes, up there at the top of the page.  A serendipitous selection, because what did Conrad intend to hoik into the pages of today's blog but - Meggido.  Art?

Deceptively tranquil ...

     Yes, the raw natural beauty of Meggido, now in Israel, where you can't spit without hitting a piece of history.  Better known to us in the West in the Greek version - "Armageddon", where the final battle between cyborg walnuts and were-skunks will occur (I think - a bit hazy on these Biblical predictions).
     You see?  You see how everything is linked to everything else?  And how hard I work on this stuff <Mister Hand redacts 5 pages of self-pitying whinging> hairs out, one by one, and you won't like that ONE BIT!

'Ware the Were-skunk!

*  I'm sure you'll cope.
**  Cursed Earth, anyone?
***  Nod to R.E.M. there