The Victory Of Vince
You may recall Conrad gloasting earlier this week about his acquisition of that breeze-block sized work by Vincent Bugliosi, "Reclaiming History", which is a deconstruction of JFK assassination conspiracy theories. Your Humble Scribe is still wading through the Introduction; after all, if it took Vince so long to write it, then it would be disrespectful not to. Art!
How to scare cats the Vincent J. Bugliosi way!
Ol' Vinnie (which I would not dare to call him were he still alive) once got the point across about believing in conspiracy theories when he addressed an audience of six hundred lawyers (whom are collectively known as: a disputation, an eloquence, a huddle or (!) a greed). He asked for a show of hands from those who did not believe the conclusions of the Warren Report (the official investigation into the assassination), and almost 90% of them raised a hand.
Vinnie then challenged them. He could prove, in less than a minute, that they were not thinking critically or intelligently about the assassination, which immediately bestirred them.
The best I could do for a mass of lawyers
They started the clock. Vinnie asked how many had seen films, television shows or read books that either dealt with conspiracy theories about the assassination or which denied the validity of the Warren Report. Again, a forest of hands went up. Art!
Vinnie gave them some homely example of how an argument has two sides, about pancakes if I recall correctly, and then asked how many had read - actually read - the Warren Report. Art!
A handful of hands went up. That's out of six hundred lawyers, remember. In the space of forty-seven seconds Vinnie had proven they were blithely making assumptions without taking one side of the case into account. And that's only dealing with the single-volume Warren Report; the Warren Commission's overall enquiry runs to twenty-seven volumes. Of course it would be unreasonable, not to mention cruel and un-natural punishment, to expect the loonwaffles to read anything that contradicts them. They start off with the assertion that there is a conspiracy and then contort the evidence to fit -
I shall bring this Intro to a close, as otherwise we'll be 1,500 words in without covering any other subject and your brains are clearly starting to glaze over. Who's with me on this?
Conrad is vindicated*!
World Domination As Mental Bandage
Sort of. Conrad was surprised to see a headline on the BBC website, which we can bring in for you to peruse as well. Art!
Well - er - yes. What they refer to is tabletop wargaming, which is an hobby Your Humble Scribe also undertakes, except what do you know, they refer almost exclusively to Warhammer 40,000 and Games Workshop <hack spit>. What about historical wargaming, with tanks and planes and artillery pieces that ACTUALLY EXIST.
<short pause until blood pressure settles and the red mist clears>
The thrust of the article is that, during lockdown, lots of people have discovered miniature wargaming, and found that plotting to destroy the world (or at least the Northern Hemisphere) is terrific fun and helps cope with the loneliness of isolation. Whatever floats your boat, hmmmm?
<Conrad winces hugely>
We Have A Pair Of Visitors:
Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom, who have come up to say a last goodbye to Jenny, who, at sixteen years, is not long for this world. Most unusually we were able to sit out in the back yard, thanks to that most unusual of events - sunshine. Art!
 |
| Chilling in the sunshine; Jenny between the chairs |
Jenny will happily sit outside if she has company, usually underneath a chair because - um, because she's a cat. For no other reason than that.
Like A Bridge In Troubled Waters
No happy ending here, folks. Conrad picked this one up from comments on the I-40 bridge collapse story, and it makes pretty grim reading. Art!
In September 1993 a tug pushing a barge took a wrong turn in heavy fog and at night, and sailed up the Big Bayou Canot, a stretch of river barred to riverine traffic. Not using radar, the barge hit a bridge crossing the river. This is bad enough, but the bridge design made it even worse. Art?
As you can see, the bridge had been designed to undergo conversion into a swing-bridge - one wonders why if there was no river traffic - if it became necessary. Thus, when the barge hit, it moved the steel truss framework a yard out of true. Thanks to the design the rails warped - but, crucially, did not break, because that would have caused signals to warn rail traffic.
Consequently, the next Amtrak Express carried onto the bridge, hit the buckled rails and went straight into the river. As if that wasn't bad enough, fuel from the three locomotives immediately spilled and caught fire. 47 people were killed in one of South Canada's worst ever rail disasters. Art!
As I said, no happy ending here. The pilot of the tug that caused the collapse was deemed not criminally liable, partly because the tug lacked a compass and a chart of the local waters, and also because he rescued seventeen people. So it could have been worse**.
If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that rail accidents, whilst not common, tend to be exceedingly deadly when they do happen.
Finally -
Re-watching "Suicide Squad" again for the benefit of Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom, which of course means that my productivity in terms of words per minute has dropped <sighs knowingly>, although this is second time around for Conrad, so it is marginally less distracting than it might otherwise be.
ANYWAY that has nothing to do with "Terry Talks Movies", and a list that Terry compiled of 16 sci-fi films that he'd been watching recently. Art!
Tel always has an interesting choice of films on his Youtube channel and Conrad has seen three of his total - but since we have hit the Compositional Ton, you will have to wait to hear about them. Sorry!
* And also vindictive, which is a story for another kitchen and another day
** Not much, perhaps, yet still worse.
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