Photo(s) of the Week: Alexei's Jig

Source: Yale University Library
 

Security Theater

     I'll cut to the chase; on Friday, October 22nd we were notified at work that we would have to get fully vaccinated for Covid by February 15, 2022 or be put on unpaid leave until March 17, 2022 at which point we would be fired. We are allowed to seek medical or religious exemptions but there is no chance of that happening in a Godless country like the United States. Frankly I think the entire thing is horseshit.

    Iowa never locked down. In the event it did my employer got themselves labeled as an "essential" company. Did I get hazard pay? No. Did I get additional sick leave? No. What I got instead was news in January that my department was being relocated to another state. This, obviously, pissed a bunch of people off and they all quit. When that finally caught up to us by mid-April we were put on permanent overtime varying between 48 and 57 hours per week. We've also been masked since May 11, 2020. I have not worn a mask anywhere outside of work since at least June of this year. And now they're telling us that if we are not fully vaccinated after two goddamned years of this shit we'll be fired.

    It's not all bad though. I've been thinking about looking for a new job recently, preferably one with minimal overtime or least a job I enjoy so the OT is bearable. I guess what they say is true, "When God closes a door, He opens a window".

BlogSpot Graveyard: Bird Hybrids

First post: Friday, January 10, 2014

Last post: Monday, May 8, 2017

    

    As I mentioned in my previous post, Trying to find a source of light from April 2019, one of my hobbies is writing. I began this hobby around the end of my college career in 2012 and one of the first stories I wrote was set on an undiscovered island filled with rare animals and a primitive species of human. While doing research on island and subpolar animals a few years later I came across a BlogSpot called Bird Hybrids. Not only does it show what species can hybridize with each other it also shows photos for each hybrid which is incredibly useful.

    Sadly the most recent blog post is from May 8, 2017. However the blog admin has posted comments after that date:

• 17 October 2017 at 22:04
  
• 23 November 2018 at 16:08
  
• 17 August 2019 at 21:08
  
• 26 July 2017 at 22:59
  
• 5 August 2017 at 16:39
  
• 15 September 2018 at 15:05
  
• 31 March 2019 at 22:17
  
• 3 June 2017 at 21:00
  
• 17 August 2019 at 21:11
  
• 18 November 2019 at 21:37
  
• 25 November 2019 at 11:08
  
• 15 August 2017 at 22:10
  
• 11 December 2017 at 12:26
  
• 11 December 2017 at 12:25
  
• 27 January 2018 at 12:39
  
• 19 February 2018 at 22:06
  
• 23 January 2019 at 22:18
  
• 23 May 2017 at 23:04
  
• 17 August 2019 at 20:58
  
• 18 November 2018 at 07:30
  
• 24 March 2018 at 22:18
  
• 5 June 2017 at 21:48
  
• 5 June 2017 at 21:51
  
• 19 June 2017 at 22:39
  
• 10 January 2020 at 10:36
• 17 August 2019 at 20:51
  
• 18 February 2018 at 09:36
  
• 18 February 2018 at 14:16
  
• 14 December 2017 at 23:45
  
• 12 June 2017 at 23:43
  
• 7 September 2017 at 14:51
  
• 7 September 2017 at 15:44
  
• 13 November 2018 at 17:47
  

    As you can see the admin has posted several comments since the last blog post, most recently on January 10, 2020. In an earlier comment the admin stated that they have been busy and have quite a backlog to clear but that hasn't happened, at least not on Blogger. There is a Twitter profile linked in the sidebar that has been active as recently as October 20, 2021. It seems the author has decided to utilize the more popular social media platform.

Photo of the Week: Romanov's Tower

Tsar Nicholas II chats with other adults while one of his daughters, likely Grand Duchess Olga or Grand Duchess Tatiana, climbs to the top of a small tower.

 Source: Yale University Library

Added new links to the sidebar

Convention of States 

Convention of States - Twitter

Cube root rule

Congressional Apportionment App

It's for your own good

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

    -    C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

Photo of the Week: Seesaw Race

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna in the Finnish skerries.

Source: Album of Tatiana Nikolaevna, 1912-1913

Monarchy and elections Part 1: Koruna Česká

    In any given nation there are numerous political parties. Most are some flavor social democrat or liberal conservative with some communist and ethnic nationalist parties thrown in. Perhaps the most rare of all are the monarchist parties; they are few in number and those that actively participate in politics are rarer still. One of those active parties exists in Czechia and is known as Koruna Česká or Czech Crown (Monarchist Party of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia).

    Koruna Česká is running in the 2021 Czech legislative election on October 8-9. Read more here.

Photo of the Week: Distress

     The subject of the photo is what I'm going to call Old Timey Hungry Hungry Hippos for lack of knowledge but what I'm going to focus on is Grand Duchess Maria, situated between her father and the man with his back to the camera. While her default expression is a smile, here she seems to be in great distress. Sweet little girl is a bit too emotionally invested in whatever game the adults are playing.

   Source: Album of Alexandra Feodorovna, 1907.

BlogSpot Graveyard: No Bad Memes

First post: Monday, August 2, 2010

Last post: Sunday, December 16, 2012

    Yet another interest of mine is internet archaeology. It started out as simply searching for old and/or rare videos on YouTube and has since evolved into digging up dead Blogger blogs. I'm going to use this series to spotlight these dead blogs. For me to consider a blog dead it must not have any posts within one calendar year and large gaps between posting must not be a regular occurrence.

    First up is a blog that has gained a little bit of infamy on the internet lately for allegedly being owned by Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

    I had first heard of No Bad Memes on the subreddit r/masskillers in the comments on a different post about Adam Lanza on his recently discovered and since terminated YouTube channel CulturalPhilistine. The comments speculated that No Bad Memes was Lanza and a cursory glance supports this. Not only is the blog filled with longwinded, pseudo-intellectual ramblings about subjects Lanza was known to be obsessed with such as anti-natalism and chimp society but the last two posts made on December 15th and December 16th, 2012 talk about guns and a generic mention of the Sandy Hook shooting (but doesn't mention it by name, only mentioning Connecticut). In addition, any Blogger user knows that posts can be scheduled to publish at a predetermined time meaning it is entirely possible that Lanza scheduled these two posts as a 'parting gift' for society. It would be a mighty large coincidence that a blogger sharing similar views as Lanza would cease posting within days of Lanza killing himself.

    However upon closer inspection it appears the blog is not connected to Lanza. For example the blog author, Leaving Society, claims across several posts to be an "IT guy" with "several college degrees". Lanza was a 20-year old jobless, college dropout living with his mother. Perhaps more convincing is that Leaving Society makes several comments well after Lanza's demise. As far as I know it is not possible to schedule comments:

• January 26, 2013 at 8:31 PM
  
• January 26, 2013 at 7:38 PM
  
• June 16, 2013 at 10:28 AM
  
• January 29, 2013 at 11:02 PM
  
• January 29, 2013 at 10:34 PM
  
• January 29, 2013 at 9:44 PM
  
• January 29, 2013 at 10:43 PM
• January 29, 2013 at 10:09 PM
  
• June 16, 2013 at 10:17 AM
  
• June 16, 2013 at 10:21 AM
  

    We can see that at least three comments were made as late as June 2013, some seven months after Lanza died. My conclusion is that No Bad Memes was not owned by Adam Lanza, it merely shared his beliefs.

    An interesting note, however, is that Lanza had a YouTube channel named 'fuckcomments' and that at least half of the comments on No Bad Memes are made by anonymous trolls mocking the blog. I also found it a little bit humorous that No Bad Memes/Leaving Society was at least aware of the existence of 4chan all the way back in November 2011.