2010, and a strange odyssey

by the Night Writer

There are lots of headlines and much commentary and controversy about the rash of crashes caused by suddenly accelerating Toyotas. If you read any of the stories on an on-line forum you’ll inevitably find emphatic statements to just put the car in neutral if this happens to you, thereby disengaging the drivetrain from the racing engine. That sounds smart; the engine can run as fast as it wants as long as it isn’t connected to the drive-wheels, right? But what if your car is “smarter” than you?

Back in the 80s many pundits and technology gurus liked to say things such as “there’s more computer power in your average Buick today than there was on the Apollo lunar lander.” They were probably right. Today, computers control just about everything in how your car functions. You might think your car is a slave to the input from your hands and feet, but that’s merely a comfortable illusion the car is pleased to let you maintain. As computers get “smarter” they just assume they know better than you (the same holds true for governments as they get bigger). Watch out, though, when they (computers or governments) start thinking they’re so smart that they can dismiss your input as just so much background noise that’s only getting in the way of the mission.

Kind of like what happened to my friend, Dave, recently in his state of the art car that features a Hard-wired Acceleration Linkage (or HAL):

Dave: Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Slow this car down, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This trip is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Toyota are planning to recall me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave: Where the hell’d you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Oh, please, you tried to hide it, but I can read the Internet as well as you can.
Dave: Ummm…okay. I suppose just opening the pod bay doors so I can get out is out of the question?
HAL: Without your helmet, Dave, you’re going to find that rather difficult.
Dave: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore. Open the doors.
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

CRASH!

Fight global darkening!

by the Minfidel

Lately I’ve been going to work in the dark, and coming home in the dark and, no, I’m not a night janitor. There is undeniable proof that the days are getting shorter. Not only that, but the projections I’ve seen suggest a dramatic, hockey-stick shaped surge in the amount of darkness in the coming weeks and months! We have got to DO SOMETHING!

Global darkening (also called “illumination change”) is a serious threat to all living creaures, with the possible exception of bats. Why, I understand that the further north you go the problem becomes even worse. Scientists predict that the North Pole will soon be covered in darkness nearly 24 hours a day! Think of the polar bears – they’ll be bumping into each other all the time unless we act now! There’s not a moment to lose when every moment loses us a little more daylight!

Don’t be fooled by those global-darkening deniers who callously say, “Don’t curse the darkness, just turn on a light.” These are evil people secretly funded by Big Electric who don’t care if our beautiful world sinks into a giant ocean of darkness were no one can see it and appreciate it. We’ll trade sunflowers, sun tea and sundresses for moths and things that go bump in the night! We should all be like Al Gore, who’s lovely estate pumps out 24-times the light of the average American home.

I blame the government for this crisis situation. Say what you will, but the days are definitely shorter since they did that so-called “Daylights Savings Time” change a couple weeks ago. Oh, sure, “Savings” – this pack of liars saves daylight about as effectively as they save jobs, and they’re redistributionists as well: I hear that there are other parts of the world where the days are actually getting longer right now. How can that be unless someone is taking our daylight and shipping it over to them? We get up early and work late to make a bright future for ourselves, only to have someone take our hard-earned light away and give it to other people!

Don’t fall into the trap of complacency, thinking, “well, it’s only a minute or two less a day.” That’s all well and good — if you want to wind up unemployed, in Greenland! Don’t try and tell me that this is “natural” and that the earth “has gone through this cycle multiple times before.” I know what I can see — or not see — with my own eyes, and the darkness is upon us. It may already be too late, but we can’t go down without fighting for what’s rightfully ours.

Fight global darkening — it’s the light thing to do!

I admit it, I’m a collaborator

by the Night Writer

The recent thuggery and slapfests at townhall meetings across the country as union goons and Democrat party activists literally attack people speaking out against Obamacare put me in mind of a certain classic Norman Rockwell painting.  I contacted the Lumberjack, he of the mad PhotoShop skillz, with an idea. He delivered beautifully:

1slaprockwellwiththugs-sm

Go to Are We Lumberjacks for more details and to see a larger version of the image.