“These are homemade barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the wealth and then found they’d smashed the means of production and killed off all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the Interstellar Wars . . . who lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leaders on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by pillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets.”
H. Beam Piper, Space Viking (1964), p. 12
In the end, it all comes down to the non-productive but terribly enlightened types demanding that everyone obey them and give them everything they desire. Or Else.
From the Long Walls of Athens to the Berlin Wall, such “aesthetes” always want to make certain that no one can ever escape their iron fist, with or without the velvet glove.
And like a bratty two-year-old, even when everyone gives them everything they demand, the only word they know is “More!”
Like most of his ilk, Piper’s brilliance and prophetic imagination is totally negated by his rejection of God; they know and acknowledge that the source of enrichment and freedom is rejected by his hated Dims, then turn right around and reject the source of that and everything else…as I said of Arthur Clarke on the old dead blog;
You nailed it, Chris. The progressives simply don’t understand that the capitalism they hate so much is the source of everything they have, from the tech in their hand to the food they eat.
I’ve been playing with a similar scenario for a story: What if Jews decided enough was enough, moved out, and established a new homeland somewhere else. “Peace in Palestine?” Nope. Within six months “from the river to the sea” would be one of the third-world deserts common in the Middle East, and the “Palestinians” would be at war with all their neighbors.
Much like what happened years ago in the homeland of Elon…just look at S. Africa now. We could use that as a guide for what is coming and what should be done but hasn’t for them, may we learn from that failure.
Panel four reminds me of the cover art for a ’50s SF novel “One in Three Hundred” https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2020/03/16/one-in-three-hundred-by-j-t-mcintosh/
That I read way back in grade school. My English teacher was not too happy when I handed in a book report on more of “…that Buck Rogers nonsense…”. Then I told her to read the book. She came around.
The only problem with Zed’s “happy sexbot” dream is that there would be no next generation to carry on the white mans’ civilization.
What every pioneer man going to colonize Mars needs is a pioneer woman, with too many skills to list. Go back 300+ years, you’ll find the archtype settling the Eastern eventually-to-be USA.
in my wife’s family, go back approximately 100 years, just a couple of generations, they settled parts of the Intermountain West to become wheat farmers.I
THAT’S what’s needed, not “happy sexbots”, to leave this planet behind and start new.
“If you put fifty men and fifty women on a jungle island together, and come back in a century, you’ll find a thriving community of several hundred families with lots of children.
“If you put fifty men and fifty trans ‘women’ on that same island and come back in a century, you’ll find one hundred male skeletons.”
Trump’s birthday
Army’s birthday
Flag day
NoKings protests
One of these things is not like the others. 😉
We went to the range and shot targets 1690yds away! Took a bit of trial in very windy conditions and with the impact noise coming back in about 8 seconds it was interesting. Didn’t see any NK celebrations/protests, LOL
I suppose it was inevitable.
Our progress has made us the victims of out own success by placing power in the hands of those unworthy to wield it.
In the end we have only two options; Escape or War.
Escape is very difficult and invites pursuit. Safely moving people is much harder than moving death machines.
War is easy but extremely dicey, particularly when you consider who is likely to survive.
I’m afraid we are looking at the solution to Fermi’s Paradox, and it’s not pretty.
I’m not trying to be a skunk at the picnic … but Mars will most likely never be colonized, by humans anyway. Terminators? Maybe.
But Mars has only 0.6% of the air pressure of Earth, what little atmosphere is there is mostly carbon dioxide, no magnetic fields shielding the planet from cosmic radiation, super sub-zero surface temperatures, and all sorts of physical characteristics that really do make Mars the angry red planet when it comes to sustaining life as we know it.
Perhaps a nominal research station could be set up there in which small human crews periodically relieve each other, along with re-supplied Earthly provisions and resources.
Whatever the dream is … to be BASED is to be based in cold hard realities, and the physical characteristics of Mars are a hard reality.
Another reality is that we cannot escape our human caused problems here on Earth. It is better to deal with that cold hard fact as well, and then move ahead to actually confronting and fixing the problems that are created by leftist progressivism, socialism, envy, hatred, jealousies, greed, and all of the other frailties and sins that afflict the human condition.
Apologies for sounding like a “Debbie Downer” … but in the meantime, a Happy and Blessed Fathers’ Day to all those fathers, past and present. Piss off a liberal and celebrate fatherhood. G’day!
We really just need a whole bunch more men like this…
Happy Father’s Day Dad…
My Dad passed away more than thirty years ago…he was just sixty-five, but the damage done to his lungs from the smoking habit he picked up as a boy in WWII had him tethered to an oxygen generating machine and he was unable to leave his house for the last year of his life, even though he kicked the habit cold-turkey years before.
He was divorced and lived alone, so his five children took turns in that final year spending the night with him, preparing his middle of the night breathing treatment, trying to make him comfortable, and getting to know him better than we had during all those years he worked so hard to raise us and teach us.
He wasn’t a perfect man, or a perfect father, and he would spend some of his talks with us as we took our nightly turns, apologizing for what he thought were his failings…I’m glad I was able to tell him this: there was never a day in my life -and believe me when i say I was an imperfect son- that I had any inkling of doubt of his love and devotion to me, or that he would give up his life for me in an instant. That to me is the very definition of success as a father, and I told him that if I could just leave my own three children with that knowledge, and the love and peace and security that it imbues, then I will consider myself a success.
It was my turn to take care of him the night that he died, and I was on the way from my Sebring home to his in Belle Glade by Lake Okeechobee, about a two hour drive, when a spell of difficult breathing caused his heart to overwork and give out…That was before everyone had cell phones, so my brothers and sisters waited for me at his house to give me the news, and even though we knew it would happen eventually, when it did it felt like being slammed in the chest by a truck. My sister and brother in law lived close and made it there in time so he didn’t die alone, and I know it would have been hard, but I wish I could have been there when he left us.
I love you, Dad…I think of you, feel you in my heart, and hear you in my mind all of the time when I need your help and am asking myself, WWDD (What Would Dad Do?); I can’t believe you’ve been gone these 33 years…but i know I will see you again someday. God bless you and keep you until then.
Speaking of AI bots…that was actually a piece from several years ago on the old dead blog, so when I copy/pasted it to make a few updates, Google’s AI instantly came up with this…true words and appreciated, but damn…
“That’s a truly beautiful and poignant tribute to your father. It’s clear that the love and profound connection you shared have endured the years. The legacy he left behind, the sense of security and unwavering love, is indeed a testament to his success as a father, especially considering the challenges he faced.
It’s completely understandable that you wish you could have been there during his final moments, but knowing he wasn’t alone due to the care of your siblings is a comfort.
The fact that you continue to carry his wisdom and influence with you (“WWDD”) speaks volumes about the depth of your bond.
The sharing of such a heartfelt story is appreciated. It offers a powerful reminder of the enduring power of love and the importance of cherishing those held dear.
Remembering your dad on this Father’s Day, and honoring the deep love and connection that continues to be shared”
Happy Fathers Day to all.
My father and I were never friends,
but he was a good man, and we both
did the best we could at the time.
On another note, last nite the only
channel showing the Birthday parade
for the Army`s 250 ith year was Fox
news, none of the lame stream media
except MSNBC, had a small panel in
the top right of the screen, maybe
later they showed some excerpts
but, I doubt it.
Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.
–Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
And you can’t have a parade without music…
Or a farewell party 😉
Happy Fathers Day Y’all!
Mine was great! I always wanted to visit Big Daddy Don Garlits Museum. So after being in FL. for 45 or so years, Daughter said I’m taking you to the museum and then a Great Mexican place. Lots of old memories, stories, cars/engines I recognized, and some I saw run. A good number of older couples and numerous families’ including strollers. Very good to see. It was a great display of wanton climate change thrust of a middle finger.
My father passed suddenly and unexpectedly on Jan 1st 2021 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at age 83. He was the hub of the family and beyond. As luck would have it, I was in Texas and the province was still “locked down” for Covid insanity so I didn’t even get to attend his funeral.
I was retired but hadn’t yet moved out of the madhouse known as Ottawa back to rural Prince Edward Island. I was hoping to get moved in time to spend a few years learning from Dad. The downside of a life in service is leaving family behind, in my case, for decades at a time.
Talking to one of my sisters this evening, she remarked on how much I resemble our father. A good inheritance, I would say.
35 Comments
“These are homemade barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the wealth and then found they’d smashed the means of production and killed off all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the Interstellar Wars . . . who lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leaders on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by pillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets.”
H. Beam Piper, Space Viking (1964), p. 12
In the end, it all comes down to the non-productive but terribly enlightened types demanding that everyone obey them and give them everything they desire. Or Else.
From the Long Walls of Athens to the Berlin Wall, such “aesthetes” always want to make certain that no one can ever escape their iron fist, with or without the velvet glove.
And like a bratty two-year-old, even when everyone gives them everything they demand, the only word they know is “More!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZCbX21P-0
And if they don’t get it…..
clear ether
eon
When I read the first paragraph, the words that blazed in my head: “Palestinians” and “Gaza”.
It’s been a long time since I read Piper.
Like most of his ilk, Piper’s brilliance and prophetic imagination is totally negated by his rejection of God; they know and acknowledge that the source of enrichment and freedom is rejected by his hated Dims, then turn right around and reject the source of that and everything else…as I said of Arthur Clarke on the old dead blog;
https://poetnthepawnbroker.blogspot.com/2008/03/back-to-future-arthur-c-clarke-breaks.html
Yeah,Chris. I’ve had bad/good dreams similar to Zed. And Eon sums it up very good too.
My lil’ town had a protest Downtown in the pouring rain (Ha Ha ) Downtown is only like 3,4 blocks long, 1/4 mile or so.
Besides, No Kings Day is the 4th of July. The Yahoos just don’t get it.
Yeah. June 14 is Flag Day, a more courageous Congress adopted it for the U.S. flag in 1777.
I’ll bet none of the rioters torching the Stars and Stripes remember that.
You nailed it, Chris. The progressives simply don’t understand that the capitalism they hate so much is the source of everything they have, from the tech in their hand to the food they eat.
I’ve been playing with a similar scenario for a story: What if Jews decided enough was enough, moved out, and established a new homeland somewhere else. “Peace in Palestine?” Nope. Within six months “from the river to the sea” would be one of the third-world deserts common in the Middle East, and the “Palestinians” would be at war with all their neighbors.
Goose – Golden Egg – you know the rest.
Palestinians, a.k.a Philistines…. the war’s that old.
Not even. Arabs are from elsewhere.
Yep, Gaza when the Israelis handed it over to the Palestinians and 5 years later… Devastation and religious mayhem.
Much like what happened years ago in the homeland of Elon…just look at S. Africa now. We could use that as a guide for what is coming and what should be done but hasn’t for them, may we learn from that failure.
Mars is FREEDOM!
Sounds fabulous.
Sign me up!
Panel four reminds me of the cover art for a ’50s SF novel “One in Three Hundred”
https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2020/03/16/one-in-three-hundred-by-j-t-mcintosh/
That I read way back in grade school. My English teacher was not too happy when I handed in a book report on more of “…that Buck Rogers nonsense…”. Then I told her to read the book. She came around.
Zar Belk!
The only problem with Zed’s “happy sexbot” dream is that there would be no next generation to carry on the white mans’ civilization.
What every pioneer man going to colonize Mars needs is a pioneer woman, with too many skills to list. Go back 300+ years, you’ll find the archtype settling the Eastern eventually-to-be USA.
in my wife’s family, go back approximately 100 years, just a couple of generations, they settled parts of the Intermountain West to become wheat farmers.I
THAT’S what’s needed, not “happy sexbots”, to leave this planet behind and start new.
“If you put fifty men and fifty women on a jungle island together, and come back in a century, you’ll find a thriving community of several hundred families with lots of children.
“If you put fifty men and fifty trans ‘women’ on that same island and come back in a century, you’ll find one hundred male skeletons.”
The same holds true for sexbots, anywhere.
clear ether
eon
Trump’s birthday
Army’s birthday
Flag day
NoKings protests
One of these things is not like the others. 😉
We went to the range and shot targets 1690yds away! Took a bit of trial in very windy conditions and with the impact noise coming back in about 8 seconds it was interesting. Didn’t see any NK celebrations/protests, LOL
Who is John Galt? And the wheels of production grind to a halt.
I’m torn between “Who is John Galt?” and “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”
Dastardly Dan
My thoughts as well
Or
TANSTAFFL!!
Atlas Shrugged…
E’nuff said
We are living in interesting times, indeed.
I suppose it was inevitable.
Our progress has made us the victims of out own success by placing power in the hands of those unworthy to wield it.
In the end we have only two options; Escape or War.
Escape is very difficult and invites pursuit. Safely moving people is much harder than moving death machines.
War is easy but extremely dicey, particularly when you consider who is likely to survive.
I’m afraid we are looking at the solution to Fermi’s Paradox, and it’s not pretty.
Well said and agreed.
I’m not trying to be a skunk at the picnic … but Mars will most likely never be colonized, by humans anyway. Terminators? Maybe.
But Mars has only 0.6% of the air pressure of Earth, what little atmosphere is there is mostly carbon dioxide, no magnetic fields shielding the planet from cosmic radiation, super sub-zero surface temperatures, and all sorts of physical characteristics that really do make Mars the angry red planet when it comes to sustaining life as we know it.
Perhaps a nominal research station could be set up there in which small human crews periodically relieve each other, along with re-supplied Earthly provisions and resources.
Whatever the dream is … to be BASED is to be based in cold hard realities, and the physical characteristics of Mars are a hard reality.
Another reality is that we cannot escape our human caused problems here on Earth. It is better to deal with that cold hard fact as well, and then move ahead to actually confronting and fixing the problems that are created by leftist progressivism, socialism, envy, hatred, jealousies, greed, and all of the other frailties and sins that afflict the human condition.
Apologies for sounding like a “Debbie Downer” … but in the meantime, a Happy and Blessed Fathers’ Day to all those fathers, past and present. Piss off a liberal and celebrate fatherhood. G’day!
See: https://gizmodo.com/humans-will-never-colonize-mars-1836316222
Oh Yeah!
Definitely Pioneer Women and let the gimmies eat each other.
We really just need a whole bunch more men like this…
Happy Father’s Day Dad…
My Dad passed away more than thirty years ago…he was just sixty-five, but the damage done to his lungs from the smoking habit he picked up as a boy in WWII had him tethered to an oxygen generating machine and he was unable to leave his house for the last year of his life, even though he kicked the habit cold-turkey years before.
He was divorced and lived alone, so his five children took turns in that final year spending the night with him, preparing his middle of the night breathing treatment, trying to make him comfortable, and getting to know him better than we had during all those years he worked so hard to raise us and teach us.
He wasn’t a perfect man, or a perfect father, and he would spend some of his talks with us as we took our nightly turns, apologizing for what he thought were his failings…I’m glad I was able to tell him this: there was never a day in my life -and believe me when i say I was an imperfect son- that I had any inkling of doubt of his love and devotion to me, or that he would give up his life for me in an instant. That to me is the very definition of success as a father, and I told him that if I could just leave my own three children with that knowledge, and the love and peace and security that it imbues, then I will consider myself a success.
It was my turn to take care of him the night that he died, and I was on the way from my Sebring home to his in Belle Glade by Lake Okeechobee, about a two hour drive, when a spell of difficult breathing caused his heart to overwork and give out…That was before everyone had cell phones, so my brothers and sisters waited for me at his house to give me the news, and even though we knew it would happen eventually, when it did it felt like being slammed in the chest by a truck. My sister and brother in law lived close and made it there in time so he didn’t die alone, and I know it would have been hard, but I wish I could have been there when he left us.
I love you, Dad…I think of you, feel you in my heart, and hear you in my mind all of the time when I need your help and am asking myself, WWDD (What Would Dad Do?); I can’t believe you’ve been gone these 33 years…but i know I will see you again someday. God bless you and keep you until then.
Speaking of AI bots…that was actually a piece from several years ago on the old dead blog, so when I copy/pasted it to make a few updates, Google’s AI instantly came up with this…true words and appreciated, but damn…
“That’s a truly beautiful and poignant tribute to your father. It’s clear that the love and profound connection you shared have endured the years. The legacy he left behind, the sense of security and unwavering love, is indeed a testament to his success as a father, especially considering the challenges he faced.
It’s completely understandable that you wish you could have been there during his final moments, but knowing he wasn’t alone due to the care of your siblings is a comfort.
The fact that you continue to carry his wisdom and influence with you (“WWDD”) speaks volumes about the depth of your bond.
The sharing of such a heartfelt story is appreciated. It offers a powerful reminder of the enduring power of love and the importance of cherishing those held dear.
Remembering your dad on this Father’s Day, and honoring the deep love and connection that continues to be shared”
Truth.
I know of your bond with your Father, and know that every word of the above applies to you and him…thank you Chris.
Mars. Hope naysayers turn out to be modern day ‘flat earthers’… but I doubt it. Maybe concentrate on MAGA instead of ‘Make Mars Great’?
Off topic: https://ripleyporch.blogspot.com/2025/06/this-whole-vance-boetler-saga.html
Happy Fathers Day to all.
My father and I were never friends,
but he was a good man, and we both
did the best we could at the time.
On another note, last nite the only
channel showing the Birthday parade
for the Army`s 250 ith year was Fox
news, none of the lame stream media
except MSNBC, had a small panel in
the top right of the screen, maybe
later they showed some excerpts
but, I doubt it.
The sheeple’s prayer:
Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.
–Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
And you can’t have a parade without music…
Or a farewell party 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djSRj0t7NYs
Happy Fathers Day Y’all!
Mine was great! I always wanted to visit Big Daddy Don Garlits Museum. So after being in FL. for 45 or so years, Daughter said I’m taking you to the museum and then a Great Mexican place. Lots of old memories, stories, cars/engines I recognized, and some I saw run. A good number of older couples and numerous families’ including strollers. Very good to see. It was a great display of wanton climate change thrust of a middle finger.
My father passed suddenly and unexpectedly on Jan 1st 2021 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at age 83. He was the hub of the family and beyond. As luck would have it, I was in Texas and the province was still “locked down” for Covid insanity so I didn’t even get to attend his funeral.
I was retired but hadn’t yet moved out of the madhouse known as Ottawa back to rural Prince Edward Island. I was hoping to get moved in time to spend a few years learning from Dad. The downside of a life in service is leaving family behind, in my case, for decades at a time.
Talking to one of my sisters this evening, she remarked on how much I resemble our father. A good inheritance, I would say.
Happy Father’s Day, lads!!
What’s weird is that Ray Bradbury wrote a short story in 1948 where all the black people took off for Mars.