“We are Forerunners. Guardians of all that exists. The roots of the Galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun, towards which all intelligence blossoms… And the impervious shelter, beneath which it has prospered.”

Monday morning with Michael Crichton

by | Oct 25, 2021 | Mondays | 3 comments

Aw hell, not MONDAY again. I swear, it was Sunday just a few hours ago! And the world looked… well, terrible, I admit, but it was still marginally less awful than it is now. The thing with Monday is that it’s a lot like those slashers in the dreadful horror movies that come into vogue around this time of year, every year – you ALWAYS know that they are going to come back around again.

Still and all, it’s not quite so bad, because of course we all have the Great Mondaydact Browser Mulcher to help us get through it.

This week’s theme was suggested by our good friend, The Male Brain, and revolves around one of the greatest storytellers of our time – the sadly deceased, and sorely missed, MIchael Crichton.

Take it away, Dawn Pine:

Michael Crichton was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His latest posthumous novel, MICRO, was released on November 22, 2011.

Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton’s 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C. (His conclusions have been widely misstated.)

Crichton’s interest in computer modelling went back forty years. His multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090 computer at Harvard, was published in the Papers of the Peabody Museum in 1966. His technical publications included a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma, in Metabolism, and an essay on medical obfuscation in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Crichton’s first bestseller, The Andromeda Strain, was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold over 200 million books. His books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and thirteen have been made into films.

He had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film, Westworld, was the first to employ computer-generated special effects back in 1973. Crichton’s pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him a Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1995.

Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer’s Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered ankylosaur was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. He is survived by his wife Sherri, his daughter Taylor and his son, John Michael.

Crichton can be remembered for a few things: 29 fiction books, 4 non-fiction, 15 movies (in which he took part), 1 TV series (ER).

One thing we will give him credit for is that he was an honest man. Yes, it is weird that a story teller is honest. However, the guy went up against the mainstream view of global warming, scientodogy and ethics in genetics and the decline of media (that one is from 1993!)

Here are some videos of, about, and related to the great man:

I have watched and read quite a bit of Michael Crichton’s work in my life. Off the top of my head – Jurassic Park (the book AND the movies, all of them), Sphere (the movie, not the book – and the movie wasn’t that good), State of Fear (terrific book), Prey (great book), and Eaters of the Dead (which became the movie, The 13th Warrior – which has actually aged quite well and was a very good film).

Michael Crichton was a great storyteller who rooted his stories in science, evidence, and fact – REAL science, the kind that scientists once practised many decades ago. He was indeed that rare kind of author who would go against the “established view”, simply because the facts told him that said view was wrong.

Pics to follow down below.


#BasedTucker is based:


The Male Brain has sent over lots of stuff to keep our minds off the horrors of this day. We start with some classic John Stossel:

Sticking with libertarians for a bit, here are some libertoonian dad jokes from the chaps over at Reason:

Wisecrack offers up a philosopher’s perspective on the greatest sci-fi epic of all time:

The Babylon Bee continues to offer the world’s most accurate not-news coverage, especially when it comes to Halloween costumes this year:

CollegeHumour tackles one of the great questions of our time:

Star Trek is nerdier. BY MILES. STAR WARS was always essentially a space opera with serious fantastical elements to it, while Gene Roddenberry’s approach was rooted in at least some amount of hard science (though admittedly, not a whole lot).

Moving on – Prager U examines and explains the phenomenon of “ESG investing”:

ESG investing is a great way to spend lots of money on making yourself feel good. It is absolutely useless for making an actual profit. The phenomenon goes by several names, one of which is “social impact investing”. I happen to have a bit of experience with that sector, by the way, and the first thing that any halfway-honest person within that field will tell you is that the primary concern of SII fund managers is outright return, NOT actual impact.

So don’t be fooled. ESG investing, or SII, or whatever you want to call it, is just the same old attempt by Communists to feed you fathoms of rope – enough to hang yourself with, just as Lenin always wanted.


Mark Dice can scarcely contain his glee upon watching CNN’s resident Mr. Stay-Puft getting absolutely owned by one of his guests:

Li’l Brian Stelter truly is the Clown News Network’s court eunuch, and his reputation is utterly in tatters after Mark Dice simply DESTROYED him with his hysterical impersonations of Stelter’s voice. I’m surprised the “man” – he’s really more of a marshmallow – can show his face in public anymore.


Bill Whittle has a fascinating video in which he breaks down the difference between perception and reality when it comes to the Chinese military:

I don’t quite agree with Bill in his assertion that the USA has a much stronger military that can out-fight the Chinese. I think that is nonsense. But I do agree with him that China is much, MUCH weaker than anyone realises – I’ve been saying so for quite some time.


Paul Ramsey looks back at the life and legacy of 4-star General, and later Secretary of State, Colin Powell (RIP):

I read Gen. Powell’s biography (the one by Karen DeYoung) many years ago, around the time I went to college. It was a very good book. But I subsequently lost most of my respect for the man after he abandoned his honour and dignity in order to curry favour with the Bush Dynasty, and after he sold his country out to support Odumbass the Lightworker.


PJW provides a detailed understanding of the hugely successful Netherflix series, Squid Game:


The lovely and charming Dr. Sam Bailey explains how you can spot Coof misinformation, with tongue planted VERY firmly in beautiful cheek:

That’s an Odysee embed, so if it isn’t working, the link to the whole thing is up top.


Lord Razor of the Fist Clan has a very dim opinion of those cucks on the Right standing to attention for Kyrsten Sinema:


The Dizzle has some unfortunate breaking news about the way that the Religion of “Peace” deals with apostates:


Dr. Jay Smith from PfanderFilms and his laconic French pipe-smoking friend, Odon Lafontaine, continue their very thorough demolition of the Standard Islamic Narrative:


Al-Fadi from CIRA International and his fellow baldy, Sam Shamoun, take absolutely no prisoners when tearing apart the Izzlamic “apologetics”, such as they are, of one Dr. Shabir Ally:

As far as I understand such things, Dr. Ally is an increasingly controversial figure within dawahgandist circles, because many of his main arguments with respect to the SIN have been utterly dismantled by people like Dr. Jay Smith, Dr. Daniel Brubaker, and Dan Gibson. The reason why the dawahgandists don’t like him very much is because Dr. Ally has the integrity and the decency to change his arguments, because he knows damned well that he cannot support them.

It’s an interesting time to be a Christian. We have seen more damage done to Islam in the last 3 years than we saw in the previous 1300. And it is awesome to watch.


Colin from Islam Critiqued takes on some of the most egregiously stupid arguments made by Izzlamists about the infamous “Satanic verses” of the Koran:


Dr. Frank Turek from Cross Examined takes on a rather knotty philosophical issue:


China Uncensored pulls back the curtain on some of the very interesting Game of Thrones-type shenanigans happening behind the scenes within the CCP:


America Uncovered asks and answers a question near and dear to Americans everywhere:


Jared Taylor from American Renaissance breaks down the implications and impact of the murder – by an Izzlamist, natch – of a so-called “Conservative” British politician named Sir David Amess:

Mr. Taylor’s withering and brutal criticism of the British political establishment is absolutely correct. Sir David Amess, may God rest his soul, was a pro-refugee, pro-social justice Catholic. In other words, he was a misguided, soft-headed Christian – like far, FAR too many of us. And that is the greatest tragedy of all in the whole sad mess.

The kind of soft-headed, soft-hearted thinking common among Christians – sincere though they might be otherwise – like Sir Amess, GETS PEOPLE KILLED. And that shit needs to STOP.

Ironic, is it not, that the French Right has a woman and an Algerian Jew leading it, and still has more balls than the entirety of the British so-called “Right”?


Terrence Popp and his friends break down the truth behind the infamous Las Vegas Massacre:

You simply CANNOT listen to and watch the eyewitness evidence from that massacre without concluding that something is seriously off with the official story. My view is that the Las Vegas incident was a largely failed false flag attack designed to turn the country against guns. It didn’t work – gun sales have simply gone from strength to strength since then.


Midnight’s Edge examines the way in which Marvel stripped the upcoming Eternals film of Jack Kirby’s rather distinctive visual and artistic style:


Overlord Dicktor Van Doomcock breaks some juicy rumours about Queen Karen Kennedy’s upcoming contract renewal:

At this point, the truth about Queen Karen’s contract is thoroughly muddled. Some people say that she WILL be renewed, some say that she will be retired… We’ll find out when we find out, of course. In the meantime, Queen Karen will inevitably do her best to destroy the STAR WARS and Indiana Jones franchises, of course.

Just let them die. There is no point in giving the Devil Mouse any more money. Get yourself a proper VPN and sail the high seas, and don’t ever let them see another dime of your money.


Gary from Nerdrotic dissects the latest episode of friendly fire coming from the civil war that is the CW’s GARBAGE show, Batwoman:


The Drinker actually rather liked the latest trailer from The Batman:

We’ll see soon enough whether Pattman Begins is actually any good – I rather doubt it, but it would be nice to be proven wrong for once.


Your “Science is F***ING WEIRD” moment of the week is from Dawn Pine, and asks why we think differently from chimpanzees:

Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coded DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why our brains work differently. The study is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The chimpanzee is our closest living relative in evolutionary terms and research suggests our kinship derives from a common ancestor. About five to six million years ago, our evolutionary paths separated, leading to the chimpanzee of today, and Homo Sapiens, humankind in the 21st century.

In a new study, stem cell researchers at Lund examined what it is in our DNA that makes human and chimpanzee brains different — and they have found answers.

“Instead of studying living humans and chimpanzees, we used stem cells grown in a lab. The stem cells were reprogrammed from skin cells by our partners in Germany, the USA and Japan. Then we examined the stem cells that we had developed into brain cells,” explains Johan Jakobsson, professor of neuroscience at Lund University, who led the study.

Using the stem cells, the researchers specifically grew brain cells from humans and chimpanzees and compared the two cell types. The researchers then found that humans and chimpanzees use a part of their DNA in different ways, which appears to play a considerable role in the development of our brains.


Your long read of the week is also from The Male Brain, and consists of an interesting article by an admitted Neo-Palestinian about the implications of a weakened and damaged Pax Americana:

As for capability, though the U.S. military remains by many metrics the most powerful in the world, it is a shadow of what it was when it last was confronted with great-power competition. In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, the Air Force had some 4,000 fighters in its hangars. The number is closer to 2,000 today. Our bomber force has lost nearly two-thirds of its fleet, and now mostly relies on B-52s built in the 1960s. The number of ships in the Navy has similarly declined by half despite concerted recent efforts to increase their numbers. China’s navy is now larger ship for ship, though not yet in capability or tonnage.

Beijing may still be the lesser power compared with the U.S., globally speaking. But in the areas where we are most likely to clash, it has all of the advantages of proximity, numbers, and initiative. The People’s Liberation Army “has transformed its force to specifically offset U.S. operational advantages in the Pacific theater,” noted Lee Hsi-min, former chief of staff of the Taiwanese military, in July. “To this end, the Chinese military has developed anti-ship ballistic missiles, attack submarines and an array of air and naval platforms for conducting saturation attacks to overwhelm enemies, all supported by space-based systems that make it more integrated and lethal.”

Second, the fiasco is an invitation to our adversaries to view the remainder of the Biden administration as neither a nuisance nor a threat, but rather as a possibly unique three-year window of strategic opportunity.

In March, Admiral Philip Davidson, head of the Indo-Pacific Command, predicted that China would try to seize Taiwan within six years. “We are accumulating risk,” he said delicately, “that may embolden China to unilaterally change the status quo before our forces may be able to deliver an effective response.” But why should China still wait six years? After Afghanistan, the U.S. is thinking as never before about how better to defend Taiwan, a process that would take several years to complete. The opportunity, from Beijing’s standpoint, is sooner rather than later.

As for Russia, opinions vary as to where Putin will strike next. It might be Ukraine, along whose border it again massed troops earlier this year; or Belarus, already a client state, where persistent unrest against a despised dictator risks inspiring Putin’s own domestic opponents; or Montenegro, where in 2016 Russian agents very nearly carried off a coup shortly before the country joined NATO; or, as I think, one of the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), in order to expose the hollowness of American military guarantees while also breaking NATO’s spine.

It goes without saying that I strongly disagree with Mr. Stephens on multiple levels. He is wrong about the need for muscular American interventionism, anywhere, and he is wrong about the root causes of American military weakness. The reality is that the Fall of the American Empire is inescapable, due entirely to the post-1965 follies of its administrative class. America in its current form does not deserve to survive.


Linkage is good for you:

And some more from Dawn Pine:


The Neo-Tsar had some quite piquant sentiments to express on a range of subjects recently, and boy is it good to see a powerful man standing up for what is right and true on the world stage:

“Those who risk saying that men and women still exist, and that this is a biological fact, are virtually ostracized” in the West, Putin said, calling the situation “a total phantasmagoria.”

“This is not to mention things that are simply monstrous,” he added, “like when children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa. In fact, they are indoctrinating them into the alleged choices that are supposedly available to everyone – removing parents from the equation and forcing the child to make decisions that can ruin their lives.”

Here’s some video of the great man saying what needs to be said:


History lessons of the week:


Your Great Man of the Week is the legendary mercenary and hard-line anti-Commie fighter, Rafal Gan-Ganowiczsuggested by reader Jim S in a recent comment, thank you very much, sir:


HALO Infinite for PC is looking really rather good:

Now let’s watch Mint Blitz do his thing:


Wazzocks gonna wazzock:


Kitchen Nightmares with the Angry Scot:


Comedy hour:

DAMN F***ING RIGHT THEY ARE!!!

Also 100% true.


Pics, guns, girls, starting with some good stuff from Dawn Pine related to this week’s theme:

But, but, but … there is a 97% consensus…
Can relate
It is interesting to see the popularity of his works
Enough said
Said no one ever
Amen
That kid needs spanking. Who would want to be a lawyer?

Onward:

DAMN HIM! DAMN THAT MAN who came up with the meme!
Oh balls… now I need to go drink a pint of gin…
That… is a plausible, and extremely disturbing, explanation…
Too soon?

I know a girl who went to Oberlin. Suffice to say, she’s a few cards short of a full deck.

Headlines of the week indicate that Floriduh Man will not let anything get in the way of his waffle cravings:

Your “Frog Legs” moment of the week:

Let’s just be clear about who is calling whom a “spineless frog” here:

Macron-Hollande: je t'aime, moi non plus - Politique | L ...
L-R: Gormless Goof, Closet Homo

And the French wonder why everyone else laughs at them…

Your “Oy Baked” moment of the week:

Literally no craption required:

Your “That’s Unfair to Butthead” moment of the week:

Your “Whizz Kid” moment of the week:

Can you imagine being on the other end of that 911 call?!?!?

Your “Men Are Better at EVERYTHING” moment of the week:

Your “Not the Nightly News” moment of the week:

Awww… poor daemonic knife-wielding maniac…

Loads of STAR WARS memes to follow:

OK, that is genuinely scary
Yes – and that’s also absolutely lethal

Your aminules are adorkable moment of the week:

And also your animals are absolute DICKS moment of the week, to balance things out:


Gym beast props this week go to a kid named Nabil Lahlou:


Wise Uncle Chael the American Gangster unleashes an absolutely brilliant rant – even by his own very high standards – upon listening to the news of Conor “The Notorious” Macgregor‘s latest example of punching down (literally):


Jesus loves knockouts:


#MetalThroughAndThrough


Right, lads, here we are at last – the Instathot to get your Monday off to the right sort of start. This week’s pulchritudinous prize calls herself Yana Rup, which is assuredly a pseudonym. She hails from the great city of Moscow, and appears to be in her mid-twenties (more or less). Much to my amusement, she calls herself a “fashion model” – when, in reality, she is very much involved with OnlySimps and undoubtedly makes quite a packet from that platform.

From her appearance, I strongly suspect, but cannot confirm, that she is NOT, in fact, a natural redhead. However, I am a poor judge of such matters. Other Esteemed Readers who are afflicted with gingervitis, such as our resident Dire Badger and others, can probably confirm for us.

I know nothing else about her, but she’s your Monday dose of plastic makeup beauty.

Off to work with ye, now, ye scurvy landlubbers, and make damned sure ye swab the decks twice before sunset.

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3 Comments

  1. TechieDude

    While Whittle is mostly right, seeing that the low trust Chinese thing causes schlock consumer products, I’m not sure that holds 100% for military gear.

    Sure, the carrier they have is under-designed. But there’s nothing wrong with the jets that are landing on it. They just weren’t designed for that application. I’m betting the next carrier won’t be like that, if they bother at all.

    Same could’ve been said about Russia. Sure, their washing machines were shit, and the commie era buildings aren’t the best. I remember PJ O’Rourke talking about being in a Russian radio station and said it looked like it was built by apes – apes on the take.

    But that didn’t apply to a lot of their military hardware. Sure, the subs had issues. But they still were formidable, enough to tangle with ours.

    So it’s a mistake to think the way he’s thinking. He’s thinking like an American. We have better gear – but a shrinking geometrically competent officer corps.

    And Popp is 100%. Something stinks on ice about Las Vegas. Those were two different rifle reports overlapping. Whoever the shooters were, they weren’t the patsy they blamed. I worked in the gun business in my misguided youth. Those were clearly automatic weapons. You only need to hear one live once to pick that out.

    Reply
  2. Robert W

    Michael Crichton is a very worthy and august man of the week. He is missed deeply for the entire scamdemic saga.

    For me, State of Fear was the entry to his work, largely because it was so popular among the AM Talk Radio Crowd (Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et all) who had a stranglehold on my USA conservative milieu. For the 15-year-old, this book had everything. Kidnappers using cephalopods, dark twisty conspiracies, a man caught in the middle, a variety of desperate and horny partners, intellectual challenges to the scientific consensus, and a challenge that the earth is to complex for man to manage or comprehend.
    It’s right there with Atlas Shrugged, Fahrenheit 451, and the Lord of the Rings for fictional works leaving a deep mark on my teen mind.

    That opened the gates to other works. Jurassic Park obviously, with a much better ending in the book than in the movies. (Although the first movie did capture the heart and the mind of the book very well, particularly Malcomb). Sphere, which I blasted through in a single night. Prey, also scorched through in a single overnight session. Timeline, far better as a book than a movie. Andromeda Strain. The Great Train Robbery. Like many great SciFi writers, I don’t remember the characters so much as the themes and ideas and challenges to man contained within the story.

    Then there was one disappointment: Pirates.
    Published post humorously by his estate, it purported to be based on his almost complete notes.
    It may be based on it, but it’s missing the deft hand to draw a satisfying conclusion.
    This proves that Christopher Tolkien is as much a blessing to mankind as was his esteemed father, for he took the work of his father and grew and shaped it into something worthy of his namesake.

    Separate from all those memories is this speech on complexity that Crichton gave in 2005. It is as resonant today as it was then, for words of truth and humility carry forward into time while words of falsehood and pride decay.
    [ Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century
    http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/182h/Climate/Fear,%20Complexity,%20&%20Environmental%20Management%20in%20the%2021st%20Century.htm ]

    These words are in regards to Chernobyl, but they fit today like a glove.
    [“In other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information. We ought to ponder, for a minute, exactly what that implies. We demand strict controls on radiation because it is such a health hazard. But Chernobyl suggests that false information can be a health hazard as damaging as radiation. I am not saying radiation is not a threat. I am not saying Chernobyl was not a genuinely serious event.

    But thousands of Ukrainians who didn’t die were made invalids out of fear. They were told to be afraid. They were told they were going to die when they weren’t. They were told their children would be deformed when they weren’t. They were told they couldn’t have children when they could. They were authoritatively promised a future of cancer, deformities, pain and decay. It’s no wonder they responded as they did.”]

    Crichton did one of the finest things a man can do: He helps other men see through the lies to live in the truth, and to know humility in the face of complexity is right and proper.

    RE dune: Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck?!? How did I forget this?

    Reply
  3. Jim S

    Thanks for the Mr. Gan-Ganowicz video. Read about him a few years ago, my kind of guy…along with Pinochet, Franco, and Georgie Patton (hated the commies-too bad he was “accidentally killed”).

    Reply

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