July 28, 2010 by Cato the Elder.

Last night on the History channel, they showed the “Series Premier” of The Colony.  I was sure I’d seen the show before, so I just had to stay up and watch it.  Sure enough, this looks like season 2 of the same show.  They put 7 people in an abandoned town somewhere in hurricane country, where they will pretend they’re survivors of a global virus-based disaster.

The first thing that struck me was the total lack of realism.  I understand that this is just a show, but if you’re simulating a scenario like this, you should at least make an effort at realism and try to explain some of the inconsistencies.

The first glaring error I noticed was with the colonists’ water.  They were shown making a filter with sand and charcoal and dipping water from a nearby river, then pouring it into a bucket full of sand and charcoal.  Strangely, it came out crystal clear.  Sorry, that doesn’t happen.  They were obviously being given water by the producers and only being made to pretend to gather it in this way.  Then they boiled the water to make it safe for drinking.  Wouldn’t you boil it first, instead of pouring bacteria into your water filter?  Personally, I’d be boiling it at both ends, just to be safe.

The second thing I noticed was that they showed a hunting and fishing supply store on the map, but there are no firearms whatsoever.  At least have the colonists look for guns and decide that they were all looted or something.  Guns exist in the real world, and would be very important in a survival situation (as we see later).  Don’t just pretend they don’t exist.

Third, these clueless losers were visited by three outsiders, and gave them water and milk.  In a survival situation, you don’t give away your rations.  If they hadn’t been sure that the producers wouldn’t let them starve, I’m sure they would have acted differently.  When the outsiders tried to get into their supply building, the colonists fought them off, but then made no effort to prepare for similar incidents, and even let them keep the water and milk.

Finally, when the three outsiders came back with a dozen of their friends, they were armed with smoke grenades and pepper spray (no guns?) and took the colonists’ medical supplies.  The colonists made a half-hearted effort to fight them off by spraying gas from some kind of tank that did exactly nothing.  First, a roving gang of thugs anywhere in the United States will be able to get guns.  I know you don’t want guns used on your show, but make up some kind of excuse.  Maybe the government took them all or something.  Even so, if you’re going to attack and rob a group of people, you’d be armed with knives or at least clubs, not smoke and pepper spray, and you’d take everything you could carry.

One other small point, the colonists have canned food, supposedly supplied by the government, but the cans are unlabelled.  Does anyone really think the government has huge warehouses full of unlabelled canned food?

Sorry, but to my mind these colonists are dead.  If I watch next week (and I probably will) I’m going to see them as another group that (maybe) was smart enough to figure out some basic defense.  If they don’t have spears, they deserve to die, too.

In a real survival situation, they should have quickly explored the surrounding buildings, picked one to move into (one with a decent roof), and then had different groups gather firewood, gather water, and make weapons.

I do know it’s just a show, and they don’t want any of the actors hurt.  The best way to accomplish that, however, isn’t to pretend that nobody has weapons.  It’s to make the outsiders back down as soon as a real weapon is produced.  I’d be even more impressed with the show if they had set it up with 10 colonists, and then told them that three had been killed in that first attack and removed them from the show.  That would get the rest of them into the proper mind-set.  They could even have used actors for the three that were “killed” at very little cost and a great deal of added realism.

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March 23, 2010 by Cato the Elder.

A few days ago, I read something on the Cracked.com website.  Since that’s a humor site, I decided to look it up before posting it here, and I have found that it’s pretty much accurate, which scares me.

Here it is, in a nutshell:

The National Debt (amount of money owed by the United States) is around 15 trillion dollars.  That’s 15,000,000,000,000.00.  Let’s say we decided to pay that off.  We could go around to every bank, every home, and all of the foreign banks and homes in the world, and collect every dollar there is, all the currency and coins that exist in the whole world.  We would then need to take that unimaginable pile of money to Las Vegas, go to the roulette tables and bet it on Black, win, let it ride, win again, let it ride, win again, let it ride, and win again in order to have enough to pay off our debt.

Most people, when in financial trouble, imagine either “hitting it big in Vegas” or “having all the money in the world” as a solution to their problems.  When you need both, you’re pretty much screwed.

If we continue on the path we’re on, the interest on the national debt will grow to become higher than the Gross Domestic Product.  That would be the equivalent of a person having so much debt that the interest (not minimum payments, just interest) on his credit cards each month was higher than his take-home pay.  If you were on that path in your personal finances, wouldn’t you want to stop charging your way through life before you were too far in debt to ever recover?

What we need now in this country is a Congress that will simply stop buying votes with public money.  I don’t think either of the major parties are willing to do what it takes to stop the runaway government spending, but the Democrats are in charge now, and we should work hard to make sure they are driven out in November.  Maybe, if we hand them a big loss, they will start to understand that we don’t want their programs, and maybe, if we put a Republican majority in the House and Senate, and the White House, after having all three held by Democrats, it will be a strong enough message that people are tired of “business as usual.”

Personally,I don’t think it will.  I think it will be a good start, but I don’t think the Republicans will have the courage to repeal Obamacare and cut off earmarks, let alone prohibit government growth and borrowing.  If When they don’t do those things, it will be time, then, for a third party to rise and take over.

So, for the next two, or maybe three, election cycles, I will be strongly supporting the GOP.  After that, I will do whatever it takes to get this nation back on the path it started on over 200 years ago.  It will be a long, hard fight, but it’s one we have to win.

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August 13, 2008 by Cato the Elder.

The modern Olympics has become a farce. It is nothing more than a national “look at me” show, the world equivalent of a grade-school playground, where the big kids can show everybody else how much bigger they are and argue about who is the best at everything.

As if we needed more proof of that, the current 2008 games featured a lip-synched solo by a child and a CGI fake of a fireworks show. You heard me, FAKE FIREWORKS in CHINA for crying out loud! You’d think that’s one thing they could do for real!

The Chinese gymnastics team seems to feature kids who appear about 9 years old, but have passports to “prove” they’re 16. The reason this matters is that it’s much easier to perform triple flips without running out of beam or floor if you’re only 4 feet 9 inches instead of 5 feet 1. I also noted that the Chinese gymnasts were able to swing around the uneven bars without bending and still miss the lower bar with their feet, while most others had to either bend at the waist or move their feet apart.

I also have a problem with the commercials for the olympics this year. Voiced by Morgan Freeman, they tell us that every four years we forget about our differences and come together from all over the world. Excuse me, but we come from all over the world and try to defeat everyone who’s different. If we were actually forgetting about our differences, we wouldn’t have medal counts and drug tests and cheating. We’d just have a bunch of athletes working out together and giving each other pointers and helping each other perform at their best. That isn’t what happens.

Still, that one isn’t as bad as the Nike commercial, chanting “I have soul but I’m not a soldier.” I’m not one, either, but I have a great deal of respect for them, and I think this chant is disrespectful to those who put their lives on the line to protect us.

Let’s be realistic next time. When 2012 comes around, let’s run commercials that celebrate Team USA. Cheer our side to victory, instead of all this “we are the world” crap! We’re not the world. We’re just the best part of it. We ARE different, and we should celebrate that, not try to pretend it’s not true.

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July 9, 2008 by Cato the Elder.

Welcome to Delenda Est. This is a place for me to write about things that interest me. If you find it worthwhile, by all means feel free to stay. If not, please leave. You don’t have to agree with me to stay here, you just have to be civil in your comments.

This blog is my property. You are welcome here as long as you behave yourself. If I find excessive (in my opinion) profanity, insults, spamming, or anything else I find objectionable in comments you leave here, you may (at my whim) be booted off. Arguments are OK, as long as they remain civil. We’re bound to disagree about some things. That’s life, welcome to it.

One other thing. I am sometimes (often) really nitpicky about spelling and grammar. I’ll overlook typos and occasional errors, but if you want to write long, well-thought comments, please use proper structure, spelling, and grammar. People will think more about the point you’re making if you don’t distract them by misusing the language.

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