neatimes.com

Friday 30 May 2025 11:22:45 PM CST

Monday 26 May 2025 10:21:32 PM CST

I believe that Nostradamus is the only concept album from Priest. It was released in 2008 after Angel of Retribution marked Rob Halford's return. It runs over an hour and reportedly got mixed reviews but I haven't read reviews since the days when I read the hi-fi mags to look at gear and they always had some record reviews. I believe it was Stereo Review that had some of the worst - most of them were bad - and classical and jazz were treated with the usual supercilious pseudointellectual stuff you hear on public radio and most mainstream pop was bad unless it was something by the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan or occasionaly a country icon like Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash. These days they would celebrate the tranny-commie 'artists' and they have those in country these days too.

It was about the only time Priest ventured into symphonic style and had Don Airey in for the synths. It's as near perfect as anything they've done but I favor their live sets especially the video ones. I remember hearing Rob and the guys talking about the project before was done and it was suggested that it would be pretty long. The subject matter is pretty controversial what with all the myths and legends about Nostradamus and everything big that happens is something he predicted. Did he predict Donald Trump? Lemme check.... a few typically vague possibilities.

May have forgotten this one while back. Somebody camping by a lake and disappears and leaves everything including their phone behind it doesn't look good. Being almost three weeks now and no sign it certainly looks bad. It's about as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in northeast Arkansas and anyone out there alone is living dangerously.

The new mayor of Parkin (population just under 800 in 2020) says they need to do something about the stray dog problem. If they're coming in from the country the ones they take off the streets may soon be replaced by new ones. Parkin is near the side of an archaeological dig from some time back, got a state park there now. Seems De Soto and his crew visited them not long before he assumed room temperature on the banks of the Mississippi. Seems he died in May of that year so it was probably the ambient temperature of the camp.

What, Chris?

I'm a pretty warm fuzzy guy but after a few decades some of the fuzz wears off.

The other TV station that reprints that French outfit stuff explains what sanctuary cities are and the evil Donald Trump is always trying to do bad things to them. One is tempted - this one anyway - to let them do their thing and attract all the illegals there to rape and murder their people but not all the people living there are evil like the ones that elect local government and can't leave so they get raped and murdered too. And then there's all the taxpayer money going in there with SNAP and HUD and Medicaid so I do resent it a bit.

That a person as stupid as Comey was running the FBI is scary but the entire Biden regime was departments headed either by tools like Comey and Garland who were political hatchet men or perverts intented to insult all the good and decent people of the Republic while doing as much damage as possible. Comey needs to be in prison but so go Garland and a while lot of others but few if any will pay in this life. As for China they have for the time being avoided a revolution (it would be fun to see one) by appeasing President Trump and the only uncertainty is on the part of the purveyors of propaganda who are disappointed. As for regulating AI - like many at the state of federal level have any idea that that means - do they believe they can firewall off the world? Even China can't completely do that. As for regulating activities in a state they could probably prohibit certain activities by Google or X or whoever.

Tuesday 27 May 2025 11:25:32 PM CST

A lot of people still don't know or remember that these things are around. Quite a few people come over from Memphis to Jonestown and Paragould and even smaller places get caught by them. Or at least they tell the police where they are and they still have to chase them down. The article mentions the mayor was talking to the Yawn Patrol on the local radio station. Had the Yawn Patrol fifty years ago when mom was listening to the radio in the ayem. Early ayem which is why it called Yaewn Patrol. My cats yawn 24/7 if you wake them up.

Interesting NEA news kinda scarce with it being a holiday weekend. Over in Memphis they talked about crime some more and about what looks like some pretty dodgy policies. Had a big operation and arrested a while bunch of people for the usual and had their pictures up on a board at a press conference. Few more killings and a "mass shooting" of seven over in Jackson with no fatalaties.

Restoring border security probably has made life more difficult for those up to no good. And there's the whole thing about hating the U.S.A. when it returns fo a sensible and decent government and just generaly anti-Trump propaganda in general. Signs point to a higher unemployment rate? How about you report it when it happens? If it happens. And the whole tranny thing has about passed its best by date.

Dunno if the copy I have is the original hardcover but probably not. Deathworld was written in the early 1960s and I got my copy from the Science Fiction Book Club and somethings they did their own printing on some books.

Harry was at the end of the Golden Age of SF and the beginning of the modern age so Deathworld has some elements of the old-time stuff where interstellar spacecraft were about like cars - very expensive cars but easy to operate if you could afford one. A lot of his stuff like the Stainless Steel Rat stories have a lot of humor and he seems pretty cynical about people generally.

Probably most people who saw Soylent Green didn't know that it was based on his book Make Room! Make Room! and I haven't seen it in so long I don't remember if it was in the titles or credits. It was made in 1973 and the book was written a few years earlier and Harry had the population of the U.S.A. at 344 million in 1999 which was close and the earth at seven billion.

Since the only people starving with eight billion are the ones in places where things are so FUBAR for whatever reasons all the food in the world doesn't do them any good. Meanwhile the U.S. has a serious obesity problem and I believe that restricting SNAP to actual food might help with that.

Wednesday 28 May 2025 10:09:43 PM CST

Had another killin' in Marianna the other day and it didn't show up in the NEA news. Dunno how they decide which ones to report - maybe it's all the news that fits and not much fits. Deader was a 39-year-old male and the non-dead shootee was a 39-year-old female. Seems it occurred near the intersection of Mississippi and Alabama streets. Okey-dokey.

Most of them got the former police chief and now prison escapee story. Seems he was at one time or other the police chief in Gateway. Gateway is in the northwest corner of Arkansas just a few miles from the 'Welcome to Missouri' sign. The map don't say if there's a 'Welcome to Arkansas' sign facing Misery. Pretty sure I drove through Benton County a time or two back in the day but don't remember Gateway. Seems the former police chief and current fugitive somehow got what looked like a uniform to aid in his escape.

Jonestown paper had a ex-con writing about due process and illegal aliens being booted. Him being a citizen and becoming involved with the legal process doesn't exactly qualify him to comment on the reversal of the alien invasion. Meanwhile the other TV station did the obligatory St. George memorial article. Nothing complicated about it for normal people. Career criminal ODs while being arrested and assumes room temperature if he expired in the hospital or street temperature if as some say he checked out there. Sadly an innocent man languishes in prison because of the depraved society of the community he served. Maybe someday the conviction will be overturned as it should be or it may be another twenty years before he is free. He's almost fifty now and will be old but he'll be more alive than George Floyd.

Somebody was mouthing off about white hate for Floyd. Most are like me and don't hate him at all. Despise him like all criminal scum but hardly worth hating. Hating the scumbags that put Derek Chauvin in prison for most of what is left of his life is warranted. Those are evil people.

Varek@Myndcryme

Lot of companies bought into it are backtracking. Seeing has how government intervention to kill gas-burners and subsidize EVs has stopped it might be a good idea. Six trillion must not include insects. And are micro-organisms amimals? Whatever. If they gonna do things like encourage people to take care of the places they live in and not live like animals and slaughter each other like it's going out of style it could be a good thing. As long as it isn't Summer of Love 2025.

Thursday 29 May 2025 10:22:43 PM CST

Somebody got shot at Caldwell and they dunno whodunit. Ain't much to Caldwell so whether it was somebody passing through or somebody that stays there wasn't indicated either. Lot of people pass through on Highway 1 and only a few live there. Highway 1 runs on down to Forrest City and north to Jonestown. Going north from Caldwell you pass through Colt and if you keep going you'll be in Wynne. Colt is famous for being the birthplace of Charlie Rich. When they opened the Village Creek State Park up there on the ridge Charlie came and performed.

Memphis gets creative with crime sometimes. Not much details but if the cars was moving when the attacker poured the accelerant into the other vehicle that required a bit of skill or determination or something. Not to mention being a little nutty but that's pretty common in Memphis.

The lefty TV station in Jonestown had this. OK, the other lefty TV station. The Democrats attack President Trump every day. I like a president who isn't afraid to call scum what it is. And he did his presidential duties for the day and did it quite well. As did the vice-president.

No cupcake they weren't false claims. We've been seeing it for years now and it's not like the video he played was fake. What the dude from South Africa expected I have no idea but the way he toasted Zelenskyy and knowing Trump was already unhappy he should have been prepared. Maybe at least act like he's gonna try to do something about it. Not actually try because then he wouldn't be president for much longer.

Some experts say the new budget could add trillions to the deficit. The debt maybe, only a couple or three to the deficit and they've been doing that for years now. And some actual experts say it could reduce the deficit so there's that.

Their idea of political polarization is more people waking up and paying attention and getting pissed about ever-increasing taxes and crime and corruption. As long as they can keep that a minority it's all good.

Friday 30 May 2025 11:21:53 PM CST

Found an interesting site the other day. Not just NEA but Arkansas generally. No ads or paywall so presumably it is supported adequately by some other means. Donations or whatever. Seems to lean right and that's a good thing and does some digging. The Forrest City football coach I was talkin' about that got arrested in Wynne had a more in-depth article. I seem to remember reading about it a while back but the other 'news' outfits didn't have much. Guy was a former Arkansas basketball player and looks like his career didn't go the pro route and he ended up coaching at Forrest City High School. Okey-dokey.

Still slow news in NEA with the holiday but Memphis always got some. If it had been the person he thought it was would it have been OK to shoot them? Guy shot and killed a twenty-something year old woman with three kids and said he thought he was shooting a man with 'dreads'. So it is OK to shoot males with dreads sometimes?

What, Chris?

Just trying to understand. In other Memphis news ICE scooped up some illegals at the Memphis immigration court. They're doing that a lot all over the place and Memphis isn't special. Seems a good way to make some easy ones. A local immigration lawyer ain't happy but every illegal that gets the boot makes me very happy. Wonder who is paying this lawyer because it's unlikely the illegals are

Last entry for now. Whiskey of the day is Buffalo Trace. Seeya.

Downtown Mesa Verde was quiet under the morning sun, already hot enough that most people preferred to be inside an air-conditioned building or at least in the shade. The heat did not seem to bother the old man who had parked his truck near the town square. Normally there were not many people in the square, a large mostly paved area about an acre in size. It was surrounded on all sides by shops, restaurants, and other businesses, and most of the pedestrian traffic was around the edges. There were parking spaces around the sides, and the old man had parked his truck in one of them. He had the windows down and was smoking a cigarette as he watched a group of people setting up some equipment near the center of the square, near a large fountain surrounded by a small group of palm trees. A lectern with some microphones, some rope barriers, and some chairs. Workers were bringing more chairs, and he saw a van roll up and park across the square from him. The decals on the side indicated it was associated with MVR News, a local television station. One of only two in Mesa Verde, he knew. He had lived in area most of his life, with a brief interruption for a war on the other side of the world. One of the lucky ones, he had made it through without a scratch, and returned to his home in Arizona to a relatively happy life. A good job, a nice ranch house on a few acres just outside of town. His retirement savings were good, and he could expect them to be supplemented by a modest pension funded by deductions from his paycheck. But as he aged, he saw the world in which he had expected to live out a comfortable and peaceful retirement. The money in the bank was worth less with each passing year, and the amount of money the government would return to him when he retired diminished as well. And the medical insurance provided for his retirement was worse. He quickly learned that getting sick was not a good idea. Especially really sick, as with the cancer that was gnawing at him like a starving rat. There's nothing more to be done, he was told - at his age a treatment that might extend his life for a few years would not be paid for. He had looked at the young woman across the desk as she spoke. He could see that to her he was just a part of the day's work to be processed. It was little comfort to know that she would end up the same way one day. She didn't think so - as a part of the bureaucracy, even a small one, she could look forward to a much better retirement, better medical care, at the expense of taxpayers like him. Or, he thought, maybe not. Things were falling apart fast, and he doubted that the minions of the state, with the exception of the ones very high up, would do much better than him. He had walked out of the office, ignoring her insistence that he must sign some forms. Rolley James parked his patrol car in the space provided for the security detail. The governor would be speaking at the event, and extra security was ordered. He didn't mind getting off the road for a while, dealing with accidents and the belligerent citizens which he seemed to encounter with increasing frequency. He joined several other state cops and a handful of local police as they assembled for a briefing. The event was ostensibly to celebrate the opening of a new hospital, built with considerable funding from the state and federal governments. With an election coming up, the governor was there to associate himself with it, and of course to make a speech. Rolley and another state cop were assigned to a section behind the speaker's dais. That was fine with him - they would be away from the crowd and in a rather inconsequential position. Not much would be going on back here, he thought. He didn't like the governor much, and didn't know anyone who did. Pompous and officious, he seemed not to know that he was almost universally despised, even by his supporters. Some may have wondered if he knew he was a tool, but few cared. The elections were predetermined, he carried out his orders, and those in charge were happy. At least I won't have to look at him, Rolley thought. The square was beginning to fill, but most of the people coming in were politicians, some local business types, and the news crews. A dozen or so vans now lined the sides of the square, satellite uplinks deployed, cameras positioned around the area facing the speaker's position. Rolley thought these affairs a farce that anyone involved should be embarrassed by, and wondered why they bothered. Whatever resistance they were worried about wasn't going to be fooled by these productions. Still, it was possible that the mindless masses were affected, as long as they were not yet starving. There were a lot of those people, he thought, and they would feed and entertain them for as long as they could. Gordon Williams had arrived before the square began filling, visiting a contact a couple of streets beyond, and was walking back to his car. There were now some people on the dais, microphones and cameras were being adjusted, and it seemed the event was about to get underway. He decided to watch for a while before leaving. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment before deciding where to go, beside an old but well-preserved truck. An old man, not so well-preserved, was getting out as he approached and he stopped to wait until the man closed the door before continuing. Something about the man intrigued him, and he decided to follow him. Perhaps he knew a good spot to watch from. The man walked around to one side of the dais, as near as the audience could approach, and sat down in one of the folding chairs. Gordon sat down as well, just behind him and to his left, and waited. Eventually the show began. Gordon had seen enough of them to last a lifetime or two, and gave minimal attention the the performers, looking the over to reassure himself that nothing had changed - expensive suits, expensive haircuts on the men, more expensive ones on the women - he sometimes wondered why anyone would want to look completely unnatural. But then, he thought, there was nothing natural about them. Their dress, their speech, their attitude towards their fellow beings was completely abnormal. What is wrong with people, he asked himself, that makes them submit to these twisted, sociopathic people. A woman representing the local Chamber of Commerce spoke first, pretentious as usual but mercifully short as she was only introducing the mayor. The mayor's speech was longer but still bearable if one's mind was sufficiently numbed. Then it was time for the governor. Gordon had seen him on television a few times but never in person, and was no more impressed now than he had ever been - he usually changed the channel when politicians came on. As the governor took his place at the lectern, Gordon's peripheral vision caught a slight movement. Most of the audience was sitting quietly, and most of the chairs in the area where he was sitting were empty, so his battlefield senses instantly registered the movement as the old man he had been watching moved. He had been sitting with one foot on the floor and the other leg crossed over the knee of the other - a common enough pose for men to sit in but difficult for some to maintain, and he appeared to be reversing the position. Gordon was about to return his attention to the governor when the old man suddenly stood up and grabbed the back of his chair, in one motion swinging it around and throwing it. Two cops were standing at the edge of the dais, where a small stair gave access from the ground. They instinctively ducked, and the old man, with incredible speed and agility, ran between then and onto the dais, a revolver in each hand. Two other men standing behind the governor reacted by reaching for weapons, but too late. The first two shots took them down and the old man, now behind the governor, rapidly fired five shots into his back from a few feet away. The two cops had by now rushed up the stairs, guns drawn, firing at the old man. He got off three more shots as he fell and lay without moving. One of the cops was down, and the other bent over him as the dais filled with security personnel. Not knowing why he did it, Gordon leaped up the stairs and knelt beside the downed cop. The khaki uniform was darkened by blood just under the sternum - the bullet hadn't missed his heart by much. He looked at the name tag. James. Name tags normally had the last name, Gordon thought - why are his eyes closed? He had seen plenty of wounded men, and rarely did they close their eyes. "Officer James, can you hear me?" he asked. The other cop watched, having to deferred to the older man, perhaps thinking he was a doctor. "I can hear you," Rolley replied. He realized he has closed his eyes, and perhaps they thought he was dead. He opened his eyes. "How bad is it?" "It doesn't look like a bad hit," Gordon replied. "What's your first name?" "Rolley" he replied. Personnel was crowding the area now, cops and paramedics. The governor was being carried down the steps on the other side. He was probably done for. A paramedic joined them, and then another. Gordon stood up and let them take over. "Are you a doctor, sir?" one asked. "Just an citizen," replied Gordon. "Looks like you guys have it under control."