Movies & TV Star Trek: Lower Decks The Shape of Things — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “Of Gods and Angles” Meet Ensign Olly, who is descended from Zeus (yes, that Zeus) and a human woman. By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on November 21, 2024 Credit: CBS / Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: CBS / Paramount+ One of the fun things about Lower Decks is that they take joy in the obscure to a degree usually reserved for tie-in fiction. Over the nearly sixty years that Star Trek has been around, there’s been a lot of weird-ass stuff that only showed up in one episode and was mostly forgotten. That “mostly” is necessary because tie-in writers have taken those weird-ass things and run with them. (As an example, your humble reviewer took a thirty-second conversation between Bashir and Garak in a DS9 episode about the Betreka Nebula Incident—which has never been mentioned before or since—and built a 100,000-word novel out of it.) LD has continued this tradition, from a fifty-foot skeleton of Spock to the use last week of the Acamarians (which I totally forgot to mention in my review of “Starbase 80?!”). This week, we get something even more obscure, as it’s from a part of an original series script that was cut from the final episode. Back in 1967, the original series episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” posited that the gods worshipped by the Greeks were actual alien beings. We meet Apollo in that episode, and the original script ended with Enterprise officer Carolyn Palamas, with whom Apollo has been making smoochy faces with, announcing that she was pregnant with Apollo’s child. While that was cut from the final episode, “Of Gods and Angles” runs with that notion by giving us Ensign Olly (wonderfully voiced by Saba Homayoon), who is descended from Zeus and a human woman. Olly is on the Cerritos as kind of her last chance, as she’s been transferred multiple other posts thanks to all the times she’s messed things up, blown things up, damaged things, and so on. Plus she’s always late and doesn’t follow orders. Mariner—who has some experience in being the fuckup ensign—offers to take her under her wing, and hopefully lead her on the same path Mariner herself has been on. (Though Freeman has to point out that Mariner isn’t 100% there yet, either, given that she yanked a padd out of Freeman’s hands without asking, which isn’t something you do to your captain or your mother…) Another thing LD does well is take advantage of being animated to give us some truly alien aliens. In this case, the Cerritos is hosting peace talks between two sets of beings of pure energy, one of whom contains their energy in cubes, the other of whom does so in spheres. Complicating matters is that one of the cubes has gone missing, the teenaged offspring of one of the leaders. There’s evidence pointing to the teenaged cube being dead, but it’s not conclusive. Freeman bends over backward to make sure that nobody accuses anybody of murder without way more evidence, but Olly jumps to that conclusion with both feet and acts accordingly while she and Mariner investigate. (They do the investigating because Shaxs and his security detail are already spread thin maintaining security with all the energy beings on board, plus if security is investigating, it’ll look like they think the cube was killed, which will upset the delicate negotiating balance Freeman is trying to maintain.) The biggest flaw in this episode is that I saw the fact that the teenager was missing and not murdered and off canoodling with a sphere a mile off, as that plot had whiskers on it when Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1597 (not to mention when TNG did “The Outrageous Okona” in 1988). However, what I particularly like about this plot is that it’s some of the best evidence that Mariner really is evolving. Mariner turning back into a good Starfleet officer has been a slow, laborious process, which has been frustrating for me because she was so awful in the first season. But seeing her mentor someone incredibly similar to her in Olly (but not exactly the same—I like that Olly is her own kind of messed up, different from Mariner’s brand of messed up) is encouraging. I especially like the final scene. Olly has been thrown in the brig. While she did help save the day by using her gods-given powers to suck the energy from the cubes and spheres when they start fighting each other on the Cerritos, Olly also lied about having those powers and also hid evidence from the missing cube’s quarters. (She was worried she’d be accused of causing the cube to be killed or go missing or whatever, so she hid the fried computer terminal.) Mariner insists on sitting with Olly—the same way Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford always sat with Mariner when she got tossed in the brig. Olly isn’t all that thrilled with it, but Mariner doesn’t take no for an answer. The B-plot is Boimler’s continued attempts to be more like his alternate-universe counterpart. His mustache is completely grown in at this point, and the beard is, er, coming along. The funniest part of this plot is that both Rutherford and Tendi know he’s been surreptitiously looking at alt-Boimler’s padd, which they recognized as being from the other universe because the bevelling is a few millimeters different. (Both times this is mentioned, Boimler pointedly remarks that the other universe’s padd is also red, and the response is a surprised, “Oh yeah!”) It turns out that alt-Boimler and alt-T’Ana were very close friends, with the doctor referring to Boimler as “Flip” and Boimler being part of her book club. Boimler’s attempts to make this happen on his own ship are, of course, absolutely dismal failures that make T’Ana just be more annoyed at him. As usual, when Boimler gets out of his own way, things work out better, as during the climactic donnybrook involving the cubes, spheres, and Olly’s electricity powers, Boimler gets a lightning bolt up his ass. T’Ana has to perform a very delicate, career-improving operation to remove it, and that’s what ingratiates Boimler to her. She invites him to her book club, and does indeed give him a nickname: “Fuck-o.” Boimler is thrilled. I’m genuinely curious what the endgame is of Boimler’s quest to make himself over into his seemingly-more-successful counterpart, and it’s been fun to watch him make an idiot of himself trying to do so. I like that his friends remain supportive. This episode is exactly what LD is best at: telling a Star Trek story with humor. The resolution of the sphere/cube storyline is very Trek, with the forbidden-love couple (complete with funky-shaped offspring named SquAaron) inspiring everyone to go back to the negotiating table to try to make it all work. Olly gets a transfer to engineering, which is where she always wanted to be. (Her powers kept futzing out equipment, so she was kicked out of engineering, but now that her powers are publicly known, they can be compensated for in a way they weren’t when she kept them secret.) And Boimler makes friends with T’Ana. All of it is done in a way that’s genuinely funny, from Olly’s OTT reactions to, well, everything to all the comments about corners and smoothness coming from the spheres and cubes to “Also it’s red” to T’Lyn’s delightfully deadpan recitation of all the “incidents” Olly had that should probably have already gotten her transferred off the Cerritos. Random thoughts This episode establishes that the laurel crown that was in Apollo’s hair in “…Adonais?” and the one that Olly has as well isn’t an affectation, it’s actually attached, which is hilarious. Also, she can create physical lightning bolts as well as generate electricity, which is why one of them gets stuck up Boimler’s ass… The most extensive use of the cut line establishing that Palamas was pregnant was by Peter David in the Star Trek: New Frontier series, where the novel Being Human established that one of the main characters, Mark McHenry, is a descendant of Apollo and Palamas (and who was partly raised by Artemis, whom McHenry as a child thought was his imaginary friend). In addition, John Byrne did a direct sequel to “…Adonais?” focusing on Palamas in issue #11 of his New Visions photo-novel-style comic book series When the cube and sphere reveal their love affair, they also reveal that the mess made of the cube’s quarters was because of their kinky sex play. Olly is appalled to realize that she touched the fried computer terminal… When Ransom rants and raves about how annoying Olly is, the thing that pisses him off the most is that he thinks Olly may have stolen his kettle-bell weights. Because of course that’s his main concern… We see Kayshon again in this episode. He has two lines of dialogue, one in regular English, one in Tamarian metaphor, and this refusal to commit to the bit still isn’t working for me. He should really just only talk in Tamarian metaphor. If you’re gonna do the joke, do the joke. Kayshon remains one of LD’s biggest misfires, alas. I forgot to mention the Acamarians last week because I honestly forgot all about them ten minutes after I watched the episode. To be fair, I also totally forgot about the Acamarians ten minutes after I watched their only other appearance, in TNG’s incredibly forgettable fourth-season episode “The Vengeance Factor.” [end-mark] The post The Shape of Things — <i>Star Trek: Lower Decks</i>: “Of Gods and Angles” appeared first on Reactor.

Singer, actress, and dancer Judy Garland is one of the most famous entertainers in American history. She was just a teenager when she won an Academy Award and was the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. And, of course, she starred in one of the most beloved films of all time, The Wizard of Oz. Garland's life was a series of ups and downs, and she was taken from her family, friends... Source

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—MSNBC host Jen Psaki urged Democrats not to go along with what she claimed was a “manufactured panic” about biological men playing in women’s sports. The Trump campaign ran ads featuring Vice President Kamala Harris discussing how she pushed “behind the scenes” for “transgender” prisoners to receive sex changes, while now President-elect Donald Trump said he supported banning biological men from competing in women’s sports during an Oct. 16 town hall moderated by Fox News host Harris Faulkner. Psaki claimed that Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts erred by calling out Democrats over the issue on Nov. 7 and standing by his criticism. “There’s obviously a lot of soul-searching right now going on within the Democratic Party, and that’s a good thing,” Psaki said. “But what I worry about is that in the course of all of that soul-searching, some Democrats might reach the wrong sweeping conclusions. And there are a lot of issues that fall into that bucket, but one in particular that stuck out to me is transgender rights.” WATCH: “Immediately after the election, Congressman Seth Moulton told The New York Times that ‘Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or a formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.’ And then last week, Congressman Moulton came on this network to discuss those comments,” Psaki added before playing a clip of Moulton defending his stand on MSNBC on Nov. 10. Moulton faced backlash from professors at Tufts University and local Democrats, according to Boston Globe columnist Carine Hajjar, who wrote that the college’s political science department would not facilitate internships with Moulton’s office. “Look, reflection is good, but if that were actually an issue at thousands of schools across the country, it would be worthy of a debate, but there are just incredibly few examples of transgender girls playing in youth sports. And when we see those examples, there isn’t evidence that these kids are a threat to safety and fairness,” Psaki claimed. “When I say few examples, I mean that if you were to count the examples of transgender girls playing youth sports in any single state, the number often rounds to zero.” “Take Utah. When a transgender athlete ban was passed there in 2022, there was a grand total of one, one transgender girl playing in youth sports,” Psaki continued. “When South Dakota passed a ban, only one transgender girl had competed in high school sports since 2013. In fact, when these bans were making their way through Republican state houses in 2021, legislators in more than 20 states could not cite a single instance in their own state or region where a transgender athlete competing was a problem.” The issue of biological males who identify as transgender competing in women’s sports became controversial after Lia Thomas won the 500-yard women’s final participation in the 2022 NCAA championships. Multiple college teams elected to forfeit matches against San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team due to the presence of a biological male on the San Jose State roster, according to the Los Angeles Times. North Carolina high school volleyball player Payton McNabb, who suffered a career-ending concussion when a transgender player’s spike hit her in the face during a September 2022 volleyball match, described ongoing medical symptoms resulting from the injury in legislative testimony given in April 2023 urging the legislature to pass a bill banning biological men from competing in women’s sports. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation The post MSNBC Host Tells Dems to Ignore Voters and Keep Pushing ‘Transgender’ Athletes in Women’s Sports appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Former Representative Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination Thursday to become attorney general in the second Trump term. He said the move followed many “excellent meetings” with senators, who would have to vote to confirm his nomination. “I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many,” Gaetz said in a post on X. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” Some Republican senators had expressed their doubts about Gaetz’s nomination, though many of the same senators had voted for Merrick Garland, President Biden’s pick to head the Justice Department. Gaetz launched the motion to remove then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in October 2023, while the House Ethics Committee was investigating claims of sexual assault against him. The Justice Department had previously investigated the claims, and declined to press charges. Gaetz, who represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District, resigned from Congress shortly after Trump nominated him last week. His resignation also pre-empted the potential release of the House Ethics Committee’s report. “There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General,” he added. “Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” Gaetz wrote. “I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.” I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance…— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) November 21, 2024 This is a breaking news story and will be updated. The post BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Withdraws Attorney General Nomination appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Isaac Newton’s third law of motion famously states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction: If you push an object, for example, the object pushes back against you with equal force. It turns out this isn’t just a law of physics. It’s a law of politics. President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks thus far have run the gamut from traditional and well-established (Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser, Chris Wright for secretary of energy, Brendan Carr for Federal Communications Commission chairman) to the more audacious and controversial (former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary). What they all have in common is that they represent a precise reaction to the excesses and evils of the Obama-Biden bureaucracy that has, for over a decade and a half, plagued American politics. Take, as the most obvious example, Gaetz. Gaetz is charismatic and brilliant; he has been both aggressive and effective on the House Judiciary Committee. He is also, as has been widely reported, thoroughly disliked in the House of Representatives. He has been generally perceived as a destructive force, an egotist focused more on media coverage than on the functioning of the House; his defenestration of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was unpopular among his colleagues, with many believing that he pursued McCarthy vindictively based on his opposition to McCarthy’s House Ethics investigation against him. And that’s precisely why Trump is picking him. To Donald Trump, the Department of Justice has been an instrument of vindictiveness from his first days in office. From insiders in the DOJ working with the FBI to gin up the Mueller investigation to the Merrick Garland DOJ targeting him repeatedly under legally shoddy auspices, the DOJ has consistently represented resistance to his presidency. And so, Trump has picked precisely the type of person he believes will clean out the agency from top to bottom. Or take RFK Jr. RFK Jr. represents a slap in the face to the traditional health establishment. He has a long record of controversial statements on everything ranging from 5G to vaccination. But he is a reaction to the overweening arrogance of a conspiratorial elite who crammed down COVID-19 misinformation on an industrial scale, told Americans that boys could become girls, attempted to wield the reins of government against their medical opponents, and even tried to mandate vaccination on 80 million Americans. RFK Jr. is the natural reaction to a health policy elite who have made themselves radioactive. Trump himself has always been a form of snapback against the overreach of what came before. Barack Obama tried to remake American politics in his image: high-handed, intersectional, and replete with authoritarian overtones. Trump came along and ripped the idol off his pedestal. Joe Biden tried to transform American politics by radically reinterpreting the bargain between American citizens and their government. Trump is returning to reject that never-requested transformation. Every political action has its equal and opposite reaction. No doubt the same will hold true in the future if Republicans overreach in their own way. But for the moment, it’s vital to recognize that the Trumpian backlash has been well-earned. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Newton’s Third Law of Politics appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. When Rupert Nathan, a 63-year-old father in England, used the term “kapo” to describe another Jewish man in a private Facebook comment, it ignited a controversy that resulted in his arrest and 12-hour detention, all witnessed by his distraught 12-year-old daughter. This term, originating from a chapter in Nazi Germany, refers to Jewish individuals who oversaw fellow prisoners in concentration and extermination camps. Today, it is sometimes used among Jewish people to accuse someone of betrayal. According to the Daily Mail, Nathan, who also labeled Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber a “creep” and a “fake Rabbi” in the comments, has expressed fear for his career. His case has been forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police to determine if he should be charged under the “malicious communications” law. This is yet another incident that raises significant concerns about the extent of British policing in matters that involve potentially offensive language rather than clear legal violations. The Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment, where Nathan is a member, chose not to pursue any action against him. Despite this, the police proceeded to arrest him a month later, an act that his daughter found deeply traumatic. Nathan recounted the emotional toll it took on her, fearing he might share a fate similar to others who suffered severe consequences for their actions. “I admit that calling someone a ‘kapo’ is not a nice thing to do but it is not a crime,” Nathan told Daily Mail. “I am astounded that police waste their time on cases like mine and Allison Pearson’s when they could spend their time tackling real hate-crimes instead.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK: Man Arrested for Calling Rabbi a “Kapo” on Facebook Sparks Free Speech Outcry appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The United Nations (but not only) has clearly chosen to focus its push on introducing digital ID systems to some of the world’s developing countries, particularly in Africa. What’s referred to in reports as “a comprehensive initiative” is now taking place across the continent, driven by the UN development agency UNDP, as well as the UN Innovation Network, and even UNESCO (Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). This is one of the components of what’s known as the UN’s Global Digital Compact. Such initiatives are sold in those countries as a way to develop better access to services and improve “digital inclusion.” Related: Digital ID, Bill Gates vaccine record, and payments system combo to be trialed in Africa  But opponents around the world say the schemes create large, centralized surveillance networks prone to misuse, particularly without stringent safeguards in place. After the UN agencies previously formalized their initiatives in Kenya, it is now the turn of Ethiopia and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) where similar programs are being launched in cooperation with their governments. In Ethiopia, the government is organizing ID card registration in what’s said to be a large-scale effort that encompasses financial services, healthcare, and education. In Eswatini, the UNDP, together with the country’s government, carried out a digital readiness assessment. The goal was to find out if Eswatini’s digital infrastructure in various sectors is capable of implementing digital ID programs at this time. It would appear not since the result of the evaluation revealed more money needs to go into developing that infrastructure, as well as training staff, and further developing both public and private digital services. The latter are supposed to take on an increasingly important role, as has previously been done in other African countries. UN’s representative in Eswatini is quoted as saying that the results of the assessment program will be used to put together a roadmap to improve digital infrastructure and associated employee skills – that would then lead to the introduction of digital IDs. Eswatini government officials spoke along the same line, saying that the country’s Digital Transformation Strategy will benefit from the results of the UN’s assessment, eventually leading to “integrated digital services.” Various digital ID projects, either discussed or tested elsewhere in the world are typically unpopular, facing low uptake and constant pushback from both privacy and security advocates. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The UN Is Using Africa as a Testing Ground for Controversial Digital ID Systems appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The United Nations (UN) is engaging in yet another effort that can easily slip into a tool for “bolstering” online censorship. Earlier in the week the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change was launched during a G20 Summit. This adds to a convoluted list of various UN-driven treaties, initiatives, and goals – and here the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has found a partner in Brazil’s authorities. Those behind the document say it’s there to help combat climate change disinformation and take aim at social media in particular. If UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay is to be believed, this type of “disinformation” is “running rampant” on the internet. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who addressed the summit, also contributed to building the dramatic and alarmist narrative around both issues – climate, and “disinformation” – when he, in a social media post, complained about “coordinated disinformation campaigns impeding global progress on climate change.” So far, the countries that have joined include Chile, Denmark, France, Morocco, Sweden, and the UK. They will collectively contribute to the UN raising $10–$15 million to fund “research and awareness campaigns” but also advocacy groups, and what’s referred to as communication strategies to help achieve the initiative’s goals. While clearly treating the climate change theories as scientific fact, Azoulay stopped just short of referring to that as an existential threat – but did call it an “existential challenge.” The UN official wants to see more than governments, scientists, etc., on board: the role of journalists is also highlighted here – in a rather strange way. Instead of reporting the news, journalists are envisaged as a kind of advocates themselves, “a critical link between science and society,” said Azoulay. The UNESCO chief also chose to “preemptively” treat journalists as needing protection from “facing risks while reporting on climate issues.” It’s unclear what “risks” Azoulay had in mind, but it almost certainly is not what seems like a real risk – namely, these professionals abandoning their professional role, and outright becoming mouthpieces for the UN and various governments, and fighting their battles. In this case – the “climate change” one. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UN’s Latest Climate Agenda Sparks Alarms Over Online Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Demonetization of users on social platforms is nothing new and has happened countless times over the past years, but after an entire social network – Twitter – became the target of similar activities, those allegedly behind the push found themselves in court. Twitter, along with all other major social sites, was in the good graces of the world’s most powerful corporations and advertisers – until Elon Musk acquired the company and made the “unforgivable” move to change course and steer the platform, now X, towards free speech. The way the powerful umbrella group known as the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its members, massive global brands, reacted was by organizing a boycott of X, a lawsuit filed in August against WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) alleges. We obtained a copy of the amended complaint for you here. GARM shut down operations shortly after this, while the filing, which has recently been amended to add Amazon’s Twitch, identifies close to 20 of its members as defendants, including CVS Health, Mars, and Unilever. Starting in the fall of 2022, Twitch stopped buying ads on X in the US and has since “only spent a small amount elsewhere in the world,” reads the lawsuit, which accuses GARM’s members of suddenly (“in a marked departure from their prior pattern of purchases”) deciding to no longer run ads on Twitter/X. While these claims are refuted by what legacy media claim are experts and insiders, the lawsuit is based on a report the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives released in July, which said the documents it had seen reveal that as soon as Musk took over, GARM started telling its members to boycott the platform. “The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws,” the report noted at the time. In a somewhat comical interpretation of reality, given the multi-billion industry it represents, the WFA in early August announced GARM’s activities would cease – because it didn’t have financial resources to fund a court battle. The WFA (that is now handling the lawsuit) announced this in a statement that also referred to GARM as “a small non-profit.” Legacy media reports now covering the lawsuit also, for some reason, choose to describe GARM in exactly the same way – “a small non-profit initiative” – only, without putting that in quotes. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post X Takes Aim at Twitch in Legal Fight Over Ad Boycotts appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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