It's Mr Lava Lava (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.22, "The Savage Curtain")

I'd make a "four score" joke, but this is actually episode 77 of 79; TOS not quite reaching the 80 episode mark.

In any event, I got a feeling this was going to be a weird one just from the description on Netflix... 

Israel vs. Iran

It's been rather a long-time coming. I blogged out a playthrough of a game on this scenario that came out in 2010 and I ran an award-winning RP that had it happen in 2015.

In any event, the Israelis have decided that the best way to deal with someone you feel wants to kill you is to kill them first, hence they have launched this massive attack on Iran.

Things though are very different than they were in 2015. Syria is no longer under the reign of Assad. Saudi Arabia was on the brink of normalising relations with Israel before October 7 happened. Hezbollah and Hamas are a shadow of their former selves. While Israel's missile defence system is blunting Houthi attacks. They already damaged a lot of the Iranian air defence capability last year during their previous round.

Iran's options are now limited to trying to wreak havoc on the Straits of Hormuz, something the US and GCC will not stand for, even if Donald Trump is not really keen on major foreign wars - he's more a fan of beating on brown-skinned immigrants who aren't actually doing any real harm.

I feel sorry for the Iranian civilians who are likely to get caught this by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - or related to the wrong people. Also the conscripts who will be killed as a result of this.

Perhaps this could have been avoided, but Netanyahu wants his grand victory. 

Let's hope something better emerges out of all this.

Massive Dynamic Risk Assessment, or a lack thereof (Review: 'Fringe' 1.15, "Inner Child")

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Frederick Forsyth 1938-2025

Frederick Forsyth is one of the authors that has definitely influenced me in my own writing, with a strong eye for technical detail and the sort of knowledge only gained from actual experience; he did stuff that quite literally risked his life in the name of research. Also, his stuff is a cracking good read; I re-read The Day of the Jackal when the TV series came out and it holds up very well.

(I have strong memories of following the Jackal's journey through a 1982 European road atlas I happen to have access to)

Definitely a legend in his profession - we will not see his like again, I'd say, at least not for a while.

Israel is seeking to ethnically cleanse Gaza

They may not want to kill all the Palestinians there, but they certainly want them to go somewhere else. That is a crime regardless of how many of them supported or support Hamas.

It is past time for targeted economic sanctions and a suspension of arms sales.

Cloud District Nine (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.21, "The Cloud Minders")

Only four episodes left of this to go. I'll likely move to a whole season review system for the other Trek shows once this is done - a paragraph for each episode, basically.

There has been some comments on science fiction being "woke" recently, with counterpoints that it has always been "woke", especially Star Trek. This is true, but sometimes the political element is more obvious than in other episodes. This one is a particular example.

Shave and a haircut, two naira! (Review: 'Doctor Who', "The Story & the Engine")

That would be a spectacularly cheap haircut considering the current exchange rate.

80 years since VE Day

I found myself wondering earlier this week if the people who fought Hitler should even have bothered, looking at the state of the world. Some people with distinctly fascist inclinations will celebrating the triumph over fascism, devoid of any sense of irony at their actions. It also definitely feels that we are seeing a return of beliefs we'd hoped were on the way out, especially among the young, where Holocaust denial and antisemitism are becoming unpleasantly common. 

We are seeing Israel now very much the abuser; they may not be the modern Nazis, but they are definitely not a beacon for good in this world and I would support their banning from Eurovision. Russia - well, there is something deeply rotten there - and I hope their war machine collapses first to avoid Ukraine having to make some deeply unpleasant choices. Then there is the electoral success of Reform in the UK.

It's not like we even saved Poland by declaring war in 1939 - it still ended up losing a sixth of its population and became a communist state for over forty years; countries that appeased Hitler or quickly acquiesced actually fared better in many regards.

Yet, what would have happened if we had left Hitler to carry in 1939? He would have probably gone after the Soviet Union eventually, with a plan to basically destroy the Slavic peoples in the name of living space. Perhaps the Soviet Union would have stopped him, but it would have been at an even bigger price and then likely left Europe in an even worse state than it was in 1945.

Resistance against evil is not an easy choice. Sometimes you have to take difficult decisions and pick your battles carefully to avoid hurting the people you are trying to protect. Bullies don't always run away when someone stands up against them, sometimes they will go after you or others as a gesture to keep people afraid and protect their fragile egos. It will definitely not be stress-free either.

Even defeating Hitler required the deaths of millions of Allied soldiers and the destruction of many of Germany's urban areas, with the survivors on all sides carrying the horror to the end of their days.

What gives me hope is that we are not going gently into the good night with democracy; there is considerable pushback against Trump, whose popularity has slumped. Poland chucked out its authoritarian-inclined government and Hungary might well do the same. Canada and Australia have definitely rejected Trumpism. Reform will hopefully prove themselves an utter clown show in local government and hurt their general election chances.

However, the fight will not be easy and it may well get bloody. I just hope the fight is short and as painless as possible, because while war might be necessary, it should be a last resort. 

We can also not defeat these people by stooping to their level, be it by fake news or outright murder. We can and must offer a better way, because otherwise we're just replacing one bad system with another. Let us persuade with love, not hate, as Jesus did.

To those who have gone on and those who are left, thank you for your sacrifice. Hopefully we can still honour you.