Peter Mc

Proud to be the 319th 😎 on @BackerKit for Damaged Goods: A Mothership RPG - Salvage Rites Expansion. Thanks @oneeyedwerebear damaged-goods.backerkit.com/community_shar…

Proud to be the 319th 😎 on @BackerKit for Damaged Goods: A Mothership RPG - Salvage Rites Expansion. Thanks @oneeyedwerebear damaged-goods.backerkit.com/community_shar…

The first time I met William Gibson - to interview him for the *Globe and Mail* in 1999 - there was one question I knew I wanted to ask him: "What happens to the counterculture in the era of instantaneous commodification?" craphound.com/nonfic/transcr… 1/

"Minimum wage" is one of those concepts that *seems* to have an intuitive definition, but the harder you think about it, the more complicated it gets. For example, if you want to work, but can't find a job, then the minimum wage you'll get is zero: web.archive.org/web/2020062504… 1/

OG App is the coolest app you've never heard of. Back in 2022, two teenagers unilaterally disenshittified Instagram by making an "alt-client." 1/

@d_r_wilkie @JohnNicholRAF @crimlawuk @Keir_Starmer Why didn't your comment decry Asquith's poor management of munitions in the Gallipoli campaign? Or were you just commenting on one issue?

@JohnNicholRAF @crimlawuk If this isn’t, at least partly, Trump Derangement Syndrome, where are your posts decrying @Keir_Starmer’s continuing pursuit through the criminal courts of elderly British Army veterans who served in NI 🤷🏼‍♂️

Long ramble: I have been mulling if I should comment on President Trump's inane comments about NATO involvement in Afghanistan. Although 35 years ago, during the US-led first Gulf War, I was lying, handcuffed & blindfolded - literally 'shoulder to shoulder' - with a US colleague on a concrete floor in an Iraqi interrogation bunker, I rather feel it should be the current generation who express any anger at the President's ludicrous, demonstrably false utterings. Which is why I earlier shared some posts from others. But perhaps I will reflect like this - I watched Trump's press conference in the wake of the terrible tragedy when a US helicopter collided with a civilian airliner last January in disbelief. 64 people lost their lives but it seemed to be about him - his expertise, his knowledge, what he thought had happened. Much of what he said was incorrect. So I realised back then that it was going to be pointless trying to analyse any upcoming word-salads. Everything is clearly about him; his expertise in every subject, his grasp of all situations. His need to say something, anything, to show he is the best, the cleverest, the smartest, the most knowledgeable kid on the block. The pub-bore, the braggart, the know-it-all, pontificates on anything and everything in the hope of bolstering their own, clearly very low, self-esteem. I wonder that, in the President's mind, that it doesn't matter if what he says is factually correct? I wonder if he knows, understands, even cares, what is true? He is saying some words, which in his mind, seems to suggest that he's important and people will admire him, laud him. The fact that everyone around him then applauds this character trait, thanking him for his 'leadership' at every turn, just amplifies his desire, his need to continue. He's got want he wants - in his mind - attention, praise, admiration. So to sum up, trying to analyse Trump's ramblings is like trying to play chess with a pigeon. Somewhat interesting at first, but ultimately, truly pointless and rather frustrating. To those he has hurt, insulted, vilified, I send you my deepest condolences for your loss, and gratitude for your service.

Bruce Sterling going very, very hard (posts 117-121): #post116" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">people.well.com/conf/inkwell.v… A current political issue that seems under-recognized to me is how much Trump and his enablers have destroyed the American Establishment and the Republican Party. MAGA takes its cues from Viktor Orban and is an ethnonational-kleptocrat scam. But if you think of the situation from Trump's draft-dodging Boomer heyday, around 1968 or so, he's extremely disruptive and radical -- an "up against the Wall," smash the State type. Long-established, conventional Republican tenets that have vaporized: "Establishment Republican" protective, patriarchal, stabilizing, figures of the Nelson Rockfeller type. These guys were firmly placed in the American cultural elite of libraries and art galleries and universities. They could deliver censorious lectures on cultural propriety, and had credibility in doing it -- "Mobil Oil Company brings you the ballet." They might as well have all been hanged from lanterns. In 2016 there's not a trace of 'em. "Billy Graham" figures who were "the nation's pastor." They're all Elmer Gantry now. They nailed themselves to the wrists and ankles to public sleazebags who break all Ten Commandments every week. Their megachurches are bunkers for rifles and race-war. No one including themselves expects an ounce of moral decency out of them. They've become unholy. And they know it. "Limited government." Nope. Not any more. No government at all, sometimes, but never with well-defined "limits." Constitutional Rights: first amendment, fourth amendment, nineteenth amendment. They don't care. The Constitution is of no relevance to even to the former Tea Party. States' rights. They invade towns and states with masked squads. American states that ignore or contradict them are enemy states. Free market capitalism. They're oligarchs, grifters and kleptocrats. They also run protection rackets in which business leaders have to publicly flatter them and bribe them. Independent banking system. They hate functional bankers, and prefer crypto and money-laundering. Foreign bribes, actively sought out, more than acceptable. Reducing the debt. They never actually did that, but now they've forgotten the idea entirely. NATO. They hate and fear their own military alliances, and the older and more traditional and established those alliances, the worse they are. They'll fight with Canada, with Mexico; they're beat up Denmark. US International soft power, various influence efforts, global regulatory schemes, global trade regulations -- they hate fear and abandon every one of them. In every "developing world" burg where there was an American flag over some do-gooder scheme, they've pulled it down and burned it. Also, American power-centers that seemed really invulnerable in the USA, the true hard-core apparatus: the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court -- and "the Republican Party," of course... all just storm-wracked, flooded, mildewed. They'll never be the same again. If you really loved those aspects of straight-laced America, the native land of squares and the Silent Majority, it's a source of grave anxiety. If you're a May '68er "Situationist," and you thought the whole Moloch-style enterprise was always rotten, exploitative, alienating and basically a paper-thin, TV-screen "Spectacle," it's incredible to see just one year of a new Presidency doing so much of your hard work for you. It's like 1968 turned inside out. The Boomers are leaving on a very bad note -- but they are leaving. They're leaving emptiness and wreckage as they head for the graveyards, but this is the second quarter of the 21st Century. It's not an era of Baby Boom Population Bomb. It's an era of radically shrinking populations and disturbed landscapes. Viktor Orban's Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, they all have severe baby-busts and mass regional abandonments. They're signature national scenes are villages demolished, shuttered factories maybe fit for a rave or some laser-tag. It sounds very alarming, but Turin is rather like that, and I spent most of this century in Turin. I've had quite a good time of it, even; not that life there was perfect, but there was so much empty room, and so many unheard-of creative things to become enthusiastic about, in a very old town with so much new elbow-room.

@PetefromHayNSW @TonyHWindsor @Barnaby_Joyce Plenty of comments about Barnaby by Tony.

@TonyHWindsor Mate - least challenge @Barnaby_Joyce - dont bang on with an American sacked hasbeen - grow some balls Tony instead of just licking them champ

This 👇🏾

@RupertLowe10 @naomirwolf Are there places that have only kosher food? As long as parents know, what is the problem?

Sent in to Restore Britain by a concerned family member - a nursery that operates a 'halal-only food policy' for all children, including for packed lunches. Pork is banned. Halal food is being forced on children all across the country - it's disgusting. We must push back.

One of the dumbest, shrewdest tricks corporate America ever pulled was teaching us all to reflexively say, "If a corporation blocks your speech, that doesn't violate the First Amendment and therefore it's not censorship": pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes… 1/

@straczynski Australia had a radio series Dr Poo and the Turdis.

I have no words.

@Rainmaker1973 Yes!

Settle the debate.

Proud to be the 140th 😎 on @BackerKit for Broadsword Guide to the Negative Energy Plane. …e-negative-energy-plane.backerkit.com/community_shar…

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I just backed CURSED: Animated Scenes & Companion Book on @Kickstarter kickstarter.com/projects/12790…

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House and Senate Republicans are on the verge of killing Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, one of the most potent anti-corruption laws on the US statute books: thebignewsletter.com/p/house-gop-pr… 1/

Proud to be the 163rd 😎 on @BackerKit for Johnson Squared: a farcical whodunit mystery for Mothership RPG. Thanks @peregrine_coast johnson-squared.backerkit.com/community_shar…