"The success of fascism is always dependent on the tyrant, who sits at the center of an insular world and becomes the manifestation of the backward-looking project."
I write things (sporadically https://www.patreon.com/Pecunium) I make things (yarn, woven goods, minor woodworking). I take photographs (and teach photography). I'm moderately polymathic (though maths are not my thing) Welcome to my place
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"The success of fascism is always dependent on the tyrant, who sits at the center of an insular world and becomes the manifestation of the backward-looking project."
NEW: Mercenary spyware is coming to the US. ICE just quietly unsuspended their contract with spyware maker #Paragon. Remember them? Caught earlier this year being used to hack Italian journalists. This is bad, let's talk about how we got here 1/ jackpoulson.substack.com/p/exclusive-...
This right here! Remember, multiyear (aka upfront) funding operates like a huge budget cut. We also need language limiting MYF/UFF.
I feel like that’s not even a hard ask. We can absolutely have meat and titties and probably at least three other things we love, too.
"(Michelle Obama didn’t respond to interview requests made via the Obama Foundation.)" Good for Michelle and why would she need to answer to "The Atlantic?" Are they grilling Laura Bush on why reading scores are still down? Are they grilling Melania Trump on why people aren't Being Best? 5/
Michelle Obama was First Lady. She had no administrative power. She was not the head of anything or the decision maker of anything. To equate a First Lady to a Cabinet Secretary is ridiculous and false. This would be like saying Laura Bush failed to get reading scores up when it wasn't her job to.
Do I think his health is in decline? Yes. But this isn’t evidence of some massive change. The president has had an ambulance in the motorcade since shortly after Reagan was shot. And federal installations have limited access on federal holidays. This is situation normal.
“What if Liberace and Marie Antoinette had a baby? And what if that baby projectile-vomited all over the room?”
Pelicans just look like dinosaurs.
The key takeaway is Netflix’s bragged about algorithm that spies on every click you make gives them more data about audiences than ever existed in cinema history. But it has not led to their biggest hits. K-pop DH was made fully separate from Netflix & has crushed their $320 million Electric State.
Oh no! This is a huge loss. What an icon among Indigenous/Native American actors. Rest in Power.
I actually wrote a piece of interactive theatre for a small con I'm doing next year, where an aggressive AI advocate has to be removed by security and they end up smashing his booth — but then this dingus went and did it in real life
No more than any other person who isn’t actually making things deserves to be in a community dedicated to those who do their own work.
AI grifter scammed their way into Dragon Con. The staff had them escorted out, lmao you love to see it
“In 2017, O’Hanlon was captured at Trump’s first inauguration festivities in DC decked out in his full Eagle Scouts uniform. The photographer who took the photo wrote on his personal website of ‘the Boy Scout kid that looked like a Brownshirt.’”
We all want a beautiful National Mall. But every American should be outraged that Trump is wasting $1 million a day on the National Guard to pick up trash when he could rehire the Park Service staff he fired.
More framing like this, please www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...
A friend took this at a rally today and I barked laughing.
For you Swifties. And others who are interested. (gift article) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Tomorrow's big parade in Beijing will preview new Chinese weapon systems. But the military 'bling' may also provide insights into new and evolved PLA operating concepts for drones and missiles. 1/7
Alt text so everyone can see the corpse
thinking about following college football just closely enough this year to be really vindictive about how badly they’re bankrupting our university for this program to be…down 20-7 to the unranked Horned Frogs at the half?! sweet mother of mercy.
Main pt: If true, genuinely hostile, threatening, etc from Putin. Secondary pt: Almost every plane is equipped w multiple ways to figure out where it's going if GPS fails. Happens more often than you'd think. So: bad move by Putin. But pilots knew how to cope. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...
Hi did you move your newsletter away from substack? drop it in the replies so people can find you and subscribe! I am big on rewarding good choices
JUNIOR AS EXECUTIONER In fact, most Medicaid adults under 65 who aren't on disability are working, with around 64% of them working full-time or part-time. Of the remaining 36%, most are not working for reasons of illness, caregiving, or schooling. (See comment) www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Just thinking about how the design of Baron Roderigo Sejanus Vasco D'Gama Bajar in STARSTRUCK (1985) is obviously based on the dad from DENNIS THE MENACE (US), but later readers might think he’s supposed to be Stephen Colbert.
Holy smokes This is the crowd at the Bernie Sanders/Graham Platner Fighting Oligarchy event in Portland, ME tonight Platner is the oyster farmer challenging Susan Collins; Senate seat👇 Overwhelming turnout! I feel like maybe Susan's number is finally up ..
We had that problem for a smoke detector… but our landing was too small for the ladder; so it had to be propped while I climbed over a railing to step across, and then up. Horrid.
He is not ok and the decision to not report it as such is a choice: www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-heal...
Anyway please pre-order my book that comes out tomorrow. books2read.com/b/angelmaker
The difference between the text of the post and the headline of the article below it is staggering
Seems a bit prosaic… all things considered. A lot of it is weighted to the past 20 years.
I love looking at this graph, showing it to my students, and sharing it on social media, even though it unerringly brings out the trolls. This is the efficacy curve of Pfizer's mRNA COVID vaccine. This, people, is what ended the emergency phase of the COVID pandemic. Despite what RFK Jr says.
I am amused that Mamdani is seen as a raving communist for suggesting mid-tier FDR type reforms and there's an actual Eugene Debs dude running for Senate in Maine and he's not freaking out anybodyyyy oh yes. Shit. He's white. Sorry, I just got it. Go about your business.
Federal agents in DC have been starting dangerous car cases for small stuff like tinted windows. The chases violate DC police policy. Out of 10 cases, six ended in a crash. One car had a minor in back. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
Since the past 30 years have shown them it doesn’t… it’s not pessimism; it awareness of reality.
His willy.
Is Trump ok right now? Idk. Its impossible to know. There's not enough publicly available information. I don't really think it's fair to blame people for speculating, even if wrong, when we're being denied basic info about the situation that we would expect from every other President in history.
Can we stop saying "Medicare" for all and just say Universal Healthcare? I've been on Medicare and it's not great. They only pay 80% of things and if we keep saying Medicare you know those assholes will try and make us pay 20% when universal healthcare means universal. Healthcare is a human right.
Eat Street Food
Great lead headline right now, @nytimes.com.
🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget! House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion. To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle. YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!
One reason for Democrats to ditch their reflex to say "You have a point" to the other side is the right wing hasn't had a good point about anything in most of our lifetimes
My name is Graham Platner and I’m running for US Senate to defeat Susan Collins and topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country. I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people. And that makes me deeply angry.
I'm up against the biggest of big money. If you can, please consider making a contribution to help build the statewide grassroots movement we need. secure.actblue.com/donate/platn...
Really been trying to impress on people outside of California that Gavin Newsom’s stance on the homeless, horrid though it is, is not only *not* an outlier in progressive state politics, it’s not even the worst instance of it! Multiple mayors are actually worse!
#MinCup Round 1 Match 2 is underway! It’s dark & dramatic #Stibonite vs fluffy & adorable #Okenite. Kohl or cottonball? VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1... Check results: www.mineralcup.org/2025/results...
Each time they do something like this is beneficial. 1: They aren’t actually grabbing people. 2: They feel frustrated. 3: They are reminded people don’t like them. Every one of those things is sand in the gears.
Every single convention organizer, publisher, art director, project manager, etc. who's even once entertained the thought of using genAI imagery or LLM generated text at any stage should be paying *full* attention to how popular DragonCon is becoming for enforcing their "no genAI" policies.
That is normal; esp on a federal holiday.
Man… that bacon is ruined… cooked to a crusty death, with the fat too hot, and the meat scorched. I wouldn’t serve that to my enemies.
officially at 1/6 of the way there!! thank you so, so much to everyone who has been donating/boosting. His surgery is Wednesday, I will post photos & updates of the dopey lil man 🙏 #catsky
One of the things Herons do when hunting is shade the water with their wings; sort of as a melodramatic vampire lifts their cloak/cape up to their chin. This is a Heron doing that.
Reminder for myself - You can always post about someone who is good. That person who sucks? They've gotten enough attention. That person who's excellent? More people should know about them.
Well shit. He was an actor I admired, not for being Native, in a world where Natives get short shrift, but because he lit up the screen. Like all great actors he was fearless in front of an audience. May his memory be for a blessing.
FYI this is my favorite sign I’ve ever seen
She has a 75% approval rating. 75%! Trains and infrastructure. I see what type of leaders others have, and I want that for me!
On this Labor Day, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
I posted pieces of this last week as I went, but now it's done! A map of a magic bookshop, where you always find the book you need an a cozy place to read it. It's for a forthcoming book, but I don't have a lot of details. When I know more about it I'll tell you!
Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be
gah… Just saw someone complaining “the US is crazy” about dogs because lots of folks said killing every pitty in the UK was bonkers, as “they are a very dangerous breed from the US” Both of which statements are false.
Lied when he applied for the booth. Used his girlfriend’s name, supposedly. After complaints came in, he was asked to present a process video and sent in…an AI video. (This is what I learned from an artist who lobbied the complaint)
Funny story related to the Pizza Index: from about 2004-2006 or so, we could anticipate major bad news for the Kremlin about to become public because there was always a massive DDoS that started about half an hour before the news hit.
I don’t know if you all remember, but Sharice Davids was reelected in Kansas even after the GOP gerrymandered her district…
It's absolutely mad how she says this even after prefacing it with an admission that *her own constituents* are telling her they think all the flag obsession is concerning and going too far.
I love the smell of consequences in the morning. Thank you, @dragoncon.org
Make your own inferences
I don't get how people don't realize that a technology that replaces junior and entry level positions in a field destroys that field. There's no skipping steps. You have to be a junior before you can be a senior, and if you don't have senior people, you don't have a field.
I can't believe the U.S. Congress is flying Nigel Farage over to tell them about freedom of expression in a hearing this week. judiciary.house.gov/committee-ac... Hey people in the UK, are there any particularly choice tidbits you'd like to share about this guy??
Aside from how Obama is remembered, it's striking that Obamacare is basically the last serious presidential legislative agenda that wasn't just trying to contort an annual budget bill to fit in everything you can crowbar into it.
Could the US have functional train which supplants automobiles? Yes, for most of the population (which lives in the 50 miles of the coast/southern border), but for the vast majority of the vast area, it’s a much more expensive, and labor intensive (because the trains have to run, all the time) thing
Not least because the time at the start end; and cost of getting to/from the station aren’t trivial.
So rail might be worth it, for longer trips, but for things less than a couple of days drive away, the inconvenience factor will militate against the cultural shift which would make driving unreasonable.
Even if 20 percent of them want to travel, they will have to get several hundred miles to Cheyenne, to get a train to another train; and then get back to home again when they get home again.
Cheyenne Wyoming has a population about the size of Edinburgh, Scotland; 11 percent of which are all in Cheyenne. The rest are spread about the rest of the state in a fairly even distribution.
Because the population is 500-20,000 people towns… and they are 40-50 miles between them. With a very evenly distributed family unit every 2-5 miles in all the rest of the space.
And the surrounding couple of hundred square miles don’t have more than another 18,000 people, all in. And that’s the case for most of the US interior.
1: We need more rail. 2: We esp need rail to nodes in the interior, but 3: The population density is such that most people will not be well served, because McAlester OK, (pop 18,000) is not going to generate enough traffic, on it’s own, to justify having regular local rail.
What I hate in Jersey is “transition here” and then the signage says “transition is 3 lanes away from where we just sent you”.
Regretfully most of those trucks *can’t*. The frames are not made any stronger when the cabs are made larger, so the amount which can go in the bed is often no more than 750 lbs, and no passengers.
GPS spoofing is a huge deal. "In 2024 alone, over 1,000 commercial flights per day were affected by GPS spoofing."
The MNBA could never. #wnba
Knowing that to stay on the road you want requires moving to a lane saying you are leaving it, because if you don’t you end up on a different road. Or that the signs indicating “be in this lane” are flat out lying, and you will end up missing your transition (I’m looking at you New Jersey).
California has much better signage. I learned to drive there before GPS, so you look at the map, noted the route, wrote down the off-ramp, and sallied forth. Even with GPS the problem in New England isn’t terminus, I know what the exit is, it’s moving from Sawmill to the Merrit…
Libertarianism has always been, “I will get to do whatever I want, and I snub, and punish, anyone who disagrees with me” married to “Fuck you Jack, I got mine”. And everyone who espouses it thinks they will be the Robber Baron, not the Robbed Peasant.
Wages would have no ceiling, because they had no floor, so workers would refuse to take jobs which didn’t pay enough. Companies would have to make quality good, because consumers wouldn’t pay for shoddy ones. Anyone who refused service to (insert group here) would go out of business.
That it wasn’t gov’t’s job to regulate wages, food safety, and water quality, or forbid discrimination; but should be able to ban collective bargaining. If only the pesky Gov’t would leave things alone “The Market” would solve all problems.
I keep seeing people say this and no, it wasn’t. I remember, back in the 1980s, (when there was a slice of Libertarian SF) when Big Name Libertarians were explaining that it ought to be legal to make a contract which made someone a slave.
When I wrote above that in no city, metro area, or state is a 2-bedroom affordable on minimum wage, that's based on local minimum wages, often higher than federal—which hasn't been raised in 16 YEARS. The average U.S. minimum-wage worker must work *116 hours a week* to afford a 2-bedroom apartment.
A few more stats: Nearly a third of the country's workforce—roughly 52 million people—earns under $15/hr. 12.1 million low-income tenants are now "severely cost burdened," spending at least half their income on rent. About 50% of people in homeless shelters—and 40% of those unsheltered—have jobs.
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
I’ve driven in the UK. It’s not as bad as all that. It’s better (with the exception of London) than driving in the US NE, where the Motorways are much like driving London (one must know the arcana of them, or be routed away from where it seems the signs are pointing).
i think the explicit goal of things like PragerU Kids, the attacks on teachers and public schooling, the creation of conservative-specific standardized tests, etc. are all in service of isolating children from any kind of "liberal" idea in the hope that they cannot conceive of any other worldview
So, in an earlier article that I read, there was at least one teenager with a baby. Is that baby American? Is this another case of the US deporting an immigrant, in this case a child, along with a US citizen?
Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.
If you enjoy… Weekends Safe working conditions Retirement benefits Paid vacations Breaks at work Sick leave Paid holidays … then you’re part of the labor movement. Happy Labor Day.
Yeah, here. Two ministers arrested, one Unitarian, one Methodist. Not sure if it was in the exact location in the photo, but it was in Florida. www.tampabay.com/news/st-pete...
And always has been. Which is why we had stagecoach lines, right up until we had automobiles; and why, even when rail service was still a thing (in the 1930) and roads were poor, there were people making those long drives, such that we had a Rte 66, and a US 101.
I never said it was, and perhaps it wasn’t the best response to “no one in their right mind travels 1000km in a car” but the fact of the matter is US population is spread out enough that there is no practical way that everyone will be able to use passenger trains.