random political nonsense

  1. He Didn't Even Look at Her

    Warning: Twitter drama. I normally zip right past these sorts of things, but this stuck with me like when a popcorn husk gets stuck between your gums and your teeth, and you've got to keep on working at it but it just doesn't come out. I eat a lot of popcorn... anyway look at this. Preamble: It's okay to have an opinion. It's also okay to have a bad take. It's okay to say a woman isn't beautiful. As far as anything insulting goes, it's hardly the worst thing someone can say. I'm not worried...
  2. Beware of Stobor (political nonsense)

    So there are two trials going on in the states now where armed men claimed that they had to kill unarmed men because if the unarmed men took their guns, the lives of the potentially unarmed men would be in danger. If you're so scared of the gun that *you* brought to the fight, you're definitely doing something wrong. Kind of shades of "Tunnel in the Sky" where the MC was warned against bringing a big gun with him because it would only give him the illusion, not the reality, of safety....
  3. Olympians

    Unlike a lot of what I write, this is in no way tongue-in-cheek. A little bit late, but serious. Mrs. A and I watched a bit of the Tokyo Paralympics these last couple weeks. It was on directly after the news, and we seem to have reached that age where watching the news feels important. The progress of the pandemic and state(s) of emergency directly impact how and where I'll be working, so I like to keep abreast of things, but this post isn't about that. Fuck the Olympics. The IOC is an...
  4. Time Travel

    Just a quickie inspired by a friend wondering where the time travelers are and why they aren't helping us out of this foul year of our lord 2020: 2076 Alpha (lost timeline): "Look, Bob, 2000-2008 was a terrible time for America and the world and it lead to the current situation. With this new time machine, I'm going to go back and make sure that black dude, what was his name? Ombaba? Obomo? Anyway, once those past Americans see how beneficial a truly multiracial society can be it'll all get...
  5. Roche Limitations

    I accidentally put something mildly political onto my "safe for everyone" Facebook. Nothing like the howling I do on the other 18 identities I maintain (or is it more? Or less? I'll never tell), but it was spotted by.... ....my father, on one of his twice-annual visits to the page. My father and I aren't on the same page politically. We're not in the same chapter, nor the same book. Not even the same author. The libraries that carry his book wouldn't allow mine and vice versa. But we...
  6. Our Man in Japan Doesn't Know What to Think

    Another coronavirus blog entry. The rate of infection in Japan is quite low. If you believe the government and the Japanese media. No, this isn't a random screed against the mainstream media or government coverups. It has been well-documented for decades that the Japanese media is absolute shit. See, they run on a "press-club" system here. In order to gain access to officials for interviews, news organs and their reporters need to be members of the "Reporters Club," or in Japanese...
  7. The Weight of the Past

    I dunno. There's that video where the guy pauses his game, looks out the front door, and sees the steppe. Had the chance to take an overnight ferry recently. Standing on the observation deck past midnight, staring out at the darkened islands slipping slowly by, feeling the thrum of the engines and the wind on my face. Mrs. A said she could see my grandfather on me in that moment. He commanded a warship tasked with killing her grandfather. They both made it through, but they're both gone...
  8. Cruelty

    never, ever, follow the breadcrumbs when it comes to the internet. It will just lead to pain in agony oh, and the urge to commit genocide. LOL This started out as a "Not Happy" thread post that kinda got away from me. I hope @John-Wayne doesn't mind me using his quote as the epigraph, if it's a problem, let me know and I'll remove it. I've been watching a lot of restoration videos lately, where people buy old semi-junked machinery and tools at swap meets and flea markets and restore it to...
  9. Legalization

    Marijuana definitely isn't legal in my present jurisdiction. Not sure about back home, doubt it. Wait, no, an old friend of mine who used to be quite the recreational enthusiast now has a prescription for it. "My partying days are over, Iain, I actually need this stuff now to cope with the nerve damage." He shows me the scars. So, what are the medicinal properties? This is something that needs to be looked into. Some of my (former) facebook friends were of the tribe that believes that...
  10. The Empty Chair

    Waiting in line this morning and a man in his fifties brazenly cut straight in front of me and a dozen other passengers to secure the best seat on the bus for himself and I find a spot sit down open the virtual paper on my phone and see an opinion piece demanding sensory friendly showings of movies and plays for people with autism and that Belgian law allows euthanasia of people with autism and that a middle-class white woman is complaining that someone laughed at her child’s name which is...
  11. Morning October 25th

    My alarm wakes me from dreams of Weimar street fighting, but these take place no on old sped-up black and white newsreels but the vivid colors and shaky cellphone cams of YouTube, police hovercraft spilling their skirts to blast protester and counter-protester alike down the street, thugs in makeshift riot gear tapping their shields to an internal rhythm before exploding against their opposite numbers their opponents their enemies them a man using the American flag as a spear a club bashing...
  12. You're Missing It

    I didn't much like the movie Vanilla Sky, but it's the example that comes to mind right now (if you haven't read The Execution Channel by Ken McLeod. If you have, you'll have a clearer idea of what I'm getting at). There's so much going on in the Debate Room news these days. The US president's unconventional, and some say dangerous style of leadership, climate change, the World Cup, earthquakes and flooding here in Japan, Nicaragua has deployed a high number of internal checkpoints for...
  13. Kim Jong Un Mansei!!!

    I'm watching a documentary on North Korea on National Geographic, and they're talking about the Sony Pictures hack. The guy (sorry, missed his name and credentials) on the screen says "That a tiny little country, a fourth-rate power, managed to bring down a movie studio is proof of their power outside their borders." That is... Fuck Americans. So fucking convinced of our superiority in all things that we're amazed that a sovereign nation could do damage to a fucking entertainment company?...
  14. Everybody's Heroes

    "The Last Emperor" was on the TV again. I've been there. Mrs A and I visited Beijing five or seven years ago, my first visit to a... strategic competitor (?) country. Ages ago, in another life, the Army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea serenaded me to sleep at night. It was cool, there were three strands of concertina wire and a couple of miles of mountains between me and the most heavily guarded frontier in the world. Plus, I kept one of the two loaded magazines we were...
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