The Answer is “Yes.” We are The Baddies.

It’s a scary moment, when you realize that nationalism is a pack of lies, like religion and being a sports fan. For me, it was slow-dawning but got a strong boost when I was in the army (1983-9, basic and reserve) the wastage and stupidity began to sink in on me and I was reading a lot of the history of other countries. It’s hard not to read stuff like The Best and The Brightest [worldcat] and start to realize that the author is not just pointing out that the emperor’s new clothes show a lot of skin, but so do all of his wise senior advisors. So, how did such a bunch of idiots accomplish this? Then, you realize that behind every Bonaparte is a Talleyrand. Behind every Trump is a Miller. And they create the sweet-smelling bullshit we are all fed as we grow up. What really did it for me was reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History, [worldcat] which – my offer still stands – I will give anyone a copy of if they ask for it politely.

Reading Zinn caused me to shift my interest in history a few points to the side of where it had been focused straight on military history, and I began re-reading my favorite military histories and thinking about the political context. And/or wondering how it was pitched at the time.

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This May Sound Like an Ad

But it’s not, I swear! As far as I recall, the number of products or services that I have actually gotten excited about is, maybe, a dozen. I suppose that’s a side-effect of living in the past, where if someone comes up and wants to show me a new Tactical(r) self-defense cane, I’m going to be comparing it to long-established products like the Henschel VK4501 (aka “King Tiger”) which is almost certainly superior unless you are going on a plane.

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Met Gala

I used to love fashion. It flows from my love of art, design, and craft – some of the outfits from the high end of the couture world are just amazing. The Fashion Museum at the Met is a mandatory destination whenever I’m in New York, and I’ve managed to catch some of the big shows like The Age of Napoleon and the Heavenly Bodies show. [met] But after last year, when Kim Kardashian managed to pack her gigantic butt into a dress originally fitted for Marilyn Monroe, I began to see the event as a desert of decadence, mostly notable for the tremendous amount of elective plastic surgery on display.

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Ultra Low Calorie Pixels

This is not really interesting, except to think about what eating AI-generated actual food might be like, because the AI sure seems to like big portions and lots of cilantro. Perhaps this is how the AI apocalypse comes: we are poisoned by robot chefs who simply over-salt everything.

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