...and Counting...

-

 


I know Trump's full of crap and given to rancid hyperbole in servicing his own sketchy career, but the latest ramblings from Donald the Duck really do sound like the thought-processes of a man entering the early stages of dementia. OK, renaming The Gulf of Mexico "The Gulf of America" will upset an awful lot of good people, but will in itself have little geopolitical effect should it ever actually happen; but the suggested taking of Greenland as a US territory and suggesting that he might annexe Canada in the process is tantamount to a suggestion of an intended future declaration of war: what on earth are we to make of that? Even if he's only half-serious, it's a tad disturbing that a person in his position would think it fit to voice such thoughts. The only saving grace at the moment is that the Republican Party appears to be fragmenting in much the same way as the British Conservatives, with everyone on the Right taking lumps out of each other in the theatre of an increasingly unregulated and unmediated 'social' media: Facebook being the latest to throw what sense it had in the toilet, and let the platform become a free-for-all of bile and hatred, just as Musk did when he bought Twitter and turned it into X: an online forum for the clinically insane. All I hope is that the enablers of these echo-chambers of mediocrity, cant and hate - it's users [at least the decent, sane ones] - turn away from them in droves, severing their revenue streams from their billionaire owners. I hope for the best, but expect the worst, as usual. The world is truly in the grip of a pre-war fever...

Comments

  1. Anonymous9 January 2025 at 06:57

    Ballots, strikes & boycotts: the tools of the proleteriat but since most people can't be botherd/arsed and keep using platforms and services that care NOTHING about them or their community only the buck!!
    Hell in a hand cart:(
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more