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Unserious leaders are unsafe.  –  Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai

Under Review (#779)

The internet’s global scope is the main reason politicians hate it and want to destroy it:

An escort website [based in Spain]…“makes a mockery” of Ireland’s law criminalising the purchase of sex, [babbled politician]…Sharon Keogan[, adding nonsense about “]direct defiance[” even though Spanish businesses are not subject to] Ireland’s [puritanic]al law…[she also barfed out the word “]trafficking[” in order to infantilize] migrant women…[and demanded] the law [be made into]…a “ma[gic]al operation[” so as to “]take action against such sites[” despite their being based in other sovereign nations]…She [further slandered]…independent escorts [by claiming they are] often controlled by organised crime groups that dominate the sex trade [in the sick fantasies of prohibitionists, and vomited out the word “]pimping[” before admitting that]…the business…[is] a Spanish-registered company[.  She appeared surprised to learn that] multimillion euro [businesses are]…organised…

License to Rape (#1327)

“Search” is the most common government euphemism for “molest”:

Black [minors] across England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be [molested under guise of a “]search[“]…by police than their white counterparts…The findings…come more than five years after the case of…a Black 15-year-old schoolgirl who was [molested by cops] while menstruating b[ecause a teacher claimed she had touched a plant.  Surprisingly]…a disciplinary panel [later sacked the] two [molesters for] gross misconduct…[Such sexual assaults are] usually [justified by belching “]drugs[” in the victim’s face]…from July 2023 to June 2024…there were a total of 362 [“]search[” branded molestations] of under-18s…Half were white, 31% were Black, 11% Asian, 1.7% of mixed ethnicity and 12% other…[at least] 30% [of the victims had been assaulted by cops]…at least once before…[in the case of] Black [victims the assaults] were almost five times as likely to [be violent]…than [if the victims were] white…

Thou Shalt Not (#1381)

Because this kind of prohibition will surely be different!

[British subjects] aged 17 or younger will face…lifelong [criminalization of] buying cigarettes…Parliament….[has] settled on a final draft of the “[monkey see, monkey do]” legislation that aims to [magically] stop anyone born after 1 January 2009 from [getting cigarettes from the black market] to [magically] create a smoke-free generation [with a wave of politicians’ wands.  The government is also giving itself]…new powers to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products, including their flavours and packaging.  It is part of a series of measures aimed at [creating a dangerous new front in the drug war]…one of the [world]’s leading causes of preventable death, [state violence,] and [human misery.  Cops will also be given new powers to spy on]…cars…playgrounds…schools and…hospitals…

Quiet Genocide (#1495)

Apparently white people can only care about one group of Muslims at a time:

…hundreds of thousands…since 2016 have suffered the Chinese government’s grave human rights violations in…Xinjiang…[where] authorities have subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims to mass arbitrary detention, unjust imprisonments, intrusive surveillance and forced labor.  The UN Office of…Human Rights concluded in a landmark 2022 report that the Chinese government may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang….Yet…efforts by…countries who tried to place Xinjiang on the formal agenda of the UN Human Rights Council were narrowly defeated after heavy pressure from Beijing…Yet China’s success in shifting the narrative is not solely the result of repression.  It also reflects…an increasingly unpredictable US foreign policy…[because] as governments line up to meet [Emperor] Xi Jinping as a hedge against [mad Emperor] Trump…human rights concerns…are routinely sidelined…allowing Beijing to effectively whitewash its crimes and recast China as a reliable…alternative to the United States…

Panopticon (#1515)

Cops are nothing more than state-sponsored terrorists:

…the Atlanta…“Cop City” [scheme] is at the center of a much larger experiment…[to replace an] urban forest…[with] the most expansive surveillance network of any city in the U.S…supercharg[ing] a pattern of digital tracking in Black neighborhoods…Georgia-based surveillance companies [are already] market[ing] this model nationwide…[despite] its ties to immigration [pogroms] and protest policing…A 2025 mapping project estimated that Atlanta now has about 124 surveillance cameras for every 1,000 residents…higher than any city in the world outside of a handful in China…The network…metastasized through the city’s Connect Atlanta program, which lets [useful idiots give pigs] live access to their private feeds…​

The Last Shall Be First (#1600)

Judges need to start presenting a united front against monarchical diktats:

A federal judge…issued a written opinion blasting [Trump henchman] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for…wanton disregard…for the rule of law in restricting federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors…The judge made it clear he was throwing out the Kennedy declaration…[and] granted an injunction prohibiting the federal government from trying to supersede professionally-recognized standards [again because]…the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lack[s] the authority to unilaterally establish standards of medical care…[government] lawyers [backpedaled, claiming]…that Kennedy’s declaration reflected his personal opinion…and was not binding…[but] the judge found it was “strikingly apparent” that the…federal government’s arguments are based on [a] “bald-faced lie”…[saying] he was not persuaded by the federal government’s “attempts to gaslight” the court…

Mad Libs (#1631)

Politicians want to “regulate” consensual sex, but not this dangerous toy:

When researcher Nicholas Tiller began to feed health questions into chatbots as a test, he [did not] expect…this level of failure.  Five [chatbot]s, 250 questions and a total score of just over 50 percent correct responses.  And 1 in 5 of the…wrong [answers] were…dangerous[ly wrong]…A separate…study…in JAMA Network Open…gave 21 [chatbots all]…failing grades…[Another] recent experiment [show]ed how easily…chatbots [can be made to spout complete nonsense]…the problem is not an isolated quirk [but is intrinsic to the way chatbots function]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Diary #826

Though I’ve opened the nursery every morning for over a week now, the pullets are still largely uninterested in coming out yet. This is not unusual; there was a flurry of activity on the first day which resulted in one of the pullets going missing, but since then they have stayed where they feel safe.  That includes the missing one; Wednesday I needed to drive into Seattle, so I planned to let them stay in the nursery that day. But when I went out to check their food and water, whom should I find wandering around the chicken yard but the missing pullet, very hungry and very vocal, but otherwise none the worse for wear.  I was able to catch her and put her in with the others, and there she has stayed since.  I have no idea where she went; I spent over an hour looking for her the day she vanished, to no avail.  My best guess is that she managed to get through the narrow gap under the ramp and had been hiding under the house for three days; even though I crawled under there with a flashlight as part of the search, it’s a large area and even a thorough, hours-long search wouldn’t have sufficed to peer into every space under there large enough for a pullet.  I’m just glad I didn’t lose her, and choose to view her mysterious return as a good omen for this year.

 

Links #825

The myth that memory is a video recording playing in a private theater in your brain is one of the biggest lies about hypnosis.  –  Penn & Teller

It was very difficult to pick a song with which to send off Moya Brennan, so I finally decided on a live video of one of their early, more traditional songs rather than their more pop-influenced work of the ’80s and ’90s.  The links above the video were provided by Anarres Ansible, Shiv Ramdas, Jesse Walker, Radley Balko (x2), and Popehat, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

[Chatbots] can be really good at the care and feeding of a delusion.  –  unnamed source

The End of the Beginning (#1308) 

The government had to be forcibly stopped from attacking people for being unable to do the literally impossible:

a federal judge has permanently blocked the [federal government] from prosecuting Californians who [cannot] register…[as “]Sex Offender[s” because] the state doesn’t require them to do so.  In a lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation…four John Does described the impossibility of complying with…a [diktat] issued by former Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 [which demanded that] anyone who’s ever been convicted of a sex offense to register with their state, regardless of whether their state’s laws match the federal requirements…up[on pain of] 10 years in federal prison.  This…was particularly problematic for individuals who are no longer required, nor permitted, to register as a sex offender in their home state…there [we]re thousands of individuals in California alone facing the same penalties for circumstances outside of their control…

Panopticon (#1486)

Lawsuits are the only way to hinder a government that won’t control itself:

…the San Jose [cop shop]…has access to…a network of 474 ALPR cameras that blanket the city, [unconstitutionally] recording residents as they go about their daily lives.  More than 1,000 [San Jose pig]s are authorized to [root through] that information…[without] a warrant, probable cause, or even individualized suspicion…[plus pigs in] nearly 300 other [st]ies across California.  [Because] that “creepy” and “deeply intrusive” surveillance system violates the Fourth Amendment, the Institute for Justice [has filed] a lawsuit…represent[ing] a class consisting of “all San Jose residents who were drivers of vehicles” that have been photographed by the city’s cameras during the last year or will be photographed in the future…seeking a court order that would require the [pigs] to delete or block access to images and data collected by the cameras after 24 hours unless it has “a specific warrant based on probable cause”…In addition to license plate numbers…Flock’s software [also] generates [“fingerprints”] based on each car’s characteristics…can produce a “vehicle journey map” showing “everywhere the car has been seen”…”analyze patterns of movement,” “flag repeat visitors to a location,” “identify vehicles frequently seen together,” “generate lists of vehicles that have visited multiple locations of interest,” and “predict the future route a vehicle might take”…

Welcome to the Future (#1540)

Google pretends temporarily making this “opt-in” makes them better than Facebook:

…Google’s latest [chatbot] upgrade…lets users opt-in to connecting Google apps to Gemini…[including] all your photos…Gemini…can scan everything to form its own views of you and everyone you know…[and allow its] Nano Banana 2…[image generator with the sophomoric name] to…use actual images of you and your loved ones….to [create shitty cartoons]…Gizmodo sums it up pretty well as “solving a problem no one had”…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1566)

All cops will have these within a few years:

The Department of [Father]land Security is developing specialized [perve]rt glasses that will allow federal [goon]s on American streets to automatically identify “illegal aliens” [and protesters] from a distance…these new ICE Glasses…will be able to [parse] vast federal holdings of biometric data…to identify people in real-time…They…will be two-way, not only able to…match to [targe]ts already in databases, but also to secretly record people to add them to new domestic watchlists…

Aladdin’s Satellite (#1586)

Chatbots will encourage whatever madness a user discusses with them:

…chatbot[-facilitated]…violence [is]…on the rise…a mass shooter…at Florida State University …used ChatGPT…to [plan]…his attack…[as did Jesse Van Rootselaar in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia]…iterative, sycophantic conversations with chatbots can create powerful feelings of intimacy and trust…among troubled [or mentally ill] people…[leading to] a wave of lawsuits from families…[whose] loved ones [were driven] to kill themselves and others…A Pittsburgh man who…stalk[ed] and violently threaten[ed] 11 women…relied on ChatGPT as a “therapist” and “best friend” to justify his thinking…Google Gemini…sen[t an armed Florida man] on delusional missions…then encouraged [his] suicide…Google[‘s response was “no[body’s] perfect”

Walled Garden (#1594)

Goodness, who could ever have predicted this?

Unfortunately for the Australian government (and fortunately for most kids), the implementation of a [social media] ban is going about as well as many critics predicted.  Kids are largely avoiding enforcement, with 61 percent of kids ages 12–15 who had accounts before the ban still having access to at least one of them…many kids are able to game the system by changing their appearance to look older and fool age-estimation software.  Others have used false IDs or VPNs to maintain their access…Still other[s], like 15-year-old Noah Jones, are suing the government for infringing on their…rights…[but] many [others] have not been so lucky.  At least 4.7 million accounts have been disabled, and hundreds of thousands of new accounts have been blocked…60 percent of parents [have deluded themselves into seeing] positive behavioral outcomes [despite objective evidence to the contrary]…

Above the Law (#1618)

Your “leaders” at work:

Virginia’s former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who…derailed [his own career] by sexual[ly] assault[ing women], fatally shot his wife before killing himself…the couple’s teenage son called 911 shortly after midnight [on April 16th]…The couple was going through a divorce…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Back Issue #154

Self-appointed guardians of the public morals are always looking for new ways to ensure that absolutely no one can escape their snooping.
–  “The Puritan Recrudescence

I actually like winter, as one of four well-defined seasons; what I do not like is when winter is a bad guest which arrives earlier than it is supposed to or overstays its welcome.
–  “Rain, Rain, Go Away

Would that all of us could leave this earth so gently.  –  “Diary #668

911…systems treat cops like Spam in the famous Monty Python sketch: a form of pork that you get with every order whether you like it or not.  –  “Dangerous Spam

Smuggling is, was, and always will be a social good, providing to individuals what collectives and/or tyrants wish to deny to them or bleed them for wanting.  –  “The Tweets Go On

We cannot agree to the step-by-step creation of a Chinese-style internet in Europe.  –  Piotr Müller

First They Came for the Hookers… (#1160) 

Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you:

In March 2024…a lawsuit filed by patrons of three [Arizona] strip clubs — Dream Palace in Tempe and Skin Cabaret and Bones Cabaret in Scottsdale…claimed that dancers were drugging scores of customers and racking up six-figure charges on their credit cards…the [claims appear to have been lifted from] the 2019 film Hustlers…and…neither man could prove he’d been drugged, but…Phoenix attorney Rod Galarza…[has] now [recruited] more than 40 plaintiffs, with the total amount of allegedly bogus charges exceeding $2.3 million…And yet no charges were ever filed in the case…Scottsdale police presented the case to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office…only to have both decline [it for]…“lack…[of] sufficient evidence”…police didn’t…speak to any dancers…at the clubs, didn’t search the club for drugs and didn’t send in undercover cops.  Former club employees who did talk to police reported no direct knowledge of any drugging scheme…and…Todd Borowsky, who owns the Skin and Bones clubs…[has] filed…[a] federal…[law]suit [against] the city of Scottsdale, the [cop shop] and several individual cops…[for] perpetrating a vindictive sham investigation against the clubs…[which] went to great lengths to document their clients’ pricey forays into VIP rooms, requiring signed contracts, a fingerprint and even a photo of the customer holding up the paperwork for each transaction…

Scottsdale cops have a long and sordid history of trying to pin crimes on strippers.

Lack of Evidence (#1318)

Throwing other sex workers under the bus is a shortcut to losing my sympathy:

A gay Canadian adult film star…was detained for over eight hours by U.S. Customs before receiving a 10-year ban from the country.  Milo Miles…was traveling to Las Vegas…in January…to attend the GayVN Awards…where he was set to present and was nominated for six awards…[when goons] accused him of “escorting with no evidence” and were fixated on the “gay clothes”, fiber pills, and PrEP he had packed…When…they found evidence of his career in…porn [it got worse]…then…two hours [later they] found evidence of escorting…Miles [then threw other sex workers under the bus by trying to invoke a bullshit distinction between]…prostitution…[and] escorting…U.S. Customs has the [power] to deny entry to people they believe are sex workers…and will use coercive tactics to try and elicit a confession…

The Prudish Giant (#1547)

In many ways, Microsoft and Google are as evil as Facebook:

An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, [Facebook], and Google web traffic in California found that the companies [routinely] violat[e] state regulations…[by shoving] ad cookies in[to] a user’s browser even if they opt…out of tracking…The webXray California Privacy Audit…found that most tech companies [simply] ignore when a user asks to opt-out of cookie tracking.  [Facebook’s] code [does not even] contain…[a] check for globally standard opt-out signals—it loads unconditionally, fires a tracking event, and sets a cookie regardless of the consumerʼs privacy preferences…[The three companies] have collectively paid billions in fees for previous privacy violations …[but simply view] these fines [as a cost of doing business]…One of the things…revealed in the audit is [that those]…annoying pop-ups that ask users how they want to handle cookies…do…not work…Google, [Facebook], and Microsoft all [lied, saying “nuh-uh” while theatrically crossing their fingers behind their backs]…

From the first time I saw one of those cookie banners I knew they were bullshit; I never respond to them, instead simply archiving the page as soon as such a popup appears, because I suspect that the act of clicking itself triggers some kind of fine-print consent, as in a phishing email.

A Moral Cancer (#1575)

Prohibitionists always claim surprise when the predicted effects of one of their bans appear:

the Tax Foundation…[has] reported that “cigarette smokers in the European Union pay far more in excise taxes than they do for the cigarettes themselves…at least 60 percent of the national weighted average retail price…The highest…is levied in Ireland at €10.71 ($12.58) per pack…followed by France at €8.09 ($9.51) and the Netherlands at €7.77 ($9.13)”…[outside] the E.U…taxes make up almost 60 percent of the…Swiss…price…[and almost 50] per cent of the…British price…[unsurprisingly,] Europe’s black market for cigarettes…[is therefore] grow[ing]…especially in France and the Netherlands…France continues to remain the largest [European] market for…black market…cigarette[s]…at 38.5 percent, just slightly exceeding the 37 percent share in Ireland…

Mad Libs (#1618)

Any doctor who trusts chatbots should be sued for malpractice:

…chatbots [are especially dangerous] when used to make medical diagnoses, particularly when faced with incomplete information…frequently narrowing too quickly to a single answer...researchers evaluated 21 LLMs, including leading models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and DeepSeek.  It found that failure rates exceeded 80 per cent for all models when they needed to do so-called differential diagnosis — when full patient information was lacking…

Walled Garden (#1624)

The only way to ensure data is not abused is not to collect it:

The European Union’s unveiling of a mobile app to check people’s age online has quickly turned sour, as cybersecurity experts found glaring privacy and security problems with the code…turning into a PR disaster for Brussels…security consultant Paul Moore…hacked the app in under 2 minutes…[while] Baptiste Robert, a prominent French white hat hacker, confirmed…it was possible to bypass the app’s biometric authentication features…The European Commission [quickly backpedaled, absurdly declaring]…”When we say it’s a final version, it’s…still a demo version”…and…the vulnerability “was fixed”…

Mad Libs (#1626)

Every study shows that chatbot usage harms brain function:

In a new study, researchers [demonstrate once again]…that [using chatbots for]…cognitive labor [such as] writing…studying [and] coding…can rapidly impair users’ intellectual ability and willingness to persist…After [using the electronic crutch for as little as] 10 minutes…people…performed worse and gave up more frequently than those who never used it…a growing body of research [shows] that [chatbot reliance] can distort and dampen users’ thinking and independence, and…outsourcing cognitive tasks to [chatbots] could put [lazy fool]s in a “boiling frog”…erosion of [their] cognitive “muscles”…“these effects will accumulate over years, and by the time they are visible, they will be difficult to reverse,” the study [says]… “Once the [chatbot] is taken away…people [don’t simply give] wrong answers…They’re…not [even] willing to try without [the chatbot]”…over-reliance [therefore] function[s much] like an addiction…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

Diary #825

Somehow, within three hours of letting the pullets out on Sunday, one of them managed to vanish.  As you can see, one hasn’t left the nursery and two are huddled in the corner fretting (not an unusual behavior for the first week or so after they’re out).  The turkey chick is more bold, wandering around the entire chicken yard.  But there’s no sign of the fourth pullet.  She’s not anywhere in the chicken yard, nor nearby outside, nor under the house, and I neither heard a ruckus nor found feathers which would indicate that something got her.  My guess is that she managed to fly over the fence and ran off to hide in the underbrush, but I have no evidence for that; I reckon it’s just one of those things that happens when one keeps poultry.

Change one single vowel in this headline, and it would be a VERY different story.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T01:59:52.797Z

Probably the same way that holding a knife to a child's throat can open a guarded door.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T18:03:29.896Z

Beware of Davros.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T03:17:35.675Z

#3 is a very, very bad idea.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T17:50:01.254Z

Spring this on family members in New Orleans, and they may not stop at disowning* you.*And disowning people is mighty difficult under Napoleonic Code.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T17:26:22.068Z

It's fascinating to watch men with severe, easily-recognized mental illnesses publicly blaming others' mental illness on behaviors that the speakers are incapable of due to their own undiagnosed, untreated psychopathologies.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:09:35.827Z

My teen self would be confused by this.1981 Maggie: So there are new "Star Trek" shows all the time, but you haven't watched one in 20 years?2026 Maggie: CorrectM81: Ditto "Star Wars"?M26: YepM81: Plus all kinds of D&D fantasy stuff?M26: Right again.M81: I DON'T KNOW YOU

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-28T17:19:00.870Z

Reporters: doing something willfully is not a "failure", regardless of what politicians call it. If a party refuses to comply with some illegal diktat, that party has not *failed* to comply with said diktat; he has REFUSED to comply. The former is an omission; the latter an active rejection.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:55:44.729Z

This monster's face appears to have been designed by Jack Pierce. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm06823…

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T17:38:45.538Z

"Dabbled in cross-dressing" makes it sound like alchemy or some other occult practice.(Yes, I know about the shamans and mystery religions; this isn't that, so let's not)

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T17:37:38.961Z

Oh please, PLEASE let them use a chatbot as architect, so we can have a "Galloping Gertie" moment on live TV soon after it's done.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-01T17:35:58.519Z

This is how partisanism warps minds.Distrust of politicians *in general* for wholly rational reasons is subjected to the duopoly's Procrustean bed, then for 21st century readers must be trivialized & infantilized. So anarchists & true libertarians are described by the asinine tag "double haters".

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-03T17:28:10.591Z

WAAAAAAAAAH! I'VE POOPED MYSELF AND I DEMAND SOMEONE CHANGE IT! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-04T17:16:42.139Z

Please, people, I beg you not to rely on spellcheckers at the cost of your own vocabulary skills.Trade languages have nothing to do with birds.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-07T17:10:46.810Z

Meanwhile, books on my shelves which were published as far back as the 1920s, and which I purchased as far back as the 1970s, are still 100% readable. And all I have to do to access them is walk over to my bookshelves.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T17:13:17.853Z

Due to the high volume of "You were right all along" emails, I will not be responding to them individually. Thank you for your understanding.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T17:29:33.587Z

A friend who grew up on Country/Western was unfamiliar with Zeppelin, and when "Ramble On" came on she asked me what it was about. I replied, "A dude who gets his girlfriend stolen by Gollum."

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-10T07:34:41.637Z

Trump is someone who consistently cheats at Solitaire and still repeatedly loses, and when he's done the deck only has about 49 cards. And some of those are from kids' game decks, like one with a picture of an old maid.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T17:44:13.156Z

 

We need Captain Kirk.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T03:26:13.653Z

If you want to reveal a crypto-authoritarian, just start him talking about virtually anything to do with cars.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T17:21:33.262Z

THIS.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T17:53:47.686Z

Your regular reminder that it is 100% legal to fictionally depict murder, rape, and mayhem in movies.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T17:19:44.529Z

I especially love that the stupid thing flew apart on impact.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T19:17:10.473Z

First Palantir came for the sex workers, but nobody cared because "sex trafficking".Then Palantir came for young minority men, and nobody cared because "gangs".Then Palantir came for migrants, and nobody cared because "illegals".Now it's coming for you, and I think you know the rest.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-19T17:28:11.213Z

Links #824

Hold the bus!  –  The Banana Splits

Since I’ve already featured the H.R. Pufnstuf theme and Land of the Lost theme before, I decided to feature the opening & closing to The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, the first Saturday morning show to feature the Krofft puppets.  As a wee lass my mother enrolled me in the Banana Splits fan club, and I had the various club materials for years after the show went off the air.  And it was not unusual for Grace to use one of their catchphrases, “Hold the bus!”  The links above the video were provided by Franklin Harris, Ryan Marino, Jesse Walker, Ryan Cooper, Walter Olson, Radley Balko, and Jessica Pishko, in that order.

From the Archives

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