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Archive for the ‘History’ Category

Since I’ve already said plenty on this subject, this time I’m just going to leave you with a link to a collection of earlier essays; remind you that all government is at best a necessary evil rooted in the idea that might makes right; and point out that there is absolutely nothing “conservative” about the current regime, and nothing “liberal” about the so-called opposition party.

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I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun.  So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween.  If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, “Tricks for the Treat“, “Tricked Out Treats“, “Tricks and Treats and Such Small Deer“, “Trick Treatment“, “Treats and Tricks“, and “Tricked Up a Treat“.  Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year included “Day of the Dead 2025“,”Hellhound“, “A Year Gone“, Diary #800, “Perspective Shift“, “Beware of the Shoggoths“, and Enshittification (#1649), and there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #800, #803, #808, #809, #849, #850, and “Endless Sunday“.  A collection of seasonal links and creepy tweets appears below.

This weird 21st-century shit of Trick-or-Treating at random times on random days in October determined by mobs or politicians, instead of on Halloween night, was a sign of cultural decline. Too bad so few recognized that.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-27T17:19:11.215Z

I'm afraid I'm committed to the ancient-forest-haunting gig for at least the next millennium, or until the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter exorcises me.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-11-06T08:25:21.562Z

I just can't get beyond the resemblance.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T19:29:02.571Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T19:50:01.065Z

The happy ending here is that despite all their ridiculous mumbo-jumbo and frantic posturing, Death will win as it always does.Ave Mortis, Imperator Mundi.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T18:51:08.690Z

If I were Canadian, right now I would feel like one of the guys in this scene:

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T03:22:24.145Z

#3 is a very, very bad idea.

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

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

I do not keep cursed objects in my home, and furthermore as a wise old crone who lives near a damp, creepy forest I advise y'all not to keep them in your homes, either.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-27T18:01:27.631Z

I reckon this must be a tataille, because it sure ain't a lougarou.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-17T17:54:41.692Z

"Mythos".They are taunting y'all, and few are literate enough to recognize it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T17:38:37.133Z

I spoke with Mitch McConnell for twenty minutes this morning. He told me he had meddled in things that man must leave alone.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T08:13:53.616Z

Good thing they added the extra 40 years, just in case he manages to die and come back as a vampire twice.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-23T19:15:36.022Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T19:43:12.522Z

 

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Just a reminder that on the 25th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the war it caused was already 21 years in the past, Japan and Germany had largely been rebuilt and become allies, and the economic costs of the war were largely behind the US (though not Europe or Asia).

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-11T17:44:58.998Z

I think scientists should lock RFK into a Skinner box to test this. Of course, several other Trump henchmen will need to be similarly-confined as a control group. A year or two of testing should prove or disprove the assertion.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-14T17:20:16.067Z

How much of a dangerous clown does a man have to be to get fired by ICE, which is practically the dangerous clown brigade?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-15T17:15:38.468Z

Looks like I made the right choice by stopping my book at the end of New Who. amazon.com/dp/B0FBLDZ2B…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-17T18:05:39.808Z

For those of you with very tenuous attachment to reality: Don't worry, the Panama Canal has not moved; it's in the same place it has always been since its completion in 1914.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-18T18:09:51.204Z

I really wish people understood verisimilitude, and that consistency of mundane elements is MORE important in a fantasy movie under the "change only one thing" principle.But alas, that ship sailed long ago; critics were already pointing it out in the '60s.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-19T17:12:25.407Z


This is possibly one of the stupidest diktats which have ever erupted from that festering pustule he uses to make sounds.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-22T16:44:49.712Z

I have said for decades that I'd much rather talk to someone who disagrees with me *and can articulate the reasons why* than someone who agrees with me and cannot.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-25T02:38:41.198Z

The group "Very Stupid People Who Are Nonetheless Convinced They Are Geniuses" have *always* been taken in by claims that one could live forever if one merely eats the "right" foods and performs the "correct" magical rites. The scam was already old when the Comte de Saint Germain was selling it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-25T17:42:44.300Z

There's a word for a woman who trusts a man to take care of birth control: "pregnant".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-27T01:58:03.448Z

Apparently, YouTube's search algorithm has been programmed so that when it can't find what you asked for, it just brings up a lot of commercials instead. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering something not on the menu, and being served ten dirty dishes and a bill.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-27T17:31:51.369Z

What a strange thing to say. Trump's belief that he is immune from any kind of legal limit is actually a rational one, because that's exactly how everyone in Washington behaves, including SCOTUS and Democratic members of Congress. If they want him to believe something else, they need to show him.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T07:28:06.777Z

All of these people are so physically warped it's almost like the director is signaling that they have warped minds and personalities. It's kind of like a Dutch angle.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-29T07:58:23.998Z

He's not far enough "underwater" until his regime implodes like a submersible full of billionaires.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-30T17:17:07.213Z

When science won't give a powerful person the answer he wants, he invariably turns to mysticism. This syndrome goes back to the dawn of science 2500 years ago, and is largely responsible for the technological and social stagnation of the European middle ages. reason.com/2026/10/02/a…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T19:30:06.431Z

I love that the owl's facial expression says, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-03T17:26:51.356Z

Basically, all the village idiots have been networked into a giant idiotnet (like a botnet, but with idiots) which functions like a computer to spew out more and bigger idiocy than could be produced by any one idiot or group of idiots. It's a massive breakthrough in the technology of idiocy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-04T18:16:09.793Z

The main problem with those stupid enough to believe even a single word of this Bronze-Age nonsense is that they're allowed to vote.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-06T17:50:29.076Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-07T07:42:20.746Z

Remember what "code" is: a set of instructions. If an LLM has feelings, so does every one of those printed sheets that come with Ikea furniture. So does the phrase "close cover before striking" on a matchbook.Yes, this is absurd. People need to start saying so. A picture of a human is not a human.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-10T07:43:11.040Z

The term everyone is dancing around is "secret police", a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-10T18:00:31.330Z

Oh please, God, please, I don't ask for much…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-12T17:42:16.917Z

Yeah, we've noticed.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-13T17:48:41.989Z

Actual LOL.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T17:35:05.310Z

Quoted post: the fantasy.This post: the reality

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-16T17:56:17.598Z

That's the story of government from ancient times to the present. In all but very rare cases (so rare they are historically notable), the rulers of any political grouping are the most despicable creatures in the land.What makes Trump different is that he can't even PRETEND to be a civilized man.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-17T07:41:54.468Z

 

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The way people of later times view a dark age is…not at all the same as the way people living in such an age view it.  –  “Nightfall”

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live in a dark age, wonder no more; you are in one now, at least the early part of one.  As I wrote last year,

…a dark age is one lacking reliable records, so historians cannot be certain of what actually happened.  Of course, censorship is typically part of that; if a government or religion burns books, anything recorded in those books is not available to future historians…20th century tyrants could never hope to find and destroy every copy of a banned book, film, recording, etc, but when physical media are no longer the norm, universal censorship of a work enters the realm of the possible.  And now that it has become child’s play to flood the world with computer diarrhea presented as fact, even electronic records which somehow escape a purge will be lost in a vast fecal sea, making it difficult for even experts to know what is real.  And if the techlords get their way, there will be a lot fewer experts in the future to attempt it or even care about it…

There is little point in my using the occasion of Banned Books Week to write about this any longer; besides the fact that I’ve written about it every year since 2011 and the old columns are all still there for your perusal should you desire, many news columns every month include items on various forms of censorship.  So this year I’m simply going to call attention to the fact that the book-banners and book-burners are no longer satisfied with the pretense that they merely want to keep “obscene” (defined in whatever fanciful and impossibly-broad way suits them) books and other media from “children” (defined in such a fanciful and impossibly-broad way it includes all high school students and even many university students) everywhere in the civilized world; they are even now attempting to prevent people everyone agrees are adult from seeing any books or electronic media any government anywhere in the world has any objection to, via a combination of banning physical books, internet censorship, mass surveillance, flooding the world with garbage, and enticing the intellectually-lazy majority into never, ever thinking for themselves.  And this combination has the potential to create an age so dark, it will make every previous dark age look like the Enlightenment in comparison.

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“AI” allows you to get to a bad idea faster.

I had until recently completely forgotten about this song from The Electric Company, which I can remember my little brother singing around the house.  The links above the video were provided by Shiv Ramdas, Jesse Walker, Tracy Quan, Asawin Suebsaeng, Glenn Kessler, and IncarcerNation, 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!

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I had a few.  –  “Officer” Dustin Christina

This video, called to my attention by Mike Siegel, speaks for itself.  The links above it were provided by Scott Greenfield, Kevin Wilson, Nun Ya, Jessica Pishko, IncarcerNation, Ryan Marino, and Mistress Matisse, 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!

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They’re letting police do just about anything.  –  Randall Kallinen

When Dolly Parton died a few weeks ago, I seemed to be the only one who remembered this 1976 guest appearance on Captain Kangaroo; the video was clearly taken from the edited reruns of old shows aired on PBS in the late ’80s.  Of particular note: Dolly reading a children’s book aloud, almost 20 years before starting her Imagination Library charity.  The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel; Radley Balko; Lucy Steigerwald; Mistress Matisse & Dan Savage; C.J. Ciaramella; IncarcerNation; and Radley Balko again, 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!

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Ugh, this sounds like something he mutters to himself during masturbation.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-15T03:01:51.899Z

I always have mixed feelings about "investigations" or "studies" that "find" things which were always completely bloody obvious. On the one hand, I'm glad more people are admitting the problem. But on the other hand, HOLY SHIT WHY DID IT TAKE Y'ALL OVER 30 YEARS TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING SO OBVIOUS?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-16T07:22:05.418Z

"School resource officer" is a cop euphemism for "sexually-predatory thug paid to lurk in schools so as to spy on, harass, and molest students, and burden them with criminal records for 'offenses' which in more enlightened times were punished with detention and writing lines on the chalkboard."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-17T18:05:16.858Z

Long ago, I realized that thinking about the money bandits extort from you via threat of burning your farm as still somehow being "yours", and obsessing about what the warlords do with it, is the way to madness.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-20T03:30:11.795Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-21T03:38:05.129Z

This looks like a CGI image of a fake CGI sign. In other words, the sign *itself* is CGI, not just the image *on* the nonexistent sign.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-21T17:38:30.715Z

Yes, "health" obsessives truly are full of shit.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-22T17:07:46.039Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-23T07:24:33.815Z

Any decent car or motorcycle can do it in under 4 seconds once it gets moving.These figures mean less than nothing without context.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-25T03:16:33.048Z

Investors stupid and gullible enough to believe this deserve to lose their money when the bubble bursts.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-25T16:40:36.172Z

Modern policing began in most parts of the US in the 1870s. At that time, $1 had the buying power of $30 today.Imagine telling the people of that time that the "law enforcement" they were voting for would one day be used to persecute people for picking up A DOLLAR someone had dropped.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-26T17:25:54.126Z

N.B.: Cryptocurrency is not an "investment", and anyone who believes it is looks like this:

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-27T17:19:23.344Z

Americans have no "philosophy"; they have religion (including partisan politics and entertainment fandom). The number of exceptions in the whole country could comfortably attend a conference on my farm, with room left over for a convention of ethical cops.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-28T17:46:16.457Z

It's very rare that airports get named after people who gave something to the world rather than taking from it; I can only think of two other examples offhand, New Orleans and Oklahoma City.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-29T02:30:21.861Z

"Doctor" Carson thinks hot dogs grow out of the ground like corn.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-30T18:05:12.332Z

We live in a fallen world.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-31T17:24:10.226Z

Reporters: "controversial" should not be used as a euphemism for "evil", "unpopular", "tyrannical", "universally reviled", etc.Words mean things; please be more professional with your vocabulary choices.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-01T17:15:02.453Z

If I'd written a satire in which Goebbels Farms honored a Neo-Nazi, my editor would've said it was too obvious.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T03:19:20.912Z

Headline from 1989: "Has our oat bran obsession gone too far?"Same answer.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T18:04:13.456Z

"Return hub" is such a nice way to say "concentration camp".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-04T17:05:19.288Z

I remember when we were at least ruled by adults.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-05T17:21:43.608Z

The idea that there could be such a thing as a "true-crime star" is like something out of a dystopian comic book universe.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-06T18:05:23.948Z

Your "leaders" want you to believe that you are a tabula rasa, a mere thing without free will to be acted upon (by media, websites, propaganda, the collective, etc) and shaped in a Skinnerian dystopia.Do not believe them. You can CHOOSE not to be warped in this way, BUT THE CHOICE MUST BE ACTIVE.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-08T17:30:09.952Z

The phrase "trusted ad partners", which appears on many adblocker-blocker popups, is really quite funny. Those "trusted partners" are picked by software in automated auctions; *y'all* may be greedy enough to trust these randos, but I'm not as gullible as you would like me to be.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-10T16:52:28.464Z

I'll just leave this here: archive.is/SGZcS

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-11T18:42:41.516Z

The only thing more infuriating than mansplaining is amateursplaining. Holy shit.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-12T07:47:56.110Z

Take THAT, "Woman of the Year"!

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-13T17:25:26.151Z

I blocked him so he won't have to be disappointed that I object to strangers driving by my house and throwing garbage on my lawn.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-14T17:44:05.619Z

It sounds like they're talking about a mad dog. Which, to be fair, isn't completely wrong.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-15T17:21:32.591Z

Dr. Altman of Dr. Altman's Medicine Show says people are right to fear snake oil, but should trust snake oil SALESMEN.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-16T19:24:36.788Z

Comparison for those of my age: just imagine if an official of Jimmy Carter's cabinet had been advocating for a no-fly zone over the "Bermuda Triangle", and other politicians were actually writing laws to ban such flights.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-17T19:19:44.712Z

 

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