Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Throwback Thursday Doll
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged animals, blogging, cops, domestic violence, infidelity, New York, politicians, psychology, United Kingdom on September 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The Dragonflies of Memory
Posted in Biography, History, tagged animals, Louisiana, New Orleans on September 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »
In my south Louisiana childhood, dragonflies were so common they sometimes looked almost like a fog overhead, especially in the late afternoon; if you sat still for a few minutes they’d start landing on you. The most common colors were blue and green, but in the canefield behind my house there were yellowish-orange ones with stripes on the wings, and we’d occasionally see big purple ones or shiny bronze ones. At my granduncle’s farm in Ponchatoula, I once caught an absolutely enormous bright orange one. They weren’t all that hard to catch, and if one held them by the wings for a minute or two their wings would become too damp to fly, and they’d simply cling to one’s finger or hand like the one in this picture while their wings dried off, then they’d soon fly away again. I remember one day when I was probably about 11 or 12, I organized the neighborhood kids to catch as many as we could in about an hour and put them in an empty garbage can with an old sheet over it; I then theatrically whipped off the sheet and they flew out of the can like a cloud. On another occasion, a gigantic swarm of them passed overhead while we were playing tag; it took over a minute to pass, and there must have been tens of thousands of them at a minimum.
But by the Eighties I barely saw them any more, and I haven’t seen one in person in decades. I believe the reason they became rare in the New Orleans area was the spread of mosquito control; dragonflies are predators (we used to call them “mosquito hawks”), so fewer prey means fewer dragonflies. There was no mosquito control in my home town in the ’70s, but there was when I returned in 1988 from years of living in the city. And while mosquito control is a necessary evil, of all the things lost to progress, I think the loss of dragonflies is among the ones I feel most keenly. So much so, I’ve intentionally included them in my stories, in descriptions of New Orleans summers of the 1920s. Yes, all progress has a price. But I wish beauty didn’t always have to be part of that price.
Where Were You?
Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, tagged imaginative fiction, New Orleans, New York, psychology on September 11, 2026| 2 Comments »
I’ve never followed the maudlin practice of turning September 11th into an observance, but because today marks 25 years since the event, I decided it would not be inappropriate to do the “Where were you when…?” thing today. In the ’60s and ’70s, it was “Where were you when you heard Kennedy had been assassinated?”, and in the ’90s it was “Where were you when you heard about the Challenger disaster?”; I imagine in the ’50s people used to ask, “Where were you when you heard Japan surrendered?” But for quite some time now the event so referenced has been the September 11th terrorist attacks. I have told mine many times in person and I may have mentioned it on social media, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never brought it up on this blog, so here goes.
At the beginning of September, 2001, Grace and I were living in an apartment near New Orleans International Airport and operating our successful escort service; I had just recently become engaged to Matt, but he was in Los Angeles at the time. I typically took gigs from 2 pm to 2 am and then took over answering the phone until 4 am so Grace could sleep; after that I forwarded the phones to our day operator and went to bed, turning the phone ringers off so nobody could interrupt my well-earned rest. Our answering machine had a light which flashed once per message, so for example if there were three messages it would go Blink Blink Blink {pause} Blink Blink Blink {pause}, etc. We also had a caller ID unit. Typically, I woke up between 11 am and noon, and that day was no exception, but when I went to turn on the ringer I saw the little light flashing so rapidly I couldn’t count the number. I pressed the playback button while looking at the called ID unit, and what I heard on the tape was a long series of hang-ups except for a single message from Matt, saying, “Don’t worry; they closed LAX so I’m heading home.” That was mystifying, as was the fact that the caller ID showed all those hangups had come from our friend Doug, who owned another escort service I did calls for. But before I could call Doug to find out what the hell he was thinking, the phone rang and this time I answered. The conversation went like this:
Doug: Can you believe this shit?
Me: What shit?
Doug: They blew up the World Trade Center!
Me: What’d they use, a nuke?
Doug: No, they flew a plane into it!
Me: You’re shitting me! Wait, there are two towers; how could a plane hit both?
Doug: They used two planes!
Me: OK, you are definitely shitting me.
Doug: Turn on your damn TV!
Me: What channel?
Doug: Every damn channel!
Me (after complying): OK, you obviously aren’t shitting me.
If you’re wondering how I could possibly be so nonchalant, it was because A) I was only half-awake; and B) I had been expecting some major terrorist action for some time, though I was obviously surprised by the supervillainous method the terrorists employed.
There is one rather odd detail I remember from that day. I had not seen Babylon 5 when it first aired, but Grace watched it every day in reruns on the Sci-fi Channel and I had seen enough in passing to get interested, so when they started running it again from the beginning I watched it. The day before, September 10th, they’d played the episode named “Believers“, in which the central conflict are aliens who believe surgery is evil and refuse to let a doctor save their child. On September 11th, they played it again; I thought that was odd, but I assumed somebody in their programming department was too upset by the morning’s events to change the tape or however that’s done. But then the next day they played the same one again, then again on Thursday and Friday; they didn’t move on to a new episode until the following Monday. I don’t understand why they did it, except that part of the show’s backstory is that terrorists had at some point in the past nuked San Diego, and perhaps the channel’s management wanted to put off getting to an episode where that was mentioned to avoid upsetting viewers; continually repeating an episode focusing on the harm done by religious fanaticism hardly seems like an improvement, though.
Links #844
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged acting, artificial stupidity, Australia, California, Canada, China, Colorado, cops, drugs, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, Mad Libs, Rome, sex toys, Shame Shame, Spain, video, Washington DC on September 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »
You’re not the future anymore! – Mark Zuckerberg, sort of
Though Tim Curry died only the day after Dolly Parton, I wasn’t going to cheat him of a proper sendoff. The links above the video were provided by Ryan Marino; Radley Balko; Scott Greenfield and Dan Savage; The Onion; Ryan Marino again; Amy Alkon; and Nun Ya, in that order.
- Sic transit gloria mundi.
- I’m sure you feel safer now.
- R.I.P. Tim Curry and Gloria Steinem.
- Simultaneously funny and horrifying.
- More great moments in artificial stupidity.
- Everything I see makes me more determined never to fly again.
- Why did anybody think something called a “cloud” was permanent?
From the Archives
- Civil rights violations claimed as “solutions” to politician-created problems.
- How long will America ignore the cost of its sick worship of state violence?
- Americans’ sick lust for torture turns imprisonment into a death sentence.
- When will the mainstream media admit that pigs in schools are a menace?
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional any more.
- Don’t label your product “My X” unless you’re marketing it to 1st-graders.
- I’m not sorry for women who happily threw other women to the leopards.
- The way local media parrots clearly-foolish copaganda is utterly pathetic.
- It’s rare a court rules an action so stupid even a cop should know better.
- Seattle is notorious for cloaking its police-statery in bogus “liberal” cant.
- Two forced-birth states are moving to legally reduce women to serfdom.
- Governments are growing increasingly bold in their internet censorship.
- The Japanese are the only people who can still tell fantasy from reality.
- Red/blue fools pretend anti-sex authoritarians “do not agree on much”.
- Prohibition can never actually succeed in eradicating the banned thing.
- Unusually, they didn’t pitch this as the rapist doing his victims a favor.
- Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
- I’m really pleased with how well Durabak works on wooden surfaces.
- Some censors believe KOSA won’t destroy the internet fully enough.
- The resources flushed down the “culture war” toilet are incalculable.
- Government thugs continue their crusade against Christian charity.
- It’s far too late to cram this djinni back into its bottle, God help us.
- When a headline asks a question, the answer is nearly always “no”.
- Elon Musk’s “DOGE” didn’t “fail”; it worked exactly as he intended.
- It only starts with political pariahs like sex workers or gun owners.
- Note that cases of actual coercion don’t look much like the myths.
- Government internet censorship attempts grow increasingly bold.
- Ex-politicians’ changes of heart are cynical attempts to fool God.
- Cops, animals, artificial stupidity, Helen Fisher, and much more.
- “Pastor and sex offender” is a large and ever-expanding group.
- A powerful look at men playing D&D on Texas’ death row.
- Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors.
- The worship of Santa Muerte has expanded worldwide.
- Cops, Roger Corman, Jimmy Buffett, and much more.
- Sleeping with a cop is dangerous even for other cops.
- PayPal is becoming a major threat to civil liberties.
- Chatbot usage actively harms brain functions.
- Cops, language, ice cream, and much more.
- This childish puritanism is so exhausting.
- Thoughts on the Bonnie Blue gang bang.
- Don’t let computers call them, either.
- Another “security” system that isn’t.
- Presentation isn’t my strong point.
- Laura Agustín on her new project.
- The Throwback Thursday Squad.
- Good riddance to bad rubbish.
- Zuckerberg is out of his mind.
- Cop is a cop is a cop is a cop.
- Sunset is a place for friends.
- Throwback Meets Thursday.
- It’s about goddamned time.
- Much more of this, please.
- Cicero loves apple season.
- Greenback Thursday.
- The Beat Goes On.
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!
The Throwback Thursday Demon
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged animals, Arizona, bad customers, blogging, ethics, fascism, illegal aliens, language, left-right myth, politicians, video, yin and yang on September 3, 2026| Leave a Comment »
In the News (#1668)
Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, agency denial, censorship, consensual crime, cops, domestic violence, Facebook, fascism, Florida, Indiana, internet, Kentucky, law, LGBT rights, Maryland, Never Call the Cops, Panopticon, politicians, racism, rape, scams, Stalkers in Blue, surveillance, Texas, The Cop Myth, The Last Shall Be First, TikTok, To Molest and Rape, Undead Powers, Walled Garden, When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals, You Were Warned on September 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »
For those who find [drag shows] offensive, the solution is relatively simple…just don’t go. – Judge David Hittner
When will amateur women learn cops are dangerous sex predators?
[A Baltimore cop named] Daniel Oxendine…[raped] a woman…[who foolishly approached] him to [ask him to] drive her…home…[when they got there,] Oxendine [forced his way] inside and [raped] her…Investigators [believe]…he may have [had other victims so he]…is being held [without bail]…
[The prominent anti-female autonomy group] Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America [has] signed a letter calling on the Department of [In]justice…to interpret a 19th century anti-obscenity law as a national abortion ban. It’s the first time the country’s largest anti-a[utonomy] organization has publicly endorsed this interpretation of the Comstock Act, signaling that a once-fringe reading of the dormant law has gone mainstream within the [forced-birth] movement—and that these groups are coming for more than just abortion pills…Comstock bans mailing any article or thing that can be used for abortions…including…devices and other supplies sent to brick-and-mortar abortion clinics. These same drugs, devices, and supplies are also used for routine obstetric care, including miscarriage management and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage…
Your regular reminder that regardless of what evil laws fanatics impose, abortion medication will still be available by mail unless the US entirely criminalizes shipping things.
The Last Shall Be First (#1567)
It should be a felony to propose a bill that is facially unconstitutional:
U.S. District Judge…David Hittner [has once again] ruled that Texas’ law banning drag shows around minors is “facially overbroad” and “unconstitutionally vague”…Hittner had originally ruled SB 12 unconstitutional in 2023, shortly after it was passed…[but psychopath-]General Ken Paxton appealed [the] ruling to the…Fifth Circuit…which…sent the case back to Hittner…who…[pointed out that] banning…[any] performance…that…”appeals to the prurient interest in sex”…might…apply to performers as varied as Elvis Presley…Dolly Parton, and Miley Cyrus…
These showboat bills waste public money for politicians’ virtue-signaling; the only allowable defense should be that the politician was too stupid to understand the plain language of the Constitution.
When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1626)
The open internet will soon be a thing of the past:
…[Facebook] has settled with 52 state and local Attorneys General who had sued the company in some form or another [using the excuse of “]child safety[“]…the years-long case…against [it] ends, and [Zuckerberg] pays…approximately $18 billion…[and] will implement a bunch of changes to its platforms…everyone involved knows full well that no government could mandate these feature changes without violating the First Amendment. But now that it’s in a “settlement”…people are cheering this on, without realizing the damage it will do…For a few decades now, when basically all Attorneys General would get together to threaten and/or sue tech companies, it was almost always over bullshit headline grabbing claims where the AGs either had no jurisdiction or ability to legally do anything…these efforts are so resource intensive, so expensive, and so draining that it’s no surprise that most companies end up “settling” by agreeing to do things that the government simply cannot force a company to do. But because it’s a “settlement” people act like it’s not the government doing it…The other bit of background worth understanding here is that [Facebook] has been…practically begging for Congress to pass child safety legislation that only the largest companies (like itself) could comply with…[such as] FOSTA…it’s been pretty consistently losing the innovation race, and the government granting it a regulatory moat that smaller competitors can’t cross would be a godsend…[especially when i]t looks like…“losing” a lawsuit…
He was named “Deputy of the Year” for exemplifying cops’ true nature so well:
[A Florida cop named] Michael Fultz [was allowed to] resign…[rather than being fired] for…extreme…sexual misconduct, racism, and abuse…Brevard County named Fultz its Deputy of the Year in 2025. The day of the ceremony [his] ex-girlfriend sent a letter…to the sheriff’s office with a long list of complaints about his behavior…which [prompted]…the…discover[y that] he’d used Flock to stalk her…[further] investigation found Fultz had posed for pictures as Adolf Hitler, freely used racial slurs in texts, masturbated on camera in his p[igmobile, shoved his gun into]…his ex-girlfriend[‘s]…mouth during sex [and took pictures, and] repeatedly [covered]…his motorcycle [license plate while speeding over 100 mph so he could look like a big man on]…Instagram and TikTok…the sexual encounter where…he [threatened to murder his girlfriend] occurred [immediately after he murdered a man in April 2025, then blamed his victim]…
Cops will abuse warrantless surveillance for as long as it exists:
A…[Kentucky cop was actually]…suspended…and…charge[d] for [repeat]edly using license plate reader cameras to track and harass [his ex-girlfriend] in Kentucky and Indiana…Asad Zahir …used…Flock…to conduct more than 2,000 searches on [her] from January through May of this year, [despite]…an Indiana…[“]protective order[“] against him…Zahir…[abused the system so egregiously Flock’s software reported him to his bosses]…
Cops are angry that people hate unconstitutional surveillance:
A…Florida [cop shop] used “decoy” Flock cameras that a…[pig] 3D-printed at home to “bait” [citizens concerned about unconstitutional surveillance]…then charged a man with three felonies after he cut down and destroyed one…Oviedo, Florida mayor Megan Sladek said she “had NO idea” that [cops were planning this scam]…Despite the decoy camera being worth, at most, several dollars worth of plastic filament, Evan Meyer was charged with…[“]attempted[” felonies]…Meyer ad[mitted that he targeted the make-believe] camera…specifically…[because it] was close…to his house…The [pig scheme] is reminiscent of Amazon “package sting” [scam]s that several [cop shops] attempted several years ago, in which empty Amazon boxes were placed on people’s porches while p[igs lurked to spy]…result[ing] in zero known arrests…
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!
Links #843
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged acting, animals, Antarctica, cops, disease, Florida, illegal aliens, Illinois, Never Call the Cops, Norway, prisons, psychology, STEM, Texas, Torture Chamber, video, Washington (state) on August 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Get on the fucking ground…I will fucking tase you. – cop to “missing child”
Even with all of her songs to choose from, this felt to me like the most appropriate tribute to one of the world’s most beloved human beings. The links above it were provided by Radley Balko; Mistress Matisse; T. Greg Doucette; Ryan Cooper and Scott Long; Nun Ya (x2); and IncarcerNation, in that order.
- At the Mountains of Madness.
- Aboard the SS Queen of Ulthar.
- No, your reason is not an exception.
- R.I.P. Dolly Parton and King Harald V.
- Dust storms are back, now with added fungus!
- They keep demonstrating exactly what they are.
- What part of “never” is so difficult to understand?
From the Archives
- Google has made violating its users’ consent a standard business practice.
- Ignoramus censors don’t understand why people ignore their stupid laws.
- It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the “Campaign Against Toasters”.
- Cop deals with disagreement in typical cop fashion; the press is shocked.
- Pigs may only excuse sexual assault as a “search” if the victim is female.
- Young women are using “sex trafficking” as an excuse for violent crimes.
- Feigned sympathy for “trafficking victims” applies only to “perfect” ones.
- Had he not been caught at this stage, he’d have soon moved on to rape.
- Amateurs repeatedly botch what sex workers have done for many years.
- Keep plunging that ice pick in; the bad thoughts will go away eventually.
- Politicians embrace “magic fentanyl” myth; will the media finally drop it?
- Totally-predictable results of bad laws are happening right on schedule.
- Some believe they can live forever by eliminating all pleasure from life.
- The government will say anything to ensure Lacey dies in a filthy cage.
- Politicians really believe they can control people’s thoughts via threats.
- A newspaper publisher dies on her feet, at least figuratively speaking.
- The fascist owners of most of these allow cops to root in them at will.
- Unembellished “sex trafficking from a store” scary tales are now rare.
- The sick lust to know everything about everybody has consequences.
- This will continue until there are federal criminal charges for doing it.
- Americans flush incalculable resources down the “culture war” toilet.
- That word appears, but 15 paragraphs in and blunted by qualifiers.
- Retrospectives of my blogging from August 2013, 2014, and 2015.
- This will continue until the evil US immigration policy is reformed.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, Morgus, Phil Donahue, and much more.
- Tyrannies often start with sex workers, but never stop with us.
- The cop establishment is trying hard to hide this one’s crimes.
- Cops, faux environmentalism, Arleen Sorkin, and much more.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- An especially vile Gestapo weapon: fake “child porn” charges.
- Bootlickers say child porn is OK if the criminal is a good shot.
- Some cops don’t limit themselves to one type of creepiness.
- You’d think “youth pastor” would be a big red flag by now.
- Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors.
- Politicians can always mine tragedy to justify more evil.
- A new film adaptation of Chester Brown’s Paying For It.
- How long before Google becomes completely useless?
- Prohibitionists always end up with egg on their faces.
- This sleazebag tried to frame a woman for his crime.
- Cops, useful idiots, cultural shifts, and much more.
- Con artists use moral panics to fleece the gullible.
- Modern monogamy is becoming increasingly sick.
- Privacy as we once knew it is a thing of the past.
- It was obvious this would turn out to be sordid.
- The best year for fruit since I bought Sunset.
- It only starts with demonized minorities.
- The US Constitutional order is no more.
- Rapist cops don’t only target women.
- Throwback Thursday’s Hungry Dead.
- Fracchia vs Throwback Thursday.
- Don’t fret, it’s for your “security”.
- Ghost of Throwback Thursday.
- Redoing the atrium lighting.
- Another round of Durabak.
- Much more of this, please.
- Good weather for slugs.
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!
Bluebells
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Music, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged abortion, Aladdin’s Satellite, artificial stupidity, blogging, Bluesky, China, cops, crypto-moralism, dating, fascism, Grace, homosexuality, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, language, lawheads, libraries, Madonna/whore, Minnesota, politicians, porn, prisons, psychology, rape, sporting events, STEM, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers on August 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Sex workers have been asking this question for 20 years.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-16T16:58:18.635Z
There is a product called "Suddenly Salad" which I've always thought had the most bizarre name. In my imagination, the ways that product works is one opens the box, then at some unknown point in the next 24 hours the salad suddenly appears in front of one without warning, which could be dangerous.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-19T03:37:39.650Z
Absolutely. Some pictures wordlessly sum up a moment in history.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-20T16:38:43.159Z
Post a Photoshop of Trump wandering aimlessly into an historical event:
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T18:06:59.488Z
When you were a weird kid in the '70s and you saw this on your TV, you KNEW you were in for some good viewing!
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-23T06:41:38.881Z
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
The only moral form of warfare is War of Assassins, in which only the rulers of the warring nations, plus their deputies, agents, and operatives, are legitimate targets. In other words, nobody who does not CHOOSE to be a combatant is in direct physical danger except by accident due to proximity.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-24T07:44:29.870Z
People who cannot understand friendship, and truly believe that all close friendships are motivated by a mutual desire to rut, are both pathetic and contemptible.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-25T17:45:06.947Z
Is a "health movement" anything like a bowel movement?
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-26T03:21:25.961Z
I'm sure you feel safer now.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-27T17:21:46.847Z
"The Singularity" is the God of the futurist religion. If you want perspective on anything any tech cultist says about "The Singularity", simply substitute "God", "Providence", "The Force", or any similarly-vague and irrational name for "magic"."The Singularity is coming" = "The Second Coming".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-28T17:49:37.779Z
Sex workers always warn y'all about predators, and y'all never listen.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T17:42:59.877Z
Absolutely. I still laugh at the memory of Mr. Moose and his various tricks to win the Captain's consent to having ping-pong balls dropped on him.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-30T18:28:53.057Z
Apparently it will take more than self-induced terminal illness to teach him to behave normally in public.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-31T17:05:53.189Z
It wasn't really Yoko's fault.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-01T07:48:22.576Z
I'm not especially concerned with anyone mistaking my writing for something a chatbot shat out, nor am I willing to change my style in any way to keep stupid people from doing so. I write as the Muse moves me, not by working from some tedious set of guidelines or to please some specific audience.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-02T07:51:12.904Z
I miss my late best friend Grace every single day. And yet, there is a part of me which is glad she passed away a few days after Trump's inauguration, so she never got to see what Musk, who was a hero to her specifically BECAUSE of SpaceX, was really like. I'm glad she was spared disillusionment.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-04T18:26:25.697Z
Nutritionism is not science, exhibit umpteen thousand, nine hundred eleventy-seven.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-05T17:18:45.827Z
Suggestion: limit data centers to whatever size they can power with on-site solar. It would remove the noise & pollution factors, and if the company wanted to go bigger they'd have to have more land, creating more buffer between them and neighbors.Don't bother to point out flaws; I'm just musing.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-06T18:07:11.455Z
Oh look, Maggie was right once again, what a shock, etc.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-07T17:09:01.629Z
Like all those Bond girls who were the supervillain's mistress, only the villains' schemes are more pathetic, like "I will ruin a beloved corporation, hahahahahaha!" instead of "I will cause World War III so my organization can rule over what is left, hahahahahaha!"
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-08T17:07:29.519Z
Your regular reminder that desalination has existed for decades; Americans just don't want to build the plants because REASONS.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-10T02:49:12.833Z
If skills were sexually transmitted, I'd be a Renaissance polymath with *exceptional* ability in medicine, engineering, physics, law, politics, music, and several sports including golf and fishing.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-10T17:30:33.743Z
The US has become a global laughingstock.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T17:21:45.852Z
This is breathtakingly brilliant. I don't think I've ever seen such a deft collection of clever, striking, and above all *apt* insults and condemnation of a well-known specimen of poisonous vermin.Well done, @jojofromjerz.bsky.social!
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-14T18:31:38.573Z
What avatar will he replace it with next? This?
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-16T17:36:54.670Z
Librarians' chief duty is preserving human culture from the stupidity of other humans.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-17T17:31:00.759Z
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-08-19T03:52:13.785Z
Unwelcome Mat
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged artificial stupidity, ethics, psychology, robots on August 17, 2026| 1 Comment »
Computers can be useful tools or servants, but they are not human; they have no feelings and no dignity, and humans have no more obligation to treat them as equals than we have toward any other machine. If you don’t think humans need to get the consent of a power saw or dishwasher before using it, you also shouldn’t think computer programs are owed good manners. Yet since the 1980s, humans have been presented with an ever-increasing number of circumstances in which we are confronted by machines whose owners and operators apparently expect others to treat them as though they were sentient beings. It was already bad enough when the machines were merely recordings of human voices intended to guide customers through an ersatz replacement for a phone operator by advising us to press this number to speak to that human; by the ’90s they started expecting us to talk back to them, then in this century humans began to be replaced by machines at every step of the process, so a computer operator would switch callers through to other computers which can virtually never do what their corporate owners pretend they can.
But now that we’re several years into the chatbot invasion, a large number of people have not only conceded their right to be helped by other people, but actually expect others to do the same. Sorry, but no. When a computer answers a phone I’ve called, I do whatever is necessary to get to a human operator, and when a computer calls me I immediately hang up and block the number, because in my view if something isn’t important enough for a human to make that call, it also isn’t important enough for me to waste my valuable time with. As if it isn’t bad enough that we’re expected to treat objects as equals, many people apparently feel comfortable taking a subordinate position to objects! I can no longer use social media without philistines presenting things shat out by chatbots as “art” or “writing”, and though I block strangers who do this, a few of those who have succumbed to this aesthetic disorder are people I otherwise enjoy talking to. It’s just too much, so I’ve decided on a more aggressive policy: I’ve already muted a number of phrases such as, “I asked ChatGPT…” yet I am still assailed by people who have surrendered so much of their human dignity that they consider deluxe autocomplete an “authority”. So from here on out, I’m going to block anyone who quotes a chatbot at me, and I’m only going to give one warning before I do it.
Planet Throwback Thursday
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged artificial stupidity, blogging, California, censorship, cops, Hollywood, language, left-right myth, politicians, propaganda, psychology, racism on August 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »
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