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Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

Virgin Throwback Thursday

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It never ceases to amaze me that, after a century and a half of pseudoscience, self-contradiction, crypto-moralism, scams and outright lies, most people STILL believe nutritionism is a real science rather than something akin to astrology, phrenology, or bite mark analysis.  –  “Autumn Tweets”

One needn’t worry about why a tiger is hungry in order to know it’s dangerous.  –  “Tweetledum”

Remember 2016, when Americans became so obsessed with creepy clowns that they actually put one in the White House?
–  “Spooky Tweets“

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Tweets in the Belfry

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I love that so many media outlets are now using the most ridiculous-looking Trump photos they can find, such as this one which makes him look constipated. LOOK HIM WUB HIS TUMTUM!

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T02:26:10.801Z

Since he's over a decade younger than I am, statistically I won't live to see him go. But it'll be pretty funny when this dude dies of a statistically typical cause at a statistically typical age despite wasting a quarter of his life chasing the illusion of "immortality".Behold the folly of Man.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T17:04:43.609Z

Dementia doesn't always present as befuddlement a la Biden; it can also present as confusion and disinhibition, both of which Trump displays with increasing frequency and severity. You ever hear nursing home nurses talk about being grabbed by dirty old demented men? Disinhibition. As is this.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-19T07:47:06.295Z

One of the rewards of being old is you get to smile sweetly when the young people finally start recognizing the wisdom of a position you've espoused for decades that THEY previously proclaimed wrong.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-20T17:06:21.614Z

How is that even supposed to be pronounced, "Kadollar-huh"?Holy heavy metal umlaut, Batman!

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-21T17:15:31.307Z

Looks like Trump isn't the only well-known psychopath who has a fetish for pretending to be an inflatable sex doll.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T03:30:51.581Z

There are TWO links between acetaminophen and autism!1) Both start with "A"2) Both are subjects you might ask a doctor about.SMOKING GUN!!!

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-24T16:25:49.304Z

I hate living in a time where I know who the fucking *education superintendent* of fucking OKLAHOMA is.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-25T17:55:25.694Z

A look at Antichrist prophecies by an actual theologian (as opposed to a Thiel-origin): archive.is/SGZcS

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-26T03:16:23.700Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-26T18:36:48.693Z

Anyone familiar with the folklore of primitive cultures will recognize this. It's based on the idea of names having magical power, so if the name of some evil thing is mentioned it may appear (hence the traditional phrase "Speak of the Devil…") Not speaking of something robs it of power.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-27T17:24:42.257Z

I don't believe @alyankovic.bsky.social had anything to do with this video.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-28T16:48:49.339Z

Beginning to look more and more like this:

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T17:23:36.102Z

Trump inflatable sex dolls come in several sizes, to fit all needs:

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-01T17:57:06.284Z

Also: the groundwork for this was laid by US courts repeatedly excusing cops for smashing into random people's homes in the middle of the night because they didn't care to get the address correct. And in a larger sense, by allowing unconstitutional "no knock" warrants in the first place.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-02T18:10:58.682Z

Better headline: "Extremely Stupid People are Angry at Pope for Being Catholic".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-04T02:24:46.168Z

Before you dash off some sophomoric apologia of police-statery, ask yourself if you *really* want one of the best living American journalists thoroughly vivisecting you in a multi-part essay.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-04T17:43:15.609Z

It's funny how many nitwits have no problem with all the businesses they hate as long as politicians they hate get to run it roughly half of the time.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-05T18:33:43.795Z

Post a "demonic sexual performance" at Superb Owl halftime.I'll start.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-06T16:31:59.573Z

Can you imagine going through life as a quadriplegic because your parents were too stupid and evil to vaccinate you?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-08T02:44:54.470Z

We really need Anglophone journalists in the UK, Canada, and Australia to start writing about the political situation in the US using the same kind of language they use when writing about political situations in developing countries. "the regime", "dissidents", "the regime's secret police", etc.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-08T17:05:00.733Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-09T17:50:30.707Z

Someone needs to invite Miller to a late-night tea party.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-10T16:31:59.503Z

Reporters: stop using the deferential term "detaining" when talking about ICE goons' abduction of innocent people from US streets. You proper term would indeed by "abduction", but if you want to pretend neutrality you could use "capture", which at least says nothing about the captors' motives.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-11T17:22:08.981Z

So long, Mommy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-13T02:17:15.023Z

It would be a far better world if things like this happened more often.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-14T17:32:47.303Z

21st-century soi-disant "Christians" commit blasphemy as casually and often as Marquis de Sade characters.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-15T18:10:07.405Z

Thinking is, always has been, and always will be the greatest enemy of power; that's why the powerful always want to shut it down.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T19:42:10.008Z

Is it completely impossible for MAGA creatures to keep their mouths SHUT for long enough to take a fucking picture?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T07:29:32.013Z

The mad emperor is now tweeting cartoons of himself making poo-poos on people who are mean to him.You thought there were a lot of books and documentaries about Hitler over the past 80 years? You ain't seen NUTHIN' yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWHD…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-19T19:59:02.583Z

 

 

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One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The whole left-right, red-blue, all-or-nothing nonsense rots the brains of those who embrace it.  If you actually look at the percentages, so-called “red states” don’t actually have many more “red” voters than “blue states” do.  The idea of monolithic “red” or “blue” states is a fiction promoted by nitwits with childlike views of the world who long for easy, clear “white hat-black hat” narratives that simply don’t apply to mass politics.  I grew up in a so-called “red state”, lived for a while in an even “redder” one, and for ten years now have lived in a “blue state”.  And the balance of political commentary I heard from neighbors, casual conversation in public, etc hasn’t changed much over my lifetime.  What has changed is the amount of power given to dangerous, psychopathic crackpots, and the erosion of citizens’ protections from said crackpots.  This has been a bipartisan project all along; even the Constitutional crisis which started 24 years ago last month and finally came to a boil in January, was a contest between the GOP and Dems to see who could erode more civil liberties and scream “FOR THE CHIIIIIIIIIILDREN!!!” the loudest.  In the end, the GOP turned out to be the party that broke and completely succumbed to populist-flavored fascism, but that’s because it has long cultivated a more rigid belief-system which broke when the winds of change blew hard enough.  The Dems cultivated a more flexible catechism which did not snap in those winds, but instead has become so warped and weakened it isn’t good for anything.  Trumpism is the immediate danger, and needs our focus.  But don’t fall for lies that Democrats are noble saviors, else ending trumpery will be no more than leaping from one boiling pot to another.

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Not a Theory

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Words, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2025| 1 Comment »

Can y’all please stop using the phrase “conspiracy theory” to mean any kind of bizarre fantasy, even ones that are literally impossible, whether it involves a conspiracy or not?  Even a conspiracy hypothesis would need to be scientifically credible; anything that isn’t is a bizarre cultic belief.  And using “false conspiracy theory” to mean such a cultic belief is even worse; it’s like calling transubstantiation a “false conspiracy theory” because the bread is still provably bread.  To discuss myths, ie the beliefs of a given cult, as though they were scientific assertions is absurd.  See the screenshot below?  You might as well call the Golden Fleece or Ark of the Covenant “conspiracy theories”, because every irrational belief-system has magical or esoteric devices somewhere in its mythology.  Stop pretending QAnon isn’t a religion; it has a prophet, unprovable mysteries that must be taken on faith, etc.  And its adherents can no more be talked out of their beliefs than fundamentalists can be talked out of their belief in the Rapture or Techists out of their belief in the “Singularity”.   

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The Ascension of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on October 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

October is more than just my native month; it is my native country, and the time in which I have always been most at peace and (paradoxically for a time associated with haunts, dying vegetation and the dying year) felt most alive.  –  “The October Country”

An authoritarian government enacted by election is much worse than one produced by a coup, because while the latter can have little credible pretense of legitimacy, the former can represent itself as fully legitimate and claim the “right” to do whatever awfulness it wants because “the majority wills it”.  –
“The Veneer of Legitimacy”

It is not the job of libraries to enforce parental censorship choices; that is the job of parents.  –  “Garden of the Muses“

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Nightfall

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 2 Comments »

When belief trumps facts, feelings trump reason, and violent psychopaths declare themselves the only legitimate arbiters of Truth, darkness can be the only result.  –  “The Oncoming Night”

There’s no good reason to rehash my columns for last year’s “Banned Books Week” and those of 2023 and 2022; my records have not yet been censored, so those essays, all heavily-fortified with links to earlier writings on the subject, are still there for your perusal.  Instead, it seems more urgent to call your attention to the fact that the impending dark age I have warned about for years has now arrived.  Lest some of you (especially the ones who used to call me a crank for warning what facial recognition would become) think I’m exaggerating, let me reiterate what a dark age actually is.  People who know nothing about history tend to think of the term as synonymous with the Middle Ages, despite the facts that A) only a small part of that thousand-year period qualify as “dark” in the historical sense; B) there have been a number of dark ages in human history; and C) the term in and of itself says nothing about technological progress per se.  In reality, 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.  And if too many of the burned books contain scientific or technical knowledge, the result may indeed be a reversal of technological progress.  But such a decline is not the defining characteristic, and indeed one of the major causes of the dark age we’re now entering is the misuse of technology.

The way people of later times view a dark age is, due once again to the lack of reliable records, not at all the same as the way people living in such an age view it; the only people who are in a position to recognize that they’re living in such an age are those who understand what the term means in the first place.  So it’s doubtful that the authoritarian rulers of countries like India and the United States recognize (or care) what they’re doing to future history; what’s important to this discussion is that they are using modern computer technology to do it.  In the last century, it would’ve been impossible for a Trump, Modi, or Xi to eliminate every single instance of a fact or opinion they disliked; Mao and Stalin tried, but books and other physical records cannot be eliminated by merely ordering the creation of search-and-destroy algorithms or threatening large, centralized fascist companies into censoring their own highly-indexed media.  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.  And if you can’t see that as a formula for a dark age, why are you even bothering to read this?

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The True Story of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

When you see the word “illicit”, you can be sure you’re reading prohibitionist propaganda.  –  “Full of Themselves (#1176)”

It is not only the right, but the duty, of moral people to break unjust laws.
–  “Late Summer Tweets”

All ethical people need to resist the book-burners and website-wreckers, loudly and defiantly, in the hopes that at least some of our fellow-humans will come back to their senses before it’s too late.  –  “Banned Books Week 2023”

Ads pay the bills, but they are distracting and annoying, and readers have good reason to suspect that any publication which carries them will be biased against offending those advertisers.  –  “Paying the Bills“

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Dark Throwback Thursday

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on September 25, 2025| 4 Comments »

Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than the knowledge that there are private affairs that are none of their business.
–  “I Spy (#1173)”

I’m honestly unsure where this will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.
–  “The Book Burners”

Some people are such economic imbeciles I wouldn’t even trust them to make change.  –  “Tweetledee”

Censorship is extremely popular in dark ages, which of course is a large part of what makes them dark ages in the first place.  –  “The Oncoming Night“

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Tweet Street

Posted in Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Sorry, partisans: both vaccines and french fries are good.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-12T16:41:51.013Z

A Maggie story that will surprise no one:When I was about 16 politicians imposed a curfew on minors in our parish (county). I had never been especially interested in going out late until then, but after the curfew was imposed I started going on 3 AM walks every Sunday just to flout it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-14T17:50:46.184Z

A word crying out for more widespread usage.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T07:50:27.486Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-17T17:22:30.905Z

Someone whose name isn't Maggie McNeill FINALLY had the intellectual courage to use the word that best describes Trump. http://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T16:51:49.659Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T03:52:04.139Z

What kind of servile bootlickery is Google pushing?In a liberal republic, "those in positions of authority" should get the LEAST respect and the MOST derogatory language. Lèse-majesté is for autocracies.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-21T03:25:32.476Z

You have to admit it's funny (in a short of frustrating way) when career politicians try to engage with Trump's deranged mouth farts as though they were statements by a rational person. It's like watching them argue with barnyard fowl.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-21T18:40:32.072Z

Europe has been shaped by crusades against reality for quite a few centuries now.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-23T17:57:13.545Z

Protip: it's better to set your apocalyptic "predictions" far enough in the future that you won't still be alive when the passage of time proves you to be an idiot.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-24T03:05:09.833Z

Martin is apparently laboring under the misapprehension that he is a train.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-25T07:37:24.002Z

"Don't give money to strangers you meet on the goddamned internet."Done.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-26T07:29:49.402Z

Yes, decaying things often change noticeably on a daily basis. reason.com/2025/08/27/t…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T16:48:42.823Z

1) "Father Justin" is the name of a program, not a person.2) There is no such thing as "AI"; programs cannot think.3) In Catholic doctrine a program has no soul & cannot be ordained to the priesthood.4) Chatbots function by word association; their action is more like shitting than "suggesting".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-29T17:09:20.519Z

I find it difficult to believe that this thing is an actual human being rather than a plastic mannequin animated by the Nestenes or some other parasitic alien species.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T03:35:04.593Z

One important but unappreciated sign of America's decline is that these audiences are contented with merely booing people their grandparents and great-grandparents would've pelted with rotting vegetables.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T17:22:38.679Z

The most outlandish thing I would do is to have a miniature railroad installed on my property, so I could ride around in my very own choo-choo. Everything else I'd buy is pretty sensible.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T03:57:52.756Z

The only positive thing this monster has accomplished is dealing the death-blow to Americans' idolization of his family.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T16:52:48.744Z

The mad emperor now claims anyone may justify wanton violence by pointing at the intended victim & barfing the words "drug boat". I'm sure digitally-altered audio will soon be produced in which the lunatic who shot that 11-year-old prankster will be clearly heard to say "drug boat!" before firing.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T18:01:32.308Z

Read this as, "I'm praying every day for God to deliver us from the scourge of cancer and send us a bountiful harvest.""AI" is a cult.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T17:41:19.853Z

People ask why I don't have ads on my blog.Yes, they'd bring in money. But I couldn't live with myself if I enabled this kind of shit.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T07:22:26.399Z

ALL bending of the knee is symbolic kneeling. That is the exact, specific meaning of the gesture: "I should be kneeling to you, but our practical circumstances require me to keep moving so I'll just acknowledge my subservience and then move on."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-06T17:36:40.009Z

There is no "debate".Politicians want to control X.Sensible people explain why that's a bad idea.Politicians invent propaganda justifying their control.Critical mass of useful idiots believe politicians.Politicians gain control of X.Decades of damage, waste, and other consequences follow.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-07T17:16:34.136Z

You misspelled "Master".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-08T17:31:11.121Z

It's almost like a lot of people don't know the difference between static load and dynamic load, nor really grasp what the phrase "potential energy" actually means.Physics is hard.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-09T07:25:29.051Z

Not REMOTELY panicked enough. When he retreats into his Führerbunker and won't come out, I'll say he's NEARLY panicked enough.When he cries like a baby on the way up the scaffold steps, THEN he'll be panicked enough.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T07:46:49.657Z

Private ownership of something may possibly result in it being controlled at some point by someone you dislike and oppose.Government ownership of that thing makes that a certainty.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-11T17:36:19.407Z

Teacher reply: "Politicians and bureaucrats are not role models."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-12T17:25:04.514Z

My rule is to treat everyone with respect (like a person) up until the moment they start barking "orders" at me as though I were a dog. To behave as a cog in an authoritarian machine is to voluntarily surrender one's humanity to that machine, releasing me from the obligation to pretend otherwise.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-13T17:25:40.274Z

At this point, I'm glad as long as it ENDS. Stroke, assassination, committed as a lunatic, impeachment, war crimes tribunal, eaten by rats, being picked up by aliens, riding into Heaven in a flaming chariot, I don't care. He's the fucking Marvin K. Mooney of Washington.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T07:30:10.016Z

Zuckerberg's living on the other side of the looking glass. Here's what actual scientists on OUR side of the glass have to say: maggiemcneill.com/2025/09/06/i…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T17:17:24.605Z

This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?”

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-16T17:29:33.849Z

No mortal is worthy of worship. For one man or woman to worship another degrades the worshiper and deludes the one who is worshiped.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T18:17:31.017Z

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Modern Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Picket-fence queers…are beginning to notice that deliberately ignoring sex workers after they reached the Big Table…wasn’t such a good idea.
–  “Under the Table”

Sex work…allows me to live my life with the minimum amount of interruption and distraction from what I actually want to do.  –  “The Best Option”

Some [“news”] articles are so vague they wouldn’t even be newsworthy were the accused anyone more credible than a cop or preacher.  –  “If Men Were Angels (#1373)”

Because laws pretended to control cops never include criminal penalties for violators, cops simply ignore them as they please without any consequences.  –  “I Spy (#1472)“

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