Rare But Nice

Gotta say, it’s refreshing to see barricades being put up to prevent right-wing violence against law enforcement and public institutions. I usually only see those kinds of measures being employed when a cop is about to be acquitted of murdering an innocent Black person.

I don’t know if Donnie Boy is going to be indicted tomorrow, although obviously I hope he is, and also in Georgia and also anywhere else they can get his hands on him. I also very much want to see the Patriot Moat the usual gang of idiots are discussing down in Mar A Lago because that’ll be hilarious.

Obviously, as we’ve seen, the odds of a few well-heeled assholes committing acts of domestic terrorism and hurting people are higher than they should be, and the odds of them forming any kind of coherent force that accomplishes more than smearing shit on society’s collective walls is way lower than they think it is. Much like with Jan 6, they are simultaneously dangerous and ineffective, to the point where you don’t want them to try some shit, but you kinda want ‘em to try some shit. 

Pointy-Headed Racist

This is super-obvious, but it bears repeating that one week ago, Scott Adams was an unhinged dingus that no publication with any of the values or principles they claimed to have THIS weekend should have been supporting in the first place  

You can be plenty awful in today’s society and still keep your core career and livelihood. You can, in fact, be MORE awful now and get away with it than you could have been at any point in the last 30 years, and the constant vilification and complaining about cancel culture (FKA political correctness) exists for the sole purpose of letting awful people get away with being awful to a degree that was formerly unacceptable.

Now, in order to suffer consequences, you have to be VERY racist in a way that gets publicly noticed to a degree that a few big players feel compelled to take public action, which creates the environment in which other, more timid big players realize that the disadvantages of not replacing Dilbert with some other bullshit the people who still read the funny pages will glance over out of habit outweigh the brief onslaught of right-wing How Dare You’s who swarm when one of Their Own is threatened.

The degree to which you have to fuck up is roughly proportional to how much money you make for other people. You make a LOT of money for other people, and you have to publicly say you like Hitler in order for capitalism to jettison you. Scott Adams makes SOME money for other people, but it’s mostly out of habit at this point, so he only had to be very, very racist on a podcast whose contents got widely publicized for him to finally be cast off.

I assume, as is traditional, that Martyr Syndrome will kick in shortly and offers to speak at a plethora of low-standard wingnut gatherings will pour in for a couple of years, since nothing Adams said falls that far outside the boundaries of mainstream conservative thought. But if this finally removes Dilbert from the public consciousness two decades after it stopped being even remotely relevant, , I’ll take it.

CROSSPOST: Danhausen Gorilla-Press Slams An Increasingly Ridiculous Series Of Things

 https://www.oldnerd.net/2023/02/fig-photo-series-danhausen-gorilla.html

Dys Track

 Dystopia feeling a little extra dystopic this week.

You Got Rowled

“I want to have a serious, important conversation about the difficult topics. Topics on which I have been misunderstood. I never meant to upset anyone. And I’m calling the place I have those conversations ‘The Witch Trials Of JK Rowling because I think it exemplifies how much I down’t want to upset anyone.”

I mean, I knew when I clicked through headlines that sounded like someone was maybe either reconsidering, or, more likely, reframing and retreating in the face of  all the negative press about a video game, that it would be Some Bullshit, but I’m a bit disappointedåå it was That Much Bullshit.

Current Environment

Just saying, if I were piloting the Goodyear Blimp today, I’d see if it had any chaff launchers. 

Carl Fredricksen already learned this lesson the hard way.

Oldnerd On Instagram

It wouldn't work at all for YAD, and it’s deeply suboptimal even for Oldnerd, but in the post-Twitter social media hellscape, Instagram is the most viable home for the promotion/following of the other blog, Oldnerd. 

You’ll notice new links on the left to the Mastodon (ugh) and Post (double ugh) accounts for this site, and also a link to Oldnerd, which then has a link to the Instagram account where I’ll be promoting new stuff that goes up there. Us it if you find it helpful.

It’s amazing to me that in every single way except the ethics of using it, every single social media alternative to Twitter is somehow worse than Twitter.