Illusionism

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, the snake thing? As you know I’ve been whole immersed in fixing this book, to the point nothing much is happening. Though, really, nothing much has happened this week. The meds now discontinued gave me terrible heartburn which, in me, manifests as shoulder pain. Which in turn means I don’t sleep, and I become so massively ADD that someone mentioning a multitool leads to a two hour browsing for the best multitool. Not that I wanted to buy it. But I had to know EVERYTHING about multitools. And it’s liek that with everything. I’ve become the world’s foremost expert on …. well, nothing. But I know a ton about what amounts to chaff. Or dryer lint. Which means not much work gets done. Sigh.

This to say I haven’t read The Man Who Sold The moon, or done much in the way of revision. I will.

But it also means in the sleepless hollows of the night when I can’t even concentrate enough for Jane Austen Fanfic, which is the lowest level of engagement for me, the characters for the second book start babbling in my head. (Oh, other books and series too, but–)

One of those, a constant though not voice character is an eighth circle magician — yes, this space opera has magic. Not real magic, but never mind — which are the people who who do illusions, story telling, memory and apparently mind-healing, though they’ve only found that out recently.

Anyway, this character insists that I’m also an eighth circle. Their derrogatory nickname is Serpent. I was very offended, since…

Because I’ve always been in love with story, I am very afraid of getting caught up in one and losing track of reality. And I try very hard not to lie. Partly because it’s really uncomfortable to confess. I already made my priest laugh helplessly by confessing Twitter hooliganism. (which is actually pride and anger, but, yeah.) But mostly because just like it’s important to know whose voice in your head is yours, it’s also very important to know which reality is actually real. (This from a woman who has long discussions with characters while zonked out of her mind with lack of sleep. Hey!)

But he pointed out it doesn’t mean lies. Knowing story is an ability in itself. Like with mind healing, they’re good for all sorts of analysis of stories and situations.

The places I search for the truth are weird.

Look, nothing we’re being told is real. Okay, not nothing. But nothing that relates to say, job reports, population figures, how the economy is doing, etc. etc. etc.

That is why I’m looking all the time and in the weirdest places. Stuff like monitoring what’s on the grocery store shelves and how fast it’s selling, or listening to people’s conversations, or seeing what people are talking about buying and what is aspirational, or–

Look, the other day I told Dan I know the economy is getting better because the scam emails that tell me I’ve won a free dinner are now for expensive steakhouses, not places like Applebees. In the depths of Let’s Go Brandon, I got those, and it scared the spit out of me. Because when dinner at applebees is aspirational, people are in serious trouble. And scammers have to know what actually works, so they know when the low-price restaurants are beyond people’s reach and they are willing to answer a scammy email for them.

So, the insanity yesterday is looking (already) more and more like something weird.

Hey, it could be a legitimate spat. Both Elon and Trump are volatile and neither of them are used to being in politics.

But the walk back started by yesterday night, and uh…. something feels wrong about it. My story sense is tingling with “this doesn’t add up.”

And maybe it’s wrong, maybe. But… I don’t think so? And what really bothers me, if it was fireworks, it’s “what was it supposed to blind us to?” Because while fireworks are going on, you don’t see other stuff in the dark.

Or the spat could be real, but we can’t be sure of the reason for it. The real reason. Nor what the fall out will be.

Give it forty eight hours. We can’t know the truth before that anyway (and maybe ever). As with all these public things, give it forty eight hours. Let it chill, and see what is there after.

Even if Elon and Trump really fought with each other, or whatever…. it is not the end of the world.

It’s not even the end of our current ascendance, such as it is. Vance said this week, this is the work of a generation.

There are going to be setbacks. There are going to be more pushes forward, though. And maybe one or two miracles along the way.

Guys, tech is our way, the wind is at our back, and the left hasn’t been able to catch their breath — even during Brandon’s so called presidency — even while they were supposed to have everything their way. They need total media dominance to thrive. And we’re not going to let them do that.

It’s not Trump, as valuable as he’s been. It’s not Elon, as much as he’s tried to do. It’s not any one individual.

This is our battle. It’s all of us. That’s the story. It’s all of us.

And now I’m going to slither off and try to get some rest, so revision can be finished this weekend, and then I can write the other novels, and give them to my newsletter subscribers, and all of that.

So. Chill. Chill. Let the story play itself out before you analyze it and prepare for the fall out or not.

This is a long march.

This is not the end. It’s not even the end of the beginning. Let it be, however, the end of “the world is ending.”

Put your shoulders into changing what can be changed. Look at the rest as a passing show. Decipher it if you can. Don’t let it control you.

106 thoughts on “Illusionism”

  1. re: work of a generation

    Concur.

    Parallel thought was among those bubbling up for me yesterday, but I have been estimating myself as scattered, and estimating a lot of writing as needing a little more focus that isn’t available right now.

    I’m having some disrupted sleep, partly weather.

    Chancy’s Words of the Night seems up, but my plan is to read it this afternoon. I’m probably going to button up some notes, and go back to bed.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Isn’t that, “Don’t add another crazy to the crew in my head?”

        You’ve already got Skip and Lucia’s in there.

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        1. yes.
          Skip, Luce, Nat, Peaseblossom (Brundar) and….. gah…… Selbur who was the one concerned in this post. And who wants to be my bestie for reasons.

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            1. Well, if it helps you sleep better… but I was probably just being foolishly optimistic…

              Plus, not even the Chinese can fund a railroad from Cairo to Cape Town these days…

              Liked by 2 people

  3. Yeah, the spat is goofy, and there’s not much I can do about it, so I’m going to focus on the dreadknights I’ve just realized I’m going to have to dremel the living daylights out of.

    You know they’ve covered the joints in moulded in hydraulic cables? To do a bent knee pose, I’m going to have to cut every one of them off and find some sort of flexible replacement tube. I’m not even sure I can print out replacements from TPU because that needs a flat side and these are tubes.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. The drama is too performative for me to take at face value. I freely admit that I have very little idea as to what’s really going on.

      Whatever it was, it broke through to the normies. They may not care for politics, but most people love a good trainwreck. All the efforts to tie Trump to Musk (and vice versa) are now pretty much toast.

      And I’m downright flabbergasted that they got a whole bunch of the Left to start screaming for the release of the Epstein records. (He still didn’t kill himself.)

      Liked by 2 people

      1. A bunch of people on the left have already been screaming for the release of the records. There’s an old picture of Trump and Epstein standing next to each other at some event, and the left has taken that as proof that Trump and Epstein were good buddies (Epstein’s banning from Trump properties is ignored, of course). Musk’s claims have just pushed it to the fore again.

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  4. One account on Substack that I follow is Jeff Childers writing Coffee & Covid. He is a lawyer who started his substack while fighting Covid restrictions (and winning regularly). One recurring theme of his is the Superman Syndrome, where many people are pinning their hopes on a single person who will arrive and right all the wrongs. His advice (solid advice, too) is run as fast as you can from this mentality! In this world there is no Superman. We all have to do what we can. Sure it’s a slog, and cartainly there are going to be disappointmments and failures, but ain’t no one gonna come and rescue us. It’s all on our own backs. Trump and Musk are powerful public figures, but they aren’t Supermen. I’ll do what I can, you do what you can, and who knows? We just might get things done.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. “Are you not entertained!?”

      I had to laugh at the whole Trump/Elon shenanigins.

      “If they shenana once, they will shenanigin.”

      But then again, I lived through the whole “Pet Rock” craze among other mass stupidities.

      Never cared about superheros when we have real heros. Always thought superheros were cheap candy and soda of the fiction realm. Bad for the moral teeth, cotton candy for the soul. Popular mainly among non-voters or those that only voted every 4 years.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. It’s kinda like Santa. There’s not one guy who Does It All, but he is what we need to be.

      They’re not literal, they’re guides. Be like this.

      Superman is a dramatic variation of “you can do good, so do it.”

      Batman is “be the hero you wish had saved you.”

      Liked by 1 person

        1. And the Scarlet Pimpernel, who just didn’t bother about much of anything, which was what people thought the English nobility did. (Except … )

          Liked by 2 people

      2. In Santa news, Santa just lost his bid to be President of the University of Florida.

        Santa Ono.

        No word if he’s related to Yoko.

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  5. Tis the silly season. So laugh at the lunacy at display. And the fact the Author doesn’t have an editor.

    I have to waste some time rubbing corporate blue mud on my belly due to “THE LATEST HOT NEW TECH TREND!”

    May actually get something out of edutainment, but I’d rather solve problems using proven, old skool, cheap methods that have been around 30 years, but only a few of the new kids at work understands technology at the lower levels of reality. I’d like to lock some into an escape room from the ’80s era and see if they can survive without intertube access.

    A few of the new tools have enough stolen/borrowed source code in their training to actually be useful using older tech, if you have the experience to know when they are bsing into the fantasy realm. It’s like dealing with a spastic puppy with potential, but no memory or judgement.

    At home I’m blending new tech with retro to find a balance of cheap, reliable, and maintainable. With Windows 10 being taken behind the barn and shot, there should be a flood of surplus equipment that can be repurposed to run Linux and BSD without the constant harassment of Redmond. And there is a growing backlash against Big Tech and their idiot Marxist minions in the Open Source world.

    So the weather report is chaotic with signs of opportunity.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I got 3 computers and converted to Linux when Win 7 was being taken to the cornfield. Actually, the laptop was Win 10 for a while, until I figured out how to do some tax stuff without the “help” of the Redmond Mafia.

      Dell sells off-lease stuff at https://www.dellrefurbished.com/ I haven’t used them directly, though someone I trust (Ed Nisley of softsolder dot com) has used them a lot. I bought my machines through smaller refurbishers* selling through Amazon. The business machines are pretty modular, so if a power supply goes toes up, you can buy a new module and be up an running. (These are circa 2012 machines. Lots newer stuff on the market now.)

      ((star)) New hard drive, usually. The 1TB drive in the barn/shop** was making distress noises after 10 years of duty, so I put in a 1TB solid drive for that one. The desktop machine in the house is still OK. The refurb places I bought from threw in a monitor along with the keyboard and desk rodent.

      ((double star)) It’s cold there in winter. 38F until the wood stove is lit. Hard on rotating drives and moving mechanisms. I try to avoid using the optical drives.

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      2. I got a ‘renewed’ 7050 Optiplex Micro last year for $130. Quad core I5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB PCIe module with MS-WIN-BLOWS 10 installed. It’s tiny, about 7″ square by 1 1/4″ high.

        I put a $30 Patriot 512 GB SSD drive in the empty 2 1/2″ SATA slot and installed Fedora 40 on it. Then re-installed F-40 with the MATE desktop; the GNOME developers have crawled so far up their own assholes, they’ve reached their tonsils from the inside. The install automagically configured grub for dual boot, Linux default so I didn’t have to change anything.

        Works great with a 62″ 4K HDTV. I have to click NO to a lot of MicroShaft ‘services’ I don’t want when booted into MS-WIN-BLOWS, but that’s not the computer’s fault.

        I still play around with that old Civilization 2 game. MS-WIN-BLOWS 10 won’t even try to install it, but it works perfectly in WINE except for a pop on every sound effect. I think it’s a glitch with how WINE interfaces with the Linux sound system. Maybe an update will fix it some day.

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        1. My OpenBSD machine is a surplus Optiplex 7050 with a M2 SSD and a 512MB SSD. Overkill for what it does.

          I replace my primary latop every 10 years or so with a new Dell that is speced to run Linux. Currently running a loaded Precision 7750, Fedora 42 with MATE.

          Will switch off of Fedora in the future since like Gnome, both Fedora and Redhat/IBM are woke asshats. Also getting tired of Nvida’s f the consumer attitude as well.

          My oldest Dell laptop is running Parrot, Debian based security distro with MATE desktop. I have a SteamDeck for a few games that is based Valve’s custom Arch version. The spouse’s Plex server is running on Linux.

          Only our corporate laptops run Windows. Fine with me, I don’t have to deal with their admin or backups. Glorified terminals nowadays.

          Even though FreeBSD is semi-woke, (not as bad as Linux is getting), I’d love to build a system with ZFS, if I could find the right hardware for their limited drivers.

          But Dell refurb or off lease machines from a good source make good cheap computers. Most run Linux and BSD out of the box, wireless and secondary GPU drivers being the one exception I’ve run into.

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      3. I have a Dell Optiplex 990 in the shop and a 7010 in the house. When a power supply went down in the house, I borrowed the shop machine and swapped in the HDD until the new supply came in. The machines are more-or-less clones of each other; I try to have the same programs installed in each, while the user data is close, but not identical. (The shop is 600′ from the house with no datacom access, so sneakernet is key.)

        Both machines are 1TB main drive (one SSD, one whirlydisk), 16 Gb in the house, maybe the same in the shop. Quad core, medium fast. I had a serious overdose of HPUX at work, and found Slackware to be Close Enough. XFCE for the desktop.

        A few laptops around; one a refurbed Latitude 5450, and a couple of Inspirons. The 15’s WiFi link went flaky; it’s now my wife’s game machine; airgapped because she hates passwords. I’ll use the 17R for a travel machine, since I can watch a movie with the DVD drive. It has a bog-slow HDD, but it’s good enough for its limited use; screensaver distraction for the exercise bike. New saver module every 2 minutes makes it a bit less boring. (No, I am not going to try riding a real bike again after 25 years of not doing so. $SPOUSE would not forgive me if I killed myself in a crash…)

        I try to keep all machines more-or-less the same configuration.

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  6. The spat? I figure it’s classic misdirection to take the heat off Tesla buy the TDSers.

    Given those maniacs have the attention span of absent-minded canarys, it will probably work lol.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Trump does have a habit of doing something to make people scream in outrage, while quietly *also* doing something entirely different.

      This way the R’s can say they drove off Musk and support Trump *not* backing off DOGE. . . and Elon can take care of the business of getting to Mars. And come back if needed.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. My guess in the billionaire bingo game is it’s a favor to take some of the political heat off Tesla, so the lefties are allowed to buy them again.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Erick Erickson had a surprisingly calm and even-handed take on it. Basically, though he didn’t use the term Odd, he sees Musk as an Odd who has probably rubbed some (maybe a lot) of “normal,” political types raw because he’s used to going straight through problems even when “straight through,” isn’t the best route. So he’s frustrated and they’re frustrated. Plus, figure there’s the usual numbers of wannabe Iagos, flatterers and grifters all trying to poison the well between two very dominant men for personal fun and profit.

    Meanwhile, they have common enemies and common goals, so hopefully they’ll kiss and make up. Figuratively speaking, of course.

    As I said, a surprisingly even-handed take on it. Much better than either, “Doom, doom, doomity doom!” or, “#$%@!! Musk/Trump!”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Probably very much this – two men of considerable accomplishment and strong character having a disagreement. I mean – guys DO disagree over stuff, all the time.

      Just wish they weren’t carrying on publicly like a pair of teenage girls spatting…

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Yeah, while I think it’s a ploy, I can see that there can be something behind it. I mean, Musk is an Odd. He may have earned all his money, but the man is building futuristic cars, built a private space company, and is planning to settle Mars.

          That taxes on tips may be painful for a waitress, and taxing social security payments difficult for Seniors . . . may not register. May sounding like loading the BBB with . . . well, I’m not going to go look up all of what he called it.

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  9. reality,

    The USA government and by association, governments in most cities, states etc, are broken, nobody with a shred of true ability or integrity want anything at all to do with being in government. The current egomaniacs throughout are no different than the previous egomaniacs. Plan accordingly.

    Sad but true.

    Stuff can still go sideways, storms, blackouts, fires, bureaucratic overreach, still out there, still not good. Personally this has all been just another case o SOSDD, with the cast shuffled to a degree. So as they say “keep an eye on it” but you shouldnt change your direction simply because the new old and broken wants you to pay attention to it.

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      1. My search-fu is pretty bad for Canadian governmentals. Can you point to something without running afoul of the Royal Canadian Secret Police?

        Liked by 1 person

        1. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/public-safety-minister-asks-officials-to-screen-him-from-conflict-of-interest/ar-AA1GcIIe

          Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Gary Anandasangaree. Bro does not know what the firearm license requirements are. He was standing up in Question Period the other day, and -admitted- out loud, which they never do, that he didn’t know what was required to get a license to own a firearm in Canada, who was eligible, what firearms were legal or illegal, etc.

          He’s not fresh off the boat either, he’s lived here a long time. He knows NOTHING about public safety, at all, but he still took the job.

          This is how you tell if people are serious or not, and they’re clearly not.

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  10. *Shrug* Guys having a guy spat. Maybe. I’ve got a book to finish, a short story to get done, an appointment with a trainer to survive, and Real World™ stuff to deal with.

    48-hour rule absolutely applies, as with any major news. The national network news on TV has had anti-Trump propaganda so heavy that the ghosts of the editors of Pravda and Isvestia are shaking their heads and muttering “Guys, that’s too obvious.”

    Liked by 1 person

  11. The economy … The local empty store that was left when Bed, Bath, & Beyond went away is being refurbished for *something*. I’ll take that as a good sign.

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    1. Our local BB&B is being refurbished into an REI. Which I actually like, because even though they are *expensive*, they are actually good quality as well. And if I’m having to get a new pair of hiking boots ($185, ouchie), it will be nice to not have to drive through the next city over and a major bottleneck to get them.

      (I buy plenty of things on the cheap. Footwear for long distances is one place I will pay full retail, in person, because paying that on the front end means not paying for it in blisters and ligament pain later.)

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      1. I have REI gear that is 46 years old. Hubby has REI gear older than that. We’ve replaced hiking boots over the years, hubby more than I. He’s hard on them. You are correct. Good quality fitting hiking boots are worth their more than their weight in gold.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Unfortunately, I discovered the flaws in my hiking boots on the first half of a planned 20-mile hike. “When did I buy these again? Oh.” Luckily, we had planned in for needing to sub out adults and I tapped out at lunch. No blisters (good socks), but definite muscle and ligament strain impending.

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  13. Two guys with big egos who both have a point and cannot set the personal affront aside to find common ground. It’s not like this is uncommon. Both are assertive, smart, and stubborn. Neither likes giving in. This was probably inevitable. Elon should not have brought the Epstein crap into it though. Now it may be a grudge for life.

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  14. Yeah, I’m going to wait until after the weekend before I look into whatever the Musk-Trump issue is.

    What I’d like to see is this dissent push Congress into pulling back the BBB and making more cuts; but I’m wondering if M&T cooked this up as a way to get BBB passed without the Dems adding even more pork to it? I know, you can double-triple-quadruple think yourself to death over these things. Better to get a drink and chill out on the back porch and not think about it until Monday. And laugh at tomorrows’ memes.

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    1. I guess they are being “edgy” or something, and it will turn out that Paleface was adopted, or this is a dream sequence, or whatever. Yawn.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Another suggestion is he’ll turn out to be evil.

        What would be interesting would be if the people of Wakanda just couldn’t deal with a person of pallor in power….

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Someone on X was claiming earlier today that the guy in question *really* doesn’t like being assigned to write black characters just because he himself is black. I can’t complain about someone having that attitude so long as he doesn’t mind whites writing those black characters.

            As a result, I suspect the “white black panther” is due to a combination of his annoyance at the “have the black guys write the black characters” attitude, and his own black ethnicity letting him get away with something that would get a white guy lynched.

            Liked by 2 people

    2. Marvel comics is dead, dead, dead. This is a (stupid) effort by the aging, talentless hipsters in charge to jazz some life into the stinking corpse, get it to shamble another couple of blocks before liquefying on them.

      It’s an almost perfect example of how entitled Lefty ‘creatives’ think. “Oh yeah, all the racist neckbeard comic fans don’t like our DEI storylines and GrrrlBoss characters? They hated Captain America Agent of Hydra? We’ll show them! We’ll make Black Panther white!”

      I stopped buying in 1992/93. It’s been a loooong thirty two freakin’ years. Comics are dead. Comicbook stores are filled with manga and anime figurines, nobody is buying American comics, and they -still- have not understood the lesson.

      Liked by 2 people

  16. Rasslin – Heel turn.

    Trump and Musk likely disagree on things spendy. They also work well together. Trump is a showman. Easy enough for Trump and Musk to agree to have a public spat over their disagreement, intended to misdirect the opposition. Look for “sounds terrible” versus “does any actual damage?”

    Trump gives Musk a nice parting bonus of salvaging some of his sales with the leftroids who buy Teslas. “Musk came to his senses and went into opposition!” LOL.

    What does this totally scripted lightning display conceal or de-emphasize? Hopefully some axe descending on the opposition.

    Rasslin – Heel turn.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. It’s all kayfabe. I used to fall for what I saw on pro wrestling and was outraged when I was 8 years old. I don’t anymore.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Told my spouse, “All they need now is exchanging blows with folding chairs…”

      LOL!

      Like

        1. I tried to post above, and WP said I couldn’t post it. The whole spat reminds me of:

          “No. No. Please Brer Fox! Please do not throw me into the Briar Patch!”

          Liked by 2 people

      2. THANK YOU. That’s what it felt like to me, too. Just a few cans of hairspray, some tights, and folding chairs short of full kayfabe.

        Liked by 2 people

          2. Careful. You’re talking about two of the most gifted salesman of our age. Say it too loudly, and glittery tights will be offered.
            With “ABC”* embroidered on the butt.

            * Glengarry Glen Ross reference

            Liked by 1 person

    2. Way, way too many both of the opponents and the allies of 45/47 forget that he a). minored in anthropology in an era when that was not necessarily a waste of time and b). has long been pro-wrestling adjacent. I don’t say that to praise, excuse, or condemn him, merely to remark that any drama surrounding him probably needs to be viewed through that lens.

      Liked by 2 people

  18. It replaced all the Democrat finger pointing, and conspiracy talks they were having, by showing how irrelevant they are. How unimportant, how yesterday they are, DOGE goes on, Musk goes on, Trump Goes on. And the Democrats and their judiciary, press whores keep losing, they fade more into the back ground, and thus their ideas. It was theater of the simplest form something the idiots in the press couldn’t resist, “See, SEE, look at nothing”.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Last night at rehearsal, someone started singing “Believe it or not, I’m walking on air,” and those of us of a certain age all grinned. Greatest American Hero indeed.

    We don’t need a Man on a White Horse, we need someone to whack away the underbrush and start trimming the feds into proper size so the rest of us can see what needs fixin’ and get to work at our own state and local levels.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Great song, but that show’s main gag couldn’t carry it past the first season. It’s a classic example of writers not being able to answer the question “…and then what?”

      I recall particularly enjoying the FBI guy played by Robert Culp.

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      1. IIRC, the main producer had to keep fighting with the networks to keep the stories small, not save the world. Then his son died in a freak accident, and he stopped trying.

        Liked by 1 person

  20. As an old guy, years ago when there was a recession my way of telling when it was over was driving the freeways and counting semis on my way home from deer hunting.

    Actually paid off with some investments when the economy was going to pick back up before the media figured it out.

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    1. A lot of semis on the road in our neck of the country. Seven days a week. On the road and in rest areas taking their mandated time off road.

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    2. Drove to Utah and back last week, and there were SO…MANY semis on I-84 and I-15… Not sure if it’s a truly unusual amout or just more than I got used to seeing the last four years.

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      1. You should see them on I-5. Note, I-5 is mostly a 2 lane freeway, so it is very difficult to miss them. That isn’t counting the ones that take Hwy 58 to Hwy 97, for all that it is a one lane highway, but has a lot fewer passes to go up and down. Pretty much up over Willamette Pass, down and level to 97, then drops back down to I-5 north of Weed inspection, somewhere. If they don’t have deliveries south of Pleasant Hill, they don’t take all the mini-up-down passes and canyons that constitute I-5.

        Liked by 1 person

  21. Not really related to your post, but kinda…

    I follow, albeit sporadically, several left-leaning but freedom-oriented projects. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, the Internet Archive, and Dynebolic.

    Yesterday, after ignoring them for a few months, I went and looked at Dynebolic’s Fediverse account. Specifically, I was looking for a link from November where they basically said Trump’s election meant fascism was going to sweep America (it was a touch more reticent than that). I didn’t find that, though their insensate rage about Orange Man Bad was clearly bubbling below the surface of many posts in recent months (the ban on TikTok is a threat to centralized social media everywhere, meaning the world must migrate to decentralized social media; I actually endorse this notion, if not the specific instance they use to justify it; I mean, we had one, it was the blogosphere, coupled with RSS, but that, sadly, is largely gone).

    But there was something more interesting.

    They are — implicitly, haltingly, and probably grudgingly — seeming to become aware that the real threats to freedom are not all Bad Orange Man. They’re worried about Europe. In nothing I saw did I find a full-throated denunciation of the political targeting of AFD, or Tommy Robinson. But they seem aware, more so than before, that there are very real threats to speech there. Maybe even theirs.

    It’s progress. Baby steps, but still, progress.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “He sounded like Jean-Francois Revel, a French socialist writer who talks about one of the great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”

      – Tom Wolfe, “The Intelligent Coeds Guide to America”

      Liked by 2 people

    2. They can’t defend AfD, and will likely justify censorship of it, since the left has labeled it “fascist”. But the absurd stuff going on in Great Britain where – for example – an older woman was arrested for *silently praying* outside of an abortion clinic, is close enough to free of labels to draw their scrutiny.

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  22. To give an optimistic view, what they might be trying to distract us from is likely to benefit the USA, and it may be a case of deceiving your own troops in order to be able to distract the enemy.

    Unlike Brandon when it would likely benefit the CCP and they were lying to us in order to lie to us because that’s what they do.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. “what was it supposed to blind us to?”

    Here is a thought: “Russia’s Pearl Harbor” aside from being an inapt allusion, completely ignores the reason those bombers were sitting ducks. They had to be, by an agreement in the START treaty. We also have bombers that are exposed to satellite observation, so each side can see if they are being armed with conventional or nuclear weapons. Aside from a short mention in Zerohedge, none of our excited media saw fit to mention this. It’s no wonder Trump wasn’t told by the Ukrainians ahead of time.

    And you have to wonder what our crack intelligence people were doing while the Ukrainians were taking a year and a half to plan and prepare this operation. It might have occurred to them to object, as Russia hasn’t used bombers in this war, but might in the one they are FAFOing.

    I also very much hope that the vulnerability of our bombers has occurred to someone.

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      1. You are correct. However, what I read was that the bomber inspection part still held. Why else would they have left all those bombers out in the snow?

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        1. Because A) they were originally supposed to be elsewhere, but the Ukrainians starting sending drones to those nearer airbases to try and take out the cruise-missile launching planes shootings at Ukrainian cities, so the bombers were relocated earlier in the war to bases more remote, and B) because building big honking hangars at very remote strategic-bomber airbases lines nobody’s pockets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Also, C) moving them in and out of fortified hangers every time those bombers fly is a nuisance. And humans in general try to cut corners whenever possible.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. And as I’ve noted here previously, all the B-2 Bombers at Whiteman AFB are in enclosed hangars. Go look up Whiteman AFB on Gurgle Erf.

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        3. >Why else would they

          The simplest explanation is likely some combination of corruption and threat blindness.

          Hoping some generals in Japan and the Philippines are taking notes…

          Liked by 1 person

  24. For what its worth, Doofus has been patting the screen while I read this. Well, he was patting it because there was a fly on the screen maybe, but it’s the thought that counts.

    Of course, knowing Doofus the thought was “I wants to eet dat fly!” But the principle remains.

    Don’t let the obvious shenanigans get to you. Shock value content is nothing new. Yawn. Get on with the stuff what matters to you. Me, I’m going back to scribbling when I can. Things have taken a weird turn in this (mumblety) numbered rewrite. What the heck. Let’s see where it goes.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. Sarah, no knowledge is useless like learning about multitools. If you remember it. Knowledge is like a kitchen junk drawer. Something you might need sometime. I may have a predecessor of a multitool – an old jackknife I have carried since high school in the 1960s. One end flattened when used for a shim for a too large end wrench. Large blade snapped off short digging for worms, now used as a regular screwdriver. Smaller blade used to strip electrical wire and open coffee cans as well as cutting. (when sharpened). And a narrow awl to drill holes in belts and function as a Phillips screwdriver. An old and trusted friend.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. What’s it blinding us to?

    Well, for one, it’s repositioning each of them as not influencing the other. (Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.)

    For another, it’s sucking all the air out of the supreme court decisions to overturn idiot stays and injunctions, and the work DOJE is doing grinding on, even without its figurehead. If it sucks up all the air all weekend… wonder what Trump’s teams are getting done this weekend?

    It’s ignoring all the tarriff negotiations ongoing, *and therefore unable to influence them*

    And last but certainly not least:
    https://www.visiontimes.com/2025/06/05/chinas-leadership-shift-why-xi-jinpings-one-man-rule-may-be-coming-to-an-end.html

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Guys,

    total wackjob conspiracy time here

    There has been talk of Barron Trump being a bit autistic.

    Possibly he is autistic enough that Donald sorta knows a bit about making allowances.

    Issue with this model is that autistics are pretty varied, and ‘oh, I already knew an autistic pretty well’ can be as misleading as, say, ‘oh, I already knew a bipolar pretty well’.

    I’m certain I’m not happy with congress, but there is perhaps a conservative case for not trying to quickly cut all federal funding for tertiary schools, no matter how expedient I may be sure that such would be in some esoteric way. As for the politics of /this/ round of ‘totally super important change, trump is doomed and will not deliver’… Maybe so, but we probably should not in the first place be so complacent that we treat one dude in one place as being a fix for the problems.

    I am sorta interested in seeing if Musk could do anything productive with the DoD, but really I am also sure that he would underweight the opinions of some of the legitimate special interests. (Of course, I could be corruptly biased or something in my thought that there are legitimate special interests somewhere in all of that.) I think Biden and Obama have been pretty bad for defense programs, and I’m not sure that the hypothetical of Musk going Full McNamara would actually make things worse. but, hopefully we are not in a position to see a new McNamara.

    but really I seem to have given myself some eyestrain, or something

    Headache that I am gonna try and treat with a good night of sleep.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. If you meet one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. Many people have the mistaken impression that the “autism spectrum” is linear–runs from “a little autistic” to “very autistic”. However, it’s a spectrum of traits which, individually, individuals on the spectrum may show to a greater or lesser extent (and which can change, over time, or even from day to day, for a particular autistic person).

      Liked by 1 person

      1. As vividly illustrated to me one time when we somehow got all three high-functioning autistic kids in the same camping shopping trip group. It took about three times as long as it needed to, even accounting for the usual “kids take longer than adults” time.

        And by “high-functioning” I mean mainstreamed and often invisible to people who don’t know what autism can look like. It… was a thing.

        Like

  28. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » SEEING THE TRUTH IS DIFFICULT:  Illusionism.

  29. Now for something positive:

    I was doing bill payment, and happened to check an account that I don’t use often.

    I had almost $8,000 more than I expected to have. It was a lump sum payment from Social Security, for the money taken because of WEP for 2024 and 2025 so far.

    That’s money that I had counted on during much of my life. It was taken, not just from me, but also from firemen, police, and many state and federal workers, who had some part of their income in non-SS work, but also other work that SHOULD have given them a check, based on what they earned in that SS earnings.

    Military, too. Their work after retirement and as part-time during their service did NOT lead to a full check.

    But, BIDEN signed the order. Now, we know he only did it because he (or his handlers) knew it would be VERY popular with government workers, and Trump had announced during the campaign that he planned to do it.

    So, TECHNICALLY, Biden will get the credit in the history books. But, if the authors were honest, they would point out that the idea originated with Trump.

    Like

    1. You mean, Biden’s name was on the order. Who actually signed it may be far from certain. What was the…mechanical signature machine doing while Biden was napping for 4 years?

      (I had an earlier comment vanish into WPDE Purgatory. Could be a result of using a certain signing device’s common name. Let’s see what happens to this one.)

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