“The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started.” – George Orwell, 1984
By now, you ought to have heard about A/2017 U1 – a large rock that whipped through our solar system at an odd angle off the plane of the ecliptic, moving so fast that it almost certainly could not have come from within our solar system. [rt]
In order to guard themselves against the enterprises of a haughty Pontiff who desired to reign over kings, and in order to protect their persons from the attacks of the credulous people excited by their priests, several princes of Europe pretended to have received their crowns and their rights from God alone, and that they should account to Him only for their actions.
Your host, Jean Meslier
The first moment where I started to wonder was in 6th or 7th grade social studies. We had a textbook about “geography” which included some geopolitics; a picture on one page of Uncle Sam sitting in a circle with characteristic (even stereotypical) kids of various ethnicities. It wasn’t quite as bad as that the kid from Africa had a bone through his nose – not quite. The caption read “Americans want to be friends with everyone.” And when the page was turned, the picture was of a Red Army soldier in WWII uniform, with a ppsh tommygun held at port arms, “The Soviets want to rule the world.”
Should the US military launch nuclear weapons, if Donald Trump orders a first strike?
Congratulations to our own Shiv, whose reporting on the J20 case is in VICE. [vice]
Writing something that is timely and fact-filled, in this day of “fake news” is a huge amount of work and takes tremendous dedication. Usually I don’t have much to say about her pieces, because I’m reading them to educate myself about the oppression transpeople experience, and I’m just in absorb mode. For someone like me, who’s coming at that world from “cishet, ignorant” perspective, she’s an invaluable read.
The actions of the police state are a concern Shiv and I share, for different reasons. The stuff she’s writing about is what’s happening on the cutting end of the retro-scope and the intelligence state. All the stuff I post about surveillance is theoretical(-ish) and she’s talking about the fear that real people have to deal with, confronting the abuse of power by the state. It’s only going to get worse.
Game-Master: “You peer over the edge, down into the cave. Below is a huge dragon, lying on a mound of gold.”
Rogue: “Is it asleep?”
Game-Master: “You hear deep rumbling snores.”
Party-Leader: “Great. We sneak back to town and take all the villagers’ gold. Then we sneak back to the cave, and add the villagers’ gold to the dragon’s pile without waking it up. The dragon will create jobs for everyone!”
The retro-scope appears to now be part of the investigative procedure for any incident that has political implications. Because its time-horizon goes about -10 years (with some blurry images back to -20 years) the entire current crop of politicians grew up in a time before retro-scoping existed, so they do not fear the ‘scope, nor do they fully understand it. They will.
I did a google image search for “retroscope” and look at this beauty!
As Ronnie Van Zandt said, “turn it up.”
Someone over on facebook did an edit of a music video, and – in thoughtless and talentless homage – accidentally shat all over it. Don’t re-favorite it.