Whenever someone (thinking currently of Zohran Mamdani, but insert anyone’s name here) advocates having the government do something to acutally help people, you typically get two responses.
One is from the corporate centrists, who say, “well, of course we’d like to do something like that, but it’s just not realistic.”
The other, from the right, derides the whole idea as “people wanting free stuff.”
A common argument for a confiscatory wealth tax is that it will save society from billionaires. This is both true and a good argument, but there’s a side benefit here that is not really discussed: confiscating obscenely hoarded resources will save billionaires.
Last Friday I was in San Francisco and rented a car so I could go see ancient redwoods. They gave me a Tesla model Y, which marked the first time I’d been behind the wheel of one. I rented a Chevy Bolt in Cincinnati last spring and loved it, so I figured a Tesla would be cool to drive for a day.
I wanted to write about horror movies today, but I saw something that bugged the shit out of me, so now I have to write about that.
I love horror movies, and I’ve been in a bit of a slump lately, feeling impatient and annoyed with “elevated” horror because it so often means “boring” horror, and yet also impatient with horror movies that are just retreads of other horror movies.
One little-known consequence of the ongoing Government Shutdown is the fact that the US Funkalogical Survey does not currently have the ability to provide early housequake warnings.
“Without this crucial early warning system, Americans have no way of knowing if a housequake will break out in their home,” said William Collins of the Clinton Institute of Funkalogical Studies. “Americans need to stay vigilant. Things can get very funky very quickly.”
White House spokesbot Karoline Leavitt responded to questions about the Americans facing sudden and dangerously funky housequakes in predictable fashion. “The President has never been in a house where things got funky. Housequakes are fake news.”
Asked for comment, Camille, director of the US Funkalogical Survey, sent the following: “Shut up, already. Damn.”
I’ve been reading about some of the controversy around the Riyadh Comedy Festival, at which wealthy American and British comics performed. Some other comics have said that these folks shouldn’t have played the festival because they’re providing good publicity for a repressive regime that, lest we forget, literally carved up an American journalist. Queer sex is a death penalty offense in Saudi Arabia. Women have been legally allowed to drive a car in Saudi Arabia for only 7 years, and some of the women who fought hardest for that right are still in prison.
Given the fact that the Saudi regime is horrible even in comparison to most other horrible regimes, I’m gonna side with the critics on this one. But let’s look at some of the comics’ justifications, shall we?
Happy Spooky Season everyone!
I kicked things off with two horror anthologies because a) I like horror anthologies and b) I got my covid shot and was pretty tired, so I wanted to watch things I could stop for a nap and then restart without difficulty.
Well, I nearly got taken by a VERY good scam this morning, so I wanted to share the details and also some concerns.
This morning I got a call from 410-604-2761. The caller ID said Verizon, so I picked up, figuring it was legit. A woman told me they were calling about potential fraud on my account, and had I ordered a new iPhone to be shipped to Ohio?
I had not.
A guy goes off the deep end searching for the truth behind a probably-forged HP Lovecraft diary, and then his wife goes looking for him and gets sucked into a confounding web of contradictory stories.
I mean, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing—forbidden but possibly forged texts, stories within stories, and, because Lovecraft, a big helping of existential dread.