I’ve written about this some before, but given that we’re about to get our first imagines from the James Web Space Telescope today and tomorrow, I thought I would talk about it some more.
I noticed that the first exoplanet that the JWST is going to look at is a bigger planet that is highly unlikely to have life on it. I’m no expert, but it sounds like they picked such a planet instead of a more Earth-like planet because they wanted to calibrate their instruments before looking for a planet that might actually have life on it.
But if you really wanted to get paranoid about it, you might suggest that they avoided an Earth-like planet for a reason. They just aren’t prepared for the consequences of “soft” First Contact so early into the project and they want to make sure that when that event happens they’ve given it some thought. The great irony would be, of course, if they picked a planet that they didn’t think would have any signs of life on it, only to find signs of life on it.
I suspect if that was the case, however, there would be intense chatter about Something Big being announced soon. But, to date, that has not been the case. NASA is not exactly known for not leaking. Or, at least, I seriously doubt they would be able to keep Soft First Contact a secret if it happened.
Now, I am a strong believer in the idea that whenever there is “soft” First Contact it just won’t matter. The public’s interest in this momentous discovery won’t last a news cycle. The only way anyone is going to care is if Little Green Men land on the White House lawn.
Rumor has it that Taylor Swift has an unreleased rock album called “Karma.” It makes me very sad that such a thing might exist and we will never get to hear it. But, barring the release of that mythical album, I wish Tay-Tay would collaborate with Tove Lo.
Tove Lo
Tove Lo is really, really good. She has a knack for producing a dance pop rock song. She’s produced banger after banger. And Tay-Tay would benefit greatly from tapping into Tove Lo’s edge and come out with an album that was not, exclusively, fan service.
Tay-Tay is so obsessed with fan service that she’s kind of put herself in a creative corner. Neither she nor her fanbase are getting any younger and there’s going to come a point when she hits 40 and she’s still producing really popular music…that only serves her millions of now-very adult female fans. While I often say Tay-Tay is the exact center of pop culture, she serves a very, very narrow spectrum of listeners.
And, to date, that has serve her well. It’s just annoying for me, someone who doesn’t fit her core fan base. Tay-Tay has exceptional ear for writing a pop song and if she teamed with Tove Lo I think they could produce an album that would knock things out of the park.
But what do I know. I’m a middle aged CIS white male. Part of the patriarchy. I shoudl shut up and never say anything about anything — especially Taylor Swift.
One of the reasons I love this universe I’ve come up with for these planned six novels is, of course, they are pretty much my personal history garbled and re-arranged for the purposes of narrative. So, of course I love this universe — I AM THIS UNIVERSE.
I’m not quite done with the outline — I still pretty much have to flesh out the second half — but what I have finished is shaping up to be a very breezy, easy read. It’s interesting and I think it will be such a fast read that you will want to finish it as soon as possible.
Now, I have to admit that because the first three novels don’t have a Lisbeth Salander character that they’re much more Mare of Easttown than Stieg Larsson’s writing. But the story itself is still really interesting. It’s just not the story I originally planned on writing when this project began.
But the sexxy stuff does happen later in the series — the last three books are very much closer to what Larsson wrote. But I want to show the reader how things go so fucked up in this place I’ve thought up. I think, in the end, if I can get people hooked with the first novel that the whole thing will have a very satisfyingly ending.
At least, that’s the goal of all of this. That the first book will be good enough that people will want to know what happens next with the characters and they’ll read all six books and see the macro arch of things. That’s the dream.
I, of course, have a massive amount of work to do to make that dream a reality. That was the whole point of this project from the beginning — I wanted to overwhelm myself. Now to finish the outline of the first novel and begin writing it.
There continues to be lingering griping in my center-Left Twitter echo chamber about how Liz Cheney sucks and why are we praising her so much for her work with the January 6th Committee.
I think such chatter is misguided and a bit extreme, if well intentioned. I don’t agree with Cheney on virtually anything other than that the United States is a Western democracy and Trump and MAGA are an existential threat to that democracy.
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers an opening statement during the opening hearing of the U.S. House (Select) Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 27, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. During its first hearing the committee, currently made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, will hear testimony from law enforcement officers about their experiences while defending the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob on January 6. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)
But we’re in a crisis. And, as such, I’m desperate enough that I would be willing to support Cheney for POTUS (especially if she was leading a Unity Ticket) if that was what it took to punt the existential problems the United States faces down the road at least one more presidential cycle.
Because the United States is careening towards a very dark future. One where, in some ways, a civil war is the best of two options. The other option being an autocracy somewhere between Hungary – Turkey – Russia. I tend to think for a number of reasons — race chief among them — that should we cross into autocracy that we’re not going to stop at the Hungary model. No, I believe, probably after a Constitutional Convention, the United States is going to become politically identical to Russia.
It may take a few decades for us to get there, but we’re going to get there. Then President DeSantis will invade Canada for some dumb reason and I’ll get drunk at a bar and rant about how President DeSantis can suck my dick and I’ll endup in prison for the rest of my life.
My Traditionalist relatives –whom I love dearly — poo-poo such talk, saying it’s “bogus.” They REALLY WANT DeSantis to be president, so much so that they “want to vote for him three times.”
Anyway. Back to Liz Cheney.
If we go the other route, which is civil war, I could see her being a major leader of the Blue States in any such conflict. History tends to go the most ironic route and her being the leader of a center-Left nation trying to get out of a marriage that no longer suits them would be the most ironic possibly outcome.
But I think in the end what will really happen is Cheney and a few million other Americans will flee the country as the DeSantis Administration slowly strangles American liberty and democracy.
If I had the means, I will already be making practical plans for how I was going to get out of the United States and never come back. I honestly believe that the America I have known my entire life is in its twilight. Either we’re going to have a civil war or we’re going to slide into autocracy without firing a shot.
Given how relatively chill everyone was — in a practical sense — to the Dobbs decision, it definitely seems we’re going to become A Very American Autocracy. Initially, nothing is going to change other than it becoming very clear that “vote harder” simply is not an option. Voting will be seen as meaningless and people will gradually just stop voting because they will now that, in the end, Republicans will always maintain power.
And that will be that.
There will be a lot gritting of teeth and yelling about this or that thing that should happen, but, in the end, it will all be meaningless. Millions of well educated, wealthy liberals will flee the country. They will do the same meaningless things they did before the Very American Autocracy was established, only in a different country.
In fact, I suggest that the massive outflux of wealthy American liberals will likely be THE news story of 2025 -2030. It’s going to change global history as American ideals and tastes begin to be pumped throughout the world in force. This will all be happening, potentially, in the context of the US leaving NATO and generally “bringing the boys home.”
Fortress America will be established and, as such, the world will grow so unstable that WW3 might break out as several regional conflicts become hot at the same time and WMD are used.
The liberal “brain drain” out of America will grow so bad that President DeSantis will make a big deal about passing legislation that will make it harder for it continue. Form follows function, after all. And, while we’re mentioning form follows function, President DeSantis at some point in his decades-long reign is probably going go full Putin and invade Canada for this or that reason. Autocrats do shit like that.
Now, of course, there is a very small chance of a civil war. But I just don’t see it happening. The only way there might possibly be a civil war in the United States is if Trump, not DeSantis, is the Republican nominee in 2024 and he personally, single-handedly is such a deranged asshole that Blue States feel that they have no choice but to secede.
I know I’m a nobody in the middle of nowhere, but all this talk about “civil war being on the table” for MAGA is totally oblivious. MAGA has no reason to start a civil war! MAGA is getting everything it wants without firing a shot. Why would they possibly start a civil war?
I’m well aware that a lot of fucking cocksucker MAGA types stumble across this obscure Website because they have a boner for civil war so they can finally murder people like me in cold political blood. But that’s just mental masturbation. They’re all excited about the idea of civil war because it’s the worst thing they can think of happen — that and a “MAGA revolution” — but, in the end, it’s just bunch of bluster. They just have no reason to start organized political violence and if they did, it would be a blunder of epic proportions.
I suppose, if you really wanted to have a fever dream, that if Trump became Speaker of the House and then went transactional by saying Red States would leave the Union unless both Biden and Harris were convicted in the Senate as part of impeachment trials…THEN, MAYBE, there MIGHT be a civil war.
Otherwise, lulz. And you’re an idiot to think MAGA is going to start a civil war. It’s just wouldn’t make any sense.
But the crux of the issue is — no one is going to save us. There will be no reform. Nothing is going to change. This is it. We’re beyond the event horizon when it comes to autocracy or civil war. We’re in the twilight of America’s democracy and, as I mentioned, if I could leave the country forever, I would.
I can’t thought. So, I suppose I’m going to either have to take my chances when it comes to crossing our new autocrat (which is inevitable because of my loud mouth) or figuring out a way to leave my deep Red portion of a purple state for some Blue state in the North should there be a civil war.
Yet, to be clear — enjoy these last few months of traditional free America while you can. Good luck.
Talk about dumb and clueless. Everyone is so fixated on how fascist MAGA is, they keep making some basic assumptions about our future which simply are not true. The MAGA New Right is politically ascendant and are gradually getting everything they want through the courts, if not politics. They have absolutely no reason to start a civil war.
You start a civil war when you feel disenfranchised and turn to violence because you don’t feel you have any other way to effect change. While Republicans feel disenfranchised, that has more to do with bent up rage over the browning of America than what’s happening practically on the ground.
MAGA is doing the hard work of corrupting the administration of elections to the point that telling people within the center-Left to “vote harder” is even more meaningless than it would be otherwise. The time is well on its way when Republicans lock in national power for generations to come and Blue States either bend a knee, or they secede from the Union and start a civil war.
So, it won’t be Reds who start a civil war — they have no reason to. It will be Blues who finally grow so exasperated that they see no other option than to leave the Union en mass. Now, everything to date leads me to believe this isn’t going to happen.
What’s probably going to happen is there will be a final spasm in late 2024 – early 2025 and then we’re going to be an autocracy. Millions of wealthy, well educated and well trained liberals will flee the country for the four corners of the globe and Fox News will start to complain about a liberal brain drain instead of scary immigrant carvans.
That, for the moment, definitely seems to be our fate. In fact, the only way I could possibly see MAGA starting a civil war is if history intervened (probably because of a 9/11 sized tragedy) and they felt their gradual ascendancy was being stymied for some reason.
Or, of course, Trump could go transactional at some point after Republicans gain control of Congress again and he could demand that Red states threaten to leave the Union if the Senate doesn’t successfully convict both Biden and Harris during their inevitable impeachment trials.
We are in for a very bumpy ride between now and Certification Day 2025, but nothing the center-Left has done of late would indicate to me they have the gumption to leave the Union. So, we’re doomed. We’re totally fucking doomed. I suppose your best bet is to leave the country sooner rather than later with all the Twitter liberals.
Saturday Night Live finds itself in an interesting situation as it approaches its 50th anniversary. On one hand, it is doing quite well and has more cultural significance than ever for a legacy TV show. A whole new generation of people have discovered the show and there’s every reason to believe it is set for another 50 years of comedic success.
And then there’s the issue of Lorne Michaels telling everyone he wants to leave the show after its 50th anniversary in a few years.
It’s my impression that this is some chatter among the higher ups at NBCUniversal that they want to end the show once and for all for this or that reason. And I’ve reached the age where I know that SNL could very well end and in a few years a lot of young people would discover it and ask, “Whatever happened to that show? It seemed like a lot of fun.”
This is all very speculative and highly unlikely to happen. What’s more likely to happen is there will be a lot of talk about the show ending, but in the end, someone like Seth Meyers will take over some of Michaels’ role while a number of other elements are handed off to SNL stalwarts.
That would be the logical thing to do. But there have been plenty of other really long-running shows that ended and they’re barely a memory now. But I would be flabbergasted if even the harshest critics of the show at NBCUniversal would do something so draconian as to just cancel it.
So, at the moment, I have the first half of this first novel sketched out. But the second half — for right now — is a big old blank. I have a general idea of how the story ends, but I need to distract myself to get some inspiration.
This is not the first time I’ve found myself in such a situation. In the past, of course, I’ve been able to go on little writer’s retreats to brood on things. But, alas, that’s no longer possible.
As such, I might read a book or watch a movie or something. Something, anything, to let me run in the back of my mind some way to flesh out the second half of the novel.
One issue is I’ve completed the “fun and games” element of the story and I have to figure out how both to keep the investigation going while also having the “bad guys close in.” I need to, maybe reimagine some of the details of the story instead of be stuck in a specific box of how I think things should work out.
But I have a limited amount of time. I have got to get going. I need to finish up this first novel’s outline so I can start working on writing again as well as start to work on the other novels in the project. Whenever I get past this type of obstacle and actually finish an outline I feel a great deal of accomplishment.
The only thing that is annoying is while I feel the new version of this story is a lot better, it pushes me back the timetable AGAIN. But I did what I felt I had to do to make the story as interesting as possible. The previous version of the story not only forced readers to wait way too long for something to happen, but also drained the “fun and games” portion of the story of any drama.
Now, with this new version, there is something of a literary onion element to how the story is told. We get to unravel a mystery and that keeps the readers reading. There is some dramatic tension that didn’t exist before.
Politico has run a piece suggesting Jon Stewart run for POTUS in 2024. I have long thought he would be a great president. But there is a problem — and that’s Jon Stewart.
He likes to have power but he doesn’t like the responsibility that comes with power. Time and again while he was hosting The Daily Show, the moment people pointed out how politically powerful he was, he would fall back to “but I’m just a comic” and tell a fart joke.
For him to run for office — especially high office like POTUS — he would have to grow a lot more comfortable with being taken seriously and with people being aware of his power. As it stands, he seems a lot more interested in having a middling podcast and playing with rescue goats in a glorified petting zoo.
But if you could get him out of that mindset, he definitely would be a great presidential candidate and a great president. Maybe Stewart / AOC 2024? But there is, of course the problem that the country is falling apart and Republicans are going to pretty much do everything in their power to steal the 2024 election. As such, we may have a civil war if we don’t turn into an autocracy.
One interesting thing about Stewart is he is far more a traditional liberal than one might think. He is tight with Dave Chappelle and for some of the people on the Far Left that, unto itself, would be a deal breaker. But it would also make Stewart more appealing to those 100,000 swing voters strone across five swing states that decide every presidential election.
I would prefer he run for governor or senator from New Jersey before running for POTUS, but, lulz, nothing matters. I really want Stewart to run — and win — but at the moment that seems very doubtful.
I continue to see Twitter Liberals go out of their way to point out the shameless hypocrisy of MAGA “thought leaders.” It’s all very dumb. Nothing is going to change. MAGA is without shame and they continue to their craven drive to end American democracy and establish white autocracy minority rule.
Unless we have a civil war, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to careen into autocracy and that will be that. No amount of earnest or angry tweet is going to change that. MAGA is ascendant and, as I keep telling my Traditionalists relatives, they’re going to get everything they ever wanted — and more — they just have to be patient. (This doesn’t seem to register with them, they’re still as angry as ever about the “woke cancel culture mob” personally canceling them for a stray remark that is recorded, goes viral and then ruins their life.)
And, what’s worse, we all know that when the time comes, Twitter Liberals will be the first to flee the country when it’s clear the United States is no longer a Western democracy. They have the means, motive and opportunity to flee the country en masse — maybe even in the millions. Fox News will turn from ranting about scary immigrant caravans to ranting about the liberal brain drain that has to be stopped at all costs. This will happen after a brief period of smugness on their part. It won’t be until the Autocrat gets angry at this brain drain that Fox News will change its tune.
If you want to position yourself for the future financially, I might suggest thinking out the global serves that might service all those Americans in Canada, Europe and Oceania. Think about how a million or so highly educated and trained American liberals suddenly living outside the country and what services and products they will want ready access to. This would be a very speculative and risky thing to do, but it might work out given what I feel is going to happen.
America is on the cusp of entering a very, vary dark period in it history. One that will transform us to a nation that at least like to think it’s the “freest in the world” to one that is no better than Hungary, Turkey or Russia. This transition to autocracy will upend the post-WW2 global liberal order and all sorts of unusual things may happen. We might see the United States ally with Russia and generally begin to become Fortress America.
We’re definitely going to become a theocratic white Christian ethno state. Or, like I said, we’re going to have a civil war. Take your pick. But no matter which direction we go, Twitter liberals are wasting their time pointing out the shameless hypocrisy of MAGA.
You must be logged in to post a comment.