The blog is dead; long live the blog. I migrated the old comics blog over to Wordpress (just to keep an archive, don't expect new content): notthebeastmaster.wordpress.com

His followers even sound like him now, by which I mean cognitively impaired

The hits keep coming in. Joseph McCarthy's fall started when he went after the Army.

The anonymous quotes from the flag officers and defense officials forced to attend Trump and Hegseth's meeting are going to be absolutely damning. Here's a strong opening bid.

On the other hand... this passage perfectly describes the benefits of reading literature and could not be further from describing so many of the people who study it. But the academic humanities no longer prioritizes the benefits of reading literature.

This gets at so much of what is wrong with elite discourse in almost all sectors: politics, business, tech, academia.

This happened in my neighborhood. One ICE agent lost his pistol, then pointed it at bystanders; another agent in a mask walked into the crowd and threatened them. This won't be over until we have disbanded ICE and sent the people responsible for this to prison.

This is a hell of a thread.

The GOP mobilized the edgelords and shitposters into voting for them, they normalized political violence, and now they are discovering they can't control the beast they created.

Why not, they've already done segregation.

Even beyond the obvious hypocrisy of Douthat's column, he is just wrong on the facts. Obama did criticize cancel culture in 2019-20. He was arguing for engaging with people who disagree with you when he was president!

Our newest allies in the battle against fascism: Disney adults. Welcome to the fight.

again, as somebody who has actually lived in a dictatorship and worked with dissidents from across the world, this kind of whiny cosplaying by academics pretending they have some secret knowledge of resistance is very annoying.

No Fucks Left to Give Colbert is the best Colbert.

this is probably a good time for you to consider whether that disney+ subscription is worth it just to watch andor for the fourteenth time, tbh

If this were done bracket style, I think it comes down to India vs. the absolute culinary juggernaut that is North Africa-Ethiopia-Eastern Mediterranean. But you can get all these in DC, so...

I regret that I had but one subscription to drop. Always worth repeating that if you really want to hit Bezos where it hurts, drop Amazon Prime. Do it today.

When we defeat fascism this time, it will be through a thousand small acts of bravery like this.

A thousand grizzled Dungeon Masters step up, screens and dice in hand, ready to answer the call.

For some reason, we're not hearing as much about this violence.

Opposition to political violence always, but I will save my sympathy for the people who fought against it, not the people who fanned the flames.

This is the violence we should be concerned about. These victims are the people we should be thinking about. This is what we should be working to prevent every day. And if we had taken any steps to prevent this, the other violence yesterday might not have happened.

Look, at some level you cannot have a functioning democracy where both parties presuppose an electorate of selfish, ignorant louts and compete to offer them the best array of goodies, which is more or less what “focus on kitchen table issues” means. You have to activate some kind of civic impulse.

Weird inflection points, even among Democrats. If the downturn started in December 22 (ChatGPT) I would kind of get it, but who the hell decides they no longer like science in the spring of 2021?

Saw Pulp live for the first time last night. Jarvis Cocker is exactly who you expect he would be. He dresses like a burned-out professor now (no judgment) but he's still doing the same moves, an ironic performance that has hardened into sincerity. Timeless.

Terrific thread.

We have blown right past truth and reconciliation commissions and into Nuremberg trial territory. I will base every future primary vote on which candidate vows to send these people to prison, until they are all in prison.

Jesus fucking christ.

This is what every agency should be doing. Don't go along to get along, and always escalate the conflict.

Guy walking his dog past my house, having a conversation on his airpods where he keeps shouting "Stop watching the news!" and I deplore his manners but I kind of get the message.

Great advice for anyone who works at a corrupt institution, which is almost all of them.

The silver lining to the Typepad news is that I've been digging through the blog, finding lost treasures like this interview I did when the Morrison book came out. The Mindless Ones can tolerate almost any perversion, @andrewhickey.500songs.com, but they cannot abide failure.

This isn't surprising--I haven't touched my old blog in more than nine years--but it's still a gut punch. That blog and the community it was part of had a huge impact on my writing and I'm sorry to see them go. Guess I need to start figuring out how I can export it.

I’m going to be honest: part of what got us into this mess is the left having no method for handling antisemitism claims that goes beyond “most antisemitism claims are lies and you should proudly dismiss them without a second’s thought.”

"As a senator, I have advised a number of leftists to explore an open alliance where they remain politically committed but free to explore fascist encounters." "Did it work for those people?" "No. It never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but..."

What is this video asking people to do? "You should stay?" Stay where? Feels like we're a couple months away from the first AI slop Jonestown.

This is why we fight every time. Because we can win.

holy shit this is a helluva ad from the Democrat running against Joni Ernst in Iowa. worth every second

This is a perfect resistance tactic: relatively safe, low cost, it will destroy ICE's morale and they will destroy their own reputation when they crack down. Art nerds, sign makers, this is your moment!

While we're on the subject, I always thought that DC had the potential for an amazing story where Perry White learns that 1) his second best reporter is Superman, and 2) his best reporter is fucking Superman. What the hell does he do? He's not going to out Superman to the entire world...

Truly terrible take. The movie is filled with characters who *do* take the opportunity to become better people just because Superman is there to model it for them. By the end Luthor is almost the only holdout.

I warmly encourage you to fume externally about this as well.

All that New Age woo about manipulating 'energy' in your body is coming back to bite us all. Health crankery is the opposite of harmless. It's now destroying our public health apparatus as we speak.

Berger's three laws of chatbotics: 1) The bot should never express emotions. 2) The bot should never praise the user. 3) The bot should never say it understands the user's mental state. There's no use case for these things, and they're obviously problematic. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...

I've been reading Naomi Klein's Doppelganger, and I think I've figured out one reason why people keep confusing her with Naomi Wolf: Klein is at least 10% of the way on the road to Wolfdom herself. If you know the book, I've just hit the part where she talks about Covid.

Fuck it. I’m releasing these. The police seized all of my lasers during this operation. I have a court date in my future. #FreeLordLaser #FreeLadyLaser I will tell the whole story later. But it was all worth it to release these images on this day. “Good men must not obey the law too well.”

Shittiest Superman Joins Dumbest LexCorp

Patient, sobbing: But Doctor, I AM Pagliacci! ChatGPT: Apologies. I didn't realise when recommending Pagliacci's epic show to cure your depression that you were the genius himself. I'm impressed! With regards to your initial question, I can recommend seeing the Great Clown Pagliacci.

This clip is mostly fluff, but at two minutes in it turns amazing. Decent people always saw right through him.