For anyone interested, check the PMC, and listen to Michael Hoerger’s forecast -- click on the slide-show on the right of the page. pmc19.com

"Trump's War," by Ann Telnaes.

Like this one: McConnell is showing signs of rigortortoise …

New Presidential portrait:

When you buy a piece of writing from an author you are buying hundreds of hours of failure and experimentation, lamentation, woe and gnashing of teeth. You are buying friends and relatives immortalized in writing and fed to wood chippers to further the story.

The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/u...

y'all ready?

The list of Weekend-at-Bernie’s politicians keeps getting longer. According to the Miracle Max docs in the morass of D.C., these old walking-dead men, are “only mostly-dead,” and fully capable of performing their elected duties — via Ouija boards, no doubt. Just another MAGA brick on the load.

Trump: "I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt. I said, 'What do you think about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement and how do you feel about the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1?'"

New toy, from Mastersmith Chuck Pippin:

Apparently, with Ja Marant, Portland is bringing back the Jailblazers. Not a promising start for this season, Portland.

This week's short story is a Guillermo Tavarez story. I have several short stories with this character. No novel yet. Twisted But Never Broken first appeared in Fiction River: Dark & Deadly Passions. Dark crime fiction. books2read.com/u/3n6ydK

This week's #Free Fiction story is crime story with magic. (And a bit about #writers.) Enjoy! kriswrites.com/2026/06/29/f...

I think studios should be more patient with woman-led properties especially where superheroes are concerned. Trolls poisoning the well are causing distress but are mostly an overly-loud subgroup not representive of the movie going audience. Women can and should be allowed to be superheroes.

Starting July 1, 2026, Idaho will use the firing squad as its primary method of execution.

Books from 2024-2026: A science fiction trilogy; an urban fantasy duology, and a mix of F&SF short stories. The Void Fighter The Void Vixen The Void Child (novella) Pistoleers Enforcers Kill Switch Not the fastest writer in the world, but also not the slowest ...

You should read Pistoleers first, but both of them are Steve Pretty novels.

New book, second in the duology with Pistoleers, is live: www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6R9KVH...

THE STRAIT OF WARM OOZE #NotARealImage “The Vicar of Vice administering to his flock, the slimy sacrament, in the consecrated algae of his holy work, the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C.” If he offered a baptism, MAGA would show up and pay him for it. See: Trump Bibles, watches, sneakers...

I'm not at automatically blocking, but I think badly of people who do this sort of thing when general elections are coming.

If the D's win bigly at mid-terms? His ass -- along with the smaller parts of him -- gets impeached. (Ann Telnaes)

It's Miller time ...

This is the least useful of my social media. I never had much interest in Twitter/X, because the word-limit was too short to say much. It's a bit longer here, but not that much. The old joke: Excuse the long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one. A page of thought doesn't compress to this.

Offering writing advice is sometimes useful. Then again, no good deed goes unpunished ...

Mediocre White Man Energy(tm)

The Day The Dog Came Home With A Dying Elder God in His Mouth... What does cosmic horror look like when you’ve outgrown fear? When gods are no longer unknowable terrors, but exhausted systems at the end of their lifecycle; when even Chthonic beings must die. open.substack.com/pub/thaddeus...

FLASH FICTION In Media Res — #WritingCraft “Flash fiction is not for the timid. Every word is loadbearing, each double dipping at the well of meaning. You've got to trust the rot or you don't. The reader is depending on you to not flinch. Condense, refine, distill.” #Amwriting

The thing about Obama, and why he freaked out the fash, was that he was so visibly such a superior man on so many levels. Fit, attractive, brilliant, accomplished. His presidency was about the time I stopped talking to conservatives. Their raging sense of inferiority was blindingly obvious.

Hmm. Am I the only one who thinks the term “influencer” is just another word for “loudmouth?”

Saw a post somewhere about dogs. Man said, If I lock my wife and dog in the trunk of my car? When I go to let them out, only one of them is gonna be happy to see me …

Late spring and early fall are the seasons when viral infections ebb. Last week was the lowest for Covid-19 contagion in the U.S. this year. Rising -- see the graph. Same pattern every year. If you socialize in places with good HEPA filters on the ACs? The risk is less, but not zero.

New attack-dog Attorney General.

I can use the terms “lying,” “despicable,” “addlepated,” “vile,” “disgusting,” “small-minded,” “demented,” “flatulent,” and “rapist,” (along with a couple-score other such descriptive words in those genres) and it is unnecessary use a name, isn’t it?

Agree. From a technical perspective, this discussion with the showrunner and DP describes the balancing act they were doing. They mention they watched every take 5 times, first 3 in B&W, last 2 in color. Which I think shows through with how good it came out in B&W. youtu.be/wsHV2V9jfew

“Your head is on the block — and you worry about your whiskers.” Seven Samurai This is aimed at Democrats who want a unicorn candidate.

Maybe the Doctor’s Oath should change from “First, do no harm,” to “First, tell no lies.” Cause somebody sure is lying when it comes to those glowing health reports for you-know-who. I mean, more fantasy there than Lord of the Rings.