It's Only 3 January, And We're Already Staring At Another War

It's a lot to take in, isn't it?

As I pointed out yesterday, it's only the 3rd of January and I'm already laden with fresh anxiety.

On one hand, we have a bunch of racist neo-Nazi Afrikarens publicly expressing their hopes that Trump will do to South Africa what he's done to Venezuela, to "sort the country out" - and claiming to be "patriots" in the same breath, while totally not seeing the irony.

But then, irony is lost on the irredeemably stupid, as these people are.

Plane Sailing - Hopium & Fading Dreams of Empire

Trump wants to build a fleet of 3... 10... 20... 25 (why not 50 or 100?) new battleships for the US Navy, and although it strikes me as some sort of parody or sick joke, apparently Mango Mussolini is actually being serious.

Lemmings - or, the Great "Switch to Linux now!" Scam

With Windows 10 being "EOL" with Microsoft and every tech influencer on YouTube choreographing similar videos about switching to Linux and advocating for it like "That Vegan Teacher", with all but a song and dance, I've been considering making the switchover from Microsoft to Linux as well. 

Wait, wait, this isn't one of those articles wherein I proselytize the penguin, nor is it a fad or a phase - it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time now - practically since the first time I was introduced to Ubuntu Linux, when someone handed me a free copy through a car window at a traffic light back in the 1990s. 

Yes. It didn't work very well then either.

But don't let my preconceived irritations and irks spoil things for you, let me regail you with my latest experiences in the land of the red fedora-wearing Penguin.

From Altars to Outrage: The Strange South African Devotion to Bigotry and Moral Panic

It really has me beat why so many South African Christians worship at the altar of Charlie Kirk. Yes, I know it's been two months, and he's been the most well-behaved he's ever been - but still it seems some people can't help but bring him up in conversations with me, for some weird reason. Perhaps they know it will result in some sort of confrontation, as it inevitably did.

And so I just had an interesting "debate" with one such individual who denied insistently that the guy was "so full of love" and wasn't a racist transphobic scumbag who wanted people like me - for all intents and purposes, dead.

Seems that even when you can show verbatim quotes of his own words, they say you're "mistaken" and "taking that out of context". You just didn't understand him, apparently, even when he was saying the most incredibly offensive racist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic things - the fault was yours, not his. Sound familiar?

We Can Do Without Religion

The West has a habit of looking down on anyone else, doesn't it? Its self-appraisal almost always tends towards elitism and the perception that the West is the most advanced and superior in all aspects above others. Of course, might makes right, doesn't it? Historically speaking - for the past 800 years or so, more or less, the countries of Europe combined with the new kid on the block (the USA) have, as "the West" embodied that concept.

Taking that into consideration, I think that fundamental view or belief is what underlies white supremacy, at its very core, as can be seen from resultant ideologies that today we call "right wing". 

The tendency for one group to view itself as superior to others for whatever reason, as if we are all involved in some sort of competition with an invisible goal and invisible prizes.

Linux - Still Not The Life Raft It Thinks It Is

A lot of people have been talking about Windows 10 reaching so-called "end of life" by its creator, Microsoft - and a lot of them have been encouraging Windows users to migrate to Linux. Like many out there, I've had my fill of corporate bullies and fascist technocrats presuming to lay claim to my data and own and profit off my productivity, and especially the advertizing spy and bloatware crap that Uncle Bill has stuck into recent offerings of Windows - made worse by so-called "security updates".

Given the passing of time, I've oft considered alternatives. I would never in my wildest nightmares even consider moving on to Windows 11 (or 12, if or whenever that comes out one day), for example. But I have considered numerous other offerings from other sources, preferably open ones.

In the meantime, I've watched dozens of videos by Linux pundits singing its praises and saying enticing things like "you almost never have to even use the terminal if you don't want to" and comparing various versions and flavors of the open-source OS with regards to how easily Windows users could switch over to it in order to wean themselves off their nasty, self-harming Windows habit.

I'm Done With Warnings

Holy fuck. The trans community. Or at least, portions of it.

Try to warn some people that their house is on fire, and not only will they throw stones at you for being an annoyance, for pointing out the obvious, or for misunderstanding your motives for warning them, but they will then launch into personal attacks, character assassinations and even issue threats.

Like, what are you going to do to me from the USA, dahling? Throw a ballistic handbag at me? Call me names? Send me some sternly worded hate mail?

Some people don't like to hear the truth, and can't handle it when they do hear it. Why should I have to sugar-coat the warning "y'all are going to end up in concentration camps if you don't pack up and move somewhere else that's safe"?

Lines In The Sand

Dear Americans, I've lost count of the number of times Trump has committed "impeachable offenses" in the past 8 months (not to mention during the fiasco that was his first tenure) - and the number of times outraged opponents and social activists have said "imagine if Obama/Clinton/Biden did this?!"

As if that somehow constitues some form of "red line" that others dared not cross previously. However, that analogy has become useless - because it's increasingly evident to me that the so-called line is simply one drawn in the sand, as on a beach... and every time Trump and his backing party takes up the challenge and steps across it, all the opposition seems to do is simply redraw another equally facetious line in the sand.

The Western Lie Unraveled: Why I Condemn Israel, Not Hamas

If you've been following my social media posts, you will know that I've been an ardent critic of Israel's genocide in Gaza. Even so, there's something I need to get off my chest, and it's something I've been carrying with me for a while now. Please bear with me a minute.

I wish to state for the public record, that back in 2023 when Oct 7 happened and Israel began it's open bloody genocide in Gaza, I was still very much under the influence of most Western media and the narrative that Hamas were "terrorists", an "illegitimate" wannabe government pushing for an independent state in the middle of Israel, and essentially just a band of troublemakers and malcontents - as Israel had spent the last 80 years telling everyone. At the start, I was somewhat horrified by the publicized attacks by Hamas on "innocent Israelis".

But something was very "off" about the whole thing. 

Checkers’ Smart Trolley: Convenience or Corporate Callousness?

Checkers - our prime South African retailer - is trialing a new "smart trolley" that does the check-out as you put stuff in it. This means that thousands of people will very likely lose their jobs as check-out clerks and baggers. As always, it is the corporate types wearing fancy suits who think poor folk would make it on their small salaries if they just spent less, who really seem to think this sort of batshit crazy scheme is a good thing.

Because of course they do.