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.