History Shows Again & Again ...

The Assassination of the Emperor Caligula,
by Lazzaro Baldi, between 1624 and 1703

The Economist: “America’s founding fathers brooded about the decline of the Roman republic into a corrupt and brutal empire. They feared such tyrannical emperors as Caligula, who renamed temples in his honour, had golden statues of himself erected, and revelled in humiliating Rome’s former elites, including the cowardly senators who handed him supreme powers.”

“Many ordinary Romans loved Caligula as a showman who built marble monuments, organised military parades and relished attending gladiatorial contests, the gorier the better. To show his contempt for the ruling classes, Caligula threatened to make his horse a consul.”

“Mr Trump, a fan of golden statues, marble monuments and cage-fighting, has yet to appoint a horse to his cabinet. He has, however, appointed unqualified sycophants to positions of high rank, where they vie to show their loyalty while squabbling over trivial perks of office. Americans can only hope that their follies are personal to the Trump era, and can be reversed by an election or two.”

Hope in one hand, shit in the other & see which piles up first, fools!

[Political Wire]

An Exercise In Boredom

Literally watching paint dry.

Note high-technology spray booth. Safety first!

"War Is Over"

Chronic Brain Syndrome:

Trump: "I ended eight wars. Nobody else ever ended a war."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 5, 2026 at 8:16 AM

A musical aggregation willing to confront mental health issues. Especially their own.

Tedious Tuesday Tedium

The most exciting interesting stuff I've observed in at least 48 hrs.

Who made the strikethroughs?

Here Comes The Future

Less food, less water.You made your bed, now go lie in it. Or shoot it out at the waterhole.

Jacob Miller, 74 Today ...

... if he hadn't died (or been murdered by the C.I.A.) in an automobile accident in 1980.One of the greats & a great loss, his music lives on, what if ..., &c.?From his first session.Earlier numbers w/ Augustus Pablo.W/ versions.

Maddened Monday

Pretty pictures to distract from my sincere raging desire to kill the bastard slumlord & all his employees & relatives.

Free as a seagull.

Seroiusly about to lose what little control I still have over my desires for vengeance.

And fix your gawddam "rent portal" too, so I can pay my fucking pound of flesh to you, slumlord scum!!

Shut Your Festering Gobs!!

We’re losing 338 spoken words every day

We've been nattering less and less each year since 2005

++good! The sooner you ninnies go to Newspeak & I don't have to hear your incessant inane bullshit prattle the better!

[Science Focus]

Parasite Report

Not one fucking penny for these parasites! Years in prison would be appropriate: A life sentence for every person or family a slumlord tried to evict, & death for every successful eviction. This bullshit & these bloodsuckers cannot be allowed to stand.

So fucking tired of fucking everything being fucking fucked.

You Suck Sunday!

And all the other days of the wk.

Both a threat & a promise: Had I the energy of the proverbial two-yr. old, every one of you sub-humans would be dead. Is that enough for the informant bastard to call the pigs?

You piece of shit, you called them twice in a fucking month & they sent me away once. Do you think the police were any help to me? No, merely made me even fucking angrier, to the point that a day w/o threatening some cretinous piece of shit w/ death & torture here is like a day w/o sunshine.

Don't tell me you finally wised up two 'phone calls late, either, you puke! You denied me free expression & cost me a wk. of my life, why shouldn't I be angry enough to kill? (You've had a yr. in which to apologize, rat!) What do you fucking idiotic morons expect when you call fascist pigs, anyway? Do none of you understand anything about how your horrid world of shit & pain works?

Not Just Fertilizer: Everything

90+% plastic, & virtually all made in The People's Republic of China.

Exceptions: The ruined depot was "Made in Western Germany", possibly in the 1970s; the black switching loco was made in Austria in the '80s or '90s. This scout car was "Produced in the Netherlands and Vietnam"

& the water tank was "Made in Vietnam", both very recently, I assume.

Not that where it's made will make any difference when the raw materials run out.

Truth & Facts from Comrade Misfit:

This point is not original to me: Other than the computer/phone you are reading this on, you probably can easily reach and touch something made in East Asia that is made of plastics or synthetics. Those things are petrochemicals, which means that the base material is oil.

That oil comes from the Persian Gulf.

The last tankers that made it through the Strait of Hormuz before the war started are either in port or are making port. Since almost nobody keeps large supplies of raw materials on hand anymore (the whole world has gone just-in-time supply), the plastics makers are in trouble. That effects almost everything. Think of all the stuff that comes in plastic containers and bottles, like your prescriptions.

All of that stuff will be in short supply. Even if the war ends tomorrow, it'll take months, if not years, to get everything back to where it was.

At greater length: The Mahablog, which links to a Krugman interview transcript. If the gift link has expired, or you're functionally illiterate, the audio.

Crusader Alkie

Nate Krieger / Vox:
The Department of Holy War  —  Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a longstanding fascination with the Crusades.  That's right, the Crusades: the series of late 11th to 13th century medieval wars in which Europeans fought to control the Holy Land.  He has tattoos that reference the Crusades …

Is having a delusional drunken religious buffooon whose Gawd is the hateful, vengeful cosmic asshole of the Old Testament running the Dep't. of "War" an ideal situation? The unembeddable answer.

21st Century Schizoid Sat.

Interesting: Audible drums start at (4:35). (Or am I that old & wretched? You needn't answer.)Some hot shit when released in 1969, & it holds up.Remains an accurate premonition of this 21st Century, other than napalm having been semi-outlawed.

Cat's foot iron claw Neuro-surgeons scream for more At paranoia's poison door Twenty first century schizoid man. Blood rack barbed wire Politicians' funeral pyre Innocents raped with napalm fire Twenty first century schizoid man. Death seed blind man's greed Poets' starving children bleed Nothing he's got he really needs Twenty first century schizoid man.

Letters Of The Day

LXXXVI XXXXVII

Wanna buy some seashells, on the seashore?

Friday Freak Out

Scheduled yesterday. No working or nothin'!!

MAY DAY!

Just Fucking Don't!!

Do not produce, consume, or engage in any other activities, including breathing if you can possibly avoid it. I may not get the mail, or even eat, not that I don't go a day w/o often.

Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force

Having missed high school American History, I was unaware that May Day as worker's day was a result of the Haymarket Square Riot of 1886.

When "workingmen" weren't the sad collection of sissypants they are today, a mere 140 yrs. later. Wake the hell up! You dumb bastards have nothing to lose but your chains!!

Agitating broadsides source.

A Day Like Any Other ... Miserable

Burn Baby Burn!

Convenient illustration of our subtext.

If Home Despot hadn't, for some reason, given me a credit card I'd burn the fucking dump to the ground. Lumber, paint & all sorts of other flammable, toxic crap; it'd be quite the show.

Why arson? Got plenty of exercise walking from aisle to aisle looking for three items their website claimed were in stock in whichever aisle & bay, but there was sweet fuck all. Did find one of the five I wanted, & bought a different brand of something else; that's one (One & a half?) of five. Not even empty spaces where the items had been but had sold out. The last of the five was visible, but some wage-slave was stocking the aisle & had it fenced off the entire hr. I wandered in the desert.

Can't decide if I want to summon the energy to send the incompetent bastard manager an e-mail, but his name & address are right on the receipt.

Lunar Seas