Brandon Downey

The New Sun Rises over the Swamp of Mediocrity! The Dying Sun is the Dying Legacy Media. Severian wielders "Deep Literary Canon" (with Term Est on the hilt) to slice into "the Alzabo of Pop Culture", a green creature with multiple heads including 'YA Dystopian Cliches" and "Tiktok Attention Spans". Underfoot is a pile of garbage with labels such as 'Plot Holes", "Easy Reading", and "Feeling Over Facts". The New Sun appears as 'The Literary Renaissance'. Beneath it are Ascian clones (NPCs) chanting "Correct Thought is Mandatory".

A Gemini AI image entitled, 'THE GLORFINDEL RESURRECTION!'. On the left is 'First Age Chad' 'Original Intent' Glorfidenl Drop kicking a balrog (with wings) with labels like 'Plot Holes', 'Lazy Writing Allegations', 'Gandalf's Bane?' and 'Inconsistency'. A giant divine ("") hand from the heavens grips Glorfinderl (First Age)'s right hand entitled 'Retcon Power', but a bolt of light is also labeled 'Back from Mandos'. The clouds are also labeled 'Valar Intervention. In the right of the frame is Peter Jackson (labeled 'Movie Adaptation') shoving 'Frodo's Savior" (Actually) Awen into frame with the title 'She's in the Book Too'. Next to her is "Third Age Glorfindel" ("The Same Guy (Deal With it"), and a note about 'No Elvish respawns (Usually)', and 'Tolkien's Final Word'.

Gemini generated image of Varys, wearing sashes saying "The Spider", and a thought bubble about "Secret Loyalty". He holds a penant with a black three headed dragon labeled 'BlackFyre Targaryen', while to his right are Jon Snow and Tyrion with "?" over their heads, and a conspiracy yarn board for Westeros Politics. Above them a troubling Question asks, "The Spider's True Web?".

Gemini generated image of a scene of Omega (The Forgotten Time Lord) lamenting "I gave you Time Travel and You Gave me... THIS?", next to the swirling vortex of the "Brexit Black Hole/EU Bureaucracy". To the right is big ben and time lords labeled 'Globalist Gallifrey', and "Brussels Bureaucrats', a mix of people in suits and a kind of Tony Blair/Rassilon crossover. "Thanks for the Tardis, Omega! Now Stay There!" they shout, while the Rassilon figure holds a sign saying "He's on the Wrong Side of History!". Below, unable to mind the gap, is a hapless man, saying labeled 'Taxpayer Who?' for the stinger.

Ever since @theophite.bsky.social's Ben Garrison find yesterday, I've been spiraling on deeper and deeper cuts.

Gene Wolf wept.

@damienmiller.bsky.social

Note to Dems: Have the courage to win.

Every time leadership does this, median Dem (or other) voter thinks: "Is voting even worth it if they won't even try?".

"Have the courage to win".

Seems like you're saying Woke 2 is about Reconstruction.

Or, another thought I had: Exorcism.

The water thing is easy to understand as a harm, but the other stuff is hard and requires a lot of thought on how to deal with it. Also maybe some fairly new harms we're just coming to terms with.

And also on the non-water-harm side, you have the existential risk people.

:|

When people complain about me doing this, I just nod solemnly.

The Sisko is _of_ Bajor.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, but Domestic ... now.

5 MINUTES AFTER iNVENTION OF WHEEL bro, literally tho bro, the whole world is a wheel, turning round and round, an endless cycle of seasons and lives and realms--it all keeps turning, and it all keeps coming back around 5 MINUTES AFTER iNVENTION OF BOOKS bro, literally tho bro, the whole world is a book, God is The Author of Being and he writes our names in the Book of Life. In the beginning was THE WORD, bro. You see bro?? 5 MiNUTES AFTER iNVENTION OF COMPLEX GEARS bro, literally tho bro, the whole world is mechanical, God is The Divine Watchmaker, and the planets spin along predetermined paths according to the turning of cosmic gears! It's all just predictable mechanical paths from creation to here! 5 MiNUTES AFTER iNVENTION OF COMPUTERS bro, i think i just figured something out-

A good meme to send people who are convinced we live in a computer simulation.

[Ben Garrison comic about the evils of searle's chinese room argument for AI, except instead of Searle's Chinese Room, it is Searle's Elvish Room.] The left hand room has a wizard saying "I don't speak Elvish, I just follow the rules", and the right side is the "Deep State Data Center", where a robot eeds elvish writing onto a conveyor belt that says "Big tech AI Narrative". Also, somehow the robot is projecting a hologram of an older elf (Cirdan the Shipwright maybe?).

Related: I suggested the "Elvish Room" as a less offensive thought experiment than the Chinese Room.

My contribution.

[Ben Garrison comic about the evils of searle's chinese room argument for AI]

@damienmiller.bsky.social

Can't wait for anti-pope to set up shop on Sand Hill Road (or is it Miami?)

Is that ... Lumpy Space Princess leading the exercise?

Damn I need that on a shirt.

For readers who don't know, Jack Chick is an ardent fundamentalist religious tract writer who lived in Southern California. I think his heyday was in the 80s, and I had family members passing them out then.

Most famous (for many) such tract:

www.chick.com/products/tra...

A Nano Banana Pro generated image of a Jack Chick tract of the dangers of a career in infosec. The tile is "The Byte of the Beast", and features a tired human before a terminal saying "But the money is so good" while three demons stand behind him 'Burnout', 'Phishing', and 'Ransomware'. On the back of the track dangers include chronic sleep deprivate, constant paranoia (is it a phishing?), unexplained rage at printers, and even 'the feeling of being watched by algorithms'

I think Nano Banana Pro soft launched in the last week or so, because it suddenly leapt ahead of ChatGPT 5.1's image generation (surpising since I thought it was about photo alteration). As I discovered teasing @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com, it has almost "solved" Chick tracts.

✨ A few years back I stood outside Wells Cathedral for a full day and photographed the impact of the light on the front facade. I was amazed at the outcome - at how a single entity could morph and change under the changing light. 🌅 #thread

i love my city so much. thank you to every single person who was out there.

Are you saying he's an... LLM?!?

Krell machine but for memes.

It’s good that the Epstein stuff has hurt Trump and that there are cracks in his coalition.

But I don’t know how we come back from this sort of outright mafia state behavior. Between this, the destruction of DOJ, and the makeover of DHS, it’s hard to see us regaining full democracy status soon.

Perhaps those people are confused by the fog of lies spewing from the lips of the likes of RFK.Jr. and rationalized by institutional media.

Not that it happened this week or anything.

This is why I read and support Liberal Currents; a full throated defense of science, human rights (which include trans rights), and the courage to believe those things are worth fighting for.

The Atlantic? Busy platforming a kook anti-vaxxer under the guise of both-sides-ism.

My god what is wrong with you.

Preferring to call his neighbors "people of color" rather than "negroes," he was known to tip his hat whenever he passed a Black person. "The best thing the abolitionists can do for the people of color," he once said, "is to make their freedom a blessing to them in the states where they are free."24

Charles Sumner’s father was woke too

From: Charles Sumner by Zaakir Tameez

ICE agent who shot woman in Chicago drove Border Patrol vehicle back to Maine An unnamed ICE agent, who shot and injured a woman in Chicago, is now back in Maine after driving the Border Patrol vehicle he was in 1,100 miles.

Ask yourself why there wasn’t this level of wall to wall coverage for this shooting wgme.com/news/local/i...

Card of NorCal rapid response networks. Laminated and wallet size; if you see ICE call us.

Here's what I'm thankful for: so many ofy fellows are willing to fight back. Pick these up from someone also in Rapid Response this morning making a card for NorCal.

All people willing to fight back and to do the right thing

I never forgive him for not shooting Nikon.

But no in my head he was borrowing it from the school newspaper.

We were on a trip to Europe, and my wife started binging it next to me. I got some sort of mutant food poisoning and was throwing up the whole flight; I couldn't focus so all I could do was watch the Pitt with subtitles. Kept thinking how smart Carter was to start a new life in PA.

I hate it when my family argues about politics at Thanksgiving. My Independent Dad is yelling at my Covenanter cousin for allying with the king while my Fifth Monarchist uncle keeps making cryptic pronouncements about the Book of Daniel, and here I am, a Leveller.

Uncomfortable with the First Thanksgiving Narrative? Good News, it’s Actually a Civil War Holiday Take heart, all you who grow unsettled at the time of year where the narrative of friendly Pilgrims and American Indians is spread around to make us feel good about a brief moment in American histo…

Happy Victory for US Arms and Down With Treasonous Slavers Day!