Month: September 2023

The single greatest comic panel ever

As I think I’ve said before, I grew up on British comics rather than American ones. Beano, Dandy, Eagle (i.e. the 80s revival, the original was a bit before my time), Battle, Whoopee, Buster, and above all 2000AD, whence this glorious image. I don’t really give a good goddamn about Marvel vs DC, and the relative merits of Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Neal Adams or whoever else; I was all about the likes of Massimo Belardinelli, Carlos Ezquerra, Kevin O’Neill, Steve Dillon, Mike McMahon, Cam Kennedy, Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, Arthur Ranson, Ron Smith, and Ian Gibson, the artist behind this beauty. It comes from a very early Judge Dredd story, I didn’t read it until it was reprinted years later, but I’ve loved it ever since I first saw it; not exactly the greatest Dredd story ever but what a way to kick it off…

So that’s the full first page of the story to put it in context. Mum’s putting Billy to bed, putting the fear of Dredd into the poor child, when Dredd himself bursts into the apartment to give him something to be afraid of. What a stunning first page, ending in Dredd casually saying him and Giant are trying to, frankly, decapitate a poor defenceless child at the bottom of the right of the page… so you have to turn the page to discover the poor defenceless child is nothing of the sort. Marvellous. I’ve seen avowed comedies that were less funny than this one comic strip panel.

Important images 1

A post series I’ve been intending to do for quite some time. When you’ve been online as long as I have, you’ve probably accumulated a lot of porn er… pictures of various sorts that need not be pornographic as such, and perhaps there comes a time when you want to share them. At that point you used to set up a Tumblr to do that, but now that’s a somewhat risky prospect, and other free alternatives… well, I suppose you get what you pay for.

As such, I finally entered the modern age at the start of this year, long after most other people had done, by getting a domain and some hosting. Rather a lot of the latter, of which I am not actually using a lot, and for which I am frankly paying rather a lot. Accordingly, I’m assuming (hopefully rightly) that as long as WordPress is taking my money, they’re not going to be as censorious as Tumblr (though it’s not like I’ll be posting actual pr0n or anything, and I’m not going to be posting huge quantities of NSFW stuff in any case).

So, I’ve assembled an assortment of stuff—currently in the vicinity of 11,000 images so we won’t be running short of material for a LONG time—for this series… this will probably be a once-per-week affair, maybe more if I feel like it, with probably 20 pictures per post, picked in somewhat random fashion. Expect an array of book and magazine covers, film posters, adorable animals, memes, art, urban and natural landscapes, some favourite musicians, some frankly nonsensical stuff. What makes these images important? I don’t know. Even I don’t understand why some of these pictures appeal to me (I am particularly bemused by the many girls with headphones, as much as anyone else is likely to be), so there’s probably not much point asking me. And I don’t know where most of these images may have originated, so probably not much point asking me that either.

It should probably go without saying that any rights in any of these images remains with whoever the rights holder(s) may be and I’m not trying to infringe on anyone else’s copyright. But in case it needed to be said, there, I’ve said it.

I’ll put the pretty pictures behind a cut to save the blog’s front page a bit. Please note there is a bit of nudity beyond this point. Click for full size and all that.

Continue reading “Important images 1”

Obviously

X makes cuts to disinformation and election integrity team

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has slashed the number of people on its disinformation and election integrity team just weeks after it said it was hiring for new positions to help it guard against foreign interference.
The cuts, first reported by the tech-focused media outlet The Information, included Aaron Rodericks, the head of the team, said a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns about professional consequences.
The person familiar with the cuts said four people had been let go — the entirety of X’s election integrity unit in its Dublin office. It’s unclear how many people remain on the team. […]
The cuts, which were reported on the day of the second Republican presidential primary debate, are part of X’s broader pullback from its efforts to address false information and foreign interference that once ran rampant on the platform. Owner Elon Musk instituted broad layoffs when he took over the company, some of them on its once-sizable “trust and safety” team. […]
Musk has also aggressively criticized the company’s previous moderation efforts, releasing internal documents that he and conservative commentators have claimed showed a liberal bent to how it handled elections and misinformation.

Two shocking details stand out from this story:

One, it’s taken Musk until now to whack most of his integrity team;
Two, he’s not getting rid of it entirely for some reason. But I suspect that’ll change.

The detail that Shitter is cutting back on policing misinformation is, of course, saddening but not exactly shocking as such. I do, however, continue to be amused by the way every news article about X keeps calling it “the platform previously known as Twitter” or something like that… world’s most successful corporate rebrand ever, clearly…

That’s it for solve et coagula

As far as “perplexing things found on Tumblr” goes, this is… yeah, pretty goddamn perplexing. “Deadheads for Satan”? I know “Friend of the Devil” is a song of theirs, but even so… Long before I ever heard them as such, I read the Grateful Dead’s name in a magazine, and I always thought they should’ve been a heavy metal band rather than… well, whatever they were, but this just confuses me. Also, was whoever made this thing not a fan of the Godchaux’s or Tom Constanten? Feels weirdly pointed leaving them off…

Goodbye Dictator Dan

So was every man and his dog, Albo, I don’t think anyone was expecting Danny boy to bow out quite this abruptly. I don’t know, I don’t live in Victoria, so I don’t know if he was actually the tyrant or the genius his detractors and fans claimed he was. He was in the same unenviable position the rest of the world’s political leaders, at whatever level of their respective governments, were in back in 2020, and he probably could’ve done some things better than he did, and by the same token he almost certainly did it better than the Liberals would’ve done, and come election time last year Labor wound up with another landslide victory. So enough people must’ve thought Andrews was doing enough right.

Speaking of the Libs, Victorian Lib leader John Pesutto has been fairly graceless in his acknowledgement of Andrews’ years of service, but he’s not in a great position to talk himself; whatever else Dan has done, he’s not being threatened with legal action by a Nazi fellow traveller within his own party. I think even John has to admit Dan has at least that much going for him; I don’t know what Victorian Labor may have wrong with it (there has to be something, I’m sure), but I’m guessing far-right lunatics isn’t the problem for them that it is for Pesutto’s mob.

What’s in a name

Unfortunate name, unfortunate face

I can’t believe I’d forgotten this legend until Facebook Memories delivered the goods tonight. If Wankard Pooser remains the most gloriously named man ever, Calvin here does the better job of living up to his name… The whole story is so deranged that I thought it couldn’t possibly be even remotely true, so back in the day I remember doing a quick bit of research and finding that… well, it was. Or, if it wasn’t, the creator of the thing put in some effort with the crucial details. I found an actual Calvin E. Wank in the online White Pages, and according to this site he did live (maybe still does) in Deposit N.Y. and he would indeed have been 56 at the time, and there is indeed a Love’s Travel Stop in Kirkwood. So it’s a lot easier to just assume that, unlikely as it sounds, all of this did happen. And if it didn’t, Calvin E. Wank should sue for having his unfortunate name taken so magnificently in vain…

Brandon goes!

WOOF. I saw someone post this on Mastodon and felt sure it had to have been photoshopped, cos I couldn’t imagine Joe getting salty in quite this matter on Twitter, but no it wasn’t, that right there is my own screenshot of it… but I think this is the more eyebrow-raising tweet, at least potentially:

WOOF again. I haven’t had anything really to say about the strikes currently happening in the US, but I’ve been impressed by how much support they’re getting, and now United Auto Workers have the fucking president with them. I can totally see the American right going into absolute meltdown over this.

Junior’s off to a great start

Lachlan’s already taking Fox/News into an exciting new direction:

The endorsement of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott for a position on Fox Corporation’s board by Lachlan Murdoch shows he is “doubling down” on the company’s “right-wing crusading”, critics say.
Murdoch welcomed the nomination in one of his first moves since being announced as sole chair of both Fox and News Corp this week following the retirement of his father, Rupert Murdoch, at the age of 92.
The nomination will be considered by shareholders at the media giant’s annual meeting in November, a media statement released on Friday (Saturday AEST) confirmed. Nominated alongside Abbott was technology executive Peggy Johnson.
“I welcome Peggy Johnson and Tony Abbott’s nominations to the board,” Lachlan Murdoch, who has been chief executive of Fox Corp since 2019, said in a statement.
“They bring skills, experience and perspectives that will contribute to the Board and benefit Fox.”

As far as I can see, none of those skills are related to journalism; Peggy Johnson doesn’t appear to have ever been one and Tone Abet hasn’t been one since the early 90s. Then again, Fox/News is hardly related to journalism itself, of course… anyway, I’m sure Dad is proud of Lachie’s choice. Someone has to be.

Daddy departs?

Yeah, this was slightly unexpected news at this time of night. Glad that Rupert thinks his impact on society has been positive, cos anyone with the ability to think can see he was one of the worst things to ever happen to the world… talking about other media being in cahoots with elites as if he weren’t a fucking elite himself, and other media pushing political narratives over the truth as if that weren’t his entire raison d’etre. What a cunt. I have no reason to assume that Fox will be any better under Lachlan’s guidance, cos it won’t be under his guidance; Papa’s still going to be running the show, he just won’t be taking direct responsibility for it.