benblakeauthor.bsky.social
Husband, father, Fantasy author. Usually tired or asleep. Debut novel The Scholar's War due out in 2024 from Divertir Publishing. Not rep'd yet.
I ignore DM's.
404 posts
640 followers
452 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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All true. I said in 2020 that people needed to vote Trump out, but doing so was useless unless people voted against him and the GOP next time, and the time after, and so on and on. They didn't. No system can survive the indifference of those meant to protect it.
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Different cultures, with strange customs; and creatures I've never seen before.
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Watching 'Reacher' at the moment, so I'm about as safe as can be.
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I'm sorry to say it, but right now Trump is winning. He has soldiers on the streets to face peaceful demonstrators and no one has stopped him. From now on he can do that anytime. Opposition has become dangerous, many are cowed into silence. It's sad and horrifying to watch.
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Trees have always been a big part of the answer. Plant rows of them along the streets, plant parks in the cities. Most of all, plant forests where old industry stripped the land. Air under a canopy is much cooler, and that spreads to the surrounding area.
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Still works today, one of the greats.
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Is this real? It's so extreme that I'm thinking deepfake, surely?
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The scenery is exquisite, there's a real sense of time and place, and grandeur, and the sorrow of its loss.
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I wouldn't bother either, can't be arsed. Most people are too stubborn to change their opinion even in the face of new evidence. If someone asks me about something, then I'm happy to discuss it, but these adversarial setups are a waste of everyone's time.
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Good grief, no. Shuttle was always a terrible error, losing the ability to reach the Moon in exchange for reaching low orbit. It was also ruinously expensive, Newer launch systems are vastly cheaper, and can take astronauts further. Shuttle's days are over.
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We should push for reforestation in our own countries. Industrialisation caused huge woodland loss, of which must could be restored.
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No mention for Ed Wood?
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All of that sounds interesting! I enjoy hearing other authors talk about their process, particularly. I'm happy to be a guest if you do this - my debut trad novel is just out now.
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Isn't writing relaxing?
I know, I know... but in a funny kinda way, isn't it?
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1984, though I wish I could pick 1989 too.
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I had a man called Luthien, who'd sworn an oath to God that he'd never drink alcohol, use violence etc again. I meant him to keep the oath, but reached a point where he just... wouldn't. To be true to who the character was, I had to have him break the oath. Never saw it coming.
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Mine wiggle about anyway, as they fight for prime warm positions next to the stones in shallow water. Fighty little b*st*rds.
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We'll make it, but not as we are now. The times they are a'changin'.
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Coal scuttle.
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Maybe. More likely it will split in two, or even three. Might not be this year or this decade, but it's hard now to see the USA lasting until 2100 or anywhere near that.
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Ooh, exciting, can I have a go?
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When the Blowfish turn up we're all screwed.
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More clean energy is good. More nuclear is not. Until we can guarantee the safe storage of radioactive waste products for one million years, we should avoid it.
And we can never guarantee that.
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Yes, I know he's dead.
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Rubio serves a government that's making it harder for women to vote, thus creating gender apartheid, and uses ICE and others as tools of repression.
Course he won't condemn it.
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Agree. This is existential for the US now, it's resist or lose the country, forever.
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I do see your point. On the other hand, I know Kipling was racist and yet still enjoy his poems, and stories.
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I'm very much afraid that you're right.
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Neither does the UK, mostly. We used to know that NI payments went to the health service, for example, but now NI goes into general taxation and is spent on whatever the government likes.
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They do exist, and will in future, and deserve to live without bigotry and hate.
I think the UK SC knows that too.
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That's still faster than GRRM.
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Yes, fair point, thank you. The main thing is, the courts will be ignored.
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Contempt will achieve nothing - Trump will simply pardon anyone accused. It really is this easy to destroy the US democracy; a POTUS need only ignore the courts. No President is ever tried while in office, and everyone else will be pardoned.
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The law doesn't matter anymore. Besides, this is performance, like so much of what Trump and his henchmen do. They get a nice video to play to their core voters, that's all.
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Yeah. We have bags ready, including food, and we know where we'll go. I know how to make candles and cure leather, how to make soap and ersatz coffee. We're fairly well prepared. Just in case.
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He's not the leader of the free world. Neither is America.
Not any more.
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Cover them with a cloche, a mesh tunnel, or anything else that lets sunshine in and keeps birds out.
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Agree with that.
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He doesn't need unrest in the streets. When the report on the border is handed in, by April 20th, he could use that as a pretext for martial law.
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The world no longer needs America's superhero complex. We see beneath the skin now, to the rancid rotten core of so much of the USA. Perhaps America can reform itself, as you say. But save the world?
Even former allies don't want saving by the USA anymore.