So sad, right, when good friends break up. Poor Elon. His little world is crumbling all around him. And DT is being so mean to him. But I think somewhere in all this maybe not so completely real melodrama is a lot of truth.

When things don't go so great for you, when you get the very lamest Tarot card of all—which is not even Death—it is "Failure", what do you do? I don't know. Why are you bothering me about it? Oh right. I read Tarot cards. Yep, I do. Guess you'd better listen to the podcast.

Why doesn't the enormous spew of words on Substack and all over social media actually change anything politically? The world doesn't work like that. People want soma, not solutions. And you know, they can't even agree about the problems that need solving. But beyond all that, I will tell you something else Ambrose Bierce said and we'll have another visit from that really remarkable world leader person. So very diverse.

Reflections on the role of and addiction to fantasy in our lives. We may be strongly pulled at times like this in the direction of unreality, where better happier worlds may be found. But is that where we need to be? Well, unless you're really into pain and El Salvador, maybe so. Because that plate of cold turkey with the red pill cherry can be a lot to take in, especially if you feel obliged to do something about it.

After Stephen Miller said some crazy shit last week, Gandalf rolled a joint of Sauronic Palantir and got some folks to confess what we all know is the truth.

On the morality of synaptical reserve versus launching your ambush on your own vanity. The reason the world refuses to change is because you do. That, unfortunately, does not make you a bad person. It makes you perfectly normal. Overwhelmingly so. OK. Go back to sleep.

Some thoughts on the operational integrity of "constitution", as the Founders and some 18th-century political philosophers thought about that idea. Just having a constitution is not good enough. It has to be both respected as a document with continuing relevance to the people, and it has to have real power to constrain and coerce even the bad presidents and others to obey its limitations of their power. And if it isn't doing those things, then it isn't working for the people who are the reason for it to exist at all. And they need to get a newer model.

There is a Tarot card that describes your (and our) current dilemma. It is a card about desperately being afraid to overthrow oppressive regimes and circumstances, because who knows what that will cost and what that will bring? As I will explain to you, there is a mechanism at work that will liberate you from this terrible moral tension, no matter what you want. You may not love the remedy of course, but you cannot say you did not ask for it. And it will be merciful—in a big-picture way of thinking about that.

Wherein I come at the problem of aggressive stupidity installed as the arbiter of excellence from a number of perspectives. This is more a pie in the face than a critical rebuke. Well, there is a rebuke in the pie too of course.

In this podcast, I explore what exactly it is Pete Hegseth believes and what he is trying to do, and why you should be trying to do everything you can to stop him.

But for example, there is just way too much in common between the thinking of Pete Hegseth and another guy with a Norwegian name—Anders Behring Breivik.