The Congress of Ratfuckers
Lest We Forget
Is It Safe?
No, it’s definitely not safe—not for everyone, and certainly not for the most technologically vulnerable among us.
A couple of days ago a neighbor and friend of mine, a retired nurse in her early eighties, dropped by with a frustrating problem she was having with her iPhone. She handed it to me and said “I can’t get into it. My face doesn’t unlock it any more. It says I need a password.”
When I activated the screen, a message appeared that the phone could not be unlocked for another 15 minutes. This was bad news, really bad news. It meant that she’d already entered the wrong password at least eight times.
(When security settings on iPhones are properly configured, they will lock permanently after ten failed attempts to unlock them with a password. The warning that this is about to happen is the increasing delay that the phone requires between each failed attempt after the fifth to unlock it.)
As gently, and as non-technically as I could, I explained the peril that she could be in. She could be facing not only data loss, but even a permanently locked phone as well. I asked her if she was sure what her password was. She said no, she hadn’t thought she’d needed one, just her face, but she believed it could be her brother’s birthday. “That’s unlikely to be right,” I told her, “Your brother’s birthday can be entered as either six digits or eight digits. This wants seven.” I showed her the screen with the seven dots showing where the password was to be entered.
I then explained to her that according to an Apple support document, which I printed out and handed to her, we might be able to use her Apple Account password to erase the phone, unlock it and restore her data from a backup. I asked her if she had a backup. She said she didn’t think so. I asked her if she knew her Apple Account password. She said she didn’t have an Apple Account, not that she was aware of anyway.
At this point she was both confused and frustrated, and I was fresh out of expertise. I told her that at that point her best was to call Apple suppport. I asked her if the locked phone was her only phone. “Yes,” she replied. Did she want to use my phone to call Apple? No, she had other things she needed to do, and she didn’t have the time, so we said our good-byes and she left.
I haven’t heard from her since. I’m going to try texting her and calling her later today, but it may well be that I’ll have to go knock on her door to see if she’s got the problem sorted. I’m worried, of course, but since I’ve apparently gone from helpful techie neighbor to the prophet of technological doom, I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t slam the door in my face.
My question to the prophets of the digital revolution is this: How many times a day around the world does a dance like this take place? Will adoption of these new technologies only proceed, as the witticism about scientific progress has it, one funeral at a time? Maybe in the grand scheme of things, these agonies can’t be entirely eliminated, but it would certainly be helpful if the ones steering us along the road to the future would pull over just for a moment and devote a little more effort to harm reduction among the more vulnerable of our citizens.
As Long As We’re Still Waiting….
Vladimir: We lack an abiding sense of the inappropriate.
Estragon: But lacking it’s what drives us forward. Otherwise….
Vladimir: You can get Rimbaud. (shudders) You can get Donald Trump. You still want to roll the dice?
Estragon: Otherwise they roll themselves. And then what, eh?
The Boy: He’s not coming, you know. She’s not coming either.
Estragon: Who’s not coming?
Vladimir: Who are you talking about?
The Boy: Ahhh….
The Real Trans Menace
Donald Trump came out of his mother’s body an innocent, as we all do. Eighty years later, he teeters on the edge of the grave, a bloated sack of depravities few, if any of us can fully comprehend.
There’s a great sadness in this transition, as well as a great evil, both of which we not only witnessed but many of us actually endorsed. We should keep this in mind as we nurture our own children. If it’s true that no person is an island, entire of itself, then it’s also true that every part of the human archipelago is at least partly our responsibility.
Not Technically Treason
Despite the understandable hysteria on the center left, Donald Trump’s geopolitical betrayals are not treason. The U.S. isn’t actually at war with any of the greasy dictators that he’s put us all at risk to curry favor with, so technically they aren’t enemies. Even though he’s giving aid and comfort to them, and definitely deserves to be put somewhere where he can’t contribute to the torture of innocents, he doesn’t actually seem to be at risk of being marched out of the White House at gunpoint by the forces of an irate U.S. general staff. (After Hegseth’s purges of any general officer with more than two neurons, a military coup has never seemed all that likely anyway, no matter what Trump and his dumbfuckery end up costing us.) This is a mixed blessing even for those of us who, in our allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, have always held the principle of civilian control of the military to be sacred.
I, for one, will hold to my principles, but I’ll also say that for the first time in my life, the shame of being a citizen of the United States of America, a country that elected Donald Trump twice, is overwhelming. Redemption is still possible, I suppose, but at this point I’d rate the possibility of it coming in my lifetime as slim to none.
Unbidden Bits—October 18, 2026
There is one thing that billionaires can teach us. If we ever reach a point in life where we can accept a waiter’s obsequious praise as confirmation of our status, we will never see it coming. (Yes, that it—the one with the hood and the scythe.)
Now We Wait
Progress on Donald Trump’s Bucket List
√ War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity:
Ordered a February 28, 2026 airstrike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, Iran, killing at least 156 people. The victims included 120 children, 26 female teachers, and several parents who had come to the school. The fatalities also included a pregnant teacher and a six-month-old fetus.
Ordered aerial attacks on a number of unnamed Venezuelan fishing boats, killing their crews. Pilots of attacking aircraft were reportedly ordered by the Secretary of Defense to fire on any survivors of the initial bombing runs on their vessels as they struggled to stay afloat in the water, insuring that no one survived the US assault.
√ Murder:
Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Silverio Villegas González, Keith Porter Jr., Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Joan Sebastian Guerrero, Mario Bass—all murdered at the hands of ICE, or while they were being held in its custody.
√ Sexual Assault/Rape:
E. Jean Carroll. (Also, whatever is in the Epstein files, if the Republican Party ever allows them to be seen in their entirety by ordinary mortals.)
√ Kidnapping and False Imprisonment:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Andry José Hernández Romero, Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, Jefferson José Laya Freites, Arturo Suárez Trejo, Anyelo José Sarabia González, Jerce Reyes Barrios, Frengel Reyes Mota, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas, Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra, Maikol Gabriel López Lizano. All were placed in restraints without due process and transported by air to El Salvador, where they were handed over to the tender mercies of the wardens of CECOT (El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo).
√ Theft:
SSSI and Derco Settlement. Gen Digital Inc. False Claims Settlement. AECOM Hurricane Katrina Relief Settlement. Magnolia Diagnostics False Claims Act Settlement. Broadway Electric Inc. Settlement.
√Fraud:
Judged culpable, civil case of falsifying business records (34 counts) May, 2024. Judged culpable, civil business fraud, New York, February, 2024.
√ Bribery, Extortion, and Violations of the Emoluments Clause:
Smirking misappropriation of María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace prize medal after he’d ordered a US armed invasion of her country to kidnap its head of state.
A Boeing 747 passenger aircraft given by Dubai, for unspecified reasons, not to the United States, but to Donald Trump personally.
Promising a $5,000 Trump Dividend to every adult American provided the Republicans preserved their congressional majorities in the 2026 midterm elections.
Demanding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate Hunter Biden while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. Shortly after Ukraine announced publicly that an investigation would take place, the US government released the $400 million that was being withheld. A post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, or genuine extortion? We report, you decide.
√ Perjury:
In December 2020, he filed a federal lawsuit in Georgia to overturn the presidential election results, personally signing a verification swearing under oath that the voter fraud figures in the complaint were true and correct to the best of his knowledge. A federal judge later concluded that the records demonstrated an effort to press false claims in court, and emails from Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that some of the allegations were inaccurate. Legal analysts have argued that this sworn verification meets the elements of perjury because Trump had been briefed by Department of Justice officials that the claims were false.
√ Vandalism:
White House demolitions, uprootings, tacky remodeling jobs, and fake gold embellishments,
A fatally incompetent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,
The defacing, defunding, and closing of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
A gaudy and hideously expensive gold leafing of the Arts of War and Peace equestrian statues.
The impending construction of an obscenely large and gaudy marble eyesore, to be named the United States Triumphal Arch.
Mortal Doubting
The Atlantic has published a new interview today by David Brooks, entitled Do Human Beings Have Souls? He isn’t asking me (he’s asking Shelly Kagan), but if he were, I’d say some do, some don’t, and with some it’s hard to tell. There’s no doubt in my mind that James Baldwin did, and that Donald Trump doesn’t. Further tests will probably have to be run on David Brooks.
Unbidden Bits—October 9, 2026
Leibniz: the passion of mathematics
Bach: the mathematics of passion
(Yes, I know there were several Bachs. That’s alright. Everyone will know which one I mean.)