04 November 2025

Brought to You by the Letter V

…and the number 58,318 (presuming that site can be reached during the shutdown).

Both of which have been problematic. Vietnam is pretty obvious, but far from the only example; at present, the Orange Menace is working on Venezuala (without any reference to the past and how well that has worked out), carefully neglecting any mention of the Vatican and Wien (usually spelled "Vienna" in these parts, reinforcing the goofiness of English spelling — not to mention its cultural imperialism). What's next? Vilnius? Virginia? Almost no one is mentioning the most-menacing V word hanging over America at present, though; the Magician's Assistant Method of political change is working. At least until next season (and the exploding… anatomical structures previously measured in public).

The number isn't much better. None of them was the first casualty — that was any reliance on truth. The rest were just… falling dominoes after that first one. Any reflection on current American foreign policy memes is both entirely intentional and from a rather fractured mirror.

Meanwhile, in an equally-misguided effort, the Orange Menace is trying to save inbred, incapable-of-survival-in-the-wild turkeys by starkly reducing the ability of many Americans to buy them for Thanksgiving. Of course, this won't actually save any turkeys — they've all been raised for slaughter, and will just end up in the freezer for longer. The turkey farmers, given lower demand this year, will have less to look forward to in the future, too. So I guess celebrating "American Tradition" — however historically misguided — is reserved for trust-fund kids and techbros. But that's getting into the letter T, which is a future episode of this fine educational, public-oriented-but-entirely-privatized outlet (despite the efforts of the Secretary of Education).