William Gibson started blogging again last week!

Why?

Because the United States currently has, as Jack Womack so succintly puts it, a president who makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln.

And because, as the Spanish philospher Unamuno said, “At times, to be silent is to lie.”

Read all the archives. They’re good. The personal stories, the news links, the jokes:

Q: How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There‚Äôs nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn‚Äôt work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness. (–John Cleese)

And the man can write, as in yesterday‘s “Believing Bush is conservative in any traditional sense is like believing that a Formula One racer with the Perrier logo on its side is full of mineral water”. Though having heard Bush’s “There is a mainstream in American politics, and my opponent is on the far left bank” at the third presidential debate – and Bush seems to have repeated that many times – I’ve got to say Gibson’s rhetorical strategy of characterising an opponent as an extremist isn’t particularly original, though more eloquently performed than Bush. Or even better, his appreciation of Reagan: “Reagan’s presidency put the grit in my dystopia. His presidency was the fresh kitty litter I spread for utterly crucial traction on the icey driveway of uncharted futurity. His smile was the nightmare in my back pocket. “