Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
So if being an admirer of the Nazis as well as a philandering pervert and possible pedophile aren't enough of a definition of being a typical Democrat . . .
“People familiar with the matter” told the Wall Street Journal that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, reportedly shared with an aide in August that she had found the sexually explicit messages “early in their marriage in the spring of 2025.”
This astonishing level of illegal content might appear unique, but in recent years this kind of activity has become rampant across Kik. A joint Forbes and Point Report investigation has uncovered evidence of a vast number of child exploitation cases involving the use of Kik, where some of the most appalling material is being shared and young girls and boys are being targeted for grooming. Posing as 14-year-old girls, we also discovered just how quickly predators were on the prowl and how third-party apps for sharing profiles appeared to be facilitating access to minors. And we found that Kik hasn’t even been deleting the profiles of individuals charged and convicted of child abuse offenses.
An adviser to socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dismissed a Nazi-inspired tattoo Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner received as a “skull and crossbones” during a panel discussion Sunday.
Amy Gertner, who married Platner in 2023, said that she was “deeply hurt” about the campaign’s former political director, whom she tipped off about the sexting, confirming the messages to the press.
The video drew widespread criticism from observers who said it appeared that Platner was letting his wife take the heat for him.
“It looks and sounds like a hostage video,” one X user posted. “Blink twice if you need rescuing, Amy.”
The randy oyster farmer is believed to have had sexting affairs with up to a dozen women, according to reports.
Yeah, she "defended" him alright! BANGOR, he hardly knew her!
Police arrested at least 20 protesters outside embattled New Jersey ICE detention center Delaney Hall Sunday night after they broke a new curfew imposed to stop the violent rallies from continuing for a third week straight, as the Department of Homeland Security vowed to show “ZERO tolerance for rioters.” . . . Several arrests were made in front of a wall disturbingly grafittied with “KILL ICE” across it. . . Chaos has engulfed the immigration detention facility in Newark since at least May 22, after top Democrat officials, including New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, raised concerns about inhumane conditions in the facility and the lack of visitation hours.
Their "concerns" were a naked signal to their Antifa and other street goons as well as braindead dupes to engage in violent attacks on the facility.
More typical Democrat behavior: get others to do your dirty work by being cannon fodder for the media.
People across New England heard the sky clap back Saturday afternoon, and for a while, nobody knew why. Houses shook, windows rattled, and police departments fielded calls from worried residents. . . a natural meteor tore into the atmosphere, broke apart roughly 40 miles above northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire, and released energy equal to about 300 tons of TNT.. . Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society (that's a job title!), described the object as roughly three feet wide. Reports reached the society from Delaware to Montreal, a huge footprint for a rock small enough to fit through many front doors. From the Associated Press:
Kaboom, indeed! And thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was a good one.
Other than a complete, unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s unlikely to see any complete, on-the-record list of each party’s obligations; Iran’s leaders don’t dare admit they’re doing everything our president demands. Then again, even if the regime does commit on paper to giving up the enriched uranium, Iran has repeatedly proved its promises mean nothing. What will it mean if Trump takes this Iran deal?
An Iranian official told the outlet that the “nonaggression pact” includes a U.S.-facilitated “international investment fund” for the country’s redevelopment. Other officials contacted by The New York Times (NYT) would not confirm an amount. (RELATED: US Strikes Iran As Top Negotiators Search For War Off Ramp) Draft US-Iran Peace Deal Includes $300,000,000,000 Investment Fund, Report Alleges
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
Slavery enriched slaveholders but not societies, which is why slave economies consistently lagged in growth, innovation, and industrial development across history. The Myth of Slavery as an Engine of Growth
This is not the first time that a judge has been accused of making anti-white remarks. In February last year, it was revealed that U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell, who blocked an order by President Donald J. Trump to freeze federal grant spending at the time, went on an anti-white, anti-Trump tirade in an interview a few years prior. Later that same year, Richard Bennett, a federal judge, upheld anti-white admissions policies at the United States Naval Academy. “The Academy has tied its use of race to the realization of an officer corps that represents the country it protects and the people it leads,” Bennett argued at the time. Woke Judge Suspended Over Alleged Anti-White Racism.
The Biden DOJ paid off FBI anti-Trump plotters Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe, for instance, along with numerous convicted criminals, who alleged bad treatment by the Bureau of Prisons. By contrast, Trump allies and administration officials who suffered unjustly at the hands of Joe Biden’s weaponized FBI and DOJ, like Michael Caputo, Christina Bobb and Jeff Clark, are genuinely worthy victims who should be made whole. Miranda Devine: Dems can cry corruption all they want – the DOJ’s anti-weaponization fund has precedent and purpose
Hilton said, “People say he, when he was HHS Secretary for Biden he lost 85,000 migrant kids. No, he didn’t lose them. He pushed them out of the system without caring where they went, dismantled the vetting and pushed migrant kids into the arms of child sex traffickers. That’s what he did. That is going to come and get him when we were up against him in the general election.” Exclusive: Steve Hilton Says Xavier Becerra Pushed Migrant Children into ‘Arms of Child Sex Traffickers’
The order came from a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sided with Texas over a lower court injunction that had blocked sections of Senate Bill 4, FOX 7 Austin reported. Judge Leslie Southwick was the lone dissenter and would have rejected the state’s motion. The brief order provided no detailed reasoning beyond pausing the prior block. Federal Appeals Court Allows Red State To Enforce Migrant Arrest Law
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) called for prioritizing criminal illegal migrants being held at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, calling them the Democrats’ “north star.” Democrat Senator Prioritizes Illegal Aliens: They Are ‘Our North Star’
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE COURTS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE
This sort of thing doesn’t inspire confidence in government. CIA gold
The Farmworker Housing Component of the Low-Income Weatherization Program is one of the state’s many climate change initiatives, and this one is aimed at farm workers — including those who are in the U.S. illegally, according to City Journal researcher and writer Christopher Rufo and his co-author Austen Hufford. California Program Gives Free Solar Panels to Illegal Aliens
Renovations may still move forward if the board reconsiders its decision in a manner the court considers balanced. President Trump considers a major overhaul necessary due to the center’s “tired, broken, and dilapidated” condition, proposing to “turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before.” Obama Judge Married to Biden’s Personal Defense Attorney Blocks Kennedy Center Renaming, Renovations.
As The Federalist previously reported, the LinkedIn co-founder played a role in funding a legal nonprofit that defended Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm “behind the famously discredited Christopher Steele dossier at the heart of the Russia [collusion] hoax.” He’s also been all but forced to apologize for financially boosting a “Russia-style” disinformation operation in Alabama’s 2017 Senate race that sought to sway the election for the Democrat candidate. Reid Hoffman’s Left-Wing Antics Go Far Beyond Bankrolling E. Jean Carroll’s Anti-Trump Lawfare
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
The rise of AI infrastructure has sparked a backlash fueled by local concerns, activists, and geopolitical competitors. But resistance to innovation has a long history. Data Center Resistance: Déjà Vu All Over Again
“You need Chevron, I need Chevron.” That’s the message from Democrat gubernatorial frontrunner Xavier Becerra, who’s making waves by breaking with the left on one of California’s most insane climate policies — as he refuses to fully back the state’s plan to phase out new gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035. Leading Dem California governor candidate announces massive break with the Left on key policy
Constitutional Carry’s march has slowed, but in states like North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the next wave of Second Amendment victories may already be taking shape. The Pathway Forward for Constitutional Carry
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY, INSANITY
Up until 2022, Colombia had never had a left-wing president, at least not in modern history. But, for some reason, it tried to experiment with one between 2022 and 2026. Not only did they vote in a leftist, but they voted in a corrupt socialist clown. Four years of Gustavo Petro was, apparently, enough. Colombia to the Right? Anti-Crime Outsider Crushes Election Expectations.
ISRAEL vs IRAN & GAZA/HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH . . . AND LEFTISTS. . . AND HISTORY
How can anyone trust the CIA to get anything right after this? . . . It’s not clear exactly what Rush was up to — and don’t be too surprised if the details remain muddy — but nothing can explain how anyone in the intelligence community can request $40 million in gold bars “for work-related expenses” — and just get it. You need to steal 300 gold bars before the CIA even checks your resumé?
The reforms specifically concern college students who are looking to enlist in the Coast Guard and commission as officers. The College Student Pre-Commissioning Initiative (CSPI) has till now given preferred status to students coming from universities that meet arbitrary racial quotas for their student body. But no more. Coast Guard Eliminates Racially Biased Officer Commissioning Standards
In health care, vile hatred and threats against Israelis and Jews are patently ignored and even celebrated. Antisemitism in the Medical World
The rise in tick bites is increasing people’s risk of developing alpha-gal syndrome, potentially altering the diets and lifestyles of those affected. The National Pulse reported in March on claims that Lyme disease was partly the result of U.S. government and military attempts to develop tick-borne biological weapons in the 1960s. On Friday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the government would be making a major push to treat Lyme disease, as well as alpha-gal, and bring the tick population under control. Tick Bites Linked to Rising ‘Red Meat Allergy’ Syndrome Cases.
. . . : a natural meteor tore into the atmosphere, broke apart roughly 40 miles above northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire, and released energy equal to about 300 tons of TNT. The Space Rock That Gave New England a Warning
Even as Hernandez was winning events inside, parents had gathered outside the venue to protest transgender athletes in girls’ sports. Parents held signs blasting the ruination of girls’ sports. Signs included, “No boys. No bias. Just fairness, and “Save Girl’s Sports.” (Real Name is HIS-nandez? - jjs) Outrage Mounts After Trans Athlete AB Hernandez Wins California Girls Track Championship
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
Thad McCotter: The American Revolution declared rights come from God, not government—and today’s Left seeks to reverse that creed in favor of secular state supremacy. ‘God and Country’ vs. ‘Secularism and State’
Today is Joan of Arc’s feast day. Her story says something profound about nations’ right to defend their borders. The Nationalism of St. Joan of Arc
There is a mob mentality that has been let loose in America, along with a coarsening of moral sensibilities. Deadly Pools
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The first is the Ryzen 5800X3D priced at $349. This first appeared in 2022 priced at $449, but was taken off the market in 2024 because it competed a little too well with the newer 7800X3D.
The second is the Ryzen 7700X3D, priced at $329. This is a 7800X3D, just 10% slower.
If you happen to have an unused AM4 motherboard and 64GB of DDR4 RAM sitting idle, the 5800X3D may be just what you need. Otherwise you're probably be better off with the newer, faster 7700X3D.
It uses Intel's low-end Wildcat Lake CPU, but one of the better ones with actually quite acceptable performance. And unlike many competing models it has a screen on par with Apple's MacBook Neo, a 2560x1600 IPS panel covering 100% of DCI-P3 colour and a variable refresh rate from 30 to 120Hz, at a healthy 500 nits brightness.
Basic model has 8GB of RAM (soldered) and 512GB of SSD. I/O consists of two USB-C ports and... That's it, really. Doesn't have the Four Essential Keys either.
It comes with a 6 or 8 core Ryzen processor with Radeon 840M or 860M graphics respectively - good if not great - the aforementioned keys which while not in my preferred layout are all present and unshared, and expandable memory and storage.
And a 2880x1800 OLED display... With 500 nits brightness and a variable refresh rate from 30 to 128Hz.
(A word of caution with these OLED panels: They look amazing but burn-in is real.)
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT. Appreciate you joining us for the waning hours of May 2026 and the beginning of June 2026. Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?
A massive American flag the size of a football field has been hung from the iconic Hoover Dam in the lead-up to the nation’s 250th birthday, after desert winds briefly forced it to come down for safety.
The enormous installation, measuring 300 feet wide and 150 feet tall, was first unveiled on Memorial Day as part of nationwide celebrations leading up to America’s semiquincentennial on July 4.
It is set to remain in place through the Fourth of July, weather permitting.
Sure to be "triggering" to leftists everywhere. Good.
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More Murica
THE DROUGHT CONTINUES
For the 33rd consecutive year, the Stanley Cup will NOT be returning home to Canada 😩🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/skI7jXxs3f
It's that time of the week - when we turn the ONT over to our good friend Piper for a bit. Here's this week's fashion pr0n.
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Swim Week Spotlight: Premium Picks from Miami Swim Week 2026 That Actually Flatter
Miami Swim Week 2026 just wrapped and the premium runway delivered exactly what I love: sculptural pieces, beautiful fabrics, and flattering designs. Designers like Ema Savahl, B.FYNE, Monday Swimwear, Melissa Odabash, Honey Birdette, and Lila Nikole brought the heat with couture-level details and actual wearability.
These weren’t cheap bikinis, they were elevated, confident-making pieces with gorgeous embellishments, flowing overlays, and thoughtful cuts.
What Stood Out on the Runway
• Dramatic cut-outs and hand-embellished details (Ema Savahl’s signature drama)
• Textured crinkle fabrics and sculptural one-pieces (Monday Swimwear vibes)
• Curve-celebrating luxury with real coverage options (B.FYNE killed it)
• Resort-ready pieces that look glamorous
Flattering Styles + Brand Recommendations
Hourglass Figures (balanced curves with a defined waist):
You want plunge necks, tie details, and high-waisted bottoms that highlight without hiding.
Go-to Picks: Ema Savahl for show-stopping embellished sets and Monday Swimwear for supportive, textured styles that feel luxe and stay put.
Ema Savahl Seaglass Croc One Piece
Monday Swimwear MONTEGO ONE PIECE - MIDNIGHT CRINKLE
Pear Shapes (curvier hips, narrower shoulders):
Draw the eye up with ruffles, halters, or detailed tops and keep bottoms sleek.
Go-to Picks: Agua Bendita or elevated Maaji pieces for feminine prints and perfect balance.
Agua Bendita Dome One Piece Swimsuit
Maaji Golden Ray Dazzle Lace Up Bralette Bikini Top
Apple Shapes (fuller midsection, thin legs):
Ruching, wrap fronts, and smoothing one-pieces are your best friends.
Go-to Picks: Melissa Odabash or SHAN for tailored, sophisticated tummy control that still looks elegant.
Melissa Odabash MUNICH CHAIN SWIMSUIT
SHAN Classic high waist bikini bottom
Rectangle/Athletic Builds (straight lines, toned physique):
Add dimension with asymmetrical cuts, textures, and strategic ruffles.
Go-to Picks: Riot Swim for sporty-luxe energy.
Blaise One Piece - Chocolate
Plus Sizes & Busty Figures:
Supportive underwire, wide straps, and beautiful full-coverage options.
Go-to Premium Picks: B.FYNE for empowering curve-forward luxury and Monday Swimwear for inclusive sizing done right.
B.FYNE Denko Suit
Practical Tips
• Invest in quality fabrics that hold their shape (Monday and Ema Savahl excel here).
• Mix-and-match separates whenever possible for the perfect custom fit.
• Always check sizing guides or try in-store if you can—premium swimwear rewards proper fit.
• Look for pieces you can layer with a great cover-up or sarong for resort versatility.
Swim Week reminded me that the best swimwear makes you feel confident, strong, and beautiful. These premium brands get that. If you’re shopping for summer, start with one standout piece that makes you excited to hit the pool or beach.
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Wow - thanks, Piper! Those are the types of models we need to see more of! I think the Colombian goddess says it best.
Geddy, Alex, Anika Nilles, and Loren Gold (sonicperspectives.com)
Rush will kick off their much-anticipated Fifty Something reunion tour on June 7 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. This marks their first time touring in 11 years. Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee will perform alongside drummer Anika Nilles, and the run makes this their first tour since longtime drummer Neil Peart died in 2020.
The tour spans the globe, and dates run into April 2027. Nilles played with the band at the Juno Awards, and that gig served as a soft launch for their comeback.
I already have tickets for Philly in August and DC in October. Who else has tickets? And who wants to put me up for a night or 2 if they're playing in your neck of the woods?
Jerry Pierce and Annie Dunn, a hippie couple who are the focus of a new Deadhead documentary, “Summer Tour,” weren’t even born when Jerry Garcia died in 1995. That makes them prototypical examples of a young generation of Deadheads who never went to a Grateful Dead show.
But they did the next best thing, following Dead & Company, the band formed by original Grateful Dead guitarist and singer Bobby Weir, on its last tour in 2023.
Director Mischa Richter tags along as the couple roams America in their old van, traveling from show to show and city to city with a wandering community of fellow Deadheads. Living in voluntary poverty, they are portrayed as looking out for each other as part of an idealistic hippie subculture of caring and sharing that has long been part of the Grateful Dead experience.
I'm the farthest thing from a Deadhead, but I will check out the documentary.
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Speaking of rock documentaries - if you're not familiar with "Heavy Metal Parking Lot", you need to fix that!
On May 31,1986, emerging filmmakers John Heyn and Jeff Krulik drove into the parking lot of the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland — and into pop culture history — when they caught lightning in a bottle recording amped-up JUDAS PRIEST fans before a concert. Nobody could have imagined that 40 years later the resulting short film, "Heavy Metal Parking Lot", would be frequently cited among the greatest rock documentaries ever. On May 31, 2026, 40 years to the day since this much-heralded time capsule was captured on film, in Silver Spring, Maryland will screen — for the first time ever in public — the 60 minutes of original source footage, before the edit. Audiences will experience what was recorded that afternoon, in real time, while both Jeff and John provide live commentary as history is being made. The event will also feature the resulting 16-minute "Heavy Metal Parking Lot", plus a chance to meet some of the stars.
The Capital Centre (imploded many years ago) was a great place to see concerts. I saw quite a few great ones there. First time I saw Rush was there. Metallica with The Cult opening. Van Halen with Alice in Chains opening. Many more. Great memories!
The documentary mentioned at the link was filmed in the parking lot before a Judas Priest show. It was allegedly a favorite of the guys in Nirvana. They are rumored to have often watched it on their tour bus.
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DJ Doof - This Date in Music History Edition
from thisdayinmusic.com
On this date in In 1982: R.E.M. signed their first label deal with I.R.S. Records. The Athens, GA band, who had recently recorded their debut EP, Chronic Town, turned down an offer from RCA, instead opting to go with the indie imprint.
On this date in 2024: American musician Ed Mann died at the age of 69. He was known for his mallet percussion performances onstage with Frank Zappa's ensemble from 1977 to 1988, and his appearances on over 30 of Zappa's albums.
Hope you approve, Mis Hum!
Born on this date in 1948: English drummer John Bonham from Led Zeppelin -- Bonham died on September 25th 1980 aged 32 after choking on his own vomit.
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the Final May Edition?! June editions are just around the corner!
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Will you win the fight and still lose in the long-term?
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Our Pal Steel
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NoVaMoMe 2026
What - you thought there wasn't going to be a NoVaMoMe in 2026?
Note: One of the great joys of NoVAMoMe season, at least for me, is being able to cut and paste the entire block of text below and haranguing you to attend the event. Are you attending? Are you focusing on the fundamentals of attending?
Alright, guys and gals, the long awaited and highly anticipated details of the 2026 NoVAMoMe are here! That's right, I finally got my act together and updated the information page for 2026, and need to go over a few details. First, the date is June 20th, 2026 from 11am to 3pm. Nextly, my bestest blog buddy bluebell and I have decided 2026 will continue the longstanding tradition of NoVAMoMe simplification, and want to pass along the changes from prior years.
First, no registration and no advance charge for food. If you would like to attend, send an email to WeaselBell Productions, and let us know. You will be directed to a sekrit webpage with all of the details. We do ask once you have decided to attend to let us know so we can coordinate an expected count with venue management. Once there if you are hungry or thirsty simply order from the onsite menu and pay separately. Cash and credit cards accepted. Next, although fun, we have decided to again take a break from the raffles and mug sales this year. Depending on how it goes, that may be something we bring back in future years. While your generosity is always appreciated, with no prize table, please leave donations and contributions at home, but bring your appetite for a great afternoon spent with your imaginary online friends.
Next, a NoVAMoMe PSA from our pal bluebell
Hi folks - just a quick PSA. If you write for info about the MoMe, please give us a few words in the body of the email just so I know you are a Moron and not a spammer (moron). I do receive spam on this email account because it's sitting right here in my nic, so that's why I'm asking. I don't want to give our details to a spammer. Also, remember to check your spam folder if you don't receive a reply email.
Thanks.
bluebell
Seriously, just send an email then go to the website with the password provided. If you forget, a link to the email is on the main page, left sidebar. If you do not sign up, bluebell will be disappointed. Weasel will be disappointed, too, but it's bluebell you need to worry about.
This week our pal Diogenes sends us this excellent write-up on humidors.
We have had some great cigar reviews here on the Weasel's thread and I for one certainly appreciate them. I have discovered some great new sticks and I hope that some of my reviews have assisted others. And this brings me to my subject of the day. If you bother to check your credit card statement, you may discover the spending on cigars can, at times, be...ahhh...pricey. In order to protect these investments, it is necessary to store the news treasures properly. So, let's talk about humidors.
Buying a humidor requires balancing your collection size with storage conditions. Most vendors recommend purchasing a humidor capable of holding 20-30% more cigars than you currently own. This helps to ensure proper airflow. I just keep mine about 1/2 full and it works just fine. Standard wooden desktop options start around $150 to $300, but you can find some that are cheaper. Serious shoppers prepare for sticker shock. I've seen them as high as $5k. Yikes! You can also find electric/cabinet humidors and that regulate temperature and humidity and are good for greater numbers of cigars. These aren't for me as I typically buy just enough to enjoy over a few months, so I don't need something that fancy.
Here are some things to keep in mind when considering a humidor:
--Assuming you go for a wooden humidor, one thing you want to have is Spanish Cedar Lining. Any cedar will do, but this is the gold standard, and the wood is perfect for absorbing and releasing moisture.
--Use a Digital Hygrometer, not the analog (needle) version. The analog hygrometers are notorious for being inaccurate and I have found this to be true in each one I have owned. To track the temperature, just throw in a small thermometer. I keep my humidor at about 70% humidity and room temperature year-round.
--Ensure the humidor has a good seal. A weak seal will dry out your cigars. An easy way to check a wooden humidor is to do the dollar bill test. Close the lid on a dollar bill. If you can pull it out easily, the seal is too loose.
--If you purchase a wooden humidor you will want to season it before stocking it with your favorite smokes. Wipe the interior with distilled water, or use a high-RH Boveda pack. This prevents the wood from stealing the moisture from the cigars.
Lastly I clean mine once a year. Depending on where you live, mold could be a problem over time. Cleaning is simple and a great way to keep your cigars ready to enjoy.
The picture shows the three that I use frequently. The box is a typical office/desk style humidor. The travel case is handy, and this one is from Thompson Cigars. The small "single cigar" carrier is for the golf course. Pro Tip: DO NOT put this one in your carry-on bag if you fly. The TSA guys enjoy watching you drink the contents from the screw top side. ;-)
I hope this has been helpful. Enjoy.
Excellent, Diogenes! Thank you!
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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.
A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid
Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!
Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Food Thread:The Unbearable Lightness Of Good Dough
—CBD
This is what is interesting and maddening about dough. I tried a new pizza dough recipe, which was suspiciously identical in ingredient proportions to the other one that was a modest success. The method was different, and the result was much, much better. Lots of lovely bubbles and flavor, and the texture was much more pleasant.
I understand how technique changes food, but this was a real surprise. I do need to work on shaping the dough, since it was quite springy, but that should be an easy fix.
Of course I burned the roof of my mouth on the first slice!
Well...to be honest...I burned the roof of my mouth on the second slice as well.
I wandered into the liquor shop attached to my local Wegmans a few months ago, and I was surprised to discover an allocated (around here at least) bourbon hanging out on the shelf...lonely and bored and calling out my name! I had been looking for it for months, and barely paid attention to the price.
And...it wasn't worth it. Don't get me wrong; it is a very nice bourbon, but there are plenty of bourbons for $10-$15 dollars less that are just as good.
It has a very nice caramelly nose, some sweetness and spice on the palate, but a thin finish that is a bit disappointing, and maybe a bit too much oakiness.
And that is the problem with bourbons that get hyped! They are rarely as good as that hype suggests. Imagine how good a Pappy van Winkle 23 would have to be!
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The UK is beyond help, except...Brit kids taste American Barbecue for the first time. They all seem like normal kids who can be convinced of the superiority of American cooking and the importance of having pork in one's diet!
Not to mention the innate sense of freedom that smoking meat imparts!
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This is one of a series of cooking videos from the folks at Fallow, an excellent restaurant in London. Most of their videos are excellent (check farther down the post) and well worth a watch, especially if you like to cook. Here is a Ragu Recipe that is a bit different, but it is impressively loaded with layers and layers of flavor. I'll even forgive them the browning of the meat, although Marcella Hazan would be rolling over in her grave if she saw that.
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Yeah...and you wonder why I bang on the Chinese for being a disgusting food culture and source?
China. It's truly frightening. Workers at a seafood market in China are applying a preparation made by mixing red yeast rice red solution (cochineal red dye) and formaldehyde onto the bodies of fish before shipment. This treatment method is intended to make old fish appear colorful and fresh.
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Misanthropic Humanitarian sent me this recipe for Husband's Braised Meatballs, and it's a pretty solid one. But he misrepresented it as "Husband's Braised Balls," which is an entirely different thing, and much funnier.
The garlic is doing well! For now. It was 42 degrees this morning, and I am unsure how well garlic will tolerate that. I know all of you are worried, but it is still tall and green and healthy! And if they survive the deer and squirrel apocalypse, and actually grow into something edible, I will be in garlic heaven! In case it doesn't, send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
The best and highest expression of the snacker's art includes no utensils or vessels. No knives or spoons or plates or bowls...just the food containers and an appetite.
But for some unfathomable reason, the makers of peanut butter (Big Peanut) chose not to package their product in vessels that do not require a utensil, once the magic first 50% has been consumed.
We all know that the first portion of peanut butter, lovingly scraped up from the pristine surface with a mini pretzel, is a prized and rare experience.
But so is the last bit of peanut butter embedded in the corner of the jar, and Big Peanut has conspired to steal that from us, and require a spoon or a knife or some other backward tool to get at the mother lode.
We are not chimpanzees trolling for termites with long sticks! We have evolved past that, and I demand that Big Peanut keep up!
Yes, Our Elections Are Dirty, But How Exactly Does It Happen?
—CBD
Obviously the most secure election system is same-day voting in person, with paper ballots and mandatory ID checks against a master list that is reviewed every year, and purged of all names not of United States citizens.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch says it has identified almost a million voter registrations in California that have been inactive for at least three federal election cycles, and argues they must be removed to ensure potential cheaters cannot use the names on faked ballots.
[...]
Fitton said, “326,608 names have remained continuously inactive for at least three consecutive federal general elections. That means the person hasn't voted or otherwise communicated with the state or the county voting officials for … six years. At least 151,202 registrants have been enactive [sic] for four federal elections. That's over eight years.”
And finally, “33,922 inactive voters have been around just hanging on the rolls for 10 plus years. You know, and you can see why we do this in the back here. Look at that quote. ‘Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.’ And that's the key issue here.”[bolding mine]
There are other security demands for a voting system that is secure against manipulation, because there are very clever people working tirelessly to subvert the will of the American voter.
As much as it is tempting to blame the voter rolls for the bulk of the fraud, a glance at the vote totals from the 2020 presidential election will disabuse one of the notion that the main issue is illegals voting, or nefarious characters voting multiple times.
The Democrat vote increased by 23.6% between 2016 and 2020, but decreased 7.7% in 2024. That is a huge discrepancy that simply cannot be reconciled with candidate popularity, population shifts, voter rolls being purged (spoiler: they weren't), or any other explanation that does not recognize massive cheating via the use of fake ballots that did not correspond to registered voters. That's why some precincts reported more than 100% turnout. That's why vote counting was suspended, then restarted after those fake ballots were inserted into the counting process.
And that's why recounts are of limited value. Sure, some ballots may be counted incorrectly, or not counted at all. But when the ballots themselves are fake, only a comprehensive audit of the votes will have any hope of identifying fraud.
The fight for clean voter roles is a noble cause, and it will go a long way toward improving Americans' opinion of the integrity of our political process. But it is not the whole answer, and we must recognize that the forces aligned against our republican form of government will continue to probe for ways to subvert the will of the people. They found a way in 2020, and we barely survived that attack on our country. The next time might be more clever, and not a brute force injection of millions of fake ballots!
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-31-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (just in time for summer!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
On the southeast coast of Tierra Del Fuego, is a tiny little literary outpost called Biblioteca del Refugio de Puerto Español. I discovered it purely by chance.
I was reading The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and I used Google Maps to scout out the physical location where the events in the novel take place, which is a fictional island amongst the Wollaston Islands off the coast of Tierra Del Fuego. I was just zooming around the area when I noticed the world "biblioteca" tagged on a small building on the coast, miles from anywhere else. Strange place to put a bookshop/library.
It seems to be labor of love by the man in the photo above. He is justifiably proud of the work he's put into creating a library out here in the middle of nowhere. It may be the southernmost public library on the planet.
Who is this man? What would drive him to live alone out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his books to keep him company? Seeing a picture like this can be a seed for a short story...What do YOU imagine his life is like out here? What secrets is he hiding? What is his motivation?
By a strange coincidence, he bears a striking resemblance to a professor who works at the same university where I work...That right there could germinate a story about two brothers who are estranged, but somehow have to find a way to reconcile their differences to resolve a conflict...
FEATURED MORON REVIEW [OrangeEnt]
Read "Johnny Carson," by Henry Bushkin, Carson's long-time "consigliere" as Johnny put it. Bushkin details his interactions with the Tonight Show legend, from his first meeting through his firing near the end of Carson's reign over late night.
Bushkin, who was only twenty-seven when Johnny hired him as his lawyer, said this about the man: "...he was endlessly witty and enormously fun to be around...and he could also be the nastiest son of a bitch on earth." We've heard insinuations about Johnny through plenty of videos, but this first-person account definitely sets you back on your heels when you see how often and how quickly Carson could change from generous and friendly to an insulting monster to his friends and family members.
Complex, because of his upbringing with a mother who never had much good to say about her son, he also seemed aloof from his own children. Johnny didn't like to be "volunteered" for anything. It made him angry when any of his wives or friends put him on the spot for a fundraiser or social event. He was upset at the Reagan inaugural when things didn't go his way. He would blow up and threaten to leave an event and never return multiple times.
We get to see backstage dealings with co-workers and Johnny's many married lives. He cheated on each of his four wives. The result of fame? Maybe, but it should be a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to be in show business. Bushkin recounts how he, Johnny, and a couple of other men broke into wife number two's love nest with someone who turned out to be Frank Gifford. We see woman after woman come into Johnny's life and exit soon after. Some, the next night. It even affected Buskin's life as well. He started engaging in the same things Carson did, and it cost him his marriage as well.
Although the book is about his life with Johnny, Bushkin's book is also about him. We see him change from the star-struck young lawyer into a highly skilled attorney and businessman. He did everything for Johnny: played tennis every day, made deals for him, gave him blunt advice when things started going wrong, and was an all-around confidant. There are some names dropped by Bushkin of women he had affairs with, such as Joyce DeWitt and Mary Hart.
All in all, an interesting look into the life of someone we thought we knew because we saw him nearly every weeknight. Recommended if you like Hollywood television history. The book is available on the Internet Archive.
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WHY YOU SHOULD NOT READ ROBERT JORDAN'S The Eye of the World
A couple of weeks ago, the following comment caught my eye:
Let's see....well on my vacation I read and finished "Robert Jordan's" Eye of the World. This might be the best fantasy novel I've read.
I realize its the first book in a series, a series with a lot of high points and a lot of low points. Still, it is probably the peak of doorstopper fantasy since GRRM is incapable of finishing Game of Thrones.
But the first book, Eye of the World, is an excellent standalone story. It does not require sequels though it of course HEAVILY sets up a massive number of events to follow. But you can read the first book and be happy , especially if you have read the entire series or have tried to and got bored around book 7 or so.
Highly endorsed to all fans of epic Fantasy.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo at May 17, 2026 10:13 AM (xcxpd)
Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World has morphed into a highly divisive subject among fans of epic fantasy. Some, like Mark Andrew Edwards and myself, absolutely love this book. Full disclosure: Like Mark, I consider this book to be one of the best epic fantasy novels ever written. Far, far better than anything George R.R. Martin has ever written.
In the interests of satisfying my own curiosity, I asked Grok to share the five most common criticisms of The Eye of the World. Let's go through them and see how well they hold up under scrutiny.
1. Heavy Tolkien Derivative / Lack of Originality
Many readers and critics note that the book closely mirrors The Lord of the Rings in structure and elements: a rural farmboy (Rand ~ Frodo) pulled into adventure, a wise mentor (Moiraine ~ Gandalf), Trollocs as Orcs, Fades as Nazgúl, a long journey with dangers, a trip through a mystical forest (the Ways ~ paths in LOTR), and a climactic journey to a special site. While Jordan adds his own twists, early sections especially feel like a 1980s homage that hasn't aged as freshly for some.
Of all criticism of the book, this one I find to be the most unpersuasive. ALL genre fiction is derivative of some source material. That's why it's genre fiction in the first place. Using the same logic, I should not enjoy Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories because they are highly derivative of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I should also not enjoy Sherlock Holmes stories because they are derivative of Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories (he invented the genre).
Sorry, A.H. Lloyd, I'm not allowed to read your Man of Destiny series because it's derivative of George Lucas' Star Wars prequel movies. I know you wrote the series specifically to fix the narrative problems you saw in the prequels. If it makes you feel any better, I can't enjoy Star Wars because it's derivative of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.
This criticism also does not take into account the nature of the Hero's Journey, which is the actual pattern of storytelling that both Tolkien and Jordan are following. If anything, The Wheel of Time as a whole is far more derivative of other series, particularly Frank Herbert's Dune.
Tolkien himself was not beyond deriving his storytelling from other works, as illustrated by the comment below:
I'm re-reading the Silmarillion and also reading City of God and WOW. I always loved it as a heroic tale, but there is just so much going on. Tolkien is basically laying out the Council of God and the reality of spiritual warfare in laymen's terms.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 30, 2026 10:21 AM (ZOv7s)
We could spend all day dissecting the derivativeness of various stories, going all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. That could be kinda fun! Have at it in the comments!
At the time Jordan was publishing his novel (1990), the epic fantasy landscape looked very different than it does today. Back then, there was an expectation from readers for a Tolkienesque fantasy story to kick off a new epic series. Tad Williams did it with The Dragonbone Chair in 1988, Raymond E. Feist did it with Magician in 1982, and Terry Brooks started the trend with The Sword of Shannara in 1977. Fans at the time responded overwhelmingly, and Williams, Feist, and Brooks all became some of the most successful fantasy authors of all time--because they started with a Tolkienesque fantasy novel. (Dennis L. McKiernan's Iron Tower trilogy was a little TOO Tolkienesque, as it was literally Lord of the Rings with the ISBN filed off, so he was not as successful as the other authors who took more creative liberties with the source material.)
2. Slow Pacing and Repetitive Travel
The novel is often described as a long road-trip/chase story with extended sections of walking, riding, camping, and moving between locations (Emond's Field to Shadar Logoth, to Caemlyn, etc.). Some find the middle sections, especially when the party splits or travels, meandering or dry, requiring patience before action picks up. The book is long (~800 pages in many editions), and the journey can feel padded.
I can understand this up to a point. Yes, when the main party splits up into three groups, there are chapters that seem like "filler" material because we have to follow three different storylines. These chapters do serve as sections where Jordan can provide *some* character development and readers get a better sense of the relationships between the main characters like Egwene/Perrin, Rand/Mat, and Nynaeve/Moiraine, all of which will be extremely important to the overall story. Personally, while the pacing does slow down in the middle section, I still enjoy those sections. Up until that point, the characters have been rushing through their adventure. Now we readers can get our breath back and start to focus on the actual characters. The pacing picks up at lightning speed at the end (see below).
3. Bland or Underdeveloped Characters
The main protagonists (especially the Emond's Field trio: Rand, Mat, and Perrin) are frequently called generic or uncompelling early on--naive, argumentative teenagers who make poor decisions. Supporting characters can feel archetypal, and some readers note a lack of humor, depth, or strong individual voices in the first book. Female characters are sometimes critiqued for description-heavy introductions focused on appearance.
So the main characters are behaving like teenagers--because they ARE teenagers? Color me shocked! Of course they are going to be acting immature and whiny from time to time. They are "diamonds in the rough." They have not been shaped by their adventures yet and they themselves have no idea who they are going to grow into as adults. That's part of the epic hero story. As it turns out, all of the teenagers from Emond's Field (Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwene) are going to develop into characters that will shake the very pillars of creation. Quite literally in Rand's case. But in the first book of a very long story, we are not going to get any of that. One of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire book occurs near the end of the series, in The Towers of Midnight. Perrin's story development concludes when he fully accepts his leadership role. He uses his blacksmith skills to forge a new weapon to be used in the fight against the Dark One, and in doing so he tranforms internally to become the man, the leader, the ruler he was always destined to be:
The tool he left behind was the hammer of a simple blacksmith. That person would always be a part of Perrin, but he could no longer afford to let him lead.
From now on, he would carry the hammer of a king.
That's where THIRTEEN BOOKS of character development takes you. Perrin goes from being an apprentice blacksmith in a small village to a general and a king, leading entire armies in the largest war seen in three thousand years. He then proceeds to unleash holy Light-blessed whoopass on the Shadow. It's awesome.
The supporting characters, being taken from the Hero's Journey, are there to provide guidance and training to the younger characters, to set them on their path. They have already accomplished much in their lives and are now passing on their knowledge to the next generation. Moiraine, Lan, and Thom (the older mentor characters) will have *enormous* influence on the growth and development of Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and, to a lesser extent, Nynaeve. But we won't see that until a few books later.
By comparison, the main young characters in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones(i.e., the Stark children and Daenerys Targaryen) are even younger than the Emond's Fielders from The Eye of the World. Harry Potter starts his epic journey when he's only eleven years old. Taran, the Apprentice Pig-Keeper from Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain starts out very young as well, though no age is given, nor do we even get a description of Taran's appearance.
4. Clunky Prose and Writing Tics
Jordan's style draws complaints for awkward phrasing, repetitive word choices (e.g., overuse of "though"), unnecessary adverbs like "wordlessly," and lengthy descriptive passages. While world-building is detailed, the prose can feel stiff or overly explanatory compared to more modern fantasy.
I can understand how the writing style might not be everyone's cup of tea. There are lengthy passages in later novels that could use tighter editing. No question about that. The Eye of the World is the first novel in the series, so there's always going to be some rough edges. Before Jordan wrote this novel, he'd been writing Conan stories. I have not read Jordan's Conan stories yet (on my TBR pile), but I have read many of Robert E. Howard's original stories, which feature the same stylistic choices that readers complain about in Jordan's writing. No doubt Jordan's attempts at emulating Howard's style to evoke a Conanesque story bled into his writing in The Wheel of Time.
There are plenty of successful authors whose style I don't enjoy, so I think it's very much a personal preference here. Which is fine. I tried reading N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season because I heard it was really good and I couldn't get past her writing style. I gave up after only a few chapters. I didn't even get far enough into the story to know what it was about.
5. Rushed or Anticlimactic Ending
After a long build-up, the final confrontation at the Eye of the World and resolution can feel abrupt, rushed, or less impactful than the preceding journey. Some readers sense the book was written to potentially stand alone while setting up a series, which weakens the payoff.
Of all the criticisms, I think this one has the best justification. Yes, the ending does seem quite rushed compared to the pacing of the earlier story. The first 43 chapters (over 500 pages) is spent just traveling from Emond's Field to the large city of Caemlyn, a journey that takes several weeks. Then the characters reunite and compare notes of their respective travels. At that point they have to rush to the very end of the earth to the climax, which takes up the last 100 pages or so of the book. It just moves so fast that readers can feel like the ending is very much rushed. All character development is dropped at that point and we are treated to numerous scenes of expository dialog as the meaning of the previous events is explained to the reader. This is a weakness that occurs in multiple novels of The Wheel of Time. I'd say that books 1, 3, and 5 in particular have weaker endings than books 2, 4, and 6. When Brandon Sanderson was tasked with completing the series after Jordan's untimely death, he broke up the finale into three books instead of Jordan's planned single novel, simply because the story NEEDED that much space to conclude the series.
And there you have it. Five reasons why you should NOT read Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World. I still say it's one of my favorite books of all time, but then I was Jordan's target demographic (a seventeen-year-old boy) when I first read it. It's stuck with me all these years. The second book, The Great Hunt, is even better.
ADDENDUM
Apparently YouTube is continually spying on me, because the following video showed up in my YouTube feed AFTER I wrote the above post. The YouTuber discusses his own thoughts on the subject of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and even addresses most of the same criticisms. Kinda eerie.
"What a joke," one Redditor recently wrote, claiming that, while they currently only pay around $29 per month, the new rate will balloon their costs to nearly $750 a month.
He posted this with a screenshot of his estimated bill... From a visibly unactivated version of Windows.
Another user posted "WOW, didn't expect new pricing model to be this ridiculous," sharing a screenshot that appeared to show that their costs had shot up from around $50 to some $3,000.
Both of them posted to Reddit, and both got dunked on for being obviously incompetent vibe-coders.
I use Claude Code. My company pays for the 5X plan, and I rarely hit the 1X mark. The people who do hit the limit are either experimenting - fair enough - or trying to tell the AI to generate an entire application with a single prompt, which just doesn't work.
A new x86-based laptop chip, specifically Medusa Halo, the successor to the Ryzen AI Max 395+. Up to 24 CPU cores and a bigger GPU upgraded from RDNA 3.5 to RDNA 5. Which would be great if anybody could afford a new laptop.
Updated handheld gaming things, using the new Panther Lake chips with the B390 graphics core, which is actually faster than AMD's mainstream integrated graphics. Which would be great if anybody could afford a new handheld gaming thing.
It has a 1920x1200 8" 120Hz display, up to 32GB of RAM, and an M.2 2280 slot for storage, along with Intel's new Arc G3 which is a low-power edition of the Panther Lake laptop chip with Arc B390 graphics.
What they're doing here is taking an existing multi-colour 3D printer (ideally you want a 5-colour model) and then feeding it CMYKW filament spools and printing your model in halftone using a 0.1mm screen.
That's not very high resolution but it helps that it's 3D so you get some colour from the obscured layers as well as from adjacent dots.
Really have to wonder what it does to performance though. 3D printers are slow enough as it is.
You can use it with existing filament, not just the new CMYKW spools designed specifically for the purpose, but you'll need to recalibrate the colour model.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: Eight nations though and all bets are off.
Saturday Night Club ONT - May 30, 2026 [D Squared]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. We built this place for you so you can have some fun. Or you can just relax like the doggeh above. Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Keep it light and friendly. Jerks need not enter the premises.
A man was sitting on a plane when the passenger next to him pulled out a laptop and started working nonstop.
After two hours, the man finally asked, "Wow... do you always work during flights?" The passenger sighed, "No, I'm just pretending to look busy so nobody talks to me."
The man nodded slowly and said, "That's smart." Then he sat quietly for a full minute before asking, "So... what are you working on?"
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Four beer company CEOs walked into a bar…
The CEO of Budweiser ordered a Bud Light.
The CEO of Miller ordered a Miller Light.
The CEO of Coors ordered a Coors Light.
The CEO of Guinness ordered a Coke.
The first three asked the CEO of Guinness why he didn't order a Guinness, to which he replied: "I figured if you 3 weren't ordering beer it would be rude for me to."
Mabon "Teenie" Hodges may have been small in physical size but his legacy was massive; his 50-year career and body of work serving as one of the cornerstones of the Memphis sound.
Mr. Hodges died Sunday night at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, from complications of emphysema. He'd been taken to Baylor following an appearance at Austin's South by Southwest music festival in March after coming down with pneumonia. He was 68 years old.
During Hi Records' glory years starting in the late '60s, Mr. Hodges wrote or co-wrote many classics of the R&B genre, including a succession of hits with and for Al Green: "Here I Am," "Full of Fire," "Take Me to the River" and "Love and Happiness."
In more recent years, Mr. Hodges had been the subject of a documentary by filmmaker Susanna Vapnek. Starting in 2008, Vapnek spent several years shooting Hodges in and around his Memphis home base, interviewing family, friends and collaborators, capturing recording sessions and piecing together a narrative of his life.
One of the documentary's funniest moments comes as Hodges lists the names of all the artists who covered his "Take Me to the River" (the Talking Heads, Annie Lennox, Tina Turner), before noting that the use of the tune by the animatronic singing toy "Big Mouth Billy Bass" had produced the biggest royalties. "What a world, what a world," Mr. Hodges would note, laughing at the brilliant absurdity of the situation.
*****
Club ONT Department of "I thought this was America"
A Pennsylvania man faces felony fraud, theft, and deception charges after state police accused him of illegally disguising a NASCAR race truck as street legal. Yancy Cupp of Williamsport allegedly swapped a Vehicle Identification Number plate onto the truck that did not belong to it originally. He reportedly then used that VIN to title the purpose-built track vehicle for road use.
Pennsylvania State Police issued a press release, saying the truck was advertised as a street-legal 1999 Chevy S10 in an eBay listing. The for-sale ad claimed the conversion was performed by its former NASCAR owner, though said former owner explicitly denied the claim. "A physical examination of the vehicle by investigators confirmed it was not street legal," the police wrote.
Photos show the truck when it ran at the NASCAR Bristol dirt race in 2023. It looks almost identical now, except the headlights and taillights are functional units; the truck's previous iteration only had stickers to make it look like they were present. The Silverado-bodied truck even runs the same 406-cubic-inch V8 as it did back in its glory days.
The major issue here, in the Pennsylvania State Police's eye, is that Cupp may have fraudulently installed a VIN plate from an unrelated vehicle.
That's why law enforcement has thrown the book at him. Officially, he's being charged with dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities; alteration or destruction of a vehicle identification number; theft by deception; forgery; criminal use of a communication facility; deceptive business practices; false application for a certificate of title or registration; tampering with public records; and board of vehicle violations.
Isn't the usual way to handle these kinds of situations to scrawl "FARM USE" on the side and carry on?
*****
Club ONT Department of Coincidental Locations
*****
Club ONT Department of Long Ago
If Club ONT could be teleported back in the 70s, which Hordeling do you think is most likely to want this vehicle?
In 1973, AMC and Levi’s teamed up for the wildest factory option ever: an AMC Gremlin with real denim seats, copper rivets, and classic jean stitching.
I usually talk about movies in the past. Movies in the long past most of the time.
But, I do keep abreast of current day movie news, and there have been some upcoming films that have intrigued me in certain ways.
But before I get to these specific examples, I wonder if I should be excited about movies in the future, movies that are sometimes not even in production yet and literally no one has seen (rough cuts aren't the film), or about movies from decades past that have existed for years and actually have great reputations but I just haven't seen yet.
Of course, online discourse trends towards the unseen. We know a movie is coming for months, even years, but no one can slam the door shut on the film in any way. Casting news, spy shots of set, rumors of story beats...it's just an endless stream of possibilities to grab onto for endless articles and videos whereas if you go and watch an old movie, well, that's it. You've seen it. You know if you like it or not, if you agree with the long-held generalized opinion, and it's done. It's a lot less fun than picking apart clues to try and come to a conclusion about if something is going to be good or not.
It's a game, a play in the zeitgeist, an effort to be part of an on-going conversation. It's not really about the movies themselves, but about connecting with other people. That's fine, but my concern is always about the movies themselves. So, I tend to be more excited about old movies I haven't seen than new movies that literally no one has seen (again, rough cuts without finished sound, effects, or music are not the film, they are rough cuts).
However, that being said, there are some movies I've heard about that have piqued my interest.
Roger Avary has been in the movie business for decades, mostly as a writer. He cowrote Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino, for which he won an Oscar. He's apparently had a dream of making a big-budget movie production of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost for a long time.
And he's recently signed an agreement with Ex Machina Studios studio to make it. The twist is that Ex Machina is an AI production house. They use AI tools to make videos. The studio frames themselves this way: that they endeavor to create “expansive worlds to be realized at a responsible budget while preserving the primacy of real actors, human-authored narratives, and guild-aligned production practices.”
Avary, who wrote Robert Zemeckis' film Beowulf says that he is “taking a more faithful approach at a fraction of the cost, using cutting-edge generative AI to bring Milton's vision to life in ways unimaginable just a few years ago.” Beowulf, for comparison's sake, had a reported budget of $150 million. A fraction of $150 million could mean nine-tenths, or it could mean one-tenth. It's not specified, but I imagine something along the lines of $30-50 million.
Why does this excite me?
Well, Avary may not be a premiere creative voice in American cinema (he wrote Silent Hill for pete's sake), but the ambition of the film interests me. The poem of Paradise Lost is large, includes a lot of weird sights, angelic and demonic battles, all told in that Middle English patois. It's...unusual for movies to take on something this big, this Biblical, and this strange on this scale. If Avary can find good uses of AI generated assets to bring down costs so that we can see more extremely ambitious projects that don't require the funding of a major Marvel movie to accomplish, then that's a potential beginning of a general trend that interests me.
Maybe even the movie will be good.
Elden Ring
Alex Garland is an interesting filmmaker. He started as a writer, mostly working with Danny Boyle on movies like 28 Days Later, he started as a director on the set of Dredd where, according to just about everyone on set, he took over directing duties for credited director Pete Travis. He then went off to make movies like Ex Machina, Annihilation, Civil War, and Warfare (which he codirected with Ray Mendoza, his military advisor on Civil War). Even Men, while it might not be successful overall, is interesting, especially when it comes to mood.
Elden Ring is a video game from the company From Software, written by George R.R. Martin, and part of a genre of games called Souls-like that have spare, implied stories, and are extremely difficult to play, focusing on very tough boss battles. I haven't played it, but I have played other From Software games (the first two Dark Souls games).
And A24, the art house horror studio is funding Alex Garland to make an adaptation of the game with the highest budget the studio has ever fronted at over $100 million.
The tone that Garland commands, the ever-increasing control of large budgets, and the fact that Garland is...interesting (he wrote the new 28 Years Later movies which, again, are interesting), even if not always successful makes the upcoming project just seem like it could be a unique tale. I think of the weird sense of unease through Annihilation, the body horror of Men, the moral quandaries of Ex Machina, and awesome action of Dredd, and the strong sense of story from the 28 movies, and I see a combination of factors that will just go well with the kind of worlds that From Software make.
Should be fun.
Citizen Vigilante
I went through a handful of Uwe Boll movies a few years ago, and I was done fairly quickly. He's a bad filmmaker with a terrible sense of humor who was using an exploit in German tax law to fund his films. Once that exploit got closed, he stopped making movies and became a restauranteur.
Armie Hammer is the son of an entertainment executive who became a decent-sized movie star through the 2010s, starring in films like The Social Network and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. His career completely derailed in 2018 when recordings of him playing out some weird cannibal fetish leaked, women accused him of abuse, and he lost all ability to get work in Hollywood. Reportedly, he sold timeshares for a little while to make ends' meet.
Well, both have come back with what looks like an absolutely awful vigilante movie. Trailer below.
I'm looking forward to this because it looks like an absolute trainwreck. Dialogue is bad and poorly delivered. Everything's too brightly lit and flat. The action looks unengaging. Should be fascinating to witness.
But, then again, I could just watch some other Uwe Boll film I haven't seen before and get the same experience without having to wait for it. Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.
Looking Ahead
I tried to find some movies ahead that I am both looking forward to in some what (yeah, Citizen Vigilante looks very bad), but that aren't actually being talked about much. Discussion of Elden Ring will go up next year closer to its release. Paradise Lost should go up once production actually starts.
In the near term, I have some hope for Disclosure Day because the early word is that it's good (early word is often wrong), and some leaking that it was some kind of secret sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (probably not true). Still, Spielberg walking away from pseudo-serious stuff to do some more suspense and scif-fi is something to look forward to.
In the Hand of Dante, which was bought by Netflix off the festival circuit, looks like it could be interesting, though I've heard it's something of a mess.
Young Washington is a movie by Angel Studios about George Washington in the French and Indian War that I'm mostly hoping stole the monster idea from my book Colonial Nightmare. I imagine the movie isn't going to be very good, but we'll see.
The End of Oak Street is the third film by It Follows director David Robert Mitchell, and the story of a neighborhood suddenly transported to a place with dinosaurs, and it could be fun.
The Uprising is the latest movie from Paul Greengrass, this time about a peasant revolt in England in 1381. No trailer or anything so far, but Greengrass interests me. He's like a less iconoclastic Costa-Gavras.
Wildwood is the latest stop motion movie from LAIKA studios, and the trailer looks good. The biggest letdown from LAIKA was The Box Trolls, but otherwise they've captured a bit of magic in a world that's largely forgotten that stop-motion animation can be wonderful.
Oh, and Robert Eggers has a new movie at the end of the year, Werwulf, which is going to be all Middle English monster movie. I'm not the biggest Eggers fan. I kind of find him frustrating (technically polished and intelligent while kind of empty emotionally), but he's unique and talented. I hope it does well.
The Revenge of Frankenstein (Rating 3/4) Full Review "I don't think the film is great. The drama isn't spectacular. It's mostly functional, but the effort is there and I think it all does come together in the end fairly well." [Roku]
I Only Arsked! (Rating 0.5/4) Full Review "Really, this is just kind of dreary. There's no anchor, no core, and no laughs. " [YouTube]
Yesterday's Enemy (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "I did not expect this little bit of WWII detour to be the real height of Hammer artistically, but that's what it's ending up being." [YouTube]
The Mummy (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "Still, that final act is really fun, Fisher flexing some genre muscles to bring some quality entertainment at the right time." [Library]
Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (Rating 3/4) Full Review "So, I think the end saves the film, in a weird way. It shouldn't. It's kind of horrible. But it's the right kind of horrible the story needs." [YouTube]
Please check out my videos from the last few weeks:
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
My next thread will be on 6/20.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. For this week, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) decided on a music logistics theme for this Hobby Thread.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. We have a theme, but no need to stick with the theme. Even if the theme does not speak to you, find something else or offer something else relating to hobbying. Leave politics and religion to threads elsewhere (unless your hobby is building or restoring a church). Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
I am otherwise occupied with our own hobbying activity, so unlikely to be very visible and active in the comments tonight. Please don't make a mess of the place.
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Your dino host couldn't carry a tune, even if it was wrapped securely and carried in a basket with handles. Reading music is a jumbled mystery of sharps, flats, circles, and squiggles. Your dino host is also unfamiliar with rigging, lights, sound boards, and pyro (but willing to learn more about the pyro). Dino has hidden rhythm that sneaks out from time to time, but we don't mention that in polite company.
The mechanics of music are fascinating. What does it take to make music? How does it all come together? What is the "click track" that musicians talk about? How do different instruments work? How are instruments made? How do acoustics work?
Looking for a lot of help in the gray boxes for this one. Rather than trying to describe further, the content should give you a better sense of the theme.
If you're saying "I can't keep a beat, I don't play music, I've never helped a musician, I don't know anything about instruments, I don't understand the logistics of putting on a show, and I have no interest in learning," feel free to turn this into a general music thread and seek professional help.
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Please stand for opening ceremonies.
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This is gibberish to me but apparently makes sense to people with knowledge of such things.
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Tried to find a good video that explains what musicians hear in their earpieces when playing a concert. Much harder than I thought it would be. Ended up with drummers and click tracks. Short answer - many bands use a digital metronome that plays a "click" to a set a steady tempo. Only the drummer (or sometimes others in the band) hear the click. Playing along with the click keeps the tempo steady for everyone. It can also keep the band in time with backing tracks and stage effects. (Every wonder how the lighting and pyro is timed to the music? A click track and a laptop allows pre-programming.) It isn't for everyone. Some bands improvise and the variability is part of the charm of playing live (looking at you Foo Fighters).
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Rick Beato seems to think this Abbey Road studio is a big deal.
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In 1976, Boston released one of the most iconic debut singles in rock history, but Boston wasn’t really a band. As Music Mongoose breaks down in their viral video essay, "More Than A Feeling" was almost entirely the work of one man, MIT-educated engineer Tom Scholz, who spent five years building the track in his basement, played most of the instruments himself, and convinced Epic Records they were signing a full group. Brad Delp's soaring vocals completed the illusion, and the result became one of the fastest-selling debut albums in history. It's one of rock's great origin stories.
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How does the Blue Man Group make their instruments?
Playing glassware (rather than drinking from them as God intended):
Can you break a glass with sound? Learn more here.
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Gotta have lots of bells to play something like this:
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Making cymbals:
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Doesn't everyone love a violin rescue story?
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Making sound:
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8000 pipes!
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Behind the scenes at a European dance festival:
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The Absurd Logistics of Concert Tours
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Time lapse from setting up a Rammstein show in Dresden:
Rammstein tours are a major project. Even if you're not a Rammstein fan but you like seeing the logistics of how a big tour is organized, you might like this documentary. Among other things, I learned they simulate the acoustics in each stadium and adjust the speakers to optimize the sound and avoid unwanted echoes.
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a color theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
— NiedermeyersDeadHorse aka NDH (@NiedsG) May 17, 2026
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Pet Science - there is quite a bit of detail if you follow the thread:
The research behind this is wild. A cat has about 470 taste buds. You have 9,000. A dog has 1,700. So the cat in this video can barely taste that pancake, and that is the whole reason it sniffs the thing like it might be poison while the dog just bites straight in.
All of our PetMorons this week are actually PetMoron Adjascent Animals!
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
This bobcat not really a pet but we see him regularly on the game cam.
- fd
WOW
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My wife watered her tomatoes this week, and noticed a few leaves were missing. We figured maybe the groundhog that lives under the shed may have munched on them, and put a little caging up to keep it out.
A few trail cam checks later...the groundhog had 6 babies. First time that's happened, and she's lived here for 4-5 years. Good thing I didn't plant much in the garden this year...they've demolished weeds around the raised beds, and are kinda cute and fun to watch (but not as cool as the fox babies we had last year).
Intrepid Liaison/Admiral Ackbar
So long tomatoes, hello groundhogs!
Might as well enjoy watching them!
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Guess who's back at By-Tor's house?
Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
I don’t know what this wild bush is but my mom used to say the strands looked like little chandeliers. Thank you for gardening thread. NorCal Sierra Nevada Foothills Lurker
Name that plant!
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History of Photography
From Dr_N0
Hi, KT … Here's a bit of interesting material about autochromes from Public Domain Review that the Saturday Readers will likely not have heard of - but will still be interested to learn about. There's so much to know and share about flowers that just never sees the light of day that it's good to see a venue like PDR present it for inspection. I hope things are going well for you, and you're still producing a KILLAH column every week. Good on ya!
Harold A. Taylor's Autochromes of California Flowers
(early 20th century)
Today, the Coronado Flower Show, hosted each spring in the small San Diego Bay resort town for which it is named, is the largest tented flower show in the United States. But when it began in 1922, the display was little more than a few shaded tables of wildflower arrangements; the pet project of the photographer Harold A. Taylor (1878–1960), who had arrived in California from England in 1896, at the age of eighteen.
A true working photographer, Taylor documented Yosemite National Park (developing in an onsite darkroom), historical Spanish missions up and down the Pacific coast, and took some of the earliest aerial photographs (many destroyed by a studio leak). As the Hotel del Coronado’s resident photographer, he captured visiting dignitaries; more informally, he immortalized sports teams for the local high school yearbook. His images illustrate volumes of poetry, a 1920 historical romance, and the 1916 “pictorial survey” of the San Diego Exposition. “No man has done more to exploit the attractions of southern California or to spread a more general knowledge of the beauty of its scenery”, wrote San Diego chronicler Samuel T. Black in 1913.
I hope you’ve had a wonderful day, another scorcher here ☀️ I have to say I was rather pleased with this bouquet 🙄😂 Clocking off early today. Enjoy your evening. Cheers 🥂 pic.twitter.com/cLYes7X1Rh
My cousin saved an amaryllis bulb from her grandmother’s funeral a decade ago. The blooms this year were spectacular. Wish this pic did them justice. Her granny would be so pleased.
A lovely flower. Amazing that it has persisted for a decade!
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
No, patriots, there is not an Israeli Bioterrorist on the loose in Vegas
—K.T.
Do you care about biolabs run by Chinese illegal immigrants?
On Thursday, J.J. Sefton included in his Morning Report this piece by Debra Heine:Sen. Sheehy Calls for IG Investigation of Montana Research Lab After Lapses Involving Deadly Viruses:
Senator Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) is demanding a government review of two incidents in the past year involving the “theft, loss, or release” of a deadly pathogen” at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research facility in Hamilton, Montana.
Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), an NIH lab, “conducts studies on some of the world’s most dangerous diseases, meaning even small lapses could put Montana communities at risk,” Sheehy said in a press release, Tuesday.
Even more concerning are reports that a senior RML scientist allegedly attempted to smuggle dozens of vials of VHF [viral hemorrhagic fever] into the United States from Africa in January and lied to customs officials about their contents.
"The authorities" don't seem to have their act together here. I'm in favor of looking for ways to decrease the size of government, but here it seems that agents of the government were endangering Americans.
BUT WHAT IF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT GETS EVEN STUPIDER?
The Montana cases above apparently involved personnel at a licensed NIH lab. What if there are unknown biolabs running in the country, perhaps even by hostile illegal immigrants from, say, China?
Well, we have watched that happen, too. "The authorities" may be starting to pay attention in this case. In February, Ace posted about a case that had familiar overtones: A Covert Chinese Lab Is Operating in Las Vegas and "Sickening" Nearby Americans
RedState's Jen Van Laar:
Several people who stayed at the Las Vegas home apparently doubling as an illegal Chinese biolab became sick after their visit, with two people becoming "deathly ill" a few days after entering the home's garage, according to documents reviewed by Las Vegas journalist David Charns.
And that's just the beginning of today's updates. We've also learned more about how investigators believe the equipment ended up at that home, the relationship between the property manager, Ori Solomon, and the Chinese scientist charged with running the lab, Jia Bei Zhu.
This is where the conspiracy theorists went into high gear, ignoring everything but headlines (and ignoring the nationality of the Chinese guy who owns the "lab") in order to post stupid rhetoric like, "Charges against Israeli biolab terrorist Ori Solomon were dropped by Israeli-born, Trump-appointed prosecutor Sigal Chattah. Her appointment as prosecutor was ruled illegal last year, but Trump ignored it."
The Israeli guy (whose visa was earlier reportedly due to expire this month) faced firearms charges and on June 4 will go to court on charges concerning disposal of hazardous materials. But he has not been charged with being a "biolab terrorist". The firearms charges have been dropped. The hazardous waste charges are state charges, much to the chagrin of the Jew-haters.
Ace noted the proximity of the "biolab" to an Air Force base. The Chinese guy who set up shop in Fresno, then in Reedley, may have had nearby military bases in mind there as well.
Then again, before turning his attention to human diseases, the Chinese "scientist" in charge of these labs reportedly wanted to take down the American dairy industry (even if he failed to do it from Canada). Fresno would be a good place to attack American dairies, too. You may want to double-check some of the information in this reporting, which suggests that the guy now in prison is really a danger to the USA. I think I believe a lot of it.
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Back in the summer of 2023, we (though not necessarily most of the national press) were focused on what the Chinese guy above had been doing in Fresno and Reedley, in California. As in this post: Playing Kick the Can: The Chinese Biotech Lab in Reedley
All quiet at Reedley Beach
Back then, local media and local officials were trying to get state and federal officials to pay some real attention to the alarming "lab" found in a warehouse in Reedley because a code enforcement officer saw a garden hose sticking out of the side of a warehouse. There had been no permits or notifications to the local government.
This scene doesn't seem to go very well with the idea of a Chinese biolab with 20 pathogens and unlabeled blood, tissue and serum containers, plus genetically engineered Covid-19 mice which were just thrown in household trash when they died.
The lab that was reportedly taken over by the lab that moved to Reedley (but who knows who owns it?) had an electrical fire in Fresno. Do you think that a former wholesale furniture warehouse in Reedley had adequate electrical fixtures for (reportedly) 37 freezers? They never got business or building permits.
Can you imagine a fire spreading pathogens into the community?
Last week, I wondered why it had taken so long for news about the Chinese lab to come out. The Mid Valley Times reports that "City Manager Nicole Zieba defends decision to not disclose the discovery of a an illegal lab in Reedley right away; situation stirs up a battle of 'protocol' versus 'public's right to know' "
When asked does not the public have the right to know what is happening in its backyard, particularly when that backyard is full of infectious agents, Zieba said that once investigators determined the public was not at any risk, it was paramount that nothing derail the investigations; even if that meant incurring the public's disdain.
"These investigations are still ongoing and are complex and comprehensive," Zieba said. "I believe the public is astute enough to understand that the more information that gets out to the public, the more the bad guys also know what we know. I think the public recognizes that."
She may have a point there. It is still difficult to determine who owns the lab, for example. The $360,000 tax credit Newsom gave to the bankrupt lab they took over was apparently not rescinded until June (even though the company had reportedly not met the milestones for the tax credit).
Zieba said she is upset that politicians are trying to make a name for themselves by criticizing the handling of the investigation. The bigger problem is the federal government and the fact there are no proscriptions preventing companies from doing what Prestige did.
Until Reedley.
"This company was already a bad player," said Zieba. "They got kicked out of Canada. They got kicked out of Texas. They go to California, they get kicked out of Fresno. They get kicked out of Tulare, they go back to Fresno. Get kicked out of Fresno and end up in Reedley."
Zieba continued, "We're the little David city that took down Goliath with a garden hose. We dismantled an entity that everyone else kicked down the road to someone else's town. I don't kick cans down the road."
"She uncovered a terrifying lab hidden in California, with alleged ties to China"
This rather lengthy (by today's standards) piece is mostly about the Reedley lab and what has been learned about the Chinese guy who ran it since the lab was discovered. Some of the details are very disturbing. Like this:
While living in China in the early 2000s, Zhu served as the vice chairman of the state-controlled enterprise, Henan Pioneer Aide Biological Engineering Co., and board chairman and general manager of Aide Modern Cattle Industry China Co., which was the primary shareholder of 11 cattle companies in China, according to the congressional report.
Zhu then moved to Canada and started doing business there, focusing on the cattle industry. In 2016, one of his businesses was ordered by a Canadian court to pay $330 million for allegedly stealing cattle-related technology from a U.S.-based company. It is not clear whether the business ever paid the judgment.
Amid the litigation, Canadian court records show, Zhu emailed a colleague: “The law is strong, but the outlaws are 10 times stronger.”
There are some details and photos from the Las Vegas raid included with the piece, too. I guess they help provide some more recent context for the article.
For two years Harper had warned federal agencies that there could be additional materials at the home in Las Vegas based on details she learned during the investigation in Reedley.
“I couldn’t get them to move on it,” she said. “The attitude really has been, well, we caught the guy. We did our part.”
A new search warrant was executed on the Reedley building after the Las Vegas raid.
And "The Authorities" have a second chance to ACTUALLY TEST samples found in one of these labs! And maybe keep that Chinese guy in prison for a while.
They broke out the robot dog and the drones this time. No use wasting that expensive investigation. The illegal immigrant they already have in prison was getting money and consideration from Gavin Newsom, the Chinese government and American customers. And there's so much we still don't know about him.
There was plenty of news this week, but meme creators were mostly focused on lesser stories, like Jill Biden’s recollection of her husband’s disastrous debate performance, which came as a surprise to everyone who hadn’t been paying attention for the previous four years. Good times! But what inspired memesters more than anything else was the candidacy of James Talarico, Democratic candidate for the Senate in Texas. Can a non-binary vegan be elected to the Senate from Texas? One certainly hopes not.
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Music
Don't sell your soul.
"Sold My Soul" is a dark, soulful journey down the Mississippi where deals are made in the shadows and the blues tells the truth. With gritty vocals, raw guitar, and haunting riverboat vibes, this track captures the spirit of a bluesman who traded everything for the music.… pic.twitter.com/DoMPAiivPm
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
[H/T Hour of the Wolf]
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Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Eau Galle)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice. Don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects? Highly frowned upon. And permanent records can be involved.
4) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
3/28 – Hrothgar asked for prayers for a dear and long time close friend and former neighbor, Daniel, who is scheduled for open heart surgery in mid-April. Prayers for his wife would be appreciated as well, as she will be carrying a heavy load for the next few months.
4/18 Update – Daniel survived his complex open heart surgery. He is sitting up and it seems like it went well, but they are not going to release him as quickly as he would like, so he is not happy. Thanks to the Horde for the prayers and please keep praying for his dear wife, who now has even more to put up with.
5/16 Update – Hrothgar sends thanks for the prayers for Dan. Thanks to his attitude and the miracles of modern heart surgery, Daniel is back home and in good spirits and mobile. He still has a lot of rehab ahead, but it sounds like a pretty good recovery to be home only 20 days after being on the table!
3/28 – Jordan61 posted that Mr. Jordan61 is back in the hospital. His sepsis has returned and gotten into where his compression fracture is, and he has vertebral osteomyelitis. The doctor is supposed to come in today and let them know the plan.
4/9 Update – On 4/1 Mr. Jordan61 was released from the hospital with six weeks of IV antibiotics, which Jordan61 is administering every 8 hours. He’s in a lot of pain; they’ve given him oxy, fentanyl, and dilaudid, and nothing seems to touch it. From what they were told, the pain won’t subside until the infection is cleared up. For the time being, he is bed-bound and they are limiting his movement as much as possible to keep the pain to a minimum. Jordan61 will send updates with progress.
4/25 Update – Mr. Jordan61 is making slow but steady progress. He can get up and walk for short periods of time, and can sit in the living room for an hour or so per day. He is halfway through the IV antibiotics, with 3 weeks to go. A physical therapist will be coming to help him build strength and learn how to move without aggravating his back injury. Thank you all for the prayers!
5/26 Update – Mr. Jordan61 had his last antibiotic infusion on 5/24 and his PICC line was removed on 5/26. He will have follow-up blood work in 2 weeks but for now, all looks good!
4/3 – Teresa in Fort Worth posted an update. Her chemo seems to be holding things steady for now. Unfortunately, as she is receiving a steroid, she has gained about 25 pounds. Her blood sugar has also jumped up about 40 points (which only happens when she is on steroids).
4/24 Update – Teresa in Fort Worth provided an update: The pump that was put in to battle cancer in December can only be used for 6 months. After that, it starts to damage the liver. So she may have to go back onto the medication that made her lose her hair and messed up her vision and nails, and then return to this medication after a break. This is not good news, since this new medication is working so well. But for now, she is doing well and is incredibly grateful for the time that she has been given so far.
4/11 – Eromero craves prayers for Mrs. E., as she has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She begins infusions on 4/23.
4/25 Update – Mrs. E. reports that she feels fine. Praise be to God that she has had only one distressful episode during the infusions. Thank you for all the past and continued prayers.
4/18 – neverenoughcaffiene asked that Devyn be kept in prayers. She is a young mother of 2 with a mass on her esophagus. The Doc said it was scar tissue and hopefully the second opinion will agree.
5/23 Update – Devyn had the biopsy and is waiting for results. Prayers are appreciated.
4/18 – Smell the Glove could use some prayers as therapy and rehab occur after gout/sepsis.
5/2 Update – The gout has cleared and the infection in the lower back is healing.
5/18 Update – Smell the Glove may be out of rehab this week, but still would need wound care at home. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes!
4/18 – Sam Adams requested prayers for a friend, Mary F, who was just sent to a long-term recovery facility after having a tracheostomy.
5/2 Update – Mary’s breathing is improving, and they are weaning her off assisted breathing. She is now off the ventilator for 12 hours a day, and they are aiming for 14 hours soon. Many thanks to all of the Moron Horde for the prayers.
4/24 – Notsothoreau asked for prayers for a friend’s father (Cory), who needs prayers for strength and peace as he is going through some troubled times.
4/27 – Matthew Kant Cipher sent his thanks to those who prayed for his friend Layne (who is also his son’s FIL). The Horde may recall that in August, Layne was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He has since undergone courses of chemo, immunotherapy, and radiation. His latest scans came back clean. The cancer is in remission; praise be to God! Prayers are also humbly requested for Mrs. MKC, who is dealing with a new flare-up of a GI condition that had been leaving her alone until a recent procedure re-aggravated it. It is very frustrating/discouraging as she waits to see a new GI doctor.
4/25 – Retired Buckeye Cop asked that we would continue to lift his 16 year old grandson (LH) up in prayers, as LH continues to consider the call to priesthood in the Catholic Church. LH recently went to a meeting with a group of young men who are considering the priesthood.
4/25 – Fenelon Spoke asked for prayers for “I”, who Fenelon visited and anointed with oil, and prayed for healing of her health concerns.
5/2 – neverenoughcaffiene requested prayers for parishioners at her church, who lost their newborn daughter, Astrid.
5/7 – turambar asked for prayers for relatives. Mom needs prayers as she was admitted to the hospital to check her heart and cardio. They did not find pneumonia. Two months ago, she fell at her assisted living place, and broke her hip. She also has dementia. Turambar’s uncle fell recently and broke his hip, too.
5/9 – D asked for prayers. He was let go from his IT job and has started a business making and selling lens cleaners to make ends meet. Please contact Annie’s Stew if you’d like more information – either to order lens cleaners, or if you’d like to contact him related to IT job openings (DBA/Network Admin).
5/11 – rez986 asked if anyone had an update on Neidermeyer’s Dead Horse’s health. The last info Annie’s Stew has was from January, 2026, that he’d been given 6 months to live due to heart failure and was being treated and waiting for a transplant at Mayo.
5/16 Update – Dash my lace wings! posted that NDH is recovering well. IrishEi posted that NDH did receive a heart transplant and that she is doing well. She also posted a link to NDH’s X account, and her fundraising page.
5/23 – rez986 sent thanks for the updates on NDH. It is much appreciated.
5/15 – Toad-O requested prayers for his second ex-wife, the mother of his two children. They were divorced 25 years ago, and 3 years later, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the children came to live with Toad-O. The ex-wife is now suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s, and has been living with Toad-O’s daughter and her husband. The ex-wife fell last month and and cracked 2 vertebrae, and just was taken to ER with a rapid heartbeat and low blood pressure due to dehydration. Prayers are appreciated for her and also for the daughter who has sacrificed a lot to care for her.
5/16 – Anna Puma requested prayers for the family of Dan Fordice, who was killed when the aircraft he was flying crashed. He leaves behind a wife, 3 children, and many friends. He was a Warbird flyer, a CEO, and a veteran of the 2/20th SFG.
5/16 – Tonypete asked for prayers for Jane who is dying of breast cancer, and for Cheri who is in jail (again) for drug related crimes.
5/20 – D gave an update on his wife Susan and her continued battle with cancer. Her cancer markers are still headed in the right direction. She is on a new antibiotic, and it is causing some side effects, but it is keeping her out of another surgery, so that is a win. Thanks again to everyone for their prayers. May 1 marked one year since they found out about the cancer, and Susan is doing so well.
5/20 – E gave an update. She and her family were having financial struggles a few months ago, and asked for prayers. E sends her thanks for the prayers, and wanted to let people know that things are getting better, thanks to the Horde’s prayers and their church family. They have resolved their mortgage issue and her husband has resumed his side gig making deliveries. They are also cutting monthly expenses. They would like continued prayers as they deal with the insurance company of the person who crashed into (and totaled) E’s vehicle. Insurance only offered half the replacement value, so that struggle is still going on.
5/23 – San Franpsycho sent a praise report. His prayer to become a grandad has been answered, and Girl F will have a baby in December. Girl F still plans to attend grad school, but will delay a year, which means they will depend on them for child care. This pleases San Franpsycho to the nth degree!
5/23 – Vmom deport deport deport would appreciate prayers. She has been freaking out about her eyesight. Her eye doctor says she has myopic macular degeneration.
5/23 – I used to have a Different Nic could use some prayers as he waits for the results of a biopsy of a mass on his prostate.
5/23 – George V sends his thanks for the prayers on behalf of his wife, when she had a heart valve replacement. The procedure went very well and she is doing great in the rehab program. But prayers are still needed. There are indications of problems in her lymph nodes that showed up in the scans checking her heart. She will have a biopsy in June, as well as a biopsy on a skin lesion that is looking suspicious. Thank you for all prayers.
5/26 – Doof posted a request for prayers for his mom. She is back in the hospital. She is very weak from one or more infections, and is sleeping a lot. She isn’t really talking when she is alert for a few minutes.
5/27 – Grannysaurus Rex asked for prayers for Sherry, a co-worker, who is being tested for possible cancer of the blood.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
In the comments yesterday, Seth asked:[quote>Regarding Anthropic and their IPO. Why the statement as to it crashing?[/quote>Which is a fair question because Anthropic's Claude Code is actually a useful product and well worth the $20 per month.
And the answer is that Anthropic (and likewise OpenAI) spend a lot more than $1 to make $1 in revenue. Subscription plans in particularly are wildly unprofitable; it's the much more expensive per-token charges on their API services that make the balance sheets look less insane.
And if they hiked their subscription fees by around 1000% to reflect the real cost of the services, they'd lose the bulk of their customers, which would just make things worse because the training costs for new AI models are fixed regardless of how many people are using them.
The "security researcher" in question is anonymous and definitely no White Hat. The moment "Nightmare Eclipse" finds a security flaw, he goes public with it, regardless of the chaos that might ensue.
On the other hand, Microsoft could do well to put fewer security flaws in their code in the first place.
This is a bigger problem than ChatGPT, and a bigger problem than most people realise.
Traditional computer programs have code and data. The code tells the computer what to do; the data tells it what to do it to. And you never mix the two up. When you do - because of course that happens - your get a security problem and you fix it. Languages like Rust, Ada, and Java are designed to prevent that happening in the first place.
LLMs have a training set, and then after that everything is data. There's no fundamental distinction between the system prompt which tells the LLM how to deal with your prompt, or the skill file attached to application you're trying to work with, or the data in the application itself. There's just a sea of tokens.
And if you use an LLM to try to sniff out problems with prompts or skill files or datasets, a malicious actor can use any of those to infect your AI security system.
This comes back to the problem I mentioned with ClawHub, a repository for sharing open-source skill files for AI agents. They were using a security scanner, but it only checked the first 10,000 characters of each file to avoid blowing the its context window - the amount of data it can consider in one place. (LLMs are bad at chunking.)
So all a hacker needed to do was put their malware anywhere after the first 10,000 characters.
But worse than that: They could put malicious code in the file crafted not to infect users but to infect the security scanner itself, and from there they could slip anything in.
There's no known solution to the problem; it's like trying to teach people not to do stupid shit. The workaround is to limit the damage the agents can do, like not giving a toddler your car keys.
x32 lets developers work with 64-bit data but only use 32-bit addresses, the idea being that this uses less memory while providing the same performance as full 64-bit mode.
Only problem is, nobody uses it. And it's Linux-only; neither Windows nor MacOS provides an equivalent mode of operation.
Did some work on my own blog today, which somehow resulted in it going offline for about fifteen minutes. There was a long-existing problem with various log files (both application and database) growing to enormous sizes, and since the containers and since the containers are snapshotted and backed up daily, it was a lot of work to clean up afterwards.
That's now automated, with proper log rotation.
And then I cleared out a terabyte of backups and snapshots which pretty much froze ZFS for the entire server for a good ten minutes.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: Welcome mats are a plot by Big Vampire.
[W]hat's driving the popularity of a professional 21st Century clown like Pratt, with no experience in government, over a thoughtful, if imperfect, standard issue Democrat like Bass, in her nice professional pantsuit? In Los Angeles?
Well, I think it's basically something like this: there really still just is tremendous political alpha in getting on stage and telling the truth. But in local politics it also matters what you're telling the truth about, and a soccer mom of two will never care about Donald Trump while a meth addict's shitting in her driveway.
...]
If you had to distill all of this criticism into something coherent, I think it might just be that Pratt reminds libs of Donald Trump, who they hate, and he talks about crime, which is bad for lib politicians? People also have a lot to say about the AI-generated campaign advertisements fans have produced on Pratt's behalf, which many pundits incessantly credit to the candidate himself. But it's not clear why they hate these things other than their general appearance of effectiveness, and, again, Pratt has nothing to do with them. Still, I do agree the guy's a little bit like Trump, just not in terms of disposition or, from what I can tell thus far, any of Trump's most popular positions.
Pratt is another funny, charismatic white guy from the world of entertainment who obsessively discusses an extremely popular issue we are not, as good upstanding people in a one-party state controlled by the DNC, supposed to discuss. In the case of Trump in 2016, that issue was immigration. To a certain extent, Trump's winning issue continues to be immigration. But for Pratt, the winning issue is the obvious fact that many of LA's homeless 'victims,' who Americans are expected to imagine as exclusively a class of sweetspoken, down-on-their-luck single mothers, are in fact violent drug-addicted criminals.
Running as a Democrat in a city controlled entirely by Democrats, from the bureaucrats who run the place to the reporters who cover the bureaucrats, is mostly a sweet gig. But when things start to crumble as badly as they have in Los Angeles, and you've completely defeated the neutered Republican Party you're supposed to keep around for purposes of witch burning, the act of noticing problems becomes taboo.
An honesty taboo, if you will.
It truly feels like we're all expected to lie. We're expected to understand the good people are in charge, and they are doing their best, and any pointing out of their (many, many (MANY)) enormous failures can only help the bad people. Then, we are expected to believe the bad people will lead us to some truly heinous moral horror merely in the name of baseline functioning government. I understand this seems ridiculous, but I genuinely do think it constitutes the underlying psychology of a one-party town, in which not even Democrats are supposed to tell the truth.
...
Nothing has thus far painted a starker difference between the taboo-shattering Pratt and the incumbents who torched LA than the sitting councilwoman, herself responsible for a myriad of the city's problems, who is somehow framing herself an outsider in the race for mayor.
Bass is currently talking about how nice the city was when she was growing up, forgetting that she's been the mayor for almost four years, and Democrats have controlled the mayoralty since 2001.
So she's promising to return to the city to its glory days... before one-party Democrat rule.
And she's saying she'll address all of the problems she left unaddressed for almost four years.
...
When you shatter the honesty taboo and talk about problems created by the One Party, most people simply will not give a shit that you're a reality television star who clocks as just a little bit retarded. This is because the average person is starved for the truth, and if you tell it to them they will find you intriguing, fascinating, mesmerizing. Then, a good amount of people will decide that you're a hero. In 2026, heroes are memed, and in this age of attention he who is memed makes money.
...
Obviously, there's something a little bit retarded about choosing a former reality television star with no experience to run the second largest city in the country. Like, no shit, if a sane person with a lot of experience running a city who agreed crime should be illegal and reservoirs should be filled with water were an option, he'd be the obvious choice. But he's not an option, and we're living in a world post-Obama. Is the prospect of a reality television star in office somehow really more ridiculous than a "community organizer" like Karen Bass? Or a former rap star turned, for like five minutes, state assemblyman like Mamdani?
I agree wholeheartedly with this. In 2016, I desperately wanted a candidate who adopted Trump's positions but who was a more professional, less impulsive, more disciplined version of Trump. That option was not available (though I kidded myself into thinking that Ted Cruz would fit this unmet need).
At some point, the political establishment of the Uniparty will have to accept that simply insisting we have to vote for the buttoned-up stuff shirt who will sell us down the river because look, his stuffed shirt is so nicely buttoned up!, is not a winning message.
Ask John Cornyn.
BEHOLD THE TASTEFULLY-CREASED TROUSER
AND BE JOYOUS, PEASANTS!
...
Is this not the defining aspect of our culture today? Politicians will stand up and say the most retarded things ever said in their position, but they will dress well, they will say these things with an aesthetic of thoughtfulness, they will not violate the honesty taboo, and we will be expected to support them over the 'bad guy' who thinks the local hobo jerking off under a bridge should pack his shit up and go.
...
Alas, we are not living in the thinking man's world this summer. This is Pratt Summer. And I'm feeling just a little bit retarded myself.
Greg Gutfeld: “The politicians all from the same mold in a way. Why can’t we just go back to normal people?”
Spencer Pratt: “I keep getting asked, ‘What politicians do you look up to?’ I’m like, ‘I hate these people.’ What are you talking about? These people let my house, my… pic.twitter.com/dZBe5uinu2
Greg Gutfeld: "I walk around New York... I see a half n*ked crazy motherf*cker on the street shooting up or taking a crap. Like you're saying that."
Spencer Pratt: "My campaign now, how I identify, besides being the common sense American, it's the look around candidate. You look around and see with your own eyes what I am saying. And it's true."
"That's why I'm going to win, because my opponents just lie and they've had 10 years combined that they have created everything that they are looking around, and seeing."
"No more of this, we're going to stop this. We're going to get all of the tax money that these two have been stealing to put these n*ked drug addict zombies that are going number two and number one in front of your houses, your businesses, maybe trying to machete you or st*b you. We're going to get them mandatory medical treatment. Not an empty bed. They need help to get off f*ntanyl and super m*th."
Greg Gutfeld: “I walk around New York… I see a half n*ked crazy motherf*cker on the street shooting up or taking a crap. Like you’re saying that.”
Spencer Pratt: “My campaign now, how I identify, besides being the common sense American, it’s the look around candidate. You look… pic.twitter.com/5waZTfPaeA
Greg Gutfeld asked Spencer Pratt if there is anyone who was affected by the fires in Los Angeles who are still voting for Karen Bass.
Pratt said he is in a constant battle against those who blame "climate change" for the fires and refuse to see the failures of Bass.
PRATT: "There's definitely lunatics."
"Their houses didn't burn down but they could have been saved by the U.S. Forest Service, who came in to save the day."
"But these people have convinced themselves the palisades burned down because of climate change and these imaginary hurricane winds that did not exist..."
"So for them, they go, oh, it's the winds. And it was the climate change. That's what it was."
"It wasn't that Mayor Bass was drinking in Ghana and defunded the firefighters by $17 million, that the fire chief said we needed to keep everyone safe."
"Or that her Janisse Quiñones, the LADWP CEO that got $750,000 -- drained both of the reservoirs that were for wildfire protection."
"So, I don't know why that message isn't getting to them. I keep trying to say that out loud a lot."
So yes, Democrats continue to claim that the fires were caused not by a leftwing arsonist who shares their admiration of the murderer Luigi Mangione, but by "global warming."
And they continue pretending that no one could have stopped the fires, even if the reservoirs had been filled, because "hurricane force winds" would have prevented helicopters from flying.
As Spencer Pratt said, correctly, during the debate, the winds never went above 35 mph on the first night of the fires. Helicopters could have easily flown, so yes, the disastrous decision to empty the reservoirs, which had been created precisely to fight fires, could have stopped the fire early.
Bonus: About the other Democrat plant in the race, communist incompetent and DEI clown Nithya Raman.
She's been on the LA City Council for five years, after carpetbagging her way in. She has been a partner with Karen Bass in creating the disaster.
And maybe is still a partner with Bass: Spencer Pratt says that insiders tell him that Bass recruited her ally Nithya Raman to "run against her," hoping that Raman would take second place and keep Spencer Pratt out of the run-off.
I believe him.
Protesters staged a simulated homeless encampment around Nithya's home so that she could experience the chaos and menace of strangers living outdoors on your street the same way Los Angelenos have to.
She is now whining to the media -- who amplifies this whine for her -- that this "crosses a line."
She says this threatens her family.
Except... people with families have been complaining about homeless criminals shooting up heroin and shitting in the street right outside their children's schools. Nithya blocked a regulation that would outlaw homeless encampments being any closer than 500 feet to a school -- which would still be menancingly close -- saying that it she didn't thing 500 feet would matter as far as safety.
But put up a fake homeless encampment of non-drug-addicted bums outside of her house, and boy oh boy, would she like that 500 feet of distance.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! Spencer Pratt just DROPPED THE MIC after they played the clip of Nithya Raman saying, 'he doesn't have the experience' to be mayor
"That woman has had almost 5 YEARS. She's been the chair of the homeless housing department for the last 3 years. The drug addicts that are attacking moms that are NAKED in front of kids, that is on HER and Mayor Bass."
"This is a woman who fought in her own district for moms that didn't want drug addicts selling drugs, being naked in front of kids in front of the school."
"She's fighting them on camera saying there's no difference between one foot and 500 feet to have naked drug addict encampments in front of kids!"
"So when these people talk, you're literally listening to a lunatic...she's not even going to be a conversation. We should just focus on Bass."
Spencer Pratt schools NBC reporter who wants to know if he’s running for LA Mayor just to promote his “brand."
Reporter: “Man, your brand is hotter than ever!"
Pratt initially talks about getting in the race after losing everything in the fires.
The ULA rocket just launched Thanks to Joyenz The rocket's enormous engines are fueled by "the volcanic heterosexual lust between James Talarico and his Neighbor With a Uterus 'girlfriend'" I hope Amazon's rocket works better than the Amazon Prime app does as far as allowing people to watch the black and white version of "Spider-Noir"
From the CA Post:
Spencer Pratt is now Karen Bass' biggest headache.
A bombshell California Post poll conducted with McLaughlin & Associates shows the reality TV star-turned-mayoral candidate has surged to a statistical tie with the incumbent mayor.
And voters blame homelessness, affordability and the direction of Los Angeles as the reason for turning on Bass.
Pratt now leads the field with 30.1% support, compared with 29.5% for Bass, setting up a razor-thin race heading into next week's primary.
Socialist councilwoman Nithya Raman sits in third place at 23.4%.
Thanks to beckster
Just like "Spartacus" Corey Booker, now that James Talarico is running for a higher office, he unveils his previously-unknown "girlfriend" and hooboy, it just so happens she used to work for him, and, get this, likes to "dance the night away" at gay bars Gee I wonder where they might have met Oh and she's a vegan
When Corey Booker needed a "girlfriend," he conjured up known LGBTQ activist Rosario Dawson. How convenient that when these guys need a girlfriend to show off to the normies that just happen to find an activist with a strong history of and interest in Supporting Gay Men But seriously, this James Talarico romance with a Neighbor with a Uterus is a love story for the ages. The passion of their lovemaking is hotter than a blue star with a core of Primordial Sex Atoms created in the Big Bang
Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.
He's referring to three mass attacks committed by white men in, oh, the past six or eight years. There were a huge number of mass shootings and bombings he had to skip over to cherry pick three committed by white men. Which kind of makes me think that "white men" are not the greatest terrorist threat in our country.
No, I doubt he'll be a guest on Tucker Carlson. The only thing that Tucker clings to that he claims makes him "conservative" is a palpable hatred of gays. Any time there's a communist enslaving their population and executing dissenters and conservatives, Tucker praises that dictator by saying "at least he represses the homos!"
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton discuss the newest iteration of the Iranian negotiations, with the hope that the President will stick to his guns and get rid of the nuclear material, Minneapolis mayor Frey is scum, and an idiot, Artificial Intelligence, and more!
Polls close in Texas at 7pm local (8pm for the East Coast). Vote the RINO out.
Those of you who are longtime Not Watchers of Stephen Colbert will not enjoy this flashback of Colbert dancing with Chuck Schumer while wearing ostentatious covid masks
Rush Limbaugh was an innovator in so many ways, including being among the first to not watch Stephen Colbert
DNI Tulsi Gabbard tenders her resignation for June 30, says her husband has been diagnosed with a rare bone cancer and she will have to help him through this
Podcast: CBD and Jim Lakely of The Heartland Institute chat about Heartland's two recent discussions: The affordability crisis in America, and The UN retreating from their most maniacal climate projections. Along the way we talk Democrat insanity and the changing electoral map...and more!
