The main battlefronts in our societal dissolution are mass looting sprees across the nation and the perpetual mass insanity of Chinese COVID fear porn. This time, it's the Omicron variant. The "Xi" variant was nixed by the Chinese-run Word, I mean, World Health Organization for some unknown reason. Hmm. In any case, over the past few weeks the consensus, at least around here, was that poor man's Mengele, Anthony Fauci, had seemingly outlived his usefulness to the junta as the confirmation about the origins of the Chinese virus actually was - gasp! - China, and that Fauci and company used American taxpayer dollars to actually funded the Chinese lab in Wuhan and who the hell knows where else in that G-d forsaken accursed land to conduct research in weaponizing coronaviruses for biological warfare purposes. Mission accomplished.
I view the leadership of that country as power-mad, amoral, soulless G-dless fiends willing to do anything and everything to quite literally conquer the world. And isn't this really the story of the Democrat Party, and Islam? Ironically, the actual Chinese COVID-19 virus has proven to be about as lethal to the general population as the most virulent strains of seasonal flu. Something like 0.06% IFR or thereabouts. I don't give a flying fuck about how fast it can spread, infection rates, the case numbers, and most of all the death statistics. We know for sure that the WHO as well as our own corrupt HHS, CDC, NIH and all the rest of these bureaucracies and sadly greedy hospitals and healthcare providers are counting those poor souls who died WITH the virus as having died FROM the virus.
The virus itself is relatively harmless; yet another cause of death among the litany of things natural or manmade that potentially can kill you (especially for the elderly and immunocompromised). What it did do was, in effect, create a global societal upheaval that truly evil people here and abroad have used - and continue to use - as a pretext to destroy our freedom and then remake society in the way they think it should be organized. Naturally with them at the top.
So, Psaki-Psircling back, the usual suspects with their willing mouthpieces in the agitprop media are doing the Chicken Little boogaloo about Omigod Omicron! Yet it's still Fauci being trotted out in front of the cameras to proclaim himself Minerva (with the teeny-tiny penis) and anyone who dare challenge him as a blasphemer. The fucking gall of this criminal is radiant, and yet still he persists.
If you just look at the science, the longer a virus persists in the environment, the weaker it gets thanks to, wait for it, herd immunity as well as the natural resistance of those who were infected or even became symptomatic. As it mutates into other variants, it gets weaker and weaker with each passing one, until over time it's essentially gone from the environment. This has been the case since long before even Lucy tripped the light fantastic in Olduvai Gorge as she and Moonwatcher took windy walks to gape at the Monolith. Perhaps hundreds of millions or even a billion years before primordial cellular life started to diverge.
Though the so-called "experts" suggest people shouldn't call flash mob looting "looting" because it's allegedly only used to describe "people of color or urban dwellers" who are engaging in such behavior (it's not), that is indeed exactly what's been happening at an elevated level especially in states like California over the last couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, things took violent and deadly turns last week when security guard Kevin Nishita, who was providing armed security for KRON4 on behalf of Star Protection Agency, was shot Wednesday as an assailant(s) tried to steal the news crew's equipment while they were filming from the scene of a prior flash mob looting incident in downtown Oakland. Sadly, Nishita died early Saturday morning:
The victim is Kevin Nishita. He leaves behind a wife, two children and three grandchildren. Nishita worked as an armed guard for Star Protection Agency. Prior to working as a guard, he served as a police officer at the Oakland Housing Authority, Hayward Police, San Jose Police, and the Colma Police departments. A reward of $32,500 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.
In another violent incident, a security guard was assaulted Wednesday after a flash mob of looters crashed a Nordstrom's department store at Topanga Mall in Los Angeles . . .
. . . The incidents are too numerous to mention in one piece but they all have one common denominator: The vast majority are happening in Democrat-run cities/states. In California in particular, some are blaming the spike in crimes involving "smash and grabs," other robberies as well as the rise car break-ins on "woke" District Attorneys who tend to take lenient approaches towards the accused/convicted that other prosecutors have acknowledged have only led to more crimes and more victims.
This is what happens when insane Marxist ideologues are "elected" as district attorneys and attorneys general; they unleash hell on the general population, up to and including Darrell Brooks who last week committed an act of mass terrorism with nary a peep out of the media. Or worse, the media blaming the SUV and not the cancer behind the wheel. Meanwhile, Kyle Rittenhouse has had his life destroyed because, remarkably considering the brainwashing of the past 2-3 generations of our children, decided to go to Kenosha last year not to Burn Loot and Murder, but to defend the lives and property of the citizenry from this wave of terror, ultimately having to use lethal force to save his own life.
And make no mistake; that wave of terror if not organized by the highest echelons of the anti-American Left including the Democrat Party, was cheered on as a means, along with the lockdowns and the evisceration of the wafer-thin election integrity laws on the books, to destroy Donald Trump's re-election chances.
I'll state it right here; This current crime wave is either directly organized or at the very least approved of as a weapon of political terror. They want another Kyle Rittenhouse to defend himself or property as a pretext to grab weapons, make mass arrests and so on. Not only because they fear not just 2022 and even 2024, but they fear that everyone sees who and what they really are and what their intentions are. Worse for them, that in the wake of the 2020 election theft and everything that came after, more and more of the general public are slowly realizing that when Democrats are in power, the world - their world goes up in flames. And that pairs will with "Omigod Omicron! The sky is falling! Mask up! Shoot up! Lock down!"
Yes, the Dems fear an election wipeout but the real fear now is the frog not only trying to jump out of the cauldron, but if it does, it will grab the nearest knife or AR-15 and shove them into the pot, slam on the lid and crank up the heat. The question is, considering the absolute stranglehold the left has on the levers of power and mass communication, as well as the instrumentalities of power disguised as legitimate governmental institutions, do we as a mass of people have the ability and crucially the will to overthrow them, regardless of what that might require and the consequences?
Note, regardless of how you purchased it, please leave a review on Amazon as it helps boost visibility while putting me on Moloch Garland's watch list. Win-win!
"A total of seven children are still recovering in the hospital one week after a crazed driver [who intentionally attacked white people on a Democrat-Leftist instigated terrorist attack] plowed through revelers at an annual Christmas celebration in the Milwaukee suburb, killing six people and injuring more than 60 others." 9th Child Discharged From Hospital One Week After Waukesha Christmas Terrorist Massacre
Lloyd Billingsley: " . . . But callous to victims of the "tragedy" that "occurred" in Wisconsin." Kamala Kind to Killers
AMERICA, AND THE WORLD, IMPRISONED: CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
"They're now trying to shut down everything again and make the world safe again for private jet-flying elites to escape from voters . . . the taste of totalitarian control has only whetted the desire for more, with the thought of destroying those 'deplorable' productive citizens of the middle class as an added bonus." Who Nu?
"From the moment the World Health Organization last May announced its decision to name new variants of the virus causing [Chinese] COVID-19 after letters of the Greek alphabet, it was only a matter of time until the sequence reached the letter spelled 'Xi.'" Chinese COVID Variant Xi? No, Rules the World Health Organization
"If it's 'effective' to wear a mask in a TSA line three inches from a dozen people you've never seen before, it's just as "effective' to wear a mask three feet away from your colleagues. (it doesn't do jack shit, except to identify those who go along and those who are enemies of the State - jjs) Biden's Special-Interest Science: Only Airlines Escape His Vaxx Mandate
"We're in a strange time in which we're lectured we're not supposed to care about 'stuff.' Material goods shouldn't matter, we're told by people who have far more material goods than most people. . . Things don't matter as much as people, of course. I would set fire to every single item I own to protect my family. But history shows us that after the stuff goes, people often follow." "It's Not Just "Stuff" -- The Goods People Work Hard For Matter, Despite Left Lunacy
EDUCATION, AND WHAT PASSES FOR IT
"The request called for records dating back to Jan. 2020 in elementary, middle, and high school, according to the Mohrman, Kaardal, & Erickson letter. Specific words that the group was concerned about included 'equity, social justice, cultural competency, race, intersectionality, or CRT.' Many of these concepts are linked to the core tenets of critical race theory." Minnesota Public School District Tried To Charge Concerned Parents More Than $900,000 For Records
"Even as they succeeded in destroying the U.S. economy and weaponizing public schools, they may unintentionally have set the U.S. on a new and wonderfully beneficial path: Turning women into stay-at-home mothers who have removed their children from the state's indoctrination." (that will be outlawed soon enough - jjs) Is There a Wholly Unexpected Benefit From the Left's Chinese COVID Madness?
"An activist fighting Bill de Blasio's plan to scrap merit-based K-12 programs looks back on the last three years." New York's Parent Revolt
"Schools could see vast improvements in academic performance if they took education research seriously." Hooked on Bad Pedagogics
AMNESTY, IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY
Robert Spencer: "A man named Ajmal Amani, screaming 'Allahu akbar,' charged at police with a large kitchen knife and was shot multiple times with a handgun and beanbag projectiles . . . how many of the tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans who have been brought to the U.S. by Old Joe Biden's handlers are a similar threat?" San Francisco: Knife-Wielding Afghan Refugee Charges Police, Is Shot Dead
"The source says the nationalities of the migrants were a mix of mostly Venezuelan and Cuban migrants. The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says the nearly 300 migrants are being held under the port of entry while they await transportation to nearby Border Patrol stations in the region." Large Migrant Group Rushes Border in West Texas
THE 2020 ELECTION HEIST AND AFTERMATH
Rep. Dr. Ronny Jackson: "They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election -- but we're not going to let them!" Is The Omicron Variant the "Midterm Election Variant?"
BIDEN CRIME FAMILY REVELATIONS, AND OTHER CORRUPTION
"Nantucket had recently re-imposed their mask mandate due to a recent uptake in [Chinese] Covid-19 cases, the New York Post reported. Biden is in Nantucket spending Thanksgiving at the home of David Rubinstein, a private-equity investor and Bloomberg TV host, the outlet reported." Biden Caught Shopping Without a Mask in a Store That Requires Them
OTHER DEMOCRAT, LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
"Why does Williams live on the base when so much of what it represents is antithetical to his beliefs? The answer, according to a rep, is housing costs: Fort Hamilton offers relatively cheap housing to a sliver of in-the-know civilians." Why "Defund NYPD" Governor Candidate Jumaane Williams Lives on an Army Base
Miranda Devine: "With fewer than 45,000 votes in three states deciding the outcome, it's not unreasonable to suggest that suppression of The [NY]Post's stories won Biden the election and denied voters the truth about his character." (that and the several million votes fabricated for Biden or electronically switched to Biden from Trump that might have had something to do with it to, Ms. Devine - jjs) Media Helped Hide the Real Joe Biden by Censoring Hunter Stories
SECOND AMENDMENT
"The recent election results in Virginia and New Jersey show Democrats are in real trouble with rural, working-class voters. Some pundits put part of the blame on the party's constant push for gun control." Support For More Gun Control Falls, But Partisan Gap Grows
"The Constitution will not persist or provide protection from a degraded, brainwashed, and hostile majority." Rights and Anti-Rights
ABORTION
"For decades, pro-life Americans have prayed and worked to see Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy, overturned," a press statement said about the event. "This decision could be the case that sends Roe to the dustbin of history." "Pray Together for Life" in Mississippi as Supreme Court Set to Hear Major Abortion Case
"Putin has been massing troops on the Ukraine border, and U.S. intelligence has determined the move is not a bluff. But what else could they be for if not an invasion of Ukraine? Some analysts believe the troops may be 'invited' in by a new pro-Moscow Ukrainian government to be installed with the help of Russia." Ukraine Warns of Russian-Sponsored Coup as NATO Dithers About a Response to Putin Aggression
"Once money and status started flowing into climate science because of the disaster its denizens were predicting, there was no going back." The Profound Junk Science of Climate
"To 'save the lives' of Americans, Uncle Joe Biden's CCCP junta (Covid-CriticalRaceTheory-Climate Party) mandated that all of us with whom they have lost patience must do what we are told. Now. Federal Court: No." The Constitution vs. the Oligarchs
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
"For years, Kanter has been a voice championing human rights in his home country of Turkey. He has recently called out the Chinese Communist Party for human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims and Tibetans among transgressions against Hong Kong and Taiwan." Enes Kanter Changes Last Name To "Freedom" Ahead of Becoming US Citizen
"One of the early progenitors of the modern progressive movement, Wilson is known for his expansion of the federal government and interventionist, democracy-focused foreign policy. Among several racial controversies, Wilson's federal bureaucracy was notoriously segregated, and he screened the racially controversial film Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915." New Jersey High School Changing Name Over "Racist" Namesake
"We are moving swiftly toward a future of ignorance and barbarism as ideological rigidity, intolerance of political differences, and deep-seated resentments and hatreds drive our politics." It's Jefferson's Fault
"The death of Stephen Sondheim marks the end of an era in American culture." Remembering Sondheim
"The stories chronicle McAfee's life before his alleged and highly disputed suicide on June 23, 2021 in a Spanish prison cell. The rights to the book are being developed under Milius's production company, AMDC, into a narrative feature and a separate documentary." Plot Against the President Director Amanda Milius Acquires Rights to John McAfee Movie
"Our ancestors of blessed memory knew that they were fighting for life itself against a culture of death. That is our mission: To choose life. And our hope is that all the nations of the world will choose life as well." (many parallels to what is happening right now - jjs) Hanukkah: When the Jews Chose Life
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
I'd be on Twitter excoriating those fascist dipshits in Canberra except that Twitter already banned me for excoriating those communist dipshits in Melbourne.
Suck it, Jack.
Not much news, it's all Cyber Monday nonsense. But that means there hasn't been a new security catastrophe over the weekend, because those make the headlines even if people are trying to take the day off.
Maybe as few as two people would have to wake up this morning and decide they want to do something different with their lives in order for the PHP project to lack the expertise and resources to move it forward in its current form, and at current pace.
Just focus on that number for a few seconds ... think of the number of people whose livelihoods depend on PHP, the number of mortgages, car payments, school fees, entire payrolls ...
It's the scariest number 2 I have ever seen.
Learn a real programming language, losers.
Everybody who follows the development of PHP knows who these two people are.
They are Dmitry Stogov, and Nikita Popov.
Hmm.
Reason:
Nikita Popov (one of primary contributor of PHP) has decided to focus his professional activities on LLVM.
Thank you @nikita_ppv for everything you’ve done for PHP! Your work is truly appreciated by millions of PHP developers.
Only 8% of compromised servers are used as a platform for further hacking attempts; the majority are hacked and immediately mining crypto, which if you have any monitoring all will set off all your alarms.
Hololive Gen 6 - holoX, pronounced hollocks, seriously - has launched, and YouTube is doing what it always does: Automatically unsubscribing tens of thousands of fans.
Exactly what they did to EN Gen 2 three months ago.
YouTube is an interesting mix of incompetence, arrogance, and antipathy. They actively hate their users - creators and viewers alike - but they know that there's not really anywhere else for people to go.
I think we're gonna need a bigger bus.
We Heard You Liked Blocks So We Put Blocks In Your Blocks So You Can Block While You Block Video of the Day
Okay, yeah. Don't care if it needs a 3090 to run. I'm getting that.
"Across the board, retailers are getting more concerned with this growing trend. … It is definitely a tough problem to solve, given the organized nature and number of people involved in many of the incidents," Chris Walton, a former Target executive
What is needed is deterrence. A fatal gunshot wound I think is a good start.
Quote III
That’s OK, I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying. Dr. Anthony Fauci
Quote IV
“I’m sure… we would be forced to have people of different colours and different sexes and a trans person – but life doesn't have to be like that,” “We can be separate and different. Our generation made a lot of mistake, but not everybody in our generation was wrong and not everybody in this generation is right. A lot of people from our generation who are being called out have actually done a lot of good in their lives.” Queen's Brian May
Quote V
“At its core, Hanukkah recounts a story at the heart of the human spirit — one that is inherently Jewish and undeniably American,” Resident of The White House, Joe Biden
Canada’s Indigenous health expert Carrie Bourassa fired when ancestry claims prove false
She’s Sitting Bullshit.
A Canadian medical researcher who rose to become the nation’s top voice on indigenous health has been fired from her government job and her university professorship — after suspicious colleagues investigated her increasingly fanciful claims of Native American heritage and learned she was a fraud.
Carrie Bourassa, a public health expert who served as scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health, was suspended five days after the state-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation published a lengthy expose on her background.
People Furious at Robot Serving Pancakes at Denny’s
It's like dining with the Jetsons!
Imagine sitting down at your favorite breakfast restaurant only to be greeted by a robot, which brings your pancakes and sides instead of a human server.
Well, that’s not exactly what happened at one Denny’s location, but to hear the comments tell it, our robot overlords are taking over — and should be boycotted before they’re serving us pancakes and eggs all over the world.
TikTok user Miabellaceo posted a now-viral video showing a robot dubbed Janet delivering two plates of hashbrowns and eggs at an undisclosed Denny’s location. The simple three-tiered robot is basically a mobile cake plate that runs food for busy servers, and the video’s creator said in the comments that a real, flesh-and-blood server took their order and delivered their coffee.
The United States is the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group made of 36 of the world’s wealthiest nations, that doesn’t require employers to give workers annual paid leave, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
That leaves 23 percent of Americans with no paid vacation and 22 percent without paid holidays. So as you can imagine, if an employee is given paid time off, they take it pretty seriously. No wonder that when the 25-year-old childless worker and the author of this post on r/AITA was asked by her 41-year-old colleague with kids to share her accumulated vacation days, the answer was negative.
“She wants me to give her 6 of my days. Her justification is that I’m childless and don’t need that many days,” the author explained. But after telling her she cannot give away her hard-earned days, the office drama ignited, so let’s read on below for how it ended.
Meanwhile, the verbal development quotient also dropped dramatically, from an average of 100 in 2018 to just below 90 in 2020, and around 70 in 2021.
The non-verbal development quotient also experienced a similar dip, from a mean score of around 105 in 2019, to 100 in 2020 and around 80 in 2021.
The study concluded that 'children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance compared to children born pre-pandemic.'
'In addition,' the report adds, 'masks worn in public settings and in school or daycare settings may impact a range of early developing skills, such as attachment, facial processing, and socioemotional processing.'
Numerous so-called institutions of “higher learning” have reportedly been offering free counseling and therapy to those emotionally unwell students who were allegedly traumatized by 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse not being sent to prison for life.
As previously reported, Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges on Nov. 19th based on comprehensive evidence showing that he’d opened fire in self-defense. The evidence included clear-cut video footage of three longtime criminals chasing after him during the 2020 Kenosha riots, reportedly with the intent to cause him harm.
You think we live in interesting times now, wait until the camps pop up.
***
We Morons know that if there is a problem the free market will correct it. The governments of the world can't force their wishes of a carbon free world until there is a solution. The following story gave me a big smirk.
The energy source that Germany moves to shut down, rescued the country from widespread blackouts in 2021.
Blackout News reports that more of Germany’s power is being produced by coal and nuclear fuels. In 2021, due to unfavorable weather conditions, wind and solar energy production plummeted in 2021 compared to 2020. “Germany’s power mix is getting dirtier.”
The figures were compiled by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen (Working Group for Energy Budgets) and based on the first 9 months of the year. Compared to 2020, the first nine months of 2021 saw a 3.3% increase in primary energy consumption – mainly due to economic reco0very.
SEC. BUTTIGIEG: IF YOU BUY AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE, YOU ‘WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GAS PRICES AGAIN’
‘The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are often rural residents, who have the longest distances to drive’
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
On this day: 28 Nov 1993
Steppenwolf drummer Jerry Edmonton was killed in a car crash not far from his Santa Barbara, California home, he was 47. Steppenwolf had the 1969 US No.2 & UK No.30 single 'Born To Be Wild'. via thisdayinmusic.com
&&&
***
If you are going to gamble, don't you expect to win some real money? Not our Genius Award Winner.
A Tasmanian woman has pleaded guilty to stealing $940,000 from her employer to fund her addiction to an online gambling game that does not pay out real money.
Key points:
Rachel Naomi Perri was addicted to the gambling app Heart of Vegas that doesn't pay out real money
She admits to stealing $940,000 from her employer and accumulating $24,000 in debt on a fraudulent credit card
When confronted by police, she immediately confessed, saying she was waiting for a knock on the door
Rachel Naomi Perri appeared in the Supreme Court in Hobart on Monday, charged with 25 counts of computer-related fraud and one count of fraud.
The 49-year-old stole the money while working as an account manager at the Tasmanian Veterinary Hospital between 2016 and 2019.
It was only after she was made redundant in 2019 that "anomalies were discovered in banking transactions".
A further investigation revealed the full extent of her theft.
Crown prosecutor Simone Wilson told the court that, over a period of three years and four months, Perri made 475 fraudulent transac
'We Can Do Anything': Deaf High School Football Team Goes Undefeated
The football team at the California School for the Deaf has defied the odds with an undefeated season.
The Varsity football team went 11-0 this season and has also won their divisional championship game for the first time in school history.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire, AceCorp, LLC. and Mis. Hum. Enterprises. ONT tips, accordion sheet music and frozen beef pot pies to petmorons at gmail dot com. Complaints, pissing and moaning to someone who cares. Maybe Yoko or Tanya.
Gun Thread: Three Days After Thanksgiving Edition!
—Weasel
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!
So what's up? Did everyone have a nice Thanksgiving? Did you have a nice meal and remember to give thanks? I am extremely blessed in life and I take every opportunity to give thanks for all that I have. Despite all of our problems, I sincerely believe I hit the jackpot on Day 1 simply by being born in this country. I also think I'm pretty damn lucky to have the opportunity to write the Gun Thread every week and to hang out here with so many of you. Yep, very blessed, indeed.
With that, let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
So next up on the ol' holiday calendar is Christmas, which many of you will recall is a time for receiving gifts. While some of the best gifts are those given to you, sometimes you have no alternative than to give gifts to yourself, which brings us to the topic for today. I was recently asked for a recommendation on selecting a rifle by someone falling into this latter category. I get this question a lot, and in order to provide a useful answer, some additional information is needed. Specifically, questions regarding the anticipated use and the budget must be answered.
Budget
The budget part is the easiest so let's get that out of the way first. In short, if you can't afford it, then don't buy it. A nice custom rifle with high quality optics will cost you $5,000 or more. Likely much more. It also may be that spending a lot is completely unnecessary as we'll see later. It's common for shooters suffering from sticker-shock to try and find corners to cut which virtually always ends in disappointment, then the subsequent purchase of the more expensive component they should have bought in the first place. Buy once, cry once some smart person has said. If your budget is $500, then look for a nice rifle in the $500 range. My dad always told me to buy the best thing you can afford and then take care of it which I think is great advice.
Anticipated Use
This is where things can get a little complicated. No single rifle really does everything well. My match guns for example are really good at making small groups from a long way away, but are wildly inappropriate for hunting or plinking or just about anything else due to their size, weight and the cost and effort involved in making custom ammunition, among other factors. They do one thing really well and that's it. In the particular case of my friend, he was looking for a hunting rifle that could occasionally be used as a target rifle. These are not necessarily completely incompatible uses, but some compromises will need to be made, mostly having to do with barrel length and profile.
Another consideration I'll put here is ammunition and caliber. In this example my friend does not currently reload but may start in the not-too-distant future, so commercial ammunition availability is something of a consideration now. There is no point in getting something chambered in any exotic caliber if you do not reload and cannot find ammo, or cannot source components if you do reload. Regarding cartridge selection, there is no point in getting something chambered in the most favored long-range caliber of the week if all of your shooting is going to be done inside 600 yards. That's like putting racing tires on your otherwise stock 1968 Beetle, and just doesn't make much sense.
I should also mention something about managing expectations. I have said this before, and I'm saying it again. In my experience, most shooters are better off investing in their marksmanship skills before anything else. That means time spent on the practice range shooting, and perhaps the occasional help of an instructor. For general hunting and target practice at mid-range, you do not have to go all bananas and over-the-top in your rifle selection, unless you really want to. Save the money for practice and lessons. If a super-deluxe extra-fine quality carved walnut stock is your thing, then go for it., ut if it's a rifle for general use, I always recommend keeping things simple and basic.
The Recommendation?
So all things considered, what did I recommend? A Savage bolt gun chambered in .308 Winchester. A new Savage Model 110 can be had at or below $1,000, and in my experience is plenty accurate straight out of the box. There are several models to choose from within the 110 family offering a great deal of flexibility. Add a decent NightForce scope and quality base and rings and you're in business. Why .308 Winchester and not something more exotic? The cartridge is very well suited for both hunting and target shooting applications, and decent quality ammunition can usually be found. It's also a relatively forgiving cartridge for reloaders when it's time for that.
There are no doubt many ways to approach answering this question, and I am sure we'll hear a few of them tonight. What's your opinion and what would you recommend?
******
Up first we have a report from or pal Xenophon who shares a scary day on the range qualifying for his department.
Back in October, I took a certification course to become a rifle instructor for my department (~350 sworn if that matters). I've been assigned this particular rifle for around 10 years, and by this point probably had around 6k rounds through it, all factory ammunition, no hot rounds, tracer, etc.
Day 4, towards the end of the day, so already around 200 through it. Training specifically was on reloads, 4 mags loaded with five rounds, concentrating more on form and fluidity of reloads than accuracy of shots. Magazine number 3 went basically crack, crack, BOOOOOF.
*
Big cloud of smoke, stinging pain in my face. Blood coming from my mouth. Instructor and everyone around me calls cease-fire with varying degrees of horrified shout. I was surprised how calmly I was able to set it down on the barrel in front of me, couldn't put it on safe, couldn't eject the mag. It's out in the pictures, we had to partially disassemble the gun to get it out.
Best guess; one of the cartridges was a REALLY hot round. The bolt was still locked in the star-chamber, so a ton of gas went down either the gas tube or simply back through the bolt, blowing off the bottom of the bolt carrier, snapping the upper receiver at both the pivot and the rear takedown, blowing the rest of the gas out of the bottom of the magazine (causing it to bulge as you can see, and bending the dust cover out) along with the rest of the rounds in the mag.
The charging handle and extended release hinge blew back and hit me in the face, giving me a minor cut on my upper lip that stopped with gauze and pressure after about a minute. Initially thought I'd need stitches and that it went through my upper lip, turns out it was just a good cut that bled (like a stuck pig, ba dum bum tish).
Armorer and range master said this was the worst they'd ever seen. We never did get the bolt out, it got sent back to Smith & Wesson for Xrays and they hopefully will be able to tell what happened. Armorer looked down the barrel (remarkably intact) and said he could see the bolt face, so the brass apparently disintegrated (it definitely didn't eject). The barrel wasn't deformed or flowered, so I don't think it was obstructed.
Pass on my new philosophy why there's no such thing as an Eye Protection Nazi, only people with experience. And shooting handguns is for fun, shooting long guns is for therapy.
Holy Shitballs! Damn, bro! I really appreciate your sending this in. It's a not-so-subtle reminder to wear eye protection! There is usually no way to tell when this might happen and you go home blind and with a trigger sticking out of your forehead. Fortunately, Xenophon wasn't seriously injured. Thanks for sharing this story!
******
Q: Who has been to the range?
A: Why, our pal Ed L has been to the range!
The revolver is a 1949 Colt Officers' Model Target in .22LR. I picked this up earlier this summer at Chantilly for $800 complete w/ original box and papers. As you can see, it shoots just fine at 10 yards. The sights are a bit low. The action is similar to the original Python, with a very light single action trigger and a heavier, stacking double action trigger. A previous owner added a front strap to the grip to improve their grip for a larger hand.
Rechecked the zero on this AR. It's a Colt LE6920 SOCOM that came with Knights Armament quad rails and MATECH backup iron sights. I added the vertical grip, B5 SOPMOD stock, and Aimpoint Comp M4S red dot sight. I bought the vertical grip and Aimpoint M4S for my last deployment to Afghanistan. The Aimpoint lived up to its reputation; one AA battery got me though the whole deployment. I bought the rifle after I came back more as a memento rather than a SHTF scenario. I changed my mind about it last year.
Here are the results. Range is 25 yards from a standing position using 5.56 mm M193 55 grain ammo. Best group is the torso target. The biggest downside of this setup is the weight. The SOCOM heavy barrel, plus quad rails, really piles on the pounds. Holding the rifle steady for a 25 yard standing shot gets hard after the first couple of shots. Total weight of my setup is over nine pounds (7 for the rifle, 1 for the Aimpoint, 1+ for the stock and vertical grip). It's ironic that the M4 replaced the M16 to save weight, but all those gains and then some have all been given back for more attachments on the rifle.
Excellent report, Ed L, and very nice shooting! Thank you! I'm a big fan of revolvers, but also like the look of the rifle. Very well done. Appreciate it!
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Next, we hear from our pal No Name Nobody who shares a range report on a day of shooting on his organic tree farm!
I'm a long-time lurker in good standing. Attached is the picture from the day at the range on the family farm. Yes, I too am an organic tree farmer.
I bought the Extar EP-9 after Blaster's report. I've been looking for an H&K SP5 style weapon for a long time that didn't cost an arm and a leg and this one fits the bill. I figured for $600 bucks with the optics, I'd take the chance. I love this firearm so far. My little brother and I ran about 200 rounds through it yesterday. It ran like a sewing machine. Not one misfeed, failure to eject or misfire.
I tried out Blaster's recommended $30 Gaialoop red dot. Does not work outside with sunshine and high sky. The dot just disappears. So I bought a Vortex 1X prism scope with an etched reticle. Has 5 brightness settings for either green or red reticle for varying light conditions. A bit more than 30 bucks, but it's a very nice optic.
This is the last silhoutte target of the day after zeroing the scope. These were shot from 15 yards. I used the 17 round mag that comes with the firearm from Extar firing at the center mass "X" and my little brother used a 15 round glock mag that I purchased yesterday and shot at the "X" in the head area.
Looks like co-witness puts the rounds a little low after the zero. I'll be shooting again and adjusting in the very near future. That is I would be shooting again and adjusting in the very near future if not for the tragic boating accident on the way back to the house from the farm.
Nice shooting and great report N3! I hope you'll check in again with a follow-up after you have had a chance to shoot it some more. Thank you for the report, thanks for de-lurking, and welcome to the Gun Thread!
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Our pal MW in Texas shares a link to an auction where the proceeds benefit High School seniors headed for college. Looks like a ton of great stuff. Check it out!
Gun Basics 101
This week we have a review of the Shield Plus from the She Equips Herself girl. Also covered are some concealment considerations.
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Cigar of the Week
This week we return take a look at the Ramon Allones Heritage. Handmade in Nicaragua, these are very well constructed medium to full bodied cigar at around $4.50 each. Weasel approved.
Our pal, delightful 'ette and TXMoMe Prize Wenchlin-duh shares a great new target design!
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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: Give Me A Twist In My Martini, And As Long As It Isn't Peppermint, All Is Well!
—CBD
That's a lousy photo of an empty martini glass with an orange twist.
Heresy! Blasphemy! A crime against all that is good and fine in martini-land!
Well...yeah, but it tasted good so I drank it anyway. Because that is all that matters. Was it as good as a classic martini with a nice oily lemon twist? No, but it was certainly interesting and different and definitely good enough to have another the next night.
It reminds me of a friend who used to be a bartender (a damned fine one). He would love to try to embarrass me with weird drinks and stuff with feminine-sounding names and kids drinks spruced up with booze.
But most of them tasted great, because he couldn't help himself, so I would happily guzzle chocolate martinis and Cosmos and fruity drinks with umbrellas.
The first rule of Food Club is: If it tastes good...enjoy it!
The smug, self-righteous elites who proclaimed to America that we should just cut back on our Thanksgiving expenditures...even going so far as to suggest no turkey, are perfect examples of the tone-deafness among their variety of American.
My guess is that every single one of them had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and maybe had the addition of a rib roast or a goose or something equally pricey, because they are nothing if not consistently hypocritical.
We are, at least until recently, a proud nation that is more than willing to do our share, even if that means going without. But not when the directions from the cultural and government elites is so breathtakingly, obviously false.
They don't even pretend any more.
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Long-time commenter "Bluebell" has consistently refused to come to my house and make pie crusts for my Thanksgiving pies. I have no idea why she is so selfish...perhaps it has something to do with her Red Sox mania or lack of oysters and cauliflower in her diet.
However she did recommend Aldi's for their frozen pie crusts, because they are made with lard. It was a bit of a trip to the nearest store, but I have to admit that she was absolutely correct...the crusts were better in every way compared to the usual ones I have bought.
That still doesn't get her off the hook for next year though...
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A request of The Horde: I am planning a short trip to Bourbon country as a gift, and unfortunately it is one of the many things about which I know nothing. I assume that there are tours and interesting places to visit and lots of good food to be eaten and bourbon to be drunk, but where to start? And where to stay? Louisville? Lexington? Somewhere in between?
Anyway, any information and tips would be much appreciated.
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I don't do guilt very well. In fact, I don't do it at all. If I am going to deny myself something that gives me great pleasure (pizza is in that category), it's going to be for a good reason and with an expiration date. So my recent sojourn into low-carb was done with the proviso that when something really good to eat turns up, I will enjoy it with gusto and without a smidgen of guilt or remorse.
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[Hat Tip: Sharon(willow's apprentice) ]
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There was a spirited discussion about cheesecake in the last post, inspired by nurse ratched's ridiculous opinion that cheesecake "is nasty."
Here is a PDF of my cheesecake recipe. It's not difficult, and the only thing one needs to be careful with is the baking time. It's approximate, so keep an eye on the cake and take it out when it is just barely firm. It will tighten up when it chills.
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Avocados sans thumbprints, beef short ribs that have meat on them (not the stupid little sliver of bone they sneak into the packages), carrots that don't taste like stalky chalk, spare bottles of Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 Year Old Bourbon, an herb garden that actually produces herbs (but no basil!), well-marbled NY strip steaks and elk backstrap to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
And don't think that you are off the hook with maple syrup and French Toast: I'm watching you...all of you! And I am watching you perverts who shake Manhattans and keeping a list for the Burning Times.
In retrospect I should have used my Speed Square, or at the very least marked out the correct angles with a knife before I cut the pie, but I was frantic, and the drool was getting out of hand.
Yet three days later I am left with a chaotic piece of pie that is embarrassing in its asymmetry. That is not to say that it didn't taste wonderful...the recipe calls for chopped pecans in the filling, which adds a wonderful texture and flavor!
If They Can't Take Away Our 2nd Amendment Rights To Possess Weapons, They Will Take Away Our Right To Use Them In Self Defense
—CBD
The year-long persecution of Kyle Rittenhouse is merely the latest and most compelling example of the multi-front war against the 2nd Amendment and every American citizen's right to keep and bear arms. The pro-forma weapons charges with which Rittenhouse was charged were a triviality, and it is entirely possible that they were brought incorrectly (or maliciously).
The real charges were the conflation of legitimate self defense with first degree reckless homicide. The message is clear and unambiguous; do not use your legal weapons in self defense, because the full weight of the law will be brought to bear.
The McCloskeys got a taste of that in St. Louis last summer, courtesy of a Democrat apparatchik who was so over-the-top with her charges and political rhetoric that she was barred from prosecuting the case...but the case was not dropped!
The strategy is smart and chilling. It is clear that the multi-generational drive to demonize guns and the 2nd Amendment has failed in the short term, with constitutional carry becoming more and more popular and the civil unrest fomented in part by the enemies of the 2nd Amendment has driven an unprecedented interest in guns as a defense against that unrest, especially since the government has demonstrated conclusively that it cannot and will not protect its citizens from violence.
So the next step is to make any use of a gun in self defense so incredibly expensive and potentially life-altering that people will think long and hard before acting in their own or their community's defense. Read Andrew Branca's excellent book for a sense of how difficult the defense of even a clear-cut case of self defense can be.
But it is entirely possible that the rapid breakdown of our legitimate legal protections by the progressive elite will yield unintended consequences. Imagine the Kenosha riots, but instead of Kyle Rittenhouse doing what he did, there were several hidden shooters whose goals were less noble. Instead of merely protecting life and property, perhaps they would be playing a more punitive role...well hidden and almost impossible to to discover.
Rooftop Koreans indeed...
Addendum: From Andrew Branca!
If anybody would like a FREE copy of our book, "The Law of Self Defense: Principles," just cover the S&H, I've set up a special free book offer just for the horde:
The Law of Self Defense
Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, and crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even this morose twink, who's obviously not looking forward to getting the hose again, would be allowed.
This wonderful building was built in 1903 by a wealthy family of Greek bankers, only to be confiscated by the Communist regime in the 1950s. It was turned into a general store and later abandoned and left to decay as Communism collapsed.
The grandson of the banker, who originally bought the building back in 1903 requested that it would be returned to his family, as legal heirs... It took 24 years of battles in court, untangling bureaucratic loops, and finding the proper documents in archives, but he finally took possession of the decaying building in 2007. He then began its remarkable transformation to the Cărturești Carusel (“Carousel of Light”) bookstore that stands today.
The extensive renovation went above and beyond, creating a stunning shop considered to be one of the most beautiful bookstores in Romania, and even the world...The store’s three floors spread across more than 10,000 square feet that hold as many books. There are elegantly curved balconies on each of the upper levels, a large open space in the middle, and a teahouse on the top floor that offers a great view of the entire bookstore.
It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®
Usage:
“Excuse the interruption,” said the elf on his left, spitting accurately into the dwarf's left eye, “but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Gabby Hayes. Are you in fact the boggie with the bijou?”
Finally got a chance to see the new adaptation of Dune this week. I wasn't really looking forward to it due to some negative comments I had heard about it and also, it has a bad track record. That is to say, all of the previous adaptations (both of them) blew chunks. Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but let's just say they weren't very good. So my expectations weren't very high.
It turned out to be surprisingly good.
As far as adaptations go, I think it compares favorably with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Meaning, is there stuff about it you can criticize? Yes, certainly. But despite that, it is a reasonably satisfactory adaptation and I don't think it deviated from the book all that much. I could be wrong about this as I have not read Dune in awhile, but nothing I saw in the two and a half hour movie jumped out at me as being incongruous with the book, or wrong, or just silly. And the ornithopters looked kind of badass, albeit impractical.
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This next one is going to be difficult to sell.
Two three months ago, in one of the rant threads, I posted the trailer to the upcoming Foundation series made by Apple TV based on the classic Asimov books which I thought looked interesting, but pretty much all of the comments about it were negative. Lack of fidelity to the source material was the main reason. But I got a chance to watch this one as well, and...
It's also surprisingly good.
And this is kind of weird, because it has many things about it that should make me hate it. First, the trailer commenters were right: this adaptation is not even close to being faithful. The credits say the series is "based on" the Asimov books, but it would be more accurate to say it is "inspired by". Some of the characters have the same names, and the broad plot outline is recognizable if your bird's eye view is up high enough so you don't look too closely at the details. But, other than that, it is quite different.
And the diversity is painfully obvious. Which is OK, since this is a galactic empire so diversity would be a reasonable expectation. But it sometimes feels like they're just shoving it in your face. And two of the main characters which in the first book were specifically identified as male were gender-swapped.
These problems should be enough to make me walk away. But, strangely, I didn't. I think one of the reasons is that they didn't turn it into some sort of 'woke' story or parable and stuck to the main point, that is, political infighting and intrigue that sometimes breaks out in actual fighting.
It's been years since I've read the books, but I think the adaptation has a lot more actual fighting. Most movies and TV gravitates towards that nowadays, anyway. Gotta have action to keep the audience from falling asleep. The action/fighting scenes in Foundation are expertly staged and look pretty intense.
Again, the plot is considerably different than the books. But the story itself was strong enough that it attracted Mrs. Muse's interest, who is generally not a big fan of science fiction. She would sit next to me doing her knitting while I was watching and I noticed that she was doing less knitting and more watching, and she started asking questions about it. So I could tell the story was drawing her in.
The special effects are really good. The scene where Trantor's miles-high beanstalk platform (yes I know it didn't have one in the book) was destroyed by terrorists was fantastic.
So the takeaway here is that if you're a big fan of the Foundation books and really like them as they are, you probably won't enjoy this adaptation. But if you've never read them or have read them and don't care what they do with them, this Apple TV series is worth a watch. It's 10 1-hour episodes and I just read that it has been renewed for a second season.
'Ette author Elisabeth Wolfe has co-written a short story anthology Sister Muses, 10 stories in all, about 300 pages, about things such as:
Egyptians encountering the God of Israel. Machines that know more than they're telling. Distressed damsels and the princes who love them. World wars and sports rivalries. Prophets and martyrs. Steamships and spaceships. And one question to rule them all. Welcome to Sister Muses, a short story anthology where “What if?” takes you from the ancient past to the distant future and from the heights of outer space to the depths of the human psyche. Whether they're retold tales or our own imaginings, join us in finding out where our muses can go!
I bought it because the Amazon preview had beginning of the story of Potiphar's wife seducing Joesph, a Hebrew sold into slavery by his brothers and I wanted to finish it. I consider the other 9 stories a bonus. After all, it's only $2.99 on Kindle.
Ms. Wolfe also tells me:
Classical Academic Press has recently released the first two volumes of The Curious Historian, a world history series for Grades 3-7. Levels 1 and 2 are mainly about classical antiquity, although there are chapters on China and India as well; I’m co-writing Level 3, which is about the Middle Ages (roughly AD 350-1500, although we might at least tease the Reformation) and is slated for publication in 2023.
This is curricula designed for homeschooling. Details here. Another new site worth looking at is Ancient Paths, started by a minister in Northern Ireland and specializing in literature curricula. He's started with a study on The Chronicles of Narnia, but he hopes to have more out soon.
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Black Friday Sale:
Check out this massive indie/small press book sale from top authors and emerging talent. Every title $0.99 or free. Bypass the gatekeepers and enjoy a great story from authors who don't hate you: https://t.co/roHBTRWeALpic.twitter.com/O3HtheAmNS
192 Finished reading the biography Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling. The author restricts the biography to Pearl's forty years in China - from early childhood through her teen years and into her twenties and marriage - which are by far the most interesting years of her life. If you enjoy biographies then this is a must-read.
Posted by: 13times at October 31, 2021 09:10 AM (9rMWy)
...she was the child of American missionaries.
...she spoke Chinese before she learned English.
...she thought she was Chinese herself until she was eight years old.
...flood, famine, drought, bandits, and war formed the background of Pearl’s life in China.
...her novels were unique in that they spoke for ordinary Asian people.
...the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Pearl S. Buck actually wrote many novels. The one she is most known for, The Good Earth, is actually the first part of a trilogy.
The Good Earth is Buck’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple’s fortunes improve over the years: They are blessed with sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in the House of Wang—the very house in which O-lan used to work. But success brings with it a new set of problems. Wang soon finds himself the target of jealousy, and as good harvests come and go, so does the social order. Will Wang’s family cherish the estate after he’s gone? And can his material success, the bedrock of his life, guarantee anything about his soul?
I can recommend the Massie's "Land of the Firebird." It's a love letter to pre-revolutionary Russian Culture. You've probably all read it already, because you read a LOT, but it's one of the few books I've read more than once.
Posted by: Flyover. at November 21, 2021 09:11 AM (Rbu5d)
'Land of the Firebird' is a WONDERFUL and ENGAGING in-depth look of Russian history from 987-1917, spanning the ascension of Vlad and the Orthodox Church to right before the Revolution. With colorful prose Suzanne Massie details the variety of Russian existence--tsars and serfs and merchant-princes and babushkas--no stone is left uncovered as she cross-references nearly a thousands years, writing with equal consideration of art, poetry, country-life, court-life, politics and its myriad games, myths and legends, influence "outside the sphere."
So, did you know that Thomas Jefferson wanted to establish a democracy in the Pacific Northwest? Well, it was news to me, and little known today, but at the beginning of the 19th Century it was all the talk. I'm reading Peter Stark's "Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire". The Astoria Expedition, financed by fur freak John Jacob Astor, followed closely on the heels of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. But unlike that famous venture, almost everything on this trip went wrong.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at November 21, 2021 09:16 AM (Dc2NZ)
Six years after Lewis and Clark's began their journey to the Pacific Northwest, two of the Eastern establishment's leading figures, John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson, turned their sights to founding a colony akin to Jamestown on the West Coast and transforming the nation into a Pacific trading power. Author and correspondent for Outside magazine Peter Stark recreates this pivotal moment in American history for the first time for modern readers, drawing on original source material to tell the amazing true story of the Astor Expedition.
But the cost, in human lives, was high. Of the more than one hundred-forty members of the two advance parties that reached the West Coast—one crossing the Rockies, the other rounding Cape Horn—nearly half perished by violence. Others went mad. The enterprise was short-lived, but changed everything.
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If you like, you can follow me on Twitter, where I make the occasional snarky comment.
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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.
What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.
Who would have had any kind of inkling that a bunch of SJW cancel culture jack-boots would throw a tantrum when they find out that they don't actually run everything, and that people who do actual technical work turn out to be the ones who matter?
And:
It is of utmost importance to me that a group of non-developers be put in charge of the brilliant developers creating one of the most popular new languages to ensure that they are never mean in a code review or utilize any banned language within their code base.
Someone's paying attention:
Watch some videos about what happened at Evergreen State College a couple years ago and get back to us about who's acting like assholes.
Speaking of abject wankery, that second site, The New Stack, is filled with it.
Henceforth I shall refer to the filing of worthless pull requests as wanking - jerking off to my American friends - as in: Ted spent the entire afternoon wanking in his cubicle.
To cut the story short - though it's worth reading if you want to buy a new computer with a specific purpose in mind:
The 12700K is very good, and avoids most of the excesses of the 12900K. For most tasks it's nearly as fast and significantly cheaper
AMD's chips are much more power-efficient, and it really looks like their multi-threaded performance is constrained more by power limits than the chip's capabilities.
There's little reason right now to bother with DDR5 at all, which is good because there isn't any.
And if online stores in Bangladesh have the details, everyone does.
Except for the 12700 and the low-power 12700T, none of these have the new Efficiency cores, just the full-size Power cores. Which means that there's really only two new configurations: Four cores / eight threads on the 12100, 12200 (if that exists - I suspect it's a typo), and 12300; and six cores / twelve threads on the 12400, 12500, and 12600.
For the average user even the low-end 12100 should be a very capable CPU.
Kills and skins puppies just to make a stylin' new coat? That's because she was traumatised by a TV commercial as a child.
Villains in stories are villains for the same reason that 1+1=2 in arithmetic: Because it works. You can construct a system of arithmetic where 1+1=3, but it's pointless to do so because it doesn't relate to reality.
Quite a good examination of trends in entertainment generally, pointing out that competent directors were aware of this danger and warned against it decades ago.
This is a data visualisation library that lets you construct your graphs and charts - and entire interactive dashboards - in Python and display them as a web page, or a component within a web page.
In Which the New York Times Almost Wakes Up From Its Nap Video of the Day
I had Viva Frei playing on the second monitor while I ate lunch and skimmed the news for this roundup, so when that video ended and YouTube cued up another I didn't have many hands free to stop it and just let it play.
After I minute I looked over to see which conservative or libertarian-leaning channel I had landed on, and was bemused to find that it was the New York Times.
Party Like It's 1979 Video of the Day
There's clearer videos of this one in English, but it sounds better in the original Klingon, so that's what I went with. Well, there's a 2019 performance which I think has one of the original band members, but that doesn't count.
This is one of the first I thought of when I started rounding up 70s songs as a commentary on the world's present economic and sociopolitical woes, and one of the things I immediately thought is that it would make a great mashup with Boney M's Rasputin.
Apparently it doesn't - Moskau has variable tempo, not a lot but enough to wreck the sync with any other song. You can adjust the tempo of one song in a mashup as long as it remains consistent, like this:
But adjusting it from one verse is to the next is not only a whole lot of work, it changes the feel of the song and ruins the mashup.
Disclaimer: Breakfast cereal off the starboard bow.
Biden finally breaks down and visits a remote northern native village. With news crews following him around as they tour the place, Biden asks the chief if there was anything the people need.
"Well," says the chief, "We have three very important needs. First, we have a medical clinic, but no doctor."
Biden whips out his phone, dials a number, talks to somebody for two minutes and then hangs up. "I've pulled some strings. Your doctor will arrive in a few days. Now what was the second problem?"
"We have no way to get clean water. The local mining operation has poisoned the water our people have been drinking for thousands of years. We've been flying bottled water in, and it's terribly expensive."
Once again, Biden dials a number, yells into the phone for a few minutes, and then hangs up. "The mine has been shut down, and the owner is being billed for setting up a purification plant for your people.
Now what was that third problem?"
"We have no cellphone reception up here," the chief says.
Deep-frying a turkey is a great way to get a delicious, moist meal for Thanksgiving. But this method of cooking can be a very dangerous undertaking.
Every fall, millions of dollars of damage, trips to the ER and even deaths result from attempts to deep-fry turkeys. The vast majority of these accidents happen because people put frozen turkeys into boiling oil. If you are considering deep-frying this year, do not forget to thaw and dry your turkey before placing it in the pot. Failure to do so may lead to an explosive disaster.
What is so dangerous about putting even a partially frozen turkey in a deep-fryer?
I am a chemist who studies plant, fungal and animal compounds and have a love of food chemistry. The reason frozen turkeys explode, at its core, has to do with differences in density. There is a difference in density between oil and water and differences in the density of water between its solid, liquid and gas states. When these density differences interact in just the right way, you get an explosion.
If you’re dating in 2021, the first step is learning how to speak the language. Thanks to the proliferation of dating apps and social media messaging services, dating now has a solid online component. And just like all the other aspects of our online life (text speak, memes, and emojis), it has its own set of rules and vocabulary. When you’re looking for love these days, it’s totally possible you might get breadcrumbed and orbited on your way to the soft launch. Have no idea what we’re talking about? Keep reading as we help you make sense of 10 trending dating terms you need to know to navigate your dating apps.
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Now that Thanksgiving is in our rear view mirror. Time to think about the Christmas gift giving. Weird gift guide.
There are plenty of normal things to buy on Amazon, but sometimes you should just let your freak flag fly. We've rounded up some of the weirdest gifts you can buy on the online retailer.
With the holidays coming up, instead of the usual pair of socks or an electric razor, it might be fun to get weird. Here are a few white elephant gifts that are sure to get a rise out of your friends and family.
MILKING IT Woman found ‘breastfeeding cat’ onboard flight in front of horrified passengers, cabin crew messages reveal
PASSENGERS were left feeling a little sick when they reportedly spotted a woman breastfeeding a cat onboard a flight.
According to a now-viral message which appears to be from the pilot, the woman refused to stop the questionable activity despite repeated pleas from the cabin crew.
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The ONT Musical Interlude
Hey there, Mis Hum!
For some reason, this guy's birthday is not mentioned on thisdayinmusic.com...
Born this day: 27 November 1969
Myles Kennedy (Boston, MA - birth name Myles Richard Bass), musician, singer, and songwriter. Myles Kennedy is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Alter Bridge, a band formed with the 3 remaining members of Creed after lead vocalist Scott Stapp left that band. Alter Bridge has released 6 albums between 2004-2019. Myles is also the lead vocalist of Slash’s current recording and touring band, Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. They have released 3 albums between 2012-2018, with a fourth to be released in 2022. Myles has released 2 solo albums between 2018-2021. He also had a cameo role in the 2001 movie “Rock Star”. (H/T Doof)
Thank you Doof.
&&&
Born on this day: 27 Nov 1942
Jimi Hendrix, guitarist, singer, songwriter who had the 1967 UK No.6 single 'Hey Joe', the 1970 UK No.1 single 'Voodoo Chile', and the 1968 US No.1 and UK No.6 album 'Electric Ladyland'. Hendrix who is widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in musical history made appearances at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival. Hendrix died on 18th September 1970 after choking on his own vomit. via thisdayinmusic.com
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How close to a cousin to you have to be to borrow a sex toy? Close enough to be our Genius Award Winner.
A dispute over a borrowed sex toy ended with a Kentucky woman stabbing her male cousin with a kitchen knife, according to cops who arrested the alleged assailant on multiple criminal charges.
Police were dispatched late last month to a home in the city of Corbin after the occupant, Crystal Denham, called 911 to report that she had stabbed a relative.
Seen above, the 33-year-old Denham told officers that Michael Barton “had come to her residence and they had gotten into an argument over a sex toy,” according to a court citation. Specifically, Denham added, “she had borrowed it and he wanted it back.”
Sadly, the sex toy in question is not further described in the citation, which identifies Barton as Denham’s “cousin and neighbor.”
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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Charitable Honesty.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. Actually Ace is on vacation and the inmates are running the asylum.
When I was a boy, the greatest of the secular holidays--if you'll forgive the oxymoron--was Thanksgiving. It sat defiantly on a Thursday and, fortified by the mythology of America, simultaneously closed the stores and clogged the airports and the bus stations. Gourmandizing aside, it was--and still is--a holiday that defied commercialization because its elemental substance was gratitude. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, encroached on one side by the increasingly commercialized Christmas and on the other by a Halloween metastasized from ever -expanding childhoods, Thanksgiving has not been a font of pop culture. Or, as Loudon Wainwright III put it:
Suddenly, it's Christmas right after Halloween
Forget about Thanksgiving, it's just a buffet in-between
(Wainwright's thoughts on Thanksgiving can be found here.)
Up until a few years ago, when John Hughes' Planes, Trains and Automobiles emerged from the cinematic soup of the '80s as a modern Thanksgiving classic (and setting aside the second best Peanuts special), the film I most associated with Thanksgiving was The Best Years of Our Lives. So ingrained was this in my head, I was rather surprised on a recent viewing to discover Thanksgiving makes no appearance in the film whatsoever--though it was released one week before Thanksgiving in 1946.
No Thanksgiving, but a whole lot of giving thanks.
Hoagy Carmichael in the back, and from left-to-right: Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic March
Directed by William Wyler from a screenplay by Robert Sherwood (Rebecca, The Bishop's Wife) from a novella/poem by MacKinlay Kantor (who also wrote the book Follow Me, Boys! was based on), it would be the top grossing film of the decade and win seven regular Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Screenplay and both Best Actor Oscars, and two special Oscars.
Our story begins with three servicemen returning from the war: An Army sergeant (Frederic March), a Navy Petty Officer (Harold Russell) and an Air Force bombardier (Dana Andrews) who share an uncomfortable 16-hour plane flight to get to the fictional town of Boone City where each discovers that while the town hasn't changed, they and their relationship to it has.
There's nothing more American than the fact that their status in the military service has nothing to do with their non-military lives (cf. "I've Got My Captain Working For Me Now"). Sergeant Al (March) was a wealthy banker, Petty Officer Homer (Russell) was a solidly middle class high-school sports star, and the highest status among them, Bombardier Fred (Andrews) was a soda-jerk from the wrong side of the tracks.
(insert inappropriate joke about "getting over Macho Grande" here)
Al returns to loving wife Milly (top-billed Myrna Loy) and two children who have grown to adulthood in his absence. Milly is so patient and so adept at handling Al that daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) thinks that they've never had a single marital problem. Although Al finds himself welcome back at his old job (in charge of G.I. loans), he wants to use his gut sense about men--his faith in their abilities as he saw them during the war--as a basis for making loans. (This is literally illegal today.) And he finds himself dealing with the stress by drinking.
Homer's difficulties stem from the loss of his hands. Russell won two Oscars here, both for best supporting actor and an honorary one for supporting disabled veterans because the Academy assumed he couldn't win the regular Oscar, not being a professional actor. It's a powerhouse of a performance because Homer, who has already wrestled with his disability, has to repeat the grieving process with practically everyone he comes into contact with.
In an excess of decency, he wants to free his best girl Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell) from feeling obliged to stay with him while she struggles to make him realize her feelings haven't changed.
Getting a piano lesson from Hoagy while Andrews (way in the back) is doing the right thing. (Look at that blocking!)
The main arc of the movie belongs to Fred. A genuine war hero who ends up working for the kid who probably was too young for the draft and whose home-town pharmacy was bought out by a big conglomerate, he's also suffering from what we now call PTSD, and his party-time pin-up gal wife Marie (Virginia Mayo), whom he married two weeks before shipping out, doesn't really have anything in common with him any more and also really hates that he can't hold down a job. The movie's great irony being that the least grateful and understanding person in the film, Marie, is the one who bitterly utters the words "the best years of my life".
Complicating matters further is that an encounter with Peggy convinces Fred that she, rather than the bubble-headed bimbo, is what he really wants in a wife. This doesn't go down very well with Al.
I hope it's not a spoiler to say that things more-or-less all work out for the best, and some critics, especially in later years, would regard the movie as too "neat", but the whole point of the film is giving thanks. When Homer is describing the process of how he has to put on the harness that holds his hook-hands, he says, "I'm lucky. I have my elbows. Some of the boys don't." (Sort of a variant on "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.")
It isn't really "neat", though: All three of our heroes have to face the fact that life is going to be full of new challenges. Al's challenge is moral and institutional, Harold's is physical, and Fred basically has to start over. But a big part of giving thanks, as it turns out, is not giving up--and the guy who stands in the future suggesting a movie like this should end in despair is like the conspiracy theory guy (Ray Teal) who calls the servicemen "suckers": he deserves a sock in the jaw.
With a relentlessly emotional score by Hugo Friedhoffer (and directed by Emil Newman), and occasionally blocked so arrestingly that a home viewing has the vital advantage of letting you pause and rewind to appreciate it, this is a unique film that has me choked up for almost the entirety of its 2:50 runtime, every time I watch it--and feeling that I need to be more thankful.
"There oughtta be a law against any man who doesn't want to marry Myrna Loy." -- Jimmy Stewart
The perspective in that photo is kind of odd. Those chess pieces look ginormous.
Moviegique will be along later with the movie thread. As always, the chess/dress pr0n thread is an open thread, so there is no such thing as an off-topic comment.
Beginner Problem - Black To Play (1321)
Goal: Black can force mate in 2 moves
Hint: It's another kind of smothered mate
5k2/pp3pnR/q2pb1p1/6P1/5P2/1NQ5/rPP3P1/1KR5 b - - 0 1
American award-winning actress Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, was born #OnThisDay in 1929. She wore this beautiful Helen Rose designed sky blue silk dress, with a thin white stripe, in her final film role as Tracy Lord in High Society (1956). #GraceKelly#film#costume#dresspic.twitter.com/SPzgo6khdz
This week's #FridayFrills is this specular 1879 French ensemble. Every inch of silk is highly tailored and decorated. From the golden floral brocade to the starburst medallions to the carved golden buttons to the flower tassels, this dress screams exuberance! #FashionHistorypic.twitter.com/StBCQIEhyR
Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board. Or, Windows users can just "triple click" on it and the entire line will be highlighted so you can copy and paste it into your chess app.
___________
So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.
My Brother-in-law ran across a deer stuck on an electric fence. He cut him loose. Great site, thanks! - Johnny
Originally our friend submitted a video. Unfortunately, most videos can't be uploaded to the site. However he was kind enough to submit still photos from the vid.
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Meet The PetMorons
This is Sam, who was featured here a couple weeks ago. I couldn't resist drawing that wonderful face. - Sobek
Thank you again for sharing your artistic skills with us. Wonderful work.
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This is Sam I Am, just had his eleventh birthday. He heard a rumour that Dr. Seuss is cancelling some characters and that explains his very concerned expression. He’s up in Manitoba, Canada. - Nic not provided
What a handsome dog in his hunting environment. Hopefully that day he had a chance to demonstrate his retrieving skills. Thanks for sharing.
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Sadly, Casper has crossed the rainbow bridge. He was 16 and had various health issues, including a bad heart. His little heart finally gave out. - No nic provided
So sorry to hear about your pal's passing. It sounds as if Casper had a good life with you.
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This is Buster our newest addition to Shep's. He's a 10 year old Schnauzer Mini Pincher mix. Mostly Schnauzer. Surrendered by owner because she had to go into a nursing home. He's a very confused little guy right now but he's still very lovable and loves attention. He has a slight heart murmur and arthritis and is partially blind. We are all in love with him. - Jewells
Buster is one lucky dog in a sad situation. It's nice to see him land in your care Jewells.
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This is my husband's nephew's latest parrot. I don't know a lot about him, except his name is Mango and he's about two years old. The macaws don't mind him but the cockatoos don't like him (which is no surprise). I post as Notsothoreau.
We have posted previous photos of your family's birds. Gorgeous creatures. We appreciate you sending this pic in today.
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Attached is the last picture of all three of our girls together. Amber passed a bit over a month ago, she is the Rhodesian Ridge Back in the Photo along with Maggy below her. Molly is on the left and has been on the pet thread when she was a puppy. When we moved to Texas our BIL/SIL kept our dogs for over three months when we were looking for a house. Our BIL had a stroke and had problems remembering the dogs names so we came up with color coded names. Amber was Red Dog One, Maggy was Yellow Dog Two and when we got Molly she was dubbed Black Dog three. It worked and he had no issues after that. Red Dog One is missed by all. - No nic provided
So sorry to hear of your loss. The pack mentality truly does miss one of their own. Interesting story on how their names arrived. Hopefully you sharing your story with us eases the pain.
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Hi. This is Tucker Carlson. Tucker for short. This is the look I get when he realizes we have a new couch and he’s not allowed on it. Look at those eyes. I really wish dogs could talk, because I’m sure I’m getting thoroughly cussed out right now. Aside from his foul language, Tucker is the sweetest and most loving dog I’ve ever known. I think I’ll get the old couch back just so we can snuggle on it again. Thanks for the pet thread. - No nic provided
Tucker is a good looking pooch. From personal experience you can teach a dog what can be a doggeh couch and not. We have a couch they aren't allowed on and a couch which they can use. Thanks for sharing and good luck with your pup.
Here's a second submission from Tucker's Mom.
Hello again,
Dottie and Tucker have been on the thread before, but Feryja has not. She’s the 40 pound three month old St. Bernard on the end of the couch. She’s our daughters new puppy. Super soft and lovely and she’s going to be as big as a tank. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Don’t despair, for evil never wins. Dogs rule. Cats drool and beer is good. Lots of love from Dottie, Tucker and Feryja.
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Hello,
Longtime lurker, never-time commenter.
This is Kevin, AKA KevMonster, AKA the Vanilla Killa.
This floppy boy just came in third in the NYC mayoral race, and will probably regroup and try for governor next year. He’s a very good boy (most of the time), but like a true New Yorker, he thinks everyone wants to hear his opinions at all hours of the day & night. He’s a rescue, originally from Queens, but now living it up in Hell’s Kitchen.
Love the pet thread & the blog.
xo, Kate & Kev
Thank you for coming out of your Lurker home and submitting Kev's photo and story. This particular photo looks like he was a little bit self-indulgent with the Cat Nip.
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We had to say goodbye to Howdy, this handsome freckle face boy, on Friday.
He was almost 15 & he rescued us 12 years ago.
He was the best best friend a boy could hope for & he will be missed terribly.
Goodbye, Howdy. Good boy. - RobGrogNerd
Condolences on the passing of your family member Howdy. What a tough job to say goodbye to a pet. It sounds like he was well loved and provided much joy over the years.
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Had been meaning to send some Red Setter pics for a while...but seem to keep getting "Distracted by something shiny" -I Post as "Birddog" and "TJ Strong" at Ace.
Gorgeous dogs, but then again I am some what biased when it comes to Setters. That said, it's nice to see them out hunting. Thanks for sharing with us today.
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A special Thank You to KT for filling this time slot last Saturday.
Thanks to all of you who submitted our links today. And thank you to all who shared their pets with us today. Great content today thanks to you folks.
If you have something you wish to share you can reach us here at petmorons at gmail dot com. Don't forget to give us your nic.
Until next Saturday, same pet time, same pet channel. Have a great week!
Thanksgiving Weekend Gardening and Puttering Thread
—K.T.
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to all you gardeners, putterers and nature enthusiasts! The photo above (and one below) are from The Famous Pat*:
This is my 'Autumn Blaze' maple, nicknamed Eric the Red, caught at its peak on Oct. 31st. It's silhouetted against my northside neighbor's "French Blue" house.
That tree is breath-taking.
This is my silver maple, nicknamed "Jupiter" (for the King of the Gods, and you can see why), on Oct. 31st, with my house dwarfed in the background. It's past its best color, alas. I'm standing by "Eric the Red", at left.
The Horde Cares EveR got some good suggestions a couple of weeks ago to this comment:
I think having a garden will become a necessity soon. I had terrible luck in the past (crittters ate everything I planted but the hot peppers.) Wondering, what would be good first steps now, to be garden ready next spring?
This is the response from The Famous Pat*:
EveR, are you wondering what to do now, to be ready next spring? My thoughts (if someone was just starting out):
Decide how much time and energy you're realistically going to be able to devote to the garden. No sense doing a whole bunch of start-up work, and not being able to keep it weeded/picked, and the veggies/fruits processed/eaten.
Consider sun and water availability at the proposed garden location.
Decide what you're actually going to eat. No sense planting things you don't like.
Assuming planting in the ground, I'd loosen the soil to one spade depth (two, if you have the energy) before the ground freezes. Have fun browsing local garden stores, see what brands of seeds are available, do some online research into varieties adapted to your area.
I always draw out a plan for my beds in winter - then when I plant, I draw another that reflects what I *actually* did.
Husband and I built 2 garden beds the first year (we stapled hardware cloth to the bottoms to prevent burrowing critters) and added more beds as we went. If you go this route, you could build them now, research garden stores' compost/soil quality/availabilty, and set the beds up in the spring.
If you have more tips for EveR, post them here. Don't comment on old threads. Or else.
Puttering
I was busy yesterday puttering, here's a picture of me in action.
This is how we do yard work in AZ!
AZ deplorable moron
Wow.
Food involving produce (which may come from gardens)
By-Tor has a way of photographing a salad featuring fresh mozzarella, tomato, cucumber, fresh dill and cayenne with olive oil. MMMM. Imagine it made with garden-fresh produce next summer . . .
And this, too:
I found some late season pickling cucumbers so I made some spicy bread and butters and dills. And a jar of giardiniera.
And earlier, peach jam:
Earlier in the week, I posted some recipes for pumpkin-based soups. Here's another one that uses your Thanksgiving turkey carcass. It has some other veggies in it, too. From Terroir Seeds. Or maybe "Terror Seeds" if you use a Jack-o-Lantern instead of a cooking pumpkin or winter squash. Sounds good. I have a turkey carcass now. How about you?
And here's a not-too-sweet casserole featuring sweet potatoes. Video at the link. I grew sweet potatoes one year. It was an adventure. I got some HUGE ones. And some strange-looking ones.
Here are some of the slips, ready to be planted:
Indoor Gardening
African Violets from Notsothoreau:
You posted my picture of these when I first got them. One has finally bloomed!
"Throw out the radio and take the fiddle down from the wall."
- - Andrew Nelson Lytle*, Tennessee, 1930
Some history you might be thankful you didn't live through
—K.T.
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend! I thought it might be interesting today to consider a little history, and maybe think about some aspects of it that we might be thankful that we didn't have to live through.
The statue above is inspiring. There is a lot we can learn from it. But sometimes we forget how difficult the Revolutionary War was, not only for George Washington's troops, but for teenagers and even children.
. . . childhood in Colonial America meant growing up fast. New Mexico State Historian Rick Hendricks says that "the concept of teenager is something that is relatively new. In the 1770s, at the time of The Revolution, nobody would've really understood the concept of 'teenager.' You were young, and then you were an adult."
According to Kirk Ellis, who wrote and served as co-executive producer on HBO's 2008 miniseries John Adams, "Children [in the Revolutionary era] came into their maturity much sooner than they do now. John Quincy Adams was only 13 when his father packed him off to Russia as secretary to our ambassador to the court of Catherine the Great. John Quincy was already fluent in several languages by that time, including French, the language of the Russian court."
Teens were involved in the American uprising against British colonialism even before The Revolution. Ellis said, "A teenaged apprentice named Samuel Maverick was one of the five people killed in the so-called Boston Massacre, when British soldiers fired into a crowd of angry protesters on the night of March 5, 1770 -- one of the initial sparks that would eventually flare into the American Revolution."
The comparably accelerated adulthood of colonial youths came in handy for both sides when The Revolution began. Rebel militias took in fighters as young as 10, while the British military drafted men ranging from 16 to 60 years of age. It was expected that the youngsters take on the brunt of the fighting and marching while the older men stayed behind to defend their hometowns.
Children and teenagers not involved in battle took on other roles. Because of their seemingly innocent appearance, boys and girls were able to spy on the enemy and relay information back to their sides. University of New Mexico history professor Richard Melzer explains, "They had these big cloth buttons, and sometimes they would sew messages inside the buttons on their coats. And then they would wear the coats and deliver the message. When they got there, they would just pop the button and there it would be."
Smallpox affected them, too, on top of the rigors of war.
Compare the fighting teens of the American Revolution to the Petrograd Women's Death Battalion of the Russian Revolution, before the Bolshevik takeover. Setting an example for the men.
Ann Coulter gave an excellent summary of the woke interpretation of Thanksgiving: "As every contemporary school child knows, our Pilgrim forefathers took a break from slaughtering Indigenous Peoples to invite them to dinner and infect them with smallpox, before embarking on their mission to fry the planet."
On the other hand,
. . . Pilgrims saw themselves as fleeing a cataclysmic conflagration about to engulf Europe. And like the Roman hero, they too hoped to forge a new civilization with a spark from the dying embers of the old one.
This is exactly how John Quincy Adams viewed the story of the Pilgrims. In a speech in 1802 commemorating the landing at Plymouth, Adams described the Pilgrims as America's origin myth; but unlike other nations, the heroes of our founding myth were clearly known to us by their historical record, and they were defined by their virtue, not by their conquest.
"In reverting to the period of [their] origin, other nations have generally been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers," Adams told his American audience. "It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of which the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to your own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks at the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness to behold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous in accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtue you can dwell with honest exultation."
Getting there was hard, and they were off course. Then came the first dark winter, then Samoset and Squanto.
The settlers learned from Samoset that this area was the Wampanoag Tribe's territory, but the tribe had been so weakened by the plague that their leader, Massasoit, felt increasingly at the mercy of enemy tribes, who also happened to be the same ones menacing the Pilgrims. . .
With the help of Squanto, the Pilgrims had a successful harvest in the fall of 1621. They had come through the first winter, after losing 60 percent of their group. But rather than mourn the 60 percent lost, they rejoiced that 40 percent still lived and gave thanks to God.
Let the record show that this first Thanksgiving actually was a "quintessential feel-good holiday."
And considering how much it cost them in death, suffering, and toil to get to that celebration, I think it's fair to say that this first Thanksgiving was, in fact, the most expensive in our history.
In 1565, a fleet of Spanish ships bearing 800 colonists and 700 soldiers sighted land. Since it was Aug. 28, the feast of St. Augustine, the colony was named in honor of one of our greatest doctors of the Church. The entire colony -- all the settlers, all the troops -- went ashore on Sept. 8. As he set foot on land, the admiral of the fleet, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, kissed a crucifix and then claimed the land for the king of Spain.
The colonists erected a makeshift outdoor altar, decorated and furnished it, and then gathered around as the colony's chaplain, Father Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, celebrated Mass -- the first in Florida and the first in what is now the United States. Members of the Timucuan tribe were drawn to the beach by the arrival of the strangers and then stayed to watch the Mass. Afterward, the Spanish invited the Timucuans to join them in a feast to thank Almighty God for their safe arrival. And so Europeans and Native Americans shared a meal together, in a spirit of gratitude for their blessings -- and they did so 56 years before the pilgrims and Wampanoags' Thanksgiving in what is now Massachusetts.
Sadly, this era of good feelings came to an end quickly. Two weeks after their arrival, Menendez led his troops against a French settlement to the north. Through his spies in French seaports, King Philip II of Spain had learned that the French were encroaching on his territory. Worse still, the settlers were Huguenots, French Calvinists.
Philip authorized Menendez to exterminate the unauthorized colony. Menendez's expedition killed 130 men, sparing only the women and children. A few weeks later, Timucuans reported that a couple hundred shipwrecked Frenchmen had washed up on a nearby beach and were walking north. Once again, Menendez led out his forces and massacred these Frenchmen, too.
About a century later, the inhabitants of St. Augustine found themselves on the receiving end of national and sectarian violence. An English pirate captured the town, ransacked churches and private homes, killed about 60 people and carried off captives, some of whom he ransomed. He sold the rest as slaves. Colonial America could be a very bloody place.
Headlines from October 4, 1915
Turkey warned about atrocities
Kaiser's Forces Fully Ready
Some entertainment that would raise a few eyebrows today, too.
Germans cannot re-take trenches
Slaughter of the Armenians Mexicans Fire on U.S. Troops
Gluten-free chicken nuggets acquired. After my fifth grocery order in three weeks.
I also have bread and rice, so now it's just gluten-free breakfast cereal that's out of stock everywhere. Well, the crappy brands are readily available, but inedible. The good brands, which are Kellogg's and no-one else, are not to be found.
It's a psychological study following up on the 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind. Only problem is psychological studies are barely in a better state than those college students:
A total of 812 participants began the study. After removing the data of participants who did not finish the study, the final sample consisted of 786 participants (653 female, 127 male, 6 other/unspecified).
It has four mini-PCIe slots, four M.2 2230 slots, one M.2 2280 slot, a full-size PCIe x16 slot, and a PCIe x1 slot on the edge of the board for custom expansion. Plus two Ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, and two USB ports.
The only problem is that the largest model of the Pi CM4 - with 8GB RAM and 32GB built-in flash storage - costs $90, and this motherboard costs $435. That's partly because it's a low-volume board for prototyping and hobby projects, and partly because the chip that expands the Pi to deliver all those PCIe slots costs $125 all by itself.
Also it's not available. The initial batch sold out in five minutes.
It's still not great - it's about average - but it doesn't explode.
Gigabyte had a batch - apparently a large batch - of power supplies that had the over-power protection cutoff set far too high. Like protecting a 10A circuit with a 100A fuse; by the time the protection kicked in things were already on fire.
"Our operations are normal and wait times are normal (no delays)," Bernando (communications director of the Port of Oakland) told FreightWaves. "Who are you going to believe, us or the lying live camera view of the two mile long line of trucks waiting to enter the port?"
Who indeed, Mr Bernando. Who indeed.
Hololive JP Gen 6's La+ Darkness next to Gen 4's Kiryu Coco
By how much, you ask. I have no fucking idea, I reply. Not only does the official announcement fail to tell you, it doesn't even provide a link to the new pricing details.
QOI - the Quite OK Image Format - is similar in its goals to PNG, with similar levels of image compression, but thirty times faster. The difference for reading images is smaller but even there it's three times faster.
And the algorithm is dead simple - it's about 300 lines of C in its current form.
Seems to be a distinction without a difference, though, because the S22 Ultra is going to ship with a stylus and have the same little slot to hold that stylus.
It's only a few weeks since they broke the Windows 11 preview release with an ad, and now they are shoving buy now, pay later features into the Edge browser.
No, you idiots. To have any value at all your operating system has to be a neutral platform. No fucking ads. No fixed news streams.
As well as their IDEs for programming - IntelliJ for Java, PyCharm for Python, CLion for C, C++, Rust, Swift, and Python - quite good value if you can't afford the license for the entire suite, they offer DataGrip for managing database modelling and queries and DataSpell for data science.
I got the suite license back when they made an unpopular licensing change and got an angry flood of emails, and walked the changes most of the way back. So I'm grandfathered in at half price. Since I spend all day every day with at least one of their IDEs open, it's worth it.
If you're using their cloud offering, called hang on while I look this up, in which case you are an idiot because cloud databases are terrible, you have it now.
Community users and also on-premises enterprise customers can apparently get fucked.
Kimberly Wilkins, MongoDB technical lead at open source support and services company Percona, said release stability was a much greater concern among the developer base.
She pointed out that MongoDB was only providing one major release per year for on-premises and via the community edition, "with all other dot point releases going only to their customers that are using Atlas."
The versions following 5.0 "have been problematic for users so far," she claimed, with bugs impacting through to the release of MongoDB v5.0.3 on September 21, 2021.
Those first three releases were all labelled with the warning: "MongoDB version 5.0.0 is not recommended for production use due to critical issues..." The bugs caused issues such as duplicate unique keys, omitting a page of data, data loss, and problems restarting.
Yeah, I was wondering why the Percona release of MongoDB was stuck at 4.4. The fact that 5.0 is broken and Percona tries not to release broken databases would explain it.
I was going to be working on a migration to MongoDB 5.0, but got swamped with other tasks. Sounds like that was a blessing in disguise.
I'm migrating everything from MySQL to MariaDB to take advantage of temporal tables, which are a bit of a pain when it comes to schema updates but a life changer when it comes to reporting and data safety. I was working with 10.5, the last release to support TokuDB, but InnoDB with ZFS compression is just as good.
TokuDB is apparently still supported in Percona's release of MySQL 8.0, but MySQL 8.0 doesn't have temporal tables. Losing TokuDB means paying a bit more for larger, faster SSDs; losing temporal tables means writing and validating and maintaining equivalent code for every application you write.
Since that's my job - since that's supposed to be my job - this is of signficant interest. I've been using CherryPy for years because it just works, but it doesn't provide the benefits some of the newer frameworks do.
In this case, it's dramatically faster (in pure Python mode, anyway, but in production we run CherryPy under uWSGI so there's much less difference), uses Python 3 type hinting throughout so you don't need explicit parameter conversion, automatically generates OpenAPI and JSON Schema docs, and has built-in support for async and websockets.
It's not an async framework, though. Well, it is, given the way Python's async works, but you can code methods as sync or async as you please and it all just works so long as you don't cross the streams - don't use blocking calls in an async method or try to make async calls in a sync method.
It's built on Starlette which runs on top of Uvicorn, which is the actual underlying async web server.
Party Like It's 1979 Video of the Day
Pleading (relative) youth here. I've heard this song innumerable times, but didn't know who it was by or what it was called.
Party Like It's Ninja Hololive Team Gatchaman Video of the Day
I think HoloJP Gen 6 counts as a success. One day, one channel, 165,000 live viewers, 1.7 million total views, 317,000 subscribers.
Her name is La+ Darkness, and if you think that because she's some kind of demon girl that it's a pun on Laplace's demon then you're absolutely correct. I'm not sure about previous generations but all the HoloEN Gen 2 names are multilingual puns, ranging from the obvious (avatar of chaos Hakos Baelz - Bae to her fans - is an anagram of Khaos Blaze) to the subtle (one possible meaning of Nanashi Mumei is nobody no name).
Also YouTube itself translates her name to Laplace which rather gives the game away.
On those height comparisons: Hololive provide the height and birthday for every one of their talents. We know the official birthdays are adjusted for reasons of practicality, because a couple of them have had two birthdays in one year in their professional and personal capacities. We don't have much direct info about the height, but it's probably something close to reality because they do concerts using 3D motion capture and adjusting the model heights and making everything sync up when the characters are interacting is way outside of what's practical for a live performance right now. If they tried to do it, it would be immediately obvious.
Coco's human persona isn't as busty as she's depicted in 3D - I think she's the only one we have direct evidence of for that - and perhaps not quite as tall, but she can certainly pull off a Bayonetta cosplay.
All of which means that Gura, Luna, and Laplace are tiny.
Disclaimer: Except Cocoa Pops. Gluten-free Cocoa Pops they have.
There Stands The ONT Like A Stone Wall! Rally Behind The Morons!
—WeirdDave
Happy Friday Horde! Thanksgiving is behind us, which means that we're now starting Christmas season. That means that Christmas memes will begin making an appearance on the Friday Meme Madness!
Pro football used to be something I took interest in (before NFL football fields became a showcase for anti-American tantrums), especially when I was a kid. My buddies and I had all the games and toys. Thanksgiving weekend was always the apex of the season, with NFL games on TV all day on Thanksgiving, followed by the Texas-Texas A&M game that night. There were more college “rivalry games” on Friday and Saturday, followed by another full day of NFL on Sunday, wrapping up with a Monday Night Football game.
And we had football toys to tide us over during the other days of the week.
Watching kids of my day play with this toy looked very much like people of today furiously typing on their phones. Thumbs were flying.
Did any of y’all have electric football sets?
Electric Football always looked so fun on the commercials. It was also very exciting setting up all the pieces for the first play…which always ended in a big scrum moving in a slow-motion circle. Then we’d spend a lot of time putting all the players back in place for the 2nd play, with the same result. The average game lasted about 4 plays as I recall.
Here’s a vintage commercial for NFL Electric Football.
How about NFL Strategy? Did any of y’all ever play this? We had it. As I recall, one player was on offense and one on defense. You’d each pick a card with a play, slide the two cards into the slot, which then revealed a couple possible outcomes, then you’d pull the ball against the spring. Wherever it landed was the outcome of that play and you’d advance the ball accordingly. It was clever for an analog era. I’m pretty sure I called for the Flea Flicker on most plays…I didn’t believe in “three yards and a cloud of dust.”
How about Super Toe? I wanted this game, but Santa never came through for me.
I can verify that even though Nerf footballs are soft and made of foam, they can still break lamps just as effectively as real footballs when throwing passes in the Living Room.
Finally, I haven’t seen Monday Night Football in so long that I couldn’t tell you what the theme song is now, or who the hosts are. But when I was very young, there was nothing more magical than the Monday Night Football intro firing up on a Monday night in Fall. (The video below says “Video Unavailable” but you can watch it if you click on the link.)
Howdy, Y'all, and welcome back to the Happy Fun Thread, Day After Thanksgiving edition! You can stop eating now! Well, right after you make the post-Thanksgiving sammich I invented.
Weasel's Turkey Sammich
2 slices squishy white bread with every possible nutrient removed
Some leftover turkey
Duke's mayo
S&P
Turkey, mayo and S&P go betwixt the bread slices. Prep time: < 2 minutes. Enjoy!
Welp, another Thanksgiving is in the can. Friends and family are thankfully gone, the kitchen is clean and the extra dining room table leafs are back in the hall closet. Did I forget anything? Is your refrigerator jammed full or did you send stuff home with any guests you may have had? Inquiring minds would like to know in the comments, below.
So yesterday we strolled down memory lane looking at the idyllic life in America in the 1950's. Looked pretty dang idyllic to Weasel, that's for sure. Dad went to work and mom took care of the house and the kids did went to school, washed their hands before supper and were never brought home in the back of a police car. Did I miss anything? Was there anything not included in this wonderfully wholesome view of suburban America from yesteryear?
Well, there is one teensy-weensy little thing that was on people's minds at the time which wasn't covered in the material yesterday. Of course I'm referring to nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Rooskies, and the amount of time and attention devoted to Civil Defense education in the 1950s.
I've been doing pop culture all week, and I thought I'd finish the week on the same theme. My first offical job as a teenager was in a movie theater. I started as a doorman and usher, then did concessions and box office, finally working as a manager. One summer I worked as an operator (non-union projectionist) when I was living in Ocean City, Md. Always in demand were old posters (one-sheets) from movies that had left the theater. I've still got a big box of them somewhere, I always thought they would make a dandy wallpaper for a game room or something, but I never had a house with such a dedicated room. In any event, the first question of the day is, what are your favorite movie posters? Doesn't matter how good the movie was, I'm just talking about really good posters themselves. Here's mine, I have it framed and hanging on the wall of my office:
Last Embrace was a 1979 film starring Roy Scheider about an ex-CIA operative. His wife had been killed on his last mission, and now people around him are dying. Is he going crazy, or is he the target of some nefarious plot? It was a pretty good movie, but I just love the one sheet art. (BTW, I'm pretty sure the picture above is of an insert ( 14” x 36” ), not a one sheet( 27” x 40” ), but it was the best picture I could find).
One other thing that was always fun was collecting reels of trailers, previews of coming attractions, called trailers because originally they were shown after the feature presentation. We would get trailers in every week to put at the beginning of films, but after the film was released and then gone from theaters, they would be thrown out or rolled up and tossed into a dusty cabinet in the projection booth, where they were forgotten. Some of my friends and I would gather these up and splice them together onto hour long reels, and sometimes at night after the theater was closed we would run private shows of these trailer reels. It was really a lot of fun. Question number two is: What trailers did you really enjoy? I offer you this:
The effects are crap by modern standards, but the mood! My God, the mood!
Sefton's Thanksgiving Edition Hobby & Craft Thread (no, not actual thread, although...)
—J.J. Sefton
Hey kids. Hope you're all enjoying the long weekend and as we begin the Christmas season, it's time to start thinking about trains, planes and automobiles - of the model variety.
So, make like you're a kid again and press your nose up against the hobby shop window while dropping the not so subtle hint to mom and dad about how that Lionel Blue Comet would really look great circling under the tree.
As always, use caution with the chemicals and materials you use. Now let's head down to the basement, garage or craft room to be creative and have some fun!
PS: Still in search of someone who can help me with a miniature machining/engineering project. Reach out at admin@cutjibnewsletter.com
First up, this gentleman is an outstanding modeler and is creating a beautiful layout based on a car ferry operation near Vancouver. In this segment he kicks off the construction of a brewery. I believe he has worked as a special effects artist in film, and his perspective/philosophy on the hobby is most insightful.
The Ace of Clay is back, this time creating an Ice King Warlock out of Sculpey. He usually does much shorter videos but you get to see more of the process with the longer format.
For you diorama makers out there, a little bit of everything from building landforms, deep resin water pouring and 3D printing all coming together to make a creepy scene. Lots of good tips and techniques.
Even with the advent of radio control, there is still something magical about a well constructed rubber-powered job cutting across the sky. This is part one of a series on Free Flight Basics. He also has some videos of some beautiful models just doing their thing.
Just incredible craftsmanship and imagination in wood and metal to create this lamp.
I've featured this Russian fellow before and he is a master with paper mache. This time, however, he is using a thermoplastic compound to create a cosplay mask.
I'm not a big fan generally of competition shows but there are two British painting competitions "Portrait Artist of the Year" and "Landscape Artist of the Year" that I watch just to see how other painters work.
For you plastic modelers, follow along as David from the Czech Republic builds a Yak-1b in 1/72 scale from a new manufacturer. All sorts of tips on assembly, painting and weathering.
This young gent is building a really nice British N scale layout that features some incredible scratch built structures, all out of cardboard and paper. In this episode, he experiments with a low relief forced perspective structure for the backdrop.
Lastly, the boys over at Flite Test are once again pushing the envelope of the RC airplane hobby. This thing is a beast.
I grew up in a traditional Midwestern home. My brother and I served as remote controls for our father and mother. TV viewing consisted of 3 major networks and PBS.
After the Thanksgiving holiday Christmas shows started hitting the airwaves. They were wholesome shows without a political agenda. Those were the good old days.
Leave it to the Woke Left to %#@ up Santa Claus and his lovely bride. Santa is gay.
A new ad for the postal service in Norway portrays the story of a man falling in love with Santa over the years and ends with them kissing to celebrate the decriminalization of homosexuality in Norway.
The nearly four-minute long ad, entitled “When Harry Met Santa,” begins with a shirtless man wandering downstairs and discovering Santa dropping off gifts before vanishing up the chimney.
Another tradition that most of us grew up with be the Salvation Army's bell ringers in front of retail outlets. I know I use to throw a few bucks in every year.
Here we go again. The latest woke madness version of all Caucasians are racist comes from the Salvation Army. They don’t want donations from white people who won’t sincerely apologize for being racist. The Charity seeks to embrace the ideas of Black Lives Matter, dismantle white privilege” and “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
According to Central Nova News, the Salvation Army has created an “International Social Justice Commission,” which has developed and released a “resource” to educate its white donors, volunteers, and employees called “Let’s Talk about Racism.”
When someone or something says, "Let's talk about racism" what they actually mean is "Let me tell you how you will think and act."
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Those of you who know me, know that I have a potty mouth at times. My mother washed my mouth out with soap on many occasions. I think the first time was I called my brother a bastard. My parents never encouraged me to use curses.
Hilaria Baldwin employed some interesting parenting tactics on Thanksgiving when her six-year-old son, Rafael, whom she shares with actor Alec Baldwin, scrawled the ‘f-word’ and ‘poop’ all over his parents’ car in dust.
The yoga instructor turned star decided that the best way to remediate the situation was to film it and post it to her Instagram story, admitting that she was “kind of proud” of Rafael’s “spelling [and] reading.”
If nothing else, comedian Dave Chappelle has proven during the recent dustup over daring to joke about transgendered people that he is an intelligent man capable of deeper thought than some give him credit for.
Evidence of this was seen yet again this week when Chappelle made a surprise visit to his alma mater, D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
My guess is that he was alive today, Sam Kinison would be in the same boat as Chappelle.
Media: Biden’s Devastating Inflation Is A Good Reason To Eliminate Beloved American Traditions
—Buck Throckmorton
Your Thanksgiving meal was a lot more expensive this year. As Clay Travis notes below, wholesale turkey prices are up more than 300% from Thanksgiving 2020 (when Donald Trump was President) to Thanksgiving 2021 with Joe Biden as President.
Our despicable media, which has been doing everything they can to make excuses for the Biden administration’s wage-destroying inflation policies, is finally acknowledging that inflation exists. (And the inflation rate is a heck of a lot higher than the transparently dishonest 6.2% the Biden administration is reporting.)
The media’s solution? Eliminate the wonderful traditions of the holiday! They tell us you can do simple things, such as eliminating the turkey. Or no longer gathering together with family and others you care about.
The hate-America left, which includes the media, are unrelenting in their quest to destroy every tradition that makes this a great country. Inflation is not only destroying the purchasing power of average Americans, it is another weapon to destroy everything you love about this country, by the ruling-class elites who despise normal Americans.
My wife and I hosted a delightful Thanksgiving dinner, with several of her family members joining us. The food and fellowship were wonderful, and we had numerous conversations about our many blessings, for which we repeatedly expressed our gratitude. We never discussed politics or the divisions in this country.
But now that Thanksgiving is over, I can revel in knowing that our day of thanks was greatly offensive to the political and media elites who seek to destroy the beautiful tradition of Thanksgiving.
I'll be honest and upfront, I received the Moderna jabs in May. I have no plan on following up with any more jabs. Well, not at least until I visit the ER and have an updated Tetanus shot. Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor has nothing on me.
About the time I was vaccinated so was a close friend of mine. He came back from an overseas trip a week ago and two days later he was diagnosed with the Chinese Kung Flu.
Bryan Adams announces second COVID-19 diagnosis in month
Adams was expected to appear at in-person press events in Italy
Bryan Adams, the fully vaccinated Canadian rocker, took to social media Thursday to announce that he has been diagnosed with COVID-19 for the second time in a month while visiting Italy to promote a new calendar.
"Here I am, just arrived in Milano, and I’ve tested positive for the second time in a month for Covid," he posted on his Instagram account. "So it’s off to the hospital for me."
DIRTY PROTEST Anti-vax firefighter ‘drops his pants & wipes his butt with letter’ about compulsory covid shots in defiance of mandate
A FIREFIGHTER allegedly dropped his pants and wiped his bottom with a letter that ordered him to comply with Los Angeles’ compulsory vaccine mandate.
The alleged incident reportedly occurred on November 18.
The firefighter allegedly dropped his pants and wiped his butt with the letter before dropping it to the ground, according to the group The Stentorians of Los Angeles City.
Cheryl Getuiza, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman, said the firefighter is on leave and “will face the consequences of any inappropriate acts”, the Los Angeles Times reports.
She did not go into details of the incident and didn’t explain what caused the leave.
Getuiza warned that city employees must comply with the rules and “get vaccinated, file for an exemption or face termination”
The first case of the Covid-19 ‘Nu’ variant has been detected in Belgium, according to local media reports corroborated by a leading doctor, who said the health authorities have handled two “suspicious” samples.
“We are currently analyzing two suspicious samples,” Marc Van Ranst, a leading virologist whose laboratory works closely with Belgium’s public health body Sciensano, said on Twitter.
The virologist elaborated on his remark to Reuters, explaining the samples were described as “suspicious” since they were not the Delta variant, which has been dominant in Belgium.
Lin Wood is the Gloria Allred of the right. Fight me.
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Because I was focused so much on the Rittenhouse trial, I did not follow the Ahmaud Arbery case. Apparently, three white guys killed a black guy and all three were tried and found guilty of murder. They all are now facing life imprisonment. The disappointment on the left over this outcome is palpable. It's like, "damnit, the jury system worked. The white guys got what was coming to them. What are we going to do with all of these pallets of bricks, baseball bats, and Molotov cocktails? And somebody get Soros on the phone and tell him cancel all of the buses."
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Whether vaccines and masks are effective is not important. What's important is that they're mandatory.
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Here's a biology lesson for our friends on the left:
A dude in a dress is not a woman.
A dude in a dress and a wig is not a woman.
A dude in a dress and a wig and lipstick is not a woman.
A dude in a dress and a wig and lipstick and fake breasts is not a woman.
A dude in a dress and a wig and lipstick and fake breasts and no penis is not a woman.
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Looters loot because the cost of looting is low. They hardly ever get caught, and if by some chance they are, they will either be released or pay some minimal penalty. The only way to stop looting is to shoot looters while they're looting. This sounds harsh and barbaric, but the alternative is worse: mandating that business owners to be perpetual victims, and abandoning law-abiding citizens to mob violence. That's the real barbarism. We're on our way to this, and, eventually, this.
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This is pretty stupid:
I remember my mother both reusing aluminum foil and saving bacon grease, so I was about to write a big screed about how fact-checking nowadays is garbage. then I realized it's probably fake. The evidence, both contemporary and historical, that reusing aluminum foil and saving bacon grease are both common practices, is abundant. So someone is having a bit of fun with Photoshop here. Regardless, I still think fact-checking nowadays is garbage.
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The headline of an article on the site of a local TV station reads: Local Churches Give Back To Families In Need This Thanksgiving. This struck me as odd. What, exactly, do they mean by give 'back'? Did the churches somehow steal food from some poor families? Are they making restitution? Because when you give something back to someone, that implies that person had prior ownership. And he either gave it to you previously, or you took (i.e. stole) it from him. "People are poor because things were stolen from them" is a very poisonous view and leads to all sorts of mischief and injustice.
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I spent some time on Thanksgiving doing what I haven't done for in a long time, that is, watching an NFL game. In this case, it was the Raiders-Cowboys game, played in Dallas. Notably absent were the usual audience shots I was used to seeing, cheering crowds, fans decked out in goofy attire, faces painted with their team's colors, and holding up signs and props (like that 'D' fence thing), etc. I knew the stadium was full, because sometimes I'd see the crowd in the background, like when the camera would have to follow the ball kicked on a punt return, but I thought the lack of close-up crowd shots was just odd.
The game was in Dallas, in the free state of Texas, and by 'free', I mean no mask mandates, and people generally don't wear masks. So the stadium was filled with happy, unmasked people enjoying themselves, living normal life. Somebody at the network made the deliberate, considered decision that close-up shots of happy, unmasked people enjoying themselves would not be shown to a nationwide audience. Why his decision was made I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Monday Who Dis: Usually for the male 'who dis', I try to snag a shirtless pic, which may be hard to come by with earlier actors. But with bodybuilder Steve Reeves, I had the opposite problem. I couldn't find many photos of him where he *didn't* have his shirt off. And for those that did, he was wearing some scanty tunic whose only purpose was to showcase his beefcakey charms. Hubba hubba. He is perhaps best known for playing opposite Yugoslavian hottie Sylva Koscina in the B-grade spear-and-sandal films Hercules, Hercules Unchained and Hercules' Big Arms.
Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By CBD's After-Thanksgiving Breakfast Pie:
CBD sez: "I hope everyone is enjoying their breakfast pie! Mine’s pecan, and I think my teeth are going to fall out from all of the sugar...Happy Thanksgiving!"
MUST WATCH: "HE CROSSED STATE LINES!"
It's Matt Taibbi's brand, put together by video contributor Matt Orfalea.
Both are lefties.
I'm sorry, what are we paying the Conservative Grifter Class for, again? What is the point of them? What would you say they do here?
Alice
@AliceFromQueens
Now any 17 year old will feel free to cross state lines. Heckuva job, America.
Note she's a lefty but apparently mocking the "HE CROSSED STATE LINES!" obsession of the shitlib media. She's even making fun of righties who are making fun of her for saying this. But, you know, can you blame us? We're literally hearing this seriously offered as Real Crime by every shitlib in the media and by ever shitlib on Twitter. And this is quite a subtle parody. But this particular leftwinger sees the absurdity of it all and is mocking the shitlibs. Honestly a lot of the farther-left leftwingers are not buying into this at all. Unlike, say, the National Review "conservative" neoliberal types. "He shouldn't have been there," you know. It is very eye-opening to see the " " " conservatives " " " trying to hang this kid and far-leftwingers grasping, against normal tribal interest, that he's completely innocent, and no, "crossing state lines" doesn't change that, and no, "he shouldn't have been there" doesn't make him a villain. Notice how the Conservative Grifter Class simply repeats every single talking point they hear from their Very Good Friends on CNN and MSNBC and in the NYT and Washington Post. It's almost a if they're... politically and personally allied or something.
Harmeet K. Dhillon
@pnjaban
Is anyone planning to CROSS STATE LINES for Thanksgiving? Be sure to check with your on-call lawyer or choice for legal advice!
The Brain Trust at ESPN has some piercing legal thoughts about the Rittenhouse Trial, starting with "he crossed state lines" I'm going to make a Spaghetti Western style retelling of the Rittenhouse Justice Ride. It will be called, "LUI HA ATTRAVERSATO I CONFINI DI STATO" -- "HE CROSSED STATE LINES." I'm seeing freeze-frame introductions of the villains, "IL PEDO"/"Short-Eyes," "IL BIMBO SULLO SKATE"/"Skater-Boi," and "MANCINO"/"Lefty." And of course a freeze-frame introduction of our hero, "L'UOMO DALLE MANI VIOLA"/"The Man With Purple Hands." Hoo-hah, hoohah, hoo-hah, hoohah whipcrack...
Maybe I'll throw in Skater-Boi's unsatisfied, abused girlfriend as a love interest, "SIGNORINA ASSETATA"/"Miss Thirsty."
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Hoagy Carmichael in the back, and from left-to-right: Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic March
"There oughtta be a law against any man who doesn't want to marry Myrna Loy." -- Jimmy Stewart
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