westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
Still, TikTokers point to the distinction between sharing data with a private Chinese company and the Chinese government.
None. The difference is none. All Chinese internet companies are entirely under the thumb of the Chinese intelligence agencies.
For its part, TikTok has tried to appease U.S. officials with a plan called Project Texas, a $1.5 billion undertaking that will move U.S. users' data to Oracle servers.
This can't happen all the time or it would have been caught and fixed years ago, but several users from the UK reported it right as daylight savings started there.
Always configure Linux/Unix systems to run root as UTC. You can set timezones in individual user accounts and applications, but leave root alone.
I'd like to see a bigger review of these services; I'll see if I can find one. Basically you can send these companies a design and get back circuit boards - in as little as 24 hours if you're willing to pay. Some will also assemble the entire circuit for you, though again that costs money.
I work from home, but that started because I was working twelve hours a day and couldn't continue doing that if I spent two hours commuting each day as well. It worked so well that the company eventually closed its physical office and set everyone to work from home.
But these people are just idiots.
"I'm collapsing here. I 'm sorry I feel like a total failure," one Amazon staffer wrote, according to Insider. "Come in and work. Do as you're told."
"I'm crying as my family prepares a meal."
On second thoughts, you're right. Don't bother coming into the office. We'll send you your severance details.
Now there is a point here: There is almost no difference between the 1340P and 1360P (or the previous generation's 1240P and 1260P) and no reason to spend the extra $320, except that the 1360P Framework 13 comes with a slightly larger battery.
The reason for that is that Framework already has large orders for the smaller, older battery and needs to put them somewhere or pay a lot of money to cancel the order, and the 1340P as the latest low-end model is the obvious victim of choice.
But on the eleventh hand, just buy the AMD version. Better in every way and all AMD models come with the new battery.
I'm planning to plunk down $100 to pre-order it. Ships some time in Q3, and I doubt something better will show up before then.
Framework Video of the Day
Now that Linus has his channel back (one of his staff opened a PDF that wasn't a PDF) he's taken a look at the new Framework 16. A prototype, since it won't ship until late this year, but he was an early investor in Framework and has one of the biggest hardware review sites around, so he gets early access.
This video shows off the modular design: Six swappable I/O modules - they're all USB-C internally but can switch between USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet, audio, micro SD, or storage - up to 1TB each. A swappable PCIe module for a graphics card or other device.
And six swappable input modules. The keyboard, trackpad, and the inch or so of empty space to either side of each are all removable and replaceable without even needing a screwdriver - they clip in place with magnets. (The screen bezel is also magnetic.)
Which is great but still leaves the model I want - the Framework 13 - without the Four Essential Keys.
Disclaimer: You can't always get what you want, unless you have a Digi-Key account, a surface-mount reflow workstation, and a very steady hand.
Brenda and Steve took their six-year-old son to the doctor. With some hesitation, they explained that although their little angel appeared to be in good health, they were concerned about his rather small penis.
After examining the child, the doctor confidently declared, “Just feed him pancakes. That should solve the problem.”
The next morning when the boy arrived at breakfast, there was a large stack of warm pancakes in the middle of the table.
“Gee, Mom,” he exclaimed, “for me?”
“Just take two,” Brenda replied. “The rest are for your father.” (H/T TNDeplorable)
Handyman turns the tables on squatters who took over his mother's house
Squatting on the squatter: Man shares his story of reclaiming his mom's Northern California home
A handyman turned the tables on suspected squatters who took over his mother's Northern California home.
"If they could take a house, then I could take a house," Flash Shelton of the United Handyman Association said in a YouTube video. "They're the squatter, and they have rights. Well, then, if I become the squatter on the squatter, then I should have rights, right?"
If there’s one place one can find plenty of nicknames, it’s within the sprawling landscape of the armed forces. When it comes to the greater civilian world, there’s no historical precedent or agreed upon social norm for how someone or something gains a substitute informal title. However, given the Department of Defense’s fondness of rigid structure, it should be no surprise that when it comes to nicknames, there’s a policy for them, too.
Meet NICKA
Prior to 1975, names for military operations and projects were exclusively chosen at the behest of military commanders. As a result, within the annals of American military history one can find a diverse range of interesting titles from Operation Killer—a major 1951 counter-offensive during the Korean War—to Operation Beaver Cage—a U.S. Marine Corps operation that occurred during the spring of 1967 as part of the Vietnam War.
Fred Fletcher-Jackson, a Wheel of Fortune contestant, recently won an impressive $75,800 in a "perfect game" on the game show. As he celebrated his victory, host Pat Sajak playfully "tackled" him from behind and put his arm in a "chicken wing" move. Some viewers criticized Sajak for the move, calling it "cringe." However, Fletcher-Jackson is actually a professional wrestler and drama teacher, and it's clear that Sajak thought he could goof around with him like this.
Alice Little, have invited Garoppolo to use their services as a thank-you for joining the Raiders, per TMZ.
"But he gets free sex for life from us just because he’s such a legit babe!" Bell said in a statement.
And Stephen A., who often calls the quarterback "Pornstar Jimmy," couldn't stop himself from commenting on the unusual offer in a recent episode of his Know Mercy podcast.
Smith shared a clip of his monologue on Instagram with a caption that read: "Jimmy Garoppolo got offered free WHAT now?! Vegas is DIFFERENT!"
Hackers Render Tesla Car Unsafe to Drive, Win Themselves a Model 3
Synacktiv security researchers conquered two separate Tesla systems at a hackathon sponsored, in part, by Elon Musk's EV company.
A Tesla Model 3, but not the one that security researchers won by breaking into its software systems at a hacking competition.
Photo: Allison Dinner / Stringer (Getty Images)
A group of security researchers have, once again, proven that Tesla vehicles’ high-tech software and systems are easily exploited. At Zero Day Initiative’s Pwn2Own 2023 hacking competition this week, cybersecurity firm Synacktiv successfully cracked both Tesla’s infotainment and Gateway networks in a Model 3 car, as first reported in a Zero Day blogpost.
An alleged kidnapping, duped investors and losses topping $40 million — those are some of the newest details emerging as authorities try to unravel what Canada's self-proclaimed Crypto King did with the money investors gave him.
According to claims spelled out in a new trustee report from bankruptcy proceedings against Aiden Pleterski, while authorities were trying to track down millions of dollars given to him to invest, the 24-year-old was allegedly kidnapped in the middle of the night last December. The trustee believed much of it went to fuel a lavish lifestyle and that very little of it was actually invested.
Pleterski's father told the trustee Pleterski was driven around Southern Ontario, beaten and tortured. Pleterski's landlord said he got a call asking for ransom of $3 million.
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The ONT Musical Interlude & Front Row Seats Emporium
The Fabulous and I saw this artist last night. Tight band with a very good sound. The mystery click was also on the bill last night.
Palm Bay police arrested a man accused of speeding on Tuesday.
According to an affidavit, 22-year-old Jevon Jackson was going 100 mph in a 40-mph zone in the area of Degroodt Road and Gates Street.
After he was pulled over, Jackson reportedly told officers he was speeding to get his girlfriend to a job interview at Taco Bell.
Police say three children were in the vehicle at the time.
Jackson was arrested for reckless driving, child neglect and habitual traffic offender.
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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by a Realistic Excuse.
Notice: Posted with permission by the loyal & dedicated weekend staff at the Ace Media Empire. Saturday night jokes, loose change, drink tokens, burner phones & dark rye bread to petmorons at gmail dot com.
Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: A Man For All Seasons
—Open Blogger
The extended award season, finally receding into the future haze of "What won for best song in 2023?"*, always tends to pique me: What is great? From school, you'd get the idea that "great" is what a professor dozens or hundreds of years later thinks about your work. And however vile academics are today (and however mediocre they've historically been), we have both Shakespeare and Bach today because some academic recovered them from fickle pop culture. If someone can dig up your work hundreds of years later and people can still embrace the aesthetic, that's a measure of greatness.
However, I do think there's great "in the moment". Tons of, e.g., '80s culture was the right mood (as the kids say) for the time. This is true of every era, of course, and what's remarkable about the '80s is that a lot of the stuff dismissed as ephemera at the time still holds up today—in contrast to the late '60s/early '70s, which was absolutely convinced of its own immortality and is the very definition of "cringe" today.
From a narrative standpoint, however, a great story (by my lights) is the one that tells the tale that truly is eternal which brings us to A Man For All Seasons, 1966's Best Picture Oscar winner.
The Flower (a recent convert to Catholicism) had been wanting to watch this for some time, and we finally did. It is as great as I remembered it being, but it also maps perfectly on to the recent struggle against the lockdowns, the whole red vs. blue pill, and the dangers of going against The Cathedral (in a practically literal sense). It is odd to see a movie you know well and love and yet be shocked into wanting to check the copyright to see if it was actually made yesterday.
Of course, it couldn't have been made yesterday now, could it? (Maybe during the Trump administration, so they could metaphorically make him the villain, like they did with Bush and The Lives of Others.)
Directed by Fred Zinneman (High Noon, From Here To Eternity, Oklahoma!) who won directing and producing Oscars, based on a play by Robert Bolt (Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago) who also won an Oscar, this is the story of Sir Thomas More, who stood against King Henry VIII's decision to split from the Catholic Church in order to secure a divorce—and who expects his adherence to the law to protect him as Henry's sycophants (and Henry himself) try bullying, cajoling and finally tricking him into breaking the law. Anything to get his agreement, which only seems to be important because he won't give it.
"You ever looked into the Pope's eyes? They're like a doll's eyes!"
Successful, respected, principled, we seem More lose all his worldly goods, we see his family turned against him (at least insofar as supporting his principles), we see him jailed and finally railroaded with an outright lie in a court of law. And, in a scene that is apparently close to historical truth, we see him executed. (Spoilers on a 500 year old event?)
Here, More is not even expressly going against Henry VIII: He's simply not going with him, and that is enough to spur the escalating madness. Throughout the movie, More (who is not naive) is increasingly red-pilled, as he realizes if the King wants you dead, you're dead, law be damned. Throughout, his friends and allies are imploring him to be reasonable, because it's better than the alternative. (Relevantly, the issue of "right" or "wrong" isn't really at play here, except in the sense that Henry feels he's in the wrong, and he can't feel that he's the wrong.)
Paul Scofield won the acting Oscar (but he didn't show because he figured he would lose to Richard Burton, who turned down the More part). Charlton Heston lobbied for the role and appeared in the 1988 version (which I find unwatchable). The cinematography—Technicolor, before they started muddying the colors too badly for "realism"—and costumes are great and also won Oscars. Robert Shaw (Jaws) lost best supporting actor.
Making the staff feel guilty.
A young John Hurt—his first role in a big movie—plays a would-be toady to More. Leo McKern, Wendy Hiller, Orson Welles, Vanessa Redgrave (who would go on to star in the Heston version), and Susannah York round out the cast.
Historical realism? It probably ends with the costumes (and the execution scene). More's actual track record was not one of tolerance, with any number from three to eight heretics being burned at the stake during his reign as chancellor, according to modern historians. At the same time, revisionism is so endemic, I wouldn't believe George Washington didn't cut down the cherry tree if I weren't his alibi for the night.
But realism is not the point: Bolt's More is aspirational. He is what we should all be. Principled and willing to work within the system to the extent that it doesn't compromise his principles.
If Bolt had specific events in mind, it also doesn't matter, because it works so well today. (Contrast with Spartacus where Dalton Trumbo shoehorns his anti-McCarthy speech into the mouths of literal slavers.) It's the universality of this premise which is great: We will always be impressed on to conform and to compromise even our most fundamental beliefs, it seems like. With More we have a role model.
Greetings gang. Well it's spring on the calendar but old man winter just decided to dump about eight inches of snow on us here in the midwest. It's a great excuse to stay indoors and get creative.
NOTE: This thread is limited to discussion of hobby-related topics. Please leave other topics, especially politics, at the door.
I'll start with some sad news for model railroad enthusiasts. Malcom Furlow, whose name is instantly recognizable to anyone who's been in the hobby for any length of time, passed away earlier this month at the age of 77. Click here for a full obituary.
For most of the 80s, his byline was a mainstay in the modeling press for his wonderfully imaginative narrow gauge modeling as depicted on his HOn3 Denver & Rio Chama Western. Probably the most popular of his numerous articles were two start-to-finish layout construction series: the San Juan Central and Carbondale Central, both appearing in Model Railroader in 1984 and 1988 respectively.
Yet, as quickly as he burst onto the modeling scene, he all but disappeared to devote his time building a reputation as a fine artist, becoming a renowned painter of vivid, semi-abstract works depicting mostly southwestern themes. I was a big fan of his talents and mostly his wonderful sense of imagination that gave his models character. More than that, Malcolm Furlow had the ability to transform a simple train set on a sheet of plywood into a true miniature world.
Here he is in his heyday. RIP and thanks for the memories.
Once when I was growing up, my family stayed in a log cabin-type motel in West Yellowstone. (Incidentally, log cabin construction is earthquake-resistant, which was a good thing in West Yellowstone).
Anyway, we kids decided to walk into town, and two big dogs from the motel decided to accompany us. We did not invite them. They decided on their own.
Everyone we encountered seemed to think they were wolves, and most of them slowly moved away from us. But I guess they weren't wolves. They were dogs. Still, they gave us sort of an unearned feeling of power.
My uncle had a malamute hybrid out in the country when I was a kid, he was kind of a wild animal that showed up and he took in. scariest looking but he was actually the sweetest when it came to humans but once I remember seeing him chase a deer down across the field and became pic.twitter.com/jEFZaJhUI8
I'm a long time lurker, a VERY long time. I've posted in the comments sparingly but I should contribute more. I post under the nic Hank Scorpio.
This is Archie. We rescued him the day before he was scheduled to be put down. He was a little older than what people want in a dog and he has a cyst on top of his head, there was just something about him that compelled us to snatch him up in 2018. He is very friendly dog and pretty smart. But don't let the cuddly appearance and friendly nature fool you, Archie is a jerk. He's demanding and stubborn, he loves to wake up my wife at 3AM to be let out. And the barking, my God the barking.
He's family now, follows my wife everywhere and I get the sense that if anyone tried to harm her or our kids, he would do something about it.
Well, Archie looks like he could be very protective!
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Coal, our Bombay, AKA the Poco Pantera, likes to climb into the Neater Feeder while I fill the water dish. He's such a funny boy!
Cheers leber (the backwards rebel).
He looks very dignified for a cat in a dish. And I see a friend coming around the corner . . .
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from Shelgel
This Kai he has a very rough life. Keep him in your prayers. ? He was adopted from as pup from a pet rescue from the reservation. I have heard him bark maybe 3 times in over the year+ we have had him.
He does look like he has a tough life!
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We lost Sunny!
Not really. We put new flooring in the bedrooms. Great camouflage!
Marty
Sunny's eyes really stand out in that environment!
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Here are our smooth fox terrier brother and sister, Bonnie and Clyde. They love people and hate squirrels.
mc
Wow! What a great photo! Makes me want to be their friend.
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What a fun collection of pet stories and photos today. Thank you for sharing your pets with us.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, March 25
—K.T.
Happy Spring, everybody! I hear that there is still some cold weather in parts of the country. Around here, in Central California, we have some road closures from flooding, but it's not raining today!
Sometimes someone in The Horde has some excitement in the yard or garden. Usually not this much excitement:
Two pics of what I can only assume is the same lion with her cubs taken about 7 months apart. The second pic, I would not want to mess with that mama lion.
I also feel sad for them, they are covered with foxtails.
Entries for the LA County Fair Culinary competition are ready. Last year I won with jerky and pickles. This year I'm trying with apple butter and sauerkraut
Later,
I turned in two jars of sauerkraut to the LA County Fair, which left me with 5 pints, which I canned today.
It goes well with a veggie omelette and sourdough toast with homemade apple butter.
Looks good. Hoping for some fair ribbons!
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I think the following information is from By-Tor's early experimentations with saurkraut, maybe last year, a recipe and tips:
There are a million versions online and on YT. I have tried several- this one is easy and works.
Shred a large head of cabbage minus the core with a knife or food processor. Put it in your biggest bowl. For a large head of cabbage sprinkle 3 tablespoons of non-iodized salt ( use canning salt, kosher salt or sea salt) on it. Let it sit 20 minutes then crunch it up with your hands, squeezing out as much water as you can. Repeat in another 15 minutes or so. Dont throw out the water!
Put the cabbage and water you have made into some sort of airtight jar or tub or food safe bucket with a lid. Leave at least an inch or so at the top.
Make a 2.5% salt water brine, which is 25g of salt per 1000ml, or to keep it simple, about 2 tablespoons salt ( non-iodized) dissolved in a quart of hot water. Top off your cabbage with the brine, put the lid on, and leave alone. In about 3 days it will start turning a light brown. In about 6 days it will taste like sauerkraut. In two weeks it will be really good. I eat some out of the fermenter every day when I am making it.
If you see white specks or film on top, don't panic; it's not mold, it is harmless Kahm yeast. Just scoop it off. There is a 99% chance you will see this. You should briefly take the lid off your container every day or to to let out any CO2. Top off with brine as needed.
When you think it is done ( 3 weeks is about right) you can water bath can it in mason jars, store it in your fridge for months in jars, or freeze it in containers or bags. I usually put one jar in the fridge without canning it, then can the rest. I'm not a huge fan of freezing; better to store your excess in your garage fridge where it will be fine for a year or more, but will probably be gone before that.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you try it.
Later:
Sauerkraut update- fermentation in jars was going along fine, but due to air getting in I was getting daily spots of yeast on the surface. It's called kahm yeast. It is safe to eat, and harmless, and isn't spoilage, but it does impart a sweet, yeasty flavor that doesn't go with sauerkraut. You can skim it off but that gets old. It is very common in fermented vegetables.
Solution- sealed lids with airlocks. Those can be had on Amazon but I chose to use a local business. Where would you get airlocks and such? At your local homebrew store. . . They hooked me up with a nice 2 gallon fermenting jar, a one gallon jug I will use for pickles, and airlocks.
The kraut is basically done but I like it more sour so I'm going to let it ferment another week or two.
Ah, Nature
You could not begin to fathom the drama these seemingly harmless fungi are capable of causing, pic.twitter.com/AURW7bLHYw
— Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (@OKWildlifeDept) March 20, 2023
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Gardens of The Horde
For a while there I lived in an apartment that was cement-bound. Well, cement and asphalt.(and brick and stone). This is how I addressed that situation, by placing a planter on either side of my door:
In the pic on the left, you see how the sweet potato vine looks like it's climbing? I had trained it to go up to the side of my door.
I also hung a couple of those impatiens bags on either side of my windows. It really did help to alleviate all that masonry. It just felt stifling without the greenery.
kallisto
They are lovely. I can imagine that they made a real difference to the larger environment. I tweaked the color saturation a little to make up for your phone transmission difficulties. Didn't turn out the same on both photos.
Kallisto also sent in a link to some lovely USPS spring flowers that persevere through the snow, issued in October of last year. Have you seen them?
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Troublemaker James Lindsay is trying to get people to move beyond the use of "critical race theory" and "queer theory" to explain wokeness, and return to the Marxist roots of today's woke revolutionary movement. I find this interesting, because he co-wrote a book explaining how some of the grievance studies included a lot of postmodern nonsense. It's deep reading. He's going back to basics, it seems.
They're trashing the word "Woke" and conservatives for using it because it has become a gigantic liability that their ideology has a name now. Keep going.
Woke means Critical Consciousness. Critical Consciousness means the cult beliefs and activism of Critical Marxism. It means denouncing the existing world to make way for a "utopian" alternative.
Okay. Here are some excerpts from the New Discourses Translations from the Wokish of Critical Consciousness:
Critical consciousness is, in short, having adopted a critical mindset, in the sense of critical theories. It is to have taken on a worldview that sees society in terms of systems of power, privilege, dominance, oppression, and marginalization, and that has taken up an intention to become an activist against these problematics. To have developed a critical consciousness is to have become aware, in light of this worldview, that you are either oppressed or an oppressor--or, at least, complicit in oppression as a result of your socialization into an oppressive system. To have a critical consciousness is to be aware of - - and generally unhappy about - - your positionality in society, i.e., your relationship to systemic and institutional power as determined by Theory and based mostly on facts concerning what demographic groups you are a part of.
The term originated in the Portuguese . . from the post-Marxist Brazilian activist and educator Paulo Freire, usually deemed the father of critical pedagogy (that is, the application of critical theories to the theory of education). This Freire seems to have derived from the French psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon's concept of conscienciser in his early anti-colonialism book, Black Skin, White Masks. The "consciousness" that Fanon discussed mostly applies to the racial consciousness and consciousness of the colonized that would make people oppressed within colonial contexts seek to rebel and overthrow their oppressors. Freire, working mostly to achieve improvements in literacy in a postcolonial setting in Brazil while approaching the topic from a communist perspective, considered critical consciousness in a similar light, though less openly revolutionary than Fanon and more interested in reform.
This Freire guy seems to be EVERYWHERE in schools of education. Time to get kids out of government schools?
The grievance studies folks were not finished:
Critical theories, not least in education, have evolved considerably since the 1960s and 1970s when Freire developed these ideas, and, now, critical consciousness is typically reserved to mean the same kind of critical awareness or awakening, though with regard to issues of identity--like racism, sexism, and so on (see also, neo-Marxist)--and not so much through Marxist or Marxian analysis of economics or the systems that exist and/or support capitalism. (See: The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories by Isaac Gottesman.) In that sense, a critical consciousness, sometimes referred to as "critical literacy" or "social justice literacy" now (see examples below), refers essentially to assuming that society is constructed by systems of power that manifest dominance and oppression mostly in terms of "intersecting" demographic group identities. The slang term for this specific type of critical consciousness, arising since the Black Lives Matter movement propelled it to a widespread meme, is "wokeness."
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Example:
AOC demonstrates how having critical consciousness impacts views on parents' rights. Everything critical consciousness opposes is "fascism." https://t.co/8YtCMmxctL
— James Lindsay, crying more (@ConceptualJames) March 24, 2023
The Woke ideology is female. You can't respond to it with toxic masculine strength. That's punching a woman in the face. . . That's not how you deal with a hysterical woman; that's for an aggressive man.
Woke advances by summoning demons that barely exist so it can defeat them. . . It can be sidestepped with strength, tho.
Apparently the State Senator has an 11 year old child who identifies as transgender. Perhaps it does not occur to her that current treatments for children actually harm them. Even though medical authorities in Europe are turning against them.
In the Theory and activism of Critical Social Justice, "genocide" frequently refers to the destruction by any means at all of a (politically relevant) identity group, especially a politically relevant identity group that can be understood as being marginalized, minoritized, or oppressed by systemic power, presently or historically. This destruction need involve zero deaths and could be the result of people no longer seeing themselves as a politicized identity or being removed from the circumstances in which that identity is relevant (e.g., by curing a condition like hearing loss).
This is difficult to understand, and one's mind may, at this point, immediately jump to an identity category like race and think that only a literal genocide could possibly qualify for the kind of destruction necessary to merit this use of the term. This is incorrect. As races, being socially constructed, are not seen in Theory as having any relationship to biology or, for that matter, physical reality, and are instead seen as political categories, one could "genocide" a race, in Theory, like blacks, simply by declaring race to be irrelevant. [1] (A savvy reader here will realize, then, that the elimination of racism through anything that looks like integrationist strategies or genuine colorblindness might be construed as a genocide and thus vigorously rejected and resisted, including with violence, by advocates of Critical Social Justice.) This is generally in keeping with the view in Critical Social Justice that identity groups and their cultures, not individuals, are the relevant object of interest, and those groups and cultures are inherently political (see also, identity).
In other words, if kids who "identify as trans" don't go on puberty blockers and decide later that they aren't trans (like Brangelina's lovely daughter), that's genocide. At the link, "genocide" of fat people through weight loss is described in "fat studies". GAINZZZ is genocide!
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Critical Social Justice Genocide in International News
Waiting for action on actual genocide in the more powerful countries of the Middle East any day now.
Watch all of the anti-colonialists at the WaPo & NYT demand that the West use its political & economic power to make African *Christian nationalist* countries like Kenya & Uganda bend the knee to Pride. Narratives are about to get seriously scrambled.pic.twitter.com/jLxcMRdq09
Critical Consciousness (Woke Ideology) causes mental illness. It also exploits mental illness. It's a psychiatric snake eating its own tail. https://t.co/CIMdL5eDuV
— James Lindsay, crying more (@ConceptualJames) March 19, 2023
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Music
Some of the Streets of Bakersfield are flooded or closed due to recent flooding right now.
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Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.
Is coffee racist? How drinking coffee perpetuates white supremacy
Created by Black people for Black people—and now a pillar of white supremacist capitalism. If you consume coffee, you are helping an industry built on racism.
If you’re a person of color, you know what I’m talking about. You walk into a new coffee shop and your senses are overwhelmed with whiteness and you get the glare from the Karens. The white hipster barista lines herself up between you and the bathrooms, ready to tell you non-customers aren’t welcome.
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo atsign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
2/24 – Legally Sufficient asked for the Horde’s prayers as she undergoes total knee replacement surgery on 2/27. She asks for strength and continued faith. She also asked for prayers for her husband, and asks that God would provide him with strength and patience as he helps nurse her through this.
3/16 Update: Surgery went very well and there is very good progress in healing and movement. She sends her heartfelt thanks to the Horde for their prayers on their behalf. She and her husband felt lifted in prayer during those moments when they needed support the most. Her husband was an excellent partner in healing, who now looks forward to spring fishing (when and if spring ever comes)!
2/25 – J asked for prayers for a new trap-shooting club that is starting. He asks that it is successful for all the adults and children involved and doesn’t get attention outside of their pro-hunting community (if you know what I mean).
2/25 – Dr_No sends an update and thanks for the prayers for healing for his daughter Megan. We had prayed for her when she was going through chemotherapy for colon cancer 2 years ago. She just tested again, and is still cancer-free! He prays for blessings and healing for those still dealing with illness and loss.
2/25 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd sends prayers of thanks for his daughter’s turnaround. She had become alienated from her parents and from God, and now has come back more toward faith and is more kind and concerned toward them. This has also helped his wife’s faith, too, which has been struggling due to these troubles with their daughter.
3/1 – Inogame asked for prayers. He had come to the Horde after his wife miscarried 2 years ago, and appreciated our prayers and kindness. They were blessed with a little girl later that year. Now they are in the same situation. They have lost another baby and need prayers against the sorrow and depression.
3/7 - Pookysgirl sends a prayer of thanks that Pooky has been approved for SSDI benefits, and designated as 100% disabled by the VA, which doubles his monthly benefits. This means they are not in such a desperate financial situation, and it marks the end of a two+ year battle with bureaucracy.
3/11 – Jasonj asked for prayers for Barbara, his wife, to be added to the list. She had back surgery recently, and is healing well, but has a long road ahead. Also please add Alex, his son, who is a quadriplegic with a serious addiction to pain meds.
3/11 – Free Tibet asked for prayers for his friend JR, who is undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer (neuroendocrine version). Thanks to the Horde for everything.
3/15 – Fenelon Spoke asks for prayers for the church she servers – that if it’s God’s will that their financial problems might be resolved through one of several options, so they can continue to be open to the Glory of God, the lifting up of Jesus Christ, and the support of the church community, some of whom have attended there for decades. She thanks the people who have prayed. She also asks for prayers for FenSon, who is having interviews for a college summer internship on 3/21. Prayers that he does his best and that someone would be open to his skills and interests. And prayers are still appreciated for Jessie, their dear church organist, for complete healing.
3/23 Update: There is hope that an organization may buy some of the church’s land, which would help their financial problems. Please keep praying for God’s will do be done in that situation. Also, Jessie is doing better. She hopes to be able to play some for Easter. Prayers are also needed for Ray, who broke his hip and is in rehab.
3/15 – NJ asked for prayers for his wife Christina. She had surgery in December which resulted in CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) in her right foot. The pain is interfering with her daily activities and preventing her from sleeping properly.
3/15 – Half Dozen asked for prayers from the Horde. One of her adult sons was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They are still evaluating him to decide next steps. It will probably involve brain surgery.
3/19 Update: Her son is in the hospital, and scheduled for surgery to remove the tumor that is at the point where the spinal cord connects into the brain. They have determined that the tumor has not spread to other areas of his body. Thanks for the prayers and friendship.
3/15 – Tcn in AK, Hail to the Thief asked for prayers for DH, who goes under the knife on Friday to remove an old stim from his spinal column. This will allow him to have an MRI, to figure out what to do about his 3 collapsed disks. Prayers, but optimistic prayers at this point.
3/16 – Cybersmythe continues to request prayers for his friend D.C., an occasional reader of the AoSHQ, who is in the hospital after having a stroke and some other health issues.
3/18 – Megthered asks that the Horde would keep her and her family in our thoughts and prayers. Her husband has to have open heart aortic valve replacement and her daughter has been diagnosed with lymphoma. They are being treated at Ohio State University and the family has rallied around them.
3/18 – gp asks for prayers for Al, who is homebound, needy, and lonely. He also asks for prayers for Brian, who is afflicted by the horrible maladies of old age.
3/20 – Ladyl asked for prayers for her son, who was hospitalized for a serious infection that happened after a minor injury.
3/22 – Sal asked for prayers for her- sister’s ex, who became very ill while away from home (at his daughter’s destination wedding). He is in ICU with sepsis and kidney function problems.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
Romans 8:26-27
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
***
Rules? Oh yeah, we have rules............
1) Opine and/or bloviate to your heart's content in this open thread.
2) Be kind to one another.
3) Running with sharp objects is frowned upon.
4) Have a fun filled weekend.
Yeah, this is the opposite of convincing. Bank runs are a self-fulfilling prophecy, but being told the economy is booming in the middle of a recession does nothing to allay that.
It scored 10/10 solving problems it had been trained on, and 0/10 solving problems it had not.
What's more, just as it does when asked for references to support its claims, ChatGPT will hallucinate when writing code and use APIs that do not actually exist.
Which is rather like charging a customer $500 for replacing their blinker fluid.
I've mentioned many times the capabilities of the latest server CPUs - over 100 cores, a gigabyte or even tens of gigabytes of cache, a dozen memory channels per socket, and so on.
Something I haven't mentioned so often is that these chips are huge.
Sure, Congress is - as P. J. O'Rourke noted - a parliament of whores, but the CCP is communist and TikTok is a tool of the Chinese state, which is to say, a machine of a genocidal communist dictatorship.
Trump warns of "death & destruction" if he's indicted.
I think he just set himself up for the next prosecution.
I've mentioned the possibility that Democrats are driving us all towards violent conflict, too. But it's a different when a political leader talks this way. A second-tier blogger's warning is just a warning; a political leader talking about this sounds like he's commanding his troops.
I really do think he just guaranteed himself an indictment here -- just to f*** with him -- and possibly another charge for incitement. And of course the Soros prosecutor will bring that charge.
Trump has been through an awful lot. An awful lot. The Deep State betrayed America to undermine and eject a candidate they did not give us permission to elect. As much as we feel the unfairness and treachery of this, Trump must feel it worse.
That said, Trump is not bearing up well under this pressure. Unless he really intends to lead a violent overthrow of the US government -- and as far as that goes, I'm listening -- he needs to stop with this crap that just gets him and his supporters into trouble without doing anything positive for them.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has moved into rare political space, reaching an approval rating higher than typical for a top party congressional leader and challenging former President Donald Trump's approval among Republicans.
With a 52% favorability overall and 71% among Republicans, McCarthy has erased whatever it was that some House conservatives didn't like about him during the drawn-out, four-day, 15-ballot speaker election controversy in January.
...
In a Rasmussen Reports survey, McCarthy maintained a 52% somewhat to very favorable rating and 36% unfavorability among all likely voters. With Republicans, his 71% favorability towers over his 18% unfavorability.
Trump, meanwhile, holds an equal 52% favorable rating, but 44% of all likely voters disapprove. And among Republicans, 77% view Trump favorably to 22% who don't.
McConnell's.... favorable rating is 31% to 60% who view him unfavorably, and Rasmussen said just 32% of Republicans view him somewhat or very favorably.
Top military officials in the Biden Administration recently attempted to defend far-left "diversity" training in the military, claiming that such sessions make all soldiers feel more "included."
As the Washington Free Beacon reports, Air Force Chief of Staff General C.Q. Brown gave an interview for Defense One defending the practice of diversity training, claiming that "when people join our military, they want to look around and see somebody who looks like them."
"They want to be part of a team, and feel like they're included," Brown added.
Brown praised the practice for its alleged efforts to build "cohesive" teams for all service members, "no matter their background."
Similarly, General David Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, claimed that he has seen "zero evidence" of any negative impact from such left-wing policies when it comes to the end result of making stronger Marines.
House Republicans are currently attempting to cut funding for such far-left practices in the military; other examples include a program in the Army for training soldiers on how to use "gender pronouns," and a similar training video for the Navy discussing pronouns and "safe spaces."
Earlier this week I wrote a post stating that TikTok could download people's information, even if they've never used TikTok. But I left out the article making this claim. It's here.
Cybersecurity company Feroot Security released a new report last week claiming TikTok can mine data and track people even if they have never used the social media app before.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, uses trackers called pixels to retrieve "tons of information," according to the report obtained by Fox News. This information includes usernames, passwords, credit cards, banking information, and personal health details. The pixels can pick off data from any website containing an embedded TikTok video, the report claims. Even if the TikTok app is deleted, it will continue to collect and transfer data.
ByteDance is required to submit any data collected by TikTok to the Chinese government. "Therefore, your data can be shared with the Chinese government and used to spy on you or spread misinformation about the American people," Fox News explained.
Went to the Onion for the first time in 20 years. Bottom of the shit barrel doesn't even describe it:
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Conservative Historian Claims Diversity Ultimately Doomed Third Reich
...
Sadly, had Hitler and his Nazi generals not been so obsessed with the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion within their institutions, the Third Reich as we know it would still be around today, said Reed, adding that Nazi Germany would have easily defeated the Allied forces and conquered all of Europe had it not been so focused on making people of all races, genders, and sexualities feel included, valued, and safe.
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Fruit Roll-Ups is forced to issue statement for the benefit of our increasingly stupid youth that the plastic wrapper is not actually edible, despite claims made on TikTok.
Snack brand Fruit Roll-Ups has forewarned people on TikTok to not eat the plastic that the fruit leather is wrapped in after someone on the platform claimed that the plastic is edible.
The video is one of several TikTok clips making the rounds about unique ways to eat the classic snack. In one, users freeze the Fruit Roll-Ups for an icy and sweet treat.
Others are even putting a chunk of ice cream in the fruit leather's center for a brain-numbing delicacy.
The fruity label debunked a user on TikTok recently -- named hollyberry09 -- who stated that it was perfectly fine to eat the plastic when the snack is frozen.
Hillary's running!
Not really. But she frightens you with that nightmare.
The trains have never been used much, but 20 years after being built the light rail is a cesspool. Literally: homeless people regularly pee and take dumps on the trains.
I wouldnt bring any young kids on there.
We rode the light rail ourselves to find out just how bad it really is.
Leftists always wonder why Americans won't support public transportation or public pools like they do in Europe. Well, this is why: We know these things are not being built for the use of the taxpayers. We know every leftist "public" project isn't built for the public, but for the homeless drug addicts and criminals.
Republican Rep. asks ATF if lying on their federal Background check is illegal.
ATF: Yes. 15 years in jail if you do that.
Republican Rep. Tiffany: So why is Hunter Biden not in Prison?
The Regime is worried that Bidenflation combined with inflation-fighting will crash the banks and steal their ill-gotten millions away. What else can account for Elizabeth Warren the Socialist Squaw calling for the government to backstop the deposits of millionaires?
Lifting the FDIC insurance cap would be a good move," Sen. Warren said Sunday, and suggested up to $2 million, $5 million or $10 million.
Asked if she's talked with the White House on the proposal, she added, it is one of the options that's got to be on the table right now." pic.twitter.com/w1Vt7PxkWL
Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as Keytruda and Opdivo work by unleashing the immune system's T cells to attack tumor cells. Their introduction a decade ago marked a major advance in cancer therapy, but only 10% to 30% of treated patients experience long-term improvement. In a paper published online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe findings that could bolster the effectiveness of immune-checkpoint therapy.
Rather than rally T cells against cancer, the Einstein research team used different human immune cells known as natural killer (NK) cells--with dramatic results. "We believe the novel immunotherapy we've developed has great potential to move into clinical trials involving various types of cancer," said study leader Xingxing Zang, M.Med., Ph.D., the Louis Goldstein Swan Chair in Cancer Research and professor of microbiology & immunology, of oncology, of urology, and of medicine at Einstein and a member of the Cancer Therapeutics Program of the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center.
Immune cells are coated with receptors called "checkpoint" proteins, which restrict them from attacking healthy cells while allowing them to attack and kill dangerous cells. But most cancer cells have proteins which trick immune cells into treating them as healthy, so they don't attack the cancer cells. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are antibodies which interfere with cancer cells' ability to trick immune cells into leaving them be.
The new treatment is designed to allow "natural killer (NK) cells" also see through cancer cells' disguise, bringing them into the fight against cancer cells along with T-cells.
In studies involving humanized animal models of several types of human cancers, the researchers showed that their monoclonal antibody against KIR2DL5--by blocking the KIR2DL5/PVR pathway--allowed NK cells to vigorously attack and shrink human tumors and prolong animal survival...
Now that Piers Morgan has alienated the left so much he can only get work at "right"-leaning outlets like Fox, he says he's changed his mind, and vaccine-refusers are not selfish bastards who want to murder grandma.
Piers Morgan said during an interview with "Triggernometry" that he was wrong about his previous rhetoric regarding COVID because the "science changed."
...
"I've changed my mind on a few things with COVID because the science changed," Morgan said. "I'll give you an example, and I'm quite happy to admit this and talk about it and people are like 'ah, there you go.' Like yeah, because to me, it changed. I, when they said the vaccine couldn't transmit the virus, I said right, so in that case everyone who doesn't have the vaccine right now represents a clear and present threat to spreading this virus and getting killed. You're selfish bastards, I'm gonna call you out. And by the way, if you do have the vaccine, they should have more freedoms because they're not gonna transmit it once they've had the jab. You are, you don't get."
Morgan said everything he had said about the vaccines was "completely wrong" once scientists said vaccinated people could get infected with the virus. He changed his views to believe that getting the jab is a "personal choice."
"Everyone slightly lost their minds and people were sort of banging on about freedom, where were you for the freedom of people to espouse these you didn't agree with on COVID?" Morgan said. "And it's a tricky one when a lot of people are dying but the whole point of fighting for freedom is sometimes, a lot of people die for freedom. So I totally accept that."
Right. Now that you have no one else to work for except corporations which play to freedom-championing conservatives, you "totally accept that" people have freedom over their own bodies. Wow, what an intellectual hero.
During a Mar. 6 panel discussion, professor Sami Schalk of the University of Wisconsin-Madison gave an account of an epiphany she had while researching disability studies. Before conducting this research, she did not think of herself as disabled. After, however, Schalk realized "there was a part of [her] that knew" she had a disability, similar to her self-realization that she was queer.
Schalk, besides being a professor of Gender & Women's Studies, describes herself as "polyamorous and a pleasure activist." She has also "twerked" with Lizzo.
Schalk spoke with Vilissa Thompson, a social worker, on the CUNY Graduate Center YouTube channel about Schalk's research and book titled "Black Disability Politics."
"So I took this [disability studies] class, and it blew my mind. Just fireworks going off in my brain ... I had spent so much time thinking about race and gender and class and sexuality, and I had just not been thinking about disability with the same critical lens," Schalk said of her first experiences encountering the discipline in college.
"I had to grapple with my own privilege within the disability system, because at the time I didn't understand myself as disabled," she continued. She then added, "[T]here was a part of me that knew, just like there was a part of me that knew I was queer."
The disabilities she claims include, according to her book, is "depression, disordered eating, chronic pain, and anxiety." She claims this makes her "unquestionably disabled."
A blind man just said, "You got it so bad, Honey."
I guess mental illness is a disability.
Reminder that people spend $100,000 per year to send their children to be molded by lunatics like this.
Keep this in mind for the next story: Histrionic women are making it a real habit of claiming any fashionable Disability Identity that comes along.
Older, heavier women who smoke and are unvaccinated are at significantly higher risk of developing so-called long COVID than people with healthier lifestyles, a study has found.
Nine public health researchers published the meta-analysis of 41 studies covering 860,783 patients Thursday in JAMA Internal Medicine. It is the first study to summarize all comorbidities identified in long COVID research published in leading medical journals as of Dec. 5.
Researchers found that while being female and over 40 were the top risk factors for contracting long COVID, also known as "Post-COVID-19 condition," others involved preventable conditions for all patients -- such as being unvaccinated, overweight and a smoker.
They noted that patients who received two doses of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination were 43% less likely to develop the condition, which the World Health Organization defines as acute symptoms lasting at least three to five months after infection.
Just absolute nonstop lies and propaganda. The notion that there are health interventions, like exercise, diet, and quitting smoking, that can protect against bad cases of covid is something the propagandists are determined to suppress and censor. The only option they will allow to be discussed is the non-vaccinating vaccine.
If anyone has had long covid, you have my sympathies. It's not so much that I doubt the syndrome entirely, it's that I think a lot of people who don't have long covid are just claiming they have long covid to stay out of work and collect disability. It's a very vague diagnosis that depends heavily on the patient's claims about what she's feeling. (And it is mostly women claiming to have long covid.) As Ryan Long points out, it just seems that people claiming to have long covid tend to be people who were previously claiming to have other problems that kept them from working or going into the office.
People who contracted COVID-19 before they got vaccinated appear to have damaged a key part of their immune-cell response, Stanford University researchers have found.
The study, published last week in the journal Immunity, reported a "major reduction" in the body's quantity and quality of CD8+ T cells -- known as "killer T cells" for their ability to kill infected cells -- in people who had survived a bout with COVID-19.
"You have damage that, even in recovery from the infection, you haven't really recovered your ability to make those CD8+ cells. So something happened in the course of infection to prevent that, to damage your response," Stanford professor Mark Davis, head of the university's Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, told CBS News.
...
The researchers found that vaccination of people who had never been infected with COVID-19 sparked robust CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses to the virus' spike protein.
But people who had survived a COVID-19 infection before vaccination produced spike-specific CD8+ T cells at considerably lower levels -- and with less functionality -- compared to vaccinated people who had never been infected.
This study must be one of those Right Wing Fake Science studies.
The study was co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.
That's of course "Doctor" Fauci's former agency.
And Fauci denied the power of natural immunity post-infection, and demanded that all people, even those with post-infection immunity, get vaccinated.
And it turns out that this was, as usual, the exact wrong course of action.
I wonder if long covid is caused by the combination of infection followed by vaccine -- maybe the vaccine is suppressing their "killer T cells" enough to allow covid symptoms to persist.
And wouldn't that be a fine valedictory from the most incompetent and corrupt -- and lethal -- bureaucrat who ever lived.
When Fauci came into office in 1968 about 6% of Americans had chronic disease including obesity, neurological, allergic, and auto-immune diseases. By 1986, 11.8% of children had chronic diseases. By 2006, that number had risen to 64%. Thats Faucis track record.
Victoria Alonso Confirmed Fired; and a Review of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
—Ace
Variety confirms what everyone already knew. Victoria Alonso did not just decided to leave Marvel on a Friday without any warning and without any new job lined up.
The veteran Marvel Studios executive and producer of the nominated film "Argentina, 1985" was stopped on the red carpet, posing for photographers assigned to capture top executives on Hollywood's big night. But something shocked her.
"Look at this! Two women!" Alonso said of the female photographers hired for the gig (as in most corners of Hollywood, women are outnumbered by men on the photo line). Emotional, Alonso insisted the pair put down their cameras and pose for a photo with her in front of a giant Oscar statuette. As they all smiled, she told them, "We've worked so hard to get here and we're not going anywhere."
Eight days later, she was fired as Marvel's president of physical production, post-production, VFX and animation, three individuals familiar with the matter told Variety.
...
While the cause of Alonso's termination is unclear, the sources said, the decision was made by a consortium including human resources, Disney's legal department and multiple executives including Disney Entertainment co-chairman Alan Bergman (to whom all of Marvel Studios reports). Alonso's longtime boss and Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige felt mired in an impossible situation and, ultimately, did not intervene, one source added. Alonso was blindsided, another insider added.
A representative for Alonso declined to provide comment for this story. Marvel Studios had no comment.
The article flacks for Alonso by noting it was Disney's top executives who ordered Marvel to flood the zone with crap, just to have "content" of dubious value on Disney+.
...
That breakneck distribution schedule, a product of the pandemic and the need to constantly feed Disney+, was not of Alonso's making. Marvel was far from the only studio tasked with delivering feature-level content for a newly launched streaming service. But it was Alonso's job to get each of those titles through Marvel's gargantuan post-production process. By the summer of 2022, cracks began to show in the company's seemingly impervious armor.
Starting on Reddit, followed by a series of stories published across the internet, visual effects artists began to loudly complain about Marvel's demanding post-production schedules. Complaints ranged from unrelenting overtime to chronic understaffing to the inability to avoid delivering substandard work due to constantly changing deadlines. Some singled out Alonso as a "kingmaker" who would blacklist artists who have "pissed her off in any way."
One visual effects artist recently told Variety that the biggest issue for them was Marvel's inability to provide clear guidelines.
"The show I was on really struggled because it was an established character whose powers they were reconceiving for the MCU," the artist said on the condition of anonymity. Most complaints, they said, came down to one refrain: "Marvel doesn't figure shit out beforehand."
...
[T]the drumbeat that Something Is Rotten in the State of Marvel Studios only grew louder with the release of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," a film that finished shooting over a year before it was due in theaters and still weathered repeated criticism for "generic" visual effects that looked like "CGI glop" and were "very flat and cruddy-looking." Even more critical: The movie has grossed $463 million globally to date, the worst performance of the "Ant-Man" franchise and a figure that means that it will struggle to break even in its theatrical window.
Regarding Dungeons and Dragons, I got an exclusive offer to see this movie early. By "Exclusive Offer," I mean Amazon offered tickets to an advance screening to anyone with Prime. I thought "What the heck, I can get a post out of it," and bought a ticket.
The movie opens up for common plebeians like yourselves on March 31.
There are some background reasons to not see this movie, and I don't ever want to recommend a Corporate Enemy-Comms Product without warning people.
But I'll deal with that stuff after the actual review. And this will be a long one.
On the merits of just the actual movie -- putting aside the background stuff -- it's a recommend. I'd almost say an enthusiastic recommend.
One of the first scenes, featuring Chris Pine trying to convince a board of pardons to release him from Fantasy Mega-Prison, is laugh-out-loud and puts you in a receptive mood for what comes later.
It's an extremely goofy movie. The Tolkein movies attempted to portray a realistic world-- there is magic and there are fairy-tale races like Elves and Dwarves, but the books and movies are present all this in a plausible enough way that it feels real-ish.
That's not Dungeons & Dragons. The game is anything-goes, kitchen-sink homage -- or rip-off -- of Conan stories, John Carter Barsoom stories, Tolkein's mythology (the Tolkein estate threatened legal action), science fiction, Kung Fu movies, and whatever else interested the game's players in the 1970s, whether it fit in or was plausible or not. The movie apes the game's "It's just a game, don't think about it much" ethos and presents a world which is, essentially, the modern world with modern technology and modern modes of thinking and speaking, but the buildings are made of stone and roofs are made of sod or thatch so you know you're in "the mythic past."
Shakespeare's plays are sometimes done in modern dress, so they're ancient, medieval, or Renaissance stories but in modern day clothes. This is the opposite -- it's a thoroughly modern world, except people dress up like they're going to a Ren Faire (with a loose dress code that permits anachronisms). In one heist, each member of the team has magic "sending stones" allowing them to talk and hear their other team members at a distance. In other words, they're cell phones except they're rocks, and the team members just hold the rocks up to their faces and talk like they're teenagers at the mall.
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," and likewise, sufficiently plentiful magic is indistinguishable from technology.
At no point will you feel "transported to another world."
It's all very dumb and dopey but it's also good-natured. It's eager to please, and that's a rare thing nowadays. And, as one review said, "Chris Pine is the most Chris Pine in this movie than in any Chris Pine movie in recent memory." He's great, and I think that this kind of performance will make him a lot of money going forward. He's in Steve Trevor mode here, only sillier.
True to the spirit of the game, the movie rips off everything and just paints it with a light coating of "Dungeons and Dragons IP." The plot is lifted right from Guardians of the Galaxy -- a team of misfits and losers is assembled by a charismatic-but-flawed hero who still grieves the death of someone he loved. The movie even steals the "We're all losers, we've all lost" speech that Chris Pratt gives in that movie, and at about the same time in the film's running length. For a second they disguise it by having Chris Pine talk about being "failures" rather than "losers," but then nope, he starts talking about losing everything, just like Starlord did.
Oh, and it takes even more from Guardians of the Galaxy, introducing a warrior who does not understand idioms or irony. And there's a... special surprise I won't reveal connecting it still closer to Guardians of the Galaxy.
The goofy, half-winking tone and the colorful, completely-unconvincing sets and backgrounds are lifted right from Thor: Ragnarok. Including using Led Zeppelin in the trailer. I think Ragnarok used "The Immigrant Song," this uses "Whole Lotta Love."
Much like Thor: Ragnarok, this movie is just a comedy containing some action. It's not an action-comedy, just a comedy with some fighting. The comedy is too silly for there to be much concern about the effects of violence on a human's body.
The action is fun and it's all fast-paced, but you're not going to feel much in the way of suspense or thrills.
There's a magic implement that duplicates a beloved piece of technology from a beloved video game. It's a straight rip-off.
Just everything in this is pretty much stolen from something else, and it doesn't really matter, because Chris Pine is so funny in the lead as the Jim Rockford-style guy who gets by on charm and tries to avoid fighting. He's not a coward, exactly, he just knows his talents lay somewhere other than getting hit in the face.
Hugh Grant is also very funny, and at his Hugh-Grantiest, as the sleazy but charming conman "Forge." As in a superhero movie, he's Chris Pine's dark reflection. Chris Pine's character fell to thieving due to a moral lapse; Hugh Grant's character had no morals at all to lapse. One part of his character is wondering, and hoping, that somewhere inside of him is a good man. Spoiler: There's really not.
If you actually have played D&D, there's just reference upon reference and fan service upon fan service.
The movie name-drops or features a lot of stuff from the rulebooks -- particular spells, particular major personages -- and a lot of names from the Forgotten Realm settings, including all the places they made videogames about. It features a lot of the D&D "intellectual property" monsters, the weird gamey monsters the game made up (or from A.E. Van Vogt), rather than creatures from folklore or fantasy lore.
The movie takes the sensible position that you've already seen the Lord of the Rings movies, and there's no way this movie is going to beat Lord of the Rings, so they're not going to go classic, they're going to go weird.
The typical fantasy races of elves, dwarves, and halflings are only present in the background. One of the main characters is a half-elf; and he's half-black, so, twist. (His lineage is black on the human side.)
The main characters are not the typical Thief, Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, but Bard, Barbarian, Druid, and Sorcerer. Yeah for non-players it's pretty much just Thief, Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User, but they're leaning into the stuff that makes D&D Legally Distinct from Tolkein.
The reference I got the most excited about comes near the end of Act 2. The heroes are forced to fight for their lives, and we quickly see another two groups of heroes in a similar position. One of those two groups will be highly recognizable to anyone who grew up geek in the 80s.
But you have to be sharp eyed, because they're shown very quickly. Spoiler-- don't click on this if you want to be surprised during the movie. But if you're curious, here is that other group of adventurers.
I mean, it's exact. (I never even watched that, but I've seen their likenesses.)
Given that that group was a big D&D inside joke, I'm wondering who the other group was. One of them was a dwarf. Maybe they're characters from the D&D videogames? I dunno, I never played those.
Anyway, a surprisingly fun and even competent movie. It succeeds at doing the things it sets out to do.
I would recommend it...
except for all the reasons I would hold back that recommendation:
Hasbro, the corporation that owns Dungeons and Dragons and is getting a fee for this movie and counting on this movie to expand the brand, is woke and leftwing. Hasbro even gets a production credit through E-One entertainment, which is a Hasbro company.
They're making money off it, and they don't deserve to. Over the past five or seven years they've embraced every single woke demand that lunatic activists on Twitter have demanded of them, including filling their quasi-Medieval game with gay and transgender characters, including specifications as to their preferred pronouns.
Woke Twitter activists told them that "orcs shouldn't be evil, no race is evil, to even suggest that is racist!" so now all the traditional enemy races in the game aren't evil, but range from good to neutral to evil, and are really just misunderstood and maybe victimized by evil humans and their human-like kin.
Twitter activists also told them to get rid of racial adjustments -- like, that halflings take a -2 to strength because they're the size of children -- so now every race can do everything, and halflings can be as strong as Conan, because it would be racist to suggest that some fantasy races have any traits that differentiate them from any other race.
Crap like that. And if you complain about it, well, you're a troglodyte. But don't worry, troglodytes aren't evil any more, and they're also not stupid. Don't make any assumptions about troglodytes, Bigot.
#DoBetter, bigot. #DoBetter.
Another reason you might not want to patronize Hasbro is that, despite posing as progressive leftwingers who really care about social justice, Get This, Hasbro are actually a greedy soulless corporation filled with virtue-signalling shit-libs who want to shake the public down for every red cent in their pockets.
I know, unbelievable, right?
They just tried to screw a large section of their player base because they felt that the game was "undermonetized," and were bothered that once you bought the rulebooks you just owned them and were no longer sending money to Hasbro.
They are trying to create a recurring-payment model for the game, where you keep paying them every month -- for a "virtual tabletop" service -- as some videogames do.
They also attempted to claw back their "Open Game License," which allows third parties to make adventures and rules supplements for the game without worrying about being sued for doing so. The OGL itself says that it's irrevocable; but Hasbro decided, well, we'll revoke it anyway, and replace it with a new OGL that gives us a cut out of sales for projects that make a lot of money. They saw people making a lot of money on Kickstarter for new adventures or monster books, and decided they would like some money now, please and thank you.
They also gave themselves the right to cancel anyone's project, if they, in their corporate wisdom, decided your project was bad for the image they were projecting. If you wrote a supplement in which there were no "preferred pronouns," maybe they'd send you a cease-and-desist. Who knows. Their power to terminate was without limits.
They also wrote up a new term in their open license which said that they could steal any content you yourself wrote. If you created a new type of giant, the new license gave them the right to just take it and add it to their own products without compensation. Now this last one was probably just put in for the same reasons movie studios make you sign a disclaimer saying you have no rights to sue them if they steal your script. They don't really want to steal your script (usually); but they don't want to be sued if they produce a script which has some similarities to yours. So they just make you sign over any right you have to sue for plagiarism.
I think the "we can steal your stuff" thing is just to avoid legal hassles if they independently came up with new giant like the new giant you made up. They want to just say, "you can't sue, we already own it, check the license."
But still.
By the way, in case you're thinking "They own the game, they can set whatever restrictions in their license that they like," well, the first OGL stated that it could not be replaced by a more restrictive one, because any user could opt into the terms of the first, very generous OGL. They said they could not do what they were now trying to do, to force you into an ungenerous license.
Also bear in mind, what can they sue for, exactly? It's established law that you can't sue for game rules, just the particularized expression of those game rules. You can't plagiarize their actual writing -- but you can steal game concepts and mechanics and the law says that's not stealing.
The OGL basically said that they wouldn't sue people for just using their rules to create compatible products, but in fact, this is barely even a concession: They probably couldn't sue for just making a compatible product. Or, they could sue, but they probably wouldn't win. The main legal threat here was just to file a suit which they couldn't win, but which would cost you money to fight.
D&D players rebelled against this corporate crap and began abandoning the game for alternatives and, in fact, threatening to boycott the Dungeons and Dragons movie itself, which really seemed to alarm Hasbro. Or it alarmed the studio, maybe, who then put the squeeze on Hasbro to stop f***ing everything up.
Hasbro did retract their plans to change the license, so everything is, allegedly, better now.
But they only relented under duress. When they thought they could just roll right over people, they were prepared to do just that.
I don't know. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Finally, in one of the worst own-goals I've ever seen from a team of Hollywood creatives, the directors decided to announce that their favorite part of the movie is how they "emasculate" the male leads.
'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' Directors Admit To "Emasculating" Film's Male Leads, Claims This Was Done "Not For Woke Reasons" But "Because It's Funny And Fun And Fresh"
Spencer Baculi
March 7, 2023
In this climate, with the male audience just sick to death of constant attacks from woke Hollywood, they announce that the main selling point of their movie is emasculating male characters?
Doing their part to continue one of the most uninspired entertainment in recent years, the directing duo of Johnathan Goldstein and Jon Daley have admitted their their upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves emasculates its male leads -- though they claim this was not done for "woke reasons", but because they thought the idea was "funny and fun and fresh".
Goldstein and Daley, perhaps best known as the screenwriters behind the titular web-slinger's first official MCU outing in Spider-Man: Homecoming, revealed their less-than-flattering approach to their film's male character during a recent interview with Variety's Adam B. Vary.
Following brief discussions regarding their own personal histories with the original game and their ostensibly-respectful-but-ultimately-cynical feelings towards working with established IPs, the pair were eventually met with an observation from Vary that "the lead female characters -- Michelle Rodriguez's Holga and Sophia Lillis' Doric -- are at the forefront of the action scenes, and the men are often hanging back."
Sophia Lillis plays Doric in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves from Paramount Pictures and eOne.
"That was not an attempt at wokeness on our part," defended Goldstein in turn.
"Swear to God, it wasn't," Daley backed up his creative partner. "We liked that Holga is the bruiser that does the dirty work for Edgin, and he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. We also love emasculating leading men. "
"Just because it's funny and fun and fresh," said the former Bones star. "It was the dynamic we had with Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman's characters in [our previous co-directorial outing] Game Night."
Emasculating male characters is not "funny," and it's certainly not "fresh;" it's done in almost every single movie directed at a majority-male audience nowadays.
But here's why this is an own-goal: They don't really emasculate the male characters. They're accusing their movie of a woke provocation that it's actually not guilty of.
As I mentioned, the Chris Pine character is like Jim Rockford. Or Brett Maverick. Or the sheriff in Support Your Local Sheriff. Or any James Garner role not set in World War II. He's the charming guy who doesn't want to fight. He can fight -- a little -- but he'd prefer accomplishing things by wit or charisma.
This doesn't make him "emasculated." Yes, the Holga the Barbarian character played by Michelle Rodriguez is incredibly strong and gifted at fighting. I mean, she's a 120 pound woman in a male-targeted action movie; of course she can take out 220 pound stuntmen with ease. How could it be otherwise? Everyone knows how much more physically gifted women are then men, as all the women now losing to men in athletic competitions prove.
But that's just a stupid current year trope. I didn't really see this as "emasculating" him. He was the brains, she was the brawn. Both had their specialty. I'd say he was "emasculating" him if she disrespected him, talked down to him, insulted him, or if she proved that Girls Are Just Better Than Boys by also being better at his specialty, planning and leading, than he is.
But none of that happened. They're platonic best friends. They both respect what the other brings to the table. And Pine's character, while not really good at fighting except for what the game would call "sneak attacks," is actually good at planning. He's not shown as some buffoon. He's not an ineffectual man who has to be saved by smarter, more capable women.
All of his plans either work, or almost work, and fail just because you can't plan for every unexpected event. He's competent, in his particular niche.
The other male character who gets "emasculated" is the half-elven sorcerer who "has no confidence." The girl he likes, the Druid, doesn't like him back because he lacks confidence, and his lack of confidence makes him incompetent at magic.
Guess what his character arc is. I mean, is it "emasculating" to go through a character arc?
Anyway, it is true that the girls are the main combat strength of the group throughout most of the movie -- the Druid girl beats up things not in her human form, by shapeshifting into big dangerous animals -- but, despite this, it kinda made sense in context. It didn't feel that woke.
At least, not by current year standards.
Like I said, if Chris Pine's character were put down a lot and if his plans kept failing -- if he was just another worthless man (spit) that women don't need like fish don't need bicycles -- I'd say that's emasculating.
But he's not. He's the star of the movie and critical for the team's success.
Yes, the Druid does question his plan-making abilities:
But she just met him. She doesn't know that he's got a 16 Intelligence. (And a Wisdom of 8.)
It's just bizarre that the directors attempted to paint a movie which isn't really that bad as far as male characters as the typical woke piece-of-sh**.
So I don't know what the hell to tell you. On one hand, I had a great time watching it, and chuckled throughout.
On the other hand, Hasbro is a woke asshole corporation and the directors of the movie are selling it as woke.
Now here's a bit of wokeness you probably won't even notice:
The bad guy organization in this is called "The Red Wizards of Thay." They being a country.
But remember what I said? That lunatic Twitter activists have demanded that no race be evil?
Well, they couldn't let you think that all Thayans are bad so halfway through the movie they add a new character who is morally pure and upright Paladin, who is good at everything (better than the main characters, in fact) and who is Thayan.
Just so you don't think that all members of this fantasy country are bad.
It's weird, he's not a member of the main four characters, but shows up for an extended sequence in which he almost becomes the star, and then, once you learn your lesson (along with Chris Pine's character) not to hate all members of this fictitious country Thay, he just peaces out and is out of the movie.
The actor also appears to be Middle Eastern and speaks with a pseud-Arabic accent.
Are we being lectured about Islamophobia in a movie that takes place in another universe?
It's not a bad part of the movie, but it's... weird. What other movie introduces what seems like a Main Character Hero halfway through and then has him leave just before the climax?
Just to teach you not to be bigots towards Thay. Hashtag #ThayDidNothingWrong.
So you tell me. What the heck recommendation am I supposed to give?
The movie isn't really woke, but the corporation and the directors behind it are.
Feel free to use this as your own movie/tv/book recommendations thread.
Newly-Revealed Emails Show That Biden's Praetorian Were Successful in Convincing the Media to Refuse to Run Any Negative Stories About the Invalid Candidate
Newly-released records from the National Archives prove that attempts to bury any negative stories about the Biden family began long before the 2020 election, and even predate efforts to suppress the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story.
As reported by Just The News, the emails in question were released as the result of a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group America First Legal. The emails date back to the Obama Administration, in the year 2015. In one email, an aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden claimed that she convinced a reporter to "only use" negative information on the Biden family "if her editors hold a gun to her head."
Others in Biden's office at the time actively worked to censor negative stories surrounding Hunter Biddn's involvement with the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, especially in the context of Vice President Biden's trip to Ukraine in December of 2015. At that time, Joe Biden himself personally approved quotes to address the matter of his son's foreign business deals, even though Biden has since tried to claim that he was unaware of Hunter's activities.
"VP signed off on this -- will give this quote to both reporters in my name shortly," said Kate Bedingfield, who at the time was a press official in the office of the Vice President.
"Really frustrating," Bedingfeld wrote in another email in regards to reporters who began asking questions about Hunter's business deals during that time. "That said, so long as it doesn't elevate and trigger someone else to write, it's actually a good and straightforward response."
"Joe Biden and the Biden vice presidency were intimately involved in the Hunter Biden Burisma affair," said Stephen Miller, the president of America First Legal, on Thursday in response to the revelations. "They were intimately aware of it. They were intimately aware of the ethical objections, and they were intimately involved in trying to spin and control the press about it."
"What we are now all learning is that the National Archives has a deep state that is radically committed to stopping the public from accessing these documents, and also clearly is radically committed to attacking anything or anybody that they believe is contrary to their agenda," Miller added.
As the Biden family faces numerous investigations from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Hunter Biden's affiliation with Burisma remains at the heart of the corruption scandal. Most infamously, then-Vice President Biden threatened then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko as then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin began an investigation into Burisma, a probe which would have eventually involved Hunter. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion of American aid to Ukraine unless Poroshenko fired Shokin, which he ultimately did.
For years, President Joe Biden has maintained a Sgt. Schultz defense to allegations that his family has profiteered on influence peddling with foreign countries and companies. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Biden maintains that he "knows nothing, nothing" about Hunter Biden's business deals. He recently doubled down on this defense by even denying that family members received money from foreign sources. He repeated his denial even after the release of financial transfer reports from his own administration showing millions transferred from China. Now, emails have emerged that show that Biden personally helped draft responses to the controversial deals in 2015 when he was Vice President. It also appears that Biden officials like former Biden Communications Director Kate Bedingfield knew of his role as the President continued to deny any involvement.
The National Archives has released emails that show that then-Vice President Joe Biden approved an official statement in December 2015 about Hunter Biden's position on a Ukrainian energy company's board.
Biden has denied any knowledge or involvement in these business dealings at least seven times as a presidential candidate and as president.
For years, the media has continued to report President Biden's repeated claim that "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings." At the outset, the media only had to suspend any disbelief that the president could fly to China as Vice President with his son on Air Force 2 without discussing his planned business dealings on the trip.
Of course, the emails on the laptop quickly refuted this claim. However, the media buried the laptop story before the election or pushed the false claim that it was fake Russian disinformation.
Some in the media have repeated those denials, including most recently the Associated Press which, in 2022, falsely stated that there was no evidence Biden ever discussed the deals with his son despite an actual audiotape proving that claim to be false.
The audiotape showed President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings:
"Hey pal, it's Dad. It's 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it's going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you're clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you."
Some of us have written for two years that President Biden's denial of knowledge is patently false. It was equally evident that the Biden family was selling influence and access. There are emails of Ukrainian and other foreign clients thanking Hunter Biden for arranging meetings with his father. There are photos from dinners and meetings that tie President Biden to these figures, including a 2015 dinner with a group of Hunter Biden's Russian and Kazakh clients.
Boy the world sure is afraid of Biden. He really has returned America to its pinnacle place in the world, as NeverTrump promised he would.
The US conducted an airstrike in Syria against what it said were Iranian-affiliated facilities after a suspected Iranian drone on Thursday struck a facility housing US personnel in the country, killing an American contractor and wounding five US service members.
The contractor was an American citizen, a spokesman for US Central Command confirmed, and an additional US contractor was also wounded in the strike. An official familiar with the matter told CNN that the injured service members are all in stable condition.
"The intelligence community assess the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to be of Iranian origin," the Pentagon said.
In response to the strike, President Joe Biden authorized a precision airstrike "in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in the statement.
The US, according to the Pentagon statement, "took proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize casualties."
Wow that certainly sounds menacing. I'm sure Iran will be on best behavior now.
I wonder if the strike killed any Austere Religious Scholars, as the Washington Post said of Trump's airstrike that took out the top leader of the Revolutionary Guards. You know, when the left screamed about an effective strike against Iranian interests in Syria.
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel wrote that the court would decide whether or not Lake could prove her claim -- that Maricopa County did not comply with Arizona election law regarding ballot tabulation. Lake must also prove that there were enough potentially fraudulent votes to affect the outcome of the election based on a "competent mathematical basis to conclude that the outcome would plausibly have been different, not simply an untethered assertion of uncertainty."
Lake announced in January that she had three whistleblowers who claim 130,000 votes had been rejected because of bogus signatures, but "higher-ups" insisted they be counted.
This judge is guilty of Misinformation in the First Degree -- there is never any justification to accuse Democrats of vote fraud. NEVER.
.@KariLake: "We have 3 whistleblowers in the signature verification department in Maricopa... Who said that they were rejecting tens of thousands of signatures to the tune of up to 130,000 ballots that were being rejected... Somebody above them was sending them on through anyway" pic.twitter.com/cnccVZRtqp
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll out today shows just 38% of Americans approve of Biden's performance as president -- barely above the 36% the president scored last July.
Biden has either made most Americans unhappy or has disappointed them. His policies have generated fierce opposition from Republicans and independents, while many on the left say they're disappointed that Biden hasn't done more.
Biden's marks on the economy are even lower. Just 31% approve of Biden's stewardship of the national economy, about where it's been over the course of the last year.
He'd actually recovered a bit to 45% over the winter.
AP notes that only a quarter of Americans agree that the national economy is good, or that the country is headed in the right direction.
That's about two thirds of the partisan Democrat base.
Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to campaign extensively when President Biden launches his much-anticipated re-election bid, despite concerns in the Democratic Party that her performance in office, criticized by some as uneven, has made her a liability.
Ms. Harris plans to visit urban centers of swing states to persuade Black voters, young people and other liberal constituencies to re-elect Mr. Biden, according to people familiar with discussions about her campaign efforts. She will lead the administration's advocacy for abortion rights, tout the administration's climate investments and echo Mr. Biden's pledge to protect Medicare and Social Security.
Some top Democratic lawmakers and donors have been questioning Ms. Harris's future behind closed doors for months, saying they don't think the vice president has used her platform effectively, according to attendees at these events.
At one recent Zoom event organized by a former speechwriter for Mr. Biden, one of the Democrats aired frustrations with Ms. Harris, questioning whether she would be a liability to the 2024 ticket, according to people familiar with the call. Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer responded saying they could share concerns with Mr. Biden if they wanted. CNN earlier reported the event. The exchange during the call spurred further private discussion on the topic among some who had attended, those people said.
Kamala Harris and her "backers" -- who I think are just Kamala Harris wearing a mustache and affecting a funny voice -- defend her by invoking the Two Pillars of Kamala Apologism.
1, people are racist, and 2, she's not being "positioned for success" by white men.
Her backers said Ms. Harris, the first woman to hold her position and the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, is being held to a different standard from past vice presidents, including Mr. Biden.
...
Cynthia Johnson, 67, a retired teacher from Laurinburg, N.C., who pointed out she attended an HBCU, like Ms. Harris, said she had been hoping for the vice president to play a bigger role in the administration. "At this point, she is kind of sidelined," Ms. Johnson said. "And I don't get it."
Yes that's right, white men are "sidelining" her.
Say, has she visited the border? She is the Border Czar, you know.
Her backers say she's hanging back... so as not to outshine Biden.
Like most vice presidents, she has little agency in setting the White House agenda and cannot publicly get in front of Mr. Biden on policy or be seen as outshining him, Ms. Harris's allies say.
But Kamala has a lot of big victories that people just don't know about.
Like this one:
She has pushed for changes--big and small--at the White House that have rankled administration officials. Ms. Harris lobbied national security officials to change the way they described female foreign leaders in their briefings to avoid sexist language, such as "prickly," according to those people.
Wow. What a stateswoman.
Meanwhile, Biden has an explanation for why Kamala is "sidelined." Namely, that she has sidelined herself, refusing to actually do anything in the job.
WASHINGTON -- Two former White House officials said President Biden is frustrated with Vice President Kamala Harris' performance -- even if he remains committed to keeping her as his running mate in the 2024 election, a new report reveals.
The 80-year-old Biden, who has gone out of his way to praise Harris in recent public remarks, reportedly has griped about his No. 2's reluctance to take on risky assignments.
"A point of tension in their relationship is that I don't think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate" due to a "fear of messing up," one former White House official told Reuters.
...
Biden has made a point of praising Harris recently -- after prior reports that he's been frustrated with her apparent reluctance to embrace an assignment to reduce record-breaking illegal immigration.
Well, again, that's actually Biden's fault.
...
The president vented to a friend about Harris in 2021 after he got word that her husband, Douglas Emhoff, was complaining about the tasks assigned to her, including mitigating migration and pushing for a federal voting-rights law, Whipple wrote.
"Biden was annoyed," the book says. "He hadn't asked Harris to do anything he hadn't done as vice president -- and she'd begged him for the voting rights assignment."
It goes without saying that Biden's handlers aren't relying on Kamala Harris to deliver an election win.
Instead, they're banking on what "won" them the election in 2020: rigging the the elections again, by ordering federal agencies to work with third-party megadonors like Mark Zuckerberg to turn out the vote... in Democrat districts.
Roughly two years ago, President Biden issued an executive order that went relatively unnoticed and has been mostly forgotten by now, but which endangers the integrity of our elections.
Executive Order 14019 instructs federal agencies, some of which are unrelated to election administration, to collaborate with external private groups to "promote voter registration and voter participation."
As innocuous as this sounds on its face, the White House is emulating billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to influence the 2020 election and turning it into a publicly-funded operation. That's right: who needs Zuckerbucks when taxpayers like you can fund Democrat voter outreach?
And before you say that's unconstitutional, since when has that mattered to the radical left that feels entitled to power and will do anything to preserve it?
Naturally, the Biden administration has been deliberately vague about the specifics of how government agencies will collaborate with these private groups to engage voters. But the 2024 election is fast approaching, and the White House has quietly disclosed some of the details of how it will repurpose government agencies into a massive taxpayer-funded "get-out-the-vote" operation for the Democrats.
...
Don't forget that there's nothing preventing the White House and partisan bureaucrats in federal agencies from hand-picking groups that favor "get-out-the-vote" activities for Democrats, ensuring their electoral victories for years to come.
As grim as this situation sounds, we can fight this. Just as state legislatures have banned or restricted Zuckerbucks, they can do the same here. "To start, state legislatures can pass laws requiring approval before any new federal funds or new election administration guidance can be accepted or followed by state agencies," explain Tarren Bragdon and Madeline Malisa at our sister site, Townhall. "Legislatures can also require state agencies to notify them when a federal agency tries to contact them through a backchannel." Congress can similarly refuse to fund these agencies and their efforts to boost Democrats.
THE MORNING RANT: Global Electric Vehicle Sales Are Collapsing & Periodic Update on Other EV Follies
—Buck Throckmorton
Electric vehicles are a niche product with limited appeal, and it has become quite clear that massive subsidies are the only way to get their sales volume above those of other exotic and novelty cars.
The global electric vehicle (EV) market is reeling from one of the most dramatic collapses in monthly sales to date, with Rystad Energy Research showing that only 672,000 units were sold in January, almost half of December 2022 sales and a mere 3% year-on-year increase over January 2022. The EV market share among all passenger car sales also tumbled to 14% in January, well down on the 23% seen in December.
Governments literally have to pay people to buy EVs. Without massive subsidization, people choose gas-powered cars. In Germany, the market share of EVs dropped from 55% in December to 15% in January when the government reduced the amount of incentives it was paying consumers to buy EVs.
Registrations of new electric vehicles collapsed in Germany following cuts in buyers’ premiums at the beginning of the year. Registrations for battery electric vehicles dropped about 83 percent to 18,100 in January from 104,300 in December…
The share of e-cars fell to 15 percent in January from more than 55 percent in December, while total car registrations dropped three percent…
Why did the government cut incentives?
The government decided in mid-2022 to reduce support payments for new e-cars, arguing they had become increasingly attractive for buyers even without support payments.
That’s funny. No, EVs are not attractive without support payments. There is not enough perfume or lipstick that you can slap on EVs to make them attractive without massive government subsidization.
The Wall Street Journal reports that manufacturers and dealerships in China are facing a sales slump. Ford, GM, Volkswagen, and others are now running EV promotions and cutting prices.
Ford has knocked $6,000 off its Mustang Mach-E, which puts the base model at around $31,000. This came after just 84 of the electric crossovers were sold in China in January 2023, as compared to around 1,500 in December 2022.
*****
So let’s say you bought an EV thanks to the generous government subsidy. You still have to insure it.
For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles - leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.
Battery packs can cost tens of thousands of dollars and represent up to 50% of an EV's price tag, often making it uneconomical to replace them.
In Teslas, the problem isn’t just the exorbitant cost to replace a battery, it’s also due to the structure of the car.
The new, large 4680 cells in the Model Y made at Tesla's Austin, Texas, plant, are glued into a pack that forms part of the car's structure and cannot be easily removed or replaced, experts said.
Sending low-mileage EVs to the junk yard after a minor fender bender doesn’t sound very green, does it, considering all the energy and rare earth minerals that go into assembling one EV.
Lauterwasser [of Allianz Center for Technology] noted EV battery production emits far more CO2 than fossil-fuel models, meaning EVs must be driven for thousands of miles before they offset those extra emissions.
"If you throw away the vehicle at an early stage, you've lost pretty much all advantage in terms of CO2 emissions," he said.
Total losses also tend to have an unfavorable impact on your future auto insurance rate.
*****
I get some criticism for being so persistently negative about EVs, so a little credit where credit is due. Electric vehicles are pranksters, and they can play funny gags on their drivers. As a British radio DJ found out, EVs will sometimes lock you in your own car! That’s hilarious, and you certainly don’t see gas-powered cars pulling that prank.
Scott Mills has revealed that he had to cancel a holiday after being locked in his electric car for five hours.
The BBC Radio 2 DJ shared the unfortunate anecdote with listeners during Monday’s instalment of his radio show.
Mills had set off on Friday, with his fiancé, Sam Vaughan, intending to spend the weekend together in Amsterdam.
However, a flat car battery meant that Mills and Vaughan were stuck inside his car near the BBC’s Wogan House studios.
“Get in the car. Car doesn’t start. In fact, nothing works. I go to get out of the car. I can’t get out. Sam tries his door. Nothing. Also cannot leave the car.”
According to Mills, he had charged the car’s main battery beforehand, but had allowed a secondary battery to run empty.
I thought spontaneous, un-extinguishable EV battery fires were terrifying enough before I read this story. God forbid your EV locks you inside it when it catches fire.
Ford Motor expects production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup to be down through at least the end of next week to address a potential battery issue that resulted in a vehicle fire on Feb. 4, the automaker said Wednesday.
The confirmation of the fire and updated timing comes a day after Ford confirmed production of the highly watched vehicle had been suspended at the beginning of last week.
Ford finally resumed production of the F150 ConflagrationLightning in mid-March.
*****
So how is Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s EV boondoggle coming along? As you’ll recall, he got seduced by EV startup company Rivian into promising $1.5 billion in taxpayer funded incentives for a plant in Georgia.
The good news is that Rivian is doing so poorly that the proposed plant will likely never come to pass. In 2022 Rivian formed an alliance with Mercedes that fell apart in just three months. Most famously, Rivian announced that it would be providing 100,000 electric vans to Amazon. Now it wants out of that exclusive agreement. Why would it want out? It would appear that Amazon doesn’t want all those electric vans.
An exclusive agreement between Amazon and Rivian for 100,000 electric delivery vans is reportedly on its way to being scrapped. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Rivian is negotiating its way out of the deal after Amazon asked for only 10,000 electric vans this year
OK, so Rivian’s partnerships with other companies keep falling apart. But how is it doing financially?
Rivian electric trucks don’t burn gas, but they sure do burn cash.
Free cash flow for 2022 ended up at a negative $6.4 billion, according to results posted late Tuesday, as Rivian lost money on each car it sold while also investing for the future.
A business that loses money on every unit sold doesn’t sound like it has a viable business plan to me, but then again, I’m no Brian Kemp.
The fear of many investors regarding Rivian is becoming a reality.
What is that fear? It’s the fear that stockholders will see their investments evaporate as the company has to keep raising more capital to outrun the cash burn the company is going through.
At the rate at which Rivian was burning cash, the question arises whether the firm will have to raise additional capital to finance its operations and expansion by the end of the year as the automaker is building a second plant in Eastern Georgia and plans to start production of a smaller, more affordable vehicle, the R2 series, in 2026.
But consumers are buying Rivians, right?
CEO RJ Scaringe was not reassuring when he admitted that the company, which manufactures the R1S SUV, the R1T pickup truck and the EDV van at its Normal, Ill., plant, may have a demand problem.
“Demand problem.” Heh.
For those who have bought Rivians, how are they doing?
Rivian has released an announcement regarding a battery issue that is leaving drivers stranded.
The problem was initially reported by owners on Reddit, with some being stranded by their trucks in less-than-ideal locations. Rivian announced its plan to address the issue in a Reddit post on the company’s subreddit.
I have little expectation that Rivian will still be around a decade from now. I’m most curious if there will be a big empty building in the Georgia countryside standing as a reminder of Brian Kemp’s great taxpayer fleecing, or whether Rivian will have gone under before ground is even broken.
*****
Songs of the Season
The first day of Spring was earlier this week…and the temperature dropped down into the low 20s at my Tennessee home that day. Oh well, it looks like things are about to warm up.
To celebrate the arrival of Spring, here is a beautiful arrangement of the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Spring” as performed by the Classical Concert Chamber Orchestra.
There's another sneak peak for the Dungeons and Dragons movie I reviewed this Sunday the 26th at 2pm in various theaters.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click Frontman quit his old band over his resistance to adding synthesizers to their sound, and then released a cover of a Louis Prima song loaded with synthesizers Holy shit this is crap. I forgot how bad this was. I thought his big complaint is that he didn't like the non-hard-rock his old band was taking? His version also doesn't improve on the original.
Steve Martin doing his Let's Get Small act. I've listened to this album 400 times. I never had a visual to associate with it. I always imagined it in black and white, because the album art was in B&W. I mistakenly said that this recording could be during the sessions when he recorded Let's Get Small. I thought he did that at the Troubador. But he didn't; Simon Jester just reminded me he did that at the Boarding House. My mistake!
Author, historian and expert on Islam, Robert Spencer is CBD and J.J.'s special guest where, with the backdrop of Donald Trump's imminent arrest and detention as a political prisoner, they discuss his timely book "The Sumter Gambit: How the Left is Trying to Foment a Civil War," as well as major realignments in the Middle East, and much more!
@zerohedge - 2h
SEC Hits Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy And Others With Crypto Fraud Charges
Posted by: andycanuck
Big scoops from Kamran Pasha about Disney According to his source "sparrow" who has proven reliable in the past, and who is he has confirmed the identity of, Bob Iger has ordered a full audit of Kathleen Kennedy's Lucasfilm. He's suspicious about the spending going on over there, and why Kennedy could only offer an insulting $5000 payoff to a producer she offered a job to, and then withdrew the offer. Iger wants to know why money is so tight that only $5000 was offered in a breach of contract case where a more typical payoff would be $500,000. Apparently Lucasfilm offered to do their own internal audit, and Iger said no, he wanted Disney's own accountants to audit Lucasfilm. Sounds like he said, "I'm ordering a complete Shut-Down of Star Wars until I can figure out what the hell is going on down there." Pasha also says that there will be more big names being fired at Disney. Not as big as Victoria Alonso, but part of the point of that is that when the next big names get fired, the press won't be as interested because it's a let-down after Alonso's firing
That former San Francisco police commissioner and would-be politician just deleted one of his tweets telling someone complaining of having $10,000 and passports stolen from a car to go back to the suburbs, p*ssy. He kept the first tweet up, though. Meanwhile San Francisco will probably jump at the chance to elect him DA
Kathleen Kennedy suffers a brand new string of humiliations and failures Discussion/speculation: Victoria Alonso had been set on a glide path to a "soft exit" back in 2021 The key idea here is that Alonso's position was made-up only for her. The position did not exist before they gave it to her, and it almost certainly will not exist now that she's gone. They're suggesting that she was "promoted" to a non-vital job as part of a plan to eventually get rid of her. But after the huge cost overruns of Marvel's latest flops, they decided to push her out sooner rather than later. Although she's in charge of VFX, she's also in charge of "physical production," meaning the actual shoots (and re-shoots, and re-re-shoots, and re-re-re-shoots) of Marvel movies. Note that it's been previously rumored that both Marvel and Lucasfilm have taken to a shooting technique they call "scrapbooking," where they film multiple possible endings and multiple plot-exposition scenes which will lead to those possible endings. Then they choose which movie they want to assemble after test screenings. And because audiences haven't liked these movies lately, they wind up having to do re-shoots and more re-shoots later. This is obviously very costly. I don't think that's Alonso's fault, though: Having a good script in hand isn't part of physical production, it's part of development. And ultimately it's Feige approving this "scrapbooking" CYA strategy rather than just getting the script into proper shape before shooting and saying, "The script is the story, period."
Not positive this is actually happening, though. But multiple channels report on it.
Manhattan's Soros DA Alivin Bragg contacts police in anticipation of indictment of Trump next week No more protection for Democrats, including presidents, their families, and their corrupt wives like Hillary. LOCK THEM ALL UP. If one side is going to risk political civil war by jailing the leaders of the other party, then we're all playing that game. Alvin Bragg better stay within NYC's limits, too. That m*****f***er looks like violates drug laws on the daily, and I can see Red State Police sniffing at his hotel doors to see if any illegal substances are being consumed.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Hall and Oates Deep Cuts Edition This is from 1980's Voices. It was never a single, but maybe it should have been. Operator, International Oh-One-One, oh/Put your love on the line, put your ear to the phone/Baby, it's no longer than a night and a day/But where you are is so far from the U.S. of A/And it ain't so easy, easy on the heart
S3E8: The Irish Democracy episode, as author, historian and editor of The-Pipeline.orgMichael Walsh joins CBD and J.J. from his home in Ireland to ask the ultimate question of "what are you prepared to do" to fight for whatever is left of America, the Trump vs DeSantis battle, will the Chi-Coms implode before we do, the abject incompetence of those who would be our overlords, climate madness, and a whole lot more!
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click In the early-mid eighties, a big band's singer went solo, and made this song, written for his girlfriend Sherrie.
Former Rep. Pat Schroeder, Colorado lawmaker and women's rights pioneer, dead at 82
She knows who she will be voting for in the next election cycle
Posted by: SMOD
Your weekly reminder that the left supported Russia for 100 years exactly (1917 to 2017) and took its side in every dispute, arguing against every military system designed to deter them or shoot down missiles, arguing endlessly that we should concede the entire world to the Soviet Union, even laughing in a 2012 presidential debate at the notion that Russia was a "global foe."
But then in 2016 Russia spent $150,000 on FaceBook ads to stir up political trouble which a failed alcoholic lesbian claimed was "stealing the election."
At that point, the left became the absolute most unhinged of Dr. Strangelove level Russia hawks, and began attacking anyone who didn't now want to start a nuclear exchange with Russia a "RUSSIAN AGENT."
Just forget about those previous 90 years, eh, comrade? Like when the Democrat party was made up of front groups directly funded by the KGB?
Leftists have no patriotism, except to leftism itself. They championed Russia when it was invading the world and funding terrorist groups to attack Europe, Israel, and the US. They finally decided that Russia might be a Bad Guy when they ran $150,000 in ads on FaceBook that Hillary Clinton said "stole" the election from her.