Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
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
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
[H/T Hrothgar]
Good morning boys, girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Bayfield)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. And no jumping on or from the furniture.
3) Running with sharp objects is up to you. But this is a No Sympathy Zone for that.
D) Have a great weekend!
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:
12/14 – Jewells is still in a lot of pain. The drain was put in on 12/11. She was supposed to receive a
sedative and medication for pain while they worked, and she received nothing. She felt everything and it
hurt like hell. It also hurts when it is being drained, and that is daily for the first week. She has a great
home health nurse coming in now, and she has shown Jewell’s daughter and husband how to do it.
1/31 Update – The excruciating pain in her left arm was because it was broken. The brittleness of her
bones from chemo caused the break to spontaneously occur. It now has a splint.
1/4 – Smell the Glove asked for prayers for an 80 year old aunt. The aunt was diagnosed with colon
cancer and started treatment this week.
1/31 Update – The aunt has gone through her 12 treatments and is doing well. It knocks her flat for a
couple of days but she’s a tough old bird. Prayers for all of the Horde and their loved ones in need.
1/4 – vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for her eldest sister. It looks like her illness is
cancer.
1/12 Update – Please keep praying. Her sister has stage 4 breast cancer.
1/30 Update – Her sister has gone to her eternal rest. Please pray for her soul and for the consolation
of her daughters.
1/11 – Our Country is Screwed asked for prayers. He is having a double mastectomy. (He notes: Yes,
male breast cancer is a thing!) He is fortunate that it appears to be localized. Another request is for an
aunt (age 70+) who is facing lung cancer and having part of her lung removed. She is scared and needs
prayers too.
1/31 Update – The surgery went well (bilateral mastectomy). Now he is waiting for the pathology
report to learn what the next steps are – chemo and/or radiation. Thank you for the prayers for his 70
year old aunt. Her surgery was moved up to 2/3.
2/15 Update – Our Country is Screwed send thanks to everyone here for their thoughts and prayers as
he continues his cancer treatment. Radiation treatment is almost a definite, and chemo is still TBD.
There is no way he could have gotten through this thus far without God’s healing power and everyone’s
prayers. Thank you.
1/15 – Sponge gave an update on his wife. She met with the radiation oncologist, and he used the word
“cure”, so she is pretty happy about that. She has a couple more chemo treatments to go.
2/13 Update – His wife got a reprieve from the oncologist and does NOT need to get the last round of
chemo. She will start the process of radiation prep next week, and may start the 19 rounds next week as
well.
1/18 – FenelonSpoke asked for prayers for Chris, the new husband of a friend of hers. They have been
married since the summer, and are nice conservatives and Catholics. He is hospitalized with a high fever
and urinary issues, which he has had a long time.
1/25 Update – Chris came home on 1/20. He is doing better. The infection was removed by IV
antibiotics, but the doctors still need to determine why he’s having excessive urination – up to 20 times
a night – which is exhausting for them both. Continued prayers are appreciated.
1/18 – Jrgunn77 requested prayers for health, which was fine a few months ago, but recently has been
his with extremely high BP spikes, anxiety attacks, constant headaches, and hernia troubles. Jrgunn is on
meds for the BP and anxiety, scheduled for a colonoscopy, and has referrals for a cardiologist and
neurologist. These out of the blue anxieties are the worst. Jrgunn also asked for prayers for a friend from
church, Rodney, who has recently suffered lung failure and is on oxygen, to come home from the
hospital, and Pastor Ben and his brother, for comfort after the passing of their little sister from drug
addiction.
2/11 Update – Jrgunn77 is still stuck at home, trying to recovery from pneumonia. Rodney, his friend
from church, is in a bad way. His lungs have begun stiffening and his ability to breathe is severely
compromised. His only hope is a lung transplant. He is sedated, and surrounded by his family. In times
like these, it’s difficult to know how to pray, but please do.
1/18 - Teresa in Fort Worth said she could use some more Horde prayers. She had a CT scan on Monday.
The largest tumor has not increased, but at least 4 others have quadrupled in volume, despite 2 rounds
of chemo. Her third round of chemo stats on Wednesday. So far, she’s had exceptionally light nausea
which has been controlled with medication, which is a blessing.
2/12 Update – Teresa got the results of her tumor marker test back. After stopping the chemo (which
wasn’t working), and after 2 weeks of targeted gene therapy, her markers have dropped way down! This
means the therapy is working!
2/15 Update – Teresa posted good news and bad news. The good news is that her new medication is
working – her tumor marker test levels have dropped a lot (from 596 to 34.8). The bad news is that she
is experiencing one of the side effects of this medication – blurred vision. They are going to stop with
the meds for 2 weeks, and see if her vision improves, she can go back on a lower dosage of the
medication. Her next CT scan is in April.
1/25 – Sal asked for prayers for a couple he volunteers with. The husband, a retired pastor, has been
diagnosed with congestive heart failure. They are both in their mid-80s and surgery is not an option for
him.
2/15 Update – Please continue prayes for Pastor Bill, who is very discouraged with the complications
from his tests and procedurs, and for his wife, who is his main caregiver at home.
1/25 – Grammie Winger asks for prayers that everything goes well, as Rev finally has his colostomy
reversed this week.
2/19 Update – Rev is back in the hospital. At his follow-up appointment on 2/18, the surgeon sent him
to ER. They said he had AFib and his blood pressure was bad, 80/39. Grammie Winger would appreciate
prayers.
1/25 – Lizzy requested prayers for her colleague, Sally, who was dealing with some GI issues. This week,
after a trip to ER, they found and removed a mass. They are waiting for more information now, and
praying it’s not cancer.
1/25 – A asked for prayers for her nephew’s wife, who was just diagnosed with brain cancer. Please pray
for a miracle that they are able to remove it all.
1/30 – KT had asked for prayers as she had a stroke earlier in the week. She is still at the hospital be
feels very lucky, considering what happened.
2/8 Update – KT is home from the hospital now and feeling grateful. She posted that her GP said to
light a candle to God, because He saved her life. There don’t seem to be many after-effects from the
stroke. She will need to keep working on staying healthy.
1/31 – BurtTC posted that his son, who had Down Syndrome, had died. BurtTC tried to give him as good
a life as possible. It wasn’t a protracted illness, but he was expected to recover. BurtTC says that he
doesn’t believe his son needs prayers; God now has the purest of souls to hold and protect. Please pray
for those of us who knew and loved him. The loss is immeasurable. BurtTC asks that instead of
condolences, that you would hold close those you love, and be kind to each other.
1/31 – From about that time asked for prayers for a SIL, who was suddenly terminated from the only job
he’s held in his adult lifetime, with the second child on the way. Please pray it works out for the best.
1/31 – Tonypete asked for prayers for his wife’s buddy Barb, who is either bi-polar or manic depressive
and doesn’t know it. She is a disaster and very unhappy. Prayers for healing would be greatly
appreciated.
1/31 – Just Sayin posted that s/he has brain cancer and will be gone soon, and asked that the Horde
keep fighting the good fight.
1/31 – L asked for prayers for her daughter, Shannon, who is scheduled for surgery on 3/11. She will be
traveling to Cleveland on 2/27 for a pre-op meeting. She will be staying in town for the weeks before the
operation, so they will have some time together. (As a Franciscan sister, she has spent much of the last
20 years in other states.) L thanks the Horde for their prayers. Shannon’s community will be praying, as
well.
1/31 – Bif Bewalski gave an update on Smash. The blood work confirmed that she does not have
pancreatitis. They gave her fluids, 3 types of digestive system meds via IV, and then ignored her for 8
hours. Anyway, she is home and feeling better.
2/7 – Weird Dave requested prayers for his sister, Susan, who had a major heart attack.
2/13 Update – Weird Dave posted his thanks for their prayers for his sister. She passed away, and her
organs have already saved several other lives. You’ll never know how much all of y’all’s support means
to his family.
2/8 – Sock Monkey posted that his family needs some serious prayers. He didn’t want to get into details,
but his daughter and 5 grandchildren are now living with them. There is abuse and addiction involved.
2/8 – MammaB asked for prayers. She said she needs surgery, and has been preparing for it for several
months, jumping through the hoops put up by the clinic and insurance. Last Wed. she was told
everything was complete and she could have surgery in 8-10 weeks. On 2/7, the surgeon’s office threw
up another roadblock, one that is very difficult to manage. She is feeling discouraged and asks for the
Horde’s prayers.
2/8 – Pollywog the Ette asked for prayers for Inspector. He injured his rotator cuff last weekend, and
even with muscle relaxants and narcotics he gets muscle spasms every time he tries to lay down. That
means he’s had to sleep in a chair all week, so he isn’t sleeping well. It’s also making his feet and legs
swell, which is bad. Besides the pain, he hasn’t been able to work for a full week because it’s his right
arm that’s injured and he can’t type – even if he could sit in his office chair. Please pray for healing and
continued forbearance by his employer. Mostly what he wants right now is to be able to sleep.
2/15 – FenelonSpoke requested prayers. She thinks that the church hierarchy is wanting her out, so they
can close her church and take the money from the sale of the land (which technically belongs to the
denomination anyway). They are a small congregation, but they love one another. Even if the
denomination doesn’t close the church, a new pastor would not be helpful at this point.
2/15 – Cannibal Bob posted his thanks, to God and the Prayer Warriors here. He had posted under the
name “Diddly Squat” about severe pain in his legs, and it was sent on to the prayer list. After several
misdiagnoses, he was told he would probably lose his leg above the calf. After more research, Heidi
found a genius surgeon in Albuquerque. Cannibal Bob has had surgery and will continue to have full use
of his leg. He says he is convinced it is due to the Prayer Warriors here. Thank you all. God is great, and
so are you.
2/15 – Ben Had asked for continued prayers for Jim SND. He hasn’t been on the ONT for a while now.
2/15 – screaming in digital posted an update on her mother. Mom was deemed eligible for LTC benefits
after 1 appeal. (Thanks again to Grateful for advice in bolstering the appeal!) She submitted the first
claim a couple of weeks ago. She hasn’t received the funds yet, but the online system says it was
approved. They are looking at assisted living options now. Screaming in digital realizes Mom can’t live
with her indefinitely, despite her continued sweetness and (usual) cheerfulness.
2/18 – Teresa in Fort Worth asked for prayers for her husband’s niece, Amanda, who has just been put on the waiting list for another new heart. After 4 years with her first donor heart, her body is starting to reject it. She is only 40 years old, and has had heart issues her entire adult life. Please pray that Amanda’s body would stay well long enough for her to have another transplant. And also prayers for the family of this as-yet-unknown donor. Amanda knows full well what her receiving a new heart “means”
to the donor family.
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 ina thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up withthe requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an
update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, butnot forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
*****
If you have unneeded dark roast coffee or other coffee related items. You can always contact yours truly at petmorons at the gmail thingy dot com.
They should have 176; instead they have 168. Updating the drivers and refreshing the BIOS does nothing to help, and the performance loss is measurable.
Oh, Oops Part Two: When you think about it, if refreshing the BIOS doesn't work, this can't be Zotac's fault. They don't control the drivers or the chips supplied by Nvidia.
Disabling parts of a GPU chip is perfectly normal, but on the top-of-the-line RTX 5090, which costs $2000 in theory and at least double that in practice, nothing is supposed to be disabled.
And it can't be fixed, requiring a recall of affected boards.
Only... It could be three months before there's any stock to replace them.
Not in the sense that they failed to make a profit for the quarter, but in the old-fashioned sense that somebody walked in and took it when they weren't paying attention.
Do you want a pocket computer with a keyboard, a touchscreen, and great battery life? Abe did, so he built one. (Tom's Hardware)
It uses a Pimoroni PicoVsion. I don't remember if I knew about that, but it's a great idea that was obvious the moment people figured out how to get HDMI video out of a Raspberry Pi Pico.
You can do it, but it uses up most of the memory bandwidth of the Pico. But the RP2040 chip on the Pico is tiny and cheap, so why not just use two of them?
The PicoVision does, and this little pocket computer uses that.
That's not good for AMD; the XT model needs to be more like 50% faster. But it does coincide with other leaks from last month and may well be accurate.
So grabbing a 7800 XT when I did continues to look like a good move. If the price leaks are also accurate, and the conversion rate for the AMD cards is the same as Nvidia's, the 9070 will cost 80% more in Australia than the 7800 XT for almost exactly the same performance.
And the 7800 XT is disappearing from shelves.
That was the calculation I made when I noped out of waiting for the new cards.
Well, sort of. It's a new form of quantum computer built around topological qubits, which are much more resistant to error than regular (presumably nontopological) qubits.
Don't ask me why.
And it currently has eight of them.
And it can - get this - work for as long as a millisecond before it breaks.
This is apparently good.
Musical Interlude
Song is Getting Along by Swedish band Royal Republic. Video is from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, the story of a maiden who pulls a sword from a dragon, and... Hijinks ensue. Also lowjinks. Also everywhere-we-go-jinks.
I looked for an original video for this song, but there isn't one. There are live performances, but I like the studio version, and this was the video that first introduced me to Royal Republic anyway.
Disclaimer: Despite appearances, it does actually make sense. Sometimes.
Breaking News from Germany A knife attacker has gone on the rampage in Berlin injuring several people next to the Holocaust memorial and a second person was arrested earlier for attempting an attack on the Israeli embassy.. Now tell me JD Vance was wrong? pic.twitter.com/sywsRdHaFv
The terrorist invader was an "asylum seeker," obviously.
The Syrian asylum seeker suspected of carrying out a deadly stabbing rampage in the Austrian town of Villach had sworn allegiance to Islamic State and was radicalised online, authorities said on Sunday.
A 14-year-old boy was killed in Saturday afternoon's attack in the centre of Villach and five other people were wounded, three of whom are in intensive care, police said.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told a press conference in Villach that the 23-year-old Syrian man, who was arrested seven minutes after the first call to the police, had been rapidly radicalised on the internet and that the Islamic State (IS) flag had been found in his apartment.
Germany holds its elections this Sunday. The more the Global Regime tries to pretend away the absolute horror of Islamic mass migration, the more Islamic migrants murder people and make their atrocities un-hideable. It's as if the European Regime and the Islamists are in a contest -- can you commit an atrocity so horrendous that we can't downplay it and memory-hole it?
Julie Kelly: Meet New #Resistance Hero Denise Cheung
—Ace
The latest DOJ official to resign is Denise Cheung. She resigned instead of following orders and investigating -- just investigating -- whether Biden's $20 billion giveaway of taxpayer funds to leftwing "non-profits" and Democrat cronies like Stacey Abrams was legal.
She decided, without any investigation, that it was legal. She also refused to follow orders and demand that the banks holding this money freeze the funds. She defied orders and instead "recommended" they do so, leaving them free to give away the money before we could take a look at these issues.
She was told to do her job or resign. She resigned.
In what has become the latest trend in #Resistance fashion, another government lawyer made a splashy exit from the Department of Justice this week. Denise Cheung, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, sent a three-page letter to her boss explaining why she would have to quit rather than follow orders to pursue an investigation into potential wrongdoing tied to the Biden administration.
...
The so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund first got attention when Lee Zeldin, the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, laid out details of the jaw-dropping arrangement in a video posted last week. "Roughly twenty billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA," Zeldin said on February 12. "This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all the money in a rush job with reduced oversight."
Zeldin noted that the money, now understood to be "parked" at Citibank, was awarded to eight climate nonprofits who then "doled out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency." He referred the matter to both the DOJ and EPA inspector general:
There is no question about the political origins of the fund; the Biden White House touted the program with great fanfare months before the 2024 election. During a campaign stop last April, Kamala Harris announced the eight chosen winners of the $20 billion climate lottery. Harris also noted the unique nature of the arrangement, boasting that "for the first time in history, we are providing tens of billions of dollars directly to community lenders to finance local climate projects. This is a novel approach, it is actually the first time we have taken this approach."
There are no limits on how they money can be spent or for what purposes -- it's a literal slush-fund give-away to leftwing groups to use the money as they choose.
...
The unusual nature of the arrangement alone--a major bank rather than Congress handling a big chunk of tax dollars with no known oversight mechanism established just a few months before the election--should raise the Spidey senses of any federal prosecutor, especially one with a stellar DOJ resume that stretches back more than two decades.
...
Bove additionally sought a letter to Citibank ordering a "freeze" of funds related to the unidentified grant recipient. Cheung then contacted the famously corrupt Washington FBI field office for more guidance; she then concluded that enough evidence supported potential conspiracy and wire fraud charges.
But the letter from the FBI only "recommended" a freeze of the funds.
Is Cheung a Straight Arrow?
Hardly:
Cheung's sanctimony and sudden devotion to careful prosecutorial scrutiny is hard to swallow given her history. After years of helping the DOJ pursue clearly politically motivated investigations against Republicans, Cheung suddenly suffered an alleged attack of conscience when it came to investigating Democrats?
This is, after all, the same Denise Cheung who was part of the DOJ team that initiated the dubious investigation into Donald Trump over Jan 6; brought federal charges against Trump advisors Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for defying an illicit congressional committee; and helped manage the largest criminal prosecution in Justice Department history resulting in the arrest of nearly 1,600 Americans for the events of Jan 6.
Cheung's "moral, ethical, and legal obligations," as she bragged in her resignation letter, never got in the way of her office's unlawful use of a post-Enron obstruction statute to turn hundreds of J6 protesters into lifelong felons. Or when her office applied federal misdemeanors such as "parading" in the Capitol for the first time against political protesters. Or when her office added terror enhancements to sentencing recommendations in order to throw nonviolent J6ers in federal prison for years. Or when her office sent women in their 70s to jail for protesting outside of abortion clinics.
If you like Julie's work, consider subscribing to her substack.
Now Ed Martin -- who fired Cheung -- sends letters to Charles Schumer and Robert Garcia that he is investigating them for making threats against the President and the President's staffers.
BREAKING: Trump’s top prosecutor Ed Martin launches 'Operation Whirlwind' to investigate Democrats for potentially threatening public officials—including Elon Musk.
Sen. Chuck Schumer & Rep. Robert Garcia already received inquiry letters over their remarks. pic.twitter.com/rtEc7PACNp
Walt Disney insiders are furious with CEO Bob Iger over his perceived "capitulation" on DEI initiatives as well as its recent settlement of a lawsuit involving ABC News host George Stephanopoulos brought by President Trump, according to a report.
"This is not what I expected from Bob -- I thought he had our back," a company insider told Deadline, adding: "What's next? Where do we go from here? What do we stand for now, keeping MAGA happy?"
Disney is restructuring its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to focus more on business outcomes, replacing the "Diversity & Inclusion" executive performance factor with a broader "Talent Strategy" and rebranding employee groups to emphasize workplace belonging.
Additionally, the company has removed the autoplay content advisories warning about outdated depictions in older films like "Dumbo" and "Peter Pan" -- moving them to the details section instead.
These changes reflect the pressure that corporations face in adapting to evolving political expectations, particularly under the Trump administration's renewed push against DEI initiatives.
...
Some Disney employees were also unhappy over Iger's decision to agree to a $16 million payout to Trump as part of a settlement of a defamation lawsuit that was brought against ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.
One person described by Deadline as a "well-positioned individual" within the company called the decision to settle an "embarrassment" and "the beginning of the capitulation."
...
Disney employees who spoke to Deadline also expressed frustration with a company decision to remove a transgender-themed storyline from its upcoming Pixar series "Win or Lose," altering dialogue and content to align with new internal directives.
The transgender character remains in the show, but references to gender identity were cut, and content disclaimers have also been adjusted.
Adding to the speculation about Disney's direction, Iger's low-profile presence at the Hollywood premiere of "Captain America: Brave New World" raised eyebrows.
Unlike past appearances, the CEO, who normally poses on the red carpet with film stars and the creative team, avoided public interactions.
He might be distancing himself from the movie because he knew it would fail.
Or he might have been trying to protect the movie from his own stink of failure.
Furthermore, it's a bad score overall -- anything lower than a "B" (from people who wanted to see the movie and made the effort to go pay to see it) indicates a bad movie that will have short "legs" as word of mouth gets out.
(Only horror movies can have lower Cinemascores and still wind up making a nice profit.)
Disney shills are claiming this movie made $100 million in its "opening weekend." Well, they count Thursday shows as part of "the weekend," and last weekend was a holiday weekend, so they're counting a full five days of ticket sales as "weekend" box office.
The movie didn't make $100 million over the weekend, it made $87.5 million. And that still includes Thursday as a "weekend" day.
The movie will not make $500 million in total global sales, which means the movie, which probably cost $250 million or more, will be another Marvel failure. (Remember, theaters take about 40% of the gross ticket sales.)
Box office projections call for Captain America to make $30 million this weekend. A drop of 70%.
The legacy media called it a $100 million opening weekend, and despite their sneaky use of five-days to count as a "first weekend", we're holding them to it. As a result, Captain America: Brave New World is on track for one of the steepest second-weekend drops in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Projections indicate that the film will plummet around 70% in domestic earnings, bringing in just over $30 million in its sophomore frame. If this trajectory holds, its worldwide haul for the second weekend will struggle to surpass $50 million, putting its long-term prospects in jeopardy. Should the film fail to reach the crucial $400 million global benchmark as it winds down its theatrical window, it will go down as one of Marvel Studios' biggest misfires and an outright embarrassment for the once-unshakable franchise.
Only The Marvels had a bigger drop, falling 78% in its sophomore weekend.
Now, eagle-eyed DOGE Math Ninjas will notice that I'm using the $100 million four-day opening weekend number, rather than the $87.5 three day figure to calculate the second weekend box office.
But the leftwing Disney-boosting media keeps insisting the movie made $100 million it its opening weekend. They should be allowed to then change that opening weekend box office to make the second weekend box office drop look better.
In more Woke Hollywood news, it's the end of an era for James Bond. The Broccoli family, which produced every singe official EON James Bond film from Dr. No to the last one (whatever it was) has been pushed aside by Jeff Bezos.
Jeff Bezos, who's brought us banger after banger like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time.
It's taking around $1 billion to have 007 stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson cede creative oversight of their family's storied James Bond franchise to Amazon MGM Studios, sources tell us.
Amazon originally overpaid on its purchase of MGM in a deal orchestrated by then-MGM board chair Kevin Ulrich. Though valued between $3.5 billion-$4 billion, the legendary motion picture studio was absorbed by the streamer for $8.5 billion, the hefty sum propped up by the potential access of the 007 franchise. However, Amazon couldn't fully freely develop Bond with Broccoli and Wilson in the mix. Hence, it took another $1 billion to ensure that they could fully steer and exploit the Ian Fleming IP.
Details on what makes up the new $1 billion deal is unknown at this time, and whether it includes Amazon stock options; the deal for Amazon MGM to take full creative command of Bond hasn't closed yet, we're told, while Amazon MGM Studios declined comment for this story. The expectation from sources is that there will be an element of shared economy in the movies going forward.
Now, the Broccoli family has been pushing wokeness in Bond for 20+ years, and has been crapping out very repetitive and subpart entries for a long time now, so maybe this is just a lateral move from "crap" to "poop."
Could Bezos possibly be so stupid to continue the woke messaging with his new ten billion dollar investment?
I think he probably could.
Back to Disney: Does Disney have any other high-profile sure-winner movies coming out after Captain America to save them?
Oh boy, do they! Coming on March 21st, they threatened:
🔥 President Trump calls Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) out to her face over her refusal to comply with the executive order keeping men out of women's sports:
"You better do it — because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't." pic.twitter.com/uMUZsy1j6t
Buttigieg, speaking Tuesday at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics panel on the "Future of the Democratic Party," addressed the party's focus on "diversity." He said he would "always fight" to care "for people's different experiences." He also took aim at diversity training, saying Americans shouldn't be made to "sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia, which I have also experienced, and it is how Trump Republicans are made."
Cops in South Bend had a similar experience when Buttigieg served as mayor.
In 2017, with Buttigieg a year into his second term, South Bend's police department instituted diversity and anti-discrimination training sessions aimed at "Bridging Relationships and Strengthening Community Through Inclusion," the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2020. Slides from the sessions lamented "Implicit Bias" and presented cops with a list called "The 'Ism' Trail," which denounced nefarious "isms" that perpetuate prejudice and power dynamics, including "racism," "sexism," "ageism," "languageism," "materialism," "classism," "colorism," and "sizeism."
As you can see, he's still defending DEI. He's like Kamala -- announcing a policy shift while winking to his progressive supporters "But my values haven't changed."
He has a coward's heart. He was born a coward, he lives in the stooped cringe of a coward, he will die a coward, and he will be buried in a coward's casket.
But you guage how a fight is going by which cowards run away and in which direction.
Jasmine Crockett, Who Is Absolutely On Trump's Payroll, Announces That She Will Block Trump's Plan to Give Taxpayers $5,000 Out of the Money DOGE Saves, Because $5,000 Doesn't Mean Anything to US Citizens
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) belittled President Donald Trump's support of a proposal to offer a $5,000 dividend to some taxpayers from the money saved by the Department of Government Efficiency.
DOGE volunteer head Elon Musk floated the idea of paying the savings found by his new department, suggesting the return could be as large as $5,000. However, Crockett criticized the idea during an interview with ABC News Live.
"Listen, [Trump is] just telling a lie. He's not the one that had anything to do with the $1,200 refunds that people had during the midst of COVID, that was done by a Democratic House and Democratic Senate," Crockett said. "The only reason that those refunds came before was because we were living in different times. This was a time in which, hopefully, we won't ever go through again. We had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic . . . So, no, we are not in the business of giving out money. And honestly, I don't know what $5,000 will do for you."
The Democrat cadre of the government is not in the business of handing out money?
You mean you don't give out money to citizens generally, right? Because you gave $2 billion to failed insurrectionist Stacey Abrams and can't stop demanding that the government seize money from Republicans and give it to Democrat constituency groups.
I don't think this is a good idea. We have too many fake dollars already depreciating the value of the dollar. We need to dry up this supply to stop inflation. Saving money and then not spending it takes inflation out of the system, whereas dropping another stimulus-like check on the public will either increase it or, at the very least, waste the opportunity to decrease it.
But that's not this reparations-grifter's argument, of course.
$5000 could pay for her comically-huge fake eyelashes for a couple of weeks. Not bad!
...
Crockett's dismissal of the dividend sparked backlash online, as the idea was previously well-received.
"This same Rep called for reparations for Black people," Libs of TikTok captioned the clip of Crockett on X. "Typical out-of-touch hypocritical Democrat."
"If Jasmine Crockett's IQ was one point lower, you would have to water her like a plant. Literally a moron," former Trump adviser Roger Stone wrote on X.
...
Fishback was the first to pitch the idea to Musk, suggesting in a post on X that DOGE provides taxpayers with refund checks.
The idea certainly drove Democrats to once again declare that they only care about their cronies and constituents, and are absolutely hostile to the citizenry generally.
On Thursday night, ABC didn't touch the grotesque Hamas hostage-coffin celebration for killing two kids. They DID want to highlight Elon Musk with a chainsaw.
AG Pam Bondi Informs the Senate That Their Restrictions on Who the President Can Fire Are Unconstitutional and That the Administration Will Ignore Them
—Ace
Congress has passed bureaucrat-protection measures that limit Trump's right to fire administrative and immigration judges.
Pam Bondi just wrote a letter instructing Congress that this is an unconstitutional Congressional intrusion into the President's powers under Article II, so she and Trump will ignore these insurrectionary restrictions.
She plans to fire a lot of administrative judges, including immigration judges, who are hired and overseen by the Article II executive and not the Article III courts.
Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
#BREAKING: Trump and Pam Bondi's DOJ just determined that the current level of removal restrictions for administrative law judges are unconstitutional.
This means cleaning out the obstructionist administrative judges will be easier.
Media Blames MAGA Trump-Fan Racists For Stabbing Death of Lesbian Fire Chief Plot Twist: The Suspect Is the Lesbain Fire Chief's Wife, Who, Get This, Was Previously Imprisoned for Stabbing Her Husband to Death
—Ace
Happy Friday! Another crazy week almost done.
Larry Correia
@monsterhunter45
So a female fire captain gets murdered in her California home.
Because she's one of the inept ones Trump insulted, the liberal outrage click bait punditry immediately blamed MAGA, because surely she was murdered by his fascist fans riled up by his insane hatred for lesbians.
Half an hour later it comes out the cops are searching for her wife as the only suspect.
And it turns out that woman has killed someone before.
No matter how much we hate the media, they deserve worse.
Authorities have identified the suspect in the stabbing death of a Cal Fire captain in San Diego County.
According to the sheriff's office, 53-year-old Yolanda Marodi, also known as Yolanda Olenjniczak, is wanted in connection with the death of Rebecca "Becky" Marodi.
The suspect, who was married to Marodi for about two years, was sentenced in 2004 to 11 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for fatally stabbing her then-husband, sources told ABC News. Olenjniczak served her time and was released.
Authorities said Olenjniczak remains at large. Her whereabouts are unknown, but she may have fled to Mexico, sources say.
She's being described as a 5-foot-2 woman with brown hair, weighing about 166 pounds.
So the media looked right past the most likely suspect, a spouse with a previous conviction for a stabbing murder, to go right to the Real Villains Here, Trump voters.
I haven't yet found media articles insinuating that the murder was due to MAGA Sudden Stabbing Syndrome, but lefties online were certainly pushing this stupid idea:
Leftists are again trying to leave the impression that right wing extremists killed Marodi when in fact it was her own partner in a domestic violence incident. pic.twitter.com/qZnkdmXyTY
I wonder if Jake Tapper or Brian Stelter will scold their leftwing trantifa allies for pushing disinformation WITHOUT EVIDENCE.
Tell a lie, I don't really wonder.
By the way: Trump didn't even mention her. Lefties are confusing this lesbian fire chief from San Diego with the three lesbian fire department leaders in Los Angeles.
These homophobes think all middle-aged beefy lesbians look alike!
THE MORNING RANT: Taxpayer-Subsidized “Clean Tech” Ventures in Support of the “EV Transition” Are Starting to Fold
—Buck Throckmorton
Early in the Biden administration, the EV bubble reached its apex, and a vast array of politicians and investors bought into the hype. Southern Republican governors dove in deep, seeking to make Dixie the land of EV plants surrounded by suppliers providing the batteries and related components necessary to build EVs.
Under the leadership of Governor Brian Kemp (R), Georgia became ground zero for the EV hype. With the enemies of freedom committed to vanquishing gasoline-powered vehicles, Brian Kemp made it clear that no governor was more committed to their agenda than he was.
At the same time, the Biden administration was also steering obscene amounts of money to all the EV-adjacent promoters. To a certain extent, a lot of these companies were not much different from startups seeking investment money from venture capitalists and angel investors. But when government is the angel investor, the process is no longer capitalism, and rather than focusing on revenue as a source of cash, the focus of these enterprises quickly turned to keeping the government grants, incentives, and “loans” flowing in.
But with the EV fad having peaked, and with the election of Donald Trump, the music has just stopped for all the hustlers and their EV-related schemes. The over-hyped and highly subsidized ventures are starting to fail, and unsurprisingly, Georgia is at the center of the collapse.
*****
Aspen Aerogels
In early 2022, a company named Aspen Aerogels announced plans to build a massive plant near Savannah that was allegedly going to employ 250 people and produce thermal barriers to suppress EV fires. The plant would be financed by taxpayers, of course, but it has just now been cancelled.
A company that produces special materials to contain fires in electric vehicles has ceased construction of its partially built Georgia factory, jeopardizing a project that promised to employ 250 workers.
Executives at Massachusetts-based Aspen Aerogels said Thursday during an investor call that the company is indefinitely halting construction on its 500,000-square-foot factory near Register, which is about 12 miles outside of Statesboro.
The factory had already broken ground and received approval for a $671 million federal loan to assist with construction last fall. The loan was part of a flurry of construction financing approved for clean tech projects in the waning months of the Biden administration.
Of course, Gov. Kemp and fellow Georgia leaders threw taxpayer dollars at Aspen Aerogels to incentivize it to build the plant for an industry that didn’t actually exist at the time.
Reading the financial statements of these companies entertains me, and a quick glance reveals that over the past four-full years, Aspen Aerogels has never turned a profit, losing a cumulative $187 million. Its stock is down 85% from its peak in 2021. This is the kind of company in which Joe Biden and Brian Kemp like to “invest” taxpayer money.
*****
Freyr Battery
Here’s another…
In a 2024 interview praising Joe Biden’s “Inflation reduction Act,” the CEO of Freyr Battery explained that his company’s purpose is as follows: “We’re here to decarbonize transportation systems and storage systems by making the world’s most sustainable battery. That’s what we do.”
Freyr Battery’s much-hyped, multi-billion dollar plant that was going to employ 700 Georgians has just been scrapped.
The factory would have built batteries to store electricity produced by renewable sources and release it later, company officials said. It would have been the second-largest battery factory worldwide when it was announced in 2023. But Freyr, a startup founded in 2018, never began construction on the 368-acre site.
Freyr Battery is a start-up company with the stated goal of “decarbonizing transportation systems,” so of course Brian Kemp and the state of Georgia threw taxpayer money at it. Why wouldn’t a Republican governor give taxpayer money to a start-up whose goal is the elimination of gas-powered vehicles, and the freedom that comes with them.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development said the state conveyed a $7 million grant to buy a site for Freyr in Newnan, about 35 miles southwest of Atlanta. Department spokesperson Jessica Atwell said the state and company are “working together” to ensure the money is “repaid expeditiously.”
Good luck getting “repaid expeditiously.” Freyr Battery has lost $83 million through the first three quarters of its current fiscal year, and it lost a combined $173 million over the previous two full years. Its stock price has collapsed by 85% since its peak in 2022.
*****
Rivian
The granddaddy of all the bad Georgia EV investments, Rivian, is not dead yet, but the Georgia plant that was supposed to be building electric vehicles by 2024 is still just an empty field.
Although Rivian keeps getting financial lifelines from suckers such as Joe Biden and Volkswagen, it still has no path to profitability, and it just released its fiscal year end 2024 financial reports yesterday. It was another financial bloodbath for Rivian, with a loss of $4.7 billion. This is somehow being reported as good news, because the prior year’s loss was $5.4 billion, but no company can consistently burn that kind of cash and survive long. Even worse, annual sales have plateaued at about 50,000 units, and that was with all the Biden-era tax incentives which are likely going away soon.
Rivian’s existing plant in Normal, IL has a capacity of over 200,000 units per year. With Rivian maxed out at 50,000 sales per year, there is no possibility that the empty field in Georgia will someday have a plant spitting out 400,000 vehicles per year, as promised when Brian Kemp gave Rivian over a billion dollars in incentives back in 2021.
Rivian’s stock is down 92% from its peak, and it remains the highest profile participant in my EV Death Pool.
*****
Novonix
Just up the road in Tennessee, a company named Novonix has received a great deal of hype and taxpayer money for its promised role as a supplier of graphite to the “burgeoning” EV manufacturing industry. Unfortunately for Novonix, the EV industry never burgeoned, and it’s not altogether clear that the company even has a product to sell to EV manufacturers.
According to its website: “ NOVONIX is developing innovative, sustainable technologies and high-performance materials to service the electric vehicle and energy storage industries.”
The key words here being “is developing…” Production has always been at some date in the future. The current target date for full production is now 2028. Elsewhere on its website, Novonix states that it has a “proprietary synthetic graphite process” for which it is “currently scaling commercial production…”
While Novonix is “developing” and “scaling,” it also keeps hitting up taxpayers for more money. Here are just a couple of headlines from within the past year.
Of course, Novonix is also now hitting up the locals too. It is less than ideal timing for Novonix, however, as it just announced major layoffs, while concurrently requesting property tax incentives to support future growth.
The day before Novonix, an Australian battery manufacturing company, went before the Chattanooga City Council to ask its members to support a $54 million net tax incentive deal, its leaders laid off about a fifth of its Chattanooga-area employees.
And…the awful financial report: Novonix has lost $28 million through the first two quarters of its current fiscal year, after losing $46 million in the previous full year. Its stock has collapsed by 94% since peaking after its public offering in 2022. And the cherry on top is that Novonix’s CPA is warning that “These conditions give rise to a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt over the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern.” This is CPA talk meaning the company’s financial health is very bad, with a dire prognosis.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be getting such pleasure from the failure of these ventures, but each of these failures is a significant victory in both the culture war and the overall battle for economic freedom. Central planners such as Joe Biden and Brian Kemp decided to choose “winners” that could only economically succeed if our freedom of choice was exterminated. The central planners lost, and freedom is winning.
Good morning kids. That the Muslims of Gaza should abuse the bodies of a mother her two innocent beautiful children of blessed and sacred memory who the Lord in His mercy will embrace for all time, Amen.. that they butchered along with several hundred other Israelis and some foreigners (among them Americans) as ghoulish props in their version of a victory parade should come as no surprise to anyone who has even the remotest understanding of the past 1,600 years of history, Certainly since 9/11/01 which saw residents of both Gaza and the West bank of both the Jordan River and the Hudson River on the rooftops of Jersey City cheering, passing out candy and ululating with near orgasmic glee when the Twin Towers came crashing down.
Blaming Gazans as citizens of Gaza, that is blaming Hamas for this as well as what they did on October 7th last is the same as blaming guns for school shootings. The Gun is merely the implement by which the violence is committed.
Hamas, as well as the so-called innocent Gazan civilians, including Al Jazeera journalists and UNWRA employees are merely the implement. The violence and the motive are one in the same:
I-S-L-A-M. Same as it ever was for the past 1,500 years or so. God bless President Trump for his calling out of this barbarism for what it is, but removing the populace of Gaza is one thing, and I firmly believe that Gaza as a territory should indeed be returned to ISrael, whose critical mistake was giving it up in the first place by agreeing to or I'd prefer to believe being coerced into the insane delusion of land for peace. That still leaves a few million people who either participated in or cheered on the butchery of 10/7 and the savage subhuman abuse of the victims remains, as Israel set free their compatriots. If anyone thinks that these savages will willingly be relocated to some other Islamic nation let alone that some other Islamic nation wants them in their midst in the first place, they're living in fantasyland.
As far as Gaza is or was concerned, or even this notion of a so-called "Palestinian" state, to Muslims, it's merely a temporary if not diversionary tactic in their ultimate goal. Nation states, even majority Muslim are antithetical to Islam's main goal, a global ummah or caliphate. Muslim independent nation states are tolerated only insofar as to bring about this goal. And to achieve that goal requires the death of or submission of every infidel/nonbeliever.
Remember or for our Lefty readers (I use that term loosely) The word ISLAM does not mean peace. The word is Salaam. Islam in English translates as SUBMISSION. You will never hear nor read this in the state-controlled media.
Submission is also the goal of Leftists/Democrats and so Islam and Leftism are for the present time allies of convenience. Until Titty-Caca Ocasio Cortez finds her head is about to get lopped off by a rusty hacksaw once she and her ilk have outlived their usefulness to the Mullahs she too is deluding herself.
Unless and until the Islamic world undergoes some sort of Protestant reformation or 1.5 billion Muslims renounce the parts of the Koran and Hadith that label Jews as descendants of pigs and apes that are to be eradicated in order to fulfill Allah's will, regardless of what happens in Gaza going forward in modern geopolitical terms, what happened on 10/7/24 will happen again, in Israel and elsewhere in the world. By the way, not only against Jews as we have witnessed yet again in both Congo and Nigeria just the other day.
Militants decapitated 70 Christians in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on February 13. The victims reportedly include women, children, and the elderly.
Must say to my friends at Legal Insurrection, Referring to these Evil subhuman savages as Militants is something I expect from outlets like NPR.
As throngs of Hamas militants and their Gazan allies celebrated over the caskets of four dead Israelis, including two children and their mother, an NPR reporter described the scene as "much more somber and much less celebratory on both sides." The taxpayer-funded outlet's Tel Aviv-based correspondent, Kat Lonsdorf, gave the description after interviewer Michel Martin noted that Thursday marked "the first time that Hamas has handed over bodies during this war" and asked Lonsdorf to describe the "scene." "Yeah, it was definitely much more somber and much less celebratory on both sides," Lonsdorf responded.
Over here, congratulations to Kash Patel who I hope will be able to purge the Hoover building of the traitors in his midst, find and or promote actual moral, ethical, competent and patriotic Americans to fill the agency's ranks and set them loose on the criminal scum who transmogrified that agency into a Globalist/Democrat Gestapo in the first place.
Just as expecting Islam to reform itself, is a non-starter, expecting their allies of convenience of the Left to do the same and accept that they have been rebuked and defeated, at least in the short term as a result of Trump's historic massive landslide political/cultural victory of last November is wishful thinking. At least over here, we do have a chance at a cultural shift away from insane Leftism. The more Trump can transform his policies into tangible results that even the Globalist/Commie controlled propaganda machine can't obfuscate or censor, the better the chance we have in the long term of an American renaissance. Please God.
And on a separate note, the notion of giving everyone a $5,000 check to me is antithetical to DOGE's mission and the MAGA mission in the first place. I hope Trump reconsiders this. It just keeps the Uncle Sugar mentality alive and that needs to die along with the bureaucracy that enabled it in the first place. Better to repeal the "temporary!" Federal income tax (16th amendment) and abolish the entire IRS.
I'm hearing some yammering Uterus on MSNSDAP going on about Trump blaming Ukraine for the war with Russia saying "can you imagine if Canada invaded the US and we blamed ourselves for the war? Reminder, over 50 million foreigners have invaded the US and are living and leeching off us as illegal aliens and yet when Trump calls that out and is fighting like hell to deport them all, somehow that is morally reprehensible.
The first nukes should be dropped on the Mecca Space Rock and the Qom wishing well, and then Black Rock (CBS HQ) and NPR among others.
And funny, now Obama and Foggy Bottom overthrew the legitimately elected Ukrainian government that was friendly to Putin and installed an illegitimate puppet. While at the same time we allowed NATO to expand eastward, breaking our continued promises to Puttin to not do so. Lots of bame to go around.
On a personal level, Between pogroms and the Einsatzgruppen, Ukraine and much of eastern Europe is drenched in Jewish blood going back a few hundred years so if Putin and SHecky Zelensky want to kill each other off, I say pass the popcorn. I feel sorry for any truly innocent people caught up in that unnecessary bloodbath, but I am who I am, so there you go.
And here's to the continued DOGE-ing of DC. Have a great weekend.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
As technology moves from conception to implementation, we are seeing the dangers of increasing levels of government control that threaten personal liberty, security and anonymity. Caution is required. Digital Prisons
We get the appeal — who doesn’t like free money? — but that’s pretty much how the country got into its current fiscal mess in the first place. (Agreed. Better to abolish everything created from the New Deal onwards, - jjs) Paying down the debt will help Americans VASTLY more than DOGE ‘dividends’
DOGE is the corrective, the counterbalance to an abusive and rogue Treasury Department. Trillions in Graft
“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia,” Trump said, responding to a question posed by a member of the press pool. “I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawlessly beautiful. And I think we should take over Washington, D.C.” Trump Urges Federal Takeover of Washington D.C. to Restore Law and Order.
Bass stated that “there has certainly been an openness and a willingness from the Trump administration to be very helpful. And so, I think it’s important that the entire nation is invested in our success.” Bass: Trump Admin. Way Ahead of Schedule with Removing Toxic Waste (for a moment I thought she was praising DOGE! - jjs)
“President Trump, within days of taking office, cut border crossings 95 percent and those few who have dared to cross are being either prosecuted or deported,’ MIller declared to a room full of reporters, most of whom cover the migration issue from a pro-migration perspective. (Now tax remittances 95% - jjs) Winning: Stephen Miller Touts Trump’s 95 Percent Drop in Illegal Migrants
Words fail. For any decent human being, the behavior of the Hamas killers today in releasing the four bodies of their kidnapped hostages — which included a baby and a toddler — was beyond monstrous. Ghouls and Monsters in Gaza
On October 7, 2023, Gazan “civilians” drilled into the home of Shiri Bibas, her husband, Yarden, and their two babies. After murdering Shiri’s parents and the family dog, the savages dragged her out of the house as she was clutching onto her sons for dear life. . . But according to your common culprits in the callous mainstream media, Shiri and her babies just so happened to wind up “deceased.” Mainstream Media Pretends Babies Reportedly Murdered by Hamas were Randomly 'Deceased'
Gaza belongs to the Jewish state, and it needs to reintegrate Gaza as a Jewish region that is an integral part of greater Israel. (Land wis one thing, the cancer of a million-plus Muslims is quite another - jjs) President Trump Is Wrong on Gaza
Many “innocent” Gazans joined the kidnapping and murder of Israeli civilians on October 7, while many more “celebrated” the massacre, as well as “the return of Jewish babies in coffins,” noted Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan Thursday , who called for the enclave to be “denazified” and “demilitarized” while urging the implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for the region. Israeli Ambassador Backs Trump’s Gaza Plan, Slams Public ‘Celebration’ of Murdered Baby Hostages
“The New York Times is just a title. It’s not a fair trustworthy source of news. It’s a rotten corroded snot hole. It should be shut down once & for ever,” Rapaport wrote in a Wednesday X post, sharing an article by the Jerusalem Post featuring a study on the newspaper’s “imbalanced” coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Michael Rapaport Calls for ‘Corroded’ NYT to Be ‘Shut Down’ over Its Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
War Room host Stephen K. Bannon has described the Kennedy Center as “the high church of the secular, atheistic administrative state that runs the imperial capital,” with Trump’s takeover serving as a major blow to the left’s cultural hegemony. Trump-Led Kennedy Center Evacuated After Bomb Threat
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Requests for public comments by the FTC are often a precursor to formal investigations or agency-level policy changes, indicating the agency, helmed by Chairman Andrew Ferguson, does not intend to allow sweeping allegations of political censorship in prior years to go unchecked. EXCLUSIVE: Federal Trade Commission Launches Probe Into Big Tech’s Censorship Of Americans
the paper's recently unveiled "Next 50" list of individuals "shaping our society in 2025" suggests the Post's journalists are still struggling to dislodge themselves from the woke liberal bubble that has long impeded their ability to make content suitable for normal Americans. Democracy Thrives on Wokeness: WaPo Doubles Down on DEI
“Why wouldn’t I ask Elon Musk? Why wouldn’t I ask some of the best minds in the world to come in and offer us advice on how they think we can improve the system?” an incredulous Duffy said, with Van Cleave asking, “How do you avoid the potential conflicts of interest with Elon Musk?” CBS Reporter Asks Sean Duffy Why He Would Consult Renowned Engineer Elon Musk About Engineering
For decades, the United States has not so much chosen to run a trade deficit with China as it has been forced into one. The lack of a coherent U.S. trade policy has allowed Beijing to set the terms, tilting global commerce in its favor. The result? America has become an unwitting partner in a trade policy designed in Beijing—a policy that systematically erodes U.S. manufacturing, distorts global markets, and leaves American workers at a disadvantage. We have not just been importing Chinese goods, we’ve been importing the economic policy of the communist regime that rules China. (Truman should've let MacArthur cross the Yalu, after nuking Beijing - jjs) Breitbart How China’s Predatory Mercantilism Created America’s Trade Deficit
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS, JUNK SCIENCE, LYSENKOISM
“Joe Biden’s green dreams short-circuited, and it is time to pull the plug,” Ernst said in a statement to Breitbart News. “The EV charger boondoggle is a textbook example of waste and inefficiency that needs to be eliminated. Instead of spending hundreds of millions per charging station, I am doing something truly revolutionary in Washington – putting taxpayers first.” Exclusive — Sen. Joni Ernst Unveils Bill to Unplug $7.5 Billion Biden-Era Electric Vehicle Program
Public schools in Maryland are already required by law to include lessons on various “gender identities” in kindergarten, and to teach sixth graders to “define sex assigned at birth, gender identity, and gender expression.” But those lessons are currently included in the family life and human sexuality curriculum, a separate, typically week-long course within the health education curriculum and which parents are allowed to opt their child out of if they choose. But not if leftists get their way. Maryland Parents Outraged Banning Them From Opting Their Kids Out of 'Gender Identity' Class
As the FBI director, Patel has pledged to end the bureau’s participation in partisan lawfare campaigns, telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January: “There should be no politics at the FBI.” Instead, Patel aims to return the bureau to its intended purpose, investigating crime and bringing dangerous criminals to justice. During his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, Patel emphasized he wants “…to let good cops be cops and put handcuffs on the bad guys.” Senate Confirms Kash Patel as Trump’s FBI Director
. . . Patel made it clear that part of his mission as director includes a vow to “let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI.” He expressed his commitment to collaborating with the dedicated men and women of the Bureau to restore faith in the bureau. “Working alongside the dedicated men and women of the Bureau and our partners, we will rebuild an FBI the American people can be proud of.” Perhaps most chilling was Patel's warning to our nation’s enemies. “And to those who seek to harm Americans—consider this your warning. We will hunt you down in every corner of this planet.” This bold statement signals his readiness to confront external dangers, bolstering the bureau's commitment to national security. Here’s How Kash Patel Responded To Being Confirmed
POLITICS
The octogenarian and longest-serving party leader in Senate history has held on through numerous falls and health issues, including moments where he froze for almost half a minute. Report: Mitch McConnell to Announce Senate Retirement
Trump has enacted 108 executive actions in the first four weeks of his presidency, including 73 executive orders, 23 proclamations and 12 memorandums. The House speaker announced during his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference that Congress would arrange these orders into a systematic code to protect them from future presidents. Mike Johnson Says House GOP Will Make Sure Future Presidents Can’t ‘Unwind’ Trump’s Flurry Of Executive Orders
This campaign is not likely to prevent an end to the fighting in Ukraine. The information warriors, however, will have their eye on a bigger objective: hamstringing Trump’s ability to effect a broader reorientation of American foreign policy. Reality Is Winning the Ukraine Narrative War
The important thing is to distinguish between Trump’s short-term goals and his long-term strategy. The Trump Strategy for Ukraine
Referring to his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the Vice President explained that “the point that I tried to make to our European friends… is that [our] friendship is based on shared values. You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our border; you don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result—and that happened in Romania—[and] you do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.” Vance Warns Europe: American Taxpayers Will Not Subsidize the Defense of Countries That Jail People for ‘Mean Tweets.’
While the European Commission criticizes Hungary and Bulgaria for taking a tough stance on illegal migration, our countries have successfully prevented the social unrest and rising crime seen in Western European capitals. As a Bulgarian, I appreciated VP Vance's stern wakeup call to Europe
The legislation now heads to the National Assembly, France’s lower house, for further debate. The move underscores a rightward shift in French politics, spurred by last summer’s legislative elections that left parliament deadlocked, with Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally (RN) winning the most seats of any single party. French Senate Backs Bill Banning Illegals from Marrying.
Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is reportedly on a list of suggested dismissals provided to congress, according to CNN. The move comes as Trump seeks to make good on his campaign promise to root out “wokeness” in the military. (Fekete kutya-szar - jjs) Trump Admin Reportedly Set To Can Notorious Liberal General
DC AIRLINER/COPTER COLLISION, Philly, Toronto Air Crashes AFTERMATH
A recent deadly collision over Washington, D.C. involving an Army helicopter has brought sudden national scrutiny to the service and its missions over the nation’s capital, but a master Army aviator told Breitbart News that they had been at risk for years. In fact, the aviator said, the Army was so strapped for experienced pilots that up through 2023 it was sending its most junior pilots fresh out of flight school to fly these specialized missions. At one point, an estimated 40 percent of the pilots assigned to these missions, which can include evacuating leaders in the event of an attack, were on their first assignment, the aviator said. Exclusive: Army Was Sending Junior Pilots Straight from Flight School to Fly Top DC Missions Until 2023
Disney+ teased the show with a hint of the storyline: “Malcolm ([Frankie] Muniz) and his daughter are drawn into the family’s chaos when Hal ([Bryan] Cranston) and Lois ([Jane] Kaczmarek) demand his presence for their 40th wedding anniversary party.” Disney Would Ruin Warm ‘Malcolm In The Middle’ Reboot Vibes With ‘Nonbinary’ Kid
Or not. They might just continue with the 90% post-consumer waste launches.
My graphics card has shipped.
Quick note on that: The 5070 Ti has listed in Australia at an effective exchange rate of $1 to A$2, which is even worse than the real exchange rate. The $750 sacrificial card is A$1500, though of course it's not available at all in either country.
Comparing retail prices on the Radeon 7800 XT that I bought, the conversion is more like $1 to A$1.25, which is much better than the real exchange rate.
I don't know precisely why, but this card is a great buy in Australia but only meh in the US. Unless something really surprising happens with AMD's new cards, I made the right decision.
I expect the 9070 XT to offer 25% to 50% better performance than the 7800 XT, but cost twice as much in Australia. America is another country.
To be clear, it is not shutting down the Amazon app store on Amazon devices running Android, because Amazon doesn't call them Android devices even though they are.
It is shutting down the Amazon app store on third-party Android devices, because basically nobody uses it.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: 1 USD to 1.57 AUD. It was worse last week.
Like Abraham, our shared Patriarch, we, too, struggled to find the righteous among the wicked. We hoped that the Palestinians of Gaza will show something of the courage we had seen in Syria, Tunisia, or Libya and stand up to their maniacal overlords. No protest materialized, and support for the tyrants grew the more adept they proved at slaughtering the Jews. We hoped for a Palestinian Oskar Schindler, one righteous man or woman who would stand up to Hamas as righteous men and women stood up to the far mightier Nazis and say that no cause or ideology justified the brutal murder of an infant. None came forth. We offered large monetary rewards and safe passage to anyone delivering any information about our hostages; hatred spoke louder than self-interest and cash. Israel’s neighbors to the south had all the opportunities anyone could reasonably ask for to resist, repent, recalculate course. And at every turn, they returned to the singular idea that gives them life and meaning: Kill the Jews, all of them, gleefully.
If we didn’t understand all of this before, we ought to now that we are burying two dead children. And the lesson we must learn is simple. It comes down to one word: enough.
There comes a time when civilized men must drive off or eradicate the barbarians if they want to keep their civilization. That time is past. If I were Trump, I'd tell Bibi to do what he has to.
It’s Aug. 1. Third Army has been activated and you are going full blast to the Rhine River and you’re not going to stop. Remember what [Gen. George] Patton said, “Audacity—l’audace, toujours l’audace, l’audace—audacity,” Always audacity, more audacity; encore l’audace. And you cannot stop, you’ve got them completely in disarray. They’re floundering. They’re screaming. And then other people can follow up, like Marco Rubio did, in brilliant fashion, in Panama.
So, Donald Trump is a shock corp. He is the 3rd Armored Division, that’s got the enemy completely disorganized. And then behind him comes the infantry and they consolidate and institutionalize the accords that he’s made. So, the next group of people will go down to Mexico and they’ll get things institutionalized. They’ll go to Panama. They’ll talk to Denmark. They’ll do the mechanics of getting aid. But Donald Trump’s the tip of the spear. And the more audacious, the more ambitious and the more rapidly—in this brief window of four years—he can dismantle this administrative state and bring us back to common sense, the less opposition. They are trying to suggest to you, if you’ll slow down—we’re going to make him slow down and we’re organizing against him. They’re not organizing. They’re completely in disarray and they’re doing exactly what they should not do if they want to climb back from 31% up to 50[%] or 60% approval, the Democratic Party.
So, my advice to Donald Trump is pedal to the metal. Audacity, audacity, audacity. And keep on going.
One of the most immediate benefits for individual taxpayers would be the elimination of time spent on tax-related activities. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that the average individual taxpayer spends approximately 13 hours per year preparing and filing their federal income tax return, according to the IRS Paperwork Reduction Act compliance estimates for Form 1040 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf). This figure includes gathering records, completing forms, and ensuring compliance with tax laws. For the roughly 150 million individual tax returns filed annually, this translates to nearly 2 billion hours collectively spent on tax preparation.
If personal income tax were eliminated, this time could be redirected to more productive or personally fulfilling activities. For example, a taxpayer earning the median U.S. hourly wage of approximately $30 (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm) could effectively "save" $390 worth of time annually (13 hours × $30/hour). For higher earners or those with more complex tax situations—such as self-employed individuals or those with investment income—the time savings could be even greater, often exceeding 20–30 hours per year due to additional forms and schedules.
Being self-employed, tax prep is the bane of my year. I'd be thrilled if they ended all the nonsense.
Picture this: a four-story residential building perched atop an artisanal coffee shop and a yoga studio, its micro-apartments stacked like shoeboxes in the name of “sustainability” and “resilience.” Now picture something else entirely: a pristine, master-planned community where every house has a front porch, the streets are lined with picket fences, and everything looks as if it were plucked from a Norman Rockwell painting — except there are few if any houses of worship, the zoning codes are suffocating, and the price tag ensures only the elite can afford to live there.
These are the two faces of New Urbanism, an ideology that, masquerading as “traditionalist,” conservatives have tolerated for far too long. On one end, you have high-density urbanism, where developers — in cahoots with machine politicians — cram as many people as possible into apartment blocks, eliminating cars and personal space under the guise of environmentalism and a sense of community. On the other, you have the faux-traditional, highly regulated enclaves of Seaside and Celebration, Florida, prohibitively expensive and ironically more artificial than the suburban developments they criticize.
The suburban America I grew up in in the 70s and 80s was a paradise. No wonder the left wants to abolish it.
4 Nations Tournament
The championship game is on now, USA vs Canada. Anyone watching? It's 2-1 US in the middle of the 2nd as I post this.
As to how much sex Canadians are having, a quarter (27 per cent) of those polled reported engaging in “sexual activity” at least once a week, and roughly one third reported a once-a-month frequency (14 per cent) or never (15 per cent).
The rarely or never group skewed toward 55-plus Canadians and the not sexually satisfied.
A full 26 per cent of respondents preferred not to answer when asked how often they participate in sexual activity. While “sex seems to be everywhere in our culture,” and Canadians might be more open about discussing sex than previous generations, “the discomfort quickly returns when we scratch the surface,” sociologist Tina Fetner wrote in her 2018 book, Sex in Canada: The Who, Why, When and How of Getting Down Up North.
Fun fact: Canadians invented doggie style so they could keep watching hockey while doing it. Those that don't like doggie style try to score between periods. Heh. I met Gingy online in 2001. Back then that wasn't very common, and people used to ask “How did you meet a Canadian online?” I used to say with a straight face. “Oh, I met her on Canucksthatfuck.com”. Used to make her so mad, but now she just rolls her eyes.
February is where the winter blues start. It's not really that cold in December, and even when it gets cold and snows in January, it's still a novelty. The first couple of weeks of cold weather are fine. We "get to see the seasons change" or whatever.
It's in February where winter wears out its welcome.
I linked this a couple of weeks ago, but in case you missed it: Dog moves camera so that he can steal a treat without being seen later, but he forgot about the Narc.
I bet no one will get this one, but as a hint, the slide guitar is played by someone who's an answer to a different question in this list: "Don't Mean Nothin'" by Richard Marx. (And this is also a Forgotten 80s entry.) The guest guitarist is just as obvious here as it was on the other one.
Trump, After Watching Grisly Celebration of the Murders of Two Babies and Their Mom: "I Don't Want to See a Building Left Standing, I Want Them Wiped Out"
—Ace
Eyal Yakoby
@EYakoby
BREAKING: Israel's Channel 14 has reported that after seeing the dead baby parade from Gaza, President Trump said to his advisors:
"I want to see Gaza wiped out; I don't want to see even one building standing."
In their most shocking propaganda display to date, Hamas terrorists paraded the coffins of two dead children, their mother, and an 83-year-old man through the streets of Gaza before throngs of cheering Palestinians.
The macabre scene unfolded on Thursday morning as Hamas returned the bodies of four Israeli captives who were held for more than 500 days: Shiri Bibas, 32; her two children, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir; and 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz. The caskets bore smiling pictures of those killed alongside messages listing their "date of arrest" as Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas displayed the caskets on a makeshift stage in front of an anti-Semitic sign depicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodthirsty vampire snarling above a photo of the murdered captives. The sign included the caption, "The War Criminal Netanyahu & His Nazi Army Killed Them with Missiles from Zionist Warplanes." There is no evidence to date that supports the claim.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) dispatched one of its staffers to sit with a uniformed Hamas terrorist at a camouflage table and sign "paperwork." The committee then transported the bodies through the Gaza Strip as cheering crowds of onlookers celebrated, waving Palestinian flags and shouting "victory" in Arabic. Other videos show masked Hamas gunmen casually chatting with excited Gazans out on the streets.
When the coffins reached Israeli soil, they were scanned for bombs and booby traps and then opened for examination to confirm the identities of those inside. Hamas locked the caskets shut but did not provide keys to Israel, forcing authorities to smash the locks open.
The ICRC's role in the barbaric display is likely to bring increased scrutiny toward the organization, which failed to fulfill its mandate to visit the hostages and assess their health, as the group routinely does during traditional conflicts. It has since participated in Hamas's propagandistic hostage release displays, sending officials to appear on stage with Hamas terrorists, shake hands, and sign papers in similar scenes to the one that played out on Thursday.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have responded to those displays by threatening to cut funding for the ICRC and strip protections that protect the organization from terror-related lawsuits, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
People point out the Red Cross never once visited the hostages to check on their welfare. But they rush to take part in a ghoulish Hamas propaganda event.
The AP continues its relentless, remorseless defense of terrorists by repeating their claims, made WITHOUT EVIDENCE:
FDD
@FDD
.@mdubowitz: "The moment we all dreaded for 18 months arrived today -- Shiri Bibas and her little boys, Ariel and Kfir, finally returned from Gaza to be laid to rest with love and dignity. But even in death, Hamas couldn't resist another grotesque spectacle, parading their coffins beside an antisemitic caricature of the Israeli prime minister as a blood-dripping vampire. The hatred is unmistakable."
HAMAS staged a parade showcasing the coffins of the Bibas family, and many Gazans turned out to cheer the jihadists' "victory" in murdering Jewish women and babies. pic.twitter.com/UWq2EmIaDe
It was such a bad day that even the UN issued a statement condemning Hamxs: “The hostage handover ceremony was cruel and despicable.” pic.twitter.com/V0jLfIy2NA
Chief Counsel of ATF Fired and Escorted Out of the Building
—Ace
"Fusion Ken" Dilanian, who did more to publicize FusionGPS's fictions than anyone other than Hillary Clinton and Christopher Steele, got a call from his Deep State Co-Conspirators and he's all mad!
Ken Dilanian
@KenDilanianNBC
New: The chief counsel of the ATF, a career public servant, was fired and escorted out of the building today, two people familiar with the matter tell NBC News. Justice Department officials have not said why.
Thanks to @ComradeArthur.
Bonus: The Kennedy Center had scheduled a performance by the Gay Men's Chorus to kick off "Pride" Month.
Another bonus: The Democrat Media is pulling the heartstrings over a Venezuelan illegal alien who was deported to a country "she wasn't even born in." Mexico, that is. They don't notice that she also wasn't born in America.
Buried towards the bottom of this report is the admission from this Venezuelan illegal alien's family that a DOJ immigration judge had already ordered her to be deported in absentia when she was pulled over in AZ with no car insurance & suspended plates. So yes, she was removed. https://t.co/mxR3OGxbNv
BBC Runs Heart-Wrenching "Documentary" About a Young Boy's Struggle to Surive in the Israeli-Made Warzone of Gaza... Without Ever Disclosing This Boy is the Son of Hamas's Minister of Agriculture
I'm stunned. The world makes no sense any longer. All the world's colors have faded to ash and the even the singing of the birds is strange and hateful to me now.
Deadline Hollywood:
The BBC has apologized and added a clarification to its Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone documentary that featured the son of a Hamas minister, after nearly 50 entertainment figures sent a letter to the corporation to urge an investigation.
Oh, it's a clarification. They had to clarify your stupid Zionist assumption that this was an independently-produced and objective documentary.
I'm sure their apology is very sincere.
The BBC "had not been informed of this information" by the independent producers behind the doc, the corporation added, following backlash from dozens of senior entertainment figures including former BBC controller Danny Cohen, J.K. Rowling's agent Neil Blair, agent Anita Land and ex-Got Talent commissioner Claudia Rosencrantz.
The letter was sent to Director General Tim Davie, content chief Charlotte Moore and BBC News boss Deborah Turness earlier today, urging an investigation after the documentary about children in Gaza that failed to declare that the lead contributor was the son of Hamas royalty.
Jake Kanter
@Jake_Kanter
Oh dear, this is a major blunder. The BBC admits it did not know that the child protagonist in documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was the son of Hamas royalty. It blames the independent producer for not sharing this info during editorial checks.
Is it fair for the BBC to throw the independent producer under the bus? I suspect many will conclude not. This film was commissioned by a team of seasoned current affairs filmmakers/journalists who sit under BBC News CEO Deborah Turness.
Whoops!
Whoopsie!
Jake Kanter
@Jake_Kanter
Here's a statement from Danny Cohen, the former BBC television chief turned BBC interrogator-in-chief, who has been consistently raising concerns about anti-Israeli bias in Gaza crisis coverage.
George Costanza, a BBC executive funded by a grant from The Human Fund (in turn funded by USAID) emailed me:
"Was that wrong? Because, I gotta tell you, I ran a lot of Hamas-produced 'documentaries' at other leftwing state media propaganda outlets, and they were okay with it. If anyone had said something to me..."
And prepare for another shock: Hamas is already attempting to bomb Israeli buses filled with kids and other civilians again:
I prefer the heat. I can always wear shorts and flip-flops if it gets hot. But when it's below freezing it's not like I can just put pants on.
-- Disinterested FDA Director
More fraudulent journalism at CBS: 60 Minutes interviewed two people who lost their jobs as a result of DOGE overhauling USAID. Kristina Drye & Adam Dubard emoted on behalf of thousands of USAID employees who have been terminated, but neither Kristina nor Adam was actually an employee of USAID. Clever word parsing and dishonest editing conveyed otherwise. [Buck]
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Girl Band Edition Just close your eyes and then remember/
The thoughts you've locked away/
When tomorrow comes you'll wish/
You had today They're like the London Boys of girlpop
The Spectator Index
@spectatorindex
BREAKING: Reuters reports that 'mass firings' of US government employees has begun
I just realized that Monday is President's Day. I'm going to work a half-day. I'll post stuff but probably on an 80-90 minute schedule, unless it's a big news day. This Drumpf character is wearing me out!!!
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton are joined by Historian and pundit Michael Walsh to discuss the new American psyche, Gaza, Men and Women and how they are different, and more!
Maxine Waters explains why she doesn't want Musk auditing the Grifter Government: "We don't know what they have on us" Even the devil sometimes tells the truth
Chuck Grassley
@ChuckGrassley
NEWS Sen Judic Cmte advanced Kash Patel's nomination to be FBI Dir 12-10
Senate floor vote comes next
Brooke Rollins was confirmed as SecAg by big margin, like 74-26 or something like that
If Trump pulls this off, he'll have an excellent chance to be snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize!
JOE ROGAN: "People are worried that Elon is going to steal everyone's money. He has $400B. Elon's not going to steal your money. That's not what he's doing. He's a super genius that has been f**ked with. When you've been f**ked with by these nitwits that hide behind 3-letter agencies, and you're dealing with one of the smartest people alive helping Donald Trump get into office and find out what corruption is really going on, you f**ked up.
You f**ked up and picked the wrong psychopath on the spectrum. He's going to hunt you down and find out what's going on, and that's good for everybody. That's how you should be looking at this, like 'Wow, we have a brilliant mind examining these really corrupt and goofy systems and bringing in a bunch of psychopath wizards."
