Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
Doof: doof2112 at proton.me
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
There is a reason why Purina doesn't make People Chow. Because unlike our dogs and cats and monkeys and gerbils, we can bitch and moan about the taste of our food. And there is absolutely nothing like a good steak. Don't pretend otherwise, and don't try to fake the experience, because you just end up looking like a clown.
Sadly, these Woke cooking and food websites that pimp this sort of sh*t are hell-bent on shoving fake meat down our throats, even when it is obviously disgusting. Hell...the article includes an Instagram review of the fake meat by a Washington Post food writer, and even she can't hide her revulsion!
So...just stop. You aren't fooling anyone.
******
You're damned straight I enjoyed that! A smoked bratwurst from a place I have raved about on many an occasion, and some excellent Polish mustard to go along with it.
There is a huge gulf between good sausages and the mass-market stuff that we can get in our supermarkets. Are they bad? No. But they aren't spectacular, so I think it is worthwhile to seek out a small producer and sample their stuff...you will not regret it!
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I like Garden And Gun because they aren't nearly as aggressively Woke as most food websites and magazines. Here are two articles about Bourbon that I found reasonably useful, and because I have tasted most of these bottles I can confirm that they aren't crap. Give the Gift of Bourbon is useful for people who might not be as nerdy about booze as I am. And Gift-Worthy Bourbons by Grain Profile is simply an interesting and fun way of delineating Bourbon.
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That bottle was a birthday gift from one of the brats...the one who likes to drink my bourbon! No, I am not suggesting that he bought it because he wants to taste it and he knows I will share it with him. Of course not!
However, coincidentally he was over a few nights ago and I happened to open it. Some of you are familiar with the distillery, which is famous for their high-rye bottlings, but this one was delicate and smooth...very different than what I expected.
I don't know its price point, but it was a very pleasant pour! A bit too smooth for my taste, but that isn't a criticism, just a comment on my palate.
******
This is a crazily specific Mac & Cheese recipe from Alton Brown. His lunacy is on full display here, but it does look like fun, so why the hell not! Mac To Basics looks like fun...once. I doubt it is much better, but it can't hurt to try.
And next week (if I can dig it up) I will link to a video of my favorite internet chefs (the folks from Fallow) making Mac & Cheese...without a Bechamel! Yes, it is via Heston Blumenthal, so it is going to be strange, but it actually does look like it would be quite good!
******
Homemade vanilla ice cream, complete with tons of cream and egg yolks and sugar is a delight! And it is one of the marvelous uses for whole vanilla beans! Or correctly, a whole vanilla bean split down the middle and then scraped clean of the paste.
That went right into the cream, and steeped for an hour or so. But what to do with the used bean? Damned if I know, but the recipe suggested that I make "Vanilla Sugar," whatever that is. And so I did.
Now what? I have no idea what to do with it!
******
The great garlic experiment of 2025-2026 was a resounding...meh. Send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
About the Bourbon Bubble...I think it has burst, but the category is also suffering from the inflation that affected everything else (Thanks Biden!). I think the sweet spot is still $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
I bought an immensely large bag of candy for Halloween, on the off chance that some poor kid will wander past the house and need a sugar fix. The kids in my neighborhood go to block parties and Trunk-Or-Treat events, and are missing out on the joys of working hard for one's candy! Poor little bastards!
But...I obviously have a rodent problem in my home, or maybe it's some sort of candy elf that sneaks into homes to steal their extra candy.
I can't think of another way 90% of the candy has disappeared!
Religious (Or Educational) Exemptions From Military Service? It Is Culturally Corrosive, And Israel Is A Prime Example
—CBD
Israel has allowed ultra-orthodox Jews to avoid military service from its refounding in 1948 (and even a bit before). It rapidly became a political question with the rise of religious political parties in Israel's parliamentary system. Since it was almost impossible to win an outright majority, Israeli political parties cobbled together coalitions, and even small, seemingly inconsequential parties became powerful as the last few votes to achieve a parliamentary majority.
And those tiny parties who represented the ultra-orthodox had very few demands, but one was to maintain the status quo that they were exempt from military service, in particular those who were studying in Yeshivas (religious schools). And yes, that quickly became a boondoggle, with government funding of those schools coupled with direct support payments to the students.
The current law, and judicial activism, has mostly made them eligible for the draft, but there has been no wholesale drafting or upholding of the law. The situation is an absolute mess, with 67,000 Haredi men legally defined as draft dodgers, and upwards of 110,000 in total.
America saw the caustic effects of wholesale draft dodging and obscenely lenient deferment policies during the Vietnam War. For the first time in our history, a wartime draft allowed large numbers of the affluent and the politically connected to avoid service. Whether that was one of the foundational systems that contributed to our current malaise is debatable, but a powerful argument can be made that a multi-tiered draft that allows healthy young men to avoid service is a corrosive and destructive influence on society. While our current all-volunteer armed force is superb, if we ever need to reinstate the draft, the current system will magnify the great divide between wealth and influence on one side, and the mostly silent majority of Americans. We have had enough of that in the last 60 years, and we certainly don't need more!
That destruction of unity and the magnification of political privilege is dangerous in a large country such as America. But in Israel, which is small, surrounded by enemies, and has fought constantly since 1947, that divide is far more dangerous. Israel is an amazingly patriotic country, and among a large majority of its citizens, the obligation to serve in some capacity is seen not as an onerous intrusion upon life, but an important part of being an Israeli.
And there is the rub! Those exemptions for many ultra-orthodox are grating, because the ultra-orthodox enjoy all of the privileges of Israeli society, but avoid any of the responsibilities. And in reality they are supported by the state at higher levels than the typical Israeli, via those support payments and government funding of religious schools.
But what is the most damning statistic is that up to one-third of the ultra-orthodox do serve in some capacity ... military or national civilian service. And that suggests that the rationale behind draft evasion (and that is exactly what it is) has less to do with religious principles and more to do with political outlook and simple, craven desire.
More than 1,000 people were murdered on October 7th, 2023, and more than 1,300 soldiers have been killed in the war against Hamas, Hezbollah and others. Those soldiers died to protect all of Israel, and the refusal of large numbers of young men to participate in the defense of the country that supports them and keeps them safe is an untenable situation that must change.
We see in many parts of America the result of the loss of patriotic spirit and simple love of country ... the idea that some groups are evil and beyond acceptance, even though they are Americans! And the disconnect between patriotism and a sense of shared responsibility for the welfare of the country and its people has manifested in many ways...all destructive. Perhaps worse is the rejection of our form of government, in spite of its obvious success.
Israel is not as far down that road as we are, but the repercussions are existential for a country its size and in that neighborhood. Of course it is entirely possible that our own issues will result in the Balkanization of America, or perhaps something worse, but that will take time, and that is a luxury that Israel does not have.
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-15-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (a Dark Lord's worst nightmare). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants*...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
Any of y'all on Goodreads? I signed up for a Goodreads account a long time ago, but I hardly ever touch it. That doesn't stop Goodreads from sending me periodic emails about new releases and whatnot. Now they have a survey for "Readers Favorite Books of 2026." It's broken down by category or genre, so participants can vote for their favorite books in their preferred genres. Like most popularity contests, it's mostly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I went to the Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror categories to see what choices are available, as those are my three preferred categories. Out of all three categories, I had only even heard of TWO books, both in the Fantasy category--Twelve Months by Jim Butcher and A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett. I thought both books were very good, though, so I wouldn't have any issues with voting for them. In the Science Fiction category, I've heard of just a few of the authors (John Scalzi, Matt Dinniman, James Islington, and Adrian Tchaikovsky) but I have not read any of the books that are listed on the page. And of the authors I've heard of, I've read previous books by two of them (Islington and Tschaikovsky).
I guess I'm not "in tune" with what today's readers are reading. I seem to prefer stuff that was written before current year, unless it's written by an author whom I already read because I've enjoyed their previous works (like Jim Butcher or Robert Jackson Bennett).
That Clarke story was "The Nine Billion Names of God," and it's one of his best.
We often discuss books or stories with the best first lines. That story has one of the best last lines.
Posted by: Oddbob at November 01, 2026 12:30 PM (vTZFs
The first line of a book can be the line that hooks us and draws us in to a story. Some first lines become quite famous:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
"Call me Ishmael." (Herman Melville, Moby Dick)
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." (George Orwell, 1984)
"It was a pleasure to burn." (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
But what about the LAST line(s) of a story? Those are the lines that should leave us satisfied about the conclusion of the story, sighing with pleasure, shuddering in horror, or simply reluctant to close the book after the events have been told. Of course, the challenge in discussing the last lines of a story is that we may unintentionally reveal a spoiler or two. I generally try to avoid reading the last line or page of a book (especially a mystery!) before I get to that point of the story. That is, I seldom, if ever, read ahead to see who lives at the end, as I don't like to ruin the surprise. I do like a story that has a good ending line, however.
Sometimes the last line of a story--particularly a short story--can be a "wham line" where the last line of the story completely changes how we perceive the story as an important twist is revealed in that last line. Robert Bloch's short story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" has such a twist at the end. Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" doesn't have a twist ending, per se, but it's one of the grimmest last lines of a story I've ever read. Ray Bradbury is quite good about coming up with a "last line" that leaves a mark on the reader in many of his short stories, often to chilling effect. As mentioned by Oddbob above, Arthur C. Clarke is no stranger to leaving the reader with an impactful last line. "The Nine Billion Names of God" is an amazing short story with a neat ending, one that shows just how much the universe really cares about us (spoiler--not much, as it turns out, once we've fulfilled our purpose). Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" ends with a banger of a last line (literally!).
Another way in which the last line of a book can have an impact on the reader is if it's a reflection or callback to the first line of the story. In other words, the author uses both the last line and the first line as bookends to everything that happens in between. The twist is that the last line should have even MORE impact on the reader when we see the first line through the context of everything that happens throughout the story. Two examples spring immediately to mind:
Dying, in what seemed to be the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.
Fred Saberhagen, The Third Book of Swords
The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and towards lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
But it was an ending.
Robert Jordan, A Memory of Light
(Yes, I know Brandon Sanderson co-wrote the book, but Jordan wrote the final ending before he passed away, so I'm giving Jordan sole credit here.)
One of my favorite last lines comes from Michael Ende's The Neverending Story because it encapsulates the entire theme of the book: "But that is another story, and shall be told another time."
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++++++++++
TROPES WE HATE
This is a trope I've always hated: the far superior aliens who want to destroy earth/humans because we're so violent. What?!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 27, 2026 10:49 AM (kpS4V)
Other tropes I've always hated
- The Magical Liberal who educates the lumpish conservative
- The deranged Vietnam veteran
- The conformism of suburban culture
- Dinner table arguments and accusations
- How damn hard life is for an urban gay
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at September 27, 2026 11:00 AM (eRlcH)
A trope, of course, is simply a storytelling convention or shortcut for describing situations that the audience will most likely recognize. For example, the hard-boiled detective or the chosen one. Some tropes work well for us, but sometimes we find ourselves HATING a story because of the way tropes are handled by the author. A common one, for instance, is when the author injects their own political ideology into a story that doesn't need it. Or the author is using a trope in such a way that it becomes just another tired cliche of an already overused trope, such as the endless romantasy books that all have the same basic plot structure. If that's your jam, go for it, but not everyone liks to read the same stories over and over again (and yes, the endless questing in fantasy books can get formulaic and boring at times.)
What are some of the tropes that will take YOU out of a story because they just rub you the wrong way? Do you grit your teeth and move on, if the story is otherwise engaging? Or do you throw the book into the nearest trashbin, vowing to never read another book by that author again?
MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
I got about 50 pages into MP4's new Ten Thousand Midnights Theda Bara book. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two and this is no different, maybe a tad better. It took only a few pages to feel transported back to the 1920s early Hollywood era. He does it with snappy dialog, a bit of period slang (think of William Powell in the Thin Man) and keeping the action to the technology of the period. Not everyone has a car or a phone and even radio was a fledgling industry. Newspapers and magazines were the common way to get, or reveal, information. It's an effective technique.
MP4 has the ability to bring characters to life quickly and completely without disrupting the flow of the story. It keeps everything moving and you don't want to put it down. A lot of telling yourself "Just one more chapter".
I'll have more to say when I finish. I will say if and when it comes out in hardcover (I have the paperback right now) I'll get it and pass along the paperback to my niece or nephew.
Really good job with the book, MP4.
Posted by: JTB at November 01, 2026 10:43 AM (yTvNw)
Comment: I have yet to purchase MP4's latest book (apologies!), but I did read the second Theda Bara story, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: A Theda Bara Mystery and enjoyed it. I echo JTB's observation about MP4's ability to bring 1920s Hollywood to life. It's a masterclass in solid historical worldbuilding. I did think the mystery in Dreams was a bit on the thin side, but I didn't care because I was enjoying the rest of the story as we see the interactions between Toby, Theda, and the other characters. Good stuff if you are looking for something to keep you entertained and engaged for a few hours.
In The Puppet Masters the female lead is ultimately the key to beating the alien slugs. YMMV but for my money this is the best alien invasion novel ever, and it's the book that kicked off my decade-plus-long period of reading almost nothing but sf for pleasure.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 20, 2026 09:17 AM (q3u5l)
Comment: I'll admit that The Puppet Masters is a really good alien invasion story. I have not read this book in a long, long time, though, so I don't know how much I would enjoy it today. I shall have to give it a rea-read soon. It does feature flying cars, which is cool. And everyone is walking around in their skivvies, as that's one of the few ways to ensure people aren't under the control of the alien parasites (it makes sense in context). I honestly don't remember how it ends.
The Bloodsworn Book 1 - The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
The Bloodsworn Book 2 - The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne
The Bloodsworn Book 3 - The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne
The Wolfheart Chronicles Book 1 - The Wolves of War by John Gwynne
WHAT I'VE BEEN READING RECENTLY
Realm of the Elderlings - Liveship Traders Book 3 - Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
This is the third and final volume of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series. Although it was pretty good and the action kept moving, it did seem to drag a bit in parts as the characters seemed to be endlessly searching for each other. We do get to see the central mystery resolved (no spoilers!) and there's a fair amount of character development that takes place over the story. Not only among the human characters, but the liveships themselves (sentient beings) also change, which has dramatic effects on the story. The ending did seem a bit rushed, as a major plotline was resolved off-page. We only see the aftermath of that in correspondence that the main characters receive during the extended epilogue chapters. Overall it's a pretty decent fantasy series. Hobb is very much concerned with character development over plot, which is OK because she makes it work.
Hobb does have a tendency to put her characters through the wringer, though, which can be emotionally draining on the reader as we see characters put into very challenging situations that often have a gruesome end. In the first book, for instance, Wintrow, a young fourteen-year-old boy, damages one of the fingers on his hand to the point where it has to be amputated. Hobb doesn't spare us the gory details about the amputation process.
Dragonships Book 1 - Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
I decided to take a break from Robin Hobb's series about living ships to read another series of books about ships (which also become "alive" in some sense): Dragonships by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It's been a long time since I've read any of their books.
This series is inspired by Norse mythology and follows the adventures of a young man from a small village. The gods of his society have been killed off by the New Gods, and now he's on a quest to find them and see how their power can be restored.
Skylan Ivorson, supposedly the main hero, is one of the dumbest characters I've ever seen. He's functionally retarded in many ways. If Weis and Hickman rolled up the stats for this character in Dungeons and Dragons he'd have a combined Intelligence and Wisdom score of no more than 8. For context, an average character in D&D has individual Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 10-11, with a maximum of 18 for each ability for exceptional characters. So a combined score of 8 or less is pretty danged stupid. Groo the Wanderer is Isaac Newton compared to Skylan, and has better impulse control.
We'll have to wait and see if he improves any over the course of the next few books. Weis and Hickman are pretty good at character development and growth, so there is at least some precedent that Skylan will learn some valuable lessons and improve his behavior. Otherwise, his story may be over soon and another character will take his place. Plot twist?
Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.
The world was doomed, but it kept running anyway.
Disclaimer: Always read the fine print of any Trial by Combat.
* I'm now contractually obligated to inform you that rickb223 is the sole recipient of a lifetime exemption from the pants rule on the Sunday Morning Book Thread. May God have mercy on us all...
Catching Starship itself for the first time; the previous demonstration of this trick was catching the booster, which they didn't attempt on this flight. Long-term the plan is to catch and re-use both parts of the rocket.
This is something that existed with Zen 4 server chips but was never produced with Zen 5. Now it's back with Zen 6, albeit with a twist: Instead of 12 chiplets with 8 cores 96MB of cache each, the new model offers 8 chiplets with 12 cores and 144MB of cache. Either way you get a total of 96 cores and 1152MB of cache, though Zen 6 is quite a bit faster.
Though this comes together with a global decline in sales due to the insane costs of memory right now, which seems to be hitting gaming systems harder than business PCs.
Saturday Night Club ONT - November 14, 2026 [Disco & Dino]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT - a whelming collaboration of The Disco and The Dino.
Open thread - bar is open, too. Come in in, grab a drink or 2. Or 3. Keep it light and friendly. The Moose is outside enjoying the crisp fall weather but always ready for action.
Jerks need not enter. Trolls also. The moose knows how to handle those types of folks.
A husband walks into Victoria's Secret to buy his wife a sheer nightgown.
The clerk shows him several options, ranging from $250 to $500. The sheerer the nightgown, the higher the price.
He chooses the sheerest one for $500 and heads home.
He gives it to his wife and asks her to go upstairs, try it on, and model it for him.
Upstairs, his wife thinks, "It's so sheer, it might as well be nothing! I'll just model it naked, return it tomorrow, and keep the $500 refund for myself."
She steps out onto the balcony, completely naked, and strikes a pose.
The husband looks up and says, "Good grief! For $500, you'd think they'd at least iron it!"
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The Office AI: Jensen Huang gets a new job at Dunder Mifflin WATCH TILL THE END!
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Ingredients
1 ½ ounces tequila reposado or blanco
2 ounces apple cider
¾ ounce triple sec or Cointreau
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
Cinnamon and sugar, for the rim
Ice, for serving
Star anise and cinnamon stick, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
Cut a notch in a lime wedge, then run the lime around the rim of a glass. Dip the edge of the rim into a plate of cinnamon and sugar.
Single drink: Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill it with ice. Shake until cold. Strain the margarita into the glass with the sugar rim. Fill the glass with ice and serve.
Pitcher (8 servings): Place 1 ½ cups tequila, 2 cups apple cider, ¾ cup triple sec or Cointreau, and ¾ cup lime juice in a pitcher. Add 3 handfuls of ice and stir until cold. Prepare the glasses separately, then add 2/3 cup to each glass and garnish with ice.
*****
Club ONT Department of Vintage Computer Tech
How data was stored and accessed in 1982. https://t.co/4Ux62v4VYl
Flight problems due to the recent FAA communications issues? Club ONT janitor's closet available for an overnight stay. Cost is reasonable. Inquire at the bar if interested.
I've spent the last eight months watching one thing: Hammer Film. Before I started, I knew that Hammer was more than just the horror films that people remember, and I set out to watch it all. All but three films are lost, leaving one hundred seventy films from The Public Life of Henry the Ninth (lost) in 1935 to Doctor Jekyll in 2023. Let's not make too much of the effort though. I'm just an asshole who watches too many movies.
Anyway, I set out with this mission for two reasons. The first is that I had no familiarity with Hammer before (I'd seen two of the recent entries, The Woman in Black and Let Me In, but nothing else from its whole history). The second was that I wanted to discover the history of a studio through its films. I read bits and pieces of the history as I went, but my focus was entirely on the films themselves.
And what I found was what one would expect from a studio that focused on putting out as much as they could, often as cheaply as they could. I found a wide range of content. The bottom is very bad. The top is very good. And there's a lot of mediocrity in between. For every Dracula: Prince of Darkness there were several films like The Full Treatment or Third Party Risk or A Case for PC 49. There were surprise joys like Cloudburst, The Curse of the Werewolf, and Taste of Fear. There were the big names everyone with passing familiarity of Hammer knows like Terence Fisher, Val Guest, Jimmy Sangster, Michael Carreras, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee. There were also surprising names who appeared only briefly like Richard Aldrich and Set Holt (who died on the set of his final Hammer film, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb).
What is the story of a studio that made so much crap but also so much quality?
So, this is going to be a long one. I came out with a lot of thoughts.
Hammer was many things, but what it was most was what could be derisively called a content mill. It was a small studio that was pushing out more than half a dozen films a year from the early fifties to the early seventies. In the early fifties, Anthony Hinds bought an empty mansion called Down Place on the River Thames and turned it into Bray Studios, the filming home of Hammer for roughly 20 years. They used the exteriors extensively, redressed rooms to use them multiple times in multiple ways for multiple films almost at once, and built sets right on the property, concentrating their abilities to focus production efforts that allowed for fast filming. And fast filming they did.
They could create an air of sophisticated production quality by using the 18th century derelict mansion, its exteriors, and intelligent craftsmanship to outpace comparably budgeted similar films from Hollywood which would have to build such sights from scratch. And the objective of the studio, from long before they squared in on Gothic horror as their bread and butter, was to keep cash flow positive. That meant making product, selling it quickly, and chasing trends to keep the studio afloat. They first filmed at Bray Studios with The Dark Light in 1951 but didn't buy the property and use it in that capacity until Cloudburst...also in 1951. From then on, they pushed out film after film after film, mostly using the space at Bray to make it all happen.
And all of this was driven by the two heads of the studio: Anthony Hinds and Michael Carreras. Creatively, Hinds was more of a writer and Carreras inserted himself into directing from time to time (mostly, it seems, out of necessity when hired directors weren't working out like on Shatter), but they represented two very different overall approaches to the business side of filmmaking. Hinds was more involved on the creative side, and Carreras was more purely the businessman, and together, they steadily grew a stable of creative talent behind and in front of the camera that could flourish in the breakneck pace environment that required a movie every few months.
The early prominent names like Godfrey Grayson interested me because they would start out well (Grayson made The Adventures of PC 49 which I found a small delight), but it was obvious that the pressure just ground any joy of the process out of them (To Have and to Hold, Grayson's final film with Hammer, is a largely dull and unremarkable film). However, those that could work under the pressures like Fisher or Guest really did thrive. Fisher was the more overt visual stylist, bringing wonderful, sumptuous colors to the main monster movies, and Guest was the better overall filmmaker who could morph his way in and out of genres, bringing out the best of them (his two war films for Hammer, Yesterday's Enemy and The Camp on Blood Island are both quite good).
The machine was real. You either flourished, or you got punished with the schedule.
Formula
As hinted earlier, Hammer spent its early postwar reconstitution under Anthony Hinds and James Carreras (sons of the original founders William Hinds and Enrique Carreras), James' son Michael would become the more active in the company than James who was an executive director. The company searched for consistent success for years until it decided, in 1957, to make a colorful, a bit gory update of the Frankenstein story which had become something like parody after years under the Universal banner in America. Tapping regular director Terence Fisher (his first film with Hammer was The Last Page in 1952), and taking advantage of the interest of successful television and film actor Peter Cushing, the studio stumbled into what would define it: Gothic Horror.
The Curse of Frankenstein was a success. A major success. And success breeds imitation, and within a year, Hammer had released a similar update of Dracula, this time with Christopher Lee, who had played the creature in the Frankenstein film, as the title character, also directed by Fisher. It didn't take long for Hammer to increase its focus on these sorts of tales of the macabre with sequels to the Frankenstein story appearing quickly (The Revenge of Frankenstein in 1958), another couple of stabs at recreating Universal in color (The Mummy in 1959 and The Curse of the Werewolf in 1961), bringing the tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to the screen (first as comedy in The Ugly Duckling in 1959 and then as horror in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll in 1960), and even attempts at creating original monsters to scare British audiences (The Gorgon in 1964, The Plague of the Zombies in 1966, and The Reptile also in 1966).
It wasn't the exclusive output of the studio across this decade. There were adventure films (The Brigand of Kandahar, The Devil-Ship Pirates), psychological horror films (Nightmare, Hysteria), and even a drama here or there to appease major talent (Cash on Demand for Peter Cushing who was tired of playing mad scientists all the time), but the focus was obviously on the Gothic Horror that had become the most consistent cash cow for the studio.
What was that formula? It wasn't just an amorphous Gothic Horror. It was mad scientists, secretive, insular small towns (sometimes technically in Bavaria but always feeling very British), terror at the edges of civilization, castles, bright colors, and recognizable actors like Lee and Cushing (Lee was in almost every Dracula film, and Cushing was in every Frankenstein movie except one, The Horror of Frankenstein). They had the sets for most of it (they went modern day for the last couple of Dracula films with Lee, Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula), and they could efficiently move from one production to the next. Such is the advantage of a studio system.
The Stars
As mentioned, the major stars in front of the camera were Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Lee brought presence, often without saying anything (his Dracula often has almost no dialogue for long stretches), and Cushing brought sophistication and even sarcasm every once in a while (his Frankenstein was often really mean to people). Hammer kept bringing them back because they regularly headlined the most successful of Hammer's films through the sixties (the stories of Hammer effectively emotionally blackmailing Lee into coming back for just one more turn as Dracula are kind of remarkable). The two weren't just money makers for the studio, they were genuinely good actors (the previously mentioned Cash on Demand is a wonderful showcase for Cushing and Lee gets to show off in The Devil Rides Out).
But, I really think the more interesting part of the equation are those stars behind the camera. You have to start with Jimmy Sangster, the regular writer for Hammer who wrote twenty-three scripts for Hammer from X the Unknown in 1956 to Fear in the Night in 1972. He didn't push forward a strong authorial vision (it's hard for writers to pull that off in the movie business), but he was one of the most regular names in credits you could see. A craftsman of the written word who could push out script after script, often in perfectly serviceable shape, even if he wasn't providing much of a voice to them himself.
After him comes the directors. The two most prominent are Terence Fisher and Val Guest. Fisher directed twenty-nine films for Hammer, and Guest directed fourteen. Fisher is the most synonymous with Hammer because of his association with the monster films. He directed a very large number of the Frankenstein and Dracula films (he directed only the first Mummy film), and the visual look of these films really gave Hammer a distinct identity that allowed it to separate from the Universal source that the films were obviously trying to build off of. He made the monsters feel...new by giving them color, in particular red for the blood. They felt dangerous again for the first time in decades.
Guest was, in my opinion, the more interesting of the two, though. His output was more varied and often more successful artistically. The Man of Sherwood Forest, the first two Quatermass movies, and Yesterday's Enemy are a variety of films that he imbued with intelligent craftsmanship. Yesterday's Enemy in particular represents Guest bringing real visual alacrity and sophistication to a little war movie on essentially just a handful of sets.
These are the people that Anthony Hinds and Michael Carreras regularly relied on, The ones who could walk into the fast production schedules and make something worthwhile regularly. The ones who really made Hammer consistent money. The ones who really made the studio's public identity.
Decline
Formula is a double-edged sword. When it works, it can provide regular positive cash flows. When it falls out of fashion, you can have become so ossified by the formula that you struggle to keep up. Hammer was chasing success for years before The Curse of Frankenstein, adapting properties with pre-existing cultural footprints in the form of BBC radio serial adaptations like the trio of films about Dick Barton, Secret Agent or the pair of films about the eponymous PC 49. But when they hit on Gothic Horror, they grabbed on with both hands and didn't let go.
However, the market isn't stationary. It appreciated Hammer's brand of Gothic Horror, and then Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist were released. Hollywood had exposed a high-budget horror aesthetic and change in a more modern direction that audiences were soon more hungry for than another instance of Dr. Frankenstein making another creature or Dracula coming back from the dead once more in 18th century Transylvania. There was also the freeing up of censorship requirements by British censorship boards, beginning with Michael Antonioni's Blow Up in 1966 and continuing with films like The Graduate in 1967 that allowed for greater use of nudity, which Hammer was slow to adopt, not showing a naked breast in a film until The Vampire Lovers in 1970, the nudity coming at the insistence of American co-producers at AIP.
Hammer just kept on trying to make the same kinds of movies through this period of transition with movies like Dracula Has Risen from the Grave in 1968 or Taste the Blood of Dracula in 1970. There were efforts to try and latch onto the Satanism trend early with The Devil Rides Out in 1968, but it mostly got folded into existing properties like The Satanic Rites of Dracula in 1973 or with new variations on existing ideas like vampires in the Karnstein trilogy (The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, and mostly Twins of Evil).
The only thing that really saved them for a few years are a handful of some of their worst films: adaptations of TV sitcoms.
Hammer as Production Company
The existence of these late stage adaptations of contemporary British sitcoms, mostly Love Thy Neighbor and the trilogy of On the Buses films (there were a few others, like Man About the House which Three's Company was based on) highlights how, ultimately, Hammer wasn't a horror production company. It was a production company that had found a way to sell horror successfully for a long time. When the ability to sell horror fell off, they had to find something else, so they went with existing properties that they could make quickly.
Not one of these sitcom adaptations is any good (That's Your Funeral is minor entertainment), but the first On the Buses film, based on a show that ran for seven seasons and the first effort Hammer made in this vein, was the second biggest movie at the British box office in 1971. It was the largest windfall for the company (which it had to share with coproducing partner EMI) and kept the studio alive for several more years, and the reliance on these sitcom adaptations just grew, becoming more prominent than their efforts to keep their horror identity alive.
There were other horror films, for sure, and some of them were actually fairly successful, but the production partnerships meant that Hammer was making little off of something like The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires no matter how much money it made, and the studio eventually liquidated in 1979.
Was it just changing times and tastes? Was it the retirement of Anthony Hinds in 1969 leaving Michael Carreras in effective complete control? Was it the refusal of Christopher Lee to appear in one more damnable Dracula film? Was it Peter Cushing aging quickly after the death of his beloved wife, Helen?
Hard to tell, but nothing lasts forever.
Unusual Faces
Before I continue chronologically, I have to talk about a handful of directors who worked for the company very briefly but made a sizeable impression on me. Robert Aldrich, Seth Holt, and Roy Ward Baker. They made, respectively, one, three, and seven films each. I saw Baker as something of a successor to Terence Fisher's style and probably would have lasted longer at the company if it had lasted longer as a going concern (he directed the last Dracula movie for them in 1974, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampries.
Baker was interesting because, really, he feels like peak Fisher but transplanted to the more permissive late 60s and early 70s period. Not everything worked, (the aforementioned Moon Zero Two is a confused script), but physical production elements were always shockingly good. And the films has a strong sense of style. He really gave the back end of Hammer some of its real heights like Quatermass and the Pit and Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
My focus, though, is on the first two listed. Seth Holt only made three films for Hammer, and all three impressed me. Taste of Fear is a stylish, effective thriller. The Nanny is another thriller outside of the monster wheelhouse with a strong central performance by Bette Davis. And Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is honestly my favorite Mummy movie ever made (the franchise in all its forms is largely terrible, to be honest, but this one is good). Holt walked into the machine that was Hammer, made two distinctive, worthwhile films outside of the general milieu, and then walked into the worst horror franchise the studio had and made the best entry. He died on set during the filming of the last (it was apparently week 4 of 5 weeks total), and I actually mourned a bit when I learned that.
And then there's Robert Aldrich. Aldrich is a name you probably don't know, but you should know at least one of his films: The Dirty Dozen (also The Flight of the Phoenix and The Longest Yard). Hammer hired him for one film which he made in Germany a few years after WWII called Ten Seconds to Hell. It is a tense drama about men diffusing bombs across Berlin and rivalries between them. It is completely unrelated to anything Hammer was known for and it stands apart as an exemplary example of suspense filmmaking. It is the only film he made with Hammer, he made it outside of their control in another country, and the studio doesn't seem to have gotten involved beyond writing checks until post-production where, Aldrich said, they cut out thirty minutes and made the movie incomprehensible (I disagree, I think it's really, really good and perfectly comprehensible). Hammer was barely a production company on that film, really just an anonymous financier who panicked once they saw the workprint cut. It's just interesting to see such an example of individualist filmmaking appearing in the middle of what really was a corporate machine with strong producers.
Back from the Dead
After liquidation in 1979, rumors of Hammer's return floated for years until the 2000s when the library and trademark were purchased by Dutch producer John De Mol. Since, the company (which has gone through a couple of different corporate moves since, mostly getting purchased by John Gore in 2023) has continued as an interesting coda to the Hammer story.
Hammer embraced its brand of Gothic Horror for over a decade during its peak, but it was never really a horror film studio. In the middle of it all, it was still making adventure films and psychological thrillers and even science fiction movies (Moon Zero Two is the reason I chose to do all of Hammer, not just the horror films, because the poster looked interesting and I didn't want to miss it). However, when Hammer reconstituted in the 2000s, it has only made horror films.
It's only nine films total (ten, if you count the unreleased Ithaqua which will get released...eventually, it finished filming in February of last year), and from Beyond the Rave (a weird little series of short films as one movie that was released on MySpace of all places) through Doctor Jekyll starring a post-op tranny Eddie Izzard, the new Hammer has fully embraced the perception of Hammer Horror in a literal sense. The horror is mostly updated (The Woman in Black is very much Gothic, period horror, but it feels more amped up and energetic than most of the Hammer stuff from the 60s, its closest analogy might be to Dracula A.D. 1972, though they are very different films), and even The Lodge feels like something A24 would have released.
It's an update on the brand that really just feels like more entries in the modern horror scene without a strong identity that Hammer used to have. It makes horror films, but unlike contemporaries like A24 of Blumhouse, each movie feels very different from each other, giving the studio no real solid identity beyond generic horror. The Lodge feels like an A24 movie, but Wake Wood is too cheap of an attempt at British folk horror (set in Ireland), and The Quiet Ones has this weird found footage aspect that it can't commit to across the film that makes it feel in between subgenres. At least Let Me In gave Matt Reeves fertile ground to demonstrate his particular style which he continues to this day (shots repeat in his vampire movie and The Batman).
Hammer Films, Redux
Hammer is a complicated story, as one might expect, and it's an interesting one. Again, I read very little of the background (I'm probably going to pick up The Hammer Story: Revised and Expanded Edition at some point to learn more), and I chose to just try to learn through the films themselves, and I feel like I learned a lot.
I learned about corporate identity. I learned about studio systems. I learned about star power (real and perceived). I learned about trends. I learned about the murky nature of influence (Roger Corman and Hammer obviously influenced each other). I learned about craftsmanship. I learned about the dichotomy of a corporate entity that could produce a mountain of crap but also real gems of worth. I learned about...movies.
And that's ultimately what I want from my watching. I went in wanting to know what the whole Hammer Horror thing was. I came out feeling like I learned a lot more than that. I don't think I'd recommend the experience to almost anyone (even Mark Andrew Edwards, who likes to go along on these cinematic journeys, only took in maybe a quarter of the films himself), but if you want a list of what you might want to check out, well, I did rank every single one of them.
The Woman in Black: Angel of Death (Rating 1/4) Full Review "I think this is the best Dracula film that Hammer has produced, even if the ending could have used another rewrite." [The Roku Channel]
The Lodge (Rating 2/4) Full Review "It's an okay overall package with an ending to recommend it but which doesn't really save it." [Kanopy]
Doctor Jekyll (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "It's a wet squib of a way to end things in this Hammer run, but appropriately so." [Library]
Sweet Charity (Rating 3/4) Full Review "The film was a big financial bomb for Universal, but the result is, I think, something solid and admirable, if a bit uneven." [Library]
Lenny (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's personal cinema. I just don't think it's the most involving of cinema. It's admirable, though." [Library]
All That Jazz (Rating 3/4) Full Review "So, I stand apart from the film, admire it, and wonder if Fosse should have found a healthier outlet to explore his psychological state." [Library]
Star 80 (Rating 3/4) Full Review "Self-destruction was the name of the game, and that's what he mired his audiences in. Did he do it well? I think so. I do think he was best when there was more singing and dancing, though." [Library]
Contact
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
My next thread will be on 12/5 and be about the film directing career of Bob Fosse.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. For this week, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) is feeling round and decided on a surplus auction theme for this Hobby Thread.
Shopping salvage and surplus auctions can be a hobby for people who those who like the hunt for a bargain. They aren't live with a fast-talking auctioneer. Instead, you're browsing online catalogs of government surplus, warehouse liquidations, insurance salvage, store returns, and overstock that companies need to clear. The appeal is in the mix of practical bargains and unexpected finds. Auctions also have a steady flow of new listings, so you never know what you'll find.
Some people look for novel finds - at a bargain price. Some focus on a specific type of item like military surplus, restaurant fixtures, or vehicles. Some try to outfit a shop or business with usable used equipment. Some opportunistically look for commercial opportunities where overlooked goods can be cleaned up and sold later for a profit.
Online surplus auctions, especially with government surplus items, can turn up unusual or otherwise hard to find items. Rightly or wrongly, the public sector often has different use cases than many others.
Are online auctions just the modern version of the estate or garage sale hobby? Perhaps, but the online surplus auctions often have items that would not be at a residential garage sale.
Does anyone haunt online surplus or salvage auctions? Even if you don't buy, do you regularly window shop just to see what's out there? You might not need a fire truck or Humvee (or have space) but it can be fun to browse. It can also be fun to see sales prices and compare with your personal estimate or the auction estimate.
One challenge is that some government auction sites do not keep listings after the auction has ended, so you can't tell if something sold or any selling prices. Links below worked when posted but no guarantees they still work.
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Give the content a chance before you judge and bail out. There's gotta be something that resonates with you. More importantly, what are you hobbying? Jump in with your hobbying, interests, stories and questions.
Anything (legal) you are hobbying is welcome. If not, offer something else relating to hobbying or just check in and say hello.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. Leave politics and religion to threads elsewhere (unless your hobby is building or restoring churches). Pants? Nope. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
Note: I have purposely avoided auction content with TSA seizures or unclaimed personal property such as lost luggage. Please also avoid turning this thread into commentary on the government's imprudent management of resources or how many things fall off the back of trucks or otherwise become "lost." Let's stick to hobbying.
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Equipment auctions are content-rich hunting grounds for YouTubers. What better content than "look at this bargain I scored!" or "we couldn't resist buying this disaster - can we get it running?" Diesel Creek regularly follows the local Ritchie Brothers auctions - lots of heavy equipment, trucks, forklifts, skid loaders, tractors and more.
Example:
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This auction was the inspiration for the theme. Where else could you buy used Southwest Airlines airport tugs?
What would you do if you could buy one for $750? More importantly what kind of mayhem might you have with a bunch of friends that have their own? There are a dozen of these on the auction website (and many other airport tugs and vehicles).
If I'm reading correctly, there is a monthly online auction of airport equipment, so there may be more chances if you let this one pass by.
I asked Grok for a list of popular salvage/surplus auction websites (Ace of Spades makes no endorsement):
1. GovDeals (govdeals.com) - One of the largest platforms for state, county, city, and local government surplus (vehicles, equipment, furniture, electronics).
2. GSA Auctions (gsaauctions.gov) - Official U.S. federal government surplus site run by the General Services Administration (no buyer's premium on most lots).
3. GovPlanet (govplanet.com) - Specializes in military, federal, and heavy equipment surplus (vehicles, machinery, tools).
4. Public Surplus (publicsurplus.com) - State and local government surplus marketplace with a wide range of smaller lots.
5. PropertyRoom (propertyroom.com) - Focuses on police-seized, forfeited, and unclaimed property (electronics, tools, jewelry, vehicles).
6. Copart (copart.com) - The largest U.S. salvage vehicle auction platform (insurance total-loss cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats).
7. IAAI / Insurance Auto Auctions (iaai.com) - Major competitor to Copart for salvage and insurance-loss vehicles.
8. Liquidation.com - Broad online marketplace for retail returns, overstock, surplus, and liquidation lots (electronics, housewares, apparel, etc.).
9. B-Stock (bstock.com) - Runs branded liquidation storefronts for major retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco, Home Depot, and others).
10. Municibid (municibid.com) - Popular for smaller municipal, school district, and local government surplus sales.
Anyone have knowledge?
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I know what you're thinking. Stadium furniture is one thing but are there deals on fire trucks to be had? At last look, this running beauty in Arkansas has been bid to $5,000.
Presumably you would need a CDL to drive it for personal use.
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Where else can you buy 40 (used) traffic barrels? Buy 'em now for $125.
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On a previous Hobby Thread, we talked a little about using pallets to make things. This was a recent listing for 220 pallets but I can't tell if they sold and, if so, what the selling price was.
They need someone to remove the pallets more than they need to make money. There are a few listings for free pallets.
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I don't know enough to evaluate videos for quality and don't have any background on buying surplus military vehicles, but seems like we should have something from that genre in the content. If you're interested, there are a ton of YouTube videos about military vehicles.
Where do you go shopping? govplanet.com seems like the place to find used Humvees (105 for sale when I looked). Each has a minimum bid of $3,000. Grok says vehicles in running condition typically sell between $4 and $7,000 with more desirable examples (good condition, low miles) selling between $8 and $15,000.
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Similar but related - anyone want a kiddie Star Wars ride? Check out Bring A Trailer.
This children's ride was built in the style of an X-34 Landspeeder used by Luke Skywalker in the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. The fiberglass bodywork is finished in yellow and orange and features three faux "Repulsorlift" engines mounted at the rear, a faux windscreen, and side-trim graphics. Other attributes include a single padded seat, a black base, and a speaker system that plays the Star Wars theme music. This Landspeeder children's ride was purchased by the seller in 2026 and is now offered at no reserve in Miami, Florida, on a bill of sale.
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a marble theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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Reminder: if you put links in the comments, use a URL shortener and describe what you're linking to. Failing to do either or both makes you barrel-eligible. Don't make people click to find out what you're linking.
Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Or just email to say hello. Do mighty things.
Well, we have a member of The Horde who is helping us to identify real vs. AI images. A valuable service!
Hi, KT … This is a 'tester' image that was put to ChatGPT as a prompt. It performed a lot better than anticipated. Sharp, focused, correctly colored - you know the drill. I've been using AI (Chat, Grok, etc) out of curiosity. I find Grok to be incredibly more (ahem) 'moral' when it comes to image creation becos it will tell users "I can't generate that kind of image". In a way, it's actually kind of refreshing and reassuring. Give this a look and please feel free to use it if it fits the format. Take care, and it may be a while before I can communicate again. I'm moving from Murfreesboro, TN to Smyrna, TN 'cos my daughter wants Daddy to be closer to her … "just in case …" (you know the drill). The move's on the 23rd @ 0930 … oh yay. Take care …
Dr_No
Bluebird 1_ChatGPT revision
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BIRDS
Mr. and Mrs. California Quail
Courtesy Butch Fermil
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I'm dying 🤣🤣🤣 I laughed way too hard at this!
Parrot realizes toy parrot is copying him and isn't having it!!! 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/hZ8MUaR8ht
About a month ago I shared with y'all letting go of my beloved 19-yo cat Oblio. I still deeply miss the little fuzz face.
Long story short, I adopted a pair of bonded sisters, Dolly (left) and Daisy (right). They are very talkative and affectionate. It wasn't long until they were both sleeping on my lap. Getting up requires me moving 20+ pounds of complaining cats. They make me smile every day.
Butch
Awww, they are beautiful. Glad you found them and gave them a home.
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
&&&
Not cats, not dogs, not hippos, at the Fresno Zoo
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Speaking of native plants, NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker found the cousin of the plant identified by The Famous Pat* and her Hubby (May and June). It grows on the West Coast:
Always like to see the Silk tassel bush (Garrya elliptica) putting on its annual show , looking good in Hyde this morning. https://t.co/n1jmqU4nGm
The one which almost certainly is growing in the Sierra Foothills is Garrya flavescens, the Ashy Silktassel. It has a much wider geographic range.
Deer tolerant.
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Edible Gardening/Putting Things By
Chads Midgley:
How to keep Artichoke plants alive for years in zone 6 Syracuse Utah! These plants are about 6 years old now. Currently almost 5 feet tall.
Using my pruning sheers I gently cut them back. Using my “used greenhouse plastic”. I gently covered the artichoke plants with two sheets of plastic. Using either bricks or soil , tidy it in and hold it down. Take cover off in Mid to Late March.
This job took me approx. a half hour. Pretty easy job to guarantee a perennial harvest.
The DC/Baltimore National Weather Service office declared the end of the local growing season as of today, though I still haven't had a frost. But that's likely to change over the next few days. That gives me a dilemma: should I try to protect the 5 iris flower stalks that have popped up over the last week? They'll probably need protection until Wed but the mid-Atlantic should warm up after that. Decisions, decisions.
My garden surprise this year was that tradescantia (spiderwort) likes wet conditions. I moved one to my rain garden and not only did it *not* go dormant in the summer heat, but it kept blooming - and still is today.
Finally, some fall color. I think my black and blue salvia makes a nice color combo with the golden fall leaves of the ruby spice clethra (summersweet). And my Japanese maple always puts on a good fall show.
badgerwx
Love see your garden and your commentary. The colors are especially nice this time!
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
I closed the comments on that post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.
Today’s little rosebowl arrangement of chrysanthemums and ageratum.
A good day here, plenty of work done and now clocking off early for a catch up with some friends.
Have a good evening Z xx https://t.co/97D8wKQd90
Well, there have been lots of scary and confusing things happening lately, but two really Friday-the-13th-ish things from yesterday seem to have been resolved without major tragedies:
Concerning the H.L Menken quote above, I have noticed that "government" can also include not only people with a talent to get elected, but also those with a talent to get OTHERS elected (or to get OTHERS to THINK they have a talent to get others elected. These people can really expand the size of government.
I might even suggest that the tens of thousands of trolls who warped their talking points on "affordability" in contacting millions of people on social media might be considered part of government. You know, as Ace reported: "The Republicans never figured out what we were doing," (Van) Jones said in-studio to a smiling Collins. "There's something called the American Accountability Network (AAN), tens of thousands of online humans, not bots, coordinated to make the affordability message a winning message online. 32.5 million people hit on Instagram every day. 88.8 million hit on Twitter, X, every single day. And 185 million Facebook hits every single day. And they never figured it out."
"The Republicans could not understand it wasn't bots. It was actual human beings," he said.
There are a couple of parts that stand out to me in the short segment above: There were tens of thousands of people organized to deliver a warped message to influence people, and the Republicans never figured it out. What were THEY doing?
New Democrat Plan to Solve the "Housing Crisis:" Let's Inflate the Housing Market By Pouring Government Cash Into It and Letting People Who Can't Afford a Mortgage Buy Homes Until They Default
Say.... wait a minute...
Isn't this how they created the 2008 housing market collapse the crashed the world economy? . .
And. . . "Affordability." . .
$1,000 for an entire house.
As noted in the update to this post, it will be hard to evict non-payers for non-payment this time around. There are "squatter's rights" now. In California, you even have trouble getting a relative to leave after a certain number of days' access to your home with no rental or lease agreement of any kind.
Friday The 13th is over! Time to engage?
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FRANCE
What have the Mullahs got against France?
Are they just engaging in cyberattacks because previous cyberattacks showed France's vulnerability?
BREAKING:
France has formally accused Iran’s IRGC terrorists of cyberattacks that disrupted supermarket refrigerators and freezers across the country last month.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said intelligence traced the attack to Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit under the IRGC’s Electronic and Cyber Center.
France has requested international arrest warrants for the unit’s head and two deputies.
Overnight on October 11–12, hackers breached internet-connected temperature controllers, activated defrost cycles, and raised temperatures to 40°C–50°C, spoiling millions of euros worth of food at major chains.
Similar attacks have since hit supermarkets in six other European countries, including the UK, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Estonia.
Twist on the charges in France against that famous French author: Will this lead publishers to turn to AI?
This kind of thing, these sort of charges, will freeze publishing. Publishers -- who tend to be risk averse given their slim margins -- will shun any material that could retrospectively be identified as "offensive" or "causing discomfort" etc.
That means, in practice, pretty much all of what we call literary writing, because it depends on ambiguity, intellectual complexity, and layered, ancient, unresovable conflicts in the mind and in society.
Only AI work will be trustworthy -- because it can be programmed to police itself according to all the current speech codes. It can even seamlessly update its own texts as those codes change.
The codes of speech and thought and expression very quickly will become as complicated as the tax codes and most human authors will simply give up trying to comply with them. Though publishers will give up first, I expect.
A Daily Dose of the American Rev (formatting added)
In a November 13, 1787 letter to John Adams’s son-in-law William Stephens Smith, Thomas Jefferson penned what would become one of his most repeated quotations: “(W)hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms . . . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” To best appreciate the quote, it is important to know its context.
Jefferson was in Paris when he wrote the letter, serving as the U.S. Minister to France. Smith had sent him a copy of the proposed U.S. Constitution, which had been signed by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention on September 17 and sent to the states for ratification. In his letter Jefferson thanks Smith for transmitting it to him. As for the proposed Constitution, “There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate,” Jefferson wrote.
His letter shows that what troubled Jefferson the most was the power granted to the president and that under the proposed Constitution he could potentially serve for life (not until the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951 was the U.S. president limited to two terms in office). Jefferson complained that the Convention had been too influenced by its concerns about Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts (which began in August 1786 and ended in February 1787).
Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts,” he wrote, “and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite (meaning a bird of prey) to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.
Jefferson also complained that the Convention had been influenced by false claims that America was experiencing anarchy. “Yet where does this anarchy exist?” he wrote. “Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted?”
While Jefferson did not defend Shays’s Rebellion on its merits (“I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.”), he insisted that not only were such rebellions no good cause for alarm, but that they were in fact essential to the preservation of liberty, even if they were predicated on misconceptions. “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion,” he wrote. “The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.”
And thus, Jefferson concluded, it is essential to the preservation of liberty that the people, even if motivated by misconceptions, take up arms and rebel from time to time, to warn their rulers that they “preserve the spirit of resistance.” As for how to treat the rebels, “the remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.”
Jefferson’s famous (and controversial) “tree of liberty” letter, was written 239 years ago (yesterday).
The portrait, from 1791, is by Charles Willson Peale.
As I recall, Jefferson was not quite so bold about the blood of tyrants and patriots after the French Revolution. Any thoughts on his presence in France when he wrote this?
Last week’s midterms are still in the news, and Microsoft’s Outlook outage disrupted business and led to a lot of memes. But the number one meme-generator, of course, was Jensen Huang of Nvidia falling victim to a Chinese honey pot. And it turned out that his life was even more complicated than it first seemed. Nothing like a little hilarity to put the pain of the midterms behind us.
* * * * *
Music
For some people, not unreasonably, the proper object of getting rich is to enjoy life. The idea was charmingly expressed by music hall artist Charles Coborn.
I've just got here through Paris
From the sunny southern shore;
I to Monte Carlo went
Just to raise my winter's rent
Dame Fortune smiled upon me
As she'd never done before
And I've now such lots of money, I'm a gent
Yes, I've now such lots of money, I'm a gent
I stay indoors till after lunch
And then my daily walk
To the great Triumphal Arch
Is one grand triumphal march
Observed by each observer
With the keenness of a hawk
I'm a mass of money, linen, silk and starch
I'm a mass of money, linen, silk and starch
As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
"He must be a Millionaire."
You can hear them sigh and wish to die
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
It must seem madness to the ordinary person that an American trillionaire should choose to closely supervise the massive expansion of xAI's Colossus / Macrohard supercomputer and data center operations in Memphis from a Airstream trailer parked near the factory.
UPDATE to the Dalrymple book review: In a NYT report, an SUV (not a truck) killed 3 pedestrians. Would you think differently about the news report if the driver's name were included?
Comments are closed on the thread above so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.
Please submit any prayer requests to "Annie's Stew": apaslo @ hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
9/18 – Random Dave posted an update to his job progress. He is still looking for FT work, but has accepted a substitute teacher position (more flexibility for interviews, some income to slow the bleeding). He asks for prayers that the interview results he is waiting on will get back to him soon, especially if one is the “right job”. If any are “not the right job”, they would fall away soon and get back to him, and that if all of them are “not the right job”, the ‘right job” would show itself aggressively, so he doesn’t miss it! He also thanks the Horde and the folks at church for their prayers and support.
8/14 Update – Random Dave needs continued prayers for his job situation, that God would guide him to the right one soon, and also for prayers for M’s grandmother, who fell the other day and tore a ligament.
10/22 Update – M’s grandmother is healing well. She is mostly mobile now (on crutches), and occasionally has bouts of bad pain. They praise God for the healing and humbly request additional healing. Random Dave reports no real change on his job situation. He continues to pray for God to make the path known as he applies, and periodically deal with “good” interviews that end up going nowhere.
9/18 – Brother Tim posted that he has been overnight in his car more than indoors. He is convinced that his retirement/resignation was a severe error, a result of fatigue and depression. He asks for prayers.
10/17 – Bother Tim posted that he has been in the hospital for 3 weeks.
10/10 – Mile, okravangelist, requested prayers for Mama Publius, for grace and fortitude, and that she passes in her sleep. Mama Publius is in home hospice care.
10/24 Update – Mama Publius passed away this past week.
10/17 – Pooky’s Girl posted that she is in the hospital, because Wee Pooky is threatening to come early at 30 weeks.
10/24 Update – Pooky’s Girl’s contractions have been stopped. She is at 31 weeks along, so every week that Wee Pooky stays put is less time in the NICU.
10/31 – Annie’s Stew (and, I assume, all the Horde) ask for God’s blessings on Misanthropic Humanitarian as he steps away from the blog. We thank him for his service to the Horde and to Christ’s Kingdom.
10/31 – ChristyBlinkyTheGreat requested prayers that her mother’s eventual passing into heaven be in peace as she sleeps, without any pain or fear. She thinks it will be in the next few weeks or months, as she is approaching 96 years old.
11/4 – Teresa in Fort Worth sent an update that she is not feeling well. Every muscle and bone hurts, on top of the fatigue and weakness she was already experiencing. The nurse at UTSW thinks it may be due to receiving chemo on top of radiation, on the same day. The good news is that the CA19-9 number is 4.9, below the threshold of 37. This was her twelfth chemo treatment, marking a year since she started this protocol. She is worried that it may be a preview of how she will feel when the cancer starts to take over.
11/6 Update – Teresa is feeling better. They did a CT scan and nothing new popped up, so that is good. The pain may have been due to radiation combined with chemo.
11/7 – Dr_No would appreciate prayers for Sandy, who was admitted to the hospital on 11/2 and was diagnosed with a severe infection on her stomach. She is still hospitalized and has been moved twice to higher floors (never a good sign). Ron, a friend from college, could also use prayers. They FaceTimed, and Dr_No could tell something was wrong. Ron had a brain bleed/hemorrhage. It doesn’t look good.
11/7 – Mary Poppins’ Practically Perfect Piercing posted that he apologized for asking, but could use help regarding his self-loathing and chronic depression.
For submissions, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her: apaslo @ 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.
Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed."
While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.
This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents. The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change. We have addressed the underlying issue and continue to restore service to remaining customers and regions.
Some people did something.
Reading between the lines, Microsoft fucked up monitoring so that a lot of healthy servers were automatically rebooted, dumping the load on other servers, which were then marked as unhealthy in turn and rebooted, leading to a circular wave of failures spanning the entire planet for 18 hours.
To be fair, the CPU-side is faster than any Mac Mini and even beats a M5 Max Mac Studio, losing out only to the very expensive M5 Ultra. And it comes with up to 192GB of RAM on board, three times the Mac Mini's limit.
Where it falls down is memory bandwidth, which is a little less than the M5 Pro Mac Mini and only half of the Mac Studio. And that's pretty important for AI tasks, this system's target market.
It would make a very nice desktop PC, though... If it cost one fifth of its $8099 MSRP.
Fair Friday, fellow travelers! Tonight, along with the regular videos, you're getting God memes. I found a whole folder of them that I forgot I had, so here you go!
Every summer, the Heavenly Horse Festival takes place in Xinjiang, China - a tradition with a history spanning over 2,000 years, the highlight of which is the spectacular and awe-inspiring sight of thousands of horses galloping across the grasslands. https://t.co/uy8w4UwFby
The statement was 148 words. Not one of those words was "girls."
Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said that she was going to back the Seattle School Board's unanimous vote to pursue legal action against Initiative 638 -- which would enforce separation of boys and girls in K-12 sports in Washington state.
Voters passed the measure by a 13-point margin last week, and it won in 36 of the Evergreen State's 39 counties. But after deliberating behind closed doors Monday, the Seattle School Board voted publicly to authorize potential legal action against the measure without hearing public testimony. And the mayor fully approves.
...
"As mayor, I remain committed to building a Seattle where every person is welcomed, supported, and valued, and where all young people can thrive as their authentic selves. I support the Board's decision and its commitment to creating inclusive learning environments where every student has the opportunity to reach their full potential."
Remember, Seattle was one of the epicenters of the "No Kings" movement, where tens of thousands rallied against a president they accused of disregarding the will of the people. Yet when Washington voters overwhelmingly supported a measure Wilson opposes, she had no problem backing an effort to overturn it. Apparently, the will of the people is only worth defending when the people vote the right way.
Capping off Wilson's statement was a paragraph of political platitudes so empty it would make even a seasoned politician blush. She wants to build a Seattle "where all young people can thrive as their authentic selves," and "create inclusive learning environments where every student has the opportunity to reach their full potential."
Girls don't, of course. They'll continue to be dominated, harassed, and menaced by male cheaters with a bizarre hatred of women.
Her "academic" work consists of making arguments about why the "neurodivergent" and "mad" should be given privileges. She means "mad" in the sense of "mentally ill." She's a pioneer in the field of "mad studies," and I strongly suspect she has a very personal interest in the subject.
I also strongly suspect she was hired precisely because she ticks the Intersectional Box of Obvious and Florid Mental Illness.
Yakas' academic publications are equally unconventional, including her 2009 work, Femininity, Sexuality and Body Hair: The female body hair(less) ideal, which is no longer available online.
In her chapter Love Is Merely a Madness in the 2023 Routledge academic book Exploring Sexuality and Disability: A Guide for Human Service Professionals, Yakas argues that society has historically treated people whose sexual identities or behaviors fall outside traditional heterosexual norms as mentally ill or abnormal. She challenges those beliefs, arguing that sexual diversity is natural and that labeling it a mental disorder is itself harmful.
In the same book, she co-authored the chapter Compulsory Monogamy Is Disabling: Connecting Disability Justice and Critical Non-monogamy with Nicole Ariel Lopez. In it, Yakas and Lopez argue that society's expectation that people should have only one romantic or sexual partner can be harmful and discriminatory. They compare traditional expectations of monogamy to discrimination against people with disabilities, arguing that both create barriers that prevent people from living as they choose. They advocate for greater acceptance of relationships involving multiple partners, arguing that people should be free to pursue love, sex, and companionship in ways that meet their individual needs.
She's an advocate for "Mad Pride." The pride that insane people should have in their insanity.
Like I said, this madwoman has a personal interest in Mad Studies.
Recently, after accidentally falling down a rather deep Google rabbit hole, I learned a new term: Mad Pride, which, in simple terms, is a movement trying to encourage society to view neurodivergence and other mental illnesses in a more positive light. "Mad" is a reclaimed term, meaning that, although it has been used in a derogatory manner in the past, people once targeted by the term now use it to self-describe themselves. Mad Pride as a movement began in the 1970s in response to coercive treatments in mental healthcare, which all too often attempted to subdue a patient and emphasized productivity and adherence to social norms, sometimes at the expense of actually improving their quality of life.
...
What is madness anyway?
Recently, I spoke with Laura Yakas, a lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Social Work with an interest in Mad Pride. She Zoomed in from New Zealand, where she grew up, and where she is currently staying while she teaches remotely.
We started by getting clear on terms. While I had always thought neurodiversity referred primarily to conditions like Autism or ADHD, Yakas said she uses it to refer to mental health conditions more broadly. Yakas also differentiated between innate neurodiversity, which a person is born with, and acquired neurodiversity, which is often caused by trauma. For example, Autism would be considered innate and a condition like PTSD would be acquired.
Yakas further argued that there is a lot of overlap between madness and neurodiversity, and different people may prefer one term over the other for a variety of reasons. As a result, these terms are often used interchangeably. But, Yakas emphasized, someone who identifies with the ideals of Mad Pride would likely say that none of these conditions mean someone's brain is "wrong" or "broken."
The thrust of her "academic" work is claiming that neurodivergent people -- people with autism or insanity -- are actually the sane and normal ones, and the normal and sane ones are the abnormal and insane ones.
She's created a new Intersectional Category of privilege: "saneism," the belief that sane people have that their mental sanity allows them to see the world correctly and make logical judgments about it.
But this is just a "social construction" -- saneism proposes that what society calls "sane" is just what a bunch of bigots have agreed to in order to demonize insane people, The Real Heroes Here.
...
"Neurotypical ... doesn't mean normal," Yakas explained. "It means someone whose neurotype is not being pathologized in their particular culture at this time."
...
Yakas also argued that madness is, at least in part, socially constructed. There has been somewhat of a cultural shift in recent years in terms of viewing diagnoses like Autism and ADHD as a form of neurodiversity rather than as diseases needing to be cured. ...
Because of saneism, mad people are often denied the ability to define their own experience -- as evidenced by the push to cure autistic people of something much of the community doesn't view as a disease. Of her own experience, Yakas said that the messaging she received was, "I have a broken brain. Nothing that I'm saying is real. Everything is irrational."
In many cases, stigma prevents mad or neurodiverse people from being able to define their own experience. It can also prevent mad people from entering mental health professions, which means that many of those treating mental illness don't have lived experience.
She wants lunatics to be part of the mental health system -- treating mental illness with their own mental illness. Which they also assert is not mental illness as all.
That's just your "saneism" talking, Bigot.
Speaking of insane people attempting to define reality for sane people:
He was identified by law enforcement as Ciro Stephen Tomlian, 19, and booked into the Smith County Jail. He faces two counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault causing bodily injury.
The Smith County Criminal District Attorney's Office could not be reached for comment Wednesday by The College Fix on what formal charges Tomlian may face. A jail spokesperson told The Fix on Thursday that Tomlain was booked out of jail Wednesday night on bond.
Tomlian was seen in a video vandalizing a Turning Point USA display, ripping down an American flag, calling the TPUSA members "fascist pieces of sh*t," and using a prop cane to smack a member's legs before he was subdued and arrested. He was wearing a cape and some sort of wizard hat at the time.
According to his Instagram account, Tomlian goes by he/they/she pronouns.
That doesn't even make sense. All three of those are subject pronouns. It has no object pronouns. So you'd say "I'd like to give she a punch in the mug"?
Even when playing a game for retards, zhe still makes the most retarded move possible.
The violence won't stop until people start knocking these people the **** out.
But you can't do that, of course. While this retard will be "sentenced" to time served for an unprovoked assault, you'd go to jail for a year for knocking she out in self-defense.
A new survey of nearly 2,200 students at five Chicago-area universities found 84% felt pressure to criticize Western civilization to succeed academically, while roughly 3 in 4 reported holding back their opinions.
@campusreform editor-in-chief @zachmarsch warns that students may be learning to stay silent rather than challenge ideas.
“There is very little room for interrogating the history of Western civilization in a neutral, if not even a positive lens.”
Yes the county is running a huge shortfall. Yes this slab of concrete has been abandoned for more than two decades and is merely a useless eyesore. Yes, this nitwit's "victory" is going to cost the county and state millions of dollars in tax revenue. And yes, this brain donor and others like her will be screaming about how underfunded their preferred social programs are. Willful stupidity is a choice
Surprise! They Made the SAT "Less Demanding" to Hide the Fact That the Establisment Has Given Up Teaching Children to Read Plus: FAA Orders National Grounding of All Flights
SAT reading section is "less demanding" than in past decades, study finds
Changes could be attempts to increase equity, education expert says
We're dumbing educational standards down to "increase equity"? Well knock me over with a feather.
Why even bother? Just give them crap degrees. They're just going to use AI to write their papers anyway.
A recent study funded by Thomas Aquinas College is making waves after it revealed major changes to one of the nation's most well-known standardized tests.
Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Education Policy released a study comparing older versions of the SAT with a current practice test. Although a change in difficulty cannot be established, researchers found substantial differences in the reading section that, across the examined dimensions, "point to the test becoming less demanding."
Questions now loom over whether expectations for college preparedness have declined, and whether the changes signal a deeper problem affecting the school system.
I don't think questions loom. I think obvious conclusions loom.
Through a comparative analysis of SAT forms from 1980, 1987, and a 2026 College Board practice test, researchers discovered substantial adjustments to the tests' reading section that transitioned away from longer, more traditional readings.
The changes include significantly shorter passages, an 83 percent drop in vocabulary questions that require independent word knowledge, the near-total replacement of argumentative and persuasive texts with expository ones, and readings whose meaning can be grasped through context rather than assumed prior knowledge.
David Steiner, executive director of Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, told The College Fix that the test has indeed changed, but that the "report does not say that the test got easier."
You've shortened the passages because kids can't even read full magazine articles, let alone books. And by the way, I used to teach the SAT. A shorter passage means there's less text to scan through to find answers.
Steiner posited that the changes could be attempts to increase equity. "We know that children of more privileged backgrounds bring more background knowledge to a test on average, so by dialing back the amount of background knowledge required, you're enabling a more level playing field," he said.
Regarding the implications, Steiner told The Fix that different universities have different expectations, which can affect how they interpret these changes and weigh SAT scores.
He added that the test necessarily "moves in tandem with the rest of the education system," meaning it reflects trends such as grade inflation and reading declines that we see in schools.
And speaking of "moving in tandem with the education system:" everyone wants an A. And the dum-dums want all distinctions between "A" work and "B" work and "F" non-work eliminated.
Presto! Everyone is equal! Everyone gets a Participation A!
(Even if they don't actually participate.)
Joanne Jacobs:
Parents are lawyering up to challenge a bad grade -- or a teacher's unflattering comment -- on their child's report card, reports Zusha Elinson in the Wall Street Journal.
In affluent Palo Alto, my daughter's old district, one mother is suing because her third-grader's report card said he needs to work on "cooperating with others."
A Palo Alto father filed suit after AI-detection software flagged his 10th-grade son's essay on The Crucible as "76% AI," writes Elinson. The teacher "gave him a D on the retake, bringing his final grade down to a C."
Takashi Kato, a Silicon Valley CEO, submitted a 1,162-page packet showing the sophomore's "drafting and revision process," and claimed detection software can be biased against non-native English writers. "He offered to accept a B to resolve the dispute," writes Elinson. He dropped the suit in September. The district says there was no settlement.
Many Silicon Valley parents are competitive overachievers who want their children to get into very selective universities. They think that takes a perfect report card. And they all have lawyers.
Below: A report on the grounding. "A national ground stop due to extraordinary circumstances and reasons of safety."
Supposedly this has nothing to do with a "nefarious attack." It's due to a "telecommunications outage." Though DHS Secretary Mullin says we're not sure what caused it yet. It could turn out to be a cyberattack.
But for the moment, there's no evidence that it is due to an attack.
Greasy Gavin: Cutting Off Children's Body Parts is "Affirming Care" and Pot and Psychadelics Should be Legal and Heroin a Misdemeanor In Small Amounts, But We Have to Keep Weightlifting Teens from Buying Protein Powder and Creatine
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Unrelated but urgent: Via gp, the FAA has ordered an emergency stop to all takeoffs.
Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
11m
🚨 BREAKING: A NATIONWIDE GROUND STOP has just OFFICIALLY been issued by the FAA, citing "EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES and REASONS OF SAFETY" 🤯
This means effectively ALL flights are blocked from taking off
There's no word yet on how long it will last or what specifically caused it.
Insane.
gp says it extends until 10pm.
Original post:
As Amy Curtis says, the Greasy Grifter Governor finally found a reason to demand ID:
Polymarket
@Polymarket
BREAKING: Gavin Newsom bans sales of certain "muscle-building supplements" to Californians under 18, potentially including whey protein & creatine.
Note that whey protein is just protein from, well, milk whey, and creatine is a naturally-occurring substance found in meat.
New California law will restrict sales of some muscle-building supplements to minors
Legislation covers over-the-counter diet pills and weight-loss dietary supplements, taking effect Jan 1
Energy drinks, pre-workout supplements linked to heart attacks, study finds
Gavin Newsom has signed legislation banning the sale of some "muscle-building supplements" to Californians under 18 years of age.
The legislation (AB 2030), which was signed on Sept. 28, covers over-the-counter diet pills and dietary supplements for weight loss or muscle building. It will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.
"Nonprescribed, medically unapproved products may cause dangerous side effects," the governor's office said in its announcement. "Products can be mislabeled or contaminated with substances such as steroids."
Any chance that heroin, which is not a misdemeanor offense, might have some impurities in it, too?
By the way, I really doubt that "steroids" are being mixed into these very common, very safe supplements.
California's law restricts minors' access to supplements marketed for muscle building -- specifically, those that are "labeled, marketed or otherwise represented for the purpose of achieving weight loss or building muscle."
Ah, there's the problem.
Courts may consider whether a product contains "creatine, green tea extract, raspberry ketone, garcinia cambogia or green coffee bean extract," the legislation states.
Possessing cocaine in small quantities is a misdemeanor, but we have to worry about green tea extract, aka "caffeine."
The release cites research indicating that nearly one in 10 adolescents have used such products.
Wow, that many? One in ten?
What a crisis.
The American Herbal Products Association, based in Maryland, released a statement opposing the law.
"Lacking any scientific justification, AB 2030 casts a shadow over safe, beneficial products," said Robert Marriott, the association's vice president of regulatory and government affairs, in the statement.
Kristen Mag
@kristenmag
California: "WHEY PROTEIN IS TOO RISKY FOR KIDS!!"
Also California: "Yes actually 14 year old girls are old enough to consent to elective mastectomies."
Dr. Sigrid Wolf, a pediatric sports medicine physician at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, recently addressed the use of creatine products among teenagers, stating that evidence of benefits is limited.
Creatine is the most studied and most-used fitness supplement in the world. There is no question remaining about its efficacy.
"In some cases, they might even be dangerous," wrote Wolf, who is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' sports medicine committee, in an article published on HealthyChildren.org, the American Academy of Pediatrics' parenting website.
"Creatine can come with negative side effects such as weight gain, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea."
By "weight gain," they mean muscle gain, which must be stopped.
As for diarrhea: Creatine can definitely cause that, and I've been suffering from it for a year. But I just fixed it: And the fix is as dumb and obvious as you'd guess: Fiber. I was getting almost zero fiber on a low-carb diet, and that combined with creatine was giving me GI issues. Fiber fixed it immediately.
The left is convinced that physical strength and fitness are right-wing -- they are, but just because the left is physically and mentally unhealthy and actually cultivates physical and mental infirmity as virtuous -- and they want to men weak because they believe, correctly, that weak men join the leftist herd.
Research article
Physical strength as a heuristic cue of political conservatism
Mitch Brown, Donald F. Sacco, Aaron W. Lukaszewski, Ryan E. Tracy
Physically formidable men are motivated to pursue strategies to acquire resources and status through direct competition and the promotion of hierarchical social organization. In service of these priorities, these men support social policies favoring the use of aggressive bargaining and hierarchy-maintenance strategies. Given these associations, we hypothesized physical strength may function as a heuristic cue of political conservatism. Participants in four unique U.S. samples assessed the political orientation of men who varied in physical strength and musculature, considering various facets of what constitutes conservatism. Physically strong men appeared more conservative to perceivers. Neither type of conservatism (social versus fiscal) nor presence of wealth cues moderated effects. Perceivers further regarded liberty as most central to strong men's morality.
Note that study is about how people perceive strong men. It doesn't say anything about whether strength is correlated with conservatism. (But it is, of course.)
The point is, the left hates strong men. Too difficult to dominate.
Pansies at reddit think a lot about strong men:
What are your theories on why gym culture is so rightwing
Upvote
2y ago
someone asked a similar question about gun ownership in r/MARXISTRA but the answer is the same right-wing culture is self-actualization. that applies to everything, it's essentially ingrained that nobody is gonna do anything for you so you need to make your own money, pave your own way, and defend yourself by any means necessary. as a result, they're probably more likely to have the income and the desire to follow through with a gym routine/proper nourishment/supplemental aid/training. Does this mean you can't do it? Not at all, contrary to what some may tell you, going to the gym is one of the cheapest (and best) hobbies to have. Paying $20-30 for a membership for what means essentially unlimited access to equipment and sometimes training as well, along with the chemical pick up me of endorphins released during a good work out. This is all to say, you can theorize why gym culture is so right wing all day but if you want to change it in a meaningful way, the best way is to step in the gym first
...
That same philosophy lead me down a dark path when I was a young teen first getting started in the gym. I'm happy I made it out.
Ze "made it out" of the gym.
...
I'm surprised no one else said it because it seems highly obvious to me, but I think it is because of the associations between traditional masculinity and physical power. The right wing is obsessed with masculinity and masculinity is traditionally associated with strength and violence. I think that this intertwines with the individualism aspect that everyone has mentioned to produce an unfortunately right wing, and largely misogynist fitness culture.
Muscle memory may also involve adaptations within skeletal muscle fibers themselves.
Unlike most cells in the body, skeletal muscle fibers contain multiple nuclei, known as myonuclei. These nuclei help regulate cellular activity, including the production of proteins necessary for maintaining and developing muscle tissue.
During resistance training, muscle fibers may acquire additional myonuclei through the activity of satellite cells, which are specialized cells involved in muscle repair and adaptation.
Some research suggests that these acquired myonuclei may persist even after muscle fibers decrease in size during periods of inactivity.
If retained, they could potentially support a more rapid hypertrophic response when resistance training resumes.
Something to keep in mind as all of us Nearly 29-year-olds lose a percentage or two of muscle every year.
Less Than 42 Minutes of Bright Light Daily Is a Stronger Predictor of Dementia Than Obesity, Study Finds
Each morning, when we open our eyes to a bright new day, our brain's 'master clock' synchronizes our body and its rhythms with the Sun.
The more light that we are exposed to on a daily basis, the better it may be for our brains in the long run.
According to recent research among nearly 88,000 older adults, those who are exposed to more daily light are less likely to develop dementia over the next decade or so.
The longer the exposure to light, either natural or artificial, the stronger the association.
In fact, spending at least 42 minutes a day exposed to bright light (5,000 lux or more) was associated with a 17 percent lower relative risk of dementia.
That's a better predictor of dementia than six other traditional risk factors, including obesity, alcohol consumption, air pollution, and hearing loss.
For 'night owls', the association was even stronger. Greater daytime light exposure was linked with up to a 41 percent lower risk of dementia.
The findings, published in General Psychiatry, support the idea that light-based interventions hold promise for people at risk of cognitive decline.
"These findings position daytime light exposure as a novel, robust and measurable indicator of dementia risk," write the study authors, led by researchers at Guangzhou Medical University in China.
...
I keep meaning to get ahead in my posts so I can go out for a walk/run at 2pm but I keep falling behind and not getting out until sunset. I gotta do something about that. There is no reason to not get double the bang for the buck.
AIs prove themselves much better at diagnosis than generalists. But note, that's generalists. They don't say how well specialists diagnose within their specialties.
He's right, and I've been warning doctors about this.
If you don't get your sh*t together, there will be one hourly-wage doctor supervising an LLM that's treating a thousand patients, and a lot of doctors looking for work.
The AI got 83.2% right on 304 New England Journal of Medicine cases. Generalist doctors got 36.1% right.
An experimental immune cell therapy has completely eliminated an aggressive childhood brain cancer in mice, succeeding where conventional treatments have struggled. Developed by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the approach uses genetically engineered CAR-T cells that activate their cancer-fighting receptors only after entering the brain.
The treatment, called B-SYNC, cleared tumors in every mouse tested across two models of diffuse midline glioma (DMG). It also provided lasting protection, with treated mice rejecting a second introduction of cancer cells nearly seven weeks later. Researchers are now preparing for human clinical trials that could begin as early as April 2027.
Well if you have a better way of removing the penis from a road-killed raccoon I’d love to hear it
I've been eating keto and walking/running most days. I want to get back to lifting but my darned shoulder never healed and I guess I'm going to have to see a doctor about it and do physical therapy.
Paul Sperry: Security Experts Warn That Islamists Pilots Present an "Insider Threat" to Air Safety
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This is one of those "duh no shit really" reports, but bear in mind that the entire Islamocommunist-captured establishment denies this obvious fact, so it's critical that the obvious be reported and documented.
When the Federal Aviation Administration reinforced cockpit doors after the 9/11 hijackings, it turned flight decks into fortresses to lock out terrorists. But what if a terrorist is already inside?
That question has new urgency following the harrowing Sept. 30 attack aboard a FlyDubai flight in which a Muslim extremist (Islamist) pilot was forcefully stopped by a heroic pilot and brave passengers from crashing a plane bound for Israel.
Former aviation security officials say the FAA needs to reassess threats inside cockpits and the measures intended to counter them. They say this review is especially urgent because the agency has made insider threats to the cockpit more likely by recently forcing airlines to add a secondary barrier to the cockpit in the form of a metal gate on new planes.
Experts say the added security, while well-intentioned, could backfire following al-Qaeda's call last month for Islamist pilots to carry out more suicide attacks inside cockpits and for followers to infiltrate the ranks of pilots. Al-Qaeda has reestablished terror training camps in Afghanistan, along with recruiting and propaganda organs, echoing its pre-9/11 potency.
Don't worry, everyone! The Isamocommunist-captured establishment has decided that 9/11 never happened. It was all just a right-wing hallucination, so stop worrying about a dark "far right" fantasy and conspiracy theory, Racists.
Enhanced security measures designed to lock out threats could merely lock in an attacker....
Yeah, when the terrorist is in the cockpit already, beefing up the door just stops passengers from wresting him from the controls.
But we can't talk about the danger of Islamist pilots.
9/11 never happened, remember? Never forget means "Never mention again."
Also, the attempt to hijack a FlyDubai plane by an Islamist co-pilot didn't happen.
Aviation security experts also say airlines must do more to identify pilots who may hold extremist views or show signs of mental illness. At least two U.S.-based Islamist pilots have been suspended in the wake of the FlyDubai incident.
"Pilots who have openly espoused and supported terrorists should be grounded as unstable," said former airline executive Michael Boyd, president of Boyd Group International, an aviation consulting firm, in an interview with RealClearInvestigations. "Anybody who supports clear terrorism should be grounded; but of course, that gets muddy in the realm of free speech."
Meaning: They haven't been grounded already.
Weak vetting systems
Suicide by aircraft has long been a rare but concerning issue. Most documented cases have involved private planes, not commercial carriers. Mentally ill people -- including the German copilot who killed himself and 149 others on board when he locked the captain, who had gone to the bathroom, out of the cockpit and crashed a flight into the Alps in 2015 -- have long accounted for most cases. But experts say a disproportionate number of such tragedies involving major airliners have involved Muslim pilots, most of whom have expressed extremist views.
...
While non-Muslims historically have been responsible for some cases of suicide pilots intentionally downing major airliners, three of the four cases directly linked to terror have involved Islamist pilots (9/11 is not included because it was a hijacking).
And also: It simply never happened, Bigots.
Read the whole thing and weep.
It's not just that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
They want to repeat it. This is not "forgetting," this is just replaying the old playbook with the Islamocommunist-dominated government acting as co-conspirators to the coming slaughters.
MAHA Consultant Calley Means: Susie Wiles Was Running a Buckraking Operation Out of the White House and Letting Big Pharma and Big Ag Write Policy If They Just Hired Her Lobbyist Daughter
Ballard Partners' more than $88 million in lobbying revenue last year was, at the time, the most any firm had reported since the Lobbying Disclosure Act took effect in 1996, even after adjusting for inflation, a CBS News analysis of Senate lobbying disclosures found. Through the first three quarters of 2026, the firm has already surpassed that, reporting more than $98 million.
The fortunes of Washington lobbying firms tend to rise and fall with changes in administrations, as companies hire them to try to influence policy. But after an election that saw government corruption polling as a top issue for voters, questions about who has profited from political connections are intensifying. Ballard Partners is now among those ensnared in the MAGA feud.
Over the weekend, I listened to the Joe Rogan interview with former MAHA advisor Calley Means. Means alleges that Susie Wiles and her "Talahassee lobbyist staffers" were running a very corrupt cash-for-policy operation out of the White House.
Note that Means stresses that he does not believe Trump knew about most of this. I mostly believe that -- Trump is a delegator and doesn't seem to get involved in anything except his three biggest issues.
For example, Means claims that it is an open secret that if you want her to push a policy, you hire her daughter, who works for one of the biggest lobbying firms, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then you get what you paid for.
He also claims that Means hid from Trump the truth about polling so Trump didn't know he was in political trouble. He claims she and her corrupt allies just pushed minor issues that moved few votes, like No Tax on Tips, as the clocked ticked down to midterms doomday.
I recommend listening to the first half. The second half is just repetitive and listless.
Google AI:
* The Allegations: Means accused Wiles and a close-knit group of White House officials of bowing to corporate lobbyists, prioritizing midterm campaign donations over public health, and blocking components of the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda championed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
* Specific Claims: Means alleged that Wiles resisted initiatives to improve children's diets due to sugar-industry pressures, pushed for approvals of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes tied to tobacco donations, caved to kratom industry lobbying, and protected corporate interests regarding glyphosate/Roundup litigation.
Another claim: That she blocked what Means calls a "no-brainer," a reform to school lunch programs which would limit donuts and sugar soda and establish a minimum level of protein for meals.
He says she did this because of Big Sugar and Pepsi paid her to do it.
Calley Means, who resigned as a top federal health official two weeks ago after clashing with the White House, on Friday accused President Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, of bowing to "unrelenting" pressure from industry lobbyists while prioritizing political fund-raising over Americans' health.
In a two-hour interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, Mr. Means said that Ms. Wiles withheld support from his efforts to make children's diets healthier, citing the need for sugar industry money. He said her team demanded more approvals of flavored e-cigarettes, a top priority for major tobacco companies that donated at least $20 million to the G.O.P. in 2026. And he said they gave in to heavy lobbying from the kratom industry to relax proposed restrictions on products often referred to as "gas station heroin."
"Susie said to me many times: 'We need money for the midterms, Calley. We need money for the midterms,'" Mr. Means said.
Ms. Wiles and the White House were not immediately available to comment. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services have responded to past allegations of lobbying influence on the administration's health care policies by saying the administration consistently acted in the best interest of the American people.
Mr. Means, a close ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who helped build the Make America Healthy Again movement, avoided criticizing Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Trump. He directed his ire almost entirely at Ms. Wiles, a former lobbyist and political consultant, who he asserted had "spent her career taking money," including from the pharmaceutical and pesticide industries and from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a former client.
As the blame game escalates after Republicans' stunning losses in the elections this week, Ms. Wiles is becoming a target of finger-pointing, with some former officials and MAGA supporters calling for her resignation.
Mr. Means framed Ms. Wiles and her top deputies as welcoming lobbyists into the White House while sidelining Mr. Kennedy and infantilizing Mr. Trump. Mr. Means made a larger argument about the corrosive role of corporate money in politics, but also suggested that the president should "exorcise" Ms. Wiles and her aides "from the White House."
Some of what Means claimed struck me as false or just stupid but the overall charge that Wiles was running a buckraking operation, with her daughter as a bagwoman, sounded plausible. Means is either telling the truth or he just made the case for a huge defamation case against him. We'll see if Wiles lodges such a lawsuit.
He claims that Wiles was behind pushing for liability immunity for Bayer for its glycosphate herbicide. She pushed this as a "national security issue," with the implausible claim that we had to grant Bayer immunity to keep the production of phosphorous (an ingredient in the herbicide) reliable for... making explosives.
That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. How do you make phosphorous available for bombs by making sure it's being used by the ton for herbicide?
Then again, Means' argument was itself stupid -- despite the fact that the government does not consider glycosphate cancer-causing, he wants everyone to be able to sue Bayer for producing glycosphate. He claims this is a "free market issue."
But any jury will reward a plaintiff with an injury millions and millions just to be nice, whether they find any connection between the deep-pocketed corporation or not. Surely Means is not so stupid as to not know this -- but he sure pretends he doesn't.
He's also one of those cranks who is determined to end vaping for adults -- but For The Children, you understand.
He does point out that the farm states of Kentucky and Iowa have the highest cancer rates in the world, particularly for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and glycosphate is linked to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. But the industry, and the government, blocks a scientific review of the claimed connection.
There must be some reason that two states in the developed west have such aberrantly high levels of cancer, and we should know why.
I don't know where I am on the policy-- I would like a review as well, and would grant immunity if the review found no cancer link to glycosphate -- but I sure don't like how the sausage being made here, with Big Pharam and Big Ag just delivering millions of dollars to Wiles and her friends and family in exchange for policy outcomes. (Allegedly -- we'll see.)
Give it a listen, make up your own minds.
I find this interesting: Stephen Miller, the man replacing Wiles, says he's going to start denying "big business" carte blanche as to its claimed needs.
That sure sounds like Miller thinks Wiles was delivering policy outcomes to deep-pocketed industries and corporations.
Though this makes it sound like Miller is chiefly interested in rejecting industries' claims that they need illegal workers:
The replacement of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles with her hardline deputy Stephen Miller shuts the door through which many CEOs softened Trump administration policies or sought favors, and sets the stage for more direct confrontation with business in the second half of Trump's term.
Even CEOs skeptical of Trump's chaotic style and his hostility to trade and immigration found that they could, with the help of Wiles and now-former tech czar David Sacks, talk Trump out of his aides' most aggressive immigration moves, from worksite raids to canceling TSA PreCheck.
Means also disclosed what we on the right have known for years, that the leftwing bureaucrats circulate How to Subvert the President manuals in order to defy the orders of the duly-elected president.
"He's [Kennedy] got a 90,000-person agency. He's surrounded by demons who want him out and want him destroyed," former Kennedy adviser Calley Means told Joe Rogan. "And Trump's sitting at 2 million people."
"So, his staff is all completely compromised?" Rogan asked.
"Yeah, for the most ... especially the whole infrastructure," Means, who resigned from the White House on Oct. 22, claimed.
He mentioned a manual titled something like "How to Subvert the President" being circulated among leftwing bureaucrats.
Why this was allowed, I don't know.
BTW: If you missed Buck Throckmorton's story about Ron DeSantis attacking the GOP's age-old and apparently incurable Terminal Corporatism, do give it a read.
"Young people have a very positive view of socialism compared to capitalism. The question is, why is that?"
"Some of it is the education in our universities. But I think a big part of that is, what they're comparing is not free enterprise versus socialism. What they're comparing is how government gets involved in business, and you have crony capitalism."
"The best kind of indirect supporters of socialism are some of these corporatist Republicans who propagate these crony policies."
"If it's cronyism versus socialism, there's going to be enough people who are going to choose socialism."
In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent President Donald Trump and top Cabinet members a classified memorandum detailing the relationship between the Huangs and the intelligence indicating that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy. The White House directed the Commerce Department to put Alice Huang's Megaspeed on the entity list of companies that pose national security concerns.
Lutnick refused this request in May; he refused a second attempted crackdown order from Trump in August; and on Nov. 5, Lutnick reportedly stonewalled Trump again. And evidently, this wasn’t because Lutnick knew too little. Rather, the Commerce Department spent months last year conducting an investigation into Megaspeed and specifically whether it was illicitly smuggling Nvidia chips into China, only for Lutnick’s direct underling, Jeff Kessler, to invite Nvidia to reach out to Commerce about the case, bringing the department;s inquiry to an effective end.
I am sure it is just a coincidence that Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm that Lutnick led for 35 years before passing it off to his 20-something-year-old sons Brandon and Kyle, has a $362.3 million stake in Nvidia, which makes up 7% of Cantor's entire portfolio.
On a scale of "Not Surprised At All" to "Totally Surprised, Dumfounded Actually, Just Totally Blown Away," how surprised are you to learn this?
The practice of securing political power and then putting out your otherwise-unemployable children into positions where they can act as your bag-men is not limited to the Biden Crime Family.
There's some more good news: Now Stephen Miller is locking the lobbyists out. No White House staffer can even speak to a lobbyist without his express permission.
“He eschews relationship-based favors. He doesn’t sway easily on issues. He’s ideologically driven and fiercely loyal to President Donald Trump.
“That makes his elevation to chief of staff difficult for lobbyists seeking to influence the administration in its last two years, a dozen GOP lobbyists told POLITICO.”
Stephen Miller is about to upend the way lobbyists work with the White House.
According to a memo from the chief of staff office first obtained by POLITICO, White House staff must receive prior approval from the Office of White House Counsel if they want to meet with a lobbyist.
"No President in history has fought more relentlessly, selflessly or courageously for the American People than President Trump. Following his example, White House staff are expected to dedicate their time unwaveringly to the working people of the nation," the memo from Miller's office said.
The prior approval covers meetings on the White House complex with registered lobbyists related to government policy. The Office of Public Liaison will continue to serve as the primary point of contact for engagement with external stakeholders, the memo said.
The memo likely won't shock lobbyists on K Street where Miller has few friends.
He eschews relationship-based favors. He doesn't sway easily on issues. He's ideologically driven and fiercely loyal to President Donald Trump. That makes his elevation to chief of staff difficult for lobbyists seeking to influence the administration in its last two years, a dozen GOP lobbyists told POLITICO.
"The thing with Stephen is, he's not someone that a lobbyist goes in and has to crack or try to win over," said Hunter Morgen, a lobbyist at Ballard Partners who worked with Miller at the White House during the first Trump administration. "He doesn't operate based on relationships. He operates based on policy outcomes that will advance the president's agenda."
Podcast: Was the U.S. election stolen? Spain is next on the riot parade, Israel's political structure is a problem, Trump, Iran, Rubio and Vance...and more!
The low-ranking drudge who lied and claimed he was a major Trump advisor, and wrote a book ignorantly attacking Trump as "Anonymous" (so that no one would know he was a nobody with no insider knowledge about the President's decisions), takes a self-righteous stance against marital affairs:
Miles Taylor
@MilesTaylorUSA
So will Trump give back the $25M Nvidia put into his ballroom while its CEO was dating a Chinese spy?
but...
Katie Miller
@KatieMiller
Miles Taylor cheated on his wife with the Secretary's Executive Assistant while he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security.
Taylor denies the accusation. I guess we'll see.
Dear hot Chinese and/or Russian spies.
While my job title doesn't indicate it I work all day on cutting edge AI models and advanced chip architecture.
And I just can't stop talking about all the awesome things I am working on.
So totally don't come by my neighborhood bar at 6 PM tomorrow and starting chatting with me. I mean get a few drinks in me and who knows what secrets I might spill.
Podcast: A quick postmortem of the savage beating suffered by the Republican Party and Donald Trump. And a new reason to hit the tip jar...Buy Guns For Sefton!
Email confirmed as once used by the Muskily Heterosexual James Talarico found in leak of emails of Fling.com sex dating site:
An email address that James Talarico's attorneys confirmed belonged to and was at one time used by the Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate appears in a database search result associated with the adult dating website Fling.com's 2011 data breach. A Fling.com account was created with Talarico's email address just before Talarico began teaching sixth graders.
The result lists the username "mohawk787" and an account creation timestamp of December 26, 2010, at 20:56:49. The profile's interests field lists "FETISH," "GROUPSEX," "SEXUAL RELATIONS," "ONLINE FLIRTING," and "OTHER."
Townhall shared the information described in this article with the Talarico campaign and requested comment Friday morning, and in response, a mere 35 minutes later, received a four-page, detailed letter from legal counsel for Talarico that addressed some, but not all of the information described in this report.
"Well I can't believe the trans-child-obsessed Confirmed Bachelor James Talarico is into group fetish shit," said noted void phantom Doctor Nullity, The Man Who Never Existed
I'm not the guy who noted this, I saw it on X (Razib Khan maybe), but The Bulwark could be "audience capture". It might have started as the Frum / 90s-Kristol / NRO classic Eisenhower Republicanism. But nobody was reading the Bulwark except leftists.
Tallyrand has a quote on this, "I am their leader so I must follow them".
Same goes for David French, Christianity Today, and the "Anxious Bench" side of Patheos. They may have started out Christian. But it wasn't Christians signing their checks.
Flashback: "trans man" Lawyer freaks out after a judge denies "his" motion. He's ultimately arrested. "He" makes so much drama he was just recruited to develop a new CW show.
I'm just wondering if this flighty high-calorie pyrsyn is also in the news today for other reasons....
Update: No, it's not. Zee/Zem says they's name is like "Rob Hopkins" or something. Story here, courtesy of The Blade
[Song title]
Don't breathe down my neck, no
I got no trophies on display
I sign them away
I mean what the heck
All of your promises
Don't fill me with pride no
I just wanna get out on the floor
And do the Cuban slide, slide, slide, slide
From Anonosaurus Wrecks:
@NBCNews
Although Brazil's presidential election took place more than 4,000 miles away, the baseless conspiracy theory that it was stolen raced through the American right-wing media.
Podcast: The Brazil and Israel elections, the evil left, and more!
