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Chavez the Hugo 2020
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AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
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An as-of-yet unnamed producer texted a reporter in the field to "not focus" on the Iranians celebrating the death of Khamenei. He (or, likely, she) wanted to play this as tragedy and portray the strike as a war crime.
A CBS Austin reporter was seen on a live Facebook stream appearing to get a directive from a superior to steer away from a pro-Israel, pro-US and pro-Trump protest behind him -- and then refusing to go along with the instruction on camera.
Vinny Martorano was outside the Texas Capitol on Saturday covering dueling demonstrations in the wake of US and Israeli strikes on Iran when a crew member handed him a phone with a message from an unnamed boss.
After reading the screen, the reporter asked out loud, "What does that mean?"
An off-screen staffer answered, "It means they don't want us to focus on this."
"Well, I am," Martorano shot back, continuing his coverage.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns CBS Austin, insisted Martorano had not been instructed to avoid certain perspectives.
"[S]tation management directed the crew to follow our standard protest and rally safety and coverage guidelines, remain on the perimeter, gather necessary content, complete the live shot, and move to a safe location," a Sinclair spokesperson told The Post in an email.
"There was no directive to avoid or de-emphasize any particular perspective," the spokersperson added. "The guidance was focused on safety, logistics, and ensuring comprehensive coverage in a rapidly evolving situation. The safety of our teams is top priority."
The moment was clipped down to roughly 35 seconds and quickly went viral as it got reshared by conservative social media accounts.
🚨BREAKING: Austin CBS reporter is being praised for defying a superior’s order to ignore a massive crowd of Iranian nationals cheering President Trump and U.S. military action.
CBS, now controlled by Perfidious Jewess Bari Weiss, did allow some truth to escape:
CBS reports on the reactions of the Iranian people: "It's not 'death to Israel' and 'death to America.' It's 'thank you' and 'a new day dawning'... It's the Iranian people that have been telling me over and over and over again, 'We want this.'" pic.twitter.com/IIsSr1KrT9
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 1, 2026
CNN's Dana Bash was stunned into silence as a Democrat Iranian woman told Democrats they had to "get over" their hatred of Trump and cheer the fall of the Islamic dictatorship:
But overall, the media once again sided with terrorists and butchers while praising themselves as Holy.
ABC couldn't wait to report the false claim that the US (or Israel) had bombed a girls school in Iran. In fact, the school was hit by an Iranian missile whose engine had conked out.
Breaking: The regime in Iran has now admitted that the IRGC mistakenly bombed an Iranian school yesterday, killing many children.
Sadly, bad actors have exploited the death and war fog to help the Iranian regime hide this crime and avoid accountability.
This was, of course, an exact carbon-copy replay of the same hoax the Islamic Republic's proxies in Gaza had pulled two years ago. And once again, the Terror Press was only too happy to spread these lies for their terrorist allies:
The same media that explicitly ignored the mass protests in Iran for first few weeks and then claimed it couldn't cover the regime's mass murder of these protestors because it didn't have reporters in Iran to verify the facts is back to its Hamas playbook from the October 7th War… pic.twitter.com/m8nm6UKOF8
Likewise, Reuters ran video of Iran "protests" -- just the state-sponsored protests in favor of the Mullahs. They did not run video on the jubilant celebrations of Khamenei's death.
The NYT gave Khamenei the Austere Religious Scholar treatment:
I’m merely asking NY Times to treat the passing of a known terrorist with the same invective as they gave Rush Limbaugh. pic.twitter.com/IXlS68BhcC
He was, of course, an immigrant and a criminal, allowed into the country by Bill Clinton and then granted citizenship by Obama.
The fiend behind Sunday's bloodbath at a packed Austin bar was an ex-New York City resident wearing a "Property of Allah" hoodie -- and possibly out for vengeance over the US attack on Iran, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
Crazed Texas shooter Ndiaga Diagne, 53, of Senegal arrived in the US on March 13, 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa during the Democratic Clinton administration and became a lawful permanent resident (IR-6) when he married a US citizen in June 2006, a source familiar with his immigration history told The Post.
He then became a naturalized US citizen on April 5, 2013 around the start of former President Barack Obama's second term -- despite his growing rap sheet spanning New York and Texas.
On Sunday, the killer had a Quran in his car and was possibly also wearing an undershirt featuring the Iranian flag or other Iranian symbols when he opened fire on Buford's Backyard Beer Garden near the University of Texas-Austin campus, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Law enforcement knew him as an emotionally disturbed person in both New York and Texas before Sunday's bloody rampage, sources said.
He also had a string of previous arrests under his belt in the Big Apple and Texas, sources said, including a 2022 arrest in the Lone Star State for collision with vehicle damage.
In New York City, he notched busts between 2001 and 2016, the year he applied for asylum under the waning Obama administration.
Diagne was arrested in 2001 for illegal vending. His other three city arrests are sealed, sources said. Details on his Texas busts were not immediately known.
In Scotland, a Cultural Enricher stabbed a bunch of people as he attempted to force his way into... a nursery.
A man has been arrested after a knife incident in Edinburgh which left two people needing hospital treatment.
Police firearms officers were called to reports of a man with a bladed weapon in the Calders area of the city at 08:25.
A stand-off followed with a suspect later seen looking out the window of an 11th-floor flat for a number of hours but he was removed by police at around 16:00.
Police Scotland said the incident was not being treated as terror-related.
Revolutionary Guards intelligence operatives created fake emails which purported to show Trump telling the Proud Boys to commit violent, terroristic actions.
The leftwing media of course reported these emails as real.
Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with U.S.
While Democrats and their stenographers in mainstream media screamed about a fever-dream involving collusion between Russia and Trump, the Iranian regime deployed unnoticed election influence operations aimed at stopping Trump's election in back-to-back contests in 2020 and 2024. Even worse, the IRGC even pushed assassination plots aimed at Trump.
The Iranian regime sought to undermine President Donald Trump's reelection bid in 2020, with Joe Biden emerging victorious, then doubled down in 2024 through a host of election meddling efforts and even assassination attempts in 2024.
...
Trump campaigned in 2016 against the controversial Iranian nuclear deal which had been inked and agreed to by President Barack Obama in 2015.
When Trump won, his first term was marked by a "maximum pressure" campaign against the Iranian regime, with Trump exiting the Iran deal, increasing sanctions against Iran after they had been lifted by Obama, designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, targeting Iran's terrorist proxies, killing IRGC leader General Qassem Soleimani, and more.
The Iranian regime responded with a sophisticated election influence effort in the 2020 campaign between Trump and President Joe Biden, with the Iranians fighting to keep Trump away from a second term and favoring the more Iran-friendly Biden.
Biden's soft pro-Iranian policies come back to haunt peace in the Middle East
The Biden administration then spent four years loosening some of the pressure on Iran and seeking a doomed rapprochement with the regime as Biden tried and failed to secure the revival of a deal with Iran. Hamas, considered a proxy of Iran, launched its deadly cross-border terrorist attack and murdered hundreds of civilians at a music festival and elsewhere in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel responded with a significant military campaign in Gaza as well as the targeting of Iran's Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon. Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel in 2024, and Israel's aerial campaign in response resulted in the evisceration of much of Iran's air defenses.
The Biden administration, however, urged Israel not to target the Iranian regime's nuclear facilities -- something the Israelis largely acquiesced to, until last June after Trump had taken office and his 60-day negotiation deadline with the Iranians had expired.
The Iranians had redoubled their efforts during the 2024 election, trying to keep Trump out of office with IRGC-backed assassination plots and with hack-and-leak operations targeting Trump's campaign and other cyber efforts aimed at stopping him from beating Biden and, subsequently, accidental nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. It didn't work.
...
Iranian intelligence sought to undermine Trump's reelection bid in 2020 through a variety of election influence efforts.
Microsoft assessed in September 2020 that a cyber actor dubbed "Phosphorus, operating from Iran, has continued to attack the personal accounts of people associated with the Donald J. Trump for President campaign."
Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray held an October 2020 press conference where they warned that Iran had gained access to U.S. voter registration information, with Ratcliffe warning Iran was trying to harm Trump's candidacy.
Ratcliffe explained: "We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump."
A senior U.S. intelligence officer told The Washington Examiner in October 2020 that "the Iranians follow U.S. politics closely and saw the last debate where the Proud Boys were an issue and saw an opportunity here to manufacture blowback on Trump by creating a narrative that violent Trump supporters are sending out threatening emails."
A senior government official also told Reuters at the time, "Either they made a dumb mistake or wanted to get caught. We are not concerned about this activity being some kind of false flag due to other supporting evidence. This was Iran."
Iran, not Russia, the key source of disinformation, but Democrats stick to their script
The Miami Herald reported in October 2020 that intimidating emails claiming to be from the right-wing Proud Boys group, but actually sent by the Iranians instead, had been sent to hundreds of voters in numerous counties in Florida, seemingly targeting Democrats with a bit of reverse psychology. The emails said, in part, that "you will vote for Trump on Election Day, or we will come after you." The ODNI's office said at the time that it would brief the Republican and Democratic lawmakers representing the Florida counties most targeted.
ODNI's National Intelligence Council later assessed in 2024 that, during the 2020 election, "Iranian cyber actors used data on more than 100,000 voters for its operation impersonating the Proud Boys."
Multiple Democrats sought to falsely cast doubt on the idea that Iran was trying to undermine Trump's presidential campaign in 2020, and stuck to the baseless narrative that Russia was the true disinformation culprit.
"Russia is the villain here, from what we have seen in the public domain," then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in October 2020. "Iran is a bad actor but in no way equivalent. And they always try to find some equivalence to protect their friend, Russia."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also sought to cast doubt on the Iranians seeking to harm Trump.
"I did receive a classified briefing this afternoon on this, and so I can't discuss the details, but I can tell you one thing: It was clear to me, that the intent of Iran in this case, and Russia in many more cases, is to [...] basically undermine confidence in our elections," Schumer said on MSNBC in October 2020. "This action I do not believe was aimed ... at discrediting President Trump [...] It was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure."
The real election interference, it seems, was the fake dossier Mark Elias paid for.
The Clinton campaign lawyer who helped fund British ex-spy Christopher Steele's discredited dossier pushing baseless claims of Trump-Russia collusion in 2016 joined other Democrats in denying confirmed Iranian election influence efforts in 2020 and 2024 aimed at denigrating President Donald Trump, calling it a "Big Lie."
...
A cadre of Democrats -- led by former Hillary Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias -- and other Trump opponents soon sought to deny that Iran had meddled in the U.S. presidential elections of 2020 and 2024 in an effort to undermine Trump's candidacies, despite even the Biden Administration intelligence community and Justice Department saying that is what the Iranian regime had done.
Elias on Saturday shared a screenshot of Trump's Truth Social post about Iranian election influence efforts in 2020 and 2024 and dismissed these facts as "the next Big Lie."
"The next Big Lie is to taking [sic] shape right in front of us," Elias said. "Donald Trump will try to use this to assert illegal and unconstitutional powers over the 2026 elections."
Trump: "The Big Wave" of Attacks on the Islamic Regime Occupying Iran Hasn't Even Started Yet Speculation: The "Ground Forces" Phase of This War May Be Fought Entirely With Drone Hunter-Killers
"We're knocking the crap out of them," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I think it's going very well. It's very powerful. We've got the greatest military in the world and we're using it."
Trump addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the expected length of the conflict, his surprise at Iran's widespread retaliation and the country's expected succession plan.
On how long the war might last, the president said, "I don't want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we're a little ahead of schedule."
Asked if the US is doing more beyond the military assault to help the Iranian people regain control of their country from the regime, Trump said, "Yes."
"We are indeed. But right now we want everyone staying inside. It's not safe out there."
And it's about to get even less safe, the president said.
"We haven't even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn't even happened. The big one is coming soon."
Why is Trump even talking to this shitlipped gayboy?
It's literally true that the "big wave" hasn't started yet, or has only barely started.
The first waves of the attack were Tomahawk missiles and then stealth fighters. Those attacks degraded Iran's radars, air bases, and fighter fleet, so that the later waves could include B-2 bombers dropping tons of explosives.
I saw a report that B-2s already flew from Missouri to start blowing up Iran's underground stores of ballistic missiles. I imagine Trump is suggesting that we're going to get more and more B-2 strategic bombing.
Iran's ballistic missiles are its most dangerous weapon at the moment. Both the US and Israel are working hard to take them out:
Israel releases a video of its fighter jets striking an Iranian ballistic missile launcher moments before it would fire a missile toward Israel pic.twitter.com/XQaoYhcUBF
After all of Iran's air capabilities and ballistic missiles are taken out, I imagine the war will then turn to killing the Revolutionary Guard and the riot police and the remaining thugs.
Now, I had thought that there was no way to win a war without ground forces. I didn't envision the US or Israel sending ground forces. I imagined that we would have to start air-dropping in tons of guns, grenades, and encrypted radios so that the population could arm itself in preparation for street fighting.
They may still do that.
But there might also be a way to fight ground forces... with air power.
In the Ukraine, drones have proven to be the most deadly weapon in the war. It's the new artillery. Artillery, historically, had been the part of the military that actually killed the most enemy forces.
But instead of lobbing huge shells, the new drone warfare consists of using $10,000 to $40,000 drones to carry grenades and repurposed landmines directly over vehicles and groups of enemy soldiers, and then dropping that small munition with pinpoint accuracy. If you're extreme accurate, you can kill a lot of people with a tiny amount of explosives. (If you're inaccurate, you need to drop huge bombs with a huge blast radius.)
I saw one drone attack in Ukraine in which the drone dropped a landmine through the open sunroof of a Russian SUV, killing all four people in the vehicle. Drones routinely drop grenades on soldiers taking cover behind walls or in ditches. You can't take cover from them. They have changed the geometry of the battlefield.
Over the weekend, Iranian "Riot Police" -- thugs and torturers, in other words -- rode their motorcycles into the city to attempt to reclaim it from protesters.
Had they made it to the protesters, they would have slaughtered them.
But they were attacked by a drone:
Authentic low-res dashcam video of a motorcycle convoy of Iranian riot police hit (likely by local insurgents' drone or IED in Sistan-Baluchestan, per multiple sources). The Persians are taking it back. 🙏❤️ pic.twitter.com/W11MEXVdJM
So is this the Trump/Israeli warplan? First take out all strategic threats with missiles and heavy bombs, and then shift to a tactical counter-infantry war by just killing every Regime enforcer they see with drones?
I think it must be.
Iran has thousands of drones. Those are knock-offs of more expensive American drones.
But Pete Hegseth -- who I was assured was an incompetent drunk and meathead -- did something clever. He ordered up new drone designs which are knock-offs of the Iranian knock-offs of the American originals -- and the new knock-offs are half as expensive as the Iran-made knock-offs.
They only cost $35,000 each. We can flood the country with thousands of these Hunter-Killer Terminators without any Americans being exposed to enemy fire.
In July of 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth headed up a Pentagon event showing off 18 American-made drone prototypes, that had gone from drawing board to development in just an average of 18 months. By comparison, the Navy's F/A-XX to replace the aging F/A-18 multirole jets with a modern platform started in 2012, and they haven't even chosen a design.
One of the prototypes shown off by Hegseth looked more than a little familiar to anyone following the Russo-Ukraine War drone campaign, because it was a virtual copy of Iran's infamous Shahed drone, now made in Russia, too, and manufactured in the thousands. Only this one is made in Arizona by a startup called SpektreWorks.
They cost roughly $35,000 apiece and have an attack range of roughly 450 miles.
...
At the time, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael told reporters, "It's an extraordinary achievement. This kind of thing was going to take five, six years."
...
Trump called it "unleashing American drone dominance," and not even a year later, here we are.
On Saturday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that LUCAS flew in combat for the first time during Operation Epic Fury, not much longer than two years after SpektreWorks began developing them: "Task Force Scorpion Strike, for the first time in history, is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury. These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran's Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution."
"For the price of a single Tomahawk, you can launch 57 LUCAS drones," analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera posted over the weekend.
U.S. Central Command officials have confirmed that airstrikes launched on Iran on Saturday involved the first combat use of the U.S. military's new autonomous kamikaze drone.
The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS drone, was launched as part of Operation Epic Fury, which targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, CENTCOM officials announced.
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The LUCAS platform is a one-way attack drone reverse-engineered after the Iranian Shahed-136.
Built by the Arizona-based SpektreWorks, the drone, which can be launched via catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff and mobile ground systems, is a spinoff of the company's FLM 136 target model, one designed for counter-drone training while simulating Iran's Shahed variant.
The FLM 136 model carries a range capability of around 500 miles, with a maximum payload of 40 pounds, or "roughly twice the explosive yield of a hellfire missile," according to Alex Hollings, host of Sandboxx News' FirePower.
With a maximum takeoff weight of 180 pounds, the FLM 136 is significantly lighter than the Iranian Shahed. The platforms are also immensely more cost-effective -- and scalable -- compared to the more advanced munitions in the U.S. arsenal, carrying a price tag of around $35,000 per unit.
...
"To simulate the modern battlefield, senior officers must overcome the bureaucracy's instinctive risk-aversion on everything from budgeting to weaponizing and training," Hegseth wrote in the July memo. "Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars."
What an incompetent drunken meathead.
Update:
Those Shahed style drones are not suitable for targeting personnel. They are meant for fixed targets. Enter the GPS coordinates and send them off on thier own.
-- Serious Cat
Ah maybe, yes, I guess these particular drones are "kamikazee drones," which fly into their target and blow up.
But I imagine we have a lot of the kind they use in Ukraine for anti-personnel missions. Those are store-bought commercial drones lightly modified for military use. They cost like $5,000.
Virginia's New AWFUL Governor, a "Moderate" Democrat and CIA Stooge, Releases Illegal Alien Arrested Over 30 Times to the Streets; He Immediately Stabs a US Citizen to Death at Bus Stop
Fairfax County refused to turn this dangerous and now murderous illegal alien over to DHS.
Virginia Gov. Spanberger faces blowback after releasing illegal immigrant who stabbed woman to death
Spanberger ordered the end of localities cooperating with ICE upon taking office, and ICE targets prevented from being detained as potential killers.
Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares slammed Gov. Abigail Spanberger after a released illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet stabbed a woman to death at a bus stop. Abdul Jalloh allegedly stabbed victim Stephanie Minter at a Fairfax County bus stop after prosecutors had dropped charges in most of his previous cases. He was reportedly arrested more than 30 times.
Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano most recently dropped violent charges against the alleged perpetrator, according to local news reports.
"Not even a month since I called out Gov. Abigail Spanberger for signing her EO banning law enforcement from cooperating with ICE we see the bitter fruits: Abdul Jalloh entered the U.S. illegally, stabbed an innocent woman to death at a bus stop this week despite having a [...] criminal history of more than 30 arrests, according to DHS, including for rape, malicious wounding, assault, identity theft, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, assault and pick-pocketing.' This is exactly the criminal first, victim last policies that get innocent Americans killed," Miyares wrote on X.
Descano has previously been under fire before for dropping criminal charges against illegal immigrant offenders who go on to commit more crimes.
In 2024, 31-year-old Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, an illegal immigrant, was arrested for many crimes, but he was released into the community repeatedly. He went on to allegedly rape a woman on a trail in Fairfax County.
Upon taking office, Spanberger ordered localities not to cooperate with ICE despite probable cause for arrest.
Just a quick happy one to start the day. I'll put up a real post soon.
Reportedly, Trump moved up the start of the operation when the CIA managed to actually do something useful. They determined that Khamenei and his top advisors would be, inadvisedly, getting together Saturday morning for a national security meeting. Trump forwarded that information to Israel which actually hit the site.
Khameni and up to ten of his top officials were killed in that single strike. Since then most of Khamenei's family and his male successors have been killed, as well as 40 Revolutionary Guard commanders.
Update: I just heard that there were three national security meetings that morning. All three were hit.
[Breaking] Iranian citizens pulled down a statue of Ayatollah Khamenei after his death was confirmed, amid celebrations spreading across parts of Iran. The historic scene echoed images from Baghdad when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled after the fall of his regime. pic.twitter.com/M2XSWTxuXE
🔥 EPIC SCENES: Iranian demonstrators in New York City are straight-up CELEBRATING with the legendary “Trump dance” as YMCA blasts in the background!
This massive surge of support comes after decisive U.S. actions against Iran’s regime — proof that PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH works!… pic.twitter.com/V7L28pmGVQ
THE MORNING RANT: Any Refund of Tariffs Already Collected Should Go to Taxpayers, not Businesses
—Buck Throckmorton
Last November,President Trump announced that he would share the financial bounty of his tariffs by sending $2,000 “tariff dividend” payments to most Americans. Truth be told, even though I am a strong supporter of the tariffs, I did not care for this idea since it comes across as exchanging a government check for political support.
Don’t forget, the opponents of tariffs reflexively bleat “Tariffs are a tax on consumers” at any mention of there being economic benefits from tariffing imports. Doesn’t it follow then that if tariff revenues were taxes paid by consumers, and if those tariff revenues were illegal and must be returned, the tariff refunds should go to taxpayers rather than to corporations?
Maybe it’s time to re-think the “tariff dividend.”
Those of us who support President Trump’s tariffs want to restore America’s industrial might, repatriate manufacturing jobs, reduce trade imbalances, and protect our national sovereignty. We argue that tariffs keep economic prosperity at home, and reduce US dependence on supply chains involving hostile foreign regimes.
The opponents of Trump’s tariffs envision a utopian, one-world economic market in which the US is a weak country dependent on overseas manufacturing. Although they call themselves “free traders,” they do not actually argue for reciprocal free trade. They argue passionately that the US should unilaterally surrender to foreign mercantilism, keeping our markets open to those same countries that block American exports. When tariffs are proposed to break down those unfair trade barriers, the “free traders” immediately start reciting their overused buzz phrase, “Tariffs are a tax on consumers.”
My motivation for supporting tariffs has nothing to do with collecting tariff revenue. I’d be happy if tariff revenues were nominal, indicating that we have a broadly diverse domestic economy that is not significantly reliant on imports. That said, Trump’s tariffs have been successful in generating revenue during this time of transition. Whoever is ultimately paying the tariffs – be it consumers, importers, or foreign suppliers - $133 billion has already been collected so far.
But as I mentioned above, businesses that actually remitted the tariff payments on their imported goods are now demanding those tariffs be refunded to them:
Now that the president has suffered such a stinging defeat, major businesses including Dyson, FedEx and L’Oreal have filed an early barrage of lawsuits in search of hefty tariff payouts.
At stake is more than $100 billion in revenue collected over the past year under a roster of tariffs that the Supreme Court invalidated last week. While a defiant Mr. Trump has since taken steps to try to revive the duties, he still faces the prospect that the money collected from his past tariffs might have to be paid back.
So far, roughly 900 claims seeking those refunds have been filed in federal court, according to the Liberty Justice Center, a legal group that represented some of the small businesses in the lawsuit that reached the nation’s justices.
Since the free traders have so persistently argued that “Tariffs are a tax on consumers,” why should the businesses involved in importing goods be entitled to any tariff refunds? I thought we the consumers were the ones who paid those tariffs, not the businesses or their overseas suppliers.
Here’s an idea on how we could resolve the refund of these contested tariffs to consumers - a tariff dividend from the government to taxpayers, just like President Trump proposed.
Irrespective of how this specific political battle plays out, the Trump administration has plenty of other avenues to fix the nation’s trade imbalance, including the imposition of tariffs under other statutes. The “free traders” so desperate to see other countries prosper at the expense of the United States, and who despair at the thought of an American industrial revival, will not prevail. New tariffs will be imposed, because tariffs are working.
As documented by F. Andrew Wolf Jr. at The American Spectator, the US trade deficit plunged a whopping 45% in Q4 of 2025 compared to Q4 of 2024! This was due to the Trump tariffs.
There has also been a torrent of announcements from corporations in the past year regarding major investments in the United States for new manufacturing plants. Just a small sample of these announcements include:
The hundreds of billions being invested in the United States will create high paying jobs, which will then circulate money and prosperity throughout those communities. The products being manufactured stateside will also result in dollars remaining in the US to circulate, rather than being sent overseas.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is a small setback, but it would be foolish for any company to think there will be a return to the business model of sourcing cheap products manufactured by foreign, poverty-wage labor.
Ideally, the Trump administration will keep the tariffs already collected and find a workaround to re-impose the tariffs. But if those revenues must be refunded, they should be paid directly to American taxpayers as a “tariff dividend.” There is absolutely no reason for corporations to be the recipient of any refunds, because I’ve been reliably told that their collection was always a “tax on consumers.”
*****
Happy Birthday Texas!
Today is Texas Independence Day! It was on March 2, 1836, in Washington-on-the-Brazos (near College Station, TX) that Sam Houston, Lorenzo de Zavala, Samuel Maverick, Jose Navarro, and 55 other brave patriots signed the Declaration of Independence from Mexico.
170 miles away in San Antonio, William Travis, Jim Bowie, David Crockett and about 200 others were under siege from Mexican President Santa Anna and his army. Four days later, the Alamo fell, and Santa Anna then headed east to destroy Sam Houston’s ragtag army and quash the Texas Revolution. He failed.
What started on the banks of the Brazos, changed North America and changed the United States. Texas was an independent country for over 9 years before becoming a US state. (Texas even had a a four-ship navy.)
Texas has a meh state song (“Texas, Our Texas”) and several unofficial anthems. There are frequent discussions in online Texas history forums about what the national anthem of Texas should be if it were ever to become a country again.
My vote for Texas National Anthem would be the Hill Country Theme. It was cowritten in the 1960s by Cindy Walker (who is famous for the song “You Don’t Know Me” and many Bob Wills songs.) Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops put it to an orchestral arrangement for a TV special about the Hill Country of Texas, where LBJ spent much of his presidency. It soon became a popular song played by Texas high school orchestras, and it also became the theme song of a show called Texas Country Reporter.
Here’s a nice video featuring the Boston Pops’ version of the Hill Country Theme:
By the way, if anyone is triggered by discussion of LBJ, the part of Texas he comes from has been solid Republican from the Civil War to present, and in the 1960s, his neighbors voted against him!
The 1861 Texas secession vote had a long legacy. 99 years later, in 1960, the Hill Country German counties were still voting Republican - the party of Lincoln - even though a resident of the Hill Country (LBJ) was the VP candidate for the Democrats and JFK. pic.twitter.com/biKxuod7TG
Thirty-six hours after the United States military launched strikes against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, President Donald Trump issued a video update Sunday on Operation Epic Fury from his Mar-a-Lago residence. . . The president characterized Operation Epic Fury as “one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen.” The allied militaries struck “hundreds of targets in Iran, including Revolutionary Guard facilities, Iranian air defense systems,” and “nine ships plus their naval base, all in a matter of literally minutes.”
. . . The president also defended the joint strikes, declaring the U.S. was “undertaking a massive operation, not merely to ensure security for our own time and place, but for our children and their children.” “This is the duty and burden of a free people,” he reflected. “These actions are right, and they are necessary to ensure Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime, armed with nuclear weapons.”
“For almost 50 years, these wicked extremists have been attacking the United States while chanting the slogan ‘Death to America’ or ‘Death to Israel’ or both. They are the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump added. “These intolerable threats will not continue any longer.” (RELATED: ‘I Have Agreed’: Trump Says Iran’s New Leaders Want To Talk') . . “Combat operations continue in full force and will continue until all of our objectives are achieved,” he stated.
Turning to the remaining authorities in Iran, Trump urged “the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian military police, to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death. It will be certain death, it won’t be pretty.”
The president then made another appeal to the Iranian people, urging regime change.
Well, there's the rub my friends. Who will be the new leaders and what kind of government and society will emerge once the dust settles and the rubble of the old regime is cleared away? Over the last few weeks, I have had many links that show the Persian people are absolutely against any kind of return to an Islamic theocracy. Of course, it's the IRGC and security services that will call the shots, literally and figuratively unless they either surrender or are eradicated. I fear the President is correct in that "it won't be pretty."
So far we have at least three American servicemen dead and a number of others reported wounded along with a number of Israeli citizens killed in missile strikes. God bless all of them, and protect those on the front lines and the innocents who are behind the lines.
The political fallout here at home is predictable. The Fifth columnist Democrat Left and their media puppets are with the terrorists in Tehran. Lest we forget it was they who inflicted the Iranian regime on us 47 years ago when Jimmy Carter abandoned the Shah and the Iranian people to their fate and unleashed a half-century of global Islamic terrorism on the world with many Americans murdered and maimed as a result, as Iran sought to acquire nuclear weapons to bring about Armageddon as the precursor to the Shiite Islamic conquest of the world.
We also have the isolationist crowd bleating out that Trump betrayed MAGA by starting a new war. Well, that remains to be seen depending upon how long this goes on and if, God-forbid American boots arrive on the ground in Iran. Special forces/operations notwithstanding, I cannot imagine the 3rd ID, the Marines or the 82nd and/or 101st Airborne coming ashore as it did in the Gulf Wars. That would be madness. So can Air power alone achieve Trump's aims of regime change and Iranian liberation? Well, in his words, we'll just have to wait and see.
The gunman behind Austin’s possible terror-related mass shooting entered the US and cemented his legal immigration status under Democrat administrations — despite a growing criminal record.
Senegalese national Ndiaga Diagne, 53, arrived in America on March 13, 2000, on a B-2 tourist visa during the Clinton administration, a source familiar with his immigration history told The Post on Sunday.
Diagne — who killed two people and wounded 14 more during his rampage outside a Texas bar early Sunday — then became a lawful permanent resident on an IR-6 visa in June 2006 when he married a US citizen, the source said. He had already racked up at least one arrest before that, for illegal vending in June 2001 in New York City, law-enforcement sources said. He then went on to lodge a string of other arrests in the Big Apple between 2008 and 2016 — but that didn’t stop him becoming a naturalized US citizen on April 5, 2013 — around the start of former President Barack Obama’s second term, sources said. Those three arrests are sealed, sources said.
Diagne also was arrested in Texas at some point on undisclosed charges, sources said.
He was a known emotional disturbed person in both states, too, sources said. Diagne then applied for asylum in 2016, though the outcome or stated purpose of that application was not immediately clear.
The serial offender opened fire outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden near the University of Texas-Austin Campus early Sunday, killing two bar patrons and wounding 14 others before he was shot and killed by police.
He was wearing a “Property of Allah” hoodie at the time of the rampage and had a Quran in his car, sources familiar with the investigation told The Post. The FBI is investigating whether he was motivated by the US-Israel-led campaign against Iran — sources said he was wearing an undershirt emblazoned with the Iranian flag or other Iran-related imagery.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
As reported by Breitbart Texas, at least three people have been killed and 14 injured after shots rang out at a popular Sixth Street bar in the Texas capital city of Austin early Sunday morning. According to authorities, the shooter was killed by police officers who responded to the location of the shooting within a minute of the first emergency call. FBI on Austin Mass Shooting: Evidence Indicates ‘Potential Nexus to Terrorism’ — Koran Found in Shooters Car
“Last night, all over Iran, the voices of the Iranian people could be heard cheering and celebrating in the streets when his death was announced,” Trump said in the six-minute recorded address. “The entire military command is gone as well. And many of them want to surrender into saving their lives. They want immunity. They’re calling by the thousands.” ‘The Duty And Burden Of A Free People’: Trump Delivers First Update On Operation Epic Fury
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told The Atlantic in a phone call from Mar-a-Lago. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.” ‘I Have Agreed’: Trump Says Iran’s New Leaders ‘Want To Talk’
Roger Kimball: Forty-seven years after the mullahs seized power, the countdown ended in fire, and Trump wagered that decisive force—not talk—would finally clear the path to Iran’s liberation. Operation Epic Fury and the Fall of the Mullahs
With brilliant intelligence and close U.S. and Israeli cooperation and coordination, Operation Epic Fury is systematically dismantling the terrorist regime of Iran’s ayatollahs. Iran: Scalpel and Hammer
Robert Spencer: Will Iran’s Islamic regime survive? Khamenei is Dead
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that it had killed at least 40 “key” Iranian military commanders, including the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Abdolrahim Mousavi. According to the IDF, the former Major General was eliminated within a minute of the strike on Ayatollah Khamenei’s compound, the Times of Israel reported. Trump Confirms 48 Iranian Leaders Have Been Killed in U.S.-Israeli Strikes
President Trump concluded with another appeal to the Iranian people to rise up against the Islamic regime: “I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military, and the Police to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death. It will be certain death. won’t be pretty. I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we will be there to help.” Trump Says ‘There Will Likely Be More’ U.S. Casualties – ‘That’s The Way It Is.’
The BadeSaba Calendar app, utilizing its extensive reach inside Iran, helps users track daily prayer times and religious observances, the Wall Street Journal reported. It has logged more than 5 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone, giving operators access to a vast domestic audience. Israel Reportedly Co-opted Major Iranian Prayer App To Encourage Millions Of Defections, Resistance
This evening, Jews around the world will celebrate Purim, one of the narrowest escapes and greatest triumphs in biblical history. Around 2,500 years ago, Esther and her uncle Mordecai thwarted Haman’s scheme to convince King Ahasuerus to slaughter all the captive Jews in Persia. The skill with which these heroes staved off destruction has heartened Jews and haunted their enemies ever since. One person who will not join the Purim festivities is the modern Haman, Ali Khamenei. Along with several of his top subordinates, the supreme leader of Iran died Saturday morning in the first minutes of a ferocious Israeli-American onslaught. Like Haman, Khamenei made fundamental strategic mistakes that cost him dearly. Iran’s fate will depend on if his successors learn from his errors. Khamenei, Haman, and a Purim for the Ages
“Imagine if people just listened to the conventional wisdom, that they could have possibly have acquired a bomb if we weren’t bombed back in June. So, yes, there is a threat. It’s not imminent that it could happen right now. But it’s one that I think is entirely appropriate to deal with it,” Fetterman told CNN host Dana Bash. “And that’s why I support it. So, again, people keep— describe that it was a legal war. Now read the War Powers Act. And, now, that has not been violated at this point what happened yesterday.” Sen Fetterman Says Trump’s Iran Strike Was ‘Entirely Appropriate’ Response To Longstanding Threat
Hours later, former Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — previously a staunch Trump ally and MAGA standard-bearer — posted a nearly-700-word reaction to X in which she said the president’s Operation Epic Fury “feels like the worst betrayal.” (says the poster child of betrayal - jjs) ‘Not What We Thought MAGA Was Supposed To Be’: America First Skeptics Blast Iran Strikes
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
The President must deploy regular troops or a federalized national guard to suppress anarchy in the streets when state officials refuse to do so. After Minneapolis: The Constitutional Reckoning
Trump’s housing plan rewards builders and protects buyers; Democrats’ proposal punishes investment, raising costs and blocking Americans from the dream of homeownership. Democrats Want To Derail Trump’s Housing Reform
California’s wealthy boomers are staying put as young families head for the exits, fleeing the anti-growth politics that make the state increasingly unaffordable. The Golden State Is Turning Grey
This means around €100 billion more must be funneled into public coffers via the bond market. But how long can such a process sustain itself like a perpetuum mobile? Will the Bond Market Wreck Europe?
According to research by Vanderbilt University economist Panka Bencsik and Wellesley College Professor Tyler Giles, counties that narrowly elect Republican prosecutors experience a significantly lower death rate among young men. In fact, when a Republican prosecutor narrowly beats a Democrat, the all-cause mortality among men aged 20 to 29 falls by 6.6 percent. . . Study: Voting Republican Saves Lives
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
Fortunately, Dr. Willie Soon has recently released a captivating 12-minute video with Gorilla Science that gives viewers a basic understanding of the Sun’s influence on the climate. Dr. Soon is an Independent Scientist at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences, who specializes in studying solar and stellar activity as it relates to the Earth’s climate. Dr. Willie Soon Reveals the Real Driver of Climate Change in New Video
How America outsourced the materials of modern power—and what it will take to get them back The Rare-Earth Reckoning
Even if her candidacy failed, supporters of Ocasio-Cortez said that she would likely highlight issues they care most about, like universal health care, adding that she could even use it to potentially run for U.S. Senator in New York after Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer retires or even challenge him in a primary. Report: Hard-Left Democrats Push for Titty-Caca Ocasio-Cortez to Run for President in 2028
“All I can say is President Trump finished the job that President Reagan failed to do,” he said. “I’m a big admirer of Ronald Reagan, but I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump, in my opinion, is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy. Maduro, everybody talked about him. Well, Donald Trump has got him in jail. Cuba is next. They are going to fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered.” Graham: ‘Cuba Is Next’
America alone carries the torch of Western civilization, tasked with defending the principles that Europe has long abandoned. Marco Rubio and America Alone
Makary said, “Now, there’s over a thousand chemicals that appear in our food supply that are banned in other countries because we’ve had a regulation…which allows companies to self-declare chemicals as safe without really showing anything.”
“Unlike with other possible filters, on this question we have hard data. . . Star Trek’s creators took a shortcut to bring about this Fermi Paradox-breaking event.. . .Religious humans appear to be the only future available.” Only Religion Can Deliver a ‘Star Trek’ Future
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The leading cause of this mass extinction is everyone's favourite villain, Sam Altman of OpenAI. CPU and motherboard prices haven't moved, but RAM prices have increased 300 to 500%, with video cards as collateral damage, and storage prices are heading into the stratosphere as well.
I suspect the video game market will be forced to adjust to lower average specs for the next few years. Either that or they're going to lose all their remaining customers to indie titles that run fine on ten-year-old hardware.
Hytale recommends a Radeon 400 series, a range that came out in 2016. Silksong recommends a Radeon 380 from 2015, but will run on a Radeon 7750 from 2012. And that means it will run on pretty much any laptop's integrated graphics.
Custom PC builders are going to be hurting for years, though.
The new treatment this time uses a metal-organic framework - iron-based nano-particles - to trigger oxidative stress within the tumour cells while leaving healthy tissue untouched.
The Legion Tab 5 is slightly better and a whole lot more expensive that the Legion Tab 3 I have. Display resolution is up from the already excellent (for an 8.8" tablet) to 3040x1904, and the CPU has been upgraded from an already fast Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
The microSD card slot on earlier models has not returned, nor has the headphone jack. And the MSRP is two and a half times what I paid for mine, making it an easy upgrade to skip.
Because web pages running on your browser are free to access websocket services running on your local PC, which is something OpenClaw does. OpenClaw is password protected but not rate-limited on its local ports, so code running in your browser can simply keep guessing.
I won't judge OpenClaw harshly on this one. Too few developers understand that this is even possible, let alone take any measures to guard against it.
I said I was done buying new computer bits. I lied.
As I mention on my own blog yesterday, I was wandering around the web looking for specs for something - I've since forgotten what I was looking for - when I noticed that an Aussie online store was selling 4TB SSDs at the 2TB price.
I was very good. I wanted to buy eight. I bought two. About $290 each including tax and shipping, which is a damn good price for a PCIe 4.0 TLC drive right now.
Musical Interlude
Didn't have anything on my list for today, so here's the opening song for last year's stand-out anime series, Ruri Rocks. It's the story of Ruri, and rocks.
Yes, the older girl does carry a medieval war hammer on her back. Gotta carry protection against bears and sudden outcroppings of feldspar.
Bonus: Full-length music video by the vocalist:
Unrelated: A new trailer for Witch Hat Atelier just popped up.
Despite its looks, this one is not all sweetness and light. The manga is excellent, though, and I have high hopes for the anime.
“How did Iran get so close to a nuclear weapon? Let's follow the money
Hillary Clinton becomes Barack Obama's Secretary of State in 2009. During her tenure from 09-13, there were 4 companies that donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation.
Those companies are Boeing, Airbus Total and Siemens. Their donation amounts total up to $25 million, but no less than $5 million. There's not exact numbers. Perhaps. They were hoping to influence Obama and Hillary as they were negotiating with Iran trying to get the nuclear deal signed, which they eventually did In 2015.
On July 14th, 2015, the JCPOA was signed lifting sanctions off of Iran and unfreezing 50 to $150 billion in cash assets.
And then between January 17th and February 5th, 2016, Obama sent $1.7 billion in untraceable cash to Iran.
This money presented an untraceable foreign currency was said to be a settlement for a 1979 arms deal with Iran. That was $400 million, but with $1.3 billion in interest, at least that's what the Obama administration said. It was later on that February, the Obama administration tried to secretly grant Iran access to U.S treasury payment system, which would have netted them $5.7 billion in currency conversion if it hadn't failed. (The banks were like, what the f*ck is this? Hell no.)
Later on that year, in April of 2016, the Obama administration dropped charges to several Iranian arms dealers so they wouldn't derail the JCPOA.
This really pissed off Obama's Department of Justice, but Obama had to maintain his legacy. And then between March and December of 2016 is when Airbus got an $18 billion contract because of the lifted sanctions in Iran. Boeing got a $16.6 billion contract total, got a $4.8 billion contract, and Siemens got a $1 billion contract with Iran, or I should say Iranian regime controlled companies.
But then in November, the unthinkable happens and Hillary Clinton loses the 2016 election to Donald Trump, and suddenly these 4 companies no longer donate to the Clinton Foundation ever again.
Click the link to read the whole thing / watch a video segment from the author
A Colorado man was given a heartwarming surprise last week, after his granddaughter reached out to strangers who provided one last look at his favorite thing—a classic car show.
“I just wanted to do something special for him,” his granddaughter, Annaliesse Garcia, told KDVR News.
And ‘special’ it was, as dozens of car owners paraded past their grandfather’s home in Lakewood.
After posting the request on social media, the family only expected a handful of autos, but around 50 showed off their curvy bumpers and round mirrors for 80-year-old Max Archuleta, a lifelong fan of vintage vehicles.
Since being diagnosed with terminal cancer, he no longer has the energy to attend his beloved car shows.
It's that time of the week - when we turn the ONT over to our good friend Piper for a bit. Here's this week's fashion pr0n.
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Reviving Timeless Threads: Persian Women's Fashion Through the Ages
From the grandeur of ancient empires to the vibrant styles of the mid-20th century, Persian women's attire has reflected strength, artistry, and adaptation. As the Persians fight for their very existence, we pay tribute to this enduring spirit.
Achaemenid Elegance: Foundations of Feminine Grace (550–330 BCE)
The Achaemenid Empire set the stage for Persian fashion, blending functionality with opulence across a vast realm. Women's clothing, though less frequently depicted than men's in artifacts like Persepolis reliefs, emphasized layered modesty and luxury.
High-status women wore ankle-length robes with intricate pleats and folds, often belted at the waist to create a flowing silhouette. These were crafted from fine linen, wool, or imported silk, dyed in rich purples, reds, and golds—colors symbolizing royalty and derived from natural sources like madder root or saffron. A veil or shawl draped over the shoulders added elegance, sometimes secured with jeweled brooches. Headwear included turreted crowns or diadems adorned with gems, framing bobbed or braided hair. Jewelry was abundant: gold necklaces, earrings, and armlets highlighted status, while soft leather shoes completed the ensemble.
This attire wasn't just practical for Persia's diverse climates; it embodied empowerment, as women in the empire held property rights and influenced court life.
Parthian Practicality: Mobility and Multicultural Flair (247 BCE–224 CE)
Under the Parthians, nomadic influences merged with Persian traditions, creating versatile clothing suited for an equestrian lifestyle. Women's fashion evolved to prioritize movement while retaining decorative elements.
Typical outfits featured long-sleeved tunics or dresses, layered over trousers for horseback riding—a groundbreaking adaptation that spread across Asia. Fabrics like wool and silk were embroidered with geometric patterns or floral motifs, influenced by Silk Road trade. Belts cinched the waist, often embellished with gold or silver buckles. Veils were common, pinned with ornate clasps, and tiaras or serrated headscarves added height and drama. Colors ranged from earthy tones to vibrant blues and greens, with jewelry like rectangular earrings and necklaces enhancing the look.
Parthian women, depicted in sculptures and textiles, embodied a blend of warrior spirit and grace, foreshadowing modern activewear's focus on comfort and style.
Sasanian Splendor: Peak of Pre-Islamic Luxury (224–651 CE)
The Sasanian era amplified Achaemenid grandeur, with women's clothing reaching new heights of sophistication before the Arab conquest. Noble women donned flowing gowns with wide sleeves and neck openings, made from brocaded silk or cotton embroidered with gold threads and mythical motifs like simurgh birds. These were belted and layered, sometimes with an outer cloak for formality. Headgear evolved to include tall, tasseled headdresses or veils fastened with pearl strands, complementing elaborate braids adorned with metallic ornaments. Footwear ranged from laced boots to pointed slippers, often in leather or fabric.
This opulent style, seen in rock carvings and silverware, highlighted women's roles in rituals and society, influencing later Islamic fashions while preserving Zoroastrian motifs.
Pre-1979 Vibes: A Fusion of Freedom and Flair
Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian women's fashion mirrored a period of modernization under the Pahlavi dynasty, blending Western trends with local elements.
Urban women embraced miniskirts, bell-bottom jeans, short-sleeved blouses, and colorful dresses, often paired with big hair and bold makeup. Bikinis at beaches and swimsuits were common, reflecting a liberal era. In rural areas, traditional chadors or regional dresses persisted, but overall, fashion symbolized progress, with influences from global pop culture.
This era's diversity, captured in vintage photos, evokes nostalgia for a time of personal choice, contrasting with post-revolution mandates.
In 2026, Iran's mandatory dress code for women, established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, remained in effect under the Islamic Penal Code and the "Hijab and Chastity" law. Women and girls over the age of 9 are legally required to cover their hair with a hijab (headscarf) in public spaces, and their clothing must be modest, covering the arms, legs, and body shape to adhere to Islamic principles. Violations resulted in fines, arrests, flogging, or imprisonment, though enforcement varies by region—stricter in rural areas or during crackdowns, and more relaxed in urban centers like Tehran where defiance is common.
Prayers to Weave the Past into the Present
Persian women's fashion, from ancient empires to pre-1979 streets, tells a story of innovation and identity. This legacy reminds us of Persia's unbreakable cultural weave, elegant and inspiring. May they soon be able to remove their head coverings with impunity.
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Thanks, Piper!
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DJ Doof - Born on This Date Edition
from thisdayinmusic.com
1944
Mike D'Abo, singer, songwriter, who with Manfred Mann had the 1968 UK No.1 & US No.10 single 'Mighty Quinn'. He wrote 'Handbags & Gladrags' covered by Rod Stewart and Stereophonics. Also wrote 'Build Me Up A Buttercup' a 1968 hit for The Foundations.
1944 - English singer and actor Roger Daltrey, The Who.
1904 - American big-band musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader Glenn Miller. He was the best-selling recording artist from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best-known big bands.
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Weekly commenter stats for week of 2-22-2026
AoSHQ Commenter Statistics:
Number of posts: 99
Number of comments: 26455
Number of unique hashes: 1878
Top 10 commenters:
1 [608 comments] 'Boss Moss' [86.33 posts/day]
2 [480 comments] 'whig'
3 [445 comments] 'runner'
4 [332 comments] ' Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _'
5 [324 comments] 'TheJamesMadison, discovering British horror with Hammer Films'
6 [297 comments] '...'
7 [292 comments] 'Bulg'
8 [289 comments] '18-1'
9 [288 comments] ''
10 [279 comments] 'Quarter Twenty '
Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [198 names] 'Pedal Pusher' [28.11 unique names/day]
2 [188 names] 'Quarter Twenty '
3 [119 names] 'Democrats - unchanged for 175 years'
4 [67 names] 'Miklos' bucket list is pretty weak these days'
5 [47 names] 'Intercepted Reddit Transmissions brought by the Intrepid AoS Liaison'
6 [43 names] 'Duncanthrax'
7 [42 names] 'fd'
8 [37 names] 'Count de Monet'
9 [36 names] 'Moron Analyst'
10 [34 names] 'pookysgirl has a few things to say too'
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by unfortunate font choices
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Doof Enterprises, LLC hopes you have enjoyed tonight's ONT. If you didn't, perhaps your expectations were a bit lofty.
Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me.
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving hell did it get to be the First March Edition? I told 'you people' March was coming, didn't I? Hmmm? Well here it is, and we have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five Sundays this month!! I am exhausted just thinking about it!
Current Events: I generally like to take a break from current events in the comments but I think the situation in Iran, and to a greater degree the implications here at home, warrant an exception. If you would like to discuss what is going on I'm OK with it, particularly with respect to the potential for acts of domestic terrorism and the various threat scenarios, and general self-defense preparedness and best practices. Having said that, please think before you post. Thanks.
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
I'm curious, do you have a range membership or do you pay as you go? If you have a membership, assuming it allows unlimited visits, do you feel like you go often enough to make the membership a good value? Are there factors other than cost/use that make membership attractive? Are there any new shooters out there lurking and trying to decide whether to get started in recreational shooting?
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Rifle Action Blueprinting
Is this the next step for you?
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Got Guns?
Might be a good idea to think about your response before the question is axed on the side of the road. [h/t CBD]
Would you handle the same situation differently? If so, how so?
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Our Pal The Atomic Clock
Not just any clock, the Atomic Clock.
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NASA and Uranus!
Not just any anus, Uranus!
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Highway Patrol!
Not just any insurance, Phony Insurance!
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The Flame Barrier!!
Not just any barrier, the flame barrier!
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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.
A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid
Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!
Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Seasoning steel pans is an exercise in frustration and failure, unlike the same process with cast-iron. I am not a metallurgist, So I can only guess at the difference in the surface's ability to absorb oil and then hold onto it in its polymer state. But I do know one thing...that expensive carbon-steel pan is a huge pain in the ass to season, and the seasoning is as fickle and transitory as a puff of smoke in a windstorm.
Big Pan is as evil a cabal as any on earth; their teasing bromides about the superiority of their products should be outlawed, and their executives banished to a world of stuck-on eggs and burned steaks.
Laboratory-grown "meat" is a misnomer. Meat is the flesh of animals. And in the United States of America, those animals are mostly cattle, pigs, chickens and sheep. Coincidentally, we have a huge industry that has evolved around the market-driven demand for...meat! It is amazingly efficient, and while there are obvious environmental issues, for the most part we manage the waste effectively, while supplying inexpensive and reasonable-quality products to every American.
Chicken and pork can be had for less than $2/lb. Beef is suffering a (hopefully) temporary blip in price, but it is still far less expensive than in most other countries. America has a successful market-driven system to provide meat to consumers, and the idea that artificial "meat" will be even modestly successful is a real head-scratcher.
And the market agrees!
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David Liebovitz is pretty damned irritating, but he knows how to write, and he knows how to bake, so I will cut him a bit of slack. Well, also because sticky buns are one of my few sweet baked goods weaknesses, and in particular the pecan version. Hell, Maple Pecan Sticky Buns even has maple syrup!
I have a few pecans left from a gift of some delicious ones, so I think I will use them in this recipe...
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This is oddly pleasing, although it veers into weirdness towards the end. Which I guess is why Weasel sent it to me!
[Hat Tip: Weasel]
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RFK Jr. is having a profound effect on American food producers. This is a fascinating and overdue change in the way our foods are made, and while I am not in the hysterical, "Food Dyes Will Kill Us All" camp, I would prefer that my food have as few ingredients as possible, particularly when some of those ingredients are artificial dyes that provide no sustenance.
I'll bet the left is torn about this one though. They hate anything that isn't natural and holistic and organic and free-range and blah...blah...blah, but it is being driven by RFK Jr and Donald Trump!
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This is a profoundly disturbing recipe. French Toast is an abomination when made as a sickly-sweet ersatz dessert, but is quite delicious when made correctly as a savory breakfast dish.
Croque Monsieur is an equally delicious dish that is nothing more than a tarted up grilled-cheese sandwich.
But blend the two together and you get something alien to all that is good and tasty and fine.
What is Alton Brown thinking here? French Toast Croque Monsieur sounds like a horror show! Gruyere, ham, and....syrup?
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I didn't feel like cooking tonight,
so I made a sandwich for dinner
It wasn't so much as a sandwich as much as it was just bread.
I guess more just grain.
Fermented grain.
Distilled, fermented grain.
I had whisky for dinner tonight.
Yes, it is old, but it amuses me!
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I am a month or so from removing the mulch and insulation around my garlic pot and letting it run free in the wind and the sun! Hopefully it isn't dead and will grow some marvelous heirloom garlic which I will use to great effect in Spaghetti Aglio Olio!
In case it doesn't, send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
That's one of my favorite lowball glasses, and because I am a big fan of Old Fashioneds, it gets heavy use.
Alas, it suffered a chip, and while it wasn't particularly expensive, it is a nice solid, heavy glass that adds to the enjoyment of my cocktails! So I wasn't about to toss the thing. Remember, I am a cheap bastard!
So...what to do?
Some 600 grit sandpaper, a thin punch, and a very long time carefully sanding smooth the jagged edge, and all's right in the world!
After 47 Years Of Asymmetric War, We Finally Have A President Who Understands
—CBD
The Islamic Republic Of Iran was founded after a revolution overthrew its monarch. That revolution was aided and abetted by a cabal of western countries, including France and America (thank you Jimmy Carter!), and various leftist political groups that found Iran's embrace of the West and Israel to be unacceptable.
Soon after the Shah left Iran and his replacement failed to consolidate power, the Mullahs rushed in. They had been fomenting revolution for years, and the most fanatical of them, Ayatollah Khomeini, seized power and promptly imprisoned or murdered his political opponents, in particular the starry-eyed leftists who saw Iran becoming some sort of progressive Nirvana.
They were wrong, and instead Iran became the epicenter of Islamic terror, with its tentacles spread across the world. They also created proxies within other countries to facilitate their expansionist goals in the region. Much of the Islamic terror that spread through the West could be traced to active or tacit support from Iran and its theocratic dictators. They also created a comprehensive surveillance state within Iran, and ferociously enforced their version of Shia Islam. Other religions withered, women were cast back into the 7th century, murder, torture, and rape became a tool of the government, and it was all supported by the insatiable thirst for Iranian oil, coupled with the typical leftist support of anything that degrades traditional Western culture.
Iran's targets were Israel first and foremost, and America. Little Satan and Big Satan, and they didn't pretend anything different. For 46 years the goal of the dictators of Iran was the destruction of Israel, the destruction of America, and a global conflagration that would usher in the end times that would return their 12th Imam, a tenet of Shia Islam.
It was war against Israel, America, and the West, but the flaccid thinkers and accommodationists who passed for western political elites wouldn't, or couldn't understand that there was no accommodation to be made with a theocratic dictatorship whose goals were clear. So they mostly ignored the war, accepted the casualties, and hoped that kicking the can down the road would eventually moderate the savagery of the Iranian government.
They too were wrong, and Israel's behind-the-scenes work to degrade the Iranian nuclear program was the only thing that kept the West from a third World War, this time with nuclear weapons.
The strongest argument that President Donald Trump’s political opponents can muster to decry his decision to order American forces to join with Israel to act against Iran is that he is launching a “war of choice,” rather than seeking to avert an imminent threat to American interests or security. Even his sternest critics, such as the editorial page of The New York Times, acknowledged that the government of Iran is not merely a brutal oppressor and a constant threat to the rest of the Middle East as well as to the West, but also combines a “murderous ideology with nuclear ambitions.”
Every U.S. president for the last quarter-century has asserted that America will never let Iran get a nuclear weapon and was prepared to use force to prevent that from happening. But only Trump seems to have fully grasped the stark nature of the threat that Tehran poses to the United States—and the world.
The goal...perhaps the only goal...of the Iranian theocracy was the production of nuclear weapons to be used against Israel, America, and probably Europe. Any other interpretation of their actions is arrant nonsense or willful ignorance. The Iranian dictators were excellent practitioners of the Muslim penchant for lying and misdirection, or "taqiyya." And the world was content to be fooled!
But not President Donald Trump. In fact, his own brand of American taqiyya seemed to work rather well on Iran, whose leadership was surprised by the attacks of February 28th. The Iranians assumed that their own obfuscation would buy them time, and that their own attacks on American installations, Israel, and a few other Arab nations in the region would be on their timetable.
Whoops!
Israel's decapitation of the leadership, combined with a massive degradation of Iran's military infrastructure that only America could achieve, has created the opportunity for another revolution in Iran...one that will hopefully usher in a government that will consider the welfare of the Iranian people to be paramount.
If the American and Israeli attacks continue, and if the dictatorship's power base is damaged enough be attacked from within Iran by whatever coalition is being cobbled together, and if that coalition can create a functioning government, and if its neighbors do not begin to meddle, then the Iranian people have a chance to become what they once were, a vibrant, energetic, successful culture!
There are a lot of "ifs" in that paragraph, and there are no guarantees, even with the staunch support of America and its clear-eyed president! But it is difficult to imagine an outcome that is any worse than the current state of affairs.
But the established world order has come to an end. Iran will not be the dominant player in the Middle East, and will find it increasingly difficult to continue its evil ways around the world, even if by some malign turn of events the theocracy survives.
And...hopefully...President Trump is parsimonious with American treasure, and does not commit to a rebuilding of Iran at the expense of the American taxpayer. It is the Iranian people who should do the work!
Good morning, ‘rons and ‘ronettes. It’s time once again for the monthly MP4-hosted Sunday Book Thread. Dress is country club casual, but ladies are encouraged to indulge in shoes, such as this:
So ask the barman for an Old Fashioned, covfefe or tea and let’s get started!
That’s today’s topic. But I don’t mean ‘sick’ as in bibliomaniacs like Richard Heber or Thomas Phillips, who both bought books compulsively and monomaniacally, so that at their deaths, each man had literal houses full of books which neither they, nor anyone else, had ever read. Nor do I mean people like one collector – and I can’t find the reference just now – who would buy a book and then proceed to buy up every other copy he could find, in order to destroy them and have in his possession the last copy in the world.
What I mean by ‘book sick’ is a version of the quandary Linus found himself in the 1965 Peanuts cartoon above. In my case, it’s the frequent annoyance that I want to read something, and yet I am sick of every book in my library and don’t want to touch any of them. An added irritation is the presence of books on my shelves that I have had for years and never touched: just now I am looking at The Norman Conquest and Beyond, from 1983. I have owned it for more than 20 years, and yet have never opened it except once, just to see if I wanted to buy it.
So then, book sick, I go out and buy yet more books that I’ll either never read or will go through a chapter or two and put aside. But get rid of them? No, because I might – might! – one day want to read one.
Before you ask, yes, the author of the article does know that the power delivered by a battery is only half the data. It's designed to deliver 300MW for 100 hours, which makes it possibly the largest single installation in the world.
Also it's an iron-air battery which I didn't know they had working at scale. It produces energy by rusting iron, and recharges by unrusting it. It's heavy, less efficient that common lithium batteries, and requires a source of water and air to keep the cycle going. And I'm not sure if they've ironed (sorry) out the durability issues.
But air and water aren't hard to find in most places a datacenter might be build, and importantly it's cheap.
The idea being that if you have an area that's dark and you need it to be less dark, a constellation of 50,000 orbital satellites will make daylight a phone call away. The mirrors will be orbiting 400 miles up so the light that reaches the ground will be very spread out and not remotely as bright as full daylight, but even moonlight-on-demand could be worthwhile.
The article is by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, so it's overly verbose and spends most of those words whining.
The maintainer cites rising costs - around $6000 per month - thanks in part to AI, and also people abusing the service and creating paywalled sites that take money for the service he provides for free.
The photo was of a Ledger crypto storage device seized in a raid, an item normally secure enough and perfectly safe to photograph and publicise.
But right next to the device was a handwritten note containing a mnemonic for the wallet address and private key. These are commonly used with various blockchains and machine-readable, so it didn't take long for someone to empty the wallet out, even while it was sitting in the tax agency's vault.
AMD still doesn't support its latest FSR4 upscaling technology on RDNA on older RDNA2 and RDNA3 graphics cards - like my Radeon 7800 XT - even though we know it works because they accidentally published the source code for the drivers that make it work.
It's a bit of fiddling around so you might be better off just buying an Nvidia graphics card, or even an RDNA4 card like the 9070 XT, but it does work.
Not Pro, not Air, just a cheap-for-Apple base model.
The question is, what are they going to cut to hit the target price? The article discusses configurations with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of SSD, and possibly a low-quality screen, all of which sound awful.
Seems an odd pairing with the Ryzen 395 CPU (16 CPU cores and 40 graphics cores) and 128GB of RAM - and the anticipated €4000 price. Particularly when my current laptop cost a sixth of that and has a high-resolution 14" OLED panel running at 120Hz.
And the answer is that my laptop has a 14" screen, and the Asus has a 13" screen, and nobody makes high-resolution 13" OLED panels that run faster than 60Hz, while at 14" and above they've become common even on modestly-priced systems. And professional artists, the target audience of the ProArt range, don't need high refresh rates so much as colour fidelity, which that panel delivers.
Saturday Night Club ONT - February 28, 2026 [2 D's]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. We've spiffied the place up a bit tonight. Hope you notice. The carpets have been cleaned. Starlight mints are now available at the bar. Fresh cakes in the urinals. Lavender and vanilla scented plug-ins in the ladies room. Coat check area has been sprayed with that stuff they use for bowling shoe rentals. Come on in!
This is an open thread, so report, speculate, and pontificate as desired. Current events continue to develop. Just don't be a jerk or a troll. Club ONT security will remove offenders.
[Top photo: Cataract Falls, Tennessee (ten minutes from Gatlinburg)]
An old man is walking along a river with a bucket of fish, when a game warden stops him and asks, "Do you have a license to catch those fish?"
The old man says, "No sir, I don't. These are my pet fish."
"Pet fish?!" the warden replies, skeptical. "How is that?"
The man explains, "Well, these are my pet fish. I take them down to the water and let them swim for about half an hour. Then I whistle, they jump back into my bucket, and we go home."
The game warden, not believing a word, says, "That's a bunch of nonsense. Fish can't do that. I'm going to ticket you."
The old man says, "Fine, I'll show you." He dumps the fish into the river and waits.
Five minutes go by, and the warden says, "Well, are you going to call them back?"
The old man looks at the warden and asks, "Call who back?"
"The fish!" the warden yells.
The old man asks, "What fish?"
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A police officer pulls a guy over for speeding and has the following exchange...
Officer: "May I see your driver's license?"
Driver: "I don't have one. It was revoked when I got my 5th DWI."
Officer: "May I see the registration for this vehicle?"
Driver: "It's not my car. I stole it."
Officer: "The car is stolen?!"
Driver: "That's right. But come to think of it, I think I saw the registration in the glove box when I was putting my gun in there."
Officer: "There's a gun in the glove box?"
Driver: "Yes sir. That's where I put it after I shot and killed the woman who owns this car and stuffed her in the trunk."
Officer: "There's a BODY in the TRUNK?!?!?!"
Driver: "Yes, sir."
Hearing this, the officer immediately called his Captain. The car was quickly surrounded by police, and the Captain approached the driver to handle the tense situation:
Captain: "Sir, can I see your license?"
Driver: "Sure. Here it is." It was valid.
Captain: "Whose car is this?"
Driver: "It's mine, officer. Here's the registration." The driver owned the car.
Captain: "Could you slowly open your glove box so I can see if there's a gun in it?"
Driver: "Yes, sir, but there's no gun in it." Sure enough, there was nothing in the glove box.
Captain: "Would you mind opening your trunk? I was told you said there's a body in it."
Driver: "No problem." Trunk is opened. No body.
Captain: "I don't understand it. The officer who stopped you said you told him you didn't have a license, stole the car, had a gun in the glovebox, and that there was a dead body in the trunk."
Driver: "Yeah, I'll bet the lying son of a bitch told you I was speeding, too!"
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Open that Bottle Night
In lieu of the drink of the night, Club ONT joins with oenophiles around the world in celebration of Open that Bottle Night. The last Saturday of each February has been so designated every year since 1999. It was begun by the then-Wall Street Journal Wine Columnists John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter. It is a call to open that special bottle with friends and share the experience, instead of letting it continue to sit in the cellar.
What are you saving for a special occasion (and why are you waiting)?
Has anyone given you a special bottle that comes with a great story?
Do you have an agreement among a group to share a special bottle upon a milestone?
Club ONT patrons are not limited to wine. Any other spirit or beverage qualifies.
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Too soon?
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Club ONT Official Records of State
Random trivia: Did you know what 32 states have an official beverage? The first was Ohio in 1965 that went with tomato juice. 20 of the 32 states with official beverages have designated milk as their official beverage.
You may be asking: "what about DC?" In 2011, the District of Colombia designated a drink called "Rickey" as its official beverage. What is "Rickey?" Per Wikipedia:
The rickey is a highball made from gin or bourbon, lime juice, and carbonated water. Little or no sugar is added to the rickey. It was created with bourbon in Washington, D.C., at Shoomaker's bar by bartender George A. Williamson in the 1880s, purportedly in collaboration with Democratic lobbyist Colonel Joe Rickey. Its popularity increased when made with gin a decade later.
Shocking that a drink in DC is named after a Democratic lobbyist.
*****
Club ONT Department of Astronomy
Did you watch the planetary parade this evening?
The best time is/was about 30 minutes after local sunset.
Look from low in the west (Mercury/Venus/Saturn) to high in the east (Jupiter). Visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter visible to the naked eye. Binoculars or a telescope are needed to see Uranus and Neptune.
It remains to be seen whether the alignment signals the imminent appearance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
*****
Club ONT Department of Modern Combat Entertainment
Who says Club ONT doesn't provide great entertainment?
*****
The Club ONT Jukebox
*****
Top 10ish Comments of the Week
*****
Club ONT brought to you by:
Young members of the cartel
*****
Tonight's food offerings are proudly presented by our friends at Jimmy's Seafood. Should anything not be to your liking - well, you know what you can do!
Saturday Evening Movie Post [moviegique]: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
—Open Blogger
Shockingly, I think I've only seen one other movie this 21-day-stretch, the 1945 classic "Brief Encounter," which is semi-relevant. But rather than talk about that masterpiece, I thought I'd give you a review of a new movie that doesn't suck--an increasingly rare breed.
-- I was talking to a friend (who's been on a David Lean kick) about this movie, and she sighed and said "I hate...today."
This isn't so much a reflection on the quality of Gore Verbinski's latest joint Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die so much as its character, and more the character of our times. She had watched Brief Encounter, which is intensely human, personal and moral, and it's a big, jarring jump to a black comedy about the death of humanity, school shootings, and the rise of "fake reality".
I like Verbinski. Early in his career, it seemed to me that he made a lot out of some thin material: Mousehunt is basically a cartoon about two guys versus a mouse, and is far more entertaining than it should be; The Ring I liked better than the Japanese original; and of course Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the BlackPearl—based on the smash hit amusement park ride?—was a remarkable achievement blending old Hollywood swashbuckler tropes with CGI technology.
It's probably his best film and very possibly his ruination, as the first two sequels dominated his output in the '00s with predictably deteriorating returns artistically (if not financially). He had a hit with his quirky CGI Rango—which grossed a little bit less than his flop, The Lone Ranger, showing how weird the movie biz can be sometimes.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die looks to be a flop, too, looking like it may not break $5M in its opening weekend.
As I sat there enjoying this film, I also couldn't believe that it had gotten made, as it's a dark comedy—extremely dark—and has not-at-all subtle message the world would prefer to ignore: Devices and social media are robbing us of our humanity. We are being manipulated by various forces into this, and we are also culpable in our own ultimate destruction.
It's a fun movie.
It's also, I hesitate to say, a thought-provoking one, and on a lot of levels.
Let's talk about the fun, first. I'm not going to reveal much about the plot because the first two-thirds of the film is tight, and the way the script by Matthew Robinson (The Invention Of Lying, Bird Box) turns various elements from gag/commentary into genuine plot points is very enjoyable. The characters' backstory is told in flashbacks, and the first one seems so over-the-top and so social-commentary, until you get to the second flashback, which really gives grounding to the first one.
I don't know, guys, it's like someone actually cared about the writing instead of just "Well, it looks cool." (It does look cool, though.)
The movie opens with Sam Rockwell materializing at Norms , a Los Angeles institution, terrorizing the patrons by looking and sounding like a maniac. He's from the future and trying to gather a team to—well, not stop the AI being created a mile or so away by a 9-year-old boy, but to deliver safety protocols invented by top scientists in the future.
Experts agree: The Apocalypse can be more rewarding when shared with friends or last minute acquaintances.
The opening shot is reminiscent of Strangers on a Train, which I mention because I just saw that picture again last month. We start with a long tracking shot done entirely at waist level, and zoom through the diner in such a way as to see all the dishes being served—and that everyone is on their phone. (I went to an In 'n' Out last week, and was somewhat startled to see twenty people in about four parties all staring at their phones. In fairness, half of these were guys at the end of their lunch break waiting for someone to come back from the bathroom, but it was still startling.)
Anyway, Sam Rockwell goosesteps over the tables, smashing everyone's food and phones, delivering the insane exposition which sets up a two-plus hour chase (with expository flashbacks) as Rockwell (whose character has no name) describes the various ways in which culture goes to hell, ever so gradually over the decades until things just fall apart.
A lot of uncomfortable truths here, but that's relatively mild.
His team includes of a couple of teachers with romantic issues (Zazie Beets, Joker and Michael Pena, End Of Watch), a possibly crazy mom (Juno Temple, Killer Joe), a legally-distinct-non-Disney party princess (Haley Lu Richardson) with a death wish, as well as a woman who just wanted pie and a man who goes along but isn't convinced by Rockwell's story.
Also starring some extras from "Toy Story" and the "Bad Robot" logo.
Oh, I just realized, this has two of my favorite tropes: taking place all in one night and taking place in a limited area of Los Angeles (see Miracle Mile, which this movie reminds me of greatly, down to starting in an iconic Los Angeles coffee shop).
Anyway, the team has many adventures, and we see Rockwell's character's backstory, which shows us a grim future where the world is a wasteland because everyone's much much "happier" in a virtual reality than the real world.
This is the through-theme, the punchline and the big idea, and it's pitched directly: I will create a perfect world for humanity, says AI, which is much better than the so-called real one, with all its suffering and loss.
Well, look, Hollywood's pretty much all-in on this rather Satanic notion so, yeah, I'm surprised the movie got made at all. And the general public is just champing at the bit to live in a virtual cage, so, no, I'm not surprised it's a flop. It's also not particularly politically correct. The two main female leads are basket cases. The story brutally mocks school shootings and the monetization of grief.
Rockwell runs around muttering, "Mindfuck. It's all mindfucks."
And...yeah. At one point early on I saw "The Cake Is A Lie" scrawled on the wall. This is a line from the video game "Portal". There's also an (out of focus) poster of "Portal" on a kid's bedroom wall.
Unfortunately, I don't know "Portal" much, but the Boy explained to me a little bit about the plot of "Portal" and "Portal 2" and...look, I've already forgotten how they relate, if at all, to the movie.
It's a message movie. The message? "We're doomed. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun!"
I wrote a story in the '80s which was sort of like The Matrix, except not cool, and the main premise was not that humanity had been enslaved by robots, but that humanity had opted for virtual reality to the point that real reality was entirely maintained by (perfectly well-mannered and solicitous) robots. I thought about it a lot watching this and thinking, "Yes, this does seems to be the more likely path than robot overlords." (I have not completely ruled out robot overlords, however.)
I only bring this up because, in the end, it was not clear to either of us what was real and what was not. There are a number of clues dropped in a number of places suggesting a number of things. The fact that this was a well-made film made these issues interesting to discuss (and the Boy and I did, extensively) rather than annoying. It's a movie you can go see and debate endlessly.
The music by Geoff Zanelli is on point. During a very Carpenter-esque sequence in a school, I wondered for a moment if they'd brought John Carpenter in to score it. The cinematography by James Whitaker similarly pleased me with the attention to detail and use of actual interesting camerawork instead of just relying on bombast and camera-clichés. People cared, and it shows all the way through.
I said to the Boy, "Hey, a Hollywood movie we liked. Probably the first since Mission Impossible 8." He responded with, "Hollywood made this?"
So that's where we are. And while we enjoyed it and enjoyed discussing it afterwards, I can still relate to the whole concept of "I hate...today."
POV: You're in an ensemble picture. I mean, you WERE in an ensemble picture.
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. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin and it landed on woodworking on a lathe.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. I understand that some people pay attention to military hardware, tactics and strategy as a hobby. Discussion of current events permitted but must be made in the form of hobby commentary. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
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The Grateful generously arranged for delivery of a new mini-lathe to our house to recognize a recent birthday. Hooray! Apparently I made a comment on a Hobby Thread at some point that expressed interest in a wood lathe. The idea is small scale tinkering (for now).
Anyway, by complete coincidence, the Hobby Thread is being repurposed for wisdom and recommendations relating to turning wood. Are you wise in the ways of the wood lathe? What do you make?
Suggestions for set-ups? Build or buy a bench to give it a stable base? Ideas to manage the resulting dust and debris?
Suggestions for other necessary tools, like calipers, gouges and clamps? (No need to suggest eyewear and sandpaper.)
Suggestions for types of wood to use for practice and for real?
Suggestions for beginner projects? Seems like candle holders and small bowls are the usual ideas.
Other advice, guidance or wisdom?
What is not intuitive, but important?
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Setting up your first woodworking lathe:
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Your first go on a wood lathe:
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Making snowmen:
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What tool should I use?
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Fun making spinning tops.
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This is not a mini-lathe, but features making wood bowls on a lathe. The name of the guy's channel - Jim Made it from Junk - earned it a place here.
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Simple, but clever:
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Making a Christmas ornament - inside out!
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an gold panning theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
Nick Sortor
@nicksortor
NOW: The crowd goes TOTALLY SILENT when Biden tells them HE closed the border -- not Trump
Even a crowd full of DEMOCRATS know that's a total lie
Maybe having a dementia patient out there attempting to rewrite history ain't the brightest idea, @DNC
Nancy Mace to force a House vote of sexual misconduct report and harassment by congress members and staff. The wood chipper is no respecter of persons. Do it.
Posted by: kingsman
Podcast: Sefton and CBD Talk SOTU and the Dem's vile behavior, Donald Trump's love of country, Iran is coming to a head, is Mexico intractable, Mamdani's NYC is circling the drain, and more!
Forgotten Early 80s Schmatlz Mystery Click Honey, I was your hero
And you were my leading lady
We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Ooof, it's worse than I remembered.
China Is Not Our Fren: Chinese government posts AI generated content featuring attacking and killing American soldiers. Pay attention to the ridiculous AI banter of the US soldiers. [dri]
Podcast: Sefton and CBD discuss AOC's brilliant entrance into geopolitical policy, Jesse Jackson's demise, Transsexual Psycho Killers, is NYC about to get taxed even more? Olympic athletes who bite the hand that fed them, and more!
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton ramble about CO2, how Epstein's mess has crossed the Atlantic, the future dismal prospects for the UK, CA tax lunacy, To The Moon Elon!, the NFL, and more!
