Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-22-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (ht: Anonosaurus Wrecks). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(library card not included)
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, start prepping those Super Bowl snacks, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
NOTE: Kudos to Sabrina Chase for her excellent debut last week! It's always great to get the perspective of someone who has experience in the industry. My only qualification for this gig is that I'm a semi-literate tree rat who prefers to read books instead of shredding them to line my nest.
Libraries often show up in video games. In this case, we have a screenshot from Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), my favorite Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG). This is the Old Took's library, deep in the Great Smials, the ancestral home of Peregrin Took. Adelard Took is plagued by the ghost of the Old Took, who is haunting the library. It's up to me to drive out the ancient spirit. SPOILER -- It's a squirrel.
HYPERSPACE -- KEEPING THE "FICTION" IN "SCIENCE FICTION"
"Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy. Ever tried calculating a hyperspace jump?"
-- Han Solo, Star Wars: A New Hope
According to Grok, the term "hyperspace" was coined by mathematicians in the mid-19th century when they began investigating properties of higher spatial dimensions in mathematics. We live in a three-dimensional world (or at least, that's all we perceive), but mathematically, there's no reason you can't have an infinite number of dimensions. Apparently you can even have *negative* dimensions under certain conditions that resolve problems in mathematics. Math is weird.
Also according to Grok, the first known usage of "hyperspace" with respect to space travel is from John W. Campbell's "Islands of Space" (1931), where scientists are able to traverse the vast distances between stars by accessing a higher-dimensional realm known as "hyperspace." This story also featured characteristics of a proto-warp drive, so Campbell's novella directly influenced two of the most iconic science fiction franchises of the twentieth century--Star Trek and Star Wars.
Science fiction has embraced the idea of "faster-than-light" travel whole-heartedly because it's really the only way for characters in galaxy-spanning stories to travel or communicate in any reasonable timeframe. Consider the fact that the Moon is a little over 1 light second from Earth. That means it takes about 2-3 seconds for signals to travel back and forth. This is about the limit where real-time communication is possible. The same signal would take anywhere from 6 to 45 minutes to travel to Mars and back, depending on where Earth and Mars are on their respective orbits.
Now extend that out to interstellar space. As Douglas Adams so eloquently states in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Voyager 1, the farthest manmade object from Earth, is approimately 25 billion kilometers out there and is still within our solar system. It has a long, long way to go before it enters the true interstellar void. It hasn't even entered the theoretical Oort Cloud yet.
Now back to hyperspace, which is basically a plot device that science fiction authors use to shape their stories. They LOVE it because they can create any kind of story they want. It's like magic in a way. Every author creates their own variation on hyperspace with its own rules and properties, though there are a few common elements that show up from time to time.
Gravity, for instance, is a common problem for hyperspace travel because the gravitational field of an object in space casts a "shadow" of sorts into hyperspace, forcing spacecraft to take convoluted paths throughout the galaxy to avoid large stellar masses and black holes. Even jumping to hyperspace within the gravity well of an Earth-sized planet can be dangerous, depending on the writer.
Hyperspace is often compared to tempestuous ocean, with waves, tides, and currents that pose navigation hazards to starships within its influence. Like gravity, these influences can tear a ship apart if one doesn't traverse hyperspace carefully. Jeremy Carver's Star Rigger series has fun with this concept, with pirates!
Another common danger in hyperspace is the existence of creatures or entities that inhabit that space. Because these creatures live in a "higher dimension" they possess powers far superior to those of us living in the lower dimensions. This is, in fact, the central conflict in The Architects Trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The alien architects can twist normal spacetime like a pretzel because they are born inside hyperspace and thus are far more powerful than any mere mortal.
Sometimes hyperspace not only possesses physical dangers, but also affects the mind as well. Those who enter hyperspace unprepared for its effects run the risk of becoming insane from the experience. Again, Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Final Architecture series explores this idea, as does Cordwainer Smith in his Instrumentality of Mankind stories.
How fast can you travel in hyperspace? As always, that depends on the author or creator. Both Star Wars and Star Trek have developed reasonably well-defined speed limits on hyperspace within their respective franchises. Warp speed in Star Trek is surprisingly slow compared to other methods of travel. Warp 9.99 is approxiamtely 8,000 times the speed of light. By comparison, Peter F. Hamilton's Void Trilogy has starships travelling at speeds in excess of 50 lightyears per hour. That means you could travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri in less than 10 minutes, which is approximately 438,600 times the speed of light. (Of course, nothing is faster than the Speed of Plot!)
I love science fiction, but I know most of it will never come to fruition in my lifetime, if at all. Science is looking at all sorts of cool things, but traveling through hyperspace may not even be remotely possible according to the laws of physics. Unless we can make a true revolutionary breakthrough in science, it's unlikely our descendants will colonize the stars faster-than-light. Though slower-than-light is perfectly feasible (with loads of engineering problems!).
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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
I've stepped into The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Just finished book one.
I like it but it is mild compared to his Discworld series.
An interesting idea that seems very attractive is a bit of a nightmare.
I am enjoying it.
Posted by: pawn at February 15, 2026 09:26 AM (uvB+6)
Comment:The Long Earth series is indeed very, very different from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The basic premise is that humans discover an easy way to reach alternate Earths. Using a ridiculously simple device, we can "step" either to the "left" or "right" along an infinite chain of creation into unspoiled worlds that have never known the touch of humans. All our resource issues are solved on "Stepping Day." Of course, there are a huge range of issues that still crop up, but anyone who wants to leave the current planet and start anew is able to do so.
Humans also go to war with nonhuman races who have also discovered the Long Earth. Not every version is an idyllic paradise. It's a wild series that explores some very peculiar ideas in science, such as the notion of "perpendicular" worlds.
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The most profound book from my Kindle library was Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade. This is a popular science retelling of mankind's genetic progress. The period covered starts 4 million years ago, but focusses on the last 50,000 years. Pulls together lots of insights into humanity.
I highly recommend it. The science told has not been overthrown in the last 14 years since this was published.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 15, 2026 10:14 AM (u82oZ)
Comment: That's cool that the science still holds up. Probably means that it's well-grounded on scientific principles and not subject to the current whims of scientific fads. According to one of the reviews on Amazon, Wade posits that humanity has mellowed out considerably in recent times, despite our belligerent attitudes to those who are different. There's also some discussion about how culture shapes intelligence, which is one of those ideas that certain activists do NOT like to recognize as legitimate.
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The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is one of the prime treasures of my personal library. Alan Moore plagiarized it flagrantly for the appendix to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II, but apparently got away with on account of being Alan Moore. Feh.
Posted by: werewife at February 15, 2026 10:32 AM (5ayY3)
Comment: I love The Dictionary of Imaginary Places!
My copy sits on a shelf just a couple of steps from where I'm sitting right now. It has the usual places such as Middle-Earth and Narnia, but also a lot of wild ideas from authors going back as far as the ancient world, including Atlantis. Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland even makes an appearance. It's a cool book.
Due to some other diversions, I haven't been reading quite as much as I read earlier this year. That said, I do have a couple of books behind me since my last Sunday Morning Book Thread.
The Inhibitors Trilogy Book 2 - Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
This continues the story began in Revelation Space, the first book in the series, but it takes place many years afterwards. Because there is no faster-than-light travel in this universe, the narrative by necessity must take quite a bit of time while character travel between worlds. Often there are disparate storylines that meet up at the end of the book as the events converge to the climax.
The Inhibitors--also known as "wolves"--have discovered humanity and proceed to dismantle the Resurgam system prior to wiping out all of the humans on the planet. Although they possess the power of simply destroying the world, the Inhibitors' plot is much more insidious and ultimately destructive. Fortunately, their convoluted plan gives the humans on the planet just enough time to escape aboard a "lighthugger" ship. This ship also carries within it terrible weapons of destruction, though their use against the Inhibitors is subject to debate. The weapons themselves possess sentience of a sort and have their own agenda. We also find out the ultimate goal of the Inhibitors, which is not at all what humanity expects. Turns out the Inhibitors are planning for something much, much WORSE than the rise of competing sentience and their plan is a long, long term scheme (on the order of billions of years) to save the galaxy as a whole.
The Inhibitors Trilogy Book 3 - Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
Although all three of the Revelation Space novels I've read have their strange moments, Absolution Gap is by far the strangest. A sole survivor on a far distant moon orbiting a gas giant witnesses the planet disappear for just a second. During his dying moments, Quaiche has a divine revelation about his experience. He survives--barely--and creates an entire religion around the fact that the gas giant periodically vanishes for mere moments.
Meanwhile, lightyears away, refugees are fleeing the Inhibitors, guided by a strange little girl born with unusual gifts. They believe that the last hope of humanity lies within the gas giant system with a mysterious disappearing planet. Their only sign is that they must speak with "the shadows," mysterious entities believed to be whispering to us from the depths of hidden dimensions.
It's over allegations of running DDoS attacks and modifying supposedly archive articles after the fact, and the allegations are about as well supported as the recent conspiracy theories floated by Steve from Gamer's Nexus, which is to day, almost all of it is documented by multiple sources and the guy confessed publicly.
Which is a wee problem for me because those (Archive site) links I've been sprinkling through posts for the past year as more and more news sites decide they don't want anyone to read them?
Well, those links point to Archive.IS, but it's the same software and the same person.
I've switched to using Brave to prepare these posts, because it seems better at dodging around that problem, but it does mean that if you're using a different browser you might not be able to read the linked content.
On the other hand, I always, always present the full unvarnished truth without so much as editorialising.
Theories are that AMD has been planning not to launch Zen 6 until 2027 anyway, at least since they were close enough to launch to have a specific timeframe in mind. But Intel was promising Nova Lake this year as recently as January.
And it has hyperthreading, so 24 threads on that high-end model.
One small problem: While it does run in the old reliable Socket 1700 (used by Intel's 12th, 13th, and 14th generation chips) it is intended for industrial customers needing guaranteed supply for the next decade, and won't be available in retail channels at all. And ASRock has already said that they won't support these chips in their motherboards, so an upgrade might be off the table.
I've seen similar tests floating around recently, and the answer is pretty consistently 1300 AD. You have to know a few little tricks - the old long S ſ, thorn þ, and yogh ȝ characters have long fallen out of use, plus at some point u and v were merged and before that w was just two u characters.
But go back further and there's more change in each of the three prior centuries than in all the years since.
Handy guide to keep if the Tardis translator circuit is on the blink and you don't speak Latin.
CXMT was called out and sanctioned for this behaviour - at the time it was dumping new DDR4 memory on the market for less than the price of used.
Now it's... Well, it's doing exactly the same thing again, but this time it's raking in the dough thanks to massive global price increases rather than depending on CCP subsidies.
Microsoft has turfed long-time head of their gaming division, Phil Spencer, who admittedly had not been doing a great job of things lately, and also his expected successor Sarah Brand, in favour of Asha Sharma, formerly the company's President of AI Slop. And before that she was COO at Instacart.
No experience with the games industry at all, but again, Spencer was a veteran in the industry and totally screwed things up anyway.
Musical Interlude
Song is Tommy-Gun by Royal Republic. Anime is the one and only Black Lagoon. Accept no substitutes or your attack helicopter may encounter a inconvenient torpedo.
Disclaimer: Okay, so it does work. I thought it did.
Saturday Night Club ONT - February 21, 2026 [2 D's]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. Do you believe in miracles? A special greeting to any Winter Olympians among us tonight. Rumor has it that a member of the very first Jamaican bobsledding team is a lurker. As is an assistant equipment manager from the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" men's hockey team. Free drinks and unlimited restroom tokens to anyone wearing an Olympic medal!
Girl walks into a tattoo shop and asks for Elvis on one thigh and Johnny Cash on the other…
Tattoo artist says "Alright let's get to work, but I'm gonna need you to take off your pants so they don't get ink on them." After a few hours, he finishes both tattoos. She looks in the mirror and freaks out. "These don’t look like Elvis or Johnny at all," she says, crying.
"Sure they do," says the artist. "Here I'll prove it." The artist goes outside and grabs a man standing on the corner and brings him into the shop and asks "who are the people in these tattoos?"
The man looks intently and after a couple minutes and says, "I don't know who that is on the left and I don't know who that is on the right, but the one in the middle with the beard is definitely Willie Nelson!"
Ingredients
2 oz vanilla bean infused bourbon
0.5 oz fresh lemon juice
2 apricots sliced into chunks, pits removed
0.5 oz brown sugar simple syrup directions in post
pinch ground cinnamon
cinnamon stick garnish
ice
Method
Add bourbon, lemon, syrup and apricots to a shaker.
Muddle apricots into liquid.
Add cinnamon and ice.
Cover and shake well for 45 seconds.
Strain into a fresh glass with ice and garnish with cinnamon stick.
*****
The Babylon Bee is undefeated
*****
Club ONT Department of Technology
PSA; the Widows cursor is not symmetrical. You're welcome.
Working with only pixels and basic geometry, the only angles are 45 degrees (one over, one down) and 26.6 (one over, two down).
When you try to build the cursor properly, you'll find that you need half of a 45 degree angle, or 22.5, but since you can't do that, I think they picked the 26.6 angle as closest.
Long story short, it's a compromise brought about by the limited number of angles you can actually construct on a pixel grid!
If you were to place the tip on the same line as the 26.6 degree stem, the stem would not be midway between the lower corners of the arrowhead, it would be closer to the right side. Thus, it seems that it was shifted left to make that area more symmetrical because that error was less obvious.
Club ONT wishes the US Men's Hockey Team all the best in their quest to capture the gold medal tomorrow morning. Having said that, there will be zero tolerance for Slashing, Cross-checking, or Boarding on the dance floor this evening. Holding The Stick and Hooking will be tolerated in the parking lot only.
Nobody Does It Better? James Bond on Netflix [Lex]
—Open Blogger
Forgive me Ace (and others), but I am a Netflix subscriber. Have been for 20 years or so. I once told my son’s friend Netflix used to send DVDs in the mail. The little shaver was unaware Netflix existed pre-streaming. More to my bane was the inability to catch up, as easily as Netflix made it, with movies and shows I missed any given year. Though the streaming service does have older films and some TV series, it pales in comparison to what you could get via their immense DVD library.
Naturally, Netflix chooses to promote its original material, and there are some winners, but mainly the stream is not so merrily navigated—with a glut of not only original films and shows but also much dross from the last 30 years of cinema.
It was getting so bad, I had thoughts about trying another service. Enter not the dragon but 007 when, in January of 2026, Netflix added the entire James Bond catalogue. This comprises 26 movies, the first being Dr. No in 1962 and the most recent No Time to Die in 2021. With this move, Netflix succeeded in keeping me around for a little while yet.
As of this writing, I have not rewatched the 26 films. I believe I have seen them all over the years and many multiple times. Since the movies went live, I have mainly focused on the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig pictures because I had never seen any of them more than once, and, after rewatching a few, remember why; these iterations of Bond aren’t very good.
I do like Daniel Craig as James Bond. He’s certainly the most muscled actor who played 007 and believable as a bruising secret agent, but the Craig-era films don’t feel much different than Jason Bourne or John Wick or any movie where a man kills his way through an onslaught of enemies. The action sequences are oftentimes as bad as a Transformers picture: that is, I can’t tell what’s happening it’s so fast and harried. Furthermore, Craig’s Bond lacks the jocularity of the previous portrayals. A perpetually dour and scowling Bond should not be on Her Majesty’s secret service.
Still, Pierce Brosnan is easily, for me, the least enjoyable Bond to watch. He possesses the wryness Craig lacks, but he can’t quite sell it the way Roger Moore did. He’s certainly more physical than Moore, but much of the time it doesn’t wash.
In The World is Not Enough, we are told Brosnan’s Bond has a bad shoulder, and once in a while he winces, but then the injury vanishes as he leaps and tumbles and falls and fights his way through myriad bad guys to no apparent effect. This scripting might not be Brosnan’s fault, but he doesn’t have the charm Moore did to convince a viewer charisma can outpace grit.
But let’s be frank: we would not have had Brosnan, Craig, or the others if not for Sean Connery. He made the franchise possible.
Connery was equal parts debonair and tough. He had skill, attitude, humor, and good timing. I don’t think you’ll find a more delightful sequence in any James Bond movie that demonstrate Connery’s range, than 007’s golf game with Auric Goldfinger and Odd Job. Daniel Craig probably wouldn’t even play Golden Tee, let alone a real game of golf.
Connery set the standard, and Roger Moore gamely took it up. It was a daring choice to succeed Connery with Moore. Bond became more dandified, but it worked. Connery will always be the best Bond, but Moore is easily a close second.
I also liked Timothy Dalton’s two-movie turn as Bond. He brought back a ruggedness to 007 that was absent for almost two decades.
I won’t discuss the one George Lazenby film, as it was silly and featured Bond wearing a kilt for thirty minutes and feigning a Scottish burr at Telly Savalas’s alpine seraglio.
The lousy writing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service might only be rivaled by the inane stories cooked up for Brosnan and Craig.
I have little idea what happened in The World is Not Enough, Spectre or No Time to Die. Moonraker was far-fetched no doubt, but at least it was easy to grasp, as well as featuring one of the best Bond henchmen (Richard Kiel’s ‘Jaws’). The plots of the Craig and Brosnan films are so incomprehensible they are boring and make one want to fast forward to the end.
***
It’s natural that after 20 films or so, the Bond producers would look to go in different directions. I don’t mean the actor who plays 007, but some of the familiar background parts.
Throughout much of the Bond cannon, M, Q, and Moneypenny were only seen in glimpses— to give Bond a clipped reprimand, a testy lecture or a soft moment of flirtation.
In the newer films, M, Q, and Moneypenny are flushed out, but I don’t care for it. Does the M character become more compelling because we see her drawing a bath? Is Moneypenny more interesting because we catch a glimpse of her casual sex hookup pouting in bed as she talks to Bond, who is on the other side of the world? Giving these characters more play not only adds to the run time of the movies, but also makes the plots messier.
Prior to the Craig 007 movies, one could probably drop in on any Bond film and not have to know anything inside baseball. But during the Craig years, one film bled into the next, and you felt lost if you didn’t know who Vesper was (I still don’t).
This is likely the influence of television. Bond movies, either by design or incidentally, felt as if they had to mirror their idiot box brethren by making the films semi-episodic.
But there was also a clear cinematic influence on Bond occurring as well. A 007 picture always promised a flavor of spy-craft, but the more recent movies evolved away from patient spook-work into generic action films. James Bond movies have not waivered from offering exotic locations (and women), but the early films were well paced. The latter-day Bonds became too busy, globe-hopping at breakneck speed.
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I came of age in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, so I’m trying to divine if my appreciation for the Bond films of those decades is the product, not of objective analysis, but some unknowing attachment to and association with my youth.
Even though I’ve looked in the mirror, I reject that diagnosis. The earlier films were simply better.
Not just 007 himself and the villains but even the secondary characters such as the henchmen. In the more recent Bond movies there are some bruising killers, but they have no flare (or even interesting names that I recall) such as Odd Job, Jaws, Nick Nack and the gay duo of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Winn.
In that same vein, can a fan of the more current Bond films hum any title song? A Bond song –setting aside the iconic 007 leitmotif—once stood out. I didn’t find any of the recent Bond intro songs memorable. And even if one or two are decent, they don’t compare to ‘For Your Eyes Only,’ ‘Never Say Never Again,’ ‘Live and Let Die,’ and ‘Nobody Does it Better.’ Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ (the only Bond song to win an Oscar) is nice, but it doesn’t come close to the crème de la crème of 007 songs, ‘Goldfinger,’ which never received any of Oscar’s Midas love.
That brings us to which Bond film is second best because there is no debate that in first place is Goldfinger. The song, the style, the villains, the plan, and yeah that golf game. My top ten 007 films are ranked as such…
Goldfinger
From Russia With Love
The Man With the Golden Gun
You Only Live Twice
The Spy Who Loved Me
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
Never Say Never Again
Dr. No
A View to a Kill
Besides Connery’s rendering of Bond, any credit for the success of the franchise must also be given to the early Bond directors Guy Hamilton and Terrence Young. I don’t know much about them, but the results are plain.
There have probably been more famous directors to take the helm of Bond movies, but they haven’t handled the material as well.
Perhaps the best season of television ever was True Detective Season One, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. A star was born then, and as a result Fukunaga has been handed a lot—including 007 in No Time to Die.
But, as previously mentioned, this film is sloppy. Like many who attempted to take on Bond, he was foiled. Fukunaga clearly could not handle a sprawling, lively action piece and so we got a weak, banal action piece with a brooding, unfunny Bond.
This begs the question: where will Bond go next? I don’t pay much attention to the development of 007 films, but it has been five years. Will Bond be a women or gay, or a gay woman? Neither would surprise, though a lesbian Bond would at least make the sex scenes decent.
However, one might also ask is another Bond movie possible? 007 was a stand in for Britain, and the UK has fallen very far since 1962. England is collapsing from within, so how can we believe any of its agents can save the world or accomplish daring missions overseas?
For a long time nobody did it better when it came to producing a James Bond film, but somewhere in the early 21st century, when too many large-scale film productions ceased to be enjoyable, Bond got dragged down with the times.
Time will tell of course, but for now it seems Commander Bond may have met the one foe who could vanquish him: corporate, post-modern filmmaking. That villainous moniker doesn’t quite have the ring of Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Francisco Scaramanga, but it’s succeeded, for the moment, in putting the most suave and scrappy Englishman ever on his back.
While I wait for Bond to resurrect, I can at least enjoy (mostly) his earlier exploits via Netflix.
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 panning for gold.
[Top photo:Alaskan miner panning for gold, 1916. Library of Congress collection]
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. Discussion of current events, religion and politics can elsewhere. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
***
Do you have gold fever? Have you ever prospected for gold? Are you wise in the ways of gold panning?
Are you fascinated by gold mines and the history of gold mining?
Is there gold or gold history nearby your location?
I have never panned for gold (mostly because of my dino short arms), but I am fascinated by mining. Mines are typically in off the beaten path places and the underground has the ever-present mystery of what lies inside. They hold history, promise, and mixtures of success and heartbreak.
Professional mining operations are gigantic, but hobbyists still pick at rocks and pan for gold dust and nuggets along riverbanks.
Panning for gold uses a dish full of gravel and water to sift off the lighter material and keep the heavier (and more valuable) material. Obviously, there is a lot to knowing what material is likely to have gold and where to find the material and then go through the labor of sifting through for tiny gold flakes.
If trapped in ore, the ore must be crushed, filtered, and smelted to separate and refine it.
Knowing nothing, I've selected content that seemed reasonably informative and entertaining and low in clickbait channels ("YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH GOLD I FOUND!!!!!). Looking for commenters to help out with wisdom and knowledge.
***
This is a great intro video with a lot more knowledge than just equipment:
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Dan the Prospector shows how to pan (and he looks the part):
Here's another tutorial:
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This is quite a set-up and shows the full process. Think this guy is in Washington. This is a profession rather than a hobby but think he sells raw ore for hobbyists to crush their own rock. He is not panning along a riverbank but pulling rock out of mountain seams that has embedded gold.
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One thing that surprised me when doing the research for this post is the scattered locations people find gold. It is not just in the mountains out west or Alaska. This guy is panning in Virginia:
and previously checked out Alabama:
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Lake Superior? Apparently there is gold in the sand.
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Gold mining has been increasingly regulated in Australia. One recent development is limiting the use of pumps to sort gravel, so this guy is trying out a manual rocker box. What's a rocker box? Click and find out.
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On January 24, 1848, while supervising of a sawmill, James Marshall found flakes of gold in the South Fork American River. The mill was being built for Col. John Sutter. The discovery of gold at Sutters Mill in California kicked off the gold rush. The original sawmill looked like this:
The Smithsonian now has the first gold flakes discovered at Sutter's Mill. The sawmill failed when the able-bodied men abandoned the project to search for gold and prospectors overran the land.
In the rocky sediment of Nevada's deserts
Along the American River in California
Throughout the Alaskan Yukon River
In former Colorado mining hot spots
In Arizona's Lynx Creek
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Rockhounding is a hobby, but polishing rocks into spheres is a niche. Grinding and polishing machines are roughly three drills with polishing cups aligned in a triangle with a rock in the middle. Never seen one in real life and they look a little like a mad scientist alchemy contraption, but apparently they are a thing. I've seen spheres of wood turned on a lathe but this is a completely different program. Anyone familiar with this?
This home built rig combines mad scientist and mad max together:
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Horde Hobbying
This does not strictly count as Horde Hobbying, but last week's stained glass thread triggered a note from matteiglass to the Hobby Thread email inbox. Glass is a profession and he has decades of leaded glass experience. He did restoration of church windows, had a studio, and created large scale windows for clients. He has taken commission and done pieces on spec.
Perhaps he'll jump in and tell more of his story.
In the meantime, gaze upon this piece titled "The Soul of the Rose" which portrays the painting by John Waterhouse. It took over 1,000 hours. Click on the painting for the studio's website with many other marvelous pieces.
Thank you!
***
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an stained glass 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.
My #1 sons kitten, Pippin. He's so happy wearing his Seahawks jersey for the Big Game.
nurse ratched.
Pippin . . . A great cat, ready for the game!
* * *
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This is Violet the new addition to our household. We picked her up 2/11 from a breeder in MO. She will be our last puppy since Mr nec and I are over 29 and puppy raising is a young person's sport.
We wanted a pup from a reputable breeder since our last dog the Lily beagle had many health issues in her time with us. Violet travelled by air on her trip from MO to MT and was perfect little girl during our 3 1/2 hour layover in Dallas and on both flights. The last flight into Missoula was 3+ hours and she slept the entire time during both flights.
She's been a joy although we're struggling with a bit of potty training since she enjoys pooping inside, especially on the handmade cotton area rug in the eating area. Yes, the rug has a new home for the duration of the puppy training time.
We puppy proofed the house and forgot about the fenced yard which is typically covered by snow in February. We've scrambled to remove or cover many things that she just loves to rip up and eat.
She loves the bed that we purchased for Lily that supposedly helps reduce stress and she sleeps there or in our laps. I have a warm puppy in my lap right now and yes I'm wearing pants, I'm ready for the book thread.
neverenoughcaffeine
Violet is precious.
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Hi - just wanted to send in my latest Charlie pic - he just came back from the groomers (I know, I know) and just LOOK! He's now sporting a fancy new George Washington hairdo!
Huzzah!
Boswell
Love the photo! Happy George Washington's Birthday Month!
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
Hello, K.T.,
Here is a pic Linda snapped of a goat who was participating, though not without reservations, in the Krewe of Barkus parade last weekend. He was trotting along with the dogs, Linda tells me, but then decided, "I'm not going any farther right now," and plopped himself down in the street. After a few minutes' rest, he was willing to get up and proceed. I guess that's the nature of goats. He's a handsome fellow in any case. If he were a cat, we'd call her a calico.
Barkus, as I mentioned last week, started in 1993. It parades through the French Quarter on the Sunday prior to the Sunday before Fat Tuesday, and it's always fun. Themes in the past have been "Jurassic Bark," "Welcome to the Flea Market," "Joan of Bark," and "007: From Barkus With Love." This year's was "Wicked and Wagged."
Wolfus Aurelius
A goat with a mind of his own . . .
Great photo and interesting information about Barkus!
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
KT,
You know no matter how one feels about the world, it still spins around the sun tilting this way and then that way. Here is a little February beauty for our enjoyment. Be glad, much is good in life.
Best, rdohd
A wonderful photo, and a great thought to go with it!
More from the test kitchen for LA County Fair potential. Homemade applesauce.
Why make your own? It’s quick, easy, has three ingredients, you can adjust the taste to your liking, and it’s just way better.
Here I used 7 lbs of apples (honeycrisp, but buy whatever is the cheapest you can get). Pared, it came to about 6.5 lbs.
1 cup water added to the pot to keep it from burning
1 cup sugar to start, add more if you like it sweeter
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon, add more or less or none
Simmer the apples until soft, drain off excess water, stir in sugar and cinnamon, then puree with a stick blender or in a regular blender. That’s it.
If you have a lot of jars you can water bath can them for 10 minutes or so. Shelf stable basically forever. I got two quarts which will stay good a long time in the fridge but will be eaten before they would go bad so no point in canning them.
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Mmmmm.
If you like chunky applesauce, you might try what one of By-Tor's friends did. Use a combo of one variety of apple that falls apart when cooked and one that stays chunky. Skip the "blend until smooth" step. Some people also do this with apple pie.
You can also try adding a little crushed cardamom to your applesauce, with or without cinnamon.
Any other ideas for jazzing up homemade applesauce?
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Ah, Nature
There are plenty of cyclamens which grow wild in Israel’s forests, near tree trunks and rocks. I’ve seen this one grow every spring in the same rock niche for as many years as I can remember passing it on my walks in the Jerusalem Forest:
Then of course there are the domesticated variety that are showing up in many a building planter and public and private gardens in a variety of colors:
Regards from Jerusalem,
Biden’s Dog
p.s. FYI a few days after I took the pic of the cyclamen in the rock, someone decided they needed to decorate their home with it and uprooted it.
YIPES
Someone dug up some daffodil bulbs from our front yard once.
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Adventure and History
Quince tree in the Padua Botanical Garden, the first ever, founded in 1545. Venice had Padua as one of its mainland outposts, and wrote the charter.
The Goethe Palm, planted 1585 still thrives. Named because the author noted it in one of his writings.
My great-grandfather’s walking stick. He may have brought it from Marienbad, then in Germany, less likely, bought it in Chicago. If you use the, please note me as WWPaulKlee.
What great historical connections to plants! That quince walking stick is certainly a wonderful family heirloom.
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Gardens of The Horde
From Rex Nemorensis
Winter here in New England. Gazebo I have that I fitted with pexiglas panels and put in a propane gas heater. Pictures from in my orchard.
I understand that there is a paw paw tree in the foreground.
Gorgeous structure! Inspiring!
Puppies last week in the Pet Thread.
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Actress Molly Ringwald sparked intense debate after warning that supporters of former President Trump may one day be viewed as “collaborationists.” She said history could judge their political choices harshly.
Speaking during a recent call to action, Ringwald urged voters to rethink their positions before it is “too late.” She suggested that future generations may see current political support as a betrayal of national values, comparing the moment to darker periods in history.
Supporters praised her for speaking boldly, while critics accused her of exaggeration and fear-based rhetoric. The controversy highlights growing tensions over reputation, loyalty, and whether being on the “wrong side of history” can lead to lasting personal and public consequences.
Do you feel motivated by her message?
So, what does she think the right side of history will look like in the future?
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Molly Ringwald is just an actress. What does a woman with more power say?
Susan Rice offers a taste of what’s coming should the left retake power — promises Democrats will punish corporations and other institutions who have “taken a knee to Trump.”
And in absurd, wearying narcissism news, a new realm of human suffering has been discovered:
A Montreal hair salon has been ordered to pay $500 to a customer who claimed the company’s booking system is discriminatory. Alexe Frédéric Migneault identifies as non-binary and was asked to select a male or female haircut on the salon’s site in 2023.
Well, ladies’ haircuts generally take longer. And this has to be scheduled accordingly.
Migneault was disappointed to find that during the booking process, they were asked to select between a men's or women's cut and sent an email asking for accommodation.
They say they were told to just select one or the other. . .
Naturally, this reminder of reality had to be punished, at length, and so,
They filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, which recommended a $500 settlement.
There's more . .
“I was already spiralling into a huge mental health crisis… I was unable to work for a year and a half.”
Right side of history?
Photo of the hair and additional details at the link above.
A trans-identified male and “radical queer activist” residing in Seattle, Washington, has been publicly advocating for paedophilic relationships with children while also organising “in-person events for anyone under the queer rainbow.”
The details at the link are quite remarkable.
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Where is the Right Side of History?
I love how the "imperialism" label appears for the first time ever with modern-era Europeans. https://t.co/WsuXItmjed
It was a big week in the news. Marco Rubio went to Munich and mounted an eloquent defense of Western civilization. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tagged along, and proved herself not very bright for a cocktail waitress. The U.S. armada continued steaming toward Iran with no resolution in sight, and the Supreme Court lowered the boom on President Trump’s tariffs. In New York, the Mamdani era began its inevitable long decline. And much more besides. But as far as memes are concerned, the week was dominated by the Winter Olympics in Italy. Wins over Canada were sweet, and curling gripped the world’s sports audience.
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
[Photo H/T: BirdRockDoc (Lurker)]
My kind of establishment. I wonder if The Fabulous was to leave me alone if I would get a puppy and a shot of espresso.
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between from behind enemy lines this morning. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Escanaba)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be exceptional. Don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects will be on your permanent record.
4) Have a great weekend!!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
12/20 – Morgan, longtime lurker, takes tango lessons from Sebastian, whose son, Matias, is recovering from brain surgery. The MRI was read on 12/19, and the surgeons did not remove the entire tumor. Even though the biopsy indicated the tumor was benign, the boy is probably facing several rounds of chemo. Please pray for the boy’s continued recovery in El Salvador.
1/10 Update – Matias will have surgery in 2 weeks to try and remove the rest of the tumor, and then he will receive radiation therapy.
2/7 Update – Matias came through the second surgery, and was waiting for another MRI before he can start radiation. He has lost weight due to constant vomiting and didn’t sleep for 4 days, but he is sleeping better now and is able to keep food down. He and his parents are really struggling, though.
12/27 – BlackOrchid requested prayers for a Navy Veteran uncle who has been struggling with his health the last few weeks. The root cause is undetermined, but recurrent infection/sepsis keeps sending him back to the hospital. It seems to be worsening his dementia, which makes it harder for BlackOrchid’s aunt to handle him.
1/3 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle (her “stand-in dad”) is still not doing well. He will probably need to be put in a LTC facility although they are doing everything possible to avoid this. He is 86, and at the stage where his immune system can’t fight back well.
1/24 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle is doing much better. He is carting around an O2 canister to help him, but otherwise is doing well.
1/6 – Diogenes requested prayers for his best friend since college, who was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours or hearing this, the friend’s son, a man that Diogenes has known since he was a baby, collapsed from what appears to be a brain tumor. The prognosis isn’t hopeful. Please pray for both of these fine men.
1/23 Update – Diogenes’ best friend’s son Sean had emergency brain surgery. The labs are back and it’s not good news. He has stage 4 brain cancer. They were scheduled to meet with an oncologist on 1/26 to determine the best pathway ahead for the time he has remaining. This is just crushing news. Thanks to all the Horde for their prayers and support for this fine young man.
2/11 Update – Sean has not started brain cancer treatments yet. There are still some issues to work out. But he had more bad news when his wife’s sister was hit by a truck on 2/10 and is in critical condition (broken back, severe concussion, bleeding on the brain). Diogenes asks for anyone in the Horde to speak up if they know of any support groups for people in Sean’s situation. Thanks in advance.
1/8 - Doof asked for prayers for his mother. She was hit hard by the flu. She couldn’t get out of bed the morning of 1/8 and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. She is alert and communicating but prayers are appreciated for her recovery. Prayers are also appreciated for Doof, as he absolutely despises hospitals.
2/18 Update – Mom was moved to a different facility on 2/12. She is still receiving post-hospital rehab, but this place also has long term care and assisted living options, so more robust care is available. She is happier there and is improving daily. She still has a long way to go, so continued prayers are much appreciated!
1/19 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
2/5 Update – On 1/30 his dad was moved out of the hospital and into the PT wing of his retirement community. He will be going through PT twice a day and speech therapy as well. NR Pax’ mother is still dealing with the VA paperwork to get his disability raised to 100%. Thanks to everyone for their prayers.
1/24 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
1/24 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd posted some updates and requests. In the blessings department: blood glucose has continued to fall, well within normal range. BP is good. The hole where his molar used to be is coming along nicely. The youngest has jaw surgery coming up in February. This is many years in the making and should correct her bite and ease the pain in her jaw and ears. She’s not looking forward to the liquid diet, but is looking forward to the pain relief. Prayers are always appreciated, and based on what they have been through, he knows they are efficacious.
2/7 Update – He does not have any pain related to his lost molar anymore. And his (adult) daughter’s jaw surgery is scheduled for 2/9. She will stay overnight at the hospital in Ann Arbor.
2/14 Update – His daughter’s jaw surgery seems to be fully successful, thanks be to God. She is recuperating rapidly, the swelling is sharply down, and she’s counting the days to getting off the liquid diet.
1/25 – Pawn at AoS asked for prayers after his dear friend Julia passed away. He asked for strength for himself and his family to fill a very large void in this world. He only has a couple of friends left so asks for protection for them.
1/27 – K asked for prayers for K’s neighbor Mike, whose doctor found a lump near Mike’s esophagus. Many thanks.
1/30 – Bulg could use prayers after a distressing medical incident. His heart was racing and he was too weak to even really walk. His doctor thinks it might be AFib; he is wearing a heart monitor to gather more information, and he needs to keep a diary of any other heart-related incidents. Prayers are much appreciated.
2/6 Update – Bulg had two prayers of thanks. The first was that he had a good phone conversation with his sister, from whom he had been estranged for 20 over years. The second was that he does not have AFib.
1/31 – George V asked for prayers for his wife. She needs a heart valve replacement but first needs a heart cath to assess the valve and determine the replacement procedure and perhaps put stents in the coronary arteries that may be partially blocked. Also, the preliminary CT scan of her heart showed spots on her lungs that may be cancerous.
2/4 – BifBewalski posted that it has been a little over a year since he took Smash to the ER for abdominal problems. After a full year of insurance BS, specialists, and other doctors visits, she has been taken back for abdominal surgery today. Please offer a prayer for her successful procedure and a speedy recovery.
2/7 Update – BifBewalski brought Smash home from the overnight stay in the hospital. She is recovering well. The post-surgery fever broke and the pain is minimal. A full recovery is expected. Thank you for the prayers – it truly makes a difference!
2/7 – Frankie asked for prayers for her godmother, Linda, who has been in declining health and recently had to move to a care facility.
2/7 – Vmom deport deport deport requested prayers for her hubby, who has had the coughing crud since 2/2.
2/14 Update – Vmom also asks for prayers on behalf of her husband, as his employer is expected to file for Chapter 11. They are hoping for a decent severance.
2/11 – Bluebell sent an update from grammie winger: "I've finished my 6th round of chemo. Thursday (Feb. 12) I will meet with the surgeon who will decide if surgery is an option for me. If not, I'm not sure if there's a Plan B. Maybe more chemo? Ugh - it's already deteriorated my vision and hearing. Nasty stuff. But it's all in the Lord's hands. I don't know how people who don't have faith do it. I miss Ace but it's something I have to set aside for now. I love each and every one of you. Even the trolls. LOL"
2/11 – Joe Kidd sent an update related to his friend, Bill, who we prayed for in December. Bill’s former girlfriend had passed away, and Bill and the girlfriend’s family were devastated by the loss. Bill has sold the house he (and the girlfriend) had lived in, and sent half the proceeds to his former girlfriend’s family. Just recently, Bill took early retirement to care for his 90 year old mother. Joe Kidd sends thanks. If you know, you know.
2/13 – Whigwife posted that Whig made it through surgery and was resting comfortably.
2/14 – TCN in Alaska asked for advice. She is currently allowing her son, his girlfriend, and their infant to live in a condo she owns, and they are providing a terrible environment for the baby: pot-smoking, booze, no food, no formula. TCN in Alaska asked for advice about how to handle the situation. Prayers would help.
2/14 – L gave an update on her brother Ron. He has been in declining health for the last 6+ months, and has been transferred to a nice facility for hospice. They had been discussing this possibility for months. He would make improvements, then relapse, each time ending up more disabled. The best part is that he is at peace with the decision. He is aware enough to assist with the final plans and is enjoying parceling out his remaining possessions to family and friends. L’s daughter’s cardiac recovery continues. L says she cannot thank all sufficiently for the many prayers.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
I never much liked Discord; its interface is awkward and annoying. But the age verification thing was pretty much forced on it by fascist governments in Europe and, uh, Australia.
On the other hand, the company did itself no favours by claiming that uploaded ID documents would remain secure after they had already leaked.
And even less so with the latest incident where, after reasserting that documents would be deleted immediately after they were verified - which we already knew was untrue, because deleted documents can't be leaked - they contradicted themselves in an official announcement and then deleted the announcement and pretended they had never announced it.
The Pico 2 runs at 150MHz out of the box, but can clock over 300MHz at the default 1.1V. Increasing that to 1.3V takes you over 400MHz. Beyond that you have to start breaking the rules, but that takes you a long way.
They will show up this year, but perhaps only in servers.
Intel says it is still on track to launch its Nova Lake desktop chips this year, with up to 52 cores and 288MB of cache, so they might have a window to claw back some market share.
A coworker set up an OpenClaw instance in a secure sandbox to try it out. While it couldn't do anything too awful from inside its padded cell, it took me literally 30 seconds to find a major vulnerability.
Best thing about the kid in blue is he didn't just flop. Yes, he yielded, but only when the boy with CP made the correct moves. Yes, blue let him win, but he had to work for it, so it's an accomplishment. Dusty in here.
I have questions
So, according to the above, the most popular "attraction" in America is...Mall of America???
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by energy drinks:
I called out to my wife "Hon, can you bring me some pussy?" What happened next was lots of fun, but I'm still thirsty.
Only a brokebrain AWFUL would think that she has leverage over a conservative by arguing for less sexualization of young girls. Um, you're the Groomers who tell young girls to start giving blowjobs at age 12.
John Podhoretz
@jpodhoretz
The Jill Filipovic tweet about elective surgery is a landmark. It reveals as few things ever have what life inside the left-liberal bubble is like as those inside imagine they understand the non-liberal perspective and think they know how to trip it up, when the opposite is true
This may shock you, but yet another Hate Crime Hoax massively advertised by the left-wing anti-civilization media has proven to be entirely fictitious.
The media will provide no apologies or explanations for once again inciting racial hatred against whites and encouraging mass violence by the left.
T. Becket Adams:
Hate crime hoaxes are nothing new, but during the "woke" overcorrection of the late teens and early 2020s, when Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer, Sports Illustrated put a man on the cover of a swimsuit issue, and everyone pretended to enjoy "Hamilton," they reached heretofore unimaginable heights.
Consider the 2021 incident in Plano, Texas, where a white teenager, Asher Vann, was accused of "torturing" a black classmate, SeMarion Humphrey.
It was a shocking story, full of cruelty and racial animus.
It was also a total fiction.
It was March 2021 when Humphrey's mother, Summer Smith, alleged that Vann shot her son with BBs, slapped him, called him racial slurs, and even forced him to drink urine. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the Dallas Morning News were among the first to jump on the story, each eager to report on the supposed indignities suffered by a black teen at the hands of an evidently racist white Texan. A leader of a Black Lives Matter-affiliated group claimed that Humphrey had been "tortured for hours." The NAACP organized marches. Vann was doxxed, and protesters gathered outside his home.
Smith, who described Vann as "evil," made the rounds on the networks. Her attorney, Kim Cole, launched a GiveSendGo campaign "to help with the expenses of therapy and private schooling" for Humphrey. The campaign, featured on Good Morning America, raised an impressive $120,000.
This was five years ago.
On Jan. 22 of this year, a Texas district court judge ordered Smith and Cole to pay $3.2 million in damages to Vann. The decision followed a jury's finding last year that the duo had fabricated the story and "intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress" on the young man.
As for the online donations, Humphrey's mother bogarted them. Of the $120,000 raised, only $1,000 went towards her son's schooling. Much of the rest was spent on luxury items, including "a designer dog, dining and travel, beauty products, liquor, vapes, cell phones, car payments, and rent," according to a Washington Free Beacon review of account statements.
As for Vann, he's now in college and moving on with his life, having spent the past five years weathering death threats and doxxing attempts.
Lastly, as for the media outlets that were so eager to promote the Humphrey hoax, none of them have published follow-up reports mentioning either the 2025 jury decision or the damages awarded by the Texas judge. Vann also told the Free Beacon that none of the news outlets that amplified Smith's allegations ever contacted him for comment. Not even once.
Read the whole thing.
Whatever you do, White Devils, you must always give black people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, black people do not owe you the same benefit of the doubt, Colonizers. You see, you can tell who the "oppressed" and the "oppressors" are, because the "oppressed" have special, state- and culture-enforced privileges, and the "oppressors" have special, state- and culture-enforced disadvantages.
Wait, what?
A woman in leftist-dominated Brazil is facing jail for saying, very controversially, that men cannot be women.
Is there some hope that the nation may return to sanity?
Surprising Revival: Gen Z Men & Highly Educated Lead Return to Religion
By Joel Kotkin & Bheki Mahlobo, RealClearInvestigations
The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of "Nones," those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.
Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging from the 2020s suggest that we are witnessing a complex spiritual restructuring that intersects with economic mobility, demographic resilience, and a profound intellectual realignment.
For the first time in decades, Pew Research notes, in the U.S. at least, Christianity has stopped its nosedive as more people begin to see the efficacy, and the rewards, of religious faith and practice.
This fragile development is especially noteworthy as it exposes growing divides and fault lines in American politics and culture. Drawing on a vast array of longitudinal studies, interviews, and other sources, one startling finding in both America and abroad is that, contrary to past assertions, today the faithful are not poor and ignorant but increasingly from the educated upper middle class.
Even the cognitive elites are experiencing a growing trend to embrace religious activity. Indeed, in a rebuke of the aggressive New Atheism of the early 2000s advanced by thought leaders such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, a counter-movement appears to be growing among scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals who view religious tradition not as a delusion to be eradicated but as a sustainable civilizational operating system.
As our politics splinter along gender -- with women increasingly forming the base for Democrats and men, for Republicans -- it is men who are leading the return to church. Reversing a 25-year-long trend, men reported higher church attendance than women in 2025. This growing divide may continue to separate men and women, with grave implications at a time when rates of marriage and parenthood are declining.
Even in places where religion continues to decline, the remaining faithful are shifting away from more liberal faiths to those hewing closer to traditional values. For many, more orthodox sects provide existential security and create a sustainable sense of community.
As our report makes clear, the budding religious revival taking place in the U.S. reflects a global trend, especially strong in Africa, which is now the most demographically robust place on the planet.
The implications and promise of this trend cannot be overstated. Data show that religious communities function as potent engines of human capital accumulation, risk mitigation, and social capital. These mechanisms effectively propel adherents up the socioeconomic ladder.
Mamdani is threatening to jack up property tax rates by nearly 10%. (9.5%.) Homeowners, including the black ones (note that Mamdani's communist advisor on rent says she wants to punish white property owners, but conceded that black property owners would be acceptable collateral damage) are now attacking Mamdani for this betrayal.
A transgender state rep from Minnesota -- where else would he have come from? -- says that we should not impose age-verification blocks on porn sites because children might find the hardcore deviant porn "educational if they are queer."
A further milestone in queer education:
Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok
12h
JUST IN: Sec of War Pete Hegseth confirms the male teacher at Fort Bragg who identifies as a transgender wolf has been FIRED
He allegedly engaged in s*xual inappropriate behavior in class, wore women's clothing, a dog collar, and an animal tail, and told children he turns into a wolf at night while making them howl
2 illegal alien 'perverts' allegedly sodomized, beat, ripped fingernails off male victim in NC home invasion
Jonathan David Garcia-Larios was previously deported in 2024
EXCLUSIVE: The two men arrested in an atrocious North Carolina home invasion last week have been identified as criminal illegal aliens from Mexico who allegedly terrorized a male victim by sodomizing and beating him and ripping out his fingernails, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
The overnight ambush, which Pitt County authorities said involved at least three male suspects, occurred in a quiet Greenville suburb last Wednesday.
"Two heinous criminals broke into the victim's home and used a sharp, edged weapon and restrained him against his will," DHS said, citing local outlet Reflector.
"This is a real-life nightmare. Burglarizing, kidnapping, assaulting, and sodomizing, and ripping off the fingernails of an innocent victim are extremely wicked and heinous," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin added in a statement.
The two undocumented immigrants were identified as 21-year-old Chapel Hill resident Zaid Mayen and 20-year-old Jonathan David Garcia-Larios, a homeless man who was previously deported from the U.S. in 2024. They were arrested last Friday with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement.
Authorities noted that the suspects entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time.
DHS added that the "two sexual perverts and violent thugs" unleashed a series of horrific attacks despite having no known criminal record in the U.S.
"Zaid Mayen-Esteban and Jonathan David Garcia-Larios should have never been in this country. Prior to this heinous act, these illegal aliens had no criminal record in the U.S," McLaughlin said.
"Under Secretary Noem's leadership we are not waiting for illegal aliens to commit crimes before we target them for arrest and removal. We pray for the continued recovery of this innocent victim."
The unnamed victim was transported to a local hospital for treatment of injuries and "thankfully survived," DHS said.
Fox hails this as an "exclusive" -- but of course it's an exclusive. The leftwing propaganda networks absolutely refuse to report on illegal alien crime.
UPDATE: Jermain Lynn Long, the man arrested for slashing the neck of a 13yo teen in Daytona Beach, is a registered S*X OFFENDER with a lengthy criminal history.
A black judge cut the sentence of a black defendant in half because... well, because as a "black man," he had experienced oppression.
This particular oppressed black man kidnapped a woman, forced her to suck his dick at gunpoint, then forced her to take money out of her account at an ATM.
But he's a black man, so he gets a free rape here and there. He did rape the woman twice, and she cut his sentence in half, so I assume she's giving him one freebie rape.
A Louisville judge cut a convicted rapist's prison sentence from 65 years down to 30 years. In response, Metro Council Republicans say they'll be releasing judicial records so voters can know more about these elected judges.
Christopher Thompson was found guilty of kidnapping a woman, sexually assaulting her in a school parking lot, before forcing her to withdraw money from an ATM at gunpoint. After that, he assaulted her again.
Thompson came before Judge Tracy Davis.
"Regardless of what the media thinks, regardless of what anyone thinks, I apply the law," Davis said. "I do not judge people before they walk before me."
Councilwoman Crystal Bast represents the Pleasure Ridge Park neighborhood where Thompson kidnapped the woman, then raped and robbed her at gunpoint.
"And I am beyond pissed that this judge did this," Bast said. "What example does that set?"
In light of the lighter sentence, Metro Council Republican leader Anthony Piagentini says he will publish records of Jefferson County judges on a website.
"We have asked for judicial transparency," Piagentini said. "We're going to be asking questions of the clerk of the court, get the data, and get it out to the voters."
...
Davis, elected to her seat on the bench, had the authority to cut down the sentence. The judge said Thompson never had mental health or anger management treatment.
"Unfortunately, he fell through the cracks," Davis said. "I truly hope that you get what you need while incarcerated."
At his sentencing, Thompson said he didn't commit the crime. LMPD connected him to it through DNA evidence.
Two maddening things:
Even as she's claiming this repeat rapist isn't beyond rehabilitation, he's talking over her saying "I don't care" and "I don't care about the victim, boo hoo."
And the judge also issues a Respecc My Authoritah statement, telling the public that while she may face critics, she is in charge of "the pen" and Almighty She will say what the law is.
BREAKING: Judge Tracy Davis cuts in half a 65 year recommended prison sentence for r*pist kidnapper
BREAKING: Truck driver who ran a red light and kiIIed an elderly man in Indiana has been identified as Singh Sukhdeep, an illegal alien from India, according to @BillMelugin_
China Is Sending Pregnant Women to the US to Give Birth, Have Their Children Declared American Citizens, Move Back to China, and Then Have Them Vote in US Elections When They Reach Age 18
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, who previously exposed how much cash congressmen were taking on the sly, reports that China is directing CCP-connected pregnant women to engage in "birth tourism." They "dip a toe" into the US to have a baby, get that baby certified as a citizen, and the bring it to China to be raised under the communist system as a loyal communist stooge.
Then when the kid turns 18, he is eligible to vote in US elections. China is doing this on an "industrial scale," he says, and has already created one million Manchurian Voters it will have vote from overseas to turn US elections to the Chinese communist party's favor.
He makes the case that this is only possible due to the bizarre notion of "birthright citizenship," and we must end this judge-created mistake or else China will be electing all of our politicians in ten or twenty years.
That video below the fold.
The GOP is pushing a law that would end incentives for Chinese birth tourism. Note that it wouldn't end birthright citizenship, though, or ban pregnant Chinese women from visiting the US.
It would, however, end an Obama-Biden rule that allows Chinese nationals to get a quickie visa. Like, when they start feeling contractions.
Three Republican senators are urging the Trump administration to shut down visa and parole programs they say allow Chinese nationals to exploit US citizenship laws through birth tourism and surrogacy.
Sens. Rick Scott, Jim Banks, and Markwayne Mullin sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum calling the programs a national security risk. They argue the policies allow nationals from Communist China to gain fast-track access to US citizenship through children born in US territories.
The senators focused on the Guam--Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Visa Waiver Program and a newer offshoot created under the Biden administration. They said the programs allow visa-free entry for Chinese nationals and have fueled a sharp rise in birth tourism in Saipan.
"We write to express our gratitude for your commitment to protecting the homeland from foreign threats," the senators wrote. They said an Obama- and Biden-era policy allows Chinese nationals "to obtain fast-track American citizenship," calling it a "clear and significant short- and long-term national security risk".
The letter cites a Wall Street Journal investigation that found Chinese nationals increasingly using the US surrogacy system to secure citizenship for their children. The senators said these practices often occur outside traditional immigration vetting.
Of course, we shouldn't worry about that too much, because Democrats are already allowing straight-up foreigners from hostile countries to vote in our elections.
Many social media users were wondering if this actually happened and if what he said about the "honor system" of registering to vote online in California is correct; yes, it did, and yes, he's correct. Shakir Khan, a Pakistani immigrant and now-former city councilman from Lodi, California, was arrested in February, 2023 and charged with 14 felonies related to election fraud.
...
But the details of what Khan allegedly did are even more alarming than what's stated in this weekend's viral tweets. This case is a grab bag of every worst-case scenario that can come out of the combination of online voter registration, universal mail ballots, and ballot harvesting.
Here are the highlights (more detail can be found in the 2023 story, and all of it is taken from the press conference at the end of this piece):
During a raid of Khan's home in October 2020 on unrelated charges, officials observed a stash of 41 sealed and completed mail ballots for the 2020 presidential election. Due to CA's ballot harvesting laws the ballots were not seized, but investigators photographed the ballots and documented their findings.
In the fall of 2021, officials noticed 70 people were registered to vote at one address in Lodi, which they recognized as Khan's.
Sheriff's investigators determined that Khan had used the state's online voter registration system to re-register existing California voters from other districts to his address, and at least a few non-citizens living in foreign countries (including his brother in Pakistan) to vote using his address, email address, or phone number.
Investigators reviewed the ballot return envelopes from ballots cast in the 2020 general election, which had been maintained by the Registrar, and found that many of those tied to Khan's address all had the same handwriting on the outside.
...
Khan forced voters whose information he'd hijacked to vote for him and for Joe Biden, either by filling them out himself or threatening the voter.
When Khan heard that investigators were speaking to people he'd fraudulently registered to vote, he posted a video to TikTok to threaten and intimidate them.
See the link to RedState for more.
Foreign pirates and conquerors are stealing our country out from under us.
The current most famous Birth Tourism Chinese person is Eileen Gu, who was granted birthright citizenship and now competes for her real country, Communist China:
Easy, it’s because she was given birthright citizenship in my homeland which offered her and her family freedom, and instead she chose to represent our authoritarian adversary on the world stage. https://t.co/1DgAVzpUkB
But it's not. We all know these failure factors are churning out one illiterate after another and scamming the taxpayer $30,000 per student per year for this "service."
A Connecticut college student is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city of Hartford for negligence.
Nineteen-year-old Aleysha Ortiz says she graduated from high school with honors and earned a college scholarship, but she can't read or write.
In some ways, Ortiz is living an American dream.
The 19-year-old began her freshman year at the University of Connecticut in Hartford this past fall.
She's excited to study public policy; it's the culmination of hard work after moving north from Puerto Rico as a child.
By the way, the problem isn't that she speaks Spanish. She's spoken English since birth.
She cannot read or write in any language.
"I remember I was very nervous, but I know it was going to be better opportunities for me to learn," Ortiz remarked.
But Ortiz says those opportunities never came to fruition.
"All I see is words everywhere," Ortiz said.
Ortiz graduated from the Hartford Public Schools system last year, but she says she is now illiterate and still doesn't know how to read or write.
"They would just either tell me to stay in a corner and sleep or just draw pictures, flowers for them," Ortiz said about her earlier education.
When she was in high school, Ortiz relied on speech-to-text programs and other apps to read or write essays.
Ortiz said her mother, who does not speak English well, tried to get answers.
"She advocated so much," Ortiz said. "She went to the school. The principal promised her that it would be better. Sometimes it would be people from the district or the directors promising her they would do better."
Now, Ortiz is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city for negligence.
...
Turner fears a crucial guardrail will be lost if President Donald Trump's administration follows through with abolishing the Department of Education.
"How do I protect the special education children?" Turner asked. "Who do I go to if I close it down?"
Oh yeah, we have to keep the Department of Education open. It's done such a bang-up job so far.
Now I know this girl seems to have cheated her way through school, and undoubtedly, she has the first responsibility for her own education. She and her mother.
But this school appears to have just passed this illiterate dum-dum through grade after grade without every verifying she could read simple sentences at a five-year-old level.
Hey I know how we can improve government teacher performance: Just pay them more.
That will attract new talent.
Oh, but also, you're not allowed to actually hire new talent. We have written the law to require that teachers have useless degrees in education, which is a huge entry barrier to people who studied more useful things in college, and who don't want to go back to school for three years to be a teacher.
So we'll just pay the existing, horrible teachers more. This will attract new talent... from within them!
Second headline:
Left-Wing Teachers Oppose Deporting Criminal Illegal Aliens Because They'll Get Less Money if Illegal Alien Children Leave the Country
Mark Krikorian
@MarkSKrikorian
"Public schools depend on the children of illegal aliens to keep up enrollment levels and extract more money from state taxpayers."
School leaders fear declining attendance during ICE surge will also lower state funding.
Public schools depend on the children of illegal aliens to keep up enrollment levels and extract more money from state taxpayers.
More students means more teachers, which means more public school teacher union members, which means more union dues, which means bigger donations to the Democratic party....
Democrats in Minnesota have gone all-in on an illegal-immigrant-based economy....
To that end, public schools in Minnesota have sued the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in an effort to kick ICE out of the state (File No. 26-cv-1023). It's one of many such lawsuits filed by Democrats and Democrat-controlled institutions.
The Star Tribune reports,
Because the money to pay teachers, counselors, bus drivers and principals is tied to attendance, officials fear prolonged absences by students in hiding will lead to declining state funding for schools.
FischerKing
@FischerKing64
22h
This would be funny if it weren't so serious. Illegal alien children in American public schools degrade education for everyone across the board because of the lack of English proficiency, which slows everything down, prevents native students from getting the education their parents pay for through taxes. But the schools/teachers/unions actually want illegals because it drives up enrollment - which means more funding, more teachers etc. So those taxpayers wind up paying more but getting less. This is from the Minneapolis tribune, will link to full article in next post.
In better education news: Three red states, Alabama, Mississippi, and Lousiana, are seeing historic gains in student learning by using teaching techniques that actually work.
These aren't new techniques. They're very old techniques. They're techniques the left-wing, grifter educrat establishment chucked aside to pursue novel, failing techniques because educrats don't get paid if they just tell people to keep using the same techniques that worked in the past.
No, the EduGrifters only get paid if they propose something New! and Counter-Intuitive!
The educrats are constantly proposing new pedagogies for the exact same reason they put out a new Madden Football every single year: Churn. You have to keep churning out new product to keep your business going.
Not among Democrats or Republicans, each diverted by culture wars.
Actually, Nick, it is among Republicans.
Nice try though!
Not in the education reform movement, largely abandoned by the philanthropists who once propelled it.
The edugrifter's "reform" movement that has produced nothing but failure upon failure for 50 years? Yes, quite right, the hope isn't coming from them.
Rather, hope emerges in the most unlikely of places: three states here in the Deep South that long represented America's educational basement.
Why is that so unlikely? Oh, because leftwingers, who fail at everything, are so smart and talented, right?
These states -- Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi -- have histories of child poverty, racism and dismal educational outcomes, and they continue to spend less than most other states on public schools.
Oh they spend less? Well everyone knows that when you give every kid a $700 laptop and pay their teachers on the level of lawyers, educational achievement goes up.
Oh wait it doesn't. Never did.
Yet, consider:
Louisiana ranks No. 1 in the country in recovery from pandemic losses in reading, while Alabama ranks No. 1 in math recovery.
The state with the lowest chronic absenteeism in schools is Alabama, according to a tracker with data from 40 states.
Once an educational laughingstock, Mississippi now ranks ninth in the country in fourth-grade reading levels -- and after adjusting for demographics such as poverty and race, Mississippi ranks No. 1, while Louisiana ranks No. 2, according to calculations by the Urban Institute. Using the same demographic adjustment, Mississippi also ranks No. 1 in America in both fourth-grade and eighth-grade math.
Black fourth graders in Mississippi are on average better readers than those in Massachusetts, which is often thought to have the best public school system in the country (and one that spends twice as much per pupil).
I wrote about Mississippi's educational successes in 2023, but many of my fellow liberals then scoffed at the notion of learning from a state so tainted.
Oh an admission that lefties really think the sun shines out of their assholes and have contempt for anyone not like them. (You know, like true tolerant, welcoming cosmopolitans.)
Skeptics, mostly on the left, have made many critiques of the gains, including that they fade in upper grades, that the states are cheating, that this is all a temporary blip and that any progress is simply a result of holding back weak readers.
The critiques have been effectively rebutted -- for starters, they can't explain the continuing gains in Mississippi or the magnitude of the gains. Just as striking, the Mississippi gains increasingly are being replicated in Alabama and Louisiana, as they follow similar approaches. That's enormously encouraging, for it suggests that other states can also lift student trajectories if they are willing to learn from Southern red states they may be more accustomed to looking down on.
So I traveled through Mississippi and Alabama with the photographer Lynsey Addario to understand the lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most important is an insistence on metrics, accountability and mastery of reading by the end of third grade. And while reading gets the attention, just as important is getting kids to attend school regularly.
By "metrics," he means testing kids to make sure they are learning.
And as you know, our failing teacher-grifters are adamantly opposed to testing -- which they deride as merely "teaching to the test" (as has historically been done) -- because testing kids reveals their own failure to teach them and undermines their case for the next big raise during their next teachers strike.
..
In classrooms and offices, teachers and administrators frequently mentioned the motivating power of report cards -- not the letter grades given out by schools, but those they (the schools themselves) receive.
Well what do you know, testing and measuring actually improves performance.
Literally everyone who is not an ideologically-captured denialist knows this. It is true in every field. "What gets measured, gets improved," the saying goes.
And what doesn't get measured is allowed to slide and slide until it becomes a disaster. Ask your friends in Minnesota about how their practice of not checking up on social welfare businesses turned out.
..
What I see is schools fighting for their students. These states have created a structure that closely monitors each school's performance and incentivizes principals and teachers alike to do everything they can to get kids back in class and learning.
Teachers union teachers are adamant that they not be measured for actual job performance, so good luck with that in the blue states.
For many years, skeptics have offered dispiriting arguments about the prospects for educational gains: The way to improve literacy is to fix the family, fix addiction, fix the parents, for as long as the child's environment is broken, there's not much else that can be done.
The gains in these states suggest that that critique is wrong. Mississippi and Alabama haven't fixed child poverty, trauma and deeply troubled communities -- but they have figured out how to get kids to read by the end of third grade.
This matters in myriad ways: One recent study found that states with large increases in school test scores enjoyed rising incomes and drops in teen motherhood, incarceration and arrest rates compared with states that didn't enjoy such gains.
What's particularly impressive is that the Southern surge states lifted student achievement with only modest budgets. Spending per pupil in Alabama and Mississippi was below $12,000 in 2024, while in New York it was almost $30,000.
That's worth celebrating and emulating. Yet, unfortunately, there's not much sign of that.
No. I wonder why.
By the way, Kristof focused on these schools' fight to reduce truancy and make sure students actually show up for class.
He completely refused to mention which pedagogy they employ. Are they using time-tested phonics, thrown on the scrapheap by edugrifter "reformers' in the seventies, or the "whole word" reading, where supposedly you just look at a word and its meaning magically appears in a student's mind, which the edugrifters used as an improvement over phonics and then saw students become illiterate?
Well Nick and the New York Times won't tell you so I will, with an assist from Google AI:
Alabama public schools use the Science of Reading, focusing on systematic phonics, phonemic awareness, and explicit instruction through programs like the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), mandated by the Alabama Literacy Act (2019), which requires K-3 reading proficiency, teacher training, and bans the ineffective three-cueing system to build strong decoding and comprehension skills for all students.
A "phoneme" is just a part of a word, like "sh" or "nt," or just any single letter, that makes a specific sound. In other words, just phonics.
Why did Nick Kristof hide this information from readers?
Even when he's telling liberals "you should emulate the Alabama system," he can't be honest about it.
Why? Because leftists and their "experts" are facing the worst legitimacy and credibility crisis in Western history and they can't afford admitting another huge "L."
So they'll just pretend, publicly, that the Alabama plan is just about New! and Exciting! education reforms made to reduce truancy.
But they're the honest, good, caring, kind people only motivated by concerns for the public good and entirely untainted by grubby tribal concerns like always making sure your tribe comes out on top. Just ask them!
Or just read the signs on their lawns! "In this house, We Believe..."
Black children in Mississippi are now performing better in reading and math than black children in New York and California-- despite having much higher rates of poverty and spending much less per student.
And the secret was simply not allowing children to move up a grade level… https://t.co/aQ79TyGSA0
Democrats Shut Down DHS, Attempting to Force Trump to Accept Biden's Open Borders Regime As the Law of the Land
—Disinformation Expert Ace
DHS funding ran out last Friday.
Christian Collins
@CollinsforTX
Due to the Democrat shutdown:
- TSA agents are working without pay
- FEMA workers are working without pay
- DHS employees are working without pay.
Meanwhile, Democrats have just announced a "Trans Bill of Rights."
These unserious politicians need to be voted out.
Ironically, the incompetent Democrat Theater-Kids and Groomers aren't shutting down ICE at all, which was fully funded for a year under the Big Beautiful Bill:
Nick Sortor
@nicksortor
BREAKING: The US Senate has just FAILED to advance the DHS funding bill, which means DHS will likely shutdown tomorrow night
Fetterman was the lone Democrat to vote in favor.
These idiots aren’t shutting down ICE, because ICE is FULLY FUNDED for the year.
They’re shutting down the Coast Guard, TSA, Cybersecurity agencies, and more. Democrats are putting our country at risk for PURE POLITICS.
Disgusting.
For his part, Trump's playing hardball.
If you recall, when Republicans have shut the government down, Democrats have always employed what is called "the Washington Monument Strategy" to make shutdowns as painful as possible for the public. They not only shut down parks, but they had park personnel, who were on furlough, act like cops and chase visitors out.
Obama even had Rangers working near Mount Rushmore drag chains across a turn-off on a local road to keep people from parking their cars just to look at the monument.
They spent government money, in short, during a shutdown to punish the public so that they'd pressure Republicans to cave.
President Donald Trump's administration has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-affected areas around the country while the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, internal messages reviewed by Reuters showed.
DHS, which FEMA is part of, entered a partial shutdown on Saturday, but has largely continued to operate since most of its functions are deemed essential. The shutdown happened after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms.
"DHS has issued a stop-travel order for all DHS funded travel, effecting 2/18/26, for the duration of the lapse in appropriation. Currently this DOES include disaster travel," according to an internal email sent by Kurt Weirich, a chief of staff at FEMA.
More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments but were told to stand down, including some who are currently at a training facility, CNN reported earlier.
A Maryland sewer line just burst and is pumping in tons and tons of unprocessed shit and piss into the Potomac.
But FEMA's not coming.
The freeze comes after Trump said on Monday the federal government will step in to protect the Potomac River following the collapse of a major sewer pipe in the Washington, D.C., region last month.
A sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland, collapsed on Jan. 19, causing an overflow of more than 240 million gallons (909 million liters) of wastewater into the Potomac River.
Trump said FEMA, which has seen significant staff cuts since he took office in January 2025, will coordinate the response. So far, however, FEMA has deployed few, if any, resources to assist with the sewage spill, CNN reported, citing three agency officials.
CNN has never before objected to the Washington Monument Strategy. Suddenly they're all "But the public shouldn't suffer for Washington's squabbles!"
This is the Democrat Party -- the Party of Illegal Aliens. The Party Against the American People.
Again, unlike Americans when they are locked up for committing crimes & separated from their children, illegal aliens are given a choice to bring their kids to jail with them. Further. kids abandoned by their illegal alien parents are taken care of, not “locked up” in facilities. https://t.co/kumCSoOn0U
I keep seeing this argument and it's so logically flawed it's ridiculous. Even if it's true, we shouldn't have to tolerate ANY lawbreaking from anyone who shouldn't be here, whereas we have obligations to fellow citizens.
This is the propaganda they're running against ICE -- telling people that ICE is randomly kidnapping US citizen girls, apparently with the intent to rape them. Note the end features a "Republican congressman" sexually menacing the girl.
Democrat PACs are now putting out complete BS propaganda commercials portraying Republicans and ICE agents as kidnappers who are deporting American citizens.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the "non-colonizer" world: If a foreigner steps out of line, he gets booted across the border. And a foreigner isn't allowed to start demanding the country he's a guest in start changing to better accommodate his very foreign tastes.
British comedian Pat Smith brilliantly points out the hypocrisy surrounding the subject of mass migration in the UK. pic.twitter.com/RjKFBfJzqc
Congressional Democrats Will Introduce Law to Assert Some Unknown Federal Power to Regulate State Health Codes, and Insist That Hospitals Must Continue Mutilating Children's Genitals and Breasts
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) says his “Trans Bill of Rights” says children should be allowed to have elective gender surgeries and get documents that say they’re a different gender than their chromosomes dictate.
The bizarre perverts of the "elite" class simply will not stop grooming children to be trans and covering up the cataclysmic effects of doing so:
The Tumbler Ridge "gunperson" transitioned six years ago. It just so happens that six years ago, the CBC spread the trans mind virus by airing a very positive documentary about children transitioning.
Seems to me a real psychiatrist could have stopped this at any of ten different points, if she weren't so busy "affirming" this psychopathic monsters.
#BREAKING: The person who carried out a school massacre is an 18-year-old woman with mental health issues, but she did not give a motive for one of the worst mass shootings in Canada's history. https://t.co/qOfSYsFDAw
That's the Australian ABC but the "American" ABC "News." They avoided identifying the suspect by gender throughout the piece, only calling him "the suspect." Only in paragraph six do they mention he was male.
Wait, they don't say that at all. They say he was "assigned male at birth." They probably assigned him the male gender based on his penis, balls, and DNA. Very shoddy work, guys. #DoBetter
Remember, the would-be Supreme Court Assassin also decided he was trans and got a reduced sentence because the AWFUL judge said she was "heartened" that he had embraced his trans identity.
Also, a tranny plotted to assassinate Scott Bessent.
Also good to remember that the man in this photo in a gun shop showed up at the house of Supreme Court Bret Kavanaugh with that gun after researching the addresses of Kavanaugh and two other justices online before losing his nerve and turning himself in.
Trump: "Bad Things" Will Happen to Iran If They Don't Agree to Stop Producing Uranium, Building Long-Range Missiles, and Funding Hamas; Meanwhile, the USS Ford Closes In on Iran
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Is Trump ready to strike Iran? I don't put a lot of stock in Lindsey Graham's insane, low-T ramblings, but he claims the decision to strike has already been made:
Insider Paper
@TheInsiderPaper
BREAKING: Senator Lindsey Graham, in an interview with Sky News Arabia: "The US decision regarding Iran has already been made. The ships are not arriving in the area only because the weather is pleasant at this time of year"
Yeah I dunno. Trump's mind is very changeable. And he's often both ingratiating and noncommittal, meaning he'll speak to someone and make vague noises that sound like agreement but actually are not definite and don't commit him to anything.
There may be a roadblock, too: "Our great allies" in the Ummah Kingdom of Great Britain are forbidding us from using our base in Diego Garcia in any strikes on Iran:
Faytuks Network
@FaytuksNetwork
The UK has blocked U.S. use of RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia for Iran strikes, citing international law, leading Trump to withdraw support for Starmer's £35B Chagos Islands handover deal with Mauritius. Senior UK officials privately called the situation 'bleak.' - The Times
A massive fleet of US warplanes is heading to Iran to lay the groundations to bomb the Islamic Republic.
Aircraft including combat jets and support plane like air-to-air refuellers are flying to the Middle East - just hours after Iran launched a series of wargames.
These manoeuvres, in conjunction with the approaching USS Gerald R Ford strike group and USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, have led insiders to estimate that there is a 90 per cent chance of war.
Former Israeli intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said he believes a strike would happen in a "matter of days".
The fleet of planes includes more than 50 American fighter jets, which include F-35s and F-16s, and dozens of air-to-air refuelling tankers.
One source within the administration told Axios: "The boss is getting fed up. Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is a 90 per cent chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks."
The USS Ford will reportedly be poised to strike by next week.
Iran held annual military drills with Russia on Thursday as a second American aircraft carrier drew closer to the Middle East, with both the United States and Iran signaling they are prepared for war if talks on Tehran's nuclear program fizzle out.
President Donald Trump said he believes 10 to 15 days is "enough time" for Iran to reach a deal. But the talks have been deadlocked for years, and Iran has refused to discuss wider U.S. and Israeli demands that it scale back its missile program and sever ties to armed groups. Indirect talks held in recent weeks made little visible progress, and one or both sides could be buying time for final war preparations.
Iran insists that the only thing it will discuss is its nuclear program, and also, it will not make any concessions regarding its nuclear program.
Let's definitely keep talking to them!
Iran's theocracy is more vulnerable than ever following 12 days of Israeli and U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites and military last year, as well as mass protests in January that were violently suppressed. But it is still capable of striking Israel and U.S. bases in the region, and has warned that any attack would trigger a regional war.
The war will be fought in the region of Tehran.
Iran earlier this week launched a drill that involved live-fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow opening of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's traded oil passes.
Tensions are also rising inside Iran, as mourners hold ceremonies honoring slain protesters 40 days after their killing by security forces. Some gatherings have seen anti-government chants despite threats from authorities.
The movements of additional American warships and airplanes, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, don't guarantee a U.S. strike on Iran -- but it bolsters Trump's ability to carry out one should he choose to do so.
...
The official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the "full forces" needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March. The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response.
"It's proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise bad things happen," Trump said Thursday.
...
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged his nation's citizens to immediately leave Iran as "within a few, a dozen, or even a few dozen hours, the possibility of evacuation will be out of the question." He did not elaborate, and the Polish Embassy in Tehran did not appear to be drawing down its staff.
The German military said that it had moved "a mid-two digit number of non-mission critical personnel" out of a base in northern Iraq because of the current situation in the region and in line with its partners' actions. It said that some troops remain to help keep the multinational camp running in Irbil, where they train Iraqi forces.
This image provided Thursday Feb. 19, 2026 by the Iranian military and dated
...
"This week, another 50 U.S. combat aircraft -- F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s -- were ordered to the region, supplementing the hundreds deployed to bases in the Arab Gulf states," the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote. "The deployments reinforce Trump's threat -- restated on a nearly daily basis -- to proceed with a major air and missile campaign on the regime if talks fail."
On the other hand, this genius warns us that Iran's missile system is mighty and will send the US fleet to the bottom of the sea.
Say how did Iran's drones, anti-ship missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles work in Venezuela? I heard not so good. What did you hear?
And now, as reported by the WSJ via Ed Morrissey, Trump is considering launching a "limited" strike against Iran to convince them he is serious and prod them to make actual concessions on nukes, missiles, and funding terrorist proxies.
I think that's kind of dumb. Nothing convinces an opponent you are not serious than your preference to deliver mere pinprick Attitude Adjustment strikes.
Talks continue between Iran, the US, and the various mediators hoping to avert military action as the weekend approaches. Thus far, Iran still thinks it can get a new JCPOA, while Donald Trump still thinks he can force them to deal rationally. Both sides appear ready to be disappointed, at the very least.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that the regime's nuclear program will survive both the strikes in June and the coming reckoning from the US armada assembling in the Persian Gulf. Araghchi did offer yet another deal in which Iran just postpones the inevitable...
In other words, Araghchi offers only a restoration of Barack Obama's 2015 Iran deal,
...
If the Iranians remain locked in a JCPOA fantasy, Trump may be stuck in some misapprehensions of his own. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is now considering a limited opening strike, perhaps to push the Iranians into concessions on ballistic missiles and terror proxies. That strategy has its own problems:
President Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on Iran to force it to meet his demands for a nuclear deal, a first step that would be designed to pressure Tehran into an agreement but fall short of a full-scale attack that could inspire a major retaliation.
The opening assault, which if authorized could come within days, would target a few military or government sites, people familiar with the matter said. If Iran still refused to comply with Trump's directive to end its nuclear enrichment, the U.S. would respond with a broad campaign against regime facilities--potentially aimed at toppling the Tehran regime.
The first limited-strike option, which hasn't been previously reported, signals Trump might be open to using military force not only as a reprimand for Iran's failure to make a deal, but also to pave the way for a U.S.-friendly accord. One of the people said Trump could ratchet up his attacks, starting small before ordering larger strikes until the Iranian regime either dismantles its nuclear work or falls.
There are many lessons of Vietnam, but one of the biggest ones is that slow escalation is a terrible strategy. An enemy can absorb small attacks and disruptions and adapt to them.
The right strategy is the same optimal strategy for picking up a girl at a bar: Go Ugly Early.
By 6-3 Vote, Supreme Court Rules All of Trump's Tariffs Illegal
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Of course Roberts and Coney-Barrett joined the left. I don't know why we say "joined the left." They're on the left.
Just going to guess that the libertarian Gorsuch also joined the left. (Update: He did. Actually I also just guessed that the liberal cooze Coney-Barrett once again joined the left, and that guess was right as well. Although it's barely a "guess," is it?)
The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.
The 6-3 decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping "reciprocal" tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.
It's the first major piece of Trump's broad agenda to come squarely before the nation's highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.
The majority found that the Constitution "very clearly" gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs. "The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Except that Congress has also been determined to have the power to delegate this power to Executive decision-making -- which is exactly what Congress did, in granting the President the power to "regulate... importation" in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
"The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy. But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful," Kavanaugh wrote.
Trump called the majority decision "a disgrace" when he was notified during his morning meeting with several governors, according to someone with direct knowledge of the president's reaction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.
...
The majority did not address whether companies could get refunded for the billions they have collectively paid in tariffs. Many companies, including the big-box warehouse chain Costco, have already lined up to demand refunds in lower courts. Kavanaugh noted the process could be complicated.
"The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a 'mess,' as was acknowledged at oral argument," he wrote.
The Treasury had collected more than $133 billion from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law as of December, federal data shows. The impact over the next decade was estimated at some $3 trillion.
Gunther Eagleman
@GuntherEagleman
16m
🚨BREAKING: Justice Clarence Thomas just UNLEASHED pure FIRE in his dissent on the tariff ruling, dropping TRUTH BOMBS that expose the majority's BS and defend President Trump's America First authority like a boss!
He didn't mince words. He straight-up NAILED it:
"NEITHER the statutory text nor the Constitution provide a basis for ruling against the President."
BOOM. Read that again. The Constitution and the law ITSELF back Trump--no ifs, ands, or buts.
Thomas keeps swinging:
"Congress authorized the President to 'regulate . . . importation.' Throughout American history, the authority to 'regulate importation' has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports."
Historical facts don't care about your feelings, globalists.
He doubles down:
"The meaning of that phrase was beyond doubt by the time that Congress enacted this statute, shortly after President Nixon's highly publicized duties on imports were UPHELD based on identical language."
Nixon did it. Courts said YES. Same exact words. Case closed.
Then the kill shot:
"The statute that the President relied on therefore authorized him to impose the duties on imports at issue in these cases."
Crystal. Clear.
Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius
19m
So let me get this straight. Congress can totally delegate extreme, life-changing powers to rogue federal executive agencies like the EPA for 50+ years, but it cannot delegate tariff power to the President?
I know the laws governing the two issues are not the same, but the absurd inconsistency is the only thing laymen see.
Actually, Justice Gorsuch seems to be driving at that in his concurrence. There is a question about whether Congress even has the power to delegate its constitutional powers. Prior rulings that it can do this is what empowered the gigantic leviathan state we now live in. Some people want to overturn that system of congressional delegation of the powers the Constitution grants solely to it.
Gorsuch wants to know why the liberal justices want to read this and only this statute of being incapable of granting the president congressional powers, while permitting every other statute to delegate equal powers to the president. He seems to want to go further and overturn the entire system of Congress granting the Executive law-making power so it can churn out Infinite Laws, and mocks the majority for keeping that system in place while finding a violation only with Trump's use of congressionally-delegated power.
Despite the ruling, many commentators point out that the Supreme Court only denied Trump's power to lay tariffs based upon the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) -- which, of course, actually authorizes the president to "regulate... importation" -- but there are other statutory bases for this power that Trump can now assert.
🚨 JUST IN: Legal expert Jonathan Turley confirms that President Trump still has a massive toolbox of tariff options despite the 6–3 Supreme Court ruling.
The Supreme Court's decision to strike down President Trump's International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs is a welcome victory for constitutional governance and the rule of law. But anyone hoping this spells the end of the administration's tariff spree should think twice. Even without IEEPA, the president retains ample statutory authority to quickly recreate much of the current trade policy chaos.
Some of these are familiar. During Trump's first term, he invoked Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to hit China and impose steel and aluminum tariffs. Yet US law provides other tools that have largely escaped notice. Two lesser-known provisions--Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930--could let the administration continue its tariff onslaught even without IEEPA.
Sean Davis
@seanmdav
32m
The Supreme Court's decision against Trump's emergency tariffs is a complete mess, both as a matter of logic and construction, as the opinion has different majorities in different sections. The justices themselves couldn't even consistently agree on the ruling.
As Kavanaugh notes in his dissent, the decision effectively means Trump may unilaterally ban all foreign imports (an infinite tariff for all intents and purposes) on an emergency basis, but may not levy a $0.01 tariff on any good. You don't have to be a lawyer to see how stupid and illogical that is.
But given his Obamacare decision, Roberts has made clear that stupid and illogical is the defining characteristic of Roberts' tenure as chief justice.
The Supreme Court’s decision against Trump’s emergency tariffs is a complete mess, both as a matter of logic and construction, as the opinion has different majorities in different sections. The justices themselves couldn’t even consistently agree on the ruling.
Kavanaugh points out that even if today's mess of a ruling creates all sorts of chaos for previously imposed tariffs, Trump has many other options for imposing tariffs going forward. pic.twitter.com/Rdw2ab4o1G
It's gonna be weird next week when Trump reimposes most of his tariffs and all the people celebrating their demise today are like, wait a minute.
I would not count on that. If the Court wants to "save" a position, they will often search statutes and laws themselves -- sua sponte, on their own initiative -- and find alternate bases for justifying that position. That is, if the liberals on the Court were willing to consider alternate legislative authority for Trump's tariffs, they already would have considered it and ruled differently. They would have said that while Trump cannot rely on the IEEPA for imposing tariffs, he can rely on other legislative language.
The fact that they did not do so and were brazen enough to overturn the clearly expressed will of the American voters tells me they will negate all subsequent assertions by Trump to have the tariff power under alternate parts of the US Code.
THE MORNING RANT: General Motors Hires Another Senior Executive from a Money-Losing EV Startup
—Buck Throckmorton
Most start-up businesses fail, especially in tech and tech-adjacent sectors. Accordingly, most startups also lose their investors’ money. A small percentage of start-ups succeed, and when their founders and investors eventually sell, they enjoy a well-earned windfall for the entrepreneurial risk and hard work they put in to the enterprise. A miniscule number of start-ups become giant corporations.
General Motors - which is already an industrial giant – is staffing its senior executive offices with new hires whose corporate experience is at money-losing start-ups selling niche products. GM cannot succeed by employing a start-up strategy, but it certainly can fail. Inexplicably that is the direction General Motors’ executives and board have chosen to proceed.
It was just announced that General Motors has hired Claudia Gast away from EV manufacturer Lucid Motors to be its new Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Technology Partnerships. In this role she will report directly to CEO Mary Barra. Ms. Gast will actually be wearing two C-Suite hats, as she will also be the new Deputy Chief Financial Officer, reporting directly to the CFO in that capacity. Ms. Gast’s role at Lucid Motors was Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development.
This hiring announcement comes on the heels of news that GM’s presumed CEO-in-training, Sterling Anderson, is also a new hire from a money-losing start-up. As I documented in a recent piece at The American Spectator (“EVs and Autonomous Vehicles: General Motors’ Doomed Focus on Unprofitable Boutique Products”), Mr. Anderson was hired less than a year ago from Aurora Innovation, a tech start-up he co-founded that is pursuing the grail of self-driving semi-trucks. After losing $4 billion over the past four years at Aurora, and putting less than 10 test vehicles on Texas interstates, Mr. Anderson left Aurora and has quickly positioned himself to be General Motors’ next CEO. CNBC reported a few weeks ago that Mr. Anderson “has consolidated power to oversee ‘the end-to-end product lifecycle’ of GM vehicles, including manufacturing, engineering, battery, software and services product management, and engineering teams, according to GM.”
I noted in the Spectator piece that despite GM’s massive EV losses under Mary Barra, “the company is apparently casting its lot with a tech executive whose profit-and-loss experience is with cash burn rather than cash flow.”
And now, with Claudia Gast, GM is yet again staffing a high-level executive position with a person who has no experience in high-volume, mass-market products, nor does she bring from Lucid experience in running a profitable operation.
Lucid Motors sells a low-volume, specialty product, specifically luxury EVs. The starting price for a Lucid is about $80,000, with sales of about 15,000 units per year. By contrast, GM sells about 3 million vehicles per year.
Investors in Lucid stock have been taken to the cleaners. From its split-adjusted* IPO stock price of $150 per share in 2021, the stock peaked at over $550 per share in 2022, and has since fallen below $10 per share – a 98% decline. (*The IPO was at $15 per share, but due to the stock price subsequently crashing to near-zero, Lucid did a 1-for-10 reverse stock split last August.)
As for financial performance, Lucid has lost about $12 billion over the past four years, and it is running out of cash. At the end of 2024, Lucid had $4 billion in cash. Nine months later it was down to $2.3 billion, and it will likely be lower still when the full-year 2025 financial statements are released soon. Ms. Gast is wise to jump ship before the cash runs out.
There is nothing in the resumes of Mr. Anderson or Ms. Gast that indicates they have any experience steering a ship with a product line and customer base like General Motors. After the catastrophic run under Mary Barra, and the damage from the EV distraction, GM desperately needs to focus on being a profitable, mass-market manufacturer of traditional gas and diesel vehicles.
GM’s Board of Directors should have brought in (or promoted) industry veterans who understand what GM’s customers want to buy and what its dealers can sell. Instead, they’ve brought in executives who have experience managing cash burn and losses on low-volume, niche products. This negligent oversight by the Board is a dereliction of their fiduciary duty.
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]
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