Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be May? As I predicted last week, May was just around the corner, and well dang if it didn't come true!
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
WeaselDoctrine
So who went to the range this week and focused on fundamentals? I mean, really focused on the task at hand? I probably don't give those who do enough credit, because frankly, it's not that easy to do. Sure, you might vaguely recall some retarded shit Weasel was yammering about the previous week on the Gun Thread about fundamentals and blah, blah, blah... just the usual crap, but are you really focused the whole time?. After all, you are already one tactical bad-ass mo-fo with a giant watch and the latest and greatest thing from Sig or Glock sporting a flashlight and optic and Pez dispenser. You read lots of internet stuff too, and impress the heck out of range babes with your mad skillz and drop rig holster. You go to the range and shoot and the results aren't too terrible, so who needs all the focusing and fundamentals crapola?
You do.
The single best way I know to focus all of your brain molecules and track progress is to keep score. It's really that simple. I intentionally try not to focus on competitive shooting here because I want this to be a general shooting-for-funsies-for-all thread and don't want it to turn into some boring, ultra-competitive, elite-shooter wanna-be deal. Having said that, I have always been a proponent of practicing with a purpose and keeping track of progress, and it turns out keeping score is very handy in that regard. Again, plinking is relatively easy, and shooting well for score is hard. It places you outside your comfort zone, and if you have the right attitude, causes you to try your best to make every shot count.
I will say it again, if you aren't participating in some sort of club level competitive shooting event, you are missing an inexpensive and fun way to very quickly up your game. The first time you go, you won't have any idea what you're doing and that's OK, but please avoid the temptation to just go to a match and watch. OK, maybe you can do that once, but the only way to learn and reap all the benefits is to go and participate. You will quickly find everyone is more than willing to help a new competitor, especially if you go with a good attitude, ask questions and are willing to learn. Not being an asshole is also helpful.
Please consider it. You will be surprised with how fun it is and how quickly you will improve.
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Competition Time!
In an amazing and totally not made up coincidence our pals blaster and sra blaster have started competing!
Since we went to the TxMoMe, sra blaster has been itching to compete in shooting. She looked a little at IDPA but locations and times did not gel for us. Then our local range started having "Steel Shoots." This is an "outlaw" competition that doesn't run under any sanctioning body. It's just indoor courses involving movement that are timed and scored and it was a good fit for us.
We did attend a training course for this that gave us a feel for how the events are run. Our first event we had a great time but scored poorly. We chalk it up as a learning experience. We've got our second event in a couple of days so we hope to do better and still have fun.
Here's how the courses are run: there is a setup in an indoor range and steel targets are arranged in various scenarios for you to shoot in a run. Some are static firing - stand here at this cone and shoot those targets 2x each. Some are in motion. Shoot at these targets while you are transiting from this point to this point. Some require a particular sequence - shoot the red target, then the yellow, then the red again. Some are shoot from behind an obstacle. An RSO follows you and times and keeps score and makes sure you aren't breaking any safety rules. You get one walkthrough and then it's time to shoot. After everyone in the group shoots the first course you move to the second.
No restrictions on equipment except you are limited to 3 magazines and you must have an OWB holster for your pistol and two mags. Also you must shoot frangible ammo since we are engaging steel at as little as 5 yards. Round count for a course may be over 40 so no math but that is going to leave 1911s out of the running. Everyone shot some high cap 9mm - Sigs, Glocks, and 2011s were on the menu.
This type of shooting is a real challenge. There is more than just putting a hole in a piece of paper. You have to think and remember and it's a competition also deal with adrenaline. And focus on fundamentals at the same time!
And then there is preparation. You need to have the right equipment. While three is the minimum number of mags to have, having 6 is better. Preloading them helps - I am loading each mag to 15 and then we will remove rounds to fit the scenario. We got caught short in the first event because we had to load 43 rounds in 3 mags in a short period of time - time that would have been better spent reviewing the course and watching others go ahead of us.
This is fun but I think it will ultimately make us better shooters, too. I hope our scores are better this time.
Very nicely done blaster and sra blaster!
Do you see this, people? Do you see? They had fun! They also realize this will make them better shooters. I call this a win-win situation with no downside other than perhaps initially demonstrating in public that you aren't quite ready for the SEAL Teams just yet. Always keep track of scores as a progress metric but don't obsess over them. They will get better fairly quickly as you begin to get comfortable with what you're doing. Simply set aside your ego as you learn, and listen more than you talk. Figure out who the best shooters are and become their bestest friends. Ask them how they do things and you are very likely to be surprised by how willing the truly accomplished shooters are to share.
Give it a try. I know we have some competitors here who can chime in on the value of shooting matches, so please speak up in the comments!
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FUNdamentals Review
Trigger placement
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Shelter On a Quiet Street
For the coming Spicy Times.
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Neutron Stars
These little guys seem like fun!
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2024 NoVAMoMe
Note: One of the great joys of NoVAMoMe season, at least for me, is being able to cut and paste the entire block of text below and haranguing you to register for the event. Have you registered? Are you focusing on the fundamentals of registration?
Alright, guys and gals, the long awaited and highly anticipated opening of 2024 NoVAMoMe registration is upon us! That's right, registration for the event of the season is open, which means you can register to attend! You see, in order to attend, you must first register, and then wait for June 8th, and then attend! It's really more of an application to attend based on whether we like you or not, but what have you got to lose?!
Q: Weasel, your world frightens and confuses us. How do we, how do you say, register for the NoVAMoMe?
A: Welp, it's pretty darn easy!
First, check your calendars for June 8th, 2024, and cancel anything already planned. Good so far? Then simply send an email to WeaselBell Productions expressing your interest, then sit back and anxiously wait for a reply. Our pal and most delightful 'ette and MoMe Hostess Extraordinaire bluebell will review your application and relevant permanent record notations to decide if you're NoVAMoMe material. If you're one of the chosen, you'll get a reply with a link and secret password to the registration site containing all the pertinent details. Look these over and complete the simple registration form, following the PayPal link provided at the end of the form to make your payment. The $30 pp fee covers appetizers, dinner (BBQ Chicken, hamburdogs, sides, and dessert) plus an unlimited amount of fun! Since we must guarantee a headcount to the caterer, all registrations must be made online by May 26th. We are not accepting payment for registration at the door. You do not need a PayPal account to register and can pay with any major credit card.
A NoVAMoMe PSA from our pal bluebell
Hi folks - just a quick PSA. If you write for info about the MoMe, please give us a few words in the body of the email just so I know you are a Moron and not a spammer (moron). I do receive spam on this email account because it's sitting right here in my nic, so that's why I'm asking. I don't want to give our details to a spammer. Also, once registered, remember to check your spam folder if you don't receive a confirmation email.
Thanks.
bluebell
Seriously, just send an email, go to the site with the password provided, fill out the simple form, and make your payment. If you forget, a link to the email is on the main page, left sidebar. If you do not sign up, bluebell will be disappointed. Weasel will be disappointed, too, but it's bluebell you need to worry about.
Win a Dream Date with Weasel!
Due to popular demand, we are again conducting a separate raffle for a Dream Date with Weasel This fabulous prize includes an entire day of shooting and personalized one-on-one handgun & rifle coaching and instruction at Weasel Acres on a mutually agreeable date with yours truly. The lucky winner will be able to not only bring and shoot their own weapons, but also try out a variety of WeaselWeapons using WeaselAmmo!
We will end the day with dinner at a good Mexican place in nearby Appomattox. The winner will be responsible for their travel to and from Central Virginia, hence the separate drawing.
Don't be a pathetic girly-man loser, register today!
Q: Weasel, anything else for 2024?
A: Why I'm glad you asked! There are in fact TWO things to mention for 2024.
First, we are again having a pre-party get-together the afternoon/evening before the main event. Details at the registration site.
Dos, we are again offering a NoVAMoMe commemorative mug for 2024 available only to NoVAMoMe participants!
We sincerely hope you can join the festivities. I promise you this event is as laid back and non-anxiety inducing as humanly possible, and nothing makes me happier than to meet new people who have been reluctant to join in the past. If sitting on the sidelines and just observing is your thing, you can do just that with zero pressure from anyone. I hope some of the past NoVAMoMe participants will jump in and share their thoughts on the event to inspire the scairdy-cat lurkers out there to throw caution to the wind and sign up!
Monster From Green Hell!
Have I featured this before? For some reason I believe I have. If so, here it is again.
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Musical Interlude
Here is Henry Mancini with a few favorites.
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Gun Basics 101
No new video from the She Equips Herself gal, so here is a re-run on safety at the gym
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Cigar of the Week
This week our pal rhomboid scores again with this excellent review of the Stillwell Bayou No. 32
Steve Saka, the founder and master blender of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust, is also a pipe smoker, and a while back he collaborated with the chief blender of the pipe tobacco company Cornell & Diehl to blend some pipe tobacco-based cigars. I've reviewed two here previously: the Aromatic No. 1 and the Navy 1056.
The Bayou No. 32 is another in the line, the name drawn from the use of Louisiana's unique and venerable Perique pipe tobacco, from St. James Parish. In Dunbarton's description, the Bayou No. 32 is "A combination of Bright and Red Virginia leaf with the most select St. James Parish Perique pipe tobacco added to a medium-bodied Nicaraguan puro".
More experienced pipe smokers than I can probably describe the flavors better, but to me the overall experience was a sort of sweet tangy earthiness. Very nice. Smoke was ample, and as with all Dunbarton sticks, construction was excellent. There a couple other interesting cigars in this line that I hope to try in the future. Stillwell Star sticks are not your everyday cigar (unless you've made a killing in bitcoin, or were far-sighted enough to snatch up lots of new-in-box Colt Pythons back in the 80s) - they go for $14 and up.
Excellent, rhomboid! Thank you!
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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.
A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid
Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!
This week's mailbag entry is from our pal 10 Gallon Hat. Great one!
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Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Great cake...does it exist? Sure, but I think the topic is a bit more complicated than just throwing a ton of chocolate and frosting in and hoping it all works out. And even the frosting gets a little weird. Too many are just sugar bombs that feel like they are are rotting one's teeth with the first bite. And frosting hides a multitude of sins, most egregious being dry cake. Except it doesn't really hide that dusty, crumbly, sort-of-gross mouthfeel that a dry cake gives.
Oh, and another thing...don't use the same frosting in the layers as on the outside! I want some contrast, damn it! In fact, some of the best cakes I have ever eaten had a tart fruit based filling between the layers, which I think works perfectly with the sweeter frosting.
But not too sweet! Do I have to repeat myself again? And that's quite a trick, because frosting is sugar. But some bakers know how to do it, and that is a truly impressive thing. When the filling is delicious and the frosting is interesting but not too sweet and the cake is moist and flavorful, then that means that the stars have aligned and all is right in the world...at least for a few minutes.
Yeah...cake is complicated. There is a reason why great cake bakers are in demand.
Inflation is now baked into the cake (SWIDT>). The Fed probably won't raise interest rates, the government is spending like a drunken sailor, and the destruction of the labor force (minimum wage, regulation, welfare, etc) will keep wages high, so there is very little downward pressure and a whole lot of upward pressure on prices. And have you noticed...fuel costs are rising!
The profit margins in the restaurant industry are brutal, and while McDonalds can probably handle an extended run of even more pricing pressure, I can't imagine how the smaller restaurants are doing.
My sense is that even well-off folks are decreasing their discretionary spending. That's based on all sorts of anecdotal evidence, but I would lay money that I am correct.
Home cooking is going to make a big comeback. That's why you should tune in here every Sunday!
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I probably sound like a broken record, but damn! This technique plus a delicious marinade is a great and easy combination.
The technique is simple. Trimmed bone-in thighs on top of a bed of sliced onions. Lots of them! Then into the oven for about 30-40 minutes at 425.
The marinade was all of my leftover cilantro, blended with Dijon, honey, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, half a small onion, and half a Jalapeño. I left the chicken in the marinade for a full day, and I think that was the important step.
When the chicken looks good, remove it from the skillet and return the onions to the oven until they brown a bit and the liquid mostly evaporates. Five minutes?
Then eat!
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That is a composite cork, which has become quite popular with inexpensive wines. And that's sad, because screw-tops are much better, but more expensive. Those composite corks are irritating for both esthetic and practical reasons. Esthetically? They are ugly. Practically? They seem denser than real cork, and many cork screws don't work as well in them.
Sure...that's a classic First-World ProblemTM, but still!
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This guy is not screwing around. Bacon in the bread. Bacon in the cheese. Bacon in the meat. Bacon in the sauce.
From "The lurker sometimes known as Marty" comes an interesting photo. He seems to be testing his new griddle (a marvelous piece of cooking equipment!) with an interesting combination of salmon steaks and bear steaks!
I really like salmon, but have been cooking fillets rather than steaks for many years. One reason is that I like salmon steaks on the grill, and I suck at cooking fish anywhere near fire. Yeah...they usually stick a bit, and that disturbs my OCD! The other reason is that I have a bunch of solid recipes for fillets that are easy and delicious, so...I just stopped grilling salmon.
As for bear? I have eaten it, and I find it just okay. It is entirely possible that the bear I have eaten was not processed or prepared correctly, so I will reserve judgement, especially since that bear looks pretty damned good!
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[Hat Tip: Misanthropic Humanitarian]
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Good butter, and Flap Meat...whatever the hell that is...just send it, Broccolini that isn't $6/bunch, garlic...lots of garlic!, well-marbled hanger steaks and elk chops to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Who are those poor deluded souls who shake their Manhattans? These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.
However, I will give dispensation to those who use maple syrup on Brussels Sprouts! I tried that and it worked nicely. I still prefer Agave, but still...
And yes, I used to demand fancy bourbon, but let's face it, $1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
What the hell? I open a box of chocolates (Sees Candy) and I see this? What has happened to American pride? What happened to our industrial base that a box of chocolates (dark chocolates with mostly caramels...of course) can slip past supposedly rigorous quality control and reveal a 180 degree catastrophe?
Data showed that while those who bought plant-based substitutes in previous years continued to do so, companies failed to entice new customers.
According to GFI, unit sales were down 9 percent in 2023 while dollar sales fell by 2 percent. As a result, the plant-based food market in the US went from being worth $8.2 billion the year before to $8.1 billion.
Well, actually, it's clear that existing customers are leaving too! Factor in inflation, and it's even uglier than at first glance.
This pattern holds true with all sorts of businesses, including the sacrament of The Sustainable Organic Church of The Carbon Apocalypse...the electric vehicle. The business plan is embarrassingly simplistic, and consumers aren't going along with it.
But look at other businesses that push crap we don't want. Lingerie for morbidly obese women? Shaving cream for transsexuals? mRNA-based vaccines that are a health crisis in waiting? Lesbian Studies degrees from 3rd tier colleges?
These products are going the way of the Dodo, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of lickspittle wanna-be fascists.
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 05-05-2024 ["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: Dash my lace wigs). 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...(Axeman's "pouncing pants")
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
This is another random internet photo. I like the futuristic science fiction aesthetic. It's how my library would look on my intergalactic starship.
WHERE DO STORY IDEAS COME FROM?
In the video above, the YouTuber attempts to provide a structure and framework for story idea generation. "Where do your ideas come from?" seems to be a very common question for popular authors. I'm sure Stephen King, Lee Child, Brandon Sanderson, etc., have heard that question a thousand times. The truth is that ideas for stories are all around us. They can be found just by observing our surroundings. In my own office, we used to joke about the off-the-wall conversations we'd somehow have. Many of them could serve as story fodder if I was so inclined to write them down.
"Ideation" is a concept used in design thinking to describe the process for generating ideas. At one presentation I attended recently, the speaker showed us several images on a slide and then asked us to pick two of them. We were then asked to generate a new idea based on those two images. You can take this same approach to generating story ideas. How could you combine two otherwise unrelated pictures into an awesome story?
Sometimes a story idea will be generated by a random writing sample. Supposedly, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was created when he was scribbling one day and the following popped out of his head:
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The rest, as they say, is history.
Here at the AoSHQ, we are exposed to countless awesome stories from real life. any of them could easily be the seed of a story idea. Or take one story from the Morning Report, one story from the evening Cafe, and one story from the ONT. Then mix them up and see if you can create a NEW story idea just from those three individual story. Note that story ideas do NOT have to be good! For every decent story idea, you may have to go through 30-40 (or more) just plain awful ideas. However, if you write them all down, you may find a use for them later if something more interesting comes along.
For a challenge, look at last night's ONT picture or Friday's Cafe picture...How could you use one or the other (or both) in a story idea?
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WRITING TIPS FROM ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Ernest Hemingway is one of those authors that will most likely be "cancelled" sometime soon because he's not the "ideal" modern author, though I suppose he could be considered a quintessential American author in many ways. You don't have to like him--either as an author or as a person--but you can't deny he's an interesting character. Like a lot of successful authors, he's doled out tips and tricks for up and coming writers:
Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence. -- Very hard to argue with this. If you pick a book at random off your shelves, you'll find that 9 times out of 10, this will likely be the case. For example, "The star was classified as an A7 on the Morgan-Keenan system, hotter and brighter than the G2-class star humans had evolved under" (A Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton). This one sentence tells us we are not in the Solar System and that this story will most likely be science fiction. Another example: "Higher education institutions all claim to teach some form of critical thinking" (Teaching Change by José Antonio Bowen). Here we have a sentence that indicates the book may be about education and that is is nonfiction. The first sentence can have a real impact on your audience.
Focus on details that create emotion. -- We humans are--at our core--very emotional creatures. Stories can and do touch us deeply on an emotional level. It's why we cry at the end of Old Yeller (movie or book). Stirring emotions through storytelling can change the course of history, raising and toppling empires. A history professor yesterday asked ChatGPT to write what life was like in 1824 America. He gives his students the same prompt. They have to describe--in depth and detail--what an imaginary version of themselves would be doing in America in 1824. AI tools cannot add in an emotional component to their descriptions. They come up with bland, uninteresting prose. However, we humans can describe the physical details--the sights, sounds, smells, taste of 1824 if we have even a remote exposure to outdoor life. The details that stir emotion *matter.*
Write concisely. -- This is probably good advice for newer writers, but I think it also demonstrates Hemingway's biases from his previous occupation in journalism. Isaac Asimov also writes very concisely, probably because he was a *machine* when it came to writing and thus was focused more on output rather than dedicating hours and hours to improving the quality of his writing. Every writer will find their own balance between conciseness and verbosity. As a technical writer myself, I find myself having to really trim down my writing sometimes. I can be a bit verbose when I get carried away. This is also something I teach my students. Write MORE than you have to as it's easier to trim it out than add more.
Build you vocabulary. -- Abso-frickin'-lutely! The best way to increase your vocabulary is to READ AND READ AND READ SOME MORE! Hemingway says if you need a dictionary, you are not a writer. You should instead read a dictionary cover-to-cover three times. Then maybe you can start writing. I think reading and encountering new words, then looking them up works better for me, because then I can see the new words in context so it makes sense.
Stop writing when it's going well. -- I will disagree with Hemingway here. Most authors I think would encourage you continue writing, but maybe switching from writing on your novel to freewriting exercises. Part of the craft of writing is developing the discipline necessary to write an entire book. It takes dedication and practice. Now, if you have written some good stuff over the course of an hour or so, then it's probably time to take a short break, stretch, walk around, etc., so that you can keep your mind fresh when you sit back down to write. Don't try to crank out a novel over a weekend. It won't turn out well at all.
Don't talk about it. -- This is another point on which I disagree with Hemingway. If you are new to the craft of writing stories you NEED feedback from other writers. No one wants to read a 400 page manuscript unless they are getting paid for it. However, friends and family will be happy to read a few pages at a time and provide feedback over the course of your novel. Or join a writers group, like the AoSHQ Writers Group sponsored by Moron OrangeEnt.
MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
I read Let Us Now Be Famous Men by Moron Author Len Nilinsky. The book was mentioned in an AoS comment that provided a download address, so I thought "why not?" This sci fi story is engaging and the main characters limited in number and very well developed. The story takes place on Terra (formerly known as Earth) and is a post-apocalyptic tale where the hero is a Veteran of the Black Ash, a nuclear war that destroyed most of the planet and the plant and animal species living on it. The vivid description of the ruin of present-day Terra is contrasted with museums showing, for example, the weather on pre-war Earth, including a rain shower in a green meadow. This was richly and emotionally described. The Vet is asked by the utopian government to help solve a robot problem on Luna (the moon) because no one else living has the requisite knowledge and experience. Well done and gripping story. (And this was my first e-book.)
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at April 28, 2024 09:17 AM (U3L4U)
Well, I finally did it and it's about time. I read The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast cover to cover. I've read bits here and there but never the whole thing. Lewis' writing, no matter the topic, is always a delight. The Screwtape Letters can be difficult at times because it is too prophetic and my blood pressure starts to rise.
I do wonder if Lewis was inspired by Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" (which is brilliant) when he used the approach he did in Screwtape.
Posted by: JTB at April 28, 2024 09:23 AM (zudum)
Comment: I've heard of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, of course, but I had never heard of the follow-up story Screwtape Proposes a Toast (available online for free HERE). If you are not familiar with The Screwtape Letters, it's an epistolary novel in which the devil Screwtape is providing instruction to a younger devil on how to tempt a man. Lewis presents Hell as a vast bureaucracy, with Screwtape being a sort of middle-management. This idea has been borrowed by numerous other authors, such as Roger Zelazny/Robert Sheckley (Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming) and Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaimon (Good Omens).
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I read Slack Tide, by RKF Adams, which is a Moron-written book that I've had in my kindle unlimited selections for about a year and just hadn't read yet.
It's in the Perfessor's Moron Library link.
A retired Marine whose passion is bonsai gets dragged into taking down a child slavery operation.
It was a good adventure, with a mostly satisfying conclusion (you can't save them all, so you save who you can). Needs some more editing for occasional grammar errors and typos, but not too much.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 28, 2024 09:52 AM (OX9vb)
Comment: I think it's great when Morons and Moronettes review Moron Authors' works. I've usually enjoyed them myself. However, a key point that cannot be stressed enough is the need for *intense* editing for grammatical and spelling mistakes. NOTHING destroys the immersive experience of reading quite like seeing painfully obvious errors in the text. So proofread, proofread, and proofread some more! Hire someone if you can afford it! (If not, then find some friendly experts or join a writers group where much of this can be addressed.)
More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)
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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:
After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.
A Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton
Hamilton's storytelling style is interesting. He often has stories within stories and mixes up genres. The last book, The Abyss Beyond Dreams, involved humans attempting to infiltrate the Void at the center of the galaxy. The local humans IN the Void attempted to stage a Marxist revolution (and succeeded, mostly) because of the corrupt government that was hiding key truths about the alien Fallers that are attacking the humans. In this book, Hamilton gives us more of a police procedural story as the human society on Bienvenidos has progressed from a late-19th century level of technology to mid-to-late 20th century. Now that the planet has escaped the Void, technological progress is possible and humans have a slight edge over the Fallers, even launching rockets and missiles at the Trees in space that are the source of Faller invasion. However, the Fallers have not been idle over the past couple of centuries and have developed new tricks for infiltrating and corrupting human society as they take it over from within.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
This is part of my ongoing quest to read certain books prior to my milestone birthday later this summer. I always find it fascinating to read this kind of book because it seems so cliche at first. But this is one of those books that has spawned a hundred--if not a thousand--imitations over the decades since it was written. I believe Gibson is credited with coining the term "cyberspace" for the virtual, computer-generated world he created. It's also referred to as the "matrix" (sound familiar?). At first, I thought it would be very difficult to understand, but constant reading in the genre has made it fairly easy to understand the tech levels involved as well as the slang, which has been used by other authors as an homage to Gibson.
Verdict: Meh. It was OK, but not great. By the time I got to the end, I really didn't care about the characters or the story.
WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:
Aquasilva Trilogy Book 3 - Crusade by Anselm Audley
The Wonderland Gambit Book 1 - The Cybernetic Walrus by Jack L. Chalker
The Wonderland Gambit Book 2 - The March Hare Network by Jack L. Chalker
The Wonderland Gambit Book 3 - The Hot-Wired Dodo by Jack L. Chalker
The Crimson Shadow Book 1 - The Sword of Bedwyr by R. A. Salvatore
The Crimson Shadow Book 2 - Luthien's Gamble by R. A. Salvatore
The Crimson Shadow Book 3 - The Crimson King by R. A. Salvatore
Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Any deviations from the norm can be blamed on Pixy's new hamster farm.
This could save 360 lives a year, claims the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, almost as many as are killed by beavers and bathtub accidents combined.
Because models have no real intelligence and are simply predicting words, images, speech, music and other data according to a private schema, they sometimes get it wrong. Very wrong.
What RAG does is tell the AI to look the damn answer up instead of making it up.
Following price cuts from both Nvidia and AMD, the judges award this round to the 7700 XT. In fact, I've seen the 7700 XT (which has 12GB of RAM) selling for less than even the 8GB model of the 4060 Ti, making the choice easy.
Setting up computers all over the place, including a new Linux server at home running Ubuntu 24.04.
Disclaimer: The Team MP44 is awarded a rating of "sucks", after failing completely under both Windows and Linux.
The mother-in-law comes home and finds her son-in-law furious and packing his suitcase. "What happened?"
"What happened? I'll tell you what happened! I sent an email to my wife saying that I was coming home from my trip today. I got home and guess what I found? My wife, yes my Rachel, with a naked guy in our marital bed! This is the end of our marriage, I will leave forever!"
"Calm down!" says mother-in-law. "There is something odd about this story. Rachel would never do such a thing! Wait a minute while I check what happened."
Moments later, mother-in-law comes back with a big smile. "You see, I said there must be a simple explanation. Rachel didn't receive your Email." (H/T Isophorone Blog)
WEDDING HELLS Watch moment at least 100 wedding guests are struck down by mystery illness that left them vomiting after 4-course meal
One of the menu items reportedly had an aftertaste of a chemical
THIS is the shocking moment wedding guests were struck down by a mystery illness after being served a 4-course meal.
Around 100 people experienced "aggravated symptoms" at the nuptials in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Cops: Handcuffed Man, 73, Hit Officer With "Forcibly" Thrown Cheeseburger
A handcuffed 73-year-old man somehow was able to “forcibly” throw a cheeseburger at a cop, leading to the suspect’s arrest on a felony battery charge, records show.
Police responded Wednesday night to a Wawa convenience store in Fort Pierce, Florida “in reference to a subject being present who was previously trespassed.”
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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Oh Shit! Moments.
Notice: Posted with unenthusiastic permission by the Ace Media Empire & AceCorp, LLC. Probably a withdrawal symptom of MSG.
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 05/04/2024 [TheJamesMadison]
—Open Blogger
Robert E. Howard
Six films have the credit of some variation of "Based on the works of Robert E. Howard," and I watched all of them a few weeks back. It all started when I got the 4K collector's set of the first two Conan the Barbarian films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger from Arrow Video (they're very nice). I expanded it to include the other four, and as I was going through them, I had the recurring thought that I would write a post about them. However, the only thing that kept attracting my attention was the idea of the films as adaptations of Howard's writing. The problem was that I hadn't read a Conan story in about a decade, and I'd never read any of the Kull the Atlantean or Solomon Kane stories.
So, I read all of them. Well, all of the stories that Howard published in his lifetime. I wasn't going to go down the rabbit hole of the fragments, recreations, and adaptations in other mediums (mostly the Marvel comic books). This also meant that I could thoroughly ignore Red Sonja since the character as presented in the film is actually a creation of Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith in a Marvel comic, sort of inspired by a character named Red Sonya by Howard who didn't appear in the Hyborian Age.
The question then becomes, which is the most accurate? Is accuracy the real goal of this kind of exercise? Is Howard the kind of writer to be slavishly accurate to when adapting to a vastly different medium from short stories and novellas into feature film?
And, just to be clear, the five films discussed will be: Conan the Barbarian from 1982, directed by John Milius, Conan the Destroyer from 1984, directed by Richard Fleischer, Kull the Conqueror from 1997, directed by John Nicolella, Solomon Kane from 2009, directed by M.J. Bassett, and Conan the Barbarian from 2011, directed by Marcus Nispel.
First of all, out of the adaptations in question, only one of them actually makes any attempt to adapt an actual story that Howard wrote. There are plenty of little scenes and even bits of dialogue that get peppered throughout, but only one, Kull the Conqueror has even the shell of one of the original stories. And it really is just a shell. Kull was originally a Conan story that got rewritten to include Kull when Kevin Sorbo signed on, not wanting to play the same character as Arnold. It stemmed from Conan the Conqueror, previously titled The Hour of the Dragon, and only the most simplistic recitation of events from a 30,000 foot view would tell you that they have anything in common.
Outside of that, though, none of them make that attempt. So, what's being adapted. I think it comes down to three main elements. The first, and probably the most important for most people, is the characters. This is almost entirely about the three title characters. Almost none of the other characters in the films come from the books with the sole exception of Valeria in Milius' film, but she's so far removed from the Valeria presented in "Red Nails" where she's a pirate, not some kind of Viking, Valkyrie, thief. So, she's kind of close, but not that close. The second major element being adapted is the setting: They Hyborian Age. To be honest, though, the Hyborian Age in Howard's writing is some kind of hodgepodge of really ancient and Medieval, but that's part of the appeal. It's sort of timeless that way, so the world on film can be a hodgepodge and a bit timeless. The third is what I personally consider to be the most important: the magic.
Having read all of these stories (not his westerns or boxing stuff, mind you), it's obvious that Howard was deeply influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. I don't even need to know that Howard and Lovecraft had a correspondence based relationship to see the influence. He uses phrases like "cosmic horror" and "the Old Ones." The evil of the world is almost always magicians or sorcerers who are usually not powerful on their own, but at least implied to be intermediaries for larger forces. This is honestly the stuff that appeals to me most in these stories, so while I recognize that not everyone has that same preference, it's what I look for most in these adaptations.
So, I think that's the three major things: character, setting, and the unique approach to magic and evil. Which held up best?
The Films Kull the Atlantean
Let's just get Kull the Conqueror out of the way: It's surprisingly not a very good adaptation. Kull is simply wrong for the Atlantean that Howard wrote. As played by Sorbo, he's a proto-Tony Stark, quippy and loose while the written Kull is serious and contemplative. Well, he's mostly Conan but talks a bit less. The setting is wrong because they filmed on old English ruins meant to portray a heightened current state (though it's supposed to also pale in comparison to the ancient Acheron). The magic is never taken very seriously, but at least there's an effort to get the witch played by Tia Carrere to be some kind of vessel for a larger evil. It's not only a bad film, but it gets the appeal of the source material wrong. Howard isn't heavy metal. He may be in the adaptations in comic form, but the credits aren't that the film was adapted from the Marvel comics but from Howard.
Well, with the worst one out of the way, what about the other four? Let's tackle Conan first, since he's the biggest target.
Conan the Cimmerian
In terms of character, we have essentially three takes: Arnold's efforts under Milius, Arnold's efforts under Fleischer, and Jason Momoa. The core problem with Arnold in Milius' film is that he simply doesn't talk that much. Howard's Conan is surprisingly loquacious, explaining himself at times with eloquence. Arnold has only eighteen lines of dialogue in the entirety of the first film. What he says is in alignment with Howard's writing, especially the famous line about what is best in life, but Milius consciously pulled dialogue from Arnold because his English just wasn't very good at the time. The second effort, directed by Fleischer, has a different problem: silliness. In order to make the franchise more kid-friendly, they lightened the tone a good bit (while leaving in a surprising amount of blood, to be honest), and it nadirs with a scene of drunk Conan in the middle of the film trying to explain love. It's very not Conan. Throw in the fact that the innocent waif of a leading lady was Olivia d'Abo, who was fourteen at the time, the lustful Conan was made extremely restrained and chaste, which is weird. Also, Conan doesn't build teams. Conan commands by his sword and his wit. Conan builds a team in Conan the Destroyer. It just feels wrong.
What might be the most accurate version of Conan is Jason Momoa. Arnold's physique is more in line with Howard's descriptions, though Momoa isn't exactly small (it's not like Tom Cruise playing Reacher), but he has more dialogue direct from Howard ("I live, I love, I slay," is a direct quote), is more passionate with his leading lady, and has a certain pantherish quality that Howard always harped on. I think he works.
I should also note that both modern and older versions invent a backstory for Conan that Howard never had: the burning of the Cimmerian village which Milius takes even further by having Conan become a slave. Conan was never a slave in the books, but Kull was. Conan was a wanderer and then a pirate after leaving Cimmeria. So, points off.
The second element is the setting, and the fullest of the three seems to be Milius' take. Old, but not ruined. Large but not packed with people. The Hyborian Age that Milius presents feels real and appropriate. Fleischer's vision is not something I dislike, but it feels a bit off. It's a bit too stagey with large, good-looking sets that are dressed too cleanly, especially the castle that begins and ends the film. The more natural settings, the places outdoors filmed in Eastern Europe and sets designed like caves feel more right. There's also a wizard's lair that's right out of a Kull story that feels really good. So, Destroyer is okay, but something of a mixed bag. The newer Conan the Barbarian actually gets it the most right, I think. The ancient temple in the middle of a forest feels right in line with Howard's take on the Hyborian Age. Dragging a ship across the land by elephants is something Howard never described but would have probably loved. There's a variety of settings from jungles to desert to the sea that never feels terribly small (this was a problem in Red Sonja, but we're not talking about it), and travel seems to take time.
Now, the magic is where I was focusing mainly as I watched. Out of the three, I think Milius' Conan is actually the furthest from Howard. That's not to say that it's terribly far, though. All three are reasonably close, I think. My only issue with Thulsa Doom, as an adaptation of how Howard would write an evil wizard, is that he doesn't seem to have a connection with a larger force. That could be taken in implication when he turns into a serpent for no real reason, especially since the Cult of Set is so prominent in so many Conan (and Kull) stories. So, pretty close. I hold up Destroyer as closer, though, because the wizard is almost directly from a Kull story, and the monster at the end is really awesome, representing the kind of nightmarish vision that Howard liked to imply rather than describe directly. The more recent film is the one that implied the connection with a larger, unseen evil most fully, manifested through the pursuit of an Acheron crown, powered by blood and in pursuit by a king and his witch daughter. This is exactly the sort of thing that Howard wrote about.
So, while I haven't talked about the actual quality of these films, it really does feel like the Marcus Nispel, Jason Momoa adaptation is actually the closest overall to Howard's original source material. It's the least of the three in terms of quality, but I think it captures a lot of what Howard had written in a new medium accurately.
However, that being said, there's also a structural issue to talk about. The newest Conan film has this terrible, and very modern, sensibility that it needs to have an action beat every ten minutes. It's literally every ten minutes. The prologue, which lasts for 30 minutes, has three action beats (one to start, one in the middle, and one to end). The Howard stories don't operate like that at all. They're generally more sedate and ominous rather than moving from action beat to action beat ("Beyond the Black River" is something of an exception and does have a similar feel, to be fair). There is action, of course, but it's not so constantly repetitive. A forty page story may have two serious bits of action in it. So, while I feel like the world and characters are captured decently well, the actual structure is off. It's more of a metal action movie than a replication of Howard's work.
Solomon Kane
There is, of course, only one cinematic adaptation of Howard's character Solomon Kane, and it makes no effort to adapt any of the actual stories, most of which take place in Africa. It is, instead, an effort at an origin story, effectively treating the character like a comic book superhero whereas Howard had brought Kane into the literary world fully formed as the zealot for justice cloaked in language of the language of God while wearing the outfit of a Puritan. So, much like Milius creating the backstory of Conan, M.J. Bassett (writer and director) created a backstory from some individual lines that Howard had sprinkled through a couple of the stories as guidance. There is a mention of fighting the Turks, for instance, that becomes the basis for the entire prologue of the film where a viciously evil and younger Kane kills everyone in his way before he's confronted with the agent of the devil trying to take his soul to Hell. This sends him to a monastery back in England where he decides to seclude himself before the abbot sends him out in the world to seek his destiny: fighting evil.
The whole "soul is in danger" thing is a complete creation by Bassett without any textual backup from Howard's writing, but the portrait of a man trying to be good, seeing the evil in the world, and deciding to fight against evil in the service of good over the course of the rest of the film feels like the kind of backstory that Howard could have had in mind. The story that Kane goes through contains the exact kind of balance between real-world and otherworldly threats, manifested through a weird-looking guy with connections to a greater evil that we never quite see. It goes a bit overboard with the giant metal beast in the end, but Howard did have Kane fight harpies in the African mountains at one point. So...I don't think it's terribly off.
I suppose the biggest hit against it from an adaptation point of view is the effort to create a backstory at all which all of the others are guilty of as well, except for Kull which is terrible and was also meant to be a Conan movie anyway, implying that the previous films were the same character's previous history, including the original backstory in the first film. In addition, it doesn't feel the need to go breakneck action all the time, allowing for longer stretches without the swinging of swords, which helps it feel right from a structural point of view.
So, essentially, I think Solomon Kane is the closest to Howard's work out of the five films in question.
Order
If forced to order them by faithful adaptations, I'd go: Solomon Kane, Conan the Barbarian by Milius, Conan the Barbarian by Nispel, Conan the Destroyer, and then Kull the Conqueror. Honestly, though, there's no great answer. Only one of them actually tries to adapt a story, and that one does it badly. Most of them try to come up with backstories that Howard never wrote. The actual capture of the central characters is, on the whole, halfway decent. The sense of magic that Howard put in his work is also pretty good, though there's a range. So, this is something that I would never call an objective list, mostly just how I prioritize what I see in Kane and how much of it I find in the adaptations.
That should also not be taken as a ranking on their quality (that's stupid stuff...see mine here), just how I think the different filmmakers reflected the source writings. And, it's something of a mixed bag, but it presents a question: how important is accuracy to the source material? Personally, I'm not against taking a source, hollowing it out, and using it for something else. Generally. Sometimes sources are not very good but have potential for other things. However, we're usually talking about adaptations of things people actually like. Is it that all that's required for faithfulness to be important? There being an existing audience for it? Take some spy series no one really cares about like, say, The Bourne Identity, completely gut it, and then make a movie that people like. Is it bad because it's not accurate to the source?
Anyway
Which do you think is the most accurate adaptation? Is it also your favorite?
Godzilla (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "I really don't think this works, but Godzilla does stomp real good." [The Criterion Channel]
Rodan (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "So, it doesn't quite work as an overall package, hindered massively by its dull as dishwater middle, but the opening and close are surprisingly strong. I'd throw it on again for a light entertainment now and again." [The Criterion Channel]
Be Happy, These Two Lovers (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "A clear-eyed melodrama with restrained, Japanese form, Be Happy, These Two Lovers was a very good little discovery in the middle of a career that pushed in a very different direction. Honda was much more than monster mayhem." [Library]
The Mysterians (Rating 3/4) Full Review "However, in terms of his science-fiction work, it's a bit more thoughtfully crafted and comes together decently well." [The Criterion Channel]
The Human Vapor (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "It's an homage to classic Universal monster movies, film noir, and Howard Hawks that manages to feel alive on its own. This is, I think, deeply underappreciated. It's really good. I'm a fan." [Library]
Mothra (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "It looks good, moves quickly, and has some nice sights along the way. It's decently entertaining as it plays out, but it really could have used a rewrite." [The Criterion Channel]
Matango (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "I get into the weird atmosphere of it all as the characters go steadily insane while bizarre things unfold around them and engulf them. It's well filmed, well directed, well performed, and well put together. It's a good time at the movies." [The Criterion Channel]
Atragon (Rating 2/4) Full Review "Anyway, it's...okay. It has some interesting ideas that it doesn't explore in any serious way, but the ideas are there. The action is silly. The character-based storytelling is thin and unpursued. It's pretty typical fare, but it's not the worst thing. Spectacle has some benefits." [The Criterion Channel]
Contact
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
My next post will be on 5/25, and it will talk about the films directed by Ishiro Honda.
Welcome hobbyists. Do not adjust your interweb. A spin of the Ace of Spades “wheel of hobbies” has come up with tools. In this case, “tools” refers to implements of hobbying rather than people who are annoying.
Interested in your favorite tools, tools you’ve acquired or inherited, mystery tools, tools that you wish you used more often, tools that you’ve acquired or tools that you’ve built, tools loved and lost, tools that saved the day, most obscure tools, oldest and newest tools, and tools with sentimental value. What tool have you bought knowing you had absolutely no use or need but couldn’t resist because it was impossibly cool and clever? Come forth with your stories of tools.
Looking forward to silliness and shenanigans until CDB releases a fresh music thread.
As usual, keep this thread limited to hobbies. Politics and current events can wait for other threads. Wear your safety glasses and do not smash your finger with a hammer.
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What time is it? Tool time!
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Top photo: The modern crescent-style wrench did not come from the US. Instead, it traces to inventor J.P. Johansson in Enkoping, Sweden. He earned a patent for the first crescent-style wrench in 1892. (In the U.S., Crescent Tool Co. first built a crescent-style wrench in 1907.) Wrenches were made in Enkoping under the Bahco brand name for many years. The large-scale sculpture was installed in a Enkoping round-about as a nod to its history.
“TRex, I’ve heard that some people collect wrenches. Do you have an example? What’s the most desirable wrench for a collector?” Glad you asked.
John Deere originally made plows. In 1912, the conservative company considered expanding into tractors. A board member, Joseph Dain, was tasked with developing and building a prototype. He did and it was tested. 100 were made in 1917 and 1918 and sold mostly in the Dakotas. In 1918, Deere bought the Waterloo Gasoline Tractor Company and its Waterloo Boy tractor which was much cheaper. That was the end of the Dain tractor. Apparently, Deere repurchased almost all, had them destroyed, and didn’t really acknowledge the Dain. Only two are said to remain. By this point, you’re likely asking, “TRex, what does any of this have to do with tools?”
A wrench was delivered with each tractor. Only nine (or eleven? Or twelve?) are known to survive. One was sold at auction in 2017 for $16,500.
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“TRex, can I use a wrench to apply leverage with my screwdriver?” Yes. Yes, you can (presuming you have the right wrench and screwdriver).
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“TRex, I know this isn’t the gun thread, but my hobby is firearms. What basic tools should a gunsmith have?”
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“TRex, what happens with all those tool returns to Home Depot?” Apparently, some of them get bundled together on pallets and sold in bulk at liquidation auctions.
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“TRex, are there sites on the interweb with unusual tools that I didn’t know existed and didn’t know I needed?” Yes, yes there are. Life has an endless supply of use cases and clever people developing solutions.
Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. The attached picture is of our first set of German Shepherds, Strider and Sasha. They both loved giving kisses as we made our way up the steps. Unfortunately, they have both passed and we have two more, but this is probably the best picture ever of them together.
Mrs. Raygar
How lovely that you would send us this photo of your beautiful dogs. So sorry that they are gone, though memories of them clearly remain.
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Hey I have a great pic here that a local place took of our pup Northstar for Cinco de Mayo. They dress the dogs up and have a little feast with a dogarita and pet tacos. Ole!
Thank you
Banana Dream
Ole! Great photo. You must love Northstar. I notice that the sombrero is not on Northstar's head.
Dogaritas and tacos for pets! Interesting idea.
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From Jewells:
This is Cheerio a male Shepherd mix. He was taken from the home by Independence Animal Control because of neglect and abuse. He is very shy and skittish and tends to wander off to be alone when he's outside. Despite me and my colleague coaxing him he barely acknowledged us and spent his time outside walking around by himself. Poor sweet baby. We are hoping with time he'll begin to trust again. No health issues fortunately so we really hope he'll get adopted soon.
Cheerio looks like he has potential. Hoping that he finds a home soon.
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I lost Edie, the Best Dog in the World (fight me!) last week. She was 18 and 1/2 years old and spoiled every day of it. Don't know why, but I think it would make me feel better to see her on the Pet Thread.
I post, SO rarely, as Best Thief in Lankhmar
That photo shows how much she was loved. Thanks for sharing your memorial with us. What a sweetheart.
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From Eromero, Pepper and Madison from Jan 2022. Madison wonders why Minnie the kitten can't be more like Pepper was.
Awww, so sad that Pepper is gone. Glad you have Madison and Minnie.
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Our Swiss guide dog Gioia enjoys some outdoor play time in lovely spring weather.
Later, Gioia graciously leads the way to bunk space for her friend Odin, who has two hoomans in hospital.
Odin has found his space away from home, but still looks a bit forlorn.
Gioia also shares some toys with Odin, which perks him up.
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Hi KT, it's been a year since I sent you cat pics. There was mention previously about cats cuddling up to fireplaces. Here are Bella and Betty outside of their beds enjoying the warmth of the fireplace. Also, Betty in the pantry messing with a plastic bag and Bella posing for a pic after a good brushing.
olddog in mo
The cat-and-fireplace theme is popular! They look cozy. Betty and Bella are beautiful cats.
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What a wonderful collection of pet stories today. Thank you for sharing your pets with us.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic 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.
Until next Saturday, have a great week!
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If you start feeling nostalgic, here a link to last week's Pet Thread, the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, April 27. Some special PetMoron stories and photos there.
I wasn't sure what would survive the slash and burn cleaning of my front garden in 2022, sent pictures of that last summer, I think. Last year I didn't see the Trillium and the iris showed a short three leaf fan. The Trillium is in a corner and had been pretty much covered over, while I think most of the Iris had been pulled out. I was surprised to see an actual clump of Trillium sessile in that corner! this year. It has a lot of common names but the one I know is toad trillium. The iris is a bearded iris called Cobra's Eye, and this year not only showed two fans but a multiflowered spike. I couldn't get the yellow tulip to stay bent out of the way, it's not part of the trillium!
Cobra's Eye is beautiful! The Trillium is fun, and so is the tulip!
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Edible Gardening/Putting Things By
From a niece:
Good things to come.
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Critters
Hey KT,
Not sure if this is a pet thread entry or a garden thread. This is the Chuckwalla that lives in my garden. It is a girl as she is less colorful. She is particularly fond of oregano and I can find her snacking on it most mornings. She is very friendly and doesn't run away when I am out near her.
WeeKreekFarmGirl
I'm guessing that she may surprise you some mornings.
I had no idea that they ate oregano.
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Why you don't leave your ladders outside
K.T.,
I don't usually read the gardening thread much, nor comment. (I do like to look at the pictures, sometimes, to relax me.) But I had the following encounter today...
I went outside to do some measurements so I could buy slats for the section of fence I have to replace. I headed back inside, right past the ladder I have left outside all winter (with one or two forays inside to get into the attic). I know I shouldn't leave ladders outside for security reasons, but... excuses. I then realized I needed another measurement and went back out the back door with tape measure in hand.
And *flutter* with an angry tweet caused me to turn my head as the robin burst from the ladder area. And I saw it. The birds had built a nest right between the rungs. I quickly grabbed my phone and took a couple of pictures. I don't have a selfie stick, so I couldn't get a good angle without getting much too close to the nest for my comfort. But they built a cozy little nest right about chest height, and there are at least two eggs in there, as you can see from the pics.
So, all projects that require that ladder are off the to-do list until at least the end of May. I also ordered a game/trail camera, which I am going to install on a tree across the way, and hopefully be in time to get some egg-cracking and some baby birds.
This goes along with the cardinals who make their nest (some years, anyway) in the massive rose bushes (actual bushes) in front of my living room window. Looks like I'm going to be building some bird houses/nesting shelves in the near future.
GWB
(most commonly on the Gun Thread)
What a great story!
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Small Wildlife. Never mind that they look like little snakes. These are fun, and they turn into beautiful butterflies:
We live in Maricopa County AZ, and my mom wanted an orchid tree, anacacho, or Bauhinia lunarioides, native to Texas and northern Mexico. They grow here just fine, though. We looked everywhere in AZ and couldn't find one, except for a couple of 36 inch boxed ones that were $3,200 each and wouldn't fit in our small front yard anyway.
So I asked my brother who drives a truck cross country if he would be going through Texas anytime soon. He got back to me a couple of days later and said he would be coming across the I-10 and if I could find one along the way, he would stop in and pick it up. The hunt was on; I researched and contacted every potential small town nursery from Houston to San Antonio and out to Las Cruces, along his route. One contacted me to say that they were out, but gave me a suggestion for one east of Houston, so I called them. They had two, and I told them the story, paid over the phone, and my brother picked it up the next morning. Here it is in his little space where he keeps stuff in storage on its way to our house for mom's front yard garden.
Nan in AZ
Wow! What a project!
Here's part of a profile from the University of Arizona:
If you are looking for an unarmed, small tree that can be tucked into a corner of a patio or courtyard or nestled up close to a house without damaging the foundation, investigate using Bauhinia lunarioides the Chihuahuan Orchid Tree. As winter turns to spring, clusters of small, white or rarely pink, orchid-like flowers start to dot this tree with their presence, drawing in swarms of butterflies to sip the sweet nectar. Individual flowers are not long-lived, but there are 6 to 10 flowers produced, stretching out the flower season for most of spring.
Looks like a great choice for your Mom's yard!
This plant's sterile, tender cousin, the Hong Kong Orchid Tree, is a symbol of Hong Kong. It grows in parts of Southern California, Florida and a few other places in the Southeast.
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Gardens of The Horde
This nice osteosperum from 40 Miles North kinda balances out the great iris at the top of the post, I think.
Anything going on in your garden?
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
This is the most remarkable human achievement ever, 1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars
It takes about 5 minutes to walk 1600 feet so a high speed rail for that is a really big deal
California is so competent
The Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County is one of the first completed high-speed rail structures. At nearly 1,600 feet long, high-speed trains will travel over the riverbed and will run parallel with the BNSF Railroad.
Meanwhile, a little south of this remarkable achievement, the most notable feature of this project to me was the amount of massive diesel machinery scattered about the landscape. Oh, and torn-up landscape.
On a recent trip to Fresno, we were considerably delayed on the trip up, but on the trip back the delay was so great that we turned around and backtracked until we could reach side roads to find our way home. Apparently, some parts of the (temporary, I hope) roadway built to accommodate the rail construction had collapsed due to water saturation.
Maybe they miscalculated the parts of the roadway which they should elevate above ground level. Despite the engineering reports of soil saturation, etc. that preceded construction.
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Saving Hamas
The Biden Administration: Building Bridges of Understanding
The Barbieland Intifada on our university campuses is just a distraction. But one that may have gotten out of control of the Ruling Class to some extent. Why doesn't the Barbieland Intifada appreciate that plan to build a floating bridge to deliver food to Hamas?
Reports are circulating that the Israelis are planning an operation in Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza. . . Bizarrely, the White House's statements and actions show that Hamas' survival is more important than the security of a traditional American partner, Israel; more crucial to American interests than the preservation of the U.S.-led order of the Middle East; more precious than the dozens of American lives that Hamas ended on Oct. 7; more valuable than however many Americans and Israelis are still alive in the terror army's tunnels.
Why? As the money and prestige that the U.S. has invested month after month in protecting Hamas demonstrate, the Biden administration sees the terror group as a valuable asset.
A day after the massacre, before Israel's campaign against Hamas even began, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote that he was encouraging the Turkish government's "advocacy for a cease-fire." It makes no difference that the tweet has since been deleted, since the White House has produced no shortage of evidence since that its top priority is to deter Israel from defeating Hamas, by increasing Israel's vulnerabilities at every turn, and conditioning aid on Israel adopting a purely defensive posture. . .
The president abdicated America's historical role of vetoing anti-Israel activity at the U.N. Instead, the U.S. delegation abstained from a key Security Council resolution in March demanding an immediate cease-fire--thereby putting America's diplomatic weight behind Hamas' demand that it should be allowed to keep its hostages and continue ruling Gaza. The White House then sanctioned Israeli civilians on the West Bank for crimes dreamed up by left-wing pro-Palestinian organizations, while ignoring a Palestinian terror wave aimed at murdering Jewish civilians who were guilty of crimes like stopping at a red light, buying gas, and herding sheep. Much of the false reporting supporting the pro-Hamas offensive is channeled through U.S. Army Gen. Michael Fenzel. The U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority are spending taxpayer resources to build a Palestinian terror army on the West Bank that may soon be repurposed for Gaza, too.
By compelling Jerusalem to "surge" food aid and energy to Gaza, the White House broke Israel's siege, and demanded an ally resupply its adversary at wartime. Whenever Israel goes on the offensive, Biden and aides publicly threaten to stop resupplying arms. . .
Hmmmm . . .
So many countries refuse to take Palestinian refugees:
It's useful to remember that what distinguishes the Palestinians from other ethno-national groups born of the breakup of the multiethnic empires of Europe and the Levant after World War I is that their claim on the world's attention issues largely from their willingness to hire themselves out as terrorist mercenaries.
On whose behalf were the Palestinians acting when they destabilized the region with their gruesome Oct. 7 attack? Iran--but also the Biden administration. The two share an interest in collapsing the traditional U.S.-led order of the Middle East that Donald Trump had restored, after Barack Obama began the process of dismantling it.
Up until Obama, the pillars of America's security architecture were the Persian Gulf's oil-rich Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, and, in the eastern Mediterranean, Israel and Egypt. Early in his first term Obama signaled he intended to undo that order when he gave a speech in Cairo and invited officials from the Muslim Brotherhood, existential enemies of the military regime then led by Hosni Mubarak. Within two years, the White House withdrew its support for Mubarak during the Arab Spring revolutions and ushered in a Muslim Brotherhood government. Egypt became the first pillar of the old U.S. security order to fall.
Obama's aides made it clear that his second term would be devoted to securing a nuclear deal with Iran.
Okay, this piece leaves out a lot of information that might soften views toward the role of the USA, but if you read the whole thing, I think the "Saving Hamas" thesis hangs together pretty well.
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You may ask, "If the Biden administration is so hostile to Israel, why do the pro-Palestinian protesters on campus still call Biden a murderer"?
After Hamazis gleefully killed a stack of Jews - - one of the largest terrorist killings ever; per capita, the most murderous terror killing ever; the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust - - within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation.
When you look into the history, this turns out to be literally true.
The "lesson" of decolonisation was that if you terrorise settlers - - if you kill entire families - - they leave. . .
Except for the Jews in Israel. The point is that "decolonization" = "terrorism".
Another large reason, however, is an outgrowth of Postcolonial Theory, which classes Israeli Jews as "settlers": they cannot be refugee populations. And at this point, the circle closes. Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is the ur-text of Postcolonial Theory. The book was written while Fanon was resident in Algeria during the Algerian Revolution. He was an avid supporter.
That The Wretched of the Earth is the ur-text of Postcolonial Theory says very bad things about both Postcolonial Theory and academe. The Wretched of the Earth is mostly an angry rant that mistakes Theory for evidence and treats historical events as a pick 'n' mix to feed its narrative. . .
Grabar, a resident fellow at The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, said her critique of Zinn was that "he misrepresents history."
"What I've tried to do is just look at what he says and provide a factual rebuttal," Grabar said. "I was quite surprised by the extent to which Howard Zinn distorted history, deliberately lied." For instance, she noted, Zinn wrote that internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II were kept secret. "Not until after the war did the story of the Japanese-Americans begin to be known to the general public," he wrote in Chapter 16. In fact, numerous newspapers and magazines wrote about the camps at the time, quite a few editorializing in favor of them.
"It's amazing what you'll find in that book when you start digging and it's really shocking that historians have not raised a ruckus and demanded the book be withdrawn," Grabar said. "He really has harmed traditional scholarship and the kinds of conversations that we should be having - having a balanced and honest look at our history, the good points and the bad points."
Grabar's talk will include what Gilley calls a "Save the Children from Howard Zinn" book drive: He's encouraging attendees to buy copies of Grabar's book to donate to local libraries and schools.
"What if everyone had a 'Debunking Howard Zinn' alongside their 'People's History'? Well, that'd be a pretty great education," Gilley said.
I'm sure that "Perfessor" Squirrel has some great reading materials lined up for discussion in tomorrow's Book Thread. I'm usually not around on Sunday mornings, but I have run into something interesting:
D. J. Taylor judiciously steers a course between hagiography and debunking.
George Orwell said that Charles Dickens was an author well worth stealing, which is to say, attaching to one's cause whatever it might be. If you can say "Dickens would have thought likewise," you are claiming the approval not only of a genius, but of a man of deeply generous and humane nature (never mind any squalid revelations about his actual biography).
George Orwell has suffered something of the same fate: thanks to a kind of secular beatification, everyone wants to claim him. He is, so to speak, the voice of unvarnished truth in a world of prevailing untruth. Like George Washington, he could not tell a lie.
The problem with such beatification is that it easily provokes an equal and opposite effort at debunking, which is as unrealistic as the process of beatification itself. . .
A brief book, not overly academic, which Dalrymple thinks is the best summation of Orwell's life and work.
But:
Occasionally Taylor, whose own judgment is pretty good, misses something important. For example, he describes the effect that Orwell's time in Spain had on him:
Spain, it is safe to say, politicised Orwell in a way that his exposure to homegrown socialism in the previous five years had not. To begin with, it offered him a vision of how an alternative world, founded on the principles of freedom and equality, might work.
Orwell told the general litterateur, Cyril Connolly, who had been with him at Eton, that he had seen "wonderful things" in Barcelona, then a revolutionary city in the control of the Trotskyist POUM. Taylor continues:
It was, he declared, "the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle." Churches were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Shops and cafes bore inscriptions saying that they had been collectivised. Tipping was forbidden by law, all private motor cars had been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis had been painted in the anarchist colours of red and black. "In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist."
Everyone dressed the same too, in drab overalls, Maoist avant la lettre.
Barcelona, then, was a Catalonian Pyongyang: and it is important to recall that Orwell approved of it. At this stage of his development, he was an enthusiastic totalitarian, and the shallowness of his belief that such uniformity was a triumph for freedom and equality is rather startling in a man who, a very few years later, was to be the greatest literary scourge of totalitarianism in the world. It was all to the credit of Orwell that he changed his opinion of totalitarianism so diametrically, but had he died just after the publication of Homage to Catalonia, not living long enough to write his anti-totalitarian masterpieces, he would have been remembered, if he was remembered at all, as a literary forerunner and praise-singer of some of the worst features of communist regimes. It had to be remembered too that his underlying objection to Stalin's policy in Spain was that it was not revolutionary enough, that he promoted the Popular Front, albeit as a mere tactic, rather than the immediate revolution, à la Barcelona, as Orwell would have liked.
Fortunately, Orwell's views changed.
Orwell did not have fifty years to live, let alone seventy. Perhaps for the good of his subsequent reputation, he died at the very acme of his career, having just completed an undoubted masterpiece that, notwithstanding the implosion of the Soviet Union, remains, alas, of strong current resonance.
I recommend this book unreservedly. It deals most sensitively with Orwell's multiple ambiguities without trying to fit them into a Procrustean bed. It informs, enlightens, and entertains. It restores one's faith in the value of criticism.
Reviewed Who Is Big Brother?
by D. J. Taylor
Theodore Dalrymple was the perfect person to write this review.
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"Kids." Many of these protestors are undergrads, many are law and PhD students. All of them are adults. A huge segment of this country faces the full brunt of reality at 18 but if you attend grad school at the richest universites on earth you get to be a kid until your 27th birthday.
Rob Henderson
“Kids.” Many of these protestors are undergrads, many are law and PhD students. All of them are adults. A huge segment of this country faces the full brunt of reality at 18 but if you attend grad school at the richest universites on earth you get to be a kid until your 27th… https://t.co/Eb5AL49cSM
Can Too Much Coffee Affect Your Weight and Health?
Coffee has its perks, but some common mistakes may be hurting your efforts to stay healthy. Find out how to avoid them
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Before we enter the Prayer Revival. A big thank you to Annie for compiling this list week after week. Also before the Prayer Revival just a few Housekeeping matters to address. (Rulz for those of you in Arbor Vitae)
1. This is an open thread, feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2. Be nice to one another. Use your indoor voices.
3. If you must run with sharp objects, please do it outside where blood shed doesn't matter.
4. Have a nice weekend!
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AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo atsign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
3/2 Reforger asked for prayers for his Coworker “D”, a widowed mom of 4 who is having a rough time with daughter #1. D’s daughter had to be incarcerated. She went nuts, trashed her room, broke things, and even kicked a cop. She could use a lot of prayers.
4/20 Update – Coworker D’s daughter is going to go live with her dad. Mom is at wit’s end. They hope a change in scenery will provoke some positive changes, since nothing else is working.
2/29 – DaveT asks for prayers. We had prayed in the past for him, as he was trying to save his cats and his home from repossession (due to a relative who burdened the family home with debt). DaveT is over 65 and is not able to work much. The cats are elderly and one is blind, and the only family he has. Things had turned around and it looked like he was going to be fine last summer, but now a new judge is on the case and seems to want to kick DaveT and the cats out of the house. Please pray. If anyone wants to contribute, Annie’s Stew has the details of his GiveSendGo.
4/27 Update – DaveT was able to get life-saving care for his cat, Dennis, and now Dennis is recovering well. It was a miracle, both for the results and the reasonable cost. The sleazy “bank” is still working to evict DaveT.
3/3 – Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle to maintain Moron standards asked for prayers as he is scared to death of some much-needed surgery. Pain, healing, iyiyi! Even the red tape involved in scheduling. Thank you all again!
4/10 Update – Recovering from diverticulitis surgery. It’s rough. Much pain, and there is talk of another surgery. He is miserable.
3/9 – Hadrian the Seventh asked for prayers for Her Majesty, who is having knee replacement surgery. He’d like prayers for a successful operation, but also an uneventful recovery. Her previous surgery in 2019 (on the other knee) was marked by great pain and the effect of the medication was terrible.
4/13 Update – Her Majesty is on a cane now and doing very well. The downside is that now she’s no longer bedridden, she’s going around the house finding things for me to do. She goes to physical therapy twice a week, which is exhausting, but she wants to drive the RV to Washington state in a couple of months for our National Specialty, so she’ll have to put in the work.
3/9 – Dr_No asked for prayers for his daughter, Megan. We had prayed for her in 2021, when she had cancer. Her cancer is still in remission, but she has blood clots in her lungs. She went to the local ER, where they said everything was normal. She sent a message to her PCP, to ask her to review the situation. She is still weak, and gets tired if a conversation lasts more than 1-2 sentences. Please pray that she be restored to full health. Thanks once again to the Horde for the help.
4/13 Update – The shingles have passed the most painful point (the first two weeks), and she’s now mostly pain-free. The colon cancer is still in remission. Thanks so much for sending words up for her recovery.
3/23 – Jewells would appreciate prayers for her niece, who is in the hospital for the second time in a week. She was diagnosed with pneumonia the first time, but still felt awful. She went back to ER, and they admitted her again. Her oxygen level was 76. She is the niece who is fighting cervical cancer.
4/13 Update – They suspended treatment for Jewells’ niece for 6 weeks and have her on oxygen. Her cancer is responding to the treatment, but at an awful price.
3/23 – Fenelon Spoke needs prayers for Jessie, their “retired” organist. Jessie had fallen. Nothing was broken, but it is a setback for her and she is in pain.
4/20 Update – Jessie is in less pain now.
3/28 – Reforger asked for prayers for his wife, who is applying for a promotion. The new job would triple her salary.
4/20 Update – Mrs. Reforger got the job.
3/30 – mindful webworker asked for prayers as he is going under the knife again for what will be a few hours’ surgery and maybe a week in the hospital. His surgeon used the word “mystery” three times while describing what they will be doing.
4/13 Update – After 3 intense hours, the surgeon packed out his pickaxe and jackhammer, weary but confident that he had removed all the cement-like crud blocking mindful webworker’s intestines. The next few months will be spent recovering and healing. After 9 inhospitable days, he is trying to adjust to home life. He’s asked MiladyJo to wake him every couple of hours to check his vital signs. Every day is a gift. Prayers for all in need.
4/1 – News from Washington Nearsider: His savings have expired and May's bills cannot yet be paid. Another custody hearing - to reevaluate the March 13 determination to give his ex full custody - has been scheduled for May 13th, so that's a date on the calendar towards which he has to work.
He has added one (1) client to his custom model aircraft list, and hopes to add several more, even though he can only work on one at a time. Having a known stream of income is better than not. You can contact Nearsider at washingtonnearsider at gee mail to learn about shipping and timelines or to discuss any details. Interested Morons can look at some small segment of his previous work by heading to this link: https://tinyurl.com/yzmucshu
On the job front, Nearsider had a promising interview, only to be told at the end that though his writing samples, resume, attitude, background, and presentation were all exceptional, his removal from federal service prevented any path forward. Nearsider explained the details leading up to his removal, and while the panel expressed their sympathies for his situation and their admiration at his courage, their position was unchanged. He suspects this employer was simply the first to be so direct, and that he's missed out on several other opportunities for the same reason.
Several contractors have contacted him in response to applications he's submitted and he's hoping at least one of them will be willing to focus on the writing, resume, attitude, background, and presentation vice the end of his federal career. As usual, more follows.
Since several people encouraged it, he has set up a GiveSendGo account. Please contact Annie for the details, if you wish to contribute.
4/24 Update – After receiving an overwhelming outpouring of support from the Horde, Washington Nearsider was able to pay the mortgage for May and June, and is less panicked about losing his house. He also received a promotion at Home Depot, so he is managing a department, which will also increase his pay at bit. He loves you all and is so grateful.
4/3 – Notsothoreau posted that Mrs. Salty (as in Mrs. NaClyDog) had a bad fall and broke four ribs. She tested positive for Covid, as well. Prayers for quick healing and that she is out of the hospital soon.
4/26 Update – Mrs. Salty continues to make progress, and your prayers helped. Soon she will be back to where she was before the fall.
4/4 – J. J. Sefton could use prayers. Here was his posting:
“After suffering some sort of seizure back in February, while the initial MRI and spinal tap showed nothing, a subsequent MRI this past Friday evidently seems to indicate that I might have some sort of brain tumor/growth that would require immediate attention. As in surgery.
That said, on a positive note -- and I'm holding onto this bit of news as positive with all my might -- the medical neurology team and the surgical neurology team are apparently still reading the tea leaves to see what kind of surgery, if any, is required to deal with this. I am hoping against hope for that non-surgical option but am preparing myself as best as I can for whatever is to be.”
4/8 – FenelonSpoke asked for prayers for her husband. He was stubborn and didn’t go to the doctor for about 5 days and has shingles. He is in pain.
4/20 Update – FenSpouse is much better. He still has a little tingling but the pain from the shingles is much better.
4/10 – FortWorthMike updated the Horde. His MIL, who was going through cancer treatments, had miraculous results. The tumor is reduced so much, there is no sign of cancer. They won’t say cancer-free, but it’s just something to monitor now.
4/13 – NaughtyPine asked for prayers. There was a “psychic” who went on a murder-suicide rampage. A 9-year-old girl survived the attack, but her baby sister died in her arms. The surviving little girl needs prayers.
4/13 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd gave an update. His former son-in-law has died. It is something of a relief. He was an abusive, manipulative, drug-using alcoholic whose hobby was breaking into cars. He was well-known to law enforcement and the justice system. He had a remarkable capacity for wiping out wealth, either through outright theft or negligence. A.H. Lloyd’s daughter tried to leave him multiple times, but he was able to woo her back again and again. The last straw was when he used their tax refund for an Only Fans girl. The deceased is survived by his children, who he should have supported, but have been in A.H. Lloyd’s care for more than a year. Pray for the deceased if you like, but please pray for the children and their mother.
4/13 – Cybersmythe sent an update on his job search. He has received a formal offer of employment, for a job he thinks he wants. He appreciates all the kind thoughts and prayers.
4/13 – Nurse Ratched asked for prayers for her Marine, J, and his wife, M, who are having their wedding celebration on 4/13. They are sweet kids, respectful and kind to each other and would benefit greatly from the power of Horde prayers.
4/16 – Notsothoreau asked for prayers for a co-worker’s mentor and long time friend, DM, who has been diagnosed with throat cancer. Prayers for DM and also for his wife, that they would be strengthened and, God willing, that DM would be healed.
4/18 – Misanthropic Humanitarian asked for prayers, as he will be having his right knee replacement surgery on 5/6/24.
4/20 – AnchorPoint wanted to share an answered prayer, as well as a request. The answered prayer is: AnchorPoint’s dad passed away about 2 years ago. The estate was not going to be a windfall, but they hoped it would be enough to pay off their mortgage. After all the work was done and all the bills were paid, the final check was $72.38 off from the total mortgage payoff amount! The prayer request is: AnchorPoint’s relationship with one sister is bad. The sister has had a lot of trauma in her life and significant mental health issues and physical issues. AnchorPoint asks for prayers that their relationship would be restored.
4/20 – FenelonSpoke asked for prayers for her son. God willing, her son will graduate in May with a degree in horticulture. He has a paid internship with a multinational agricultural company in the PA Dutch area starting right after graduation. He needs to find a place to live.
4/20 – Defenestratus humbly requests prayers for a friend named Jourdan, a wonderful young woman with a 2-year-old daughter. Jourdan had gotten the good news that her breast cancer tumors had disappeared after chemo. But now she caught a nasty bug, and Jourdan has spent a week in the hospital getting blood transfusions.
4/20 - Miley, okravangelist asked for prayers for her brother. They think he is on the verge of a breakdown, stressing out over prepping. He flies off the handle and is freaking everyone else out. Miley could use prayers, too, since worrying about her brother is making her ill.
4/25 Update – Her brother seems to have calmed down lately, but prayers are still welcome!
4/27 – rhennigantx posted an update on his friend, Tim, who we have been praying for. Tim is not doing well. He is back on the vent and unresponsive. Rhennigantx doesn’t think Tim will make it.
4/27 – Someone Else requested prayers, as she is going through difficult family issues with an elderly aunt as well as dealing with some professional problems at this time.
4/27 – JW asked for prayers for Libby, who has a glioblastoma tumor that affects her word choices, so communication is very difficult. Libby has ahd surgery, radiation, and chemo, but is worse in the 4 weeks since treatment ended.
5/2 – A Dude in MI requested prayers for dude Jr who is having a rough situation at school. Please pray for a quick resolution and no lasting effects.
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.
Building a Threadripper workstation and need lots of fast memory but also want ECC? V-Color has you covered. (Serve the Home)
192GB at DDR5-7200 speeds.
Though you only get full speed if you have one DIMM per channel, so if you need more (and your motherboard has more than four slots) it will slow down.
"It has happened," wrote developer Arian van Putten in a social media post over the weekend. "The number one Google result was an official Pulumi documentation page that was clearly written by an LLM (it had a disclaimer that it was) and hallucinated an AWS feature that didn't exist. This is the beginning of the end."
Pulumi, the company generating the AI results, has been very responsive to the problem, has taken down two thirds of the pages and is reviewing the remainder for incorrect answers.
Google meanwhile offered the cannedest of canned replies.
Bing, meanwhile... Didn't have the same problem. So score one for Microsoft.
You will now be required to sign up to the PlayStation Network to play the game on Windows. The PlayStation Network is only available in about half one third of the countries of the world.
This is from Captain Marvel Adventures #16 (1942) What I find interesting is that while the Steamboat character (and all black characters except Steamboat's girlfriend) is drawn in a style that would be unacceptable today, none of them is depicted doing any stereotypical 1940s "negro things" (like eating fried chicken and watermelon, etc...). The Japanese soldiers Captain Marvel fights earlier in the issue are also drawn in a very stereotypical (slanty eyes and buck teeth) manner. Plus there's an article titled A Dead Jap Is A Good Jap. Different times.
The present day country of Turkey is home to many well-known megalithic sites such as Gobekli Tepe, Hattusha and Midas Kenti, but it is also home to a much lesser known yet equally impressive ancient site known as "Kapilikaya."
Located about 27 kilometers north of the city of Corum and hidden away inside a mountainous outcropping is an ancient structure known as the "Tomb of Kapilikaya."
[It] is thought to be a tomb of the Hellenistic period, dating back to approximately the 2nd century B.C.
Rising above a gentle stream that flows beneath on the forest floor, a steep trail winds up the left side of the rock outcropping and eventually leads to a platform of stairs located directly in front of the tomb.
The tomb is not simply a door shaped façade but is actually a cube shaped structure cut out of the mountain, only connecting to the natural rock around it at a few points.
From inside you can actually walk all the way around it or climb up onto its top.
The inner chamber of the tomb can only be accessed through entering a small square opening about halfway up the face of the structure.
An inscription above the entrance reads "IKEZIOS," 2 which some believe is attributed to an ancient commander named Ikezius.
A video posted on social media by James O'Keefe features Amjad Anton Fseisi, purported to be the project manager for cyber operations at the CIA. In the video, the undercover reporter for O'Keefe Media Group gets Fseisi to admit that several intelligence agencies deliberately withheld information from Trump out of some absurd fear that he might "disclose it." Fseisi is seen in the recording admitting that intelligence agencies "all got together and said, 'We're not gonna tell Trump.'"
"The executive staff," Fseisi said in response to a question about who specifically was involved in the decision.
"We're talking about the director and his subordinates." That would include Pompeo and Haspel.
According to Fseisi, the intelligence agencies "kept information from [Trump] because we knew he'd f***ing disclose it."
"There are certain people that would... give him a high-level overview but never give him any details. You know why? Because he'll leak those details."
And can you guess why Fseisi says Trump would leak sensitive information? Because Trump is... wait for it... a Russian asset!
"He's a Russian asset," Fseisi claimed. "He's owned by the f***ing Russians."
But there's more.
"Amjad reveals to OMG's Undercover American Swiper that intel agencies not only kept intelligence information from a sitting United States President and Commander-In-Chief, they also used FISA to spy on [Donald Trump]," O'Keefe says on X/Twitter. "And his team and [sic] are still monitoring President Trump according to Amjad who says, 'We monitor everything.' Amjad adds 'we also have people that monitor his ex-wife. He likes to use burner phones' -- information only an insider with access to highly sensitive information would state."
...
When O'Keefe confronted Fseisi on the streets of Washington, D.C., he denied making the statements in the above video.
Video at the link.
Rep. Matt Gaetz
@RepMattGaetz
BREAKING: I'm formally calling on the @Weaponization Subcommittee to immediately launch an investigation into @OKeefeMedia Group's bombshell report containing video evidence that American intelligence agencies withheld intelligence from President Donald Trump before & during his presidency and used Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorities to spy on President Trump.
Here's an interesting and troubling fact: so-called "recovering FBI agent" Kyle Seraphim chose this moment, just as O'Keefe was readying this report, to make an insane and likely defamatory attack on O'Keefe:
As Viva Frei says, maybe this "recovering FBI agent" fell off the wagon.
He also had an insane attack on O'Keefe -- who's a single man -- for flirting in DMs with a woman he seemed to be having sex with.
Seraphin was scandalized that O'Keefe might be putting his pee-pee inside a woman he wasn't married to. Therefore we should #cancel him from the movement (just as he was working on this CIA story, which Seraphin is scrambling to debunk).
Part 2: When your employees are required to comb through your Direct Messages, they might avoid your "girlfriend" and the explicit messages between "two consenting adults."
Palestine protestors and counter-protesters at the University of Alabama found a moment of unity in their shared disapproval of President Joe Biden, together chanting "f*** Joe Biden" in a now-viral video.
A new poll from Rassmussen puts Trump up by 10 in a three way race, 46% to 36%. RFJJr. picks up 9%.
Trump leads with 18-39-year-olds by two points, 36 to 34 percent.
Trump earns 21 percent of the black vote, while Biden earns just 61 percent. That number should be closer to 90 percent.
Only 70 percent of Democrats support Biden. Trump earns 16 percent Democrat support.
Trump earns 80 percent Republican support. Biden sits at ten percent.
In a five-way match-up between Trump, Biden, the Green Party's Jill Stein, Kennedy Jr., and former Harvard Professor Cornel West, The Donald's lead jumps to 12 points over Slow Joe, 48 to 36 percent. Kennedy pulls eight percent support. Stein and West top out at a single point.
In this five-way race, Trump's lead over Biden with Hispanics jumps to 15 points, 45 to 30 percent.
"Despite being on trial in New York City, former President Donald Trump has widened his lead over President Joe Biden during the past month," says the pollster.
Related: Karine Jean-Pierre was asked why Biden doesn't speak up about the anti-semitism on college campuses.
She said that he spoke out about Charlottesville, so he didn't have to call out antisemtism now.
AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “And then, here at home, there's been some dramatic images really across the country over the last 24-48 hours, especially with the Columbia — UCLA last night University of Madison, Wisconsin, um other campuses. Has the President been monitoring this and why… pic.twitter.com/9V8yYOCpoO
is Houck
@CurtisHouck
AP's @ZekeJMiller
: "And then, here at home, there's been some dramatic images really across the country over the last 24-48 hours, especially with the Columbia -- UCLA last night University of Madison, Wisconsin, um other campuses. Has the President been monitoring this and why have we not heard directly from the President about these protests that have taken over its institutions of higher learning across the country, the police responses, instances of violence? Why haven't we heard directly from the President?"
KJP: "So, just a couple of things. The President is -- is being kept regularly updated on what's happening. Uh, as you just stated, across the country, he is monitoring the situation closely, so is his team. And I would just add that no President -- no president has spoken more forcefully about combating anti-Semitism than this President . Let's not forget in 2017. He was very clear what we saw -- the anti-Semitic vile that we saw in Charlottesville -- on the streets of Charlottesville. He called that out. He called that out. And one of the reasons he stepped into the 2020 election is because of what he saw, -- is because he wanted to -- uh -- he wanted to speak out and speak against what we were seeing in this country at that time -- uh -- democracy was under attack. Our freedoms were under attack, and we're still fighting for that today, obviously, but it -- he hasn't just done that by speaking. As you heard from my topper, he's taken action. He's taken action by moving forward with the first ever U.S. national strategy to counter anti-Semitism, more than 100 new actions -- uh -- have -- were introduced, obviously, in that strategy, and that is how seriously this President takes it. Uh, and I think what's important here is that he's taken action on this issue."
Very fine people on both sides were chanting, "Fuck Joe Biden."
He made a bunch of statements that are very helpful to Trump.
First of all, he made it clear that Stormy Daniels was pressuring Trump to pay her off or else she'd go public with her claims.
This is called "blackmail" in most jurisdictions. Jurors may well wonder who the victim is here. Surely not the "New York state political disclosure laws."
The ex-lawyer of adult film actress Stormy Daniels testified Thursday that he thought Donald Trump was "going to lose" the 2016 presidential election, and pressed trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen to settle the payment before losing "leverage."
During the final rounds of questioning to Daniel's lawyer, Keith Davidson, he admitted he spoke to Cohen, pressing him to settle the $130,000 payment to Daniels to quiet her claims of an alleged extramarital affair she had with Trump in 2006, before the 2016 election. He said Trump "will lose", and subsequently his client would lose her leverage. Trump has denied every having the affair.
That phone call was described as intense and full of expletives. Trump's defense team is hoping to connect that call with Davidson's alleged pattern of squeezing people for money during vulnerable times.
Well, yeah.
Next, for reasons I'm not clear on, the sleazebag extortionist insisted that the payments to Stormy Daniels were not hush money at all.
The jury doesn't have to accept his claim. But the Soros DA is claiming Trump covered up "hush money" payments, and the party who negotiated those payments (or extorted them) says they weren't hush money payments at all.
They were just "consideration." The quid for the quo of Stormy Daniels not carrying through with her blackmail threat.
Davidson earlier Thursday said that the $130,000 payment to Daniels was not "hush money," but a "consideration" payment.
Consideration" is a contractual legal term for what someone gives in return for the promise to abide by a contract; in this case, money. The payment was labeled "legal fees" in Trump's accounting, which prosecutors allege amounted to fraud.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Johsua Steinglass earlier pressed Davidson about Daniels' statement, which Davidson prepared for his client, that denied any relationship with Trump and said that her only interaction with Trump was "a few public appearances and nothing more."
"Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false," the statement says."I don't believe that Stormy ever alleged that any interaction with Trump was 'romantic,'" Davidson testified Thursday.
But it is his understanding that Daniels had a sexual encounter with Trump.He also said the payment "wasn't a payoff.""It wasn't a payoff. And it wasn't hush money. It was consideration," Davidson said. Davidson added that he would never use "hush money" to describe the money exchange. He would only refer to it as "consideration."
Finally, the extortionist revealed reasons to doubt the Soros DA's "star witness" Michael Cohen. Cohen was so distraught that Trump was not taking him to DC that he considered suicide.
That is a huge motive to lie to get vengeance.
"Can you f---ing believe I'm not going to Washington after everything I've done for that guy. I can't believe I'm not going to Washington...I've save[d] his a--..."Cohen told Davidson. According to Davidson, Cohen wanted to be Attorney General or White House chief of staff.
Davidson testified that he thought Cohen was so distressed that he wasn't going to work in the Trump administration that he might kill himself.
Trump continues thwarting the Democrats' scheme to keep him too tied up in court to do any campaigning:
No One is Above the Lore "We have imported alien, violent, dark-age cultures that work hand in hand with our own native-born tyrants to drag us back to an even darker age. Forever. They must be vanquished and excised from our midst. If that means ditching the original Constitution to do so, then God help me, so be it." My latest essay over at Taki's Magazine. Please read and comment. [J.J. Sefton]
Author, historian and commentator Michael Walsh joins us in a wide ranging conversation centering on the twin evils of Leftism and Islam, the prospects for fighting both, predictions about the election, and so much more in a fast, free-wheeling and informative hour!
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, Here I Am at Intifada: "Are we willing to do whatever is necessary to preserve our freedom? The other side has clearly demonstrated what it is willing to do, and is actively doing, to take it away. That requires self-preservation 'by any means necessary.' As Allen Ludden (or Bert Convy) might say, the password is Revolution. Contemplating such a thing is unfathomable. But seeing New York City “fundamentally transformed” into Nuremberg-on-the-Hudson, the unfathomable quickly becomes not only fathomable but quite reasonable." My latest at Taki's Magazine. Please read and comment! [J.J. Sefton]
WTF?! New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial And yet Donald Trump was forced to pay off a psychotic liar and rape-fantasist for libel? A "libel" that accurately called her out as a liar for lying about him raping her in a Bergdorf's elevator? With the Alvin Bragg/Letitia James' Stalinist show trials still going on? It is to laugh. And vomit [J.J. Sefton]
CJN is shocked at how shocked Jews and other liberals are to discover anti-Semitism coming from the movement they supported for decades, while being somewhat heartened that maybe the scales are at last falling from their eyes. Happy Passover to all!
Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
CBD: cbd.aoshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
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