Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
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
Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans.
Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors. As a matter of fundamental national interest, the ONT bar remains open. JQ has the keys and is authorized to pour like never before, so put in your order.
Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, and Bruce Willis. Never saw the movie, so I can't vouch for it.
Side story - Paramount apparently had a little promotional money left over for the film, so Newman convinced them to spend it on sponsoring a Ford Mustang entry at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona. The car number 70 was a nod to Newman's age. Newman and three professional drivers won their class and finished third overall.
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Steve Perry - Foolish Heart
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I am not wise in the ways of tarot cards but the Fool card is one among the deck.
Per Wikipedia:
According to A. E. Waite's 1910 book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the Fool card is associated with:
Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, betrayal. If the card is reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity
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Def Leppard - Foolin'
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Styx - Fooling Yourself
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Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools
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The Spinettes covering Frankie Lymon - Why do Fools Fall in Love
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Whitesnake - Fool for your Loving
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Fool Us! magic - if you appreciate magic, you'll enjoy watching this. Impressive.
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Elvis - Fools Rush In
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Like new! No foolin!
Fwiw, I am continually amazed there are channels on YouTube dedicated to restoring old stuff. I am further amazed by the volume of viewers. YouTube has its issues, but it is the universal skeleton key to narrowcasting.
Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter. We aim to whelm. Sometimes we hit. Sometimes we miss.
Monkey papparazzi caught Punch the Monkey canoodling with his fuzzy "friend."
A very elderly chimpanzee, dying of thirst and hunger as his body shuts down, has a visitor -- his caretaker from years before. (The chimpanzee then savaged the old caretaker, raking all of the skin off his face. But before that -- heartwarming!)
BREAKING: A just-disclosed Aug. 4, 2022, FBI email reveals two DOJ officials involved in the Russiagate hoax--George Toscas and Jay Bratt--were pushing the Mar-a-Lago raid hard despite FBI WFO objections: "We heard Mr. Toscas say yesterday in the call that 'he frankly doesn't give a damn about the optics' [of raiding a former president's home] and Mr. Bratt already has built an antagonistic relationship with FPOTUS's attorney Mr. Corcoran just prior to the execution of the warrant," guaranteeing the raid "will not go well."
Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_
BREAKING: Newly released July 13, 2022, email b/t FBI field agents reveals they didnt think probable cause existed to search Mar-a-Lago but were "rebuffed" by Biden DOJ: "WFO does not believe we have established probable cause for the search warrant at Mar a Lago. DOJ has opined they do, requesting a wide scope including residence, office, storage space." Judicial Watch obtained the email thru FOIA.
Fabulous!
Gunther Eagleman
@GuntherEagleman
BOOM! Kayleigh just dropped TRUTH:
There are over 500 firms in China helping CCP members come here to give birth in the US, all thanks to Obama’s 2009 loopholes.
That could mean 1 million new “anchor baby” voters by 2030.
BREAKING: Justice Sam Alito explains that unlimited birthright citizenship means a Chinese, Iranian or Russian foreigner can have a child in America, and that US citizen owes military allegiance to a foreign adversary.
Justice DEI wanted to prove that it's no big deal if millions of Fake American Citizens actually owe their primary allegiance to a hostile foreign country, so she embarrassed herself again. She claimed that if you're in Japan and subject to Japan's laws, that means you "locally owe your allegiance" to Japan so what does it matter if we have 10 million Chinese anchor babies planted here by the CCP? We all owe our allegiance to some other country sometimes, baby.
Jasmine Crockett
@JasmineForUS
The meltdown over Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is truly something EVERYONE needs to pay attention to. You see, as the first & only black woman to ever serve on the court, she had to be 10 times better than most... She continues to flex her brilliance in oral arguments & many dissents.
Please note that by the time a black woman ascends to a powerful position, she Definitely Earned It... if you have any questions... let's talk about Senator, now Secretary Mullin... or please pull the resumes of some of the other justices before entering this chat... actually just don't, it's not a debate, these are FACTS (alternative facts = LIES).
Stephen L. Miller
@redsteeze
I think we're long over "Don't listen to her words, just pay attention to her skin color."
You of all people should have just learned that lesson in Texas.
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️
@christopherrufo
4h
EXCLUSIVE: Multiple senior HHS officials estimate that, under Gavin Newsom, California's state Medicaid program has lost 25 percent of its budget to fraud. This would mean it is currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters, and organized crime rings.
Brandon Straka #WalkAway
@BrandonStraka
JD VANCE: "ICE arrested an illegal immigrant from Mauritania who's voted in 7 federal elections since 2008!"
"Even if you take the Democrats at their word, even if illegal aliens voting is very rare, then why don't we ban it anyway?"
The internet did something it was supposed to do but never does: It actually brought together different people in a positive way.
Andrew Branca Show
@TheBrancaShow
1/6 Something remarkable just happened on X -- and almost nobody in legacy media noticed. A tweet about Japanese BBQ went viral in the US. What came next was completely unexpected. 🧵
2/6 X quietly launched automatic Japanese-to-English translation on posts.
The result? American and Japanese users started reading each other -- many for the first time.
And they immediately discovered something: they like the same things.
Andrew Branca Show
3/6 It started with meat.
It always does.
Japanese users were posting about wagyu, yakiniku, and grilling culture. Americans responded with their own BBQ passion. The two audiences went absolutely wild for each other.
A shared love of quality meat kicked off an international friendship movement in real time.
4/6 But it didn't stop at meat.
As the conversation deepened, both groups realized the connection ran much further.
Shared pride in their cultures.
Shared values around family, work, and national identity.
A shared worldview that the globalist left has spent decades trying to erase.
16h
5/6 This is what happens when the language barrier falls and ordinary people actually talk to each other -- without journalists, NGOs, or government officials in the way.
Japanese and Americans aren't supposed to like each other this much. The globalists need them divided.
Iryna should have crossed the border illegally, committed several felonies, preferably violent, instead of dying at the hands of a cold-blooded murderer on a bus if she wanted to be cared about in a blue city. https://t.co/LEDaASmBwR
I’m all for dunking on Democrats for normalizing crazy, stupid, and ideologically dangerous, jackasses. It’s a fair and legitimate point. But to pretend or even imply this is just a problem with one of our parties is crazy, stupid, ideologically dangerous jackassery. https://t.co/KiaEjsEujB
A Dem Senate candidate campaigns with a guy who says America deserved 9/11 and Jonah’s take is that we don’t attack enough Republicans lol https://t.co/1ha6CZge9j
Because Jonah Goldberg does not read actually-conservative media and never did, he is completely unaware that in fact there is a major and brutal pushback against the Nazis and fake conservatives who push socialism and Russian Imperialism. So no, it's not the same as Democrat senate candidates campaigning with Hasan "Let's face it, America deserved 9/11" Piker, an outright cheerleader for anti-American terrorist attacks. The left continues hugging its antifa and Islamic terrorists closer.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! A fraud scandal is BLOWING UP at Newark, New Jersey schools
Over a quarter BILLION federal dollars surged to the district meant to address learning loss, but it had basically NO IMPACT
"This person received the no-show contract, and this person was a close friend… pic.twitter.com/IjRWHIWH6m
"Experts:" Just Because the Combined US and Israeli Forces Are Having Their Way with the Iranian Regime Like Jodie Foster on a Pinball Machine Doesn't Mean We're Winning
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This has been a running narrative in the Leftwing Joke Media for the entire month.
But the Theater Kids Media is really wedded to the idea that by killing the entire top two or three echelons of Islamic Occupation Army command, we've actually strengthened Iran.
Are you stupid? Are you people actually retarded? Have you replaced all your editors with the free version of ChatGPT from 2023? How could you possibly run something this ridiculous.
The US and Israel have complete air superiority over Iran and have been bombing it nonstop for…
To the platinum credentialed Expert, such a decisive military success being presided over by consensus idiot Donald Trump is completely inconceivable; so they will carry on strutting mindlessly, like a chicken which has been relieved of its head.
In the below list, real media headlines have been hidden among the fake ones.
Give yourself five Burger King Kids Club Clue Crew points for each one you find.
.Analysts Warn That Loss of Mojtaba Khamenei's Leg Will Just Make Him 'More Resolved,' Open Up 'Sick Parking Opportunities' Outside of Pinkberry
After suffering two fatal wounds to his head and heart, General Custer is said to be preparing for a "rebuilding season"
AP: Israel Is Rapidly Killing Iran's Top Leaders. Experts Warn This Strategy Could Backfire.
The Loss of "Deadweight Cities" Hiroshima and Nagasaki Just Might Be the Boost Japan Needs
NBC: Israel killed another Iranian leader, but experts say that doesn't mean it's winning the war
Foreign Policy: D-Day More Like Flea Day Amirite
Hitler's Masterstroke: Furher's Brilliant Suicide Maneuver Stuns Jewish Capitalist Conspiracy by "Flipping the Script" and Taking the Polarizing Leader Out of the Equation
CNN: How Israel killing leaders in Iran could complicate Trump's search for an endgame
How many of the real headlines did you spot, Burger King Kids Club Clue Crew?
I saw it Tuesday night. I realized that was the last night to see it on a premium screen, because Super Mario Bros. would take al the premium screens Wednesday.
I'll review it below. (In short: It's good, worth seeing in the theaters.)
The movie isn't political, but the creators are pitching it low-key as a conservative-friendly movie.
First of all, the writer of the novel the movie is based on, Andy Weir, actually went on Critical Drinker for almost an hour. The Critical Drinker is hated and persona non grata with progressives, so when Weir decided he would ignore the #Deplatforming order on Critical Drinker, he was making a statement.
"I forgot who it was--I wish I could remember who it was who said it, some analyst--he said something like, 'All modern science fiction TV shows and movies have been heavily influenced by the original Star Trek--except for the current batch of Star Trek shows,'" Weir noted. "I'm Gen X, so my sci-fi was like original series Star Trek reruns and Lost in Space reruns. And there wasn't really much in the way of [new] sci-fi that was airing--where people are off in space doing cool things--until we got to [The Next Generation]."
After discussing the fate of Starfleet Academy and Jordan suggesting that Paramount should simply decanonize all modern Star Trek, Weir offered something of a rebuttal while also revealing that he had attempted to pitch a Trek series of his own.
"You're a little more severe than I am--I'll give you my opinion, and I'm just a consumer. I like Strange New Worlds. I think it's pretty good. I didn't hate Enterprise. I thought it was kind of weird. Lower Decks, I thought, was entertaining and fun. All the others, they can go," Weir said.
"And here's another thing: I pitched a Star Trek show to Paramount, and I was in Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer Alex Kurtzman]," the writer continued. "I don't like a lot of the new Trek. He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are shit. He is a nice guy. But they didn't accept my pitch, so, you know, fuck 'em."
He was forced to apologize for this -- conservatives also shouldn't court controversy or alienate potential ticket-buyers when they're promoting their movies, either -- but we all heard it. The Truth Is Out There now.
In another soft pitch to conservatives, star Ryan Gosling introduced the movie at a screening, he declared, "It's not [fans'] job to keep theaters open, it's our job to make things that make it worth coming out." That may seem obvious, but it's only conservative cultural critics who've been saying it. The left thinks we should show up for their Gay Illegal Alien Antifa Movies just to show our support for favored minorities.
'Project Hail Mary' Is Fun. Maybe That's All It Takes.
By Roy Price
Mr. Price is the chief executive of International Art Machine, an entertainment studio, and was previously the head of Amazon Studios.
"Project Hail Mary" opened last weekend to more than $80 million at the domestic box office, the biggest opening for a nonfranchise, nonsequel film since "Oppenheimer" in 2023. For all the fretting about the decline of movie theaters, people apparently know where their local theater is just as long as they're given films they want to go and see. It's also the first major theatrical success for Amazon MGM Studios, which formed in 2023. (Despite my former association with Amazon, I don't enjoy any benefit from the film's success.)
It's not just a one-off hit, either -- the domestic box office in general in 2026 is up a robust 20 percent from the year before, driven by hits like the mid-December releases "Avatar: Fire and Ash" and "The Housemaid," along with the year's "Scream 7," "Wuthering Heights" and others.
A possible reason for this rebound? Movies are starting to feel fun again.
Eras change. Vibes, as they say, shift. In 1969, the low-budget counterculture road movie "Easy Rider" was the fourth-biggest box office hit -- edged out for third place by the low-budget, X-rated "Midnight Cowboy." By contrast, "Paint Your Wagon," a big-budget, star-driven musical, tanked. That was the end of an era: Musicals were essentially over and the cinematic 1970s had begun, one year early.
We've had other eras since -- the blockbusters of the 1980s, the Sundance generation of the 1990s. But the most recent era, which started in the wake of Donald Trump's election in 2016 and went into overdrive after 2020, was one in which political and social messaging were what seemed to matter most in Hollywood.
I actually wrote that he rejected divisive political messaging before I read the actual article. But he said it! I was only thinking he'd softly imply it.
Sex, erotic thrillers and humor were on the outs. Romantic comedies essentially disappeared. From 2012 to 2016, roughly 67 comedy films with budgets over $5 million were released a year on average. From 2017 to 2023 (excluding the Covid year of 2020), that average dropped by a third, to some 45 comedies a year. It was an era when you could make "Nomadland" -- a best picture Oscar winner in 2021 -- but championing the ribaldry of a film like "Bridesmaids" seemed suddenly out of the question.
The Dionysian elements of popular entertainment -- irreverence, sexual frankness and broad, even scatological humor -- were cast aside as the industry sought to correct historic wrongs and resist current ones. An unmistakable censoriousness and fear of saying or doing the wrong thing seemed to settle over the creative process. Cultural and political considerations played an outsize role -- not only in what movies got made, but in how success for these movies was defined.
What didn't seem to matter as much? Making sure that audiences were filling seats.
It can't be a coincidence that Ryan Gosling is echoing this line, minus the overt criticism of progressive propaganda. This feels like a coordinated message.
In Price's case, he has nothing to gain from Project Hail Mary's success. I guess he had no points in the project. But many in Hollywood have recognized that the industry is now in a state of dire existential crisis and they need to get their heads out of their stinky asses ASAP or the whole rotten house is going to collapse. His interest here is about the general viability of the so-called "entertainment" industry.
Some might object that comedy in particular waned in that era because the genre, in the words of the industry, "doesn't travel," meaning it lacks international appeal. But the international appeal of comedy didn't suddenly change in 2017. Hollywood's tastes did.
That era might finally be ending.
Hollywood loves box-office data, and the recent data suggests that there are two paths forward for the industry. One path is the prestige message films that dominated the most recent Oscars, exemplified by this year's best picture winner, "One Battle After Another" (although that movie, with its chase scenes and stoner jokes, had a crowd-pleasing element). The other path is represented by eight-cylinder entertainment like "Project Hail Mary" and "The Housemaid" -- as well as pulpy films like "Weapons" and "Sinners" (which had its political notions, but you could enjoy it for the music and vampires).
If this new era of fun has a figurehead, it's the actress Sydney Sweeney, who almost single-handedly revived the romantic comedy with "Anyone but You" and the erotic thriller with "The Housemaid," two genres that 10 years ago had been cinematically left for dead.
Hollywood was built on entertainment. A big part of what makes entertaining movies work is that they engage audiences in a way that feels contemporary but would be completely recognizable to Billy Wilder or Frank Capra. These films spring from the belief that movies matter in and of themselves -- and not just as a means to influence society.
The question is not whether Hollywood should make serious or socially conscious films -- it should, and it will. But the success of "Project Hail Mary" and other recent films reminds us that in our new era, whatever it will be called, people appear to be responding to fun.
There was an old rule that actual movie stars observed: "One for the studio, one for me." In other words, one broadly entertaining movie likely to make a good amount of money, and then one more personal and "arty" project which probably wouldn't make money but would boost the star's prestige.
For ten years, Hollywood's rule has been "one for me, and another one for me, and oh how about another one for me, and this one for me, and this one for me." Yes, they made Marvel and other superhero movies during this period, but those were among the only broadly-entertaining movies they made -- everything else was overt, mentally-impaired hardcore woke propaganda. And then, of course, even the stupid superhero movies started pushing braindead woke propaganda as well, and people stopped seeing those.
The "star" of the upcoming Supergirl movie just decided to alienate the mostly-male audience for superhero movies and announce that she is a pre-emptive victim (TM) of internet bullying. You see, Basement Internet Babies cannot stand the thought of a Stronk Female playing... Supergirl.
And so Hollywood now finds itself making almost nothing but woke propaganda movies people just don't want to see. And they can no longer point to Marvel's success as evidence they're still relevant.
A review:
As I said, it's worth your time and money. The movie has a fair amount of spectacle -- there's a great sequence involving skimming the atmosphere of an alien planet towards the end of the movie -- and supposedly most of the effects were achieved in-camera with models and painted backdrops.
The story is a little contrived: the Sun is dimming due to strange alien cells called "astrophages," or star-eaters. The earth has about 30 years left before it is plunged into a lethal ice age that will kill almost all life on the planet. Local stars are similarly dimming, probably also from these astrophages. All except a star 13 light years away, Tau Ceti. The earth organizes an emergency crash project to build a ship to go to Tau Ceti and find out what makes Tau Ceti immune from the plague of the astrophages, and send what they discover back to earth via small probes.
The hitch: It's a one-way trip, a suicide run. They cannot load enough fuel on to the ship for a return trip. Whoever goes, dies in space.
One thing I like about this set-up: Author Andy Weir avoids the usual end-of-the-world scenario of "global warming." Instead he conjures up a fictitious threat that results in... global cooling. I think he did this on purpose.
When Ryan Gosling's character reaches Tau Ceti, he is menaced by an alien space ship that also has just arrived there. But he soon guesses the ship was sent by another civilization threatened by the astrophages, for the same reason he's there, to discover why Tau Ceti resists the plague.
This brings up two closely-related criticisms I have about the movie:
1, Hollywood's continued belief that audiences still love Marvel Trash Humor. The movie is loaded with jokes -- or "jokes" -- and while a fair number of them work, a lot of them are just thrown in because the movie thinks the audience has a short attention span and is bored by science and so there's a joke a minute to keep the audience engaged. Now, maybe they're right that the Modern Audience demands this constant barrage of light humor, but it grated on me. I have to repeat, a fair amount of the humor actually is funny, but I got annoyed at the many pop culture references. I felt like I was stuck at a party between Star-Lord and Dr. Strange trying to out-clever each other and both losing.
2, the movie aggressively wants you to like it and like the characters. It's like a hyperactive puppy in its drive to be liked. Of all the sins a movie can have, this is a pretty forgiveable one, but... I liked the characters well-enough without the cloying attempts to ingratiate themselves with me.
Directors Lord and Miller were fired from Solo for making that movie too much of a comedy. I long assumed that Kaffeine Kennedy was in the wrong, but now I'm not so sure.
Those flaws knock the movie down a point, but it's still a strong movie. The atmospheric-skimming sequence at the climax of Act II is spectacular and so tense that I wanted to walk out of the movie. That's not the movie's fault, it's just as I've gotten older I flinch from tension (and horror) more and more. The suspense was, for me, unbearable at points. But that is, of course, what they were aiming for.
Oh, I recognized Milana Vayntraub as a background character after a while. (Pretty much all characters except Ryan Gosling and his alien contact are background characters.) She is pretty, but, as usual, she dresses in baggy clothes because she really, really hates guys looking at her boobs. I count this as another attempt by the film-makers to appeal to conventional/traditional audiences, men in particular.
There is a flaw I felt when I was watching the movie but later decided wasn't a flaw: When Gosling encounters the alien craft, there's a sequence taking about 40 minutes of Gosling figuring out how to communicate with the aliens. While I was watching it, I felt as if Gosling was spending too much time on this rather than his actual mission, which was to explore Tau Ceti.
But of course partnering with aliens for this mission would greatly improve the odds of succeeding. I wish there had just been a quick line inserted where Gosling speaks into his video journal and declares that finding a way to communicate with the aliens will help him complete his mission. I know that's obvious, but he does spend a long time figuring out the alien language. I kept thinking, "What about your mission?" If the movie just offered a quick line saying that this is part of the mission, I wouldn't have been bothered.
I listened to that Idiot Whore Grace Randolf because I wanted to hear how the movie was performing financially. She was sure that there is no way the human and alien could have communicated with each other.
I was kind of infected with her Very Stupid Idea as I was watching the movie, but upon reflection, I think the learning-the-language sequence is perfectly plausible.
They don't learn each other's language at all, actually. They say words to each other, and get the other's equivalent word, and then enter the matching pair into the computer. It's the computer that does the translating, working from a lexicon they enter into it. Not having to actually memorize vocabulary really speeds things up.
Even though this takes a fair chunk of screen-time, in real time, I think it would only take 2-3 days. Because they only learn, at the end of their big language-learning session, 250 words.
At the end of a process of sharing vocabulary with each other, Gosling says something like, "We know about 250 of each other's words, not a lot but enough to order dinner in a restaurant." That's about right. Vocabulary goes by a power law: the 500 most common words in a language make up fifty percent of all words you will ever read or hear in it. The next 500 most common words make up 25% of all the words you will ever encounter. The next 500 most common make up 12.5%, the next 500 6.25%, etc.
So upon further reflection, their 250 word lexicon would be enough to start communicating.
I also realized that this explained away part of my problem with the movie: the cutesieness. I hope I am not spoiling the movie by telling you the alien Gosling partners with is very cute -- too cute, I found during the movie. Cuter than Ewoks.
But I now realize that a big part of why I found him so cloyingly cute was that he spoke with a child-like vocabulary. When he objected to an idea, he would say "Bad bad bad" or "dumb and stupid."
But... that's exactly what he would say, if he's limiting himself to the simplest possible vocabulary he knows so that the computer can look it up in their tiny 250-word lexicon. So the cuteness was actually plot-justified, which I didn't realize when I was watching it.
Of course he speaks like a little child, because he's working from a little child's 250-word vocabulary! Little children do not say "sub-optimal" or "insufficiently evidenced." They say "Bad bad bad" and "dumb and stupid."
(How exactly they communicated more technical/scientific ideas, I don't know. Fortunately for them, the science they end up doing is pretty basic. I don't know what they would have done if it got very technical. And they do continue adding to their lexicon as they work together through the movie.)
Maybe with that explanation, this aspect of the movie won't grate on you as it grated on me.
Overall, a good movie. Often over-cute, marred by Marvel humor, and there's a character arc that feels too writerly to me -- like Weir thought of it and then patted himself on the shoulder -- but worth the $11 and two and a half hours.
Plus, if they're trying hard to pander to normie audiences, normie audiences would do well to reward that.
Supreme Court Appears "Skeptical" of Trump's Completely-Correct Arguments on Birthright Citizenship Plus: Trump to Sign EO Cracking Down on Illegal Mail-In Voting
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Of course. Republicans nominate liberals to the Supreme Court, recommended by the fake conservatives of the Federalist Society.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday mostly appeared skeptical of the Trump administration's argument to end birthright citizenship for babies born to parents who are not U.S. citizens.
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued Wednesday before the high court, with President Trump in attendance, that birthright citizenship "rewards illegal immigration" and urged the justices to rule that the children of temporary visitors and illegal immigrants should not be deemed as citizens at birth, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Most of the justices, on the 9-member bench, said the Constitution had been interpreted for more than a century to grant citizenship to "all persons born" in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett said the 19th-century debates over citizenship focused on newborns, not their parents' legal status.
"In none of the debates are parents discussed," Gorsuch said.
Of course the liberal woman and libertarian sissy are defecting, as usual.
Barrett said the 14th Amendment's framers declared a "new type of American citizenship. ... They don't focus on the parents. They focus on the child."
So she's already gone -- she's stating that she already knows exactly what the 14th Amendment means.
Justice Elena Kagan told Sauer that he was seeking a major revision in longstanding law.
"Birthright citizenship has been the rule for a very long time," she said. Because of this, she said, why "accept this revisionist history?"
...
Sauer argued in response that this understanding of birthright citizenship had been wrong from the beginning.
He said the citizenship rule did not extend to the children of immigrants and visitors who were "subject to a foreign power," as those people did not have "allegiance" to the U.S.
Chief Justice John Roberts was also skeptical, saying, "It's a new world, but it is the same Constitution."
And there you go. The Grim Troika again.
You can listen to live arguments here, if you can take it. Go to the right sidebar and scroll down to Wednesday's arguments. (I can't link it directly.)
Trump is ready to sign another EO, which our corrupt liberal Supreme Court will probably strike down because they don't want to stop Democrats from openly stealing elections.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday cracking down on mail-in voting across the country, the Daily Caller learned first.
The executive order will require the Secretary of Homeland Security to create a list of verified U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state with the Social Security Administration's help, according to a fact sheet shared with the Caller. The presidential action will also require that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) only send absentee ballots to those on each state's approved mail-in ballot list. Ballots will now have specific secure envelopes, with unique barcodes for tracking, the order mandates.
States will be provided with their revised list of confirmed voters no less than 60 days before each federal election under the order.
The executive order also tells the U.S. Attorney General to prioritize investigating and prosecuting anyone accused of sending ballots to ineligible voters, the Caller learned. States that disobey the order may lose federal funds under the presidential action.
...
The action comes as the U.S. Senate continues to debate the SAVE America Act. Under the legislation, voters would be required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship and ID, states would be required to clean up their voter rolls and approved reasons for mail-in ballots would be restricted.
The New York Times Shrieks About the 1% Recividivism Rate for Pardoned J6 Protesters, But Continues to Support the Release of Hardened Criminals with 30%+ Recidivisim Rates
But we should also allow Iryna Zarutska's butcher to keep killing women until he's all "murdered out."
Strom is amused/angry that the NYT has suddenly discovered a zeal for punishment by incarceration -- but only for conservative political prisoners.
Maybe it was an April Fool's joke? The New York Times, which is deeply upset that Trump is arresting rapists, pedophiles, and sex traffickers to deport, wants you to know that the people Trump pardoned over January 6th infractions are on a crime spree.
Crime spree.
Apparently, of the more than 1200 people he has pardoned, 12 have been arrested for a crime since their pardon.
"One does not have to be a criminologist to predict that people who commit a violent act and are absolved of any punishment might become repeat offenders,"
Twelve people. Obviously, I want any of these people who committed a crime to get the appropriate punishment, and I wish I could say the same thing about New York Times readers and writers.
But they only care about criminals who support Donald Trump. Antifa rioters? They are "protesters." Homeless drug addicts pooping on the streets? "Victims." Somali fraudsters? No big deal. Hamas supporters taking over college campuses? They are bravely expressing their First Amendment rights.
The man who slashed Iryna Zarutska's throat committed more felonies than all the January 6ers combined, and The New York Times barely tut-tuts. Illegal alien gang members? They are our "neighbors."
Daniel Friedman
@DanFriedman81
The Times editorial board points out that 12 people Trump pardoned for January 6 offenses have been rearrested in the 14 months since Trump pardoned them. Trump pardoned 1270 January 6 convicts. That is a rate of 1% of pardon recipients reoffending.
Among arrestees free pending trial in New York City under the 2018 bail reform, about 22% are rearrested within 6 months. The people we need to worry about becoming repeat offenders after being absolved of punishment are not the J6ers.
I am all for a punitive justice system. I am all for mass incarceration. But to pretend the J6 offenders are dangerous recidivists who need to be locked up while it's fine to immediately release most criminals arrested by the NYPD is profoundly ridiculous.
Say -- what's the recidivism rate for antifa street thugs repeatedly sentenced to "time served" -- just the hours or days they spent in county jail awaiting their "sentencing"?
What do you guess the repeat-offender rate is there? 100% or thereabouts?
By the way, the J6ers were held without trial for up to a year, often in the most degrading and intentionally-damaging conditions. Some were held in solitary confinement for no reason except to punish before trial.
The Times editorial board points out that 12 people Trump pardoned for January 6 offenses have been rearrested in the 14 months since Trump pardoned them. Trump pardoned 1270 January 6 convicts. That is a rate of 1% of pardon recipients reoffending.
Rubio Blasts Our Frenemy "Allies:" You Know, We Don't Rely On Oil That Passes Through the Strait of America. You Do.
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Europe, the world's most arrogant welfare moocher, wants us to -- get this -- do all the work for them while they can keep sitting on the couch fingering each other up the bungholes.
Overton
@overton_news
Secretary Marco Rubio just delivered a BRUTAL wake-up call to U.S. allies refusing to step up on the Strait of Hormuz.
"We depend very little on the straits -- this is a problem for the WORLD."
RUBIO: "Well, the Straits of Hormuz, those are international waters, so anything Iran does to impede commercial traffic is illegal."
"For all these countries that like to talk about international law, it is a violation of international maritime law to impede the free flow of travel in international waters, so that's number one."
"Number two, it's illegal to bomb and hit and attack commercial shipping, and sink them."
"That's what the Nazis did during World War II in the Atlantic, and that's what they are doing now to ships from countries they don't like, flagged by countries they don't like."
"These are TERRORISTIC acts that they are undertaking."
"So the United States gets very little energy through the Strait of Hormuz."
"Our allies ship out a lot of oil through there...and certainly countries in Asia and Europe on it."
"We depend very little on the straits, if, in fact, Iran decides to set up a toll, if, in fact, Iran decides that they are going to illegally control the Straits of Hormuz..."
"I imagine that will be the president's call whether he wants to help but this is a problem for the world."
"It's countries around the world that should be stepping up and dealing with that and saying that's intolerable and that's what we've encouraged them to do."
Rubio just exposed the truth -- Iran is committing terroristic acts in international waters and America's allies are sitting on their hands.
Trump Becomes First Sitting President to Attend Supreme Court Oral Arguments, Showing Up to Hear Discussion About His Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
President Donald Trump plans to sit in on Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship, making him the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation's highest court.
The Republican president's official schedule, sent out by the White House, included a stop at the Supreme Court, where justices will hear Trump's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down his executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
The order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, declared that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. It's an about-face from the long-standing view that the Constitution's 14th Amendment and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship to everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions.
It's not the first time Trump has considered showing up for a high court hearing. Last year, Trump said that he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but he decided against it, saying it would have been a distraction.
On Tuesday, however, Trump seemed more sure he'd be in court for Wednesday's hearing while he spoke with reporters in the Oval Office.
"I'm going," Trump said, when the upcoming arguments in the birthright citizenship case were mentioned. To a follow-up question clarifying that he planned to go in person, Trump said, "I think so, I do believe."
The argument is about the 14th Amendment's declaration that any person "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is a citizen. This was intended to make it clear that slaves released from bondage after the Civil War were now citizens. The whole point of the "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" line was to make it clear that this did not apply to foreigners, who are subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign.
We should win this case on the merits, but we're fighting against more than logic here.
It continues to amuse me that Blueskyers abandoned twitter to avoid the toxicity, only to discover that they *were* the toxicity. https://t.co/8ZHlNlqQpA
There are many reasons that naysayers looked at the prospect of state-sponsored "assisted suicide" with everything from trepidation to open horror. These reasons range from the religious to the moral to the pragmatic, but there have been many objectors wherever such notions have been floated. In this country, it's a state-level consideration. In other countries, like Canada, it's national. More states and countries every year enable it, and the naysayers now have the records of places where it has already been done to point to.
One thing that state-sponsored "assisted suicide" has demonstrated is that on this particular topic, the goalposts aren't merely mobile, they have wheels and powerful engines to propel them down the field. Yesterday, Ace posted an ad from Canada, encouraging that country's flavor of euthanasia (called MAID) by extolling the virtues of offing yourself. In his Morning Rant yesterday, CBD mentioned the legal battle over what became Spain's youngest person killed through its euthanasia program.
In Canada, MAID's goalposts have been moving rapidly. It took just five years for Canada to mash down the accelerator on MAID. When passed in 2016, MAID required a 10-day "reflection period" before a person could be eligible. This was repealed for terminal patients in 2021, and they installed a MAID express lane. There is still a waiting period for MAID's "Track 2" participants - which is for those without "forseeable death" - but it can also be waived. From "death as a mercy" to express-lane, state-sponsored killing in five years. Impressive.
But it doesn't stop there for MAID. MAID still doesn't kill citizens suffering only from mental illness. That is changing. It was supposed to change last year, but there was enough objection that it's been deferred until 2027. But they will get there, and open a whole category of people who can be killed by the state. Sure, it requires consent - but as we see reported frequently, MAID is enthusiastically offered to those seeking medical treatment and - unlike many other medical treatments in Canada - MAID acts fast. The slope is slippery indeed.
Colorado also passed its euthanasia law in 2016. Unlike Canada, it took longer to start moving the goalposts. It wasn't until 2024 that they cut the waiting period in half and added a waiver process to skip the waiting period if the prescriber thinks death is imminent. That same year, Colorado also expanded who can prescribe the drugs to include Advanced Practice Registered Nurses in addition to doctors. This latter change was made specifically to cover doctor-scarce rural areas. Vermont passed its euthanasia law in 2013 and also took longer to start moving the goalposts. In 2022 they "expanded access" by eliminating one of the two waiting periods, allowing remote diagnosis ("telemedicine") and opening eligibility to non-residents. In neither state is it available for mental illness, nor can the doctor administer the drugs - but I will be surprised if it takes more than five years to get there under the banner of "expanded access." After all, neither state made it even a decade before hitting the accelerator.
Then there is Spain. Spain was comparatively late to the party, not legalizing state-sponsored euthanasia until 2021. Spain does still have a waiting period, but also permits it for mental illness. That permission is not explicit, but it is nonetheless permitted. A mere three years after the law's passage, the Spanish parliament attempted to make it explicitly permitted. The attempt failed - probably because it wasn't necessary - but many in Spanish government wanted to make it very clear that they will help you off yourself for mental illness. They learned from their forbears to be expansive, but wanted to make it explicitly expansive just in case they can help shuffle more people into the grave by doing so.
The reason I looked into this further is the same case that CBD discussed yesterday. In that case, a mentally-ill young woman named Noelia Castillo Ramos became the youngest person in Spain to die by assisted suicide, and it was for mental illness that was exacerbated by sexual assault. Her family sued to prevent it, citing mental incompetence. The court ruled that she was competent, and so it proceeded. That makes sense as far is it goes, but I was curious as to why the lawsuit was about competence rather than diagnosis, why the argument was that Ramos couldn't make that choice, rather than because it was for a non-terminal illness. That is when I learned that it needn't be for a terminal - or even physical - illness in Spain. Competence was the only avenue available to fight it.
The press and politicians happily ignored those who objected to these laws. The press wrote off the moral and religious objectors as atavistic cranks, and declared that the pragmatic objectors were arguing in bad faith. The pragmatic objectors to state-sponsored euthanasia are perhaps the most interesting, because they feared exactly this ratcheting expansion even if they didn't have moral or religious objections to the idea of a "mercy killing." The pragmatists were proven correct as everywhere such laws have been implemented, the requirements are subsequently loosened. Wait less. Make diagnosis easier and faster. Expand the list of eligible conditions. Once permitted at all, the steady march toward expansion, acceleration, popularization or - G-d forbid - a mandate immediately began.
Encouraging citizens to die is too great a temptation for the state. Once that door has been opened, it not only can never close, it can only open wider. Whether through misplaced empathy, financial considerations or simple malice, the standards and restrictions always decline and - like abortion - what started as "safe, legal and rare" becomes the heavily-encouraged first choice.
Also, I hope that our Jewish Hordelings have a good Pesach (which begins tonight) and that our Christian Hordelings have a blessed Good Friday and a happy Easter!
Good morning kids. Lots of things happening, and ground to cover this morning. First to Iran where President Trump is making lots of things go boom including the heads of Leftists and miscreants. But in Iran:
Writing in Ynet on Tuesday, Israeli military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai — a veteran Yediot Ahronot correspondent and Israel Prize recipient — assessed that the strike reflects a deliberate U.S. effort to neutralize Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile by entombing it beneath rock, soil, and collapsed tunnel infrastructure rather than attempting to remove it by force.
Perhaps this was the plan all along and the deployment of several thousand US troops to or near the theatre was a big head-fake. Iran's nuclear program was always the prime if not sole reason why the President decided to attack, with regime change or as it stands the chance for regime change an enticing side benefit.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Operation Epic Fury in Iran will come to an end in the next two or three weeks, or perhaps even sooner.
If the reports of Iran's enriched Uranium stockpile being buried forever are accurate, that is certainly a very good thing. And assuming their centrifuges are now also a pile of rubble and their nuclear and rocket scientists now so much moldering worm food, the odds of them being able to reconstitue what they once had, certainly in the near term are low. But, can we really breathe a sigh of relief if even a shadow of the Mullahocracy is allowed to take the reins of power. We are after all dealing not only with a 47-year old regime but with a 1500-year old ideology spanning the globe that seeks to conquer it and make it Planet Islam.
The apparent eagerness of Trump to make a deal with Iran, leaving in place the current regime, has left many Iranians feeling deceived and disappointed. They are particularly alarmed that his mediators have been talking to the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. More on Ghalibaf can be found here: “Iranians feel ‘deceived, abandoned’ as Trump weighs striking deal with Iran’s old guard,” by Omid Habibinia, The Media Line, March 25, 2026 . . .
Well, dear Persians, my message to you is put your own asses on the line. We've done more than enough heavy lifting already. The rest is up to you. What's better, living on your knees of dying on your feet?! I hope it doesn't come to that for you and every innocent decent person, but the ball is in your court.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening signed an executive order focused on election integrity, including a measure to ensure that mail-in ballots are sent to eligible voters and returned by them. Trump signed the order in the Oval Office while flanked by White House staff secretary Will Scharf and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick . . . “We’re going to take federal data, we’re going to ensure that each state’s election officials are provided with a comprehensive view of who the eligible voters in their jurisdiction actually are, allowing them to properly verify that everybody voting in their elections is legally able to vote,’ Scharf said of the first measure.
No doubt the lawsuits and phony injunctions from Justices Buch M. Danno and Mac A. Damia will be forthcoming. But still. At least we at long last have a real leader putting his ass on the line, unlike the GOP that is doing jack shit and worse, doing what they can to sabotage the efforts.
President Trump to Attend SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Birthright Citizenship. . . Soon after taking office last year, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens and foreign tourists, often referred to as “anchor babies” as they anchor their parents permanently in the U.S. and can sponsor their immediate relatives for green cards once they become of legal age.
Wow. I'm no presidential historian but I think this is unprecedented. That said, I know of no rule that forbids Trump from sitting in on the SCOTUS session, especially since he himself, or his policy, is one of the parties in the case.
My first reaction is perhaps politically it's not such a great move as it gives the Leftists a potential talking point to attack him as a tyrant/Hitler intimidating the judiciary or some such rot. Then again, it brings the issue of the madness of the birthright citizenship abomination into the public discourse, alongside the madness of illegal aliens and election non-integrity that illegal aliens voting is a huge part of.
God bless and keep President Trump. Say what you will, but this is what I voted for. LEGALLY three times. One vote in each of three elections, for the record.
And to my fellow Jews and really to all of you, I send Passover greetings and wishes for a Ziessen Pesach and may the angel of death pass over you and pay a nice long visit to all our enemies, wherever they lurk. May they be thwarted, defeated and their legacy of dissolution and destruction be eradicated and expunged for all time.
Have a great day!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Trump said securing the Strait will be the responsibility of the countries that depend on it for oil, adding that it will probably be secure from threats by the time the U.S. leaves. Trump Says U.S. Will Exit Iran in 2-3 Weeks
“We are prepared to keep operating for weeks to come. We have the targets for that, the munition for that, the manpower for that. And it’s up to the leadership to decide,” Shoshani said on Tuesday. Israel Prepared to Continue Iran Strikes for ‘Weeks to Come’
Israel’s military also reported Tuesday that four more of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, where the war has spilled and where they are clashing with Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Iran Fires Missiles Across Middle East as Trump Threatens Oil Hub
In a statement published by Tasnim News Agency, one of the Islamic Republic’s state media agencies, the IRGC claimed the companies were “involved in terrorist operations” against Iran. The statement listed 18 companies including Tesla, Palantir, and Microsoft. Iran Threatens To Blow Up American Tech Firms
Concern spreads that the Islamic Republic might ultimately remain in power. (Time to put your own asses on the line - jjs) Iranians Feel Deceived by Trump
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
“No kings” in name only—power is dispersed across institutions and networks that police speech, shape culture, and impose control without a crown. No Kings
The X account “LibsofTikTok” posted a video of the user making the threat, coupled with a second video of the user saying he’d been “deactivated” on Monday evening. In the initial video posted March 13, the TikTok user, who goes by “esoteric_eriik,” threatened to destroy the orders if he saw a “MAGA sign” on the customer’s front lawn. Left-Winger Says He’ll Destroy Food Ordered By Trump Supporters, Whines When DoorDash Drops Him
Soon after taking office last year, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens and foreign tourists, often referred to as “anchor babies” as they anchor their parents permanently in the U.S. and can sponsor their immediate relatives for green cards once they become of legal age. President Trump to Attend SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Birthright Citizenship
Democratic leaders in the West without sound judgment—vain, short-sighted, and negligent of history—have opened the borders to a civilian invasion by Muslims. ‘The New Europe’
OFFICIAL DEMOCRAT PARTY/LEFTIST-ENDORSED, AND OTHER ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
In fact, some Democrats kinda … like it? As part of the tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, Republicans carved out a provision allowing for tax deductions on overtime pay up to $25,000. According to new Treasury Department data, nearly 20 million Americans have already reaped its benefits this filing season, Politico reported Tuesday. Trump Hits Nail On Head With Affordability Policy And Democrats Don’t Know What To Do About It
White House Spokesman Kush Desai confirmed the report in a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday afternoon, saying the Trump administration “has issued the fifth and final year of Title X grants that were locked in place during the Biden [so-called quote-unquote] presidency.” Pro-Lifers Shred Trump Admin’s Biden-Era Title X Extension As ‘Inexplicable Slap In The Face’
THE 2020 and SUBSEQUENT ELECTION HEISTS , SHENANIGANS/FRAUD and AFTERMATH
“We’re going to take federal data, we’re going to ensure that each state’s election officials are provided with a comprehensive view of who the eligible voters in their jurisdiction actually are, allowing them to properly verify that everybody voting in their elections is legally able to vote,’ Scharf said of the first measure. Trump Signs Order to Verify Mail-In Ballots Used by Eligible Voters
While 80 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress, 80 percent of voters approve of voter verification. So Congress goes on spring break. SAVE Act Is 4 Times More Popular Than Congress
There’s only one way such a deeply arrogant and out-of-touch party can continue to win elections. What happened to the Democrats?
“His pugilism and his critique of the party’s leftward lurch will create a gauntlet his would-be rivals will have to navigate.” Can Rahm Emanuel Win the 2028 Democrat Presidential Nomination? (white, non-homo Male, Jew with direct ties to Israel - No way! - jjs)
It's pretty simple. You start with a standard Russian T-72B3M tank, add "a frame for drone-defeating metal plating and spines, installs floors under the plating to support infantry and hatches for the infantry to ingress and egress." And don't forget the dangling steel chains to cover any gaps. War Is Crazy: The Return of the Giga Turtle Tank
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
Speaking with the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Media Network, Secretary Rubio expressed deep disappointment with the response of allies in Europe to the conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz and suggested that America may be better off without NATO. Rubio: NATO Alliance Unsustainable if It is Just America Protecting Europe
We all know now that Bukele did what it took to clean up El Salvador. He had to rely on desperate action to handle a desperate situation. But the global elites, like these folks at the UN High Horse Commission or whatever you call it, like to sit in their ivory towers and tell other countries how to do their business, pretending as if those minors who participate in systematic organized crime are simply kids who are a little misguided. Nayib Bukele Just Went Nuclear on the UN and Rightfully So
DEFENSE, MILITARY, SECURITY AFFAIRS
Cpl. Andrew Paul Amarillas, 23, is accused of stealing military ammunition and a Javelin anti-tank missile system from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where he worked as an Ammunition Technician Specialist, according to the indictment filed in Arizona District Court. Prosecutors say Amarillas transported the weaponry and munitions to Arizona, where he sold them to unnamed co-conspirators in a plot uncovered by an undercover law enforcement operation. US Marine Allegedly Steals Anti-Tank Arsenal To Sell On America’s Streets
All of the data post-Voyager-2 remains very coarse and uncertain, as we are looking at Neptune at a great distance. Thus, no theory about what is happening carries much weight, especially because we do not know why Neptune produces so much more internal heat than Uranus, fueling this fast-changing weather. Voyager-2 discovered Neptune to be a planet of quickly changing weather
This is the second time in just over three months that a Starlink satellite has failed suddenly. In mid-December a Starlink satellite began to tumble when fuel began venting from a tank. It burned up in the atmosphere a month later. A 2nd Starlink satellite since December fails catastrophically
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
Statues should not be torn down on impulse, but judged by clear standards that honor real contributions, expose grave wrongdoing, and preserve a truthful memory of our history. Which Statues Should Stay? Which Should Go?
“Here the horror is not racism, but abandonment... They learned to read their failure as personal and individual... The great mass of the poor, the marginal, the vulnerable of Liverpool disappear.” In ‘Candyman,’ Race Erased Class
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Which... Well, so what? You can download it. Countless thousands of people have. I have. Anyone who wanted to put in the effort to pick it apart could have done so.
Anthropic left a debug option set it one release and that made all the source files visible, but that just made it easier.
The real brains - Anthropic's AI models like Sonnet and Opus - run safely on their servers and haven't leaked anywhere.
Because the 1.7 billion parameter model runs in 240MB of memory - yes, M, not G - and churns through 130 tokens per second on an iPhone 17.
Which uses noticeably less power than a rack full of high-end graphics cards.
Bonsai 8B uses 1.15GB of RAM.
While it doesn't lead in test scores, it's being tested against 16GB models, which require an entirely different class of hardware. It would be interesting to see how a 70 billion parameter model would perform on the same tests if it's possible to perform the same trick - quantising the model down from half-precision (16 bits) per parameter to 1 bit with error correction.
The interesting part is that this will be manufactured at the Rapidus plant in Hokkaido. With Rapidus ramping up production Japan has leapt directly from 40nm chip fabrication to 2nm, largely catching up with Taiwan, Korea, and the United States, and leaving China trailing behind.
Just two problems: First, it costs $1899, and the Minisforum model I bought around Christmas cost about $600. Sure, the integrated graphics on that model are a lot slower than Panther Lake, but not that much slower. (This site suggests the difference is around 25%.)
Second, it's out of stock.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: Musical interlude has been replaced with potato salad at the last minute and at great expense.
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Tuesday night ONT. Last day of March. Did it go out like a lion or like a lamb for you? Do you have any good pranks planned for April Fools Day tomorrow? Anything else you want to talk about - have at it! Open thread as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?
When Kishore Karlapudi saw his beautiful mansion in Celina, Texas, rented on Airbnb for a party of seven people, he never imagined it would be invaded and vandalised by hundreds of teenagers looking for a good time.
Karlapudi doesn’t live in the mansion himself, but instead rents it out on Airbnb for passive income. He never imagined that he could become the victim of some teenagers looking for a place to stage the mother of all parties.
“Somebody booked it, saying they needed the property for a party of seven people,” Kishore Karlapudi told Fox4 News.
According to Celina Police Chief John Cullison, that small party of seven swelled to between 500 and 800 people after the event was advertised on social media. On the evening of March 21, police started receiving calls about a massive gathering at the mansion, followed by reports of gunshots being heard on the property.
“We started getting the 911 calls with the shots fired. We also got a call that there was 10 men at the front gate, and they had guns, and they were threatening to kill someone. So, this of course amped our officers up just a bit to make sure we go inside and keep everybody safe,” Chief Cullison said. “But it wasn’t until they went inside and they actually realized how vast this party was.”
More at the link, including 2 video segments.
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Did you know there are some snakes that have an internal gauge for their level of poison? You do now!
Red-necked keelback snakes are highly toxic—mere drops of their pungent yellow poison could blind a mongoose and stop its heart within minutes. But the snakes don’t make that toxin themselves; rather, they steal it from the poisonous toads they eat.
After a red-necked keelback (Rhabdophis subminiatus) eats a true toad (a member of the Bufonidae family), the snake’s intestines soak up the toxic bufadienolide molecules from the amphibian’s skin. The toxins are then shuttled into more than a dozen pairs of storage pockets in the snakes’ necks called nuchal glands. Then the snakes act fearless. They rise and jut their necks at mongooses and other would-be predators as if to say, “Go ahead—I dare you.”
That brazen attitude doesn’t last, though. If dinner has been nontoxic recently—poison-free frogs or fish, for example—these reptiles often hurriedly slither away.
Snakes are equal parts creepy and cool to me. How about you?
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In the market for a super cool vintage car? Here's one to consider.
This Coronet spent almost its entire life with the same man who picked it up from the dealership and drove it home. It remained in the family after his passing, but the son has decided to let it go for a simple reason. It holds too many memories, so someone else must cherish the car now.
That's why it's here. This Coronet R/T is looking for a new home, and while it's not a spotless specimen, it's worth knowing the car has never been restored or altered. I would still inspect it personally before making an offer to check if all of these are true, but at first glance, this Coronet just seems to check all these big boxes.
Dodge offered a little something to every Coronet buyer in 1968.
It started with the Coronet Deluxe, which was the most affordable configuration but also came with a six-cylinder 225 standard. A 273ci V8 unit was optional if buyers wanted a little bit more power.
The Coronet 440 also started with a six, but the engine options went all the way up to the 440ci with 375 horsepower. The Coronet 500 was next with a standard 318 and more options, including the popular 383, followed by the almighty R/T. The Coronet R/T was all about the power delivered by its engine and the mix of upgrades inside the cabin, and buyers could choose either the standard 440 or the 426 Hemi.
The Hemi was the engine to get if power was the main objective, but it's not a secret that this engine configuration was ridiculously expensive. It featured dual-quad carburetors and delivered 425 horsepower, so some buyers didn’t care and still ordered the engine, no matter the price.
This Coronet R/T was and still is equipped with a 440ci V8 engine paired with a 4-speed manual transmission.
The vehicle is up for online auction.
The top bid at the time of writing is $19,100, but it's expected to increase significantly, as the Coronet seems to get impressive attention lately.
***
The car is parked in Chicago, Illinois, and if you don't want to pay more for shipping, you should be able to drive it home on its wheels.
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Hope the owner of this wallet isn't a Hordeling. There's math involved for it to be returned!
A mathematician found a wallet, He left a note in a way so only the real owner could contact him pic.twitter.com/BkXNP1ZtBM
My second favorite story: Pregnant dog is rescued and family friends care for and then adopt all 11 puppies, and once a year, they have a big family reunion.
A crewed NASA mission to orbit the moon is scheduled to launch tomorrow night.
In case you missed it, the shrewish nonbinary kobold who chaired the NDP meeting got very miffed at being "gendered" as "Madame Chairman."
Attorney General Pamela Bondi
@AGPamBondi
Today @TheJusticeDept sued the state of Minnesota for allowing boys to play in girls' sports and use girls' locker rooms.
This DOJ acknowledges biological reality and we refuse to let high school girls be subjected to this treatment. It's not only unfair -- it's deeply inappropriate and dangerous.
Proud to partner with @SecKennedy and @EdSecMcMahon on this important litigation.
The Department of Justice announced a lawsuit Monday against Minnesota and the state's high school sports league for allowing boys to compete in girls' sports.
According to the DOJ, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) have engaged "in sex-based discrimination by requiring girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions that are designated exclusively for girls and allowing boys to invade intimate spaces designated exclusively for girls."
In doing so, MDE and MSHSL have openly defied Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding, the DOJ said in a press release.
"The Justice Department cannot ignore a state's brazen defiance of federal antidiscrimination law," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division. "In service of radical gender ideology, Minnesota's actions violate Title IX and deny female athletes their hard-earned trophies, records, dignity, and safety."
The lawsuit highlights the story of Marissa Rothenberger, a biological male who pitched for the girls' varsity softball team as a junior at Champlin Park High School.
Rothenberger threw multiple shutouts, including a complete-game shutout in the Class 4A state championship game, leading the Rebels to the 2025 title.
The performance prompted federal investigations into Minnesota's compliance with Title IX and drew criticism from female athletes who said they were displaced or put at a disadvantage.
The vile Daily Mail published a straight-up hoax, claiming the bullets recovered from Charlie Kirk's body did not match those from Tyler Robinson's gun.
This is a lie. The bullet broke into pieces. It could not be matched to any gun because it is shattered and deformed. (It also couldn't be excluded as a match to Tyler Robinson's gun -- due to the poor shape of the bullet, tests are "inconclusive," as they often are.)
But the Daily Mail is thirsty for clicks, so they lied:
It may surprise you that the Daily Mail runs clickbait lies like this. In fact, they're a pure clickbait site. They are not "conservative" -- but they will publish conservative-tiling articles just because they know conservatives will click on them. They also post extremely left-leaning articles -- because they want commie clicks too.
They're like fake magazine Newsweek, which has the same mercenary, "print anything as long is it delivers clicks" credo.
Megan Basham
@megbasham
20h
This is clickbait trash and completely discrediting to the @DailyMail.
Spoke to a LEO who told me fragmentation that makes it impossible to get a match to ANY weapon happens all the time. Yet the Daily Mail is echoing Tyler Robinson's defense team nearly verbatim. They did NOT quote a single law-enforcement officer not connected to Robinson's defense who would've given their readers a better understanding of what's happening here.
They're purely leaning into this because they know there are a bunch of rabid conspiracy theorists who will not take the time to understand this.
Which makes the Daily Mail and its reporter scum in my book.
I will no longer link to this outlet. If I have to quote one of their articles, I'll just say it's from the Daily Mail with no link.
Ever wonder why Israel always has thousands of terrorists in jail that they have to release every other year because Hamas and Hezballah take a bunch of civilians hostage?
Ever wonder why Israel just doesn't kill them?
Well Israel is wondering about that too, and the left is -- get this -- outraged!
Also from Canada: This bizarre performance at the JUNO Awards, Canada's Grammies. This was apparently intended as a "tribute" to Natalie Furtado. You should listen to it. If you can get past the weird grunting and sexual breathing in the beginning, you will then learn that this singer cannot carry a single note. She doesn't even get close to a note. And her voice is all over the place so she should, per the law of large numbers, hit some notes accidentally, but she doesn't.
🚨 BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis is moving to get a radical leftist judge IMPEACHED after she RELEASED a known predator who went on to kill an innocent 5-year-old girl
REPORT: Judge Teresa Stokes released Decarlos Brown just months before he stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zaruska because he wrote her a "written promise."
Remarkable.
According to court documents, Stokes decided to release Brown because he "promised" her he would return for… pic.twitter.com/F9dQHoxpHz
Ana Navarro attacked President Trump for his "flippant" communication on Iran -- when former Iranian regime prisoner Kian Tajbakhsh dropped a NUCLEAR truth bomb straight from inside Iran:
TAJBAKHSH: "I want to share one thing about Donald Trump's communication style."
"When I spoke to someone inside Iran who I trust -- he runs a very big business, he's not a politician but he has to follow very closely all the tea leaves -- he told me, that guy is a genius!"
"And he's talking about Trump."
"And I said, why?"
"You know, he said, because he's completely confused the Iranians."
"Finally, the Iranians have met someone who is like a match for them."
Abby Phillip couldn't handle it -- she cut him off twice mid-sentence:
PHILLIP: "But do you think that's really true?"
TAJBAKHSH: "I think it's true. I think it's true, let me--"
Shut down again.
The anti-Trump narrative just got torched live on air by someone who actually knows Iran.
🚨 CNN panel just got absolutely DESTROYED.
Ana Navarro attacked President Trump for his “flippant” communication on Iran — when former Iranian regime prisoner Kian Tajbakhsh dropped a NUCLEAR truth bomb straight from inside Iran:
Supreme Court Rules That Free Speech Still Exists; Ketanji Brown Jackson Doesn't Understand
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This should have been a 9-0 unanimous decision.
It has been the rule of the land since the founding of the Republic that the Constitution's stricture against passing "any law" limiting speech meant that no government, federal or state, could impose "viewpoint" restrictions on speech -- disfavoring or even criminalizing a specific view, argument, or belief.
Now, the Court long recognized that governments may impose "time, place, and manner" restrictions, especially on public gatherings and marches. For example, you can permit a march from 1pm to 3pm, so that the march does not interfere with rush hour traffic. You can tell the marchers they cannot walk in front of active garage entrances. You can tell the marchers they must be orderly and cannot use bullhorns that boost noise above, say, 100 decibels. That kind of thing.
But you cannot -- absolutely cannot -- pass a law or deny a permit to march based on your agreement with or disagreement with the speaker's speech. You can regulate speech as far as the time, place, and manner in which it is spoken, but you absolutely cannot regulate what that speech can say.
This was the rule controlling government regulation of free speech for 250 years, completely agreed to by all Supreme Court judges. Yes, lefty judges would of course put their thumbs on the scale and claim that some limits on speech they don't like -- like protesting outside abortion clinics -- were fair restrictions regarding "place" rather than viewpoint-based restrictions on pro-lifers, but everyone agreed on the framework for analyzing these cases.
Until today.
Gentlemen, you asked for a radical incompetent. I give you K. B. J.
The Court was nearly unanimous that Colorado cannot ban a therapist from counseling a patient to try to change his sexual orientation. Even "Wise Latina" Sotormayor joined the majority. Obama's Obamacare advisor, who cast a decisive vote on Obamacare, Elena Kagan joined the opinion.
But DEI Justice KBJ cast another lonely dissent, essentially repudiating 250 years of jurisprudence on free speech and declaring that sometimes, if the government really really really doesn't like speech and that speech is DoublePlus UnGood and Conservative, it can in fact ban speech based on what viewpoint it advances.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Colorado cannot enforce its so-called "conversion therapy" ban regarding conversations between therapists and minors, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment by allowing some viewpoints but not others.
In an 8--1 decision, the high court said the law favors one viewpoint by allowing therapists to affirm a minor's gender identity or sexual orientation, but not help them to change it if they want to.
The decision stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed Christian therapist, who argued her conversations with youth clients were a form of protected speech. The Colorado government had said the conversations amounted to professional conduct that the state was allowed to regulate.
...
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, saying the question before the high court was a "narrow one" and that Chiles did not seek to toss out the Colorado law but rather consider whether it could apply to therapy that was strictly conversational.
"The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country," Gorsuch wrote. "It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth. However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an 'egregious' assault on both of those commitments."
In the lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the majority "plays with fire in this case" and that she feared "the people of this country will get burned."
Ketanji Brown Jackson has now flipped completely on this question: In an earlier case, she argued that the state had zero power to ban transgender procedures for minors. The state just didn't have the power to intrude into medical advice and treatment, she proclaimed.
Now she takes the exact opposite position -- the state has All the Power to outlaw whatever medical advice it dislikes -- based not on law, precedent, or logic, but based simply on her leftwing extremist political bias that whatever gays and transgenders want, they should get, period, the law be damned.
Last year, Justice Jackson dissented in the U.S. v. Skremetti case-- in which she argued that states have no right to ban gender transitions on minors.
Today, she was the lone dissent on Chiles v. Salazar, writing that "there is no right to practice medicine which is not… pic.twitter.com/J7D3fa6fYa
🚨 BREAKING: Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) pummels DEI SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Jackson as a hypocrite, after she was the lone dissent in today's ruling against Colorado's ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy for kids
Notably, Justice Jackson trains her fire on Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. In a footnote she basically accuses them of being dupes for the conservative majority. Kagan responds, basically accusing Jackson of not understanding longstanding law. 👀 pic.twitter.com/paR4XOKZMv
Let me make an analogy, which illustrates the trajectory of the left.
The leftwing propaganda media used to pretend. The leftwing propaganda media plainly favored Democrats -- and plainly favored Democrat constituent blocs like criminals, welfare recipients, women, transgenders, black and "brown" people, and Muslims -- but pretended to be applying neutral "rules" in its news coverage. They didn't intend to favor these groups out of political loyalty, you see, it was just that these completely neutral "rules" compelled them to cover these stories in this way. Now that was always a lie, because there are many contradictory "rules" they can apply in any case, and they choose which of these contradictory rules to apply according to their political bias. And then they deny the bias, lying that a "rule" forced their hand, without admitting that they chose that "rule" precisely because it would result in the outcome they desired. They are too cowardly and dishonest to admit they are simply political operators, so they used to spend a lot of time spamming out perfectly-disingenuous reasons why every single "journalistic" free choice they made just happened to favor the Democrat Party and its constituent blocks.
The truth has a leftwing bias, they began saying at the end of the Age of Pretending, before they transitioned to just blatantly promoting the interests of Democrats and Democrat-favored constituent blocs.
It began under GWB, with influential Democrats decrying "both sides" and "balanced" coverage, urging "journalists" to just proclaim One Side Is Right and One Side Is Evil, which, of course, they ultimately did. Now they just openly favor and cheerlead the Democrat Party and its constituent blocs, and openly smear Republicans and their constituent blocs (especially white people, males, straight men, and Christians) without any excuse or justification or any pretense whatsoever that they are applying neutral "rules" independent of their own partisan political agenda.
Very, very similarly: Leftwing judges used to pretend that they weren't deliberately and consciously favoring Democrats and Democrat constituent blocs but were instead merely applying neutral "rules" that dictated their decisions. True enough, this was all a lie -- just as it was with the media -- and they would choose which supposedly neutral rule would apply in each case to favor the parties they went into the case favoring. But still, they did pretend. They would blatantly mis-characterize and mis-categorize parties in a dispute to elevate the party they politically favored and disadvantaged the party they disfavored, but still, they pretended to be working within a legal framework of analysis.
But Ketanji Brown Jackson now does what leftwing "journalists" did before her -- she decides that all of this talk of "rules-based" decisionmaking is just a game that favors the Bad People, so the Good People should just throw out all rules and do what leftists have been doing forever anyway, just ruling in favor of the left's favored constituent groups and ignoring laws and logic to get to whatever outcome the leftists' "conscience" dictates.
Yes, she's stupid, and yes, she's chosen this theory of jurisprudence precisely because it rejects intellectual analysis and says "Just do whatever is in your stupid, corrupt communist heart."
But she is NOT an aberration. This is where the entire left is now, and all of the absurd decisions you see coming from leftwing judges are following this same theory of jurisprudence, that explicitly puts particular people -- politically favored people -- over principle, and political outcomes over logic and coherence.
No longer are we a nation of "laws not men." We are now a nation of particular "men" with specific Favored Identity Points, and the law must always be corrupted, distorted, perverted and twisted to deliver the outcomes favored by those with those Favored Identity Points.
And they're not even pretending to work within a system of objective rules any longer.
Update: Gorsuch mocked Justice DEI for claiming she wasn't really restricting the therapist's speech because she was allowed to sometimes speak or even "write papers."
Kristi Noem's Husband Is a Not-So-Secret Crossdresser Who Adorns Himself With Ridiculous Fake Breasts
—Disinformation Expert Ace
So I was wondering: Why does Kristi Noem feel that she can have a very non-covert, practically overt affair with Corey Lewandowski? She refused to even deny it when asked about it at a congressional hearing.
I'm not being judgey, I'm asking: Why does she think that? Doesn't she worry about the husband finding out?
The answer to the latter is "Nah, bruv." She does not worry about a jealous heterosexual husband, not at all.
She might worry about her husband stealing her Wonderbras, though.
These are the photos that allegedly show Kristi Noem's husband Bryon wearing comically oversized, lopsided breasts -- complete with fake protruding nipples -- to female members of an online fetish community.
The Daily Mail obtained "hundreds" of messages purportedly sent between the former Secretary of Homeland Security's husband and three women who are involved in the so-called "bimbofication" fetish scene.
The kinky community involves people injecting their busts with freakishly large amounts of saline in pursuit of a "Barbie-doll"-like appearance.
The pictures show the South Dakota insurance mogul, who has three children with Noem, clad in pink hotpants and a skin-tight, flesh-colored crop-top stuffed with enormous balloons made to resemble massive cockeyed breasts.
His face is clearly visible in several of the photos, including one in which his expression is so mundane it could be from a driver's license photo.
In others he flashes a more flirty "kissy-face" pose in which he's pursing his lips.
The outlet spoke with national security experts who said the existence of the scandalous photographs could have made his wife subject to potential blackmail threats.
...
"They approach the person and say, if you work with us we won't expose this, and if you don't, we will. That's espionage 101."
Kristi Noem was ousted from her role at DHS on March 5 after a pair of disastrous congressional hearings, including fumbling a question about whether she was having an affair with married top aide Corey Lewandowski.
Noem claims the family has been "blindsided" by this. Press X to doubt. Her weird behavior suggests she's been dealing with this for years.
See the article for the pictures. This pervert is wearing a shirt, but you can see the fake hooters and their misaligned nipples under the fabric of the shirt.
I was going to post one but... eh. I'm not mad at you guys today so I won't do you like that.
If you don't want to see it: Imagine a seedier version of Hugh Laurie with giant foam-latex breasts with nipples that point the way to Bangor, Maine and Albuquerque, NM simultaneously.
Woe Canada: Canada Now Running Benetton-Style Fashion Ads Urging Its Sick Citizens to Present Themselves Before the Suicide Booths for a Quick and Easy (and Cheap for the Canadian Welfare State) Exit from This Life
—Disinformation Expert Ace
They're actually selling suicide as a blissful fashion choice.
A Canadian woman claims she went to the hospital for help with a sudden illness — and was shocked when a doctor offered to help her die instead. That’s when a doctor offered Lancaster Medical Assistance in Dying, the country’s voluntary euthanasia program, before any other… pic.twitter.com/FvhI3okitJ
— Gitmo (Health is a Wealth) 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@Gitmo99) March 30, 2026
Canada is precisely what the left wants the US to be.
Below, Canadian leftists at an NDP party meeting. NDP is the "New Democrat Party," I think, which is code for "communists. They are not a fringe party -- they are the second biggest (and soon to be biggest?) party of the left. Justin Castreaux relied on their support throughout his corrupt rule. No Canadian leftist can win an election without the NDP's support.
The Canadian communists squabble over the exact rights and privileges that their "Equity" cards grant them. An "Equity" card is a card granting you explicit advantages for your identity over people with non-favored identities, which, as the ringleader of this commie clown show explicitly admits, is almost entirely about favoring minorities, women, and transgenders over white "dudes."
The "Gender Equity Cards" allow people with Special Identities to cut in line to make their stupid points faster, before people with Less Special Identities.
They argue whether a woman with a "cisgender woman" Equity Card should have priority over a "racialized transgender" -- an Asian man in a dress -- or not.
NEW: Far-left Canadians start arguing over "Equity Cards" at the 2026 NDP Leadership Convention.
Woman 1: I was standing here with my gender equity card before you called on the previous speaker. That's my point of privilege...
New Democrat Party (NDP) in Canada had some GENDER EQUITY CARD drama in Winnipeg this weekend as they came together to select their new leader and were debating pros and cons.
This is so ridiculous. Who would take any of these people seriously?
In this clip, a Stronk and Empowered Black Woman reminds the speaker that these "equity cards" have no value or power outside this NDP party meeting. What she means is that she wants "equity cards" giving her explicit race and gender advantages over white "dudes' in real life. She wants to flash her Equity Card in real life to cut in line at the bank and take handicapped parking. (Those are for examples, she didn't actually admit that.)
Sorry for the short post, I was trying to write the Supreme Court decision post but it's taking time. So I'm just posting this as a quickie.
In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.
In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."
He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.
What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet. Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*
Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.
A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV. Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.
A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR? Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR. Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too. LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.
The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring. I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do. But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.
Finish the job, Mr. President! Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]
Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!
Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."
Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time. The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine
“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”
