Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - February 4, 2026 [TRex]

—Open Blogger

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the post-cafe overnight variety. Was it time 30 minutes earlier? No, it wasn't.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional, but be advised that Virginia applies an additional tax to zippers. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.

[Top photo: Bridges of Pittsburgh, Dave DiCello]

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Breaking News: 150-year-old bottle of alcohol found in Utah, tasted by experts

An archaeological team in Utah exhumed a bottle of alcohol estimated to be 150 years old - and experts gave it a taste test.

Ian Wright, Utah's state public archaeologist, said the bottle was among thousands of artifacts dating back to approximately 1870-1890 found on U.S. Forest Service land used by Alta ski resort.

Wright said the find is the only known intact bottle of alcohol to be found from the time period.

Wright's team enlisted the help of High West, Utah's oldest legal distillery, to analyze the bottle's contents.

Isaac Winter, director of distilling at High West, was the first to taste the liquid.

"I had a little bit of trepidation going into it, but you have to try it," Winter told FOX 13 Utah. "It didn't smell like gasoline, didn't smell like tobacco spit."

He said the flavor is "fruity, there's a little bit of leather, there's quite a bit of age on it."

The experts said the liquid appears to be a low-alcohol beer, rather than liquor. They are now hoping to recreate the beverage.

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My caption-o-meter is broken. Maybe stick the old truism that if you can't say anything nice, then don't say it?

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Department of Music Trivia

Maybe I am late to the game but I just learned that the same guy wrote "Dazed and Confused," the Army recruiting jingle "Be All that You Can Be," and the "I'm a Pepper" jungle for Dr. Pepper.

Jake Holmes is that man. I didn't know the story behind Dazed and Confused either.

Per Wikipedia, Holmes recorded Dazed and Confused for his debut album "'The Above Ground Sound' of Jake Holmes" in June 1967. The album consists of songs played on bass and two electric guitars with no drummer.

The Yardbirds heard Holmes perform the song in August 1967 when Holmes opened for them at Greenwich Village's Village Theater. The Yardbirds reworked it with a new arrangement during the brief time that Jimmy Page was part of the band. It became a centerpiece of their tours.

In 1968, Page's new group Led Zeppelin recorded their own version of "Dazed and Confused" with new lyrics and vocal line. It was released on their debut album.

Holmes attempted to contact Page in the 1980s regarding the songwriting credit, but received no response. Starting in 2010, Holmes filed multiple lawsuits against Page for copyright infringement. In August 2025, the case was settled out of court and the terms remain confidential.

And now you know...

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Just quirky enough to qualify for the ONT:

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Seems logical to me...

I used to get nagged nonstop by my husband for buying two robot vacuums.
Now he’s gone and turned them straight into tanks 🙂 pic.twitter.com/OiqhXeheNn

— Nature & Animals🌴 (@naturelife_ok) February 2, 2026

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Wednesday ONT Travel Department

Trevi Fountain fee goes into effect as Rome seeks to manage tourist flow at celebrated water feature

Tourists hoping to get close to the Trevi Fountain had to pay 2 euros ($2.35) starting Monday as the city of Rome inaugurated a new fee structure to help raise money and control crowds at the one of the world's most celebrated waterworks.

"Before, there were problems accessing the fountain. There were a lot of people. Now, it's very easy," said Ilhan Musbah, a tourist from Morocco. "You can take photos, you feel good, you're comfortable, and on top of that 2 euros is not much."

The tourist fee was rolled out in conjunction with a new 5-euro (nearly $6) tourist ticket fee for some city museums. In both cases, Rome residents are exempt from the fees and the extra revenue will actually expand the number of city-run museums that are free for registered Roman residents.

"I think tourists were shocked by the fact that the city of Rome is only asking for 2 euros for a site of this level," Alessandro Onorato, Rome's assessor of tourism, said Monday. "I believe that if the Trevi Fountain were in New York, they would have charged at least $100."

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I know what you're thinking. "Is there some way to combine soccer, rugby and basketball and make it way dumber?" Yes. Yes there is. Welcome to Bubbleball. I initially thought it was a parody but it seems to be real(ish).

With all of the sporting possibilities around the world, Bubbleball somehow gets airtime on ESPN.

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The Pittsburgh police scanner keeps giving. Thank you people of Pittsburgh!

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Live long form Led Zeppelin for the big ONT finish (naturally):

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The Wednesday ONT has been approved by Statler and Waldorf. Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? The Washington Post is not reporting on this ONT. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Close it up

Mid-Week Cafe

—Ace

The forest reflected in a bead of water on a twig

A real smooth criminal doesn't have to run from the scene of a crime.

Celebrity.

Golden retriever is so happy to be adopted.

Make room, bunky.

Mind the ice Part 1. Mind the ice Part 2.

Missed connection.

Some Like It Hoot.

Goat tries to dislodge a capybara.

The battle of Thermopylae, with a cat playing the Spartans.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Quick Hits

—Ace

The Supreme Court has okayed California's new highly gerrymandered map, while GOP-controlled states continue refusing to fight fire with fire, because of Muh Princibuhls.

Femcels created fake boyfriends and fake husbands using a ChatGDP AI program. But now that specific program is being deactivated, and the femcels are freaking out.

YouTube report here.

Thanks to @ComradeArthur.

Media pricks are whining that some other media pricks are losing their jobs because they're losing the owners money.

Noam Blum @neontaster

5h

Washington Post staffers thought they were sticking it to Bezos by talking anonymously to other outlets and egging on subscription cancellations. What did they think was going to happen?

Peter Baker @peterbakernyt

Jeff Bezos wealth in 2024: $194 billion

Jeff Bezos wealth in 2025: $215 billion

Jeff Bezos wealth today: $249.4 billion

Net increase in Bezos wealth since 2024: $55.4 billion

Cost of Bezos's 417-foot superyacht: $500 million

Amazon investment in "Melania": $75 million

Original Bezos purchase price of the Washington Post in 2013: $250 million

Bezos net worth in 2013: $25.2 billion

Net increase in Bezos wealth since buying the Post: $224.2 billion

Last reported annual losses of Post: $100 million

Number of years Bezos could absorb those losses with what he makes in a single week: 5

You reposted Fusilli Spock @awstar11

Now do WaPo financials year over year.

WaPo is a business, not a charity. The audacity of the expectation that Bezos is going to personally fund WaPo's losses year over year is exactly the entitled crap we expect from folks like Baker

The Post lost $100 million in 2022, $77 million in 2023, and $100 million in 2024.

And these upper-class rich bitches all say: Other rich people should put my rich friends on their personal welfare systems.

Confessions of a Conservative @TwisteChristian

A modest proposal: Perhaps @peterbaker and all the other hack journalists bitching and moaning should donate to keep the WaPo as it was, put their money where their mouth is so to speak?

Their entitlement is infinite, their contributions are nonexistent.

American Association of Plastic Surgeons Becomes First Major Medical Association to Warn Against "Gender Affirming" Mutiliations for Children

—Ace

They say these irreversible mutilations should be reserved for mentally ill patients of at least 19 years of age.

Coming after yesterday's report of a $4 million malpractice judgement against genital butchers, this is another huge blow for the child mutilators.

Plastic Surgeons' Group Advises Delaying Gender-Affirming Procedures Until Age 19

The organization's latest guidance is a departure from the prevailing views of several other major medical organizations.

By Andrew Jacobs
Feb. 3, 2026

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended on Tuesday that its members refrain from performing gender transition procedures on young patients until they reach age 19, a shift that comes at a time of mounting opposition to such care at the state and federal levels.

The group's new position stands in contrast to those taken by most major medical associations in the United States, which endorse a range of treatments for adolescents and teenagers struggling with gender dysphoria. The treatments include puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies and, in rarer cases, surgeries.

This is the New York Times, so of course they play this as a tragedy.

But don't let them fool you. These leftists long knew that this was insanity and were secretly terrified the mind virus would infect their own children, but they hid those feelings and supported the Transition All Children movement because they are depraved cowards who will sacrifice their children before they sacrifice one tiny bit of social position.

They're secretly happy about this.

In its statement, the society said the new recommendations were prompted by what it described as a lack of quality research on the long-term outcomes for young people who had undergone surgical interventions like mastectomies and cited "emerging evidence of treatment complications and potential harms."

The announcement drew praise from the Trump administration, which issued a statement commending the group for "disavowing pediatric sex-rejecting procedures." In the statement, Jim O'Neill, the deputy health secretary, said, "Today marks another victory for biological truth in the Trump administration."

Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, a social scientist who studies transgender medicine at York University in Toronto, said the medical group's new position reflected the growing political backlash over gender-affirming care as well as liability concerns for practitioners in the field.

Last week, a jury in New York State ruled in favor of a woman who claimed a mastectomy she received as a teenager had left her disfigured, making it the first malpractice verdict against providers of gender transition care by a patient who later came to regret the decision.

"I would imagine that this is a potentially protective decision for the field, but it also comes at time when we increasingly are seeing governments around the world step in and respond to some of the debates and uncertainty," Professor MacKinnon said.

That includes the Trump administration, which announced in December that it would pull federal funding from hospitals that provide medical treatment for transgender young people.

Another One of Keir Starmer's "Rent Boys" Arrested
Plus: Could Keir Starmer Be Forced to Resign Over Jeffrey Epstein Scandal?

—Ace

I had completely forgotten about this story. Tree Hugging Sister reminded me.

For reasons no one will explain, four would-be "Male Models" targeted properties and cars belonging to Totally-Straight UK PM Keir Starmer last year.

Why did these obvious homosexuals, claimed to be "rent boys" in the British media (that is, gay prostitutes), have some kind of beef against Fiercely Heterosexual Keir Starmer? Why did they risk jail to set them afire?

And how did they even know what properties and vehicles he owned? That's non-public information, but Tree Hugging Sister says that the Pyromaniacal Rent Boys seemed to be very well-informed about Starmer's holdings:

Whoever it was, they seemed to have extraordinary knowledge of Starmer's property around the suburbs of London and even the vehicles he drove. The Starmer family had either rented the homes -- one of them to his sister-in-law, who was luckily on a vacation or something -- or they were vacant, and had recently sold the vehicle the arsonists torched.

Again, no one will explain why these gay prostitutes are so pissy at the Dedicated Mish-Hound Keir Starmer, who is so heterosexual that he ****s women so hard he gives them sexually-transmitted scoliosis.

But there's more. Mark Steyn just noted that the "fifth twink" just dropped. A fifth "rent boy" involved in setting fire to houses belonging to the Ghengis Kahn of Pooter Keir Starmer was just arrested.

One notes, inter alia, that, with respect to the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, last week was also the week that the fifth twink dropped. Why every Ukrainian "male model" on the books of Mayfair agencies wants to incinerate Keir Starmer is an interesting question, although evidently not to Fleet Street's investigative reporters.

And, as he says, the UK media -- centered around Fleet Street -- continues to be entirely uninterested in why five gay foreign "male models" are so singularly angry at the married heterosexual man Keir Starmer.

Fulton County, GA, Election Office Sues to Get Its Dodgy "Votes" Back (So That Tulsi Gabbard Can't See Them)

—Ace

The cleanest election in the history of the Earth.

Fulton County officials filed a motion in a Georgia court to reclaim election records seized by federal agents in January at a Georgia election office.

The motion filed by county officials under seal in a federal court in Georgia on Wednesday seeks the return of the election records taken by agents at a warehouse in Fulton County, according to The Washington Post.

The officials also requested the judge unseal the investigative affidavit that federal agents submitted to secure a search warrant, Rob Pitts -- Fulton County board of commissioners chairman -- said, according to the outlet.

More: Did an FBI Straight Arrow deliberately tip off the Fulton County election fraudsters in advance, so that they could have a shredding party?

Would-Be Trump Assassin Ryan Routh Sentenced to Life In Prison, Plus 84 Months

—Ace

Just when you're looking forward to the end of your life sentence, bang, now you have to serve 84 months.

He was sentenced in Florida, by Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon. Compare this judge to the one in New York overseeing the prosecution of Luigi Mangione -- she just threw out two charges against him so that he would not be eligible for the death penalty.

By the way, that makes it likely that Luigi Mangione will eventually get off. Prosecutors often use the death penalty as a bargaining chip to secure a plea deal where the killer gets life in prison, rather than death. Prosecutors no longer have this leverage, so the case will go to trial -- where Luigi Mangione will likely get one or two lefties on the jury who will jury-nullify because they're pro-assassination.*

Unless the government offers Mangione such a sweetheart deal that he feels compelled to take it.

Hate to remind you of that bad news. But the country is coming apart.

We cannot remain at peace with fellow "citizens" who believe that they have moral (and even legal) justification to murder us.

* I know a hung jury is not an acquittal -- the state can re-file charges -- but at some point, if lefties keep jury nullifying, they'll be forced to offer him a sweetheart deal.

Washington Post Set to Lay Off Hundreds of Employees

—Ace

They'll be completely closing down "almost the entire" sports desk. Which struck me as strange -- isn't sports a low-cost but popular section of the paper?

I guess there are now so many internet sports outlets that no one cares about what a stinky old liberal thought about the latest "Commanders" game.

The Washington Post announced on Wednesday that it is laying off hundreds of its employees, which marks one of the newspaper's deepest workforce cuts in its history.

This development is part of a broader trend as legacy media outlets are rapidly losing viewers and readers.

From CNN:

Executive Editor Matt Murray and human resources chief Wayne Connell sent an email to staffers Wednesday morning instructing employees to "stay home today" but attend an 8:30 a.m. ET meeting via Zoom during which the Washington Post's leadership will announce "significant actions across the company."

Those actions include shutting down almost the entire Sports section, closing the Books section and cancelling the daily Post Reports podcast, sources at the newspaper said.

One of the most severe cuts comes in the form of a "restructuring" of the Post's Metro desk, which covers D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

Papers like the NY Times and Washington Post were criticized for years for not sufficiently covering the cities in which they were based. All they cared about was national politics. I guess the Washington Post is now acknowledging they don't really cover Washington so they'll save a buck by ending the pretense that they do.

But maybe I'm reading this wrong. Ed Morrissey thinks they're restructuring in the exact opposite direction, focusing more on local coverage and ending the competition with the NY Times to be the national liberal daily "news" paper. Maybe I missed something.

The paper will also be drastically chopping its budget for international reporting.

As opposed to sports, international coverage is very expensive. Even when they rely almost exclusively on foreign "stringers" who are not-so-secretly part of the Hamas terrorist organization.

The cuts are required because the #Resistance leftists at the Post have shed one half of the former audience, and the paper loses almost $100 million a year. That's practically Stephen Colbert level losses!

...

When Jeff Bezos first acquired The Washington Post in 2013, he expanded operations and invested heavily in the outlet. But recent years have seen drastic financial losses, a severe increase in subscriber cancellations, and a mass exodus of top talent.

Ed Morrissey writes that the new leadership has been warning the #Resistance lefties at the paper that Winter Is Coming for two years:

Lewis warned in response that he wasn't going to stick with the plan that involved losing $77 million a year to float a vanity project for progressive activists:

At one point Lewis was asked whether he was intentionally bringing in people who come from a different culture than the Post. "We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can't sugarcoat it anymore," Lewis said. "So I've had to take decisive, urgent action to set us on a different path, sourcing talent that I have worked with that are the best of the best."

Part of this is just the fact that traditional media is entering the hospice phase. For whatever reason, people are just out of the habit of reading these legacy newspapers. (Or seeing movies in legacy theaters.)

Another factor is that the specific politics being pushed by the Washington Post's #Resistance lefties. It's not that #Resistance leftist politics don't have a market. They do. One third of the country are, alas, woke communist psychopathic nihilists. You should be able to sell a paper appealing to this lunatic cohort.

The trouble is, every media outlet, pretty much, panders to this same lunatic cohort. They're all reading from the same depraved Marxist prayer book.

Plus, what #Resistance leftists are selling is not at all a difficult product to produce. They've shifted from reporting on news, which does take some time and effort, and which is something people will pay for, to just ranting endlessly that Bad Orange Man Is Getting More Orange and More Bad and shrieking the same six propaganda slogans forever.

You don't need an organization that spends $300 million on salaries and rent to do this. Any deranged leftwing imbecile with a $500 camera can do this from their basement. And they're almost all doing it -- so what does any lefty need the lefty press for?

The religion has just as many preachers as adherents. That's too many. Some will need to leave the poisonous church of Marxism and find work that's actually productive.

I can't imagine what that might end up being, but I'm sure they must be good at something.

Right? Right?

Hello everyone! I got decent sleep, not great but decent, so I won't be whining as much today. I hope you're all doing great.

I got my humidifier out of the garage and cleaned it but apparently it broke so I'm waiting for Amazon to send me my next one.

Wednesday Morning Rant

—Joe Mannix

With 2025 in the books and 2026 well underway, it is time for the pundits and wonks to start turning their thoughts to the various trappings of academic prestige afforded to the advanced civilizations they decry but to which they nonetheless belong. Their favored outlet, of course, is the award. There are countless awards. The Pulitzer for excellence in propaganda, the Emmy for excellence in propaganda, the Oscar for excellence in propaganda, The EU Prize for Literature for excellence in propaganda - the list goes on forever.

Of all the awards, however, none are more coveted than the various squishy Nobel Prizes. Economics. Peace. Literature. All are fraught with meaning. To earn such a prize means that one belongs, that one is firmly a part of the academic and cultural elite. In keeping with the true meaning of such prizes, there is a new nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. You might think it's Donald Trump, the most prolific peace negotiator in the postwar era - but you know, deep in your heart, that it isn't. He doesn't belong. Someone will surely nominate him, but not this week.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

The Agony in the Garden
Lo Spagna (Giovanni di Pietro)

The Morning Report — 2/4/26

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. As I'm sure many of you know, and of course I'm sure agree about my revulsion for the new mayor of NYC, the bastard child of Mhammed and Karl Marx. But that said, I'll give credit where it's due. He said he'd solve the city's homeless crisis and by God he meant it! He's already reduced the homeless population by 17! Of course it's because they all froze to death due to a lack of any kind of government-provided shelter. Ah yes the glories of Communism/Socialism.

Alas, the city lacks the cattle cars in which to ship them off to comrade Bernie Sanders' multiple multi-million dollar Vermont ski mansions a scant few hundred miles away in the Peoples' republic of Vermont, or across the continent to this Billie Eilish slag's LA mansion on stolen land. Well it is stolen land so that's out, nyet?

But whatever became of his promise to confiscate private property?! Surely that would solve the homeless problem. Displacing those already housed is merely restorative justice, especially whites and Jews since they are the reason there are so many homeless colored people of color in the first place.

Feh, I've wasted too many pixels on this Momzerdani fiend already and there's so much more heinous fiendishness yet to cover.

Here's an idea: Arm New York's homeless with Eric Holder's and Barack Obama's Fast and Furious weapons and send them off to Minneapolis as the Lincoln Jerry Nadler Brigade!

Democrat Congressman Jerry Nadler referred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as “goons” and argued people would be “justified” in shooting them during masked arrests in remarks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. . . Nadler’s comments come amid a broader pattern of aggressive rhetoric toward ICE from some Democratic officials. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz previously described the agency as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo,” while Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas compared ICE to “slave patrols.”

There isn''t a construction crane sturdy enough or with anti-corrosion paint sturdy enough to resist the flatus and halitosis to hang this repulsive criminal degenerate lipid mass from.

But then again, there's this item that puts a bit of a twist on the aforementioned . . .

The correct number of illegal alien cops should be zero, but as Maria Medvin notes that with the arrest of the latest illegal alien recruit in New Orleans, the number is now up to three.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a New Orleans Police Department recruit from Cameroon who was issued a firearm despite an active deportation order, just one week before he was set to graduate from the police academy.

You may also remember the one in Maine.

“Jon Luke Evans not only broke U.S. immigration law, but he also illegally attempted to purchase a firearm. Shockingly, Evans was employed as a local law enforcement officer,” said ICE ERO Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde. “The fact that a police department would hire an illegal alien and unlawfully issue him a firearm while on duty would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. We have a police department that was knowingly breaking the very law they are charged with enforcing in order to employ an illegal alien.“

Somehow, I cannot imagine Nadler rushing to the defense of anyone who preemptively shoots an ICE or Police Officer and claiming self defense because they couldn't be sure he was a real officer or a foreign national posing as one! Especially if the officer was an illegal alien which is a distinct possibility these days!

Of course then the solution will be what is now evidently happening just north of the Minnesota border in Canada!

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians could face prison time if they do not turn in their newly prohibited guns under a supposedly “voluntary” gun buyback program that is testing the strength of Canada’s bureaucratic regime.

Since May 2020, the Canadian government has attempted to institute a massive “assault-style firearms compensation program” that will purportedly trade cash for prohibited guns. If Canadians do not turn in a prohibited gun by October 2026, they could face up to five years in prison. The program has faced massive pushback from provincial leaders and gun rights organizations who say it will only disarm law-abiding Canadians. . . Today, the government describes participation in the gun buyback program as “voluntary” but that compliance with the gun ban is required. . . “This is not about confiscation. This is about voluntary return of firearms for compensation,” Carney said during a podcast in September 2025. “People aren’t going around confiscating guns. Anyone who says that, that is a mischaracterization, what it is is an opportunity for Canadians to return guns for compensation.

Per the article, there are allegedly carve-outs for hunters and Indian tribes but should this madness creep south of the border the biggest carve out will be for Antifa, BLM and believe it or not the Students for a Democratic Society?! RUFKM? THey're still a thing?"

Meh, same old shit, different decade.

A University of Minnesota student group has emerged as a leader behind illegal—and sometimes violent—anti-ICE agitation gripping Minneapolis. It's a significant shift for the school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter, which roughly one year ago stormed a campus building in an anti-Israel raid, trapping employees inside and causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.

The group, known as UMN SDS, organized a Jan. 28 protest outside a hotel located on campus that was allegedly housing ICE agents. Dozens of agitators swarmed the Graduate by Hilton and rocked police barricades, pounded on drums and pans, set off noisemakers, and shouted "Fuck ICE" at local and state law enforcement. University police eventually declared it an unlawful assembly and arrested 67 protesters, including Jack Louis Nimz—a public school teacher, the president of SDS's national arm, and one of the radicals arrested for storming the campus building in October 2024.

Elsewhere as President Trump is seemingly poised to pound the shit out of mullahs in Tehran, I present the most clueless essay of the day for your ridicule and amusement.

I give you the headline and subhead which is really all you need to know.

Trump's Gaza Plan Can Overcome Ideology — History demonstrates that when parties gain a direct stake in peace through finance and security, behavior changes.

The author clearly has zero understanding of Islam and its history of bloodletting coupled with deceit in its eternal quest to dominate all of humanity. Unfortunately, as I have said and written about many times over the past year or so, it seems as if President Trump also does not understand or refuses to consider this as it would derail his political agenda at home and abroad. There is no such thing as radical or fundamentalist Islam. Islam in and of itself is both those things. Of course that is a political third rail that cannot be touched. Perhaps there are moderating forces in some of the countries that have established relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords, as well as political and even some strategic benefits in the short term. But the ultimate aim is the destruction of the state of Israel, the death or subjugation of every Jew and other infidels and the establishment of the global caliphate.

Anyone who expects the Islamic/Arab world to reject some let alone all of Koranic teaching vis a vis the aforementioned is clueless, period full stop. Go read any of Robert Spencer's brilliant scholarly works on this and then get your mind right.

Psaki-Psircling back to the insurrection here at home, as CBD and I discussed on the latest episode of the podcast linked here and in the sidebar as well as the usual outlets listed at the bottom of the post,

President Trump must move swiftly and decisively to crush this.

At the very least the sources of funding and political cover that are fanning the flames have got to be ripped out root and branch.

Dig far enough down, meh just below the surface, and you will find the Democrat National Committee.

“Federal investigators have reportedly uncovered a “massive underground fraud network” in Minneapolis linked to the anti-ICE movement.. . . [I]t’s not just coincidence that these massive numbers of protesters and rioters and agitators show up at the same time, and they’re pushing back on what has been a profit center for fraudsters.” – Todd Blanche

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.

Daily Tech News 4 February 2026

—Pixy Misa

• How it started: Europe shrugs off tariffs and plans to end its complete reliance on America for all its technology. (The Register)
  
  Except for ASML, anyway.

  Forrester frames much of this as a sovereignty play, and it is hard to argue otherwise. Across Europe, money is going into sovereign cloud platforms, AI-ready infrastructure, and tighter rules on where data lives and who can access it.

  This is not a privacy question. It is a control question.
  
  
  
• How it's going: Amazon is finding that Europe is not exactly a powerhouse when it comes to, well, power. (The Register)

  AWS has moved quickly to flood the European continent with its elastic compute fabric, but while it may take two years to bring a new datacenter online, securing power for the facilities can take up to seven years, Pamela MacDougall, who heads energy markets and regulation for AWS EMEA, said in an interview with Reuters this week.

  I can fit you in at 2PM on the eleventh of Never.

  According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in some European datacenter meccas, like Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin, this wait can extend to as much as a decade.

  I'm not sure this is going to work as you planned, guys.
  
  
  

Thursday Overnight Open Thread - February 3, 2026 [Doof]

—Open Blogger

Welcome to the Tuesday night ONT. So glad you could make it!

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Feel good story

13-year-old Ditches Lifejacket and Makes ‘Superhuman’ Swim to Save Family Swept out to Sea

A 13-year-old boy has been hailed as a hero after swimming 4 hours through rough seas to rescue his family.

A family of 4 was enjoying a holiday in Australia’s southwest coast near Quindalup when strong winds blew their inflatable paddleboards out to sea. The boy was separated from his mom and 2 siblings before his canoe began to take on water.

Wearing a life-jacket, he began to swim against the wind towards the shore, knowing every second counted in the race to get help to save his family.

***

“And the brave fella thought he’s not going to make it with a life jacket on, so he ditched it, and he swam the next 2 hours without a life jacket,” said Bresland. “I thought, ‘Mate, that is incredible.'”

Once ashore he successfully raised the alarm and a multi-agency search and rescue operation was mobilized, including Western Australia state Water Police and its rescue helicopter. The teen provided detailed descriptions of the paddleboards, and within the hour, his family was rescued by boat, having drifted 7 miles out into the Indian Ocean.

2 hours of swimming?!? Wow, way to go young dude!

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Speaking of good stuff from the younger generation

Kids on Roblox are conducting immigration raids 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/1lp7v110or

— Darth Powell (@VladTheInflator) February 3, 2026

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Almost as smooth as Weasel Buddy!

Darth Vader with a .50 cal might be one of the hardest things I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/3gIiIkNkOu

— internet hall of fame (@InternetH0F) February 1, 2026

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El Rushbo used to talk about "demonstrating absurdity by being absurd". This guy would make the Maha Rushie proud!

This is hilarious. 🤣🤣😭 I don’t know how Josh trolls these people so hard and they never know. She actually signed it. 🤦🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/sMBDLZSiNj

— TheLizVariant (@TheLizVariant) February 3, 2026

His name is Josh Seiter. Check out his X account.

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Vehicles used to be a lot cooler. Any of you out there willing to admit you're not really 29, and you remember wraparound windshields?

Why Automakers Abandoned Wraparound Windshields After The 1950s

The wraparound windshield once was a trend in the automotive world. It's a design solution in which the windshield is built forming a curve toward each side of the cabin. As a result, the frontmost pillars, the ones between the windshield and the front window of each side, are displaced away from the car's front end, and the window next to it becomes narrower. That solution has been used on the rear windshield, too, where the wraparound design displaces the rearmost pillars in the opposite way — or, sometimes, wraps around the other way.

This trend is credited to the 1951 GM Le Sabre, a concept car dreamed up by Harley Earl and inspired by jet fighters — remember, jet design was all the rage in America back then. The Le Sabre's wraparound windshield resembled the canopies used in jet fighters and only became a reality after the industry spent years improving the technology for it. After GM started using it in mass production in 1953, Ford and Chrysler quickly followed suit. Over the following years, it was used on other cars despite the need to adapt the original design — the Le Sabre was a convertible concept car, so it didn't have the conventional roof and windows of a sedan or station wagon.

Sadly, wraparound windshields were largely dropped from automotive design in the 1960s; newer examples are much rarer. Among the practical reasons, having such a large glass area made the cabin excessively hot, especially in warm weather, and occupants would feel too visible from the outside. From a technical point of view, the curved glass causes some distortion on the sides. Besides, using larger glass areas led to making the pillars thinner, which raised concern that the cabin would become less resistant in a collision.

Check out the whole thing. Article contains some cool links to other car stuff.

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Do not even try to pretend THIS guy has a dildo!

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Those of you who were here on Sunday night were treated to an amazing sunset photo from lurker "Howard in Alberta". I previously featured one of his sunrise photos. Anyway, there were some questions in the comments about his photo

Did Howard in Alberta say where that pic was taken? I'd have to go about 30 miles West to see the Rockies like that. They are just below the horizon for me. Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 01, 2026 11:09 PM (8zz6B) ** Maybe he's lurking and will chime in. If not, I will ask him. Posted by: Doof at February 01, 2026 11:15 PM (QMAsf) ** That line of brush looks like a caragana hedge. Commonly planted all over Alberta and Saskatchewan as a windbreak. Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 01, 2026 11:18 PM (8zz6B)

From the photographer himself!

Just read the comments, and here are answers to some questions/comments:

Location of the Alberta sunset (and previous photo of sunrise) is extreme SW Alberta, east of Waterton Lakes National Park. The mountains are the southern Canadian Rockies.

And yes, the hedge is caragana. Anyone can have one, but the secret is to have personally planted it fifty years ago.

Howard

Thanks for the follow-up, Howard! Keep those photos coming!

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DJ Doof - Guess The Theme

New difficulty scale in effect. Easy / Moderate / Difficult. This one is Easy.

What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif?

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Weekly commenter stats for week of 2-1-2026

AoSHQ Commenter Statistics:
Number of posts: 109
Number of comments: 25562
Number of unique hashes: 2080

Top 10 commenters:
1 [479 comments] 'TheJamesMadison, searching for twisted thrills with Park Chan-wook' [68.02 posts/day]
2 [409 comments] 'Sponge - F*ck Cancer'
3 [358 comments] 'whig'
4 [349 comments] 'Bulg'
5 [347 comments] 'Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)'
6 [312 comments] 'Skip'
7 [280 comments] 'Aetius451AD work phone'
8 [252 comments] 'man'
9 [245 comments] ' Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _'
10 [244 comments] 'FenelonSpoke'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [152 names] 'Blind Monk Miklos of Shaolin' [21.58 unique names/day]
2 [137 names] 'Quarter Twenty '
3 [109 names] 'Bang! Ding! Ow!'
4 [109 names] 'RIP you big dummy'
5 [62 names] 'Count de Monet'
6 [54 names] 'Randolph Duke'
7 [46 names] 'Duncanthrax'
8 [37 names] 'pookysgirl, trying to keep crackers down'
9 [35 names] 'Most people '
10 [33 names] 'Moron Analyst'

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Tonight's ONT brought to you by acceptable vaccines

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Close it up

Animal Frenz Cafe

—Ace

Lazy lion brothers.

Panda enjoys a snow-slide.

Baby donkey wants cuddles.

Helicopter mom beaver.

Horse brings some hay to its girlfriend-horse.

Red panda takes treats like a perfect little gentleman.

So an elephant walks into a bar...

Native Tribe to Billie Eilish: Since Your $14 Million Sits on "Stolen Land" Belonging to Our Tribe, We Await Your Transfer of Ownership to Us

—Ace

Don't these Indians know that a virtual signal from an AWFL means literally nothing?

Jury Awards $3.2 Million Judgement to Man in Defamation Case Resulting From, Get This, Yet Another Race Grifter Hoax

—Ace

Andrew Kerr:

Mainstream Media Breathlessly Covered an Alleged Hate Crime in Which White Kids Forced a Black Classmate To Drink Urine. It Was a Giant Hoax.

Texas judge orders $3.2 million judgment against black mother and attorney who falsely alleged her son was 'tortured' by white friend

It was a story that received blanket media coverage in March 2021. It alleged that white middle schoolers in Plano, Texas, viciously "tortured" SeMarion Humphrey, their black classmate, forcing him to drink their urine at a sleepover as they shot him with BB guns. A Black Lives Matter activist group charged the local public school district with doing "nothing" to stop "this racially motivated hate crime" as violent protests broke out outside the home of Asher Vann, the white child alleged to have organized the brutal attack.

Major media outlets, including NBC, CBS, CNN, Business Insider, People magazine, the Daily Mail, and the Dallas Morning News, pounced on the story as Humphrey, his mother Summer Smith, and their attorney Kim Cole, embarked on a media tour where they called Vann "evil." The trio appeared on Good Morning America, where ABC host Linsey Davis promoted a GoFundMe account that raised nearly $120,000 to help pay for Humphrey's "therapy and private schooling."

Racial activist groups added fuel to the fire. The NAACP dressed down the leaders of the Plano school district in a town hall that they described as the beginning of an "open partnership" spurred by the alleged hate crime. The Next Generation Action Network, a Black Lives Matter-tied group whose leader alleged Humphrey was "tortured for days" by his white assailants, organized public marches that drew hundreds of protesters.

And then, a little under five years later, a racially diverse Texas jury--including four black members--ruled the whole thing was a hoax.

On Jan. 22, Texas district court judge Benjamin Smith ordered Smith and Cole to pay $3.2 million in damages to Vann, now an adult attending his first year of college, for intentionally smearing him and tarnishing his future earning potential during their media tour in 2021. The ruling followed a civil trial in October 2025, where the jury determined that Cole and Smith cooked up the scheme to raise their public profiles during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and to rake in money through GoFundMe.

Court records show that Smith put less than $1,000 of the nearly $120,000 GoFundMe windfall toward her son's schooling. Account statements reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show the remaining funds were spent on luxuries, including a designer dog, dining and travel, beauty products, liquor, vapes, cell phones, car payments, and rent.

Finally: Incompetent Woke Disney CEO Bob Iger Steps Down After Tanking Stock Price

—Ace

Fox News @FoxNews

6h

BREAKING: Longtime Disney CEO Bob Iger to step down and be succeeded by theme parks chief Josh D'Amaro, company announces

wdwpro @wdwpro1

6h

Either Bob Iger has a health concern (God forbid), or he's been fired as the stock dropped. He will exit his role nine months early with a board obviously eager to see him out.

His poison pill: Dana Walden.

Walden is another woke feminist incompetent and a friend of Kamala Harris.

Disney's stock price rose on news of Iger's defenestration.

The media is of course praising Iger and stating that the new CEO will take over a company with lots of momentum.

Momentum? Downward momentum, you mean?

WDWPro also reminds us that Iger was recently named in the Epstein files, and of course his "news" operation at ABC spiked a report on Jeffrey Epstein.

I'm not sure what this fleeting mention might mean.

They also mention that Disney Cruise Lines used to stop at Little Saint James Island, which has since become better known as Jeffrey Epstein's Pedo Island.

In related media news: film students' ability to focus is now so degraded that they can't sit through two-hour movies.

You already knew that students no longer read full books and instead were assigned news and magazine articles, or book excerpts, to read.

And now? They can't even watch a full movie.

Everyone knows it's hard to get college students to do the reading--remember books? But the attention-span crisis is not limited to the written word. Professors are now finding that they can't even get film students--film students--to sit through movies. "I used to think, If homework is watching a movie, that is the best homework ever," Craig Erpelding, a film professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. "But students will not do it."

I heard similar observations from 20 film-studies professors around the country. They told me that over the past decade, and particularly since the pandemic, students have struggled to pay attention to feature-length films. Malcolm Turvey, the founding director of Tufts University's Film and Media Studies Program, officially bans electronics during film screenings. Enforcing the ban is another matter: About half the class ends up looking furtively at their phones.

...

And the problem is not limited to large introductory courses. Akira Mizuta Lippit, a cinema and media-studies professor at the University of Southern California--home to perhaps the top film program in the country--said that his students remind him of nicotine addicts going through withdrawal during screenings: The longer they go without checking their phone, the more they fidget. Eventually, they give in.

A lot of people feel that they have lost most of their ability to focus. I'm one of them. I can still read books -- on occasion -- but I do sometimes put them down after a very short bout of reading.

Chuck Schumer: Requiring Voters to Show ID to Vote Is "Nothing More Than Jim Crow 2.0"

—Ace

Everything's Jim Crow.

No, man, it's worse than Jim Crow. It makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.

Malarkey!

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday condemned legislation requiring ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote as "nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0."

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) has attempted to include the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act in a massive funding package under review by the House and send it back to the Senate.

"The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans. Every single Senate Democrat will vote against any bill that contains it," Schumer wrote in a Monday post on the social platform X.

"Speaker Johnson should tell SAVE Act Republicans to stand down or else this shutdown will be on them," the Senate Minority Leader added.

Don't worry, your Republican "Leaders" are already showing their bellies.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has raised objections to including the measure in the funding bills despite White House support for the measure.

"We all want the SAVE Act, but we look at the reality of the numbers here. And we passed the SAVE Act twice in the House. We'll pass it again, we'll do that. But this is a funding package right now, and I don't think we need to be playing games with government funding," Johnson said on Monday.

Do "we" really all want it?

Do "we" really all want it as a priority? Or as "nice to have but not necessary to have" kind of thing?

I learned a word about ten years ago: Velleity.

Velleity

(vah-LEE-it-ee) is a noun meaning a slight wish or inclination that isn't strong enough to motivate action, the weakest form of desire or will, like wanting to write a book but never starting. It comes from the Latin word velle ("to wish"), sharing roots with "voluntary" and "will," but signifies a wish without the drive to fulfill it.

When most Republicans say they "want" something or "agree" with conservatives on a policy, they usually "want" it in the velleity sense: with the lowest level of desire possible before becoming simply neutral about it or even opposed to it.

Meanwhile: The public wants voter ID.

CNN: The Flight From Blue States Will Net Republicans +7 House Seats and +7 Electoral College Votes in 2032; Even if Democrats Win All Three "Blue Wall" States, They'll Lose the Presidency

—Ace

Unfortunately, the census won't be taken until 2030 and reapportionment won't happen until the following election in 2032.

It's something, I guess.

"The lowest domestic net migration this decade -- all five of the states that were won by Kamala Harris in 2024," Enten noted. "Look at this: California, Harris' home state; New York, where I'm coming from right now; of course, Illinois, New Jersey, and of course the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is a bastion of blue liberalism." These, he emphasized, "are the states that folks in the United States are moving away from and into the red states, which is propelling a red state boom."

If that wasn't enough bad news for the Democrats, Enten turned to the political fallout. "Now, this is interesting, right? But it could also have major political ramifications if it holds for 2030, the next census," he warned. "If, in fact, the 2025 population shifts hold for the 2030 census, look at this. Look at the House seat shifts by state." Then he delivered the line that surely made Democratic strategists choke on their avocado toast. "If, in fact, the 2025 population shifts hold for 2030, states that Kamala Harris won, they would lose. They would lose seven seats in the United States House of Representatives. The states that Donald Trump won in 2024, they would gain; they would gain seven seats."

When you think about how close the House of Representatives is now, you know this is a huge deal. That CNN is admitting all of this is also quite significant.

But Enten wasn't done rubbing salt in the wound. The shift doesn't just hit Congress; it impacts the entire Electoral College. "Because the number of electoral votes that each state gets is equal to the number of senators, plus the number of House seats," he said. "If you remember back in 2024, right, it was all about the blue wall... If Kamala Harris could win the baseline Democratic states and then add in the blue wall states of Michigan, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she would get to 270 electoral votes."

Then came the bomb: "If all of a sudden, we, in fact, have applying the 2025 estimates, the population estimates to the Electoral College, the blue states, plus the blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would no longer be enough," Enten said flatly. "Under the current estimates, you get to exactly 270 electoral votes, the minimum needed to win the Electoral College. If, in fact, you apply the 2025 estimates, look at that -- you would only get to 263 electoral votes if you were a Democrat, which would mean a Republican victory."

Under Threat of Criminal Contempt, Bill and Hillary Clinton "Agree" to "Testify" about Jeffrey Epstein... But Won't Set a Date to Testify

—Ace

They claim that they'll testify -- but it's a stalling tactic. Now they want to set up a date for their testimony, but they can't commit to any particular date.

So this is more contempt.

Even if it happens, it will be a festival of perjuries that will make "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" look bush-league.

With a contempt vote looming on Capitol Hill, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have finally agreed to sit for depositions before the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The development surfaced Monday during a House Rules Committee hearing, when Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) disclosed that the Clintons had accepted the basic terms laid out by Oversight Chairman James Comer. A spokesman for Bill Clinton confirmed the agreement, while attorney Angel Ureña wrote on X that the former president and former first lady "will be there" and are prepared to testify under oath.

According to the New York Times, the Clintons said they would appear on mutually agreeable dates and asked House leaders to drop a contempt vote slated for Wednesday. The request followed months of defiance of Comer's subpoenas, issued Aug. 5, 2025, after both Clintons skipped prior deadlines to provide testimony. That standoff prompted a bipartisan revolt on the Oversight Committee, with nine Democrats joining Republicans to back contempt proceedings against Bill Clinton and three Democrats supporting contempt for Hillary Clinton.

Comer was unimpressed by the latest overture, arguing it arrived only because the House was closing in on enforcement. In a statement, he said the Clintons' lawyers had again failed to provide dates and warned that the terms remained vague. Earlier Monday, he rejected a proposal that would have capped Bill Clinton's testimony at four hours and substituted a sworn statement from Hillary Clinton, calling the bid for limits "special treatment" and "an affront" to public demands for transparency.

...

If prosecutors were to pursue contempt and secure convictions, the penalties could include jail time of up to one year and fines ranging from $100 to $1,000. For now, Comer has said he will seek clarity on the Clintons' commitments before deciding how to proceed.

Yeah they're not showing up. You're being chumped, Hoss.

How is everyone? Is the low humidity a problem for you? Because I keep waking up due to dry mouth. I haven't had a good night's sleep in more than a week and the sleep debt is piling up.

(Yes I know, I have to get my humidifier out of storage, but that only helps a little.)

I'm playing injured here, coach. Don't expect too much from me today.