By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, An ONT This Way Comes

Memebeth? The above is what happens when pop culture meets the classics. The meme is a popular reaction meme from the movie Zoolander Will Ferrell is saying “I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!”. I was discussing quotes from Macbeth earlier today, and that popped into my head. It's the same meme, just...Shakespeareized.

Newspapers Die In Darkness

Media meltdown: Why journalism is battered and bleeding

"No matter how many heroic nonprofit newsrooms like the Baltimore Banner and Daily Memphian take root, no matter how many Substack-like newsletters blossom or creators emerge to drop their videos on YouTube, you can’t deny the journalism business’ decline," Shafer writes.

What’s remarkable to me is how many of these pieces, and there have been many, overlook the importance of political bias. Republicans have been complaining about a liberal tilt since I began to read newspapers. Now, in the Trump era, half the country believes the media have become the opposition party, determined to block their man from returning to the White House. But during the Biden presidency, a growing percentage of those on the left have lost trust in the business as well.

You have Red and Blue America, each filled with anger, each side viewing the other as evil and dangerous, with the press having forfeited its standing as a neutral arbiter of facts. 

Turns out people don't like it when the MSM pisses in their face and tells them it's raining. Who woulda thought?

An Apple A Day

This is cool.

New York, New York

Brooklyn Man's Gun Hobby Leads to a SWAT Raid and a Harrowing Legal Fight for His Freedom

“I found out that you can actually legally buy a receiver and you can machine that receiver to completion, and you buy your parts and you put them together and you've got a pistol or a rifle. And once I saw that I was hooked. I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever. This is the most cool thing you could possibly do in your machine shop.’”

Years after Taylor began his new hobby, the ATF and New York City Police Department (NYPD) showed up at his home to arrest him. “A joint SWAT ATF task force raided my house, broke down my door,” he said.

The officers arrested Taylor, who spent one week in jail on Rikers Island.
On April 22, 2022, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced the indictment of Dexter Taylor for purchasing “$10,000 worth of gun parts online to build illegal, untraceable firearms known as ghost guns.”

There is no mention in the story of Taylor attempting to sell any guns. Absent that, nobody should have a beef with him.

Valentine's Day Tip

Baltimore is the most romantic city in America, Eventbrite says

Baltimore is the most romantic city in the U.S., according to Eventbrite.
That's right! The event management and ticketing company ranked Charm City over Chicago, Austin, and Denver — all based on the number of events being held on or around Valentine's Day. 

The listings currently posted on Eventbrite show there are tons of things to do in Baltimore on Feb. 14, like a TwerkFit class, a pizza-making lesson for lovers, and lots of speed dating.

Washington D.C. also made the list as the fourth most romantic city. Thankfully, the team at Eventbrite curated a selection of unique date ideas and events in the District and shared them on their blog. 

Our plans for tonight? Oh, dinner and a carjacking. Look, I lived there for 50 years, and consider it my hometown, but the city's unofficial mascot is a rat, for heaven's sake

On Medieval Staircases

We talked about this a while back when I posted a picture of two knights fighting on the stairs.

Fighting on Spiral Staircases

The story goes that all spiral* staircases in castles turn clockwise so that primarily right-handed defenders, fighting downwards, would have an advantage over attackers whose weapon would be impeded by the newel post. It is a particular favourite of tour guides, appears in castle guidebooks (Hodgson & Wise 2015, 46) and interpretation panels (for example at Arundel Castle, West Sussex), has been included in many popular texts (Mortimer 2009, 160), gets incorporated into television documentaries, is widely present in internet articles and is liberally recited by members of online discussion forums.

Of all the stories connected to mediaeval buildings this is perhaps the one that has been the most resilient. Unlike many other mediaeval tales that I have researched there does not seem to be a shred of truth behind it. For some folk this can be quite a controversial opinion. Attempting to gently puncture the swordsman theory of spiral staircases gets a lot of pushback online. One reason for this might be the frequency of its repetition by parents to children. Whilst working at or visiting castles I inevitably hear a dad proudly imparting this knowledge to his little boy (and it usually is boys’ talk) and it may be that this familial link creates a strong bond between the myth and its proponents.

Much more at the link.

More Federal Overreach

They Are Trying to Ban Ham Radio

The proposal, which comes as part of a government drive for spectrum efficiency, would see ham operators forced off their frequencies between 420 and 450 MHz to make way for “public safety”.

Many ham radio operators are also preppers and survivalists, who can use ham radios for communication when all other means of communication go down (i.e., in case of a natural disaster). So it’s within the public interest to keep ham radio available, for safety and peace of mind.

The official story regarding the proposal is about ham radio interference, but many people believe the reality is that ham operators are a threat to government officials because of their ability to communicate without being monitored.

The FCC has been asking for public input on their proposal and so far the response from Americans has been overwhelmingly against this “ham-ban”

Hmmm. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. There's a term for that that the left likes to throw around carelessly. It's on the tip of my tongue...

Whites Need Not Apply

White men no longer want to fight for a nation that scorns them

Let me begin by making this point as clearly as possible. There is absolutely nothing worse for the combat effectiveness of a military, than attempting to use recruiting as a social engineering program. 

It was reported in this newspaper recently how the US Army has seen a dramatic fall in the number of white recruits, as the Military.com website found that the army fell 10,000 short of its 65,000 enlistment target.

Underpinning this drop was a dramatic decrease in white recruits from 44,042 in 2018, to just 25,070 in 2023, leading to the proportion of white recruits falling from 56.4 per cent of all recruits in 2018, to just 44 per cent. According to the US Census from 2022, around 59 per cent of all US citizens were from white backgrounds. The US military is 17 per cent women, so the recruiting crisis is primarily one among white men.

Clearly, something inside the US Army’s recruitment system is failing, both in terms of targets being drastically missed, and a failure to recruit effectively among the nation’s largest ethnic group.  

I know more than a few vets who proudly served, many who come from families that have served for generations, who are advising their kids not to enlist.

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by the El Camaro:

Oh, BTW, my wife lost her job this week. If anyone has any leads for office work, executive assistant type stuff, than can be done remotely, we'd be grateful for any suggestions.

posted by WeirdDave at 10:00 PM

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