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
Jim Sunk New Dawn 2025
Jewells45 2025 Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Dress as you please. Reading aloud and commenting are encouraged. The high-tops and lounge chairs are first come, first taken. The Club supports free speech and the right to toast and roast.
A little boy was talking to himself as he walk through his backyard, while wearing his baseball cap and holding a ball and bat. He shouted, "I'm the greatest baseball player in the world!" Then he tossed the ball into the air, swung and missed.
He then picked up the ball and tossed it the second time. He again shouted, "I'm the greatest baseball player in the world!" He swung the bat again and missed for the second time.
He paused for a second, grab the ball, and examined it carefully. Then he threw the ball the third time, and again he said, "I'm the greatest baseball player in the world!" He swung the bat very hard....and he missed for the third time.
"Wow!", he shouted. "A strikeout! What a pitcher!"
President Trump has directed the Federal Aviation Administration to repeal the prohibition on overland supersonic flight, establish an interim noise-based certification standard, and repeal other regulations that hinder supersonic flight.
"In the summer of 1920, I met this friend in the lobby of the old Hotel Varnum in Washington," Cassiday wrote. "He introduced me to two representatives from a Southern State. They asked if I could supply them. After making arrangements to get the stuff, I made my first deliveries on Capitol Hill to these two members. These were the first members of Congress I had ever met." Cassiday later learned that his first customers both voted in favor of the 18th amendment.
*****
Club Music
Amy Lee can sing:
A bit of a deep cut from the New Wave era. Good beat and you can dance to it!
Wrigley Field is featured in two interwoven and consecutive scenes. In the first scene, Rooney is looking for Ferris at a pizza joint while Harry Caray's voice announces the action of a ballgame that is being shown on TV. From the play-by-play descriptions, the uniforms, and the player numbers, this game has been identified as the June 5, 1985, game between the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs.
Some music from the movie...
Yello
The Flowerpot Men
*****
Happy Anniversary, Fletch!
The movie Fletch was released in theaters 40 years ago this week. Let's revisit some great scenes from this classic 80s movie!
What are your favorite lines that weren't in that clip?
How does one go about sending a gallon of gorilla poop? Poop Senders
We know what you're thinking. How much is a gallon of gorilla poop? Apparently a dollar more than elephant crap.
Disclaimer: Ace of Spaces and Club ONT does not endorse any particular poop provider. Do your own research before deciding on a poop sending provider.
*****
Top 10ish comments of the week. Or thereabout...
*****
Club ONT brought to you by enduring trash
*****
Club ONT was not written with an autopen. These words of wisdom were definitely not scribbled by cabal of shadowy figures from the Ace of Spades underworld. They are genuine, heartfelt expressions that have been authorized by the 3Ds. Nothing suspicious here. Nothing at all. Nope. Nothing to see here. Hey, is that a rabbit over there??
Shot and reverse from Paddington. The first is Michael Bond, and the second is his creation, the bear from Darkest Peru.
In October of 1958, Michael Bond published the first of what would end up being 30 picture books and collections starring a small bear from Darkest Peru. Sent to London by his Aunt Lucy who has retired to the Home for Retired Bears in Lima, Paddington was adopted by the Brown family and had a series of small adventures over the next 60 years until 2017. It was then that Bond's final book, Paddington's Finest Hour was published with Bond passing that year.
Over the decades, Paddington has been adapted into different mediums, mostly television with his most famous example being a 1970s British television show that featured the bear as a stop motion puppet and all of the other characters as cardboard cutouts. This combination of his books and various adaptations has placed him in a special place in the hearts of the British public. I watched an interview with a British actor who, in an effort to describe the importance of Clifford the Big Red Dog to a British audience, compared the large red pup with Paddington, the explicit effort being to build up Clifford as this massively important cartoon character for the American psyche.
And I think he's full of bunk. Clifford isn't important to Americans. The closest might be Snoopy from Peanuts, but Snoopy was a minor character in an ensemble. Mickey Mouse? No one cares about him past five years old. Garfield? He's more of a joke than a beloved character. No, I don't think there is an American counterpart to the beloved picture book character.
And, of course, I bring him up because of the trilogy of movies starring Paddington Brown released over the past decade.
Now, I don't often do recommendations (I think it irritates people that I sidestep them most of the time), but I'm going to do this now: watch the Paddington films. I'll detail why later, but you won't be disappointed.
However, I write not to recommend, but mostly to wallow in one of the interesting areas of film that I always find fascinating: adaptation.
What are the original adventures of Paddington? They are 20-30 page long picture books written for small children (my younger son loves them). They involve the small bear from Darkest Peru leaving the house for some outing, usually around London, having small misunderstandings, and going back home where he usually does some art. So, he'll go to the London Zoo, pack some extra marmalade sandwiches, watch helplessly as the animals steal them one by one, and then go home and draw pictures of the animals. Or, he'll go with his friend Mr. Gruber to Hyde Park to view the local artists, misunderstand some English idioms, and then go home to paint his own art. They're cute stories to tell to small children right before bed.
They are not the stuff to build a 90-minute movie out of.
So the choices becomes almost limitless as to how to approach the material. Paul King, the writer and director of the first two films, made very deliberate choices that I find fascinating, and they are the reason I felt compelled to write this essay. Essentially, he turned the first cinematic adventure of the bear from Darkest Peru into...a heist film. The second turns into an outright Mission Impossible film. On the surface, that should not connect. That should not make sense. That should actually worry people who love the Paddington books. And yet, he makes it work, and it's due to a few things.
The first is that he preserves the characters, especially the central bear. Paddington in the film is warm, open-hearted, and almost Pollyanna-esque in his ability to simply make people's lives better around him. The one character who seems to start the furthest away from the source is the patriarch of the Brown family, Mr. Brown played by Hugh Bonneville, who spends the first half of the first movie trying to kick Paddington out of the house until he realizes that Paddington is part of the family and worthy of not only housing but his protection. That preservation of sweet characterization balances with the more adult approach to narrative in the use of genre conventions that usually don't show up in children's movies.
The stakes are appropriate for the family movie space (though, let's be honest, Nicole Kidman desiring taxidermy directed at Paddington is perhaps a tad on the extreme side of things), but the conventions of heist filmmaking suddenly place the character in a kind of film enjoyed by many adults without going super violent. The tone remains cheerful and jaunty and innocent, even while the stakes are elevated from the books and the plot mechanics deal in a group of people breaking into a place, all using their special skills in unique ways (which the films use as a source of comedy), to rescue someone from a terrible fate. And the second one escalates to an extended train sequence against Hugh Grant as the antagonist right out of the first Mission Impossible film. And King makes the connection explicit by using the Mission Impossible theme at one point in the first film.
The third, directing duties taken over by Dougal Wilson with a trio of writers, takes the film in a more adventure direction, sending Paddington and the Browns into the jungles of Peru to search for Aunt Lucy who has gone missing. Here, Antonio Bandares wants Paddington for his own greedy ends, and we have the preservation of character and silly episodes strung along an adventure plot that retains the charm of the first two films.
These are such weird, out of left-field choices, and yet King and Wilson make them work wonderfully well. It's that balance between innocence in character, preserved from the stories, and a structure taken from more adult-orientated fare that can carry a whole film. It's not just a series of individual episodes loosely strung together. They are self-contained stories.
Episodes
When thinking of the Paddington stories, they feel more like fodder for a children's television show than a feature film. They last only a few minutes. They have no real stakes. They're over and done with without much changing from one to the next. And yet, in terms of adaptation, King does not discard them completely. In fact, he integrates individual stories shockingly well. The most famous example would be the adaption of the first book, A Bear Called Paddington, into, essentially, the first thirty minutes of the first film. However, it'sthe book Paddington at the Barber Shop that gets the best utilization.
It happens in the second film. Paddington needs money to purchase a pop-up book for his Aunt Lucy's birthday (in the story, he is trying to help his friend Mr. Gruber pay for a broken vase). So, he gets a job at the barber where he has some mishaps and accidentally ruins the hair of a customer. However, the film uses this expertly to help progress the story because the customer is a magistrate judge who gets the case of Paddington when he's framed for theft of the pop-up book by Phoenix Buchanan (Grant). So, with animus towards the bear, the judge sentences Paddington to prison. It's a recreation of one of the more famous Paddington stories that is integrated perfectly into the actual plot of the book, acting as a bridge for both plot (Paddington's efforts to make money) and character (the judge's ill feelings towards Paddington). It's shockingly good writing.
It's also, I think, one reason why the films are so beloved. Retaining individual episodes (with some changes, like the extent of damage Paddington does, especially in the first film's bathroom episode) while integrating them with the plot makes them flow without standing out while giving audiences recreations of things they love while also never feeling like they're just there for fan service. They're part of the stories.
Family
It's something of a joke to say that a movie is about family at this point, but, really, the Paddington films are all about family. In the first one, Paddington finds his adopted family, the Browns. In the second, it's about bridging the gap between his new family and his old family (Aunt Lucy) with the book all while his family learns the unappreciated importance he holds in their lives. In the third, it's about digging into Paddington's past and finding his true family (the second film established the Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pastuzo had found Paddington in the river near their home in the jungle).
However, that's not all. Remember that moment when you realized that the movie Aliens was about pitting two mothers against each other (Ripley and the Alien Queen), and you went, "Wow, this is really well written. I had no idea." Well, the Paddington films do something similar.
In the first film, the antagonist is Nicole Kidman's Millicent Clyde, the daughter of the British explorer who found Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pastuzo but did not bring a specimen back for stuffing. So, decades later, she wants to make up for her father's failings by stuffing Paddington. In the second film, it's Hugh Grant's Phoenix Buchanan, an actor in a long line of actors who has fallen on hard times (he stars in dog food commercials now) and wants to find the pop-up book in question which is actually a treasure map his grandfather tried to steal unsuccessfully which will help him back on his feet. In the third, it's Antonio Bandares' Hunter Cabot, the latest in a line of a cursed family looking for El Dorado who discovers that Paddington is the key to that discovery.
So, in all three films, Paddington is looking for family, and in all three films, his antagonist are looking to correct mistakes using their family past in some way. It's an interlacing of character motivations that point to a thematic point about the importance of family and one's place in it that is consistent across all three films. It's, again, solid writing.
Universality
I've touched on this, but I have to emphasize how these family movies really are...family movies. They are not children's movies. They are films that can be enjoyed from children to the more...cynically minded. It's the combination of the innocence of Paddington, his Pollyana-esque qualities on those around him, and the conventions of the films around them that appeal to more adult sensibilities regarding plot, pacing, and the basic conventions of setup and payoff. I've seen my fair share of children's movies where the only adult appeal is in-jokes that quickly wear out their welcome. Paddington and its sequels simply work as films on their own without being cloying.
I adore all three, finding the trio of adventures to be marvelous jaunts through London and the jungles of Darkest Peru with wonderful comedy (Brendan Gleeson is perfect as the hard-nosed convict who gets softened with the discovery of marmalade in the second one and Olivia Colman is hilarious in the third one as a singing, not at all suspicious, nun), and they have the tight story structure and storytelling one would expect from the best of thrillers and adventure films. They are not just prime entertainments that can entertain children, they are prime examples of their genres.
And that is why I recommend them to you now. If you have time for only one, make it Paddington 2, but the entire trilogy is a marvelous creation, filled with life, joy, and sheer entertainment value. These are absolutely endearing and delightful jaunts, and I highly recommend you discover them for yourselves.
Student Romance: Days of Youth (Rating 3/4) Full Review "So, it's nice, well-made, and overlong. It's really a very nice introduction to Ozu's body of work." [The Criterion Channel]
That Night's Wife (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's good, interesting, surprisingly moving, and...too long. But that's a relatively minor sin." [The Criterion Channel]
The Lady and the Beard (Rating 3/4) Full Review "The resolution is almost slight, another point towards the Lubitsch comparison, but it's nice. And that's the movie. Nice, amusing, a bit slight, but ultimately a handsomely produced, entertaining package with a hook for the title and the poster." [The Criterion Channel]
I Was Born, But... (Rating 3/4) Full Review "However, I really did kind of love that final act. It was kind of great. The kind of touching, sincere emotional effort that Ozu was showing he could do almost in his sleep." [The Criterion Channel]
Where Now are the Dreams of My Youth? (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "I think this is Ozu's best film up to this point. I still think he could tighten things up in his first hours, and I wish they were funnier than they are (they're funny, just not that funny), but the emotional catharsis of the end is complex and deeply satisfying." [The Criterion Channel]
Passing Fancy (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's quite solid storytelling, combining early comedy with later drama. I just wish the ending more fit the film." [The Criterion Channel]
A Story of Floating Weeds (Rating 4/4) Full Review "But still, this is the one film in the silent period that feels like Ozu's completely." [The Criterion Channel]
The Only Son (Rating 4/4) Full Review "This quiet reflection on life, its disappointments and hopes, is a marvelous achievement in film." [The Criterion Channel]
Contact
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
My next post will be on 6/28, and it will be about the last three eras of the Godzilla franchise.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it came up with tree houses!
Tree houses? Yes, tree houses (and a few other goodies too).
Tree houses are fun. There is something about having a clubhouse amid the branches. Kids with parents that built tree houses were neighborhood magnets. Many kids started with ambitious plans that ultimately went unrealized when the visions exceeded the capability, skill and resource of youth.
Did you or your family build a tree house? How ambitious? Does anyone have stories of the shenanigans that ensued around tree houses?
Did you have a rope ladder? swing? zip line? slide? Did you have a bucket that could be raised and lowered for supplies?
Are tree houses for kids an American thing or do they exist elsewhere?
Did you stock pile apples or other projectiles and pelt any below who dared approach?
Were you a tree climber in your youth? Did you find ways to elevate and find adventure or a bit of privacy? Did you ever get yourself into trouble and require a rescue? Did the climbing bug bite and spur you to mountain climbing or other climbing adventures later in life?
In looking across the interweb, tree houses seem to have become larger, more complex, and more robust than I recall as a youth. Anything that can be done, can be done with more gusto.
Maybe they existed without my knowledge, but it seems like there are more professional tree house plans and builders on the interweb as well.
Perhaps our modern safety culture has resulted in less rickety castles in the sky but they also appear to be structures that require a fair amount of knowledge and resource.
Tree houses also seem to have become mostly for adults rather than children. The number of giant tree houses with polished interiors for rent on the interweb is amazing. Putting a nice house among the trees is nice, but also a long way from the small box of wood that fueled hours of amusement for kids.
***
Wow. Professional and obviously not made as a child's playhouse, but what a view.
***
Bastards.
***
If you're really crafty, you can decorate the inside of a kid's room to feel a lot like the outside.
In the past, Brown said he and his father-in-law have caught flathead catfish in the Schuylkill River that weigh anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds. A few weeks ago, they caught a 40-pound flathead in the same spot. They've caught just about every species known to inhabit that area of the Schuylkill, Brown said, but he had no idea a Goliath like the fish he caught Sunday was lurking in the water.
Other anglers sometimes fillet the fish they catch in the Schuylkill, but Brown said he wouldn't take the risk.
"I wouldn't eat anything out of that river," he said. "Where I fish, the water that comes out of there is a runoff. It mixes with sewage water. I'd advise anybody not to eat that stuff."
***
For the 3D printing enthusiasts among the Horde:
***
Horde Hobbying update from our friend tankascribe:
18.5 hours on a 12 x 24 inch canvas, in oils.
This is based on a photo I snapped from the back seat of the car while heading south from the East Rim of the Grand Canyon on Highway 64 around 4 PM and the sun was getting low. The hills were casting a nice deep shadow while the canyon was still brilliantly lit. As we pulled into Cameron (to scope out the bathrooms at the famous Indian trading post), a beautiful full moon rose up in the east.
After we got home, going through the photos I was amazed that the one taken from the moving car had actually turned out, decided to paint it and include the full moon. The rather wimpy clouds were replaced with some taken from a "storm clouds over the Grand Canyon" image found on the internet.
Reference photos:
I love when Horde hobbyists submit their work. I really love when they share the background and explain how a piece came together, like tankascribe did. Be like tankascribe.
Thank you!
***
What are you hobbying these days?
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. Your participation does not need to limited to the theme. All hobbying is welcome. However, politics, current events and religious debates can live in threads elsewhere. Play nice. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls. Pants, as always, are optional.
***
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We talked scale modeling. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
***
Notable comments from last week:
***
Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
***
If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, hijack the thread for your hobbying as you see fit. We will feature a different theme next time. What are you hobbying? We love showing off Horde hobbying. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Short notice fill in for our talented friend and Pet Thread caretaker, K.T.
Wishing you all a relaxing or productive weekend - whichever suits you best.
Please check your politics at the door. Don't worry - they'll still be there when the thread is over.
How do cats produce their purring sound? Came across this six months ago. Exchanged a few emails with AoS commenter publius about this subject. What say you cat experts?
Some scientists have long thought that cat purrs are the result of contracting and relaxing muscles in the vocal folds of the larynx. But the new research reveals this may not be the case, and instead suggests cats have special "pads" that help them produce their ultra-low-frequency purrs.
Even though the movie came out rather recently, Pearl is no stranger to 'Wicked,' Jenkins says. In the "What Is This Feeling?" video's caption, Jenkins writes "Pearl LOVES to sing and dance! I had no idea how happy her love for Wicked would make people!
I Like What You've Done With The Place Garden Thread
—WeirdDave
Back in the day, about 10 years ago, I used to post the garden thread every Saturday. Then KT took over and made the garden thread the juggernaut that it is today. Seriously, she does a way better job than I ever did. However, this week, she is unable to post, so I'm back for an encore. Welcome back to mediocrity!
I didn't have anything planned, so I'll just post about my garden. Y'all can talk about anything you'd like. Here is a picture of my garden:
The first year I lived here I did a regular garden with rows, but then I decided to put in raised beds, and I put them in with a vengeance. That's 21 8' X 4' raised beds. Originally, I had sprinklers on posts at all 4 corners of the garden, fed from a hose attached to the spigot on the side of the cabin, but in year 2 of the raised beds I got serious. I ran the hose into a bunch of splitters so I could water each bed individually. That was unwieldy, so in year 3 I got REALLY serious, and put in irrigation. I tapped the water line feeding the cabin spigot with 1/4” PVC, ran the pipe out of the cabin, buried it, and gave each bed it's own feed. It looks like this now:
Each bed has it's own feed, and I can turn the valves on or off as needed to water just what I want to water. I can only do 4-5 beds at a time or else the water pressure falls too low, but it's much more efficient.
Attached to each bed's spigot is a watering system customized for what that bed is growing. It can be sprinklers that water an entire bed, for crops grown in rows like corn, potatoes or onions, thus:
Or it can water each individual plant, as below, Betsy's boob okra*.
Finally, the tarps. The bane of my gardening existence, as I'm sure is the bane of yours, is weeds. Weeds, weeds, weeds. Baring buying a million dollar machine that targets weeds with a laser, I use tarps. I buy them from Billboardvinyls.com, and cut them into 4' X 8' sections. Billboard vinyls sells, well, billboards, after they've been taken down. The vinyl is thick and weather resistant. I cut the vinyl to shape, put grommets in the corners using a cheap grommet making kit from Harbor Freight (like $4.00 for 100 grommets), and then cut holes for where I put the plants. See the pictures above, I can cut rows or individual spaces, depending on what I want to grow. If I have a bed I'm not planting, I use a tarp with no holes. It's not perfect, weeds will sprout around the edges and in the holes cut for the plants, but it probably cuts down on my weeding chores by 80%.
So there you have it. That's my garden. Now tell me about yours.
Today's garden thread has been brought to you by this year's first harvest:
(That was a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've harvested a shit-ton of vegetables, Tomatoes, peppers, onions, Betsy's boob okra*...you name it. I've made salsa, canned hot peppers, and given a shit-ton of produce away. And this year I'm only using like half the beds. )
*Betsy's boob okra. I have a friend named Betsy. I was talking to her before the growing season, and I mentioned that I wasn't going to be planting all of my beds this year. She asked if I could grow something for her. The conversation went as follows:
Me “What do you like?”
Her “I like okra.”
Me, shrugging “OK, I'll grow some okra for you.”
Betsy “What will it cost me?”
Me “Nothing. I dunno,” (TOTALLY JOKING) “You could flash me or something.”
Betsy “OK” (Flashes me. And friends, I have to tell you, she has spectacular boobs. Like the Venus de Milo is jealous spectacular)
Simone Biles Insults and Body Shames Riley Gaines While Advocating for Men Participating in Women’s Sports
—Buck Throckmorton
It’s going to be a long weekend for the crisis management teams at Coca-Cola and General Mills, among other companies that have hired Simone Biles as their spokesbigot.
Simone decided to very publicly attack Riley Gaines on social media yesterday, including a mockery of Ms. Gaines’ physique, as Ms. Biles assertively came out in favor of men competing in women’s sports, while sneering at Riley for losing to a man.
Do Coca-Cola and General Mills stand by Ms. Biles? Do they agree that men should participate in women’s sports and share lockers and showers with female athletes?
@Riley_Gaines_ You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender… https://t.co/pjpzuZ0AlO
All the horrific sexual abuse @Simone_Biles witnessed and spoke out against caused by one man, yet believes women should be forced to strip naked in front of men to validate the man's feelings.
You know how many gold medals you'd have if your "inclusive" dream came true? Zero. pic.twitter.com/VycE1BvAMP
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
That isn't me. I love coffee and fishing. I only like 3 people.
*****
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Barnes.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Even the trolls have retarded feelings.
3) No, you may not run with sharp objects here.
4) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo atsign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
5/3 – D asked for prayers for his wife, Susan, who has been having some issues. They went to the hospital on 5/1, and all the signs are pointing to pancreatic cancer. They meet with other doctors on 5/5. Any prayers would be a blessing.
5/14 Update – Susan is having less pain now. Thank you for the prayers.
5/23 Update – Thank you again for all your prayers. Susan had a PET scan, and they should receive the results on 6/4.
5/8 - Don Draper asked for prayers for his wife. They lost their Kelpie companion on 5/7 due to complications from lymphoma. His wife is devastated.
5/8 – Backwoods Willy requested prayers for a partner church of theirs in Pakistan. One of the initial strikes by India was very close to the church and the pastor’s home. Ongoing shelling is nearby. Please pray for the Lord’s protection for Pastor S, his family, and his church.
5/10 – Cosda asked for prayers for his wife, who recently had a mole removed that came back as melanoma cancer. She is scheduled for surgery next week, and it looks like that should remove it completely.
5/11 – Ciampino sent his thanks for the prayers. He was injured by a cat scratch that caused a lot more bleeding than he realized was happening. He also ended up with sepsis and septic shock, and in critical condition. He was treated with IV antibiotics, 5 units of blood, and steroids. He also got his first helicopter ride, as he was transferred from one hospital to another for care.
5/14 – Ciampino is home.
5/16 – KT is still under the weather but is recovering slowly.
5/17 – neverenoughcaffiene asked for prayers for her sister-in-law, Jackie, who is looking at dialysis. Her kidneys have been failing for several years is she is getting close based on her numbers. Hopefully new meds will help.
5/24 – The new meds have not helped. Her score for kidney function is 16, and the trigger for dialysis is 15.
5/17 – B asked for prayers for the Lord to move a bowel food constriction or “kink” out so that his bowels would function properly.
5/31 Update – B sent his thanks for the prayers. He is healed from the bowel obstruction. He requested prayers for his friend, Jerry, who is in the hospital needing surgery for an ulcer and MRSA, and another friend, Mary, who is fighting cancer.
5/17 – Polliwog the ‘Ette had a physical recently, and some test results indicate a need for major changes in diet. She would appreciate prayers for wisdom and discernment in creating a food plan that works for the entire family’s various needs, and the ability to make healthy choices on a long-term basis.
5/17 – Brother Tim would deeply appreciate prayers. He had a growth on the side of his face for years, and it is scheduled for removal on 6/20. Depending on the biopsy results, they may also need to remove some lymph nodes. This is on top of his housing issues, other health issues, and not enough income.
5/20 – Stateless could use some prayers.
5/23 – Hrothgar asks for prayers for a dear friend’s son. Tim battled cancer 20 years ago, but has been living with kidney disease for several years. It has progressed to the point that he needs a transplant. In a real blessing, he was approved for the transplant list. Please pray for Tim, that he would receive a donated kidney. There is no cost to the donor, and the donor generally goes on to live a full life with just one kidney, and it would make a huge difference for Tim, versus long-term dialysis.
5/31 Update – Tim must lose 50 pounds in the next 90 days to remain on the transplant list, and he is thinking that is impossible. Please pray that he realizes what a God-given blessing he has been given to reach this point, and that he makes the right lifestyle choices to lose that weight.
5/24 – Captain Obvious requested prayers for his friend J, who will be having surgery on 6/9 to try and relieve her chronic pain. She also has concerns because she is on blood thinners and nearly bled out after her hip replacement. Please pray for the best possible outcome and also to relieve her anxiety.
5/24 – L sent an update. Her daughter, Shannon, the Franciscan sister who we prayed for when she had heart surgery, is much improved. There were some setbacks along the way – a problem with defibrillation and a respiratory infection - but she is healed now and will take her final vows soon. L is also much improved, after her knee implant surgery.
5/29 – Teresa in Fort Worth sent an update and her thanks for all the prayers and words of encouragement. They have sustained her and her family as she continues to battle cancer. She continues to receive good news: her oncologist is quite pleased with her response to the current medication protocol; they are decreasing the lab work frequency to every other week instead of weekly; the side effects from chemo have been barely noticeable; she can just take 4 tiny pills for chemo instead of spending one day a week at the cancer center. It’s been 7 months so far, and she expects that at some point the tumors will start growing again, but for now, they are encouraged.
6/4 – Grumpy and Recalcitrant asked for prayers for his mother (Lynda), asking to give her strength and healing. Also, for the medical staff to be prompted to do a complete and thorough job diagnosing her.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
No launch date has been set just yet, but just over a week after Flight 9 suffered an attitude control failure, SuperHeavy Booster 16 underwent a static test fire in preparation for flight with the latest Starship module.
It's not the one I got, just the one I probably should have got. It's still not perfect due to the limited number of PCIe lanes available with AMD's chipsets - Intel is better on this - but it has fewer constraints than the Gigabyte board I have.
Specifically on my board if you use M.2 slots 2 and 3 it cuts the main PCIe slot from x16 to x8 - not the end of the world, but inconvenient - and if you use M.2 slot 4 it turns off the secondary PCIe slot entirely. The MSI doesn't do that, though if you use both M.2 slot 2 and the USB4 ports, both run at PCIe 5.0 x2.
I bought an M.2 RAID card because it adds four slots - effectively three, because it needs to go in the secondary PCIe slot so I can't use M.2 slot four - and it cost half as much as a new motherboard. But with the added cost of the MSI board over the Gigabyte models is half of that, and worth it if you don't want to worry about things not working.
The change - proposed in 2017 during Trump's first term and taking effect in 2022 - made it so that companies could not immediately write off R&D expenses but had to depreciate them over a period of years... Like most things.
The link between the tech layoffs of recent years and the changes to the tax code seems to be entirely unsupported.
Let's say you have a great idea for a new app. You pay some guys in Uzbekistan to develop it for you. You put it up on the AppStore.
It looks great. Everyone's happy. And then within a week it gets hacked and all your customers lot only lose their data but the contents of their bank accounts, you're facing a class action lawsuit, the guys in Uzbekistan have disappeared, and you have no idea what happened.
That's Vibe Coding.
Treat it like you're a twelve-year-old girl and the people promoting it are offering candy from the back of a van.
It supports up to seven compute modules - SiPeed's own or the Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM5 (equivalent to the Raspberry Pi models 4 and 5 respectively, reasonably enough). The cluster itself only costs $45, and equipped with seven eight-core, 8GB AI-optimised blades it still comes out to under $1200 and uses less than 65W of power.
This is meant more for robotics and automation than to compete with commercial AI racks, which cost a thousand times as much and use a thousand times as much power.
Sorry folks. We went out to dinner tonight and the restaurant was hideously slow. It took well over an hour for our meals to show up, which meant that I just got home 15 minutes ago, so...I've got a few videos that I uploaded earlier today and that's it. Since I'm falling down on the job, I'm giving you the assignment: Post links to your favorite memes in the comments. Self generated content for you.
When the lens of a camera tilts so that it is no longer parallel to the camera's image sensor, it shifts the plane of focus and alters the depth of field.
Con el EFECTO TILT-SHIFT (o efecto diorama o miniatura) se consigue que una escena de tamaño natural parezca una en miniatura, p.ej. dentro de una maqueta. Para ello se simula la escasa profundidad de campo de las macros difuminando los objetos que no están en el plano principal. pic.twitter.com/BuzJDHdbrF
The Psaki bomb has turned into a major Psaki dud for left-leaning MSNBC.
The embattled cable news network -- which is expected to be spun off by parent company Comcast later this year -- has seen ratings plunge nearly 50% in the pivotal 9 p.m. slot since Jen Psaki took over full-time hosting duties from Rachel Maddow last month.
The 46-year-old anchor, who made a name for herself with her quick-witted "Psaki bombs" while serving as former President Joe Biden's press secretary -- but has since insisted she never saw signs of his mental decline -- has drawn an average of 971,000 viewers since "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" debuted on May 6 through May 28, according to the latest Nielsen ratings.
That's a staggering 47% falloff from the eyeballs attracted by Maddow and Alex Wagner in the timeslot.
The drop-off is even more pronounced in the critical 25--54 age demographic prized by advertisers, where she drew just 78,000 viewers -- a 52% decline compared to the 161,000 that Maddow and Wagner drew during their shows this year.
Joy Reid was fired by MSNBC earlier this year due to her own plummeting ratings.
The Race Lady now says that MSNBC fired her because... Can you guess?
Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid spoke out about her show being canceled on Monday, speculating that her race and network "anxiety" surrounding President Donald Trump played a role in her ultimately being fired from the liberal network.
"I try not to speculate too much publicly because, again, I can't get inside the minds of other people. But I can tell you what other people have speculated about... There are lots of people at the network who are critical of Donald Trump. I mean, and they're still critical of him, I'm assuming, you know. So I don't think that's [it], but I do know there is a lot of anxiety both there and, I think, in every media. We're seeing it at CBS," she said, referring to Trump's lawsuit against the network over a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reid spoke with Katie Couric in a video posted on her Substack page and on her YouTube channel. Reid's MSNBC show was canceled earlier this year.
"We're seeing it at ABC, where allegedly 'The View' hosts were told not to go so hard on Trump. There's a push for people to, hey, do less Trump. Do more entertainment. Don't be hard on him," the former MSNBC host said, noting reporting that ABC's "The View" hosts were told to tone down their political discussions.
Oh, and she insists that Trump really, really thinks about her all the time, Because Racism.
Couric pointed out that there was no difference between Reid and liberal hosts Nicolle Wallace or Rachel Maddow, to which Reid responded, "only in one way was I different. I'm a Black woman doing the thing."
"I think that there is a difference for Trump in hearing the kinds of criticisms specifically out of a Black woman, it bothers him in a way it doesn't bother him like anything else. He's got this sort of tick about race, you know, and about, sort of criticism coming specifically from a Black woman because we've seen him lay out and dish out real abuse against Black women journalists," Reid said during her conversation with Couric.
The sad! thing for MSNBC is that the group of DEI zeroes (including former RNC chairman Michael Steel) they put together to replace the overtly racist Joy Reid are doing even worse in the ratings than she did.
At 7 pm, "The Weeknight" was down 36 percent compared to Joy Reid's 1.2 million average last year.
On to CNN.
CNN already had bad ratings, but now the Coddled Antifa Viewers who rely on CNN to cover them in Bubble-Wrap and protect them from all information that might trigger them are abandoning them.
CNN, a far-left propaganda outlet that spreads disinformation and promotes violence against Jews, hit an astonishing ratings low during the week of May 26 to June 1.
CNNLOL averaged only 374,000 primetime viewers, which is six times -- six times -- lower than the Fox News Channel average of 2.3 million primetime viewers.
John Nolte points out that Fox News, a cable station, is beating all of the broadcast networks:
Fox News topped all three broadcast networks during the week of May 26-30. NBC and CBS averaged only 2.4 million average primetime viewers, while CBS earned just 2.3 million. Fox News grabbed 2.7 million.
...
CNN cannot survive much longer in its present form. As people move from cable to streaming, CNN is losing billions in the left-wing affirmative action called "carriage fees," and CNN's advertising revenue must be dismal. If the Trump administration outlaws Big Pharma ads, that might be the silver bullet.
Where he will be tried for being the kingpin of a major human trafficking operation.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, has been returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday.
For months, the Trump administration has been locked in an intense standoff with the federal judiciary over court orders for the government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador, where he was mistakenly deported in mid-March, in a situation that one federal judge warned could present an "incipient crisis" between the two branches.
Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.
The indictment unsealed Friday afternoon accuses Abrego Garcia and others of partaking in a conspiracy in recent years in which they "knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates."
Seems obvious, but again, something that was in doubt.
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a Wisconsin-based Catholic charity group in a case centered on unemployment tax credits for religious institutions -- delivering a victory for faith-based institutions, who argued that the state's decision had violated the religious clauses under the First Amendment.
In a unanimous opinion, the justices agreed that the state had engaged in an "unnecessary entanglement" in attempting to define whether religious groups should be entitled to an otherwise-available tax exemption based on the state's criteria for religious behavior.
"When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, writing for the majority.
"Because Wisconsin has transgressed that principle without the tailoring necessary to survive such scrutiny, the judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."
The FBI rushed to rescind the document after a whistleblower leaked it in February 2023. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in July 2023 that the memo came from "a single product by a single field office, which, as soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems." Yet Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has claimed Wray may have lied under oath because multiple FBI offices were involved in creating the memo.
Grassley announced Tuesday that he found evidence that the memo had been disseminated to at least 1,000 FBI staff.
"Is anyone really asking for a product like this?" an FBI employee in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote in a February 2023 email responding to the memo. "Apparently we are at the behest of the SPLC..."
An FBI employee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, responded, "And yeah, our overreliance on the SPLC for hate designations is ... problematic."
In addition to these emails, Grassley found the FBI produced at least 13 additional documents and five attachments that used the term "radical traditionalist Catholic" and relied on the SPLC.
Meet the Left-Wing Groups and Operatives Rallying Behind Jewish Museum Shooter Elias Rodriguez
Soros-funded operatives, a Democratic Socialists of America caucus, and an anti-Israel student group among signatories of letter endorsing murders
A radical student group at Brandeis University. Members of a socialist organization affiliated with House "Squad" members. The treasurer of a Democratic super PAC funded heavily by George Soros. These are just some of the figures and groups calling to "free" Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man police say confessed to the Washington, D.C., murders of two Israeli diplomats.
Twenty-one organizations, along with Democratic activist Kamau Franklin, signed an open letter in support of Rodriguez organized by the Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network. It calls Rodriguez's shooting of Israeli diplomats Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside of the Capital Jewish Museum "fully justified," "eminently defensible," and "morally righteous." It also urges readers to "give pause to the zionists" and "GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA," a popular rallying cry among student radicals on Ivy League campuses like Columbia University and Harvard University. One signee, Unity of Fields, has been involved in the Columbia protests.
Another signatory is the Liberation Caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)--"Squad" members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Greg Casar (D., Texas) are members of DSA, the largest socialist group in the country. Franklin, who serves as treasurer of the Black Voters Matter Action PAC, a Democratic group that received $2.4 million from Soros and the Soros-funded Democracy PAC, signed the letter and promoted it on his Twitter page. So did the Brandeis Jewish Bund, a self-described "Anti-Zionist" group at Brandeis University, a school founded by Jewish Americans to address anti-Semitism in the American education system. Another signee, Bronx Anti War, was cofounded by Janet Goodman-Clarke, a member of the Soros-funded Jewish Voice for Peace.
While many of the groups backing Rodriguez are not well known beyond radical activist circles, their ties to prominent Democratic lawmakers, donors, and organizations reflect the extent to which anti-Semitism has infiltrated the party. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, held a virtual event with DSA's New York chapter in December. She has not addressed the Liberation Caucus's signing of the pro-Rodriguez letter.
Florida high school students were drilled for being straight, asked to consider being gay, and told that straight people are to blame for overpopulation, according to course materials obtained by The Daily Wire.
During a course for high school children in Miami-Dade County, students were assigned to complete a sexuality-focused questionnaire that asked a series of bizarre questions such as: "What do you think caused your heterosexuality?"; "Is it possible that being straight is just a phase you may grow out of?"; and, "Considering the menace of hunger and overpopulation, could the human race survive if everyone were straight like yourself?"
Advertisement
Parents were shocked to learn that a professor made their children answer questions like this as part of a Miami-Dade College course being offered to high schoolers. The course, called "Preparing for Student Success," was designed for students to develop academic goals and come up with strategies to succeed in college and offered in Miami-Dade County, an area that has turned red in recent years.
"It's not normal. I mean imagine if a person, anyone, goes close to your son and asks him these questions, I'd call the police," a concerned mother whose son was enrolled in the class told The Daily Wire. "It's perversion. Why are you talking about their sexuality to 15-year-old boys or girls? It's absolutely sick. It's sick."
Other questions posed to the children included, "To whom have you disclosed your straight tendencies?" and "Why do you insist on showing off your heterosexuality?" The questionnaire ended by asking students what their reaction to it was and "about the assumptions you hold about what others are like."
I have a lot of Democratic friends who are extremely disappointed with their party leaders. They tell me that the Democratic Party is currently rudderless, weak, passive, lacking a compelling message. I try to be polite, but I want to tell them: "The problem is not the party leaders. The problem is you. You don't understand how big a shift we're in the middle of. You think the Democrats can solve their problems with a new message and a new leader. But the Democrats' challenge is that they have to adapt to a new historical era. That's not something done by working politicians who are focused on fund-raising and the next election. That's only accomplished by visionaries and people willing to shift their entire worldview. That's up to you, my friends, not Chuck Schumer."
...
The Republicans have adjusted to the shift in the zeitgeist more effectively than the Democrats. Trump tells a clear story: The elites are screwing America. He took a free trade party and made it a protectionist party, an internationalist party and made it an isolationist party...
Trump has taken the atmosphere of alienation, magnified it with his own apocalypticism, and, assaulting institutions across society, has created a revolutionary government. More this term than last, he is shifting the conditions in which we live.
...
The Democrats' first core challenge is that we live in an age that is hostile to institutions and Democrats dominate the institutions -- the universities, the media, Hollywood, the foundations, the teachers unions, the Civil Service, etc. The second is that we live in an age in which a caste divide has opened up between the educated elite and everybody else, and Democrats are the party of the highly educated...
For today's Democrats that means this: If people rightly distrust establishment institutions and you are the party of the establishment institutions, then you have to be the party of thoroughgoing reform. You have to say that Trump is taking a blowtorch to institutions, and we are for effectively changing institutions.
Algerian boxing bosses have issued a furious response to boxing's new world governing body for a "violation" of Imane Khelif's rights to medical confidentiality.
A statement released by World Boxing last week, naming Khelif while outlining its new policy of gender testing, has "created psychological damage to our athlete" according to the Algerian Boxing Federation.
In a letter the Federation President said the "consequences are immeasurable."
He added that the statement had internationally harmed "our national sports movement" and that Khelif was not given "the right to defend herself" nor did World Boxing "hear from the doctors specialising in endocrinology who follow her."
What about the damage this biological man inflicted on the women he punched in the face?
It's a verdict that would make the Ayatollah smile. Today, in nominally liberal Britain, a man has been found guilty of a crime after he dared to burn a Koran in public. Hamit Coskun, a Turkish-born asylum seeker, has been convicted of a 'religiously aggravated public-order offence' over his -- quite literally -- incendiary protest outside of the Turkish consulate in London in February, against what he sees as the Islamist turn of Erdogan's Turkey. If nothing else, Coskun's stunt has exposed the Islamist-apologist turn of our own United Kingdom.
On paper, Coskun has been convicted of 'disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress', motivated by 'hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam', contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986. But we all know what that word salad really means in practice, regardless of the judge's many assurances to the contrary. Coskun has been convicted, and fined £240, for blasphemy. All by a supposedly secular court.
The judgement, handed down by district judge John McGarva, is an elaborate exercise in victim-blaming. Coskun was assaulted at the scene by two men -- first by a passerby armed with a knife, then by a delivery rider who kicked Coskun while he was on the floor. Remarkably, this is used as proof of his guilt. 'That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people', says McGarva. Thank God he wasn't also wearing a short skirt, eh?
Similar intellectual acrobatics were required to prove that Coskun was motivated by a hatred of Muslims. He claims his beef is with the religion, not its followers. But McGarva was having none of it, citing Coskun's belief that 'Islam is an ideology which encourages its followers to violence, paedophilia, and a disregard for the rights of non-believers'. Whether or not this is an accurate or fair reflection of the faith, as practised by Muslims around the world, is totally irrelevant. The judge decided there was no difference between Coskun's dislike of what he means by Islam and hatred of Muslims. So he hates Muslims because he hates Islam. I'm no legal scholar, but that strikes me as a rather circular argument.
In a free society, you should be free to hate whoever and whatever you like, of course. Indeed, this ruling is another grim reminder of the subjective, authoritarian mess you find yourself in when you invite the state to police what is and isn't hateful -- whether that's racial, religious or whatever. Someone has to decide. And in this case it has been decided by a legalistic cretin who is totally blasé about ushering in medieval blasphemy prohibitions, albeit dressed up in hate-speech lingo.
Enjoying spiked?
Britain may have abolished its blasphemy law in 2008, more than three decades after the last blasphemy trial went to court. But it has returned, zombie-like, through public-order and communications offences....
Brace yourselves for more. Not least as Coskun -- who either has balls of steel or is nursing a death wish -- has said he intends to go on a Koran-burning tour of some of the UK's other great cities.
Man doesn't understand why he has been excluded from a women's book club.
The Democrats' push to fund fake influencers who can sell the Democrats' gay agenda to straight men is going great.
The first gay Congresswoman from Vermont insists that no illegal aliens be deported, stating that without illegal aliens, "we're not going to have anyone around to wipe our asses."
No, seriously, this Very Special Privileged Pyrsyn says this.
I know you think I'm a liar but you're the liar!
While complaining about President Trump deporting illegal immigrants, Vermont Democrat Becca Balint claims: "We're not going to have anyone around to wipe our asses."
Middle School teacher in @ABQschools, Patrick Corr, arrested after allegedly having sex with a MINOR students and got a 16-yr-old pregnant TWICE
A criminal complaint started after Corr was caught lying across two female students’ laps on a bus as well as playing with and… pic.twitter.com/KCaX68B9kl
BREAKING: Christian McGhee, the North Carolina teen who was suspended from school for using the term "illegal alien" in class, will receive $20,000 and a public apology from the Davidson County Board of Education (@dcsnc) after they falsely accused him of "racial bias." https://t.co/J4AoRY1pltpic.twitter.com/Fb1PFiJpPU
The Marxist Media Pivots: Now They're Telling Lefties to Go to the Gym
—Ace
As you know, the left has been celebrating weakness and frailty and poor health (both physical and mental) for its entire history. The strong have no need of a Mommy-Daddy God-State to protect them and provide them with food and phony affirmation.
In the age of Trump, though, they've gone positive bonkers.
The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise, and 6 Other Surprising Facts About the History of U.S. Physical Fitness
Aspects of the wellness world connect with conspiracy theories. If you've spent some time in bodybuilding forums, fitness Instagram, or really anywhere, this is not a surprise. Most recently, The Guardian covered the "wellness-to-fascism pipeline," detailing how some people in the wellness and fitness world are susceptible to conspiracies ranging from quacky antivax theories to full-blown Alex Jones brain. And last year, Time highlighted the "White Supremacist Origins of Exercise," in an interview with Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author of the book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession.
It turns out your far-too-online personal trainer might be sneaking a red pill into your protein shake. The reasons are many, including a lack of trust in modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, paired with long periods of isolation thanks to the pandemic. There's also the right wing influencers targeting incels, who might be convinced their deadlift stats are the reason for their lack of romantic success. It doesn't help that the fitness industry often leans on "One Weird Trick" to promote quick spot fixes and instant health benefits, which can then sprout into other types of forbidden "wisdom."
From just three weeks ago: Vanity Fair wonders why protein is so hot right now, and says "Blame MAGA."
Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Protein? Blame MAGA.
From the Liver King to the podcast bros to RFK Jr.'s MAHA constituents, America’s infatuation with protein has reached a fever pitch--and it's undeniably gendered.
How can it be "gendered" when we can't even say what a woman is?
The left just spent $20 million to conduct a "study" at a four-star hotel while loading "mini lobster rolls" into their fat weakling mouths to figure out how to "Speak to American Men."
MSNBC provides the first fruits of this effort, telling fat, weakling Democrats to go to the gym, not for the purposes of health, fitness, longevity, and self-improvement, but for the grubby, gross motive of being better able to politically proselytize to young men.
Do you even vote, bro? Democrats should look for new voters at the gym.
"Speaking with American Men" is a Democratic initiative to win young men, a group Democrats lost ground with in 2024.
After losing big with men under 30 in the 2024 election, Democrats have spent $20 million on a program called "Speaking with American Men" (SAM) to help figure out which "spaces" they need to show up in to fare better with this demographic. A smart place to start would be the gym; the booming men's fitness market is expected to more than double by 2029, growth driven by men under 25, who are joining gyms almost twice as fast as women. And as SAM co-director Ilyse Hogue and I wrote here last year, the right has done an excellent job parlaying young men's healthy interest in exercise into an embrace of reactionary politics.
But it doesn't need to be that way. Across the political spectrum, craving the surefire sense of accomplishment the gym provides is an age-old response to an unstable political and economic environment.
They literally cannot think in any other terms other than Marxist ones. Why do people go to the gym? To give themselves a dopamine hit in order to get them the struggle of capitalist oppression. Squats are the opiate of the masses.
And historically, championing physical fitness with appeals to American manliness has not been a partisan issue. If the SAM initiative is going to net the Democrats more than online snark, its leaders should appreciate that this history suggests the party's path forward might just begin at the gym.
If you weren't so gross, people might like you more, so yeah, maybe.
In the vast digital universe targeting young men, the idea that exercise is imperative to self-actualization is inescapable. It's most obvious in fitness-focused influencers like Ashton Hall, whose six-hour "morning routine" recently racked up nearly a billion views on X. But plenty of public figures with grander concerns insist exercise is integral to achievement. Take Andrew Tate's obsession with "plummeting masculinity" or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s quest to make America healthy again.
A commitment to early-morning workouts, Tate advises, is Step 1 to asserting alpha dominance. Performing pullups, as the septuagenarian Kennedy does shirtless at Gold's Gym, is proof of political power. Such encouragement spans the political spectrum. While it's become more common to see Republicans like Paul Ryan or Pete Hegseth flaunting their fitness, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden often promoted exercise as a personal and policy priority, and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman went viral in 2023 for benching 405 pounds while wearing a Working Families Party T-shirt.
You should see him on the Fire Alarm Lat Pull machine.
...
For more than a century, in moments of upheaval that raise questions about what it means to be a man, men have reliably sought a sense of agency in exercise.
This whole article is intended as Marching Orders to the left: Stop writing articles about exercise being toxic masculinity white supremacy or else men are going to continue voting against you. She's now reduced to arguing against the left-wing anti-health, anti-male narratives the left has been spinning out for a decade.
The social and economic roots of the American man's fixation on fitness date to the early 20th century.
When the world feels confusing or out of control, make a man of yourself, beginning with your body is an especially enticing proposition.
I should also point out that their idea of appealing to men is exactly the same as their idea of appealing to women. They appeal to women by talking about anxiety and empowerment, and, because they don't recognize any differences between the sexes, they're going to appeal to men with the exact same Empowerment Overcomes Your Anxiety and Neuroticism pitch, too.
They can only talk about working out in the only language they know, and that language is: Therapy.
...
Although the white-collar careers to which upwardly mobile young men aspired conferred superiority over the sweaty masses, this prestige came at a cost: so-called "desk diseases," as 19th-century doctors styled them, marked by sloped shoulders and sagging paunches. And President Teddy Roosevelt touted "the strenuous life" as a way for young men to resolve the paradox of progress.
...
The unprecedented prosperity of the 1950s, with its many desk jobs, televisions and time-saving appliances, ushered in yet more anxiety about the softening of the American male -- among members of both major political parties. Worried that the sudden glut of leisure risked rendering boys unfit for military duty, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration launched what would become the Presidential Council on Youth Fitness in 1957. "We are not a nation of softies," Vice President Richard Nixon warned at its launch, "but we could become one."
We are not a nation of softies, but we could become one.
We could become a nation of sofites, huh?
Given the many physical and mental benefits of exercise, the latest push for men to self-actualize through fitness is hardly a negative -- or necessarily partisan -- development.
Again, "self-actualization" is a concept pushed in self-help books written for an exclusively female audience.
But I guess that's the target audience for this article. It's trying to persuade wine-and-Xanax addicted left-wing mad women to stop "problematizing" male interest in working out so that they stop chasing off voters. So every argument is basically, "So you angry crazy-women like 'self-actualization,' so just think about the gym being 'self-actualization for bro's.'"
Experts agree that exercise is close to a "magic pill" for its many health benefits.
You don't say.
Weird you took the exact opposite position during the covid pandemic the left created.
So... do you have any GAINZZZ? My only GAINZZZ are starting once again to get GAINZZZ, at the very bottom of the GAINZZZ ladder. I basically skipped out on exercise for a year and now I'm reduced to the n00biest of n00bs.
White House aides scrambled to arrange peace talks Thursday after President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's vicious public spat threatened to derail the president's signature legislative agenda, Politico reported.
Aides had arranged a private call for Friday, according to the outlet, though a senior White House official told The Daily Caller that while Musk "has expressed interest in a phone call, the President does not intend to speak to Musk today." Staff reportedly prodded Trump to avoid insults and act tactfully, arguing a skirmish with the world's richest man would only distract Republicans he still needs to muscle the multi-trillion-dollar package across the finish line, while Musk hinted at reconciliation after hedge fund titan Bill Ackman publicly begged the two men to "make peace for the benefit of our country."
"Oh it's OK," Trump told Politico, responding to a question about the spat. "It's going very well, never done better ... the numbers are through the roof, the highest polls I've ever had and I have to go."
The president's nonchalant response Thursday marked a stark contrast to the ugly, days-long social media exchange that began when Musk blasted the "big beautiful bill's" projected $2.4 billion price tag as "pork-filled" and a "disgusting abomination" on Tuesday.
The SpaceX founder continued to unleash a barrage of posts attacking the legislation's fiscal impact, accusing Trump and congressional Republicans of abandoning conservative principles on government spending. Trump initially fired back with characteristic force -- branding Musk "CRAZY" and threatening to terminate the many federal subsidies and contracts his companies enjoy -- but White House staff successfully convinced him to temper his approach by Thursday afternoon, according to the outlet.
"I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress ... I didn't create this mess, I'm just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness."
The reconciliation signals became clearer when Ackman posted his peace plea on X, writing, "I support @realDonaldTrump and @elonmusk and they should make peace for the benefit of our country."
"You're not wrong," Musk responded at around 9:30 Thursday night, hours after implying the president was implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring, threatening to form a third party and suggesting Trump should be impeached.
The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, marking the third straight month of stronger-than-expected growth. With wages up nearly 4% and all gains going to native-born Americans, the White House called it further proof of a "BOOMING" Trump-led economy.
Key Details:
Leisure and hospitality led with 48,000 new jobs, followed by transportation and warehousing (+5,800) and construction (+4,000).
Real average hourly earnings rose nearly 4% over the past year, far surpassing forecasts. Since Trump took office, real disposable personal income has risen at a 7.5% annualized pace.
According to the White House, 99.8% of all job gains under Trump have been in the private sector--a sharp contrast from the final two years of the Biden era, when one in four new jobs were government-funded.
Diving Deeper:
President Donald Trump's "America First Economic Agenda" is delivering, according to the White House's Friday statement celebrating May's stronger-than-expected jobs numbers.
"President Trump's America First Economic Agenda has created a BOOMING economy--jobs are up, unemployment is down, wages are increasing, and inflation is dead," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. "More than 139,000 good jobs were added to the private sector in May, all accounted for by American-born workers."
The private sector has now accounted for nearly every job created since Trump took office in January. That includes four straight months of gains in construction, while wage growth for working Americans continues to beat expectations. Real average hourly earnings are up nearly 4% over the past year. The White House also emphasized that under Trump, real disposable personal income is growing at more than three times the pace of Biden's final year in office.
The report also marks a reversal from the trend seen under Biden, where government jobs made up a significant share of employment gains. Under Trump, 99.8% of jobs added have been in the private economy. Leavitt argued that this reflects a return to a market-driven labor force: "Americans should continue to trust in President Trump, who continues to beat expectations."
Council of Economic Advisers Chair Steve Miran noted on Fox News that over half a million jobs have been created since January--all going to native-born workers. "The President is succeeding in creating hundreds of thousands of jobs."
🚨 THE TRUMP EFFECT: 139,000 jobs added in May, surpassing expectations. @FoxBusiness: "We're looking at a market that's really taking off here." 🔥 pic.twitter.com/DD89mNQLce
The Democrat-Media Party Only Cares About Illegal Aliens
—Ace
From Instapundit, Scott Jennings doesn't really argue with CNN's usual panel of liberal Democrats. He just keeps asking the same question, and getting them all on the record that they support paying for the health care of illegal aliens, forever, including, of course, all of the "trans" shit.
Biden Put "Unaccompanied Minor" Illegal Aliens Into the Homes of Unvetted Illegal Alien Sponsors. One Fifteen Year Old Girl Was Repeatedly Raped by Biden's Appointed Child-Molester.
—Ace
Biden practiced family separation. Instead of sending "unaccompanied minor" illegal aliens back to their home countries to live with their families, he scrambled to find homes in America he could put them in.
His Administration didn't bother vetting the men he was giving children to.
So they put children into the home of pedophiles and rapists.
A 37-year-old illegal immigrant man was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing at least one teen girl who the federal government sent to live with him as part of the Biden administration's scheme to place "unaccompanied alien children" in the homes of unrelated, loosely-vetted "sponsors."
Wilson Manfredo Lopez-Carillo was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office in Florida on May 22 and charged with three counts of sexual assault on a minor.
Police said in charging documents that the victim arrived in the United States in August 2023 as a 16-year-old, and was placed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the home of several people, whose names are redacted but appear to include Lopez-Carillo.
The victim "reported three instances of sexual battery by [redacted] all occurring in February 2024. [Redacted] stated that [redacted] was not present during these incidents, as she would be out with her children selling tamales to support the family. She explained that [redacted] took advantage of [redacted's] absence to abuse her," a document said.
While she was in the kitchen, Lopez-Carillo "grabbed her, and took her to his bedroom. He removed her pants and underwear and proceeded to sexually batter her," police wrote. A second incident unfolded similarly, with the man offering her $100 to keep quiet, which she refused, police said. She did not report the incidents to police initially "due to fear of retribution from [redacted], who had threatened her," it continued.
The heavily redacted police statement suggested that the adult woman in the house became suspicious and confronted Lopez-Carillo. The victim was given three days to leave the house and "sought refuge with...a friend from church." The friend contacted the woman who "revealed that [redacted] had sexually assaulted [the victim] which led to her expulsion. [The friend] expressed his shock and concern upon hearing this. He decided to allow [the victim] to stay in a room at his home to prevent her from being homeless."
Once living with the friend, she felt safe enough to report the abuse to the police. The friend later became the girl's legal guardian after receiving permission from her parents, and told police another girl had also sought refuge at his home after a person whose name was redacted had attempted to sexually assault her.
Police set up a recorded call where the victim asked Lopez-Carillo why he had assaulted her as a minor, and he "responded by attempting to justify his actions." He did not deny the incidents but "tried to downplay their significance" and "attempted to shift the blame onto [redacted]," police said.
"When confronted about the possibility of a pregnancy, due to unprotected sex, he mentioned giving [the victim] a pill," they wrote.
So much more "humane" then sending the illegal immigrant child back to her home.
THE MORNING RANT: Harvard’s Doom Loop: The Poison Ivy is Considering Selling Some of its Illiquid Endowment at a Discount for Some Fast Cash
—Buck Throckmorton
Selling an illiquid asset at a discount is a desperate action that desperate people do when they need fast cash. On a related note, Harvard Management Company (Harvard’s endowment) is considering selling some of its illiquid assets at a discount to quickly raise some cash.
This Harvard Crimson piece, “HMC Plans $1 Billion Sale of Private Equity Stakes,” quotes a Rutgers Business School professor as stating that “in most secondary sales, assets are sold at a discount, meaning [Harvard] would only benefit if they need extra cash on hand — or if they believe the stakes up for sale will lose value in the future.”
In other words, Harvard is either unloading bad assets which are worth less than their book value, or they’re selling at a discount because they’re desperate for cash. (Or both.) Either scenario is very bad.
I have been writing about Harvard’s cash scramble at various outlets, including this recent piece at The Blaze, in which I discussed how Harvard has had to repeatedly keep borrowing more money, going to the debt markets four times in barely a year to raise about $2.5 billion. This is money needed to ensure staff gets paid and the lights remain on as the historical operating cash flow from donors and government has dried up.
In the past two months, Harvard has turned to the bond markets twice to quickly raise over $1 billion in cash. This follows a scramble in 2024 to raise $1.5 billion through similar bond offerings, which still fell short of its initial target.
In April, Charles Gasparino hinted that Harvard was starting to sell some of the liquid assets in its endowment, e.g. stocks and bonds. He wrote”Wall Street execs who follow the college endowment business say it's only a matter of time before Harvard starts selling what's liquid in its portfolio, ie stocks, maybe issue more debt, if its tax-exempt status remains revoked. There are UNCONFIRMED market reports that the selling has already begun.”
As we’re learning now, the situation was even worse than what Mr. Gasparino was hearing. Selling stocks and bonds at least gets you a dollar-for-dollar price on the exchange value of your asset. A desperation sale of an illiquid asset, such as a stake in a private equity investment, is like selling a prized possession to a pawn shop. “Forced liquidation value” of anything means that a big financial haircut is going to be realized.
It gets even worse for the Poison Ivy school.
Harvard’s endowment is famously (allegedly?) valued at $53 billion. Beyond the discount required to sell an illiquid asset, investor Bill Ackman believes that the underlying value of the endowment has already taken a huge hit, because private equity uses leverage as a multiplier of investment gains. This multiplier effect can also work in reverse in regard to losses, and probably has. In his example, “if a real estate fund’s asset values decline by 15% and the assets are levered 60%, the fund’s equity value will decline by 37.5%.” In speculating how much cash Harvard could generate by selling its illiquid, impaired assets, Ackman wrote, ”the realizable values of Harvard’s private assets could be as low 40% of current carrying values if Harvard needs to liquidate substantial portions of its assets to meet its obligations.” Ackman estimates that the actual realizable value of Harvard’s endowment might not exceed $40 billion right now. That represents a $13 billion book loss that has already occurred to Harvard’s legendary endowment.
In offloading some of its illiquid private equity investments, Harvard may be counting on finding a “greater fool” who wants to bask in the glow of being a partner with Harvard in its exclusive investment club. Forbes magazine just published a warning to those potential greater fools about how Harvard is willing to take some measure of loss in order to transfer the rest of the risk to everyday investors.
Private equity investors, including endowments, are desperate to offload illiquid stakes. By marketing these assets to retail investors, Wall Street creates a new pool of buyers—less sophisticated investors who may not fully grasp the risks.
So, is Harvard now reduced to fleecing rubes from flyover country with its tarnished private investments to cut its losses and get some quick cash? It would appear so. But even that is just a short-term fix.
Harvard is in a doom loop. Its donor base is diminishing and sitting on their wallets, as many of them are repulsed by what the school has become and how tainted its brand is. President Trump is cutting off the flow of federal dollars to the school. Harvard has tapped out the bond market, and further bonds will likely start to be priced at junk bond levels if the school has to keep borrowing to plug holes in its cash flow. The endowment is crashing in value, and its illiquid assets are being sold at a fire sale.
The Harvard asset that always held the most value was its reputation. Having foolishly decided to destroy that asset in service to a globalist political ideology that is hostile to the United States and western civilization, the seeds were planted for the doom loop that is consuming the disgraced university.
If the video is glitchy, It is The World at War Episode 17 "Morning" which is aeasily found on YouTube and elsewhere.
Good morning kids. 81 years ago at almost this very hour, the allied armies, led by the United States and the British stormed ashore on five Normandy beaches to begin the liberation of Europe from the barbarism of Nazi German occupation and all of its horrors. God bless the sacred memory of all those wonderful guys who gave their lives and eternal honor to all who came ashore that day.
Within a year, those who survived the landings would have to endure other nightmares, with names written in their and their buddies' blood like Falaise, Arnhem, Bastogne, the Hurtgen Forest and then the Rhine, and if they survived would ultimately come upon the electrified barbed wire gates of hell that were Buchenwald, Dachau, Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen. At the latter, the wonderful Angels of the Lord dressed as members of the US 11th Armored Division liberated my mother. Miraculous as her survival was, somehow both her parents and her 6 siblings, also managed to survive and be reunited to live long and full lives here and in Israel. The odds of an entire family making it through intact are astronomical, and as I am now in the twilight of my years, with one of my mother's sisters still alive at age 93, I just shake my head at what a blessing it was for them and me to be here today.
Holocaust survivor who supports nonprofit suing Trump over refugee ban surprised that illegal Egyptian migrant would set her on fire
. . . An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was burned in Sunday’s alleged terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, shares a message for the rest of Americans, saying, “We are better than this,” before asking, “What the hell is going on in our country?”
She's wearing a huge HIAS button. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, is a Jewish American nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees, like the Catholic and Lutheran charities.
“We at HIAS have been so blessed to have Ali Mayorkas on our board of directors, and are thrilled to have him nominated to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security,” said HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield. “Ali has consistently demonstrated that he is not only a strong and highly respected leader, but an empathetic one who knows the heart of the stranger, as the child of a Holocaust survivor, as a Latino, and as a refugee and immigrant himself. Ali is uniquely suited to rebuild public trust in the Department of Homeland Security as he knows that America is at its greatest when we build bridges, not walls.”
This episode once again highlights the head shaking question of why are Jews liberal and vote Democrat. I can certainly understand how generations of persecution can attract people to movements and individuals who mouth the right words about Justice and security and yet deliver exactly the opposite. Hell, forget Jews but for blacks to vote generationally for the party that had them in literal chains as slaves and then kept them in economic chains, destroying them all in the name of political power is insanity. Which as we all know is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.
Back to this poor woman, This is the direct result of thinking with one's heart and not with one's head while at the same time being completely deaf, dumb and blind to everything around one.
You will never find a more compassionate, sympathetic and even empathetic human being on this earth than my dear mother of blessed memory. But she knew what was what in terms of the politics of this nation. She knew what the Democrat Left was all about and would have none of it. From the moment they came onto the scene, she knew the Clintons were going to be trouble, and sadly she had to endure most of the first term of Obama.
The salient point is, unlike this poor woman from Boulder, there is no way in hell my mother would have countenanced open borders, or the flooding in of unvetted aliens regardless of their claims of persecution. And it took her years of sweating out the paperwork in a Displaced Persons Camp before she got her papers, and she had to prove she was not an indigent, had communicable diseases, was not a communist agitator, and that she had relatives here in the States who would support her while she got on her feet.
A big hat tip to commenters Washington Nearsider who brought this to our attention late in the comments yesterday, and to Lizzy whose reaction sums it all up:
What's wrong with this country? People like you brought in terrorists. GAH!
And just to preempt the usual trolls and other anti-semites out there, this is NOT a Jewish thing. Some people have bleeding hearts for very good reasons but unfortunately they let their good natures and own personal issues cloud their ability to think clearly, reasonably and rationally. And that is why this poor woman aligned herself with individuals who want to unleash the very same barbarism that nearly gassed and then burnt her in a crematorium, or shot her into a mass grave, right here in America.
Compassion and charity are of course noble and admirable. They are central tenets of Judaism and Christianity. But let's have a healthy dose of sanity
With that off my chest, the big story is that Trump and Musk are at each other's throats over the budget bill and while I have my reservations over incurring trillions more in debt to stop incurring trillions more in debt, the incongruity of this and the purpose of DOGE now coupled with the nastiness between these two individuals is only giving our enemies propaganda/politica fodder that we can ill afford.
We have to get our act together.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Michael Walsh: As my regular readers know by now, the subject of this excerpt is not only things military, but also things artistic, historical, musical, and poetic -- in other words, the context in which the various commanders (in this case, Napoleon) undertook their great enterprises. I hope you find it both challenging and interesting. THE CONVERSATION: 'Amateurs Talk Tactics; Pros Talk Logistics'
But there is a cost to committing crimes. And there are costs for carrying out acts of terrorism. If one of those costs is inconvenience to your loved ones, then perhaps you should think twice about it first. Because the sympathies of the American public have been stretched quite far enough. (Lest we forget, the mere presence on our soil without permission is a crime in and of itself, calling for immediate deportation, no trials no questions - jjs) Douglas Murray: Liberals turn killers, racists, and haters into martyrs
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
The Democrat Party writ large, the old corporate media, and academia have been pressing the propaganda for years now that President Trump and the Republican Party are racists and Nazis who are bent on installing a fascist regime in the United States. Progressive violence was completely predictable—It’s in their DNA
Justice Clarence Thomas, in an opinion joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, excoriated the lower court's decision. "Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose unnecessary burdens on litigants, and cause confusion for courts. The 'background circumstances' rule—correctly rejected by the Court today—is one example of this phenomenon." Supreme Court Rules for Straight Woman in Ohio Reverse-Discrimination Case
The CBO was established in 1974 to “provide objective, nonpartisan information to support the Congressional budget process and to help the Congress make effective budget and economic policy.” However, a new report from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) — a right-of-center public policy think tank — found that the CBO is overwhelmingly staffed by Democrats, and that the agency has a history of scoring errors that benefit Democrats’ proposals. ‘Nonpartisan’ Congressional Budget Office Not So Nonpartisan After All, Report Shows
Industries in the U.S. and Europe, including automotive and defense, face potential shutdowns due to rare earth shortages. Prices for restricted materials have skyrocketed, with some increasing four to ten times their previous cost. Trump Paused Tariffs, But China is Still Restricting This Critical Import.
For years, the economic establishment has begged the United States to do one thing: tax consumption, not production. Consumption taxes don’t penalize saving. They don’t discourage work. They don’t tax the income you might reinvest in a business or use to raise a family. If you’re designing a tax system from scratch, you start with consumption. Breitbart Business Digest: Why New American Populists Want to Fund the Government with Tariffs
This week, 22-year-old Mario Elier Leal went before Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane for a sentencing hearing at a federal courthouse in McAllen. Texas. Leal previously pleaded guilty to straw purchasing charges in 2024. DACA Recipient Sent to U.S. Prison for Buying Guns for Mexican Cartels
Texas has agreed to halt its policy of offering in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants following a legal challenge from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The federal lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, alleges that the practice unfairly discriminates against out-of-state American students by granting financial advantages to illegals. Texas FINALLY Halts Tuition for Illegals.
Can you spell J-I-H-A-D? The taxpayer subsidized “journalists” at NPR are propping up Rachel Accurso, a viral children’s “educator,” as the “modern-day” Mr. Rogers. Except “Ms. Rachel,” his woke re-incarnation, is a sheltered middle aged woman who turned what seems to be a histrionic personality disorder into a $10 million internet grift. Tax-Funded NPR Makes Martyr Out of Kids' Hamas Propagandist 'Ms. Rachel'
In November 2024, 68.4% of California voters approved Prop 36, aimed at cracking down on retail theft and drug use and subsequently reversing Proposition 47, which reduced criminal punishments such as shoplifting and grand theft. But when Newsom released his revised $322 billion budget in May, small business owners and lawmakers criticized him for leaving out funding and ignoring the measure’s broad support. ‘It’s Disgusting’: Voters Are Furious With Gavin Newsom For Pulling Rug From Under Passed Ballot Measure
The lawsuit alleged that the gunmakers' business practices often led to a "deadly flood of military-style and other particularly lethal guns" across the border, and these companies are "fully on notice of the massive trafficking of their guns into Mexico" but haven't done anything about it. (Obama and Holder should've been the defendants! - jjs) Unanimous SCOTUS Laughs Mexico's Lawsuit Against U.S. Gunmakers Out of Court
In the opinion, Kagan noted how Mexico tried to point to the way certain guns were marketed and designed in hopes of getting traction with their lawsuit. She explained why the court rejected this approach and while so doing, highlighted how popular and “widely” owned AR-15s, AK-47s, and other similar rifles have become. Justice Elena Kagan: AR-15s and AK-47s Are ‘Widely Legal and Bought by Many Ordinary Consumers’
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
White House insiders told the Daily Caller Thursday that the snubbing of Elon Musk’s NASA pick was the final straw after months of friction between he and the Trump White House. After Musk publicly criticized Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” for days, Trump finally alleged the former head of DOGE has Trump Derangement Syndrome. Then the floodgates opened: Musk called for the president’s impeachment and alleged his former boss is in the Epstein Files. EXCLUSIVE: White House Insiders Vent On Big Beautiful Breakup, Reveal Elon’s Final Straw
The specialized anti-drone munitions, which were originally marked for Ukraine, will instead be sent to U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East, according to an internal memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth obtained by the WSJ. The administration has stressed the need for Europe to take on a larger share of the defense burden for Ukraine as the U.S. shifts focus to other theaters, most notably the Indo-Pacific. Trump Admin Reportedly Pulls Plug On Key Rockets To Ukraine, Redirects Equipment To US Forces (Sanity is a good thing - jjs)
Shortly after having its best-ever result in an election and surging to the top of the polls, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) announced that it determined that the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is a “right-wing extremist” organisation. The move, which is currently under judicial review before coming into effect, would pave the way for the intel agency to surveil party communications and use informants to monitor party operations. Former German Spy Chief Says Intel Agencies ‘Weaponised’ Against Right Wing Populists
“A soup can is sacralized... Joyce seems to have viewed the Church as narrow and demanding, the ultimate bitch ex.” The Scandal of Dogmatism
HITHER & YON
On a quiet day in Normandy, two boys strolled the beach in blazers—unaware how close their father came to joining the thousands buried just beyond the dunes. D-Day 2025: A Meditation and Remembrance
Space Ice: Batman & Robin Space Ice has avoided all superhero movies (I think) in the past, but now that he's out of Steven Seagal movies, he might have to transition. Or maybe he's just covering it because it's Arnold. Wrong! He's done Madame Web and Morbius and probably a bunch more I've forgotten.
Podcast: President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill...isn't, Congress shirks its responsibility again (shocker!), Boulder should be an overdue wake-up call for Jews in America, should Israel sink Thunberg's boat? And more!
Legacy media isn’t just fake news, it’s also full of Hamas-sourced, terrorist propaganda: Fox News, AP, CNN, Others Ran With Massive Hamas-Sourced Fake News, Then the Surveillance Video Came Out. “Multiple press outlets…ran with a report early Sunday morning claiming Israeli forces randomly opened fire on civilians gathered to collect aid. Sourced by ‘health officials’ and ‘witnesses,’ the claim involved dozens being killed and ‘at least’ 175 injured.” It wasn’t true. But our loathsome media wanted it to be true, so they reported it anyway. [Buck]
President Donald J. Trump's economic agenda is working: inflation is down, income is up, and the trade deficit just fell by the largest amount on record.
Today's economic report follows multiple robust jobs reports, below-expectation inflation reports, and a strong bump in consumer confidence.
President Trump continues to prove doomsday "experts: wrong with his America First economic agenda that's delivering for the American people.
Well, now they've heard it, and they've also heard that a lot of Americans resent the meritocrats' insulation from what's happening elsewhere, especially as America's unfortunate record over the past couple of decades, whether in economics, in politics, or in foreign policy, doesn't suggest that the "meritocracy" is overflowing with, you know, actual merit.
In the United States, the result has been Trump. In Britain, the result was Brexit. In both cases, the allegedly elite -- who are supposed to be cool, considered, and above the vulgar passions of the masses -- went more or less crazy. From conspiracy theories (it was the Russians!) to bizarre escape fantasies (A Brexit vote redo! A military coup to oust Trump!) the cognitive elite suddenly didn't seem especially elite, or for that matter particularly cognitive.
In fact, while America was losing wars abroad and jobs at home, elites seemed focused on things that were, well, faintly ridiculous. As Richard Fernandez tweeted: "The elites lost their mojo by becoming absurd. It happened on the road between cultural appropriation and transgender bathrooms." It was fatal: "People believe from instinct. The Roman gods became ridiculous when the Roman emperors did. PC is the equivalent of Caligula's horse."
REPORTER: There's also been a lot of discussion recently about your mental and physical capabilities while you were in office.
BIDEN: You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them.
REPORTER: Do you want to reply to any of those reports, and also to the fact that there are some Democrats who are now questioning whether you should have run for reelection in the first place?
BIDEN: Why didn't they run against me then? Because I'd have beaten them.
REPORTER: Do you have any regrets?
BIDEN: No, I don't have any regrets.
Note that a "journalist" opened this line of questioning by asserting, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, that Biden "looks good" and "speaks powerfully."
But how could they report that? Did they have insiders confirming that? Did they have a medical doctor certifying he "looks good" and "speaks powerfully?"
Forgotten 70s Non-Musical Sci-Fi Mystery Click Anyone remember this? The author licensed a bunch of covers from sci-fi books and packaged them as a supposed guide to Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 AD, published by the "Terran Trade Authority," along with fictitious ship names and made-up specifications.
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton rip Michael Steele for being an absolute fool, the economy is looking good, Harvard is looking bad, we are bored with Ukraine, and more!
.jpg)
