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
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
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - February 2, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Beyond a SHADOW of a doubt!
Howdy Hordelings, and a happy Sunday evening to you all! Here we are in Feb-you-air-ee. That's right, the first "r" in February should always remain silent. Today is Groundhog Day, in case anyone wasn't aware. No word on how much ground was hogged in Punxsutawney. Anyway, thanks for stopping by tonight's ONT!
"Every single candidate running to chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC) blamed former Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss to President Donald Trump on"...
The committee’s final chair candidate forum, hosted by MSNBC at Washington, DC’s Georgetown University on Thursday, featured former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, DNC Vice Chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democrat party Chair Ben Wikler, former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir, former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Nate Snyder, and Newton, Massachusetts Democratic City Committee executive member Jason Paul.
When MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart asked who “believes that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris’s defeat,” every candidate quickly raised their hand
***
Social media users pointed out that the consensus meant that Democrats “didn’t learn anything” from their November 2024 loss
***
While DNC leaders continue to push the narrative that American voters chose Trump over Harris due to sexism and racism, 40 percent of women under 30-years-old went for the Republican candidate, and ethnic minority groups made record shifts to the right.
The Democrats have learned nothing. My old party lost everything in 2024, but instead of examining what went wrong, they've doubled down on failure.
They're officially the party of Ivy League snobs, self-absorbed race grievance fools, unabashed elitists & unlikable nerds. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qMk0mnddHh
— Adam B. Coleman, Le Based Black (@wrong_speak) February 2, 2025
Well done, DNC! Looks like the Democrats may never lose a national election ever again.
Before the internet, this was the best way to get your local weather. Local weather every ten minutes - "on the 8s". The music for these segments was smooth as silk!
Watching The Weather Channel in the 90s was such a vibe. So many bangers were played during the Local On The 8s. pic.twitter.com/iDlWKKCRD8
This is one of you morons from back in the day, right?
Tell me she's an 'ette. Lie to me if you have to.
****
DJ Doof – Outta Sight Version
****
Tonight’s ONT brought to you by bothersome activities.
(Mystery click?)
****
Your feedback and suggestions may or may not be important to me. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or you can do the email thing at doof2112 at proton dot me. Operators are standing by.
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be February? Man, January went by fast! I'll again be in and out of the comments tonight as I try to get some stuff done for work Monday morning.
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Q: Weasel, why do we focus on fundamentals?
A: We focus on fundamentals to build good, solid and repeatable habits and muscle memory.
How is your focus on fundamentals coming along? Showing any positive results?
******
Hickok45 - Too Valuable to Shoot?
I'd like to hear what all y'all think about this. Do you shoot everything you own, or do you have some firearms you consider too valuable to risk taking to the range? Does monetary value alone make the difference or are there other reasons you would consider a weapon too valuable to shoot? A family heirloom, for example? What sort of adverse things do you think might happen to a valuable gun if you take it to the range and shoot it, aside from losing it altogether, assuming the correct ammunition is used?
******
RCBS - How Reloading Dies Are Made
******
Israeli Bandage (or Dressing)
Everyone should have one in their safety kit or range bag, but do you know how to use it?
******
This Book Has Lots of Pictures
One of the nice things about revolvers is they're simple. One of the anxiety inducing things about pistols is the high probability of leftover parts upon re-assembly. Fear no more, the 7th Edition of Automatic Pistols Assembly and Disassembly is now available.
Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Food Thread: Baah, Baah, Fat Sheep, Get Onto My Grill!
—CBD
For whatever reason, lamb isn't particularly popular around these parts. Sure, during holidays I see a bit more of a selection, but aside from a few packs of loin chops and some boneless legs, it is slim pickings.
But I like lamb, and buy it when I see something good. Unfortunately the last several times I bought lamb it was underwhelming. a bit too fatty... a bit too gamey, a bit too tough. And that's not surprising, since most of the lamb around here is commodity lamb from Australia or New Zealand. It's not bad, it's just not that good.
So imagine my surprise when I walked past the sad, small corner of the butcher's display at my favorite market and saw some lamb shoulder chops with "AMERICAN" labels on them! What the hell... why not!
And there was great joy at Chez Dildo that night! Delicious! I trimmed out a couple of pieces of fat, then salt, pepper, garlic, Rosemary and olive oil. That's it. I let it marinate for a couple of hours, and then grilled them on a hot fire for about six-eight minutes.
The meat was relatively tender, it didn't have that greasy, gamey flavor, and it was flavorful. It was absolutely better than the typical Australian stuff I have become used to around here.
I am hoping that this wasn't a glitch in the matrix and that they will be carrying more American lamb. But I will have a chat with the manager just in case. I am looking forward to finding those little loin chops that are an absolute hoot to cook and eat, and maybe if I can get a second mortgage, a rib rack!
I am all for people being able to eat and drink what they want. Well... except for maple syrup on French Toast, but that's a discussion for another day!
Raw milk is probably the biggest issue in the United States when it comes to meddlesome government drones telling us what we can't drink for breakfast. So when I see that our rights are being respected, I am pleased... sort of.
But raw milk is absolutely more dangerous than pasteurized milk, and people get sick, and sometimes die, wherever it is allowed. Like in France!
I am torn between a rational respect for straightforward food safety regulations, and my profound disgust with an overweening government that is absolutely convinced that everything they do is correct. And that means that they will send SWAT teams to farms to stop them from selling milk!
I'm tending toward more freedom.
******
I wonder what it was about this wine that caught my eye?
I've actually had it. It's not bad, sort of a generic Sonoma County Cabernet.
And look what I found!
I wonder which one is better?
******
My mom made Brunswick stew a few times, and while I would love to say that I remember it fondly, I...um...don't. I do remember that it was made because my dad brought a ton of pulled pork back from North Carolina, and Brunswick Stew is the natural progression. I think it's in the Bible.
Anyone have an old family recipe? Or is it like biscuits...everyone has a recipe!
******
My go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies is great! I usually have some in the freezer, just ready to go on a moment's notice. One of my SiLs thinks I have some ultra-secret special recipe from the ruins of the original Tollhouse, and I'm not sharing it with her because I am an evil and perverse cook.
The truth is that I use the recipe on the back of the Nestle's chocolate chip bag. But she doesn't believe me.
Let's face it, fresh chocolate chip cookies are great, regardless of the recipe. Sure, there are probably a few crappy recipes out there, but most of them are pretty much the same.
First, there are lots of steps in his process, so you won't be saving any time. It's just compressed into a frenetic day. Second, using a brine injector rather than simply brining the pork belly is not going to produce consistent brining. Third, he didn't do a comparison with traditionally-made bacon, so this is sort of silly. Fourth, he doesn't address the real issue, which is that he is a sh*tty planner, and should have started his regular bacon recipe a week before.
Yeah, this article irritated me.
******
[Yes, It's a repeat, but it makes me laugh]
******
What the hell happened to all the vegetables? And send me garlic that isn't grown in heavy metals and human waste in China, well-marbled hanger steaks and elk chops to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shake their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.
$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty of fifty years, but it is worth it!
That drain thingy was originally round, but it didn't fit through the slightly smaller opening in the sink grid. So I had to bend the edges and hammer them flat so it would fit and not cut me up.
Who designs this stuff?
Do I have to replace the sink so that the drain thingy fits? Yeah... it came in a two-pack, so I have one in reserve!
To Be Consistent with the George Santos Precedent, Raphael Warnock Must be Expelled from Congress
—Buck Throckmorton
Representative George Santos was expelled from Congress for embellishing his resume and for allegations of misconduct, including the illegal diversion of campaign funds for personal uses.
Senator Raphael Warnock (D – GA) was Chairman of a “non-partisan” group that engaged in a massive violation of campaign finance laws in 2018. The “non-partisan” group led by Warnock spent millions of dollars illegally attempting to influence the outcome of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. Despite the dishonest and illegal spending by Warnock’s “non-partisan” group on behalf of Ms. Abrams, she lost that race. Raphael Warnock, who was Chairman of the “New Georgia Project” at the time, is now professing total ignorance of the actions his organization was engaged in. That is as unbelievable as anything George Santos ever said.
Representative Santos was expelled from Congress. If George Santos’ fabulism and misallocation of funds warranted his expulsion, then Senator Raphael Warnock needs to be promptly expelled from Congress too.
News broke a few weeks ago that the Georgia Ethics Commission unanimously voted to fine the New Georgia Project and its affiliated spinoff, The New Georgia Project Action Fund, $300,000 for violating state campaign laws and for failing to register as a political committee. As reported in a piece at The Hill titled “Nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams secretly campaigned for her in 2018” these groups admitted that they violated the law by campaigning for Abrams.
The commission found the nonprofits raised upward of $4 million and spent more than $3 million to help Abrams and other 2018 candidates. The groups did not file as a campaign committee before receiving donations and failed to file campaign finance reports before the election, the commission found.
Of course, the New Georgia Project could not register as a partisan campaign committee because it’s a 501(c)(3) organization, for which partisan political activity is specifically prohibited. Per the IRS website a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization cannot “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
Further, according to the mission statement at the New Georgia Project’s website, ”New Georgia Project is a nonpartisan effort to register, civically engage, and build power with the New Georgia Majority–the large and growing population of Black, brown, young, and other historically marginalized voters in the Peach State.”
Raphael Warnock led this organization in a massive financial and political fraud. Donors who thought they were giving to a non-partisan organization to help “marginalized” voters were actually giving to an organization actively, and illegally, assisting the Stacey Abrams campaign. The New Georgia Project, with Raphael Warnock serving as its as Chairman, was also actively violating federal tax laws.
Do you remember how the media reported that our democracy was at risk of being subverted by Russian front groups because they bought $100,000 of ads on Facebook in 2016?
Yet, Raphael Warnock’s group illegally spent more than $3 million in Georgia alone in 2018 in an effort to subvert the legal election process.
As a refresher about George Santos’ expulsion from Congress, here is a link to an NBC News story reporting that a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives, including 105 Republicans, had voted to expel him.
Just 11 months into his first term in Congress, Santos has admitted to lying about his background but denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the almost two dozen federal charges.
But he began losing significant support just before Thanksgiving after the bipartisan House Ethics Committee issued a damning 56-page report detailing allegations that he had deceived his donors, filed false campaign statements and used campaign money to fund his lavish lifestyle.
Among the things he spent campaign funds on were rent, luxury designer goods, personal trips to Las Vegas and the Hamptons, cosmetic treatments, including Botox, and a subscription to the adult-content site OnlyFans, the report said.
Santos was alleged to have deceived donors, to being dishonest about required campaign filings, and to misusing donated funds. The exact same is true of Raphael Warnock.
In summary, Santos lied, and so did Warnock. Santos was accused of misappropriating money, as was Warnock. But George Santos never diverted funds in an effort to subvert our democratic processes. Under Raphael Warnock’s leadership, there was an illegal effort to undermine election integrity and to illegally affect the outcome of a statewide election.
If George Santos’ actions warranted expulsion from Congress, so do Raphael Warnock’s actions.
No one is above the law, including Senator Raphael Warnock (D - GA). https://t.co/JGTeZodXto
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-2-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants (requires a sonic screwdriver for assembly)...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, watch out for groundhogs, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
That's a point I have tried to hammer home for years.
The best X in the world is the one you like the most!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2025 06:37 PM
CBD posted this on last week's Food Thread. It applies just as much to books as it does to food!
This is a screenshot from the episode "Silence in the Library" from the Fourth Series of Doctor Who (the third series featuring the Tenth Doctor). Supposedly, it's the largest library in the galaxy, covering an entire world. Normally, it would be a teeming hive of activity, but now everyone is gone. Devoured by the shadowy, mysterious Vashta Nerada, which hides from the light and can strip the flesh from bones in the blink of an eye.
FANTASY MAPS SHOULD BE WEIRDER
Fantasy maps, by and large, tend to be somewhat conventional in how they are drawn. Many of them obviously use the maps from Lord of the Rings for inspiration, to the point that there is now a trope just for maps drawn in that style: Left-Justified Fantasy Map.
However, in the real world, maps can be very imaginative, as the creators of ancient maps had much less information to call upon when drawing maps. They *tried* to make accurate maps whenever possible, but they really didn't understand much about the shape of the world and its continents. Thanks to satellites, we now have the most accurate maps ever drawn in human history.
I love a good map when I'm reading a story, even when that story is set in the real world. I pull up Google Earth just so I can get a sense of the environment in which the story is set. Even if it's a fictional location, such a small town in the middle of nowhere, there's often enough markers in the story that I can find a general location of the setting.
If you are writing a historical novel, why limit yourself to our modern interpretation of maps? Why not use a historical map that is reflective of how the characters in the story perceived the world?
++++++++++
++++++++++
THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING?
In the video clip above, two authors discuss briefly the future of publishing, starting with the idea of "sensitivity readers" for James Bond books. "Sensitivity readers" has been around for a few years now. As I'm sure we all know, it involves a group of woke scolds revising books for language they find "offensive" or "triggering" to their preferred targeted audiences. The authors in the video clip mention that books might need to come with specific labels, such as "100% author written--no AI involved." Or perhaps multiple editions of books will become the norm, with a special edition for the "woke" crowd and the regular, uncut, author's preferred edition for the rest of us normies. David Zaritsky points out that the publishers seem to be chasing an audience that doesn't really exist. If a person won't read James Bond because they find him to be an offensive character, does changing his character really entice someone to pick up his books? And doing that is going to piss off the much, much larger audience that have enjoyed Ian Fleming's books as he originally intended them to be read, warts and all.
MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
When a nation escapes from a downward spiral like America has just done, it is instructive to take a look at what could have been from history. Much of modern leftism traces its roots to the French Revolution, and the insanity and depravity of the left has been surprisingly consistent, going back over two hundred years; modernity only somewhat moderating their actions.
Paris in the Terror by Stanley Loomis traces the stories of three key figures in the French Revolution, and how it ultimately destroyed them: Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton, and the ringleader Robespierre. All of them were overjoyed to send thousands of their fellow citizens to the guillotine, and of the three, only Marat escaped that same fate, succumbing to an assassin's knife.
Loomis gives us an in depth look at the attitudes of the three, and how they belittled the lives of their countrymen. Danton once told Robespierre that the Terror was doomed as it was repugnant to the French, yet none of them foresaw that the Terror would make victims of them as well.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (St5Dt)
Comment: I think it may be a bit too early to say America has fully escaped from the downward spiral. There's no question that we have been granted a reprieve and an opportunity to reverse course. We've already seen just what President Trump is capable of doing in a mere two weeks of his administration. It's glorious to behold. But let's not get too complacent. The Left never rests, after all. They are reeling right now, but I suspect by the end of the year they may rally back, especially if they can manufacture enough scandals around Trump's Cabinet to call for more impeachments. The GOPe is still out there as well, and they hate Trump as much as, if not more than, the Democrats do.
+++++
Currently rereading books 1 through 14 of The Phoenix Initiative, which is a Four Horsemen Universe series by Chris Kennedy and a ton of other indie authors. If you like space marine, and solid world building check out any of the Four Horsemen Universe stand alone or series books. Some of the series alternate between full length novels and 25 to 30 short stories to build the universe and flesh out characters in the universe.
All authors are indie so you aren't giving the publishing industry a dime too.
Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (MsrgL)
Comment: Shared universes can be a lot of fun, especially when the authors appear to be having fun telling stories in those universes. This is how the entire Cthulhu Mythos started--Lovecraft and his friends just wrote stories that all shared common ideas and passed them around. After a few decades, the Cthulhu Mythos became its own thing.
+++++
Finished rereading The Imperial Rebellion by our own A.H. Lloyd. This completed a sorta Wars like universe saga (Man of Destiny series), but with better characters and more plausible narrative.
I liked it, and the ending of the series was quite satisfying. "He shot him in the face!" is a good answer to difficult problems posed by this series.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:25 AM (u82oZ)
Comment: Han Solo approves this message.
More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:
After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore
At the beginning of the year, I said I don't have any New Year's Resolutions, but I do have some reading goals. One of them is to read all 19 books in Star Wars: New Jedi Order, an epic space opera series written by a dozen different authors. I have read the first book before (Vector Prime), and I've read one of the key books in the middle (Star by Star), and I've read the finale (The Unifying Force), but I have not read everything in the middle.
To my mind, I see this series as a direct homage to E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. The scale is suitably epic, as two titanic galactic powers square off against one another for domination of the Star Wars galaxy. The extra-galactic Yuuzhan Vong are a race of religious zealots who worship pain and suffering as their highest ideals. They are truly vile villains with no redeemable qualities whatsoever. Anyone who falls into their clutches is subjected to excruciating agony through torture, a "gift" from the Yuuzhan Vong who sincerely believe they are doing their victims a favor. Survive and you might be elevated among their ranks to join their crusade.
In the first book, we see them infiltrate the Star Wars galaxy through subterfuge and intrigue, leading to the death of two planets thanks to their bizarre organic technology that allows the Yuuzhan Vong to harness the power of gravity as a terrifying weapon, along with massive telepathic "war coordinators" that give them the power of highly-coordinated tactical and strategic attacks. On top of all that, they are "invisible" within the Force, unable to be directly affected by Force-users or to be sensed within the Force. They are so evil that the Force, which accepts the Sith, has *rejected* the Yuuzhan Vong (and kicked them out of their home galaxy).
Of all the threats faces by the Star Wars universe over the past several decades, I really can't think of an enemy more vicious and evil. It's the greatest threat the galaxy has ever faced. There are even hints in the backstory that Emperor Palpatine was preparing the galaxy for war against the Yuuzhan Vong as he somehow anticipated their arrival.
Vector Prime shows just how high the stakes are in this struggle, as one of the main characters dies an epic heroic death. George Lucas himself approved this storyline.
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Dark Tide I - Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole
Although the incursion of the Yuuzhan Vong has been stopped at Helska and Sernpidal, that does not mean the threat has gone away. Indeed, Luke and Leia suspect something much more sinister is going on in the Outer Rim territories of the galaxy. Leia seeks to alert the central government of the New Republic, for all the good that will do, while Luke and his niece and nephews investigate the Outer Rim for more signs of the Yuuzhan Vong. What they find out there will lead them down dark paths in the not-so-distant future as they confront true evil. Even the Force might not save them this time.
One of the central conflicts in these stories is not just about the battle between the citizens of the galaxy and the Yuuzhan Vong, but also the struggles each character faces within themselves. Anakin Solo seeks to prove himself worthy of being a Jedi Knight. Jaina Solo wants to be accepted on her own terms and not be overshadowed by her mother Leia's accomplishments. Jacen Solo wants to understand the true meaning of the Force as it relates to the Jedi. We see a number of philosophical discussions about the Force between characters, as they try to understand its intentions, both externally with respect to the Yuuzhan Vong, and internally with respect to themselves.
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Dark Tide II - Ruin by Michael A. Stackpole
The Yuuzhan Vong continue their inexorable advance through the galaxy, conquering a number of small, relatively unpopulated worlds. The New Republic government continues to brush this off as a minor incursion, refusing to acknowledge the very real threat the Vong pose to the entire galaxy. Desperate for allies, Leia seeks out the Imperial Remnant for assistance. Though they have their own internal problems, they are at least willing to provide military assets in service of the New Republic. Meanwhile, Luke and the rest of the Jedi seek a way to delay the Vong any way they can so that refugees from the conquered worlds may travel deeper towards the Core. They've also discovered a possible weakness in the Vong, though exploiting that weakness does mean compromising one of their key principles.
I've really been enjoying this series more than I thought I would. The authors tackle serious issues and the characters find themselves morally and ethically conflicted, as they struggle internally on some of these issues. For instance, the Ithorians value life above all else, even going so far as to create living, floating cities, so that they no longer have to walk on the ground of their homeworld. However, the key to defeating the Vong may be hidden in their biosphere. Can they overcome their reluctance to destroy life by exploiting the only advantage against the Vong that has been found so far? Do the Jedi have an obligation to become leaders and warriors among the New Republic, leading *offensive* strikes against the Vong, thus tempting them towards the Dark Side of the Force?
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Agents of Chaos I - Hero's Trial by James Luceno
The previous two novels mostly avoided Han Solo as a character, as he left the story to deal with his grief over losing his best friend Chewbacca. Now we return to Han Solo's story to see how well he's been dealing with his grief. Not well at all. He's estranged from both his youngest son, whom he partly blames for Chewbacca's death, and his wife Leia, who cannot seem to help him through his grief and who is busy with saving the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong. He leaves on a quest of his own to track down a former smuggling friend who seems to have thrown his lot in with the Vong as a collaborator. Meanwhile, the New Republic has managed to capture a deserter from the Yuuzhan Vong, but she is not at all what she seems...and the New Republic is well aware of that fact.
This story bugs me a bit because the New Republic makes some very stupid moves here. They are very well aware of the bioengineering skills of the Yuuzhan Vong, having witnessed what they did to the planet Ithor in a matter of hours. But they let a "deserter" roam among them without being in a biohazard containment unit at all times. She passed the scans for hazardous material, but scanners can only detect what they KNOW to detect. The New Republic is overly reliant on technology sometimes. Any Vong in their custody should NEVER be allowed outside a biocontainment unit. And they certainly should not be transported to the most heavily populated system in the galaxy. Idiots.
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Agents of Chaos II - Jedi Eclipse by James Luceno
It's a dark time for the New Republic. The Yuuzhan Vong continue their advance, conquering many more worlds in the galaxy closer to the Core. Now they've allied themselves with the gangster Hutts, who are simply looking out for themselves and hope to be eaten last by the vile Yuuzhan Vong.
As there are 19 books in this series and this is only book 5, I expect things are going to get much, much worse for the New Republic before they get better. I believe book 10, Star by Star does mark a turning point, but I forget the details. In the meantime, I expect to read about many more defeats of New Republic forces before then, culminating with the conquest of the heart of the New Republic, Coruscant itself.
The best selling point of the 4060 is its low power consumption, and Nvidia is using the same 4nm TSMC process for the 5000 series, so there are no easy wins there. They can use GDDR7 memory, but that's more expensive and the chip on the 5060 is unlikely to be fast enough to make good use of it.
With the 5060 Ti things are more complicated. The 4060 Ti is 40% faster in theory than the base 4060, but has exactly the same 8GB of GDDR6 RAM on a 128 bit bus, so the performance of the card is meh, and collapses as soon as games demand more than 8GB. You can get a 16GB model, but it's still constrained by the 128 bit bus.
With the 5060 Ti, Nvidia can use GDDR7 - around 40% faster - and use 24Gbit chips so that the base model has 12GB of VRAM instead of just 8GB. That would give the chip a lot more breathing room - but if it works well it will encroach on the 5070 and Nvidia can't have that.
Also Intel's B580 already exists, has 12GB of VRAM, and costs just $250, constraining both AMD and Nvidia when it comes to lower-end cards.
While we're engaging in wild speculation, will there be a desktop version of the Ryzen 370?
This is a laptop chip with four Zen 5 cores, eight slower Zen 5c, and sixteen RDNA 3.5 graphics cores, and it's quite a sold performer.
Originally there seemed to be no chance for this arriving in an AM5 socket because it only supports soldered LPDDR5 memory. Except last month Geekom, Acemagic, and Minsiforum all announced mini-PC models with the Ryzen 370 and socketed DDR5 memory, and if that is possible then a regular AM5 model should also be possible.
The Verge here is helpfully explaining that companies don't pay taxes; the cost is always passed on to the consumer... Oblivious to the fact that this fact directly counters a critical Democratic talking point.
'Shrimp fraud' rampant at many Gulf Coast restaurants, new studies find
Restaurants throughout the Gulf Coast are serving imported shrimp but telling their customers they're feasting on fresh crustaceans fished in the Gulf of Mexico, a series of new studies found.
SeaD Consulting, a food safety technology company, tested shrimp from randomly chosen restaurants in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Biloxi, Mississippi; Galveston, Texas; and Tampa Bay, Florida. Researchers found a significant number of the restaurants were passing off their shrimp as locally sourced, even though they were grown on foreign farms and imported to the U.S.
The cities with the highest "shrimp fraud rate" were Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida, at 96%, according to SeaD Consulting. Only two of the 44 restaurants sampled were serving authentic shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, a study found.
*****
The ONT Musical Emporium & Listener Supporter Emporium
I received the following note from SockMonkey:
Greetings my honored and esteemed amigo. Thought you might enjoy these two.
Son Reported His Father For Child Porn
Illicit images were discovered on kin's cellphone, police say
*****
Genius Award Winners
*****
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by definitions.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace of Spades Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. This ONT was prepared in a facility with nuts present, both ground and tree. So there. We really don't care.
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 09:47 PMComments
Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 2/1/2025
—TheJamesMadison
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Alfred Hitchcock had one real competitor for the title of Master of Suspense: the French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot. Hitchcock himself invited the comparison, and Clouzot remarked publicly about how he was flattered by the comparison. This reputation comes from about half of Clouzot's films starting with his first, L'assassin habite au 21, through his best known films, a quartet that includes Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfevres, Les Diaboliques, and Wages of Fear.
However, Clouzot remains something of a mystery to me. Not because I dislike his films (I enjoyed his filmography, even the lesser-known films, quite a bit), but because he feels like he's more than just the French Hitchcock. The films that no one mentions (not that the English language conversation around Clouzot is robust or outside of a fairly small circle of film geeks), Manon, Miquette, The Spies, and especially his final two, La Verite and Woman in Chains, are real departures from the Hitchcock-aligned aesthetic. A couple of these could be fit in awkwardly (The Spies is too black and dry and cynical of a comedy to fit with Hitchcock's and Woman in Chains isn't lurid enough to fit in with something like Frenzy), but ultimately, the shortness of Clouzot's filmography highlights a comedy like Miquette more than a comedy like Mr. and Mrs. Smith does in Hitchcock's.
And, then there's the central question of Inferno, Clouzot's unfinished film that he filmed for about a month before his star walked off set and Clouzot had a heart attack, ending the production. Inferno could have been his magnum opus, and that it remains uncompleted reveals a large whole in the filmography that feels like it would contain real answers.
Clouzot began his filmmaking career as a writer. After a stint of a few years in a sanitarium for his health, he began writing films in the years that France's civil government was controlled by Vichy. Based on the success of some of these early films, he got a contract with Continental Films, a private film company run by Nazis (Goebbels had a hand in its formation). It was here that Clouzot started directing with L'assassin habite au 21 as part of Continental's efforts to replicate American films without actually importing American films, so L'assassin is a mystery/thriller/comedy that has certain basic bones that obviously come from Hitchcock.
The center of his career under Vichy, though, was Le Corbeau. Controversy surrounded the film the moment it was released, and it led to de Gaulle, post Vichy, banning Clouzot from filmmaking (the ban lasted about 2 years in the end). The nature of the controversy seems...ill-defined 80 years later. I remember reading that it was viewed as a critique of Vichy (very easy to read that in the film). I've read recently that it was viewed as a critique of provincial France (like cosmopolitan Parisians would care). I've also read that de Gaulle's explicit reasons were that the film was viewed as a critique of France in general. No matter the reason, though, Clouzot was viewed as political and controversial, the irony being that I cannot find any explicit mention from him about politics, ever. Once he got back into filmmaking, he made Quai des Orfevre, the closest he ever got to making a "pure" Hitchcock movie (and one of my favorites from Clouzot, it's really fun).
Hitchcock
Back on the wagon of the industry, Clouzot then proceeded to branch out. First was Manon an adaptation of Antoine Prevost's novel Manon Lescaut which is more melodrama than anything else and Miquette, a comedy. Clouzot later would say that Miquette itself was unsuccessful artistically (I thought it was light fun), and the films were not as successful at the box office as something like Quai, so he was forced to go back into the realm he'd made his name in: the mystery thriller with Les Diaboliques.
It's Les Diaboliques where the comparisons to Hitchcock become the most potent because Clouzot beat Hitchcock for the rights to the source novel, She Who Was No More by Boileau-Narcejac by mere hours. Hitchcock would later get the rights to the pair's novel The Living and the Dead to make into Vertigo. The film was a large success for Clouzot, and he followed it up with his masterpiece, Wages of Fear, also a concentrated dose of tension and suspense that could fit decently in with Hitchcock's body of work.
However, that's where the comparisons largely stop. There's a certain blackly comic aspect to The Spies that aligns somewhat with Hitchcock (think of moving the body in The Trouble with Harry), but the look at espionage is so much more cynical than Hitchcock ever showed in something like Foreign Correspondent or North by Northwest. And La Verite is a courtroom drama and character study about a woman's sexual past, a film that, on the surface, resembles a combination of some Hitchcock films (namely The Paradine Case and Marnie), but the differences between French and American film censorship allowed Clouzot to be much more frank about something like a woman's sex life. La Verite is also colder and more clinical than Marnie.
Inferno
And this is where one has to start talking about Inferno, Clouzot's unfinished film. He finished La Verite in 1960, Clouzot's first wife Vera (who acted in Wages of Fear, Les Diaboliques, and The Spies) died of a heart attack, and Clouzot entered a deep depression. He married again (Ines was her name) and started work a couple of years later on an experimental film about obsession, infidelity, and the blurring line between reality and unreality.
This was also the period when the French New Wave completely overturned the French film industry. Begun by the writers at Cahiers-du-Cinema, most namely Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard. The French industry before them was moribund, and they included Clouzot. Clouzot would admit that he bought into some of their criticisms (particularly around Les Diaboliques for some reason), but he and the new bad boys of French cinema never really saw eye to eye. The catch word that Cahiers du Cinema used was "improvisation". To that, Clouzot replied, "I improvise on the page," talking about how his pre-planning for production did not prevent emotional truth which people like Truffaut found through improvisation on set. That pre-planning always worked well for Clouzot in the past, but something happened over the course of pre-production and production of Inferno that turned everything on its head.
Serge Bromberg made a documentary about the film which included shot footage, interviews from surviving cast and crew, and some recreations. It's a deep dive into what went wrong, starting with an out of control pre-production process jet-fueled by "unlimited" funding Columbia executives which allowed Clouzot's crew to simply experiment nearly endlessly with different ways to capture and distort images. This should have been the planning stage where everything got sorted, but he went into production with things not quite ironed out. Production got really derailed with Clouzot's insistence on reshooting scenes over and over again, sometimes days or even weeks after having originally gotten things into the can, behavior that his crew called unusual for him (the main comparison comes with Quai). This behavior is what led to the male star of the film, Serge Reggiani, to walk off the set.
Why focus on this unfinished film? Because I think it was to be his magnum opus, the film that he threw himself into to try and define him in general. Because it nearly killed him. Because his final completed film, Woman in Chains recycles ideas, especially experimental cinematic ideas from it. This is a story of obsession, unreality through perception, and an effort to experiment would have defined him. Where would this have fallen in Clouzot's filmography? Would it have been a thriller/mystery like Quai or Les Diaboliques or would it have been a more experimental version of La Verite? I lean to the latter, that it was Clouzot trying to tell character stories with experimental techniques.
A Short Filmography
Clouzot only has 10 completed feature films (there could be eleven if you count his documentary The Mystery of Picasso and he has a section in the anthology film Return to Life), and as I started with, it makes each individual entry more important proportionally in trying to figure out who he was as an artist. He's known as the French Hitchcock for half of his films, but then there's the other half. The comedy, the blackly comic satire, the melodramatic literary adaptation, the courtroom drama, and the character study of sadism all stick out as distinctly different from the Hitchcock comparison.
Why focus on that comparison, though? Well, most people look to these posts as some source of recommendation while I just end up babbling on about a series of films few will ever dig into. And yet, I don't really do recommendations. "Will I like this movie?" I don't know most of you very well, and I definitely don't know your tastes. Just because I liked something doesn't mean that you will. So, I end up trying to take myself out of the equation (I can't sometimes, like with Schumacher, but I do try), and end up more descriptive.
So, when I spend this whole essay trying to find this distinction between Hitchcock and Clouzot, highlighting similarities and differences, I'm trying to create this roadmap for your own brains to take. "I like Hitchcock, but the differences sound like something I wouldn't like," or "I hate Hitchcock, but the differences sound like something I would like." Or anywhere in between.
It's also about highlighting little pockets of film history, finding bits and pieces throughout the last century plus of cinema from across the world to talk about, enjoy, and share. I really enjoyed this pocket, and I hope I've convinced at least some people to try out his work. He was good at it.
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It might have been a complete mess, but it might have also been an interesting complete mess. Claude Chabrol did make a film from Clouzot's script in the 90s, which I'll have to check out at some point, which combined with this documentary is the closest we'll ever get to seeing the final product Clouzot had in mind." [Library]
Five Guns West (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "But, as a first film from Corman, this showed surprising promise. It held together decently well. It looks shockingly good with Corman getting good and complex compositions with the help of his cinematographer Floyd Crosby from beginning to end." [YouTube]
Apache Woman (Rating 2/4) Full Review "So, it's standard Western stuff. The kind of thing you'd expect to see in a double bill to fill the time. It's not good, but it's not terrible." [YouTube]
It Conquered the World (Rating 1/4) Full Review "It's silly nonsense. But it's also short, has some decent actors giving committed performances as they speak silly things, and it's professionally made. I mean…it's silly and dumb, but it's competently silly and dumb." [YouTube]
Not of This Earth (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "Instead, it's competent, partially effective, still kind of silly, a bit fun, but empty. It honestly might be his best film yet." [YouTube]
Attack of the Crab Monsters (Rating 2/4) Full Review "I mean, this is not a good film. The middle section is just kind of miserable nonsense. However, the first and final thirds of the film are actually decent and kind of fun in very different ways." [YouTube]
The Undead (Rating 2/4) Full Review "Anyway, it doesn't work. It's thin but it looks good. It's far from Corman's worst and it's showing an increased ambition from him and his writers (Griffith and Mark Hanna) which seems to indicate continued artistic growth. That's nice to see." [YouTube]
Teenage Doll (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "This movie is fine. It's not quite good, but it represents, I think, Corman and Griffith hitting some kind of groove. They're not quite hitting goodness, but they do seem to be hitting some consistent level of basic competence across an assortment of genres." [YouTube]
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 2/22, and it will be about the Matthew Vaughn movie Argylle.
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 and we are rolling out the red carpet.
We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and apparently it was feeling seasonal and recreational. It said WINTER SPORTS. Here we go!
Winter hobbies and interests can take many forms. Are you or were you a skier? Downhill? Cross country? Where did you ski? Every skier has a favorite hill or mountain. Did you or do you ice skate? Figure skate? Speed skate? Just trying to avoid falling over? Did you skate or play hockey on a frozen lake? Did you sled down a hill on a toboggan, flexible flyer or an intertube? Do you cut a hole through perfectly good ice and sit in a temporary tiny house in an effort to find fish? Maybe you just lay on the ground and make snow angels.
Long shot, but have you tried Olympic winter sports like bobsled, curling or biathalon? Even if you have not competed, have you been close to the winter sports as a helper, crew member, official or Russian judge?
What winter sports do you enjoy participating in or watching?
***
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 (but you might be a little chilly given the theme). Just make a restroom stop BEFORE you put on your snowsuit.
Shovel racing needs a better marketing campaign than "Break every bone in your body," but maybe it is true:
***
This is a Hobby Thread where we like building and making things, right? Has anyone made their own snow?
***
Terminology question: this past weekend, I heard two people from North Carolina reference a tasseled stocking hat as a toboggan. Say what? Apparently in Appalachia, a knitted cap used when people would go tobogganing was called a toboggan hat. Somewhere along the line, the term was shortened to just call it a toboggan. TRex only knows a toboggan as the long narrow wooden sled rather than as an article of clothing. What say you, Horde?
***
How to build a toboggan. At some point, TRex will learn how to bend wood. Has anyone mastered the art of bending wood (whether to make a toboggan or not)?
***
I could not resist including this:
***
Ice sculpture carving:
***
Suppose this could go in the Hobby Thread or the Gun Thread, but we will keep it here given the ammunition and targets involved:
***
From the (phantom) Hobby Thread emailbox: "TRex, I like meat and beer. I also like model railroads. Are there any restaurants that serve burgers and beer via model railroad? Are there any in Prague?"
***
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week with a theme of handmade jewelry? The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
***
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. 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. I cut my teeth with this thread going on 9 years ago. It was handed off to KT who gladly took it on. Unfortunately KT is ill and won't be your Cob today. You get stuck with me.
Just one simple rule. Leave all politics and current events out at the front curb. Don't even think about bringing them to the front porch. Thank you.
Funny how KT has been running the Pet Thread for quite some time and yet I receive emails from our readers about their pets.
This week has been no different.
Let's see what is in the old mail bag.
Attached is a picture of Daphne, the Maltese that came into our home from a rescue organization after an unknown number of years on the mean streets of NYC. She has had health problems since before we had her, and this past week came down with sepsis. My wife had her put down today. Beautiful little dog who will be missed.
I hope there is room for her in an upcoming Pet Thread (she's a Maltese, thus tiny; she doesn't need much space.)
Thank you,
tankdemon
Losing a pet hurts badly! So sorry for your loss.
Cybersmythe's Pet morons:
From Left to Right: Lia, Jane, and Amelia.
*****
Thanks for stopping by today. The Pet Thread and its support staff, sponsors, advertisers and local bookie appreciates your time this afternoon.
If you have something pet and/or animal related, please contact KT at ktinthegarden at the gmail thingy dot com.
Hopefully KT will be back next week with a spring in her step and and whistling happy tunes.
Have a great week!
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 03:00 PMComments
The Gardening Thread
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
Good day and welcome to KT's The Gardening Thread. Unfortunately, KT is recovering from a stroke she experienced earlier in the week. So until she grace's us with her return you are stuck with me.
So gardening in the Frozen Tundra is pretty much a thing of the past. Unless you have a green house. In the past 10 days we had 3 consecutive days where temps never crossed above 0.
Difficult to think about gardening even with the arrival of the Jung's Seed Catalog.
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 01:03 PMComments
Chuck Schumer POS Extraordinaire (Your Thread Before The Garden Puttering Thread)
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
Normally Saturday is our very own KT Day. She has been doing yeoman's work for may years on Saturday.
Unfortunately KT suffered a stroke earlier in the week. I spoke with her on Thursday and she sounded upbeat considering all. But, she did manage to tell me that because of her condition that she was unable to fulfill her Saturday threads.
I told her we all wished her well and a speedy recovery. And somehow her threads will limp along. But, we want her back!
Now onto the story at hand......................
When the subject matter is the "common man" Sen. Chuck U. Schumer of New York is a man who knows how the common man lives.
Granted, this photo is from June of 2024. Yet, after all this time it cracks me up.
How dare the environmental fascists come after Chuck with his raw meat and gas grill?
The "Common Man" has also been saying for years that government wants to enslave us and have us addicted to government money like inner city junkies addicted to the flavor of the week. Don't believe your substitute cob?
“Virtually any organization, school, state, police office, county, town or community depends on federal grant money to run its day to day operations, and they’re all now in danger.”
So yes, let us borrow money at confiscatory interest rates to give to various municipalities to keep the addiction real and painful.
President Trump has been a refreshing whirlwind these past (I'm spit balling here, math not being a strong point) 12 days. Will he and his Trump 2.0 alleviate the dependency of states and local governments on Uncle Sam? Only time will tell. It should be fun to watch as it unfolds.
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 11:00 AMComments
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
*****
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Happy February, the days are getting longer and the Commie Libs are crying. Yup, it's going to be a good month.
Just a few house keeping matters to go over with before the Prayer Revival (Rulz for those of you in Nekoosa.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate away.
2) Be kind. Be nice. And please no jumping on the furniture.
3) Running with sharp objects without a back up plan is an invitation to be laughed at.
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:
12/14 – Jewells is still in a lot of pain. The drain was put in on 12/11. She was supposed to receive a sedative and medication for pain while they worked, and she received nothing. She felt everything and it hurt like hell. It also hurts when it is being drained, and that is daily for the first week. She has a great home health nurse coming in now, and she has shown Jewell’s daughter and husband how to do it.
1/18 Update – Jewells saw the ortho doc, and she should be able to get a shot 1/29. Her arms are still very painful all the time. She can barely use her left arm at all. She spends most of her day in bed. She will see the oncologist 2/5 and will get a scan. She says she has to admit she gets very depressed.
12/21 – AZ deplorable moron asked for prayers. His first cataract surgery went well and his right eye’s vision is much improved. The left eye, not so much. Infection set in and he’s had steroids and antibiotics constantly for 3 weeks. They don’t know how much vision he will have when it has healed.
12/28 Update – Annie’s Stew apologizes for guessing incorrectly the sex of AZ deplorable moron. His pronouns have been corrected above.
1/4 Update – He has 20/200 vision in his left eye now. He can see the world, but it is dimmer than what the right eye sees. There is also a big dark spot where he focuses.
12/21 – Sugar Plum Fairy requested prayers for her brother-in-law, M, who found out yesterday that he has leukemia. He is only in his mid-thirties and his daughter is 2. He is heading to the hospital for 6 weeks on 12/23 for testing. Please pray for strength for his wife and mother who are in shock and understandably devastated. And for good doctors and total healing if it is God’s will.
1/18 Update – Thank you to all who prayed for her brother-in-law. The last test showed no signs of leukemia! He is not out of the woods yet, but they are giving thanks to God and all the prayers surrounding him! Also, prayers for a safe inauguration day for President Trump and all those in DC.
1/4 – Smell the Glove asked for prayers for an 80 year old aunt. The aunt was diagnosed with colon cancer and started treatment this week.
1/25 Update – The aunt had one treatment that knocked her flat, but she rebounded quickly. Another treatment is scheduled for 1/27. Thanks for the prayers; the Horde is the best!
1/4 – vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for her eldest sister. It looks like her illness is cancer.
1/12 Update – Please keep praying. Her sister has stage 4 breast cancer.
1/25 Update – Her sister has started on chemo – a pill that blocks estrogen, and vmom has sent her fenbendazole, turkey tail mushroom capsules, and some vitamins.
1/4 – Black Orchid requested prayers for a good friend whose brother is critically ill with possible brain cancer. Black Orchid also offered a prayer of thanksgiving for quick healing of a painful wrist.
1/4 – Chris in California asked for prayers for a son who is having sensory/smell/taste issues that are troubling. They ask for healing for his body, and that he would receive the Lord’s guidance in his mind and heart.
1/4 – San Franpsycho asked for prayers for the repose of Rose, the mother of one of his kindergarten buddies.
1/4 – Tonypete requested prayers for his congregation. They are mostly elderly, and there are a raft of viruses, colds, etc. going around now.
1/4 – Eromero thanked God for his mysterious ways. His friend broke his hip, and 2 days later they removed his gall bladder, which was verging on gangrene. May God also perform wonders on the loved ones on this list, and may He also free America from DC as He freed the Hebrew children from their Egyptian oppressors.
1/10 – Village Idiot’s Apprentice asked for prayers for his cousin, who was having triple bypass surgery.
1/11 Update – The surgery went “superbly”. Thank you all for your prayers.
1/11 – Our Country is Screwed asked for prayers. He is having a double mastectomy. (He notes: Yes, male breast cancer is a thing!) He is fortunate that it appears to be localized. Another request is for an aunt (age 70+) who is facing lung cancer and having part of her lung removed. She is scared and needs prayers too.
1/18 Update – Our Country is Screwed sent thanks for all the prayers. His surgery is scheduled for 1/27.
1/15 – Sponge gave an update on his wife. She met with the radiation oncologist, and he used the word “cure”, so she is pretty happy about that. She has a couple more chemo treatments to go.
1/16 – Mental Block asked for prayers of thanksgiving upon completing all 28 radiation treatments for prostate cancer with minimal, temporary side effects. He also asks for continued prayers for healing as his hormone therapy continues for an additional four months.
1/16 – Pookysgirl asked for prayers for Lil Pooky, who was scheduled for hernia surgery on 1/20.
1/20 Update – The surgery went well and he’s already mostly back to his normal self.
1/18 – Hadrian the Seventh shared good news. The pain in his shoulder has been correctly diagnosed, so he can keep the discomfort at bay. He’s also receiving physical therapy. Now he can take on professional computer assignments again.
1/18 – rhennigantx updated the Horde, that his friend Tim, who had a stroke in the spring, died about 10 days ago. He kept getting infections in the feeding tubes.
1/18 – FenelonSpoke asked for prayers for Chris, the new husband of a friend of hers. They have been married since the summer, and are nice conservatives and Catholics. He is hospitalized with a high fever and urinary issues, which he has had a long time.
1/25 Update – Chris came home on 1/20. He is doing better. The infection was removed by IV antibiotics, but the doctors still need to determine why he’s having excessive urination – up to 20 times a night – which is exhausting for them both. Continued prayers are appreciated.
1/18 – Sock Monkey offered praise to our Lord. A year after a large cancerous growth was found on his spine. The prognosis was not good. After a nine hour surgery, chemo, therapy, and lots of prayers throughout the year, he was pronounced cancer free last week. He wanted to say thanks to the Lord and to the Horde for the prayers.
1/18 – Madame Mayhem asked for prayers for her niece’s husband, who had a mini heart attack. He’s around 32 years old, and works like a dog at his dad’s construction business.
1/18 – Jrgunn77 requested prayers for health, which was fine a few months ago, but recently has been his with extremely high BP spikes, anxiety attacks, constant headaches, and hernia troubles. Jrgunn is on meds for the BP and anxiety, scheduled for a colonoscopy, and has referrals for a cardiologist and neurologist. These out of the blue anxieties are the worst. Jrgunn also asked for prayers for a friend from church, Rodney, who has recently suffered lung failure and is on oxygen, to come home from the hospital, and Pastor Ben and his brother, for comfort after the passing of their little sister from drug addiction.
1/18 - MkY asked for prayers for his wife, who was diagnosed with stage IV renal cancer last week, out of the blue. They ask for prayers, not that their own will be done, but that God’s is, and that he is merciful.
1/18 - Teresa in Fort Worth said she could use some more Horde prayers. She had a CT scan on Monday. The largest tumor has not increased, but at least 4 others have quadrupled in volume, despite 2 rounds of chemo. Her third round of chemo stats on Wednesday. So far, she’s had exceptionally light nausea which has been controlled with medication, which is a blessing.
1/21 Update – the news is less than encouraging. The current chemo regimen does not appear to be working. There are a LOT more satellite tumors in her liver, and all of them are growing. There are new treatment options planned, but ultimately, it looks like the best case scenario is that she has 1-2 years left. If she doesn’t do the proposed treatment, they would be looking at 3-6 months at most. She said this is kind of what she thought was going to be the outcome. It sucks, but she knows the timeline, and is determined to make the most of the time that she has left.
1/18 – Hrothgar’s daughter updated the Horde that there was a complication in his surgery, and he is in the ICU. She asked that we please keep him in our thoughts and prayers.
1/22 Update – Hrothgar is out of ICU, started on PT, and is able to take more nutrition. His condition is much improved. His family thanks everyone for their prayers. It has meant so much to them.
1/22 – Skip and his family could use some prayers. His mother’s brother has only a few days left. He has been in a VA hospital the last few years, after a stroke.
1/25 Update – Skip’s uncle passed away.
1/25 – Sal asked for prayers for a couple he volunteers with. The husband, a retired pastor, has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. They are both in their mid-80s and surgery is not an option for him.
1/25 – Tonypete asked for prayers, as he has his second day of services as a hospital chaplain.
1/25 – B requested prayers for his brother Paul, who has been very sick for the last several years. This weekend he will join their parents, and little sister and older brother, who left them, too young, many decades ago.
1/25 – Grammie Winger asks for prayers that everything goes well, as Rev finally has his colostomy reversed this week.
1/25 – Lizzy requested prayers for her colleague, Sally, who was dealing with some GI issues. This week, after a trip to ER, they found and removed a mass. They are waiting for more information now, and praying it’s not cancer.
1/25 – A asked for prayers for her nephew’s wife, who was just diagnosed with brain cancer. Please pray for a miracle that they are able to remove it all.
1/30- KT asked for prayers as she had a stroke earlier in the week. She is still at the hospital but feels very lucky considering what happened.
1/31 - BurtTC's son passed. His son had Downs Syndrome and had been ill. He asks for prayers for those who knew and loved his son. God now hast the purest of souls to hold and protect.
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.
Well, technically it's a minimal smartphone. It runs Android 14 and has an 800x600 display and supports 4G - though not 5G. And it has a camera - optionally two - and USB-C.
And a physical keyboard and a genuine headphone jack and a microSD slot, all of which are becoming less common. And the screen is a relatively tiny 4.25".
Also less common is the use of an e-ink display, which gives much better battery life but is not great for watching videos or checking your photos, since it's black and white. The video review attached to that article suggests it's not the most responsive device ever created either, likely directly tied to the slow e-ink display.
Price is $399 despite the lower-end specs, presumably because phones that aren't bloated and annoying don't sell.
The games have been updated to run on Windows 10 and 11, but supposedly not changed otherwise. And you do get all the released expansion packs, of which there were many.
You can get both complete game series and The Sims 4 as well (which is free) for $40.
These are built using only the slower, but smaller and more efficient, E cores. Which is fine for a server - running hundreds of efficient cores is exactly what you need in many cases.
Intel said the chips were delayed because the market "had not materialised", which is a curious statement since these are the first such chips Intel has produced.
AMD meanwhile is selling all the server CPUs it can make and has another year of runway to devour the market.
"I personally think we need to figure out a different open source strategy," Altman said. "Not everyone at OpenAI shares this view, and it's also not our current highest priority... We will produce better models [going forward], but we will maintain less of a lead than we did in previous years."
Well, that certainly clears up the company's plans.
In a follow-up reply, Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, said that OpenAI is considering open sourcing older models that aren't state-of-the-art anymore. "We'll definitely think about doing more of this," he said, without going into greater detail.
Y'know, I really think they're getting into this "open" idea.
And to round it out, here's a supposedly rare black deer.
Dog won't let his master pet the cat. He may love the cat. He also might hate the cat, and may be trying to isolate him. We'll keep an eye on the situation.
NEW: Karoline Leavitt reminds smug White House reporters that President Trump’s so-called “conspiracy theory” about the COVID lab leak turned out to be true.
“Several years ago... President Trump would take to this podium to brief the American people on COVID-19, he suggested… pic.twitter.com/tvWoulY6qG
Unbelievably, now that the CIA accepts that the virus came from the Wuhan lab, all the people who swore up and down that it came from a pangolin diddling a bat in the wet market are claiming they "NEVER" dismissed or denied the lab release theory, claiming they always kept an open mind about and always continued evaluating evidence. You know, like real scientists.
Matt Orfalea doesn't believe them, for some reason.
The Trump Administration Keeps Giving the Media Simple, Direct, Candid, Straightforward Answers. The Media Keeps Rejecting These Answers and Demanding Different Answers. Update: FBI Firings Yuger Than First Reported
—Ace
One nice thing about pursuing a popular agenda is that you don't have to, as the leftists and corporatists like Mitch McConnell are forced to do, lie and equivocate about what your actual intentions and plans are.
You have the public on your side. You told the public exactly what you intended to do, and they voted in favor of your doing it.
You therefore don't have to engage in mealy-mouthed, worm-tongued equivocations and half-truths.
You can just tell the full, plain truth without adornment or apology.
New border czar Tom Homan on Monday defended the immigration raids that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers carried out over the weekend, and said he will continue to carry out the raids "without apology."
Actress Selena Gomez posted a tearful video online Monday, which has since been deleted, where she apologized to her fans for the mass deportations, claiming she wished she could do something for the children impacted by the raids.
Homan told Fox News that he was not aware of families being deported, and that the administration was focused on deporting national security and public safety threats.
"Look, President [Donald] Trump won the election on this one issue: securing our border and saving lives," Homan said. "This, what happened on the southern border the last four years, is the biggest national security threat this country's seen, at least in my lifetime."
Homan said he expects that the continued operations will result in lethal fentanyl overdoses decreasing, a decrease in crimes by illegal immigrants, and a decrease in sex trafficking.
"We're going to do this job. And we're going to enforce the laws of this country. If they don't like it, then go to Congress and change the law. We're going to do this operation without apology. We're going to make our communities safer," Homan said. "It's all for the good of this nation, and we're going to keep going. No apologies. We're moving forward."
I've seen reports claiming that 10% of the criminals in a city are responsible for 75% of all crime. I can't make predictions, but I am optimistic about how big a drop we see in crime over the next few years.
Over the weekend, the ABC Groomer Propadanda network dispatched the funereal hag Martha Raddatz to bother Border Czar Tom Homan.
She just kept asking the same questions:
You're not really going to fly criminal aliens out of the country on military planes, are you?
You're not really going to fly those planes every day, are you?
You're not really treating criminal aliens as criminal aliens, are you?
Martha Raddatz was utterly perplexed by Homan's answers, which she was not expecting and did not know how to counter:
Tom Homan: "What price do you put on national security? What price do you put on all these young ladies who have been raped, murdered, and burned alive? What price do you put on Laken Riley's life?" pic.twitter.com/IyPMyFqJvs
But what about liberal women who can't get strawberries for their smoothies?
Won't someone think of the liberal women who can't get strawberries for their smoothies??!!!
Call me crazy, but I don’t think “whaaat will I doo without my exploited underclaaahhhsss to pick my smooothie berriiieees,” with maximal vocal fry, is the enlightened argument she imagines it is. pic.twitter.com/ds8mUHKKeq
They are national security risks and possibly traitors, and yes, they should not be permitted to meet with their fellow subversives on federal grounds.
The Daily Wire:
President Donald Trump is taking further action against the 50 former intelligence officials who falsely suggested Hunter Biden's laptop was "part of a Russian disinformation campaign," instructing agencies to also ban those individuals from stepping foot in secure U.S. government facilities, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Wire.
The Jan. 29 cabinet memorandum, first obtained by The Daily Wire, expands Trump's day-one executive order, which revoked the security clearance for the 50 individuals. Sent "on behalf of the President," it orders the country's top national security agencies to "revoke unescorted access to secure U.S. Government facilities from the 50 former intelligence officials named in the Executive Order."
Trump sent out a mass-email to federal workers with the subject line, "Resign."
He's telling them that if they resign voluntarily, they will get eight months of pay with no further work demanded of them.
The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don't want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6, an administration official tells Axios.
Why it matters: It's an acceleration in President Trump's already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.
What they're saying: "The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration's plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.
The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.
The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.
Zoom out: The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security.
Between the lines: Many federal workers are already feeling scared about the administration's crackdown on DEI, its return-to-office policy and the effort to reclassify civil servants.
That unease could increase take-up on this new offer.
"Chaos, mistrust, confusion," said one employee at the Department of Justice who, like others, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation without fear of retribution. "There's also a deep suspicion, especially among people who think they may be on the chopping block, that this is the last lifeboat in town."
Trump, who spent years decrying the "deep state," has long wanted to reduce the government's footprint. Frustrated over what he saw as overly lenient work-from-home policies nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, Trump has empowered Tesla CEO Elon Musk to help streamline government. But the vague order has nearly ground the massive bureaucracy to a halt, and has the potential to create the kind of crisis that might backfire politically.
"The blanket approach, which is pure Elon Musk, is going to have unintended consequences down the road," said Elaine Kamarck, a government studies fellow at the Brookings Institution who oversaw President Bill Clinton's initiative to reform government in the 1990s. "What if a third of the nation's air traffic controllers take this buyout? Or all the CDC scientists leave for the private sector and then there's a tuberculosis epidemic? That's the risk with the way they've done it, sort of using a blowtorch for a very small issue."
The email, sent Tuesday evening by the Office of Personnel Management, offered recipients the option to resign and be paid through September but offered no guarantees about future employment if they chose to stay. Although it was sent unsigned by the agency's human resources department, many of the federal employees conferring about it over phone calls and group texts saw the fingerprints of Musk, who applied the same slashing approach after taking over Twitter.
In fact, the subject line was the exact same one he used in 2022 when giving staffers at Twitter a similar ultimatum to either become more "hardcore" or leave the company: "Fork in the road."
Mark Halperin says that his sources say that Kash Patel has the 50 Republican votes needed for confirmation. He also says that RFKJr. is on the bubble -- he doesn't have fifty votes yet, but he also doesn't have fifty votes against him yet. Note that liberal "Republican" Bill Cassidy of Louisiana basically declared himself a "no," of course, saying that he would vote "no" to, get this, protect Trump. He claims that if someone dies due to not getting vaccinated, this will "blow up" in the press and cause political damage to Trump.
See? He's super-MAGA, everybody. He continues to work with the Democrats to thwart MAGA but he's really doing it all just to protect us, because we're too fucking stupid to think for ourselves and need arrogant leftwing bullshit artists like Cassidy to guide us.
Kennedy may have a single Democrat vote -- Sheldon Whitehouse, who is actually a personal friend of RFKJr.'s and who might, maybe actually put his venomous politics aside for the sake of friendship.
I doubt it, though.
Halperin said that Gabbard is in trouble. Which Josh Hawley confirms:
While Gabbard may have cleared one hurdle, others sprung up during her hearing. Several senators, including Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, pressed Gabbard over her past support of the NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Lankford and other lawmakers urged Gabbard to call Snowden a traitor, but Gabbard refused. That being said, she acknowledged that Snowden was a criminal and outlined a four-step plan to prevent any "Snowden-like" leaks in the future.
All things considered, Gabbard performed as well as she could have. The question is whether it was enough to pull herself across the finish line.
Although Lankford previously committed himself as a "yes" vote on Gabbard, he was "surprised" at the nominee's response to concerns about her Snowden stance.
"I was surprised because that doesn't seem like a hard question on that," Lankford said Thursday. "It wasn't intended to be a trick question by any means."
Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana also seems to be on the fence about Gabbard. Young pressed the nominee with a similar line of questioning, asking about her past introduction of legislation that called to pardon Snowden.
"He likely endangered American lives through his action," Young said Thursday. "As a leader of the intelligence community, how do you think you would be received on some of these past actions to support or even to pardon Snowden?"
While some lawmakers expressed hesitancy, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas put out a statement that could only barely be described as an endorsement of Gabbard.
"Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 provides that the president shall appoint officers with the advice and consent of the Senate," Cornyn said. "Having won the election decisively, I believe President Trump has earned the right to appoint his own Cabinet, absent extraordinary circumstances. Therefore, it is my intention to consent to the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence."
Liberal Girlboss Feminist Joni Ernst also declared that she would support her fellow Girlboss, because, of course. She's about advancing the ladies and literally nothing else.
WHAT IS HAPPENING??? Senator Michael Bennet asked Tulsi Gabbard a question, and when she opened her mouth to answer, he immediately interrupted her and started SCREAMING.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click Well you can take it as a warning
Or take it any way you like
The lightning, the thunder
You never know where it's gonna strike-ike-ike
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton are joined by Jim Lakely of The Heartland Institute in a free-wheeling discussion about the exciting first 10 days of President Trump's 2nd term.
.jpg)
