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 - January 12, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
(Mystery Click dedicated to Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley)
Howdy Hordelings, and a happy Sunday night to you all! Are you fully ensconced in 2025 yet? Are your holiday decorations down and back in storage? No matter how you answered those questions, we're glad you stopped by tonight's ONT. Let's see if anything fun or interesting awaits you tonight.
We're still a week away from the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States. Those of you who spend time on X may have noticed that there are quite a few high profile "influencer" style accounts who seem to think the 2024 election resulted in Trump becoming a king - instantly. These accounts, which I refer to as "MAGA X, Inc." have zero tolerance for anyone who does not accept and support 100% of what Trump says or does. Those who have questioned any of his selections for cabinet positions or expressed concern over the Continuing Resolution that Trump supported are called traitors. They've painted staunch conservatives in Congress as RINOs. To them -- How dare anyone wonder why renaming the Gulf of Mexico warrants any attention right now? Also to them -- Of course it's a great idea to pursue acquiring Canada or Greenland. Anyway, it's very interesting that even as Trump himself supports positions that are quite questionable to the conservative base that elected him, these MAGA influencers seem to have no interest in calling him out on anything. Many X users have been diligently digging into some of these MAGA influencers, and it seems as though much grift abounds. Free speech and capitalism are wonderful things. But a smart and informed consumer is even more wonderful. Choose wisely!
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Wholesome Content
Look at the reaction of a child who celebrated his first birthday after being adopted.
His smile when he looks at his new family members one by one and is sure that he is truly loved is priceless.
My Gen X content seems to have been well received by the Horde. At least the 2 or 3 emails I've received say so. You ask, I deliver!
Schoolhouse Rock was a staple for Gen X kids while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Here's a look behind the curtain, so to speak, to see the face that goes along with a very familiar voice.
52 years ago today, School House Rock made its debut on ABC.
Have you ever wondered who the voice was behind your favorite School House Rock songs?
Meet Jack Sheldon performing a live rendition of Conjunction Junction.
A salute to some elder Gen X ladies. OK, maybe they're late Boomers. Whatever.
The years might not be right, but the sentiment certainly is!
Fact check - true!
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DJ Doof – Forgotten 80s Gems Version
Bonus forgotten gem - 80s adjacent (from the late 70s)
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Weekly commenter stats for week of 1-12-2025
Top 10 commenters:
1 [631 comments] 'Axeman' [88.57 posts/day]
2 [562 comments] 'jim (in Kalifornia)'
3 [490 comments] 'Bulg'
4 [387 comments] 'Sponge - F*ck Cancer'
5 [371 comments] 'Skip '
6 [358 comments] 'Boss Moss'
7 [338 comments] 'Oldcat'
8 [330 comments] 'Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ '
9 [313 comments] 'Ciampino - LED a great life I did'
10 [307 comments] 'andycanuck (iMpf5)'
Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [266 names] 'Ciampino - LED a great life I did' [37.34 unique names/day]
2 [168 names] 'quasi-Amish Miklos, with the beard to prove it'
3 [163 names] 'Quarter Twenty '
4 [118 names] 'Useless talking blob of adipose tissue she is '
5 [102 names] 'Rona Barrett'
6 [49 names] 'Duncanthrax'
7 [46 names] 'I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper'
8 [41 names] 'Count de Monet'
9 [36 names] 'Axeman'
10 [35 names] 'Hunter Biden, Pardoned Sex Pest'
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Tonight’s ONT brought to you by perspective
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For a whelming experience, follow AoS_Doof on X @doof2112 or you can choose to whelm me with your comments and suggestions in an email to doof2112 at proton dot me. Because I care, here's a bonus mystery click from the same guys hiding behind the top photo.
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 Sunday again? It's going to be a quick thread tonight, hombres and hombrettes. Your old pal Weasel is a wee-tad occupied with work stuff right now, putting in three, and sometimes even four hour days! With any luck things will calm down soon and return to normal. Other regular features will return soon. Thanks for understanding!
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Guns of the Horde
We are saved tonight, content-wise, by our pal EdL who sends us a report on his BWC-9 pistol caliber carbine. Take it away Ed L!
The folding, concealable pistol caliber carbine (PCC) or personal defense weapon (PDW) is a longstanding dream with many gun designers from the 1980s onward. Brugger and Thomet (B&T) introduced their version, the BWC-9, in 2023. At first glance, it looks like a simple rectangular box with a carrying handle.
Press the latch on the right side of the BWC-9 and flick your wrist. Push the magazine home. Rack the charging handle on the left side. The BWC-9 will unfold into a carbine equipped with an Aimpoint Accro P2 red dot sight.
The BWC-9 accommodates a SIG P320 fire control unit (FCU), slide, and barrel into its chassis. To fold up the BWC-9 again, clear the firearm, drop the magazine halfway out using the retainer in the pistol grip, and press the tab in the upper rear of the pistol grip to fold the pistol grip inward below the slide and barrel. Lift the rear cover and stock will fold up underneath the rest of the BWC-9, neatly concealing the pistol grip. The BWC-9 can accommodate 9mm (shown here), .357 SIG, or .40 S&W chamberings of the SIG P320.
The Aimpoint Accro P2 greatly aids accuracy. Shown here are groups at 20 yards (bullseye target) and 25 yards (silhouette target). Both used 9mm 124 grain Federal Syntech ammunition. Note that even though the silhouette target is meant for use at 25 feet, the BWC-9 is still able to put every shot in the black at triple that distance. I think the BWC-9 passes the accuracy test for a PDW.
The BWC-9 is sold as a chassis. Since it's not a firearm, you don't need to submit a 4473 when you purchase it. Installing the SIG P320 FCU does make it a short barrel rifle (SBR) and therefore, an NFA item.
The BWC-9 has significant downsides. It's not cheap ($2,300 for the chassis alone, $650 and up for the donor SIG P320, and the $200 tax stamp for the Form 1 to make the SIG P320 FCU into an SBR). Racking the charging handle isn't easy because the charging handle maximizes concealability, not ergonomics. You must put a significant amount of grip force into a small piece of material in order to rack the slide. Installing the SIG P320 FCU into the BWC-9 chassis is a PITA because it's a very tight fit between the two. You might need to use a rubber mallet or puck to fully seat the FCU in. Once installed, you'll need a flat head screwdriver to disassemble the BWC-9's components for cleaning. But if you're willing to accept these minuses, you'll have a very light, compact, concealable PDW platform that's unlike anything else on the market today as of January 2025.
Ho-lee Crap! Thank you Ed L!! Excellent write-up and I appreciate it!
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Speaking of Carbines
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Our Pal Minkowski Spacetime
Are you current on your Lorentz transformations?
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Halp! The Propeller on my B-17 Fell Off!
If I get one request a week for B-17 propeller installation guidance, I must get a dozen, so here you go.
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Highway Patrol and The Sniperl!
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The Night America Trembled
Here is something I hadn't seen before; a 1957 dramatization of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. Look for some familiar names and most excellent commercials!
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?
What to do with extra nuts? I used to buy raw almonds and then roast them, mostly because they tasted a lot better than the roasted ones from the market. I could control the salt and the fat, and of course that meant more salt and more fat!
But I got bored with roasted almonds, and still had a bag of the raw version. Actually, they are steamed, not raw, because raw almonds will often contain some unpleasant compounds like cyanide!
So I poked around and found some recipes for spicy almonds, and damn! They were tasty! Of course that is a rabbit hole, and there are thousands of variations, and most that I have seen are actually spicy/sweet, which makes them even more delicious and difficult to resist.
I even tried them with pecans, of which I had tons for pecan pie. They were good too, although a friend recently gave me some excellent pecans from Texas, and trust me, they are a lot better than the commodity ones I bought at Costco.
I tuned up a recipe that Bluebell sent me, and that's the one I use. I posted it a long time ago, and have made it many times, but recently I have been cutting back on the cumin.
And peeling the almonds helps a lot, or is a time-consuming affectation that you should probably ignore.
Not sure which, but try them both ways and report back!
Ten people died needlessly another 51 were hospitalized with a severe Listeria infection. Not to take anything away from Boar's Head and its responsibility, but what about the USDA/FSIS's responsibility to consumers?
Our government's ability to screw things up is unmatched in history. We spend $30 billion a year on the USDA's non-mandatory programs, and they can't manage to hold a major company's massive production facility to a minimum standard even after dozens of inspections and warnings and policy papers and process improvement initiatives and....?
The Boars Head factory in Virginia was disgusting. Real Upton Sinclair fodder. They won't be getting any of my money for a very long time. But still, how tough is it for an inspector to walk into a food production facility, look up at the ceiling and see dripping liquid hitting the food, and shut them down? That's sort of the point of inspections!
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The prep for this sort of stuff is the real pain in the *ss. Making the rice, seasoning the fish, slicing it and whatever other stuff you want to put into the rolls...that takes a lot of time.
But slicing the fish is an art, and while I am getting better at it, especially with salmon (it's the easy one), tuna is still a crapshoot with me.
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This sounds mighty tasty, even if the recipe calls for prepared stuff like bouillon base and some brand of spice mix I have never heard of. But the concept is a good one, so just read through it and replace the dumb stuff with good stuff!
This has been sitting on my desk for awhile. No, not the food... the recipe. I may have posted it here recently, but I gave it a shot last week, and while it was good, it wasn't exciting. I think the big mistake was using the called-for Piquillo peppers. They were too sweet. Next time I will use a spicy pepper that will provide more flavor than just "sweet."
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Oh hell. This sounds disgusting. Cheeseburger Casserole. And I'll bet it's actually delicious, and I might make this if we have a Super Bowl viewing gathering. It will undoubtedly be more tasteful than the halftime entertainment!
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How do you maniacs feel about a semi-regular bourbon tasting section?
I bought that bottle last week, mostly because I like wheated bourbons and it was from Indiana, so definitely a bit different.
It was good, and at 108 100 proof (Thank you Mikeski for catching my mistake) the alcohol was in balance, which makes me think the distillery knows what it is doing. But there were some dusty flavors that I did not enjoy, and it was a bit simple for the price ($40+). I'm not disappointed, but I'm not thrilled, and I probably won't buy another bottle once this one is gone.
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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!
It's copper. It's a sink. And it tarnishes in a matter of a few days. So the question is: Should I polish it twice a week so it looks like... you know... copper? Or let it go for a rustic look?
What? No! Of course I rarely use the damned thing. It's a bar sink whose planned function has been lost in the mists of time!
PS. Has anyone ever died from blood loss from shaving cuts?
Is Our Strategic Relationship With Europe a "Sunk Cost Fallacy?"
—CBD
It is axiomatic among the ruling classes of the West that the strategic and cultural relationship between America and Europe is the bedrock of global stability. They will trot out all sorts of platitudes reinforcing the idea that our shared culture, love of democratic ideals, dedication to market economies, pluralism, blah... blah... blah... makes us a common culture separated by an ocean.
And it couldn't be farther from the truth! The disconnect built up a huge head of steam in the 1960s as the Soviets built a massive and comprehensive disinformation campaign designed to weaken Europe and make it more accepting of Soviet socialism and distancing itself from America. It demonized the American military presence in Europe, inflated the threat of nuclear war with America as the atomic bully, nurtured an active socialist political effort, supported a maniacal post-modern interpretation of history and culture, and pushed Europe toward what can only be called an unaligned stance.
It worked. Of course with a huge amount of help from Europe itself, which grew rich by not having to pay for its own defense...relying on the United States to counter the Soviet threat. The current state of most of Europe is that of a failing, demographically challenged region that is gleefully importing 7th century savages to clean their toilets, gobble up their welfare benefits, and rape their women. They are a communitarian culture without a shred of individuality, love of country, martial spirit, or even a sense of history.
With the exception of a few eastern European countries whose experience with communism is fresh in their minds, the continent is content to drift into soft socialism, with its attendant decrease in standards of living. Yes, there are attempts to wrest control from the elites who desire that outcome; France, Germany, and Italy are pushing back with what are laughably called "Far Right" political parties. But what that really means is soft socialism with stricter border controls.
The current dust-up in Eastern Ukraine is a perfect example of Europe's failure. They are obsessive in their hatred of Russia and Putin, but use Russia's natural gas! They want Russia driven back to its original borders, but are unwilling to pay for the effort, rebuild their armed forces to present a strong and unified front, and certainly not send troops! No... they prefer that America spends its treasure on what is a regional border dispute.
They rail against Israel's defensive war against militant Islam, ignoring the reality that Israel is fighting for the entire West. Yet they trade with Iran and even evade sanctions to provide the Mad Mullahs with technology that will bring them closer to an atomic bomb.
They are happy to take Chinese and Arab money, carefully ignoring that its intent is to buy influence.
And we are supposed to continue to spend our blood and treasure to defend them?
And while there is a consensus in DC that China and the Indo-Pacific should be prioritized in US strategy going forward, for the first time in a century the fundamentals of the future of US relations with Europe are up for debate.
How did we get here? For too long Atlanticism has been taken for granted as the cornerstone of American foreign policy, and as in a marriage of many years, what seemed obvious for so long needs to be re-articulated afresh.
Historically America's commitment to Europe has been about the fundamentals of geopolitics. The United States is a quintessentially naval power situated in a hemisphere separated from the Eurasian landmass by two oceans. Since the early twentieth century it has been a given that accessing secure maritime routes across the Atlantic -- and in a national emergency, controlling them -- is in the country's irreducible national interest. The ability to do so has ensured the security of the American homeland and the Western hemisphere, and equally importantly, the nation's prosperity and economic growth.
The author very carefully fails to address the huge difference between America's commitment to Europe, and Europe's commitment to America. It is long past the time when we should evaluate the alliances with Europe from the perspective of what is good for America. When the relationship is so one-sided, and the contempt for America that oozes out of most European capitals is obvious, why bother?
Simply put, if America loses credibility in Europe, it will lose credibility in the Pacific, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
So, it's time to conceptualize again and, most importantly, communicate to the electorate why today Europe matters to the United States' security to the degree that it has for over a century now, and -- while it may sound counterintuitive to some as China continues to expand its military at speed and scale -- that it should be prioritized going forward.
Our credibility is unimportant. We do not need the approval of the Bien-Pensants in Paris and Berlin to take measures designed to benefit America. Credibility on the geopolitical stage is effete nonsense. What counts is military and economic power. If that requires military bases in Europe, make them strict financial relationships, but the NATO conceit must end. We are NATO, and it is an idea that is past its time. Countering the Soviet threat sounds lovely in 1968, but it sounds expensive and duplicative in 2025. NATO is now a jobs program for top-heavy militaries, and even worse, its expansion has made Eastern Europe a much less safe place! And the alliance is nothing of a sort...just look at Turkey as an example. They are actively working against one of our most loyal allies, are busily trying to expand their influence in the Middle East, and are supporting Islamists across the region.
How is all of that good for us?
It isn't, but the momentum of 75 years of NATO is very difficult to stop, in large part because our sclerotic government sees the huge investment as a signal of an unbreakable commitment. But the best thing possible for America's strategic security would be to evaluate NATO and Europe from the perspective of 2025...not 1949.
We need real allies, not allies of convenience that cash our checks and then laugh that we are paying.
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 1-12-2025 ["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 (requires two Horadric cubes). 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...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
This grotesque monstrosity is the Geisel Library at the University of California-San Diego. It was renamed the Geisel Library in 1995 to honor Audrey and Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. The top of the building features a carillon of chimes that sound out the hour throughout the day. The university even has a carillonneur to play live concerts.
CLASSICS RESOURCES
Moronette KT sent me a link to the Antigone website, which brands itself as "a new and open forum for Classics in the twenty-first century. It's a treasure trove of classic works in their original language. It's a great resource for scholars and anyone who is interested in broadening their knowledge of the ancient world by reading works from that era.
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THE PROBLEM WITH PREQUELS
I'm no stranger to reading prequels. I have quite a few prequel novels and series in my personal library. Prequels in and of themselves are NOT bad (unless the writer is a terrible writer, of course). But I do think that prequels by their very nature have one key limitation that prevents them from outshining their source material.
We know how it ends. In other words, because the prequel is spawned from a previously written novel or series of novels, and it takes place before the events in that source series, we know that certain events MUST happen in a particular way in order to for that following series to happen. Characters MUST survive that are instrumental to the plot in the source series.
However, that doesn't mean an author can't have fun with a prequel, taking it in interesting directions as we see the characters in an earlier state of being. Maybe we get to see the character development of key characters in the source material so that we have a better understanding of their motivations. Or we get to see some of the tough challenges in the past that shaped their character when they are fully mature. We get to witness them work through key traumatic events in their backstory. This can even apply to the villain as well as the hero.
In the Malazan series, for instance, Esslemont shows us how Cotillion, the patron god of assassins, rises from a skilled killer to become the most feared assassin who ever lived. Kellanved, his companion in the prequels, demonstrates his insane audacity more than once, resulting in him becoming the god of manipulative bastardry (if that's such a thing).
One of the additional problems with prequels is that the author runs the risk of ret-conning a character by including details that don't quite match up with our first encounter with them in the source material. R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy does this a bit by establishing his main character Drizzt Do'Urden as being quite young (for an elf) when he meets up with the dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer. However, in The Crystal Shard, which introduces Drizzt for the first time, Drizzt states that he's a couple centuries old by that time. It's a minor blip, but it does affect the way Drizzt behaves in the first novel compared to his actions in the prequels. On the plus side, Salvatore was able to really develop dark elven society and culture for subsequent novels.
Which prequels have YOU enjoyed or found problematic?
MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
I expect to finish off The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey today. I really like this book, there is something about alien species with value systems orthogonal to ours (in general) that I find fascinating. Corey is a pen name for two guys, who also wrote The Expanse series, a good (but slow, as always) streamer series.
The most interesting part about this book is the exploration of collaboration with conquerors. Acquiesce and live to fight another day, or fight and die? What if the fate of our species rests on not fighting? Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, but can you make that decision for all of humanity?
Posted by: Candidus at January 05, 2025 09:23 AM (DcZ8z)
Comment: A sad fact of life is that humanity conquers. If aliens aren't around, we're more than happy to conquer each other. History has demonstrated again and again and again that not all cultures and societies place an equal value on the lives of others. Some cultures and societies were so repugnant that wiping them out completely was a net benefit for mankind. Dealing with the eccentricities of truly alien cultures (i.e., those of extra-terrestrial origins) is a standard trope in science fiction. I, too, find that fascinating as two wildly divergent cultures seek to understand each other.
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More Everest stuff, so I'll be brief. Shook by Jennifer Hull is about a 2014 expedition. They were doing acclimation, to get ready for the climb, when an earthquake hit base camp. About 200 climbers were stranded on camps 1 & 2, which had to be rescued by helicopter. The entire season was shut down and many Sherpas were killed at the mountain and in their homes. Well written and a good read. It was Dave Hahn's last trip to Everest.
Also finished Michael Groom's Sheer Will. He's an Australian climber with a long career. The book is about his climbing history (with an Everest summit without oxygen). He had to add a chapter about the 1996 climb, when he was a guide. It's pretty brief and limited to only what he personally experienced. I saw complaints about him on You Tube and wound up arguing with strangers about Jon Krakauer. I try not to do this but Krakauer made up some things when he wrote Into Thin Air. I have a couple more books to read on that climb, mostly from the IMAX team.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 05, 2025 09:33 AM (NQtI0)
Comment: Mountain climbing is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of preparation and skill to make that final ascent to the top. Although, if you look for pics of the summit of Mount Everest, you can see that there's a pretty steady line of people working their way up and down the summit. Almost like a trip to the local scenic view. I think mountain climbing is emblematic of the human spirit to conquer nature as well as each other. We climb those mountains because they are there! Now, who's up for a trip to Mars to climb Olympus Mons?
More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)
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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.
Paths to Ascendancy Book 4 - Path of the High Mage by Ian C. Esslemont
This takes place a couple decades after Book 3. By this time the Malazans have expanded out from their single island and have conquered most of the continent of Quan Tali. Now they turn their sights on the Falar archipelago, which consists of several islands linked by their worship of the sea god Mael. To defend themselves against the Malazans, they unleash a terrifying force that can wipe out entire cities. Meanwhile, the Malazans have to deal with the awakening of the Mountain that Moves, an ancient device that allowed the precursor race of saurian K'Chain Che'Malle to rule the world in the distant past.
There are a lot of crazy storylines in this one novel, so it can be a bit difficult to keep track of what's going on at any given time. Several different groups (Malazans, Crimson Guard, a crazed Jaghut tyrant, and so forth) are all vying to rule the seas of Falar and while some factions will align with each other, they don't all get along at all. The Crimson Guard will go on to become one of the Malazans' chief foes in the coming decades as the Malazans continue to expand their empire.
Night of Knives by Ian C. Esslemont
This is the first book in a open-ended series of Malazan novels by Ian C. Esslemont. This is a fairly small story, keeping the action confined primarily to Malaz City, where the Malazan Empire began. It's been almost 100 years since the founding of the Empire. Kellanved, the Emperor, and his associate Dancer have been missing for quite some time. Their Imperial Regent, Surly, makes a play for the throne on an ominous night, as the Shadow Moon rises, bringing with it ill omens and portents for the future. The Deadhouse is awakening and one of its inhabitants seeks his freedom from confinement. It's up to a battle-scarred veteran and a plucky street kid to resolve the issues that plague the city on this dark night. Staying alive is their biggest challenge as terror stalks the streets.
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
This is a prequel of sorts to The Jesus Incident, though Herbert wrote this several years before the latter novel. Humanity is reaching for the stars by sending out a colony ship to Tau Ceti. The colonists (clones) are kept in stasis while a skeleton crew maintains ships operations. However, the Organic Mental Cores that control the ship have gone insane, killing half the crew. Now the remaining crew must figure out a way to keep themselves and their cargo alive or the entire future of humanity may be over before it begins.
Their plan involves jury rigging an artificial consciousness using the resources and materials they have on board, since they are billions of miles from home. Oh, and because this book was written in the 1960s, that means using ANALOG computers...
Which raises the question: Is it a scam if you are screaming at the top of your lungs that you are scamming people?
Haas said that while small modular reactors do exist, they generally range from the size of a shipping container to a full-sized house. The Enron Egg, he said, is simply too small to generate power at a scale that is both economically viable and safe to operate.
For example, when a coworker approaches from down the hall, and you can't quite remember her name, the AI will sense your unease and a voice will ring: "Jenny from quantum computing."
Whereupon you will say, "Hi Jerry", and then shrivel up and die.
I walked into the filmography of Joel Schumacher without much of the way in expectations. What did I actually know about him beforehand? Mostly, it was his Batman movies, but I somehow expected that the rest of his filmography wasn't like it much. It raised questions about who this man was as an artist. There are three major throughlines in his work: fantasy/unreality, ensemble-based storytelling, and the guardrails of studio filmmaking.
However, while that's the kind of thinking that I usually have while discovering the work of a filmmaker, it's not what I was focusing on as I went through Schumacher's. The dominant thought was how I got this distinct impression that Schumacher made every movie he worked on...worse. That his guiding hand from scripting to pre-production to production to post were beset by bad decisions that made every single project worse. That's not to say that I disliked everything, but even his best films, movies like Falling Down or the John Grisham adaptations of The Client and A Time to Kill, there are choices stemming from production that feel to deviate from basic ideas of the script, approaching situations wrong from a filmmaking perspective.
These sorts of negative reactions from me are always beset by objections from fans of the filmmaker, specific films, or just the idea that concentrated criticism against a creative is naturally unfair. I just need to make it clear that just because I don't like a lot of Schumacher's films (the big one that probably creates arguments is 8MM which bored me) that isn't an attack on you. I just...don't like many of his movies.
The reality of a film production means that almost every director on almost every movie could justify an effort to get a writing credit on any film they work on. From taking a script and putting it into pre-production shape, where they have to decide on new ways to deliver information in scenes to match projected budget requirements to working with the editor to re-arrange scenes in the edit to make unexpected holes in the narrative work (or to find ways to cut down on running time), directors are, most of the time, the driving force for those decisions. They may not put pen to paper, but telling the writer, "You need to write a scene that does x, y, and z," is like having a story credit, at a minimum.
This is why a great filmmaker can have consistently good output and bad filmmakers can have consistently bad output. It's the source of the idea of auteur theory, stemming back to the article in Cahiers du Cinema that blamed, actually, a pair of writers (Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost) for consistent bad work on adaptations and blaming the weak directors (that Truffaut, in the article, called mere scenarists) for not fixing. When Aurenche and Bost worked for filmmakers like Cocteau, the problems didn't appear, but when they worked with less strong filmmakers, they did. Cocteau, a strong filmmaker, made films his own.
I think Schumacher saw himself as a strong director. He started as a writer/director, writing every film he directed from 1974 to 1985 (except for The Incredible Shrinking Woman in 1981), including his early financial successes like St. Elmo's Fire. He got swallowed up in the studio machine for more than a decade, having no writing credits until 1999 and his personal project Flawless. I think he saw himself as a writer-director through his entire career, even when he wasn't getting writing credits, and he exerted his stamp as far as he could on what projects he could. If he was working for John Grisham (who produced all of his own literary adaptations to film), Schumacher's choices feel really limited. If he's working with Andrew Kevin Walker (who also wrote David Fincher's Se7en), Schumacher tends to take over (Walker later complained that Schumacher heavily rewrote the script, even though Schumacher doesn't have a writing credit).
It's actually really rare when a writer has real power on a film set. Frank Miller tried to make it in Hollywood as a writer in the 80s, and he watched as Irvin Kirschner tore out pages of the script on the set of Robocop 2 laughing that they were never going to film them. The director, being part of the production from scripting through editing, on the project almost every single day, has power that only a producer can match, and if the director wants to exert that power, there's very little that's going to stop him. So, when I hear stories about how Schumacher rewrote 8MM from the writer's mouth, combined with evidence of his own struggles with writing on the films he actually is credited as having written (D.C. Cab is...not good), and I think Schumacher exerted that power whenever he could. And since I don't like most of the films and still have issues with the films I do like, well...*points to Schumacher*.
Ensembles
The earliest efforts on Schumacher's part are actually quite distinctive in a way I would have never predicted. The combination of Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill (a small TV movie that's darn near impossible to find, but which I did find), D.C. Cab, and St. Elmo's Fire show a very strong and undeniable Robert Altman influence. It's Nashville, in particular, (with a healthy dose of Short Cuts) that seems to drive his writing efforts early. But, it's important to understand how Altman accomplishes his expansive looks at Americana in Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee: he used a very long editing process to cut down the large amount of improvisation to come to a conclusion. Schumacher tried to write it out.
And he generally just wasn't that good at it. His characters tended to be very thin, like sketches for actors to figure out on their own during shooting but never given the time to discover any depths. The situations are often ridiculous and unbelievable. The characters are often extremely unlikeable. Combine it all, and I just get frustrated with most of his early output because it never feels well-written. The best of them, ironically in my opinion, is the impossible to find Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill. It still doesn't quite work, leaving subplots hanging that were probably cut short purely due to time.
I was actually kind of surprised that this direction of Schumacher's career, including his own writing, came to an abrupt halt with St. Elmo's Fire. Sure, it was received badly at the time, especially critically, but it made good money and helped cement the idea of the Brat Pack in the 80s. And yet, after, that, he essentially just became a studio director, starting with The Lost Boys, one of his most enduring films, and decidedly not an ensemble effort trying to recreate Robert Altman for Gen-X.
Studio Man
What voice Schumacher had in the beginning of his career was largely lost for the next decade-plus of his output. This is when it's obvious that producers were putting up guardrails around his work to keep him from doing too much. They could only do so much because of the limits of producer power on a live film set they're not on, but it's obvious that he could only rewrite scripts so much and only mess with so much in editing, leaving his curious decisions to how he filmed things. The big example I lean on is the way he films the ending of Falling Down which has an action-y feel when it should feel more thriller-esque and filled with tension.
This is, ironically, the era that defines him. From The Lost Boys to Flatliners to Falling Down to the Grisham adaptations to his two entries in the Batman franchise (Forever and Batman & Robin), these are the movies he's known best for (for good or ill). And this is where he's largely the most competent. He's put in the tightest boxes by producers and strong scripts, and he only has so much freedom. He's relegates to director on set, it seemed, as much as the system allowed. Not that I love everything here, but this is where I find his work to be the most even and basically competently built. He's only rewriting, not writing, and he's working with, generally, better writers than himself.
And despite any potential opinions about any of these movies, Schumacher went from modest box office success to modest box office success until he was given command of the Batman franchise. Are these films purely him? It's hard to argue that his influence isn't all over them, but it's also obvious that he was following directives from the studio to make the films lighter in tone, brighter in color, and more easily sold as toys (Schumacher outright admitted that last one in a retrospective on Batman & Robin), the surprisingly harsh negative reaction to his second Batman movie (it actually made a halfway decent amount of money and was probably in the black when including home video sales, the late 90s being the pinnacle of that revenue stream) obviously hit him back, and he tried a different tact.
Oscar Bait
Yes, Joel Schumacher went through an Oscar bait period. It's four movies out of six from 1999 to 2004 (it could be five if you think Phone Booth was designed to get Colin Farrel and Oscar nomination, which it didn't). Those four are his personal project Flawless, the Vietnam era Tigerland, the real life story about the murdered journalist Veronica Guerin, and the big budget musical spectacle The Phantom of the Opera (trying to ride the wave created by Moulin Rouge! and Chicago).
None of these films are good. When looked at from the perspective of Schumacher's career, I actually find them embarrassing. They're so obviously desperate attempts at respect from his peers in the industry, and none of them work (the best of them is Veronica Guerin which, again, I think would have been better made by someone else). They're filled with either his own problems in storytelling (the thin narrative and characters of Flawless) or inherited (The Phantom of the Opera's basic issues with being spectacle rather than story). They're all so nakedly trying to chase particular trends in Oscar filmmaking like Vietnam movies (Tigerland) or movies with strong central performances about a real person (Veronica Guerin). It's hard to tell what Schumacher wanted out of his career from an artistic point of view, but in this era it's really difficult. He seems to have been choosing his projects with some freedom, and they're majorly just these desperate attempts at being taken seriously by his peers. It's like a cry out that he's more than the guy who put nipples on the Batsuit, he's an artist.
And his peers didn't care. A couple of the films got some Oscar nominations (Blanchett got nominated for her starring role in Guerin and there were a handful of technical noms for Opera), but Schumacher was left behind every time. Was it because they didn't like him or just his movies? I dunno, but ultimately this period feels wasted, an effort to achieve artistic recognition but ultimately feeling derivative and desperate.
The Fading Away
Schumacher ended his attempt at Oscars with The Phantom of the Opera, well reviewed and making decent money, and returned to the kind of film he was more generally known for: visually distinctive thrillers in The Number 23. However, Schumacher's lack of learning about screenwriting dogged him more and more in these final years, creating films that were decreasingly able to find audiences despite decent budgets. Critically, his best days were behind him, and he put out a series of films (Blood Creek, Twelve, and Trespass) with decreasing results until he could no longer fund a film again.
His final directed work was on the Netflix show House of Cards, directing a couple of episodes (I still haven't watched the show ever) before his death in 2020.
And all we're left with are his movies. An incredible mixed bag of solid filmmaking on the one hand and car crashes of terrible decisions on the other. I've been through mixed bags of filmographies in the past, and the one this reminded me most of was Wes Craven's. Craven also felt like he never had a great idea of why one movie worked or another didn't (the dual examples of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Shocker are the cornerstone of my argument regarding Craven there), but he still managed a strong career that spanned decades. Craven developed a stronger personal following (working in horror tends to do that), but he's also got highs that aren't that high and lows that are very, very low while being recognizable in name to the casual film fan.
Ultimately, I was just frustrated with Schumacher. I wanted him to stop rewriting good scripts. I wanted him to recognize and focus on his actual skill set. I wanted him to...make better movies. The good ones are good, but I wanted them to be great.
Phone Booth (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's small, it's tight, it's entertaining. It's his best movie in nearly a decade." [Library]
Veronica Guerin (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "But, it's fine. Blanchett is the focus, and she does it well. It's fine." [Library]
The Phantom of the Opera (Rating 2/4) Full Review "Everything's too thin, but the thing looks great, sounds pretty good, and never quite bored me. That's something, I guess." [Library]
The Number 23 (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "But, I was mostly kind of just bored instead of miserable." [Library]
Le Corbeau (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "Anyway, the film is a tense treat of suspense and mystery. It works really well. It's something of a treat worthy of discovery." [Personal Collection]
Manon (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's not the top of the stack of his filmography. It's kind of an unusual entry. But it's a solid piece of melodrama." [Library]
The Wages of Fear (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's a great entertainment that pushes the audience almost as far as it pushes its characters." [Personal Collection]
Les Diaboliques (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's claustrophobic, character driven, twisty-turny, and fun. It's a delightful bout of suspense, and it keeps working decades after its release." [Personal Collection]
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 2/1, and it will be about the directed works of Henri-Georges Clouzot.
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 the result was clear and unambiguous. It said model trains. Choo choo!
Are you wise in the ways of model trains? What scale? Were you into trains as a child or is it an adult hobby (or both)? How out of control is your train set? Do you build your own layouts?
Do you set up a train on the floor around the Christmas tree? Do you collect certain train pieces? Are you interested in full scale trains or just model trains? Do you have a favorite museum or public model train display? Are there any happy hobbying Hordelings that worked on or with full size trains in some capacity?
TRex appreciates model trains and has a soft spot for model train enthusiasts, but is not an expert in model trains. Small arms and a tiny brain are not good for hobbies that require dexterity and intelligence.
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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 are, as always, optional but mind the gap.
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Seems like we should start here:
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The most extraordinary train display we have ever seen was near Salzburg, Austria. The Hans-Peter Porsche Traumwerk is the personal toy collection of Ferdinand Porsche's grandson. Yes, Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the Porsche automobile company. Hans-Peter amassed quite a collection of tin toys and full size cars. He also has an immense train display. The museum is open to the public. Pictures will not do it justice.
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O scale trash or treasure?
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If your train set is in your outdoor garden and you live in a place that gets snow, you need a way to clear the snow. Behold, a model train car with a snow blower!
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Go for a ride at the Kaeserberg rail museum in Switzerland:
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Not all model railroads need to be massive. Instead of going big, why not go small? There is a whole world of micro train layouts. This one is a called a Pizza layout for its shape:
Click the photo for more background or watch the short video below:
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Here is another fun micro layout. Click on the photo for build details:
Steve builds a lot of micro layouts:
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We have talked about 3D printing as a hobby. Has anyone used 3D printing for their train hobby? It opens up a lot of new possibilities.
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Making scale trains is a detailed process. Even if you are not into model trains, the design and manufacturing process is interesting to see in action.
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James May is the perfect person to produce a two hour documentary on Hornby, a British hobby train maker. Even if you are not a model train person per se, you might find the story compelling. It a business turnaround story of a struggling company (with bonus content of a 1:24 F6F Hellcat plastic model build):
Open a window and watch while keeping tabs on the Hobby Thread or just save for later. Top tip: watch at 1.25x speed. You won't miss anything and it won't take two hours.
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EnterTRAINment Junction has operated in Cincinnati since it opened 2008. It claimed to be the largest train display in the world. It was started by a hobbyist and had a lot of help from local clubs and volunteers. It featured 90 large, G scale trains run on over 2 miles of track with a panoramic journey through three distinct times in U.S. history in a 25,000 square foot display. History here.
The owner wanted to step away from the project and searched for a buyer without success for two years. The last day for the massive display was January 5, 2025.
Large pieces of the collection have found new homes. The main train exhibit layout has been purchased by a group looking to open a transportation museum in Chattanooga. They hope to open that museum by the end of 2025, or in early 2026. Other parts of the collection have found buyers, but anything remaining will be sold in a liquidation sale January 11 through 26. More information here. Entertrainment Junction
The Entertrainment Junction blog has included interesting stories over the years that might of interest to the Horde:
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week with a theme of gingerbread? The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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Notable comments from last week:
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Happy hobbying Horde comment from the Wednesday ONT:
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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).
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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.
A last Christmas photo before the tree came off its pedestal (due to puppy destruction possibilities):
In the foreground, Edison, our 14-year-old Shih-Pom rescued from a shelter when he was 20 months old, and on top Tucker, our 1-year-old Morkiepoo who was rescued from a puppy mill when he was 14 weeks old. Tucker has given Edison new life and Edison has given Tucker an older dog to trust. It’s a beautiful bond.
Debra in Naples, FL
Love that photo of those two charming friends together. They are so lucky to have each other and you!
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Gioia, the AoSHQ Swiss Guide Dog, is featured on a calendar page with her dog play group palz. She's the big one in the center.
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Thank you for sharing your pets and pet insights with us.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Jan. 11
—K.T.
Happy Saturday, everyone! Today is landscaping and puttering day (mostly). The fires have been on my mind, and it's been a while since we discussed landscaping and preparation for fire and other emergencies. The photos above and below are from Norman Winter. Entry landscaping. I guess you can think about whether anything would fall during high winds.
By-Tor caught some of the Santa Ana winds. From earlier this week:
Ok, going on three days now, and I’m about done with this wind. It blew a tile off my roof on to my car. I know it’s not the same as what people in LA are dealing with, but it’s getting old.
Some palm trees are more wind-resistant than others. Plan when planting.
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Wind damage . . . . Sorry, By-Tor.
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Swimming pool pump - Like a fire hose that reaches your roof and part of your neighbors' roofs
Efficiency of a diamond holesaw diamond drill bit. It is specifically designed to create precise holes in tiles, stone, or other hard surfaces. pic.twitter.com/czkIwa7TAn
This might be a bit of an exaggeration, but some people we might not have expected to turn toward the red seem to have modified their positions. And some who were already reasonable have become more vocal. We have seen a lot of terrible information coming out of the Los Angeles area over the past few days about Blue Government, but more jaw-dropping details drift out with the smoke from the fires.
Let's start with some pre-fire news by Team Blue California, though:
On January 6, Gavin Newsom participated in a ceremony to drive spikes into a "first rail" of Jerry Brown's dream for High Speed Rail extending from San Diego to San Francisco (then Los Angeles to San Francisco, then . . .
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (FOX26) - - Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the California high-speed rail project is poised to begin laying tracks, marking a significant milestone in the long-awaited infrastructure endeavor.
Newsom announced in Kern County on Monday, where he participated in a ceremonial event by driving spikes into the first track.
"The fact that we are here today to make visible finally we are here to lay some track to make real invisible all of the hard work of the last decade, decade and a half is a big damn deal," Newsom said.
The governor highlighted that the high-speed rail project, which spans the 171-mile route from Bakersfield to Merced, has already created 15,000 jobs.
He noted that 50 major projects, including bridges and other structures, have been completed, and the state has acquired 99 percent of the private parcels needed for the route.
"I've never thought of this fundamentally as a project that's just about rail," Newsom said. "It's about economic development. It's about creating a sense of place. It's about up zoning around the rail."
The Biden administration has contributed more than $6 billion to the high-speed rail project, though future federal funding remains uncertain.
Reminds you of the completion of transcontinental railroad, doesn't it? Ceremonial spikes and all . . .
IT'S NOT ABOUT HIGH SPEED RAIL, FOLKS! It's about transferring money to people favored by government.
Despite the criticism, Newsom remains committed to the project, dismissing detractors as "cynics" and emphasizing the importance of moving forward.
He stated that track laying for the high-speed rail is only months away, with early commitments on train sets also expected soon.
The project got its official start in 1996 after years of planning.
Track laying is only months away!
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Even this remnant of Jerry Brown's dream is still facing opposition:
A Republican lawmaker has set his sights on federal funding for California's high-speed rail, driven by the ambitious initiative's escalating costs and significant delays.
On Wednesday, California Representative Kevin Kiley announced that he would be proposing a bill to halt federal funding for the "failed California High-Speed Rail Project."
"California's high-speed rail project has failed because of political ineptitude, and there is no plausible scenario where the cost to federal or state taxpayers can be justified," Kiley said on Wednesday. "Our share of federal transportation funding should go towards real infrastructure needs, such as improving roads that rank among the worst in the country."
When contacted for comment, Kiley's office said that the bill would be introduced at the beginning of the 119th Congress, set to commence on January 3.
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THEN THE FIRES HIT
Yesterday at Powerline, Wildfire of the Vanities, with efforts of the press to protect Democrat officials. Plus supercuts of officials trying to protect themselves.
And then, some strong words from a farmer, classicist and war historian, (VDH) with a transcript:
I’m here in California. I’ve been a lifelong resident of the state, fifth generation to live in the same house. I had a house in the Sierra, and it would almost burn down three years ago during the Aspen Fire, and I’m speaking on the evening when you’ve all heard about the disastrous fire in Los Angeles.
As I’m speaking on a Wednesday night, there have been 15,000 acres, 1,000 structures destroyed. Nobody knows how many people are killed or missing. And how do we characterize this? Everybody’s talking about the Santa Ana winds, climate change—I mean everybody, the people in power.
But it was preventable. And once it started, this fire, it could have been assuaged. You could have had it lessened, that the severity didn’t have to be as catastrophic. So, I would characterize it as a DEI–Green New Deal hydrogen bomb. It’s something out of “Dante’s Inferno.”
And what I mean by that is, it’s a systems breakdown, a civilizational collapse. When you look at the people in charge, [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom flew in, to sort of do these performance-art stunts, but he has systematically ensured that water out of the Sacramento River and the watershed of Northern California would go out to the sea, rather than into the aqueduct, so Los Angeles didn’t have sufficient amounts of water.
Performance Art: On my social media, the true lefties are mightily upset that Trump would "politicize" the fires. That is worse that the negligence of the officials in charge. During his first term, Trump repeatedly advised Newsom to manage forests and brush better, and increase water storage (per his legislation). But in April of 2021, Newsom promised much better fire prevention with the election of Biden. How did that work out?
Back to VDH:
He bragged not very long ago that he blew up four dams on the Klamath River. They provided 80,000 homes with clean hydroelectric power. They offered recreation, flood control, irrigation. He blew them up.
California’s fire management, whether we look at the Paradise Fire or the Aspen Fire near where I’m speaking, it destroyed 60 million trees. We have no timber industry in California. [Newsom’s] dismantled it.
We don’t clean the forest. We don’t let loggers come in and have a viable livelihood by harvesting trees. It’s sort of considered natural to let these things burn or to at least create the conditions in which they will inevitably be burned.
It’s almost as if we don’t like humans. We worry about grubs and worms and birds and the ecosystem.
The second breakdown was the mayor, Karen Bass, was in Africa. . .
It’s almost as if we don’t like humans. We worry about grubs and worms and birds and the ecosystem.
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DEI Green New Deal Fire Hydrant
Looks nice, does not deliver water. At least is hasn't been stolen yet.
Many on the left celebrated the loss of James Woods' home, but:
A miracle has happened. We managed to get to our property and our home, that we were told is gone forever, is still standing. In this hellish landscape “standing” is relative, but smoke and other damage is not like the utter destruction around us. The view from our deck area: pic.twitter.com/JZU2kTJC52
Lefty contacts on FB are certain that Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk are now slaves to Donald Trump. They are not too enthused about the idea of participating in community notes on FB. Heh.
Morning coffee may protect the heart better than all-day coffee drinking
08 Jan 2025
Topic(s):Preventive Cardiology
Sophia Antipolis, 8 January 2025: People who drink coffee in the morning have a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a lower overall mortality risk compared to all-day coffee drinkers, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Wednesday).
The research was led by Dr Lu Qi, from Tulane University, New Orleans, USA. He said: “Research so far suggests that drinking coffee doesn’t raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it seems to lower the risk of some chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Given the effects that caffeine has on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day when you drink coffee has any impact on heart health.”
All I know is I'll drink it as often as I choose to.
Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to take care of. (Rulz for those of you in Egg Harbor)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate away.
2) Be kind, be nice. And for crying out loud. No jumping from the kitchen table.
3) Go ahead and run with that sharp object if you must. Sympathy meters may or may not work.
4) Have a great weekend!
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AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List
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:
12/7 – Jordan61 requested prayers for his mother, who is going in for a CAT scan. Mom has been coughing and congested ever since she caught a cold in August. They have done antibiotics, etc. since, and a chest X-ray revealed something that caused the doctor to recommend an urgent CAT scan.
12/14 Update – The CAT scan showed she had pneumonia. They gave her antibiotics (fourth round) and are continuing with prednisone. If this doesn’t work she will have to see a lung specialist.
12/7 – rhennigantx asked for prayers for his friend Mike, who lost his best friend of 50 years.
1/4 Update – rhennigantx asked for prayers for the family and friends of his friend Tim, who passed away.
12/10 – Village Idiot’s Apprentice requested prayers for his father, who had a major stroke on 12/9, with not a good prognosis.
12/19 Update – His father was called home to be with God at about 1 am. It is so bittersweet to know that he is no longer here, but yet already at the side of God.
12/12 – Cybersmythe is supposed to have outpatient surgery on 12/16, but he got an abnormal ECG. He’s asking for prayers for the best of all possible outcomes.
12/21 Update – the surgery went well and there appear to be no complications. He appreciates the horde’s prayers and well wishes.
12/14 – Dash my Lace Wings asked for prayers. She has had chronic hip pain for years, but it has really started to affect her mobility. The MRI showed torn tendons. She is going to try platelet-rich-plasma injections to stimulate healing, in lieu of surgery. That will happen in January. Please pray that the tendons are healed and that she might have reduced pain for a few years, and not have to have more expensive surgery. Thank you. Also, if anyone has had this treatment, what is your opinion of it?
12/14 – About That Time asked for prayers for a daughter who is trying to give them a second grandchild. The daughter lost a baby in early October, and is pregnant again. Prayers for success are appreciated.
12/14 – Commissar Hrothgar would appreciate a prayer or two for Tim, an acquaintance from Southern Virginia. He apparently dodged a deer while driving, but went off the road into a ditch, jamming the driver’s side door, and then the car caught on fire. Amazingly, there was an ongoing house fire nearby, so the fire department EMTs saw the flames and were somehow able to extract him from the car. However, he suffered severe burns on his hands and legs. He is already receiving skin grafts on his hands and legs and will be in a bad way for some time.
12/14 – Sock Monkey asked for prayers for Publius. His cousin passed away suddenly on 12/13.
12/14 – Sharon (willow’s apprentice) could use some prayers. She had a CT scan of her hip, and may be headed toward a hip replacement. She is not worried about the surgery, which probably will improve her life, but is concerned about the loss of autonomy during recovery.
12/14 – Duke Lowell asked for prayers for his father, who was taken to the hospital 12/13 in respiratory distress. They are thinking it’s an infection, but he’s 87, and at that age anything can be serious.
12/21 Update – Thanks for the prayers; they definitely helped. Dad is recovering at home now. He had an upper respiratory infection and esophageal spasms, all treatable.
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.
1/4 Update – Jewells is still in a lot of pain. The doctor has prescribed morphine. She has an orthopedic appointment soon, where hopefully one problem will be resolved.
12/16 – Teresa in Fort Worth requested prayers for Paul’s niece, Amanda, who had a heart transplant 4 years ago. Now her body has started to reject it. She needs another miracle.
12/17 – Bulg asked for prayers that he would find a job soon.
12/18 – neverenoughcaffeine could use prayers. She has 3 minor medical issues. One she can ignore, but the other 2 are causing loads of pain and discomfort. They may be related. She is praying that her ortho doctor has an answer for both.
12/21 Update – She did receive two shots of cortisone in her foot, which helped with her back issues. Her foot feels better and hopefully will continue to improve. Therapy for her back is also helping.
12/21 – Fenelon Spoke asked for prayers for E, the nurse and caregiver for her church’s retired organist. “E” has been in and out of the hospital for 2 weeks with a bleeding ulcer. Prayers are also needed for Fen’s son’s supervisor who has chest pain and a fever and has missed a couple of days of work. Fen also offered a prayer of thanks to God for FenSon completing his second week of work at a new job, which was a bit challenging since his boss was out ill.
12/21 – Tonypete requested prayers for his buddy Bev. She is normally happy, but something is going on. Lately she is very sad and depressed. One of Bev’s kids has been a cause for concern in the past, so there may be trouble there.
12/21 – J.J. Sefton sends his gratitude for all of the love, prayers, and support this past year. Last Monday, his latest MRI was also negative (that’s three in a row!) and his oncologist is very pleased with his progress.
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 – Brave Sir Robin requested prayers for his co-worker, Matt and his wife Jamie and 2 kids. Matt, about 42 years old, was diagnosed with glioblastoma. This same cancer to Brave Sir Robin’s mother. Unless treatment has changed radically, Matt does not have a happy ending. Please pray for wisdom and skill from his doctors, and peace and serenity for Matt and his family.
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.
12/25 – Molly k asked for prayers. This will be a different Christmas. Mr. k passed away on 12/22. Luckily the girls and grandkids were home. He passed at home, holding their oldest granddaughter’s hand. Christmas will be fun for the “littles” but tough for the rest. 12/26 is the funeral and she is dreading it, but will do her best to make it the best day possible and be thankful for the real meaning of Christmas.
12/25 – vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for her brother-in-law in the hospital, and for her sister, who is looking out for him.
12/26 – Joe Kidd requested a prayer of thanksgiving for God’s quiet resolution to a problem his younger (and last remaining) sibling was having with a roommate. She suffers from bipolar disorder and tends to make poor decisions when difficulties arise. Communication with her on Christmas indicated that God’s wisdom prevailed on all concerned. Praise Him!
12/28 – LF asked for prayers for success for her daughter’s open heart surgery, to repair an aortic weakness. The surgery should happen around Valentine’s Day. Her daughter is only 48.
12/28 – JW suggested the following Jewish Prayer of Faith for Healing:
JEWISH PRAYER OF FAITH FOR HEALING
Merciful God, we pray to you for the recovery of all who are facing illness or pain.
We join our prayers with all who love them. Grant them renewed strength and courage. Strengthen in them the healing powers You have placed within us all. Guide the hearts and hands of those who are entrusted with their care.
Help all who share the anxiety of this illness to be brave and hopeful.
Inspire us with courage and faith. Grant your blessings to all who call upon you.
Oh God, who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebekkah, Leah, and Rachel, send your blessings to all who are ill.
Have mercy on them, and graciously restore their health and strength.
Grant them a complete recovery.
May healing come speedily.
May the knowledge of Your love and ours give added hope to them and to their dear ones.
May they find even greater strength because our prayers are linked to theirs.
When pain and fatigue are our companions, let there be room in our hearts for strength.
When days and nights are filled with darkness, let the light of courage find its place.
Help me to endure the suffering and dissolve the fear; renew within me the calm spirit of trust and peace.
We praise You, Eternal God, the Source of healing and health.
12/28 – Farmer sent thanks for the prayers for healing for his dad and for Jules. Dad is out of the hospital and is recovering. Jules’ recovery is remarkable. After surgery for a perforated ulcer, which caused severe septic shock, she was close to death. After 49 days in the hospital, she went to rehab on 12/27!
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.
1/4 – vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for her eldest sister. It looks like her illness is cancer.
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.
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.
The Supreme Court heard arguments from both TikTok and the Department of Justice, but seemed disinclined to intervene in the January 19th deadline for the company to divest or be shut down.
TikTok argued that divestment was impossible because the Chinese government would never permit foreign control of network's recommendation algorithm - and also that the US subsidiary has the final say over such matters. The company also claimed that it does not operate in China, which is true insofar as it goes, because TikTok, a Chinese social network, is banned in China.
These chips have four Zen 5 cores running at 5GHz, and four Zen 5c cores running at 3.5GHz. Zen 5c is functionally identical to Zen 5 but built using a more compact design, so it executes exactly the same instructions in exactly the same number of clock cycles, but runs more slowly.
And eight RDNA 3.5 graphics cores.
So overall it's not an improvement over the previous generation (like the 8845HS) but might possibly be cheaper maybe.
Also, this model includes user-upgradeable SO-DIMM memory (along with two M.2 slots, two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, two DisplayPort ports, HDMI, and USB4).
Which makes me wonder: Does the memory controller on the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 also support socketed memory? Four channels of it? 384GB of it?
That all of AMD's other mobile chips support socketed memory suggests that it might.
The problem with running AMD's faster laptop chips with socketed RAM is that they have fast integrated graphics and need lots of memory bandwidth, and socketed DDR5 RAM is slower than soldered LPDDR5X.
G.Skill has announced 8133MHz DDR5 CSODIMMS - the "C" stands for clock, since these modules have a clock generator chip added to them to improve stability at such a high speed.
We don't know if these modules might be compatible with AMD's latest laptop chips, but it's an interesting thing to consider.
Whether they actually had a hundred staff left to fire is an open question.
King Matt said - paraphrasing - that just because Automattic owns WordPress and makes all its money off it, doesn't mean that it should be expected to do any work to update or maintain the software. Also that he only beats us because he loves us.
If Automattic goes through with this, WordPress is dead and will be forked by the community.
Adam Carolla: California's Government Started These Fires, and Has an Evil Surprise Coming for Those Who Lost Their Homes: They Won't Let You Rebuild the Homes They Burned Down, Either
—Ace
Trainer/host of The Biggest Loser Gillian Michaels confirmed that, saying that when her home was burned down by another regularly-scheduled disastrous wildfire years ago, it took her a full year just to get the permit to...
Bulldoze the wreckage of her destroyed home.
Not to rebuild the home. That would take another gauntlet of permit approvals.
But just to secure the right to bulldoze away the ruins of her home, she had to wait a year for the blessing of California's oppressive government.
You think they're going to just let people rebuild their homes or -- the horrors! -- even rebuild their homes with a somewhat different blueprint this time?
Oh no. Oh dear no.
Eric Abbenante
@EricAbbenante
Epic Adam Carolla rant from a hotel after the LA wildfires forced to evacuate from his home, where he predicts Hollywood leftists will be so frustrated by the rebuild effort that they will not vote Democrat:
"You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom, and now you fucking get what you get. now that your house is on fire.
So here's what's going to happen. All these people who are deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild, and they're going to get the 28 year old bitch from the Coastal Commission telling them to go fuck off and then they're going to vote for Trump or whoever's Trumpian next.
When they start getting the regulation, they're going to go nuts. And when they start running into the bureaucracy and the red tape, they're going to start going nuts and they're going to vote for Rick Caruso next time.
They're going to find out they're going to get bit by their own snake. They're going to convert. I am telling you, these are the bluest people on the planet and they're going to be fucking rip shit pissed when the City and the Coastal Commission tell them to fuck off.
We're going to have to restructure the whole thing because we can't have nine angry lesbians controlling everything that goes on in Malibu, the Palisades and Santa monica."
This is why Californians pay the highest taxes: So that their government can completely fail them in their time of need.
Matthew J. Peterson
@docMJP
Look, @adamcarolla is 100% correct about at least half of what is going to happen: the California Coastal Commission, which has more power than many a third world dictator, simply won't allow a lot of rebuilding in Malibu.
And homeowners in the Palisades and Altadena are about to walk through the gates of local government hell as they learn how hard it is to build anything in California, as well as how corrupt and deficient their systems of regional government truly are.
And Carolla *should* be right about the other half of what he says: if the result of the devastating fires doesn't "redpill" everyone who has suffered, nothing will. But changing attitudes, never mind a complicated and wholly corrupt system, is hard. Will either happen? I don't know. I hope so. I've always hoped so.
I love the Southland even though I left it four years ago. But it past a tipping point a long time ago. The spirit of the thing - the old California - was gone long before the flames leapt up throughout Los Angeles county this week. An oppressive regime, a one party state, filled with mind-numbing corruption and worse, has long since taken its place.
But, and related to this, as more than one friend has pointed out in the last 24 hours, there's something lost in all the talk about the fires: what has been lost is lot more than some random suburbs.
Altadena had some of the most beautiful homes and neighborhoods in California, representing the best of early 20th century California (author Zane Grey's estate is but one example). We lived nearby and used to wander through those streets and marvel at them.
The idyllic Palisades were not full of the usual shoddy McMansions or super-mega-gaudy estates, but real communities and beautiful suburban housing that represented the rise of the post-WWII golden age of southern California.
The iconic Malibu coastline has stood as a symbol for millions for a long time. It always did for me, at least. Commuting to Pepperdine as I did was always a joy for this reason, no matter the traffic.
And so much of all this is gone now. And one is right to wonder if it's ever coming back. Or if anything like it *can* come back.
Nothing is inevitable. I think it's possible. But if it's possible it will take monumental change. And time.
There is hope again in America, and a changing of the tide. But this is juxtaposed against a background of decline, and real loss.
What was lost this week is much more than houses. What vanished in the smoke and flames is the physical remnants of an America culture - symbols that stood for the American dream - that has already suffered a spiritual and political death.
Acknowledge the loss. The sadness. Help and pray for those who have suffered through it.
And raise a glass to a rebirth and renaissance in this country however you can with whoever is willing until your dying day, come what may. I know I will.
Epic Adam Carolla rant from a hotel after the LA wildfires forced to evacuate from his home, where he predicts Hollywood leftists will be so frustrated by the rebuild effort that they will not vote Democrat: "You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all… pic.twitter.com/YhNqBnJJR9
A people hire A people, B people hire C people, lesbians hire more lesbians.
Los Angeles recently appointed its very 1st female, LGBTQ+ fire chief with the goal of recruiting more women & gay firefighters pic.twitter.com/h8vfAYkbiV
Meanwhile, the Democrats revert to their usual playbook: Rather than correcting their errors and fixing their disasters, they want to unleash government censors on anyone who notices their errors and disasters. By gum, everything we touch turns to shit that's burning with hellfire, but we'll stop people from talking about the hellfire turds!
"We must stop people from saying negative things about how we are handling the response to these mismanaged fires" sums up the last 4 years of Democratic Party policy perfectly. https://t.co/F0cjXlnvh1
Los Angeles is currently battling the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles County history. The Palisades are gone--all those beautiful homes with those beautiful views just up in smoke. Evacuation orders have impacted nearly 180,000 people. Toxic air is engulfing millions more. With first responders tied up, looters are out in force. The fire hydrants have run out of water. Truly, the collapse we're seeing in Los Angeles is every California chicken coming home to every California roost.
Let's start from the top. The Los Angeles County Fire Department sent a load of their "surplus" gear to Ukraine in 2022, because it felt right to do that. From KTLA in 2022: "Boots, hoses, nozzles, body armor and medication were among the items packed and shipped out." Don't need extra of those. You're welcome, Slava Ukraini!
And don't forget: Growing firefighter diversity has been the main priority for the LA department of late, with a whole special equity bureau. And much has been made of the beautiful rainbow leading the department, run by a lesbian. Should I care that a lesbian saves me lesbianly? You might say, you're already a woman married to a woman, you're doing enough. But it's true: Unless the firefighter is singing "Come to My Window," I won't get on the ladder.
And what's an LA story without unchecked crime? With all first responders tied up, into the breach ran those who love chaos and want more homes to loot. Friend of The Free Press Andrew Huberman took this video of a group of men starting a new fire. And of course, there are missing hydrants all over the city because people have been stealing them for years. "Between January 2023 and May 2024, more than 300 fire hydrants were stolen from LA County streets, according to data from the Golden State Water Company, which manages the fire hydrants." Some of the hydrants are sold as scrap metal. Residents are asked to call if they notice a missing hydrant.
When you create a lawless environment and turn the criminals and lunatics out of prisons and asylums en masse, you're going to have vicious and/or insane people setting fires during an arson, as vengeance on the world.
And that's what's happening. I don't know how many of these fires were deliberately set by arsonists, but we know at least some were. More on that later.
Infrastructure that could have provided more water for those fires has been on hold, tied up in red tape. Ten years ago, California voters approved spending $7.5 billion to build water storage and improve state water facilities--but by 2023 not one dam had been finished, per the Los Angeles Times. Not a single one. But a decade into various environmental regulations and reviews, they are moving. ...
And what about controlled burns? Didn't they at least do that? No. "Forest Service Halts Prescribed Burns in California. Is It Worth the Risk?" reported KQED in October. See: If a controlled burn got messy, it would look bad, like, politically, and also, fire can be scary! So the U.S. Forest Service didn't do them.
Here's Michael Wara, energy and climate expert at Stanford University, explaining: "I think the Forest Service is worried about the risk of something bad happening [with a prescribed burn]. And they're willing to trade that risk--which they will be blamed for--for increased risks on wildfires." Which, he says, can then just be blamed on "Mother Nature."
Or "global warming."
The left can't excuse its failures by reciting its catechisms of "global warming, global warming, global warming." They're the ones who have been warning us for fifty years that global warming will cause more environmental disasters. So obviously they believe in an elevated risk of wildfires due to "global warming."
So riddle me this: Why do they take absolutely zero steps to mitigate the risks of the global warming they shriek about?
Do they just want the fires to burn down whole cities so they can say "I told you so" and have fresh fuel for demands we outlaw, well, fuel?
"Global warming" does not excuse their failure to take steps to clear the forest of deadfall. It indicts them further, because, by their own theory, global warming makes the need to practice prudent forest management even more urgent.
BREAKING NOW - A LOS ANGELES COUNTY OFFICIAL has stated that there have been nearly 300 fires set intentionally by acts of arson and or terrorism in and throughout the city by either homeless individuals and or organized arsonists.
For people not from LA, we are facing an epidemic of immeasurable proportions of homeless people setting fires daily. It’s happened on my street four times in the past few months.
The police arrest the arsonists, but because of progressive DAs, they are released and reoffend. https://t.co/1vLbg4TfIa
I believe we talked about this possibility after one of California's other fires that caused billions in damage: Isn't California engineering its forests to be the easiest powderkegs for terrorists to set off?
All it takes is a book of matches and ten minutes of time near some dead leaves in a woods.
John Ekdahl
@JohnEkdahl
One thing that has really stuck with me about this Los Angeles fire is how relatively easily this could have been pulled off by a foreign terror operation. We have a porous border with hostile foreign nationals routinely spilling across. It appears this obvious natural and predicable environmental threat was treated somewhere between cavalierly and complete indifference by local and state officials. I'm not suggesting that's what this was here (there's no evidence of that), but it would be incredibly short-sighted to not treat this event as a potential intentional terrorist target going forward, especially since it would be such a low buy-in from a manpower and materials perspective.
It won't work and they shouldn't try. They are now hated by most and appeal only to a tiny audience. They will not change that. Their only play is to continue appealing to that tiny audience, and to just cut staff and salaries to reflect their reduced position.
The Washington Post is planning on eliminating its "gender columnist" position after the writer penned a piece that was ultimately scrapped by the paper's editors, Fox News Digital has learned.
Monica Hesse, who made headlines in 2018 by becoming The Post's first-ever "gender columnist," will not hold that title much longer after writing a column about gender was "killed" by her editors, two sources tell Fox News Digital. It is unclear what Hesse had written in the column and what the editors objected to.
Hesse, currently a columnist for the paper's Style section, is expected to be reassigned either to its Opinions section or remain in Style as a reporter, the sources added.
"It's sad and so unnecessary," one source told Fox News Digital.
Neither Hesse nor The Washington Post responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Hesse first joined The Post in 2007 as an intern for the Style team before becoming a Features general-assignment reporter until breaking ground as the paper's "gender columnist." In 2023, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her columns "convey[ing] the anger and dread that many Americans felt about losing their right to abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade."
Her gender-based commentary has also raised eyebrows among conservative critics over the years. In 2022, Hesse accused Florida's parental rights legislation removing progressive gender ideology from the classroom of being "homophobic and transphobic bills cloaked in neutral language."
In another piece, she defended drag queens reading books to children, insisting "Drag queens are not the ones sexualizing drag story hour."
In 2023, Hesse accused critics of First Lady Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman of "sexism" for allowing their spouses to seek office despite their mental impairments.
...
During the 2024 election cycle, Hesse defended Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz for putting tampons in boys restrooms in schools as Minnesota governor.
"Any boy who casually was like 'Oh you got ur period? I stashed a pad from the bathroom in my backpack in case one of my friends needed it' -- that boy would be king stud. That boy would be drowning in prom invites," she wrote on X.
...
The move by The Post to eliminate its "gender columnist" position could be seen as an ideological pivot to the center as the liberal paper adjusts to the return of President-elect Donald Trump.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Post who quashed his paper's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris just days before the election, alluded to making reforms in an op-ed defending the endorsement decision.
"Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn't see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose," Bezos wrote in October. "Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility."
Well, here’s one for the books: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is about to become the first sitting Democratic senator to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Yep, you read that right. Fetterman himself confirmed the invite and made it clear he’s going: “No one is my… pic.twitter.com/QNaYMPJWNf
David Hogg represents exactly the kind of bold, dynamic, and courageous leadership our party needs right now. He has a unique ability to connect with the American people and to speak to the strengths of our party.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton discuss the Los Angeles fires and the culpability of the Democrat/Progressive complex, Deportation as a perfectly acceptable policy, and whether Carter was the worst president!
Thune: Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed SecDef Also, Trump told two "no" votes on Johnson that they're "being ridiculous" and stepping all over the agenda that the country voted for. They changed their votes to "yes."
HISTORIC: Kamala Harris becomes the first woman of color to certify her own election loss before Congress
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent at January 06, 2025
FBI investigating reports of an effort to bomb SpaceX's Boca Chica Starship facility
In an interview Friday, he said he was there on the afternoon of
Christmas Eve when an SUV pulled up with five male passengers who rolled
down their windows to converse. They said they were from the Middle
East. “I said something like, ‘What are y’all here for? ’ and the driver
said, ‘Oh, we’re here to blow (Starship) up,’ ” Wehrle said. “I just
went stone cold, and he said, ‘Oh, I got you. I was joking.’ ”
As the conversation went on, though, Wehrle’s visitors said at least
three times they were in South Texas to attack Starship. He reported the
incident to SpaceX and the sheriff’s office and said he was contacted
later by an investigator.
Podcast: Happy New Year! We discuss the New Orleans Islamic terrorist attack, the stupidity of the current security apparatus, and more!
