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
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Welcome 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. When you follow the long and windy road, you end up with maps as a theme for this Hobby Thread.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. I understand that some people pay attention to military hardware, tactics and strategy as a hobby. Discussion of current events permitted but must be made in the form of hobby commentary. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
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Handmade map making:
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Old maps are time machines. 1847 Manhattan.
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This is the most accurate depiction of the South that I've seen. I'm in the orange area.
Flight maps are cool. Istanbul apparently has the most direct connections of any airport in the world (310).
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Berlin U-Bahn map from 1967
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Visualizing Pickett's charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863:
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Look closely at this street map from Silver Springs Shores in Florida. What do you notice? So many streets with "spring" in the name! Drive, road, place, lane, run, radical, circle, loop, loop circle, pass, trace, terrace, track and more. What a postal nightmare.
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British documentary from 1961 when they actually made things and did stuff.
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Race track map? The Nurburgring in Germany is so big that three villages exist inside. It was built in 1927 and is about 15.7 miles long. If you have any sympathy for cars or motorsport, it should be on your bucket list. Even better if you go for the annual 24 Hour race.
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Map of all 54 Buc-ee's locations:
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Mapping tips for places that don't exist:
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Population around a point
This website estimates the total human population within a distance, from any point in the world. Select a radius and click on the map.
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Musical interlude:
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Helps to have a map to find your way around Yosemite National Park:
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a calligraphy theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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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, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things but don't run with scissors.
Mikan works as a stationmaster at the Ciaotou Sugar Factory Station on the Kaohsiung Metro in Taiwan.
He was originally a local cat who lived near the station, but the staff and passengers cared for him and he became the "face of the station".pic.twitter.com/cW2V4H343P
4 years ago she was found eating grasshoppers in a parking lot, when she was still a tiny kitten.
A lurker
Marcy has had some great care since she was a kitten, obviously. But she looks a little camera-shy!
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Mom’s wolfie Liath has crossed the rainbow bridge. She always waited so patiently for her to come home. She now waits on the other side of the bridge.
RITS
So sorry you and your Mom have lost wonderful Laith. Thanks for the photo and profile.
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
The weather and the wildlife seem like it’s May. Not March. The wild turkeys abound with the mating stupidity. So many things going on in nature around here. Happy first day of spring. I love the gardening thread. Thank you!
NorCal Sierra Foothills lurker.
Great photo! Happy First Week of Spring! Hoping that you like the Pet Thread, too!
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Spring is in full swing in Central Iowa, with all sorts of birds coming out. Sadly, nothing much to report on the garden front, although there seem to be tiny buds on all the fruit trees, so hopefully no losses over the winter.
Intrepid Liaison/Admiral Ackbar
A raptor and more turkeys waiting for some garden action! Thanks for sending them in. It must have taken some patience and/or luck to get those remarkable photos!
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Moose out front…
This is a younger bull that hangs around our place. When he’s not here an older mama and her yearling bed down there. My dogs object but not too strenuously. If the moose wanted to, they could jump the fence but the don’t. Detant.
tcn in AK
Wow! Big for almost-pets!
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
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.
Things in the garden started acting like springtime a few weeks ago.
Alstroemeria: After the die-off of all above ground stems towards the end of the summer, the plantings came back strong during the winter, and all but one are already well into flowering.
Love the markings on those flowers.
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Edible Gardening/Putting Things By
From Neal in Israel:
Lime: The tree is strong, and is the first of my little collection of fruit trees to begin significant blossoming in the spring. Fruit has begun to set. I'll be hoping that the strong storm predicted for the coming week won't strip the tree of the beginning of this year's yield.
Best regards, Neal
The blossoms look promising. Hope they stick!
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Thought about growing spaghetti squash this year? I like them under-ripe, and I'm good with simmering the squash instead of roasting if the weather is warm.
I can’t believe I’ve never made spaghetti squash.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Prep the Squash: - Cut squash crosswise into rings. - Remove seeds and pulp. - Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Carrie Prejean Boller Challenges Bishop Barron Over Commission Firing
Boller, a recent Catholic convert and former evangelical, said the text supported her belief that modern Israel does not fulfill biblical prophecy, a stance she links to her February removal from President Trump's White House Religious Liberty Commission. Barron acknowledged the text but attributed her dismissal to disruptive behavior at a prior meeting, like browbeating witnesses and hijacking discussions. He affirmed the Catholic view condemning antisemitism and supporting Israel's right to exist while rejecting prophetic fulfillment, a position less common among evangelicals. The public clash highlights tensions in conservative circles over theology, religious authenticity, and coalition unity.
This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.
Prediction prompted by a bit of earlier communication from Prejean Boller to the Bishop:
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) March 20, 2026
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It appears that she is keeping up her attacks on those she wants to support her.
The five-minute Catholic is now disrespecting and threatening Bishops, and she’s using the Candace Owens’ tactic of posting something that in no way proves what she’s claiming. pic.twitter.com/muCVRCcrZU
Here is an interchange in which Seth Dillon was able to tone her down during the meeting after which she was removed from the commission:
🚨 At the White House Religious Liberties Commission meeting this morning, one of the attendees, Carrie Prejean Boller, aggressively defended Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson while confronting Seth Dillon
Speaking of Candace Owens, she spoke at a Catholics for Catholics gala on the 19th, where she talked about learning to love Mary, the mother of Jesus after her conversion. And where she also did this:
Yahoo News ran a dark piece about Catholics for Catholics after their gala, Candace Owens, Joe Kent and generally others viewed as conservatives. The piece claims that Candace was supposed to interview Joe Kent. But I was struck by the characterization of Kent as having "proximity to" white supremacists and neo-Nazis. And characterizing Candace as "MAGA Right".
Carrie Prejean Boller has posted memes on social media suggesting that she, Candace Owens and Ana Kasparian will always be there to support the people of Gaza. Whether or not they are actually from Gaza.
There is also an evangelical woman in the news, namely Insurrectionist Barbie, who wrote a long essay which Ted Cruz recommended that people read. This led to some people calling him anti-Catholic.
This is a deep piece that takes some time to read. You may agree or disagree with part or all of it.
Juicy Ecumenism wrote a much shorter piece about the essay. It has some typical leftist academic slant, but gives you an idea what the arguments are about.
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Another womanly thing to think about:
Guys don’t fall for it. This is a propaganda trick where the woman says nothing & they want you to fill in the blanks mentally. If he is the monster you say he is, fine, then say what he did. Cesar Chavez was against Illegal Immigration, they have planning to erase him for years. https://t.co/DdAxHYNDMx
As the “endless” conflict in Iran neared third weeks old, it continued to dominate the news and, to a large extent, the memes. Reports of a gay Ayatollah prompted a great deal of meme-merriment. Of course there was other news: the Democrats’ shutdown of DHS continued, freedom for Cuba glimmered on the horizon, Chuck Norris died. Allegedly. And, finally–Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Oh wait, one more thing–reportedly there was some kind of party in Hollywood last week, but I don’t know anything about it because no one watched it.
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
[That and prayer!]
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Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in North Hudson)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Or don't get caught.
3) Running with sharp objects is no way to impress the one you want to.
4) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
1/31 – George V asked for prayers for his wife. She needs a heart valve replacement but first needs a heart cath to assess the valve and determine the replacement procedure and perhaps put stents in the coronary arteries that may be partially blocked. Also, the preliminary CT scan of her heart showed spots on her lungs that may be cancerous.
2/21 Update – The prayers are working. Thanks be to God and everyone who prayed. The heart cath showed no blockages in her arteries. The heart valve procedure will be in about 4 weeks. The pulmonologist said the lung spots have a very low chance of being cancerous, but a second scan will tell for sure. So far good news, and thanks to all who prayed for her.
2/19 – mindful webworker requested prayers for his wife. Milady Jo will be having surgery on 2/26. It should be outpatient, and then a couple of weeks of recovery. Prayers are welcome for her, her surgeon, and her hapless husband while she’s down.
2/26 Update – The surgery is for Respiratory Epithelial Adenomatoid Hamartomak (REAH) – basically a blocked up nose. It’s relatively rare. It took a while to find an ENT whose diagnosis and surgical recommendation gave confidence. The surgery should improve her life greatly. It is scheduled for 1 pm.
2/28 Update – Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers for MiladyJo’s surgery. It took about 4 hours and seems to have been completely successful. There has been a great improvement in breathing and even appearance. She said that, after years of waiting, it seems like a dream, and that she knows with family, friends, and Morons and ‘Ettes, she is much loved.
2/20 – Gouveneur Morris requested prayers for herself as she has surgery scheduled for 2/27 for spondylolisthesis.
3/5 Update - Gouveneur Morris’ surgery was successful – every prayer and thought directed her way is appreciated.
2/21 - Skip asked for prayers for his sister and her two children, as they grieve their husband/father. The memorial service was on 2/21.
2/21 – Vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for Gerry and Cathy, the elderly parents of her co-worker, B. Gerry and Cathy are in failing health, and B is bravely trying to keep them cared for and independent while also being a mom to her own kids.
2/21 – San Franpsycho requested a prayer for complete and immediate healing for PS, his oldest living relative, who is back in the hospital due to post-surgery fever and possible pneumonia.
2/21 – Sock Monkey asked for prayers of comfort and peace for Rickb223, who recently lost his wife to cancer. It was apparently a long battle and he was her primary caregiver. He is struggling. Please pray for him.
2/25 – LinusVanPelt posted a request for prayers for himself. He had a health scare and it’s freaking him out a bit. He had a real thing happen, and then received a clean bill of health, but has 2 more doctors to see. He can’t stop irrationally worrying that they’re going to say bad stuff (despite the real reason for the visits is to adjust medication levels).
2/28 Update – He woke up in a hospital ICU recently. Everything checked out, and it was a stress-induced incident, but that means he needs to make changes in his professional life. He is looking for the Lord’s guidance.
2/25 – Teresa in Fort Worth posted that she might need some prayers. Her PET scan was less than encouraging. She will have more information on 2/26.
2/27 Update – The newest chemo protocol appears to be working. Her cancer markers are below the “cancerous” range. So for now they will continue with 2 weeks of continuous medication delivered directly into the Hepatic Artery and 2 weeks off. Unfortunately, one of the meds is a low dose of steroids, so her appetite and her Zepbound are currently duking it out.
2/25 – Robert posted that he needed an ‘Ette to kindly bash his brains in. He is suffering yet another massive gout flare up, and needs someone to end it all for him. He asks for an ‘Ette because he knows women are capable of inflicting great violence with only love in their hearts.
2/26 – Farmer could use some prayers. A biopsy is scheduled soon. The dentist said he found a couple of suspect spots. After having had prostate cancer, anything like this really alarms him.
2/26 – Bluebell passed along news from winger: “Tomorrow (2/27) I go in for an all day marathon of tests and consultations. Then Monday (3/2) they will attempt the surgery. It is quite complex and they are not exactly sure they can do it. If they can, it will be a ten hour procedure. I confess to being a little apprehensive. The Rev is a little overwhelmed poor soul. Fortunately my two kids have me covered. My daughter the nurse for the medical side, and my son for the spiritual side. He has been a rock.”
3/10 Update – GrammieWinger’s son said she wanted us to know that she had surgery last Monday, and they were able to get most of the cancer, but they had to remove her colon. It’ll be a long recovery time, but she’s in good spirits and good hands. Grammie’s daughter has been at the hospital every day. Grammie Winger is very thankful for all of your prayers and she looks forward to talking with us soon!
2/27 – turambar posted that his/her mom had surgery for a broken left hip. Lots of pins and a rod were required to fix her up. She is in recovery now and doing okay, but she has a long road ahead since she is 86 years old. Thanks for your prayers; turambar appreciated them so much.
2/28 – 2009Refugee asked for prayers for an older sister who was scheduled for brain surgery on 3/4.
2/28 – no one of any consequence requested prayers for the repose of his oldest friend, who died on 2/22. His friend had returned to the church in recent years. No one of any consequence will be giving the eulogy at his memorial mass.
2/28 – San Franpsycho asked for prayers for P’nina Bat Surel, who remains hospitalized and still is not stabilized.
2/28 – Fenelon Spoke asked for prayers for a friend, P, who is dealing with a pinched nerve and has to have surgery in a week or so. She also has a daughter, K, who just got out of the hospital having had major mental health problems.
2/28 – LinusVanPelt requested prayers for our troops, President Trump, and for Israel’s government and the IDF as well.
2/28 – Sock Monkey requests prayers for Mrs. Sock. She crashed and burned pretty hard while skiing Thursday. She went to work very sore and using a cane.
2/28 – JJ posted that his wife was discharged from her rehab facility and her prognosis post shunt surgery to regain strength and physical abilities is excellent.
3/2 – RickZ posted that he received bad news. He went to the ER with muscle pain and came out with a cancer diagnosis. He could use prayers for an extremely capable oncological team of cancer specialists, and that God guides their hands and minds as they work to rid Rick of cancer. And also that God would provide him peace and calm, and to help sustain him through this trial.
3/5 – Inogame posted the good news that baby #5 arrived! Baby was overdue by 12 days. Mom and baby are doing well. Baby was 9 pounds 8 ounces, and 21.5 inches long.
3/5 – IrishEI has learned that she needs major surgery on 3/16, and she would really appreciate prayers.
3/7 – Uncle Slayton posted the good news that his son-in-law, Kenny, is almost 3 years cancer-free. He beat lymphoma and leukemia, and Uncle Slayton wanted to thank everyone who prayed for him.
3/7 – Joe Kidd sent an update on a previous prayer, for a young girl named Jasmine. She is the adopted daughter of a friend of a friend. She had been rescued from abuse, but was withdrawn, etc. The friend took the family on an RV trip, and with lots of TLC for Jasmine, things have improved. It appears that God has surrounded this young girl with an army of angels, and your prayers for her are being heard. May those listed here and whispered elsewhere receive similar affirmation.
3/7 – vmom deport deport deport requested prayers for GB, the husband of her friend; he just had a quadruple bypass a couple of days ago, following a heart attack.
3/10 – Warai-otoko asked for prayers for a sister-in-law with some respiratory issues, who just took a hard turn for the worse. Thanks to everyone, even if you just take a fraction of a second for it.
3/10 – Update on Susan, who we have been praying for as she battles cancer. She is hospitalized again with an infection in her colon that quickly turned bad. The doctor says the signs are sepsis but they are running tests to make sure. The good news is that the pancreatic cancer was and is responding to the chemo and her cancer numbers are going down. God bless and thank you!
3/19 Update – Susan is still in the hospital, but she is doing 100% better. The doctors are not ready to release her yet, but everything is going in the right direction. They keep saying “maybe tomorrow”.
3/11 – Bulg sends a prayer of thanks. He called his formerly estranged sister on her birthday, and they had a wonderful conversation. It was their second conversation since February, and there was no animosity at all.
3/11 – Doof sent his appreciation for the Horde’s prayers for his mom, who has been in post-hospitalization rehab since mid-January. She has recovered from her illnesses, but her body seems to be increasingly giving up on her. PT has become too painful and exhausting for her. She is also having increased brain fog and is rapidly losing the ability to do things like answer her phone or send texts. Continued prayers requested for her, as she is very sad, and also for Doof and his sister as they figure out what’s next.
3/16 Update – Doof’s mother is not doing very well. Her 100 days of post-hospital rehab will be ending soon, and she is not nearly recovered enough to live alone. She’s almost completely confined to bed. She will be moved to long-term care soon, and will likely be there for the rest of her life. They appreciate the prayers.
3/14 – Retired Buckeye Cop asks for prayers for Mrs. Cop’s cousin, “A.B”. He has been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. He is a retired police officer who was hit by a car years ago. He attempted to deal with the pain by self-medicating with too much Tylenol, which ended up poisoning his liver. His only alternative is a liver transplant, but he is uncertain if he wants to have surgery.
3/18 – TecumsehTea requests prayers, as her husband was fired from a job he enjoyed very much on 3/17. Prayers are needed for peace, direction, and clarity. They trust God will provide the right job at the right time, and that He would give them peace in the waiting. TecumsehTea is still dealing with the effects of her heart attack last July. Prayers for healing, as her BP continues to be unstable. Chronic Lyme disease and autoimmune disease complicates everything. She trusts that God is faithful and good and He will take care of their needs.
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.
Almost everything on the list is reversing changes that they push on users against vehement objections, or side effects of those changes.
I'll believe it when I see it. Or six months after that, really.
Meanwhile the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise Edition still exists (and there's a Windows 11 version that is also less broken than the Home edition, if you need support for recent features like Ethernet-over-Thunderbolt.)
This is not the browser you are looking for. Opera is now owned by a group whose primary business is payday loans in Africa. The entire technical team left and launched Vivaldi.
I'm not saying that Opera GX is actively scamming users; I'm just saying that I would not need to borrow Sarah Hoyt's shocked face if that turned out to be the case.
Well. I had mixed feelings about this: Tenth Amendment notwithstanding, state legislation on complex technical issues is usually bad, but federal legislation on complex technical issues is also usually bad. And in this particular case, the people working and reporting on the complex technical issues are also usually bad.
Man, is the CEO of McDonald's a whiney little shit or what? First he couldn't eat his own food and now this. I bet McD's HQ has a special chair in the conference room where he sits and watches as the entire board services his wife.
I saw commenters mentioning that Norris had been hospitalized. I did not bother to put it in the sidebar because I thought about all the Chuck Norris memes and decided, for real, that there was no way Norris wouldn't spin-kick this "medical emergency" in the face.
Chuck Norris, the martial artist-turned-Hollywood icon whose name became synonymous with toughness both on and off the screen, has died at 86 after a sudden medical emergency, his family confirmed Friday.
In a statement shared on social media, Norris' family said he passed away Thursday morning surrounded by loved ones. "While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace," the statement read. They described him not only as a global figure known for discipline and strength, but as "a devoted husband, a loving father and grandfather... and the heart of our family," emphasizing a life grounded in faith, purpose, and commitment to those closest to him.
Best known to millions as the star of "Walker, Texas Ranger," Norris built a decades-long career that bridged martial arts mastery and mainstream entertainment. His work in films like "Delta Force" and his long-running television role turned him into a cultural fixture, while his real-life persona -- rooted in discipline, patriotism, and Christian faith -- resonated with fans well beyond Hollywood. Over time, that image took on a life of its own, fueling the internet-famous "Chuck Norris facts" that turned him into a larger-than-life symbol of American grit.
The family noted that Norris had recently been hospitalized following a medical emergency while in Hawaii, a development that had drawn concern from supporters. Though early reports suggested he had stabilized and was in good spirits, his passing came just days later.
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Just days before his death, Norris marked his 86th birthday with a message that now reads as a fitting reflection of the life he led. Sharing a video of himself training outdoors, he wrote, "I don't age. I level up," adding that he was "grateful for another year, good health and the chance to keep doing what I love." He also thanked fans for their decades of support, telling them, "To him, you were not just fans, you were his friends," as his family echoed in their statement.
Some true facts about Chuck Norris you might have forgotten:
"Chuck Norris was once bitten by a king cobra; after ten excruciating minutes, the cobra died."
Apparently that fact was referenced in Expendables II, when Stallone says that about Chuck Norris' character.
"When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he doesn't push himself up, he pushes the Earth down."
"When Chuck Norris goes swimming, he doesn't get wet -- the water gets Chuck Norris."
"There was once a street named after Chuck Norris, but the name was changed as nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives."
"Beneath Chuck Norris's beard is another fist."
"If you have $5 and Chuck Norris has $5, Chuck Norris has more money than you."
I've only seen a handful of Chuck Norris movies, though I wanted to see more.
The one I remember really liking is Silent Rage, where Chuck Norris has to take on a kind of superpowered reanimated corpse. So it's Chuck Norris v. Frankenstein. Or Chuck Norris vs. Michael Myers and all the other invincible 80s horror movie slashers. I remember that, despite how silly that premise sounds, it was pretty decent and plausible. (Well, in the moment, it's plausible.)
Any suggestions? I always wanted to see Good Guys Wear Black, just going off the title.
I remember Firewalker being something unexpected for a Chuck Norris movie: kinda funny. I think there's a gag where Norris doesn't use guns and it turns out the reason he doesn't use guns is that he is absolutely incompetent with them.
The People Responsible For Feeding The Hamsters Have Been Fired
—Pixy Misa
Sorry about that everyone. There was a networking hiccup that made the server disappear off the internet. Everything was fine once you connected to the server... But you couldn't connect to the server.
For the technically minded, the server lost all it's secondary IP addresses, both public and private, and it kind of needs those.
(Antibumped to not derail the Chuck Norris thread. RIP, Mr Norris.)
THE MORNING RANT - Brand-Damaging Management Strategies: Chipotle, Reese’s, Red Robin
—Buck Throckmorton
The revenue and product strategies employed by executives at companies in charge of Reese’s Peanut Butter products and Chipotle Mexican Grill have received unfavorable media coverage recently.
The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups accused Hershey of substituting cheaper products in the Reese’s roster of candies. Specifically, Brad Reese alleged that“the company has replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut butter style crème across multiple Reese's products, a move he alleges has eroded the Reese's brand and jeopardized consumer trust.”
Meanwhile, the CEO of Chipotle seemed to say that because its customer base is somewhat affluent, the burrito purveyor is in a position to aggressively increase prices without consumer resistance.
“We learned that 60% of our core users are over $100,000 a year in average household income,” he added. “That gives us confidence that we can lean into that group in a more meaningful way, whether it’s the solo occasion and/or group occasions to really drive meaningful transaction performance in the year.
Corporate “Kamala-speak” makes my ears hurt. Will ”driving meaningful transaction performance” allow them to be unburdened by what has been. Where do they learn to talk this way? Anyhow, there was significant backlash to Chipotle’s CEO.
First though, I want re-visit a subject to which I keep returning - the corporate management practice that is destroying brand equity and driving away customers from too many once-great brands. As I documented in a recent piece titled, “MGM Resorts & Panera Bread Learn that Slashing Headcount, Reducing Quality, and Gouging Customers Is Not a Viable Long-Term Strategy.” A corporation can target its loyal customers for revenue mining and temporarily increase its profits. It can also slash employee headcount and customer service, thereby reducing labor expense to produce a short-term increase in profits. It can even reduce its product size and cheapen the product’s quality to reduce cost of goods sold, also giving a short-term boost to gross profit. But in every case, these actions tell customers that rather than being valued, the corporation sees customers as marks to be exploited. A great many customers may get hoodwinked once, providing the short-term profit boost that was being sought, but then never come back, thus destroying the company’s long-term prospects. A downward spiral of alienated customers, declining revenue, deteriorating facilities, and degraded reputation ensues.
Back to Chipotle, “Not the Bee” tweeted this analysis: “People can be mad about this all they want, but every restaurant chain follows the same arc…great quality/great price until they gain success, then slowly lower quality and raise prices until you reach a saturation point. It’s us consumers that have to start rejecting it.”
People can be mad about this all they want, but every restaurant chain follows the same arc…great quality/great price until they gain success, then slowly lower quality and raise prices until you reach a saturation point. It’s us consumers that have to start rejecting it. https://t.co/zkRWNxnOxA
A guy named Christian (@RENEGADEARTH494) responded on Twitter with a similar, albeit coarser, explanation: “And you want to know where it went wrong?? When it went from ‘How can we deliver a better product at a better price’ to ‘How can we financially engineer a way to maximize the extraction of resources from our customers and simultaneously decrease our financial commitment to the business.’ AKA… how can we f*** these people over and dress it up just good enough to market it as a business strategy? You make burritos… focus on making burritos. No one gives a sh*t about your core customer calculations. They just want a burrito that is as good as it used to be.” I really wish these words were being taught in our elite business schools, rather than whatever is causing executives to see employees as a pestilence and customers as prey.
Finally, a gentleman named Aakash Gupta provided an explanation at Twitter/X on how Red Robin regrettably took many of those actions discussed above, and ended up destroying the once high-flying restaurant chain. Headcount was slashed, cleanliness and quality suffered, and customers never came back. Every word of this piece is worth reading, but he summarized management’s destruction of Red Robin with this line, ”So Red Robin was now serving worse food, slower, in a dirtier restaurant, at a lower price point. That combination is how you enter a death spiral.”
Red Robin is a case study in how to kill a restaurant chain from the inside out. In 2015, the stock hit $92.90 per share. Revenue peaked in 2017 at $1.4 billion across 573 locations. Families loved the place. Bottomless fries. Birthday parties. “Gourmet” burgers when that word still meant something in casual dining. The brand had real equity.
Then management panicked about rising minimum wages and made the single worst decision in the company’s history: they fired all the bussers.
January 2018. CEO Steve Carley cut bussers across every location, eliminated expeditors, and replaced kitchen managers with generic “back-of-house” roles. The logic was pure spreadsheet thinking. Labor costs were rising, so remove labor. The savings looked great in quarterly earnings. The second and third order effects were catastrophic.
Tables stopped getting cleared. Wait times ballooned. Walkaways increased 85% year over year. 75% of the dine-in traffic loss came during peak hours, the exact window when the restaurant makes money. Ticket times out of the kitchen jumped a full minute on average. Customers who waited 20 minutes for a table and another 20 for a burger stopped coming back. Red Robin’s own CEO at the time, Denny Marie Post, admitted the damage was self-inflicted.
And here’s the compounding problem. While Red Robin was gutting its own service model, it simultaneously launched a “Tavern Double” value menu at $6.99 to drive traffic. Orders of the cheap burgers jumped from 9% to 15% of all orders, which cratered the average check. So Red Robin was now serving worse food, slower, in a dirtier restaurant, at a lower price point. That combination is how you enter a death spiral.
Meanwhile, 16% of locations were in malls. Mall traffic was already declining. Those locations saw 5.5% sales drops versus 3% at standalone stores, dragging the whole system down. Management acknowledged the problem quarter after quarter and did nothing about it for years.
Five CEOs in 10 years. Think about that. The one leader who provided stability, Michael Snyder, was with the chain from 1979 to 2005. After that, it was a revolving door. Every new CEO launched a new turnaround plan. Every plan was abandoned by the next CEO. The North Star plan. The First Choice plan. New menu rollouts. Loyalty program reboots. None of it addressed the core issue: they’d trained an entire generation of customers to think of Red Robin as the place where the service is terrible.
The contrast with Chili’s makes the failure even clearer. Kevin Hochman took over Chili’s in 2022 and did the opposite of what Red Robin did. He simplified the menu, invested in operations, launched a $10.99 “3 for Me” deal that went viral on TikTok, and let the food speak for itself. Chili’s just posted 31% same-store sales growth. Red Robin’s comparable revenue was down 1.2% for all of 2024.
Both chains were in roughly the same position three years ago. One chain invested in the customer experience. The other spent a decade cutting it. Red Robin’s $65M market cap and Chili’s $3.3B market cap tell you which approach works.
The stock went from $92 to $3.61. That’s what happens when you optimize for the quarterly earnings call instead of the customer walking through the door.
Nearly half of households headed by immigrants, those legally and illegally living in the United States, are on one or more forms of welfare, a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of Census Bureau data reveals. . . Meanwhile, just 28 percent of households headed by native-born Americans are on welfare, and just 31 percent are on welfare that includes both tax credits.
Countries with the highest welfare-users in the U.S. include Afghanistan, 87 percent, the Dominican Republic, 78 percent, Guatemala, 77 percent, Honduras, 75 percent, and Mexico, 67 percent.
Interesting that Somalia isn't on that list, but then again, that's not even welfare as such, as opposed to outright naked, dictionary definition criminal fraud on the most massive scale ever seen. Of course the nature of government handouts themselves, regardless of who the recipient is is another story entirely and the nature of charity and who foots the bill.
There was a time when being indigent absolutely disqualified you from being granted citizenship. Of course there are several things going on here that collectively have one goal in mind and that is the collapse of American society and its transmogrification into a socialist state based on the inversion/perversion of history and annihilation of our American heritage and indeed Judeo-Christian Western civilization going back millennia.
. . . an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse initiatives — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse in an effort to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. Cloward and Piven calculated that the flood of demands which they were recommending would break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.
Cesar Chavez’s birthday is a holiday in six states, there are over a dozen streets that carry his name in California alone, and far more schools across the country are named after a child rapist. And now some of those streets may be renamed and Chavez statues may be coming down.
Well, considering Chavez was vocally and virulently anti-illegal immigration, himself often referring to them as "Wetbacks," I'm surprised that the left has yet to airbrush him out of history as a white hispanic a la George Zimmerman. Then again Martin Luther King Jr., who believed in content of character above color of skin has yet to have his statues demolished and MLK Blvds. re-renamed.
. . . a white American 6-year-old was punished for blasphemy against Black Lives Matter (by saying “any life” matters).
A six-year-old white girl was punished because she wrote “Black lives mater/any life [sic]” after a lesson about Martin Luther King in March, 2021—because blacks are treated as sacred by American culture, especially in public schools.
Here's hoping for saner years to come.
Have a great Weekend!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Naini, also the agency’s deputy of public relations, was assassinated just days after Israeli forces eliminated the clerical regime’s de-facto leader, Ali Larijani, and its anti-protest enforcer Gholamreza Soleimani. Hours before his death, Naini insisted that Tehran was still able to build missiles despite the US forces’ bombardment from Operation Epic Fury. Spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed in strike, state media reports
The slain Islamic regime’s top dog tried to rally the world’s Muslims against the U.S. and Israel. Larijani’s Last Words
“I think, you know, we’re also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was, which was depleting those stock holes and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine, which is when — every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge we have, it goes back to, well, send it to Ukraine,” Hegseth continued. Hegseth Blames Biden For Drained US Stockpiles Amid Iran War
Operation Epic Fury has become a loyalty test dividing the populist Right, as panic, misinformation, and opportunism threaten to fracture a movement that can’t afford to split. The Case for Epic Fury
The CIS analysis looked at the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement to learn which countries have the most immigrant welfare-users in the U.S. Overall, about 47 percent of households headed by immigrants are on one or more forms of welfare. When the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit is included as welfare, that percentage rises to 54 percent. Analysis: Nearly Half of Immigrant Households in U.S. Are on Welfare
... one of Rep. Veronica Escobar's (D-Texas) staffers illegally impersonated a lawyer in order to assist detainees. Benito Torres lied about his credentials so that he could have access to illegal aliens and provide them cell phones. Escobar did not respond to Melugin‘s request for comment, which is hardly surprising. Is she trying to figure out how to protect Torres from the consequences of his own actions? Or is she busy covering her own backside? Dem Rep’s Staffer Impersonated Lawyer to Help Illegal Aliens
Controversy is again raging over the fate of the Salt River wild horses, protected under state law as a natural treasure, after the Arizona Department of Agriculture awarded a new management contract requiring the removal of more than half the herd — despite a state law that authorizes removals only for humane reasons related to the health and safety of individual horses. Why Is a Democrat Governor Undermining a Conservative Conservation Success Story?
“Two sources” confirmed to Axios that Comey had been subpoenaed. The subpoena of Comey reportedly “relates to his alleged role in the drafting of a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)” claiming that Russia allegedly interfered in the 2016 President election between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and now-President Donald Trump: Report: James Comey Subpoenaed Over DOJ ‘Grand Conspiracy’ Probe
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
His podcast has become a remorseless roll call of Holocaust deniers, antisemites, Islamic extremists and World War II revisionists. While attacking Trump, Carlson eagerly softball-interviews people who love both Hitler and Stalin. Quite the achievement. Douglas Murray: Deranged Tucker Carlson backstabs Trump
The defamation trial against Joseph “Afroman” Foreman came into our lives and out of it so fast it almost seems like magic engineered by the ghosts of Thomas Jefferson and Tupac to light up the country for some good old-fashioned American fun. And by old-fashioned American fun, I mean using vicious mockery against government officials. In this case, seven Adams County sheriff’s officers in Ohio who cannot take a joke, but can kick down a door, mishandle cash, eat your lemon poundcake, and cry about being made into a meme. AFROMAN WINS! Let's All Make Fun of the Government Together!
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“If we just keep upgrading our tech, human life will keep getting better...That something saves time is seen as a good in itself... It subordinates human values to machine values: speed and efficiency.” AI and the Myth of the Machine
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
“I need people who are high-net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state, right?”...“Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. Okay, cut me the checks if you want to be supportive. But maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded.” (Deafening/glass-shattering chorus of "Go Fuck Yourself" causing massive sonic boom south to north along the Atlantic Coast - jjs) Kathy Hochul Begs Rich People Who Fled New York For Florida To Return And Foot Bill For ‘Generous Social Programs’
The Trump administration announced new policies to lower the amount of capital banks must hold. The proposal was introduced Thursday, and it comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s March executive order on mortgage credit. Trump Proposal Loosens Recession-Era Bank Regulations
The last time U.S. gas prices approached $4.00 per gallon was in September 2023, when, under former [so-called quote-unquote] President Joe Biden, the price per gallon hit $3.83. Still, the current peak price has a ways to go to reach its highest point over the past 30 years, which occurred in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when gas cost $4.92.
age-hits-biden-era-levels/">U.S. National Gas Average Hits Biden-Era Levels.
The university’s Catholic Ministry Instagram account published an invitation Wednesday advertising an end-of-the-month “student-led, queer-affirming discussion of the intersection of our faiths and our queer identities.” President of the Georgetown University College Republicans Shae McInnis told the Caller that Catholic Ministry’s decision stood against Catholic Church teachings. Inside The Queering Of America’s Oldest Catholic University
What force, movement, or personality is rising in American politics, or anywhere, that becomes dominant and shoves Trumpism aside? MAGA Isn’t Dying Because Of The Iran War
Chaves Robles, whose term is slated to end in May, explicitly stated that his opposition to socialism and communism – and an escalation in human rights abuses by the Cuban Communist Party at home – were the reason for his decision. ‘We Must Clean the Hemisphere of Communists’: Costa Rica Cuts Ties to Cuba
...the focus of exoplanet research is now shifting from simply finding these planets to studying them directly, with the potentially habitable worlds listed above the most interesting of all. Astronomers might not find alien life or civilizations on these worlds, but at a minimum they will be doing the first preliminary scouting for humanity’s the first interstellar missions. textScientists compile catalog of the 69 known rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone
Today we finish our week-long tour of the five largest moons of Uranus, all discovered by astronomers before the start of the space age, and imaged successfully if not very completely by Voyager-2 when it did its fly-by of the planet on January 24, 1986. Uranus’ moon Oberon, of which we know little
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, uses her female privilege to lecture the rest of us about how people can learn a lot from same-sex couples. Gavin Newsom's Wife Lectures About Same-Sex Lessons
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
“Kamala Harris is a dunce who’s a word salad shooter who I don’t know what her policies are,” Carolla stated during the program. “She’s for transing the prisoners. She’s against transing the prisoners. She’s for fracking. She’s against fracking. She’s been to the border but she hasn’t been to the border. She’s a dope.” Adam Carolla Says What Many Conservatives Are Thinking About Kamala Harris
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Said US memory maker Micron, whose most recent quarterly results showed three times the revenue and nine times the profit of the same period the previous year.
At reasonable prices, so as you might expect the flood has been mopped up pretty damn quickly.
If you're in Australia and don't have easy access to Walmart, look around for Radeon 9070 XT cards which for some reason are steeply discounted right now, sometimes selling for less than the slower Radeon 9070.
I expected shortages and price increases, and some Nvidia 5000 series cards have all but disappeared from US store shelves, but overall... Not so much.
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Thursday night ONT. Last full day of winter. I, for one, am ready for Spring! Are you? It's also college basketball tournament time. Has your bracket been busted yet? Wanna talk about those things? Wanna talk about something else? You've come to the right place!
Jessica Foster joined Instagram in late December of last year, but during that short period of time, she managed to grow her following on the Meta-owned social network to over 1 million. And it’s not hard to see why; she is very beautiful (some might say suspiciously so), she serves in the US Army, and is an avid Donald Trump fan, constantly posting photos alongside the American president.
But there is something off about Jessica. Even ignoring her seemingly perfect looks, you can’t help but raise an eyebrow when you see that online searches yield no results about her. Apart from the carefully crafted Instagram account, Jessica Foster doesn’t exist. And that’s because she’s not a real person, but an AI-made avatar designed for a very specific demographic.
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Whoever created Jessica Foster appears to have done so to funnel her gullible followers to OF, where they pay for more raunchy content, messages from her, and tips. Apparently, the account violates the platform’s terms of service, which state that every account must be linked to a verified human being, and all AI-generated content must resemble that specific real person and be tagged with a #AI label.
I'm starting to go with the default opinion that every photo or video I see online is AI unless proven otherwise.
Jerry Garcia with The Dead at Madison Square Garden, Sept. 15, 1987.
Credit: AP Photo/Corey Struller
One of Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia’s favorite instruments was his trusty, custom-built, wood-grained guitar nicknamed “Tiger.”
Now “Tiger” could be coming back to Chicago after local guitar collector Bobby Tseitlin bought it at auction for $11.56 million, which was briefly a record for a guitar sale. (A black Fender Stratocaster used by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour sold at the same Christie’s auction last week for $14.5 million.)
Tseitlin, 44, is co-founder of Family Guitars, a Chicago company that collects historic instruments and is “home to some of the most legendary instruments ever played,” per its website. For the past 20 years, Tseitlin’s passion project has been collecting guitars, he told Rolling Stone.
Tseitlin isn’t about to store his famous guitars where no one can see them, though. He lends them out to musicians to play and keep them alive.
True to form, Derek Trucks of Tedeschi Trucks Band was on stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York the night after the auction, playing a Garcia tune on Garcia’s beloved guitar. Trucks attended the auction with Tseitlin, launching online hope he would be playing it soon. Fans got their wish.
Derek Trucks and Bobby Tseitlin with Jerry Garcia's custom Tiger guitar.
Credit: Instagram
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Last week, Tseitlin purchased it at Christie’s in New York City during a multi-day auction featuring prized possessions of the late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.
Some trips are long, some are strange, and some are so good, you can’t help but keep 'em going! After reuniting with the Grateful Dead last year to release Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale, we couldn’t resist keeping the journey rolling. This year, we’re beyond excited to collaborate once again on our fifth Dogfish Head x Grateful Dead beer.
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Our collaboration with Grateful Dead stretches back more than a decade, beginning in 2013 with the release of American Beauty and continuing through multiple re‑releases, evolutions and creative experiments over the years. Each chapter has built on the last, fueled by mutual respect, shared values and a belief that art, whether brewed, played or painted, should invite people in. Grateful Dead Citrus Daydream Lager is the latest stop on that journey.
This goodness is swimming to shelves nationwide in 6‑pack / 12‑oz cans as we speak ... er, type!, and will be available coast-to-coast beginning Mar. 2026. You can grab both of our Grateful Dead collaborative brews, Juicy Pale Ale and Citrus Daydream Lager, at your favorite local retailer or use our Fish Finder to track them down near you.
If you’ve ever wondered whether animals have a sense of humor, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards might just have the answer. This photography competition celebrates those perfectly timed moments in the animal kingdom when creatures appear surprisingly human.
Instead of the usual dramatic wildlife shots, the contest focuses on the lighter side of nature — the awkward, unexpected, and downright hilarious moments animals find themselves in. And honestly, some of these photos look like wildlife accidentally walked into a comedy sketch. So scroll on, enjoy the laughs, and get ready to see wildlife from a whole new — and much funnier — perspective.
Check them all out. It's a single page - not a stupid click-through thing.
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Wholesome content
Not sure if this is a thing everywhere, but seniors give their jerseys to the teachers who had the greatest impact on their lives. Thank you to the teachers who really make a difference in these kids' lives. pic.twitter.com/K6RrMa6DJt
This is the song that is playing in the background. Very powerful lyrics about how precious the gift of time is.
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You know that thing that happens with "the algorithm" - you casually mention something at some point, then your phone starts showing you ads and/or social media posts about it? Well this topic is something that I have been thinking about for a while. Just thinking! I was going to look up the history / background on what warrants something being called a road, or a street, or an avenue, etc. Again - I was only THINKING about it. Well, guess what hit my X feed yesterday...
He explains the differences between terms like roads, streets, avenues, and boulevards and there’s actually a meaning behind when each one is used pic.twitter.com/YohPbejXGS
Interesting. But very creepy that "the algorithm" fed me something that I didn't even say out loud.
Does this ever happen to you??
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DJ Doof - This Date in Music History Edition
from thisdayinmusic.com
On this date in 1982: Ozzy Osbourne guitarist and former Quiet Riot member Randy Rhoads was killed when the plane he was riding in crashed.
Born on this date in 1953: Billy Sheehan, bass guitarist, with American hard rock supergroup Mr. Big, who had the 1992 US No.1 & UK No.3 single 'To Be With You'. He has also worked with Steve Vai and David Lee Roth.
Born on this date in 1952: Derek Longmuir, Scottish drummer and a founding member of the 1970s pop group, Bay City Rollers
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by office relics
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Doof Enterprises, LLC attempted to be a proud sponsor of the big basketball tournament. We were denied. Something about needing an actual product worth paying for. Whatever.
Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me.
No but really, they announced a joint $40 billion nuclear power project.
Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
6h
🚨 JUST IN: FBI Director Kash Patel announces a stunning +490% SURGE in arrests of online child predators, the location of 6,200 missing children, and the arrest of 300 human traffickers
I VOTED FOR THIS! Protect the children and destroy crime nationwide 🇺🇸
Patel also confirmed a 112% surge in violent offender arrests, a -20% plummet it homicides and robberies, and seizing enough fentanyl to kill 178M Americans @RapidResponse47 @FBIDirectorKash
This is huge! Keep pushing!
Remember this op? Pushed by the same people telling you that Iran was "no threat"?
Shawn Farash
@Shawn_Farash
1h
490% surge in arrests of child predators.
But he's "covering for pedophiles" and "nothing is happening"
Another narrative destroyed
What was the FBI doing for four years under Biden?
Oh right -- they were diverting anti-terrorism assets to try to frame the president of the United States.
Former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the wide-ranging "grand conspiracy" case against the ex-officials who investigated and prosecuted President Trump, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Axios.
Why it matters: The investigation has produced more than 130 subpoenas since cranking up last year, the sources say, and targets top officials who worked under former presidents Obama and Biden.
The officials, including Comey, have all decried the investigation as political persecution and lawfare.
Zoom in: The Trump administration's grand conspiracy theory posits that Democratic officials bent the rules, broke the law and lied under oath to investigate, prosecute and otherwise undermine Trump from his election in 2016 through his federal indictments in 2023.
The Comey subpoena, issued last week, relates to his alleged role in the drafting of a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) concerning Russia's election interference that favored Trump.
The assessment referenced the now-widely discredited Steele Dossier, whose inclusion "ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment," according to a "Tradecraft Review" completed in June under Trump's current CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
Ratcliffe then referred Comey and former CIA director John Brennan for prosecution.
C3
@C_3C_3
29m
This is when the Deep State messed up...
The Mar-a-lago raid by the Biden (Obama) Administration was part of the ongoing Russiagate conspiracy.
This opened the door for a grand jury in Florida and not in the safety of DC.
Oops!
The Oscars' ratings fell yet again.
Variety
@Variety
Mar 17
The 98th annual #Oscars ratings hit 17.9M viewers, down 9% from last year and lowest since 2022:
Danielle Gill
@danielledsouzag
6h
The Oscars, which mocked Turning Point USA's Super Bowl halftime show, got lower ratings than the TPUSA halftime show.
TPUSA's Halftime Show got 25 million household views. The Oscars got 17.9 million views.
The American people are done being lectured by out-of-touch elites.
I wonder why. Maybe it has something to do with Hollywood showering awards on the progressive vanity project, the explicitly pro-antifa terrorism One Battle After Another.
Which by the way, bombed, ironically enough.
Ann Coulter
@AnnCoulter
Liel Leibovitz in the Free Press: "As a work of art, One Battle After Another is irredeemable. It feels like the sort of thing written by a committee of socialist college sophomores cracking each other up ...
"Paul Thomas Anderson seems interested more in purring for his fellow progressives than in making interesting movies ..."
New left-wing/reich-wing darling Joe Kent: Trump bombed Iran because Israel was secretly behind the 2024 assassination attempt and he knows that Bibi will wack him unless he does what Bibi says.
Are the seminar calls going to tell me I'm "selling out" for saying he's a left-wing flake with strong Nazi sympathies?
On @wethefifth yesterday, I said I suspect these people have slices of mental illness.
Kent speculates that Israel tried to assassinate Trump – the most pro-Israel president in history, with a town named after him – in order to… what? Install President Kamala Harris?
BTW, apparently he claimed that he had Secret Information about the Jewish Plot to Kill Trump that he wanted to share with the FBI. Dan Bongino says that's a lie, he specifically told this Nazi Flake that he would personally brief him on the facts of the Butler assassination attempt, and hear his Interesting Theory if he wanted to share it, but he never did.
Apparently Kent wavers between thinking Israel told Crooks to kill Trump and that Iran told Crooks to kill Trump.
But he's got the Secret Facts, yannow.
Jacktron
@jacktronprime
3h
Dan Bongino demolishes Joe Kent AKA Vindman 2.0 on Butler, reveals he offered Kent a briefing but Kent never took it.
"I want you to know something. I offered Joe face-to-face and you know it, Joe, don't bullsh*t people. I offered him a briefing on Butler. Did he show up the FBI headquarters to take it? No way. He did not. That's a fact, bro. You are a liar and a bullsh*tter. And you know it. I offered you that briefing and you didn't take it. You have hidden knowledge about something that happened at Butler? He's got hidden knowledge, folks. Amazing. The president, he was shot in the head. in Butler. He was shot in the head. No one spoke out more about the secret service failures in me. My first week on the job, I had the case agent in my office with an entire team, including a former secret service agent, briefing me about Butler. You know something? Spit it out! Grow a pair! Spit it out! You got some hidden knowledge?
You see the grift though? Well, we don't know nothing. I know something. Black box, I got it. Watch my podcast. The FBI examined 35 accounts linked to Crooks. I thought we didn't analyze anything. I thought they told me that I thought they said that. Including social media, bank and other online accounts. But we don't know nothing. We don't know nothing about nothing. Amazing by the way, how keep this up. The same people out there, clan of people who were telling you out there that Iran's no threat can constantly tell you or imply at least that Iran was behind this kid produced no evidence. They tell you they know something and then they go but Iran's no threat. You just implied Iran tried to shoot Trump at with through this kid. Which story is it mother? Which story is it? Get your story straight. We don't have any evidence of that.
Yes, Iran wants to kill Trump. Yes, this kid is a lunatic. It happens all the time a sadly. John Hinkley, Arthur Bremer, people lose their minds and do stupid stuff. Here's another more from this article. You guys can read it yourself. The home was completely swept, every device was collected and accessed. There were reports out there say we didn't get into certain devices. That's false. That is just made up. Joe would have known that if he would have read the article or just showed up at our office. "
He is just Alexander Vindman 2.0. He is a liar and has zero credibility.
Take everything he said last night and dump it in the garbage.
"I know Iran doesn't want a nuke because it said it doesn't want a nuke"
Trump Makes a Minor Joke About the Element of Surprise in War, and the Very Professional, Educated, and Smart Media Takes It All In Stride With Perfect Calm and Equanimity
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Just kidding, they're freaking out.
First, let's establish that Trump has a warm relationship with Japan's MJGA PM:
He also effusively praised her during the joint interview.
Then a retarded Japanese gardner wandered into the White House lockers and somehow found a suit that fit him. Posing as a journalist, he asked, "If Japan and the US are friends, why didn't you tell them you were about to launch a surprise strike on the Iranian leadership which was, amazingly, all meeting together at the same place at a location we knew about?"
Well he didn't say the last part. I filled that in for him.
So Trump was a little surprised at this retarded gardner asking stupid retard questions, and answered in a joking way.
This might actually be Trump's funniest moment 😂
Japanese Reporter: Why didn't you tell us before you struck Iran?
Jake Tapper, who pretends to be a journalist on TV and pretends to be an autist on Twitter, objects that akshually the PM wasn't even born at the time of Pearl Harbor.
Well, Jake, neither was Trump. Because it's a joke.
Trump was also not alive yet on Pearl Harbor Day, Jake. This was a joke about the importance of keeping surprises in war. As everyone with a functional brain recognized. https://t.co/NCwVAadltg
John Solomon: US Intelligence Recorded Foreign Powers Discussing Routing USAID Money to Joe Biden in 2024, But They Hid This From Trump
—Disinformation Expert Ace
He also faults Trump for not talking about this.
Now, he doesn't say that foreign power is Ukraine, but in a clip I posted yesterday, he talked about the Ukraine plotting to use US taxpayer money to interfere in the election on behalf of Joe Biden.
I don't know why he's omitting the "Ukraine" part now; maybe his source confirmed it, but only if he agreed to not name Ukraine.
The New Darling of the Grifter Left and Grifter Right, Joe Kent, Seems to Have Flounced From His Job Because He Knew He Was Under Investigation for Illegal Leaking
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Gee, I wonder which podcasters he may have been leaking to.
Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent is now at the center of a reported federal investigation, with multiple sources indicating the FBI is probing whether he leaked classified information--an inquiry that, notably, appears to have been underway before his abrupt resignation earlier this week.
According to Semafor's Shelby Talcott, who cited four sources familiar with the matter, the investigation predates Kent's departure from his post and focuses on whether sensitive intelligence was disclosed to individuals not authorized to receive it. Talcott initially reported that three sources confirmed the probe, later adding a fourth.
...
Kent announced his resignation publicly on X, framing his exit as a break over foreign policy. In a lengthy post, he argued he could no longer support what he described as an unnecessary conflict with Iran. "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran," Kent wrote. "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."
...
President Trump weighed in as well, offering a blunt assessment of Kent's departure and his stance on Iran. "I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security," Trump said. "But when I read his statement I realized, it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat, every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question was whether or not they wanted to do something."
The timeline now raises obvious questions. Kent's resignation was publicly tied to his disagreement over Iran policy--but the existence of a preexisting FBI investigation suggests there may have been far more unfolding behind the scenes than he wanted to admit.
Dana Loesch
@DLoesch
18h
Huh.
Seems like the guy was trying to get ahead of a damning story he brought on himself by leaking whatever he could get his hands on to the press, no matter how it affected our nation. Now his reported (and apparently fairly recent) conversion to the right, exclusion from intel briefings due to suspicion, and recent posts contradicting everything he's saying now have clarity.
If you anticipate being tried in court, it's useful to announce your solidarity with a small but passionate group of political lunatics. They'll do jury nullification on your behalf.
🚨 Tucker Carlson disgustingly defends 1930s British fascist Oswald Mosley - who was so aligned with the Nazis that he married at Joseph Goebbels’ house in Berlin, with Adolf Hitler as a guest - even calling him “patriotic.”
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) March 19, 2026
I saw this same wicked shit when Andrew Breitbart died - opportunists claiming to know what Andrew would've done or said or told them "in private," etc. It's the perfect "but you can't disprove it" bullshit move con artists always use. https://t.co/R55JsrKR38
You'd be amazed at how often the secret and conveniently unwitnessed wishes and words of the deceased, expressed to tangential, ambitious characters reflect perfectly what those tangential, ambitious characters wanted to do and say anyway. Crazy, that.
The Russian Empire Restorationist, Alistair Crowley Satanist, and New Rasputin is a fan of Tuq'r and Kent:
Granny Groyper agrees -- even if it is true that Joe Kent was passing classified information, we must not prosecute him, because it would "rip the GOP apart."
Megyn Kelly
@megynkelly
You wanna rip the GOP apart right to its core and prevent a single America First voter from participating in the midterms? Indict Joe Kent and Tucker Carlson. See how that works out.
And how would she know this? She has never been "MAGA," by her own admission. The furthest she will lie is to say she is "MAGA-adjacent."
By the way, here's where Cavernous Nostrils is now: Posting photo collages suggesting Erika Kirk killed her husband.
“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”
[A]n asshole is somebody who looks at a painting of two toddlers doing something totally normal for toddlers and decides that it represents homosexuality and then thinks that publicly saying that is somehow edgy and clever. Instead it is doing what we accuse the Left of, that is sexualizing young children. If that describes you, own it.
Reports: The A-10 Thunderbolt, better known as The Warthog, has been unleashed on Iran It's a heavily armored (the pilot sits in a titanim bathtub) slow-and-low loitering plane with a massive minigun firing depleted uranium rounds. The capability it brings is the ability to just fly big circles over the country waiting for a target to present itself. This is a weapons platform for eliminating vehicles and personnel. Its first task might be strafing the seas, clearing out any remaining attack boats and minelayers.
Update: My ballpark estimate for a reasonable cost for a wildlife overpass (suitably padded to sate the thirst of Democrat grifters) was $15 million. Turns out, that was a good estimate. That's how much it cost Denver to build one.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton discuss the obvious incompatibility of Islam with free societies, John Bolton is a disloyal sleaze, The SAVE Act is in the muck of Senate RINOs, the crappy quality of anti-American propaganda, and more!
Some people liked Candace Owens because she was a black woman who told hard truths about BLM and black criminality. But this was always a grift. She started out as a race hustler for a grift, then hustled race the other way to grift conservatives, and now she's back to being a race-hustler for the left again. Specifically, she is now claiming that people pointing out that she is legitimately low-IQ and can't pronounce half the words her AI-generated teleprompter script points out to her is racist and just Ben Shapiro's way of saying the n-word without quite saying it. You see, you can only say that black people are smart, and if you see a dumb one that doesn't know how to pronounce simple words while she poses as an investigatory journalist, you have to pretend she's actually smart or you're a racist. Weird, that doesn't sound very conservative, let alone "#Based," to me. To prove how much she hates racism, she then says that Ben Shapiro's Jew ancestors were masters of the slave trade.
Ami Kozak: Every single Tucker Carlson episode consists of him claiming he didn't say the things he said in the last episode Also: this is the manipulation Tucker does that i hate the most. It's so cowardly. All he does is smear people (and Jews, generally), and then claim "I have nothing against [the person or group I just smeared.]" He'll even claim "I love [x], actually." Just again and again and again. It's all a lie, of course. A year ago he smeared Jews but added how beautiful he thought Israel was, and then two weeks ago, he said Israel is ugly as dog-shit and nothing beautiful has been built there "since 1948." Just got this email from Dracula: "I love Van Helsing, actually, he's one of my personal heroes, if I'm being honest. I will claw the heart out of his belly and bathe in his blood before the children of Babylon, but I have nothing but respect for Van Helsing, actually. Love is the answer. Except for the followers of the Christ whom I am commanded to turn into my dark army of Satan. And I totally don't worship Satan, I just think we should listen to both sides. Hugs and kisses, may Van Helsing burn in the blood-red fires of hell throughout eternity, even though I consider him a close and dear friend, Vlad called Dracul."
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