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
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
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
[Poetry H/T: Doof]
*****
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 Minnehoeplis.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. And yes those are real banhammers.
3) Running with sharp objects will result in severe sanctions. Run accordingly.
4) And finally. Have a nice 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:
11/15 – Sponge posted an update on the “First lady”. She is doing OK from the surgery pain-wise, however it appears her compromised immune system from chemo is susceptible to viruses. She has been spiking a fever all weekend.
12/13 Update – The First lady is doing well. She is still on restrictions but things are progressing nicely. The last mammogram showed clean. They are grateful to all who have been praying for her.
1/7 Update – They send thanks for the thoughts and prayers over the past year. The latest visit with her urologist revealed blood in her urine. The Doc didn’t seem concerned, but there will be more scans of her bladder and kidneys to see if they find anything more serious.
1/14 Update – Sponge sent an update on the First Lady’s father – he passed away on 1/11. They have been busy making arrangements for the arrangements, writing the obituary, eulogy, notifying people, etc. Thank you all for the thoughts an prayers that you have been providing for a long time.
12/13 – Schnorflepuppy asked for prayers for his wife. She was diagnosed a few weeks back with inflammatory breast cancer and started chemo on 12/2. On 12/3 she spiked a 104 fever and had to be brought to the hospital, where they discovered pneumonia. She has been in ICU for most of the week, to get her enough oxygen and work on the pneumonia. She is improving, but slowly.
12/22 Update – Unfortunately, the improvement trend has reversed. She has spent the last 8 days on oxygen support. The doctors would like to wean her off the vent eventually, but they need to see more improvement in her condition and thus far, they haven’t.
12/26 Update – Schnorflepuppy’s wife got progressively worse on Christmas Day and started a rapid decline, despite the best efforts of the doctors and staff. She transitioned to palliative care on 12/26 and passed away in the afternoon.
12/20 – Morgan, longtime lurker, takes tango lessons from Sebastian, whose son, Matias, is recovering from brain surgery. The MRI was read on 12/19, and the surgeons did not remove the entire tumor. Even though the biopsy indicated the tumor was benign, the boy is probably facing several rounds of chemo. Please pray for the boy’s continued recovery in El Salvador.
1/10 Update – Matias will have surgery in 2 weeks to try and remove the rest of the tumor, and then he will receive radiation therapy.
12/27 – buzzion asked for prayers for a friend named Christina. Christina has struggled with a lot, including addiction and relapse. Buzzion has not heard from Christina in a while and hopes she is okay. Please pray that Christina finds her way and knows that people love and care for her and believe in her.
1/3 Update – Christina was arrested on 1/3. Please pray for this to be a final wake-up call for her.
12/27 – JB asked for prayers that he would gain peace about what God has planned for his job in 2026. Also, please pray for JB’s estranged son, that he and his household will be saved.
12/27 – San Franpsycho posted a praise report from a former colleague, who has defeated metastasized uterine cancer.
12/27 – BlackOrchid requested prayers for a Navy Veteran uncle who has been struggling with his health the last few weeks. The root cause is undetermined, but recurrent infection/sepsis keeps sending him back to the hospital. It seems to be worsening his dementia, which makes it harder for BlackOrchid’s aunt to handle him.
1/3 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle (her “stand-in dad”) is still not doing well. He will probably need to be put in a LTC facility although they are doing everything possible to avoid this. He is 86, and at the stage where his immune system can’t fight back well.
12/27 – pookysgirl posted that their unborn baby girl, Violet Marie, had passed away.
12/27 – free tibet posted about his diagnosis with Giant Cell Arteritis and subsequent vision loss in the right eye. This is a recurrence of the same from 5 years ago in the left eye. The treatment is not painful but regaining vision is “very iffy”. Thank you all for the prayers.
1/1 – L asked for prayers for her brother Ron, who is hospitalized. Ron has been in and out of the hospital for 6 months. He has a nasty infection in his knee, that will not clear, despite 5 rounds of antibiotics. L and her sister have been run ragged trying to help Ron.
1/3 – Legally Sufficient asked for prayers for the repose of the soul of a boss, who passed away suddenly early Sunday morning. Prayers are appreciated for strength, faith, and understanding for the boss’ wife and all who loved him.
1/6 – Diogenes requested prayers for his best friend since college, who was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours or hearing this, the friend’s son, a man that Diogenes has known since he was a baby, collapsed from what appears to be a brain tumor. The prognosis isn’t hopeful. Please pray for both of these fine men.
1/6 – Commissar of plenty and festive little hats sent prayers of thanks that it was not cancer, and asked for prayers for courage to even set a date to reverse the colostomy surgery. It was a lot to get over the first time!
1/7 - D sent an update on his wife Susan, and her battle with pancreatic cancer, as well as her recent infection. He sent his thanks to everyone for the prayers. They are helping and much appreciated. Susan’s infection finally has been healed, so she was able to resume chemo. It’s been really rough.
1/8 - Doof asked for prayers for his mother. She was hit hard by the flu. She couldn’t get out of bed the morning of 11/8 and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. She is alert and communicating but prayers are appreciated for her recovery. Prayers are also appreciated for Doof, as he absolutely despises hospitals.
1/10 – LA Sue asked for prayers for her brother, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September. They just learned it moved from stage 2 to stage 4. The chemo treatments and side infections from surgery have so debilitated him that he is considering stopping. Please pray for strength and that he opens his heart to God.
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.
That amount includes $250 billion of direct investment and $250 billion of credit guarantees by Taiwan's government, but it also includes $100 billion of already-planned investment by TSMC.
If you're throwing literally hundreds of billions of dollars around for Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers setting up in the US, maybe earmark a few billion for Nanya to expand consumer DRAM production.
Samsung is expecting a 5% increase in DRAM production in 2026 - and that's in the face of unprecedented shortages and a projected additional 30% increase in demand over the course of this year.
The Big Three are just begging for Taiwan or West Taiwan to eat their lunch.
Dubbed the 9950X3D2, it keeps leaking in benchmark results. It is exactly two 9850X3D CPU complexes in a single package - 16 cores and 192MB of cache running at up to 5.6GHz.
It has a fairly standard 85-key layout - a little cramped but it does include the Four Essential Keys - plus an optional 6-key macropad, plus an optional 24-key numeric keypad, plus an optional 24-key macropad with either blank keys or a assortment of 84 interchangeable icon keys to choose from, plus an optional trackball with four buttons and four macro keys, plus an optional trackpad with four macro keys, plus an optional haptic dial (that is, it gives programmable physical feedback) with an integrated trackpad and four macro keys, plus an optional 3D mouse with six degrees of freedom... With four macro keys.
With five choices of keyswitch, keycaps in either black or white, and the metal frame in either plain aluminium or black anodised aluminium.
The basic keyboard costs $119 (with your choice of colours and keyswitches), while the full setup costs... A lot. Well over $1000. They have an early-bird "All-in" bundle that isn't complete and that's already $917.
A 429 response means you're asking too many questions, go away. The new spec tries to tell you how long you should go away for, but at the moment it assumes that everyone involved is equally stupid. This is an attempt to fix that.
Played some more Hytale today. It runs at 30fps on low settings on my laptop, which means it should run faster on just about anything else, since my laptop has a 2880x1620 screen and five year old integrated Vega 8 graphics and I habitually run it in silent mode (with the fan speed turned all the way down). It's a great system for doing work, lousy for playing games.
Also, in Hytale low graphics settings look basically the same as "epic" graphics. The main change there is the render distance, just as with Minecraft, so unless you spend all your time looking to the horizon it make little difference.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: There is a reason. Not a good one, true.
Trump Proposes Rule to Make Big Pharma Sell Its Drugs to Americans at Same Price They Sell It To Europeans, Reducing Drug Costs by Up to 90% Plus: More Quick Hits
President Trump on Thursday rolled out what he's calling the Great Healthcare Plan, a sweeping proposal aimed at doing what Washington has failed to accomplish for decades: driving down healthcare costs by breaking the grip of insurers, drug companies, and middlemen while putting patients back in control.
"I am thrilled to announce my plan to lower healthcare prices for all Americans and truly make healthcare affordable again," Trump said from the White House. "We're doing things that nobody's ever been able to do."
At the center of the proposal is a call for Congress to codify Trump's Most-Favored-Nation drug pricing policy, which would require Americans to pay no more for prescription drugs than the lowest prices paid by other developed countries. Trump said the policy would lock in massive discounts already being achieved through voluntary negotiations with HHS and CMS, while grandfathering in those existing deals.
He argued the policy would push drug prices down "80, 90% in some cases," adding that some medications would see reductions of "300, 400, even 500%," figures he said Americans have "never heard of before."
He also proposed some small-bore changes to Obamacare.
A major structural shift in the Great Healthcare Plan involves insurance subsidies. Instead of continuing to route billions of taxpayer dollars through insurance companies, Trump is proposing that eligible Americans receive that money directly, allowing them to purchase the health insurance of their choice. "The government is going to pay the money directly to you," Trump said. "The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win." The plan would also fully fund the Cost Sharing Reduction program, which the administration says would save taxpayers at least $36 billion and reduce premiums on the most common Obamacare plans by more than 10%, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Trump did not shy away from attacking Obamacare itself, arguing it was "designed to make insurance companies rich." He pointed to billions in subsidies and what he described as skyrocketing stock prices for insurers while premiums climbed year after year for consumers. "I want to end this flagrant scam and put extra money straight into the healthcare savings account in your name," Trump said, arguing that consumer choice--not government mandates--should drive healthcare decisions.
The proposal also takes direct aim at pharmacy benefit managers and large brokerage middlemen, pledging to end kickbacks that Trump says artificially inflate insurance costs.
Eh. I dislike the price discrimination, I like the potential of paying less, but I'm not in love with the government intervention into the economy.
I'm also not animated about it. Big Pharma has revealed itself as mercenary and anti-freedom.
Update:
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
30m
JUST IN - DOJ investigating Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for conspiracy to impede immigration agents -- CBS
A "queer ethnography" professor who goes by the name "LaWhore Vagistan" when in drag has been invited to Harvard University to give a special lecture on Kamala Harris.
Harvard last year hired Kareem Khubchandani, an associate professor of Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University, as a visiting professor. Now, the wacko who spends his free time dressing up like a female caricature and performing gross sexual routines is back, not only to continue teaching classes, but to host a special and especially disgusting political lecture.
The drag queen professor is still set to teach "Queer Ethnography" and "RuPaulitics Queer Ethnography" for Harvard's Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Department. But on Feb. 10, he will host the 2025-2026 Matthiessen Lecture at the woke Ivy League university called "Auntologies: Queer Aesthetics and South Asian Aunties." It is going to feature discussions of two high-profile Democrat politicians -- Zohran Mamdani and Kamala Harris.
Kristen Sinema is accused of being a homewrecker, of carrying on an affair with her married Senate bodyguard.
The ex-wife of Kyrsten Sinema's bodyguard is suing the former Arizona senator for allegedly breaking up their marriage.
Matthew and Heather Ammel had "a good and loving marriage" with "genuine love and affection" before Sinema pursued Matthew Ammel, despite knowing he was married, Heather Ammel alleged in her lawsuit against the former senator, according to the Associated Press.
Sinema's head of security hired Ammel after he retired from the Army in 2022, according to the lawsuit, which also states he accompanied the then-senator on her travels to destinations such as Napa Valley, Calif., Las Vegas, and Saudi Arabia.
Ammel's wife in 2024 discovered "romantic and lascivious" messages he had allegedly exchanged with Sinema over the Signal messaging app. Then, in the summer, he stopped wearing his wedding ring, and Sinema gave him a job as a national security fellow in her Senate office while he continued to work for her campaign as a bodyguard, the lawsuit alleges.
The mother of Hunter Biden daughter Navy Joan Roberts is asking a court to arrest him for failing to uphold his part of their child support agreement.
Lunden Roberts, mother to the 7-year-old, urged an Arkansas judge on Tuesday to reopen the long-running child support case and arrest him until he complies with the agreement they settled on in 2023, according to court records, The New York Post reported.
Biden has five children including three daughters.
"[T]he defendant only tends to act in this case when he has to do so. As such, this court should motivate the defendant and incarcerate him in the Independence County Detention Center as a civil penalty until he purges his contempt by complying with this court's orders. In the alternative, this court should sanction the defendant as it deems appropriate and just," Roberts' motion reads.
DC transgender activist gets 3 years in prison, ordered to repay $956K for COVID relief fraud
FBI agents arrested the activist, Ruby Corado, also the founder of the nonprofit Casa Ruby, in 2024 when Corado unexpectedly returned to the U.S. from native El Salvador.
The founder of a nonprofit that provided LGBTQ+ services in the Washington, D.C. area was sentenced Tuesday to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay $956,215 in restitution for diverting federal COVID-19 relief funds.
The founder, transgender activist Ruby Corado, was also ordered to be under two years of supervised release after the prison sentence, if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn't move to deport Corado, Judge Trevor McFadden said in the sentencing hearing.
McFadden in announcing the sentence said Corado "found an opportunity to defraud U.S. Americans," instead of helping them, according DCNewsNow.com.
A foreign fraudster stealing Americans' money? Well now I've heard everything.
In case you missed it: Stronk Independent Women are now demanding that their men go out and get shot by ICE to "protect" them and show "leadership."
While they stay at home and further pad their soft asses eating bon-bons while inciting insurrection on TikTok.
Now men's "leadership" -- acting as cannon fodder for mentally-ill psychopathic women -- is needed.
And men's "leadership" consists of just obeying mentally-ill ugly leftwing women.
All of a sudden the big, strong, independent women of the country are looking to their husbands for protection and leadership.
Imagine that.
The same people who degrade and blame men for everything are now looking for a hero to tell that that everything is going to be okay.… pic.twitter.com/r5MyK71ch6
In 2016, under Obama, CNN road along with an Obama propaganda effort to show he was really cracking down on illegal aliens. Because the political imperative at the time was to prove that Obama was the "Deporter in Chief" -- and that that was a good thing -- CNN filed a very positive report on DHS arresting illegals.
Like Obama planned with the health care market. (And it's working -- it's failing and Democrats are demanding more and more socialist interventions, precisely as planned.)
Mayor Zohran Mamdani's controversial pick for tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, once admitted that pushing for rent control was just the "first step" in her plan to destroy the free housing market and move toward "full social housing."
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Videos of Weaver's past statements have gone viral on social media since Mamdani chose the 37-year-old to lead the city's Office to Protect Tenants.
"We decided that fighting for rent control was a strategic and critical first step in the fight for full social housing," she said in a newly surfaced clip. "So, a lot of times people ask, 'Why are we fighting for rent control when we have NYCHA? We should be fighting to save public housing.' We decided that through a program like rent control, we are able to directly challenge the logic of unfettered profit in the real estate market. Umm, and we are able to directly challenge housing as a wealth-building tool and, through regulation, strike a blow to the entire real estate industry at once."
She continued, "And so, the beauty of rent stabilization and rent control is that it weakens the speculative value of the real estate asset. The value is no longer based on what the landlord is able to get, but rather it's based on a state public board deciding how much rent is going up. And yes, that board is controlled by the real estate industry, and yes, there could be a better way to regulate it. But the idea is that we could weaken the entire industry at once through a strong rent control campaign, and that would strengthen our ability to do things, like fight for social housing."
Candace Owens is going to spin another conspiracy theory to explain this away -- a family member of Tyler Robinson's gay furry lover admits that xir's gay boyfriend killed Charlie Kirk.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk in September has generated a lot of conspiracy theories from the left. They range from claiming that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, is a MAGA supporter, a far-right "Groyper," and even not the actual assassin, and he's being framed.
NewsNation's Brian Entin interviewed a family member of Lance Twiggs, Robinson's transgender identifying lover, and she put to rest one of the key conspiracy theories.
She revealed quite a bit about the pair in the interview, but what stood out most was how quickly and confidently she shut down the swirling conspiracy theories. When asked directly whether police had the right suspect, she showed no hesitation at all.
"100%. They, they have the right guy."
No Egyptian planes, no Israeli assassins, no Mormon Bee Cultists, no betrayal by TPUSA staffers and Erika Kirk, scheming to murder her husband -- just the gay furry who left his fingerprints and DNA on the murder weapon.
But, but, but -- Candace Owens told me she had a dream in which Charlie Kirk came to her and told her that his friend and business partner Andrew Kolvet had "betrayed" him. And of course the near-retard malignant narcissist Candace Owens' dreams are never wrong!
The demonic hangar-nostriled narcissist is now using Erika Kirk pleading for her to stop accusing her of murdering her husband as a "funny" meme.
Do you remember Soy Actor Timothy Busfield? You'll probably recognize him. He was one of those Soy-Based Life Forms Hollywood pushed on us in the early 80s, seeking the next Alan Alda-type Sensitive Man.
I always despised him. I just don't like Soy. Never did. He was in Thirtsomething playing a character named, I assume, Cuck Softcock. Below, a picture from Field of Dreams, in which he played Professor "Stubby" Tinymeat. I mean, probably. I only saw it once and never got the big deal.
He also married left-wing has-been Melissa Gilbert.
Earlier this week, I wrote about how actor-director Timothy Busfield is facing two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and one count of child abuse, according to an arrest warrant issued by the Albuquerque Police Department (APD). He also appeared to be missing for a time, which led to the United States Marshals getting involved in the search.
They initially went to the home in New York's Catskill Mountains that Busfield shares with his wife, Melissa Gilbert, and, of course, no one was there. People magazine reports that there were concerns that he may have "done something to himself." The Marshals also set up a team to watch in case Busfield returned.
Now we know that the actor was actually on a little cross-country road trip to New Mexico, and he turned himself in to the police on Tuesday, claiming "I did not do anything to those little boys" and that he will "confront the lies."
The "little boys" in question are 11-year-old child actors who appeared on the show The Cleaning Lady, which Busfield directed. Busfield and Gilbert reportedly grew super close with the boys and their parents, which the APD called part of his "grooming" process, and allegations range from "tickling" to lying in bed together watching TV to rubbing one of the boys' genitals.
Busfield didn't deny being close with the boys and even confessed that he would often pick up a third little boy on the set and make him "giggle" to get ready for his scenes. However, he claims the twins' parents just wanted "revenge" because another child replaced them on the show at some point.
Fake allegations do happen. But he's been accused before:
In 2001, he was accused of assaulting a 16-year-old girl. According to the girl's father, his daughter "was auditioning for Busfield at B Street Theatre -- a nonprofit the actor founded in Sacramento -- when the actor kissed her, put his hands down her pants and touched her private parts. Busfield later allegedly begged the family not to report the allegations as long as he received therapy."
But at the end of the third paragraph, @nytimes finally mentions that the illegal immigrant in this story (and two others) assaulted the federal agent who pulled the trigger. pic.twitter.com/IaRyAlCYiC
Legacy media banding together to bury that the illegal immigrant in Minnesota shot last night (and his friends/family) attacked the federal agent in question.
President Trump on Wednesday said he's "taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes," linking the move to housing affordability.
Why it matters: Real estate investors -- including both large and small-scale operations -- bought about 1 in 3 single-family homes sold in the second quarter of 2025, according to a report by market intelligence firm C.J. Patrick using BatchData figures.
"People live in homes, not corporations," Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The impact: Shares of home-owning companies fell sharply Wednesday after Trump's statement.
OpenDoor, an online platform that buys and sells residential real estate, was trading down 11.5%.
...
Friction point: Critics say the trend contributes to rising home prices and rent hikes.
Via Larry O'Connor, mortgage rates have fallen to a three-year low from the highs they reached under Biden, making buying houses affordable for many more people.
DeVory Darkins
@devorydarkins
CNN ADMITS Trump's housing affordability plan is working.
"So let's just say you're buying a $500,000 home. You're putting 20% down. A year ago, your monthly payments were almost $2,700 for principal and interest. Now they're around $2,400. Now, that might not sound like that much. It's about $260 difference, but over the course of a year, you're talking about $3,000 less in interest over the course of a loan, it's over $90,000. So that's huge, right? That's less money going to the bank, more for everything else in life. Now, all of this comes after the White House has really started to focus more on this issue of housing affordability."
🚨 HOLY CRAP. Liberals are panicked after CNN was just forced to admit President Trump is PLUMMETING home prices, saving the middle class THOUSANDS of dollars already
"The White House has REALLY started to focus on housing affordability!" 🔥
Larry O'Connor pointed out that the CNN cows had "faces longer than Secretariat" as they were forced to report on the increased affordability of homes, and pooh-poohed the news as they focused on home prices continuing to rise.
Which, you know, they usually do. That's why real estate is such an attractive investment.
But a falling mortgage rate means that the net cost to actually buy a house is now at its lowest level in three years.
Mortgage rates fell to 6% it's 3-years low , with some lenders offering as low as 5.87% As January 12, 2025. This is important I bought my first single family house 🏠at the same rate:" The president's latest affordability push sent 15- and 30-year mortgage rates tumbling ". pic.twitter.com/kmtxmaszY4
In more good news: NEC Director Kevin Hassett expects the economy to have grown at 5% (annualized) in the fourth quarter of 2025, and opines that the real rate of growth would be a point and a half higher but for the Democrat shutdown.
NEC Director Kevin Hassett: "If you look at the last three quarters, it's 4% growth, 4% growth, and now, we're looking at something like 5% growth... there have been very, very few times in American economic history where things were as strong as they are." pic.twitter.com/mTNy6zA4mo
"In Minnesota, the Troublemakers, Agitators, and Insurrectionists are, in many cases, highly paid professionals. The Governor and Mayor don't know what to do, they have totally lost control, and our currently being rendered, USELESS!" Trump posted on Truth Social. "If, and when, I am forced to act, it will be solved, QUICKLY and EFFECTIVELY!"
...
The 1807 Insurrection Act allows the president to use the military to enforce civil law and disperse demonstrators "[w]henever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings."
Luke Taylor comments on antifa's tactics in the above video:
Luke
@LukeTaylorUSA
Pause for a moment and notice something..
Look at this video from the perspective of "layers"
Layer 1: you have frontline agitators who physically encroach but do nothing else aside from yell & hurl vulgarity
Layer 2: Behind layer1 you have those I call grapplers. They will swoop in and shove or pull on an agent then fall back behind layer1.
Layer 3: Noise & light obstructionists. They blow whistles, bullhorns, honk car horns, beat on drums or trash can lids.. maximum auditory infusion to make a scene appear to be chaotic. To appear to be out of control
Layer 4: The "press people". These people have vests on and press badges but are not members of any press corps. They immediately move to capture images and video of any action by agents. They are constantly taking pictures of agents faces. Every image is scoured later for any and all ways to doxx or publicly ID law enforcement for obvious reasons
Every bit of this is optics. Every bit of this is rehearsed & practiced. These people have training. These videos are a production so they can frame law enforcement with selectively edited video with one goal in mind... one end-state objective:
To erode public support of Operarion At Large
They need sound bites & slick video clips to run on the evening news cycle (the MSM are their allies in this end-state objective)
That's what this is all about
It's a play straight out of the psychological operations manual being used against law enforcement by a communist insurgency
They have training. They have funding. They have singular purpose. This is an insurgency
🚨 BREAKING: Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office emailed staff inviting them to a “healing circle” with “therapy goats.”
While Democrats fan the flames against ICE agents. City staff are being offered quiet reflection time with goats.
US overdose deaths fell through most of 2025, federal data reveals
U.S. overdose deaths fell through the most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades
NEW YORK -- U.S. overdose deaths fell through most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades.
Federal data released Wednesday showed that overdose deaths have been falling for more than two years -- the longest drop in decades -- but also that the decline was slowing.
And the monthly death toll is still not back to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone where it was before the current overdose epidemic struck decades ago, said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.
"Overall I think this continues to be encouraging, especially since we're seeing declines almost across the nation," he said.
Overdose deaths began steadily climbing in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths from heroin and -- more recently -- illicit fentanyl. Deaths peaked nearly 110,000 in 2022, fell a little in 2023 and then plummeted 27% in 2024, to around 80,000. That was the largest one-year decline ever recorded.
...
Researchers cannot yet say with confidence why deaths have gone down. Experts have offered multiple possible explanations: increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
Apparently it's just impossible that stopping fentanyl imports and deporting Tren de Aragua drug-dealers contributed to the decline. It's not even worth a mention.
By the way, note that overdoses shot up during Fauci's (and Tucker Carlson's) shutdowns. More deaths that can be laid at their feet.
Two other theories recently joined the list....
In a paper published last week in the journal Science, University of Maryland researchers point to the drug supply. They say regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Their argument is based partly on information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which last year reported that the purity -- and dangerous potency -- of fentanyl rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic but fell after 2022. It suggests it became harder to make fentanyl and its potency was diluted.
One piece of evidence for that: More U.S.-based Reddit users reported a fentanyl "drought" in 2023.
The authors connect that to signs that the Chinese government -- at the urging of U.S. officials -- took steps in 2023 to clamp down on the selling of substances used to make drugs. Information is limited on exactly what the Chinese government did, and the paper is a bit speculative, but "we thought we could make a case," said Peter Reuter, one of the authors.
Oh, so it is possible that US government action is responsible for part of the decline -- but only those steps taken by Biden.
Another mystery: Why did US serious crime rates fallen by unprecedented levels in 2025?
Must be something Biden did.
The U.S. is on pace for the largest one-year drop in murders the nation has ever recorded, according to an analysis by crime stats expert Jeff Asher.
The big picture: The decline in killings is part of a broader decrease in violent crime following the COVID-era spike. Mass killings in the U.S. also fell in 2025, reaching their lowest level since 2006.
The Real-Time Crime Index, which compiles data from 570 law enforcement agencies, shows a nearly a 20% decline in murders this year compared with the same period in 2024.
The database, which Asher used in his analysis, does not consider manslaughter, self-defense, negligence, or "accidental killings" for the statistics, according to its online glossary.
The database's statistics are currently available through October. The FBI will not release official 2025 violent crime data until sometime next year, though RTCI estimates have historically tracked closely with federal figures.
Other major crime categories measured by the index were also down nationwide and across locations of all population sizes, including motor vehicle thefts (23.2%), aggravated assaults (7.5%) and robbery (18.3%).
By the numbers: New York City and Memphis recorded nearly a 20% drop in murders compared with 2024, and Chicago saw them fall almost 28%.
New Orleans saw a decline of 7.5%, while Los Angeles County recorded murders dropping by nearly 19%.
...
State of play: President Trump has prioritized cracking down on violent crime in his second term, though there is no clear evidence linking his policies to the decline. Crime rates have been declining since 2021, according to data from both the RTCI and FBI.
LOL, sure. Definitely cite the fake FBI crime figures -- which do not include most blue cities crimes, because they refuse to report them. And we know blue cities routinely cook their crime figures.
Also note the deceptiveness of this statement. Crime didn't just decline in 2025 -- it plunged by 20%.
So the fact that it's been (allegedly) merely "declining" for a few years does nothing to explain the huge fall we saw in one year, when Trump took office again.
She had previously dedicated the Prize to Trump when she was awarded it.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado told reporters on Thursday that she had presented her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump when the pair met at the White House.
Machado dedicated the prize to Trump when she first received it. The U.S. president has long lobbied for the award and has received multiple nominations for his role in ending myriad global conflicts.
"I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize," she told reporters. She further recounted a historical episode in which Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette presented Simon Bolivar with a medal bearing the face of Washington.
Yes, she's obviously currying favor with Trump so that he will help her take the presidency when Maduro's regime falls.
Similarly, Crown Prince Pahlavi is saying he anticipated that Trump will "keep his promise," that promise being that America would come to the aid of Iranian protesters. He reminds Trump of that promise multiple times in this press conference:
He doesn't insult Trump. He doesn't accuse him of not honoring his promise. He says he believes Trump will keep the promise.
But he's definitely reminding Trump of that promise.
I saw a news report stating that Trump felt "obligated" to come to the aid of the Iranian protesters after encouraging them to keep marching and "keep fighting." Someone, I think Bonchie from RedState, commented, "He is obligated after encouraging them to keep marching and keep fighting."
I hope he continues feeling that obligation.
General Keane notes that Trump has made this "promise." He details Trump's moves against Iran, including stopping all of their oil shipments and cyber operations against Iran's ability to surveil and target its own population.
He also expects Trump to move decisively against the Revolutionary Guards.
Meanwhile, the USS Abraham Lincoln is closing in on Iran...
As SCOTUS Debates "Trans Women" Competing in Girls Sports, the World's 671st Ranked Male Tennis Player Easily Beats the Woman Ranked #1; also, Remembering Scott Adams and Dilbert
—Buck Throckmorton
The Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this week on whether individual states are allowed to ban “transgender women” (e.g. males) from competing in girls’ sports at the high school and college level. It’s a triumph for the woke assault on civilized norms that the Supreme Court justices even took this case.
The good news is that the prevailing sentiment of court watchers is that the court will rule in favor of the states which ban biological males from competing in women’s sports. But it is also concerning if this NBC report is true, “There was wide agreement on the bench that, at least in the cases before them, the scientific consensus on to what extent transgender girls and women have a competitive advantage is not clear.”
Yikes. I hope that statement is just wishcasting on the part of a left-wing journalist. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson famously admitted during her confirmation hearing in 2022 that she is scientifically illiteratenot a biologist and is unaware of any differences between men and women. But I certainly hope that there is not “wide agreement” among the other eight justices that men do not have a proven competitive advantage over women.
Meanwhile, a tennis “battle of the sexes” just took place a couple weeks ago, matching Nick Kyrgios against Aryna Sabalenka. Mr. Kyrgios is ranked 671st among male professional tennis players. He has played just six tour-level matches in the past three years. Ms. Sabalenka has won four women’s grand slam tournaments, and is currently ranked #1 in the world among professional female tennis players.
Because the tennis world understands that women and men are not equal, Ms. Sabalenka’s side of the court was 9% smaller, meaning that she had less ground to cover compared to Kyrgios, and that he had a smaller in-bounds area in which he could place his shots than she did.
Mr. Kyrgios won easily in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.
This is also an appropriate moment to remember that back in 2017 a soccer team of under-15 year old boys whipped the US Women’s National Soccer Team.
In preparation for two upcoming friendlies against Russia, the U.S. women’s national team played the FC Dallas U-15 boys academy team on Sunday and fell 5-2, according to FC Dallas’ official website.
Circling back to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Ace documented this amazing question of hers from the bench this week, "Is treating someone transgender, but does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the same, uh, threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward - that's actually a different class, says this individual. So you're not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?"
Yes, how do you respond to that? KBJ is an orator for the ages. We may have to start referring to her as Ketanji Wendell Holmes.
*****
GM Pivoting its Focus from One Tesla Niche to Another Tesla Niche
General Motors’ heir-apparent to the CEO office was hired just eight months ago from an autonomous vehicle start-up company that has lost billions of dollars and has less than 10 vehicles on the road.
Since Mr. Anderson’s hiring, several prominent executives have departed [General Motors], presumably because they don’t share his vision for prioritizing self-driving cars. As reported by CNBC a few weeks ago, Mr. Anderson “has consolidated power to oversee ‘the end-to-end product lifecycle’ of GM vehicles, including manufacturing, engineering, battery, software and services product management, and engineering teams, according to GM.”
Despite the massive EV losses that GM has incurred, the company is apparently casting its lot with a tech executive whose profit-and-loss experience is with cash burn rather than cash flow.
This piece is not behind a paywall. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.
My latest at The American Spectator discusses how General Motors keeps getting distracted by shiny new objects. After its catastrophic losses on EVs, the mass-market auto manufacturer is again pivoting toward another boutique niche - autonomous vehicles.https://t.co/br4nimCGvG
Scott Adams’ death is being eloquently covered by others, so there is not much I can add. But I do want to offer up a few quick thoughts. Aside from Dilbert being my favorite cartoon for decades, I was a loyal reader of Mr. Adams’ blog for many years before his greater celebrity during the Trump era. Mr. Adams often expanded my views, and occasionally frustrated me, but he helped me understand how rational people can understand things differently.
Back in 2016, when I doubted that Donald Trump was in any way conservative, and when I thought Trump had no chance to beat Hillary in the presidential election, Scott Adams was one of two writers who made an impact on my attitude toward that election. Mr. Adams famously wrote about the reasons why Trump was likely to win. He was right. (The other writer was John Hinderaker of Powerline, who was the first legacy conservative I read who stated that of course we traditional Republicans needed to vote for Trump.)
I was flattered once when Scott put out a call for Dilbert topics and he ended up using one of my submissions. As I recall, his invitation to the public was something to the effect of ”You provide the workplace situation and I’ll provide the humor.” I wrote him and offered up what a special hell it was to be working for a company campaigning for recognition in a local “Best Places to Work” contest. Shortly thereafter he used that in a cartoon.
Finally, my favorite Dilbert character was one who got very little screen time. Scott Adams may be gone, but Mordac, The Preventer of Information Services lives on.
I think of Mordac every time I have a spontaneously obsolete password, or I’m blocked from being able to access a system necessary for my job, or I can’t access an SaaS app because there are too few licenses, or I’m logged out of a system because I got called away for a short meeting, etc. In all these circumstances, I give a tip of the hat to Mordac, and I applaud his success in protecting my employer by preventing me from doing my job.
. . .senior Iranian officials are funneling their money out of the country like "rats fleeing the ship," amid escalating protests and financial unrest inside the Islamic Republic."We are now seeing the rats fleeing the ship. Because we can see tens of millions of dollars being wired out of the country—snuck out of the country—by the Iranian leadership. So they are abandoning ship," Bessent said Wednesday on Newsmax.
As Tim Walz Encourages Resistance, Minnesota ‘ICE Watch’ Declares ‘Time Is Ripe To Embrace Militancy’ — The "ICE Watch" group at the center of the unruly demonstrations gripping Minneapolis urged supporters to "embrace militancy" and escalate their demands "by any means necessary." Hours later, Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) also encouraged residents to resist ICE, accusing the agency of carrying out a "campaign of organized brutality."
MN ICE Watch, which describes itself as an "autonomous collective documenting & resisting against ICE, police, & all colonial militarized regimes," shared an Instagram post on Wednesday teaching agitators how to relay "information on police and/or fascist" activity at demonstrations.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services or the Minnesota Department of Education could not have grown that fast on their own, but what they were really doing wasn’t offering new programs announced by Walz, but managing disbursements to politically connected nonprofits, like the ones involved in the scam, which were able to threaten their personnel with the wrath of Attorney General Keith X. Ellison and other local and state officials if they objected to anything.
While Gov. Tim Walz and other officials claimed that they were implementing ‘programs’, what they were actually doing was building political piggy banks for their allies. Fraud was baked in because the real purpose of outsourcing what were supposed to be government programs to third parties was to subsidize the ‘community groups’ that turn out voters for their campaigns.
The nationwide networks of community groups are really a voter outreach and turnout operation for the Democratic Party funded with taxpayer money. For an example of how that worked, consider the role that one single non-profit played in the political careers of Kamala Harris, the former vice president, and Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely presidential candidate.
Hey, you don't have to be no William Allen White from Emporia KS to know that the aforementioned "ICE Watch" and probably every other crackpot anti-American commie front group is getting tons of taxpayer dough re mi in exchange for fomenting revolution and of course election thievery! Well you can't get the former without first getting the latter, nein?
“I think there are some reasonable members, but basically it will be cutting off again that, you know, constant flow of money that they’ve used to purchase votes through the years,” she told Marlow, “but the attention that the Minnesota fraud scandal has gotten has really given us legs once again. So it will put some of them in a very difficult position, but it’s absolutely necessary to do this.”
A grinning anti-ICE agitator was arrested after she allegedly punched a Florida state trooper during a confrontation with federal agents — drawing a blunt warning from Gov. Ron DeSantis that the Sunshine State “is not Minneapolis.” Jennifer Cruz was arrested outside Mi Pueblo, a Mexican grocery store and meat market in Jacksonville, Tuesday morning after she allegedly jumped out of her car and punched a state trooper in the face while officers were working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a post on X. “Jennifer disagrees with immigration enforcement and decided to commit a few felonies by getting out of her car and punching a trooper in the face,” Uthmeier wrote.
Unlike the infamous Michael Brown of Hands Up Don't Shoot mythology, who slugged police officer Darren Wilson in the face while resisting arrest by attempting to take his gun and shoot the policeman rather than get arrested, and the rest as they say is history - - this filthy degenerate slag just cold-cocked a cop in the face because she knew she could get away with it, despite her fellow Democrat stormtrooper Renee Good getting ventilated last week. After that, law enforcement officers know that they face extermination if they dare do the unthinkable and defend themselves.
It's gotten to the point where Leftists and their mediawhore propagandists are proclaiming that law enforcement doing its job is the real crime and cause of all the violence.
I've had it. I won't be satisfied until Walz's pinhead is on a pike and the Democrat Party and its allies cease to exist or are otherwise removed from the national discourse.
Andrew Breitbart may his memory be for a blessing when he declared "Fuck You, War!" Expressed it perfectly, except the Left have been waging war against us for decades and it is high time WE THE PEOPLE resist, fight back and Win absolute victory. Amen.
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.
The Black Panthers are back and threatening to "unalive" ICE agents in honor of the false narratives they worship, which enable them to commit more crimes. Ah, communism! Isn't it swell? Black Panthers In Philly Threaten To *Pew, Pew* ICE Agents
* * * * *
In a late-December ruling, the Eighth Circuit set an example for challenging ideological bullying in public employment. Drawing a Legal Line on DEI Coercion
Jennifer Cruz was arrested outside Mi Pueblo, a Mexican grocery store and meat market in Jacksonville, Tuesday morning after she allegedly jumped out of her car and punched a state trooper in the face while officers were working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a post on X. “Jennifer disagrees with immigration enforcement and decided to commit a few felonies by getting out of her car and punching a trooper in the face,” Uthmeier wrote. Grinning anti-ICE agitator arrested after allegedly punching Florida trooper as DeSantis warns: ‘This is not Minneapolis’
The news comes after an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis when she allegedly tried to use her vehicle as a weapon and run over officers, an incident which leftist groups used to mobilize protesters, whom Brandy Shufutinsky, director of the Education and National Security Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said are “stoking the grievance industry that they built.” Democrats Propose Anti-ICE Bills to Obstruct Crackdown on Illegal Alien Crime
It is demonstrative of how disconnected the Democrat Party is from reality at its top levels. Democrats: ICE Is Just Like The Ayatollahs (If only they compared ICE to the Israeilis! - jjs)
“Birth was not enough. The American rule was no different. Contracts, by definition, are not entered into unilaterally. A lawful residence implies protection. An unlawful residence does not.Most aliens who came to the United States came to stay. Tribal members were excluded.“It was a violation of the law of nations to enter into another country illegally.” True History of Birthright Citizenship
Cui’s arrest highlights ongoing scrutiny around Chinese investment in U.S. territories and raises questions about immigration enforcement and visa policies. ICE Just Detained This Chinese Billionaire.
IRAN ON the BRINK?!
The Lincoln will substantially boost U.S. Central Command’s offensive capabilities in the Middle East, as President Trump warns the Iranian regime that he will intervene to prevent the killing of protesters. WAR? Trump Redeploys Carrier Strike Group to Middle East.
"And we are seeing it come into banks and financial institutions all over the world. And what we do at Treasury is we follow the money, whether it is through the typical banking system or through digital assets. We are going to trace these assets, and they will not be able to keep them," he continued. (Now do Soros and whoever is bankrolling insurrection in MN - jjs) ‘Rats Fleeing the Ship’: Bessent Says Iranian Leadership Is Funneling Millions Out of Country
The ruthless slaughter of anti-government protesters in Iran appears to have stopped — but only because residents are being held hostage in their homes by machine gun-wielding security forces that have flooded the streets, sources told The Post Thursday. After weeks of anti-regime protests across Iran left thousands dead, the mass mobilization of security forces has suppressed the demonstrations, with many too afraid to step foot outside now. “There were tanks out — there’s tanks everywhere,” the source told The Post after speaking to family in Tehran about the current situation. The disturbing reason Iran appears to have stopped slaughtering protesters
Democrats and their media allies have been touting their “Affordability Agenda” strategy since their disastrous loss in November to Trump. The vague term helps paper over deep splits in the Democratic Party, such as elite support for the H-1B visa worker program that has damaged millions of Democratic-leaning college graduates. Democrat Tom Suozzi Says Wage Gains Are Bad for ‘Affordability’
Former Kew Gardens resident Charles Foehner was locked up at the Eric M Taylor Center in the Bronx for his felony gun charges stemming from the May 31, 2023, shooting, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Wednesday. The then-65-year-old was returning to his Queens Avenue apartment at around 2 a.m. after buying a pack of cigarettes when he was confronted by a menacing Cody Gonzalez. (Melinda Katz is a vile lefty shit-whore - jjs) Charles Foehner, NYC senior citizen who fatally shot would-be mugger, begins prison sentence for weapons possession
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Yeah, because you're a left-wing hack. You're not a reporter. You're posing in this room as a journalist, and it's so clear by the premise of your question. And you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you're a journalist, you shouldn't even be sitting in that seat. But you're pretending like you're a journalist, but you're a left-wing activist. And the question that you just raised and your answer proves your bias. You should be reporting on the facts. MUST WATCH: Karoline Leavitt Destroys MSM 'Journalist' Over ICE Question
POLITICS
The otherwise excellent JD Vance, with his stubborn loyalty to the openly pro-Islamist, antisemitic Tucker Carlson, is raising doubts about his own values. It Will Be Marco Rubio In 2028
Sheahan launched her campaign in a field that has many seeking the GOP nomination for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District. “I’m a Trump conservative running for Congress to protect American jobs, American paychecks and American values,” she said in a post on X. “No excuses. Let’s get this done,” Sheahan added. ICE official resigns to challenge U.S. Rep. Kaptur of Ohio
ISRAEL vs IRAN & GAZA/HAMAS . . . AND LEFTISTS
“They want what everybody else in this world wants — just a good life." Administration Official: “Hamas Wants Peace”(Hamas’ definition of “peace” and “the good life” is every Jew in Israel and on planet Earth dead. - jjs)
Leavitt outlined the president’s vision to reporters during Thursday’s White House press briefing. She stated that the first pillar is “permanently lowering prescription drug prices” by codifying Trump’s most-favored-nations deals with pharmaceutical companies. White House Lays Out ‘Four Commonsense Pillars’ of ‘Great Healthcare Plan’
...based on all the data MRO and other Mars orbiters have been gathering for the past decade, we are almost certainly looking at near-surface ice flowing downhill and past that peak. Martian glacier flowing past small peak
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
“The campaign includes photos and videos of participants wearing exclusive merchandise designed by award-winning fashion designer and ACLU artist ambassador Willy Chavarria,” noted Variety. “The photos were captured by artist and fashion photographer Collier Schorr and videography captured by Sundance award-winning writer and director Alessandra Lacorazza.” WATCH: Megan Rapinoe, Elliot Page, Naomi Watts, Appear in ACLU Ad Supporting Trans Youth (the Witches of Beast-schtick - jjs)
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.
The fact that you can't actually buy them is clearly a skill issue. Git gud, scrub.
Hardware Unboxed - an Aussie hardware review channel - was planning a market roundup of currently available 5070 Ti models, and reached out to their industry contacts for review cards. There were no review cards to be had anywhere. (YouTube)
Their contacts in the Australian retail market confirmed that there was no stock of the 5070 Ti at distributors at all, echoing recent reports from Germany and Japan. And Asus told them, and subsequently confirmed, that the 5070 Ti was "end-of-life", had ceased production, and would not be restocked.
Then Nvidia... Clarified... That all RTX 5000 series cards are still in production, and Asus walked back earlier comments and agreed that the 5070 Ti is still in production.
Hardware Unboxed requested - again - a review sample. There has been no response as yet.
Good luck with that. The 8GB 9060 XT seems to have bounced back up from its recent low price - it was briefly selling below MSRP - but it and the three 16GB cards (9060 XT, 9070, and 9070 XT) are all in stock. As is the 32GB 9700, though that model is quite expensive.
It worked like most so-called "Prompt Injection" vulnerabilities: It asked the AI for your data, and the AI helpfully handed it over because it has less self-interest than the average mycoplasma.
This particular instance has been patched, but it was active in the wild for four months before Microsoft took action. This is why even people who use AI tools are up in arms about Microsoft integrating it directly into their operating system.
Answers to questions like "How do I do it?", "Does it have pictures of Sydney Sweeney?", and "You're not recording this are you? Stop recording right now!"
It's a cheaper version of the N5 with a plastic rather than metal case, but otherwise almost identical. Apart from five 3.5" drive bays, it has room for three M.2 SSDs (with two running only at PCIe 4.0 x1 speed and one at x2), and includes a Ryzen 255 CPU, room for two DDR5 SODIMM modules (none as standard, so beware of that), and a whole lot of ports: OCuLink, two USB4 ports, 10Gb and 5Gb Ethernet, three USB3 10Gb ports, and HDMI. One of those USB3 ports is inside the system to host a boot device so that you can dedicate all the drives to data.
Top spot goes to the Apple Mac Mini M4 Pro. With 64GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD, though, it costs more than three times as much as the same configuration for the Minisforum AI X1 at #5. (They list the 32GB model, but I bought the 64GB model.)
We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent, Swiss, quintuple-smooth, treble-milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.
And what is this one: Spring Surprise?
Ah, that's one of our specialities. Covered in dark, velvety chocolate, when you pop it into your mouth, stainless steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks.
Everything I ordered during my definitely not drunken New Years Eve shopping spree has now shipped.
The SSDs doubled in price and the memory tripled the next day. I do need to pick up an AM4 CPU to use it all - the motherboard is on its way - but those are cheap and readily available.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: This graphics card has rung down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!
Engaged to be wed this month, a young Texan wrangled the support of an entire preschool class to throw his fiancée a surprise bridal shower.
Walking into her preschool class at Shlenker school in Houston, Zoe Kampf was surprised by a troupe of children dressed in floral garlands and bow ties who handed her a tiara and a sash.
In the middle of it all was her hubby-to-be, Sean Folloder, in the very room where he had first met his beloved.
“When I walked in, I was really surprised,” Kampf told the Jewish Herald-Voice. “They had cookies and decorated the classroom. They gave me a sash and a veil and crown. It was really cute.”
Over the decades, a glacier in Central Asia appears to have been growing when almost every other glacier on Earth has been shrinking.
Now, a scientific expedition has recovered ice cores containing 30,000 years of frozen water in the hopes that somewhere inside lies some indication of how we can help these rivers of ice survive as the planet warms.
Located in the Pamir Mountains, the Kon-Chukurbashi high-altitude ice cap in Tajikistan defies convention. While a substantial number of glaciers have completely disappeared, it has grown in size, and scientists want to know how and why.
You don't need to check out the whole thing. But it is a hoot to still see these climate doomers before they go the way of the dodo.
On January 6th, the District Court of Overijssel, in the Netherlands, invalidated a wedding ceremony held in April of last year in the city of Zwolle. Despite the married couple’s pleas, the Court decided that their marriage had never legally existed because the wording of their wedding speeches, which had been generated by ChatGPT, did not include certain mandatory phrases.
The Dutch couple had appointed a friend to officiate as a temporary civil registrar, known as an eendagsbabs in the Netherlands, and he decided to have ChatGPT generate more romantic and informal speeches for the newlyweds. The bot came up with a more relaxed version of the usual wedding speech, but one that did not include a mandatory declaration.
Using ChatGPT to devise your wedding speech? Asshoes!
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Only 11 years for our Wednesday ONT host to finish growing up?
An analysis of growth rings in the leg bones of 17 Tyrannosaurus rex individuals reveals that the dinosaurs matured much more slowly than previously thought, and adds to the evidence that they weren't all one species
The largest-ever analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils suggests the giant and fierce Cretaceous predator was a late bloomer, taking 35 to 40 years to reach maturity.
The findings also further the debate about whether there were several T. rex species instead of just one and whether smaller specimens, once thought to be juveniles, are in fact a more diminutive species called Nanotyrannus.
Americans love driving fast cars fast. It’s the mystique of white-knuckling a sports car to its limit that made the German autobahn and Paul Walker famous.
An Arizona lawmaker wants to give drivers the green light to drive as fast as they deem “reasonable and prudent” on some of the state’s long, straight stretches of paved road, saying the lack of a speed limit will actually reduce deadly crashes. A traffic safety advocate said the bill invites catastrophic wrecks that could lead to higher insurance premiums for the state’s slowpokes.
Probably good arguments against this, but it sounds kinda kewl to me!
Kraftwerk agrees
***
DJ Doof - Guess The Theme
Easy peasy! Difficulty level 1 out of 5
What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif?
***
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Tousi TV: The Iran Strike Is Coming; US Has Delayed Because Israel Needed More Time to Prepare for Iran's Retaliatory Strikes, and US Needed More Troops In the Area
—Ace
According to Mayhar Tousi, Trump has not called off the strike.
But action has been delayed because:
1, Israel asked the US to give it more time to prepare for Iran's inevitable ICBM barrage on Israel. I will add that I've heard scuttlebutt that Iran might launch dirty bombs, using up their enriched uranium to make Israel radioactive.
2, Tucker Carlson's patrons in Qatar have forbidden us to use our own base in that country for the attack. So... it's not our base then is it?
3, the military wants more assets in theater for the attack. Given that we can't use the base in Tucker Carlson's future homeland of Qatar, it makes it more important that the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier be in theater to launch planes. I believe that's sailing from the Pacific towards Iran.
I've heard rumors that the attack is still on, too.
I think Trump's statements about Iran having stopped massacring civilians could be an attempt to get Iran to stop killing them, because he needs more time to prep the attack, and he would like Iran to kill as few civilians as possible while we're forced to wait.
Tousi offers more rumors. He says there are claims that the government is dividing up between the Regime and those plotting to overthrow the Regime. He says that, according to rumor, the former president and former foreign minister have both been arrested by the Revolutionary Guard for plotting against the government. They have not been seen in days, so it's possible.
Team Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham have pushed back hard on reports claiming the U.S. told Iran it would not strike.
The White House dismissed the story as false, with Graham calling the headlines “beyond inaccurate” and stressing that President Trump’s resolve against the… pic.twitter.com/jgrmxjYMz3
Who's Funding the Domestic Terrorist and Insurrectionary Groups in the US? Why, George Soros, the Ford Foundation, and Democrat Dark Money Groups, Of Course
We don't tolerate insurrection in this country. And we don't tolerate anyone who tolerates insurrection.
Right?
That's why it was justified to hound people who had merely been in chat groups with J6 "paraders," right?
Jessica Costescu and Chuck Ross
January 14, 2026
When the Trump administration sent some 2,000 immigration agents to the Twin Cities area, they were met by activists who trailed their movements and harassed them outside their hotels. The activists are members of radical groups that together have received millions of dollars from the Left's premier foundations and dark money networks, including George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
At the center of the unrest is the Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group founded to fight climate change that has since directed its local chapters to fight the Trump administration. For Sunrise Twin Cities, that means tormenting ICE agents on the ground. The group holds in-person "action trainings" on how to "stop ICE & build a revolution." It also maintains a running list of the Twin Cities hotels housing ICE agents and organizes late-night "noise demonstrations" aimed at making it "impossible" for those hotels to operate.
Sunrise is bankrolled by a who's who of deep-pocketed left-wing organizations. Open Society Foundations has sent it $2 million since 2019, according to its grant database. Half of the money supported general "social welfare activities." The Ford Foundation contributed $150,000 in 2024 and $550,000 in 2025, while the MacArthur Foundation--the 12th-largest private charity in America--gave $250,000 in 2024, according to tax filings and grant disclosures. Sunrise says it generally rejects "checks that come with expectations of input on our strategy." It also says donations go to support its local chapters with "materials, housing, technology, food, travel, training expenses, and more."
Sunrise Twin Cities has collaborated with two other local groups to drive anti-ICE demonstrations: Unidos MN and Defend the 612.
Unidos, an "immigrant-led, BIPOC majority, multiracial, state-wide organization," leads a "rapid response" network through its affiliate group, Monarca. That network includes a 24/7 hotline that Twin Cities residents can call to report ICE activity. The group's trained "responders" are then dispatched to the area in an attempt to prevent ICE agents from making arrests. Like Sunrise, Unidos is backed by the Ford Foundation, which sent the group $400,000 in 2024. The left-wing dark money juggernaut Sixteen Thirty Fund sent Unidos $150,000 between 2021 and 2022, tax filings show.
Defend the 612 offers similar "ICE Watch Welcome & Orientation" trainings for those in the Twin Cities interested in "documenting ICE activity." It also offers "Community Response Resources" that provide guidance on "Tracking Federal Agents." This includes a list of known ICE vehicles operating in the Twin Cities--or a list of "License Plates of Abductors," as Defend the 612 describes federal immigration agents. The group accepts donations through Cooperation Cannon River, a Minneapolis-based "social and environmental justice" nonprofit that has received funding from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the left-wing dark money giant Tides Foundation, and the Solutions Project, a grantmaking organization founded by actor Mark Ruffalo.
Another group that operates its own ICE sighting hotline, Copal MN, has received $50,000 from the Tides Foundation and an additional $185,000 from the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
The groups' funding sources underscore the extent to which Democratic billionaires prop up some of the more radical left-wing activism across the country.
...
Good's wife, Becca Good, was on the scene and told Good to "drive" as the agents approached the SUV. Becca Good reportedly followed an Instagram page, "MN Ice Watch," that describes itself as an "autonomous collective documenting & resisting against ICE, police, & all colonial militarized regimes."
Last June, the page posted training slides that it described as a "basic introduction to de-arresting," a tactic in which activists pressure police to release arrestees. One slide calls for "totally surrounding the officers who have the arrestee or otherwise blocking them and/or their vehicle and chanting 'Let them go!' and the like until the LEOs [law enforcement officers] cave to the mounting pressure." A second slide calls for "pulling and pushing an officer off of an arrestee and/or breaking their grip on an arrestee," a move the slide says is "probably the most risky as it requires physical contact with an officer."
The illustration clearly shows one of the "de-arresters" about to hit the cop over the head, though -- probably on advice of lawyers -- the text claims that an "assault" merely could happen.
NEW: amid ongoing tension between Minnesota and Trump admin, DHS is calling on Gov. Walz & Mayor Frey to co-operate with 1,360 detainers of criminal illegal aliens after DHS says MN already released 470 criminal illegal aliens onto streets.
"Governor Walz and Mayor Frey REFUSE to cooperate with ICE law enforcement and have released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets of Minneapolis. We are calling on Walz and Frey to stop this dangerous policy and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 1,360 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota's custody," said Assistant Secretary @TriciaOhio. "It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans."
Leny Odemel Ramirez-Santos, a criminal illegal alien from Honduras charged with sex offense against a child -- fondling and driving under the influence of liquor.
Edwin Amable Ashca Ninasuta, a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador with charges for lewd or lascivious acts with a minor.
Lenda Neh Mama Epse George, a criminal illegal alien from Cameroon with charges for cruelty toward a child and domestic violence.
German Adriano Llangari Inga, a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador charged with homicide -- negligent manslaughter with a vehicle and driving under the influence of liquor.
Puol Both, a criminal illegal alien from Sudan convicted of making terroristic threats, burglary, first-degree aggravated robbery, and larceny.
Somsalao Thonesavanh, a criminal illegal alien from Laos convicted of drug trafficking and selling a synthetic narcotic.
NEW: amid ongoing tension between Minnesota and Trump admin, DHS is calling on Gov. Walz & Mayor Frey to co-operate with 1,360 detainers of criminal illegal aliens after DHS says MN already released 470 criminal illegal aliens onto streets.
Minneapolis Mayor and Insurrectionist Jacob Frey Justifes Attacking ICE Agents, Saying Hitting Federal Agents With Shovels Is Just "Defending Our Neighbors"
So, if a group of Republicans throws rocks at Minneapolis, Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey's SUV while his driver carts him around to "Protect Their Neighbors" from his dangerous policies, no problem, right @Jacob_Frey?
Frey does not share the values of his Republican constituents. Do they, then, have a justification for using violence against him?
The left never answers this question. Or rather, they avoid it by simply saying "that's different."
But it's not different. When they say "it's different" what they really mean is that they consider themselves to be the ruling class with rights the plebeians -- you and me -- simply do not have. They don't have to answer "do the plebeians have the same right as the patricians" because of course they don't.
But we do not agree that we are plebeians and they are patricians. We, in fact, are starting to doubt that they should even have rights at all. They're simply too stupid, too immoral, and too mentally ill to be full citizens.
Their whole claim relies on us accepting the idea that we are inferior untermenschen who may be attacked by our "superiors" when our "superiors" decide that we've become unruly.
And they're convincing me that we too should adopt the same position about our clear inferiors.
Below, a Minnesota state senator also justifies attacking federal agents.
This is Fort Sumter stuff.
🚨 State Sen. Bobby Joe Champion (D) says last night's vicious assault of an ICE agent "is just an example of Minnesota being a place where we help our neighbors."
CNN: If they used weapons to attack the officer, would that change your opinion?
Mentally-ill women are apparently not getting the "support" they demand from their male partners, who are telling them, correctly if inadvisedly, that they're "overreacting."
Suddenly men are to be the "protectors" and "leaders" -- but it's a strange kind of "leadership" they want from men.
They want men to "lead" by obeying their mentally-ill wives.
And when they say they want their men to "protect" them, what they really mean is that they want men to literally go to war with the government and die as martyrs while these unfuckable fat-asses sit on their couches at home typing revolutionary rhetoric on Redit.
All of a sudden the big, strong, independent women of the country are looking to their husbands for protection and leadership.
Imagine that.
The same people who degrade and blame men for everything are now looking for a hero to tell that that everything is going to be okay.… pic.twitter.com/r5MyK71ch6
Paramount's "Landman" Takes on Fragile SJW Pronoun Sissies; Newest, Gayest Star Trek Ever Crashes In Ratings
—Ace
Emily Juniper 🇺🇸🇦🇺 𝕩
@emilyjuniper_
Jan 13
🚨Paramount's Landman just put the pronoun debate in a chokehold. Ainsley Norris nails it: "Using a plural pronoun for one person is just kind of incorrect."
TCU Counselor: "Says who?"
Ainsley Norris: "Well, the English language."
The world is healing
I know someone who's watching it. She told me that liberal women are attacking the show for failing to write liberal women accurately. (Landman's wife is an AWFL.) She said no, the show does write liberal women completely accurately -- you just don't like seeing yourselves represented honestly.
The show apparently doesn't have much use for liberal women:
LOL! The Landman absolutely roasts The View in hilarious scene.
Sam Elliott: "What's The View?"
Billy Bob Thornton: "A bunch of pissed off millionaires bitching about how much they hate millionaires and Trump and men and you and me."pic.twitter.com/6UYh7Frj78
NO WAY: President Trump just posted this legendary clip from the Paramount+ hit show Landman, where Tommy Norris schools a lawyer on why oil is essential and windmills are costly and horrible for the environment. pic.twitter.com/wNnoGIS0Le
The early performance of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is shaping up to be a serious warning sign for Paramount+, with the show's free YouTube premiere delivering alarmingly weak engagement numbers that undercut the platform's entire conversion strategy and marked the show as a flop from the get-go.
The Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere flop is already difficult to ignore. Paramount made the unusual decision to launch the series premiere for free on YouTube--typically a move designed to entice casual viewers and convert them into paid subscribers. But if the goal was to build momentum, the results so far suggest the opposite happened.
The premiere episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy debuted on YouTube with a live premiere that peaked at roughly 1,300 concurrent viewers.
In the 11 hours following its release, the episode accumulated approximately 16,000 total views--numbers that would be underwhelming for a mid-tier fan upload, let alone a flagship franchise entry from a major studio.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton chat about the end game in Iran, what to do about the Fed, its supposed "independence," and its hyper-politicized chairman, the housing crunch, and Trump's harebrained suggestion to decrease credit card interest!
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, and an always interesting observer of the human and political condition, has died. RIP. [CBD]
Tousi TV: France closes embassy in Tehran, US Department of State advises all US citizens to get out of Iran He's been saying that Tuesday will be a decisive day. Other reports say that Trump is in the last stages of planning an action against the mullahs. (And other reports say that Tucker Carlson Simp JD Vance is attempting to get Trump to agree to "negotiations" with Iran -- for fucking what? What do we get out of saving the fucking mullahs and letting them kill and torture their own people? Apart from Tucker Carlson getting to pretend he's a Big Man Influencer and that he's worth all the Qatari money he's receiving.)
Asmongold predicted that AWFLs would turn on immigration the moment we started importing hot women into the country, and he was right via garrett
New Yorkers are shocked after footage goes viral of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Tenant Director stating that white people will be HEAVILY impacted after they transition property "as an individual good to a collective good" [CBD]
