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
Numerous sources told BleepingComputer that hackers have been exploiting the cPanel flaw since Thursday to breach servers and deploy a Go-based Linux encryptor for the "Sorry" ransomware [VirusTotal].
Thanks, CPanel.
The problem with my server yesterday was hardware, not software - an SSD failure. It's not dead but ZFS automatically disabled it due to errors, which broke all the sites hosted there.
So I had backups from the previous day, and I now have backups from the moment it failed. If anyone lost anything important I can get it back.
It drops over and plugs into the Mac Mini, but looks like a miniature version of the original Macintosh from 1984, or at least the subsequent "platinum"-coloured model from 1986. It has a 5" 1280x720 colour screen, where the original had a 9" 512x342 monochrome screen.
It also has four USB-A ports, three USB-C ports (though that includes the one that connects to the Mac), HDMI, SD and microSD slots, and an M.2 2280 slot.
$170 for a USB-C model (presumably 10Gbit) and $340 for a Thunderbolt 5 model which is theoretically 80Gbit.
Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Please keep the horsing around to a minimum. We don't want to throw you in the corral of misery. Think there's somewhere else better to hang out tonight?? We say NEIGH!
Dolly Parton and King Charles happened to arrive at the Pearly Gates on the very same day.
They were greeted by an angel who explained that, due to a paperwork mix-up, there was only one opening available in Heaven that afternoon.
"I'm afraid I'll have to decide which one of you gets in," the angel said.
The angel turned to Dolly and asked if there was any special reason she should be admitted.
Dolly smiled, took off her top and said, "Look at these, they're two of God's most perfect creations and I'm sure it will please Him to be able to see them every day, for eternity."
The angel thanked her politely and then asked King Charles the same question.
Without saying a word, the King walked over to a nearby restroom, pressed the handle, and flushed the toilet.
The angel immediately turned and said, "Your Majesty, welcome to Heaven."
Dolly stared in disbelief and said, "Hold on just a minute. I showed you two of God's own perfect creations and you turned me down, and he just flushed a toilet. How does that make sense?"
The angel shrugged and replied, "Sorry, Dolly, but even in Heaven, a royal flush beats a pair every time."
---------
A couple is asleep when their doorbell rings at 3am.
The wife shakes the husband and says "Honey, there's someone at the door."
The husband, irritated gets up and opens the door to an obviously drunk man.
"Can I help you?"
"Could you give me a push?" asks the drunk man.
"Hell no, and besides you are drunk" and slams the door shut.
As he gets back into bed, his wife begins to lecture him. "Don't you remember when we were stranded on the side of the road and people stopped to help us? You should go outside and help the poor man."
Realizing this, the husband gets dressed and heads to the door. Opening it, he realizes the man has left and yells out, "Do you still need a push?"
From the darkness, he hears a reply, "Yes, please."
Whether you're hosting a Kentucky Derby party or you're just craving a refreshing bourbon cocktail, this mint julep recipe is sure to hit the spot.
The key to making a great mint julep is making fresh mint flavored simple syrup.
Mint Simple Syrup:
2 cups water
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh mint leaves
Cocktails:
8 cups crushed ice, or as needed
32 fluid ounces Kentucky bourbon
8 sprigs fresh mint for garnish
Once you have your mint flavored simple syrup -
Fill eight glasses with crushed ice
pour 4 ounces bourbon and 1/4 cup mint syrup into each cup
Top each drink with a mint sprig
Crushed ice works best. It allows for dense packing in the glass / cup.
The process starts in each barn where it's the duty of a couple of employees to grab a shovel and start scooping.
"Twice a day, minimum, they go in and clean those stalls, where the wet spots are and the manure, and they basically bring in a wheel barrel and haul it out," Hargrave said.
Poo pits are strategically placed backside, fittingly, on both sides of most barns.
"We saw a truck carrying it out," a tourist told WDRB.
The semi, that can't have enough air fresheners in the cab, stops at Keeneland first.
"They'll go to an area there, and they'll dump it there, bail it," Hargrave explained.
Then it's off to mushroom farms. WDRB followed the scent to one in Tennessee.
Monterey Mushrooms in Loudon, just outside Knoxville, is the lucky recipient of three to five trucks full of "deposits" a day.
*****
Club ONT Department of Innovation
Is this real?
*****
Club ONT Employment Office
Marco Rubio realizing he was that close to running Spirit Airlines. Now he can return the outfit.
A 22-year-old woman sought medical care for a lesion in the plantar region of her left foot, a well-formed nipple surrounded by areola and hair. Microscopic examination of the dermis showed hair follicles, eccrine glands, and sebaceous glands. Fat tissue was noted at the base of the lesion. Clinical and histopathologic findings were consistent with the diagnosis of supernumerary breast tissue, also known as pseudomamma. To our knowledge, this is the first report of supernumerary breast tissue on the foot.
"Misplaced extra nipple" are words that don't commonly go together.
Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and equals 20% of human biomass.
The current world population is about 8.29 billion which means there are about 2.4 million ants per person on earth.
No idea what you do with that information, but you're welcome.
*****
Club ONT Department of Arachnophobia
The story behind Little Miss Muffet. No wonder she was frightened away!
*****
The Club ONT Jukebox
Hat tip: Hour of the Wolf
*****
Top 10ish Comments of the Week
*****
Club ONT is brought to you tonight by Ways to Quit Your Job Politely
Wheeler Walker, Jr. has his own take on the same subject. Language is not family friendly.
*****
Club ONT is not responsible for Derby hats left behind after closing. Please keep your hats within eyesight at all times. On a completely unrelated note, restrooms are free tonight - no tokens required.
Saturday Evening Movie Post [moviegique]: Over Your Dead Body
—Open Blogger
The Boy and I had a blast at this violent Jorma Taccone (MacGruber) black-comedy, but I couldn't help but notice this was the second romantic-dark-comedy in a row, after The Drama. Is Hollywood maybe inching its way back toward the perennial crowd-pleasing romcom genre, but can't find a straight path?
I have no idea.
When the movie opens, we see sad sack Dan (Jason Segel) being bullied on the set of the commercial he's directing, and he's very ostentatiously telling everyone within earshot about how he's going up to the cabin with his wife Lisa (Samara Weaving), and how she's insisting—insisting!—on going on this very dangerous hike by herself.
OK, so, obviously, he's planning to kill her.
When he gets home, one of his wife's girlfriends is leaving, and she smiles at him and says, "Happy hunting!" which is perplexing because of course he's not any kind of a hunter.
So, somewhat less obviously, she's planning to kill him.
This movie does a really excellent job of seeding little things throughout and then recontextualizing them through flashbacks. This is done for laughs, primarily, but Taccone manages—despite the mix of relationship dysfunction, serious violence and comedy—to give the film a pitch-perfect tone that treats its characters with respect—and, like The Drama, is weirdly, cautiously optimistic. Buried in the shenanigans is a fairly profound statement about how we exaggerate our neuroses, and it's only when we come up against some hard psychosis that we straighten out.
Where R Patz and Zendaya (in The Drama) are dealing with near lethal levels of cringe, Segel and Weaving are working on a much more primal level, and this is both more fun and more satisfying. Also more preposterous, but who cares?
Part of the non-working dynamic between Dan and Lisa is that Lisa, an actress, married Dan, a director, because as an older man with a vision, he had a clear path forward for his life. Seven years later, he's making pop-up ads, and he's encouraged (coerced?) her into being an actress in community theater, which has resulted in them burning up all their money. Dan is a spendthrift, impress-your-colleagues-with-reckless-spending kind of guy.
I had a little trouble with Lisa being only ten years younger than Dan, because Weaving is a younger, prettier, better acting Margot Robbie and Segel is halfway to being the crypt-keeper.
Seriously, this is The Muppets guy? I mean, accounting for acting, lighting, makeup—he still looks like he's melting, and he's, like, 45.
Sorry, dude. I look way older than nearly 29, myself.
Weaving, whom I've primarily seen covered in blood from the Ready or Not movies, looks like she's comfortably in her 20s. She's 34. Nonetheless, both she and Segel are by turns despicable, petty, cruel, sympathetic, pathetic—oddly real feeling for a movie like this.
Rounding out the cast is Timothy Olyphant, who's way prettier than Segel (and 12 years older) to say nothing of a haggard Juliette Lewis (who's right between Olyphant and Segel in age) and Keith Jardine, reprising his career-long role as a goon. He's funny in this. Paul Guillfoyle is Segel's I'm-Very-Disappointed-In-You-Son father, who thinks the problem with the younger generation (this would be X) is that they didn't have a Vietnam.
Guillfoyle, besides being a good actor you've seen in a dozen different things, has a relatively small part that really illustrates how well the story is constructed, and its attention to detail. As Michael, Dan's dad in the old-folks home, you could see his rambling as out of touch and just comic relief. But it's his cabin, and his guns in the cabin, and there's a great bit where he's driving a tricked out Honda or something and he can't get the radio to stop playing techno, which is very old folks, but then he starts to really dig the music, and you realize that, like every other aspect of this movie, nothing was "just a joke". It all contributes to story, to character and to an ultimate payoff.
It's very hard to find images of this film that aren't spoilers. So, let's just enjoy Weaving's high-waisted jeans which, at some points during the film, come up to nearly her armpits.
The writing, editing and direction are terrific. The camera moves purposely and without that sense of clichéd, pre-canned motions most films use these days. The music (both diagetic and not) also contributes to the story, as when Lisa and Dan can't decide on a streaming channel.
The only thing that would keep me from recommending it is the violence. It is increasingly brutal and graphic. The way Taccone uses this to maintain the tone is the sort of thing few Westerners can pull off. Early on, we are told to take the characters' intentions sincerely. They mean to do each other harm—they're just not very competent. But this incompetence leads to serious injury. And the movie takes increasingly dark turns without losing either its sense of humor or its earnestness.
It is, in some ways, much easier to watch than the very awkward The Drama, and certainly more fun—if you can stomach it.
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. As advertised, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) decided on a crowdsourced car repair as a theme for this Hobby Thread. (It also decided on a broader horsepower theme given the running of the Kentucky Derby.)
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. Leave politics and religion to threads elsewhere. 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.
***
And here we are. So it is written, so it shall be done. Think of it like our very own Car Talk (with Click and Clack), Under the Hood or Motor Medics. We can expand to anything with a motor - truck, RV, motorcycle, quad, etc.
Post your ills and mechanical gremlins. Post your stories of cars with unsolvable issues or possessed spirits. Post about things you've always wondered about.
Ideally, the experts among the Horde can join to offer their wisdom and advice. If they don't, the rest of us will make wild and uninformed guesses.
Either way, the advice is be free and Ace of Spades disclaims any responsibility for anything that happens in this thread.
Credit to RandomDave and ARiK for the suggestion.
Let's stick closely to fixing, restoring and and improving things with motors and engines. Having said that, the Kentucky Derby is scheduled to run during the course of the Hobby Thread, so talking natural horsepower will be considered on-topic.
***
***
ODB2 Codes:
***
There are a shocking number of videos on DIY dent repair. Most are awful. This earned a place in the content because the guy uses boiling water and a toilet plunger.
Anyone do this type of repair yourself?
***
Carburetor knowledge from Destin:
Fuel injector knowledge from Destin:
Engine knowledge from Destin:
***
You'll need a few tools if you're going to work on your cars. This video is worth watching for the intro alone. I'll let others debate the advice and wisdom.
***
How tires are made. I was going to include a tire repair video to be consistent with the theme but this was far more interesting.
***
YouTube is full of channels that fix up damaged cars - usually, the more crazy and infeasible, the better. This thread needed at least a representative of the genre, so this is the most entertaining without going over the top I could find:
***
"How Hard can it be?"
***
From the Horde: There are repairs, and then there are repairs.
Before:
After:
Here's one of my current projects, rebuilding the engine for Mrs fd's '95 Nissan 240SX. After 200K miles it was kind of nasty inside. When finished it will look and run brand new. The car is getting a paint job too, after the engine is back in.
I now have the newly re-bored block, polished crank, and rebuilt head sitting on the bench awaiting reassembly, and all the other parts gathered. Hopefully the whole project, bodywork, paint, etc, will be done by the end of the year.
Hat tip: fd
***
In honor of fd's project, here is SuperfastMatt (if you mix dry humor and a little mad scientist flavor together, you get SuperfastMatt):
***
Is a demolition derby the automotive equivalent of a Viking burial?
My uncle and first husband entered the destruction derby one year and I was given carte blanche to paint on it. I painted the hood as a sunrise and the trunk as a sunset. And the required stuff. My contribution, lol.
My stepbrother, before his racing days, entered the destruction derby now and then. The only year we didn't go was the only time he ever won. Damn!
And finally, the last destruction derby I attended decades ago, someone entered a gorgeous old woody station wagon and the entire crowd was heartbroken. Some were even talking about heading to the pits to try and buy it before it got wrecked. What a shame.
Hat tip: NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker
***
This is a 2+ hour video showing a restoration of a 1926 Model T. I was intending to save it for a car restoration theme someday, but the odds of forgetting are high. It is entertaining and included to represent a very different era of automobile.
***
Since we're talking cars, it is appropriate to acknowledge the passing yesterday of Alex Zanardi.
Alex was a professional racing driver. Until 2001, he was known for his spirit, his smile and laugh, and his unbeatable speed. He racked up open-wheel wins and championships. In 2001, he was involved in this huge crash.
His car is not the blue one to the right coming into the frame at top speed. His car is the red one to the left. All you can see is the front wheels and bodywork. The car was bisected. He was in the back half of the car, but without his legs.
From that point on, he became known for the pivot to survival and recovery. He had an amazing attitude that took him back to racing (sports car and touring car with modified controls) and paralympian cycling (gold medalist).
He may have had no legs, but he had an enormous heart.
RIP Alex.
***
Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an beekeeping and honey theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
***
Notable comments from last week:
Special thanks to all the beekeepers who posted last week. I'm continually amazed by the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience among the Horde.
***
Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
***
If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
My cat Jasmine crossed the Rainbow Bridge on Wednesday, April 29.
She was 13 years old, going on 14.
She first came to my attention when I saw a picture of her on the local animal shelter's website. I was looking for a companion for my first cat Penny and Jasmine's picture just called out to me. I went over to the animal shelter and was able to adopt Jasmine.
It took her a few months to get acclimated to my house. She had a tendency to hide anywhere that was big enough to fit a cat, such as under my recliner and even in the drawers in my TV table. Penny didn't like her much at first, but then they figured things out and soon enough I saw them both sitting in my office chair like boon companions.
For the past 13 years Jasmine has been the perfect little lap kitty, just the right size to fit in my lap, purring contentedly and giving me head bonks to show her affection.
I will miss her dearly, but I was able to be with her until the end.
She passed knowing that she was loved. Jasmine truly was a blessing from the Lord.
Best regards,
"Perfessor" Squirrel
Oh, we are crushed to hear that you have lost beautiful little Jasmine. She looks just like you have described her here and in past posts. Please give some extra love to your other kitties for us.
* * *
Just inherited him, my son thinks he is broken. Does any other cat sleep like this? He even lets us trim nails while he is asleep like this
The Pigeonist
Pisces has a distinctive sleeping style. You're lucky about the nail trimming. Congratulations on adopting that sweet cat.
* * *
Doof suggested on April 30 that this is the unofficial AOSHQ mascot.
These were here when we moved here, 30 years ago. They’ve never thrived but they produce a few flowers every year.
Gorgeous. And it's amazing that it has survived that long. I think that's a bearded iris, but you live in Pacific Coast Iris territory. Here are two photos said to be of 'Chief Sequoia', an iris of this type. The first is from Garden.org, the second from Pcn. You can decide for your self if one of them might be mis-identified.
There are also hybrids between Pacific Coast irises and bearded irises that are easier to grow outside their territory.
And here is a link to the Pacific Coast Iris page from Heritage Irises, based in New Zealand, with links to other iris blogs from around the world. You will note that some Pacific Coast Irises have tan or brown tones.
*
Edible Gardening/Putting Things By
Kindltot:
I did my first canning for the season. The rhubarb is just getting ready to harvest.
I also bought lids for quite a while, because they were on sale. Fillmore Container has the lids on sale, if you buy regular mouth Superb canning lids, they are $.08 each, if you buy the case.
Great deal! Happy Canning!
*
Ah, Nature
Plants can sense the sound of rain, a new study finds
Experiments by MIT engineers show rice seeds sprout faster to the sound of rain.
Cheers, TRex
The next time you find yourself lulled by the patter of rain outside your window, think how that same sprinkle might sound if you were a tiny seed planted directly below a free-falling droplet. Would you still be similarly soothed?
In fact, MIT engineers have found the opposite to be the case: Some seeds may come alive to the sound of rain. In experiments with rice seeds, the team found that the sound of falling droplets effectively shook the seeds out of a dormant state, stimulating them to germinate at a faster rate compared with seeds that were not exposed to the same sound vibrations.
Thanks for passing this along, TRex! Fascinating. Rain sounds at the link.
But what if, instead of culturing hives of bees, you wanted to start a butterfly house, or volunteer at one, or visit one? Maybe you could hatch some Glasswing Butterflies!
one of the most elegant tricks in nature
the Glasswing butterfly doesn’t just have “clear wings,” it has engineered invisibility at the nanoscale.
Here’s what’s really going on beneath that idea 1/🧵
The breeding season begins when male butterflies form leks and attempt to attract mates. Males consuming Asteraceae flowers extract pyrrolizidine alkaloids, compounds that enhance their scent to attract females.
This behavior is common among male ithomiine butterflies, including glasswings.
The butterfly species mates polygynously. Males compete fiercely in communal areas, using scent signals derived from pyrrolizidine alkaloids obtained from their diet of toxic plants. These signals are vital for reproductive success and allow males to stand out.
Some male butterflies of other species, like swallowtails, may gather at mud puddles or stream banks for moisture and minerals.
The butterfly species mates polygynously. Males compete fiercely in communal areas, using scent signals derived from pyrrolizidine alkaloids obtained from their diet of toxic plants. These signals are vital for reproductive success and allow males to stand out.
What Do Adult Butterflies Eat?
The adult butterfly feeds on nectar from perennial flowering plants, including various members of the Asteraceae family. Their diet supports high energy demands for long-distance flight, and the secondary chemicals they ingest help reinforce their toxic defense strategy.
Butterflies obtain these chemicals by drinking from toxic plants or even decaying organic matter, depending on availability. While their appearance may suggest fragility, their physiology and diet are well-adapted to the rigors of tropical life.
Where Do Glasswings Live?
Glasswing butterflies are found throughout Costa Rica and other South American countries like Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Their habitat includes humid forests and rainforest edges, often at elevations where other tropical lepidoptera thrive.
Population density differences can occur based on habitat, food availability, and environmental conditions.
Glasswings are arboreal and spend much of their life in the canopy, away from the forest floor. Their preferred host plants include species in the Solanaceae family, where eggs are typically laid.
So it sounds like they get toxic chemicals from two families of plants! And they look so delicate!
*
Gardens of The Horde
From NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker
These are some of the wildflowers on our property before Honey weedeats everything.
*
Just wanted to show you the pond lillies. They’re opening today.
Respectfully, CrotchetyOldJarhead
Those are wonderful!
*
Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
How many people here expected the visit between President Trump and King Charles to turn out as friendly as it did? Somehow, the long history between the UK and the USA became just a personal visit. How did that happen?
A lot of surprising things have happened this week that are based in long stories. But some of the events which occurred during the week took me by surprise. They fit well in Ace's "Quick Hits".
U.S. — The growing rift between the political right and left in the country became even more evident this week, as a new poll showed that a majority of Democrats believe the Lincoln assassination was staged.
Though long held to be a historical fact, a plurality of Democratic voters went on record in a research study to confirm that they now suspect that President Abraham Lincoln was never actually assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, and that the entire incident was simply an elaborate hoax.
"That whole situation was suspicious," lifelong Democrat Dean Stinson posted on social media. "Sure, the government and the educational system want you to believe that President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater, but let's be honest here, things don't add up. First of all, do you know what John Wilkes Booth did for a living? That's right — he was an actor. Actors literally spend their time playing roles and pretending. Sounds like just the guy you'd want to pull off a staged assassination, am I right?" . . .
Unfortunately, the right-ish "all-conspiracy" site I mentioned last week also suggested that the attempted assassination could have been staged to increase Trump's popularity. No consideration was given to how the suspect was recruited.
U.S. — Members of the national media remained completely baffled as to the target or motive of a gunman carrying a detailed, 47-page manifesto entitled "Why I'm Going To Kill Donald J. Trump."
The document reportedly provided a handy bullet-pointed list of grievances along with a helpful table of contents detailing primary and secondary motivations for wanting to kill the president, but after hours of reviewing the manifesto, journalists came up empty as to who the gunman may have been targeting and why.
"It's a mystery," said CBS correspondent Norah O'Donnell, thumbing through the papers. "See right here, the gunman says that he plans to use a gun to shoot President Donald J. Trump, and explains that he's doing so because he believes that Trump is a dangerous fascist who must be stopped at all costs. I wonder who the gunman is talking about here? Who was he after that night, and for what reason? We may never know."
Experts explained that the gunman's repeated references to President Trump, including a chapter called "Yes, Trump Is My Target, And Here Is Why," should not be taken as definitive evidence of intent.
"This is going to be a tough nut to crack," said CNN's Kaitlan Collins. "We're looking at everything. What drove this man to attempt such a heinous act? Was it class imbalance? Was it gluten? The search has only just begun."
And the "all-conspiracy" site is in a double-quandary, since they don't trust anyone to accurately report what the manifesto says. But this might get them going:
Then-President Ronald Reagan was outside the Washington Hilton, the venue where the WHCA dinner is held each year, in 1981 when a man named John Hinckley Jr. made an attempt on his life.
The problem we deal with every day, via Ed Driscoll:
Bill Maher just brought up some of Gavin Newsom’s biggest failures right to his face — including California’s DISASTROUS high-speed rail project, to which Maher said:
“I say this as a friend, you got to let that train go!”
Leading the week’s news was the Democrats’ third failed assassination attempt against President Trump. Murder isn’t funny, but that didn’t prevent meme-makers from weighing in. The rest of the week’s news was lighter: King Charles visited America and addressed Congress, and it turned out that Democrats love kings after all. James Comey was indicted, the SPLC continued to draw fire, and Ilhan Omar displayed a remarkable grasp of world history.
So here we go–The Week In Pictures, Missed Me Again Edition. This week features three pirate-related memes, which must be a record. Watch for them:
Before we enter the Prayer Revival. Just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Shiocton)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice.
3) Running with sharp objects is seriously frowned upon. Don't.
4) Have a great weekend!
*****
AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List
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:
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!
3/23 Update – Susan finally was able to come home. She is doing better than expected. Thanks to everyone for your prayers.
4/18 Update – Susan is doing outstanding. Her weight is better than expected. They have increased her dosage for chemo, and her cancer numbers are the lowest they have been since they started keeping track of them. They are so thankful for the mercy they have received. Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and 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.
4/11 Update – A.B. got a second opinion and testing determined his live score was 15. (21+ means transplant time.) That’s bad, but not as critical as initially thought. He went to the Cleveland Clinic for a third opinion, and testing found that his score had dropped to 9 and a liver transplant was not even something to consider. The doctor suspected a reaction to Ozempic and told him to stop taking it for 6 months.
3/21 – FenelonSpoke asked for prayers for her son, who is still looking for work. He has a horticulture major, and would ideally like something related to research, but he is certainly willing to labor outdoors.
4/10 Update – FenelonSpoke’s son got a job. She sends her thanks to everyone who prayed on this thread here and elsewhere.
3/28 – Hrothgar asked for prayers for a dear and long time close friend and former neighbor, Daniel, who is scheduled for open heart surgery in mid-April. Prayers for his wife would be appreciated as well, as she will be carrying a heavy load for the next few months.
4/18 Update – Daniel survived his complex open heart surgery. He is sitting up and it seems like it went well, but they are not going to release him as quickly as he would like, so he is not happy. Thanks to the Horde for the prayers and please keep praying for his dear wife, who now has even more to put up with.
3/28 – Jordan61 posted that Mr. Jordan61 is back in the hospital. His sepsis has returned and gotten into where his compression fracture is, and he has vertebral osteomyelitis. The doctor is supposed to come in today and let them know the plan.
4/9 Update – On 4/1 Mr. Jordan61 was released from the hospital with six weeks of IV antibiotics, which Jordan61 is administering every 8 hours. He’s in a lot of pain; they’ve given him oxy, fentanyl, and dilaudid, and nothing seems to touch it. From what they were told, the pain won’t subside until the infection is cleared up. For the time being, he is bed-bound and they are limiting his movement as much as possible to keep the pain to a minimum. Jordan61 will send updates with progress.
4/25 Update – Mr. Jordan61 is making slow but steady progress. He can get up and walk for short periods of time, and can sit in the living room for an hour or so per day. He is halfway through the IV antibiotics, with 3 weeks to go. A physical therapist will be coming to help him build strength and learn how to move without aggravating his back injury. Thank you all for the prayers!
4/3 – Teresa in Fort Worth posted an update. Her chemo seems to be holding things steady for now. Unfortunately, as she is receiving a steroid, she has gained about 25 pounds. Her blood sugar has also jumped up about 40 points (which only happens when she is on steroids).
4/24 Update – Teresa in Fort Worth provided an update: The pump that was put in to battle cancer in December can only be used for 6 months. After that, it starts to damage the liver. So she may have to go back onto the medication that made her lose her hair and messed up her vision and nails, and then return to this medication after a break. This is not good news, since this new medication is working so well. But for now, she is doing well and is incredibly grateful for the time that she has been given so far.
4/4 – Reforger posted that his wife’s father passed away on 4/3. After a 50 year battle with Hep C, he fell and broke his neck. He lasted about a month, in and out of induced comas, and now the pain is over. Reforger lost his father on Holy Saturday (years ago) and now his wife lost her father on Good Friday.
4/11 – Eromero craves prayers for Mrs. E., as she has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She begins infusions on 4/23.
4/25 Update – Mrs. E. reports that she feels fine. Praise be to God that she has had only one distressful episode during the infusions. Thank you for all the past and continued prayers.
4/18 – Vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for Captain Whitebread, who is back in ICU with a leg infection that sounds very serious. She also asked for prayers for her husband’s mental and emotional well-being as he faces transition of a possible forced retirement in 3 months.
4/29 Update Captain Whitebread’s son posted that Captain Whitebread had several more infections and passed away on 4/29.
4/18 – Warai-otoko offered a prayer of thanksgiving that he got a new job that he is really enjoying. Wifey also got an offer for a new job that sounds great, after a decade of putting up with her old job.
4/18 – fd posted that MIL went into the hospital with multiple issues. Then Dad went in. MIL is still there, and Dad is out. Both will be okay – as well as can be expected for 87 and 89 year olds. Also GSD Bruno started chemo for lymphoma and is responding well. Prayers from the Horde have helped.
4/18 – neverenoughcaffiene asked that Devyn be kept in prayers. She is a young mother of 2 with a mass on her esophagus. The Doc said it was scar tissue and hopefully the second opinion will agree.
4/18 – Smell the Glove could use some prayers as therapy and rehab occur after gout/sepsis.
4/25 Update – Thanks for your prayers. The extreme gout has cleared and the nasty wound is healing.
4/18 – PA Dutchman asked for prayers for his family. His dad passed away on 4/9 after complications from a fall. He was 95 and a veteran of the Korean War, 34th Inf Rgt. Mostly prayers are need for PA Dutchman’s mom, who is absolutely heartbroken.
4/18 – PabloD has been having dizzy spells for the past few weeks. He is seeing a doctor soon, and is requesting prayers that figure it out and that it’s nothing too serious.
4/18 – Sam Adams requested prayers for a friend, Mary F, who was just sent to a long-term recovery facility after having a tracheostomy.
4/18 – Doof provided an update on his mother. She is doing better. She moved into her own room in an assisted living facility. It’s walking distance from Doof’s house, which is great. Her mental state has improved dramatically. She can no longer walk but she does stand with some assistance and can transfer between a wheelchair and bed or a lift/recliner chair. This facility is more of a home and less of a hospital, which hopefully will provide a good opportunity for her to enjoy life. He appreciates the Horde’s prayers and asks for prayers that she settles in comfortably and develops new friendships.
4/24 – Notsothoreau asked for prayers for a friend’s father (Cory), who needs prayers for strength and peace as he is going through some troubled times.
4/27 – Matthew Kant Cipher sent his thanks to those who prayed for his friend Layne (who is also his son’s FIL). The Horde may recall that in August, Layne was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He has since undergone courses of chemo, immunotherapy, and radiation. His latest scans came back clean. The cancer is in remission; praise be to God! Prayers are also humbly requested for Mrs. MKC, who is dealing with a new flare-up of a GI condition that had been leaving her alone until a recent procedure re-aggravated it. It is very frustrating/discouraging as she waits to see a new GI doctor.
4/25 – Retired Buckeye Cop asked that we would continue to lift his 16 year old grandson (LH) up in prayers, as LH continues to consider the call to priesthood in the Catholic Church. LH recently went to a meeting with a group of young men who are considering the priesthood.
4/25 – Fenelon Spoke asked for prayers for “I”, who Fenelon visited and anointed with oil, and prayed for healing of her health concerns.
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.
It's been a while since we've had a big tech news story. No disasters, no miracles. Things haven't suddenly gotten better - or at least, not much, and they haven't gotten drastically worse.
Although it's not a zero-day and the kernel has already gotten a patch, the short disclosure window gave distro makers relatively little time to react. Affected variants include (but aren't limited to) Ubuntu 24 (version 26 was just released last week), RHEL 10, Suse 16, and Amazon Linux 2023. Even Windows' WSL2 is affected, and all it takes is 732 bytes to do it.
Fortunately for me, only one server was potentially vulnerable, and that one didn't have the affected module loaded, and I've now disabled it completely.
If you've already installed Ubuntu you are still able to load updates - like the patch for the so-called CopyFail bug mentioned above - from the numerous mirrors, which don't seem to be affected at all.
My other server - not this one, but where my own blog and many others are hosted - decided to drop dead, completely unrelated to all the other drama going on in the Linux world.
Fortunately I set it up years ago to make migrations easy - and to keep backups separate from the system disk. But it still took a few hours to get it all working smoothly.
The silverfish lining is that I've wanted to do this for months but it never hit the top of my to do list. I already had a new server, twice the size of the old one and actually cheaper. So that's where those sites are running now.
There's a weird online trend lately of posting videos of Indians dying in incredibly stupid ways. I don't know where it came from, but it's been all over lately. A lot of western folks wonder why bystanders in the clips often just stand by and don't try to help.
Well, Indian society has a cultural norm that explains it:
Izzat
Couple that with another aspect of their culture:
Jugaad
Together these form a culture that is rather antithetical to traditional western norms
The fascist state of Vermont banned a small Christian school from all sport and academic competitions because they forfeited games against schools featuring male cheaters on their "female" teams. But they're now faced to pay a half million in damages (which seems... inadequate).
Vermont pays $566K in damages, legal fees to Christian school it banned from all sports competitions for years
A settlement agreement following mediation was finalized Tuesday after the school was barred from athletics and academic competitions for two years
FIRST ON FOX: State education agencies in Vermont have paid over $566,000 in damages and legal fees to a Christian school that was banned from all sports and academic competitions for two years after its girls' basketball team refused to compete against a trans athlete in 2023.
A settlement agreement following mediation was finalized on Tuesday that awarded the plaintiffs, including the Mid Vermont Christian School and its law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the $566,000.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Vermont Principals' Association and the Vermont State Board of Education for a response.
The settlement comes after a years-long saga in which all the school's sports teams, and even its academic teams, like spelling bee and mathletes, had to travel out of state to compete against other schools.
The conflict dates back to an afternoon early in the 2023 school year at Mid Vermont Christian, when the school decided to forfeit a girls' basketball postseason game against a team with a trans athlete.
Their Christian faith was more important to them than a game. But it was still a hard call, and it brought some tears.
"We were all in agreement that the right decision was to not compromise our beliefs and to withdraw, but the conversation with the players was the hardest," Mid Vermont Christian girls' basketball coach Chris Goodwin told Fox News Digital.
"Because you play a 20-game season, and you put in the work and the expectation is that you enter the postseason tournament with a shot to see how you're going to do and to see how far you can get. So there were some teary eyes, and some sad faces, but in the end, they all really did understand that it was the right thing to do."
placeholder
But it was about to get much harder for not just the team, but for the entire school of about 111 students.
Within days of the forfeit, they learned the consequences escalated far beyond a single game. The Vermont Principals' Association banned the school, not just from basketball, but from all athletics and a range of academic competitions.
"Almost immediately... they came out very strongly," Goodwin said. "We were going to be banned from all athletic competition in the state... and then on top of that... science fairs and spelling bees."
What followed was not a single lost season, but years of dislocation. The school was forced to arrange competitions with schools out of state just to make sure their extracurricular programs could continue.
Instead of short bus rides to nearby schools, teams traveled hours across state lines. Familiar rivalries disappeared. Home gyms sat quieter.
"The travel is probably triple," Goodwin said. "You're getting back at 10 o'clock at night... kids trying to do homework. I don't want to say there's a nightmare, but it was difficult."
...
ADF Senior Counsel Dave Cortman told Fox News Digital that he was shocked at how firmly the education authorities in Vermont wouldn't back down from their sweeping sanction on the small Christian school.
"It's been surprising how much the state has dug in their heels," he said. "The arguments they've made... even saying your beliefs are wrong...
"Their message was, 'in order for you to follow your religious beliefs, boys are boys, girls are girls, that would actually violate their nondiscrimination policies.' So the irony of it was, they were discriminating against religious schools."
In Formerly First World (FFW) country Australia, women are being forced to sign pledges that they will not object to playing a team packed with five (5!) male cheaters, will not protest being forced to play against male cheaters -- not even silent protests, like taking a knee -- and will not forfeit games to avoid being injured by the five male cheaters.
By the way, the "Flying Bats," packed with not one, not two, but five male cheaters, were the undefeated champions (17-0) of the Premier League. Gee I wonder how they managed that.
Sydney's Flying Bats sparked debate after an unbeaten title run, as new league rules now require teams to play them, with penalties for refusing fixtures.
Women's football in Sydney is facing a heated debate.
The focus is on Flying Bats FC, a club that won the 2024 season unbeaten and has since become the center of controversy.
The team, which included five transgender players, won the title without a single loss. They scored 65 goals and conceded only four.
According to reports, they recorded six clean-sheet wins, including two in the semifinals on the way to the final.
A clean-sheet win is a win where you do not give up any goals to the opponent. Boy this team must really practice hard!!!
Women are being forced to sign this pledge as a condition for playing in the league at all.
Note that there is an intersex league that permits men and women to play together, but the male cheaters refuse to play in that league. They want to beat up women because they're envious that the women are women and they are not.
We usually give just one judge our "Dishonorable Judicial Conduct Award" but the opinion recently issued by two judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Clinton appointees M. Margaret McKeown and Ronald M. Gould, was so outrageous -- and so outside the law -- that we felt compelled to give them both our April award.
Olympus Spa v. Armstrong began as a lawsuit by the owners of two Korean spas that limited entry only to "[b]iological women." They refused entry to a man claiming to be a woman who had not had surgery to change his intact male genitals, and he filed a complaint with the Washington Human Rights Commission (WHRC).
...
Lee, who replaced the notorious liberal icon Stephen Reinhardt, provided important context for this case. Korean spas, he explained, are "steeped in centuries-old tradition" and focus on "rejuvenating the body and mind through treatments" that "require their patrons to be fully naked."
...
McKeown and Gould, Lee wrote, are telling Olympus Spa that "women -- and girls as young as 13-years-old -- must be nude alongside patrons with exposed male genitalia as they receive treatment." Plus, the female employees will be forced to "provide full-body massages to naked pre-operative transgender women with intact male sexual organs."
The spa's owners explained that their "Christian belief in modesty between men and women" is a "central tenet" of their "traditional theologically conservative" beliefs. But as Lee says, their "pleas fell on deaf ears," and there was a complete lack of sympathy for "members of a racial minority group who want to share their cultural heritage and provide a safe space for women and girls."
...
Shockingly, the full Ninth Circuit refused the spa owners' request to review this outrageous three-judge decision. In his dissent from that denial, Judge Lawrence VanDyke (a Trump appointee) used graphic language to describe this miscarriage of justice. This case, he wrote, is about male genitals, plain and simple, although Vandyke used a much more graphic term about "swinging d**ks."
...
VanDyke wrote that anyone disturbed by his choice of words should consider how much more distress Washington state and the Ninth Circuit are forcing upon women and girls in Korean spas. VanDyke added that while his "distressed colleagues appear to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun," they have no such scruples "when it comes to the government trampling on religious liberties and exposing women and girls to male genitalia. That kind of selective outrage speaks for itself."
A confidential Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School report has revealed a complete breakdown in basic officer training following a surge in permanent resident enrolment.
One French-language platoon, which had over 80 per cent non-citizens, was reportedly wracked by an inability to communicate fluently, a lack of respect towards female CAF members and infighting between Cameroonian and Cote d'Ivoire candidates.
The Quebec platoon saw fewer than one in two recruits graduate, while allegations of racial discrimination were made in multiple directions, from candidates against staff and between candidates of opposing ethnic blocs themselves. Additionally, command saw "challenges" in training permanent residents as they lacked "respect towards women" peers and superiors.
"For many candidates it is the first time they have lived with members of a different sex, and for some it is also the first time they have been expected to treat women as their peers," explained the confidential report.
"Platoons are also reporting inter-candidate cultural frustrations, with lack of respect towards women being the most common concern."
Theory: A country whose military is made up 80% of foreign invaders will not be a country in ten years' time.
Katie Daviscourt 📸
@KatieDaviscourt
Breaking: The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against anti-ICE protesters, issuing another block against a judge's order prohibiting federal officers from deploying crowd control munitions on protesters at the Portland ICE facility.
The three-panel decision, issued by judges Kenneth Lee, Eric Tung, "and Ana de Alba (dissent), reads as follows:
"The First Amendment does not protect vandalism, criminal trespass, or obstruction of law enforcement. Such unlawful acts, however, have been commonplace around the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") building in Portland over the past year."
Numerous provocateurs--many wielding bats, shields, and strobe lights that disrupt vision--have hurled bricks, smashed security cameras, and blocked the driveway to prevent ICE cars from entering or exiting the building. In response, the government has used tear gas, pepper balls, and other non-lethal munitions to disperse the crowd."
"Five plaintiffs sued the government, alleging that they are peaceful protesters who have been injured as a result of the crowd-control tactics. But they do not contend that they are collateral casualties caught in the crossfire--they claim that the government specifically targeted them in retaliation for exercising their First Amendment rights."
"The plaintiffs have not shown that the agents had the subjective intent to retaliate or that the government has an unwritten policy targeting them. Much of the evidence shows the government trying to clear the entrance to the ICE facility in the face of unrest and an unruly crowd. And while some individual incidents might indicate an arguably disproportionate use of force, they alone do not amount to an unwritten policy of retaliation."
Virginia? The state where they just rejected a black gubernatorial candidate in favor a white lady who immediately gerrymandered the state to dilute black votes? What is he smoking. https://t.co/LlEc8BPbMx
Trash clickbait mill the Daily Mail breathlessly reported that a pretty female JP Morgan executive had sexually harassed a male underling, drugging him with Rufies and telling him she would turn him into her "sex slave."
An investigation found there was no wrongdoing and that the charges were fabricated.
As proof, they offer this picture of the woman, and this picture of the Super-Stud she just couldn't help but rape:
All it took was this guy's photo for everyone to go from "wow this is a spicy story" to "ok this is total bullshit" https://t.co/YmXZA3xgtl
A Harvard-Harris poll finds the congressional race deadlocked at 50-50:
OSZ
@OpenSourceZone
Apr 28
2026 Congressional Generic Ballot Poll
🔴 Republicans: 50%
🔵 Democrats: 50%
Harvard Harris | 4/23-26 | 2,745 RV
A Yale poll finds the Democrat Fascist Party leading by a mere 2%:
Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
Apr 13
🚨 WOW! A new poll just found the 2026 Congressional ballot is a near TOSSUP, with Democrats only up 2 points, 46%-44% -- Yale
At this point in 2018, Democrats were up by +7 points or more
Republicans in Congress should pass the SAVE America Act and win the midterms 🇺🇸
The Democrat-aligned Morning Consult poll can only conjure a 3% lead:
Politics & Poll Tracker 📡
@PollTracker2024
Morning Consult poll | 4/20-4/26 RV
(Tracking poll)
Generic congressional ballot 2026
🟦Democratic 45% (no change)
🟥Republican 42% (no change)
Trump's approval rating fell to its lowest point in Trump's second term -- 40.8% according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls -- but that Based Camp guy who looks like a leftist points out that that's actually a good favorability rating for a second-term president. Obama averaged 41% approval during his second term -- and the leftist media continued insisting he was very popular.
I also think that Trump has put a lot of big bets on the table and most of them are going to pay out. So I expect his rating to go higher.
Hungry, a movie about a killer... hippo. I don't know if this is meant to be a serious movie or a half-serious one. They are making references to Hungry Hungry Hippos.
The final Jackass movie. These guys are too old to be taking shots like this.
Spider-Noir with Nicholas Cage. A series on Amazon, from Sony Pictures TV. So it's not giving Disney or Marvel any money. And I do like Spider-Man, Nicholas Cage, and Noir.
The girl from Happy Birthday 2 Me in an amnesia/hallucination movie. Her husband keeps telling her everything is okay. Or should I say "her husband" because come on, we've seen this kind of thing before.
The DOJ says it will enforce the Supreme Court's ruling against racist gerrymanders- - which means they'll sue the states to comply.
Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt asked the Justice Department earlier Thursday to enforce the Supreme Court ruling nationwide, noting it had the power to do so.
"Senator -- we are ON IT!" Dhillon replied on X. "The [Justice Department] under [Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche] continues to prioritize equal protection of the laws for ALL Americans, be it in employment, housing, education -- and voting."
This may make it easier for weak-sister red states like Indiana to redistrict. Indiana's currently resisting doing so, but if the DOJ says it has to....
A new report released Thursday by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias reveals what investigators describe as a "stark contrast" and a systemic double standard in how the Biden Internal Revenue Service policed American churches.
"The Biden IRS ... [opened] multiple investigations into Christian churches focused on the content of their sermons. The IRS asked these churches for detailed information about their operations, not just about the alleged violations," the task force wrote.
"But during the same time, when other houses of worship gave sermons that reflected different scriptural interpretations on culture war issues, or prayed for Democrat candidates, the Biden IRS appeared to take no action," the group added.
The task force, which was established by President Donald Trump in an executive order last year, reviewed internal administration discussions, case files and prosecutorial decisions from the Biden administration across 17 federal agencies.
Beyond the IRS's apparent targeting of conservative Christian churches, the task force concluded that the Biden administration's prosecution strategy, internal policies and practices demonstrated an overall anti-Christian bias that permeated throughout the federal government during that period.
...
The task force determined that the Biden administration used the Johnson Amendment -- a 1954 provision added to the tax code which prohibits 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates -- to probe churches that hold traditional Christian teachings, arguing those positions amounted to political support for Republican candidates.
Though the amendment, in theory, limits what pastors whose churches have 501(c)3 nonprofit status can say in evaluating candidates running for political office, it has only been "sporadically enforced," according to the Justice Department.
For example, under the Obama administration, when 30 pastors instructed their congregations in 2008 on how to vote according to their interpretation of scripture, the IRS appears to have only opened an investigation into one pastor. Even then, the IRS dropped the investigation and took no enforcement action.
But, the Biden administration was different. The Justice Department task force documented several investigations opened by the administration into Christian churches for possible violations of the Johnson Amendment.
The indictment of Dr. Anthony Fauci's former adviser David Morens Tuesday revived calls for the Justice Department to prosecute Fauci himself for allegedly lying to Congress about funding risky research in China before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just two weeks remain before the five-year legal deadline on May 11 to indict Fauci for denying under oath that he funded "gain of function" experiments that modified bat coronaviruses in the same city where the pandemic started.
Morens, 78, was charged with one count of conspiracy, two counts of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations and two counts of concealment, removal, or mutilation of records relating to the origins of COVID-19. He faces up to 51 years in prison.
Critics say Fauci, 85, bears the most responsibility and that he should be hauled into court.
Trump told The Post in a phone interview on March 31 that he intended to "look into" Fauci's status and Republicans say they believe acting attorney general Todd Blanche, who is seeking the role permanently, might be willing to test Trump's assertion that former President Joe Biden's preemptive autopen pardons, including for Fauci, are invalid.
"99% of this country has no idea who Morens is," said Oversight Project President Mike Howell.
"It's Fauci that they will blame for one of the worst government catastrophes in history in America. And so the test is Fauci. The Morens indictment is great, and we applaud it. But there are a lot of people out there that want to see Fauci held to account for the damage he wrought."
Howell, whose group sent the Justice Department a draft indictment for Morens last year, believes the adviser's actions were closely linked to his boss.
"[Fauci] lied about one of the most damaging events in American history routinely and was behind a massive coverup of the key factors," Howell said.
...
"On Anthony Fauci's case, we think lying to Congress is one felony," Paul said in an interview on Tuesday.
"We also think that destroying federal records and advising others to destroy federal records is also a felony. So I think there's opportunity there... There was a vast both organized and unorganized conspiracy to cover up the fact that the US government was funding the research that led to the pandemic."
Trump said in December that Biden was so mentally diminished that he was either unable to authorize autopen pardons or that his staff did so without his knowledge -- setting the stage for potential legal test-cases. Biden claimed to the New York Times last year that he was aware of them.
To determine the validity of those pardons, "you would have to indict somebody who's been pardoned. And I think it's worth a challenge," Paul said.
...
Paul said it's also possible that Fauci committed crimes after Biden's pardon and that "it might involve the question of conspiracy charges."
The Supreme Court is deciding a very difficult question: is the temporary protective status granted Haitians actually temporary or is it actually, secretly permanent? Is it all just a con on the rubes so they'll be tricked into accepting mass permanent immigration by fiat?
The high court held oral arguments on Wednesday in a pair of consolidated cases known as Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, which center around Trump's revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 6,000 Syrian and 350,000 Haitian nationals, respectively. Both groups of migrants are currently living in America under the TPS program, which may be used by the executive branch to offer temporary residency to foreign nationals from countries experiencing natural disasters, violent conflicts, and other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."
The Trump administration's efforts to end TPS for the aforementioned groups were halted by lower courts. This was done despite SCOTUS previously pausing similar injunctions in a separate TPS case involving Venezuelan nationals.
Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer contended that a provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act that governs TPS prohibits any form of judicial review "of any determination by the [DHS] secretary with respect to the designation or termination or extension of a designation of a foreign state for Temporary Protected Status."
"That provision means what it says ... [and] bars judicial review of both the secretary's ultimate decision whether to designate, extend, or terminate, and of each antecedent step along the way to that determination," said Sauer, who added that "even if [challengers'] claims are not barred [by judicial review], they are meritless."
The solicitor general's biggest pushback came from the court's more outspoken Democrat appointees.
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson kicked off the inquisition by pressing Sauer on what, if any, executive actions regarding TPS are reviewable by federal courts. The Biden appointee's back-and-forth with the solicitor general ultimately prompted Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor to join the fray and pile on with questions about the scope of judicial review as it relates to the TPS program.
Sotomayor's refusal to allow Sauer to respond one of her queries on the issue prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to interject and permit Sauer to answer. It was sometime after this exchange in which Sotomayor and Jackson referenced President Trump's past "sh-thole countries" remarks to push the narrative that, as the former put it, "a discriminatory purpose may have played a part" in the administration's decision to end TPS for the various groups in question.
...
...
The conservative justices' more pressing concerns, however, seemingly came during their questioning of the attorneys representing the respondents, Ahilan Arulanantham (Syrian case) and Geoffrey Pipoly (Haitian case).
Both lawyers argued that the legal provisions governing TPS do not bar courts from reviewing an administration's actions on the program and that the government is required to undertake certain steps (ex. consultation and assessment of a country's conditions) before implementing such policies. They further claimed that the Trump administration did not adhere to this purported process, with Pipoly separately arguing that the president's decision to end TPS for Haitians was racially motivated.
Los Angeles Controller Kenneth Mejia says they've found fraud and abuse
- A single homeless service provider gave fake documents and invoices, stealing $23 million for taxpayers
- Another nonprofit named the Skid Row Housing Trust that managed 29 buildings was letting the properties rot. This ended up costing the city of Los Angeles $30-$40 million dollars in repairs
He says the have a batch of 800 more cases and they're "going to be expensive"
The circumstantial evidence is suggestive. Two groups, Moms for Liberty and Gays Against Groomers, protested "Blessings of Liberty," aka drag queen story hours. The SPLC rushed to smear them, adding them to its "hate map."
And then, suddenly, out of the blue -- almost as if they are Rent-A-Racists paid to do so -- "neo Nazis" started showing up at Moms for Liberty and Gays Against Groomers events to discredit them.
So just as the public and mainstream GOP begins to publicly speak out against the far-left LGBTQIA2+ agenda…
Something weird starts happening.
In the middle of peaceful protests against drag queen storytime, a small group of neo-n@zi’s show up. They have a camera crew. The… pic.twitter.com/cgXauvd7N3
At one point, the drugged-out humans begin to sway and move a bit, as Smith tells one of them to pull their pants up.
Drug use can be seen throughout the clip, with one person holding a glass pipe, stating that they were using fentanyl and crystal to get high.
Smith also spoke to one of the people who said they were from Sacramento and came to SF because "the dope is cheaper" and better there.
People on social media reacted to the clip and said it looked like "the start of the apocalypse."
The videographer says the video is from "November or December." SF Police are lying, as usual, claiming it's from years ago, because the government won't admit what they've done.
A leaked 2004 Home Office memo to the Telegraph shows Tony Blair’s team admitting mass migration was a growing concern for people, so they hatched a secret plan to make it more “popular.”
Blair’s team pushed a different PR approach, to reframe dissent as racism… in order to… pic.twitter.com/5d0fT1MFOP
A Green Party socialist said airily that Jews were attacked in the UK because "racial hatred" is on the rise. A man in the audience repeatedly asked where -- from which groups -- this racial hatred is coming from, and she repeatedly pretended to not understand the question.
Ultimately, she claimed that racial hatred against Jews is caused by... high food prices.
I wonder if she means Jewish market-owners have brought this on themselves?
DOJ Releases Video of the Democrats' Latest Programmed-to-Kill Assasssin
—Disinformation Expert Ace
And they had to release this because the left is pushing conspiracy theories that their new hero did not shoot a cop. They're claiming another cop shot him, in a friendly fire situation.
The friendly fire theory just got buried -- on video.
For days, questions swirled about whether a Secret Service agent wounded at the White House Correspondents' Dinner had actually been hit by fellow agents in the chaos. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro put that narrative to rest Thursday night.
Advertisement
Pirro released new, high-quality security video from the Washington Hilton Hotel showing 31-year-old Cole Allen charging through a Secret Service checkpoint during the April 25 dinner, where President Trump was scheduled to speak. The footage, she noted, had already been submitted to U.S. District Court.
"Today, we are releasing video already provided to U.S. District Court showing Cole Allen shoot a U.S. Secret Service officer during his attempt to assassinate the President at the White House Correspondents' Dinner," Pirro said in her X post. "There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire."
Any argument they can make to get their new hero off.
Jake Tapper sure is a bear about debunking WITHOUT EVIDENCE conspiracy theories -- except when they come from his Democrat Assassin Audience.
Today, we are releasing video already provided to U.S. District Court showing Cole Allen shoot a U.S. Secret Service officer during his attempt to assassinate the President at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Benny Johnson pointed out that only a single cop was alert when the Democrat Assassin rushed through the magnetometer. He also questioned why two cops were busy taking down the magentometer when the event was still ongoing and there would be people coming and going -- were they just in a rush to get home ASAP?
Old Spin: Democrats Aren't Socialists Newer Spin: Democrats Are Socialists But They're Not Communists Reality: Democrats Are Organizing May Day General Strikes With Communist Groups
And then after that: Okay we're Stalinists, but you deserve it, stupid. How clear did we have to make it that we intend to enslave and murder you?
Up to 600 communist groups and other radical organizations linked to the Democratic Party are mobilizing all over the United States to demonstrate for May Day, Fox News Digital is reporting.
An investigation by the outlet has identified a sprawling network with "a combined annual revenue of about $2 billion organizing some 3,000 protests and events" pushing what the outlet describes as an "anti-American agenda."
The protestors are urging Americans to skip work, school, and shopping.
"May Day" has its origins in workers demonstrations in the 19th Century. Initially called International Workers Day in 1890, the event called for worldwide demonstrations in the memory of workers killed in an 1886 protest in Chicago.
According to Fox Digital:
At the center of the May Day mobilization, which has expanded from earlier indications, is a network of communist, socialist, Marxist, and other far-left organizations, led by chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America and a network of groups -- including the People's Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, ANSWER Coalition and Code Pink -- funded by an American-born tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, based in Shanghai, promoting the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party.
...
Unlike in decades past, the Democratic Party is increasingly associating itself with radical elements organizing through Indivisible, MoveOn.org, the American Federation of Teachers, and 13 state and local chapters of the Democratic National Committee as well as the California Democratic Party, Fox reported.
...
One Democrat said the Democratic Party involvement in May Day with the radical groups comes at their own peril.
"The increasing willingness of mainstream Democrats to align with extremist socialist groups is a major factor in why the Democratic Party is losing the center more and more, and why so many lifelong Democrats find themselves feeling politically homeless," Democratic strategist Melissa DeRosa told Fox News Digital.
Note these states continually refuse to take the most basic steps to clean their voter rolls -- until forced by lawsuit or federal action.
Why is that?
The North Carolina State Board of Elections identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state's voter rolls following a comprehensive data comparison with a federal database.
Earlier this month, the NCSBE submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state's voter registration list. The NCSBE clarified that the identification of deceased individuals on the state's voter rolls does not necessarily indicate illegal votes were cast.
"While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated," Sam Hayes, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release.
The discovery came amid the agency's ongoing effort to verify the citizenship status of voters, which the NCSBE voted along party lines earlier this month to do after facing lawsuits from the Trump administration for allegedly failing to maintain an accurate voter list.
The NCSBE said it will work with county boards of elections to remove the names from the voter rolls.
Federal law requires states to remove from their voter rolls people who are ineligible for reasons such as being deceased and North Carolina already has a process of biennial list maintenance to remove ineligible voters from its roles, according to Dr. Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, who indicated that the state removed 500,000 ineligible voters through this program in 2025.
However, as Jackson points out for deceased voters, it can take eight to 10 years for their names to be removed.
Government working at typical levels of government efficiency.
...
The Trump administration has also launched a nationwide push to obtain full statewide voter-registration lists and list-maintenance records, suing those states failing to comply. The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia to try to force the release of the data, according to the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump standing in the Oval Office at the White House
The Republican National Committee's official election integrity account on X said that the findings in North Carolina "is EXACTLY" why the Trump administration is forcing states to clean up their voter rolls.
"Turns out checking state voter rolls against federal records actually helps keep them more accurate. Who knew?" quipped Frank LaRose, Ohio secretary of state and candidate for Ohio auditor of state.
I can't help noticing that the thing the media assures me can never happen -- at least when a Democrat wins -- seems to be deliberately engineered to happen.
THE MORNING RANT: Delta Airlines Is Backpedaling from Obedience to the Climate Religion’s Commandments
—Buck Throckmorton
The good news is that Delta Airlines is acknowledging that its previous green energy and net-zero goals cannot be achieved by the deadlines it had committed to.
The bad news is that Delta Airlines is still playing footsie at all with the green energy hustlers, rather than stating the simple truth that the “net zero” objectives cannot be met and will not be met. Most importantly, it’s frustrating that airline executives do not have the backbone to defend their businesses and assertively reject the premise that an airline should aspire to be carbon-free. Airlines fly on petroleum-based jet fuel. There is no shame in that.
But in Delta’s defense, executives at United and American are even bigger cowards, letting Delta take the first public steps toward backing away from the major airlines’ unattainable climate pledges.
Delta Air Lines Inc. quietly scrubbed a pair of key environmental targets from its sustainability web page late last week. The Atlanta-based carrier deleted its pledge to use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for 10% of its jet fuel by 2030. It also rephrased its quest to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 as an “aspiration,” rather than a “goal.”
Delta had promised to be using 10% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030. SAF is made from used cooking oil and other non-petroleum sources. Delta’s SAF use has maxed out at 0.5%, or just 1/20th of what it had promised. There just aren’t enough “sustainable” sources of raw materials to make the SAF. Maybe people need to start eating more french fries and chicken fried steaks.
A Delta spokesman is quoted as saying ”While we have successfully increased use of SAF every year, we recognize that the technology has not advanced as rapidly as the industry requires.” In other words, promises were made based on technology that did not even exist at the time. The clean energy pledges were made with the hope that technologies would “advance rapidly.”
The airlines might as well have been making promises based on energy produced by perpetual motion machines. It would be no less speculative. It is a tremendous disgrace to corporate respectability that executives of publicly-traded companies – people making tens of millions of dollars per year – are making childish promises that they cannot fulfill. And I’m not sure which is worse, the public dishonesty of those executives who know they’re lying about their goals, or the maleducated executives who believe the green energy hype. Perhaps their egos allow them to believe that if they command it, it will happen.
The goal of being “net zero” in 24 years is just as dishonestly ludicrous. Changing this from a “goal” to an “aspiration” is just another weaselly way of stating that pledges are being made that won’t ever be fulfilled, but the executives aren’t honest enough to admit it.
It’s way past time for corporations to stop serving as mouthpieces for the left’s political agenda. Until then, corporations in service to the left don’t deserve our principled defense when the communist snakes those corporations have been coddling choose to bite them.
Normally when I’m ranting about corporations, usually for their woke political activism, I know the subject I am talking about.
Today, just for fun, I want to comment on something I know very little about – advertising. There is so much about it that puzzles me, such as why auto manufacturers have spent a fortune advertising EVs which consumers won’t buy, rather than targeting their advertising toward vehicles that customers would purchase. Or why Gillette had an advertising campaign in which it accused its (soon-to-be-former) customers of being sexual predators. Advertising is weird.
Anyhow, I saw these signs while grabbing some coffee at a Dunkin’ Doughnuts at an airport recently, and I just don’t get it.
One sign says: “SLOW AND STEADY – We craft our donuts slow and steady, hand-finishing them into perfection.”
Is this a re-purposed barbecue advertising campaign? Who equates “slow and steady” as being a way to sell a flash-fried pastry?
The other sign says: ”TRIED AND TRUE – The donuts in our case today are still inspired by our original recipe dating back to 1950.”
“…inspired by”?? The styling of a Chrysler 300 is inspired by Rolls Royce. I saw a watch at Wal-Mart that was inspired by Rolex. What a puzzling admission that Dunkin has altered its recipe. When doughnuts were made fresh in-store, I recall them being much better than the doughnuts now made at a central commissary and shipped in.
To Dunkin’s credit, their coffee is still 100% arabica, and there are still 16 ounces in a pound of Dunkin coffee. And unlike Starbucks, Dunkin has never confronted me about racial injustice when I order a cup of coffee.
I suppose it’s actually a successful ad campaign, since Dunkin hasn’t run me off as an occasional customer. That is more than I can say about certain ad campaigns from Gillette, Anheuser-Busch, Cracker Barrel, and other woke companies who will never receive another dime from me.
Liberty Leading the Puppies
After Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix
I will leave the cultural impact of AI for another discussion, but the first attempt to create a "Dogs On Velvet" image was met with resistance from Grok, because the depictions of violence in Delacroix's famous painting were apparently off limits to AI's gentle sensibilities. I had to move to ChatGPT for this version.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton Charge the Democrats with fomenting violence against the nation with their rhetoric, Virginia redistricting going down the tubes? Trump's bully pulpit is not censorship, Lee Zeldin is a star, J.B. Pritzker is an idiot, and more!
ANOTHER LEFT WING ASSASSIN ATTEMPTS TO KILL TRUMP If I understand this, the left-wing Democrat assassin attempted to get into the White House Correspondents Association dinner, and was stopped at the magnetometers, which detected his gun. I guess he pulled out the gun and was shot by Secret Service agents. Erika Kirk was present.
Forgotten 70s Mystery Click You made me cry when you said good-bye 70s, not 50s Now that is a motherflipping intro
Podcast: Sefton and CBD wonder about the Chaos that Trump is creating in the minds of the Iranian junta, Virginia redistricting is pure power grab, Ilhan Omar is many things ...and stupid too! Amazon censoring conservative thought again, and the UK...put a fork in it!
The people in charge [Jews, of course -- ace] don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus.
Islam reveres Him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord, believes He performed miracles, and states that He will return to Earth to defeat the Antichrist. That's why Donald Trump's painting depicting himself as the Son of God offended the president of Iran. It was an attack on his religion as well as Christianity.
Trump's trolling tweet was ill-advised, but Tucker is just lying when he claims the Christianity-hating President of Iran was "offended" by this. He's one step away from announcing his official conversion to Islam. He literally never stops praising Islam. Well, he suddenly became Christian two years ago, there's not much stopping him from converting again.
You can track Tuq'r's official conversion to Islam with this Bingo card.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk Orban losing, but is it the end of Hungary? The Irish start a brawl, but is it enough, Pope Leo wades into politics, Trump calls Iran's bluff and blockades Hormuz, Artemis II! Swallwell is scum, and more!
People say that the bearded man in the video of Fartwell molesting a hooker looks like Democrat Arizona Senator Rueben Gallego, said to be Swalwell's "best friend" and known to take vacations with him.
Politico is reporting that multiple people have abruptly resigned from Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign: "Members of senior leadership have departed the campaign, including Courtni Pugh, a strategic adviser who served as Swalwell's top liaison to organized labor groups."
So the campaign is collapsing due to the truth of the sexual harassment allegations.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of the Swalwell campaign. UPDATE: No it wasn't, it was just Swalwell one-cheek-sneaking out a fart on camera
Eric Swalwell more like Eric Farewell amirite
thanks to weft-cut loop.
This is the dumbest AI bullslop I've seen in a while: the CIA can use "quantum magnetometry" to track an individual man's heartbeat from twelve miles away I wouldn't click on it, it's not interesting, it's just stupid clickslop. I just want to share my annoyance with you.
