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
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - January 25, 2026 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday ONT. Did you get a lot of snow in your area today? If so, how much? If not, what did you do today? Step on in and let us know what's on your mind tonight!
A man convicted of trying to rob Taco Bell in Ocala using a rock has been sentenced to four years in state prison.
Kewarren Anderson, 40, received the sentence on Thursday. Court records show he was credited for six months and 19 days of time already served.
The incident happened in July 2025 and was recorded on body camera video later shared by Ocala police on social media. The footage shows a K9 unit tracking Anderson from the Taco Bell at 2380 SW College Road to a nearby trash bin. When the dog located him behind the bin, it bit Anderson.
According to the arrest affidavit, Anderson told police he was homeless and needed money. He admitted he tried to rob Taco Bell by climbing through a drive‑thru window while holding a rock and demanding cash from employees.
It's that time of the week - when we turn the ONT over to our good friend Piper for a bit. Here's this week's fashion pr0n.
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Remembering Valentino Garavani – The Last Emperor of Elegance
The fashion world is in mourning. This week, we said goodbye to the incomparable Valentino Garavani, who passed away peacefully at his home in Rome on January 19 at the age of 93. He wasn't just a designer, he helped define glamour, romance, and unapologetic beauty. In an industry that often chases the next big thing, Valentino (as we all lovingly called him) created timeless pieces that made women feel like goddesses. His legacy? Eternal elegance.
Born Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani in 1932 in Voghera, Italy, he knew early on that fashion was his calling. After studying in Milan and Paris, he returned to Rome and founded his house in 1960. From the start, it was all about sophisticated femininity, flowing silhouettes, exquisite craftsmanship, and that signature traffic stopping, fiery red.
Valentino dressed the most iconic women of the 20th century: Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Julia Roberts (remember that stunning black-and-white gown she wore to accept her Oscar in 2001?), Gwyneth Paltrow, Sophia Loren... the list goes on.
His magic in action:
In the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita, Anita Ekberg takes a night swim in a black Valentino dress in the Trevi Fountain.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ wedding dress paved the way for the modern bride in the late ‘60s by opting for something shorter rather than a long princess gown.
Anjelica Huston worked as a model in the 70s and became the face of several Valentino Haute Couture advertising campaigns. The photo by Gian Paolo Barbieri, where she posed in a yellow floral dress, became one of the designer's favorites.
After divorce with Prince Charles, Princess Diana decided to abandon strict dress code. In 1992, she wore a piquant burgundy midi with a velvet corset bodice and translucent hem by Valentino Garavani.
Anne Hathaway at the 2011 Oscars in signature Valentino Red.
Valentino didn't just design glamour; he lived it. Perpetually tanned, impeccably coiffed, surrounded by his beloved pugs, he hosted legendary parties at his châteaux in France, his Roman villa, or aboard his yacht. The 2008 documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor gave us a glimpse into his world , the passion, the perfectionism, the emotion of his final couture show in Paris where the entire audience (including me, in spirit) wept.
This week in Rome, stars gathered to pay tribute at his funeral – Anne Hathaway in tears, Donatella Versace, Tom Ford, and so many more honoring the man who made beauty his life's work.
Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele arriving at the ceremony.
Donatella Versace
The house of Valentino continues to thrive, but it all began with him – the last true emperor of couture. Rest in peace, Mr. Valentino. You made the world more chic.
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Thanks, Piper!
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DJ Doof - Guess The Theme
This one is probably quite challenging. Difficulty Level - 4 out of 5
What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif?
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by a dude who better be joyous
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Tonight's ONT was crafted remotely by someone at Doof Enterprises, LLC. Our offices were closed due to snow, but the ONT show must go on! Please show your appreciation in the comments.
Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me.
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the Bigly Storm Edition?
Yikes, people! El Bigly Storm-o is here! I'm near Washington D.C., writing this on Saturday and reasonably prepared for a prolonged power outage should that happen. By the time this goes up Sunday, assuming I still have power and an innernet connection, the storm should be close to wrapping up here. It's going to be colder than a box of penguin turds for the foreseeable future, so whatever we get is going to be around a while. Were you in the path of the storm? Feel free to share your story in the comments tonight!
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Remember, all y'all - just leave it alone and it will melt eventually.
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Mag-Fed Garands!
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Sniper Garand!
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Conversion Garand!
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A Clean Garand Is A Happy Garand!
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More Ice!
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Driving On Snow And Ice
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Highway Patrol!
This week's episode: Portrait Of Death!
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Atomic Attack!
Sorry, New York City, although this would expedite snow removal.
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Cigar of the Week
This week our pal Diogenes scores again with this excellent review of lighters.
Source of Fire review.
Since when did 'Murica get so sissified in making matches? I have always preferred to light my cigars with the standard 'ol basic wooden match. It (used to be anyway) would light the first time, provide a sufficient flame, and had enough stick to make sure you got the cigar well started. One seldom had to light a second one. But today, that just doesn't happen. The matches you see here came from one of my favorite Brick & Mortar cigar shops and they, well... they just suck. I have found that I must use two and sometimes three at a time to get a flame sufficient to even get the cigar started. And as you can see, they are short and burn quickly. End result, very unsatisfactory, with a lot of broken unlit matches on the patio which pissed off Mrs D and makes the cigar experience less fun.
Now the Zippo lighter is a gift from my Army days and it is useful even today for many fire starting things. But, it is not very good for lighting cigars. And this may be just me, but I find any cigar I light with this lighter brings a lighter fluid taste to the tobacco. It will ruin even the best cigar. I recommend you avoid using one. One interesting thing I read about Zippos though; it is the first device made in America that offered a lifetime warranty. I'm not surprised. This one is 40 years old and is still going strong.
Finally the Butane lighter. These range from cheap plastic ones to this fine example that Santa brought me 'cause I'm such a good and fine fellow! It is sleek, provides a great flame even in wind and rain, and one filling can last quite a while. The butane version has eliminated the fluid taste that comes with the Zippo, and I like mine. A lot. But damn! Be careful on sunny days because it is hard to see the flame. This is particularly important for any man or woman with a moustache.
So light up and enjoy a fine cigar today and sip some great whiskey.
Excellent, Diogenes! Thank you!
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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.
A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid
Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!
Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Food Thread: It's Chilly Outside, Time To Make Chili!
—CBD
This is what winter is all about! What's not to love about crappy winter weather? it is an opportunity to stock the refrigerator and freezer with all sorts of stuff that requires a few hours on the stove or in the oven, and is deliciously warming and hearty.
Chili is particularly well suited for cooking on a cold and windy day, because it is easy, infinitely malleable no matter what your tastes are, and is a perfect way to use up those extra carrots and cans of beans!
Yeah...yeah... chili can be whatever you want it to be!
''When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.''
So the chili above has black beans and hominy, and a very pleasant hit of chipotle. The lead actor is of course beef, because I am not a savage, but pork would work in a pinch. And even chicken, though that changes things considerably. And I guess you could use lamb? Anyone ever make lamb chili?
One thing I do is saute the herbs and spices before I add the liquid. It seems to accentuate their flavors, and even if it doesn't, the house smells great!
Anyone have a particular trick they use to make their special, world-famous chili?
That's "Stracotto," from the kitchen of lurker "LF." Sorry about the small size of the photo, but it looks delicious, so I couldn't resist. It's Italian pot roast, but Stracotto sounds much better!
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It's official: commenter "Lin-duh" makes the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. I make a solid one, and I have had the fancy versions from snooty bakeries, some of which were wildly overhyped...like Levain in NYC.
Lin-duh's are the perfect combination of buttery and cakey and chocolatey and, yes, salty! That is now a non-negotiable ingredient for me.
I first tasted them in October at the Texas Moron Meet-up; Lin-duh brought a huge box of them, and they were spectacular. I begged and pleaded for the recipe, and she was gracious enough to send it to me.
I won't link to it unless she approves, so be nice to her!
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What to make to go along with the chili way up top?
Well...cornbread of course, but I figured I could tune it up a bit with old reliable -- bacon! I had no idea how much to use, so I just winged it.
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And why not add some cheddar cheese? Is there a dish that is diminished by the addition of cheese? I think not!
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This is the end result, and it was...good. Not great. I used buttermilk instead of regular milk, because I thought the extra tartness would balance the richness of the bacon and cheese. But it overwhelmed the corn flavor, and while the bread was very moist, with a great texture, it was not what I had imagined.
But it looked good!
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This recipe is from an excellent website called Dad Cooks Dinner, to which I have linked many times. Actually, I am not too interested in Instant Pot Beef Ribs (Texas BBQ Style), because 1. I don't have an instant pot, and B) I will almost certainly never buy one. I do like beef ribs, and I really like the minimalist Texas style, which is pretty much just salt and pepper.
That's why I took a look. And he even adds one of my favorite chile powders: Ancho! But he has moved mostly into pressure cooking, and I just don't have much interest.
Anyone amongst the Horde cook with an instant pot/pressure cooker? I would love to hear your reasons!
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What the hell is that? It's a sourdough loaf I baked in a loaf pan instead of a Dutch Oven, and since it was experimentation day at Chez Dildo, I coated it liberally with "Everything Bagel" seasoning out of a bottle.
I forgot to cut the top, which is why it is a little squat, but it was mighty tasty, and the texture was excellent. It is also much easier than a traditional sourdough Boule, because the loaf pan supports the dough, so no need to worry so much about forming the dough and making it nice and tight.
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It's another four-panel cartoon, so it's impossible to see on the blog, but click it and you won't be disappointed! Calvin And Hobbes
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A friend graciously gave me some genuine grown-in-the-USA garlic, and I tasted one clove and planted the rest, because my pathetic failure last year is an anomaly...right? I hope so, because it's in the ground (actually, a large pot), and it had better work this time!
Send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
Obviously the solution is to find a finish carpenter who knows how to steam bend wood, and bend the hardwood floor to match the curve of the oriental rug.
[Seriously, that is a very old rug that I inherited. Hand made, and very nice...and large!]
Does The West Still Have The Oxford Martyr's Spark?
—CBD
Hugh Latimer was the Bishop of Worcester, and a convert to the ideas of the reformation, for which he was tried and convicted of heresy, and along with his friend Nicholas Ridley, burned at the stake in 1555. They, along with Thomas Cranmer, who was burned a few months later, are called "The Oxford Martyrs."
His final words are a testament to the strength and resolve of men of the West.
Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out.
Whether that resolve remains in Great Britain remains to be seen, But Western culture is no stranger to religious wars. The Reformation sparked conflict for a few hundred years, and it was brutal. The 30 Years War killed off at least 5,000,000 people, and smaller but no less vicious conflicts spread across Europe.
Europeans once fought and died to protect their religions and culture. From our lofty perch in the 21st century, it seems almost quaint that they would disagree so profoundly about what many of us see as, simply, Christianity. Regardless of the reasons for the conflict, we must respect the fortitude that they displayed.
Is there that same fortitude in the current population of Europe? Yes, certainly, among the Muslim invaders! But it remains to be seen whether there is any fight left in the descendants of the people who bled and died for their faith, their country, their culture.
Who will be the men who light the candle that shows the West that our culture is worth fighting for...and dying for?
PS. This is not a forum for Catholic or Protestant bashing.
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 1-25-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
(Click for larger image)
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (for masochists only!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
My cat Allie decided to relax on top of some of my books in my library. Like any self-respecting bibliophile, I no longer have any available bookshelf space, so I've simply been putting books on top of my bookcases in approximate locations where they would go on the shelves. In this case, I have several Alastair Reynolds books that are in my TBR pile that are sitting on top of my shelves. Allie seems to have appointed herself my literary critic and enjoys laying down on the books. I guess they are slightly more comfortable than the particle board of the bookshelves. NOTE: Right above Allie's head is my ticket stub from when I went to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in the theater many years ago. I think I found it in a jacket pocket.
QUICK HITS FROM THE MORON GALLERY
I've had several submissions from Morons, so here goes:
Just brilliant and so applicable to what is going on in the world today.
Sharon(willow's apprentice)
It's tempting to think that authors like C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien were prescient about today's world. I prefer to think that they were astute observers of the fallen nature of mankind. They knew that Man needed to be steadfast in the face of Evil, and that God was the only way that could happen. Removing God from our lives lets in all the evils of the world. We see that everywhere we look nowadays. The good news is that the pendulum does appear to be swinging back the other way.
I don't know if this will be worth anything, but I came across a fun little EweToob channel the Horde might enjoy.
It's called Bitesized Audio Classics. British actor who narrates Victorian and Edwardian short stories. Ghost stories, detective stories, various. I don't know if you've done anything on audio books, but I you ever do, this might be a fun inclusion.
Regards,
- RedMindBlueState
I don't talk about audio books much, mainly because that's not my thing. I do recognize that many Morons enjoy audiobooks and I understand their appeal. You can listen to them while working on something else. I guess it's not too different than turning on a television show and letting it run in the background while you do something else, which I have done frequently. I like this channel because it's a good way to get people interested in classic stories who might not be inclined to read them. The audio rendition with your classic British narration does add a lot to the retelling of these stories.
OrangeEnt Book Review:
All right. Finally finished a work recommended to me: Adrift in the Stratosphere, by "Professor" A.M. Low, as an example of pulp science fiction. It was published in 1937. It concerns three English lads just out for a motorcycle ride who come to an inventor's shed looking for tools to repair one of the bikes. The man has built a craft he plans to take into space. They sneak into the contraption, and accidentally launch it.
They don't know how it works, but they figure out how to do some things by sheer luck. Nearly every problem they get into is solved by sheer luck: learning how to control the ship, escaping Martian attacks, getting trapped in a strange place that forces the ship along a path that apparently ends in a number of jets of fire that they pass through basically unharmed, etc. The other races they meet are friendly and help them for no reason other than the story, I guess.
It seemed amateurish, like something a kid would write. A lot of exposition, with dull dialog, even with the generous use of exclamation points!!! The writer was a scientist and inventor--he operated the first radio-controlled airplane among other things, but was notorious for not finishing his projects. I don't find it memorable. In fact, it's slipping out of my mind although I just finished reading it today. If you're looking to see what early English scifi was like, eh, it may be worth a read. It's not very long. If you're looking for good science fiction, pass.
I've never heard of A.M. Low. The story does sound rather predictable and not terribly compelling. I suppose it can be looked at as an example of the state of pulp fiction at the time it was written. Quite a lot of it was terrible, but it paid the bills. We know of pulp authors from that era mainly because they were the cream of the crop. A lot of pulp authors have faded into obscurity, probably because they couldn't master storytelling like the authors we remember today.
Just read the book thread (1/18). Thought you might like to include this to avoid issues like the Ian McAllister broken spine. I still remember learning this in 4th grade. In the last millinneum when schools still taught useful Stuff. I can attest to the fact that it works.
A proud lurker who posts as OldToolFool once or twice a decade.
Note that this technique only works on "fresh" books, i.e., those books that still have a spine worth preserving. Many, many books on my shelves have the creased spines that we are all familiar with, either because of my own negligence or the negligence of the previous owner in the case of used books. I have noticed that book covers seem to use different paper or different bindings than many of the paperbacks from days of yore. I think this really helps in preserving the spines of books. I generally don't have issues with hardcover books, though I do have several where the binding has deteriorated a bit, requiring a judicious application of Elmer's glue to repair.
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BOOKS BY MORONS
This is not my usual HF or contemporary comedy, but a Hallmark movie romance-style, and I wrote it on a dare from the other contributors at the Chicagoboyz blog. we were talking about the expensive uselessness of getting a college degree these days, and how many (especially young men) who skipped the whole college game and went into skilled trades are doing very well, economically - but aren't considered good prospects for marrying by college-graduate women. The culture has to change, we all agreed...and then one of the guys suggested that the culture might have to change to make this acceptable ... and one of the ways to do it was to generate books and movies with that theme. And at that point in the Zoom call, they all looked at me and chanted "doo eet! doo eet!"
So I did, and Sarah Hoyt did a cover for me that rings all the right beats for this kind of romance.
I snagged an early copy of Twelve Months by Jim Butcher on Friday from a local B&N. Finished it early in the morning of Saturday! Turned the book over to my daughter for her enjoyment. It's maybe my favorite Dresden Files book. The longer time frame of the book gives Harry a lot more depth and shows off his more intellectual side. Great twists, great emotional moments, just a 10 out of 10 for me.
Posted by: McDirty at January 18, 2026 09:07 AM (RWXeq)
Comment: Up until this point, the books in The Dresden Files have taken place over a very short period of time within each book--usually just a few days of non-stop action. One thing I've learned in my reread of these books is that they move fast. The pacing is just off-the-charts. There's rarely a moment where the hero (or the reader) gets to stop and take a moment to absorb what's happening before Harry is off to the next action-packed sequence. I'm curious how Harry will handle the downtime in Twelve Months, which sounds like Butcher is giving Harry some very necessary breathing space. I know Butcher has mentioned that he plans around 25 books in the series, so we still have a ways go to.
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I have been reading The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser. The author is an evangelical and this book is about seldom discussed scripture. It's all very strange to me and I am extremely skeptical of Heiser or anyone offering novel interpretations of the Bible. I had enough of that as a child. I picked up the book because Angela McArdle, former chairman of the Libertarian Party, mentioned it.
Posted by: Oglebay at January 18, 2026 09:33 AM (GPa4z)
Comment: A friend of mine recommended this book several years ago. I really enjoyed it because it touches on the most unusual aspects of theology that many of us don't really think about much. Heiser approaches the idea of an "unseen realm" all around us filled with spiritual creatures from a linguistic and historical perspective. To the ancient Israelites and other civilizations of the time, the "unseen realm" was very, very real. No one thought it was superstitious nonsense. You might have vigorous disagreements about whose gods were better, but no one disputed that the gods existed. That's the perspective Heiser brings to the conversation. There are a lot of strange passages in the Bible that tend to be glossed over by pastors in church. But those who compiled the books of the Bible must have had a reason for their inclusion. Heiser reminds us that the "unseen realm" is every bit as vast and complicated--if not more so--than the natural world we see around us. Earth is just a tiny, tiny flyspeck in the cosmos. The spiritual world is so much bigger and more interesting.
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The Presidency of George Washington by Forrest McDonald is an excerpt of the great man's life, focusing only on Washington's two terms as our first president. Washington was chosen for his high moral standards and his military background. He was an excellent choice and a thoughtful leader. My favorite chapter was one that set the stage by giving a glimpse into the U.S. in 1789. This brief recap of the political, economic and cultural status of the new nation was enlightening. The new Americans thought of themselves as citizens of a region rather than as citizens of a nation. And these citizens continued in the occupations that had brought them survival and, to some extent, success as colonizers. The political parties are largely unchanged from then to now, and the politics of trying to ensure your state or group succeeds above all others remains unchanged. Recommend this book as an addition to your reading list on early American history.
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at January 18, 2026 09:56 AM (kB9dk)
Comment: Would America be America without George Washington? I've heard him referred to as the "Indispensable Man" of his time. I'm sure it did take some time before people accepted the idea of being an "American" versus being a "Virginian" or "New Yorker." Even today, we can see people who don't seem to accept that they are "American," instead preferring to refer to themselves a "Californian" or "Somalian," even though they live in the United States of America.
Jim Butcher's Twelve Months, the latest entry in his long running Dresden Files series, has just been released. It will be another week or two (or three) until I am able to read it, however, since I'm doing a re-read of the complete Dresden Files series from the beginning, including the two collections, Side Jobs and Brief Cases.
WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:
The Dresden Files Book 6 - Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
I finished Blood Rites this past week. We find out some of the secrets of the White Court of vampires, including the fact that Thomas Raith is Harry's half-brother. This will have enormous implications later in the series. I also realized that the White Court's plan for Harry may, in fact, not have worked even if they had succeeded, but we won't find out why until a few more books down the line.
The Dresden Files Book 7 - Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
The Dresden-verse is full of nefarious factions all vying for THE ULTIMATE POWER! One of these factions consists of acolytes of the notorious necromancer Kemmler. They are searching for The Word of Kemmler which will allow them to conduct the Darkhallow ritual, elevating one of them to godhood. Or so they think. Being a cult of evil warlocks, they are all jockeying for the spoils, backstabbing each other willy-nilly until one of them will rise to the challenge and claim the mantle. But Harry is their fly in the ointment. If you consider a reanimated T. rex a "fly" when it's stomping down the dark streets of Chicago, flattening zombies left and right, powered by the beat of a one-man polka band. (Seriously. I swear I'm not making that up.)
The Dresden Files Book 8 - Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
Molly Carpenter, Michael Carpenter's oldest daughter, is all grown up and she has the hots for Harry. Harry is adult enough to know that it's a very, very bad idea to get mixed up with his best friend's seventeen-year-old daughter, no matter how smoking hot she might be. At first she brings him in on a case when her boyfriend (sort of) is arrested for beating up an old man while they're at a horror convention. Turns out the movie monsters are being brought into the real world by something called a "phobophage"--an entity the feeds on the fears of humans. Molly gets in way over her head and Harry and his friends have to bail her out, as she's possibly engaged in black magic of the worst kind. The punishment for breaking the Laws of Magic is death by beheading, administered by the Wardens of the White Council of Wizards.
The Dresden Files Book 9 - White Night by Jim Butcher
Someone is killing low-level practitioners of the Art, often making it look like a suicide. At first Harry thought it was only confined to Chicago, but there's a much larger pattern involved as the serial killer has been busy throughout cities across America. Harry's first love, Elaine, comes to Chicago to assist Harry in tracking down the murderer. Unfortunately for Harry, it looks like his vampire half-brother Thomas might be the culprit. Though it's always much more complicated than what it seems when the White Court gets involved. One of Harry's old foes from a couple of books ago might even be at the heart of the matter. Or is it the Outsiders?
The Dresden Files Book 10 - Small Favor by Jim Butcher
Harry's least favorite faction is back! The Order of the Blackened Denarius, among the most vile and evil villains Harry has ever faced are looking for a new "deal." They've kidnapped Johnny Marcone, Chicago's most notorious gangster and the Queen of Air and Darkness, Mab, wants Harry to find him. Marcone is unique among those who have signed onto the Unseelie Accords, being an ordinary vanilla human. He's also entitled to their protection, which is why Mab needs Harry's help. I'm not quite sure how or why the Order of the Blackened Denarius was allowed to sign onto the Unseelie Accords, since it's well known that they are less trustworthy than a Gazan with his fingers crossed behind his back. Now it's up to Harry and his companions to rescue Johnny Marcone and a bonus hostage from the most demonic forces Harry has faced yet.
The Dresden Files Book 11 - Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
Morgan, one of the Wardens of the White Council of Wizards, has been accused of murdering one of the leaders of the White Council. Which is strange considering that Morgan may be a dick, but he's also one of the most staunch defenders of the White Council and the Laws of Magic. It's not his style, despite the fact he was seen standing over the body with the murder weapon in his hand. Now Morgan needs Harry Dresden's help to find a traitor on the White Council who framed him for murder. Harry is conflicted considering that Morgan has been harassing Harry for years about breaking the Laws of Magic, but as usual Harry chooses to do the right thing. If only to spit in the eyes of the White Council, since Harry doesn't have much respect for them, even though he's a member.
This is also the entry in The Dresden Files where we meet Mr. Shagnasty, a shapeshifting eldritch abomination of indescribable horror. Just one glimpse of Shagnasty through Harry's magical Sight nearly turns his brain into tapioca pudding
Microsoft's Bitlocker is infamous for suddenly enabling itself without you explicitly going through the setup process so that neither you nor anybody else has any idea what the encryption key is, and you data is simply gone.
But if you do go through the setup process, it automatically shares your key with Microsoft so the government can ask for and receive your keys.
A Reddit user ordered a "resale" unit of an Nvidia RTX 5090 from Amazon - that is, a unit that had been return during the 30 day window - and received a box containing a towel and a bunch of rocks.
Well, scams happen. Not your fault.
Except this was the fourth time. It's Amazon's fault for not checking returns, yes, but it's also his fault for still believing that they do.
You could also just play Hytale which runs smoothly on Vega 8 laptop graphics from 2021 even at 2880x1620. Albeit on low settings, but low settings are almost identical to "epic" settings - the only visible difference is render distance.
Which, yes, means that your insurance company knows exactly when and how and how much you are driving.
It's also not quite clear what the actual reduction in your insurance rates from this would be. Half cost... But what component of the cost is directly attributable to the number of hours (or miles) driven?
This guy gets it. AI coding assistants aren't useless; they range from super helpful for churning through boring repetitive tasks, to actively dangerous.
Point an agent at a vague goal - "build me a tool that helps with X" - and you'll get something that looks impressive and rots in a folder. Point an agent at a specific task - "rewrite these 200 API calls to use the new authentication pattern" - and you'll save a week.
I had to perform a task with a particular piece of unfamiliar software with painfully poor design and documentation. I used ChatGPT and after a couple of days of trial and error I got something that was slow but worked - and it would have taken me at least a week to perform the same task myself.
The it turned out that the tool I needed to interpret the results was offline, possibly permanently dead. I found an alternative, which my company already had a subscription to... And found that this alternative solved the entire problem and the two days had been completely wasted.
One is generative theatre. The other is actual leverage.
The difference is tactical versus strategic deployment.
Where, in this case, tactical deployment is solving a problem that you actually have, and strategic deployment is solving a problem that nobody has.
Level 5: We are already making millions of dollars every day, thank you very much.
Level 4:We have a detailed multi-stage plan to become the richest human beings on Earth.
Level 3:We have many promising product ideas, which will be revealed inthe fullness of time.
Level 2:We have the outlines of a concept of a plan.
Level 1:True wealth is when you love yourself.
Fine so far. At the top, actually making money. At the bottom, idiot dreamers or possibly communists.
The big names are all at Level 5: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and so on.
Hold up.
OpenAI lost $8 billion last year, is expected to lose $14 billion this year, $40 billion next year, and as much as $74 billion in 2028 even if they meet revenue goals.
What a useful word, "luminaries". It covers equally objects that shine of their own right, and masses of stone and dust that merely reflect the brilliance of others.
On the one hand, Turing Award winner Yann LeCun, formerly of Meta, and genuine Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis of Google, who both say that current AI systems are nowhere near human levels and - at least in the case of LeCun - that current approaches can never get there and entirely new methods are needed.
On the other hand Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of OpenAI who say that their tools are approaching the level of Nobel Prize winners and you'll all be out of work by next week.
I think I'm going to go with the guys who didn't trash the global electronic supply chain only so they could burn a hundred billion dollars of investor money.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: You're just my type, dead and starting to smell funny.
A trucker walked into a roadside diner and said to the new waitress, "I'll have three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a set of running boards."
The waitress blinked. Once. Twice. Certainly something wasn't right.
She rushed into the kitchen and whispered to the cook, "There is a guy out there trying to order car parts for breakfast!"
The cook laughed. "Relax!
Flat tires are pancakes.
Headlights are eggs.
Running boards are bacon."
Relieved, the waitress put the order together and added a bowl of beans before heading back out to the trucker.
The trucker smiled when he saw the plate but frowned when he saw the bowl of beans. "What are the beans for?"
The waitress smiled proudly and said, "Well, I figured you're getting flat tires, headlights and running boards. While you're here, you might as well gas up too!"
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Drink of the Night
Finishing out the fours in our deck of playing card cocktails
Given the reputation of Key West as a haven for a certain segment of the population, one might think a "Key West Margarita" may have an alternate meaning. The Club does not want to know!
Now, a team of 12 scientists from universities in Germany and the Czech Republic have come together in a unique study that observed 37 breeds of dog over a two-year period.
Exactly 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations later, the team reach one incredible finding: "dogs preferred to excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis."
Dogs join cattle, roe deer, red deer, hunting red foxes, red foxes, coyotes and grey wolves as yet another mammal to have a mechanism of "magnetoreception."
Although their altered behaviour was only evident under calm conditions, it's still a breakthrough in demonstrating measurable, predictable changes in dog behaviour in response to the earth's magnetic field.
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Club ONT Department of Fine Cinema
*****
Club ONT Performance art
In January 1978, William Shatner performed a spoken word rendition of the song ‘Rocket Man’ during the Saturn Awards pic.twitter.com/4ciwnSJWb4
Club ONT is not responsible for the condition of the parking lot. Slips, trips, and falls will be met with laughter followed by the requisite "Are you OK?" The Moose sees everything but does not shovel snow. We do not have jumper cables or extra ice scrapers. We do recommend back-in style parking and leaving your windshield wipers up. Growler fills are half-price when ordered using our app. Kitchen will close without notice. No refunds for orders not fulfilled.
Few directors have all-around strengths, the ability to see every aspect of a production from pre-production through sound mixing and determine what's best for the story, for the film as a whole. Most noteworthy directors tend to have groups of strengths, certain parts of the production where their attention and skill is most directly applied to their films. Wolfgang Petersen wasn't an all around strong director, but he did have one particular strength: the sequence.
The Sequence Director is actually really interesting because while scripts may end up having issues, the strength of the sequence done really well is its own thrill and joy. John Ford was actually a sequence director according to his own writers, not really understanding narrative form but understanding exactly how to put together a sequence for film. Wolfgang Petersen feels like a similar filmmaker, just without a strong studio system to back him up with a stable of quality writers.
Moving from German television to Hollywood and then getting hired from one job to the next in ever-increasingly large budgeted productions, Petersen proved that he was a man for the time. Taking simple concepts like a president needing to fight terrorists on Air Force One and delivering them with aggressive energy in clearly filmed sustained sequences, Petersen became one of the most powerful and sought-after directors in Hollywood for about a decade. I don't know if that's what he had dreamed of his career being, but he made the most of it while he was there.
Petersen began his directing career in the mid-60s directing for German television. Mostly television movies, he plugged away at these minimal budgets, finding collaborators along the way like Jörg-Michael Baldenius who was his main cinematographer in the period or, most famously, Jurgen Prochnow, the mainstay in front of the camera for many of these productions like the blackmail thriller Einer von uns beiden (One or the Other Of Us) or the gay drama Die Konsequenz. It was mostly solid work with minimal budgets to good result. The most important of this period may be one of his feature length episodes of the long-running German police procedural Tatort, the episode titled Reifezeugnis which starred Natassja Kinski in her first role.
Television is a hard medium to try and figure out artistic intent from anyone, especially in the 70s when productions were so cheap and quickly filmed, so I watched what I could find, noting my opinions on their qualities, and wondering when the real Petersen would peak out. Was it any of it? The somewhat comic adaptation of The Nixon Recession Caper, Four Against the Bank? The sort of French-like drama that was that episode of Tartort? The gay drama Die Konsequenz? Which one could be called...his?
And then he made the full leap to feature films (though...two of his earlier works were technically released in theaters) with Das Boot, the movie that made his presence known to Hollywood. It was originally released as a feature film, only later re-edited to a longer, multi-episode television edit, but the film's six Academy Award nominations (including for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Petersen as both director and writer) pulled him out of Germany. Well, sort of.
Early Hollywood
Petersen's first post-Das Boot job was The Neverending Story, the adaptation of the German fantasy novel that its own writer, Michael Ende, rejected after Petersen took the story in directions he felt were major deviations from the source material. What I find most notable about the film is the really impressive physical production. The sets are big. The costumes and creature effects are surprisingly detailed and believable. The miniature work is almost convincing. And Petersen made it in Munich. He wasn't ready to leave his fatherland just yet. A solid success at the box office, Petersen really should have been able to make what he wanted after that.
And yet, for reasons I can't quite explain, he took the salvage job of Enemy Mine. My confusion isn't about the quality of the movie but about the decision to take a disaster of a production that had already shot for a few weeks under original director Richard Loncraine, completely revamp the production including throwing out all footage and building huge sets in the same large tank set he had filmed the U-boats in Das Boot, and then spending another $25 million to finish it. The movie would have needed to have been a huge success to make up for those handicaps. It feels like the job for a hatchetman, not an up and coming director having just had his first Hollywood success, but he apparently just liked the script.
Well, the movie bombed, especially considering the sunk costs of its initial push at production which cost about $15 million on its own, and then Petersen didn't release another film for six years.
Biography
I tend to avoid biography when running through a director's work. I want the work to speak for itself, but I'm always interested in gaps in output. So, I tried to find out what Petersen was doing from the release of Enemy Mine in 1985 and the release of Shattered in 1991. I couldn't find much. I saw that he moved permanently to Los Angeles in 1986 and became an American citizen in 1987, but that's it. Surely he was trying to get some projects off the ground in this time, but what they were isn't readily available.
And then Shattered came out, and not only did Petersen direct it. He also wrote it. He also produced it.
I see that it's based on a novel, so surely this was just some flash in the pan novel from the time that quickly gathered interest, right? No, it's based on The Plastic Nightmare by Richard Neely which was published in 1971. Was...Shattered his passion project? Wash Shattered the movie he spent six years trying to gather together resources to make? Was it where he cashed in all of his goodwill in Hollywood? To make a middling adaptation of a ridiculous erotic thriller that lost money at the box office? If Shattered had been a financial success, would the rest of his career been erotic thrillers instead of action thrillers? Was Shattered the kind of movie Petersen wanted to make?
I'll never get the answer to that question because with the financial failure of Shattered, Petersen got the job that would define the direction of the rest of his career.
Action in the 90s
Since the 70s, Hollywood producer Jeff Apple had wanted to make a movie about Secret Service agents, especially with ties to the JFK assassination. He finally cracked the idea when he hired writer Jeff Maguire to write a draft and signed Clint Eastwood to play the central role. In contrast to Shattered, Petersen has neither a writing nor a producing credit on In the Line of Fire, but it was the first box office success Petersen had had in a decade.
If Shattered is the kind of movie Petersen wanted to make, what is In the Line of Fire? I think it really was just a director-for-hire job. A younger director with some obvious chops getting hired by a strong producer (Apple) with one of the major stars of the time (Eastwood) who were going to exert control over the production while Petersen managed the camera. And it was a rather large success, the kind of success where Hollywood looks at the director and says, "You will make more of this kind of movie again."
And that's what he did. From Outbreak to Air Force One to The Perfect Storm, he produced big budget action films with major movie stars (yeah...Dustin Hoffman could be qualified as one for a time, I guess) with lots of special effects and extended action sequences that he could deliver with a professionalism and style that never overwhelmed anything else. And he was hitting financial success after financial success after financial success.
Is there something of Petersen in these films? The military aspects of Outbreak, the confined, extended aspect of Air Force One, and the naval (if predominantly civilian) aspects of The Perfect Storm indicate, to me, an effort on his part (he was producer on all three) to find projects that appealed to him in terms of subject matter. Sure, the scripts could be uneven (Outbreak is like three movies in one that never gel and The Perfect Storm character storytelling is thin with caricature, but Air Force One is awesome), but they indicate to me that Petersen, at his height of power, was using the large scale blockbuster to tell stories that interested him while also finding room for the kind of action spectacle that he could deliver in sustained sequences for the masses and his studio employers.
The 2000s
The 2000s was when Petersen's career faltered. The Perfect Storm was a mild financial success considering its rather large costs, but critically it wasn't exactly loved. Still, critics don't mean much in Hollywood when money's still being made, so Petersen got the assignment to try and continue the sword and sandal epic revival started by Ridley Scott's Gladiator with his pseudo-adaptation of Homer's The Illiad, Troy. It seems like the general opinion on the film has risen decently since the film's release. Using the Wayback Machine, the film started with an IMDB rating in the high 6's and now has a rating of 7.2, a steady climb over more than 20 years. I remember reactions being more muted, especially its bloated nature, some stiff acting, and it being part of an overuse of CGI armies at the time that people were getting tired of.
Well, the film made money, but it was really expensive. Nearly costing $200 million, it only made a shade under $500 million. Combined with marketing costs which were at least $100 million and could have been as much as $200 million and the theatrical share of ticket prices, it's likely that Troy didn't make any profit for Warner Brothers at the box office. Combined with The Perfect Storm likely having a similar fate, Petersen seemed to be on thin ice.
And then the ice broke out from under him with Poseidon. A very expensive re-adaptation of the novel by Paul Gallico, it outright lost money (at least $60 million, and probably more) while meeting critical derision (I have a good time with it), and then there's another large gap.
Finishing Where He Began
As I said earlier, big gaps in a filmography interest me, and this second gap is bigger than the first. From 2006 to 2016, Petersen made nothing. There is a bit more information out there about what he was trying to get off the ground (notably an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and a live-action adaptation of the anime Paprika) but nothing came to fruition. At some point, he seems to have given up on making another film in Hollywood and went back to Germany to make another adaptation of The Nixon Recession Caper, this time in more outright comedic fashion. It seems like almost no one outside of Germany has seen this film (I have, I thought it was pretty fun), but it was met with strong success in Germany while meeting no real distribution outside of Germany (European comedies rarely even try international distribution).
His final film completed, he lived for another 6 years and died in his home in Los Angeles in 2022. Did he try to get another project off the ground in his 70s? There's no indication that he did or didn't. I wouldn't have minded seeing one more from him, though.
Legacy
So...who was the real Petersen? I think the closest we'll ever get to the real Petersen, the artist he wanted to be in cinema, is going to be Shattered. Every indication is that it was his baby, the project that he shepherded, wrote himself, and produced for years before he got to set. If that had been a success, we would have gotten more lurid thrillers from him instead of action spectacles.
But it wasn't a success, and In the Line of Fire put him on his proper path: action director. And he was really good at it. Movies of Today
Das Boot (Rating 4/4) Full Review "I'd be surprised if I felt Petersen came close to matching this again. I've seen enough of what's to come to feel assured that this is going to be his crowning achievement." [Personal Collection]
The Neverending Story (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "And yet, everyone seems to love this film. Ugh, I don't. I've tried, but no. This movie is bad." [Prime]
Enemy Mine (Rating 2/4) Full Review "I just find the actual story to be dull as dishwater. Still, I got some pew-pews at the end." [Library]
Shattered (Rating 2/4) Full Review "So, the film is not terribly engaging, but Petersen makes the experience slick with solid direction, the actors are all committed and doing decent jobs, and I get a kick out of the ending." [Plex]
In the Line of Fire (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "It's a fun ride, and everyone does their job well. It's a good time at the movies." [Personal Collection]
Air Force One (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "It's not the top tier of 90s action filmmaking, but it's honestly near the top." [Personal Collection]
Troy (Rating 2/4) Full Review "It's a mixed bag, one I wish I liked more (I'm a sucker for the sword and sandal epic), but this response to Gladiator's success is a good signpost on the road to why the genre died out again." [Personal Collection]
Poseidon (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "Petersen might not have been a visionary, but I think he had an idea of what he was doing." [Library]
Please also check out the rest of my YouTube videos from the last few weeks:
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
My next thread will be on 2/14 and it will discuss the directing career of Park Chan-wook.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin it landed on wood carving and tools.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. Discussion of current events, religion and politics can elsewhere. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice. Don't be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
Best wishes to all with the winter weather. Comments, updates, questions and requests for help are welcome and on-topic.
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Lurker Bird Rock Doc sent a few photos of his wood carving projects. I was going to do an elaborate post with behind the scenes work in progress detail, but I have a small dinosaur brain and short arms so here we are. Maybe he'll jump in and provide more background...
Outstanding! Thank you!
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This is a great tool topic - what tools should a new homeowner have?
What suggestions do you have?
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Woodworking tools that you don't need or don't use?
Unexpected tools that you use? Intrigued to see a power hand planer at the top of this list.
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How did woodworking become a hobby? Interesting history:
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Nothing to do with wood, but rust removal is a thing for hobbyists and these involve tools.
I only recently discovered a needle scaler. Anyone use one? Did it cause hearing damage?
Electrolysis versus Evapo-Rust?
I will freely admit that this video speaks to me. It makes me want to haunt garage and estate sales and rescue old tools and toolboxes. Long video with many individual tool restorations.
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an sea glass theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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Notable content continued from last week:
Last week Reforger mentioned visiting the Nevada State Museum which includes the Carson City Mint. He described seeing Coin Press No. 1, a steam powered coin press that made silver dollars from 1870 to 1893.
As the original coin press of the Carson City Mint, Coin Press No. 1 was built in 1869 by Morgan and Orr in Philadelphia. The press was steam powered and could produce 100 coins per minute. The press was ordered brand new for the Carson City Mint, which was scheduled to open in 1870 and would address the coinage needs spurred by the Comstock Lode. When the press arrived in Carson City, it was the only press at the Mint, and would remain the only one for another five years.
But from 1878 until the end of the Mint's operation in 1893, the press only produced Morgan Silver Dollars.
Coin Press No. 1 ceased operations in 1893 and the Carson City Mint officially closed in 1899 as the result of a severe decline in mining on the Comstock Lode.
Other history happened and then...
[The] press was sent to Colorado to be further modernized and used at the Denver Mint. The press spent four years at the Denver Mint, and in that time, it minted 118 million coins, including 50 million pennies.
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
We see a lot of videos about cute baby goats here at AoSHQ. I think that this video provides some good cautions concerning getting baby goats yourself.
One thing that I noticed right away is that this woman keeps her guardian dogs on a lead on her own property. This is not because they are apt to attack people. It is because they are apt to wander off to patrol what they THINK is their territory.
She adores her guardian dogs and their protective qualities (I may have seen this in a different video). One new sheepherder decided on Great Pyrenees to guard his sheep because in a study underway, that was the only breed which had never bitten anyone.
You may recall that in our own neighborhood we noticed what seemed to be a Great Pyrenees dog wandering in fields near us, and alternately visiting a house which had just been vacated. We though it had been abandoned, and maybe it had. It disappeared for a couple of weeks, re-appeared briefly, disappeared again and then re-appeared but ran off again when DH tried to feed it. Maybe someone in the neighborhood is feeding it more regularly. Hard to tell. We still leave dog biscuits for him when we see him (or her).
We lost our 14 year old Goldendoodle, Jasper, last week.
We brought him home at six weeks old, a jet black ball of fluff and pure energy. He was super smart, exceptionally athletic, an alpha personality, but just as sweet as he could be.
The last year was hard on him health wise, but he retained his never quit attitude, even when his body gave out on him. Best Dog Ever. RIP, old man.
onthemark329
He sounds and looks like an absolutely wonderful dog. So sorry that you have lost him. Thanks for sending in the photo and thoughtful tribute, so we can remember him along with you.
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"Carpetweasel
Some photos of Abyssinian cats, appropriate for stormy weather.
-- From Tankascribe
Well, you said it was hard to take a bad photo of them. And these are certainly lovely.
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
New Bird for the Pet Thread
We have bird feeders on the porch to entertain MegaRoy, over the years, it's sometimes a racoon feeder, or a possum feeder. Sometimes it's a red-tailed hawk feeder. Neighbor two houses up, had a sweet little kitty that would hang out and just be friendly with MegaRoy. This is their 2nd kitty Dominoe, big honking maine coon mix tomcat. Very skittish, wants a handout of crunchy chow, but shrinks back and hisses in fear of the big scary hoomans. He was taunting the neighbor dog one house up from his own home.
BifBewalski
So Dominoe is someone's kitty, but he's YOUR bird! PetMoron adjascent, I would say. What would other members of The Horde say?
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Fascinating photos. How close in appearance is that hoarfrost to the ice and snow in the big storms?
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And to give everyone some hope:
The rosemary bush is blooming. Even a few honeybees on it.
Pictures will follow because I am not computer savvy.
NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker
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Gorgeous! What a brave little bee!
Our rosemary isn't blooming yet. We have FOG.
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Edible Gardening/Putting Things By
The lettuce bolted and the seeds went all over the place. Now we have volunteers of winter lettuce when the summer was too hot for them to grow .
Nan in AZ
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Wonderful! I see some other things coming along, too!
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Ah, Nature
WINTER TIPS OR ALERTS FOR THOSE HOLED UP IN STORMY WEATHER?
Recipes that don't require heating? I always go back to bean salads.
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Gardens of The Horde
MIRACULOUS RECOVERY
Hi KT.
Here is a Christmas cactus that was never particularly energetic, but did its thing each year out on the front porch. Last year, the deer shredded it mercilessly , down to soil level. There was no green left at all.
I sadly brought it into the sunroom hoping for the best, and look! It has recovered well, and is blooming now, probably better than it ever has before.
The Amaryllis next to it doesn’t like me though. It has never bloomed and has always looked pitiful.
Any suggestions are welcome. I just hope it’s not too late…
Thanks for your wonderful Garden threads and essays. Keep up the great work.
Gunslinger.
Wonderful to see a miracle like that! Those little buds are charming.
Any suggestions for the Amaryllis?
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There's not much gardening happening outside here in snowy New Hampshire.
Audrey the Aloe Plant seems to be doing well inside although she stares out the window and wishes for warmer weather so she can go out and play. Even though Christmas is over I'm keeping the festive squirrel lights on her to try to cheer her up and play her lots of the classics like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Thank you for all the wonderful weekend gardening and pet threads and other posts.
Best wishes to you and yours and everyone at the Ace.
Rodent
Audrey is lovely! Looks like she enjoys the music and festive squirrel lights.
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Hope everyone has a nice, or at least bearable, 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.
We have more challenging weather here in the USA than they seem to have in Davos this year, but I was surprised to see reports from DataRepublican as she is in the process of releasing a book. The recent reports of her deafness are confirmed by "X" posts by her long-time interpreter in Davos, as well as a few reports from her Mom. She is even more impressive than I had thought she was.
When it comes to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there are two caricatures of the attendees – or “weffers” they like to call themselves.
In one version, they are mustache-twirling elites huddled in smoke-filled rooms, plotting a one-world government, mass surveillance, and “you will eat ze bugs!”
In the other, they are cast as saviors: the most powerful people on the planet convening in good faith to solve humanity’s biggest problems.
This week, @DataInterpretr and I spent quality time with the attendees. We took a different approach than most journalists – we did not ambush them with gotcha questions. Instead, we simply sat at tables, started conversations with staffers and speakers, and asked questions – lots of them.
What we got was neither caricature, but something much darker – a first-hand perspective of how tyranny is imposed from a ruling class that will swear up and down that they are not part of any ruling class–and that it controls nothing.
How can that be?
It is undeniably true that the WEF has been a source of coercive power. The clearest example came during COVID, when Klaus Schwab, working alongside the Big Four accounting firms, used the crisis to roll out ESG metrics. These frameworks stripped influence from ordinary stakeholders and concentrated it in the hands of activists and technocrats, while redirecting corporate capital toward left-wing causes.
To understand how that dynamic works, we must enter the mind of a weffer.
First, nearly all of them are either extremely wealthy or employed by people who are. Hotels cost $25,000 a night. Gucci is the default for handbags. Coats fall to the floor, trimmed with mink. And despite the sustainability rhetoric, the menus advertise meat proudly, with few vegetarian options in sight.
They do not understand that they are perceived as hypocrites. They are aware that some people see them as evil, controlling overlords… and they laugh at the idea, because in their own minds it is absurd.
Yet in another sense, it is true.
Alex Soros became an object of ridicule after his WEF remarks:
So, um, you know, so, um, you know… but when I see this, you know, when I look at this, um, you know, um, you know, uh, more globally regarding, regarding, you know, regarding democracy, I also say to myself, “When was this great time that everybody got along so well, and, you know, things were going so, so great?” I mean, I think, you know, um, uh, um, you know, the, um, you know, I think that we really have to be careful here in, you know, in this nostalgia, uh, for a time, uh, you know, for a time past, because a lot of the reactions we’re seeing in society are actually reactions to positive, uh, to positive things like, i- you know, like equality, uh, for women, um, you know, uh, and, um, uh, you know, and greater diversity.
For all that word salad, the key to remember is: Alex is representative.
They all speak this way. Every panel, every “dialogue,” follows the same pattern. Few people are trying to land a clear argument or persuade an audience. They speak to signal belonging, to demonstrate fluency in a shared language, and to impress one another.
The rest of this piece focuses on patterns of self-perception and thinking among attendees at the WEF. And attempts to zero in on some concrete positions from those attendees. It is fascinating and scary to think that so many of our "thought leaders" engage in so little thought.
* * * * *
The Death of Globalization?
Matt Taibbi is not a conservative. Bearing that in mind, he has some interesting thoughts about Davos:
The death of globalization is the real headline from the international self-indulgence festival at Davos
After Donald Trump spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, the obligatory headline term was humiliation. “Lonely Trump Humiliated as Major Allies Refuse to Be Bullied,” was one of two Daily Beast stories on the theme, the other being “Trump, 79, Croaks Through ‘Peace’ Grift Speech After 48 Hours of Ritual Humiliation,” under the tag BORED OF PEACE. Jen Psaki on MSNOW chortled over his “humiliating ramble,” while Chris Hayes declared him “isolated and humiliated.”
Coverage of Trump long ago devolved into an homage to Pee Wee’s Playhouse, when comic Paul Reubens would get a secret word from Conky the robot in each show. After, audiences would have to shout in unison at every mention of it. I remember being in a room of stoned teenagers shouting “PLACE!” at the TV in 1986.
See hyperlinks and video at the link. Heh.
Trump news cycles are the same, only anchors shout TREASON! or FELON! or DICTATOR! His address on Greenland, NATO, and Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses was blasted for a hundred reasons, many legitimate, but the real drama came from a non-Trump speech. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ripped his European hosts by declaring “Globalization has failed”:
Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for, which is export offshore, far-shore, find the cheapest labor in the world and the world is a better place for it. The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American worker behind. And what we are here to say is that America First is a different model—one that we encourage other countries to consider—which is that our workers come first. We can have policies that impact our workers.
Video and more at the link, whether you agree with it or not. Taibbi notes that the Europeans had warning that this speech was coming, even at the end of the Biden Administration.
* * * * *
This post concerns NATO, but DataRepublican mentions that Scott Bessent also talked about Japan as a possible Black Swan. And Japanese speakers don't seem too keen on becoming a "Nation of Immigrants".
Scott Bessent brought up an eye-opening datapoint in Davos.
Since 1980, the US has spent $22 trillion more on defense than all other NATO members combined. They preferred to ramp up welfare instead. That’s about two-thirds of outstanding US debt.
Minnesota can’t seem to get out of the news. Once a placid backwater, the state has now become synonymous with bats**t crazy. ICE came to town, and it brought left-wingers, both native Minnesotans and paid professionals, out in force. Things went from bad to worse, and a leftist mob invaded a church on Sunday morning, disrupting services. The mob was led by, among others, former CNN talking head Don Lemon. The Department of Justice, outraged, is pursuing criminal charges against some of the ringleaders.
Ice came to town in a more literal way, too: the high temperature today was -11, the low -22. The far left–i.e., everyone from the DFL Party to the Communist Party USA–declared today “ICE out” in Minneapolis, encouraging students to play hooky and businesses to close. It was, in any event, too cold to protest. I guess we can all be grateful that ICE didn’t come to Minnesota in July.
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
*****
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 Nimrod)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Say a prayer or three for our Morons to survive the winter weather blasting the country.
3) If you must run with sharp objects. Take it outside.
4) Have a great weekend!
The following is from our dear friend & 'Ette, Bluebell.
*****
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:
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.
12/20 – 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.
1/18 Update – LA Sue is taking her brother to hospice. He is fading.
1/15 – Sharkman posted on behalf of Niederemeyer’s Dead Horse that NDH was given a prognosis of 6 months to live due to heart failure. The plan is for NDH to move into the Mayo Clinic to receive treatment and wait for a transplant.
1/17 – Emmie asked for prayers. She and her husband are on the verge of foreclosure. Their side hustle of delivery driving ended when a young driver crashed into their car and totaled it. They aren’t able to make the mortgage payments without that extra income. Their church is helping, but it’s a small church.
1/18 – Teresa in Fort Worth sent an update. She had surgery on 12/11, and a pump was installed that will direct medication into the hepatic artery. This will allow a much larger concentration of medication to be applied directly into her liver. This should give fewer side effects and (hopefully) shrink the tumors. It will take several months before they know if this new medication is working, but if it does, they are hoping for an extra 2-3 years before the disease progresses again.
1/19 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 12/23. Dad is recovering at home, and Mom is caring for him. NR Pax is thankful that they live in a good retirement community, but it will be rough for them for a bit.
1/20 – Inogame asked for prayers. His wife and baby girl (due in February) are healthy, but some bad luck has come to their family. The business they purchased a year ago has taken an abrupt turn and they are trying to understand what is happening. They may not be able to keep their home if they cannot discover and correct the problem. This stress and what it might mean postpartum is worrying them. Thank you all for your prayers in the past.
1/20 – MkY sent an update on his wife Judy, who was diagnosed with Stage IV renal cancer last January. Despite being unable to receive her cancer drugs for 3 months while her port infection healed up, the tumors did not grow and she is feeling strong. Thanks so much for all the prayers! Last week, MkY was diagnosed with fluid on the brain. They operated the same day. They drilled two holes in his skull, inserted tubes, and had him lay flat on his back for 2 days. MkY thanks God for the modern miracles of medicine. He needs to heal quickly since he operates a small business. So far, no complications.
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's a $480 CPU, a $300 motherboard, and memory that did cost around $100 but suddenly finds itself at $440. And a $125 mouse that isn't worth $125 or it wouldn't be included for free.
It's only slightly faster, but it's only slightly more expensive. If you were planning on a 9800X3D build - or upgrading an existing system that already has DDR5 RAM - it's not a compelling option but not an awful one either.
These are expected to have twice the number of CPU cores of any recent consumer models - up to 16 performance cores and 32 efficiency cores, plus 4 low-power cores. Which is rather a lot.
For nearly forty years, the company has also made electrostatic chucks used to hold silicon wafers in place during manufacturing - one of many afterthought components that has seen a sudden surge in demand:
Interestingly, the source name checked a few other unlikely Japanese companies that are benefitting from the AI boom. An MSG seasoning maker also makes chip-insulating films, for example. Meanwhile, cosmetics brand Kao's expertise in facial cleansers has an unexpected twin: the company also makes cleaning agents for semiconductor wafers.
I hope those of you impacted by the storm are keeping warm and safe. I've got gas, kerosene, propane, generators, oil lamps, firewood and winter clothing, so we should be snug and warm here, even if the rest of Texas loses it's mind. In the meantime, here's a little advice:
This is one guy's multi-year project. The theme is that it is floor 796 of a space station, but it's got more meme, pop culture, anime, you name it, references than anything I've ever seen.
"It's my wedding night. Mind if I use our vagina?"
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by my new cat. He followed me home one day when I was out for my daily walk, almost a mile, so, well, he's mine. Vet says he's about 4 ½ months old and healthy. His name is Tomato
Pit bull used for dog fights, then abandoned by a dumpster, is rescued and turns out to be a loving boy.
Similarly, a pittie puppie was literally thrown into a dumpster (while still in its kennel, so it couldn't escape). I'm sure that we all have So Much to Learn from the Solid Citizen who did that.
Trans-crazy baby-influencer "Miss Rachel" -- she makes videos "teaching" little children about how great transgenderism is -- liked an antisemitic comment demanding, "Free America from the Jews."
She later "apologized," claiming it was an accident.
But then when a Hamas-linked account wrote that the Jews left that antisemitic "Free America from Jews" comment themselves, Miss Rachel affirmed that comment, writing "ooooooohhh."
Like, "oooooooohhh, nice catch, you caught those tricky Jews!"
She's very apologetic, though. These are all just little accidents.
Ooops!
Ooopsie!
Variety ran a " " " story " " " consisting of five liberals whining that Bari Weiss doesn't acknowledge that they, her inferiors, should treat them as her superiors.
Jennifer Sey has some thoughts about the bottom bitches of any company who are quite certain they know better than the boss:
Jennifer Sey
@JenniferSey
When I became the Chief Marketing Officer at Levi's, at about 2 months in, I had some mid-level know it all come into my office to tell me everyone hated me, I was steering the ship into oblivion. She told me everyone knew I was doing a terrible job. (The brand had been in decline for over 10 years.)
What I had done in my first two months:
1) Say no one could go on trips anymore unless they had a role at the photo shoot or event. No more boondoggles.
2) No drinking at events or concerts we were hosting. We were there to work, not party.
2) Say Marketing needed to feature actual product in the ads.
3) Say we needed to move away from dark and moody and into the realm of fun - because people have fun in jeans.
Awful, right?!
She wanted me to know, she said, she was trying to help. (She put her feet on my desk while saying this.)
Needless to say, this was not a person who was very good at her job. And I wasn't doing mine to be liked so I didn't care if "everybody hated me". I was trying to turn a business around that had been flailing. I took the responsibility seriously.
Six years later, we had a very successful IPO.
2 years after that I became the brand president.
These people complaining about new leadership are lame. They always do it. They want it how it was, even if how it was wasn't working. And it's even lamer that @Variety writes about this like it's news.
She is a farm vehicle. I don't really know what that means but she is very heavy.
Died Suddenly
@DiedSuddenly_
A Pakistani doctor was arrested in Virginia for performing c-sections and hysterectomies on unsuspecting American women when they were most vulnerable.
He would wait for them to be under the influence of labor medication and sterilize them after delivery of their babies.
The hospital reportedly ignored red flags for years, overlooking concerns and reports because he generated over 18 million dollars in revenue for the hospital.
If you are an American, think twice about hiring a foreign doctors from countries that hate us.
Inez Stepman responding to "Conserving Conservatism" Bill Kristol's claim that he has known many men who successfully transformed into women:
Inez Stepman
@InezFeltscher
The trajectory of the "conservative condemning the right" is basically the same one trod by porn actresses. The first time you open your kimono is the most valuable, and thereafter you find yourself doing increasingly humiliating and degrading acts just to stay relevant.
BTW I do believe that Bill Kristol has frequent interactions with men in dresses.
This Person Place or Thing has a dream: He wants to be the first tranny to receive a womb transplant, so that he can then have an embryo implanted, and then abort it.
I have no idea why the public has turned on these nasty psychotics. None at all.
«Quiero ser la primera "mujer trans" [aka, un hombre] en recibir un trasplante de útero para ser la primera "mujer trans" [aka: un hombre] en abortar». Nuestras vidas, sus delirios. pic.twitter.com/XV4nqaU2t4
— Contra El Borrado de las Mujeres (@ContraBorrado) January 21, 2026
I've lived in 5 states, visited several more. Been around plenty of white people.
The number of negative racial incidents I've had in decades I could count with one hand.
Since 2021, I've lost count as to how many times a white leftist has called me a coon, nigger, house nigger https://t.co/qhwASym4vU
— Adam B. Coleman, Proud Father & Imperfect Man (@wrong_speak) January 21, 2026
Civil War Watch:
Detectives' Endowment Association
@NYCPDDEA
Last week, two NYPD Detectives were mistreated while seeking medical attention at NYU Langone -- Cobble Hill Emergency Room after being injured on duty during the arrest of a violent perpetrator. Upon arrival, they were met with rudeness, disrespect, and a lack of basic professional courtesy by hospital administrators.
It is an outrage that any NYPD Detective injured in the line of duty should have to worry about being treated at any hospital in the city they protect. As nurses across the city strike over issues like workplace safety, treating Detectives poorly is not how to make hospitals safer.
No one--especially Detectives injured in the line of duty--should face such treatment. The DEA is investigating this matter and will pursue all available remedies to ensure our members are treated with the dignity and respect they have earned.
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino
@VickieforNYC
Let's be clear about this -- hospital staff refused to treat plainclothes NYPD detectives injured in the line of duty. Not only that, these officers were treated with contempt completely outside ethical bounds for medical personnel.
From what I understand, staff supposedly did this because they thought the NYPD officers might have been 'ICE agents' as if that is a valid excuse to refuse a patient.
Let's be very clear about something -- when doctors and nurses and medical staff begin to refuse critical care over perceived political differences, we will have reached a breaking point in this country.
If this behavior is allowed to continue, and is not met with swift condemnation and consequences by the mayor and government leadership of New York as well as medical licensing boards and the professional community at large, trust in the medical profession will be shattered beyond repair.
Even during wartime, doctors and nurses were bound to treat the wounded of both sides. And they could be trusted to provide competent and compassionate care no matter who they were treating. It was, in fact, a badge of honor for the profession.
If the medical profession has now abandoned that basic morality, and patients now have to worry about being refused treatment -- or worse -- because of political hostility from their own countrymen, then a rubicon has truly been crossed and there isn't much else to say.
This is a disgrace, it is unacceptable, and it is indicative of the profound moral rot that progressive activism has brought into every corner of our civics.
The left is taking us down a very dark path indeed.
"Congratulations on the tennis win. Now, could you please say the politics things I want to hear?"
"No."
"To clarify, I'm obsessed with my weird little strand of politics, and I'd like you to say words I like."
I think men should be tested for estrogen and if they have too much, like this pussy, they should be drafted into a special military unit. In war, they will be projectiles.
Microplastics: The Invisible Killers Or, You Know, Maybe Not
—Ace
The great microplastics panic: Was it all just 99% bullshit?
I know a lot of you are saying "of course it was, dipshit."
I kinda-sorta bought into it at a low level. Microplastics were claimed to be a potential disruptor of testosterone. I didn't buy into it seriously, but I did buy steel straws instead of plastic ones. That's a pretty low level of buy-in. I think they cost me six buck.
'A bombshell': doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a 'joke'
High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns "a bombshell".
Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years.
However, micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today's analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked.
The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics.
So, plastics are mostly made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, which are of course the building blocks of living tissue, too. So the "signals" are just indicating that carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen are present, and these high priests of The Science (TM) are saying "Must be plastic!!!"
"Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising" was the shocking headline reporting a widely covered study in February. The analysis, published in a top-tier journal and covered by the Guardian, said there was a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024.
However, by November, the study had been challenged by a group of scientists with the publication of a "Matters arising" letter in the journal. In the formal, diplomatic language of scientific publishing, the scientists said: "The study as reported appears to face methodological challenges, such as limited contamination controls and lack of validation steps, which may affect the reliability of the reported concentrations."
One of the team behind the letter was blunt. "The brain microplastic paper is a joke," said Dr Dusan Materic, at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. "Fat is known to make false-positives for polyethylene. The brain has [approximately] 60% fat." Materic and his colleagues suggested rising obesity levels could be an alternative explanation for the trend reported in the study.
Materić said: "That paper is really bad, and it is very explainable why it is wrong." He thinks there are serious doubts over "more than half of the very high impact papers" reporting microplastics in biological tissue.
...
But the brain study is far from alone in having been challenged. One, which reported that patients with MNPs detected in carotid artery plaques had a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes than patients with no MNPs detected, was subsequently criticised for not testing blank samples taken in the operating room. Blank samples are a way of measuring how much background contamination may be present.
Another study reported MNPs in human testes, "highlighting the pervasive presence of microplastics in the male reproductive system". But other scientists took a different view: "It is our opinion that the analytical approach used is not robust enough to support these claims."
Um, because they are mentally ill and drugged up and no one ever tells them to shut the fuck up and act like adults?
The BBC assures me it's far more complex than that.
"There was definitely a moment of discomfort at the start," says Deena, but she says her visit to a so-called rage room felt very different to what she'd expected.
She didn't feel chaotic or aggressive smashing things up, but instead "surprisingly controlled and a lot more intentional".
"Once I settled into it, it felt like more of a physical release as opposed to an emotional outburst," she told the BBC.
Deena is one of a reportedly growing number of women choosing to pay to hammer and bash old items such as TVs, furniture and crockery whilst kitted out in specialist protective gear.
...
There are still only a small number of venues in the UK where people are handed a baseball bat and let loose. They've been touted as one way to alleviate stress and release pent-up anger.
But what seems surprising is the client base, with some owners saying most of their customers are women.
This surprises you, huh?
So in other words, your initial bigoted assumption is that violent men were employing these "rage rooms" to work out their toxic masculinity, and you were all set to attack them for this frenzied juvenile rage, but now that you are "surprised" to find out that drugged-up mentally-ill women are the primary (read: exclusive) users of rage rooms, it becomes a hip and health trend that everyone should try?
Similarly, Shuka says she didn't feel angry, but wanted to see how it felt to "let loose" and was given a car to smash up whilst listening to a playlist of her favourite songs.
"It was way more satisfying than I expected, there was something weirdly freeing about smashing things and not having to be careful.
"Afterwards I felt like I'd done a workout for my brain as well as my body," she says.
Kate Cutler, the co-owner and founder of a rage room in East Sussex, says it's "getting busier and busier" with female customers.
...
She says some women come in because they've been cheated on or had a difficult break-up and sometimes just because "they have anger coming from nowhere."
Author and psychotherapist Jennifer Cox told Radio 4 Woman's Hour she believes women are "conditioned" to repress feelings of "frustration, anger, aggression and rage".
Not as much conditioned to repress these toxic emotions as they used to be!
Often, she says women, in particular - end up "sandwiched" between the demands of work, parents and small children, and can end up "furious."
Really they should let it out, she says, and thinks spaces like this, which allow women to release their anger can be very helpful.
Again, do you believe they would view this violent, crazed behavior as cute and hip if it were men busting things up?
I guess this is now officially a GAINZZZ thread.
I avoided these for a long time, because I have no GAINZZZ. I let myself go at Thanksgiving and I never stopped letting myself go.
And now I'm going to have to fast just to get back to "overweight."
Does it work? I mean, kind of, yeah. If I have two high protein meals I don't feel very hungry at other times, or feel much of a need to snack. But I haven't been doing it consistently.
How about you? Any GAINZZZ? I didn't ask in the New Years period because promises made during New Years are like promises made three feet from a bed. They tend to be forgotten in the morning.
But now that we're into the New Year, and well away from New Years Day-- any real resolutions to declare?
Leftwing Lunatics Now Pushing Pregnancy Denialism, Claiming That Trump Must Be Faking the Three Recent Pregnancies In His Administration
—Ace
Second Lady (and "jeet," according to Tucker Carlson's friend Nick Fuentes) Usha Vance announced that she's pregnant.
She'll be the first Second Lady to give birth while in office in 150 years.
Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President J.D. Vance, has already made history in a few ways: she's the first person of color to become Second Lady and the youngest Second Lady since the Truman Administration. She may also soon be the first sitting Second Lady in modern history to bear a child in over 150 years.
"We're very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy," the Vice President shared on social media Tuesday. "Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July."
In the message, the Vice President thanked military doctors for "[taking] excellent care of our family" and staff members "who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children."
J.D., 41, and Usha, 40, met at Yale University and married in 2014. They have three kids: Ewan, 8; Vivek, 5; and Mirabel Rose, 4.
Before Usha Vance, the only sitting Second Lady in modern history to give birth was President Ulysses S. Grant's Vice President Schuyler Colfax's wife Ellen, who had a son in 1870; birth records before then are unclear.
The Trump White House extended its congratulatory message to the Vances, and in a post on X, called itself "The most pro-family administration in history!"
Vance, in particular, is an outspoken pro-natalist. He has sounded the alarm on declining birthrates, branded Democrats as "childless cat ladies" and "anti-family and anti-child," and called Americans' lack of desire to have children as a "civilizational crisis."
In May, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that she was pregnant with her second child. This will be the first child born to a sitting press secretary in history.
All of this was too much for leftwing women and their haunted vaginas filled with the ghosts of aborted babies, who decided this must be some kind of conspiracy.
Why, getting pregnant just isn't something women do! (It's what men do!)
This gay extremist claims he can prove that JD Vance and his wife had sex the day Charlie Kirk died. Pushing a Candace-Owens style conspiracy theory that everyone except gay furry psychopath Tyler Robinson was in on the plot.
According to his calculations, the date of conception was on Sept. 10, 2025 and the due date is between July 20th-31st, 2026. This means Usha Vance will be pregnant for 10 1/2 months. pic.twitter.com/sMDiC1WDER
Meet Lexie Lawler, a labor and delivery nurse at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital (@BaptistHealthSF). She says she hopes Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suffers a severe 4th-degree tear during childbirth and has medical complications.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk about insurrection in MN coming to NYC? Trump's Greenland rhetoric was over the top, the Gaza Peace Panel is anything but, Minnesota churchgoers need to step up, and is it possible that if the Persian people toss out the Mullahs they will begin a Muslim reformation?
Long-time Coblogger and commenter "Niedermeyer's Dead Horse" is having significant health issues, and would appreciate the thoughts and prayers of The Horde. If you wish to reach out, use @NiedsG on X/Twitter. [CBD]
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
30m
JUST IN - DOJ investigating Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for conspiracy to impede immigration agents -- CBS
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
This is not my usual HF or contemporary comedy, but a Hallmark movie romance-style, and I wrote it on a dare from the other contributors at the Chicagoboyz blog. we were talking about the expensive uselessness of getting a college degree these days, and how many (especially young men) who skipped the whole college game and went into skilled trades are doing very well, economically - but aren't considered good prospects for marrying by college-graduate women. The culture has to change, we all agreed...and then one of the guys suggested that the culture might have to change to make this acceptable ... and one of the ways to do it was to generate books and movies with that theme. And at that point in the Zoom call, they all looked at me and chanted "doo eet! doo eet!"
