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
Jay Guevara 2025 Jim Sunk New Dawn 2025
Jewells45 2025 Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Illegal immigrants could be given as little as six hours notice before they are deported to a country other than their homeland, according to a new memo.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a top Trump administration lieutenant, issued a directive to agency staff on Wednesday, July 9, outlining the direction of deportations moving forward.
He said migrants could be deported to a 'third country' with as little as six hours notice 'in exigent circumstances' -- so long as the person had been given an opportunity to speak with an attorney.
Generally, an immigrant will be given 24 hours notice before they are sent to a country other than their homeland.
The memo states that migrants could be sent to nations that have pledged not to persecute or torture them 'without the need for further procedures.'
The United States has sent hundreds of migrants to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, while South Sudan recently accepted eight third--country deportees.
These deportees were from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam.
She also ruled that before anyone can even ask about an illegal's status, he must first have a "reasonable suspicion" that he's illegal.
In other words: She's demanding that judges approve all arrests of illegals ahead-of-time.
President Donald Trump's administration suffered a blow on Friday when a federal judge concluded that federal agents had been "unlawfully" arresting suspected illegal migrants in Los Angeles and six surrounding counties.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, imposed two temporary restraining orders banning law enforcement from detaining suspected illegal migrants in the area without reasonable suspicion and insisting those arrested must have access to legal counsel.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek in a statement: "A district judge is undermining the will of the American people."
...
On Friday Judge Frimpong concluded there was "a mountain of evidence" that federal agents had been arresting people solely based on characteristics such as race, employment and accent, which she termed a violation of the Fourth Amendment that prohibits unreasonable seizures by the government.
Referring to some arrests in Los Angeles and the six counties Frimpong said: "The seizures at issue occurred unlawfully."
Two temporary restraining orders were issued by the judge banning federal agents in Los Angeles and surrounding counties from making arrests without reasonable suspicion those detained were in the country illegally, and requiring arrestees to get swift access to lawyers.
BREAKING - Biden-appointed judge, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, has just made a ruling that marks Home Depots, car washes, and other locations where illegals hide as safe havens in LA blocking ICE from making arrests at those locations. pic.twitter.com/zVn9lZHJgl
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) July 10, 2025
As ICE agents face a 700% increase in assaults—including ambushes by armed assailants—@RepJeffries refuses to condemn the violent rhetoric of Radical Left Dems.
"'There needs to be blood' ... How do you respond to that?"
They're cheap for their illegal employers -- but expensive for the taxpayers who are forced to subsidize them.
DataRepublican (small r)
@DataRepublican
According to data from the Center for Immigration Studies (pro-immigrant), many immigrants work for extremely low wages, which are then subsidized by taxpayers through public assistance.
The argument that "someone has to pick your lettuce" is dead; there is no "cheap labor" only corporate subsidies at our taxpayer expense. It might even end up being cheaper for businesses holistically when they are forced to pay actual market wages rather than depending on roundabout benefits.
🔸 54% of immigrant-headed households use at least one major welfare program, compared to 39% of U.S.-born households.
🔸 Non-citizen households (e.g., green card holders and illegal immigrants) show the highest usage at 59%.
🔸 Compared to U.S.-born households, immigrant households show elevated usage in:
- Food assistance programs: 36% vs. 25%
- Medicaid: 37% vs. 25%
- Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): 16% vs. 12%
🔸 Illegal immigrants can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, while children who are illegal immigrants themselves are eligible for school meals and WIC.
🔸 Several states provide Medicaid or SNAP to some illegal immigrants, and millions of undocumented immigrants with work permits (DACA, TPS, asylum applicants) qualify for EITC.
🔸 Removing low-cost programs like school meals and WIC from the analysis still shows 46% of immigrant households vs. 33% of U.S.-born households use at least one remaining major program.
🔸 Workforce participation is high: 83% of immigrant households and 94% of illegal immigrant households have at least one worker.
Tom Homan is tired of the sissyboys:
🚨 JUST IN: Tom Homan DEMOLISHES a heckler interrupting his speech at TPUSA
HOMAN: “This guy doesn't have the balls to be an ICE officer!"
"The ONLY thing that surprises me is that he doesn’t have purple hair and a nose ring"
Surprise! Treasury Department Reports an Unexpected +$27 Billion Surplus in June, Compared to a -$71 Billion Deficit in June 2024 Under "President" Biden
Americans who aren't used to seeing the words "government" and "surplus" in the same sentence are in for a surprise.
The federal government ran at a surplus in June, according to the Treasury Department, meaning money coming in surpassed money going out.
And it was largely money coming in from President Donald Trump's tariffs that made the difference, according to news reports.
According to CNBC, tariffs collected on goods imported into the country for sale totaled $27 billion for the month, up from $23 billion in May, and a whopping 301 percent more than the figure from June 2024, when President Joe Biden was in office.
In that month a year ago, the government ran a $71 billion deficit, CNBC reported.
Completing the turnaround, the June 2025 surplus number compared to a deficit in May of $316 billion, according to CNBC. (The deficit in May 2024 was even higher, $347 billion, Reuters reported at the time.)
According to the Treasury Department report, tariffs, recorded as "Customs duties," were still a small part of the government's revenue.
With the government's largest revenue streams -- including individual and corporate income taxes -- making up $236 billion of the month's revenues, Social Security and retirement taxes combining for $487 billion in government revenue for the month, the $27 billion in tariffs is comparatively small.
But the difference is substantial, since, according to the financial news website Investing.com, analysts "had expected a deficit of $41.5 billion."
As CNBC put it: "Increasing tariff collections are helping shore up the government finances."
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said that tariffs will raise $3 trillion in new revenue over the next decade.
"The bottom line is that President Trump has produced a huge amount of tariff revenue with the tariffs we've seen in the first half of the year," Hassett told ABC News on Sunday. "The Congressional Budget Office has said that tariff revenue over the next 10 years, which will help reduce the deficit and secure our entitlement programs, is $3 trillion. And consumers haven't seen that.
"You know, consumer price index, inflation rate now is the lowest it's been in over a decade. And so what President Trump has always said is that the foreign suppliers, the foreign governments are gonna bear most of the tariffs, it's being visibly seen, and I think that that's probably affecting his negotiating position, because we've got all this empirical evidence that his position has been proven correct in the data."
The last time the government generated a monthly surplus was back in 2017, Trump's first term.
Let's pay another ten trillion to our "universities."
A recent survey from Intelligent found that "1 in 4 hiring managers say recent grads are unprepared for the workforce" and "1 in 8 managers [are] planning to avoid hiring them in 2025."
The main reasons for this are lack of preparation, a so-so work ethic, and a sense of entitlement among the grads, according to the survey.
"24% of hiring managers believe recent college graduates are unprepared for the workforce, while 33% cite a lack of work ethic, and 29% view them as entitled," the survey found.
"Additionally, 27% feel recent graduates are easily offended, and 25% say they don't respond well to feedback."
That last part is a killer. It's also why DEI hires/promotions are usually a disaster. Everyone infected with woke is also infected by the comorbidity of believing that all criticism/direction from your boss is a racial or sexual aggression, and that you're perfect the way you are, and that anyone who attempts to instruct you to do the job the right way is a racist who doesn't understand your Different Ways of Knowing.
It's an evil and destructive doctrine -- it's a guarantee against any self-improvement at any point in your future. It's a talisman that protects you from excellence and achievement.
And they've all got it.
The survey results appear to mirror a trend found in recent headlines. A "2025 college graduate job market" search conducted by The College Fix produced the following headlines:
"Class of 2025 College Grads Face Uncertain Job Market"
"Job Market is Getting Tougher for College Graduates"
"New Grads Struggling to Find Work in Job Market
"No Hire, No Fire: The Worst Market for Grads in Years"
...
He suggested grads tout their "skills and talent, not just a GPA" to "share what [they] are doing to continuously make [themselves] better."
Maybe they have to show something other than GPA because all employers now know that colleges give everyone, even people who don't ever come to class, A's and B's with a skew towards the A's.
On Sunday, the National Education Association -- which represents over 3 million teachers and school personnel -- passed a resolution at its annual conference pledging to combat what it labeled "Trump's embrace of fascism." The problem? The resolution repeatedly spelled the word "fascism" as "facism."
The resolution read in part: "NEA pledges to defend democracy against Trump's embrace of facism [sic] by using the term facism [sic] in NEA materials to correctly characterize Donald Trump's program and actions." It went on to claim that opposing Trump was essential for "the survival of civilization itself" and demanded additional staff and funding -- to the tune of $3,500 -- to carry out the initiative.
The misspelling, however, quickly overshadowed the message.
Corey A. DeAngelis, a conservative education expert, blasted the NEA in an X post and follow-up opinion piece. "Yes, the union that claims to represent educators couldn't even spell 'fascism' correctly in its official resolution attacking the president," he wrote. "The irony is almost too rich to parody."
The word "elite" seems wildly misplaced in that sentence.
The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college--even at highly selective, elite colleges--prepared to read books.
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
"My jaw dropped," Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It's not that they don't want to do the reading. It's that they don't know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.
...
Twenty years ago, Dames's classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It's not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.
No comprehensive data exist on this trend, but the majority of the 33 professors I spoke with relayed similar experiences. Many had discussed the change at faculty meetings and in conversations with fellow instructors. Anthony Grafton, a Princeton historian, said his students arrive on campus with a narrower vocabulary and less understanding of language than they used to have. There are always students who "read insightfully and easily and write beautifully," he said, "but they are now more exceptions." Jack Chen, a Chinese-literature professor at the University of Virginia, finds his students "shutting down" when confronted with ideas they don't understand; they're less able to persist through a challenging text than they used to be. Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown's English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet.
Failing to complete a 14-line poem without succumbing to distraction suggests one familiar explanation for the decline in reading aptitude: smartphones. Teenagers are constantly tempted by their devices, which inhibits their preparation for the rigors of college coursework--then they get to college, and the distractions keep flowing. "It's changed expectations about what's worthy of attention," Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. "Being bored has become unnatural." Reading books, even for pleasure, can't compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn't read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped.
This UConn student is completely illiterate, by her own admission.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Biden said that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term, calling President Trump and other Republicans "liars" for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorization.
"I made every decision," Mr. Biden said in a phone interview on Thursday, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because "we're talking about a whole lot of people."
...
Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.
Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.
“Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons…Rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version thru the autopen, which they saw as…routine”https://t.co/TwhbvujB6cpic.twitter.com/4OHRSl93or
So the guy in charge of Covid censorship to cover up the crimes of Covid criminals then personally pardoned the top Covid criminal so that criminal couldn’t be charged with the crimes he originally censored you from talking about. https://t.co/LPfdLit90D
IOW, they showed him the parameters... he gazed at them without comprehension and they ran with it. cc: @AceofSpadesHQ This is worse than Woodrow F. Wilson's stroke. https://t.co/MmMcSWCLPL
I am begging the New York Times and the rest of the media to, for one brief moment, consider the possibility that a Democratic elected official could be not telling them the truth. pic.twitter.com/6j5HUfPaXR
THE MORNING RANT: Forsaking Further Conservative Victories Because of “Epstein Disappointment” is not Principled, It’s Surrender
—Buck Throckmorton
Count me among the people who would very much like to see justice come to everyone who committed a crime in their association with Jeffrey Epstein. If there are any lists, files, documents, etc. that would incriminate the powerful and politically connected, I want them released. But I also fear that whatever evidence existed has likely been destroyed, and that the lore regarding “Epstein Island” may exceed the actual crimes.
That said, I refuse to join in with those seeking to blow up the Trump administration out of frustration that an “Epstein list” is not being released.
Dating back to President Obama’s weaponization of government against his political enemies, I despair about the lack of accountability and consequences for those who so egregiously violated the public’s trust. From Lois Lerner to Anthony Fauci to the government employees pushing the Russia collusion hoax in an effort to overthrow Trump in his first term, I am extremely frustrated about the lack of accountability. I want prosecutions. But I also still want political victories wherever I can get them, and my frustration about the lack of prosecutions does not mean we should suspend the MAGA agenda. The same sentiment applies to the Epstein situation.
Quite simply, be it Fauci or Epstein, I want these people prosecuted for their crimes. But irrespective of them being prosecuted or not, I still want my political priorities advanced.
As I documented here a few days ago, the One Big Beautiful Bill that was just signed into law kneecapped green energy and has effectively defunded the “EV Transition.” The first six months of Trump 47’s presidency has seen the most dramatic rollback of big-government in my lifetime, and President Trump is also vigorously fighting the culture war too.
This all correlates very closely to something I just wrote about at The Blaze. For decades, the phony “budget hawks” of the Republican establishment (e.g. Paul Ryan and his ilk) used “the deficit crisis” as an excuse to spike the conservative agenda. The gimmick was that nothing that America-first/cultural conservatives sought could be pursued legislatively until the budget crisis was fixed. But they also ensured that no fixes could be made, because the first cut they talked about was always to social security and Medicare, not cutting the low hanging fruit that Doge just tackled. Paul Ryan and his fellow establishmentarians never did anything to actually cut government, they just served to protect the swamp by having us feel we were projecting great principles while actually surrendering to the establishment. The “conservative” opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill tried to exploit our principles the same way. They failed. Conservatism advanced and government is being rolled back.
In summary, we cannot let frustration about Epstein cause us to stop the momentum of President Trump.
Too many conservatives have fallen for the “budget hawk hoax” for far too long, accepting that we cannot have any conservative victories so long as we have a national debt. Perhaps that day has finally ended. Yes, our country’s fiscal crisis is real, and it will persist. But forsaking any victories over the left because of the deficit is not a matter of high principle. It’s simply surrender.
My latest at The Blaze: "Budget hawks" have killed conservative legislation for decades, arguing that no conservative gains of any kind can pass Congress until the deficit is fixed. It's all a con job, but Republicans didn't fall for the hoax this time.https://t.co/0e19WV3tqm
Why three? Because I had to look at it, and I am a big believer in sharing the pain. This was in the modern art gallery of the Tate Britain, which is an otherwise wonderful museum, filled with great British art. For some unfathomable reason, they feel that this sort of stuff deserves to be seen.
They are wrong.
This is the blurb about it.
In Inferno, two walnuts and a cigar become makeshift genitalia. The warm lightbulb glowing in the bowl suggests a fiery underworld. The toilet is an intimate place and a regular subject for Sarah Lucas. Throughout her work, everyday objects are playfully transformed to expose the mischievous, destructive and vulnerable parts of life. Humour is central to her work, often creating a sense of unease. Lucas says, ‘When humour happens, things get good. Less depressing. It's a kind of magic. Suddenly things make sense.’
Sarah should probably expand her horizons past the bathroom.
Video posted to Facebook appears to show a woman plow through anti-ICE protesters Saturday in New Jersey, injuring three, and is now facing charges, according to police. The videos shows a gray SUV slowly approach a crowd of protesters marching against ICE raids when a one protester approaches the driver. The woman behind the wheel, Linda Roglen, then begins to proceed and the protester falls to the ground while others gather around to stop the car. Roglen then rolls up her window and drive through the crowd and leaves the scene. (RELATED: Los Angeles ICE Riots Cost City $20 Million — And Counting)
Roglen has been charged with careless driving, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident and four counts of assault with a car resulting in bodily injury, according to the New York Post. Several protesters suffered injuries and one was taken to the hospital, News 12 reported.
The protest was organized by a group called “United Against Fear,” according to the New York Post. Several witnesses described the scene, with one man saying “I don’t know what they said, but they just say something to each other and he spits in her face.” “I was scared though, honestly, like for those people. Because you never know, man. Something like that, you could die. That’s scary,” the man added. . . It is unclear if the man who allegedly spit on Roglen will face charges.
Across the political left, from orthodox Democrats to Antifa in the streets, the opposition to President Donald Trump has lost its collective mind.
there is the so-called “left-wing Resistance” and the street mobs’ descent into violence and terrorism.
Sometimes, thugs ambush ICE agents.
Sometimes, they firebomb Tesla dealerships.
Sometimes, they attack federal buildings, shut down freeways and pelt patrol cars with concrete. They continue with impunity because they know the Democrat Party cannot and will not censure them. . .
Finally, the left is outraged that so far, the Trump counterrevolution is working. . .
. . . Add it all up, and the impotent left in all its orthodox and street manifestations has become unhinged. And why not when it rightly fears that not just its power, but the very sources of its power, are in mortal danger?
From my perspective, it's not so much that the polices of the Trump counterrevolution are working, and so far they are firing on all cylinders. It's that their success underscores and puts a gigantic spotlight on the decades of abject failure and disaster of Leftist/progressive/socialist/Democrat policies. To me that is the mortal danger and existential threat to Democrat power and influence going forward. This is the golden moment of opportunity that potentially marks the sea change in the culture going forward that puts America on the path to restoration. And erasing the "long march through the institutions" that got us to the brink of destruction.
This is why we are seeing the ugly naked violence against ICE and the cops as well as the gleeful mockery of Christian children swept away and drowned in torrential flooding in Texas. Rejection is a hell of a thing to deal with, especially among those who view themselves as the absolute moral authority of this nation, and who view those who have rejected them – that is all of us! – as evil and an existential threat not only to them but to democracy, the human race and even the planet itself.
Two years after BLM rioters picked up $6 million in damages because the police officers trying to stop their rampage didn’t wear face masks, Democrats are trying to ban law enforcement from wearing face masks. California state senators are introducing a bill to make local, state and federal law enforcement personnel, especially ICE, wearing face masks into a crime.
In two years, the Left has gone from demanding face masks to trying to outlaw them. . . The real purpose of masks at public events is to conceal the wearer’s identity and to intimidate the public. That is why rioters and Hamas supporters wear them. Especially while committing crimes. ICE personnel wear masks because of a rise in doxxing and attacks against them. The Left is trying to ban masks now to enable the stalking and threats aimed at ICE employees.
Masks are another form of power. And the Left seeks to preserve any and all forms of power as its exclusive privilege under the pretext of various forms of victimhood and identity politics. When the Left set out to protect mask wearing by rioters, it claimed that regulations, first imposed to fight the KKK, banning mask wearing in public discriminated against the disabled.
Only last year, the pro-crime activists at the Marshall Project claimed that antisemitic rioters should be able to wear masks to protect their privacy against the police and Jewish groups. The pro-crime organization cited the example of the participants in the Boston Tea Party. But while rioters and terrorist supporters deserve the right to be protected from “harassment”, law enforcement officers putting their lives on the line to stop gangs, terrorists and cartels don’t.
It’s been one year since President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, missed Trump’s head by an inch—a bullet grazed his ear while he was speaking at a campaign rally. It could have been much worse.
Though Trump obviously survived, the attack did result in the death of 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured rally attendees.
It’s strange that we still know so little about Crooks, his motives and what exactly happened July 13, 2024. Conspiracies swirled in the immediate aftermath about whether Crooks was somehow involved in an “inside job” or perhaps coordinating with enemies abroad. Those all resulted in dead ends.
Even now, questions about Crooks still abound: Who was he? Why did he attack Trump? Did he really act alone? What about the Secret Service’s role?
Police in San Antonio arrested a Texas man Thursday night after he allegedly threatened to assassinate President Donald Trump. The alleged threat was made in a Facebook post, where the man reportedly wrote, “I won’t miss.” San Antonio police officers arrested 52-year-old Robert Herrera for threatening to assassinate President Trump via a Facebook post. The threat happened three days before the first anniversary of the attack that nearly took the then-presidential candidate’s life.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Moral hazards are easy to understand on a personal level but, when it comes to encouraging “the government” to give “free” money to an erstwhile “good cause,” virtue signaling easily trumps a cost/benefit analysis. Killing With Kindness: The Dangers of Moral Hazards
The videos shows a gray SUV slowly approach a crowd of protesters marching against ICE raids when a one protester approaches the driver. The woman behind the wheel, Linda Roglen, then begins to proceed and the protester falls to the ground while others gather around to stop the car. Roglen then rolls up her window and drive through the crowd and leaves the scene. (RELATED: Los Angeles ICE Riots Cost City $20 Million — And Counting) Video Appears To Show New Jersey Woman Plow Through Anti-ICE Protesters, Injuring 3, Police Say
“The reality is when they come for one of us, they’re eventually going to come for all of us,” she told a town hall outside of Nashville on Saturday, reported the Daily Wire. “We’re seeing people be abducted and sent to dungeons in foreign countries and people disappearing with no accounting for where they’ve gone.” (death-)Squad’s Bro-Fo Omar Claims U.S. Sending Migrants to ‘Dungeons’\9
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
But then a letter discovered in Boelter’s abandoned vehicle changed everything. In a rambling, incoherent page-and-a-half screed, Boelter claimed he was acting under supposed orders from Democrat Gov. Tim Walz—and that assassinating Sen. Amy Klobuchar was somehow necessary to clear the path for Walz to run for the U.S. Senate. Almost overnight, the story was memory-holed. The media dropped it like a hot rock. Why Is the Minnesota Shooter Saying Tim Walz Will Cover Up His Real Motive?
. . .“When you are adding up, all the people gained and all the people who lost the the net increase in jobs is going to Americans. Whereas in, during the Biden administration, you had fewer Americans being employed every month and more foreigners being employed. So the net gain was all going to foreign to foreign workers, to migrants of some sort or another. Now it’s going to Americans.” Winning: Jobs Gains Going to Native Born Americans, Wage Gains Outpacing Inflation
Mamdani’s scheme is a concoction of misunderstood economic premises and reckless policy prescriptions. It is an enduring fact of history that state-owned businesses rarely perform as well as politicians promise. And although the insurgent Democrat nominee has identified an obvious problem facing the city, he doesn’t understand its true causes. Government-Run Grocery Stores Won’t Lower Prices
The move suggests the America First leader will use the commission’s authority over government buildings—including the Federal Reserve’s headquarters—to fuel a negative media campaign against Powell, who has overseen a lavish renovation of the central bank’s offices that has far exceeded its approved budget. However, should the National Capital Planning Commission uncover evidence of serious malfeasance or ethical lapses on Powell’s part, it could lay the groundwork for President Trump to fire the Federal Reserve chairman outright. Trump Names Loyalists to Planning Board in Fascinating Anti-Jerome Powell Play.
ISRAEL AND USA vs IRAN
Living dangerously inside the Islamic Republic. On IDF Commandos in Iran (I hope they're still operating and in force - jjs)
A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to reject the plea agreements that would have barred 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and two co-defendants from being sentenced to capital punishment in exchange for the three pleading guilty to their crimes. The plea deals were initially negotiated between the former Biden government’s military prosecutors and defense attorneys for the three terrorists in August 2024. Court REJECTS Plea Deal for 9/11 Mastermind, Two Accomplices.
Farage said, “However bad we thought the grooming gang scandal was, it just got worse.” He also stated on X that “South Yorkshire Police have failed yet again in their duty to protect children.” Farage: The ‘Grooming Gangs’ Scandal Is Getting Even Worse.
As AI grows more lifelike, we’re not just using machines—we’re bonding with them, choosing frictionless intimacy over the messy, meaningful demands of human connection. Why AI’s Siren Song Is So Hard To Resist
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS AFTERMATH
Police in San Antonio arrested a Texas man Thursday night after he allegedly threatened to assassinate President Donald Trump. The alleged threat was made in a Facebook post, where the man reportedly wrote, “I won’t miss.” ‘I Won’t Miss,’ Texas Man Wrote in Alleged Threat to Assassinate Trump
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered to establish with certainty that bad actors are engaged in serious, widespread weather modification. How Concerned Should We Be About Chemtrails?
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY
In a post on Truth Social, Trump questioned what was “going on” with people “going after” Bondi, adding that she has been “doing a FANTASTIC JOB.” Trump continued to question why people were “giving publicity to Files written by” former President Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others, and asked why the Democrats didn’t release the Epstein Files. Trump Backs Bondi Amid Criticism Over Handling of Epstein Files: ‘Let Pam Bondi Do Her Job’
Our education system feeds them a fantasy version of socialism that makes all things better, a trend that must stop if America is to survive. Why So Many Young Americans Fall for Socialism
Public education promises opportunity but delivers failure, siphoning billions from taxpayers while producing the lowest scores in generations—a swindle hiding in plain sight. Ending the School Grift
John Brennan spent years lying to Congress, the press, and the public—yet now claims he's "clueless" about a DOJ investigation. He’s only clueless about how not to lie. Will John Brennan Ever Tell the Truth?
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
Democrats and their hardline leftist constituencies are disempowered, angry, and growing ever more frustrated. Now is no time for conservatives to split into rival camps. A Strange, Unsettling Time
As the prospect of a broader NATO-Russia war grows, remember what we’ve already lost. War Takes Everything
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
We in the United States have focused so much on American vote fraud in recent years -- and sure, there’s plenty to focus on -- that it’s been easy to forget that vote fraud is actually a global problem. Trump Challenges Brazil
. . . the rumored coup brings attention to one of the most important questions facing this nation: Is the source of America’s problem with China a deep-seated one that transcends individual personalities, or is it all the fault of this one man? Waiting for China’s Gorbachev? Don’t Hold Your Breath.
Albanese met with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining on Sunday, the first in a series of high-level exchanges that will include meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and Chairman Zhao Leji of the National People’s Congress. Leftist Australian PM Albanese Visits China on Trade Mission
Vertical integration—bringing together insurers, care providers, hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics—offers a new model that improves coordination, drives better outcomes, and lowers the cost and burden patients face. Vertical integration in healthcare means better care for patients
The Make America Healthy Again movement is not paying sufficient attention to the problem of serious mental illness. MAHA’s Mental Illness Blind Spot
ACTUAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
Nobody was reported injured in the incident, and the rocket was not carrying any payload. The first launch of a foreign-made rocket from Hokkaido served to test its engine’s capabilities, the report said. First suborbital launch of Taiwan rocket startup fails
As I have noted previously, a real market for pharmaceuticals produced in weightlessness has existed for decades. It appears Varda is now well placed to be the first to make money doing so, using its returnable capsules. Varda raises another $187 million in private investment capital
The OBBBA gives nearly $10 billion dollars towards the Boeing Space Launch System (SLS) and related projects, according to the bill’s text. The SLS had its first launch delayed from 2016 to 2022, putting subsequent launches years behind schedule while running at least $6 billion over budget, according to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Inspector General report from 2023. How Trump’s Megabill Could Stall American Space Exploration
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
Why so many people are captured by unlikely hearsay and anonymously sourced tales of high-level criminal conspiracies rather than meaningful political issues. Beware ‘Ragebait Engagement Farming’
"She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her." . . . Trump questioned Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin about her during an Oval Office meeting months later, asking, “Why in the world would you let Rosie O’Donnell move to Ireland? I think she’s going to lower your happiness levels.” Trump Says He’s Giving ‘Serious’ Thought To Stripping Rosie O’Donnell’s Citizenship
The posts, which have now since been deleted, featured the children’s icon, who is usually known to push positive and apolitical content, saying nasty words about Jews while pushing Qanon conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein. Elmo Goes Full Nazi in Hacked Social Media Posts: ‘Kill All Jews’
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com within an hour of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The cuts were supposed to mostly target middle managers, but an analysis found that just 8% of jobs cut had "manager" in the title, while technicians and engineers were heavily affected.
The Mac Mini doesn't have a standard M.2 slot and isn't directly upgradeable. The Mate Mini adds two M.2 slots and a high-speed Thunderbolt 5 connection.
Basically it works fine and delivers 3GBps on each of the M.2 slots, which is plenty fast enough for most things.
Also you can buy third-party storage upgrades for the current Mac Mini, but they require a second Mac to set up, because fuck you that's why.
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - July 13, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
(Photo and song - courtesy of nurse ratched)
Howdy Hordelings! Hope your Sunday and your weekend have been enjoyable. Thanks for stopping by the ONT tonight. Regulars - please be nice to the lurkers so maybe some will consider joining in the comments.
A couple renovating their new home discovered hidden inside their loft a heartwarming message written by a little girl 35 years ago—on the side of an empty toilet paper roll.
Charlotte England-Black found the touching note, which was concealed in the attic of their property in Nottingham, England, in 1989 when the little girl was moving out.
The 30-year-old moved into the house with her husband five months ago, but only found the hidden time capsule last Friday.
The note was penned by Emma—who was seven years old at the time—as a secret message for the home’s future owners.
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Charlotte immediately wondered where Emma was now—so she reached out on a Facebook community page in a bid to track her down. Amazingly, she was found within the hour.
Hidden time capsule? More like a time crap-sule, amirite??
DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh sh --'
SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.
BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out phillips screw heads.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans.. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.
UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while wearing said clothes.
**SOB TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'Son of a b----' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.*
Check out the link. Some great entries.
Valid question
Not wrong!
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'Ette Couture (Courtesy of Piper)
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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From Heartache to Hope
This week brought heavy news with the loss of friends, family and devastating events in the Texas Hill Country. The heartbreaking images of children who lost their lives cast a somber mood. Only faith can provide strength through such profound grief. President Trump and First Lady Melania visited the affected area, visibly moved by the tragedy.
Melania’s attire during the visit was appropriately subdued. She wore a single-breasted Dolce & Gabbana safari jacket, a simple green t-shirt, green pants of an unknown brand, and Chuck Taylor Low 70s in iron grey.
On July 3, Melania visited the National Children’s Hospital to decorate for Independence Day. She opted for Roger Vivier Ballet Flats in off-white patent leather, paired with a 2019 Gabriela Hearst Mirtha Pintucked Polka-Dot Silk Twill Shirt in ivory and navy. The timeless quality of the shirt proves that well-made clothing can remain stylish years later.
Speaking of timeless, a private Japanese collector purchased Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag for a staggering $10 million, far exceeding the expected six-figure price. It’s safe to say this iconic bag won’t be used for everyday errands.
Elsewhere in the forest, Ivanka Trump was spotted with Wendi Murdoch at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley. Ivanka’s summer-appropriate outfit was chic yet approachable. She wore a Destree Hans cotton dress in white ($620), Margaux Demijane woven ecru leather shoes ($325), a Celine Cabas Phantom medium bag in white ($1,850), and Velvet Canyon’s The Poet sunglasses in black ($249), totaling around $3,000.
Want to recreate Ivanka’s look for less? Here’s a budget-friendly alternative:
Dress- Maeve Mona Linen Shirt Dress (Anthropologie, $188)
Shoes- Sanctuary Gia Woven Mary Jane Ballet Flats (Dillard’s, $65 on sale)
Bag- Valentina Leather Tote (TJ Maxx, $60)
Sunglasses - Quay Aura Pointe 35mm Round Sunglasses (Quay, $75)
Total? $388
For an even more affordable option, shop entirely at Target:
Dress- August Sky ($26)
Shoes- Wild Fable Lorelei Woven Mary Jane Flats with memory foam insole ($35)
Bag- A New Day Work Tote Bag ($35)
Sunglasses- A New Day ($15)
Total? $111
As we move forward from this week’s mix of heartache and hope, we’re reminded to hold tight to faith and love. Melania’s quiet grace and mama-bear heart shone through, while Ivanka’s sunny, chic vibe at Sun Valley gave us fashion inspiration to play with—on a budget, no less! Let’s embrace next week with big energy, bold style, and hearts full of positivity.
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 Vacation Edition Number Dos? As I write this on Friday it's hard to believe our vacation week is almost over, and it will soon be time to return to my rigorous retirement schedule. It's been a good week though, the weather was mostly beachy, and we enjoyed just hanging out in someone else's house at great expense.
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Mas Ayoob and the wedge grip. Any of you guys 'n gals use this style? Is it a part of your fundamentals?
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Smith & Wesson Model 10
Weasel hearts the Model 10.
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Barrel Wear
They do wear out, you know.
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Atomic Effects on Drone Aircraft
Flight through atomic clouds is not recommended. Yes, it's fun, but probably not smart. If everyone flew through an atomic cloud, would you?
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The Bone
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Think You Have It Bad?
Q: Weasel, what was life like in a medieval castle?
A: See below. I wish you guys and gals focused on fundamentals as much as you do on life in medieval castles.
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Our Pal Plutonium
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Highway Patrol!
This week's exciting episode: Father Thief
While in DC over the Fourth, I took Daughter of Diogenes Number One and my son-in-law to dinner at Morton's (a fantastic steakhouse) in Reston. The food was fantastic, the wine excellent, and as always, the company was perfect. It's not often I get to sync up with Team Diogenes and I savor those moments.
Like any good steakhouse, Morton's has a cigar menu. I selected the P.G. (Paul Garmirian) Gourmet Series Churchill. What followed was a reminder that smoking a cigar can often be influenced by where you smoke it, and under what conditions. The cigar itself was a medium strength (although I thought it a bit on the mild side) with a balance of spicey flavors of pepper and cinnamon, mellowed by a background of leather. Together they produced a wonderful tobacco aroma. The cigar was made in the Dom Rep using a variety of fillers with an Ecuadorian wrapper. A smooth smoke, even ash, an easy draw and, as mentioned, the aroma. Wow!!! Which leads me to my point at the start.
Where you smoke is important. I got to DC for the last few days of the 'Heat Dome' and it was hot, humid, and just plain uncomfortable. But these are sometimes ideal conditions for a good cigar. The smoke just seems to linger, to float about and it is like seeing the humidity in the air. I find this really enhances the smoking experience. I was not in a fancy cigar room (I was outside on the deck) but damned if it just felt right, particularly when paired with some Glenmorangie single malt. In short, if you gotta suffer in that kind of weather, do it in a way that makes it worth it.
Price warning; these ain't cheap, but not obscene either so if you want to treat yourself, don't buy any lattes for a few days. It will be worth it and you will thank me later.
(Note: I bought two; one for after dinner and one, as shown, for the golf course.)
(Note 2: Like my hat?)
Excellent, Diogenes! I agree, a good cigar and a balmy location go great together! Thank you!
P.S. LOVE the hat!
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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: Pâté, Sweet Tea, And Cheese Puffs? Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad!
—CBD
That is called Oyakodon, and it's a very simple dish that lots of different food cultures make, or at least their version of it. Some sort of flavored protein (in this case it is chicken simmered in dashi), eggs, onions or some other aromatic, and starch. This is obviously rice, but potatoes or pasta or beans will work.
It's delicious, and one of my favorite simple meals. But as I said, lots of other countries make something like it. America's Hash & Eggs works just fine for me. Eggs in Purgatory (Italy), or Shakshuka (Mediterranean), etc. Hell, I guess Chinese fried rice falls into this category. And Chilaquiles.
Maybe it's just a "whatever leftovers we have goes into the skillet" sort of dish, but I like them all!
[What? Life intrudes? How dare it! The Food ThreadTM will be a little light today, since I have been busy eating and drinking as research for future additions!]
What am I drinking? Burgundies. The entire region let me down a few weeks ago, as a friend who for some perverse and disturbing reason likes Bordeauxs, competed with me and won. The Burgundy I chose was crap. Flat, boring, thin. Thoroughly insipid. His Bordeauxs were simply better. And that really pissed me off, because he won't let me forget it.
So I figured I had to see if they can redeem themselves, and what better way to do that than take a very fast and comfortable train (thank you French taxpayers!) to the heart of the region.
And hopefully I will find good examples of their wines, which are notoriously difficult to make, and painfully expensive sometimes. I won't be drinking DRC wines (four figures is common), but rather the off-the-beaten-path wines that should be wonderful. I hope.
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What am I eating? Oeuf en meurette is definitely on the menu. Eggs poached in red wine, with thick bacon, mushrooms and shallots. Yeah, sounds awful.
And Gougères, which are nothing more than cheese puffs. But that isn't a bad thing!
And I will probably have a lot of Kir, which is white wine with a splash of crème de cassis, or black current liquor, which is a specialty of the region.
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Sweet Tea is weird. There...I said it! There was a discussion in Friday's Art Thread about it, and there didn't seem to be much support for it, which makes perfect sense to me. If I want to eat that much sugar I'll just buy...you know...candy!
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Yes, it is a NY Times link, and for that I apologize. But in my defense it is a solid recipe by one of their most famous food writers. Craig Claiborne knew his stuff, and this is an excellent recipe for Pâté de Campagne. Too many recipes add all sorts of extraneous spices, but the original dish is simple, and Claiborne keeps it that way!
I visited some cooking shops with friends a few weeks ago, and they sold special molds for these sorts of pâtés. Tempting, but ultimately silly for the home cook. Unless you want to make the pâté wrapped in a flaky crust, but that adds complexity to a simple dish. It is mighty tasty though!
See? I am convincing myself to buy one of those baking molds!
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Uh...what?
That is an apparently well-regarded restaurant in a great little neighborhood called "Shepherd Market" in London's Mayfair.
No, I didn't try it. There is a very nice pub a few doors up the street that served a solid Sunday Roast!
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I thought France would have good garlic, but the Frogs seem to have the same problem we have in the U.S. At least they don't import filthy garlic from China. Pork is great here, but no game, so send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shakes their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.
$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
Closed? Sure, even the best shops close. And this is a great butcher, so I guess they are entitled.
But...it's going to be closed for a month. A Month! Not for maintenance. Not for illness in the family.
No. It's their summer vacation!
They sell perhaps the best pork I have ever had, so this isn't a casual observation of the difference in work ethic and cultural views of the work/life balance between America and France.
Flipping a blue state sounds eminently doable in our brave new world of President Trump. He has knocked the Democrat party flat on its corrupt ass with a flurry of executive orders, bills, and foreign policy changes that are designed to remake our economy, culture, and relationship with the rest of the world. The Democrats are scrambling everywhere, and it is a gratifying thing to see!
But the GOPe, or failed Republican Party, or whatever you want to call them is still a powerful force in many states, and their sclerotic vision for America has created significant issues for the Trump Doctrine. And no more so than in NJ, which has a pathetic, useless, feckless, corrupt state Republican apparatus.
The proof is their perennial candidate for governor, Jack Ciattarelli. He ran in 2017 and 2021, and obviously lost both times, the second time in the general election to a pathetic, chinless scumbag Goldman Sachs apparatchik who is the quintessential machine Democrat.
But hope springs eternal in the Garden State! I guess the third time will be the charm.
New Jersey, a state that reliably votes blue in national elections, has long been considered a Democratic stronghold. But the political winds have shifted. The party that once took victory for granted now finds itself in a full-blown panic, pouring cash into a race that should have been an afterthought. The reason? Voters are restless, and the Democratic brand is tarnished.
This isn't just about one election. It's about the growing sense that Democrats are losing their grip on New Jersey. Donald Trump's support in New Jersey has grown with each election, hitting a record 1.9 million votes in 2024.
Sounds great! Except Ciattarelli is a machine politician without a coherent political philosophy other than he wants to be governor. He was an anti-Trumper until he saw which way the wind was blowing, but even then he tried to titrate his responses to keep the image of a maverick. Like when he denied knowing that a "Stop The Steal" rally he headlined was...you know...a "Stop The Steal" rally!
He offers nothing other than the GOPe pablum with a dash of faux-Trump muscularity to keep the base interested. He also has presented nothing substantive to combat the obvious crookedness of NJ elections. And if you dip into his policy statements, you will discover a central planner in disguise.
Can he win? Sure. Will he win? I doubt it. He is a boring politician without a clear message for New Jersey: otherwise known as a typical Republican. He is running against another boring politician, Mikie Sherrill, but she has the massive backing of the Democrat machine that will manufacture votes in whatever way it can to ensure her victory.
Until the Corporate Republican Party recognizes that it is not business as usual, it will continue to lose these sorts of races, because its lack of vision into the sea change that is possible in the United States prevents them from supporting the types of candidates that will be successful in Trump-curious areas.
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 7-13-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (crunchy slaad not included). 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...(are pants a sandwich?)
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?
Last week I showed a pic of my cat Allie resting on one of my books while I was trying to read it. Well, she's not the only kitty who serves as a book critic in my household. My cat Penny seen above also likes to rest her weary head on my books from time to time. I don't know if they like the smell or the feel of books, but they seem to enjoy books as much as I do in their own way. I have had a few issues with my cats trying to scratch my books like a scratching post.
THE DEATH OF SHORT FICTION MAGAZINES
(HT: OrangeEnt)
This is a fairly depressing video for any aspiring author seeking to break out into the short fiction market. Although Jon del Arroz focuses on fantasy and science fiction, I can't imagine that any other short fiction genre is doing any better, as fantasy and science fiction have always been among the most popular genres for short fiction. I grew up reading science fiction anthologies. Now they are mostly dead, though you will see anthologies of republished stories from the greats of science fiction such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, etc. I probably have a dozen copies of some of those stories buried among my anthologies.
I suspect the publishing market is so oversaturated with content due to the rise of independent publishing that it's very, very difficult for aspiring writers to find a significant following. Far too much competition. Social media has also been as much of a bane as it is a blessing. Although you can reach out to like-minded readers on social media, you are also likely to attract those who would tear you down simply because they disagree with you at some level. This is especially true of authors who write stories with a conservative bent.
And now we have AI thrown into the mix, making it possible for people to request mediocre stories on demand. Stories that will keep the masses entertained, but don't have much in the way of substance to provoke deeper contemplation and reflection about the human condition.
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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS + MILESTONE
Before we get to some Moron Recommendations below, I thought I'd point out that we've reached a milestone of sorts when it comes to Moron Recommendations. When I first took over this scruffy little corner of a smart military blog, I thought I'd start collecting Moron Recommendations and posting them on a Libib website so that Morons can search for Recommendations that may be of interest to them. Much easier than trying to scour past threads. Well, I can officially announce that I've collected enough Moron Recommendations to surpass my own collection of fiction within my Libib website.
You all have read A LOT OF BOOKS over the past 3.5 years or so! Seriously, if you can't find a book that interests you among the Moron Recommendations, you simply are not trying. I've found a few authors new to me thanks to you guys, so it does work!
Now back to our usual Moron Recommendations below....KEEP READING!
Read Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom this week (again). It is non-fiction. Much of it would be intuitive to the Horde, but good to fully develop the different philosophies on regulation and the corresponding trade-offs.
One key take away is that true innovation that looks forward typically challenges existing regulation that can only look backwards and is primarily concerned about downside risk. Lots of variations on the "better to ask forgiveness than permission" theme, but that line of logic only goes so far.
Good book read through the lens of AI and digital assets/tokenization.
Posted by: TRex at July 06, 2025 09:43 AM (IQ6Gq)
Comment: I know it's been mentioned around here that the EU seems to have completely lost the spark of innovation that made the Enlightenment possible. The Industrial Revolution was born out of constant innovation. The Digital Revolution also required constant innovation to achieve the technology level we enjoy today. I do wonder sometimes if we are reaching the limits of what is possible under our current understanding of physics. What could possibly be the next incredible breakthrough that will allow humanity to progress to the next level? What human-created barriers are standing in the way? Yeah, governments and regulation are in that mix.
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Last week's discussion about books where we did not like the characters recalls to mind Night Over Water by Ken Follett. A Pan Am clipper seaplane departs England in 1939 just as war is declared, headed for the US. Aboard are a fascist and his family, a runaway wife, a brother and sister fighting for control of dad's company, and a flight engineer whose wife has been kidnapped and will be killed if the plane lands on schedule.
The story is tense and engaging, even though you may hope that several of the passengers don't survive. When the plane makes a fuel stop in Ireland, who should join the passenger list but the husband of the cheating wife, to confront her and her American lover. To make matters worse, the plane then has to fly across the Atlantic through storms, while the engineer is fudging the fuel numbers to comply with the kidnappers.
What this motley group doesn't know is that there is also a German scientist aboard that the Nazis want to hold onto, as well as a mob boss. Everyone is hiding something, or running from it, and the odds are decreasing that anyone will survive. This novel shows that a story can be entertaining even if you dislike every character.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 06, 2025 09:11 AM (uU/gw)
Comment: That's a neat trick about writing an entertaining story where all of the characters are unlikable in some way. Though it's often used for comedic effect on television shows like Seinfeld or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In the story described above, it sounds like everyone involved has secrets within secrets, so the reader wants to see how those are revealed over the course of the adventure even if we don't like the characters. Perhaps knowing the secrets helps us understand how and why the characters developed into the current personas.
After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.
Night's Dawn Trilogy Book 3 - The Naked God by Peter F. Hamilton
I finally finished the third book of Hamilton's epic space opera saga. Humanity is saved! Yay! The possessed who troubled us for so long have been removed from their host bodies and translated into alternate realities or moved beyond the beyond. It was a wild ride while it lasted.
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Where do I even start with this book? For the uninitiated, it's the retelling of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur plus a little extra background material about King Arthur's childhood. The edition I have is the omnibus version released in 1958, which compiles four separate books into a single volume: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind.
"The Sword in the Stone" shows us young Arthur ("the Wart") growing up as Sir Kay's foster-brother under the protection of Sir Ector, Kay's father. His primary tutor is Merlyn, the famous wizard. Here, Merlyn is portrayed as a crazy loon, as he's experiencing events backwards in time. Merlyn transforms Arthur into dozens of animals so that Arthur can see the world through their eyes and gain perspective, which helps shape Arthur's approach to leadership when he gains his throne. It's a light-hearted adventure story about growing up in medieval England (or "Gramarye" as White calls the land). Merlyn really is quite mad in this book. If anything the Disney version of the book toned Merlyn's oddities down instead of exaggerating them for comedic effect. He's a bit like the Genie from Aladdin, always spouting anachronisms because of his cosmic power (that's not confined to an itty-bitty bottle). Fun read.
Things get quite a bit darker in the second part, "The Queen of Air and Darkness." Here we see Arthur begin to gather his Knights of the Round Table. His goal is to become the overlord of Gramarye, but he will need to convince the other petty kings of his right to rule, or conquer them outright. He has deep conversations with Merlyn about Might v. Right when it comes to rulership. The purpose of the Knights of the Round Table to is to use Might in service of Right, i.e., turn strength towards the defeat of those who are unjust, cruel, and evil, rather than inflicting cruelties on those who are too weak to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Queen Morgause is conspiring to use her own cruel magics (she's a witch) to cause Arthur to fall in love with her. She basically rapes Arthur through magic, and from their union will spring Mordred, Arthur's eventual bane.
The third part, "The Ill-Made Knight" focuses on the relationship between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guenever. Anyone familiar with the Arthurian legends recalls that Queen Guenever cheated on King Arthur by falling in love with Sir Lancelot. They both loved Arthur in their own way, though, and never wanted to do him harm. But their passion for each other tended to overcome propriety and they cause a great deal of trouble for King Arthur. Much of this story takes place well into Arthur's reign, and a general peace has settled on most of the kingdom, which poses a new problem for Arthur. What should he do with all of these knights who *need* action or they will fall into their old ways? They see battle and war as a sport, rather than as a deadly contest, because their armor offers incredible protection against injury or death. This is where the Quest for the Holy Grail is born, as Arthur sends his knights out to find the holy relic. Lancelot is among them, but due to his own human failings, he is not permitted to reach the Grail. He is given a glimpse of it, however, and it changes his life forever.
Finally, we come to the fourth tale, "The Candle in the Wind." Here we are nearing the end of Arthur's reign. Mordred has grown up a bitter, vindictive man who hates King Arthur with every fiber of his being. Arthur, you see, once tried to kill Mordred when he was a baby, and ended up inadvertently killing many other babies instead. It's one of Arthur's greatest crimes. Mordred schemes with his half-brother Agravaine to undo Arthur's kingdom by using Arthur's own laws against him. Arthur spent his entire adult life attempting to rule through a civilized code of law instead of through Might makes Right. And now the affair between Lancelot and Guenever will be revealed to the king, forcing Arthur to kill his own wife. Adultery is punishable by death. It's quite a tragic tale. Poor Arthur is trapped by his own desire to change the world.
There are a number of commentaries on political theory between Arthur and Merlyn in this story. Arthur doesn't quite go as far as advocating for democracy (he is the King, after all), but he comes pretty close with his Knights of the Round Table, as he wanted a Round Table so that no one knight (or King) would be elevated above any other knight. He also saw the people he ruled as worthy of individual dignity and respect. He tried to instill this attitude among his knights, who were sworn to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Mordred and Agravaine have an interesting conversation about the merits of communism towards the end of the book. Considering when these books were written (late 1930s and early 1940s), it seems clear that White was trying to work through his own ideas about a benevolent monarchy versus communism.
After reading The Once and Future King, I can now see how much it has affected the fantasy epic landscape. Tad Williams in particular clearly drew heavily from this book for Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, as the backstory of several characters mirrors characters in this book. In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, he liberally draws upon names of characters from The Once and Future King to inspire the names of many characters in his own epic series.
Also, this book could be subtitled It Pays to Increase Your Word Power: The Novel as White uses a lot of terms from medieval hawking, hunting, and heraldry to describe characters in the story. You will learn new words whether you want to or not.
Bobby Dollar Trilogy Book 1 - The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams
Moving on from T. H. White, I decided to go back to urban fantasy. Tad Williams' The Dirty Streets of Heaven tells the story of Doloriel (a.k.a. "Bobby Dollar"), an angelic advocate whose job is to argue for the souls of the recently dead that they should go to heaven instead of hell. He is assigned to the San Francisco region. During one of his "calls" he discovers that the soul of the deceased is nowhere to be found. It just vanished. Both heaven and hell are freaking out about this because this should *never* happen. Now Bobby Dollar is trapped between agents of hell that want to tear him to pieces because they think he knows more than he does and the forces of heaven that may have their own agenda. It's quite short for a Tad Williams book (only 400 pages).
Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.
Sadly, Huggy Squirrel's The Needle in the Nut never found a publisher.
Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Which is a better foundation for government? A young lad drawing a sword from a stone? Or a watery tart lobbing a scimitar at you?
For certain values of "new". It is based around an existing hardware emulator kit and a very slightly modified version of the original case. Or more than slightly modified if you choose the translucent RGB Starlight or Founders Edition models.
It's been updated just a little, of course. The original user port is gone, replaced with a selection of HDMI, Ethernet, and USB ports. The RAM capacity has been increased slightly, from 64K to 128MB. And the CPU is a FPGA emulating the original 6510 (a modified 6502) in hardware, apparently at around 168MHz.
It also includes two ZIF sockets for optional SID audio chips, though those are only required for purists since the FPGA is quite happy to emulate those as well.
Apart from that, though, any original hardware that is still operational should simply plug in and work.
And it comes with a 64GB USB drive full of software and demos, the equivalent of about half a million floppy disks.
Priced at $299 for the basic beige model and $349 for the Starlight version.
It features a 7" 1080p 144Hz OLED main screen, and a choice of a a secondary 4.5" screen or a full (but certainly not full-size) keyboard, plus the usual set of game pads.
And up to a 12-core Ryzen 370 CPU, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage, because this is not a toy for children.
Starting at $799 it is very much a toy for adults.
Only unfortunate thing is they didn't manage to work some magic that would let you somehow swap between the second screen and the physical keyboard. That would have been neat.
Saturday Night "Club ONT" July 12, 2025 [The 3 Ds]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. We have been expecting you - everyone breaks eventually. Pull up a chair and grab some peanuts and pretzels.
A man walks into a bar, then goes to the bathroom. He comes out, goes to the bartender. He says, “You’ve got a great place, but my buddy was here last night, and he said you have golden urinals. Where are they?”
The bartender turns to the band and yells, “Frank, I’ve got a lead on the guy who ruined your sax!”
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One evening after the honeymoon, Bob was working on his Harley in the garage. His new wife was standing there by the bench watching him.
After a long period of silence she finally said, "Honey, I've just been thinking, now that we're married, maybe it's time you quit spending so much of your time out here in the garage. You probably should consider selling your Harley and all that welding equipment; they take up so much of your time. And that gun collection and fishing gear, they just take up so much space. And you know that boat is such an ongoing expense and you hardly use it. I also think you should lose all those stupid model airplanes and your home brewing equipment. And what's the use of that vintage hot rod sports car?"
Bob got a horrified look on his face.
She noticed and said, "Darling, what's wrong?”
He replied, "You were starting to sound like my ex-wife.”
"Ex-wife!?" she shouted, "YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE MARRIED BEFORE!”
Ingredients
3 oz. blanco tequila
1 1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
Seltzer (Topo Chico suggested), chilled
Ice
Fresh lime wedge for garnish
Directions
Add ice to glass
Add tequila and juice
Top with seltzer water
Add fresh lime wedge to garnish
Enjoy!
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Club ONT Requests
At the Club, the venom is on tap.
We can do pythons.
Danger Noodles. Floridians pay $25 (a bit more than in town) to participate in the annual python hunt. Let's hope the gators are busy patrolling Alligator Alcatraz.
For 10 glorious days (July 11-20 this year), registered participants can try to catch as many gigantic danger noodles as possible. The person who nabs the most snakes wins $10,000, which might cover your bug spray bill and therapy copay.
Dynamite. Which one of you did this? Definitely a Moron. Cannot quote the whole thing. Very worth the click and read.
"Sir, I pulled you over because I saw something shiny in your car. Did you have your phone in your hand and on?" an officer would ask another driver.
"Goodness no. I'm a law-abiding citizen and I know that's not legal. I was lighting up some unregulated explosives."
"I'm sorry, you did what now?"
"Yeah, I was trying to read this new book. It's something about driving dummies. Anyway, I thought I was lighting up a road flare to give me some light, but turns out that stuff I stole from the construction site was actually dynamite. And just between me you and the fencepost over there, FYI, I would totally avoid that bridge we just drove over if you go back the other way. Long fuse on that dynamite but it's definitely going to go off here in a second."
The Club ONT dance floor has made the earth wobble and speed up! Or there may be other explanations:
Over the past two centuries, humans have quietly nudged the very axis of our planet. As thousands of dams have been built across the world, Earth's poles have tilted by over 1 meter (3 feet). The movement of Earth's poles can be traced to two great waves of dam construction: first in North America and Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then across Asia and East Africa in the latter half of the 20th century.
It's all to do with mass distribution and the planet's moment of inertia. Earth will happily spin like a basketball twirling on a fingertip, but if mass is suddenly added to one region, the rotation starts to wobble.
Faster, faster!
On July 9, 2025, Earth spun a little faster than usual, enough to make the day about 1.3 to 1.6 milliseconds shorter than the standard 24 hours.
That may not sound like much, but it was the shortest day since modern records began. It's not a one-off either. Scientists expect two more short days this summer, on July 22 and Aug. 5, all thanks, in part, to the moon.
Earth doesn't rotate at a perfectly constant speed. While we define a day as 24 hours, in reality, the length of a day can vary slightly from one day to the next due to both internal and external forces acting on the planet.
Over long timescales, Earth's rotation is actually gradually slowing down, largely because of tidal friction from the moon. The moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans, creating tidal bulges that act like a brake. This adds about 2 milliseconds to the length of a day every century.
But over shorter timescales, days to months, Earth's spin can actually speed up and that's what happened on July 9, and will also happen on July 22 and Aug. 5.
AI-generated Psych-rock band The Velvet Sundown didn’t exist two weeks ago, but today they boast over half a million listeners on Spotify and are getting to put out their third album.
The Velvet Sundown is either the hardest-working and most inspired rock group ever, or they are simply playing by different rules. The psych-rock band appeared out of nowhere two weeks ago, but managed to put out to albums and has already announced that the third will be released on Spotify soon. They already boast a respectable 500,000 monthly listeners on the popular music streaming platform and show no signs of slowing down. But the overnight success and record-breaking album release schedule drew attention to the band this week, with many accusing The Velvet Sundown of being an AI-generated gimmick. And, truth be told, all the signs point to that being the case.
Club ONT is 100% opposite of an AI experience. We prefer natural stupidity.
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Club ONT Music
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Top 10ish Comments of the Week. Or thereabout...
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Club ONT brought to you by: Country hospitality and fresh scents.
Club ONT disclaims responsibility for injuries sustained from polar-axis wobbles or abnormal earth-spinning speeds. If Club ONT patrons believe that the earth is spinning around them, just lay down and close your eyes. Eventually, the spinning will slow down, stop and your world will re-adjust. We've all been there. By the way, the fridge has been fully stocked with classic Mountain Dew. (None of that diet stuff here.) Help yourself.
Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: The Return of the Living Dead
—Open Blogger
It was another good fortnight-and-a-half at 'casa 'gique, starting with the indie/arty/actorly Everything's Going To Be Great, where a theater kid born into a theater family struggles with convincing people he's heterosexual and ultimately learns he's not the center of the universe, and ending with the taut Persian thriller Tatami, about a Persian judoku who is doing well in a competition, so the Iranian government calls up and tells her to fake an injury—because she might have to go up against an Israeli and they have to boycott Zionists and since they can't, they have to pretend they're not, and, my God, what a bunch of whiny-ass bitches running that country.
We bookended this with two '90s(ish) movies, Shall we Dance? and In The Mood For Love from Japan and China respectively.
And what was between the bookends? The glorious year of 1984(ish). We started with Tsui Hark's Shanghai Blues, went to a double-feature of Return of the Living Dead and Repo Man, then followed up with the 40(ish) anniversary of This Is Spinal Tap.
With the exception of Tap, none of these '80s films are (generally) regarded as classics—more cult classics, than anything. Shanghai Blues strikes me as under-rated: It's a romcom, almost a screwball comedy with a kind of kung-fu sensibility to the physical humor (think a less frenetic, less violent Jackie Chan). It, like the other three movies, has a surprisingly light, almost casual regard for things which would be ponderously heavy today. These films touch lightly on promiscuity, homelessness, pedophilia, assault, sexual assault, dismemberment, PTSD, death—in ways you really can't anymore.
I gots things to say about all of 'em, but tonight, let's just talk about the movie Simon Pegg called "a piss take" on the zombie genre.
Standard first level opponents of an '80s side-scroller fighting game.
George Romero and John Russo had different ideas about how to proceed with their unexpectedly successful flick, Night of the Living Dead. They decided to go their separate ways, distinguishing their products with "...of the Dead" (Romero) and "...of the Living Dead" (Russo). Richard P. Rubinstein (Romero's producer on Dawn of the Dead) actually tried to get the "Living Dead" removed anyway but since Russo had co-written NotLD, the WGA sided with him.
Russo did the novelization of the '68 movie and wrote a follow-up novel called Return of the Living Dead which served as the basis for the first screenplay. He hired Dan O'Bannon (scriptwriter of Alien, Blue Thunder, Total Recall and many more) to write and direct, and O'Bannon rejected the original script for seeming too much like a continuation of Romero's work (the third installation of which would beat this to theaters by about a month in the summer of '85).
So, O'Bannon created a world where Night of the Living Dead had been a documentary—an exposé of an army snafu that had resulted in zombies, and Romero had been forced to make changes to various elements to cover up the truth.
This serves as a springboard for a lot of the movie's comedy.
And this is a funny movie.
Jewel Shepard (Casey) turned down the role of Trash, alleging she'd had enough of being naked. She also alleges that the movie would've gotten an X if she'd done the movie since Linnea Quigley had "nothing much sexual about her". (Quigley got her start in 1978's softcore "Fairy Tales", so Shepherd's opinion was not widely shared.)
Freddie goes to his new job at the UNEEDA Medical Supply company and his supervisor Frank is there to show him the ropes—possibly the dumbest categorization system ever—and Frank gets to talking about how NotLD was a real thing and he knows this because the barrels containing trioxin—the substance that animates the dead—is down in the basement.
The barrel contains the gas and a corpse (later nicknamed "Tarman") and wouldn't you know it, Frank smacks the barrel confidently only to release the gas and animate all the little bits and bobs in the warehouse. Including the pinned butterflies and bisected dogs.
They call their boss Burt for help, and a number of gags ensue where they try to follow the NotLD formula, only to discover it doesn't work. The zombies aren't slow, they aren't dumb, they're just dead—and hungry.
Burt gets the idea of going next door to Resurrection Mortuary and asking Ernie if they can borrow his ovens. (Yes, Burt and Ernie.) They destroy the animated bits and pieces by burning it.
And the ash goes into the air, rain comes down and floods the nearby cemetery with trioxin.
Burt (Clu Gulager), Frank (James Karen), and Freddie (Thom Mathews). Dan O'Bannon wanted Leslie Nielsen for Burt.
Stereotyping
Freddie's friends are hanging out in the cemetery waiting for him (because apparently he always knows where the party is), and they're a melange of '80s stereotypes: Freddie's girlfriend is (inexplicably) a preppy. There's a party girl, a suit guy, a death metal guy, a slutty punk girl, and so on. They're slight exaggerations of the types, perhaps, but in real life, they didn't hang out together, generally.
They're fodder, amusingly. The movie is powered by the three old guys.
Even as fodder, though, they have a more real feeling than most main characters in modern flicks. None of them like the death metal guy, Suicide, who bitches that they only call him when they need a ride. When Trash (slutty punk girl) is throwing herself at him in the cemetery, he throws her off saying "Have some respect for the dead."
This is after expressing her sexual frustration by stripping her clothes off and dancing naked on the tombstone, in an iconic scene for Linnea Quigley.
The tone is much like that of Evil Dead 2 in that it's very comical in parts, and very horrifying in others. There are a lot of subtle gags, too, like an eye chart that reads "Burt is a slave driver and a cheap son of a bitch who's going bald", or the pictures of Eva Braun and Hitler up in Ernie's mortuary. (How did Ernie get so good at running a crematorium oven?)
This is where we learn it hurts to be dead, and only the brains of the living helps.
Legacy and Nostalgia
RotLD is a very entertaining movie even today, but it didn't have much of an impact. The sequel, by Ken Wiederhorn (Meatballs Part II, Shock Waves) is an odd remake of the original, with members of the original cast back in new roles. Brian Yuzna (Society, Re-Animator) directed the third installment, and it has a cult following, but it's completely serious. Grim, even.
Zombies went back to their slow-moving unintelligent selves. I don't think this movie actually introduced the brain-eating-zombie trope but I can't prove it. (I also don't think "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum" was original to Roddy Piper but I can't prove that.) And, for the record, Messiah of Evil had running (well-dressed) undead years earlier.
So it just stands as a good, fun horror comedy.
We saw this, as mentioned, as a double-feature with Repo Man at Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Theater which actually uses a project to project 35mm prints in all their glories (and flaws). Lately, I've been overwhelmed by how much better films look than digital—like, even a trashy older film shot on film creates an effect that is largely absent from digital.
But I didn't think showing them from a print on a projector was such a big deal. It struck me as the same pretentiousness seen in people who insist on playing vinyl records. (I'm not one of those "Nobody can hear the difference" because I wouldn't presume. I'm more "The people who are claiming to hear the different largely aren't.")
Well, color me pretentious, because I felt the projection on these (low-budget, throwaway!) old movies really added something to the viewing experience—scratches and all, because there are scratches on the RotLD print.
The New Beverly also leads with contemporary trailers and ads, which made the whole experience a lot like going to the theater 40 years ago. Down to the guy in front of me in the packed theater being a foot taller and having an enormous head!
I've never been a big nostalgia guy but, wow, what a time machine.
Do You Wanna Party?
In sum, old movies are better. Or they may not be better but they are definitely a safer bet, when you realize how cultural filters work.
But these '80s kids are punks and slackers. I worry for our future.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it came up with rocks.
You might be tempted to say "I'm not really into rocks as a hobby." Tough. Dig around in the content and soak in the comments. You might find that you're really into rocks and didn't know it or you might find reasons to get into rocks. Either way, glad you're here.
[Top photo: Sea Stacks by polynikes (16x20 oil)]
Sea stacks qualify as ocean-based rock formations.
Rocks are fun. Where did they come from? How did they form? Why are they so varied and different? What do they look like inside? How heavy are they? What can they be used for? How far can you throw them? Sounds like a lot of good opportunities for hobbying. Rocks are so much fun that even a Pillaging Idiot could get into them.
Do you collect rocks? Are you an amateur geologist that appreciates rock formations on a hike, in a photograph or as a matter of scientific curiosity? Do you use rocks in your hobbying?
We are going to leave mining for another thread. There is a whole separate theme of mining for gems or gold and corresponding art projects. We'll get there, but not today...
Generally speaking, there are three main types of rocks:
Igneous Rocks: Formed from cooled magma or lava, these rocks are primary evidence of Earth's fiery interior. Examples include granite and basalt.
Sedimentary Rocks: Created from particles of older rocks, as well as plant or animal debris, these rocks are like history books, recording ancient surface conditions. Sandstone and limestone are common types.
Metamorphic Rocks: Born from transformation under pressure and heat, these rocks are the shape-shifters of the geological world. Marble and slate are metamorphic rocks that started as something else but changed under Earth's immense forces.
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What does the start of the southern end of the San Andreas fault look like? What rocks are there? History and geology lesson here.
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This is near Yellowstone - amazing rock formations:
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Utah is a geologist's dream. So much variety and so many places with formations unseen elsewhere. Case in point: we've covered a lot of the state and I've never heard of the White Rocks:
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Anyone into hunting for geodes?
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Asking the difficult questions (beware: there may be math involved):
It all started with an innovative initiative to drill down hundreds of feet to explore the possibility for using the Earth's internal energy to heat and cool the Museum. But when you start drilling deep down into the Earth's crust at a museum full of scientists, the urge to survey and study what's down there becomes irresistible.
Alongside the geothermal drilling project, the Museum conducted a scientific coring initiative to better understand the geology beneath City Park and the larger Denver Basin. The scientific core was drilled nearly 1,000 feet below the surface, passing through layers of gravel and sand deposited by the South Platte River before reaching ancient bedrock from the Late Cretaceous Period. While it wasn't surprising that scientists uncovered fascinating geology all the way down, the scientific core extracted something that surpassed everyone's expectations: a partial dinosaur bone dating back 67.5 million years!
"It's basically like winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day," said Dr. James Hagadorn, curator of geology at the Museum. "No one could have predicted that this little square foot of land where we started drilling would actually contain a dinosaur bone beneath it!"
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Are you wise in the ways of painting rocks? Apparently painting rocks is a thing. Some people just paint rocks for their own enjoyment or for their gardens and others paint rocks and leave them in public for others to find. TRex has a small brain and short arms, so figuring out which rock painting content is Hobby Thread worthy is a challenge. Made a guess but feel free to put other resources in the comments with tinyurls.
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Are you a lurker? Do you enjoy reading Ace of Spades content, but have been reluctant to post and participate in the comments? Have you been waiting for a good opportunity to jump in and say hello? This could be your day. Come on in. The water's fine. We don't bite (usually).
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Horde Hobbying:
Lurker Paul Nowak sent this drawing:
My main hobby has always been art. Drawing. But more specifically, drawing dopey cartoons that have a lot of detail, no "higher meaning," and just basically make fun of stuff.
I don't have the time, money, or interest to attend Art School, or Figure Drawing classes, but that hasn't stopped me.
One of my recent doodles is this parody of DC. It's non-partisan: it's just a silly look at a city that somehow survives despite the fact that its worst enemies are also the majority of its residents and "leadership." Above all, it is a city that defines "bureaucracy."
Size is usually 11" x 17", done on illustration board and inked/colored by hand. The drawings are usually done for someone (or a group) in particular, so lots of inside jokes; that way they don't look too generic.
Total time for writing the jokes, pencils, ink, then color might have been 30-40 hours.
Process: I do what used to be called "tight drawing." You draw the entire thing in pencil, then ink it in; basically, drawing it twice.
TRex comments:
1) Wow. Very impressive. Thanks for sharing!
2) The detail is amazing. It might be difficult to see on the screen but check out these zoomed in parts.
3) I asked Paul to add the watermarks. The piece was so good that it could easily have been saved and repurposed for others without credit or compensation. I also reduced the resolution quality for posting on the thread to protect the piece. It is that good.
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As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. Your participation does not need to limited to the theme. All hobbying is welcome. However, politics, current events and religious debates can live in threads elsewhere. Play nice. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls. Pants, as always, are optional.
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We talked woodworking with lathes. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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What if there really are more ways than one to rock? If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, hijack the thread for your hobbying as you see fit. We will feature a different theme next time. What are you hobbying? We love showing off Horde hobbying. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.
— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) May 6, 2025
Dogs that may keep you out of social situations altogether!
We confine our smaller dog when we open the door to strangers to keep them from trying to snuggle him (he was traumatized as a pup). The larger dog goes to the door with us (usually).
Do you have a dog with whom you take any precautions around people?
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A dog with friends in the neighborhood:
Bro sees older dog done with his walk, lends owner a wagon to help get the dog home pic.twitter.com/yYadfkCv96
From Popular Mechanice, a new cat color from Finland, "Salty Liquorice". They seem to be trying to neuter all the strays they find with the new color. Smart?
Meanwhile, orange cat:
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Meet The PetMorons
I've emailed the thread before about Lily (Sheltie) and Pinky (Silky Terrier). I'm sad to report that Miss Pinky passed on 4/30 and my life hasn't been the same since. She was my adventure buddy, car ride buddy, and morning walk buddy...she was a month shy of 18 years old. My life was better with that tiny little dog in it, and her absence is felt. I miss her terribly - without her to tell me what to do all day, I've been a little lost. Lily, as sweet as she is, didn't seem to care much that Pinks is gone, but she seems glad to get ALL of the hamburger I cook instead of just half.
Attached is a picture of Pinks on my bean bag footstool she took over, taken a day before she lied down and wouldn't get back up.
Thanks for letting me share a bit of Pinks, she is irreplaceable, the most special of special tiny dogs. My heart is broken.
Lurker - Jerake75
So sorry that you have lost Pinky. What a sweetheart. Glad you still have Lily.
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&&&
Good afternoon Pet Morons. Hope all finds you well.
Since my post last week, the chicks are continuing to grow. Chicks C & D have more than doubled their weight and at the weekly weigh in came in at 9 and 8 grams respectively. Chick A & B's eyes have opened, a picture of Chick B attached.
Last week I mentioned what we call the red, yellow and green zones of hatchling development. This is a reflection of the mortality threat for these tiny creatures. See below:
Red Zone Day 0 to Day 2
Yellow Zone Day 3 to day 10
Green Zone Day 11 forward
If you can get them to the Green zone, chances are that they will continue to grow and develop, but there are no guarantees.
Unfortunately there are clouds on the horizon for Chick A. He appears to be developing Splay Legs. That is when the chick can't get its feet under him and they just 'splay' out in front of them. There is a picture attached and it's pretty clear what the problem is when compared to the other image of Chick B. The good news is that there is a treatment protocol for this condition. I'm posting this on Wednesday, 7/9 and have an appointment with our avian vet on Friday. I'll fill you in next week on how that went.
Regards, David
Hope things go well for Chick A.
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Good afternoon Pet Morons. Hope all finds you well.
Since my post last week, the chicks are continuing to grow. Chicks C & D have more than doubled their weight and at the weekly weigh in came in at 9 and 8 grams respectively. Chick A & B's eyes have opened, a picture of Chick B attached.
Jill, the sedate lady on the left, and I recently welcomed Jax, our black Lab (All Labs Matter!) rescue. She’s been seen on the Pet Thread before, most recently as she was preparing for hunting season by watching an Outdoor TV video on pheasants. He’s the new addition. Has been added to our pack with only an occasional snarl. Jill: “Hello … no, I don’t come here often. No, I don’t care what your sign is. No I don’t want to dance. Yes, I have noticed that you have a penis … snarl.”
Our problem has been “fixed,” so to speak and he’s much more pleasant company for my bucket-list Lab, Jill.
My girl has had, since birth, about four or five white hairs on her muzzle. I know it’s stupid, but I want to take a magic marker and black them out so she won’t get older.
Onward, clc
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Found another special photo!
Feral Cuties:
A feral cat and her three kittens (two tuxedos and a grey tabby) have taken up residence beneath my back porch and often join me in lolling in the sun.
And yes, I know my porch desperately needs sanding and repainting. Soon!
Eris
I can see why you like having them around.
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Thank you for sharing your pets with us.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
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I bought a fignomenal fig in fall of 2023--from Amazon! It was pretty tiny but it made through the winter under a grow light. It put out new leaves in the spring of 2024, I sent a picture of the tiny fig. I set it outdoors for the summer and it grew very nicely, maybe a foot tall by the fall. I took it in for the winter, again under a grow light. there it basically grew in place, so to speak. Once I put it outside again this spring it really took off, it's now in a ten inch pot. I'm pretty sure it's basically reached the mature size, it's even got a fig starting on it!
Lirio100
Sounds like a great fig for people where figs may be hard to grow. And yours looks great! An ornamental edible.
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Ah, Nature
Hi KT, glad to have you back! Here's a couple of recent wildlife photos from East Tennessee.
1. Turtle. There used to be a number of turtles at this bridge on my weekend walk; I hadn't seen them in a while, so I was glad when I saw this fellow. He was obviously resting after racing with--
2. Bunneh. It's bunneh season here in east Tennessee, and I've seen lots of them, from the tiniest babies to this fellow here, obviously prepping for the next Turtle-Bunneh match.
3. Bug. A small-eyed sphinx. apparently quite common in the US, this is the first one I've seen. When their wings are fully open you can see the small eyes on the underwing.
Thank you for the Saturday threads!
Great photos! Love them all.
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Puttering
Hi KT,
I happy you're back and I hope you are feeling better. That's tough being ill and in the hospital and I was thinking of you.
Your Saturday am threads are really interesting and I save the page so I can read all of your links.
I thought you might like this for the garden thread?
I cut my lavender and I made a wreath. I've never made one before but I've been wanting to try for a long time. I'm not very artistic but I believe watching someone is easier for me to follow along and execute the project.
I watched a video tutorial on YouTube. I think the second time I make one it'll be a little easier. I kept having to trim the stems. I should have cut the stems shorter for my prep. I also should have pre cut twine.
She used 5 stems per bunch and attached them counter-clockwise to a wreath frame. She started attaching them in an X shape and then filled in bare spots with more bunches of lavender, tying them to the frame with twine and hiding the twine and stems with more bunches.
I needed more lavender, I was about three quarters of the way finished and I realized I needed more and the bees were out so I made do with what I had. As it was there were always two bees buzzing on the wreath as I was tying it but I didn't get stung.
The tutorial lady of course made her own frame out of a branch. I used a 12 inch wreath frame from Amazon, it was about 2 or 3 inches wide and I believe it would have been easer with a single branch frame, not as wide and not as many bunches needed to hide the frame/twine.
CaliGirl
A great project for a beautiful lavender wreath! Thanks for all the details.
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Gardens of The Horde
Katy,
I hope you're doing well. It's a lovely time of year, so I hope you spend a bit of your down time outside.
Attached are various pics I've been accumulating. Use them any time, or not at all!
I think some things are best en masse... azaleas and bridalwreath spirea are two.
Dirr, the guy who wrote the tree ID book most used in schools calls the fringetree the "landscapers Bradford pear". Heh
MkY
Well-placed plants, don't you think? What's in there with the azaleas?
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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Update on Jasmine Ratchet: The DEI Dum-Dumb is eyeing a Senate run, because why should Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke get paid millions every two years to get blown out in the Texas senatorial election? Shouldn't she get some of that sweet sweet Act Blue graft?
Crockett addressed the possibility in an Instagram post where she said she would make a decision "depending on how many people reach out," but that her main focus has been legislating in the House of Representatives.
The post came after a poll from the National Republican Senatorial Committee was published showing that she was leading the pack of candidates with 35 percent in a hypothetical primary and was leading former Senate candidate Colin Allred, who was at 20 percent, per the Latin Times.
The Republican Senatorial Committee claims that she's ahead? LOL, that might be a little troll-poll.
Podcast: Judicial Overreach gets even more ridiculous, Epstein coverup? Elon Musk's new party, Tucker Carlson is an idiot, Fauci is scum, is Trump punishing Putin, and more!
Podcast: The shit sandwich of a spending bill that the Senate wants us to eat, NYC is screwed, the military rebounds, Iran may be stuck in its Mullah nightmare, and much more!
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click, I Can't Believe It's Not Night Ranger Edition If you would just be sensible
You'd find me indispensable
I pray deep down to destiny
That it places you with me
Whoa, wanting you here in the sheets
Wandering around incomplete
Waiting so long
I'm pretty sure I've linked this before but it's a banger.
