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Already Trump is benefitting America. (Now, if we can get Barbra Streisand to leave … or, dare I to hope, Rob Reiner….)

Mattnew Continetti.

Donald Trump’s visit to Washington on Wednesday had all the hallmarks of his first term. There was the cable-news pageantry of Trump Force One’s arrival in and departure from D.C. There was a cordial and reassuring meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and President Biden. There was the reelection of Speaker Mike Johnson within the House GOP and an orderly transfer of leadership to a new generation of Senate Republicans. And there was mounting shock, disbelief, and alarm within the bipartisan political class at Trump’s selections for secretary of defense, director of national intelligence, attorney general, and secretary of health and human services.

Four years of the somnolent, garbled, and often out-of-sight Joe Biden, accompanied by the vacant and aloof Kamala Harris, had dulled the senses. By dawn Thursday, some of us were beginning to recall the unrelenting nature of Trump’s first administration: a near-constant gale of news, hot takes, controversies, scandals, policies, personalities, and surprises. Reporters, commentators, wonks, bureaucrats, and elected officials are left searching for ballast. The situation is unlikely to change in the coming months. Why? Because the Trump whirlwind has returned.

From a comment on a Brett Cooper podcast:

“The red wave hit Kamala so hard FEMA sent her $750.”

Watch it.

Inquiring minds want to know.

I found this interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, this sort of thing is uniquely American. I can’t imagine Europeans or Asians or Africans doing this sort of content for a public video medium; I doubt that it would even occur to them. Secondly, I was impressed by the fact that, even though they went into the tests biased (a bias that they freely admitted), the tests showed results that were contrary to that bias, and they reported it fairly. If one believes all the complaints voiced everywhere about ‘social media’, the chances of that happening would have been negligible. Thirdly, it astonishes me that, in this world, in this country, there are people who are willing to devote so much time and effort to something so unquestionably fringe. I am reluctant to believe that there is a market for this kind of thing, but there obviously is. Fourthly — can you imagine how a garden-variety ‘journalist’ would react to seeing this? THAT would be comedy.

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Trump spends his days in a target-rich environment.

Watch it.

I can’t stop watching this.

Watch part 1.

Watch part 2.

Read it.

Shaquille O’Neal, commonly referred to as “Shaq” is among the greatest NBA players of all time, at least at the center position. During his playing days, Shaq was a force alongside Kobe Bryant, bringing home four championship titles in his 19-year career.

His list of accolades is as long as it is impressive. In addition to these four rings, Shaq was also put on the All-Star team 15 times and won three Finals MVP awards. His career was certainly very profitable, but as is a rarity in the world of professional sports, Shaq has actually made much more money off the court and invested the capital he did earn very well.

Let’s dive into Shaquille O’Neal’s business empire, much of which was built after his retirement in 2011, and what to make of this man’s success.

Read it.

On Sunday, Donald Trump poked fun at Kamala Harris’ dubious claim that she ‘worked at McDonald’s and made fries,’ by going to a McDonald’s and making fries, plus working the drive-thru.

Watch it.

Dr Orion Taraban has many wise things to say. This is his best.

The New Yorker.

The ascent of the cassette caused a major freak-out among record-company executives. Nearly anyone who has ever bought vinyl will be familiar with the cassette-and-crossbones image that was for many years printed on record sleeves, accompanied by the dire warning: “Home taping is killing music.” On both sides of the Atlantic, the recording industry sought, futilely, to make the duplication of music on cassette tapes illegal. Other proposals included a compensatory tax on blank tapes. A member of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers even went so far as to equate cassettes with recreational drug use: “Very soon it becomes a hobby. And after it becomes a hobby, it becomes a habit.” None of those strategies blunted the popularity of the cassette tape. As Masters observes, the “perception that home taping was illegal or at least immoral . . . succeeded in making tapes seem even cooler and more rebellious.”

The cassette rubbed everybody’s nose in the fact that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, merely a government-enforced artificial monopoly that is increasingly more impossible to enforce.

Watch it.

Gabagool, provalone, and vinegar peppers.

No, I don’t know where she finds these. I wish I did.

Bluebird of Bitterness.

? Loft-style apartments in New York City are within the price range of most people whether they’re employed or not.

? Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.

? It’s perfectly possible for a woman to get out of bed in the morning with perfect hair, flawless makeup, and no under-eye bags.

? The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

? Laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.

Read it.

Peer-reviewed study. Abstract:

Donald J. Trump’s presidency broke the mold in many ways, including how to think about judicial appointments. Unlike other recent presidents, Trump was open about how “his” judges could be depended on to rule in particular ways on key issues important to voters he was courting (e.g., on issues such as guns, religion, and abortion). Other factors such as age and personal loyalty to Trump seemed important criteria. With selection criteria such as these, one might expect that Trump would select from a smaller pool of candidates than other presidents. Given the smaller pool and deviation from traditional norms of picking “good” judges, we were curious about how the Trump judges performed on a basic set of measures of judging. One prediction is that Trumpian constraints on judicial selection produced a different set of judges. Specifically, one that would underperform compared to sets of judges appointed by other presidents. Using data on active federal appeals court judges from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023, we examine data on judges across three different measures: opinion production, influence (measured by citations), and independence or what we refer to as “maverick” behavior. Contrary to the prediction of underperformance, Trump judges outperform other judges, with the very top rankings of judges predominantly filled by Trump judges.

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Donald Trump is arguably the most unsuitable candidate of any major western political party in living memory, let alone leader of its most powerful state. Brazenly dishonest at times, fond of extreme and reckless rhetoric and disdainful of most political conventions, he’s also the funniest politician in decades.

The two things are not unconnected. Comedy as an art form has come under a great deal of strain in the past decade, a result of western society’s new moralization. Comedians have increasingly sought to be ethical figures on the right side of a great moral struggle, ignoring the fact that funny people don’t have to be good people; indeed, some of the greatest comedians have been malicious or self-centered.

Trump has the wit of the schoolyard tormentor, an unparalleled ability to find an opponent’s weakness. No one has coined so many unforgiving nicknames, and probably no modern figure has popularized as many phrases in the English language.

Read it.

I was away most of the day today, so posting will be light this evening.

I’ve got a good excuse, though: I was one of the Rebels manning a booth for the Sons of Confederate Veterans at the Heart of Virginia Festival in Farmville. All in all it was a successful day, with pleasant weather, good conversations with the attendees at the festival, and plenty of politically incorrect Confederate merchandise sold.

The SCV had reserved two spaces for the occasion, one for the booth, and one next door for a “living history” tableau featuring uniformed Confederates, muskets, a sword, and other odds and ends of Civil War paraphernalia.

Unlike the last time I did the Heart of Virginia gig, none of the visitors wanted to argue with me about the Confederates being “traitors”. The people who stopped to talk were uniformly pleasant and friendly. Most of them were Confederate sympathizers, of course, but some were just interested in history. A few passersby glared at us, but those were all white women. Interestingly enough, black people didn’t seem to have any issue with our being there. Some stopped to talk to us, and even bought some of the merch. So you never can tell.

Read it.

Commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck’s strategy to expose all the insane woke activism within mega-corporations with large conservative customer bases logged another win today. This comes on the heels of his successful campaign to pressure Tractor Supply into scrapping its diversity, equity, and inclusion program and forcing John Deere to scale back its DEI policies.

Nearly a month after Starbuck launched the anti-woke crusade against iconic motorcycle brand Harley-Davidson in an X post titled “It’s time to expose Harley Davidson,” Harley issued a press release explaining earlier today, “We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community.”

In response to mounting social media backlash and boycotts at the 84th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally earlier this month, Harley succumbed to Starbuck’s pressure by eliminating DEI functions at the company and woke spending goals. This is a victory for Harley riders, as the company now pledges to focus its sponsorships on motorcycling, first responders, active military, and veterans. Also, it said there would be no more woke training for employees.

Check it out.

What were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good questions, but you won’t find them answered here. This is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid recipes. It’s a wonder anyone in the 40s, 50s and 60s gained any weight; it’s a miracle that people didn’t put down their issue of Life magazine with a slight queasy list to their gut, and decide to sup on a nice bowl of shredded wheat and nothing else. It wasn’t that the food was inedible; it was merely dull. Everything was geared for a timid palate fearful of spice. It wasn’t non- nutritious – no, between the limp boiled vegetables, fat-choked meat cylinders and pink-whipped-jello dessert, you were bound to find a few calories that would drag you into the next day. It’s that the pictures are so hideously unappealing.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feed fine — because Costco has an emergency dinner kit, dubbed “the apocalypse bucket” online, that lasts 25 years.

The Readywise Emergency Food Bucket, which boasts 150 freeze-dried and dehydrated meal servings, has caused a stir on social media. With an online price tag of $79.99, the bucket boasts that it’s more than just food in its product description — it says it provides “readiness in the face of uncertainty.”

The bucket features 80 entrees and sides, 30 breakfast servings and 40 drink servings that just need water to prepare, for a total of 25,280 calories. The meal options range from teriyaki rice, tomato basil soup and pasta Alfredo to cheesy macaroni and apple cinnamon cereal.

And, crucially for those preparing for an apocalypse, the bucket lasts up to 25 years on the shelf.

Just in case Biden gets re-elected. In my town, you get 132 servings for $70. That’s a little over five weeks. Where else can you get five weeks of food for $70?

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Nothing says ‘Merica like supermarkets with automated vending machines stocked with ammunition. A select number of supermarkets across Alabama and Oklahoma have these new machines. This means you can leave the store with milk, eggs, and boxes of 9mm and .223 rounds.

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In many ways, Kyle Daniels is your typical Midwestern American. He grew up in a patriotic household, many of his family members joined the military, and his father was very meticulous about flag etiquette — probably more so than your average American.

“Every morning we put it out at sunrise, we’d go out every night after work, bring it in and fold it the right way. It was very ceremonious,” Daniels recently told Military.com. “It was instilled in me very early that this flag represents the freedoms we enjoy today. It’s not just about the Fourth of July, it’s not just about the special days; it’s about every day. And that was something that I held near and dear to my heart.”

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Place names are fascinating. They tell you about history, local characters, the frustrations of the government saying, “Nope, can’t do that, second choice is taken, and you must be grammatically correct in a foreign language.*”

I’ve always wanted to live in a place called Posthole.

Watch it.

This gives me hope for America.

Watch it.

Bind not the mouths of the kine who tread out the grain.

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Scientists may have found the answer to manufacturing plastics products that actually break down without forming into microplastics, or tiny pieces of plastics that could linger for thousands of years.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and materials company Algenesis said they found a way to construct plastic with polyurethane, a “bio-based” polyurethane polymer that could compost and break down in the natural environment, compared to typical petroleum-based plastic polymers, which typically are inaccessible to biological processing, according to a study published in Scientific Reports earlier this year.

Watch it.

I am not making this up.

The New Neo.

Leftovers used to be a chore
Heating them up, a tedious bore.
On a stove in a little pot
And then you’d burn em, like as not.

Then a million years ago
Came microwaves. At first, you know
We tried to cook in them instead.
“This is not so good,” we often said.

But finally the truth got clear
As we all got our acts in gear
And saw that in the acid test
The microwave was at its best

With leftovers. A problem solved.
Just pop ’em in. Don’t be involved
With pots and pans and burnt-on food
No need to fuss, no need to brood.

And we forget that olden day
As though it’s always been this way.
Don’t take for granted the largesse –
The microwave is true progress.

Ars Technica.

If you’ve been wondering when you’ll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420.

Thermonator is a quadruped robot with an ARC flamethrower mounted to its back, fueled by gasoline or napalm. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone.

Me want.

BBC.

In the early 70s, young filmmakers John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon created a spaceship tale for a graduation project – little knowing it would influence Alien and many other works.

Made for $60,000 (£47,581) by film school students, horror maestro John Carpenter’s directorial debut Dark Star is now regarded as a sci-fi cult classic. Having just turned 50 years old, it’s a world away from much of the sci-fi that came before it and would come after, neither space odyssey nor space opera, rather a bleak, downbeat and often absurd portrait of a group of people cooped together in a malfunctioning interstellar tin can. Arguably its most famous scene consists of an existential debate between an astronaut and a sentient bomb.

Dark Star was a collaboration between Carpenter, who directed and scored the film, and Dan O’Bannon, who in addition to co-writing the script, acted as editor, production designer, and visual effects supervisor, as well as playing the volatile, paranoid Sergeant Pinback. They met as budding filmmakers at the University of Southern California. “While [Carpenter and O’Bannon] couldn’t be more dissimilar in personality, they were both very energetic and focused,” says Daniel Griffiths, director of Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star (2010), the definitive documentary about the making of the film.

Home of the only (to my knowledge) SF country music song, “Benson, Arizona”.

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Former President Donald Trump’s high-top sneakers sold out hours after their launch on Saturday.

Only 1,000 pairs of the gold sneakers were available, according to the official website. Trump autographed at least 10 randomly selected pairs.

Called “The Never Surrender High-Top Sneaker,” each pair sold for $399.

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Capping a legal battle that had raged for over a decade, a federal judge in late December handed the Osage Nation a major victory by ordering wind farm developers to dismantle dozens of turbines they had erected on tribal land in northeastern Oklahoma.

Babylon Bee.

Chances are, if you’re reading The Babylon Bee, you’re already on a watch list of some type. But now that the FBI listens in on all of your phone calls, you can at least come up with some creative ways to mess with them.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Watch it.

The Carmelite Monks of Wyoming carve and install the Gothic Portal of their Chapter House.

Apparently these are Carmelite Friars of the great mendicant order, but a local religion community in this particular diocese.

We have the technology.

Check it out.

I haven’t looked at it enough to tell whether this is actually a ‘periodic table’, i.e. stuff organized by resemblances, but just seeing all of these tools in one place is gratifying.

Read it. And for God’s sake watch the video.

Apparently there is some comedy retrovirus that still survives in the Saturday Night Live genome, resisting all attempt to swamp it with Wokeness.

Watch it.

Most frequent word heard: “Whoa….”

Next time some proglodyte complains about how much the U.S. sucks, remember this.

Read it.

We have the technology.

Read it.

Read it.

Pieces of salmon are spiced and wrapped tightly in at least two layers of aluminum foil and put in a dishwasher. The dishwasher is set to perform a full regular cycle, possibly with the addition of a heated dry cycle. The salmon is broiled, steamed, and baked. An advantage of the method is that cooking is odorless. There is nothing preventing one from washing the dishes at the same time, provided that the package is tight enough.

Read it.

We have the technology.

Takes care of the tailgater problem.

Steve Graham has an Adventure in Modern America.

In the past, you could call the UPS number and yell “AGENT!” over and over until the phone tree wilted and gave you a person. Now you go to the site, get a bunch of prompts that don’t apply to your situation, and then receive instructions to get lost. If you call and yell “AGENT!”, the system tells you you can’t have one, and it hangs up.

None of the web prompts matched my problem, and that was deliberate on the part of UPS. I had a driver who would not put boxes where they were supposed to be, and probably three million people had the same problem today, so obviously, they do not want people with poorly-placed boxes calling them. They would be inundated.

You can’t just go to the local UPS hub and ask for help, because they will shoot you when you try to scale the fence. UPS doesn’t like riff raff any more than I do. Okay, perhaps they won’t shoot you, but you can’t complain in person. That’s my point.

I tried to use the site in spite of the lack of relevant options. I picked a prompt which was not very appropriate, figuring some human being might read it and decide to do something even though I had responded to the wrong prompt. Unbelievably, UPS contacted me. A guy named Bill at the local hub seemed to be very upset that my boxes were being rained on, and I think he really tried to help.

He thought I hadn’t entered my code on their site. I told him I had. He said he couldn’t see it, and that meant his drivers couldn’t see it. He was convinced this was the issue. He gave me a number for UPS tech support.

I called and got one of the Indian guys.

Medium.

This scenario is a familiar in the world of business folklore: an unknown entrepreneur who, through sheer determination, transforms their uniquely innovative idea into a triumphant tale of success. This narrative is typically interwoven with various challenges, often of a financial nature, that our protagonist must conquer to reach the pinnacle. The enduring message remains consistent: if you possess the desire, you have the capability. If they could achieve it by surmounting numerous obstacles, perhaps you can too. At the very least, give it a shot.

Numerous instances abound, with a particularly frequent one being the story of Jeff Bezos, now one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth. Stepping into Amazon’s corporate headquarters two decades ago was akin to entering a realm of dimly lit and dispiriting offices, documents haphazardly pinned to the walls, a handcrafted logo, and a prevailing sense that little of real productivity could emanate from such surroundings. At that time, Bezos remained relatively obscure in the world of technology. It was only through extraordinary dedication and hard work that he attained his current stature.

Sarah Hoyt.

The first time I heard of Rick Rescorla, was on 9/11. I was an Austen fan group at the time, and was on the chat board. One of the women on the board was one of Rescorla’s co-workers, and he’d just saved her.

Since then, I’ve tried to remember him on 9/11.

And 22 years, on, I remember 9/11. while our “leadership” tries to leave us wide open to be hurt and destroyed by anyone who decides they don’t like us, it’s important to remember 9/11, and most of all the heroes of 9/11.

Freethink.

Fortunately, a recent study in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces reports a new nanoparticles treatment that whitens teeth without damaging them, and also protects them by removing cavity-forming bacteria.

By the time you can buy it without a prescription and doctor supervision, you won’t have any teeth left. Enjoy.