Archive for February, 2026
18th February 2026
Read it.
While Republicans are catching up or holding their own in some states, they are still losing elections in places where they should be winning, like Virginia, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
As a full-time political operative back in the 1980s and early 90s, I remember Colorado being a reliable, even sleepy, Republican state. The GOP controlled the governorship, both US Senate seats, and five of the state’s then-seven congressional districts (they now have eight).
That was true up until 2004. Then something happened. Within four years, it had practically reversed. Beginning that year, Colorado Democrats began to reverse their fortunes. And in doing so, created a model that has been exported to dozens of other states, including Virginia. This was documented in the book “The Blueprint” by Adam Schrager, an Emmy Award-winning journalist from Wisconsin, and Rob Witwer, an attorney, former counsel to the Colorado GOP, a former Republican member of the Colorado House of Representatives, and a Denver attorney.
I hear you asking, “Why are you reviewing a nearly 16-year-old book?” Perhaps you’re asking, even as someone who is politically attuned and active, “Why should I care?” Because it remains as relevant as ever, and Republicans everywhere have, with a few exceptions, failed to heed its lessons, no more so than in Virginia in their disastrous 2025 election.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Plundering and Blundering | Comments Off on Book Review: The Blueprint, How the Democrats Won Colorado
18th February 2026
The Guardian, a Voice of the Crust.
Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Trump’s administration.
More likely they just want to escape the U.S.’s oppressive tax system.
The most recent data released by the government showed that investors from the US made up nearly 40% of applicants, followed by China and Hong Kong. Since August 2025, the number of applications from China more than doubled, from 45 to 95.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Wealthy Americans Top ‘Golden Visa’ Surge in New Zealand and Applications From China Double
18th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
The rise is partly down to the increasing number of families securing exemptions from the household benefits cap, which is supposed to prevent them taking more home in welfare payments than they can get by working.
However, there are 16 different benefits which are not limited. These include Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) for long-term physical and mental disabilities and Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
The number of people in England and Wales claiming these two benefits has risen from almost 3.2 million in 2010-11 to about 4.4 million in 2023-24. The Government expects it to reach 6.7 million by 2030.
People will game any system that can be gamed.
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on The Loophole That Unlocks More Than £60,000 in Benefits for Some Households
18th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
A jazz lecturer whose lessons were boycotted after he questioned critical race theory is not a racist, a leading conservatoire has admitted.
Martin Speake, 67, said his life was “destroyed” after students at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, south-east London, avoided his lessons because of his views.
The internationally renowned saxophonist was “cancelled” for claiming there was no “systemic” racial inequality in British jazz and that critical race theory was “very dangerous”.
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Jazz lecturer cancelled for criticising BLM Was ‘Not Racist’, Employer Says
18th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
In an operation room in Charing Cross Police Station, a dozen or so officers are hunched over terminals, relaying a constant stream of information and instructions to their colleagues on the ground.
Huge, high definition screens on the wall display live CCTV images from vantage points across London’s West End. A crackle of energy fills the room as word filters through of an incident on Vauxhall Bridge Road, close to Victoria.
A suspicious looking moped has been spotted and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras suggest it does not have valid insurance. When challenged by officers on the ground, the rider refuses to stop, making off at high speed.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on High-Speed Bike Chases and Rooftop Drones: Inside the Met’s Fight Against Phone Thieves
18th February 2026
The Teleraph (UK).
Iran has partially closed the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since the 1980s amid a US military build-up in the Arabian Sea.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on Tuesday that sections of the strategic waterway would be closed for several hours for live-fire naval drills.
Iran’s supreme leader also threatened to send US aircraft carriers to the “bottom of the sea”, despite diplomatic efforts continuing in Geneva.
The U.S. ought to station a carrier off Iran’s coast and tell them “Give it your best shot”. They literally don’t have the capability to sink a modern carrier.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Iran closes Strait of Hormuz for first time since 1980s
18th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
Reform UK would repeal the Equality Act on “day one” of government if it wins the next general election, Suella Braverman has said.
Ms Braverman, who defected to Reform from the Tories last month, said Britain was being “ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion” policies.
Speaking at an event in London where she was unveiled as Reform’s new shadow education, skills and equalities secretary, Ms Braverman said her first act in government would be to abolish the equalities part of her brief.
She said: “Why does no one in this Government seem to care that it’s white working-class boys who have the worst educational outcomes in our country today?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Reform Will Repeal the Equality Act If Elected, Says Braverman
17th February 2026
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
17th February 2026
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Does Islam owe its existence to rape? Its founder had only a handful of followers until he declared that there was a divine imperative to raid, rape and enslave after which young men from raiding tribal cultures flocked to the new movement. He expressly urged young Arab men to go after “yellow-eyed” (apparently some reference to blond Byzantine women) as a religiously endorsed mission. As the expanding Islamic empire entered its third century, the pagan Vikings had established a thriving business of taking captured fair-complexion Slavic women down river to the satisfy the insatiable demands of Muslim slave markets.
If anyone thinks this is an abandoned archaic practice or value, I would invite a look at the attitudes and behaviors of young Muslim men in Rotherham, UK, Germany or in Sweden. Islam does not evolve or grow out of attitudes or practices. It is bound by the literally misogynistic directives of its founder who also once declared that the majority of denizens of hell were women condemned due to ingratitude and general bitchiness. Men may have four wives (Mohammed later received a divine directive to exempt himself from any such limitation) but an unlimited number of infidel female captives.
Famous heretic Salman Rushdie once opined that Mohammed was making it up as he went along with no clear plan other than establishing rules of deference to himself. Seemingly as a result of that ad hoc pattern there is weirdly disjointed quality in shariah law in which early Muslim clerics tried to base the system on the “perfect example” of their Prophet.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Why Not Be Opposed to Rape?
17th February 2026
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A Palestinian woman has won a landmark legal battle to move to Britain in a decision that could set a precedent for more Gazan refugees to follow.
The ruling was based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to private and family life. An upper immigration tribunal concluded that blocking the woman from joining her children in the UK would result in “unjustifiably harsh consequences.”
The mother had been living in Egypt after fleeing Gaza. Despite a long separation, the court found she maintained a “close, emotionally interdependent bond” with her daughter, a British citizen, and her son, a refugee.
The ruling was issued despite British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood winning a Court of Appeal case in November that limited the ability of Palestinians fleeing Gaza to use Article 8.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Legal Loophole Allows Palestinian to Bypass UK Entry Ban—the First of Many?
17th February 2026
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Nearly 80% of the 2017 and 2018 Truman Scholars—a taxpayer-funded scholarship program—now have “a clear connection to liberal politics, such as working for Democratic members of Congress, advocating for progressive causes, or teaching classes with a liberal focus,” reports The College Fix.
Jennifer Kabbany, editor-in-chief of The College Fix, joins Jack Fowler on this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” for an in-depth discussion on DEI programs, higher education challenges, and jaw-dropping campus stories.
Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Plundering and Blundering | Comments Off on EXPOSED: Taxpayers Paying for Democrat Activists’ Grad School Tuition
17th February 2026
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has chosen to prioritize the installation of massive Ramadan decorations in the city center.
This controversial practice first began in 2024, when Frankfurt became the first German city to install such lighting. For the third time, crescents, stars, and Fanoos lanterns alongside “Happy Ramadan” signs hang in the center, thanks to a resolution from the Greens, SPD, FDP, and Volt.
The project carries a significant price tag for taxpayers, with €75,000 spent on bulbs and a total budget reaching €100,000. Green Mayor Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg defended the move, stating the lighting makes Muslim life a “self-evident part” of Frankfurt.
However, this state-sponsored promotion of Islam has moved beyond public squares and into the classrooms, with alarming incidents also surfacing in 2024. In the Frankfurt metropolitan area, reports emerged of primary school teachers unilaterally imposing Islamic practices on pre-teen students. During the holy month of Ramadan that year, a pair of teachers reportedly prohibited fifth-grade students from drinking water in class out of consideration for a few fasting Muslim pupils.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Islamization in Frankfurt: Ramadan Lights Return
17th February 2026
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If you’ve been following the news feed over the last few days, you’ll be aware that a young French identitarian named Quentin was severely beaten by Antifa thugs in Lyon, and eventually died from his wounds.
Hard-left militants attacked 23-year-old Quentin Deranque after a peaceful demonstration organized by the right-wing feminist organization Collectif Némésis during a conference hosted by Rima Hassan. Mr. Deranque was helping to provide security for the women of Collectif Némésis, protecting them from the same people who eventually killed him. He was attacked by at least six thugs, and a disturbing video shows the vicious final kick in the head that he received.
Ms. Hassan is an activist of Palestinian descent who was born in Syria and moved to France as a child. In 2023 she founded the “Action Palestine France” collective and joined La France Insoumise, a far-left political party founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
This is one of those rare instances when the media and political leaders (including Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin) have referred to the “far left” when discussing the murder of Quentin Deranque in Lyon.
Below is a brief news video about the attack on Quentin Deranque.
UPDATE: France Still in Shock After Murder of Young Patriot by Far-Left Mob
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | 1 Comment »
17th February 2026
The Foundry.
A Minnesota activist group encouraging protests against immigration enforcement will host a training to teach attendees to let guilty criminals walk.
Defend the 612 will instruct viewers of the Feb. 23 virtual “Jury Nullification Training” on how to use false jury verdicts to fight “unjust laws and political persecution,” according to an event description on its website first reported by Alpha News.
The Trump administration has charged hundreds of people with impeding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations around the country, including at Minneapolis protests during ICE’s enforcement surge in the Twin Cities that is now winding down after weeks of immigration arrests.
Defend the 612 did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on Lefty Radicals Concoct Strategy to Let Anti-ICE Agitators Get Off Scot-Free
17th February 2026
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Last October, we reported that Britain had “narrowly avoided blasphemy laws in disguise.” Now, they are very much back on the cards, and could be introduced as soon as this Tuesday.
This is due to the case of Hamit Coskun, a Turkish asylum seeker who burned a copy of the Quran outside his country’s London embassy while shouting, “Islam is a religion of terrorism.” A Muslim man slashed Coskun with a knife and shouted, “I’m going to kill you,” but was spared jail.
Coskun was initially convicted last June of a breach of the Public Order Act, despite supporters noting that “he hurt no one” and “he threatened no one.” The conviction was later overturned on appeal, with Justice Joel Bennathan affirming that there is no offence of blasphemy in UK law, and upholding the “right to offend.”
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Britain Edges Toward Muslim Blasphemy Law Through the Courts
17th February 2026
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on UN Sparks Backlash After Using Western Bride to Illustrate Child Marriage
17th February 2026
Governance Cybernetics.
Everyone who reads this publication knows what needs to get built. More grid transmission. More nuclear plants. More housing. More automated industrial capacity. The policy conversation has gotten good at identifying the demand side: permitting reform, regulatory overhaul, federal lending, emergency declarations. All essential, all should continue.
What almost nobody talks about is the supply side of capital. Scratch that, a lot of critics keeps talking about how YIMBYs, industrial policy wonks, and the rest don’t have a clue how to finance their proposals (despite the mountain of literature saying otherwise). That capital exists. There is roughly $6 trillion of it, sitting in American public pension funds, currently being allocated in a way that serves nobody.
Oren Cass’s recent New York Times column describes an American financial sector that has stopped fueling the real economy and started consuming it. Dean Baker, writing at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, endorsed Cass’s diagnosis and added a complementary set of regulatory reform proposals. Both focus on constraining finance: transaction taxes, bankruptcy reform, cultural stigma. Neither addresses where the capital should go instead, or why the largest pool of patient capital in the American economy is the right place to start.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on America’s Pensions Can’t Beat a Vanguard Account or Finance a Transmission Line, but They Can Close Your Hospital
17th February 2026
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- Sense of touch despite thick elephant skin: Researchers have discovered that the hairs on elephants’ trunks are responsible for their extraordinary sense of touch.
- Special material properties: Elephant sensory hairs have a stiff base and a soft tip, which enables them to precisely feel objects and recognize where contact is made. These properties are similar to the whiskers of cats and differ from the completely stiff sensory hairs of rats and mice.
- Interdisciplinary collaboration: The research team at the Department of Haptic Intelligence at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems was joined by researchers from the fields of neuroscience and materials science.
- Applications in robotics: The findings will be used in the development of robot-assisted sensor technologies that mimic the stiffness gradient of elephant tactile hairs.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Elephant Trunk Whiskers Exhibit Material Intelligence
17th February 2026
Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »
17th February 2026
Stratechery.
If you wanted to make a case for thin clients, you could argue that mobile devices are a hybrid; after all, the rise of mobile benefited from and drove the rise of the cloud: nearly every app on a phone connects to a server somewhere. Ultimately, however, mobile devices are themselves thick clients: they are very capable computers in their own right, that certainly benefit from being connected to a server, but are useful without it. Critically, the server component is just data: the actual interface is entirely local.
You can make the same argument about SaaS apps: on one hand, yes, they operate in the cloud and are usually accessed via a browser; on the other hand, the modern browser is basically an operating system in its own right, and the innovations that made SaaS apps possible were the fact that interactive web apps could be downloaded and run locally. Granted, this isn’t far off from Sun’s vision (although the language ended up being JavaScript, not Java), but you still need a lot of local compute to make these apps work.
Ben Thompson’s STRATECHERY is one of the best technology sites around. If you have any interest in what’s going on in tech, this is the place to go.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Thin Is In
17th February 2026
The Hill, a Voice of the Crust.
On today’s college campuses, students are not maturing — they’re managing. Beneath a facade of progressive slogans and institutional virtue-signaling lies a quiet psychological crisis, driven by the demands of ideological conformity.
Between 2023 and 2025, we conducted 1,452 confidential interviews with undergraduates at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. We were not studying politics — we were studying development. Our question was clinical, not political: “What happens to identity formation when belief is replaced by adherence to orthodoxy?”
We asked: Have you ever pretended to hold more progressive views than you truly endorse to succeed socially or academically? An astounding 88 percent said yes.
These students were not cynical, but adaptive. In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe.
The result is not conviction but compliance. And beneath that compliance, something vital is lost.
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on Performative Virtue-Signaling Has Become a Threat to Higher Ed
17th February 2026
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Three of America’s largest banks filed 7,474 Labor Condition Applications for foreign workers. Public records expose the playbook: file at scale, pay the legal minimum, and lock workers in with green card sponsorship.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Talent Shortage Is a Myth.
17th February 2026
Watch it.
If, of course, that’s what you want to do.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on How to Take a Photo With Scotch Tape (Lensless Imaging)
17th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).s
A gunman who identified as a woman killed two people and injured three others at a high school hockey match in Rhode Island on Monday.
The 56-year-old, thought to have been the father of one of the hockey players, shot a woman and her child in the stands at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena before turning the gun on himself.
Tina Goncalves, the Pawtucket police chief, told a press conference on Monday night that the gunman used the name Roberta Esposito.
“We have identified the person, the suspect, by a birth name. The birth name was Robert Dorgan,” said Ms Goncalves. “We have also learned that the person does go by the name of Roberta and also uses the last name of Esposito.”
‘Trans’ people are crazy. Crazy people are dangerous. Avoid crazy people.
Tim Pool covers it.
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on Mother and Child ‘Shot by Trans Father’ at Ice Hockey Match
17th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
I know the feeling.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on British Man Smashes Check-In Machines in Airport Rampage
16th February 2026
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
16th February 2026
Watch it.
You’d think they’d figure this out and do something about is. But no. Busness As Usual, until Arlington disappears in nuclear fire and the finger-pointing starts.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on The Pizza Index
16th February 2026
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
16th February 2026
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A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war. Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished due to the official myth of Saddam Hussein as the twentieth hijacker.
Last November, Axios published new damning information on the role of Saudi government officials in bankrolling the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Private lawsuits against the Saudi regime “unearthed evidence showing one Saudi official—who acknowledges aiding two men who became hijackers—made a drawing of a plane and a mathematical formula that allegedly could have been used to fly into the World Trade Center.” That was only the latest stunning revelation in a coverup that will celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday this year.
In 2002 and early 2003, the W. Bush administration rushed to exploit 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. But there was a problem with that con job. A 2002 FBI memo stated that there was “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these [9/11 hijacker] terrorists within the Saudi Government.” A joint House-Senate congressional investigation found extensive evidence that the Saudi government, not Saddam Hussein, propelled the hijackers. The Bush administration succeeded in suppressing the key twenty-eight pages of that congressional report on the Saudi role on 9/11.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on The Biggest Bait-and-Switch War of the Century
16th February 2026
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The chaos caused by millions of illegal immigrants flooding across the southwest border under the Biden administration left scars on this border town.
?The constant high-speed chases, buzzing helicopters, screaming emergency sirens, hurried school lockdowns, torn barbed-wire fences, and decomposing bodies on ranches and along the Rio Grande all took their toll on Texas towns near the Mexican border.
?The border crisis drained resources and changed the lifestyle of Brackettville, a little town with two traffic light intersections in Kinney County. Residents of the county and beyond said the madness stopped almost overnight after President Donald Trump took office.?
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on After Years of Border Crisis, Small Texas Town ‘Back to Mayberry’
16th February 2026
The Other McCain.
The headline probably seems like common sense to anyone who knows anything about St. Louis. If you’re from Missouri or the part of western Illinois near St. Louis, you probably don’t need any warnings, because the city is notorious dangerous, and folks in the immediate vicinity know to avoid it. “Well, Stacy, how dangerous is St. Louis?” you ask.
IT’S WORSE THAN BALTIMORE!
This is a Third World category of danger found in very few places in the United States. In 2023, only two cities — New Orleans, with a homicide rate of 46 per 100,000 residents, and Memphis, at 41 per 100,000 residents — exceeded the rate in St. Louis which, at 38 homicides per 100,000 residents, was worse than either Baltimore or Washington, D.C., which tied for fourth place that year. My friend Dana Pico likes to joke about “Killadelphia,” but the homicide rate there was just 26 per 100,000. And there were twice as many homicides per capita in St. Louis than in either Cleveland or Detroit. That’s pretty doggone bad.
Did I mention that the population of St. Louis has seen a drastic decline in recent decades? There are currently fewer than 300,000 residents in the city, down more than 50% since 1970, but not all of the lost population was murdered. Most of them escaped to the suburbs, or left the area entirely, as rampant crime turned St. Louis into a nightmare of violence and thievery. Did I mention that St. Louis is a stronghold of the Democratic Party? The city is part of Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, which is rated D+29 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index and was formerly represented by “Squad” member Cori Bush, before she lost the 2024 Democratic primary to Wesley Bell. (Who to blame? The Jews!)
Posted in Democrats: Party of Plundering and Blundering | Comments Off on Warning: Stay Away From St. Louis
16th February 2026
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There are growing calls in France for violent left-wing activists to be classified as terrorists following the death of 23-year-old Quentin, who died from his injuries caused by a brutal attack in Lyon on Thursday.
The political world in France and beyond has been left horrified by this act of violence. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the “far left” was “clearly” behind the attack and pointed to the possible involvement of the ‘antifascist’ La Jeune Garde group, founded by leftist MP Raphaël Arnault.
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on Calls Grow to Ban Antifa After Young Activist Killed in Lyon
16th February 2026
The Antiplanner.
One argument against rail transit is that rail vehicles cost a lot more than buses, even when adjusting for numbers of seats and vehicle lifespans. The transit industry is trying to fix that — by spending more on buses. As shown in the table below, table 24 of the American Public Transportation Association’s vehicle database says that an intercity bus costs less than $300,000, but in 2023 and 2024 transit agencies spent an average of more than $1.1 million for 40-foot buses to use for bus rapid transit.
Politicians (especially Democrat politicians) love to spend money (your money, not their own money).
And … they love having juicy contracts to pass out among … friends, let us say.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Why Are Transit Buses So Expensive?
16th February 2026
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The image is difficult to reconcile with a consolidated democracy: a Christian pastor handcuffed in the centre of Bristol after answering a question about Muhammad during a public preaching. Yet that is exactly what happened to Dia Moodley.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on UK Pastor Locked Up for Preaching in the Street Speaks Out
16th February 2026
Quillette.
When news of the tragedy was first reported to Canadians on the afternoon of 10 February, it appeared to include a striking anomaly: The killer, we were told, was a “woman.” There are scattered examples of female killers in the annals of Canadian crime. But this would be the first time in the recorded history of Canada and its colonial antecedents—going back more than 400 years, to the early seventeenth century—that a woman had gone on this kind of murderous rampage.
…
It soon became clear, however, that Van Rootselaar wasn’t a woman. He was an eighteen-year-old man—a gun-obsessed, middle-school dropout whose many mental-health afflictions happened to include gender dysphoria. The mass murderer called himself a woman. But that doesn’t mean he was, or that the rest of us have to live in the imaginary universe he (literally) built for himself.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Stop Pretending the Tumbler Ridge Killer Was Female
16th February 2026
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Aluminum foil is made by rolling sheets of 98.5 percent pure aluminum metal between pairs of polished, lubricated steel rollers.
Successive passes through the rollers squeeze the foil thinner.
Household aluminum foil is so thin (0.0005 of an inch) that the rollers can’t handle it without tearing it.
The final rolling is therefore done on a sandwich of two sheets, face to face.
The outer surfaces emerge with a finish as smooth as the rollers, while the two face-to-face inner surfaces emerge with a matte finish.
The two sheets are then separated.
Hence, a shiny side and a duller side.
When you use the foil, it makes no difference which side is up, down or sideways.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
Never say we don’t have useful stuff here.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Why Does Aluminum Foil Have One Shiny Side and One With a Matte Finish?
16th February 2026
Joel 1: 1-5:
1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4 That which the palmerworm [politicians] hath left hath the locust [welfare cheats] eaten; and that which the locust [welfare cheats] hath left hath the cankerworm [race hustlers] eaten; and that which the cankerworm [race hustlers] hath left hath the caterpiller [fraudsters and scammers] eaten.
5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Democrats in the Bible
16th February 2026
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Britain as a Slow-Moving Train Wreck.
16th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
Or get you institutionalized for Obsexxive Compulsive Disorder. (Why take a chance?)
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Brushing Your Teeth Three Times a Day Can Help You Live Longer
16th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
An imam sexually abused young girls and then threatened them with black magic if they spoke out, a court heard.
Abdul Halim Khan, 54, abused victims as young as 12 after persuading them to meet him in isolated places between 2004 and 2015.
Khan told his victims they would be possessed by a jinn, a supernatural spirit in Islam, Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London was told.
He also threatened them with “black magic” if they told friends or family what he had done.
The imam was finally arrested after his youngest victim reported him to a teacher at her school in 2017.
Although not stated in the story, it’s pretty clear that the girls were themselves Muslim.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Imam Sexually Abused Girls Then Threatened Them With ‘Black Magic’
16th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
Vladimir Putin is moving nuclear missiles to the border of the European Union, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader has warned.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Belarus was helping Russia to escalate its war in Ukraine and told Europe to pay “more attention to what is happening” in the territory.
She said Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s ally and strongman in Belarus, was facilitating the Russian leader’s aggression in Ukraine by allowing him to intensify Russia’s military presence in the country.
“We see how on Belarusian territory, Mr Lukashenko’s regime intensifies the presence of Russia. They are about to deploy nuclear weapons [to Belarus], Russian missiles,” Ms Tsikhanouskaya said.
Thank you, Barack Hussein Obama. Your ‘red lines’ in Syria that were crossed with impunity by Russia led to the invasion of Ukraine under Sleepy Joe Biden, with the results that we see now.
Oh, and by the way: Poland considers building nuclear weapons (The Telegraph [UK]). Only Britain and France, in the E.U., have nuclear weapons, and God alone know whether they are actually operable.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Putin ‘Moving Nuclear Missiles’ to EU Border
16th February 2026
The Telegraph (UK).
The Trump administration is in talks to accept a man who burnt a Koran as a refugee from Britain.
Not from Turkey. Not from Pakistan. Not from Saudi Arabia. Not from Iran. Not from Egypt. From Britain.
State department officials are preparing to help Hamit Coskun flee the UK if he loses a “blasphemy case” this week.
Would the prosecute someone who burned the Bible for ‘blasphemy’? Of course not. (In Britain!).
The potential intervention is likely to escalate transatlantic tensions over free speech, which critics have claimed is being eroded under Sir Keir Starmer’s Government.
‘Eroded’? ‘Eroded‘? How about ‘trashed’?
Mr Coskun sought asylum in the UK from his home country of Turkey, saying Islamic terrorists had destroyed his family’s life. He told The Telegraph that, if he did lose his case, he may be forced “to flee” and seek protection in the US.
“For me, as the victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot remain silent. I may be forced to flee the UK and move to the USA, where President Trump has stood for free speech and against Islamic extremism,” he said.
“If I have to do so, then, to me, the UK will have effectively fallen to Islamism and the speech codes that it wishes to impose on the non-Muslim world.”
Successfully, it would appear. Words fail me….
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on White House Set to Accept Koran Burner as Refugee
16th February 2026
The War Zone.
Looking like a scene in a sci-fi movie, and in what is clearly a unique mission, dubbed Operation Windlord, USAF C-17s have been tasked with transporting a micro nuclear reactor. The U.S. military’s role is to transport the elements of the Ward250 reactor, made by Valar Atomics, from March Air Reserve Base in Southern California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Once on the ground in Utah, it will be moved to Utah San Rafael Energy Lab (USREL) in Orangeville for extensive testing. Beyond its direct utility, this operation may very well serve as a glimpse of what’s to come as the Department of Defense looks to integrate micro nuclear reactors into the power grids of critical installations.
A total of three C-17s will bring the components of the Ward250, eight modules in total, to Utah. This is said to be the first time a nuclear reactor has been moved via Globemaster III. The delivery of the Ward250 to USREL is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, established in response to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14301 last year.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on C-17 Airlifts a Micro Nuclear Reactor for the First Time
15th February 2026
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Senator Saddam claims that Virginia is in the middle of an ‘Islamophobia’ crisis. The second Muslim selected for the state senate, after Ghazala Hashmi, who is now acting as Virginia’s Lt. Governor, the Bangladeshi immigrant, from a country where non-Muslims are being murdered in the streets, has made complaining about ‘Islamophobia’ in his new home his signature issue.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | 2 Comments »
15th February 2026
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A federal court in Pakistan on February 3rd granted custody of a 13-year-old Christian girl, Maria Shahbaz, to a Muslim man who had kidnapped her, converted her to Islam, and ‘married’ her.
Judges rejected the birth certificate Maria’s parents provided, which proved her age. Furthermore, the judges disregarded earlier judicial findings that the marriage was illegal, Safdar Chaudhry, chairperson of rights group Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry, told Christian Daily International–Morning Star News.
Such cases follow a recurring pattern. Every year in Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and young women from religious minorities (many of whom are Christians) face abduction, rape, forced marriage to their much older abductors, coerced conversion to Islam, and various other forms of abuse. Victims are as young as seven and include girls with disabilities. Families often never see their loved ones again because the police rarely act and the courts frequently fail victims. Survivors endure shame, PTSD, and social stigma in Pakistan’s honor-based culture.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Pakistani Court Gives Muslim Kidnapper Custody of 13-Year-Old Christian Girl
15th February 2026
Trump Is Having to Work Harder Than Ever to Keep GOP in Line (Wall Street Journal)
Trump vows voter ID requirements for the midterms, ‘whether approved by Congress or not’ (Kyla Guilfoil/NBC News)
At least half a dozen top Trump administration officials appear in the Jeffrey Epstein files (Dareh Gregorian/NBC News)
Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It hasn’t stopped. (Reuters) I didn’t know that there were so many Democrat judges.
Why MAGA Wants You to Think Slavery Wasn’t That Bad (Thomas Chatterton Williams/The Atlantic) Were it not for slavery, Michelle Obama would be squatting beside a mud hut in West Africa grinding up corn meal for dinner.
Newsom Tells Europe “Trump Is Temporary,” Doubles Down On Failing Green Agenda
PBS Compares Minnesota Protestors To Civil Rights Movement, Underground Railroad
Trump is clowning his evangelical base (Stephen Robinson/Public Notice)
Bondi’s Incompetence Is the Latest Insult for Epstein’s Victims (Ross Douthat/New York Times)
‘BAD BREATH!’ WashPost Editorial Board Spews Hot Air on Trump Tariffs Ruining Valentine’s Day
Trump Lashes Out as Epstein Files Fallout Grows and the Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down (Aaron Parnas/The Parnas Perspective)
Pam Bondi’s ‘Cage Match’ and Trump’s Fraying Coalition (New York Times)
Fragmenting Latino vote now a wildcard in elections (Russell Contreras/Axios) Apparently not every Brown Person hates Trump.
The Democratic governor building a playbook to resist ICE (Astead Herndon/Vox)
‘The court can conceive of no circumstance’: Judge bars ‘warrantless’ immigration enforcement raids at churches to protect ‘religious freedom’ (Colin Kalmbacher/Law & Crime)
Trump tells soldiers to vote GOP in campaign-style rally at Fort Bragg (Isaac Arnsdorf/Washington Post)
How ICE Failed to Justify the Shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis (New York Times)
President Trump’s Claim of an “Irrefutable” Argument Supporting His Right to Unilaterally Impose Voter ID and Election Rules May Be Based on Insane Claim … (Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog)
Inside the Debacle That Led to the Closure of El Paso’s Airspace (New York Times)
Media Has Short Memory: Biden DOJ Targeted Trump
Rubio calls on Europe to join Trump’s new world order (Felicia Schwartz/Politico)
‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids (Politico) Uh, guys? They never were.
MAGA Architect Plotted With Epstein Against Pope Francis (Annabella Rosciglione/The Daily Beast) The Narrative Media desperate effort to somehow handcuff Trump to Bannon is exceeded only by their absurd efforts to handcuff Trump to Epstein.
Trump insider Tom Barrack kept in regular contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years, files show (Daniel Ruetenik/CBS News) Epstein cooties!
5 of the most-botched deportations of Trump 2.0 (Brittany Gibson/Axios) It’s so hard to get good help these days.
‘Buried at the Trump Golf Course’: Explosive FBI interview unearthed in Epstein files (Alexander Willis/Raw Story) Epstein cooties!
Broken bones, burning eyes: How Trump’s DHS deploys ‘less lethal’ weapons on protesters (NBC News) Protesters WHO ARE INTERFERING WiTH LAW ENFORCEMENT. Just because you’re a ‘protester’ doesn’t mean you can do anything you want.
Trump officials condemned Don Lemon. He’s bigger than ever after arrest. (Drew Harwell/Washington Post) He’ll have plenty of time to work out in prison.
The SAVE Act and the Myth of a Voter Fraud Crisis (The Rational League) Proglodytes always name their mobs for what they DON’T do….
The vacuum speaks: Who Is Paying the Trump Tariffs? (Paul Krugman) Not Paul Krugman, apparently.
Trump’s Relentless Self-Promotion Fosters an American Cult of Personality (Peter Baker/New York Times) What a short memory! Go back and look how Obama was treated, simpleton.
This Is What Destroying the Vaccine Market Looks Like (Jonathan Cohn/The Bulwark) Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
Trump claims victory on affordability as public anxieties persist (Washington Post) Two things that are not incompatible.
Fetterman Reveals His Parents Are Trump Supporters, Refuses To Call MAGA Voters ‘Nazis’
“I never want to see a child ever run away from our own government ever again” (Jason Sattler/THE FARCE) Talk to the Narrative Media, then. They’re doing all the fear-mongering.
What Do Monica Lewinsky, Maggie Thatcher, Elvis, Cher, Bill Cosby, & The Pope Have In Common? Surprise! They all appear in the Epstein files!
The backlash against Trump is showing up in hard data, not just polls (G. Elliott Morris/Strength In Numbers) Well, what passes for ‘hard data’ for Narritive Media….
Obama derides social media ‘clown show’ in first comments since Trump’s racist video post (Alexandra Marquez/NBC News)
Republican Party of Eau Claire County headquarters vandalized (Kim Leadholm/WEAU-TV) Notice how you never hear of a Democrat party headquarters being vandalized…?
Leftists Install Unauthorized Sirens Across LA To Warn Illegals Of ICE Raids
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
15th February 2026
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The “ultra-left” in France was behind the fatal beating of a French youth aligned with the far right, the justice minister said on Sunday, after the killing inflamed political tension in the country ahead of elections.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin also accused hard-left politicians, including from the France Unbowed (LFI) party, the largest left-wing faction in parliament, of fuelling violence with their language.
The victim, Quentin Deranque, aged 23, had been hospitalised and placed into a coma on Thursday after being attacked in the southeastern city of Lyon. The office of the Lyon prosecutor on Saturday told AFP Deranque had died of his wounds.
Posted in Dystopia Watch, The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on ‘Ultra-Left’ Blamed for Youth’s Killing That Shocked France
15th February 2026
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Alberta separatists are ramping up a petition drive to trigger an independence referendum, while President Donald Trump’s administration and allies draw scrutiny for contacts with the movement, but recent polling shows most Albertans still oppose leaving Canada.
The Alberta Prosperity Project, a separatist-aligned group, aims to collect by May 2 about 177,000 signatures, or 10% of Alberta’s registered voters — the threshold to launch a citizen-led referendum on separation.
Organizers and supporters told Reuters they want an independent Alberta, not U.S. statehood, even as some expressed admiration for Trump.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on US Officials Meet Alberta Separatists, Deny Commitments
15th February 2026
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One of Gaza’s last functioning large hospitals condemned the move by an international organization to pull out of operations over concerns about armed men, claiming on Sunday that the hospital had installed civil police for security.
Of course they did. That’s standard operating procedure for Muslim terrorists. Schools, hospitals, mosques, any building that might trigger hand-wringing from Woke white people are fair game.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Israel: Hamas Terrorists Used Hospital as Command Center
15th February 2026
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The Spanish government has asked the European Commission to help facilitate the redistribution of migrants arriving in the Canary Islands to other parts of Europe as part of a broader package of measures aimed at easing the demands placed on the archipelago.
Apparently the Spanish government has about the same opinion of the intelligence of the EU government that we do.
Posted in Proglodyte Dreams (and Normie Nightmares) | Comments Off on A Month After Mass Amnesty for Illegals, Spain Urges Brussels to Take Migrants Off Its Hands