A recent song out of Japan reminded me that I had not featured Wagakki Band in a very long time. A lot of their work reminds me of the music that you would find in Anime. I hear their music in playlists from various music streaming platforms, but I don't usually go looking for it. (I did go looking for the purposes of this post.)
Wagakki Band (和楽器バンド) is a Japanese Rock/Metal band that uses a lot of traditional Japanese instruments in their music. Wagakki means "traditional insturments" or something similar in Japanese, at least as far as I can tell.
This song is "Sasameyuki" (細雪) by Wagakki Band from their 2018 album Otonoe. The song title translates to "Light Snowfall." I wasn't going to put this on Monday, for Metal for Mondays, but it has too much energy for first thing on a Wednesday morning.
One of those residents was 74-year-old Ms. Brown, who said she was awakened around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday by loud banging on her door.
“A mad man had a machete,” Brown said.
Mrs. Brown was the one who had displayed the cross. She was forced to push her sofa in front of the door in an effort to keep him out.
Residents say the man moved through the building, kicking several doors and attempting to force his way inside apartments.
Eventually he did break into an apartment, where he encountered an armed resident.
The wounded suspect was transported to a hospital with injuries that investigators described as non-life-threatening.
DeKalb County, Georgia, is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, with the county line being about 3 miles east of downtown Atlanta.
Mrs. Brown, who is obviously a charitable, Christian woman, thinks the guy is insane. I believe he was completely sane, and was just mad that someone followed a religion different from his own. But I'm cynical as hell.
Still, it is mostly a happy ending. Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0.
The job market is booming for young people – but not those with college degrees. Are employers finally coming to realize that colleges these days mainly produce coddled, know-nothing, whiny, entitled brats?
A recent analysis from Burning Glass Institute found that unemployment among those 22-34 years old without a college degree is lower than it’s been in decades, but those with college diplomas are having a much harder time finding work than before.
Between the indoctrination of the hard Left, the dumbing down of classes that are "too hard," even though the material hasn't changed in decades, and the complete lack of work ethic. (Why study if everyone will get an A?)
Some of this article is based on something from the Wall Street Journal, which has been behind a paywall, since forever.
The Journal says that AI is contributing to this unprecedented education divergence in job prospects, because companies are replacing entry-level white-collar jobs with AI just as colleges churn out more graduates than ever. At the same time, the shortage of skilled workers is making it hard to replace the many who are now retiring.
The skills gap has been coming for decades. They mention the work of John Ratzenberger, but not Mike Rowe, in raising awareness. I guess they think Rowe doesn't have the correct politics.
And they get extra points for mentioning this insanity.
A Columbia University professor recently won a national book award for a volume arguing that white paint is racist. We kid you not.
Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds (author of The Higher Education Bubble) at Instapundit.
So kids today go to college, and end up with 10's of thousands (sometimes many 10s of thousands) of dollars in student loan debt, and then they cannot find a job based on that "education." In the meantime, employers are struggling to fill good jobs requiring actual skills, not a degree in ... What are the kids getting degrees in, these days?
I haven't had an Infrastructure post since July. I thought it was time for another.
This bridge in question collapsed on 22 December 2024. The start of the collapse was caught on video, though slightly grainy video.
The Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira Bridge crossed the Tocantins River. It connected the cities of Estreito, Maranhão, and Aguiarnópolis, Tocantins, Brazil. The Tocantins River is one of the largest rivers in South America. The clear span at the center of the bridge, the section that collapsed, was 140 meters or 460 feet. It was an important route for cargo transportation in Brazil. 140 meters was record-setting long, at least for a post-stressed, poured in place, concrete bridge.
The bridge opened in January 1961, and was named for the outgoing president of Brazil. Like many bridges built in the 1960s, the load it ended up carrying was significantly higher than that envisioned by the engineering team.
Maintenance was also an issue, and in May of 2024, the Brazilian National Department of Transport Infrastructure started a bidding process to have contractors correct some issues with the bridge.
Ten vehicles fell into the river, on 22 December 2024, killing 13 people. A vehicle carrying 76 metric tons of sulfuric acid and 22,000 to 25,000 liters of pesticide also fell into the river, causing concerns about contamination, but the truck's cargo was found and recovered intact by divers after the disaster.
Humans do a pretty good job with Infrastructure when it is new, and we often rebuild after disasters even better than new. The problem is that every piece of infrastructure has an expiration date, and no one wants to save for replacement. Maintenance of existing bridges, dams, whatever, also doesn't offer any politician a chance to put his name on something. That is, unfortunately, why we tend to clean up after disasters.
This story put me in mind of the The Morandi Bridge Collapse, in Genoa Italy. That was also a bridge, designed and built in the 1960s, that was carrying more load than it did when it was new, and it was known to need repair.
Miguel Gonzalez has a musical interlude every Sunday. Sunday Repose
Click thru for Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers playing "Moanin'." It is the title song to the 1959 album.
Before striking out with his own band, Blakey worked with people like Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. Once The Jazz Messengers was established, Blakey became known for encouraging young talent, and he helped launch the careers of people like Chick Correa, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, and Chuck Mangione.
And you should be reading Miguel Gonzalez's writing.
The bear entered the home Monday and the resident tried to get the bear to leave before it charged toward them, according to a spokesperson with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Officials said the resident then shot the bear in self-defense and the bear left alive but injured. CPW officers euthanized the bear when they arrived at the scene, the spokesperson said.
When I first read the headline, I thought this was going to be a "poor bear, mean gun owner" story, but it is actually a fairly good article. It includes some stuff from the state wildlife department on being safe from bears during this time of year.
As bears begin to enter hyperphagia — an instinctive, metabolic change resulting in an almost constant feeding frenzy as the bears prepare for winter hibernation — bear activity is expected to increase while they search for 20,000 calories per day before denning.
Steamboat Springs is a town, and a ski area, about 100 miles northwest of Denver, though the drive will be longer.
The usual suspects are upset that the Justice Department has decided to stop enforcing the 1968 ban on "law-abiding 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds" buying firearms from a licensed dealer. (Please note that the law-breaking part of the demographic doesn't have any trouble getting firearms.)
My focus on guns has been only defensive, for the past 30 years or so. Which is why I appreciated this statement.
It is true that young people commit crime at relatively high rates, but they are also more likely to be victims of crime. A 20-year-old woman facing a stalker needs protection as much as a 21-year-old woman does. Young adults also face substantial risks of becoming victims: Reported rapes are 32 percent more likely for ages 18 to 20 than for people ages 21 to 23, and the younger group’s homicide rate is 7 percent higher.
Porsche went through an Initial Public Offering in 2022. The stock price is down 50% since the all-time high, which came in April of 2023.
Current CEO Michael Leiters has been in place at the German automaker since January and is slowly rolling out his turnaround plan. Part of that is betting a return to gas engines for the luxury brand will cure what ails Stuttgart-based Porsche.
Porsche dropped gas engines for their Macan compact luxury crossover SUV. They have seen a "lack of demand" for the all electric vehicle.
Leiters plans to bring back the combustion-engine Macan to sell alongside the electric version while ruling out a fully electric 911 sports car, something Porsche has said in the past it is unwilling to do. He told the FT that calling him an EV skeptic is "unfair."
He is just trying to keep the company in business.
The gas Macan will apparently be out of production for an entire model year, which is a not a good thing, for one of the higher-selling vehicles in their lineup.
The sales in China have apparently also collapsed.
U.S Economy Smashes Expectations With Stronger-Than-Expected Growth
The U.S. economy blew past economists’ expectations during the second quarter, expanding at a substantially faster rate than the experts had predicted.
Vox Popoli: They Never Stop Lying, also, The Education of a Population Geneticist
The Bugscuffle Gazette: A little too esoteric
Defending the Wood Perilous: From Here To Eternity
1. One of the most difficult aspects of trying to explain to people that Canada is a communist country, is that people have a fictional and imaginary concept of what communism is.
Trump Is Destroying Public Health. Democrats Need to Fight Back.
Yep, the Left is now fighting for Big Pharma using Americans as unpaid beta testers and for the government to subsidize junk food. Sounds like a winning issue!0
Victory Girls: Secretary Of War Hegseth Is Right, Generals And Admirals Need To Be Culled, also, Ms. Rachel – Education Or Indoctrination?
Watts Up With That: When All Else Fails, Start a War
Capt. Ed at Hat Hair calls it Shades of 9/11: FlyDubai Pilot Attempts Hijacking, Mass Destruction. At Twitchy, Flydubai Co-Pilot Stabs Captain Midair — Israeli Passengers Subdue Him Before the Plane Can Crash.
Davos Carney’s Canada: Tilt towards tyranny. Buy some shovels. Antisemitism. Message from the PM.
The Democratic Party’s America: The Islamic threat. Gillibrand visits a mosque. Racist paint.
Medical Conscience Is Under Assault at Home and Abroad
Tyler Cowen: Don’t Let AI Make You Dumber
For Some Reason, New York's Rent Regulations Don't Seem To Be Keeping Rents Low
Secretary of War Hegseth Plans to Fire 20% of Bloated Leadership, Engages Musk, Luckey for Tech Leadership Ace
Best midterm strategy? Finish the job Don Surber
This was not a random break-in. The police report that the two men, the homeowner and the guy who tried to break into the home, know one another.
Investigators said that shortly before 5 a.m. on Tuesday, a man tried to gain entry into a residence in the 25000 block of Chapel Road near Laurel. The homeowner was inside and fired at least one shot from a gun that struck the man attempting to enter the home.
Laurel, Indiana, is in the southeast portion of the state. It is about a 60 mile drive northwest of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio.
The guy who got shot was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, which is the nearest trauma unit. He is expected to survive.
The whole murder/failed-suicide thing is too common. I usually see it about ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-whatever. But I may need to start looking for stories about parents and their children.
I think suicide is a bad idea, but if you are bent on killing yourself, go ahead. Leave you ex and your kids out of it.
The family's attorney said in a statement that her dad trusted the courts, followed every order, and waited for the process to work.
Sources close to the family told ABC Houston affiliate KTRK that a family court judge had just granted custody of Vivian to her father, and she was supposed to be turned over to him Tuesday night.
There is a story there, but since it took place in family court, we will probably never know what it was. I know two men, who received custody of their kids from a court, though I only knew one of the ex-wives who lost custody. She was batshit crazy. And I do know other fathers who got custody of their sons, when those sons were teenagers and rebelling against their mothers.
I think what I am saying is that it isn't common for a father to get custody of a young child.
This took place in Houston, though I hold out little hope that even in Houston she will see anything close to Justice.
I was reminded of this song when I was searching for something else. I have known this song since it was released, as it was on the radio quite a bit, back in the day. I had not heard it, or even thought about it many years.
The lyrics refer to a childhood friend of James Taylor, Suzanne Schnerr, who ended her own life. They did not tell him for 6 months, because he was recording his first album, and his family and/or friends didn't want to distract him. The lyrics also reference his first band, the Flying Machine, failing to take off, and the depression that caused.
When the teaser trailer was released, I thought this looked interesting. Cruise is a good actor, and before he became Hollywood's action star (and even after) he had a bit of comic timing. When the first full trailer came out I lost all interest. (I don't need a 2 hour lecture from people who live in huge homes, and fly in private jets.) John Nolte has the details on the development of the movie, and the current projections.
Here’s a movie designed in a Woke Lab to hit the sweet spot of critics…
Evil white men.
Evil businessmen.
Oil bad.
There is more in that list.
And now we have box office projections.
And now it’s about to open wide all across America and, per the professional estimates, humiliate itself and its star with an $8 million to $12 million opening. If these projections hold, a movie made for no Normal Person could lose more than $100 million.
There is more, including the current state of Hollywood. Click thru.
That $8 to $12 million projection is apparently from Box Office Theory and Shawn Robbins. As I type this on Thursday night, his projections are $7.5 million to $12 million, while the studio is looking for $12 to $15 million. Either way this is a disaster. The Numbers has the production budget at $125 million, not including marketing.
Since studios get about half of the take at the box office (it turns out movie theaters don't show movies for free), The movie would need to gross about $250 million just to cover the production budget. I have no idea what the advertising and marketing budget would be for a film like this, but I would think that $80 million would not be out of the question for a film staring Cruise.
The only way Hollywood is going to stop making Woke movies, is when they decide that they need to actually make money to survive. You would think that they are there, but apparently not quite.
Darwin divided scientists into “Lumpers” vs. “Splitters.” As Christakis summarizes this view in his book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, “Lumpers seek to group similar things together; splitters identify fine distinctions.”
The City Council made its original catastrophic parking-meter deal in 2008, when it foolishly leased the system to private investors for 75 years for a measly $1.15 billion after only three days of consideration.
Today, on the Morning Update, a reminder that normal people are winning. Republicans are winning. America is winning; the system is working, and we’ve got proof, but if you give in or give up, we’ll not just lose; we could lose everything.
Anthropic announced not long ago that it was paying SpaceX $1.25 billion per month to lease capacity in datacenters that actually existed. The number now looks to be closer to twice that. (WCCFTech)
So how would you respond to two armed men breaking into your vacation rental?
This incident took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The police department said that two armed men allegedly broke into an Airbnb and they got into an altercation with the renter. The renter then shot one of the suspects, who has since been identified as Dareon Pubien, in the chest.
Pubien, 18, then fled the scene on foot, and police later found him near his home.
Cops caught up with the other would-be bad guy, Sean Thompson, 25, and arrested him.
Both Thompson and Pubien have been charged with attempted murder and home invasion with a firearm.
Neighbors were shocked. Apparently because the Liberals in Broward County don't believe that crime can exist in the zip codes that cover Fort Lauderdale. Or maybe that is just the "Professional Journalist" behind the article.
The incident has left local residents in shock, while some even heard it happening in real time. Arthur Butler Jr. told CBS Miami that he heard “at least 10” gunshots coming from the house when the robbery was taking place.
Self-defense is a human right, and Florida has not morphed into Massachusetts.
The BBC published an article saying that the new fashion trend, clear nail polish, was promoting white supremacy. Then, when they got beat over the head for being insane, they pulled the article. Click thru for those details.
They don’t need any sort of drugs to be batguano insane moonbats. Anyhow, the BBC originally took it down saying it needed “editorial review”, and now it’s just a 401. The link in the 2nd paragraph goes to an Internet Archive version. From that piece
They discount things like more women going to gyms, and not wanting to spend a lot of money on manicures, and then have them chip on a weight machine.
Also, manicures are expensive, and a bit time consuming. Especially when you factor in that can do it yourself, if you are not going crazy. Times are also a bit tough. Maybe the folks at the BBC didn't notice, on their government/tax-supported salaries.
The Netherlands is looking to create a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) solution for their PCs, based on NixOS. NixOS is a version of Linux built around the Nix package manager. (That is the software updater for that distribution.)
DAWO stands for "Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid," or "Digital Autonomous Government Work Environment." Rather than a single product, its blueprint combines replaceable components for the operating system, cloud infrastructure, AI, communications, and collaborative working. Development remains at an early stage, but small-scale pilots are already under way within Dutch public bodies.
They started by working in 4 cities, since expanded to 8. And they didn't start with NixOS.
For its client OS, the project initially experimented with openSUSE, then Fedora, before settling on NixOS. The Reg FOSS desk has written about NixOS several times, including its radical approach to package management and the arrival of NixOS 22.11.
NixOS offers more than a conveniently Dutch pedigree. It is not controlled by a commercial vendor, while its declarative configuration and reproducible deployments make it attractive for managing and auditing large fleets of machines.
Microsoft is making the Windows experience so painful, that people are deciding to be done with it. Stuffing AI down everyone's throats, whether they want it or not. The entire Windows 10/Windows 11 PC support insanity. That doesn't even cover the security issues. And the cost - Software as a Service sounds great to shareholders of Microsoft, but not so much to people who have to pay for things. And the alternatives today are not limited to Apple, though I know some companies are giving more employees Apple laptops.
He kicked in the front door, in the middle of the afternoon.
An HPD officer at the scene told KHOU 11 that the man appeared to be a stranger to the homeowner. According to the officer, the homeowner, described as an elderly man, repeatedly told the alleged intruder to stop and leave the home.
The homeowner was able to retrieve a 38-caliber handgun, and he shot the intruder.
There are a lot of bad decisions a person can make on a Wednesday afternoon, but breaking the front door of an elderly man's house in Texas has got to be sitting somewhere near the very top of that list.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards themselves.
Sheriff Kevin White of Fraklin County, North Carolina, has stopped using Flock cameras after a decade because of violations of privacy.
The Franklin County Sheriff's Office has stopped using Flock surveillance cameras after it found an investigator used the cameras to track an unnamed person.
Detective Janet Leonard was fired after using the system to “track every movement of a single, private citizen,” White said in a release sent to media outlets Friday morning.
I would think more than firing is in order, but I am more interested in the ending the use of Flock cameras.
“This is unacceptable, unconstitutional, and a complete violation of privacy by someone whose entire career should have been dedicated to protecting the public,” White said.
Franlin County, North Carolina, is about 15 miles northeast of Raleigh.
Click thru for the details. And thank you to Sheriff White.
