Why I (Almost) Never Watch Sequels

Or why I never race out to see a sequel, until the reviews come in. With a few exceptions, like The Empire Strikes Back.

This is the Critical Drinker's video The Five Worst Sequels Ever

And so, there you have it. The Drinker's top five worst sequels of all time. They were not fun to revisit. Trust me, they all failed in their own unique ways, but they're all unified by the fact that the world would probably be a much better place if they never existed.

The video is 12 minutes, so grab a coffee, or your beverage of choice.

This doesn't even include my least-favorite sequel. The Matrix: Reloaded. Matrix 2 and 3 are so bad, they travel back in time and destroy whatever fondness I had for the original. But then I never bothered to watch Joker 2. Or Independence Day: Regurgitation.

For every Godfather 2, or Empire, you get a dozen, or more Speed 2: Cruise Control movies.

Legal Self-Defense During April 2026

The Crime Prevention Research Center is creating lists of self-defense incidents. Defensive Gun Uses By People Legally Carrying Guns: 28 Cases During April 2026

This list creation has been going on for a while. I have covered a few of them, but you can find all the info at their sight.

It is useful to have lists of incidents of legal self-defense. This is because the anti-gun part of the Left loves to say that self-defense doesn't happen.

From April 1st in Texas, to April 30th, also in Texas, click thru for the details. Share these lists with the people who don't believe armed self-defense ever happens, or who ask you why you think you need a gun.

Florida Bars Use of Welfare Cash for Tattoos and More

Because this isn't fraud, or something. Florida first to bar welfare cash for tattoos, theme parks, video games: 'Common Sense' | Fox News

Florida is becoming the first state to impose sweeping new limits on how welfare cash can be spent, blocking recipients from using cash-assistance benefits loaded onto EBT cards for purchases like tattoos, theme park tickets, video games, vaping products and other items not generally considered "basic needs" under a plan the Trump administration is urging other states to emulate.

Click thru for the details.

If you have enough money to go to a theme park, explain how you need money for food.

Hat tip to Chicks on the Right: No Tats for You! Florida Puts a Stop to Welfare Cash Being Used for Ink

I was today years old when I learned you could use welfare cash to get a tattoo—unless you’re in Florida, that is.

And also hat tip to and If All You See…

Liberal Judges, Miscarriage of Justice, and the End of Western Civilization

The Left Coast is the canary in the coal mine. From The Other McCain: ‘Uncle Vicha’ and the Doom of California

To be fair, it is juries in California as well. They refuse to hold minorities to reasonable standards. They think it is Progressive. And it may be. It is the Bigotry of Low Expectations.

Antoine Watson was driving a BMW. Were you driving a BMW when you were 19 years old? Yet here was this teenager, driving around San Francisco at 2 a.m., running stop signs and crashing into a parked car, and the cops just turned him loose? Beyond that, after assaulting 84-year-old “Grandpa Vicha” in an unprovoked attack, Watson returned to the scene of the crime to take a picture of the unconscious body of his victim, as if to collect a trophy of his deed. Also, no matter how closely you might have followed this story, you may not have realized that Antoine Watson was not a San Francisco resident. He was from Daly City in suburban San Mateo County, about 10 miles away from where he fatally assaulted Ratanapakdee. Aggravating circumstances, you see.

The jury in the case were a bunch of libtards, apparently.

In January 2026, a jury refused to convict Watson of murder, instead finding him guilty of the lesser sentence of involuntary manslaughter.

Click thru for the details, the sentence handed down by the judge, the reaction of the family of the dead guy, and a few thoughts on the voters in California. (The legislature is also responsible for the sentence.

Wednesday Link Roundup - 2 September

William Teach at Pirate's Cove starts us off with Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

8. The Astute Bloggers: America before the dhimmitude propaganda took hold
9. Powerline Blog: Lawfare and the press

EBL - The Terror : Kevin Trainor Jr.

The Terror
Great scifi book, although like most good scifi, it is really not about scifi. I greatly recommend it.

Pixy Misa at Ambent Irony - Daily News Stuff 31 August 2026: Fuck Yeah Edition

Google Maps has correctly marked Lake America and the crazies are being crazy. (Daily Beast)
Oh no.

Small Dead Animals - Saturday On Turtle Island

China Carney’s Canada: Lake America. Trolling Canada. Fresh air. Blackie’s tree scam.
The Democratic Party’s America: Victor Davis Hanson – The new WWE. Woke Girl Scouts.

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 8/30/2026

18-Year-Old Arrested After Cutting Down Flock Camera in California
An 18-year-old man has been arrested in California after allegedly cutting down a Flock Safety camera.

A View from the Beach - Flotsam and Jetsam - Supreme Court Allows Ballroom to Proceed 5-4

From Ace, Trump Announces Truly Huge Deal to... Take Over 65 Billion Barrels' Worth of Venezuela's Oil Reserves?! Why would they do this? Because successive socialist governments have, get this, run the oil industry into the ground.

The Glibertarians - Monday Afternoon Dutch Links

The excuses are missing an element.
So close to getting it.
Obligatory Swiss link.

Bacon Time!!!! - Sunday Linkange

Pirates Cove NYC’s Islamist Mayor To Attend 9/11 Ceremony
Freedom Is Just Another Word.. .Saturday Memes…

Vlad Tepes - Examining the street level effects of hidden state and uber-state hidden policies: Links 1 for Aug. 31, 2026

But using metadata we learn how well gun control worked in Germany, or, perhaps we learned what it was really for. TO disarm law abiding Germans and empower Muslim or African illegal migrants.

Political Hat - News of the Week (August 30th, 2026)

Amid the AI build-out, the country is experiencing a historic surge in the cost of memory and other computer chips. This demand shock has forced electronics makers to raise their prices.

Don Surber - HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NEWS

ITEM 2: Zero Hedge reported that the “chicken mortality rate was also highest in organic free-range farming, researchers said.”
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 8/ 31 /26

Sara Dogan exposes the far-Left professors promoting political violence.
Academic Assault

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: DNC Election Rigger Proposes Adding 4 Leftist Judges to Supreme Court at First Available Opportunity

Dark Age to Golden Age - Susan Kokinda
If the Paxtons Are Corrupt, They Are Remarkably Bad at It... - Alexander Muse
Three Vital Takeaways from Trump's Venezuela Deal - Capt. Seth Keshel

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 09/01/2026

Supposedly this is the Flock CEO’s house you see here on the left, on Google Streetview, blurred out.

I leave you with Sunday Funnies For 08-30-26 from Stately McDaniel Manor, Sunday Funnies from Flopping Aces, Sunday’s I got nothin’ else Meme Drop 8-30-26 from Midwest Chick's Place, Tuesday Memes … from MaddMedic, and Monday Memes from Granite Grok.

Arizona Homeowners Are Heavily Armed

Bad guys keep ignoring that fact. You could also say he suffered a breakdown of the victim-selection process. Saint David resident shoots, kills man outside his home after reported burglary | KVOA

The homeowner told deputies that after entering the main living area of the home, he observed a shadow near a window in which it appeared as if someone was attempting to gain entry. The homeowner told deputies that he was armed and fired his weapon, apparently striking the individual attempting to enter the residence.

Police arrived on the scene to find a person unresponsive near a window. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Saint David, Arizona, is about a 55 mile drive southeast of Tuscon.

"This is an active and ongoing investigation, and our detectives are working diligently to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident," Sheriff Mark Dannels said. "While we understand there will be questions and speculation, it is important that we allow our investigators to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation before conclusions are drawn."

Self-defense is a human right, and Arizona has a history of recognizing it as a legal right.

Useless Nitwits at the UN Want Sailors Disarmed and Helpless

Do we think the UN is biased in favor of Somali pirates, or are they just stupid? UN Agency Tells Merchants Not To Arm Against Pirates Despite 90 Sailors Being Held Hostage | The Daily Caller

The UN wants countries to discourage shipping companies from either arming crews, or hiring trained, armed security, because it "might" cause an escalation in violence.

“It’s the same type of fear mongering that you see being brought up with regard to individual citizens defending themselves,” Lott told the DCNF. “With regard to civilians, you often see the claim in the media that people should behave passively when they’re confronted by a criminal, but that’s really a misreading of the evidence.”

Lott noted that when all forms of active resistance are compared to a passive response, the passive response is safer; however, passive responses poses far more risk for injury than using a firearm for personal defense.

Click thru for more from the UN. (Hat tip to The Crime Prevention Research Center.)

In A Sentimental Mood

I still find jazz one of the best genres of music for winding down. Some of it is anyway. People have mentioned that I listen to some music that comes across as angry. For example, Till Lindeman of Rammstein sounds angry. Not all Germans do, but he seems to go out of his way to sound harsh. While I like it, it is not relaxing.

Today's song is something of a jazz classic written by Duke Ellington in 1935. It has been covered by Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Art Tatum, Tony Bennett, Sonny Rollins, and more.

This song is "In A Sentimental Mood" as performed by Javon Jackson, Paul Gill, Davide Hazeltine and Tony Reedus from the 2007 album The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

Tuesday Links - 1 September

Meg Storm at Megyn Kelly is first with What We Know About 3 Secret Service Officials Put on Leave Amid Investigation into ‘Potential Misconduct’

Three employees in the U.S. Secret Service communications office were reportedly escorted from the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters Monday amid an investigation into the possible disclosure of classified or sensitive information to the press.

Miguel Gonzalez - Castrated Brits.

I have nothing to say that denigrates more what passes for pride in the soon-to-be the Caliphate of Al-Britannia as they are doing a wonderful job themselves.

The Other McCain - How You Got Hasan Piker: It Started With Cowardice in the Public School System

What a Gordian knot of misunderstanding! What Piker is sharing here is not, however, a fringe extremist belief, but rather what has become a mainstream view of American history. We hear similar things said by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Again from Miguel Gonzalez - The Only Ones & Mag Dumps.

Now imagine if a civilian like us does mag dumps with that same carelessness. We would be brought up in charges and crucified in effigy everywhere.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 29 August 2026: Terry Thomas Chocolate Clockwork Orange Edition

China is secretly fueling America's datacenter rage. (Axios)

The guys pushing for all the datacenters are making it easy for them, though.

William Teach at Pirate's Cove - Bummer: Democrats Aren’t Talking About Global Sizzling

See? Trump Derangement Syndrome is more important to them than ‘climate change’.

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog - Turkey: We Put Out A Warrant For Netanyahu’s Arrest. Israel: Enjoy Greece Having Our Cutting Edge Weapons.

The conflict between Greeks and Turks is much, much older than the Turkish state itself, stretching back not only to the early days of the Ottoman Empire, but to the Byzantine Empire (more Hellenic than Roman, especially at its height), which controlled almost all of the land occupied by modern Turkey.

Wombat-socho - FMJRA 2.0: Embracing The Suck

Not a good week for Senators fans. First we get swept by the Angels in a two-game set at RFK, then it was back on the road to New York, where we lost two out of three to the Hated Yankees.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds - Goodbye, Dolly.

Helen and I made a pilgrimage to the memorial for St. Dolly of Sevierville, by which I mean the ad hoc demonstration of love in front of the Dolly Parton statue at the Sevier County Courthouse.

Again from Wombat-socho - Rule 5 Sunday: More Coffee, Please

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane - The Word Cloud Gap

I thought it would be interesting to have students in my Sociology of Guns seminar complete the Let’s Talk Guns project and compare their responses to the others I have collected.

Paul Vallas at Chicago Contrarian - Chicago’s Ongoing Budget Circus

With neither the will nor expertise to address the spending side of the city’s financial crisis, Mayor Johnson resorts to blaming his critics in the City Council

Most People Call this Breaking and Entering

Professional Journalists™ (so called) don't like to disparage "teens." The Left will count this as a "teen, tragically shot," even if it is ruled to be justified self-defense. Oh, and he was a legal adult. Deputies: Teen shot and killed after entering someone else's home early Sunday - WYFF

Based on preliminary interviews and evidence gathered at the scene, investigators determined that the deceased individual had entered the residence during the early morning hours. The homeowner encountered the individual inside the residence and fired a weapon, striking the individual, who the Coroner's Office identified as 19-year-old Xavier Felix Rivera-Goucher from Campobello.

That he was 19-years-old does technically qualify as his being a teenager, but it also means he was a legal adult.

So how would you respond to a legal adult, who you don't know, in your home during "early morning hours?"

Chesnee, South Carolina, is about 55 miles west-southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, or about 170 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia.

At this time, no charges have been filed. The investigation remains active.

Self-defense is a human right.

NYC Democratic Socialist Leaders Living Capitalist Dream

From the New York Post we get a completely predictable story of hypocrisy. DSA leader sold luxe NYC triplex for nearly $2.5 million, used profits to buy pad in Brooklyn

Limousine liberals. Nepo Babies. Hypocrites.

Two NYC Democratic Socialists of America leaders have been caught living the ultimate capitalist dream, with one quietly collecting millions in real estate flips and another nesting in a sleek $500,000 Brooklyn apartment, The Post has learned.

The two are Labor Coordinator Olivia Gonzalez Killingsworth and DSA Steering Committee chair Julie Swoope. Swoope has a half-million-dollar pad in Brooklyn. Gonzalez Killingsworth sold an Upper West triplex for $2.4 million back in 2022.

Not exactly the proletariat.

Hat tip to Clayton Cramer: This Brings Back Memories

I was taking first semester American History at Sonoma State University. Another student asked a question that degenerated into an anti-capitalist diatribe. At the break, I approached him: "Is your Dad a banker or a CEO?"

"Banker. How did you know?"

Police Response to Antifa Terror Attack on Texas ICE Facility

The Other McCain has an interesting review of the entire incident and its aftermath. Police Bodycam Video Shows Response to Antifa Terror Attack on Texas ICE Facility

Why did I begin this post by talking about the red van that officers stopped near the Prairieland shooting? Because when these Antifa terrorists were sentenced to decades in federal prison — including 100 years for Benjamin Song — their defenders insisted that they were merely “protesters” exercising their First Amendment rights.

Except of course that violence directed at government agencies is not a first amendment guarantee.

It would have taken at least 45 minutes of driving to get to the scene of their “protest,” and that van was packed with weapons, yet the Antifa comrades didn’t have the faintest clue that Song was planning to shoot up the place? God knows what might have happened had it not been for Lt. Gross’s excellent marksmanship, firing a shot that disabled Song’s rifle.

Click thru.

The Lanterns Show Is Typical Woke Slop

From Marvin Montanaro at Geeks + Gamers, we get the update. REVIEW: Lanterns Episode 3 is a Race-Baiting Betrayal of Green Lantern Lore—Possibly the Worst Thing DC Has Ever Produced

The article contains spoilers, in case anyone is worried about watching this drek.

Lanterns Episode 3 “OutKast” replaces willpower with a nonsensical fear test, turns John Stewart’s childhood into an abusive social experiment, and rewrites Green Lantern mythology around one of the ugliest racial messages ever forced into a superhero adaptation.

Marvin M. is a reviewer/editor at That Park Place and Geeks + Gamers. I like his take on pop culture.

I don't think we have viewer numbers that anyone trusts yet. Nielsen takes several weeks. There is probably some data available, but I'm not interested enough to go looking.

More proof that Hollywood hates heros in general, superheros in particular, and want nothing more than to pull the genre down into the dirt. Well, that, and the fact that most of them can't write worth a damn.

Monochrome

I'm never sure how I feel about BABYMETAL. They are a Kawaii Metal band. Kawaii Metal is sort of a mixture of J-Pop and Metal. It has everything that makes it good on a Monday Afternoon.

Here is a link to the lyrics translation. Click on "Romanization" under "original lyrics" for a more useful experience.

This is "Monochrome" by BABYMETAL. It was released as a single in late 2022 from their early 2023 album The Other One.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Georgia

But then I thought it was. Judge dismisses charges in Decatur Library shooting, rules shooter acted in self-defense - On Common Ground News - 24/7 local news

DeKalb County Superior Court Chief Judge Shondeana C. Morris ruled that Medicus Brown, 44, acted in self-defense in the shooting that took place on Feb. 2 at the Decatur Library, loThe Decatur Library, located at 215 Sycamore St. in downtown Decatur.

The 5 p.m. shooting at DeKalb County’s main library branch sent shockwaves through the community and prompted the temporary closure of the library as officials assessed the incident.

Decatur, Georgia is about a 5 mile drive east-northeast of downtown Atlanta.

Details of the case seem to indicate that this charge should never have been brought. There were 5 witnesses called in the hearing, and they all agreed on what was going on.

The librarian, library security guard and the library patron testified that the victim had Brown in a chokehold just prior to the shooting. They also testified that Brown appeared to be in imminent danger of receiving a serious injury or death.

So why did the grand jury bring charges? Because Prosecutors hate self-defense, and they control everything a grand jury sees about a case.

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said it does not plan to appeal the ruling or seek additional charges in connection with the shooting.

Translation: One loss is enough.

UN Employees Took Part in Terror Attack

I usually call them the Useless Nitwits, but that is not severe enough for this. USAID report finds more than 100 UNRWA employees participated in Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7

The United States' Agency for International Development's Inspector General's office announced Wednesday that it has referred more than 100 current or former employees of a United Nations relief agency to the State Department over their participation in the October 7 terror attacks in Israel.

The referrals include three people they suggested be debarred by the department, including a former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school teacher and Hamas operative who allegedly received and held civilian hostages beginning on October 7, 2023.

Trump and DOGE did shut down USAID, but the administration held on to all the records. In March 14 UNRWA employees were linked to Hamas in some way.

Hat tip to The Geller Report: Trump Bombshell: More Than 100 UN Terror Employees Referred for Taking Part in Hamas’ October 7 Atrocities

The UN is an arm of the global jihad.

And we need to stop funding it.

Americans Are Turning Their Backs on Gun Control

From Shooting News Weekly we get the details. Hoplophobe's Hell: More Americans Are Rejecting Gun Control

There’s more good news for the people who still believe that God, guns, and guts made America great. Rasmussen reports forty-eight percent of likely voters said America needed stricter gun laws. Two years earlier it had been fifty-one.

The decline wasn’t a landslide, but represents a consistent trend downward for America’s gun control industry.

The Rasmussen report is behind a "pay wall." I'm not sure that you have to pay, but you do have to sign up and provide an email address.

So, why the change?

Twenty-nine states now have constitutional carry. A law-abiding adult can carry a handgun without begging for a government permission slip. The constantly predicted bloodbaths from the shrieking harpies at Brady, Giffords and Everytown never happened. In any of these states. It never does.

People kept going to work, to church, to Friday-night football. The sky didn’t fall. There weren’t shoot-outs over parking places. The only thing that fell was violent crime rates, nationwide. The FBI’s 2025 report put the murder rate at 4.1 per 100,000—tied with 1955 and 1956, a seventy-year low.

Click thru.

Update on The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

From The Silicon Graybeard It's hard not to talk about the NGRST launch

So the telescope launched successfully on Sunday.

I started this off saying that it's easy to get used to how smoothly and flawlessly these missions are tending to go these days. That's leaving out that part of that "smoothly and flawlessly" is things like landing the boosters back on the Cape, and that has been at industrial scale for only a few years. It's so easy to take success like that for granted.

There are some highlights from SpaceX below. The entire SpaceX video (just shy of 2 hours) is at this link.

Falcon Heavy launches @NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from pad 39A in Florida, beginning its more than three-month journey to its destination where it will generate never-before-seen photos of the universe pic.twitter.com/L3gHrBiQ08

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 30, 2026

Falcon Heavy's two side boosters land at LZ-2 and LZ-40 pic.twitter.com/j4XAR6rGZq

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 31, 2026

A Miles Davis Musical Interlude Courtesy of Miguel Gonzalez

Miguel Gonzalez has a musical interlude every Sunday. Sunday Repose.

Click thru for a song I have not heard in a long time, "All Blues" by Miles Davis from the 1959 album Kind of Blue. There was a time I listened to lot of 1950s and '60s jazz in general, and Miles Davis was a lot of that. I'm not sure why I drifted away from it.

You should be reading Miguel Gonzalez Substack, and not just for the music. Which is usually very good.