31 October 2024

Harris Campaign Censorship Rolls On

How dare you confront the Left with facts! They care about feelings. Harris Campaign Caught Manipulating X To Censor Criticism

Are we shocked that politicians and political parties lie and cheat? What about steal?

Part two of an investigation into how the Harris-Walz campaign is manipulating social media sites to artificially boost their popularity, spread election disinformation, and skirt election laws.

The last part is the worrisome bit. How many laws are they willing to break to hang on to power?

The goal is to artificially manufacture consensus by making pro-Kamala Harris messages on social media appear more popular than they are, and it is often done in violation of the Terms of Service of the social media platforms. In more extreme cases, they are encouraging people to skirt election laws and using these “astroturfing” campaigns to spread disinformation they think will help win the upcoming election.

Go read the whole thing.

Bad Guy versus Bad Guy

They had arranged to meet, but it apparently turned into a robbery. Police: Shooter possibly acted in self-defense in Florissant shooting, two in custody

According to a media statement Saturday from Florissant police, initial information suggested that two adult men and one juvenile arranged to meet in the parking lot of a Florissant shopping plaza in the 8200 block of Lindbergh Boulevard around 3:15 p.m. Police suspect the arrangement was made for the group “to engage in unlawful activity,”

The shooter, who the DA says may have a self-defense claim for the shooting, has been arrested on other charges. The juvenile who was with the guy who got shot was also arrested.

Florissant, Missouri is roughly a 25 minute drive northwest of downtown Saint Louis.

The police have released very little information about the incident, and have turned over their information to the DA.

The only reference I can find to robbery as a justification for self-defense is Florissant shopping center shooting that left 1 dead was attempted robbery, police say

When bad guys kill bad guys, Second City Cop calls that "The self-cleaning oven at work," which seems a bit cruel to me, but I wasn't a Chicago cop for decades. I suppose it could also be seen in the light of the sayting, "Live by the sword; die by the sword."

What If You Called 911 and It Took 12 Minutes for Someone to Answer Your Call?

That is not 12 minutes for police or fire or EMS to arrive, that is 12 minutes to talk to someone at 911. Assuming you still can after 12 minutes. Toronto police 911 centre wait times nearly hit 12 minutes, but why do delays keep happening?

Delays in getting through to the Toronto Police Service’s 911 communications centre have been well documented in recent years, but despite promises of corrective action there are still periods where callers face major wait times.

This is not a new story. 911 call centers all over North America have trouble hiring and retaining people. It is high stress, made higher stress by bad management. And in many of the big cities, people stick around long enough to get trained, and then head for suburbia where the pay is better, and mandatory overtime doesn't destroy their lives.

Granted, 12 minutes was an extreme wait time, but there were other incidents.

“It’s absolutely atrocious,” newly elected [Toronto Police Association (TPA)] president Clayton Campbell told CityNews on Monday.

“Those are top-tier calls, right … and we also had 50 911 calls in pending. That’s 50 911 calls not being answered and it’s an absolute disgrace that’s happening in the city.”

Campbell said he’s been made aware of other recent instances of eight-to-nine-minute waits to get through to 911.

The building where the 911 center is housed is old and out-of-date. The backup site is worse. This does not make for a nice work environment and probably contributes to the staff turn over. But the pay doesn't help.

According to 2024 figures provided by the TPA, salaries start at $97,000 for Toronto police communications staff while Peel Regional Police and Niagara Regional Police are closer to $106,000.

“In London (Ontario), those communication operators make $13,000 more a year than our members. Why would they stay here? The call volume is out of control. They’re burnt out and they can go to a smaller service, work less and make more money,” Campbell said.

It seems that politicians all over North America have a problem understanding this little fact of life. People want to be paid a reasonable wage for the work they do. They don't want mandatory overtime to destroy any chance of a personal life. And they really don't seem to understand that they aren't the only game in town.

Do you know what you would do, if you had to wait 10 minutes to talk to someone at 911, and then wait another 8 minutes for police to arrive? Or EMS? Maybe you should make some plans now.

Get Woke, Go Broke - Sony and Concord Edition

From That Park Place, we get this completely foreseeable news. Sony And PlayStation Shut Down ‘Concord’ Developer Firewalk Studios

Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation Studios Head Herman Hulst announced that it has shut down Concord developer Firewalk Studios about a year after it purchased it from ProbablyMonsters.

Sony was in love with the video game Concord. They reportedly spent a couple of hundred million dollars to acquire the game development company Firewalk Studios, from its then parent ProbablyMonsters. The amount they spent was never disclosed.

Sony then spent a couple of hundred million dollars (or a lot more than a couple of hundred million dollars) to bring the game to market. This doesn't count the money ProbablyMonsters and Firewalk Studios spent to start development.

The game was released 23 August, to much fanfare, and lot of "critical acclaim." It was a commercial disaster of epic proportions. Estimates are that Sony only recouped about $1 million of their investment.

While the game was available to play it only hit a peak concurrent of just 697 on Steam.

That is less than $30,000 gross revenue from one of the largest video game distribution services in the world.

On 3 September, less than 2 weeks after launch, Sony announced that they would be shutting down the servers, and issuing refunds to whoever had purchased the game. Now they have closed Firewalk Studios.

Speaking specifically to Firewalk Studios, [Hulst] said, “Regarding Firewalk, as announced in early September (An Important Update on Concord), certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not land with enough players, and as a result we took the game offline. We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options. After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.  I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

There is much talk about market conditions, and in truth Sony did just about everything wrong when it came to Concord. It entered the crowded Hero Shooter arena, when there are a number of established titles. It was derivative of those titles. While most Hero Shooters are free-to-play, and they get you to spend money in other ways, Concord cost $40 up front.

And then there were the characters.

If you click thru to the article you can see images of some of them. They were derided as Woke, Discount Guardians of the Galaxy, and more.

For a short overview of the situation see this video from RK Outpost: Woke Concord Developer SHUT DOWN By Sony After Colossal FAILURE! | Firewalk Studios Gets Shut Down

There are too many articles/videos on this incident to list. In at least a couple of them, an environment of "toxic positivity" was described. Sony (meaning, I believe Hurst) saw this as their Star Wars. In their minds it was destined to become a beloved franchise, spanning TV, movies, and merchandising. No criticism was allowed. Any comments about the characters could get you hauled off to HR for a discussion of your aversion to the revolution message. Or something.

Happy Birthday John Candy

Somehow it seems appropriate that John Candy was born on Halloween. John Franklin Candy: 31 October 1950 - 4 March 1994 (aged 43). Of course since he's been gone for 30 years, I suppose a lot of the children out there don't know who he was.

Comedy seems to be dead the past few years. You can't write comedy by committee, and comedies are rarely international hits, because they don't translate well. Add those two things together, and between the Woke scolds saying that every joke is offensive to someone, and the studio execs not bothering about anything that they don't think can make a billion dollars in theater sales, plus merchandise sales, and you get no comedies being produced.

This is The Best of John Candy in Films (Supercut). It is longer than I wanted at 10 minutes, but he was a bright spot in every movie he was in.

There may be a sign of healing. Sydney Sweeney's recent romantic comedy, Anyone But You, is the first comedy to make more than $200 million at the box office since Bridesmaids, which came out shortly after The Hangover. (That is according to Nerdrotic.)

30 October 2024

Wednesday Link Roundup - 30 October

Pirate's Cove is up first with Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

  1. Powerline: World War III Tracker
  2. Sultan Knish: Every Republican President Is Hitler

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.28.24

Don Surber: Endorse Trump To Save Your Newspaper, also, Eight more days, four more years?
Michele Catalano: pinball wizard

EBL - MAGA Joe Rogan Experience ☀️

Fox News: Highlights of Donald Trump on Joe Rogan
Kamala Harris could have done this show too, but Kamala chickened out. 🐔

DaleyGator - Weekend Linkage

Pirates Cove notes that Iran is Israel’s bitch now
Bacon Time salutes Summer Girls

Small Dead Animals - Saturday On Turtle Island

Woke World: Douglas Murray – The profundity of evil. Overheard at the Tabard Inn. A top story.
Cackling Kamala’s America: Victor Davis Hanson – Why Never-Trumpers hate Trump

Don Surber - Highlights of the week

ITEM 1: Paul Joseph Watson reported, “Self-proclaimed Reddit Witches are complaining that they are finding it difficult to cast negative spells on Donald Trump because he has ‘some kind of protection around him.’ ”

Political Hat - News of the Week (October 27th, 2024)

Canada’s Euthanasia Horrors Are Accelerating
The horrors unleashed by Canada’s legalizing euthanasia are growing increasingly clear. Case after case of vulnerable people being killed instead of cared for have now been reported.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 28 October 2024: Silence Shall Fall Edition

Nature abhors a vacuum, and OpenAI's Whisper abhors a momentary silence. (The Verge)
If it encounters such a thing, it will happily fill the void with something it just made up, often creating strange or offensive sentences out of nothing at all.

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 10/28/2024

Biden Banned From Campaign Trail by Kamala Harris’ Team
Lame-duck President Joe Biden has been banned from the 2024 election campaign trial and is being ignored by Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s team

Bacon Time!!!! - Sunday Linkage

The Air Vent - Disqualifying Stupidity
Watts Up With That? - EPA Proposes Yet Another Impossible Standard

Vlad Tepes - FOX breadcrumbing, Flu shot death, breathing is bad for the planet and a dialectical attack on anyone noticing actual electoral fraud: Links 1 for Oct. 27, 2024

1. “Pro-Hamas supporter gets take out at Beverly Hills fancy eatery
2. According to physician friends of mine, the traditional flu shots are useless, but not dangerous.

Cafe Hayek - Some Links

Also criticizing Trump is National Review‘s Noah Rothman.
William McRaven, writing in the Wall Street Journal, justly castigates Trump for his boorishness and incivility.

Maggie's Farm - Saturday morning links

Name Calling as Politics
The left puts a target on Donald Trump’s back with Nazi, Adolf Hitler smears

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report 10/29/24

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Will 'Destroy' British Universities, Warns Cambridge Professor
He may have his tenses confused. Has "destroyed" is more correct.

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: Auschwitz survivor obliterates Kamala Harris for calling President Trump a fascist

• The New October Surprise: A Positive Appeal by Trump? - Thaddeus G. McCotter
• Joe Rogan's Epic Interview of Donald Trump, Including What They Said About Kamala - Nick Arama

I leave you with Great Memes of History! from Tam at View From The Porch, Sunday Funnies For 10-27-24 from Stately McDaniel Manor, Sunday Memes … from MaddMedic, DaleyThought Pics and Mem3mes from DaleyGator, and Tuesday's memes from Wirecutter.

Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0

Another Concealed Carry License holder in Chicago defends himself. Chicago shooting: Teen boy charged after being shot by CCL holder in Gresham carjacking attempt on 82nd Street, CPD says - ABC7 Chicago

A 16-year-old boy, who was shot in an attempted carjacking early Thursday on the South Side, has been charged, Chicago police said.

Auburn-Gresham, or just Gresham, is one of the 77 neighborhoods in Chicago. It is on the southwest side of the city. According to HeyJackass! it is currently the 7th most dangerous neighborhood in the city. It has seen 30 homicides and 78 wounded by gunfire. I don't believe that number includes this story. Quite a total for 3.77 square miles.

Police said he was involved, less than an hour earlier, with spraying a "chemical irritant" at a 47-year-old man, while taking his vehicle by force in the same block in Gresham.

He is charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking. He won't spend any time in jail before trial, which won't be anytime soon.

So what were you doing when you were 16?

At least the law-abiding of Chicago have no longer been disarmed for their own protection.

The Origins of DEI as Seen Through the Lens of Gaming

Legendary Drops is a gamer, who talks about video games

Good games win, bad games fail.

While the embedded video does cover the current state of gaming in depth, there is a section, early on, that deals with the origins of DEI consulting, and how it has grown into a monsterous industry, that is destroying more than just video games and movie studios.

And game studios, like movie studios and other industries, are running up against the fact that in 2024, gamers don't have the budgets that they did for entertainment, 5 years ago. So they are being VERY discriminating for any games they buy. Preorders are down, because they won't risk that some DEI consultant as ruiened their favorit franchise. It's not like it hasn't happened over and over again the past few years. (See the sales figures for Star Wars Outlaws, or the current fiasco that is Assassin's Creed.)

So. What's the impact of DEI on gaming? It's performative inclusivity for Corporations and governments who have weaponized it to meet financial goals while ignoring the impact on the product or the audience. It's creating poorly executed games, surface level attempts at diversity that are nothing more than transparent greed, because we know that they don't care and we see it in broad daylight. It's dividing the people in The Gaming Community and it's being co-opted by Twitter engagement farmers and games media Fanning the Flames to keep the hatred going, keep them mad keep them fighting, because at the end of the day the only thing that matters is that they stay relevant, and it's the only way that they can make money it's about suppressing genuine criticism.

This is the Legendary Drops video The real impact of DEI in gaming

One thing that Legendary Drops covers at the end of the video, is "Why worry about video games?"

You have to worry about culture because politics is downstream from culture. And our political landscape is insane. The Democratic party is arguing that we need to have censorship to protect freedom. They want to lock up their political opponents, because how dare you disagree with me.

How did we get here? The answer is simple. The Right abandoned culture to the Left. "We're too serious to worry about trivial things like movies, TV, comic books and manga, or video games." OK. You didn't want to "worry" about culture. So I ask the conservatives, "What exactly were you trying to conserve?" It wasn't culture, and it wasn't education. You tuned both of those things over to the Left.

Yurikago No Kioku

Origa was born Ольга Витальевна Яковлева or Olga Vitalevna Yakovleva in southwestern Siberia when it was under the control of The Soviet Union. She built her career in Japan, and as a result most songs are in Japanese. A fair few are in Russian, and while English does show up in a few, so does Latin. Like most people who have stumbled across her work, I found her because she came to prominance through the songs she produced for the Ghost in the Shell anime series.

I think she had an amazing voice. Sadly, she passed away in 2015 at the age 44 after a two year battle with lung cancer.

This is "Yurikago No Kioku" ("By My Cradle") by Origa from her 1995 album Illusia.

Smash JT Asked ChatGPT to Summarize the Dragon Age: The Veilguard Reviews

So what happens if you ask a Large Language Model to summarize the glowing reviews, from what Nerdrotic calls the Access Media, for a Woke As-F video game?

It is exactly what you would expect.

Dragon Age is a series of fantasy role-playing video games. According to the Wiki, it started as follows.

The first game in the series, Dragon Age: Origins, follows the story of a recent recruit to a legendary order of warriors known as the Grey Wardens. Their mission is to save the kingdom of Ferelden from being overrun by the Darkspawn, a monstrous race of subterranean-dwelling beings who swarm the surface world every few hundred years in a movement known as a Blight.

The fourth entry in the series is set to be released on Thursday. If you're interested, real reviewers, like Az of HeelVsBabyface, will buy the game with their own money, and stream playing it. Better bet than believing the folks who got early access.

But back to Smash JT, and ChatGPT.

And what they said... Holy crap I wasn't prepared for this.

The reviews, as summarized by the AI, claim that the game is "mainstream." It might have been in the past, but not the present.

The overall summary, generated by AI, discusses everything except the game itself, which you would think is why people would want to be playing this game. Nothing in the review summary says anything about any of that. It's all about sexuality dialogue choices, and how people are feeling when they wake up one day.

I'm like how is this a Dragon Age game? What are we doing?

This is the Smash JT video Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Situation is a DEIsaster!

Here is the associated article from SmashJT.com:

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is quite the... specimen for the modern audience. It's getting rave reviews, from reviewers who are extremely queer, or trans, or identify as other parts of the LQBTQ+ spectrum. The review situation is a clusterfck in itself, where some reviewers claim they didn't get codes because they may have appeared too critical of the games prospects leading up to launch, while other, trans reviewers, were given codes out like candy on Halloween...

‡ "Access Media" because they depend on access - mostly prior access - to movies, TV, or video games. There are a couple of instances where people who were less-than-enthusiastic in a first look at this game, who were excluded from advance access to the game in order to produce reviews. Don't say good things, even if they're true, and you will be cut off.

Of course if you lie about games, movies, whatever, too much, eventually you become a critic with no audience, which is where a lot of "mainstream" game media finds itself.

29 October 2024

Tuesday Links - 29 October

Miguel Gonzalez starts us off with It is business sense, not politics.

Newspapers have lost the veneer of respect they once had. And it is just a veneer, nothing very deep which gets stripped easily if your readers start detecting unchecked partisanship. And yes, there are newspapers that have been endorsing presidential candidates for ages, but once again we are in different times and it is no longer a question of a friendly difference of opinion among friends, but the fell of outright propaganda delivered to your door and paid out of your pocket.

Ben Kew at The Gateway Pundit - Mayhem at Washington Post After Bezos Kills Harris Endorsement – Staff Threatening to Quit and Denounce Company

There is chaos at The Washington Post after its owner Jeff Bezos vetoed an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

As reported by NPR on Friday, the paper will not be endorsing a candidate for the first time since 1980 after Bezos decided the company should remain neutral.

Professor David Yamane at Gun Culture 2.0 - Liminal Gun Ownership

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the LGC National Meeting for the first time. The “L” in LGC stands for “Liberal,” but as I argued in my keynote address to the group, it could just as well stand for “Liminal.”

Anthropologist Victor Turner used the term liminality to describe the condition of being “betwixt and between.” Others have described it as being “neither here nor there.”

The Other McCain - The Schadenfreude Smorgasbord

Whenever there’s infighting among Democrats, the important thing — from a conservative perspective — is not to choose sides amongst the factions. Certainly I would never defend the sold-out and morally bankrupt establishment leadership of the Democratic Party, but at the same time I have nothing but contempt for the wild-eyed fanatics and fringe ideologues of the party’s left-wing grassroots.

Legal Insurrection - Harris Supporter Screams in Toddler’s Face at Houston Rally

The fact that a grown woman needed a lecture about not screaming in a child’s face shows how much we have fallen as a society.

Jim Hᴏft at The Gateway Pundit - JD Vance Dismantles ‘Enemy from Within’ Hoax, Schools NBC’s Kristen Welker on Pelosi and Failed Leadership

JD Vance stepped up to dismantle the “enemy from within” narrative in one powerful minute, taking aim at the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and other far-left Democrats.

When Welker pressed him, referencing concerns about foreign threats from China and Russia, Vance remained unflinching.

Again from The Other McCain - It’s Classical Allusions Day

One of the worst traits of liberals is their quasi-religious faith in progress, the idea that we — the present generation — are more educated, more intelligent and morally superior to our ancestors. The beliefs and customs of the past are to be disdained as crude, primitive and backward, and nothing about our forebears is genuinely admirable, so that monuments to heroes once universally admired are toppled because our erstwhile heroes are now condemned as racist colonizers or whatever.

Wombat-socho - FMJRA 2.0: Preparing for the Winter Meetings

As I mentioned Friday, the 1972 season in Pete’s league is over (Yankees won) and we’re gearing up for the 1973 season. As mentioned here, there are four expansion teams available and the deadline to let Pete know you want one of them is November 2 – next Saturday. Pete’s looking to get the draft going on the 16th, which beats last season when the draft began while I was in Nashville for the Confinement SF convention.

Stately McDaniel Manor - Democrat Shoots Reporter (which is cool because he wasn’t a Republican)!

As always, the Babylon Bee is on top of the issue. One wonders why this sort of thing so often happens when Democrats/Socialists/Communists (D/S/Cs) try to pretend they’re avid people of the gun, but the answer is self-evident: they’re pretending to be people of the gun, the better to trick the rubes into voting for them.

Wombat-socho again Rule 5 Sunday: Coffee, Please

The most important part of the morning is coffee.

Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0

Another case that proves drugs can be hazardous to your heath. Police: Georgetown gas station clerk shot man in self-defense. In this case, Georgetown is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington.

A couple was doing drugs in the parking lot of a Chevron station. A clerk, who was taking a break and sitting in his car, told them to leave. They decided not to heed that advice.

“Ultimately his window was severely damaged and he didn’t know what occurred,” Detective Eric Munoz told KIRO Newsradio. “The suspect threw a rock and told the clerk, ‘I will shoot you, too.'”

At that point, the guy approached the clerk's car, so the clerk shot him.

The clerk called 911 and reported the shooting, police said, and he’s cooperating with the investigation.

Police said they found the man wounded and collapsed in a local business’s drive-through.

Cops had the guy who got shot taken to a local hospital for surgery, and they are treating this like a case of self-defense, though the DA's office will make determinations about charges. Washington State does have a long history of recognizing the right to self-defense. (Hat tip to AmmoLand.)

Clifton Duncan Has Thoughts on Being Blacklisted

What happens to an artist who expresses a political opinion not authorized by the powers-that-be in 21st Century America? The Lie of "Inclusivity." - by Clifton Duncan

A recent phone call with an industry friend confirmed what I already knew:

I'm being blacklisted.

Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I surprised? No.

Clifton Duncan didn't fall for the hysteria around the "unknown virus of unspecified origin." As a result he was barred from working in the theater. Now that the restrictions are lifted, he is still barred from working in the theater, and probably movies as well.

It is too bad, because the little I have seen of his work, I love. He is a very talented actor.

The problem is neither my attitude, nor that I'm "difficult" (a dreaded label for any actor).

The problem is clearly my politics (or the perception of them).

The problem is that I should and should have shut up.

Click thru for his thoughts, and a little about what he is doing to counter it. It is a bit of a long read, so grab a coffee.

Artificial Intelligence Is Not Paying Off

I'm shocked that companies would chase the latest fad without regard for if it makes sense. Sorry, but the ROI on enterprise AI is abysmal

According to Appen, the mean percent of AI projects that get deployed has fallen from 55.5 percent in 2021 to 47.4 percent in 2024, a decline of 8 percentage points. And the mean percent of deployed AI projects that have shown significant ROI has slipped from 56.7 percent to 47.3 percent.

There are several statements about the Return on Investment of AI projects, and links to the base data. This is perhaps the clearest such statement.

Financial firm Goldman Sachs also raised the issue in June when it noted in a report [PDF] that despite estimated $1 trillion in pending capital expenditure commitments, AI hasn't demonstrated its value to businesses.

That is Trillion with a "T" in the dollars. I had to look twice to be sure I read that correctly.

If you're spending a trillion dollars on something, you should be damn sure about what you are getting in return.

This is just another case of executives chasing the next thing that will let them get rid of people they don't like. What they don't understand is that if AI ever gets here, the people we won't need the most are going to be executives, and especially we won't need executives who spend money without regard to ROI.

Chicago Antisemitism

From The Other McCain: Probably Not Wearing a MAGA Hat

He shot an Orthodox Jewish man. Then he hung around to shoot at cops and EMS. He was shouting “Allahu Akbar” when shooting at cops.

This has not yet been classified as a “hate crime” and I don’t expect CNN viewers will hear a word about it for some reason:

I haven't looked into it to see why it isn't a hate crime. But then CPD loves to cook the books in all kinds of ways.

According to New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz, the suspect “is an illegal immigrant from northwest Africa. He crossed our southern border a year and a half ago,” although I caution that no other source has confirmed that information.

I will get back to this story if I have more time later.

28 October 2024

Bloodsucker

Not content to "just" start a wildly successful comic book (and possibly, media) company, Eric July found time to perform on song and appear in a music video in 2023.

Okay, so it isn't exactly a Halloween song, with the title of the song being the only part that fits that category.

This is "Bloodsucker" by Through Arteries featuring vocals by Eric July. It was released as a single on 28 July, 2023. Other than that I know actually nothing about Through Arteries. If you're interested in the lyrics, click thru to YouTube; they can be found in the video description.

Chicago Cop and Concealed Carry License Holder Save Dog Attack Victim

Does the media want you to concentrate the canines and ignore the human victim? Chicago police officer, CCL holder fatally shoot 2 dogs in Auburn Gresham, officials say

Not sure why this is in the news now, given that the incident happened in September.

A Chicago Police Department officer who was patrolling the area saw a victim being attacked by two dogs and approached them. A concerned citizen with a concealed-carry license also approached.

The CCL holder shot their firearm, killing one of the dogs and wounding the other, COPA said. The injured dog remained next to the victim as they were being treated for injuries by the Chicago Fire Department, and "as a result, the officer discharged their firearm, fatally wounding the second dog," COPA said in a news release.

I'm sure that The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is doing everything they can to charge the cop with something. It's what they do. Impartial? Don't be ridiculous. Nothing in Chicago is impartial. Most especially not the media, or COPA.

And people need to keep their animals under control.

What Happens When You Lower Standards and Make Work Unbearable?

The first thing that happens is you get a bunch of lower-performing people for the job. In this case, the job is working as a Chicago Cop. Young Chicago cops are being arrested or killed at alarming rates amid department's staffing crisis - Chicago Sun-Times

Seventeen cops hired since 2016 have been arrested and washed out of the police department, the Chicago Sun-Times found. Twenty-one more young officers have died, including seven killed in the line of duty and two others who were fatally shot.

Young cops have always died, that's why they partnered them with veterans. To teach them the ropes. But for cops to be arrested at this rate, something's changed.

64 recruits and officers hired since 2016 the Chicago Sun-Times identified as having been axed by the Chicago Police Department.

Twenty-five other early career cops have resigned while under investigation or quit to avoid being fired. Despite their disciplinary issues, 19 are now working for other police agencies across the state, according to state records.

So that's what happens when you change the selection criteria. When you make the job unbearable, people quit. Chicago Police Department exodus: New cops are leaving in droves, Sun-Times investigation finds.

One of every six Chicago cops hired since 2016 is no longer on the payroll. About 950 of the more than 5,750 people hired in that period have left. Their average time with the department? Not even three years. Many moved to suburban police departments.

The current and the most immediate past mayors of Chicago have been outright hostile to cops. Now I'm no apologist for Chicago PD, but the current oversight regime is biased against cops. They don't even hide it. And so people leave. Florida has been actively recruiting cops from Chicago. Better pay, better cost of living, better working environment.

As young Chicago police officers head for the exits, more and more veterans have been retiring in recent years, often before they reach their full pension status, a trend that’s been widely reported.

They can't keep the people being recruited, and the old-timers have had enough.

The hat tip for these 2 stories goes to Second City Cop: Manpower Crisis?

Who could have seen this coming?

(besides an "insignificant" blog, run by coppers, who were sounding the alarm on this over a decade ago....why would anyone listen to people working within the system for almost three decades?)

Click thru for some comments on changes in the recruiting criteria and what the problems are. In brief. SCC is always brief.

Worst 10 Disney Star Wars Mistakes

Star Wars, and the franchise George Lucas created was the most profitable bit of intellectual property to come out of Hollywood. Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings started as books. Star Wars was an original story not based on an existing property. Disney has destroyed it.

From the Girl Boss™ to "subverting expectations" (for heroes to be heroic) they took a blockbuster movie franchise, and turned it into a series of TV shows, running on struggling streaming service, that no one cares about.

Be sure you watch Number 5: "The Firing of Gina Carano."

This is the Nerdrotic video TOP 10 Disney Star Wars FAILURES

And the truth remains Kathleen Kennedy and her ilk broke the money-printing machine that was Star Wars. Taking an intellectual property that could have lasted forever, and stamped it with an expiration date that has passed.

And it looks like turning Star Wars from a "Boy Brand," that everyone can enjoy, into a "Girl Brand" no one can enjoy has proven to be the costliest decision in movie history.

European Union Wages War on Free Speech

Because you plebes are not to be trusted. EU President Likens Free Speech To Infectious Disease | ZeroHedge

Once again I'm of the opinion that Europe is lost to freedom.

As president of the EU, [Ursula von der Leyen] conducted secret negotiations with Pfizer CEO to purchase a 20 billion Euros of Pfizer’s fraudulent and dangerous vaccine so that it could be inflicted on all the citizens of the European Union.

She is currently under criminal investigation for her conduct in this affair that has come to be known as Pfizergate.

It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a powerful state official who is probably guilty of committing a major crime - a crime that has been systematically and ruthlessly concealed - to lecture the public about the need for censorship.

Read the whole thing for some info/allegations on Biden pressuring the Germans on censorship.

27 October 2024

Taum Sauk Dam Failure

I don't usually cover the same event twice, but it has been a couple of years since I had an infrastructure post on the 2005 Taum Sauk dam failure. And I really like Practical Engineering videos, because I like the way Grady Hillhouse explains things for those of use who aren't engineers.

This is Practical Engineering's video The Wild Story of the Taum Sauk Dam Failure.

That previous post on this incident is Taum Sauk Dam Failure, at the archives. You will find the Dam Failures case study for Taum Sauk, and a link the PBS review of the event on the 10th anniversary of the failure.

Self-Defense Is Legal in South Carolina

The Professional Journalist™ seems surprised by that, or that's how I read it anyway. No charges for Myrtle Beach-area homeowner who shot intruder | Myrtle Beach News | Post and Courier

The shooting happened around 7:40 p.m. Oct. 21 when 34-year-old Ryan Surujnauth entered at a home on Monaca Drive in Longs, according to a news release from the Horry County Coroner's Office. The homeowner shot him multiple times. Surujnauth, who lived in North Myrtle Beach, died Oct. 22 at Grand Strand Medical Center.

The moral of the story is, "Don't break into other people's homes."

North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is just shy of a 120 mile drive northeast from Charleston, South Carolina, or about a 190 mile drive southeast from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Self-defense is a human right.

Privacy Is Such a 20th Century Concept

KrebsOnSecurity has an update on how your mobile phone is letting everyone spy on you. The Global Surveillance Free-for-All in Mobile Ad Data

Not long ago, the ability to digitally track someone’s daily movements just by knowing their home address, employer, or place of worship was considered a dangerous power that should remain only within the purview of nation states. But a new lawsuit in a likely constitutional battle over a New Jersey privacy law shows that anyone can now access this capability, thanks to a proliferation of commercial services that hoover up the digital exhaust emitted by widely-used mobile apps and websites.

The details are depressing to contemplate.

Suffice it to say, if you carry your cellphone around with you, chances are you are in so many databases, that anyone who is interested can find where you live, work, etc. This is not good for a lot of people, and shouldn't be the case in any event.

NASA Admits Starliner Can't Fly

Whether Boeing will learn the lesson that DEI is not working for them, remains to be seen. NASA Finally Cuts the Cord: Starliner Grounded Until Boeing Learns DEI Won't Fly to Space - Flopping Aces

The news was that, despite having invested $5 billion in the project, NASA reluctantly deleted Boeing’s troubled Starliner from all upcoming scheduled space missions through at least 2026. The change leaves SpaceX’s Dragon as the agency’s lone domestic provider. (NASA also demurely confirmed it will continue seat-swapping with the Russians on certain space station missions).

Adding insult to injury, NASA’s decision comes as two of its astronauts remain stranded on the International Space Station, where they will be literally hanging out until February.

Of course NASA and Boeing have a cozy relationship, or they did, until this little thing came up.

Ironically, NASA originally considered dividing its multi-billion dollar budget between blue-blooded Boeing and scrappy SpaceX, but ultimately decided to award nearly all the money to Boeing. SpaceX was largely forced to self-finance, while Boeing built its now sidelined spaceship using taxpayer dollars.

As for DEI and the difference between how the two companies approached it, click thru. You won't be surprised.

26 October 2024

The Terminator: 26 October 1984

I would like to say that it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago, but it's almost like I was living in a different country 40 years ago. It was certainly a different entertainment landscape.

Here is a collection of movie posters from that year. Some are classics like Ghostbusters, or Beverly Hills Cop. The Killing Fields was a chilling tale about how humans treat one another. While I didn't care that much for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, there is no denying it was successful, and better than the 2 movies that came after. Amadeus is great movie. Even the small, cheap films, like Karate Kid were good. And then there are the cult classics, like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I should probably watch some of these again.

Today we are lucky if there are 2 movies in a year that are not trying to lecture us for the way we live our lives, or tell us who is oppressing people. And if we do get a fun movie, it will be filled with garbage CGI, shot entirely in front of green screens, and based on the (mistaken) idea that spectacular fight scenes can substitute for plot and character development.

I'm not sure you can call The Terminator a masterpiece. Certainly James Cameron made better movies, and movies that made more money. It did make Arnold Schwarzenegger's career, and probably Linda Hamilton's as well. But it was a solid version of "The Thing that would not die" genre of action/thriller, with enough science fiction thrown in for good measure.

This is the official trailer for The Terminator.

"The thing that would not die" is usually associated with horror, like the 1958 version of The Fly, or Alien. James Cameron did a nice job of making it solidly Sci-Fi.

Saturday Roundup of Link Roundups - 26 October

Animal Magnetism starts us off with Animal’s Hump Day News

Two words: Democrat governance.
No shit, Sherlock Part Deux.

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.24.24

Dana Loesch: Reporter Shot At Adam Kinzinger & Lucas Kunce’s Range Day Campaign Event, Don Surber: How it is going

The Right Way - Top of the News

Israel invites the people of Beirut to a treasure hunt - The New Neo
ELECTION PROPHYLATIC MEASURES - ACCORDING TO HOYT - Born Free

EBL - Kamala Harris: Everyone I Don't Like is Hitler!

RedState: Trump swiftly responds to Kamala's allegations
Legal Insurrection: Kamala Rants and Trump Blasts

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 24 October 2024: Disarmed Edition

Speaking of Ars Technica Tesla reported a quarterly profit of $2.2 billion and psychosis is running rampant among the commentariat. (Ars Technica)
I do not get a spell-check warning for commentariat. Huh.

Again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.25.24 (Afternoon Edition)

Stoic Observations: A Simple Observation
Kukuruyo: Why Gamers Relate Sexy/Ugly Characters To The Quality Of Games

Small Dead Animals - Thursday On Turtle Island

Woke World: Remember his name. The myth of Islamophobia. Your morning meme.
Cackling Kamala’s America: A dose of reality. Beta males for Harris.

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 10/24/2024

Judge Blasts ‘Outrageous’ Arrest of Arizona Mom Who Criticized Bureaucrat, Bans Future Arrest
The city of Surprise, Arizona, won’t get another chance to surprise Rebekah Massie with criminal prosecution for speaking at city council meetings

Wombat-socho again - In The Mailbox: 10.25.24 (Evening Edition)

Power Line: The Hierarchy of Democratic Deceit, Thoughts from the ammo line, Newspapers Try to Reclaim Their Honor, and Daze of the Jackals
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Mental sorbet

Vlad Tepes - Bill Gates fit to be tried in the Hague? Israel-Iran and more: Links 1 for Oct. 25, 2024

3. Donald Trump remains an advertising genius.
4. Quebec opens investigation on another religious incident in a public school

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog - LinkSwarm For October 25, 2024

Black Philadelphia voters on Kamala Harris: “We all know she’s not black.”
“Black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters shout down white, liberal Harris supporters in Lancaster.”

Cafe Hayek - Some Links

Ben Zycher makes clear that “both Harris and Trump pose problems for U.S. energy producers.”
Eric Boehm sensibly asks: “Where is Trump’s plan to cut spending?”

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: The Biden-Harris Iranian Spy Problem Blows Up

• The Government’s War on Elon - John Hinderaker
• California’s Unelected Tyrants - Edward Ring

Don Surber - How it is going

Walz has morphed into a younger and dumber version of Biden.
Skippy Tim jumped on Musk, saying, “Elon’s on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dipsh*t on these things.

Maggie's Farm - Thursday morning links

SISTER OF DECEASED SOLDIER BLASTS THE ATLANTIC FOR LATEST ANTI-TRUMP FABRICATIONS:
The Last Desperate Act - Kamala Harris Calls President Trump "Hitler"

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 10/24/2024

Tim Walz slams Elon Musk as a ‘dips—‘ during rally with Obama in Wisconsin.
Video – On Telemundo, Kamala admits she wants a pathway to citizenship for all illegals.

I leave you with Wednesday's memes from Wirecutter, Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #2093 from 90 Miles from Tyranny, and Media Scum ..............from Rico from Theo Spark.

You Are Not Protected At Home

You might have to invite a vampire into your home, but burglars need no invitation. 'You’re supposed to be at home, and nothing bad will happen,’ | Dog alerts resident of intruder who attempted to steal homeowner's truck | KENS 5. This got stuck in drafts for a week, but worth looking at.

I would say that the homeowner got the following steps out of order.

Law enforcement received a call west of Jourdanton – just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, where an intruder allegedly broke into a home.

“The male resident looked into the living room and saw somebody in there, and he grabbed a gun,” [Sheriff] Soward said.

Grab the gun first. Then go investigate what the dog is barking at.

Faced with an armed Texan, in his own home, he decided to leave. The only problem is, he decided to take the homeowner's truck. They do things different in Texas.

Atascosa County Sheriff David Soward says the homeowner had every right to protect his property.

That is in response to the shots fired at the would-be, car thief. Deputies took the miscreant into custody.

This guy had so many chances to end up dead. I wonder if he realizes how lucky he is. Click thru for the statement from Sheriff Soward on that topic.

It would probably be a good idea to refrain from breaking into homes in Texas.

As for the title to this post, and the quote in the title to the article... Not quite "Neighbors were shocked," but similar. You are not immune to crime. Not based on your zip code, and not based on the fact that you have a mortgage. You should plan accordingly.

The Media and the Democrats Have Been Lying to You about Violent Gangs

From The Post Millennial we get the following. City councilwoman reveals Venezuelan gang problem was well-known in Aurora, CO ahead of media attention

Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky has revealed that the Colorado city knew of the Venezuelan gang problem plaguing apartment complexes. The gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), took over multiple apartment complexes and made headlines over the summer when video of suspected gang members wandering through housing units armed with rifles went viral.

Jurinsky posted an internal city email dated November 16, 2023, in which Aurora police discussed how an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent told them that TdA "decided to make Denver their headquarters due to sanctuary policies and location." A gang unit officer wrote to Chris Poppe, the police commander of District 3 of Aurora, Colorado about a "TdA bulletin" that was going to be sent out to the entire Aurora Police Department.

Aurora, Colorado is suburban Denver. It is about 10 miles east of downtown Denver.

So for nearly a year, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) knew there was a problem in Aurora, CO and they didn't say anything.

I can't even pretend to be shocked.

Shadows

I found Aram Bedrosian because he wrote and performed the theme song to a YouTube channel I like. While I don't like all of his music, I find a lot of it interesting.

This is "Shadows" by Aram Bedrosian. It was released to YouTube 5 years ago.

Israel versus Iran

From The Other McCain we get the following. Armageddon Update: IDF Strikes Iran

So, here we are, barely 10 days away from Election Day, and Israel is at war with Iran. Gosh, now we’re teetering on the brink of World War III, who is most capable of handling a situation like this?

There is a lot more. Click thru.

25 October 2024

Friday Links - 25 October

This Ain't Hell is up first with an important message about Delta Airlines. Delta deplanes Marine for anti-suicide shirt. Click thru for a look at the t-shirt in question.

But a non-abusive, non-obscene T-shirt supporting what the government has described as a health crisis cause – the high rate of veterans’ suicides? Threatening? [SNIP]

Quick hint for ya, Delta – you fly NOWHERE I want to go that other airlines don’t also go.

SiGraybeard - Starship Test Flight 5 "Worries" The IAC

The worries end up being nothing negative about the test flight itself. The worries are that SpaceX is so far ahead of the rest of the industry that they can't catch up.

Flopping Aces - NYT: Why Is Trump Gaining With Black and Hispanic Voters?

The headline says it all, and it’s one of those questions where “If you have to ask the question, you won’t understand the answers.” But that doesn’t stop The Times! They come up with five possible explanations, and to nobody’s surprise, they get it wrong.

The Other McCain - Charlie Martin Needs Your Help

Instapundit informs us that Charlie needs our help: He had retired to Florida, but when that became too expensive (Bidenflation), Charlie was persuaded to locate to Costa Rica where, he had been assured, the cost of living was more affordable.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 23 October 2024: Floppy Edition

The San Francisco MTA is spending $212 million to move its train control system off floppy disks. (GovTech)

The system was installed in 1998, which is rather late to be using floppy disks that were (assuming it uses 3.5" disks) introduced in 1982. But Compact Flash, the only real alternative at the time that is still supported today, was only introduced in 1994 and was likely not readily available when the project started.

And given that it's been working for 26 years so far, we can't really blame the designers for being short-sighted.

Again from The Other McCain - DOA on the Road to Social Justice

Perhaps there is some kind of useful life lesson to be learned here. Like, avoid teenage girls with criminal records and neck tattoos? Or maybe, high-speed driving and “purple drank” are a bad combination? But I think there are more serious lessons to be learned, about the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, rather than embracing a victim mentality that turns your life into an eternal hunt for scapegoats you can blame for your problems.

He Was Going to Speak Harshly To Them

Is your car, or anything in it, worth your life? Homeowner shot to death after confronting suspected burglars: SCSO

This is a tragedy, and I don't mean to make light of it. But there is an important lesson. It's only stuff.

The [Shelby County Sheriff’s Office] says the homeowner saw people attempting to break into a vehicle in his driveway. He opened the front door and yelled, and then he was shot numerous times.

He was taken to a local hospital, but he did not survive his injuries.

I looked at several articles on this incident, but I could find no information on the homeowner's family, or who he left behind.

I think Data said it best in Star Trek: the Next Generation.

This is just a thing, and things can be replaced. Lives cannot.

Your righteous indignation is not a suit of armor. You have every right to confront people who are trying to steal your stuff. That is not an issue. The question is, "Should you?"

Bad guys today are bad, in all ways. I know someone stealing your stuff makes you angry. I have been burglarized a couple of times and robbed once. It was upsetting each time. It was only stuff, even though some of it was given to me by my grandmother. If there is something you can't stand to lose, it should be in a safe-deposit box. (That's what 2 burglaries taught me.) They will shoot you for less than 50 bucks. That should be a part of your planning.

DC Comics Has Decided YouTube is to Blame for their Problems

The people who are in charge of the American comic book are completely Woke. The current Superman (Clark Kent's son) is gay, as is the current Robin from the Batman series. There is a reason that a single Manga can outsell the entire US comic book industry. And that reason is Woke doesn't sell. But they can't admit that, so it must be someone else's fault. YouTube, or more accurately YouTubers are to blame. People would buy their woke garbage if not for YouTube!

They have decided that the problem is YouTubers who are radicalizing people against their Woke shyte. Yeah, I know it's a stretch, but they can't admit that the stuff they are producing is crap. To admit that they are producing crap, would be for a writer to admit they can't write, or that they don't know how to craft an engrossing story. They're Artists, or something. The problem lies in someone else.

This is a problem shared by Hollywood, the western gaming industry, the media, and everything else that is concentrated in Los Angeles, or California in general, or the eastern seaboard Blue enclaves.

From That Park Place, we get the following: DC Comics Appears To Malign YouTuber Jeremy Griggs Aka DDay Cobra Of Geeks + Gamers By Turning Him Into Blue Beetle Villain

So regardless of how bad ass they make Griggs’ fictional commentary in the graphic novel, the point bears repeating, to borrow a phrase from Niemeier, he is still be painted as a villain. His views are being painted as villainous no matter the true substance of them. And that’s the real point, they want to associate these viewpoints with villains and evil. They want to condition people to believe these views are evil regardless of their actual merit.

In contrast, they show Blue Beetle, the protagonist, lecturing the individuals who listen to these views while he collaborates with a woman who has an Anarchy and Anti-Columbus Society on her laptop.

That is pretty much a textbook definition of propaganda.

I found all of this because of the followin RK Outpost video DC Comics ATTACKS Jeremy From Geeks + Gamers And Other Youtubers In CRINGE Blue Beetle Comic

The current focus of the attack seems to be Jeremy of Geeks and Gamers, though they don't mention him by name. The vehicle they are using is a recent edition of Blue Beetle.

St. Crispin's Day

Saint Crispin's Day marks the anniversary of The Battle of Agincourt, in the Hundred Years War between England and France. That battle was fought on 25 October 1415.

While I would love to go on at length about Agincourt, you can find plenty of information if you look. I believe there are six accounts made by people present at the battle that are available.

I will only note that from my point of view, it is one of the times in history, where a change in technology proved decisive in battle. The Welsh longbow together with a few other changes, enabled the British to best a larger force of plate armored cavalry and men-at-arms.

The day was immortalized in the Shakespeare classic Henry V, in the Band of Brothers speech by King Henry to his officers and men.

This story shall the good man teach his son, and Crispin Crispian shall ner go by from this day, to the ending of the world, but we in shall be remembered.

This is the "The Band of Brothers speech" as seen through the 1994 Danny DeVito movie Renaissance Man. It isn't exact, but it is one of my favorite versions. For a low-budget movie, that didn't include monsters, aliens, superheroes, or the like, it is pretty good.

People make much of the Kenneth Branagh version of Henry V, but I think you can't go wrong with Laurence Olivier version from 1944.

24 October 2024

A Good Guy With a Gun Stops a Bad Guy

Isn't that the thing that the gun-hating Left says never happens? Would-be robber shot and killed in Gastonia store

A would-be bad guy walks into a store in the evening, pulls out a gun, threatens an employee, and demands cash.

A customer in the store was also armed and shot Almodovar, police said. He was taken to Caromont Regional Hospital where he died from his injuries. No one else at the store was injured, and no arrests have been made.

No was arrested because defense of self, and others, is legal in the Great State of North Carolina.

Gastonia, North Carolina is about a 20 mile drive west of downtown Charlotte.

The investigation is ongoing, but police have confirmed that the shooter has a concealed carry license.

Turns Out the Cloud Isn't The Cost Savings It Was Sold As

From Ars Technica: Basecamp-maker 37Signals says its “cloud exit” will save it $10M over 5 years

This isn't the first time some company has figured that out.

37Signals is a "productivity company." They had been heavily involved in Apple and the Mac, until Apple decided that only THEIR apps would be allowed on the home page, because how dare you question Apple! So 37Signals moved to Windows, or started to, until Apple saw the error of their way and relented. A little. None of that was done quietly, which is why Apple may have relented. (Bad Publicity can affect anyone.)

So when 37Signals decided to pull its seven cloud-based apps off Amazon Web Services in the fall of 2022, it didn't do so quietly or without details. Back then, Hansson described his firm as paying "an at times almost absurd premium" for defense against "wild swings or towering peaks in usage." In early 2023, Hansson wrote that 37Signals expected to save $7 million over five years by buying more than $600,000 worth of Dell server gear and hosting its own apps.

I could probably come up with a couple of other examples. But we have The Cloud™ to consider.

AWS made data transfer out of AWS free for customers who were moving off their servers in March, spurred in part by European regulations. Trade publications are full of trend stories about rising cloud costs and explainers on why companies are repatriating. Stories of major players' cloud reversals, like that of Dropbox, have become talking points for the cloud-averse.

Click thru for the details.

And that doesn't include the fact that you give up 4th Amendment rights for anything you let other people manage.

Companies, or rather executives, for reasons I never could quite figure out, resent the money they spend on information technology, and information security, and computers in general. Computers run their customer service, their manufacturing, their financial analysis, logistics, etc. Everything a company does today, is touched by computers in some way. But they don't want to pay for the support they need. (Look at the aftermath report of every ransomware attack in the past 7 or 8 years, and what is done after the fact.) They really don't want internal people telling them how they are screwing up. They would rather have outside contractors who don't have their best interests at heart. (There is another profit stream involved.) In the 1990s is was outsourcing. Today it is the cloud.

For the older generations of executives, you could say that they didn't understand the impact of computers, but can you say that in 2024?

The Subtle Art of Shutting The F*ck Up

I love seeing celebrities self-destruct. Self-important celebrities deserve everything they get, when they take themselves too seriously.

Case in point Cynthia Erivo, star of the upcoming, live-action, adaptation of Wicked, who for some reason picked the most bizarre of all hills to die on, a couple of days ago, kicked off a social-media firestorm, and as a result is now in hot competition with Rachel Zegler and Amandla Stenberg to be crowned the most whiny, entitled, and unlikable actress of 2024. Damn, talk about a strong playing field.

In case you aren't tied into the popular Zeitgeist the stage play Wicked is being released as a feature film. It had attracted a lot of hope, because it is generally considered to a top-notch stage play. All the cast needed to do was not say anything. But that is too much to ask in 2024. The actress playing Elphaba (the person you would know as The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz) didn't know anything about jokes that surrounded the stage play, and then she decided to lash out at an average fan. Why? Watch the video for an answer.

It's like she doesn't quite understand that she's just an actor playing a role, and the movie is about her character, and not her as a person. "No. This is MY movie, MY poster, MY face, and what I choose to show YOU, the lowly viewer, and you WILL accept what I choose to give you without question."

I think this movie will still do well, but damn, Hollywood, as Critical Drinker says at the end of the video, Celebrities need to learn to shut the fuck up. (where do you think I got the title for this post?)

This is Critical Drinker's video Wicked - How To Tank Your Movie In One Easy Step.

23 October 2024

Wednesday Link Roundup - 23 October

DaleyGator starts us off with WEEKEND LINKAGE

Irons in the Fire NSFW
Daily Time Waster
By Other Means

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 10.21.24

Don Surber: Democrat Senators for Trump
First Street Journal: Another #Hezbollah leader goes into exile

EBL - Trump's McDonalds Troll of Kamala 🍔🍟😹

Twitchy: He did it: McDonald J. Trump!
Instapundit: Trump does it! Trolls Kamala over working at McDonalds

Pirate's Cove - Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

  1. Gates Of Vienna: Germany Flushes Itself Down the Toilet
  2. Geller Report: EVIL: Kamala Harris Accuses Israel of Genocide

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 19 October 2024: Monotreme Arc Edition

Unknown 9 Awakening, the latest big game from Bandai Namco, was released two days ago and oh it's dead. (Forbes)
It had an all-time peak of 285 players and is now down to 86.

A View from the Beach - Flotsam and Jetsam - The Final Countdown

Sighing on da Hill, Trump overtakes Harris for first time in Decision Desk HQ/The Hill election forecast. No rightwing bastion, the Economist says Donald Trump takes the lead, as polls swing away from Kamala Harris. Ben Shapiro at Da Wire, Trump’s Cruising, Kamala’s Crashing

Vlad Tepes - Exposing enemy propaganda, the UN shows its colours again, Sweden’s version of comuslam: Links 1 for Oct. 21, 2024

1. Australian enemy propaganda network, ABC busted again for supporting terrorists
2. Expat Yemeni explains how Sweden has become a variant of Yemeni Islam. Quite an interesting interview. Probably explains why they didn’t have to do all the Covid BS.

Wombat-socho again - In The Mailbox: 10.22.24

Nebraska Energy Observer: Get your woolen jumper out
Power Line: Nice Restaurant Chain You’ve Got Here, The Government’s War on Elon, and Elon and the Sharks

Small Dead Animals - Sunday On Turtle Island

Woke World: Skyline pigeon. Historians of the future.
Cackling Kamala’s America: This week in really big lies. Lizzo loves Detroit. Your morning cartoon.

Political Hat - News of the Week (October 20th, 2024)

Local election officials in Georgia must certify results, judge rules
A Republican member of Fulton County’s election board had claimed she had the ability to refuse to certify election results if she suspected fraud.

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 10/21/2024

Left McTriggered After Trump Does Fun Publicity Stunt
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

Don Surber - Highlights of the week

ITEM 6: Kamala Harris on Columbus Day, “European explorers ushered in a wave of devastation, violence, stealing land, and widespread disease.”
She has them confused with the illegal aliens she let in.

Cafe Hayek - Some Links

Here’s David Henderson on Zachary Yost and Dan Klein on the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
Andrew Stuttaford reports on “the disinformation panic.”

Maggie's Farm - Saturday morning links

Changes in the Demand for College - Fewer boys is not a crisis
The Middle-Class Women Who Are Tripping Balls
A Fashionable Madness: The Obsession with ‘Settler Colonialism’

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: ‘The Most Important Election That Has Ever Happened’

• You Will Not Believe What James O'Keefe Found - David Strom
• Kamala Harris Demonstrates the Taranto Principle - Jeff Mockensturm
• Border Patrol Agents Vow to Quit If Harris Wins - S.A. McCarthy

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 10/22/2024

Report: Secret Service didn’t know Crooks was armed before he opened fire.
Nathan Wade reveals ex-lover Fani Willis planned Trump prosecution before she took office.

I leave you with Meme Dump... from Tam at View from the Porch, Sunday Funnies For 10-20-24 from Stately McDaniel Manor, Monday Made Me Laugh from By Other Means, and Monday's memes from Wirecutter.