Concept albums used to be a fairly common thing in American rock music. That seems to have died out. But they are still being created in the European Heavy Metal scene. Today's song actually comes from the first of two albums that are part of the same concept, from the Symphonic Metal band Epica. The concept started in Consign to Oblivion, and was continued 4 years later with the album Design Your Universe.
Epica is a Symphonic Metal band out The Netherlands. (They sing in English.) The band consisted of lead singer Simone Simons, Mark Jansen playing rhythm guitar and providing harsh vocals, Ad Sluijter playing lead guitar, Yves Huts on bass, Coen Janssen on keyboards, and Jeroen Simons playing drums when this album was recorded.
The lyrics can be found at this link in case anyone is interested. You might want them for at least some of the singing.
How would you deal with an intruder in you home at 1:30 in the morning?
In a noon update, law enforcement officials said the 70-year-old homeowner was cooperating with the investigation and investigators believe the man who died was killed during an attempted burglary.
This is yet another failure of the victim-selection process. Maybe he thought it would be easy to steal from a 70-year-old.
Point Breeze is a neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Even in Deep Blue Philadelphia it would seem that legal self-defense is a thing.
The cops seem a bit confused, or they did early on, anyway, but they are starting to see more self-defense, and seem to have gotten there in the end.
The investigation continues, and the DA will make any determination about charges. Still, self-defense is a human right.
Without the means of self-defense, the old and the infirm will be preyed upon by the young and the violent. That seems to be the world that the Left wants to reintroduce.
Prosecutors have charged a 17-year-old girl with committing three robberies aboard Red Line trains since September. The girl turned herself in at the Central (1st) District police station in the South Loop on Tuesday.
CPD said she was part of a group of people who physically attacked and robbed a 45-year-old man on the train near Garfield around 5:15 p.m. on January 5.
There is apparently video evidence of the one robbery.
A 17-year-old boy is responsible for robbing five people this month in a string of crimes that included muggings on the CTA and an armed carjacking, according to Chicago police.
The suspect, apprehended on Thursday, faces a litany of charges, including three felony counts of armed robbery with a firearm, two felony counts of robbery, one felony count of aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm, and one misdemeanor count of obstructing identification.
I still hold out some hope for the continuation of civilization, but it is clearly breaking down in the blue cities. "Outlaw" used to be one of the worst things you could call a person.
Professor David Yamane had a video presentation for Brady Campaign’s Team ENOUGH California Youth Advocacy Training Program. I'm not sure they got what they were expecting. Five Essential Observations on Guns in America
The five topics that the professor made in his presentation are as follows:
1. Guns are normal
2. Gun culture evolves
3. Gun ownership is diverse
4. Guns are lethal tools
5. Guns are not either/or
The video (click thru for that) is 28 minutes long. The first 3 and a half minutes or so, are devoted to his journey from from growing up in Deep Blue California to buying his first gun. Then he dives into his presentation.
Disney Marvel has nothing left but the nostalgia for past movies. Create something new? They don't know how to do that.
So this past week Disney Marvel released the names of the cast for the 2026 movie Avengers: Doomsday. It was a cast of everyone who has ever been in a Marvel movie. Well, except for all the failed female characters. It included Ian McKellan, and Patrick Stewart, two actors who are 85 and 84 years old respectively. What exactly are they going to do at 84 and 85.
There were so many people announced that they can't give each of them 10 minutes on screen. 27 actors were announced, and there are probably more to come. See the list of announced cast members below the embedded video.
I think Quarter Black Garret said it best in the video:
This is a typical, "Oh my God, there's crime in the world" story, as told (mostly) from the point of view of university students.
Still, the level of cope is turned up to 11, from both the students and the helicoptering parents.
Runkel, along with other parents, students and community members, created a Facebook group in 2022 aimed at keeping students safe. The page has more than 2,600 members.
Information is always good, though I seriously question how many university students are using F*c*book more than to contact their parents for more spending money.
But a F*c*book group, no matter how apolitical, no matter how update-to-date, is not going to keep you safe. But that is the level of cope in a Deep Blue state, in a Deep Blue city, at a Left-of-Chairman Mao university.
Armed self-defense? Pepper spray? Bueller?
There is a section of article dedicated to getting more help from police, and having the university police pick up some of the slack from the city in the surrounding neighborhoods. Minneapolis was ground zero for the Defund the Police movement, after all.
Notably absent is any call for harsher penalties for criminals, letting legal-adult students defend themselves, though to be fair I don't know what the situation in Minnesotta/Minneapolis is with respect to concealed carry on campus. I know what my guess is.
Deadline is usually shilling for the Hollywood big-shots. Either Apple doesn't qualify as Hollywood (the tech companies are the new kids on the block), or they cannot justify not looking at reality. Apple Losing Over $1 Billion A Year On Streaming – Report
Apple is losing more than $1 billion a year on streamer Apple TV+, according to a report in the Information that cited two people familiar with the matter.
The tech giant has spent over $5 billion a year on content since launching Apple TV+ in 2019 but trimmed that by about $500 million last year, the report said.
Eventually a publicly-traded company has to pay attention to return on investment, and stop looking at prestige projects, or vanity projects.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, on quarterly conference calls with analysts, routinely tips his hat to Apple TV+ shows and awards they win. But the company doesn’t break out any data on the streamer, which is buried in the Services division — one of the company’s fastest growing — along with myriad other subscription platforms like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness, Apple News+, Apple Books as well as the Apple App Store, iCloud, Apple Care, Apple Pay and more. The segment had revenue of $96 billion for FY 2024 that ended in September.
Even if they don't publish the numbers for Apple TV+, they do have those numbers internally. And either Tim Cook will grow tired of chasing respect in Hollywood, or the next CEO will ask, "Why are we setting $1 billion on fire every year?"
Why? Because if eventually they stop being vain, that entire part of the streaming universe will go away, at least as far as new projects are concerned. And it will probably go away overnight, or very quickly.
What could possibly go wrong? Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony brings us the latest story of "How AI will solve all of our problems, or maybe not." Daily News Stuff 22 March 2025: Tapir, Ghost, and Jerboa Edition. This just appeals to my inner nerd. Well, that and the schadenfreude.
"Vibe coding" is a dangerous fantasy. (NMN)
Here's how I built a B2B SAAS platform without knowing how to code.
(Five minutes later.)
We regret to inform you that our site has been hacked and all user data corrupted and/or stolen.
The underlying article, is less interesting, and less informative than Pixy Misa, but here it is. From N's blog: Vibe Coding is a Dangerous Fantasy
Last week, X exploded when a “vibe coder” announced his SaaS was under attack.
His business, built entirely with AI assistance and “zero hand-written code,” was experiencing bypassed subscriptions, maxed-out API keys, and database corruption.
His follow-up admission made this notable: “as you know, I’m not technical so this is taking me longer than usual to figure out.”
Is anyone shocked?
The Lie of Vibe Coding
Recently, I was working late on a particularly thorny code generation problem when a message from an old SF friend popped up: “Dude, have you seen this? I just launched my side project without writing a single line of code. Just vibe coding!”
He shared his screen with me — a surprisingly polished-looking SaaS product that helped small business with their career path. The UI was clean and the features worked. All built by telling Windsurf what he wanted, occasionally getting frustrated, refining his prompts, and never once understanding the underlying technology.
“That’s great,” I said, genuinely impressed. “What security measures did you implement?”
Since he had no experience in software, he had no understanding of security, and so he had no security. Pixy Misa summed it up nicely, which I have reproduced above.
This really is a case of "What you don't know, can kill your business."
Chicago Boyz: Cherry Blossoms, also, Goldberg Chipping the Signal
Da Tech Guy: Sooner or Later These Leftist Terrorists Are Going to Get Someone Killed
Dave Strom observes Trump Approval Skyrocketing, But So Is Democrat Engagement. NY Sun, Confounding Conventional Wisdom, Polls Find Trump Stronger Than Ever, "The clock is ticking for Democrats to find their footing ere the midterms are upon them."
Details Revealed: Inside the CCP’s United Front Work in Minnesota
The following is a joint investigation by the Breitbart News Foundation (BNF) and the Government Accountability Institute (GAI).
2. Alberta Premier?, Danielle Smith makes solid sense as well. It seems as if Alberta is seriously considering jumping ship from the communist polity of Canada. The good news is we likely don’t have a military capable of stopping them, and what military we do have would likely fight for Alberta.
I won't connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud and I hope your company burns down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp. (Jeff Geerling)
Jeff bought a new dishwasher.
Nothing is more feared by beneficiaries of “White Privilege” than… a musical number that “pwns” them!
If science doesn’t align with “Queer Theory”… then just make science queer!
Bill nullifying D.C.’s ‘sanctuary city’ law advanced by House Republicans
Yep, the latest outrage by DC’s city leaders is that they’re mad about having to obey the law. Tell me more about why this city deserves statehood?
Beijing used its state-owned enterprises to retaliate against Trump’s 2018 tariffs.
J.D. Tuccille reports on the harm that the cronyist Jones Act inflicts on Alaska.
How To Claim Your Specialty Suffers From "Climate Change" - And get government money for your pain
Blue states don't build. Red states do. A timely repost, with some updates.
Left-Coast Judges Say Trump Admin Must Take In Refugees and Pay for Their Housing.
President Donald Trump’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is pausing some green card applications, including refugees
A concealed carry license holder shot a man who was trying to break into his car on the Far South Side overnight, according to Chicago police.
The would-be burglar initially called 911 around 1:02 a.m., claiming that two men shot him in a drive-by in the 13400 block of South Green Bay. He even described the men who shot him and their getaway car.
Another 911 call told the real story. The would-be burglar is in custody. Before lockup he was taken to the hospital for a brief visit.
From COVID origins to the Steele Dossier and Biden's mental health, and more. They lie, and lie, and when they get caught they shrug.
First about COVID
The lies were designed to protect the guilty who had helped fund the virus's origins, such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.
The Biden government also tried to use the lab theory to ridicule a supposedly pro-Trump "conspiracy."
Western corporate interests deeply invested in China did not want their partner held responsible for veritably killing and maiming hundreds of millions worldwide.
As for Biden's mental health, they knew what was going on, but when the debate broadcast it for all to see, only then did they take action.
By 2017, the public knew three truths about the so-called Christopher Steele dossier.
One, it was completely fallacious -- fabricated by a has-been, ex-British spy Christopher Steele. He childishly had cobbled together lurid sex stories, James Bond spy fictions, and Russian-fed disinformation to destroy the Trump candidacy and later presidency.
Two, it was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. She hid her checks behind the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GSP paywalls.
There is more. The Hunter Biden Laptop. Hunter's "art work."
All these lies have divided the country and permanently damaged the U.S.
We learned part of the cause is that scientists have to research their specialty to get paid, even if their work is useless, or would have been better left undone. Too many scientists, too much money in science, doing too much is one big reason.
Let's play a game called What if a Republican Said That?
If Democrats were in power and a Republican said something like what Jasmine Crockett is about to say, but it was about a Democrat, how long would we be talking about it in the mainstream media, including your local news?
To learn what happens when people like AOC, Sanders, and Crockett consolidate power, read up on China under Mao or Russia under Lenin and Stalin. The innocent are murdered by the tens of millions so as to impose the end goal of leftism: slavery to the state.
Right around ’95, slow crappy bulletin boards gave way to neat forums like Usenet, but it wasn’t long before everything turned to shit. It seems like only a few hours of “golden age” passed before Grandma was spamming you on Facebook and things were never quite as cool again.
Caught on video yelling at someone in a Tesla and keying the car was “millionaire fitness coach” Kamelia Enzler, according to the Daily Mail. She's now facing third-degree malicious mischief, which is good that she was charged with anything, but the rub comes in that Issaquah cops appear to be confused about the Tesla vandalism all around them.
It is meant to be continuous, which it is. Like the never-ending war in Orwell’s 1984, it is waged by the empire against its own subjects, but not only to keep the structure of society intact, also, in our case, to transform society into a neo-totalitarian global-capitalist dystopia.
Two teenage boys, ages 15 and 14, face felony charges following the armed hijacking of a vehicle from a 61-year-old man on Chicago’s South Side, police announced today.
The hijacking occurred around 3:45 p.m. Sunday in the 7900 block of South Shore Drive.
According to police, the juveniles and unknown accomplices used a firearm to strike the victim and forcibly take his 2012 GMC Acadia. CPD brought paramedics to the scene to check him out, but his injuries were not considered serious.
The two teenagers were arrested less than 24 hours later.
There is a new State's Attorney for Chicago and Cook County, so it will be interesting to see what happens to these two, if the story is ever in the news again. It wouldn't be in the news at all, if not for CWB Chicago. The regular news - ABC, CBS, EIEIO, can't be bothered with stories of this nature.
Disney under Bob Iger ruins everything. Kathleen Kennedy ruined both the Star Wars and the Indian Jones franchises. Under Disney, Marvel - mostly with a lot of help from Taika Waititi - has completely ruined, well everything related to Marvel. The character of Thor, the arc of the character of Bucky, Captain America, even Hawkeye, were all ruined.
If you paid any attention to Pop Culture this week, you know that Disney has announced the cast of an upcoming Avengers movie. It isn't quite a cast of 1000s, but there are too many people named in it. It will be a muddled, mess, full of cameos that do nothing for the story. But then Disney and Marvel probably don't have a story, not really. That would require thought and planning and some base level of creativity.
The last thing that people were holding out hope for is Disney's take on Daredevil. Not the insanity that was Daredevil as he appeared in She Hulk, that show should never have been made. Not Daredevil as he appeared in Echo, that was just a stupid waste of the 2 characters. Daredevil: Born Again was supposed to be Disney's attempt at a Daredevil program, similar to the Netflix adaptation.
The Netflix adaptation of the character of Daredevil is one of the best, most accurate, comic adaptations ever to come out of Hollywood. You understood the character of Matt Murdock, the roll his faith played in his life. The characters were real, and you cared what happened to them. And the fight scenes were expertly choreographed. Disney's show-runner didn't like all of that character stuff, and the Catholic faith is completely (nearly completely?) absent. (I haven't seen all of it, and I'm not sure I will, since I have to rely on friends with D+, and I'm not that interested.) In short character of the hero is uninteresting. His struggles are unimportant. And his friends have to be eliminated in favor of a diverse cast.
See below the embedded video for a few other thoughts on Daredevil.
This is the Jedi Brooks video How Disney RUINED Daredevil. He explains things better than I can. The video is 10 minutes
This is the Hallway Fight Scene from the Netflix Daredevil. It is from the second episode, "Cut Man," so he doesn't yet have his iconic uniform, and is instead dressed in black. It is one long continuous shot. It is one of the best fight scenes I've ever seen in movies or TV, and set the tone.
When I saw part of an interview transcript that the Disney show-runner did, about how the Netfilx show contained too much talking, I knew this would awful. One of the best episodes in the first season on Netflix was episode 10, "Nelson v. Murdock." At the end of the previous episode, Matt gets nearly killed. In the first part of this episode we find that Foggy brought him back to his apartment, gotten the nurse Claire to stitch him up, and most of the episode is an argument between the two because Foggy now knows that Matt is The Devil of Hell's Kitchen. The episode is all about working through the issues between the characters. And we care, because we care about these two friends. Disney doesn't care about anything except pushing The Message™
I think the biggest problem is apathy. If Disney has anything to do with it, I'm not interested in seeing it.
I've been on projects that have been behind schedule, but nothing like this.
[US Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System (DCHRMS)] started in 2018 with a planned development timeline of one year and a budget of $36 million, "but instead it's taken eight years and is currently $280 million over budget - that's 780 percent over budget," Hegseth said in a video announcing the DCHRMS and other spending cuts. "We're not doing that anymore."
They are going to try again. With luck they can get it. (Are there no off-the-shelf HR management apps?)
Hegseth credited Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency for its ability to root out the canceled programs, which, in addition to the cuts announced at the end of last week, now totals $800 million "in wasteful spending canceled over the first few weeks" of the Pentagon's DOGE review - but it won't be the last.
It is exactly what you expect. I've read several accounts in various news sources. A number seem to say that "no motive is known," or so the authorities claim, and they often note that prior attacks have been blamed on mental illness.
Now maybe those were only the early reports, because then there is this:
Terrified witnesses reported hearing the alleged knifeman shout "Allahu Akbar" before lunging at his first victim.
Investigators also discovered an IS flag inside the suspect's apartment, according to state police chief Michaela Kohlweiss.
Maybe Europe will wake up before they lose everything, but I doubt it.
Police said the homeless man, who was apparently known to people in the area, rushed the homeowner with a baseball bat.
TPD said the homeowner grabbed his gun and shot the homeless man in the upper torso.
Since this happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and not in New Jersey, I expect there will be no charges against the homeowner, but the investigation is ongoing.
Self-defense is a human-right. And while they haven't said, I think this is also a case of crazy people are dangerous.
For the 13th consecutive year, the city of Chicago once again reigned as the nation’s homicide capital in 2024 with 573 murders.
Maybe this should be a wake up call for a change of course. That won't happen of course. What they will decide they need is more Woke, not less.
FYI: Big Bill Thompson, the last Republican to be mayor of Chicago, left office in 1931. Even so, I am sure that this crime streak is the fault of Republicans, or that it is Trump's fault, or maybe George W. Bush is to blame. Democrats and their loony soft-on-crime policies can't possibly be the issue.
“It’s kind of sickening that we don’t think that we need to have rule of law,” Dabrowski said. “We have a mayor that makes apologies for kids doing big crimes as they’re just being kids; we’ve had a state’s attorney that has refused to prosecute in the way that she should and we have a really low arrest rate, which is a big result of low police morale due to city officials that don’t support police. It’s a broken chain of criminal justice.”
Even the Democrats are starting to see this as a problem.
Say hello to Torkilo Hambrick and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Torkilo probably won’t be back on the streets anytime soon. Torkilo is a career criminal from Memphis who made the mistake of committing serious felonies in Lonoke County, Arkansas — where Donald Trump got 76% of the vote in the last election.
A guy with outstanding warrants decided to run from a traffic stop in Lonoke County, Arkansas. The county line of Lonoke County is about 10 miles east of Little Rock, though Hazen, Arkansas, the town where the chase ended, is about 45 mile drive east of Little Rock.
Torkilo Hambrick, 30, of Memphis was driving a white Dodge Ram pickup truck when he decided that he
didn't have to obey the traffic laws in Arkansas, and
didn't have to stop for Arkansas State Police (ASP).
He was wrong on both counts.
The Other McCain does a nice job of describing his list of crimes, and offers up some thoughts on what things in Memphis must be like, where "Kamala Harris got 62% of the vote."
You know how they say a career criminal has a record “as long as your arm”? Your arms aren’t long enough for Torkilo Hambrick’s criminal record.
When ASP stopped the truck by way of a Tactical Vehicle Intervention, also known as a precision immobilization technique or PIT, Latarica Walker, 26, and Laterrika Woods, 29, both from Memphis were ejected from the truck. Woods died, and Walker was airlifted to a trauma center. Hambrick and Zuri Jones, 45, were both taken to hospital.
And now Big Boogie’s sister has died because she was riding in a truck full of felonies, driven by a sex offender with tattoos on his face who thought he could outrun the Arkansas State Police.
Who is Big Boogie? Click the link above for his story, including his status as a rapper.
ASP usually posts their dashcam video to YouTube, but it is a couple of weeks too soon for that, at the very least. The chase took place on March 26th.
Getting into a "truck full of felonies" driven by Hambrick was contraindicated. But then in Memphis, I'm sure that the police would have terminated the chase, for safety reasons. ASP doesn't give up, and they will put you in the ditch.
It was not that long ago that Disney could still make a decent live action movie. Those days are gone. The new Snow White is out and it is a complete 💩 show (as everyone predicted).
A Tale of Two Deportation Cases
In the case of the Venezuelans, the DOJ is resisting the kind of meticulous review that it provided in Mahmoud Khalil’s case.
1. France: Chief Rabbi of Orleans brutally assaulted in daylight on way home from temple.
2. For the daring to contradict state narratives file, Maxime Bernier arrested and jailed for opposition to covid measures
Zelenskyy Rejects Idea of U.N. Peacekeepers in Ukraine – Yet Two Years Ago He Wanted Them. Nick Ballasy at JTN reports VP Vance's wife Usha to visit Greenland with her son on Thursday.
Ukraine Thanks Germany for New €3 Billion in Military Aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy on Friday thanked Germany for the latest multibillion-euro aid package to help Kiev keep up the fight against Russia.
Yes, let’s send the Great Society to the dust bin of history.
Team Blue has drifted back to Bernie, a former fed waxes poetic on Teddy K., what a weird fucking timeline.
ITEM 3: World Net Daily reported, “An American freed from the Taliban in Afghanistan after being held hostage for two years is thanking President Trump for his freedom.”
Woke America: Who controls the administrative state. A Muslim Heritage Month. The worst people.
Odds And Ends: The Black Lives Matter mob. The suicide of Europe. A Muslim migrant.
Be Warned: Khamenei Vows ‘Hard Slap’ Response to U.S. if it Dares Challenge Iran
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Friday the U.S. should prepare for a “hard slap” if it dares challenge Tehran
Conservative influencers are the latest targets of swatting, a dangerous hoax that brings armed law enforcement to the homes of innocent families.
What It’s Like To Be Swatted
Elon Musk announced that DOGE uncovered $3300 million in SBA loans to children under 11 years old, with a baby who was awarded a $100,000 loan.
FBI launches Terrorism Task Force into Tesla attacks
He entered a home without invitation, without knocking. He got shot, and ended up in intensive care. His father has thoughts.
The teen’s dad says he thinks his son walked to the wrong house thinking it was his friend’s house.
“It’s my thoughts and beliefs he was going to look in the window and open his friend’s window and fell through it. I don’t believe he would ever break into someone’s home,” he said.
It does seem like there may have been some substances involved.
“Based on the initial investigation, we believe he was under the influence of some substance- we’re not sure exactly what all that could be,” said Chief Barber.
Spanish Fort, Alabama is directly across Mobile Bay from Mobile, Alabama, or about a 9 mile drive east of downtown Mobile on Interstate 10.
The teen’s father says while he doesn’t condone his son’s actions of underage drinking, he’s convinced his son would not intentionally break in to someone’s home.
Whether he was high or drunk and ended up in the wrong house, or high/drunk and was breaking in, or not high and breaking in, is all the same from my perspective. He posed a threat - a reasonable threat - and needed to be dealt with. He was shot one time by the homeowner.
And this didn't happen in New York City, but in Alabama.
If you get points for being a victim, then you will do things to convince people that you have been victimized.
Police are charging LaTarsha Brown with falsely claiming someone put a noose on her desk. Investigators now believe she put it there herself. Back on January 10, the report first came out that Brown found a noose on her desk in the City's Department of Community and Economic Development.
Eventually, after she asked them not to pursue the case, they got a subpoena for her DNA. It matched the only DNA present on the noose.
That was enough to get her 2 misdemeanor charges: making a fake police report and falsifying evidence.
It also had the effect of throwing a cold bucket of water on allegations that there was a climate of discrimination in the Allentown City Hall. Now there may or may not be such a climate, but if there is, this didn't help root it out.
The hat tip goes to X (formerly Twitter) and Collin Rugg.
Jussie Smollett would be proud.
I'm completely aware that there is discrimination and racism in America, but neither Jussie Smollett or LaTarsha Brown are doing much to combat it. Just the opposite in fact.
There was a social media post and discussion around how do people find new music. (This was a long way back.) And aside from the collection of people who are still maintaining that "The best music in the history of mankind came out during the 4 years I was in high school," there were some interesting discussions.
This is "Stuck" by Thirty Seconds To Mars. It was released in May of 2023 as single ahead of their album It's the End of the World but It's a Beautiful Day, which came out in September of that year.
Another song that has been stuck in the drafts folder for a very long time. It was in one of the Spotify "Top 50" lists, probably Rock This. Those lists are an interesting way to find new music. The "pop" list is just awful, but then pop music today is just awful. Rock This, and Kickass Metal are not bad. And since radio stations are worthless for finding new music you have to look somewhere.
Some sanity on the subject of the Signal Chat group, including, if needed, giving Waltz the boot, if needed.
OK, so if the CIA installed the app, we could imagine a scenario in which someone on the agency’s staff had a “backdoor” on the administration communications devices, and used that access to insert Jeffrey Goldberg into the Signal chat group. If that’s what happened, the CIA operative responsible needs to be identified, indicted, arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But that’s just one scenario, and it’s not even the worst-case scenario. No, far worse is the possibility that this mysterious “accident” was done by a backstabber inside Team Trump.
So, this couple either has something nefarious in their background or they didn’t care too much other than doing the bare minimum in hope they would be forgotten and fall between the cracks.
What's behind Jeff Bezos' changed relationship with Donald Trump? (Ars Technica)
Reality. Something with which the Ars commentariat is demonstrably unfamiliar. The article itself is from the Financial Times which is why it's less insane than usual.
In which we look at the antithesis of DOGE (plus some other vocabulary words): the real Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the fictional Circumlocution Office, and what is the point of cutting all these rinky-dink agencies?
If you were in need of expert guidance, wouldn’t you seek out someone smarter and more knowledgeable than you? Wouldn’t you try to research their background to determine if they were qualified to advise you? Or at least ask around for recommendations from friends? If you were looking for insight on the current political situation, who would you trust?
When I was starting out as a Chicago City Hall reporter for that big metropolitan paper—when we could smoke in newsrooms on deadline, curse, tell jokes, laugh and wore jackets and ties to work—I had one rule.
I’d often discuss this rule with my political sources, elected officials, cops, city workers and others:
Lie to me just once, just once, and I’ll burn you to the ground.
Schumer would have had to order Democrats to vote “no” on cloture, thus filibustering the bill. Democrats are on record denouncing the filibuster as an outdated vestige of Jim Crow, just like Democrats are on record declaring that government shutdowns are horrible, and yet the Left was demanding that Schumer invoke a filibuster to cause a shutdown? The optics of such a maneuver would be awful, and Schumer could see that train coming down the tracks at full steam. All those video clips of what Democrats said about filibusters and shutdowns in the past would have been playing on endless loop, and if you think the favorability of the Democratic Party is bad now, it would have been far worse with a “Schumer shutdown.” This is just a fact.
A 17-year-old does technically qualify as a "teen," but I wouldn't be surprised if the DA decided to prosecute him as an adult.
[Police Chief John ] Barber says a 17-year-old broke into the home and the homeowner fired one shot, striking the teen in the upper abdomen. Barber says the homeowner immediately called 911. [SNIP]
“Our officers were able to apply chest seals to the individual that was suffering from the gunshot wound,” said Barber. “It was a substantial wound. He was airlifted to University Hospital. At this time, we believe he is critical, but stable.”
Spanish Fort, Alabama is directly across Mobile Bay from Mobile, Alabama, or about a 9 mile drive east of downtown Mobile on Interstate 10.
The article mentions that Alabama has a Stand Your Ground Law, but since this guy was in his own home, it would be the Castle Doctrine part of such a law.
“Inside your residence, you don’t have to retreat,” said Barber. “The homeowner took what we believe was a reasonable step to protect himself and his family. Eventually, this will be presented to a grand jury to make sure this was the case, but t that’s the initial investigation.”
Professor David Yamane had a post recently about a "statement on free speech" made by "a group of scholars" who, I am shocked to discover, don't like Trump Administration policy vis-à-vis funding academic research projects. Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education
What follows started as a comment to that post. I've edited it to expand on a few things. I could write at length about some of these topics.
Not sure what the situation at Wake Forest is, reguading free speech, but here are some of my initial thoughts on the topic as seen at universities in general:
The democratic ideals of free thought, free speech, free association, freedom of assembly and the right to dissent are worth fighting for.
How often, when a conservative is invited to speak on a college campus are they shouted down, had their visit canceled because of threats of violence, or experience other forms of The Heckler's Veto? How much "thou shalt use my preferred pronouns" compelled speech is there on college campuses? If Candace Owens, or Dave Rubin, or a similar speaker shows up on a college campus, how many will try to just disrupt the talk, so that there is no freedom of speech for conservative voices? How many conservative commentors could be invited without disruption at all?
The letter linked by Professor Yamane mentions Columbia specifically. That was one university that had a tremendous problem with antisemitism after the October 7th attacks. How many others didn't receive so much press, since they aren't located in NYC?
Education is a fundamental pillar of a democratic society.
What are the current stats on "reads and/or does math at grade level" in the Blue cities? There is a meme about "we used to teach Latin and Greek in high school and now we teach remedial English in college." At the higher education level, how much has turned into indoctrination? I know he is viewing the situation at high education facilities, but the whole is under scrutiny.
Consider Whole Language. We know how to teach people to read. Whole Language isn't it, but somehow it became a fad in the '90s. It destroyed a large number of kids' ability to read and think. It was created from whole cloth out the education universities. (Or why did "Hooked on Phonics" become a cottage industry?) Also look up "the open concept." It was the fad from the early '70s. It too was a disaster. It too came out of academia.
One thing I didn't say in the comments was about math. We also know how people learn math. You learn math by solving problems. In school, that involves homework, and worksheets. Parents don't like homework, and teachers don't like grading homework or worksheets. The result of abandoning those methods is that no one can do math at grade level.
Diversity is essential.
How many conservatives, libertarians, Christians, or Orthodox Jews, are there as tenured faculty at universities? I don't have access (or easy access) to that data but here is some I do have: Democrat versus Republican ratios in academia from the National Association of Scholars.It seems that academica welcomes all kinds of people, as long as they think (and vote) exactly the way they are expected to. Outside of some disciplines like Anthropology or Sociology there is more balance, though not a lot.
Education, knowledge, and science are intrinsically worthwhile.
I will merely refer you to the crisis in academic research, where lots of research can't be reproduced, even stuff from peer-reviewed publications. I didn't provide links in the comment, because I don't know what the SPAM filters are like, but I will provide one of my own from the archives here: “Einstein, We Have a Problem” – The problem with so much science today is it isn’t true
Academic freedom is necessary to the pursuit of knowledge.
Academic freedom is not equivalent to a right to be subsidized by the taxpayer. My interest is mostly in high-energy physics, since I was initially on a track to get a PhD in that field. The current push for a new, higher-energy collider to replace the Large Hadron Collider in Europe is little more than a jobs program for physicists. See Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube channel and her video on that Future Circular Collider, or her video on how particle physics is going wrong. If built, the FCC would cost $20 billion dollars plus yearly operating costs, and really has no hope (or not a lot) of reaching the next level of discoveries. It is only proposed to support the upcoming generation of post-docs.
No amount of accommodation or compliance will protect us.
This is 100% correct. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin, 1759. The other quote that comes to mind is from Darth Vader and The Empire Strikes Back: "I have altered the deal; pray I don't alter it further." (See the statement about taxpayer funding above.)
I'm all about free speech. Free. Speech that offends others. Discussions of topics without trigger warnings. Discussions and evaluation of topics deemed "Not Politically Correct." That really doesn't describe the situation found on most college campuses in the past decade.
Greenpeace was just hit with $660 million in damages, as awarded by a jury, in their "mostly peaceful," but somewhat violent, "protest" against an oil pipeline company. The Left is surprised to discover that "protest" and "violence" are two different things, only one of which is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Environmental defenders rallied behind Greenpeace after the shock ruling by a North Dakota jury fuelled concerns that courtrooms were increasingly being used to smother critics.
Violence and defamation are not protest. But, hey, if they are saying they cannot operate without doing that, well, too bad.
There is more, at both links. William Teach has a lot of thoughts for the NGOs, and their "mostly protests." The first link has hand-wringing from the NGOs about how will they go on if they can't defame people and destroy equipment.
Social media can make you crazy, but if you stick to stuff like music and movies it isn't all bad. Case in point, a band that I found back in June of last year. (Thanks to William Teach of Pirate's Cove!) Well, it isn't too surprising that I didn't know of them, since Thrash and Metalcore are not to my taste, generally speaking.
It is unusual, or maybe it used to be unusual, for an American Metal band to feature the Death Metal, Death Growl. But that's what we get, from either Heidi Shepherd or Carla Harvey. I haven't sorted out who is who, because thrash is still not my thing. Here is a link to the lyrics. You will need them.
Well, my question has always been - at least since The Berlin Wall came down - "Why doesn't Europe pay for its own damn defense?" And yes, this is from more than a week ago, but it only came to my attention recently.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked Europe to step up, and pay their fair share.
But I thought this was a well-put call for action, from a country that is estimated to have spent 4.12% of its GDP on defense in 2024, compared to a 2.02% average for European NATO members and Canada, and 3.38% for the U.S. "The Polish military is now about 200,000, which makes it the third-largest in NATO after the U.S. and Turkey and the largest among the alliance's EU members."
In fact, if you look at Europe's military spending since the 1990s, the economic powerhouses have not even spent the 2% of GDP on military that they COMMITTED to. Trump, in his first term as President, gave them a dressing down, and they laughed it off.
By the way, the only other NATO member that spent a higher fraction of its GDP than the U.S. is Estonia, at 3.43%. Latvia and Lithuania are also high, at 3.15% and 2.85%, well above everyone else except Greece at 3.08%. The one behind Lithuania (though closer to the middle of the pack) is Finland, at 2.41%. See a pattern?
Click thru for more, and a link to the NATO document detailing defense spending through 2024.
Both stress and big flashlights can show reality to those who are living in another world and dimension. In this case, it is the Euro weenies who are all about continuing the Never-Ending-Ukranian War – even as they’ll only fight if the US is involved:
Why haven't they spent money on military? Because since the 1950s they've relied on America. There is no other reason. Early on, it made sense, probably. Since the 1980s, not so much.
Except for Poland. Trump went after the EU in his first term just to get them to spend 2% of their GDP on their militaries without much success. Poland, knowing the danger from Russia, is at 4.12%. It is now the powerhouse of the EU, far exceeding Germany, Britain, and France with respect to actual capability.
And you don't build a military overnight. You have to buy and maintain equipment. You have to recruit (though Europe is considering a draft again) and train troops. And that is hard today. Take Germany. Their Tank crews ride around in vans for war games because the tanks are broken. Same for helicopters. Or it was true the last time I looked, which admittedly was before COVID.
If Europe isn't interested in paying for its own defense, why should the US pay for it?
If you want to maintain a modern society, that is.
If you know anything about modern technology, you would think that this would be apparent. But the folks running Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, didn't realize that, and had no contingency plan. Well, they did have a contingency plan; it just wasn't worth the paper it was written on. London’s Heathrow slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe’s busiest airport
A fire at an electrical substation knocked out power to Heathrow Airport for most of Friday, forcing Europe’s busiest hub to shut down for roughly 18 hours, causing widespread cancellations and rerouting headaches, and stranding roughly 200,000 passengers.
The blaze started just before midnight on Thursday at a substation about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the airport and took firefighters around seven hours to bring under control. Authorities said they found no evidence that it was suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation.
The fire was not suspicious. Would they tell us if it was? This is the UK, where they denied, and then covered up the existance of rape gangs for a couple of decades, for fear of not being PC, or being called raaaaacist.
The public blowback to the outage was swift, with Willie Walsh, the former chief executive officer of British Airways parent IAG SA and now IATA director, saying it’s “yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travelers and airlines.”
Walsh said it’s a “clear planning failure by the airport” if critical national infrastructure relies on one energy source without an alternative.
Whenever a system is designed, especially a critical infrastructure system, you need to look at things like points of failure, and modes of failure, mean-time-to-failure, and mean-time-to-repair. If you lose electric power in an airport, you lose radar, radio communications, air traffic control systems, ground traffic control systems, refrigeration, elevators, escalators, intercom systems, the internet, and more. Depending on where the cell towers are located, and how they are powered you may also lose cellphone communication. You should figure out what you can live with, what can't live without, and then make damn sure you know how to get more than one source of electrical power to that system.
But such is the fragility of the UK's electricity grid, that just one outage of a substation is enough to disable the UK's major airport for 24 hours. Where was the backup? Where was the redundancy?
There are reports that diesel generators, that were previously used for such purposes, had been decommissioned and replaced with a biomass generator, which could only power certain functions
