Sunday Overnight Open Thread - February 1, 2026 [Doof]

Photo credit - Howard in Alberta

Howdy Hordelings - welcome to February! Did you participate in "Dry January"? I most definitely did not. Maybe next year. Probably not. Anyway, the ONT is here and so are you. Any lurkers in the house? Why not make tonight the night to delurk? Regulars - be nice!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (409) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: First February Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the First February Edition? Show of hands - who is already sick of winter? I know that I am. I do not think we have been above freezing here for two weeks, and it's becoming annoying.

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (207) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Bourbon, Cornbread, And Bacon, The Three Legs Of The American Meal

Commenter "Pete Bog" poses the question: "Too much bacon?"

After I moved past the embarrassment of the question...the answer is obviously, "not enough."

In fact, it is an even more flawed question, because the bacon in the photo is homemade bacon, made from a 4H pig, which was no doubt lovingly raised by a very motivated teenager. Pete Bog, aside from his Paella-stirring blindness, is no slouch in the kitchen, and has embraced the real (not virtue-signaling) concept of "Farm To Table" and "Nose To Tail!"

Obviously not all of us have access to 4H pigs, but trying to keep the food we eat as close to the source as possible is a fine goal. Bags of chopped vegetables, containers of cut fruit, supermarket-roasted chickens, and even more processed foods are undoubtedly convenient, but they are often more expensive, expose us to food-borne illness at a higher rate than our home kitchens, and remove us from the elemental joys of preparing our own food from start to finish.

One of the things that has convinced me of the virtue-signaling silliness of most of the current food craze is the plethora of (____) milks. Show me the nipples on an almond or an oat, and I will accept them as real. But a glance at the ingredients of these ultra-processed foods should convince you of the silliness of their positions as natural replacements for evil cow milk.

But back to bacon! Even store-bought mass market bacon is tasty. I don't recall ever having bad bacon, unless it was under-cooked or burned beyond recognition. But there is a big difference between Safeway bacon and a well-made bacon or homemade. Yes, you can spend a ton of money...try Neuske's if you have some extra cash, but Costco thick-sliced bacon is quite good! Certainly better than generic supermarket bacon, and it is less expensive to boot.

The rambling point is; We can eat well and healthfully without breaking the bank, as long as we pay a bit of attention to what we start with. And that isn't necessarily more time consuming! The undeniable bonus is that it is often fun and satisfying!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

For some unfathomable, deeply anti-freedom reason, lip balm tubes always advance the lip balm into the top while resting in my pocket, rather than it being a random thing...sometimes advancing and sometimes retracting. And of course the balm nestles into the top and then breaks off from the rest, and there we have it...the crisis of the lip. Should I use my little finger to try to dig it out? Advance the remaining balm in hopes that it will adhere to the separated balm and then...impossibly...retract whole back into the body of the dispenser?

It is obviously a vast conspiracy between Big Lip and Big Balm, and the engineers who designed this one-way screw mechanism should be arrested, tried, and executed.

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (171) | Trackbacks (Suck)

As The UK Circles The Drain, The Labour Party Resorts To -- You Already Know The Answer -- Demagoguery

Never mind that the Reform candidate is stating the obvious, that what he is saying is objectively true. The existential crisis that the UK finds itself in is almost entirely the result of catastrophically poor decisions made during the dissolution of the empire, when they welcomed their former subjects into England, assuming that they would continue on the path to 1st world civilized behavior, culture, and morals. Then, to make it even worse, they began to import cheap labor from the 3rd world because, frankly, they were too stupid to cultivate home-grown labor, and needed the endless expansion of the welfare state to continue.

Labour brand Reform's Matt Goodwin 'extreme' -- but admit he's beating them in polls

“Goodwin has claimed non-white people cannot truly be English. He said if we'd listened to Tommy Robinson and the English Defence League, we would have ‘avoided some of the problems’ we face today.

“He complained about our civilisation being ‘drained away’ by ‘people from inferior cultures’. He's even suggested women should be told when they should have children.

“This isn't mainstream politics. It's extreme – and Reform chose Goodwin deliberately to drive a wedge between voters.”

The United Kingdom is unrecognizable, and it is trending toward 2nd world status. In London, White Britons are no longer the majority, and a trip on the Tube suggests that English is not the most popular language in the city!

Vast swaths of the country have been taken over by immigrants from the UK's former colonies, and they brought the worst of their countries without embracing the best of British culture. Add in a healthy dose of illegal immigration, and the former jewel of the civilized world is a few generations from losing its position in Western culture, and entering the miasma of the developing world.

But Labour, as it has always done, is fanatical about splitting away immigrants from any sense of patriotism or love of country that may develop, and continues to either demonize traditional Britons or push them farther into the vicious cycle of welfare dependence.

How this shakes out in 2029 when Britain goes to the polls again is hard to predict, but if Britain does not arrest the multicultural catastrophe that is its current domestic politics, then it is lost. The current trend of an ascendant Reform party is full of risk for both the Conservative Party, which has plummeted to practically minor-party status, and for Labour, which may lose not only its absolute majority in Parliament today, but may become a minority party.

But the election is three and a half years away, and that is an eternity in parliamentary politics. It is possible, but not likely, that the prime minister will call an election earlier, simply to protect as many seats as possible . He would lose his position, and it is distinctly possible that Reform would win. But to avoid a catastrophe in 2029, that may be the best choice.

Of course the Labour party is busily trying to lock in its gains, and the destruction of free speech, the resistance to any controls over the border, and the expansion of the welfare state may well cement their gains of last year. That would be the end of "Great" Britain, but that is a cost they are happy to pay to retain power!

Sound familiar?

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (244) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread (02/01/2026) [MP4]

Good morning, ‘rons and ‘ronettes. It’s time once again for the semi-regular MP4-hosted Sunday Book Thread. Dress is country club casual, but hats for ladies are required, such as this:

So ask the barman for an Old Fashioned, covfefe or tea and let’s get started!
Today’s opening topic is a two parter:

1. What was the first book you read?

2. What book (if any) changed your life?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (407) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 1 February 2026

Top Story

• Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has denied reports that his company is not going to invest $100 billion in OpenAI. (CNBC)
  
  He explained that the real story is that Nvidia is not going to invest $100 billion in OpenAI:

  "Sam is closing the round (of investment) and we will absolutely be involved," Huang added. "We will invest ‍a great deal of money, probably the largest investment we've ever made."
  
  Asked whether ‌it would be over $100 billion, he said: "No, no, nothing like ⁠that."

  So there you have it. Nvidia will absolutely definitively be going ahead with investing some amount in some company at some point maybe.
  
  Unless they don't.
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - January 31, 2026 [Double Vision]

Welcome to Club ONT - Seeing double? D and D? This is a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino.

The parking lot may still not be fully cleared from last weekend's snow storm, but we are full open for both business and fun! Don't let the lyrics to tonight's mystery click give you any ideas about our guests there on that table. They are friends, not food!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (357) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Something Something

Charles is off on holiday. He regretfully asked yours truly if I would present a reasonable facsimile of a music thread.

Ha. Fat chance I thought to myself.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:50 PM | Comments (160) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - January 31, 2026 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin it landed on sea shells.

Best wishes to Morons in the midst of the current weather event. Feel free to check in with weather reports.

[Top photo: Tasmania]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (175) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, January 31

Courtesy Dr _ No

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

* * *

Posted by: K.T. at 03:23 PM | Comments (68) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Jan. 31

When Iris Eyes are Smilin'

First week this season I've seen them selling them here.

Regards from Jerusalem,

Biden's Dog

So cheerful!

*

Posted by: K.T. at 01:26 PM | Comments (53) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Law according to the honor system

I recently saw a perplexed, sort-of conservative person on social media ask why Trump needed to send all those rough ICE agents to Michigan just because of a few reports of daycare fraud by Nick Shirley. But before Nick Shirley, there was a NYT report blasting Tim Walz about fraud, as well as Chris Rufo pointing out that taxpayer money was ending up in the hands of Somali terrorists.

Why didn't she know this?

Oh. And there was also this LONG written piece before any of the above:

LOOTING, PILLAGING, THEFT, BILLIONS IN

DISBURSEMENTS, ALL ON THE HONOR SYSTEM

We have discussed this piece before, but I don't think we have emphasized the honor system factor, based partly on a previous Norwegian high-trust society which was prominent in Michigan (Ooops - Minnesota - hope it doesn't spread) for a long time.

We are all Somalis now

The Shame of Our Cities

The specifics of how these fraudulent systems seem to have developed are remarkable. I don't think it's all "cultural differences". I think a lot of it is leftism. Pick an example from this piece and see what you think. In one case, a whistleblower report of fraud was sent back to the ringleader of the fraud for resolution!

So much fraud was reported for so long, and IGNORED for so long.

*

Going even further back in time. . .

Posted by: K.T. at 11:05 AM | Comments (291) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

*****

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to take care of. (Rulz for those of you in Iola)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Being Pretti good isn't good enough.
3) Running with sharp objects? Sure you can. We just won't pray for you.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (366) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 31 January 2026

Top Story

• One third of video game workers have been laid off in the past two years. (Variety)
  
  I'm a little surprised it's not higher, but the article points out that layoffs have hit major - so called "AAA" - Triple A - studios twice as hard as indies, so it is higher for the companies I'd focus on with news stories.

  The survey also found that 82% of US-based respondents support the unionization of game industry workers, with 5% opposed and 13% unsure.

  And I was just about to feel some sympathy for these people.
  
  
  
• Ubisoft has cancelled six games and closed three of its studios in the wake of disastrous sales of its recent major titles. (BBC)
  
  The studios on the chopping block include Ubisoft Halifax, which unionised earlier this month. (Games Industry)
  
  That went about as well as could be expected.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Midwinter's Night ONT

Hi everybody! Hope y'all survived the weather last week. Word is that there may be more this weekend, remember to be prepared!

Posted by: WeirdDave at 09:59 PM | Comments (416) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Free Solo Cafe

Garden of the Gods in winter
Kristin_Mae Photography

The Acropolis in the snow.

Nature's Alarm Clock.

Raising adorable orphaned baby rhinos.

The Volonaut airbike, which the company claims is real, and not just a prop being moved around by a rope dangling from a crane which is digitally removed with CGI. The cost of the airbike, if it's real, will be $880,000, when it's ready for sale, if ever.

Big dog who was kept in a small crate for six years is now free to run and and play.

"Oatmeal" the dog lives in the pool.

It takes a village to raise a squirrel.

Did you know that 90% of modern song "writing" is just stealing the main hook of prior hits and giving the actual writers no money or even credit?

Terrified rescue dog comes out of her shell.

Poor dog was kept immobilized on a chain too heavy to move for 13 years. When he was confiscated, he was put on the euthanasia list due to his immobility. But he was rescued and is living his last years with loving people.

That, sir, is a bear.

Border collie has moved up to herding horses.

Nate Bargatze on the responsibility of dog ownership. And the hazards.

Bargatze is interesting because he avoids all profanity and sexual stuff. I think he's popular, though, because he gets into truly edgy material: passive-aggressively fighting with his wife about nothing from the stage.

This is real courage in comedy. Speaking Truth to Wife.

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 PM | Comments (195) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week In Woke

Minnesota's first openly homosexual governor, Tim Walz, makes the Stunning and Brave Announcement that he will never run for political office again. As if it's xis choice! This is as bad as Kristen Stewart saying she can't "freely work" in the US so she'll be filming her zero-budget middle aged woman student film in Latvia. That's not a choice, that's just reality.

But note he only says he won't run for office -- he may still serve.

Reportedly, Minnesota's first openly homosexual governor and corrupt Democrat Senator and perpetual presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar have worked out a corrupt deal. He drops out of the governor's race, she enters it, she wins, and then she appoints him as senator to take over for her.

Amazing.

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is now an inconvenient embarrassment. It was published 20 years ago, and made plenty of predictions prophecies, but none of those Dooms have yet come to pass.

Gore shared dramatic graphs.

Polar ice? Gone, any day now.

Sea levels? Twenty feet in the "near future," which, in political time, means "before the checks clear."

Arctic summers ice-free by, oh, pick a year, any year; 2013, 2014, five to seven years from whenever he was speaking.

Snows of Kilimanjaro? Vanished within a decade.
Advertisement

Coastal cities? Should be holding snorkel conventions by now.

Reality, being the stubborn jerk that it is, refused to cooperate with Tipper's husband.

Arctic ice dips and bobs like it's on a budget seesaw--it never quite disappears.

Sea levels creep up a modest few millimeters each year, and at this rate, your great-great-grandkids might need taller beach chairs.

Snow still falls on Kilimanjaro, while cities keep building condos on the water like it's prime real estate.

No mass evacuations, no sirens, just... life.

Deadlines came and went quieter than a mime convention. There wasn't a press conference with Gore saying, "Oops! My bad; turns out the models were a little more enthusiastic than I thought." Just new deadlines, fresh urgency, yet using the same PowerPoint.

Now if only Star Trek makes the same realization:

Paul Embery
@PaulEmbery

10h

Some of us have been arguing for a long time that the BBC's obsession with promoting hyper-diversity in its drama productions -- even in period dramas -- was preachy and inauthentic and was alienating viewers. Needless to say, the usual accusations were thrown at us. Now an independent review, commissioned by the BBC itself, has found that the over-representation of ethnic minority characters, especially in period dramas, can feel "clunky", "inauthentic" and "preachy" to the viewer. It concludes: "The BBC should aim for an organic and authentic approach to diversity rather than it looking forced or tick box." Interestingly, the authors state: "We found our interviewees of colour as emphatic on this point as those who were white."

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 PM | Comments (203) | Trackbacks (Suck)

As Illegals Flee LA, Rent Prices Fall to a Four Year Low

The LA Times doesn't make this connection, of course.

It's all just a coinky-dink.

It just so happens that the biggest deportation drive since Eisenhower's poorly-named "Operation Wetback" coincides with the first fall in LA rental costs since, well, forever.

There's "increased housing supply," they say. No word about decreased housing demand.

"Finally, a renter's market": L.A. rent prices drop to four-year low

L.A. metro area rent prices dropped to a four-year low in December, with the median rent falling to $2,167.

Increased housing supply -- 15,095 apartments completed in 2025 -- combined with decreased demand is shifting power back toward renters for the first time in years.

Sandra Gomez braced for impact as she opened the lease renewal offer for her East L.A. apartment in September. She paid $2,000 for the last 12 months, but since the unit wasn't covered by L.A.'s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, her landlord could jack up the price for the next lease.

The new price? $1,950.

"I thought it was a mistake," Gomez said. "Since when does rent get cheaper in L.A.?"

For years, L.A. has been one of the costliest cities in the country for renters. Annual price hikes seemed inevitable, and finding the perfect apartment felt more like a competitive sport.

But data suggest that the market could be ever so slightly shifting.

The median rent in the L.A. metro area dropped to $2,167 in December -- the lowest price in four years, according to data from Apartment List that analyze new leases for one- and two-bedroom apartments in a given month. The median rent for L.A. County also dropped to a four-year low of $2,035.

The last time L.A. rents were that low was January 2022, in the wake of a furious pandemic home-buying market that saw a wave of renters buy homes for the first time, leaving apartments empty and bringing prices down.

I wonder if this drop-off mirrors a national trend.

The drop-off mirrors a national trend, as the U.S. median rent dropped to a similar four-year low in December. But within Southern California, the downturn is unique to L.A. Over the same stretch, rents rose or remained steady in Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino counties and in California as a whole.

I guess national rents are also affected by LA's supposed "increase in housing supply."

Opinions also vary on the cause, but the clearest explanation seems to be a simple case of supply and demand.

Tell me more about the demand, LA Times.

No? Don't want to talk about that?

Although L.A. has generally lagged in housing construction compared with cities such as San Diego, 2025 was a big year for new apartments hitting the market, despite several hundred multifamily buildings burning in the Palisades and Eaton fires.

...

Renters are starting to notice that the landlord-tenant balance of power is shifting, ever so slightly, toward tenants. On a Reddit post discussing the drop in rental prices, one user wrote that they pay $3,200 for a two-bedroom apartment in Koreatown, but now, the building has six vacant units listed for about $2,800.

Another user wrote that they secured a lease for $1,000 less than the previous tenant paid after noticing the unit had sat on the market with multiple price cuts.
Anthony Moore has lived in his North Hollywood apartment complex for two years, paying $2,700 for a two-bedroom unit. In the fall, he noticed similar units in the same complex listed for $2,500.

"I pay month to month, so I wasn't tied to my lease," he said. "I called my landlord and told him I wanted to pay what the other units were listing for or I would move out."

He now pays $2,500.

The article literally never mentions the country's first year of net-outwards migration in history.

It's amazing -- the media screams incessantly that deporting illegal workers will cause a labor crisis, but they absolutely refuse to mention the fact that a net-negative immigration rate will naturally cause housing prices (and all other prices) to fall.

Posted by: Ace at 06:00 PM | Comments (178) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Virginia's Governor Sold Herself as a Moderate Centrist as a Candidate.
Surprise! In Office, She's a Radical Leftist

I know you're all stunned.

Karol Markowicz:

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in just a few weeks ago, but the tornado of bad policy is already swirling around her state.

Spanberger's very first order of business was reversing Gov. Glenn Youngkin's Executive Order 47, which had allowed for coordination between the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That coordination was important because it allowed the federal and state governments to cooperate to remove people in the country illegally who had committed additional crimes. That it was necessary for Spanberger to make it harder to deport criminals is a tell that her moderate campaign commercials will instead translate into a much further left administration.

Spanberger isn't alone in moving Virginia sharply leftward. Both branches of the state legislature are now also controlled by Democrats, and they're introducing policies that no one campaigned on. House Bill 863 would reduce minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter and child pornography. If Spanberger ran on "let's let rapists off easy," the Virginia electorate somehow missed it. In fact, Spanberger's campaign ads highlighted her law enforcement experience and that she's a moderate who works with both sides of the political aisle.

...

Then there's House Bill 1442, which would prevent any enforcement of immigration law near polling locations. We're told it's very rare for illegal immigrants to vote in our elections and yet the Virginia legislature thinks a law like this is a high priority for the state. Why would immigration operations interfere with polling locations unless there are illegal immigrants voting at those polling locations?

...

Democrats are going to spend the next four years moving Virginia as far left as they can get away with -- unless Virginians stop them. Virginians who want to save their state have to keep pointing out that Spanberger the candidate is not Spanberger the governor, and that the state government being fully controlled by the Democratic Party is turning lawlessness and social engineering into policy. Virginia can be saved from this, before it becomes another failed blue state with residents running for the door, but they need to act quickly.

Obviously they want to tax everything. To increase affordability, they say.

Virginia Democrats are proposing a slew of new hikes, pushing to have consumers to pay up for their gym memberships, Amazon orders, leaf blowers, and over a dozen other tax hikes. All of this comes after the Democrats and Governor Abigail Spanberger ran on "affordability," a message that flies in the face of the new proposals.

The new tax bills are pushing for a tax on all of the following areas:

Higher sales taxes on all Virginia counties and cities
Personal property tax on electric leaf blowers as well as electric landscaping equipment
Large employer tax
Ammunition and firearms tax
New income tax brackets
A delivery tax, set to hit Amazon orders, FedEx and UPS orders, as well as Uber Eats in Northern Virginia
Gym membership tax
Counseling tax
New car tax and highway usage fees
Storage facility tax
Investment income tax
Event tax
Vehicle repair tax
Dry cleaning tax
Fantasy sports tax
Rideshare tax
Dog walking tax
Digital personal property tax
Increase in taxes in the Arlington area for hotels
Statewide speed camera (not a tax, but additional fines)

They have big plans for all that new money "liberated" from taxpayers: They're going to buy themselves fucking houses.

Virginia Democrat politicians propose "unlimited" grants for home purchases for the most deserving constituency of all -- Virginia Democrat bureaucrats.

Posted by: Ace at 05:15 PM | Comments (174) | Trackbacks (Suck)