Sunday Morning Book Thread - 3-22-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (258) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 22 March 2026

Top Story

• An Ohio datacenter planned by Japanese company SoftBank will cost $40 billion to build - and require a new 9.2GW gas turbine generator complex that will cost another $33 billion. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Or, as the article notes, 9 nuclear reactors, though that option is off the table due to the excruciatingly long lead times thanks to a thousand layers of bureaucratic nonsense.
  
  Which is ironic considering that the site chosen for the datacenter near Piketon was used to produce nuclear fuel from 1956 until 2001.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (210) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - March 21, 2026 [D squared]

Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Make a new friend. Hang out with an old friend. Talk about your hoops bracket. It's a laid back kind of night. Let's keep it light and fun!

[Top photo: Vintage Tavern - Suffolk, VA]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Post [moviegique]: The Magnificent Ambersons

Orson Welles' follow-up to Citizen Kane is the touching, tragic tale of an American family that rose to riches and prominence in the 19th century—only to lose it all in the wake of the burgeoning automobile industry.

Well, sort of. A funny thing happened on the way to the bijou (and there is an actual theater called "The Bijou" in this movie): War broke out. And not just any war, but World War II. More about that in a moment. (Stay tuned! for breaking World War II news!)

The second book of Booth Tarkington's trilogy, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, had been filmed previously, as a 70 minute 1925 silent picture which was chopped down to 33 minutes.

Orson Welles recorded a version of this story as an hourlong radio special featuring his Mercury Players. But he wanted to give it proper cinematic treatment. The Tarkingtons were family friends, and the character of Eugene (Joseph Cotton) Welles claimed was based on his own father, also an inventor, who died when Welles was 15.

This little turd is going to get his come-uppance, and it's not going to be fun at all.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (244) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - March 21, 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. When you follow the long and windy road, you end up with maps as a theme for this Hobby Thread.

[Top photo: Lupine Lane, 20x30 acrylic, Misanthropic Humanitarian]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (195) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, March 21

Courtesy Russell Beers

* * *

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 03:32 PM | Comments (67) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, March 21

Happy Spring! With Easter and Passover coming up, we're starting with some seasonal flowers today:

My Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter cactus blooms for all 3 holidays. Here is the most recent one.

sharon(willow's apprentice)

Truly amazing that you get three holidays from that cactus! Beautiful photo.

*

Posted by: K.T. at 01:29 PM | Comments (50) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Women of The New Religious Wars

So disappointing to some . . . .

I woke up this morning to the following trending news item on X:

Carrie Prejean Boller Challenges Bishop Barron Over Commission Firing

Boller, a recent Catholic convert and former evangelical, said the text supported her belief that modern Israel does not fulfill biblical prophecy, a stance she links to her February removal from President Trump's White House Religious Liberty Commission. Barron acknowledged the text but attributed her dismissal to disruptive behavior at a prior meeting, like browbeating witnesses and hijacking discussions. He affirmed the Catholic view condemning antisemitism and supporting Israel's right to exist while rejecting prophetic fulfillment, a position less common among evangelicals. The public clash highlights tensions in conservative circles over theology, religious authenticity, and coalition unity.

This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.

Prediction prompted by a bit of earlier communication from Prejean Boller to the Bishop:

Posted by: K.T. at 11:18 AM | Comments (192) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[That and prayer!]

*****

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

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Or don't get caught.
3) Running with sharp objects is no way to impress the one you want to.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 21 March 2026

Top Story

• Press X to doubt: Microsoft says it is fixing Windows 11. (Nerds.xyz)
  
  Almost everything on the list is reversing changes that they push on users against vehement objections, or side effects of those changes.
  
  I'll believe it when I see it. Or six months after that, really.
  
  Meanwhile the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise Edition still exists (and there's a Windows 11 version that is also less broken than the Home edition, if you need support for recent features like Ethernet-over-Thunderbolt.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (158) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Top O' The Ont To Ya!

Howdy folks! Thought I might not get to do my ONT this week, but we are back up and running! So, what do you feel like doing tonight?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (342) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Another Ocho Cafe

The site featured a Running of the Hamsters race today. They all lost.

The 2018 remote control car championship.

Another Mech MMA battle.

Drift-Trike race. Wait what?

Human-Dog Mixed Kite-Surfing.

Women's track and field. I know that's not a wacky sport. I just wanted you to see this girl's donk.

Wingsuit rodeo.

Skateboarding an Alpine road (I guess) at 77 mph, through a tunnel.

Armored MMA: Two armored women have a poll ax fight.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (334) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Oh No: Chuck Norris Dead at 86

I saw commenters mentioning that Norris had been hospitalized. I did not bother to put it in the sidebar because I thought about all the Chuck Norris memes and decided, for real, that there was no way Norris wouldn't spin-kick this "medical emergency" in the face.

Chuck Norris is a medical emergency.

But alas, Norris has died.

Chuck Norris, the martial artist-turned-Hollywood icon whose name became synonymous with toughness both on and off the screen, has died at 86 after a sudden medical emergency, his family confirmed Friday.

In a statement shared on social media, Norris' family said he passed away Thursday morning surrounded by loved ones. "While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace," the statement read. They described him not only as a global figure known for discipline and strength, but as "a devoted husband, a loving father and grandfather... and the heart of our family," emphasizing a life grounded in faith, purpose, and commitment to those closest to him.

Best known to millions as the star of "Walker, Texas Ranger," Norris built a decades-long career that bridged martial arts mastery and mainstream entertainment. His work in films like "Delta Force" and his long-running television role turned him into a cultural fixture, while his real-life persona -- rooted in discipline, patriotism, and Christian faith -- resonated with fans well beyond Hollywood. Over time, that image took on a life of its own, fueling the internet-famous "Chuck Norris facts" that turned him into a larger-than-life symbol of American grit.

The family noted that Norris had recently been hospitalized following a medical emergency while in Hawaii, a development that had drawn concern from supporters. Though early reports suggested he had stabilized and was in good spirits, his passing came just days later.

...

Just days before his death, Norris marked his 86th birthday with a message that now reads as a fitting reflection of the life he led. Sharing a video of himself training outdoors, he wrote, "I don't age. I level up," adding that he was "grateful for another year, good health and the chance to keep doing what I love." He also thanked fans for their decades of support, telling them, "To him, you were not just fans, you were his friends," as his family echoed in their statement.

Some true facts about Chuck Norris you might have forgotten:

"Chuck Norris was once bitten by a king cobra; after ten excruciating minutes, the cobra died."

Apparently that fact was referenced in Expendables II, when Stallone says that about Chuck Norris' character.

"When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he doesn't push himself up, he pushes the Earth down."

"When Chuck Norris goes swimming, he doesn't get wet -- the water gets Chuck Norris."

"There was once a street named after Chuck Norris, but the name was changed as nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives."

"Beneath Chuck Norris's beard is another fist."

"If you have $5 and Chuck Norris has $5, Chuck Norris has more money than you."

I've only seen a handful of Chuck Norris movies, though I wanted to see more.

The one I remember really liking is Silent Rage, where Chuck Norris has to take on a kind of superpowered reanimated corpse. So it's Chuck Norris v. Frankenstein. Or Chuck Norris vs. Michael Myers and all the other invincible 80s horror movie slashers. I remember that, despite how silly that premise sounds, it was pretty decent and plausible. (Well, in the moment, it's plausible.)

I tried to find a trailer on YouTube but all I could find was this 100 minute video of the entire film.

Any suggestions? I always wanted to see Good Guys Wear Black, just going off the title.

I remember Firewalker being something unexpected for a Chuck Norris movie: kinda funny. I think there's a gag where Norris doesn't use guns and it turns out the reason he doesn't use guns is that he is absolutely incompetent with them.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:18 PM | Comments (354) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The People Responsible For Feeding The Hamsters Have Been Fired

Sorry about that everyone. There was a networking hiccup that made the server disappear off the internet. Everything was fine once you connected to the server... But you couldn't connect to the server.

For the technically minded, the server lost all it's secondary IP addresses, both public and private, and it kind of needs those.

(Antibumped to not derail the Chuck Norris thread. RIP, Mr Norris.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:20 PM | Comments (26) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT - Brand-Damaging Management Strategies: Chipotle, Reese’s, Red Robin

The revenue and product strategies employed by executives at companies in charge of Reese’s Peanut Butter products and Chipotle Mexican Grill have received unfavorable media coverage recently.

The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups accused Hershey of substituting cheaper products in the Reese’s roster of candies. Specifically, Brad Reese alleged that “the company has replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut butter style crème across multiple Reese's products, a move he alleges has eroded the Reese's brand and jeopardized consumer trust.”

Meanwhile, the CEO of Chipotle seemed to say that because its customer base is somewhat affluent, the burrito purveyor is in a position to aggressively increase prices without consumer resistance.

“Chipotle CEO wants more customers who make over $100K — which means price hikes are coming” [NY Post – 02/09/2026]

“We learned that 60% of our core users are over $100,000 a year in average household income,” he added. “That gives us confidence that we can lean into that group in a more meaningful way, whether it’s the solo occasion and/or group occasions to really drive meaningful transaction performance in the year.

Corporate “Kamala-speak” makes my ears hurt. Will ”driving meaningful transaction performance” allow them to be unburdened by what has been. Where do they learn to talk this way? Anyhow, there was significant backlash to Chipotle’s CEO.

First though, I want re-visit a subject to which I keep returning - the corporate management practice that is destroying brand equity and driving away customers from too many once-great brands. As I documented in a recent piece titled, “MGM Resorts & Panera Bread Learn that Slashing Headcount, Reducing Quality, and Gouging Customers Is Not a Viable Long-Term Strategy.” A corporation can target its loyal customers for revenue mining and temporarily increase its profits. It can also slash employee headcount and customer service, thereby reducing labor expense to produce a short-term increase in profits. It can even reduce its product size and cheapen the product’s quality to reduce cost of goods sold, also giving a short-term boost to gross profit. But in every case, these actions tell customers that rather than being valued, the corporation sees customers as marks to be exploited. A great many customers may get hoodwinked once, providing the short-term profit boost that was being sought, but then never come back, thus destroying the company’s long-term prospects. A downward spiral of alienated customers, declining revenue, deteriorating facilities, and degraded reputation ensues.

Back to Chipotle, “Not the Bee” tweeted this analysis: “People can be mad about this all they want, but every restaurant chain follows the same arc…great quality/great price until they gain success, then slowly lower quality and raise prices until you reach a saturation point. It’s us consumers that have to start rejecting it.”

People can be mad about this all they want, but every restaurant chain follows the same arc…great quality/great price until they gain success, then slowly lower quality and raise prices until you reach a saturation point. It’s us consumers that have to start rejecting it. https://t.co/zkRWNxnOxA

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) February 8, 2026

A guy named Christian (@RENEGADEARTH494) responded on Twitter with a similar, albeit coarser, explanation: “And you want to know where it went wrong?? When it went from ‘How can we deliver a better product at a better price’ to ‘How can we financially engineer a way to maximize the extraction of resources from our customers and simultaneously decrease our financial commitment to the business.’ AKA… how can we f*** these people over and dress it up just good enough to market it as a business strategy? You make burritos… focus on making burritos. No one gives a sh*t about your core customer calculations. They just want a burrito that is as good as it used to be.” I really wish these words were being taught in our elite business schools, rather than whatever is causing executives to see employees as a pestilence and customers as prey.

Finally, a gentleman named Aakash Gupta provided an explanation at Twitter/X on how Red Robin regrettably took many of those actions discussed above, and ended up destroying the once high-flying restaurant chain. Headcount was slashed, cleanliness and quality suffered, and customers never came back. Every word of this piece is worth reading, but he summarized management’s destruction of Red Robin with this line, ”So Red Robin was now serving worse food, slower, in a dirtier restaurant, at a lower price point. That combination is how you enter a death spiral.”

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (300) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Garlic Seller
Jean-François Raffaëlli

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (365) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 3/20/26

Good morning kids. As the brilliant Milton Friedman once observed:

You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.

To underscore this, I give you this completely unsurprising report . . .

Nearly half of households headed by immigrants, those legally and illegally living in the United States, are on one or more forms of welfare, a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of Census Bureau data reveals. . . Meanwhile, just 28 percent of households headed by native-born Americans are on welfare, and just 31 percent are on welfare that includes both tax credits.
Countries with the highest welfare-users in the U.S. include Afghanistan, 87 percent, the Dominican Republic, 78 percent, Guatemala, 77 percent, Honduras, 75 percent, and Mexico, 67 percent.

Interesting that Somalia isn't on that list, but then again, that's not even welfare as such, as opposed to outright naked, dictionary definition criminal fraud on the most massive scale ever seen. Of course the nature of government handouts themselves, regardless of who the recipient is is another story entirely and the nature of charity and who foots the bill.

There was a time when being indigent absolutely disqualified you from being granted citizenship. Of course there are several things going on here that collectively have one goal in mind and that is the collapse of American society and its transmogrification into a socialist state based on the inversion/perversion of history and annihilation of our American heritage and indeed Judeo-Christian Western civilization going back millennia.

I give you the Cloward-Piven strategy. . .

. . . an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse initiatives — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse in an effort to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. Cloward and Piven calculated that the flood of demands which they were recommending would break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Now you know, as if it was any great mystery, why the Democrats and corporatist RINOs oppose the SAVE Act or any election integrity measures for that matter, as we discussed on the latest episode of the podcast, linked here and in the sidebar as well as on the popular outlets listed at the bottom of the post.

Given all of the above, one of the Left's big heroes from the glory days of the swinging 60's has been exposed as a child rapist.

Cesar Chavez’s birthday is a holiday in six states, there are over a dozen streets that carry his name in California alone, and far more schools across the country are named after a child rapist. And now some of those streets may be renamed and Chavez statues may be coming down.

Well, considering Chavez was vocally and virulently anti-illegal immigration, himself often referring to them as "Wetbacks," I'm surprised that the left has yet to airbrush him out of history as a white hispanic a la George Zimmerman. Then again Martin Luther King Jr., who believed in content of character above color of skin has yet to have his statues demolished and MLK Blvds. re-renamed.

On that sour note, we have this tragic milestone marking how low we have sank:

. . . a white American 6-year-old was punished for blasphemy against Black Lives Matter (by saying “any life” matters).

A six-year-old white girl was punished because she wrote “Black lives mater/any life [sic]” after a lesson about Martin Luther King in March, 2021—because blacks are treated as sacred by American culture, especially in public schools.

Here's hoping for saner years to come.

Have a great Weekend!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• A child punished for saying “any life” matters exposes a deeper truth: in today’s America, dissent from approved narratives isn’t debated—it’s punished.
  Whose Lives Matter? Ninth Circuit Rules on Punishment of Six-Year-Old White Girl Who Said It Was ‘Any Life’
  
• The Left kept silent about the labor leader’s crimes against girls.
  The Child Rapes of Cesar Chavez

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:31 AM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 20 March 2026

Top Story

• Bluesky, one-time social network and latterly psych ward for those who can't cope with the harsh truths dished out daily by CNN and whatever MSNBC is called today has raised $100 million in a new funding round. (Tech Crunch)
  
  That's million with an M. Almost enough to buy -
  
  
  
• Your new car might need 300GB of RAM. (The Register)
  
  Said US memory maker Micron, whose most recent quarterly results showed three times the revenue and nine times the profit of the same period the previous year.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (181) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thursday Overnight Open Thread - March 19, 2026 [Doof]

From Earth Pictures

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Thursday night ONT. Last full day of winter. I, for one, am ready for Spring! Are you? It's also college basketball tournament time. Has your bracket been busted yet? Wanna talk about those things? Wanna talk about something else? You've come to the right place!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:03 PM | Comments (482) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Four Legged Felons Cafe

The Adventurous Soul
@TAdventurousoul

Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

Photograph of Battleship Row taken from a Japanese plane at the beginning of the attack.

The explosion in the center is a torpedo strike on USS West Virginia.

Dog thief returns stolen property.

Dogs are confronted with their crimes.

Dog tried to steal a stuffed unicorn five times until the store decided it was cheaper to just give him the toy.

Dog figures out he's being bamboozled.

These Belgian Malinoises are little gang-stars. Especially the ones snapping their teeth like lunatics.

Dogs reuniting with service members.

These dogs are only guilty of stealing my heart.

Dog tries to frame his owner for... murder.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (200) | Trackbacks (Suck)