Mid-Morning Art Thread

Åsgårdsreien (The Wild Hunt of Odin)
Peter Nicolai Arbo

[Hat Tip: banana Dream]

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (388) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 12/29/25

Good morning kids. Let's start off the with a bit of good news for a change, coming as it does from the international front. Hat tip to commenter Bulg for this story.

Israel on Friday announced that it has formally recognized Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. . . The statement said the declaration was made “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords,” the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements initiated under President Donald Trump. Netanyahu congratulated Abdallah and praised his leadership, citing a shared commitment to stability and peace. Netanyahu invited the Somaliland president to make an official visit to Israel. Abdallah, according to the statement, thanked Netanyahu for what he described as a historic decision and expressed appreciation for Israel’s efforts in combating terrorism and promoting regional peace.

For those unaware, Somaliland is not Somalia. It is an independent nation, though technically known only as a "partially recognized state" that borders the latter to the north, but that said it is an Islamic nation and does share ethnic and tribal/clan ties with the Somalia and indeed other peoples of the region. And since that region, the horn of Africa, also encompasses Yemen across the Gulf of Aden from which the Houthi terrorists use as a base to strike Israel as well as international shipping lanes in and out of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, this is big news. And while Somaliland gained its statehood back in 1960, it's amazing that of all the world's nations Israel is the first to officially recognize Somaliland as an independent nation. If the Somalilanders can be trusted (and given the nature of Islam, that's a pretty big "if") then Israel in theory gains a pretty important foothold in a very strategic area key to its defense. But what's in it for Somaliland to invite open hostility from the broader Islamic/Arab world of which it is a part? I guess as President Trump is so very fond of saying, we'll just have to wait and see. Despite the smiles and the handshakes for the cameras, when things heat up again, as they no doubt will with the so-called 'Palestnians' You know the Somaliland government will not be silent and like eerywhere else will blame the Jews for not cooperating and just dying. But at least for now, perhaps Israel can keep a close eye on the Houthi front which, like so many other fronts is directly and closely connected to Iran. In spite of the decimation of its nuclear sites by both the IDF and USAF and reports of major internal problems, from the collapse of its water infrastructure to growing unrest and disaffection for the Mullahs from there populace, the regime can and no doubt will strike wherever and whenever it can. what happened at Bondi Beach may very well have an Iranian connection.

Back over here, the gargantuan fraud coming out o the Somali immigrant locust cloud primarily in Minnesota just beggars the imagination:

Somali Scammers Allegedly Stole Almost As Much In Minnesota As Entire Somalia GDP — FBI Director Kash Patel announced the agency was already sending additional resources in an X post Sunday, saying the deployment occurred before a 42-minute video of independent journalist Nick Shirley visiting various day care centers went viral Friday. Thompson described the situation as involving “industrial-scale fraud,” according to CBS News Minnesota. (RELATED: YouTuber Nick Shirley Exposes Alleged Somali Daycare Center Which Reportedly Reaped $4,000,000 From Taxpayers) . . Somalia’s GDP was $11.97 billion in 2024, according to a release from the country’s Bureau of National Statistics. Whistleblowers in Maine and Ohio have alleged similar schemes by Somali scammers have taken place in those states.

And speaking of Minnesota, this bastard needs to be dealt with:

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Says if Deportation Operations Continue Minnesota Residents Will Start Killing ICE Agents . . . However, Mayor Frey did say if the ICE deportation operations continue, ICE agents are likely to be killed.  The obvious question is, ‘who will do the killing, Jacob‘?

Good question. There is no doubt that many millions of dollars of that grift wound up int eh pockets of Frey and Walz as payoffs for political protection. Considering they control the state and local governmental bureaucracies that distribute the funds, without them I doubt that the graft could ever have become so large and widespread. There's shoplifting but this is driving a tractor trailer into a warehouse full of furs and cleaning it out wholesale.

Considering that a hefty percentage of what was grifted no doubt wound up in the hands of terrorists in Somalia, Perhaps Somaliland making nice with Israel is an act of self preservation on the part of the Somalilanders, given the nature of tribalism.

Something to consider.

Meh, who needs Islamic terrorists or Chi-Coms, when we have people like this, running our government and charged with keeping us safe. . .

Why LAFD Refused to Put Out LA Wildfires: “Heck No That Area is Full of Endangered Plants.” . . .“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area. I’m so trained.”

Well at least LA now has a lesbian fire chief whose sole experience in putting out fires is reaching for a can of Jock itch spray

Have a great day!

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.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:22 AM | Comments (366) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 29 December 2025

Top Story

• My PC, it will not boot.
  I rm'ed * while su root.
  
  Now maybe Gemini and Grok will be able to find this.
  
  
  
• Did Qualcomm strangle Arduino by changing its terms of use after the acquisition?
  
  Yes says competitor Adafruit. No says Qualcomm. (The New Stack)
  
  Well that's to be expected. How about a neutral and trustworthy third party?
  
  No says the EFF.
  
  Does that settle things?
  
  Given how long the article is, I'd say it doesn't. While the hardware is nominally still open, users are pushed heavily toward cloud services that are not open in any sense of the word.

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

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 28, 2025 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT - Last one of 2025. Appreciate you stopping by tonight. You have choices in how to end your weekend. Even if you chose not to decide how to end your weekend, you still would have made a choice.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (371) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Final December and Final 2025 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! It's a gol-danged double final! How in the ever-loving hell did it get to be the Final December Edition and the Final 2025 Edition?! Christmas was bueno (read: quiet-o) here. How about all y'all? Did you get shooting stuff? Did you give shooting stuff? Did you both give and get shooting stuff?

Your ol' pal Weasel hopped into WeaselOne yesterday and made a quick trip to WeaselAcres to check on things, and everything was just peachy. A few extra sticks to pick up along the road, but that was it. I didn't stay long enough to do any shooting, and will remedy that next trip. How about you? Anyone get a new firearm and take it to the range?

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 (318) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Lies, Damned Lies, And Wine Reviewers

That's a pleasant, reasonably-priced wine from northern Italy, with the legal designation of IGT, or Indicazione Geografica Tipica. It's stupidly complicated, but the short explanation is that the wines with that designation satisfy a certain minimum requirement, and fall in the middle of the various designations of the Italian wine industry.

The reason it is complicated is that there are superb wines that are among the best that Italy produces, but because of these arcane rules, they can't be given the top designation of DOP or DOCG or...whatever. And Italy isn't the only country with lunatic rules! The United States and France do it too!

Anyway, I bought this wine because it is a blend of two grapes, Negroamaro and Primitivo, one of which I like very much. Primitivo is roughly analogous to Zinfandel, and I have had very good luck with this grape. Also, it's not an expensive wine, so even if it were crap, I could still cook with it and not have to sell my other kidney to afford it.

But I arrived at the wine store and discovered that it was being touted as a great wine, which puzzled me, because I have never had a Primitivo-based wine that was anywhere near great. Tasty? Yes! Great with dinner at a classic Italian-American restaurant? Absolutely. But the "98" rating from a well-known reviewer seemed a bit odd.

A "98" should mean an incredible, special, wonderful wine that is an amazing experience. I have taken wine seriously for a very long time, and I can count on the fingers of one hand (with a thumb or two to spare) the number of "98" wines I have drunk. For you geeks, a 1971 Richebourg was the best of that short list, and while I didn't think to assign a number to it (mostly I was mumbling..."holy sh*t!), I guess it was about a "98."

So when I opened this bottle I was not at all surprised to discover that it was exactly what I expected...a pleasant and uncomplicated wine that went nicely with the cheeseburger I was having for dinner. I would give it an "85," which is a respectable score. I bought a few more bottles, because it was worth the price.

So, what's up with Luca Maroni? Bribed? Stupid? Crap palate? Or maybe he is an unabashed Italian patriot and simply wants his country's wine industry to prosper.

You make the call...

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (223) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

That's one of those newfangled "top-down" shades, which allows one to lift it from the bottom or drop it from the top. Very convenient, but obviously the house has shifted and must be straightened.

I guess the first step is to dig out the foundation and relevel it. Or perhaps raze the house, level the foundation, and rebuild.

Or remove the entire foundation, dig to bedrock, and sink pilings so that there is a stable base for everything!

Posted by: CBD at 02:09 PM | Comments (253) | Trackbacks (Suck)

America Is Too Stoned Already: We Don't Need More Marijuana Availability

[Clever readers will notice that this is a repost from last week...Ace stomped it after a half hour or so]

That's where marijuana should remain. Smoky dorm rooms and basements where stupid kids and their even stupider older siblings hang out and solve the ills of the world. But it doesn't belong on our streets or offices, and relaxing federal restrictions will do exactly that. Hell, it's already everywhere in some cities...it's impossible to walk down a NYC street and not smell it.

Rescheduling Marijuana Is the Wrong Call

When it comes to drugs, it’s hard to imagine a Republican president deciding to pick up where his Democratic predecessor left off. Yet that is what President Donald Trump did yesterday, directing the Department of Justice to finalize a process, started under former President Joe Biden, that would recategorize how the federal government views marijuana. In so doing, Trump hands a huge financial benefit to the businesses seeking to profit from making pot more mainstream.

There’s no way of understanding the decision without seeing it as a triumph of commerce over long-standing cultural concerns, and of the libertarian, podcast bro faction of the Right over its traditional socially conservative wing. It’s also the wrong move. Improving the commercial viability of marijuana won’t make America’s citizens healthier or her cities more livable. If the goal of federal policy is to make America great, rather than just delivering benefits to a well-connected industry, yesterday’s executive order should be contested—and rescinded if possible.

America has too many problems without adding more of us getting high regularly. Sure, I sound like somebody who just kicked you off his lawn, but what is the benefit to our culture?

[Yes, there is a song behind the graphic!]

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (484) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-28-2025 ["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, enjoy a freshly-made batch of Chex Mix, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (268) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 28 December 2025

Top Story

• So what's the real story behind Nvidia spending $20 billion for a non-exclusive license to Groq's (not that one) inference technology?
  
  Definitely not fraud.* (Ossa-ma)
  
  Or so argue Nvidia and Groq's lawyers as the FTC no doubt prepares for a endoscopic examination of their respective corporate records.
  
  Nvidia buying another AI company would lead to messy stuff like regulatory approval, and Nvidia doesn't have time for that. So they paid $20 billion for a non-exclusive license to the technology... Oh, and that also included Groq's executive and engineering teams and all their patents and trade secrets.
  
  But not the company itself, or any duty to support its customers. GroqCloud has been left to quietly die under control of the former CFO, drained of its engineering talent and indeed its entire reason to exist.
  
  What Groq actually does is interesting: They make chips that use hundreds of megabytes of internal SRAM rather than tens of gigabytes of external DRAM, and have staggering amounts of bandwidth - 80 terabytes per second per chip.
  
  Not suitable for training LLMs but great for running them once they have been trained.
  
  As for the deal: Is this technically illegal? Possibly. Will Nvidia get away with it? Probably.
  
  * Though if not fraud, why fraud shaped?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (165) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" December 27, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

Welcome to Club ONT. A collaboration the 3D's - The Disco, The Dino, and The Doggo. We hope everyone had a wonderful, whelming and blessed Christmas - and that you enjoyed/endured family, food, traditions, and cheer. Welcome back.

Last Club ONT of 2025. Have you come to party?!? Please have your password and restroom tokens ready. Make a new friend or 2. Tip your bartender. DO NOT try the veal.

[Top Photo: Winter Wonderland, Seiffen, Germany]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (379) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: Klaus (2019)

This holiday season has offered a really limited slate of films, for reasons I don't quite understand. It might be that the third Avatar movie was enough to scare off other films, or it might be that having given up on Christmas years ago (the surviving market being relegated to Hallmark and the lot) and giving up on understanding human behavior, Hollywood's contented to just...give up. And we've basically lost all our Korean exhibitors, so the "seeing a Korean movie on Christmas Eve" tradition died before its tenth year.

Looking through the revivals, I saw two interesting possibilities. One was John Woo's "Bullet in the Head" (35th anniversary). Tempting, but somewhat awkward to get to. The other, in a more accessible theater, was the 2019 movie Klaus—which I was shocked to see ranked #159 on IMDB's top 250.

I have more than 250 issues with this list, but that aside—and very cautiously setting aside the Netflix brand name—I was surprised to see this relatively obscure film from Sergio Pablos' Animagic Studios (best known for Despicable Me, which Pablos created) on it. So off we went.

Christmas in Los Angeles.

Well.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (183) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - December 27, 2025 [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. This is the LAST HOBBY THREAD of 2025!!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (211) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, December 27

* * *

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 03:34 PM | Comments (75) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Dec. 27

These photos were not taken during the holidays, but I have been saving them for the holidays, because I think they fit. Don't you agree?

Howdy Katy,
4 out if 5 years I get no blooms, then only one. This year I got about 20 on 3 different plants.
May you and yours be well and prosperous.
Kindest regards

Bonecrusher

Posted by: K.T. at 01:34 PM | Comments (37) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thread before the Gardening Thread, December 27 - Irony

Happy Weekend after Christmas and Hannukah!

*

Posted by: K.T. at 11:21 AM | Comments (317) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[I should have a cup like that. Because it is so true.]

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. I hope those who celebrate Christmas had a wonderful and joyous Christmas Eve and Day. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to take care of. (Rulz for those of you in Brokaw Maine.)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice. The list is starting fresh.
3) Running with sharp objects? Do you have Health Savings money you need to spend?
4) Have a great weekend and see you next year!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (428) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 27 December 2025

Top Story

• Is it a bubble? Let's ask the money men lending billions to build these AI datacenters.
  
  They say yes. (New York Times) (archive site)
  
  9.25% interest rates for commercial construction loans that supposedly have paying customers lined up?
  
  Yeah, they're not convinced.
  
  
  
• The people who backed French bugfarm Ÿnsect were convinced - to the tune of $600 million. (Tech Crunch)
  
  And lost their shirts, because the idea was irredeemably stupid.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (81) | Trackbacks (Suck)

What The Heck Is Boxing Day ONT?

Say, I know this is a day late, but do you know how Norad came to "track" Santa?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (384) | Trackbacks (Suck)

'Twas the Day After Christmas Cafe

Shizuoka, Japan

Shiatsu massage more like shiats-roo massage amirite

Bird enjoys an accidental fountain.

Dogs love visiting the grandparents.

This advertising model is so narcissistic.

Getting a trim.

World traveler.

Twin baby elephants.

Posted by: Ace at 07:10 PM | Comments (249) | Trackbacks (Suck)