Breaking: Clinton Judge Dismisses Indictments of Both James Comey and "Big Tish" James, Claiming the US Attorney Prosecuting Them Was Unlawfully Installed

Of course.

A federal judge on Monday dismissed the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at President Donald Trump's urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

The rulings from U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie halt at least for now a pair of prosecutions that had hastened concerns that the Justice Department was being weaponized to pursue the president's political adversaries and amount to a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration's legal maneuvering to install a loyal, and inexperienced, prosecutor willing to file the cases.

The orders make Lindsey Halligan the latest Trump administration prosecutor to be disqualified because of the manner in which they were appointed. Both defendants had asked for the cases to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the Justice Department would not be able to bring them again. But the judge instead dismissed them without prejudice, though it was not immediately clear if or how the Justice Department might attempt to revive the prosecutions.

Quick note: When a Republican-appointed judge rules against Trump, the media always points out he's a "Bush appointee" or "Trump appointee" (as just happened in the Texas redistricting case).

When it's a left-wing judge appointed by a Democrat, the media suddenly forgets how to use Google.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (344) | Trackbacks (Suck)

MAGA Grifter Majorie Taylor Greene to Resign Mid-Term, Imperiling Republican Majority

She's resigning in January 2026 -- not January 2027, when her term ends -- and her seat will be filled by a special election, which may or may not go the GOP way, and whose timing depends on Trump opponent Gov. Brian Kemp to schedule.

Many note that the date of her resignation just happens to coincide with the date required to secure her five-year Congressional pension.

Although Super-Trumper MAGA Queen Marjorie Taylor-Green claims she began opposing MAGA to support True MAGA, and began opposing Trump to... save Trump from himself or something, Scott Jennings offered a more plausible explanation for the flakey grifter going on CNN and The View to trash MAGA.

She went on Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago to modify and soften her prior support of the theory that deadly fires were caused by a solar laser controlled by the (Jewish) Rothschild banking family.

And this Super-MAGA Trump Queen did this to position herself better with her new constituency, leftwing Trump haters and Groypers.

Republican US House member Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she believes in demons, surmising that they might be aliens who fell from heaven, and claims to have been unaware that key figures in the antisemitic space lasers conspiracy she floated were Jewish.

She made those bizarre remarks as a guest on Friday on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher after winning some fans among Democrats who once loathed her -- yet had come to appreciate how the far-right Georgia representative had recently broken with Republicans on various issues. Those include healthcare, Gaza, the federal government shutdown that began on 1 October and the handling of documents pertaining to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was friends with Donald Trump before the latter man won two presidencies.

Greene's appearance on Maher's show perhaps made evident the ideological distance between the congresswoman -- who has conspicuously avoided directly criticizing Trump himself -- and some of her newer, cross-aisle admirers.

Attacking Trump's positions without mentioning Trump himself is a patented Tucker Carlson move.

...

At another point in the show, Maher invited Greene to revisit her infamous 2018 social media screed positing that wildfires that had devastated California were ignited by a laser beam from space under the control of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

The progressive watchdog Media Matters uncovered that post weeks into Greene's first congressional term. And her colleagues at the time voted to remove her from her House committee assignments, with the Rothschild family having repeatedly been subjected to antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Greene on Friday declared to Maher that she initially "didn't even know the Rothschilds were Jewish".

"Before politics ... I [did] not know much of any of this stuff," Greene said. "I never even said the word 'Jewish' in the ... post."

Maher pointed out that "'Rothschild', to a lot of people, is almost synonymous with the word 'Jewish'".

Greene replied: "I had no idea ... Now I know it's Jewish."

Amid laughter and applause, Maher retorted: "Right. Well, now we know ... That's what I'm here for -- to make sure that people in Congress know what the fuck you're talking about."

I don't think I've mentioned that on the blog before because I try not to dogpile on people allegedly "on our side" unless necessary. I did not consider her to be such an important figure that I had to criticize her.

There's a whole contingent of idiot self-appointed ideological enforcement operatives -- not you guys, I mean like largely-foreign "MAGA influencers" on X, or the astroturf Groyper brigades that occasionally infest this site when I mention their Fey Fuhrer -- who demand not just that people keep quiet about nutters like Greene, but that we must defend this conspiracy-addled idiot flake. As if we're all in some army and we are oath-sworn to "defend our superior officers." And Greene, I guess, is my superior officer?

Really? In what sense? I don't even live in her district and even if I did, she is not a superior officer in the MAGA Army.

And these idiot Woke Nazis somehow imagine that they are my superior officers, too, and can give me orders from the Groyper Central Command.

Anyway, there's an entire astroturf army of online authoritarian supposedly "America First" speech-police -- again, mostly foreign, as I'm sure you heard and which I'll post about later -- that is either paid to insist that people support their fellow-travelers, or else are just foreign MAGA grifters who get good engagement by demanding that people support Groyper-type people. These foreign bot commanders make a few thousand American dollars per month just tweeting nonsense. Nice work if you can grift it.

A few thousand American dollars a month goes a long, long way in Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, or India. America First, baby.

So, was this conspiracy-added grifter who I was demanded to defend really Super-MAGA and Ultra-Trump like she claimed?

Ah, no. Not at all. She is a low-IQ opportunist nutball peddling snake oil to a crowd that has a fever and the only cure is more snake oil.

Via FaceBook. I have no idea if this account is actually associated with Trump. It does quote Jennings accurately.

Donald Trump For President

SCOTT JENNINGS: TRUMP SAVED MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE FROM HUMILIATION

"I did see the president today actually, and we discussed the Marjorie Taylor Greene issue a little bit.

What happened with her is very simple. She wanted to run statewide in Georgia.

He privately and discreetly sent her a copy of a poll that he had seen, and she was way down.

It was not gonna work out.

He actually did her a favor by saving her from a humiliation.

But ever since that moment, she's opposed him on bombing the Houthi rebels, on bombing Iran, on deportation, and she's gone on TV shows and attacked him.

Because he betrayed her in her mind on that political moment, she's become an opponent on this other stuff."

So this moron thought she could be a governor and was upset that Trump wasn't going to make another bad Trump endorsement and support her in a losing effort.

But she was "MAGA All the Way" and more pro-Trump than Trump himself. She said so, after all. She said this to people who wanted her to say she was MAGA All the Way and more pro-Trump than Trump himself.

She said what people wanted to hear. That makes it true, right?

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stunned Republicans on Friday, announcing she will leave Congress next year after a blistering, very public fallout with President Trump. In a statement released Friday, Greene said she will step down on January 5, 2026, ending a tumultuous tenure that turned her into a national figure but increasingly put her at odds with the movement she once claimed to champion.

Her decision drops exactly one week after Trump withdrew his support, saying he was finished dealing with a congresswoman he viewed as endlessly absorbed in drama instead of helping advance the mission he's fighting to deliver. Trump blasted her on Truth Social, noting that while he's focused on "Record Achievements for our Country," Greene would just "COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!"

Greene's relationship with Trump has frayed for weeks as she broke with him on a series of policy fronts. She was also one of only four GOP members to force a vote on the Epstein files -- a move Republicans say fed Democrat distractions, even as Trump backed the vote just to move past it. And as she kept elevating it, Trump ramped up his attacks, posting that "Wacky Marjorie 'Traitor' Brown... is working overtime to try and portray herself as a victim when... she is the cause of all of her own problems," adding that "nobody cares about this Traitor to our Country."

Greene admitted the break was decisive. She said Trump's call for a primary challenger ahead of 2026 helped push her toward resignation, claiming she didn't want to drag her district through what she described as a pointless fight. "I have too much self-respect and dignity... and do not want my sweet district to endure a hurtful and hateful primary."

In her closing statement, Greene insisted she'd "never changed" and argued that disagreements over immigration policy, tech regulation, long-term mortgages, and foreign entanglements were proof she was simply "voting her conscience." But Republicans note her rhetoric has increasingly turned inward, challenging her own party as Trump works to unite conservatives behind him heading into the 2026 midterms.

Greene, 51, has represented northwest Georgia since 2021. Her departure narrows the GOP's already thin majority and removes one of the most polarizing figures in Congress.

If I sound like I'm pissed off: I am. I'm so tired of the "More MAGA Than Thou" bullshit from grifters and flakes who turn out to be, surprise surprise, opportunists attaching themselves to a political movement for personal benefit.

And who largely turn out to be dirty foreigners, too.

Looking forward to Marjorie Taylor-Greene's next media venture, The MAGA Muscle Mommy Work-Out Plan. Whatever the next grift is. I'm sure it will be stupid.

Anyway. Hello! Are you ready for a short week and then an early dinner?

Posted by: Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (483) | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

There ought to be a business school case study about this phenomenon. The only trouble is that this strategy is what’s being learned at elite business schools. Maybe a business school could do a case study on just how toxic elite business school graduates are to corporations.

MGM Resorts International and Panera Bread are both reeling from employing the destructive strategy I just laid out. To their credit, the CEOs of both companies are acknowledging just how damaging that strategy was. To their discredit, these CEOs are learning on the job after being part of the brain trust that implemented these offensive practices.

First, Panera:

“Panera lost diners by cutting portions and staff; It’s reversing course to win them back” [CNBC – 11/18/2025]

Predictably, Panera executives did the deceptive gimmick of quietly shrinking portions and reducing the quality of its food while increasing prices.

When Panera Bread began shrinking its sandwiches and skimping on salads, it started shedding customers. Now, to win them back, the chain plans to reinvest in the business and undo many of those same cost-cutting measures, it said Tuesday.

Once the No. 1 fast-casual brand in the U.S., Panera has dipped to No. 3, ceding the top spots to Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panda Express. Last year, its sales fell 5% to $6.1 billion, according to Technomic estimates. For years, the chain’s traffic has been shrinking, according to CEO Paul Carbone.

Panera didn’t just reduce portion sizes and the quality of its food, Panera also reduced staffing.

Phase one of Panera’s plan is to improve the quality of its food, reversing cost-cutting measures imposed in the face of high inflation, according to Carbone. “We squeezed food costs. We squeezed labor,” he said.

Some of those changes happened while Carbone was Chief Financial Officer. He now calls himself a “reformed CFO” — albeit one who still listens to earnings conference calls. “It’s really about death by a thousand paper cuts, it truly is,” Carbone said about the chain’s downturn.

This next statement from CEO Carbone is a concise indictment of the practices that so many corporations have embraced since they allowed mercenary executives with no long-term focus to destroy their companies in pursuit of one good quarterly report:

“In some instances, we shrunk portions, so guests would walk into our cafe to buy a sandwich that has gone up significantly in price, with lower-quality ingredients, in a smaller size,” Carbone said.

He also realizes now that staffing actually matters:

To improve the customer experience, Panera is planning to invest more into labor. Like many restaurants, Panera in recent years scheduled fewer workers and relied more on the self-order kiosks it pioneered in the industry. That approach saved money, but customers often walked into a cafe and couldn’t find an employee in sight, according to Carbone.

Panera saved money but loyal customers were lost. Who could have ever predicted that?

MGM Resorts International burned itself badly following that same template of gouging customers and cutting service.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (441) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Rape of Tamar
Eustache Le Sueur

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (323) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 11/24/25

Good morning kids. Hope you all had a nice relaxed weekend as we are now in the run-up to Thanksgiving, which marks the start of the run-up to Christmas. Or, as my relatives and I would say "Oy gevalt!"

As for the links, once again it's Insurrection, Sedition and Treason oh my! Of course all on the part of the Democrat/Left as it has been almost since the founding of the Republic. If a single image could define the concept of black humor, it would have to be this one, which CBD posted in the sidebar. It's the Babylon Bee with a shot of NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani standing in front of the White House, prior to his Oval Office confab with President Trump. The headline "Breaking: Hamas Breaches White House Perimeter"

Were it not so nightmarishly tragic given who and what Mamdani is and represents, I'd be laughing my ass off, and yet it's absolutely hilarious because of exactly that. I suppose I can understand why the President would have this meeting, perhaps an olive branch for public consumption and when the cameras weren't present maybe reading Mamdani the riot act. Maybe Trump was channeling Yasser Arafat at the UN from about 50 or so years ago when he held out an olive branch in one hand and his .44 Webley in the other. But what did Mamdani have to gain, or was it he who thought he could pull this kind of Arafat maneuver on the President? While that was happening in DC, this was going on in NYC:

Elle Bisgaard-Church, the Chief of Staff for Zohran Mamdani, claimed that Mamdani “made clear that we uphold sanctuary laws in our city and all immigrants will be safe in our city” and those ‘laws’ only allow cooperation with ICE “in extreme violent felony cases.”

What’s an “extreme violent felony”? Well it’s different than a moderate violent felony like a mugging, assault, rape or a mild murder.

It’s kind of like moderate Islam and extreme Islamic terrorism. . . Of course it depends on how you define moderate. Since Mamdani thinks Hamas is moderate, it might actually be more like killing 1,000 people in one hour.

And so as President Trump continues to exercise his Constitutional authority and duty to protect our citizenry by both rounding up and deporting illegal aliens (violent and otherwise) and deploying the National Guard to either help local law enforcement arrest criminals or in some cases do the work that police departments are being prevented from doing by the insane edicts of their Democrat/Marxist mayors and city councils. He's also decided to allow our military assets to interdict and use lethal force to eliminate narco-traffickers on the high seas, before they can unload their lethal cargo onto our shores.

All of this has caused much wetting of undergarments by the Democrat/Left which is merely a distraction from the fact that President Trump and his successful policies are bolstering support from the MAGA and conservative base and even garnering support from those outside that group and from among disaffected Democrats, which has now led to not only violent acts committed by their street thugs and terrorists against law enforcement but for their leaders no openly calling for the troops to disobey national, legal, command authority from their Commander-in-Chief and his military leaders. This is sedition and the fomenting of insurrection.

Wright suggests that Slotkin, who is also former CIA, knew exactly what she was doing by putting out this video. . . On Friday’s “Jesse Watters Primetime” on FNC, former CIA operations officer and host of the “The Wright Report” podcast, Bryan Dean Wright, argued that Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) intentionally sparked a firestorm with what he deemed a “propaganda video” urging military members to defy so-called “illegal orders.”

She and all like her have to swing.

Have a good day.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and 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 rising tide of antisemitism meets a renewed cultural fight, leaving Jews caught between echoes of 1935 and the fragile hope of 1975.
  American Jews: Are We Closer to New York 1975 or Budapest 1935?
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: Ideology makes facts fit dogmas, rather than evidence leading empirically to conclusions.
  The left’s Pavlovian hatreds are blinding them to their politically suicidal choices (And yet, they keep winning election after election - jjs)
  
• Now we know that it was all a massive foreign influence operation of fake MAGA accounts meant not to promote Trump, but to turn Americans against Jews and Israel and to sow chaos and division among actual Trump supporters.
  Foreign Fake MAGA Anti-Israel Accounts Exposed In X “Location” Disclosure

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 08:15 AM | Comments (291) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 24 November 2025

Top Story

• Deep Fission has an interesting idea: Rather than extracting spent nuclear fuel from reactors and burying it a mile underground, why not bury the entire reactor... A mile underground? (Spectrum)
  
  The reactors will be small - very small, just 75cm wide though 9 meters tall - to fit down a regular borehole, and will generate 15 megawatts of power each. They plan to bring a test unit online next year - though they admit the schedule is optimistic - and commercial units within three years.
  
  
  
• Mazama Energy, on the other hand, just plans to drill a hole - into Newberry Volcano in Oregon. (Yahoo)
  
  Down into the depths where the rock reaches temperatures over 600F, so they can pump water down and drive a turbine off the returning steam.
  
  The difficulty there is that at temperatures over 700F where the process is most efficient, the drilling equipment tends to go all melty itself.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (198) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - November 23, 2025 [Doof]

Be thankful!

Thanksgiving week is upon us. Are you thankful for the Sunday night ONT? If so, please tell us why! If not, please tell us what you ARE thankful for!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:07 PM | Comments (459) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Fourth November 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 Fourth November Edition?! Happy Thanksgiving, all y'all. Are all of your preparations for the big day in place? What are some of the things you're thankful for?

NOTE: I likely won't be around in the comments much tonight, so please do not burn the place down.

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 (162) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: The Unbearable LIghtness Of Brussels Sprouts

I love 'em! Brussels Sprouts are tasty, great textured, are infinitely malleable, so they can be sweet or tart or spicy or salty or fatty. Well, they are always fatty, because if I am not cooking them with bacon they get a large dousing of olive oil.

But around these parts, the Brussels Sprouts crop has been crap. They are woody, tough, and I have noticed more rot and bug evidence than usual. Is there a coming Brussels Sprouts blight that will rival the Black Death? Is Big Vegetable, in its infinite wisdom, getting rid of Brussels Sprouts the way they deplatformed snap peas?

Because this is a big deal! How can I make Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, or more accurately, Bacon with Brussels Sprouts, if one of the four ingredients is substandard?

Anyone else notice this, or am I the only lunatic?

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (300) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

That's a scuff mark on a hardwood floor from shoes that, of course!, are my most comfortable pair.

And that's not the only one. I fight an unending battle with my soles!

There has to be a rubber formulation that doesn't scuff, but obviously there is a reason to use this particular blend.

Probably kickbacks from Big Floor Cleaner!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (114) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Entire World Finds The Palestinians Repulsive, Yet Insists Upon Foisting Them Off On Israel?

Everywhere they go they cause problems. Egypt's border with Gaza is unbelievably fortified, because Egypt's significant social and economic problems don't need an injection of low-intelligence, violent troublemakers. The so-called "refugees" from Israel's War of Independence never integrated themselves into Lebanon or Jordan or Syria for the same reasons.

Of course, the concept of a "refugee," 75+ years after a war is laughable. Where are the refugees from World War II, which was obviously many orders of magnitude larger, more destructive, and displaced millions upon millions of people?

IDF: 17 terrorists who escaped Rafah tunnels killed or captured following 24-hour manhunt

Israel and the United States have discussed how to deal with the terrorists trapped in the Rafah tunnel network. One proposal, which would have allowed them to be deported, collapsed after no foreign state — including Turkey and Qatar — agreed to accept them.

The bolded sentence is, in a nutshell, the problem with the Palestinians. Nobody wants them. But as a tool to bash Israel, they are marvelous! And as a tool to foment street violence and political upheaval in the West, they are the perfect tool.

There are 22 nations in the Arab League, with almost half a billion people. Those are the natural destinations for the Palestinians...not the one tiny Jewish state, against whom they lost several wars. There is no historical analog to the demand that Israel accept the losers of its many wars against the Arab world, yet for some unfathomable reason, that is the demand.

And...of course it is a transparent reason. The world, in particular Europe, is still furious with the Jews for not having the decency to allow Hitler and the Third Reich to complete their Final Solution. Pushing for a Two-State solution simply means having an armed terrorist nation on the border of Israel. Pushing for a One-State solution means the dissolution of Israel as the Jewish homeland.

The far simpler and more peaceful solution is the integration of the Palestinians into the many Arab nations. There are oceans of petroleum money available for this resettlement, which could dilute the malign effects of large Palestinian populations by distributing them among all of the 22 Arab League nations.

That will never happen, because the Palestinian question is far too valuable as the wedge between the Arab World and the West! Keep those mobs frothing-at-the-mouth furious at Jews and Christians and Western democracies!

And we let them!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (158) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-23-2025 ["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 (Kaboom!). 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, start defrosting that turkey, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (301) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 23 November 2025

Top Story

• The strange and totally real plan to blot the Sun and reverse global warming. (Politico)
  
  An in-depth and thoroughly researched article, albeit one written by a pair of compulsive liars with a combined IQ barely into the double digits.
  
  Nowhere in the dozen or so pages of irrelevancy does it mention the actual plan: To cool the planet by increasing effective cloud cover by 1%.
  
  Yes, when they say "blot out the Sun" they mean imperceptibly.

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

Saturday Night "Club ONT" November 22, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

Time to GET DOWN, jive turkeys!

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration the 3D's - The Disco, The Dino, and The Doggo. As we gear up for Thanksgiving, please take a moment to thank your sponsor. Gravy.

With so many types of gravy available, each offering a unique taste and texture, there's a gravy to suit every palate and dish.

Whether you prefer the rich taste of beef gravy or the creamy goodness of country gravy, understanding the different types can help you choose the perfect sauce for your meal.

This blog will explore 30 types of gravy, highlighting their key ingredients and best uses.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (516) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 11/22/2025

Alexander Mackendrick

No, you probably don't know Alexander Mackenrick's name, but I assure you that you know at least one of his movies, the original The Ladykillers. And behind that layer of anonymity lies one of the most technically accomplished and intelligent directors to come out of the WWII era of British filmmaking. Only separated by seven years for his first feature compared with David Lean (Lean's first was in 1942, Mackendrick's was in 1949), Mackendrick actually started directing cinema commercials in the late 30s for a marketing firm before being hired by the Ministry of Information to make propaganda films through the duration of the war.

I bring up Lean because the two men had very obviously similar views on the role of the film director. Rising up through the industry as a screenwriter and production designer (Lean's rise was through the role of editor), Mackendrick saw the film director's job as requiring intimate understanding of every aspect of a production. A film director should be able to essentially do any job on a film set at the same level as any craftsman given the more minor tasks could. He should be screenwriter, production designer, set dresser, cinematographer, and actor all in one, able to understand the craft of everyone involved in order to appropriately assemble the vision at the center of the film. A film director is both artist and craftsman, and that overall ethos was something he shared with Lean. It must have been something in the water in Britain in the 40s.

What really differentiates Mackendrick from Lean is twofold. The first is that Mackendrick's feature film directing career started at Ealing Studios, the small production company mostly known for comedies (one of his early films there, Mandy, is an outright drama, though), and the second reason is that Mackendrick...gave up on making movies. After the 1967 bomb Don't Make Waves, which is mostly notable for being Sharon Tate's feature film debut, Mackendrick decided that he didn't have the skillset necessary to schmooze producers for film jobs, so he retired from filmmaking and became the first dean of the film school at CalArts, stepping down after a decade and teaching for the rest of his professional life. His most prominent student would probably end up being James Mangold, director of Ford v. Ferrari, Logan, and A Complete Unknown.

So, why would someone like Mackendrick give up on filmmaking to just teach?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (182) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - November 22, 2025 [Buoyant Rex]

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

Last week's RV life theme spurred some to suggest that RV life was like boating life because of the ability to take your home with you.

Are you thinking "I don't know much about boats, I don't swim, and I still have JAWS trauma, but I am curious about boating. I'm eager to learn more. I can't wait to get into the content!" I knew it. Enjoy.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (187) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, November 22

* * *

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 03:39 PM | Comments (101) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Nov. 22

Above, Tree of Diogenes

Should have sent this a couple days ago. It's even more beautiful in person. First freeze is going to drop the leaves though.

Diogenes

Gorgeous!

*

Posted by: K.T. at 01:37 PM | Comments (59) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Preparing for Thanksgiving - Gratitude

Climbing Lenin Peak

There are many things for which we can be grateful as we approach Thanksgiving. This week, I ran across a new one. I am grateful that I am not in Tajekistan. There are some attractive things about this country of about ten million people, but for me the negatives outweigh the positives. I don't want to climb Lenin Peak, even. I think border clashes are possible nearby.

This is one thing I found interesting about the country at first:

Tajikistan curbs the influence of islam and promotes Ancient Persian heritage as a state policy. This includes banning Arabic names, cousin marriages and long beards. It also includes promoting native clothes and dance. The West should take note.

This costuming is rather attractive compared to what you see in Iran these days:

Posted by: K.T. at 11:15 AM | Comments (203) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[H/T Blake]

*****

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 New Ulm)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Not just a suggestion.
3) Running with sharp objects is frowned upon.
4) Have a great weekend and a Happy Thanksgiving on Thursday.

*****

“God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next. Amen.”

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (330) | Trackbacks (Suck)