February 22, 2026
First World Problems...
Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (270) | Trackbacks (Suck)
USA Hockey Beats Canada For The Gold Medal...Canadian Transsexuals And Thought Police Hardest Hit
Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-22-2026 ["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 (ht: Anonosaurus Wrecks). 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...(library card not included)
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, start prepping those Super Bowl snacks, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
NOTE: Kudos to Sabrina Chase for her excellent debut last week! It's always great to get the perspective of someone who has experience in the industry. My only qualification for this gig is that I'm a semi-literate tree rat who prefers to read books instead of shredding them to line my nest.Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (494) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 22 February 2026
Top Story
- Wikipedia has blacklisted Archive.Today for links to references because it is run by a crazy person. (Tech Crunch)
It's over allegations of running DDoS attacks and modifying supposedly archive articles after the fact, and the allegations are about as well supported as the recent conspiracy theories floated by Steve from Gamer's Nexus, which is to day, almost all of it is documented by multiple sources and the guy confessed publicly.
Which is a wee problem for me because those (Archive site) links I've been sprinkling through posts for the past year as more and more news sites decide they don't want anyone to read them?
Well, those links point to Archive.IS, but it's the same software and the same person.
I've switched to using Brave to prepare these posts, because it seems better at dodging around that problem, but it does mean that if you're using a different browser you might not be able to read the linked content.
On the other hand, I always, always present the full unvarnished truth without so much as editorialising.
Mostly.
Sometimes.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (230) | Trackbacks (Suck)
February 21, 2026
Saturday Night Club ONT - February 21, 2026 [2 D's]
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (435) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Nobody Does It Better? James Bond on Netflix [Lex]
Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (250) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Hobby Thread - February 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. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin and it landed on panning for gold.
[Top photo:Alaskan miner panning for gold, 1916. Library of Congress collection]Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (131) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Ace of Spades Pet Thread, February 21
* * *
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 03:18 PM | Comments (65) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Feb. 21
KT,A wonderful photo, and a great thought to go with it!
You know no matter how one feels about the world, it still spins around the sun tilting this way and then that way. Here is a little February beauty for our enjoyment. Be glad, much is good in life. Best,
rdohd
Posted by: K.T. at 01:22 PM | Comments (34) | Trackbacks (Suck)
When will the left show us what "The Right Side of History" should look like? 
I truly cannot stress how much Americans are GRAVELY underreacting to what is happening in America right now.
Posted by: K.T. at 11:00 AM | Comments (331) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between from behind enemy lines this morning. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Escanaba) 1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be exceptional. Don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects will be on your permanent record.
4) Have a great weekend!!
[Photo H/T: BirdRockDoc (Lurker)]
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between from behind enemy lines this morning. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Escanaba) 1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be exceptional. Don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects will be on your permanent record.
4) Have a great weekend!!
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:39 AM | Comments (446) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 21 February 2026
Top Story
- Discord continues to go from strength to strength, at least insofar as the levels of mishandling its introduction of age verification and the number of users fleeing the platform. (Ars Technica)
I never much liked Discord; its interface is awkward and annoying. But the age verification thing was pretty much forced on it by fascist governments in Europe and, uh, Australia.
On the other hand, the company did itself no favours by claiming that uploaded ID documents would remain secure after they had already leaked.
And even less so with the latest incident where, after reasserting that documents would be deleted immediately after they were verified - which we already knew was untrue, because deleted documents can't be leaked - they contradicted themselves in an official announcement and then deleted the announcement and pretended they had never announced it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (71) | Trackbacks (Suck)
February 20, 2026
A Meme Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
Welcome everybody to Friday meme night!
Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (333) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Vehicular Tension Cafe
Chicago under the El, I assume
From this account but I don't think he's the photographer
Chicago under the El, I assume
From this account but I don't think he's the photographer
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (198) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Week in Woke
This may shock you, but yet another Hate Crime Hoax massively advertised by the left-wing anti-civilization media has proven to be entirely fictitious. The media will provide no apologies or explanations for once again inciting racial hatred against whites and encouraging mass violence by the left. T. Becket Adams:
A woman in leftist-dominated Brazil is facing jail for saying, very controversially, that men cannot be women. Is there some hope that the nation may return to sanity? Maybe.
Tom BevanOnly a brokebrain AWFUL would think that she has leverage over a conservative by arguing for less sexualization of young girls. Um, you're the Groomers who tell young girls to start giving blowjobs at age 12.
@TomBevanRCP Your terms are acceptable.
John Podhoretz
@jpodhoretz The Jill Filipovic tweet about elective surgery is a landmark. It reveals as few things ever have what life inside the left-liberal bubble is like as those inside imagine they understand the non-liberal perspective and think they know how to trip it up, when the opposite is true
This may shock you, but yet another Hate Crime Hoax massively advertised by the left-wing anti-civilization media has proven to be entirely fictitious. The media will provide no apologies or explanations for once again inciting racial hatred against whites and encouraging mass violence by the left. T. Becket Adams:
Hate crime hoaxes are nothing new, but during the "woke" overcorrection of the late teens and early 2020s, when Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer, Sports Illustrated put a man on the cover of a swimsuit issue, and everyone pretended to enjoy "Hamilton," they reached heretofore unimaginable heights. Consider the 2021 incident in Plano, Texas, where a white teenager, Asher Vann, was accused of "torturing" a black classmate, SeMarion Humphrey. It was a shocking story, full of cruelty and racial animus. It was also a total fiction. It was March 2021 when Humphrey's mother, Summer Smith, alleged that Vann shot her son with BBs, slapped him, called him racial slurs, and even forced him to drink urine. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the Dallas Morning News were among the first to jump on the story, each eager to report on the supposed indignities suffered by a black teen at the hands of an evidently racist white Texan. A leader of a Black Lives Matter-affiliated group claimed that Humphrey had been "tortured for hours." The NAACP organized marches. Vann was doxxed, and protesters gathered outside his home. Smith, who described Vann as "evil," made the rounds on the networks. Her attorney, Kim Cole, launched a GiveSendGo campaign "to help with the expenses of therapy and private schooling" for Humphrey. The campaign, featured on Good Morning America, raised an impressive $120,000. This was five years ago. On Jan. 22 of this year, a Texas district court judge ordered Smith and Cole to pay $3.2 million in damages to Vann. The decision followed a jury's finding last year that the duo had fabricated the story and "intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress" on the young man. As for the online donations, Humphrey's mother bogarted them. Of the $120,000 raised, only $1,000 went towards her son's schooling. Much of the rest was spent on luxury items, including "a designer dog, dining and travel, beauty products, liquor, vapes, cell phones, car payments, and rent," according to a Washington Free Beacon review of account statements. As for Vann, he's now in college and moving on with his life, having spent the past five years weathering death threats and doxxing attempts. Lastly, as for the media outlets that were so eager to promote the Humphrey hoax, none of them have published follow-up reports mentioning either the 2025 jury decision or the damages awarded by the Texas judge. Vann also told the Free Beacon that none of the news outlets that amplified Smith's allegations ever contacted him for comment. Not even once.Read the whole thing. Whatever you do, White Devils, you must always give black people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, black people do not owe you the same benefit of the doubt, Colonizers. You see, you can tell who the "oppressed" and the "oppressors" are, because the "oppressed" have special, state- and culture-enforced privileges, and the "oppressors" have special, state- and culture-enforced disadvantages. Wait, what?
A woman in leftist-dominated Brazil is facing jail for saying, very controversially, that men cannot be women. Is there some hope that the nation may return to sanity? Maybe.
Surprising Revival: Gen Z Men & Highly Educated Lead Return to Religion By Joel Kotkin & Bheki Mahlobo, RealClearInvestigationsMamdani is threatening to jack up property tax rates by nearly 10%. (9.5%.) Homeowners, including the black ones (note that Mamdani's communist advisor on rent says she wants to punish white property owners, but conceded that black property owners would be acceptable collateral damage) are now attacking Mamdani for this betrayal. A transgender state rep from Minnesota -- where else would he have come from? -- says that we should not impose age-verification blocks on porn sites because children might find the hardcore deviant porn "educational if they are queer." A further milestone in queer education:
The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of "Nones," those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging from the 2020s suggest that we are witnessing a complex spiritual restructuring that intersects with economic mobility, demographic resilience, and a profound intellectual realignment. For the first time in decades, Pew Research notes, in the U.S. at least, Christianity has stopped its nosedive as more people begin to see the efficacy, and the rewards, of religious faith and practice. This fragile development is especially noteworthy as it exposes growing divides and fault lines in American politics and culture. Drawing on a vast array of longitudinal studies, interviews, and other sources, one startling finding in both America and abroad is that, contrary to past assertions, today the faithful are not poor and ignorant but increasingly from the educated upper middle class. Even the cognitive elites are experiencing a growing trend to embrace religious activity. Indeed, in a rebuke of the aggressive New Atheism of the early 2000s advanced by thought leaders such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, a counter-movement appears to be growing among scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals who view religious tradition not as a delusion to be eradicated but as a sustainable civilizational operating system. As our politics splinter along gender -- with women increasingly forming the base for Democrats and men, for Republicans -- it is men who are leading the return to church. Reversing a 25-year-long trend, men reported higher church attendance than women in 2025. This growing divide may continue to separate men and women, with grave implications at a time when rates of marriage and parenthood are declining. Even in places where religion continues to decline, the remaining faithful are shifting away from more liberal faiths to those hewing closer to traditional values. For many, more orthodox sects provide existential security and create a sustainable sense of community. As our report makes clear, the budding religious revival taking place in the U.S. reflects a global trend, especially strong in Africa, which is now the most demographically robust place on the planet. The implications and promise of this trend cannot be overstated. Data show that religious communities function as potent engines of human capital accumulation, risk mitigation, and social capital. These mechanisms effectively propel adherents up the socioeconomic ladder.
Libs of TikTokCultural Enrichment Update:
@libsoftiktok 12h JUST IN: Sec of War Pete Hegseth confirms the male teacher at Fort Bragg who identifies as a transgender wolf has been FIRED He allegedly engaged in s*xual inappropriate behavior in class, wore women's clothing, a dog collar, and an animal tail, and told children he turns into a wolf at night while making them howl Thank you @SecWar!!
Fox hails this as an "exclusive" -- but of course it's an exclusive. The leftwing propaganda networks absolutely refuse to report on illegal alien crime. Oh myyyy:
2 illegal alien 'perverts' allegedly sodomized, beat, ripped fingernails off male victim in NC home invasion
Jonathan David Garcia-Larios was previously deported in 2024 EXCLUSIVE: The two men arrested in an atrocious North Carolina home invasion last week have been identified as criminal illegal aliens from Mexico who allegedly terrorized a male victim by sodomizing and beating him and ripping out his fingernails, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Fox News Digital on Thursday. The overnight ambush, which Pitt County authorities said involved at least three male suspects, occurred in a quiet Greenville suburb last Wednesday. "Two heinous criminals broke into the victim's home and used a sharp, edged weapon and restrained him against his will," DHS said, citing local outlet Reflector. "This is a real-life nightmare. Burglarizing, kidnapping, assaulting, and sodomizing, and ripping off the fingernails of an innocent victim are extremely wicked and heinous," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin added in a statement. The two undocumented immigrants were identified as 21-year-old Chapel Hill resident Zaid Mayen and 20-year-old Jonathan David Garcia-Larios, a homeless man who was previously deported from the U.S. in 2024. They were arrested last Friday with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement. Authorities noted that the suspects entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time. DHS added that the "two sexual perverts and violent thugs" unleashed a series of horrific attacks despite having no known criminal record in the U.S. "Zaid Mayen-Esteban and Jonathan David Garcia-Larios should have never been in this country. Prior to this heinous act, these illegal aliens had no criminal record in the U.S," McLaughlin said. "Under Secretary Noem's leadership we are not waiting for illegal aliens to commit crimes before we target them for arrest and removal. We pray for the continued recovery of this innocent victim." The unnamed victim was transported to a local hospital for treatment of injuries and "thankfully survived," DHS said.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (185) | Trackbacks (Suck)
China Is Sending Pregnant Women to the US to Give Birth, Have Their Children Declared American Citizens, Move Back to China, and Then Have Them Vote in US Elections When They Reach Age 18
Of course, we shouldn't worry about that too much, because Democrats are already allowing straight-up foreigners from hostile countries to vote in our elections.
Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, who previously exposed how much cash congressmen were taking on the sly, reports that China is directing CCP-connected pregnant women to engage in "birth tourism." They "dip a toe" into the US to have a baby, get that baby certified as a citizen, and the bring it to China to be raised under the communist system as a loyal communist stooge.
Then when the kid turns 18, he is eligible to vote in US elections. China is doing this on an "industrial scale," he says, and has already created one million Manchurian Voters it will have vote from overseas to turn US elections to the Chinese communist party's favor. He makes the case that this is only possible due to the bizarre notion of "birthright citizenship," and we must end this judge-created mistake or else China will be electing all of our politicians in ten or twenty years. That video below the fold. The GOP is pushing a law that would end incentives for Chinese birth tourism. Note that it wouldn't end birthright citizenship, though, or ban pregnant Chinese women from visiting the US. It would, however, end an Obama-Biden rule that allows Chinese nationals to get a quickie visa. Like, when they start feeling contractions.Three Republican senators are urging the Trump administration to shut down visa and parole programs they say allow Chinese nationals to exploit US citizenship laws through birth tourism and surrogacy. Sens. Rick Scott, Jim Banks, and Markwayne Mullin sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum calling the programs a national security risk. They argue the policies allow nationals from Communist China to gain fast-track access to US citizenship through children born in US territories. The senators focused on the Guam--Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Visa Waiver Program and a newer offshoot created under the Biden administration. They said the programs allow visa-free entry for Chinese nationals and have fueled a sharp rise in birth tourism in Saipan. "We write to express our gratitude for your commitment to protecting the homeland from foreign threats," the senators wrote. They said an Obama- and Biden-era policy allows Chinese nationals "to obtain fast-track American citizenship," calling it a "clear and significant short- and long-term national security risk". The letter cites a Wall Street Journal investigation that found Chinese nationals increasingly using the US surrogacy system to secure citizenship for their children. The senators said these practices often occur outside traditional immigration vetting.
Of course, we shouldn't worry about that too much, because Democrats are already allowing straight-up foreigners from hostile countries to vote in our elections.
See the link to RedState for more. Foreign pirates and conquerors are stealing our country out from under us.
During a raid of Khan's home in October 2020 on unrelated charges, officials observed a stash of 41 sealed and completed mail ballots for the 2020 presidential election. Due to CA's ballot harvesting laws the ballots were not seized, but investigators photographed the ballots and documented their findings. In the fall of 2021, officials noticed 70 people were registered to vote at one address in Lodi, which they recognized as Khan's. Sheriff's investigators determined that Khan had used the state's online voter registration system to re-register existing California voters from other districts to his address, and at least a few non-citizens living in foreign countries (including his brother in Pakistan) to vote using his address, email address, or phone number. Investigators reviewed the ballot return envelopes from ballots cast in the 2020 general election, which had been maintained by the Registrar, and found that many of those tied to Khan's address all had the same handwriting on the outside. ...
Khan forced voters whose information he'd hijacked to vote for him and for Joe Biden, either by filling them out himself or threatening the voter.
When Khan heard that investigators were speaking to people he'd fraudulently registered to vote, he posted a video to TikTok to threaten and intimidate them.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (111) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Educational Excellence: "Honors Student" Who Cannot Read or Write Sues Government School Which Allowed Her to Graduate as a Complete Illitarate
Oh, but also, you're not allowed to actually hire new talent. We have written the law to require that teachers have useless degrees in education, which is a huge entry barrier to people who studied more useful things in college, and who don't want to go back to school for three years to be a teacher. So we'll just pay the existing, horrible teachers more. This will attract new talent... from within them! Second headline: Left-Wing Teachers Oppose Deporting Criminal Illegal Aliens Because They'll Get Less Money if Illegal Alien Children Leave the Country
Incredible.
But it's not. We all know these failure factors are churning out one illiterate after another and scamming the taxpayer $30,000 per student per year for this "service."
A Connecticut college student is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city of Hartford for negligence. Nineteen-year-old Aleysha Ortiz says she graduated from high school with honors and earned a college scholarship, but she can't read or write. In some ways, Ortiz is living an American dream. The 19-year-old began her freshman year at the University of Connecticut in Hartford this past fall. She's excited to study public policy; it's the culmination of hard work after moving north from Puerto Rico as a child.By the way, the problem isn't that she speaks Spanish. She's spoken English since birth. She cannot read or write in any language.
"I remember I was very nervous, but I know it was going to be better opportunities for me to learn," Ortiz remarked. But Ortiz says those opportunities never came to fruition. "All I see is words everywhere," Ortiz said. Ortiz graduated from the Hartford Public Schools system last year, but she says she is now illiterate and still doesn't know how to read or write. "They would just either tell me to stay in a corner and sleep or just draw pictures, flowers for them," Ortiz said about her earlier education. When she was in high school, Ortiz relied on speech-to-text programs and other apps to read or write essays. Ortiz said her mother, who does not speak English well, tried to get answers. "She advocated so much," Ortiz said. "She went to the school. The principal promised her that it would be better. Sometimes it would be people from the district or the directors promising her they would do better." Now, Ortiz is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city for negligence. ... Turner fears a crucial guardrail will be lost if President Donald Trump's administration follows through with abolishing the Department of Education. "How do I protect the special education children?" Turner asked. "Who do I go to if I close it down?"Oh yeah, we have to keep the Department of Education open. It's done such a bang-up job so far. Now I know this girl seems to have cheated her way through school, and undoubtedly, she has the first responsibility for her own education. She and her mother. But this school appears to have just passed this illiterate dum-dum through grade after grade without every verifying she could read simple sentences at a five-year-old level. Hey I know how we can improve government teacher performance: Just pay them more. That will attract new talent.
Oh, but also, you're not allowed to actually hire new talent. We have written the law to require that teachers have useless degrees in education, which is a huge entry barrier to people who studied more useful things in college, and who don't want to go back to school for three years to be a teacher. So we'll just pay the existing, horrible teachers more. This will attract new talent... from within them! Second headline: Left-Wing Teachers Oppose Deporting Criminal Illegal Aliens Because They'll Get Less Money if Illegal Alien Children Leave the Country
Mark KrikorianIt's all about the kids with these teachers. All about the kids. Nothing but the kids. Powerline:
@MarkSKrikorian "Public schools depend on the children of illegal aliens to keep up enrollment levels and extract more money from state taxpayers."
This, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune,School leaders fear declining attendance during ICE surge will also lower state funding.Public schools depend on the children of illegal aliens to keep up enrollment levels and extract more money from state taxpayers. More students means more teachers, which means more public school teacher union members, which means more union dues, which means bigger donations to the Democratic party.... Democrats in Minnesota have gone all-in on an illegal-immigrant-based economy....
To that end, public schools in Minnesota have sued the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in an effort to kick ICE out of the state (File No. 26-cv-1023). It's one of many such lawsuits filed by Democrats and Democrat-controlled institutions. The Star Tribune reports,
Because the money to pay teachers, counselors, bus drivers and principals is tied to attendance, officials fear prolonged absences by students in hiding will lead to declining state funding for schools.
FischerKingIn better education news: Three red states, Alabama, Mississippi, and Lousiana, are seeing historic gains in student learning by using teaching techniques that actually work. These aren't new techniques. They're very old techniques. They're techniques the left-wing, grifter educrat establishment chucked aside to pursue novel, failing techniques because educrats don't get paid if they just tell people to keep using the same techniques that worked in the past. No, the EduGrifters only get paid if they propose something New! and Counter-Intuitive! The educrats are constantly proposing new pedagogies for the exact same reason they put out a new Madden Football every single year: Churn. You have to keep churning out new product to keep your business going. Soaking wet lefty Nicholas Kristof of the NYT is surprised to find out that it's conservative states, not his beloved edugrifter blue ones, who are actually teaching children how to read and do math.
@FischerKing64 22h This would be funny if it weren't so serious. Illegal alien children in American public schools degrade education for everyone across the board because of the lack of English proficiency, which slows everything down, prevents native students from getting the education their parents pay for through taxes. But the schools/teachers/unions actually want illegals because it drives up enrollment - which means more funding, more teachers etc. So those taxpayers wind up paying more but getting less. This is from the Minneapolis tribune, will link to full article in next post.
A ray of hope is emerging in American education. Not among Democrats or Republicans, each diverted by culture wars.Actually, Nick, it is among Republicans. Nice try though!
Not in the education reform movement, largely abandoned by the philanthropists who once propelled it.The edugrifter's "reform" movement that has produced nothing but failure upon failure for 50 years? Yes, quite right, the hope isn't coming from them.
Why is that so unlikely? Oh, because leftwingers, who fail at everything, are so smart and talented, right?
Rather, hope emerges in the most unlikely of places: three states here in the Deep South that long represented America's educational basement.
These states -- Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi -- have histories of child poverty, racism and dismal educational outcomes, and they continue to spend less than most other states on public schools.Oh they spend less? Well everyone knows that when you give every kid a $700 laptop and pay their teachers on the level of lawyers, educational achievement goes up. Oh wait it doesn't. Never did.
Oh an admission that lefties really think the sun shines out of their assholes and have contempt for anyone not like them. (You know, like true tolerant, welcoming cosmopolitans.)
Yet, consider:I wrote about Mississippi's educational successes in 2023, but many of my fellow liberals then scoffed at the notion of learning from a state so tainted.
Louisiana ranks No. 1 in the country in recovery from pandemic losses in reading, while Alabama ranks No. 1 in math recovery. The state with the lowest chronic absenteeism in schools is Alabama, according to a tracker with data from 40 states. Once an educational laughingstock, Mississippi now ranks ninth in the country in fourth-grade reading levels -- and after adjusting for demographics such as poverty and race, Mississippi ranks No. 1, while Louisiana ranks No. 2, according to calculations by the Urban Institute. Using the same demographic adjustment, Mississippi also ranks No. 1 in America in both fourth-grade and eighth-grade math. Black fourth graders in Mississippi are on average better readers than those in Massachusetts, which is often thought to have the best public school system in the country (and one that spends twice as much per pupil).
By "metrics," he means testing kids to make sure they are learning. And as you know, our failing teacher-grifters are adamantly opposed to testing -- which they deride as merely "teaching to the test" (as has historically been done) -- because testing kids reveals their own failure to teach them and undermines their case for the next big raise during their next teachers strike.
Skeptics, mostly on the left, have made many critiques of the gains, including that they fade in upper grades, that the states are cheating, that this is all a temporary blip and that any progress is simply a result of holding back weak readers. The critiques have been effectively rebutted -- for starters, they can't explain the continuing gains in Mississippi or the magnitude of the gains. Just as striking, the Mississippi gains increasingly are being replicated in Alabama and Louisiana, as they follow similar approaches. That's enormously encouraging, for it suggests that other states can also lift student trajectories if they are willing to learn from Southern red states they may be more accustomed to looking down on. So I traveled through Mississippi and Alabama with the photographer Lynsey Addario to understand the lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most important is an insistence on metrics, accountability and mastery of reading by the end of third grade. And while reading gets the attention, just as important is getting kids to attend school regularly.
.. In classrooms and offices, teachers and administrators frequently mentioned the motivating power of report cards -- not the letter grades given out by schools, but those they (the schools themselves) receive.Well what do you know, testing and measuring actually improves performance. Literally everyone who is not an ideologically-captured denialist knows this. It is true in every field. "What gets measured, gets improved," the saying goes. And what doesn't get measured is allowed to slide and slide until it becomes a disaster. Ask your friends in Minnesota about how their practice of not checking up on social welfare businesses turned out.
.. What I see is schools fighting for their students. These states have created a structure that closely monitors each school's performance and incentivizes principals and teachers alike to do everything they can to get kids back in class and learning.Teachers union teachers are adamant that they not be measured for actual job performance, so good luck with that in the blue states.
For many years, skeptics have offered dispiriting arguments about the prospects for educational gains: The way to improve literacy is to fix the family, fix addiction, fix the parents, for as long as the child's environment is broken, there's not much else that can be done. The gains in these states suggest that that critique is wrong. Mississippi and Alabama haven't fixed child poverty, trauma and deeply troubled communities -- but they have figured out how to get kids to read by the end of third grade. This matters in myriad ways: One recent study found that states with large increases in school test scores enjoyed rising incomes and drops in teen motherhood, incarceration and arrest rates compared with states that didn't enjoy such gains. What's particularly impressive is that the Southern surge states lifted student achievement with only modest budgets. Spending per pupil in Alabama and Mississippi was below $12,000 in 2024, while in New York it was almost $30,000. That's worth celebrating and emulating. Yet, unfortunately, there's not much sign of that.No. I wonder why. By the way, Kristof focused on these schools' fight to reduce truancy and make sure students actually show up for class. He completely refused to mention which pedagogy they employ. Are they using time-tested phonics, thrown on the scrapheap by edugrifter "reformers' in the seventies, or the "whole word" reading, where supposedly you just look at a word and its meaning magically appears in a student's mind, which the edugrifters used as an improvement over phonics and then saw students become illiterate? Well Nick and the New York Times won't tell you so I will, with an assist from Google AI:
Alabama public schools use the Science of Reading, focusing on systematic phonics, phonemic awareness, and explicit instruction through programs like the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), mandated by the Alabama Literacy Act (2019), which requires K-3 reading proficiency, teacher training, and bans the ineffective three-cueing system to build strong decoding and comprehension skills for all students.A "phoneme" is just a part of a word, like "sh" or "nt," or just any single letter, that makes a specific sound. In other words, just phonics. Why did Nick Kristof hide this information from readers? Even when he's telling liberals "you should emulate the Alabama system," he can't be honest about it. Why? Because leftists and their "experts" are facing the worst legitimacy and credibility crisis in Western history and they can't afford admitting another huge "L." So they'll just pretend, publicly, that the Alabama plan is just about New! and Exciting! education reforms made to reduce truancy. But they're the honest, good, caring, kind people only motivated by concerns for the public good and entirely untainted by grubby tribal concerns like always making sure your tribe comes out on top. Just ask them! Or just read the signs on their lawns! "In this house, We Believe..."
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (274) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Democrats Shut Down DHS, Attempting to Force Trump to Accept Biden's Open Borders Regime As the Law of the Land
DHS funding ran out last Friday.
Christian CollinsIronically, the incompetent Democrat Theater-Kids and Groomers aren't shutting down ICE at all, which was fully funded for a year under the Big Beautiful Bill:
@CollinsforTX
Due to the Democrat shutdown: - TSA agents are working without pay
- FEMA workers are working without pay
- DHS employees are working without pay. Meanwhile, Democrats have just announced a "Trans Bill of Rights." These unserious politicians need to be voted out.
For his part, Trump's playing hardball. If you recall, when Republicans have shut the government down, Democrats have always employed what is called "the Washington Monument Strategy" to make shutdowns as painful as possible for the public. They not only shut down parks, but they had park personnel, who were on furlough, act like cops and chase visitors out. Obama even had Rangers working near Mount Rushmore drag chains across a turn-off on a local road to keep people from parking their cars just to look at the monument. They spent government money, in short, during a shutdown to punish the public so that they'd pressure Republicans to cave. Trump is taking a page from the Democrats.
Nick Sortor
@nicksortor BREAKING: The US Senate has just FAILED to advance the DHS funding bill, which means DHS will likely shutdown tomorrow night Fetterman was the lone Democrat to vote in favor. These idiots aren’t shutting down ICE, because ICE is FULLY FUNDED for the year. They’re shutting down the Coast Guard, TSA, Cybersecurity agencies, and more. Democrats are putting our country at risk for PURE POLITICS. Disgusting.
A Maryland sewer line just burst and is pumping in tons and tons of unprocessed shit and piss into the Potomac. But FEMA's not coming.
President Donald Trump's administration has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-affected areas around the country while the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, internal messages reviewed by Reuters showed. DHS, which FEMA is part of, entered a partial shutdown on Saturday, but has largely continued to operate since most of its functions are deemed essential. The shutdown happened after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms. "DHS has issued a stop-travel order for all DHS funded travel, effecting 2/18/26, for the duration of the lapse in appropriation. Currently this DOES include disaster travel," according to an internal email sent by Kurt Weirich, a chief of staff at FEMA. More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments but were told to stand down, including some who are currently at a training facility, CNN reported earlier.
CNN has never before objected to the Washington Monument Strategy. Suddenly they're all "But the public shouldn't suffer for Washington's squabbles!" This is the Democrat Party -- the Party of Illegal Aliens. The Party Against the American People.
The freeze comes after Trump said on Monday the federal government will step in to protect the Potomac River following the collapse of a major sewer pipe in the Washington, D.C., region last month. A sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland, collapsed on Jan. 19, causing an overflow of more than 240 million gallons (909 million liters) of wastewater into the Potomac River. Trump said FEMA, which has seen significant staff cuts since he took office in January 2025, will coordinate the response. So far, however, FEMA has deployed few, if any, resources to assist with the sewage spill, CNN reported, citing three agency officials.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (251) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Congressional Democrats Will Introduce Law to Assert Some Unknown Federal Power to Regulate State Health Codes, and Insist That Hospitals Must Continue Mutilating Children's Genitals and Breasts
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (232) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Trump: "Bad Things" Will Happen to Iran If They Don't Agree to Stop Producing Uranium, Building Long-Range Missiles, and Funding Hamas;
Meanwhile, the USS Ford Closes In on Iran
Meanwhile, the USS Ford Closes In on Iran
Is Trump ready to strike Iran? I don't put a lot of stock in Lindsey Graham's insane, low-T ramblings, but he claims the decision to strike has already been made:
Insider PaperYeah I dunno. Trump's mind is very changeable. And he's often both ingratiating and noncommittal, meaning he'll speak to someone and make vague noises that sound like agreement but actually are not definite and don't commit him to anything. There may be a roadblock, too: "Our great allies" in the Ummah Kingdom of Great Britain are forbidding us from using our base in Diego Garcia in any strikes on Iran:
@TheInsiderPaper BREAKING: Senator Lindsey Graham, in an interview with Sky News Arabia: "The US decision regarding Iran has already been made. The ships are not arriving in the area only because the weather is pleasant at this time of year"
On the other hand, we've moved one-third of our Navy and a huge number of jets into the area. "Experts," whatever that means now, say there's a 90% chance of hostilities.
Faytuks Network
@FaytuksNetwork The UK has blocked U.S. use of RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia for Iran strikes, citing international law, leading Trump to withdraw support for Starmer's £35B Chagos Islands handover deal with Mauritius. Senior UK officials privately called the situation 'bleak.' - The Times
A massive fleet of US warplanes is heading to Iran to lay the groundations to bomb the Islamic Republic. Aircraft including combat jets and support plane like air-to-air refuellers are flying to the Middle East - just hours after Iran launched a series of wargames. These manoeuvres, in conjunction with the approaching USS Gerald R Ford strike group and USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, have led insiders to estimate that there is a 90 per cent chance of war. Former Israeli intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said he believes a strike would happen in a "matter of days". The fleet of planes includes more than 50 American fighter jets, which include F-35s and F-16s, and dozens of air-to-air refuelling tankers. One source within the administration told Axios: "The boss is getting fed up. Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is a 90 per cent chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks."The USS Ford will reportedly be poised to strike by next week. Trump says "bad things" will happen if Iran does not agree to his demands.
Iran held annual military drills with Russia on Thursday as a second American aircraft carrier drew closer to the Middle East, with both the United States and Iran signaling they are prepared for war if talks on Tehran's nuclear program fizzle out. President Donald Trump said he believes 10 to 15 days is "enough time" for Iran to reach a deal. But the talks have been deadlocked for years, and Iran has refused to discuss wider U.S. and Israeli demands that it scale back its missile program and sever ties to armed groups. Indirect talks held in recent weeks made little visible progress, and one or both sides could be buying time for final war preparations.Iran insists that the only thing it will discuss is its nuclear program, and also, it will not make any concessions regarding its nuclear program. Let's definitely keep talking to them!
Iran's theocracy is more vulnerable than ever following 12 days of Israeli and U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites and military last year, as well as mass protests in January that were violently suppressed. But it is still capable of striking Israel and U.S. bases in the region, and has warned that any attack would trigger a regional war.The war will be fought in the region of Tehran.
Iran earlier this week launched a drill that involved live-fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow opening of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's traded oil passes. Tensions are also rising inside Iran, as mourners hold ceremonies honoring slain protesters 40 days after their killing by security forces. Some gatherings have seen anti-government chants despite threats from authorities. The movements of additional American warships and airplanes, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, don't guarantee a U.S. strike on Iran -- but it bolsters Trump's ability to carry out one should he choose to do so. ...On the other hand, this genius warns us that Iran's missile system is mighty and will send the US fleet to the bottom of the sea. Say how did Iran's drones, anti-ship missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles work in Venezuela? I heard not so good. What did you hear? And now, as reported by the WSJ via Ed Morrissey, Trump is considering launching a "limited" strike against Iran to convince them he is serious and prod them to make actual concessions on nukes, missiles, and funding terrorist proxies. I think that's kind of dumb. Nothing convinces an opponent you are not serious than your preference to deliver mere pinprick Attitude Adjustment strikes.
The official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the "full forces" needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March. The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response. "It's proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise bad things happen," Trump said Thursday.
... Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged his nation's citizens to immediately leave Iran as "within a few, a dozen, or even a few dozen hours, the possibility of evacuation will be out of the question." He did not elaborate, and the Polish Embassy in Tehran did not appear to be drawing down its staff. The German military said that it had moved "a mid-two digit number of non-mission critical personnel" out of a base in northern Iraq because of the current situation in the region and in line with its partners' actions. It said that some troops remain to help keep the multinational camp running in Irbil, where they train Iraqi forces.
This image provided Thursday Feb. 19, 2026 by the Iranian military and dated ... "This week, another 50 U.S. combat aircraft -- F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s -- were ordered to the region, supplementing the hundreds deployed to bases in the Arab Gulf states," the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote. "The deployments reinforce Trump's threat -- restated on a nearly daily basis -- to proceed with a major air and missile campaign on the regime if talks fail."
There are many lessons of Vietnam, but one of the biggest ones is that slow escalation is a terrible strategy. An enemy can absorb small attacks and disruptions and adapt to them. The right strategy is the same optimal strategy for picking up a girl at a bar: Go Ugly Early.
Talks continue between Iran, the US, and the various mediators hoping to avert military action as the weekend approaches. Thus far, Iran still thinks it can get a new JCPOA, while Donald Trump still thinks he can force them to deal rationally. Both sides appear ready to be disappointed, at the very least.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that the regime's nuclear program will survive both the strikes in June and the coming reckoning from the US armada assembling in the Persian Gulf. Araghchi did offer yet another deal in which Iran just postpones the inevitable... In other words, Araghchi offers only a restoration of Barack Obama's 2015 Iran deal, ... If the Iranians remain locked in a JCPOA fantasy, Trump may be stuck in some misapprehensions of his own. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is now considering a limited opening strike, perhaps to push the Iranians into concessions on ballistic missiles and terror proxies. That strategy has its own problems:
President Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on Iran to force it to meet his demands for a nuclear deal, a first step that would be designed to pressure Tehran into an agreement but fall short of a full-scale attack that could inspire a major retaliation. The opening assault, which if authorized could come within days, would target a few military or government sites, people familiar with the matter said. If Iran still refused to comply with Trump's directive to end its nuclear enrichment, the U.S. would respond with a broad campaign against regime facilities--potentially aimed at toppling the Tehran regime. The first limited-strike option, which hasn't been previously reported, signals Trump might be open to using military force not only as a reprimand for Iran's failure to make a deal, but also to pave the way for a U.S.-friendly accord. One of the people said Trump could ratchet up his attacks, starting small before ordering larger strikes until the Iranian regime either dismantles its nuclear work or falls.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (353) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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