Mid-Morning Art Thread

Woman in a Harem Courtyard
Luis Ricardo Falero

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (251) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 6/ 15 /26

Good morning kids. So the big story of course is that hostilities have ended with Iran. The headlines wherever you turn are using the phrase PEACE DEAL between the US and Iran.

The US and Iran have reached a peace deal to end their three-and-a-half-month-old war, President Trump announced Sunday evening.

The Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20% of the world’s oil, is set to reopen on Friday when a deal is signed in Switzerland, officials said.
“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” The signing will launch a 60-day negotiating process to determine the fate of Iran’s nuclear program and the extent of sanctions relief, according to officials.. . The agreement has not been seen publicly, but the White House on Friday described to reporters five points that are in the deal:
--Iran will destroy its highly enriched uranium
--Tehran will pledge never to obtain a nuclear weapon
--Economic relief will come after those first two steps are completed
--The Strait of Hormuz will be open immediately upon signing
--Iran must stop funding terrorist groups including Hezbollah
A senior administration official said the economic relief would be released “around physical milestones, it’s built around action and it’s built around verification.”

On a positive note as news of the "deal" was announced. . .

Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell by around four percent to below $84 a barrel, the lowest price since March 5. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, fell by nearly five percent to below $81 a barrel.

“With the opening of the Strait upon the signing of the Deal on Friday, for purposes of mine removal, oil will flow on both ends again for the Region, and the World!” President Trump said Sunday evening.

Stock futures tied to U.S. equities market climbed on the news.

while this is all well and good, both politically and directly as this will be reflected at the gas pump in time for the crucial midterms. As I have stated since the conflict began, any deal that leaves this regime intact is an abject failure.

The Iranian state-controlled Mehr News Agency is trumpeting the deal as a complete victory for the Islamic Republic. It involves concession after concession from the U.S., and nothing whatsoever in the other direction. Mehr states the 14 provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding in this way: According to the source, the draft includes the following provisions:
1. Permanent and immediate end to war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
2. US commitment to non-interference in Iran’s internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran... 11. Release of $24 billion in Iran’s blocked funds during the 60-day final negotiation period, with half of that amount to be made available to Iran before negotiations begin. . .
. . . If this is even close to true, it’s the most breathtaking betrayal in American history (after Trump’s promises to the Iranian people), a new lease on life for the Islamic Republic, likely ensuring it remains in power for decades to come, and the most humiliating and unnecessary defeat in American history. Trump’s legacy will be surrender and the empowerment of America’s enemies, to an extent even worse than anything Barack Obama or Old Joe Biden did.

If you read all the points while understanding the nature of the Mullahs and the nature of ISLAM, this is merely strategic retreat in the 1500-year Islamic crusade for world domination. They know that all they have to do is wait out the next two years for Trump to exit the White House and that at best a Democrat will be elected and at worst, even if it's Vance or whomever, there will be a groundswell of opposition should that administration want to once again attack Iran once they inevitably resume their drive for nuclear weapons as well as continue to foment terrorism in the region and around the world, because gentle reader this is exactly what they are going to do.

Elsewhere, congratulations to Elon Musk for becoming the first nrillionaire in history. naturally the Democrat Left are beside themselves dropping venom and doing everything they can to denigrate this accomplishment. whatever one thinks of Musk personally or otherwise, his achievement is a shining example of the American dream as well as the work ethic that made this nation great and has been the engine of progress that took us from out of the caves to landing on the moon and building the freest most prosperous society in human history.

That is the real reason behind the venom and contempt. Like Islam, Democrat socialist leftists seek total control over everyone's life. Anything that deprives them of that must be destroyed.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know by now that with SpaceX’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire. The implications of this for all of us and our grandchildren are many and far-reaching. Of course, the left has found a way to narrow it all down to one simple idea: “His money is our money, or it should be.”
Envy is the lifeblood of leftist politics, and Musk is merely their latest, biggest, and most convenient target. But it’s worth being reminded that to the left, you are no different than Elon Musk. Let me explain. The left is miserable when you’re happy. It feels entitled to be the only source of your happiness, but it has no desire to make you happy. Rather, it simply wants to control how happy it will allow you to be.

Have a great day,

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:25 AM | Comments (426) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 15 June 2026

Top Story

• AMD says that not only will its new CPU stomp all over Nvidia's new CPU - three times the performance per watt on a rack-scale deployment - but its current two year old CPUs already deliver twice what Nvidia is promising. (WCCFTech)
  
  Promises vs. promises is all whatever, but promises vs. currently shipping product when the currently shipping product wins is not great for Nvidia.
  
  What's more, Intel's current CPUs are nearly 50% faster than Nvidia's future CPUs in the same tests.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:33 AM | Comments (117) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - June 14, 2026 [Doof]

From Johnny Cadillac

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT. Big day today - Flag Day, President Trump's 80th birthday, The US Army's 251st birthday -- and even more noteworthy, it's National Bourbon Day!

Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:06 PM | Comments (442) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Pre-NoVAMoMe 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 Pre-NoVAMoMe Edition? Time to rush your NoVAMoMe plans to completion!

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 (216) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Bread And Butter...A Match Made In Heaven

That color is amazing...it conjures visions of buxom farm maidens herding cows through idyllic pastures, then milking them gently for perfect, fatty, delicious milk. Then on to the creamery where the cream is churned lovingly into perfect, beautiful, delicious butter!

Add in a fresh sourdough loaf cooling on the counter, and life doesn't get much better! Well, I added a great NY strip steak and a nice green salad, and some grilled broccoli slices to placate my inner Vegan.

That butter is from a spectacular Paris department store called Le Bon Marché, which has an amazing food department...two floors of food and wine that is rivaled only by another Parisian department store! They have prepared foods and places to eat there and fresh produce and meats and cheese and fish and butter! about 25 feet of refrigerated displays filled with butter of all kinds, from everywhere in France.

They also vacuum pack it, so it has been preserved quite well! I was a bit apprehensive, but one bite of this perfectly salted butter with some of that sourdough bread eased my concern. It was perfect, even after nine months in the freezer!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (290) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

That is an under-cabinet low voltage light that takes a standard G4 two-prong bulb. Easy-peasy...right?

Except the prongs of the new bulb don't slide into the receptacle. Since the bulbs produce a startlingly large amount of heat, I am not surprised that the thing failed after many years. What does surprise me is the difficulty in replacing it. Those cables are six feet long, and the end is buried somewhere in the cabinetry. The back of the receptacle is riveted closed, so I can't remove the female side and simply replace it.

I will have to splice the wires onto a new receptacle without wire nuts, since there isn't enough room for them inside the housing. That should be interesting, in a deeply irritating way.

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (193) | Trackbacks (Suck)

FISA Is A Catastrophic Failure, And Should Be Allowed To Die

Except...our government is fanatical about spying on us, and there is no way that a temporary pause in their ability to spy on Americans will survive. That pause is for purely political reasons, as the House simply doesn't like President Trump's nominee for Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Once that little pissing match is cleared up, they will go back to merrily supporting warrantless searches and surveillance of Americans.

Oh, they have their cute little legal subterfuges that protect them...we Americans are swept up in that surveillance by accident! Really! It's true! Our government claims, without a hint of irony or sarcasm, that when Americans are spied upon without a warrant, it is merely coincident to the surveillance of a foreign national, and they respect our God-given natural rights to safety from government intrusion.

US intelligence community's foreign spying powers expire after lawmakers reject FISA extension

The law enables the US government to surveil non-Americans abroad without first going before a judge to get a warrant.

However, that surveillance often sweeps up communications of American citizens in the process. The controversial spy power was reformed in 2024, but some critics want additional changes.

This shit has been going on forever, and FISA was supposed to be the solution to the myriad domestic spying programs that our Constitution expressly forbids.

Except that after FISA was passed in 1978, spying on Americans seems to have increased! Here is a small sample of the dozens of programs that our government used or uses to spy on us.

Pre-1978

• COINTELPRO
  
• Operation CHAOS
  
• Project RESISTANCE
  
• Operation MERRIMAC
  
• MINARET
  
• SHAMROCK
  
• Post-1978
  
• CARNIVORE
  
• PRISM
  
• Section 215
  
• Total Information Awareness (TIA)
  
• Stellar Wind
  
• Hemisphere Project
  
• Section 702
  
• Main Core
  

FISA is so obviously a rubber stamp for fishing expeditions based on political or personal expediency that it's embarrassing that any legislator defends it. But most of them do, and it's only the dust-up with Bill Pulte as DNI that they even bothered to look up from the trough and actually do something.

Most of the Bill Of Rights address these affronts to our freedom and liberty, yet our government cavalierly disregards those rights, claiming the always convenient, "National Security Imperative," or whatever phrase is in fashion to describe the destruction of our freedoms.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

-- Samuel Adams

He said that in 1776, and it applies today. Government should serve us, not the other way around. And...government should also fear us as a free people. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that, and today we see shocking examples of countries whose citizens have become subjects exactly because their governments no longer fear them.

This is not a call to arms; this is simply a recognition that we must defend all of our rights, no matter how trivial-seeming or unlikely. Most of us will never be swept up in the surveillance of a foreigner, and most of us will never be surveilled coincident with an investigation. Except...we can never know that with certainty unless we fight back against the rapidly encroaching totalitarianism of our government.

Yes, that sounds melodramatic...just like the wholesale arrest and detention of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators after January 6th, 2021 sounded like a conspiracy-theorist's fever dream.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (240) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 6-14-2026 ["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 (from the pages of DRAGON^® magazine!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

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

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (346) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 14 June 2026

Top Story

• The US government has responded to Anthropic's constant warnings of imaginary dangers with a global ban - except for US citizens on US soil - on access to the company's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 security-focused AI models. (Tech Crunch)
  
  This whole story is dumb but at the same time it's amusing to watch Anthropic's continuing push towards regulatory capture leave them stuck like a rat in a trap.
  
  To mix my metaphors, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei cried "risk" one too many times and ended up being devoured by it.
  
  
  
• Speaking of dumb 75 datacenter projects totaling $130 billion in value were blocked in just the first four months of 2026. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This leaves SpaceX, by the way, pulling in $2 billion a month renting out its datacenters to its capacity-limited competition.
  
  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman blames this trend on Chinese influence, and while Altman absolutely is a compulsive liar, that probably is a large factor. Chinese datacenter rollouts are not facing the same headwinds.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, OpenAI is facing investigation from multiple states attorneyses generalseses. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Oh no.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (170) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - June 13, 2026 [D&D]

Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. We built this place for you so you can have some fun. Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Keep it light and friendly. Jerks need not enter the premises (the moose out front is keeping watch).

[Top photo: Old First Church, Bennington, Vermont]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (439) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Post [moviegique]: Backrooms

Another good and in some ways significant film—twelve out of twelve new films in a row, for those counting—has crossed our paths, being yet another trampler of a once undefeatable franchise.

The origins of Backrooms go back to a 2019—ancient history!—creepypasta about an eerie interdimensional space that looks like a very ordinary but empty office building or, in fact, a furniture store. Although much of the concept (which I don't know, honestly) was developed collectively on the Internet, 16-year-old writer/director Kane Parsons created, wrote, directed and starred in a YouTube series based on his take on the story and, now, at the ripe old age of 20, has directed a movie that's easily smashed the $100M barrier, made 20x its budget back already and trounced the flagging Mandalorian.

Of course, only 20x its budget (so far) makes it a big compared to Obsession, which had now made over 220x it's budget, but I doubt anyone's going to complain. And Backrooms may have even better legs, because while it's not a better film, it does have a massive trove of Easter Eggs for fans.

"Backrooms" looking at "Obsession"s legs in the distance.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (363) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - June 13, 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.

This is the second anniversary of TRex assuming the Hobby Thread helm. Hooray! That makes this my 105th Hobby Thread (not counting a few previous oddball contributions through MisHum). Thank you all for being here and participating. None of this works without you (even the lurkers).

In honor of the occasion, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) took the night off and left a note that said "all of the above." What does that mean? Read on hobbyists...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (206) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, June 13

* * *

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 03:37 PM | Comments (64) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, June 13

Penstemon cobaea close-up, showing the "bearded tongue" characteristic of the genus

Don in Kansas has a fine summary on his experiences growing penstemons, back on May 9: Tongues with Beards. Here are three of several he is growing. Click on the link for photos and description of others, along with growing tips:

One of my long-term projects is to find out which penstemons will do well in Kansas. I've got around twenty species planted in various parts of the yard, many of which are coming into bloom now. The Kansas natives such as Penstemon cobaea, above, have done very well. In general, most species I've tried have been easy and haven't needed attention beyond weeding and occasional watering during dry spells. . .

Posted by: K.T. at 01:33 PM | Comments (42) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Getting close to that big anniversary: What and whom do you appreciate?

George Washington and his valet, William Lee

A lot of people don't know much about William Lee, whom George Washington really trusted.

*

Thomas Sowell

A lot of people who should know about Thomas Sowell don't know much about Thomas Sowell.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:09 AM | Comments (182) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[Black & bitter as my soul.]

*****

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival there are just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Omro)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice. Let's keep that permanent record clean, shall we?
3) Running with sharp objects is a No-No.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (316) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 13 June 2026

Top Story

• Welcome to Earth Delos D. Harriman, our new-minted trillionaire! (Tech Crunch)
  
  May I say how delightful it is to watch the wailing of the worst people on the planet at your good fortune?
  
  (I didn't invest; all my ready cash is tied up in RAM and SSDs. Which to be fair is looking like the soundest investment I have made in years.)
  
  
  
• Critics meanwhile accuse Musk of... Running the companies he runs. (Reuters)
  
  You can't make everybody happy, but with some effort you can make everybody miserable.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Here Comes Johnny With His ONT In His Hand

Hi everyone! Welcome to the ONT. To enter, please complete the following Captcha:

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (416) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fri-Yay Cafe

Darkness begone. Sickness begone!

Begone from me, you Soyboy Beta Cuck! BEGONE!

Begone Vile Man, Begone from me!

I'm taking a bold statement on things that must begone.

Mother horse and her twins.

Firework show at the Sagrada Familia Cathedral.

Sweet 70s-era high end audio system.

Dude trained his corgi to "hunt birds," if you know what I'm saying. That little corgi earned himself some Gainsburger tonight.

Compilation of Happy Dogs.

This border collie says "What's a greyhound?"

You don't understand -- no matter the time, no matter the place, cats are the stars of this production.

Disney nonsense.

The dog wants more affection, the cat's already bored.

Rescue dog goes from being scared and cringing to happy and proud.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:28 PM | Comments (396) | Trackbacks (Suck)