Lester Holt Will Step Down as Fake Anchor on NBC "News" By Summer; MSNBC #Cancels Three More Left Wing Zeroes

This is a bloodbath and I need to bathe.

Lester Holt, who NBC claims is a "Republican" despite being yet another aggressively mediocre liberal, is stepping away from the anchor desk to go back to
hosting Dateline.

Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of NBC News' "Nightly News" after a decade. He announced the move in a memo to staff, revealing plans to take on an expanded anchor role at NBC's crime news drama show, "Dateline." Holt will continue anchoring "Nightly News" until the summer, and NBC News has not yet named his replacement.

Key Details:

Holt will transition to a full-time anchor role at "Dateline," where he plans to expand his influence and craft in-depth segments on topics he is passionate about.

Is that what this is about, his "passion"?

That's one theory. Here's another one: All of these media companies see a huge decline in their ratings and are offering their "talent" deep pay cuts if they want to keep their jobs.

John Sexton has more on the Night of Long Axes at MSNBC.

From the New York Post: Racist MSNBC actually is getting rid of all their minority hosts.

Or, at least, getting rid of their shows while keeping them in diminished roles.

MSNBC's new president continued to shake up the embattled network Monday -- canceling shows hosted by left-wing anchors Ayman Mohyeldin, Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, The Post has learned.

The overhaul follows the ouster of rabid anti-Trump anchor Joy Reid after reports surfaced Sunday that the Comcast-owned network is canceling her show, "The ReidOut."

On Monday, an MSNBC insider told The Post that staff working for Capehart and Phang were informed that their weekend shows will be canceled.

The source spoke shortly after The Guardian reported that Mohyeldin's program will be taken off the air. His show "Ayman Mohyeldin Reports," which airs on the weekends at 7 p.m., will broadcast its final episode on April 20, according to the UK paper.

An MSNBC spokesperson confirmed the shakeup when contacted by The Post.
'

Mohyeldin, Capehart and Phang will remain at the network, with the two men hosting shows in new time slots, the rep said.

As you probably know, Comcast-Universal is putting MSNBC and a bunch of other dying cable channels up for sale. They're scrambling to make this basketcase presentable for sale.

From a previous Sexton report: Joy Reid lost 47% of her ratings since Trump won the election. I can't imagine she was highly rated before the election, either.

"The ReidOut" has shed 47% of its total audience, averaging just 759,000 viewers after averaging 1.4 million viewers throughout 2024 leading up to Election Day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Reid lost even more viewers among the advertiser-coveted demographic ages 25-54, losing a whopping 52% of them, now averaging only 76,000 key demo viewers.

Clay Travis mocks Reid and other liberal #Resistance propagandists:

Clay Travis
@ClayTravis

The most remarkable thing about people like Joy Reid, Don Lemon and Jim Acosta is they have been paid millions of dollars for years to talk on TV and yet they have developed no actual fan base. The minute they leave TV, their careers are over. Do you know how hard this to do?

You are gifted an incredible opportunity to enter people's homes and talk to them directly for YEARS EVERY NIGHT. Yet the moment you aren't on TV, your audience vanishes. That means none of your "audience" actually likes you. It's all just platform/network based.

This is fascinating to me because the Internet arena is the exact opposite -- your audience is directly connected to you because the audience has an infinite array of choices and picked you. It's far more competitive & authentic online so the connection is much deeper.

I'm not sure how many people realize this, but Don Lemon's career is a perfect example. He went from a show competing with two other networks every night to competing with the entire Internet. No one followed him online. His career is essentially over.

It's way harder to win online, but when you do, you have a career for life. Your audience will follow you anywhere. Because you are the platform. Anyway, I still don't think most realize this. Joy Reid will soon. Her career is over.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (548) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump Names New Deputy Director of the FBI

Good get.

I have to imagine that Bongino was making a lot more with his podcasting venture than he'll make as a Deputy FBI Director. He's taking a paycut to do the right thing.

President Donald Trump has appointed former Secret Service agent and conservative commentator Dan Bongino as Deputy Director of the FBI. The announcement, made on Truth Social, highlights Bongino's law enforcement background and commitment to justice.

Key Details:

Bongino, a former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent, will serve under newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel.

Trump praised Bongino's credentials, including his graduate degrees and successful podcasting career.

He expressed gratitude to Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity.

Diving Deeper:

President Donald Trump has tapped Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and prominent conservative commentator, to serve as Deputy Director of the FBI. The announcement, made via Trump's Truth Social account, underscores Trump's commitment to reshaping federal law enforcement under his administration.

"Dan Bongino, a man of incredible love and passion for our Country, has just been named the next DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FBI, by the man who will be the best ever Director, Kash Patel," Trump wrote. He lauded Bongino's extensive background, which includes service in the New York Police Department, the U.S. Secret Service, and his rise as one of the most influential conservative voices in media.

...

With Patel at the helm of the FBI and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi now leading the Department of Justice, Trump has assembled a leadership team determined to restore "fairness, justice, law, and order" to federal law enforcement. The appointments mark a decisive shift away from what Trump and his allies have long decried as politicization within the intelligence community.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (483) | Trackbacks (Suck)

MSNBC Fires Transgender Simon Phoenix; Network Will Put Her In Cryofreeze for 70 Years and Thaw Her Out When the World Is Ready for Lunatic Black Radical Racism Again

Simon Phoenix is so scared you guys

Sad!

MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid's evening news show and held a "tense" meeting with her staff after the news was leaked to the press.

The final episode ofThe ReidOut will air this week, The New York Times reports. Her slot will be replaced by a show led by a trio of hosts: Democratic strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez. They currently host The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Rebecca Kutler, the network's newly-appointed leader, made the call amid larger plans to overhaul MSNBC's programming, according to the Times.

Now, media journalist Oliver Darcy reports Reid's staff found out they were losing their jobs in a tense and emotional 30-minute impromptu meeting Sunday morning. Staffers were reportedly frustrated they learned about the show shutting down from media reports, rather than directly from leadership.

Reid has hosted a 7 p.m. show on the network since 2020. She had been with the company since 2014.

The network has also removed Alex Wagner from her weekday evening spot, and Darcy reports Kutler held a "similar" meeting with the show's staff. However, Wagner is expected to stay with MSNBC as a contributor.

Now, many are mourning Reid's departure.

"I owe the television part of my career to Joy Reid, as do so many other Black voices y'all never would have heard of if not for her," journalist Elie Mystal wrote on X. "And *that's* why she's gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable."

Alex Wagner, who has been given 30 chances to do something on MSNBC and has failed every time, was also demoted.

Keith Olbermann knows why: Rrrracism!

One-time MSNBC primetime host Keith Olbermann said that his former network's reported firing of Joy Reid and cancelation of Alex Wagner's nightly show was "racist," noting that only four women of color have solo-hosted programs for the liberal cable news network -- and all of them have been kicked to the curb.

...

In addition to the network dropping Reid, new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is also expected to remove Wagner from the primetime lineup. Wagner was pulled from her Tuesday-Friday 9 p.m. slot after the inauguration when MSNBC convinced its top star Rachel Maddow to host five nights a week during President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, a move which has helped the channel reverse its post-election ratings slump.

...

Olbermann, once MSNBC's biggest star before his acrimonious departure in 2011, laid into his former employers for booting Reid and Wagner during an early Monday morning podcast, claiming the left-leaning channel was sidelining women of color for "salespeople" who will do as they're told.

"MSNBC fired Joy Reid, and yes it is racist and maybe worse. Yes, it is designed to keep out people who might think differently," Olbermann declared. "And it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like ex-party chairmen and former press secretaries who will do what they are told by their bosses."

He added: "But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner as they fired Joy Reid, at least The New York Times says this, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows on MSNBC, and all four of them have now been fired."

Besides Wagner and Reid, who coincidentally also had weekday programs canceled by the network in 2015, MSNBC has also axed weekend programs hosted by progressive Black female hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Tiffany Cross. According to Olbermann, this is no coincidence.

Accusing the triumvirate of hosts replacing Reid of engaging in "salesmanship as opposed to commentary or insight," he also said the same of Psaki. "And if anybody on television -- besides her counterparts who are all on Fox -- if anybody is a salesperson as opposed to an analyst or a commentator, it's Jen Psaki," the outspoken ex-MSNBC anchor stated.

"These people are salespersons," he added. "Salespersons doctrinaire, and often it's doctrinaire bullshit. If you have been a salesperson, a press secretary for a politician these days, you have -- I'm sorry -- lied."

Saying he's had "lots of problems" with Wagner over the years, claiming she was "not interested in doing the harder parts of the job" of hosting, Olbermann still came to her defense regarding her credibility as a serious political analyst and commentator. "But Alex Wagner was not a salesperson for some politician or political point of view," he noted.

Olbermann then pointed out that Reid -- along with Harris-Perry and Cross -- repeatedly stoked controversy and enraged the conservative media machine, adding that MSNBC bowed to the outrage from the right over their commentary rather than stick by the hosts.

"Hmm, Melissa Harris, Perry, Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, Alex Wagner. Four women -- what did they have in common?" Olbermann rhetorically asked. "Well, let's see, they all had their own shows -- solo hosts on MSNBC, and they were all women of color, and they've all been fired."

While acknowledging that the hosts replacing Reid are also people of color and that Kutler is apparently looking to bring on other Black hosts, Olbermann suggested that those picks are all "safe" and won't rock the boat.

"Don't we want this? Won't this make it easier to sell this company when we want to?" Olbermann snarked. "Won't it make it easier the next time Trump threatens NBC and MSNBC for us to say, but we fired Joy Reid."

As a conservative, I have no idea what it's like to have to moderate my tone in order to be acceptable to corporations. Can you imagine having to live under such an evil system? Can you?!?!

Trump has different thoughts:

Here are some of Transgender Simon Phoenix's all-time Lunatic Racist Rants.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (418) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Stacey Abrams Has a History of Illegal Slush Funds Predating the Recent $2 Billion Revelation from DOGE

Conservative media has extensively covered the recent DOGE revelation that in 2024 the Biden administration steered a $2 billion grant to a newly-created “non-profit” associated with perennial Georgia political candidate Stacey Abrams. In its first three months of operations, this organization had raised just $100 before the Biden administration decided to steer $2 billion to it.

But lost amidst all this coverage is the fact that just a few weeks earlier another slush fund incident was revealed involving Ms. Abrams, and although the dollar amount was less, it was criminally worse, because it involved an intentional and illegal diversion of $3 million from a “non-partisan” organization created by Stacey Abrams to help fund her 2018 gubernatorial campaign. The state of Georgia just imposed a massive $300,000 fine on this organization for its illegal efforts to interfere in an election.

“Nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams secretly campaigned for her in 2018” [The Hill – 01/15/2025]

The commission found the nonprofits raised upward of $4 million and spent more than $3 million to help Abrams and other 2018 candidates. The groups did not file as a campaign committee before receiving donations and failed to file campaign finance reports before the election, the commission found.

I wrote about this story a few weeks ago, but I framed it in terms of Senator Raphael Warnock, who was at that time the head of Ms. Abrams’ corrupt campaign money laundering operation. But the story is ultimately about Stacey Abrams’ history of financial corruption.

“To Be Consistent with the George Santos Precedent, Raphael Warnock Must be Expelled from Congress” [Buck Throckmorton – 02/02/2025]

Senator Raphael Warnock (D – GA) was Chairman of a “non-partisan” group that engaged in a massive violation of campaign finance laws in 2018. The “non-partisan” group led by Warnock spent millions of dollars illegally attempting to influence the outcome of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. Despite the dishonest and illegal spending by Warnock’s “non-partisan” group on behalf of Ms. Abrams, she lost that race. Raphael Warnock, who was Chairman of the “New Georgia Project” at the time, is now professing total ignorance of the actions his organization was engaged in.

News broke a few weeks ago that the Georgia Ethics Commission unanimously voted to fine the New Georgia Project and its affiliated spinoff, The New Georgia Project Action Fund, $300,000 for violating state campaign laws and for failing to register as a political committee. As reported in a piece at The Hill titled “Nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams secretly campaigned for her in 2018” these groups admitted that they violated the law by campaigning for Abrams.

Further, according to the mission statement at the New Georgia Project’s website, ”New Georgia Project is a nonpartisan effort to register, civically engage, and build power with the New Georgia Majority–the large and growing population of Black, brown, young, and other historically marginalized voters in the Peach State.”
Raphael Warnock led this organization in a massive financial and political fraud. Donors who thought they were giving to a non-partisan organization to help “marginalized” voters were actually giving to an organization actively, and illegally, assisting the Stacey Abrams campaign. The New Georgia Project, with Raphael Warnock serving as its as Chairman, was also actively violating federal tax laws.

Stacey Abrams was not only the creator of this entity, she was also the beneficiary of its illegal diversion of tax-free charitable giving to her political campaign back in 2018.

Ms. Abrams has a history of illegally diverting funds to benefit her political ambitions. $2 billion would go a long way toward further interfering with the integrity of Georgia elections.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (402) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

October
Efim Volkov

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 2/ 24 /25

Good morning kids. In some disappointing news, it looks as if we might have to wait a while longer for the SMOD (Sweet Meteor of Death for those who are new here) to put us out of our misery.

The uncertainty of science: According to a short update from NASA late yesterday, new ground-based observations have now reduced the odds that asteroid 2024 YR4’s will hit the Earth in 2032 to only 0.28 percent. . . Expect these numbers to change again in March, when the Webb telescope tracks the asteroid. And do not assume Webb will confirm these numbers. There remains great uncertainty in all these calculations, especially because there is great uncertainty about the size, mass, and make-up of 2024 YR4. It could be anywhere from 130 feet to 320 feet in diameter, and that difference makes these calculations uncertain.

In other words "keep hope alive!" Actually in the wake of Trump's miracle 2024 election landslide victory and now Week 5 of a flurry of positive action being taken to give our long-suffering Republic at the very least a sustained breather if not a fighting chance at a rebirth politically, and societally, perhaps it might be time to put aside our hopes for an actual SMOD as MAGA brings a wrecking ball to the thinly veiled tyranny that has lorded over us and torn us apart since the New Deal.

After all, we still have almost four more years of Trump, Plus another 8 of Vance and then 8 years of Vance's veep as POTUS 49, Please God!!!

With that though, The Vatican is poised for a shakeup...

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni’s one-line statement didn’t mention if Francis was up or eating breakfast. “The night passed quietly, the pope rested.” The brief update came after doctors said the 88-year-old pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, was in critical condition. On Saturday morning, he suffered a prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis while being treated for pneumonia and a complex lung infection. The pope received “high flows” of oxygen to help him breathe. He also received blood transfusions after tests showed low counts of platelets, which are needed for clotting, the Vatican said in a late update.

I am not a Catholic, and I have a deep respect for my Catholic friends and while I know this is a troubling time for observant Catholics, the current Pope in the minds of many has very dubious and troubling stances on a number of issues that are in contravention to not only members of the faith but for reasonable people all over the world. His ties to communism are well known, and combined with his tenure to date is why I refer to him as Pope Fiction and now Potemkin Pope. Should he recover I hope and pray that he receives the wisdom to change his ways and views. Perhaps that is asking too much. In the event of his demise, I certainly hope he is succeeded by a Pope who is more in keeping with a John Paul II. Consdering Francis insane obsequiousness to Islam during his tenure, and in light not only of the 10/7 bloody pogrom against Israel, but that once every Jew on the planet has been butchered at the hands of Islam, the next target will be the world's Catholics. Imams the world over have made no secret that their mission is to turn the Vatican into a giant mosque.

And as we are, or should be, well aware, they are not waiting until everyJew on the planet has been gang-raped, beheaded or rosted alive in front of their parents to go on a spree against Christendom. What happened in Congo last week and got zero coverage from the propaganda media is just the latest incident.

Open Doors International, a worldwide organization which supports Christians who suffer persecution and discrimination for their faith, reports that the bodies of 70 Christians were found in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They had been beheaded by jihadists in the latest horror of the ongoing Islamic genocide of Christians in that country and elsewhere throughout Africa.

According to local sources, at around 4 a.m. last Thursday (13 February) militants from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – a group with direct ties to the ISIS (Islamic State) terror group – seized 20 Christian men and women from their homes in Mayba in northeast DRC. Later, the militants surrounded the village and captured 50 more believers. All 70 were held hostage for a short period and then taken to a Protestant church in nearby Kasanga and slaughtered, reportedly with machetes. You wouldn’t know any of this by checking in with the mainstream media, partly because they don’t care about the massacre of Christians anywhere in the world, partly because they can’t figure out how to blame Israel and the Jews for the beheadings of African Christians, and partly because they’re too busy ginning up outrage over Trump firing IRS employees and dismantling the DEI grift.

The Islamic crusade against Christendom in Africa has been going on for years if not decades; Just look up Yoko Haram. And elsewhere in the world, like in the Philippines, another outpost of Catholicism in the third world. look up Abu Sayyaf.

Yes, I understand that religious and political leaders such as the Pope and even Donald Trump have to play rhetorical games so as not to offend the sensibilities of some people and to come across as voices of "moderation."

But as CBD and I discussed on the latest episode of our award-winning ™ podcast (here and in the sidebar)

Where were all these "moderate" Muslims we hear so much about in the media when the coffins bearing the bodies of the butchered Bibas children and their mother were being paraded around as ghoulish and macabre war trophies to cheers and ululations from crowds of Gazan "civilians!"

After Hamas paraded the coffins of 9-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel to the cheers and jeers of its supporters, before turning over the coffins, locked with keys that did not fit to Israel, people looked for something to restore their faith in the goodness of mankind in the Muslim world.
Millions thought they found it in fake quotes from the grand muftis of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“What we say today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah,” Saudi Grand Mufti Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh (pictured above) reportedly claimed in one viral social media post.“Hamas has brought shame to Islam on a level never seen before,” Grand Mufti of Dubai Ahmed al-Haddad allegedly proclaimed.
Photos of the two Islamic religious leaders illustrated with these quotes racked up millions of views on social media. Some even found their way into news stories sourced from social media.The only official statements out of Saudi Arabia and the UAE were vocal condemnations of Israel and proposals for an ‘alternative plan’ that would leave the PLO and Hamas in power under a fake ‘front government’ of technocrats.
Ahmed Al Yamahi, the UAE appointed ‘president’ of the Arab Parliament, accused Israel of a “genocidal war in Gaza” “unequivocally placed the blame for this escalation on the Israeli occupation authorities”, urged the UN to “hold the Israeli government and its settlers accountable for their crimes and violations against the Palestinian people” and and called for Arab unity to support the ‘Palestinian’ cause.
And unlike the fake grand mufti quotes, these were published directly on government sites.

The Saudi and UAE governments issued statements condemning terrorist attacks in their own countries and even some abroad, and many condemnations of Israel, none of Hamas for its treatment of the Bibas children.

"the "palestinian" cause is only to gin up Islamic hordes in the drive to conquer the world and create a giant global caliphate. Nation states, even Islamic ones will cease to exist. "Palestine" will return to where it came from; a conference room at KGB headquarters in 1963.

Psaki-Psircling back to Popetemkin Fiction Francis, when he goes to meet St. Peter, and given all of the above, I hope that one oof the Nigerian Cardinals who certainly understands what is at stake not only in his country but around the world with a resurgent Islam and the globalist leftism that is equally toxic and does noting to defend the faith, Becomes the next Pope.

In other news, Joy Reid, the yammering prehensile-tail-lice-picking/eating barely sentient tree-dwelling primate has been given the boot from MSNSDAP.

MSNBC canceled Joy Reid’s show The Reid Out, which aired at 7 PM during the week.

The leftist network will air a panel show during the timeslot, hosted by Michael Steele, Symone Sanders Townsend, and Alicia Menendez.

Gotta be racism, right?! Michael Steele isn't really black, right? Maybe she can get Al Sharpton to smear feces on her face, drag her into court and get her a big fat settlement like Tawana Brawley. Either that or fit her for a Pope Hat and fly her to the College of Cardinals to be the next Pope!!!

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
• ROME (AP) — Pope Francis, in critical condition with a complicated lung infection, rested well during a peaceful night following a respiratory crisis and blood transfusions, the Vatican said Sunday.
  [Potemkin] Pope [Fiction] Francis rested during a peaceful night following respiratory crisis and blood transfusions

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:30 AM | Comments (456) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 24 February 2025

Top Story

• With AMD's launch party for its new 9000-series video cards just days away, it has held a press briefing and of course benchmark numbers have already leaked. (VideoCardz)
  
  The 9070 XT is 42% faster than the 7900 GRE at 4k resolution, and the 9070 non-XT is 21% faster.
  
  Absolute silence on the price. Earlier leaks put the cards at $750 and $650 respectively, which is about $100 too much. But given that Nvidia cards don't exist at all at the moment, AMD will probably price the cards too high, kill all enthusiasm, and then adjust the price in a month or two when it's already too late.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Nvidia cards that don't exist if you somehow got your hands on an RTX 5080 you had best check the number of ROPs onboard. (VideoCardz)
  
  Yes, all the models that have shipped so far - 5090, the 5090D made for the Chinese market, the 5070 Ti, and now confirmed the 5080 - have been hit with the same hardware flaw. It only affects some cards, but it could apply to any model from any manufacturer.
  
  
  
• My 7800 XT arrived today, so my interest in all this is purely academic.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (151) | Trackbacks (Suck)

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

Howdy Hordelings, and welcome to the Sunday ONT! Hope your weekend has been great and you are ready to close out your evening with us here. Thanks for stopping by - shall we step inside?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (376) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Pre-March 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 end of February? I suppose it's time to start working on tax returns which typically puts me in a bad mood for about six months. However, since the government has been spending our dollars so wisely and carefully, I really shouldn't complain. How about you? Do you prepare your taxes early or wait until the last minute? If you're getting a refund, are you going to buy shooting stuff?

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 (290) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: All Foods Are Tasty, But Some Are More Tasty Than Others!

Most food is pretty damned tasty. Hot dogs and oysters and fried chicken and roasted cauliflower and pickled carrots and chopped chicken livers with caramelized onions and crispy fried potatoes and a great ripe tomato and a steaming bowl of split pea soup and a grilled whole red snapper and... well... I could go on forever!

But as varied as my tastes are, it is very hard to beat a well-marbled grilled steak. The combination of glorious richness from the fat, the firm texture, the salty goodness of the juices, and the elemental -- even primal -- joy of eating flesh is a tough thing to beat.

What's the point? Nothing, other than steak tastes good! And I found that photo while poking around for ideas, and it sure does look great!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (330) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

There are two cable/internet providers in my area, and the one I have used for years was purchased by some horrid European company several years ago, then spun off, because it didn't suck quite enough.

Customer service went from great to maddening, and the quality of the internet service went from excellent to awful beyond compare. After two years of constant outages and pathetic and moronic techs telling me all sorts of bullsh*t stories, I told them to fix it or I will move to another provider. So they recommended switching to Fiber-Optic service, which they claimed had gotten good enough over the several years of its roll-out that it is now better than traditional co-ax.

Sounds great! Except they also told me that it would be more than $100/month more!

See ya!

And all is fine and good in Dildo world.

But... the big old cable box with the clock has been replaced with a tiny little unit and an even tinier junction box.

There is no clock.

THERE IS NO CLOCK!

Those little clocks have trained me over the years, and now that they are gone, it is as if there is no stability in the world. Wherever will I look for the time?

The stove? The microwave? My wrist?

Sure, but my eyes reflexively drift to the nonexistent cable box and its oh-so-convenient clock. I sure hope that I can be taught new tricks, but it isn't looking good!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (263) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Is One Of The Byproducts Of The Trump Revolution A Return To Simple Competence?

That is a photo of the flight tracker provided by United Airlines to the entertainment system screens. At first glance, it seems fine, except that was on a flight from London to Newark. And the same thing happened two months before on a flight going in the opposite direction.

Is it important? Probably not, unless the data are being pulled from the same systems the pilots use, and processed the same way. My guess is that most commercial pilots, even some of the DEI hires, know the difference between east and west, and know that eastbound London to Newark is a very long and expensive flight, and probably not the best choice.

But the anomaly is still significant, because it is a mistake. Something isn't working correctly, and for at least two months, nobody at United Airlines cared enough to fix it. Or maybe that is a Boeing problem, but it really doesn't matter. A system is not working correctly, and the lack of interest in making things right may be indicative of much larger issues. If they don't care about this seemingly trivial problem, then how do they feel about one that is slightly less trivial?

Our country, led by government, has shifted over the last generation to a culture in which feelings and thoughts are paramount, and the actual results of the efforts (or lack thereof) of people have become secondary. Sure, it's a punchline, but "participation trophies" are also a real thing. A diverse workplace is a more important goal than one filled with the best people, regardless of their melanin content or who or what they slept with last night? Metrics like "how valued do you feel" overwhelm the stuff that used to be important, like objective measures of quality and efficiency.

But the reelection of Donald Trump, and his choices for cabinet and other high-level positions within his administration is sending a strong signal that simple competence is now important. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as personified by Elon Musk is asking straightforward questions, like: "What do you do here?" "What did you do last week?" "Do you come to work?" "Is your job necessary?"

Shocking...isn't it!

For many reasons, most of which are linked to graft and subverting our traditional political philosophy, the federal government has become a vast make-work program designed to funnel unimaginable sums of money to favored groups, regardless of any connection to what is needed by the citizens of The United States of America!

Is that about to change?

The glimpse into the labyrinth of the federal government that DOGE and Trump's cabinet has allowed us is at least as important as the savings ($55 billion and counting)! That glimpse has shown America that the screeching and wailing that we hear whenever any mention of slowing the expansion of government is simply nonsense, and there is a huge amount of waste, rather than a Potemkin Village of earnest, hard working, dedicated public servants.

The goal of course is to cut waste, and shift toward actual needed functions, performed by minimally competent employees. As obvious as that sounds, that will be a tremendous change in the federal government, and it will lead the way in returning America to a more rational view of employment.

Go to work every day and do your job well. That's not so complicated!

If all goes as planned, the federal government will be a smaller, more nimble, more efficient, and less expensive thing. Which is vastly amusing, because Donald Trump is being accused of being a fascist and a dictator, but how many fascists and dictators shrink government?

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Does that sound like President Trump?

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (341) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-23-2025 ["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 (zombie mice not included). 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...(reminds me to phone home once in a while).

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 (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 23 February 2025

Top Story

• Nvidia has confirmed that defective chips are affecting performance on 0.5% of 5090 and 5070 Ti graphics cards. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is a strange announcement because (a) nobody had noticed the problem on the 5070 Ti before and (b) the 5070 Ti is much more common than the 5090.
  
  Major national retailers have announced receiving fewer than ten 5090s total, with resupply possibly months out.
  
  So this is a bit like an announcement that 0.5% of Lamborghinis and Volkswagens have an engine defect. That could mean the problem affects 20% of Lamborghinis, because the shipping volume of the two brands is so different.
  
  Anyway, if your 5090 is broken you can return it for replacement, which will happen... Some day.
  
  The other thing is that the 5090 is not a volume product, at least not yet. Nvidia has shipped hundreds of these, not thousands. And they clearly weren't paying attention. This problem would show up immediately in an automated test - and probably did show up. But nobody noticed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (293) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" February 22, 2025 [The 3 D's]

Welcome to another presentation of Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Regular Club members are encouraged to mingle amongst yourselves. Lurkers welcome to congregate on the observation deck, but please don't be afraid to mix in on the main floor. This --- is Club ONT!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (585) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 2/22/2025

Argylle by Matthew Vaughn

I don't often talk about singular movies, especially modern singular movies, but I recently caught the Matthew Vaughn directed, Bryce Dallas Howard bomb, Argylle, when I got a 3 month free trial for AppleTV+ (purely for Severance, by the way). I've liked Matthew Vaughn as a filmmaker since his first film, Layer Cake through all three of his Kingsman films and even stuff like Stardust. So, I was actually somewhat excited about Argylle. It looked like what had become pretty standard Vaughn output by the trailers, and I didn't think that was a bad thing. I liked pretty standard Vaughn output.

And then it was released into theaters for roughly one showing on one weekend where it bombed horribly and then went behind the AppleTV+ paywall never to emerge again. It was also battered around mercilessly by critics (33% on Rotten Tomatoes with negative reviews getting titles like "Argylle" (hopefully) signals the collapse of the modern blockbuster) and handled roughly by audiences (5.6/10 on the IMDb). It's surely not worthwhile, it seems.

Well, I watched it anyway because you're not my supervisor.

And...I thought it was alright. It's not good. It's silly and ridiculous, much like several of Vaughn's other films, but it's also overlong and overcomplicated (um...also like several of Vaughn's other films). The combination simply doesn't work as well here. However, in terms of mediocre action spectacles, is this really any worse than most of what gets released these days? Is it worth special scorn? Well, the general reaction contrasted with my own ignited a couple of lines of thought in my brain, and I decided that instead of simply reviewing the film, my thoughts were taking me in an essay-like direction.

Essentially, it amounts to Argylle's place in this little slice of movie history we're living through.

Oh, and I should note that I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie. If you're really jonesing to see Argylle without spoiling, skip. But, it's not like it's hard to predict.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - February 22, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread.

We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin. Turns out, the Wheel is always looking for a challenge. It said JIGSAW PUZZLES. Let's put the pieces together.

[Photo: Hobbies in the Jurassic Period]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (197) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, February 22

The eyes . . . .

* * *

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.

* * *

For the Weekend

Posted by: K.T. at 03:17 PM | Comments (66) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Feb. 22

Some lovely winter photos from long-time lurker Rex Nemorensis, with assists from Perfessor Squirrel and Misanthropic Humanitarian:

Not sure who to send these to but I am just happy we have some actual snow here and wish to share with those who abhor the slithy slush of Icy Hades.

The photo above, and those below, do show some appealing aspects of winter. Plus a good artistic eye.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:13 PM | Comments (49) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Are the ghosts of previous presidents returning to interfere with the leftist project again?

Andrew Jackson is a 1928 bronze sculpture of Andrew Jackson by Belle Kinney Scholz and Leopold Scholz, installed in the United States Capitol, in Washington D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection.

It is one of two statues donated by the state of Tennessee.

The Democrats used to hold Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinners. Not anymore.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:16 AM | Comments (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)