Leftists: Replacement Theory is a White Nationalist Conspiracy Theory
Also Leftists: The English Countryside Is Too White So We Have to Move Minorities and Migrants Into It

Remember, if whites move into areas where minorities live, it's either "colonization" or at best, "gentrification."

But when minorities move into white ares, it's "diversification" and "geographic justice."

The government has issued a report saying there are too many whites in the country.

The British countryside will become more welcoming to ethnic minorities under strategies being developed over the next five years.

National Landscapes, a charity mostly funded by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), has 46 landscapes, previously called areas of outstanding natural beauty. Management plans for each area are aiming to address the barriers faced by underrepresented and diverse groups to accessing the countryside.

Reports that have been published gradually since a Defra report in 2019 reveal that many communities perceived the countryside as "being for white people and middle-class people".

The 2019 report said: "The countryside is seen by both black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and white people as very much a 'white' environment. If that is true today, then the divide is only going to widen as society changes. Our countryside will end up being irrelevant to the country that actually exists."

The latest region to update its five-year management plan was Cranborne Chase National Landscape, which overlaps the boundaries of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset. Its plan, published last month, said that it would "develop strategies to reach people or communities with protected characteristics such as people without English as a first language" and "diversity of ethnicity".

On Monday, National Landscapes published an update titled "Nature is for everyone".

Daily Mail:

The British countryside is in the midst of a diversity drive after a government-commissioned report found it was too 'white' and 'middle-class'.

Officials charged with managing some of the country's best known beauty spots have laid out a series of proposals aimed at attracting minorities.

The plans follow a review, ordered by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), which warned the countryside was seen as 'very much a white environment' and risked becoming 'irrelevant' in a multicultural society.

In the wake of the report, officials representing National Landscapes - including the Cotswolds and Chilterns - have now published a series of management plans that detail their proposals to attract more minority communities.

The Chiltern National Landscape will launch an outreach programme in Luton and High Wycombe targeted at Muslims.

One factor stopping ethnic minorities visiting was said to be 'anxiety over unleashed dogs'.

The Cotswolds National Landscape specifically mentioned the Defra-commissioned report and said it was now dedicated to changing its provision in an attempt to reach 'the widest demographic'.

In its own management plan, the Malvern Hills National Landscape said: 'Many minority peoples have no connection to nature in the UK because their parents and their grandparents did not feel safe enough to take them or had other survival preoccupations. This breaks down the oral traditions for learning.'

It added: 'While most white English users value the solitude and contemplative activities which the countryside affords, the tendency for ethnic minority people is to prefer social company (family, friends, schools).'

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (289) | Trackbacks (Suck)

CNN Pollster: An All-Time High of American Voters, 58%, Say Democrats are "Too Liberal"

The hell with "liberal," they're actually communists. 42% of Democrats under age 35 say they're socialists, and given the extreme leftwing authoritarianism of today's left, that means they're straight-up Marxist communists.

Ed Morrissey posts about it:

ENTEN: ... Democrats who identify as very liberal or conservative. You know, there used to be a lot of conservative Democrats, right? Back in 1999, 26 percent of Democrats self-identified as conservative Just five percent said that they were very liberal. It was a smidgen, a smidgen, a smidgen. Now, that far left has gained considerably in power. Look at this. Now we're talking about a fifth of Democrats. 21 percent say they're very liberal. That conservative part of the Democratic Party, adios amigos, goodbye. Just eight percent. And when you combine the 21 percent who are very liberal with those who say that they're somewhat liberal, we're talking about three in five Democrats who identify as either somewhat liberal or very liberal, with the very liberals, a much larger portion of the party, the far left, which used to just be a smidgen within the Democratic Party, has gained considerable power, as you saw in New Jersey's 11th District.

BOLDUAN: What about Democratic socialists like the likes of, you know, we've got Bernie Sanders and -- or Zohran Mamdani here in New York City? Where does that line up?

ENTEN: OK. So, on a separate question where you -- essentially CNN asked this last year, which was, OK, Democrats who think of themselves as Democratic socialists. Among all Democrats, including those independents who lean towards the Democratic Party, look at this, we're talking about a third, a third of all Democrats who identify as Democratic socialist. Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani are not alone. They are a considerable part of the Democratic base at this point. And more than that, if you look at Democrats under the age of 35, they are nearly half -- nearly half of the Democratic Party. Look at this, 42 percent of Democrats think of themselves as Democratic socialists under the age of 35, just like Zohran Mamdani. That -- what happened to New York City is not some aberration, right? It is not something that just happened in New York City. It is something that we are seeing grow within the Democratic Party at this particular point, when we're talking about 42 percent of Democrats under the age of 35 identifying as Democratic socialists and a third of all Democrats, my goodness gracious.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (225) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Rubio and AOC Offer Competing Visions of Foreign Policy, Realist Vs. Retard

Rubio told the "elite" of Europe to grow up and save themselves. Because we're less and less interested in saving them.

Speaking in Munich on Valentine's Day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a blunt message to Europe's political class: reclaim your sovereignty, control your borders, and rebuild your industrial might before it's too late.

Addressing lawmakers, defense officials, and policy leaders at the annual security conference in Germany, Rubio said the United States is looking for "allies who are proud of their culture ... and able to defend it." His remarks drew sustained applause from the audience, as he framed mass migration and economic stagnation as twin threats to Western stability.

Rubio argued that unchecked migration is eroding the social cohesion necessary for national defense and long-term prosperity. "Armies do not fight for abstractions," he said. "Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life." He warned that large-scale migration across Europe has strained welfare systems, unsettled communities, and weakened the political resolve needed to defend national interests.

Controlling borders, he added, "is not an expression of xenophobia. It is not hate. It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty." Failing to do so, Rubio said, amounts to abandoning one of government's most basic responsibilities and poses "an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself."

While he stopped short of naming specific parties, Rubio criticized what he described as a culture of paralysis among Western elites -- leaders "shackled by guilt and shame," and immobilized by fears of climate change, conflict, or technological disruption. That mindset, he suggested, has led to policies built on ever-expanding government spending, reliance on foreign imports, and what he called an unsustainable migration model.

The secretary laid out an alternative: a "high-tech, low-migration" strategy centered on innovation, productivity, and secure supply chains. He called for reindustrializing Western economies, investing in advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, commercial space, and industrial automation, and developing independent access to critical minerals rather than depending on geopolitical rivals.

The speech was well-received -- Rubio got a standing ovation.

Guess who didn't like it? The gay communist American propaganda press.

Maxwell Meyer
@mualphaxi

The NYT has come up with an amazing critique of Rubio's Munich speech. In short: "akshually, your appeal to shared Christian heritage between USA & Europe is false because we replaced the Christian population with Afghans"

Didn't see this one coming. I'm impressed.

The Times, speaking for those technocrats who are in love with the Great Replacement, crows that Europe is de-Christianizing, and that the Jewish population barely exists there, while Islam is on the rise.

Christianity is declining across much of the continent. In Europe's three largest economies -- Britain, France and Germany -- less than half of residents now identify as Christian, according to survey data by Bertelsmann Stiftung, a nonpartisan foundation. The ranks of the religiously unaffiliated are growing, according to data by the Pew Research Center and others.

After a decade-long influx of migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere, the share of Muslims across Europe has ticked up, to about 6 percent in 2020, according to Pew. The Jewish population has declined slightly and remains below 1 percent.

1) The Great Replacement Theory is a far-right white supremacist conspiracy theory

2) Okay there's a little replacement going on but it's small and manageable

3) Okay the Great Replacement is in full swing and it is AWESOME

We are at #3.

Alexandria Donkey-Chompers, on the other hand, revealed herself again as a giggling buck-toothed stuttering imbecile.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (351) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: The SBA Will Stop Lending to Non-Citizens

While I sometime grimace at President Trump’s social media posts, it appears that (intentionally or not) they also keep his adversaries so distracted that major conservative victories go virtually unnoticed by left-wing outrage mobs. As Democrats and the media have flailed like a cat chasing a laser pointer, accusing Trump of being all the epithets that end with “-ist” and “-phobic,” Trump keeps racking up victories on core conservative issues.

Ace documented one major victory a few days ago in a piece titled, “Trump Ends Obama Executive Order Giving the EPA the Power to Regulate Carbon Dioxide Without Any Congressional Authorization.” From the much-despised start-stop ignition feature in your car, to the industry-crushing environmental regulations based on CO2 being a “pollutant,” the environmental command and control structure imposed by Barack Obama is hereby terminated.

Now, another major America-first action has just been taken, as Kelly Loeffler, the Administrator overseeing the Small Business Administration, has just announced that SBA funds will only be loaned to companies 100% owned by US Citizens. As documented in an SBA Policy Notice effective March 1, 2026, “SBA is requiring that 100% of all direct and/or indirect owners of a small business applicant be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Nationals who have their Principal Residence in the United States, its territories, or possessions.

This further tightens SBA controls regarding the funding of businesses owned by non-citizens. It was just a year ago that Administrator Loeffler announced a series of reforms requiring majority ownership by citizens, along with proof of citizenship, as well as a new prohibition on SBA lending to illegal aliens. At that time, she also announced that the SBA was moving its offices out of “sanctuary cities” which are in defiance of federal law.

While there has certainly been SBA fraud, including the diversion of funds to foreign countries, the issue is more so about prioritizing Americans, and not using taxpayer dollars to create businesses which then employ foreign labor. It just logically doesn’t make sense for the federal government to provide the capital and lending risk for a green-card holder to buy a hotel or convenience store, and then have it staffed with H1B labor or foreign nationals from his home country. That process results in a loss of jobs for U.S. citizens, not increased jobs.

Legal U.S. residents who are citizens of other countries are still free to start businesses here, but they must find the start-up capital through their own networks. The purpose of the SBA is to provide taxpayer-funded loans to businesses that will provide jobs and wealth creation to U.S. citizens. President Trump and Administrator Loeffler deserve praise for putting proper controls back on SBA lending.

*****

They Never Stop. They Never Sleep. They Never Quit.*

My latest piece at The American Spectator, “Blue States Are Moving Legislation Forward to Restrict How Much You Can Drive,” has been published.

The blue states that have been most enthusiastic about getting you out of your gasoline-powered car during the failed “EV transition” are already moving on to the inevitable next battle against personal driving freedom. Legislation is being introduced in Democrat strongholds to set mileage caps and/or to impose punitive mileage taxes on those who persist in wanting to drive a car.

This piece is not behind a paywall. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.

My latest piece at The American Spectator discusses a new front in the war on personal driving freedom. Blue states are introducing legislation to cap allowable miles that may be driven, and to punish driving by imposing mileage taxes on a per mile basis.https://t.co/QiuVxnIRJh

— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) February 14, 2026

Defeating the EV mandate and compelling automakers to refocus on gasoline-powered vehicles was a huge victory. But it was just one battle that we won, not the war. The battle to preserve our driving freedom continues, and we must stop the momentum of those trying to impose mileage caps and mileage taxes.

(*”They never stop, they never sleep, they never quit” is a quote from the great Michael Walsh on the left’s dogged persistence in imposing their anti-freedom agenda on the rest of us.)

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (263) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Devant la glace
Édouard Manet

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (288) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 2/16/26

Good morning kids. Hope you all had an enjoyable Valentine's Day weekend. With that in mind we kick off the week with terrorism at home and abroad and how they are linked, politically and perhaps quite literally.

First to a train in Brussels.

A short video clip filmed at the beginning of February has made its way onto social media, showing a pair of vacationing mothers from Alabama and their two 12-year-old daughters, who were confronted and terrorized by a knife-wielding man aboard a train in Brussels, Belgium.

Amanda Hardy, one of the mothers, later told reporters that a man emerged from the train car bathroom and approached them, first asking whether the women were American. He then asked, Hardy recounted, “‘Do you like ICE?’ And we did not respond to that. He then pulled out a knife – our estimation is about 18 inches long or so. He then threw down a jacket and a scarf on the ground, and that’s when he said, ‘F__ ICE, I can shoot too. I shoot faster than Americans.’”
. . .Hardy and Sucher reportedly believe this happened to them because they are American and because of their perceived political beliefs (hence the question about ICE). I think it’s clear that this is so. As for the perpetrator: the lack of even a rough description in the media, the presence of an 18-inch knife, the casual terrorizing of women and children in public… Add an unsympathetic police force to the mix, and all this points to the usual suspects – and it’s not indigenous French men.

Yes, and considering this is Belgium which will very soon become absorbed into the global Islamic ummah, it's most likely that the perpetrator was indeed a Muslim. And yet, something to me stinks on ice (pun intended). No doubt the situation in America and in particular Minnesota is getting global media coverage and so the perp was likely a swarthy third-worlder. But then again he could've been an American leftist who, upon hearing either the victim's southern accent or even a snippet of her conversation with her fellow travelers decided to snap into action.

Europe is after all the birthplace of Islam's political kissing cousin and current ally of convenience, Antifa.

A 23-year-old Frenchman has reportedly died after being severely beaten by Antifa terrorists during a violent confrontation in Lyon on the evening of February 12, according to local reports and messages shared on social media. The incident took place near Sciences Po Lyon in the city’s 7th district, where a conference was being held by Rima Hassan, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing the ultra-left-wing party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed).

Members of the female-led anti-mass migration activist group Collectif Némésis had gathered outside the venue to protest Hassan’s appearance. Tensions reportedly escalated between them and counter-protesters described as far-left militants. The situation devolved into a street brawl.

Meanwhile, far from Brussels, the insanity is sprouting all over back here in the US of A...

A woman was captured on surveillance video attempting to set fire to a warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri, that had been rumored as a possible immigration detention facility. Footage shared by local outlet KMBC shows the woman, dressed in sandals, jeans, a short-sleeve black shirt, and carrying a small backpack, pouring an accelerant along the side of the building before striking a match. A second container of accelerant is visible near her feet.The warehouse is located within the 49 Crossing industrial complex and had previously been considered for sale for potential use by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as an immigration detention center. However, the property owner, Platform Ventures, announced Thursday that it would not proceed with the sale. . . The arson attack comes amid heightened tensions nationwide over immigration enforcement and the expansion of detention facilities. In recent months, leftist activists have clashed with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at various sites across the country, including protests that escalated into confrontations outside detention facilities. Federal officials have also confirmed investigations into organized anti-ICE activist networks.

And here's a two-fer from the Oscar Hammestein "You've Got to be Carefully Taught Dept. Firstly:

Eighth-grade students at a Minnesota middle school were taught in geography class that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents use “tricky & violent tactics,” and were given extra credit for watching a British-produced video on the problem of illegal immigration in the United States.

Materials obtained by Defending Education show that the students at Hermantown Community School were given a highly politicized lesson on illegal immigration and ICE operations. The materials included a PowerPoint that adopted left-wing talking points on immigration and a video produced by a British broadcaster on ICE operations in Chicago.

The instruction at the Duluth-area school took place in December 2025 and featured a PowerPoint where students were asked: “In what ways do people think the Ice agents have ‘gone too far’?”

. . . “It’s bad enough that this biased lesson is replete with falsehoods — but [for] the school principal to defend such garbage truly adds insult to injury,” she said. “Students are being force-fed ideological propaganda during finite lesson time (when they’re not being encouraged by activist teachers to walk out of their classrooms, that is) and told what to think, rather than how to think. It’s little wonder that families are fleeing the public education system in droves.”

Number two, thank goodness for the sanity of our military, eh?

Few organizations know more about leadership than the United States Army. Yet for years, the Army paid an outside consultant for instruction on the topic: A fly-by-night company co-founded by a Pakistani who sits on the board of an organization once linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Between 2021 and 2025, the Army Corps of Engineers shelled out $1.7 million across eight contracts to the vaguely-named Nonprofit Empowerment Group. The group is actually a for-profit, bare-bones operation configured to scoop up federal contracts using woman-owned “set-asides.”

And so it goes. The aforementioned gives you a PRETTI GOOD idea of how we wind up with Spenser Rapones and Nidal Hasans and other Guerrillas in our midst.

Have a great day.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• “Do you like ICE?"
  Terror on a Brussels Train

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:05 AM | Comments (310) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 16 February 2026

Top Story

• The word of the day is ClickFix, the favourite tool of lazy hackers everywhere. (Microsoft)
  
  They don't need to hack you if they can convince you to hack yourself, usually by copying a command and running it in Windows Powershell - though the attack in the general case will work against any operating system, because the target is the human and not the machine.
  
  Just lately this has been spreading MacOS malware via instructions fed through AI tool Claude, malicious JavaScript to steal your cryptocurrency spread through Pastebin, and a remote access tool (a RAT) targeting Windows machines spread through DNS lookups. (All Bleeping Computer)
  
  If someone tells you to copy something and paste it in to your computer, shoot them.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (89) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - February 15, 2026 [Doof]

Welcome to the Sunday ONT. Cupid has returned to wherever it is he dwells. Presidents' Day is tomorrow. It's still winter for a lot of us. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Let's just get into tonight's content.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:01 PM | Comments (469) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Third February 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 Third February Edition? I usually write the Gun Thread on Saturday, but I sit here on Sunday, with approximately 0.0 words completed. Oops! I think I need to get busy!

Good news, however, on the weather front. Temps are now above freezing each day which is allowing all of the frozen shit to melt, which means I will be headed to the farm-o soon!

Also, I have a bunch of email in the 'ol mailbox that I need to address. Apologies for the delayed responses!

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 (233) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: The Maillard Reaction, And Other Glories Of Western Civilization...Like The Reuben!

What to do when one's grill and patio are under a foot of snow? Reverse sear of course! That is a good supermarket NY Strip that I warmed in a 225 degree oven for about an hour, until it reached 110 degrees internal. Then into a ripping hot pan for a minute on each side, and that's it! I tossed some butter in for extra flavor, and while there is nothing wrong with butter, I'm not sure it needed it.

What I like about this technique is that there is almost no margin. The steak goes from crispy exterior to perfectly rare interior in a matter of a millimeter or so. NO gray band of overdone meat.

It's not foolproof...it is tempting to over sear it in the pan, and you will absolutely get an overdone steak. Less is definitely more in this case.

I have a sear station on my grill, and as soon as I shovel out the patio, I will be playing around with it to see whether it is a quicker and better way to get the glory of the Maillard Reaction on steak.

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (262) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Amaryllis! We buy a couple of them every year from the high school band... or orchestra... or marching band. I have no idea. Some earnest and uncomfortable high school kid shows up at the door and asks whether we want to buy some flowers to finance their trip to Outer Mongolia or Poughkeepsie, and of course we say "yes."

Although...the last person to show up -- selling boxes of oranges -- we skipped the gift and just gave him some money!

Because look at the plant! It grew so quickly and produced so many flowers that it is limp. LIMP I say! I couldn't handle a box of limp oranges!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (151) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Resounding And Powerful Defense Of Liberal Democracy, Market Economies, And Unabashed Nationalism And Patriotism

It's difficult to overestimate the insidious destruction of our way of life over the last 100+ years. Beginning with the philandering progressive Woodrow Wilson's massive expansion of the administrative state, FDR's consolidation of government power in service to progressive ideals (also known as power!), and supported by the so-called conservatives of the Republican Party, we have been sliding into serfdom. Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Bush x2, Clinton, Obama, and the drooling figurehead Biden have all contributed to the diminution of our rights as a free people.

But the worm turns, and the election and reelection of Donald Trump has given us the rare opportunity to repair some of the possibly existential damage to our republic.

And there is no better representative of the ideals on which our country was founded than Marco Rubio, a shining example of when the man and the moment meet.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference

That infamous wall that had cleaved this nation into two came down, and with it an evil empire, and the East and West became one again. But the euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion: that we had entered, quote, “the end of history;” that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.

This was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history. And it has cost us dearly. In this delusion, we embraced a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade, even as some nations protected their economies and subsidized their companies to systematically undercut ours – shuttering our plants, resulting in large parts of our societies being deindustrialized, shipping millions of working and middle-class jobs overseas, and handing control of our critical supply chains to both adversaries and rivals.

We increasingly outsourced our sovereignty to international institutions while many nations invested in massive welfare states at the cost of maintaining the ability to defend themselves. This, even as other countries have invested in the most rapid military buildup in all of human history and have not hesitated to use hard power to pursue their own interests. To appease a climate cult, we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else – not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own.

And in a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people. We made these mistakes together, and now, together, we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward, to rebuild.

Marco Rubio has identified the issues with clarity and, more importantly, with a profound understanding of how corrosive the progressive movement has been. More impressively (if that is possible) he has welcomed all who believe in the power of limited government, fair markets, and love of country to join us in our efforts to roll back the evil of communitarian societies, and top-down control of our lives and livelihood.

He is already one of our best Secretaries of State, and with this declaration he has the opportunity to be a great one!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (247) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Book Thread: [Sabrina Chase]

Greetings, O Book Thread!

I am Sabrina Chase, semi-professional author and 'ette in good standing. I do not own a mansion or a yacht, but I'm working on it. (I'd prefer a castle and a submarine, actually.) After a discussion which probably relied heavily on alcohol and someone losing a game of Rock Paper Scissors, yours truly was invited to write the occasional post for the Book Thread. Having long been a fan, how could I say no?

But what could I write to amuse the Horde, that pile of self-randomizing cats with the most amazing breadth and depth of information on the internets? How about ... the Dark Secrets of the Writing World?

Allow me to present my credentials. I have written over 15 books in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. While these were indie published, before that I was a typical trad-pub author in that I had an agent and was offered a contract by a well known publisher. (Which was so bad that when I turned it down my agent was HAPPY, but that's a post for another time.) But I did come out of the horrors with some knowledge of the brick-and-mortar publishing industry, as much as one can and still retain one's soul. Then I went to the Dark Side and it is true, it has cookies or at least more money and lots of authors generally helping each other, plus writing lots of cool books for you, dear readers!

Do not fear. I will not be going into the terrifying process of writing (but should you be interested in that topic, allow me to point out the info in the left sidebar of this very site for the AoSHQ Writers Group!) Instead, I will talk about the journey that starts once the book is written, and why some truly perplexing things can happen on the way.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (505) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 15 February 2026

Top Story

• Flashpoint archive is a free, downloadable, 2.3TB archive of every Flash game ever. (Flashpoint Archive)
  
  Pretty much.
  
  You can also download just a 1.9MB installer that grabs the Flash files on demand from the archive, saving you rather a lot of disk space.
  
  It's now in its 14th edition.
  
  What Flashpoint does, mostly - apart from the obvious function of collecting over 200,000 games together in one place - is create and operate a fake internet on your PC for you so that twenty-year-old games from sites that have been dead for a decade will continue to work.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (254) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - February 14, 2026 [2 D's]

Welcome to the Valentine's Day 2026 edition of Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. No "Double" theme for us tonight. Don't want to send the wrong message on this particular day.

The Club hopes your day has been filled with love. Or maybe you came here tonight looking for love? We did our best to decorate and make it feel like a high school mixer. Just please don't do anything that would make the tables any more wobbly than usual.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (355) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 2/14/2026

Park Chan-wook

In America, Park Chan-wook will probably never be known for anything other than Oldboy. He had made four films previously in Korea (the first two he wishes he’d never made, but they do exist, think of how much Kubrick tried to suppress and even destroy Fear and Desire), but it was his third, Joint Security Area that established his career as a filmmaker in Korea. It was hugely successful and essentially gave him a blank check to do whatever he wanted.

What he did was called the Vengeance Trilogy, three disconnected films all dealing with central characters and their efforts at vengeance. Oldboy is the second of the three (surrounded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance), and it came about in the early 2000s, right at the time websites like Ain’t It Cool News were still somewhat relevant. The burgeoning American cinema fans (mostly male and obsessed with genre) latched onto it and gave it oxygen, helped even more by the fact that Quentin Tarantino was a big fan who helped award it the Grand Prix award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival where he was jury president.

It’s a violent, Greek-inspired tale of bloody vengeance from a man who was mysteriously placed in a secret, private prison for 15 years and then given a few days to figure out why, and it captured the imaginations of the film fan community at the time.

And...Park has kind of fallen off the American cineaste map since. There was a blip with The Handmaiden, but movies like Decision to Leave, his television work like The Little Drummer Girl or The Sympathizer get mostly ignored, drowned out in favor of more maintstream American movies. And that’s going to create a deeply warped view of who Park Chan-wook is as a filmmaker.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (120) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - February 14, 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 stained glass.

[Top photo: Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church (Springfield, Ohio)]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (129) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, Valentine's Day

Our Hero

Courtesy TRex

* * *

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 03:28 PM | Comments (99) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Holiday Weekend

Happy Valentine's Day! It's also Washington's Birthday Weekend, and if you are stuck indoors, here are some old-fashioned bouquets to remind you of his era.

Dobbin House Tavern, Feb. 6

To chase away the bitter‑cold winter blues, we offer a glimpse of summer from the Dobbin House gardens. Each week, we gather and arrange fresh blooms for the deep, inset windows of Rev. Dobbin's 18th‑century stone home - - now the cozy setting where our guests enjoy menus of fine food and drink.

We like to imagine that Isabella Dobbin herself filled these very rooms with similar, homemade arrangements in 1776, brightening her household just as they brighten ours today. With the Gettysburg countryside blanketed in white, viewing this burst of color gives us comfort, as it promises warmer days ahead. We hope it brings a little warmth and cheer to you as well.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:28 PM | Comments (35) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Happy Valentine's Day! Caution: sexual predators are not just on Epstein Island

Have you been turning to coverage of the Olympics to get away from more depressing news? Might not always help.

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The new revelations from the Epstein Files are a disappointment so far to people who expected to be able to prosecute participants in a massive child sex ring, but do they help to explain some history?

A woman who flirted with Epstein in emails, accepted thousands of dollars of gifts from him, and was his unofficial attorney was Obama's top vetter and Ethics advisor.

Just spectacular stuff.

2017. Jeffrey Epstein's good friend Kathryn Ruemmler explains that she ran Obama's vetting and ethics department and was responsible for vetting all of Obama's cabinet members.

Ruemmler also said that she was saddened because Trump had "debased" the Presidency.

Ruemmler was so close to Epstein that she called the convicted sex offender "Uncle Jeffrey."

Posted by: K.T. at 11:08 AM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)