Gun Thread: Post Tax Day 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 Post Tax Day Edition?

Q: Weasel, should we ask you about taxes?
A: No. Still in a bad mood. Ask again in about 25 years.

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 (249) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Oatmeal Venison Cookies...The Best Of Both Worlds?

That is the vegetable platter served at a rather good Sunday Roast last week. The selection was delicious, and just enough of each food to entice, but not enough to seem as if we had to eat our vegetables before dessert or we wouldn't get any!

The carrots and parsnips (?) were roasted very simply, and as our waiter pointed out, they tasted good because the cook used a ton of butter. And this was said with pride! Which suggests that maybe the United Kingdom still does have a bit of life in her!

That cabbage medley was also damned good, in part of course because there is bacon in it, but also pretty good fresh green peas. Even those dark leafy greens (Kale?) were good.

Look, I'm not an evangelist for vegetables. I consider them a pleasant counterpoint to meat, but not the focus of the meal. But that doesn't mean they have to be tasteless.

These were delicious!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (199) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Apparently the demand for candy for trick-or-treaters drops off markedly beginning the late evening of October 31st.

Not that we got any...the trend in our town is for street parties and organized events, which is, I believe, a sure sign of the profound degradation of our culture.

But what to do with the leftover candy? I am far too cheap to discard it, but it isn't getting any better, especially since it was milk chocolate to begin with, which is a pale and sad simulacrum of the only chocolate that counts: dark chocolate!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (180) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Islam Never Takes Its Eyes Off The Prize, And That Prize Is Our Destruction

Islam is predicated on the goal of world domination: the creation of a worldwide caliphate. Lest you think that is simply one religious government controlling all Muslims, the reality is that the existence of non-Muslims is an affront to Islam, and the conversion or destruction of all non-Muslims is implicit.

Taqiyya is the Islamic concept of lying in furtherance of the goals of Islam. Concealing the goals of Islam, whether it is cheating a non-Muslim in a business deal, or hiding a nuclear weapons program, is entirely appropriate, and is considered a legitimate tactic.

So the earnest and honest Westerners who negotiate with Iran from a position of overwhelming strength will be confronted with lies and subterfuge, because the goals of the Iranian negotiators have nothing to do with improving the current situation, and everything to do with furthering the goals of Islam...the domination and destruction of the West.

Trump Says US Negotiators Will Travel to Pakistan for Peace Talks With Iran

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that U.S. representatives will arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening in preparation for negotiations with Iran.

Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social media account and said that Iran had violated a ceasefire agreement by firing shots Saturday aimed at a French ship and freighter from the United Kingdom in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our blockade has already closed it. They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day!” Trump posted Sunday.

Trump warned that if Iran does not agree to a deal, the United States could target key infrastructure.

“The United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“If they don’t take the deal, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done.”

Luckily, President Trump is far more aware of the negotiating tactics of the Iranians, but the only measure of success will be actual changes in Iran and in its terrorist proxies across the world. The words spouted by the various Iranian factions that claim to be in charge are meaningless.

And those Pakistani generals are also part of the drive for a worldwide caliphate and cannot be trusted...at all.

But the current situation is vastly different than the previous 47 years of lies that have emerged from Tehran. As Mike Tyson famously said: "everyone has a plan -- until they get punched in the face."

And Iran has gotten punched in the face for the very first time. Their tried-and-true playbook for dealing with the weak-kneed West has been tossed out, because President Trump decided that 47 years of lies was enough. They simply don't know what to do, and that is the true value of the President's strategy.

The President has stayed focused on a very simple goal...Iran can never have nuclear weapons. That is laudable, and future generations will look back and realize that he has created the conditions necessary for a fundamental realignment in the Middle East, and far more important, he has protected the world from Iran's apocalyptic visions.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (132) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 4-19-2026 ["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. 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 (365) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 19 April 2026

Top Story

• How bad are things for PC gaming right now? The most anticipated products for 2026 are relaunches of AMD's 5800X3D CPU, which first appeared in 2022, and Nvidia's RTX 3060 graphics cards, which originally came out in 2021. (WCCFTech)
  
  The 5800X3D has AMD's 3D-Vcache, so while it uses DDR4 memory it doesn't lose a lot of speed from it. And the 3060 has 12GB of memory, so in that respect it is better than current low-end cards.
  
  
  
• Also relaunching this year after a long time away is SNK's Neo Geo console. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If you missed out on this the first time because you couldn't afford the price tag or weren't yet born in 1991, the updated version will slash the cost from $649 to $249. And $649 in 1991 dollars is over $1500 today, so that's a heck of a discount.
  
  And while there are some modern conveniences like HDMI video and a rechargeable wireless option for the controllers, this is not emulated - not in software or in hardware. They actually spent the money for a new production run of the custom chips, and it's fully compatible with the original controllers and cartridges.
  
  And there are ten of the original games back as well. You can pre-order the whole lot - console, controllers, and the ten game cartridges - for $1000.
  
  The same company is also behind an Amiga 1200 reproduction and a number of other classic systems.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (168) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - April 18, 2026 [D Squared]

Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Find an old friend. Make a new friend. Just be friendly!

[Top photo: Beer at a random ballpark]. Those of you who attend pro baseball games (be it big leagues or the minors), how much is a beer at your local ballpark?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (301) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 4/18/2026

The Blank Check Film

Every few years, a studio decides to make a large bet on a younger filmmaker. A weirdly large budget to a filmmaker who had proven their worth in some large way. Think Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate or, more recently, Damien Chazelle's Babylon. Or, if you want, every movie Christopher Nolan has made since The Dark Knight.

The ones that interest me most are the weird ones. Think Richard Kelly's Southland Tales (though...is it a blank check movie? It was only made for $17 million), weird movies with way too much ambition and suddenly a lot of money to pursue it from filmmakers who've never worked at that level and probably have no right to suddenly command those budgets.

Which is to say that I showed Junior Close Encounters of the Third Kind a couple of weeks ago.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (274) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - April 18, 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. It is that time of the year, a spin of the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) came up with castles as a theme for this Hobby Thread.

Castles? Yes, castles. Maybe more of a theme than a hobby per se, but who am I to argue with the Wheel of Hobbies (TM)?

[Top photo: Burg Eltz, Wierschem, Germany. Oil, 24 x 18 by polynikes]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (150) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, April 18

Courtesy Terry Glenn

* * *

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 03:21 PM | Comments (76) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, April 18

From Don in Kansas, end of February:

The weather can always double-cross you - - this is Kansas, after all - - but it looks like spring is early this year. I snapped these pictures earlier today.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:35 PM | Comments (61) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Freedom of Thought and Religion

Family friends recently returned from a visit to D.C., where the photo above was taken.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Inscriptions

Northwest Portico

"Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion . . . No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively."

-Excerpted from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777. First introduced in the Virginia General Assembly in 1779, after he had become Governor. Passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1786, while Jefferson was serving as Minister to France. The last sentence is excerpted from a letter to James Madison, August 28, 1789, as he was returning to America to assume his position as Secretary of State.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:29 AM | Comments (185) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[H/T Sharon(Willow's Apprentice). I see there is another Misanthrope in the building]

*****

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

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Or else.
3) Running with sharp objects should be done during the Movie Thread.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:06 AM | Comments (421) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 18 April 2026

Top Story

• Intel's new Core Series 3 is its answer to the MacBook Neo. (PC World)
  
  The A18 CPU used in the MacBook Neo uses 6W maximum, and typically throttles down to 4W since the laptop is passively cooled.
  
  All models in the Core Series 3 range use 35W maximum and a base of 15W, which is rather more than that. So while it may be Intel's answer, it is not necessarily a good answer.
  
  The first laptop announced with the Core Series 3 is Honor's Magicbook 14. That costs around $1000, but on the other hand it comes with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD, which is more than is even possible in the MacBook Neo.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile AMD's legendary 5800X3D may be making a return. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  AMD has officially made non-committal noises about this. The chip was taken off the market allegedly because it was too competitive with the newer 7800X3D. But with DDR5 prices in cislunar orbit, and the slower 5700X3D and 5600X3D also retired from the market, it would be a very welcome sign.
  
  But it's allegedly a 10th anniversary special edition, and Ryzen's 10th anniversary is in December, counting from the announcement, or next March counting from retail availability. Hope we're not going to have to wait that long.
  
  I mean, it's not like I have 384GB of DDR4 RAM lying around, but if I did I might be interested.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (79) | Trackbacks (Suck)

After FANG FANG, He Stuck His WANG WANG Into Someone Else's THANG THANG. She Said Wait A DANG DANG Minute And Went To The DA And SANG SANG ONT.*

Welcome to Friday Night! Let's start with a little advice for Eric Swalwell

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (414) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Carnivorous Pig Attack Cafe

Kyoto

He's just not that into you.

Puppy mocks a poor turtle. Bad puppy.

Ah the weekend.

Puppy keeps his habits throughout his life.

Baby wants to make sure mom keeps it fair.

Baby lamb tries to make friends with the piglets.

Panda Berserker Rage!

Brought you this stick with a nice shiny wasps' nest on it, hope you like it...

Kitten from the top rope.

Before work, after work.

Timid rescue dog afraid of everything finds an understanding friend.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (240) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Blowin' Up Stuff Real Good Agin Open Thread

No this is a new one.

This is interesting if you're into guns: The slow-motion guys fire a teeny-tiny pin gun at the back of a bullet to see if they can ignite the second bullet by hitting its primer with its teeny-tiny bullet. I say it's interesting because it turns out, without a barrel, and without a closed hammer at the back of the barrel to force all gas forwards, a bullet that's been sparked off by a hit on its butt isn't much of a projectile. One could say it's a damp squid.

Okay that was a teeny-tiny round. Here are some bigger ones.

.50 caliber fired into a ballistic head. BTW, a lot of these cause actual fire/light upon impact just due to the energy of impact.

I did link this a while back -- firing the .577 Tyrannosaur elephant gun at blocks of ballistic gel.

And he tests whether the .577 Tyrannosaur could stop an actual Tyrannosaurus Rex, firing it at a balilstic head in the shape of a Tyrannosaurus's.

A nock volley gun is a multi-barrel rifle designed to shoot an entire volley of bullets with one shot. This particular volley gun is called "The Kraken," and has seven barrels each firing a .61 caliber round. Apparently it's based on a gun used in shipboard combat-- you'd fire it from the crow's nest down to the decks.

It's a big gun with a lot of recoil.

A howitzer shell fired at a ballistic torso. And then, that tank shell fired at a ballistic head.

A tank shell fired at a ballistic torso.

In this clip, they fire an RPG-7 (rocket propelled grenade, which isn't really what it stood for, but that has been made up as a retronym to explain the Russian initials) at a ballistic torso. In the first hit, the grenade doesn't detonate, because it passes through the torso quickly enough that its detonation mechanism doesn't detect it as an actual stop/hit. So they put some cinderblocks behind the torso, and make the detonator more sensitive, and blow it up real good.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (106) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week In Woke

The Party of Plunder:

Chris Pratt's wife posted a short video praising her husband for building a dollhouse for their daughter, and the bitter loneley wallflower alcoholic wine-aunt AWFULs attacked her for it.

Katherine Schwarzenegger sparked a debate with fans after she praised her husband, Chris Pratt, for building a dollhouse for their daughters.

The "Kat and Brandy" author recently took to Instagram to share a video of the actor getting his hands dirty while working on the homemade project.

"I'll never understand when women say, 'I don't need my husband' when I very much in fact do need my husband because who else would build our daughters a dollhouse?" she wrote over the clip set to Olivia Dean's "Man I Need."

Schwarzenegger, 36, also gushed over Pratt, 46, in the caption, writing, "When you have a golden retriever husband >>>."

While the New York Times best-selling author was merely showing appreciation for the Marvel star, her remarks rubbed some critics the wrong way.

"Wives and women can build doll houses, too," one person wrote, as another added, "Women can do that. We can buy our own homes and vote, too! 😉."

Others echoed the same remarks, with a third chiming in, "How nice that he [built it], but it's either tone deaf or passive aggressive to say you'll 'never understand.'"

Others attacked her as a "child of privilege." Which is a true fact, but... what motivates this?

Malicious envy. Once you see it, you can't stop seeing that every single feeling a leftist has is just resentful, spiteful envy. Everyone has those kind of flaws -- but they have adopted an ideology that tells them these are not flaws and evil thoughts to be contained, but instead "empowerment" and "enlightenment" to be nurtured and wielded as a weapon.

AWFULs are the most maliciously envious, spiteful, hateful, and useless people the world has ever produced

Dr. Oz and Stephanie Carlton write about California's no-child-left-untransitioned psychopathy.

California was horribly wrong about gender and kids

California's classroom policies put children on a path to irreversible medical interventions with no proven benefits

...

Until recently, this debate was dominated by radical gender ideologues, who insist on affirmation at any cost.

...

In California, the pipeline to these drastic interventions begins in the classroom, where state law requires teachers to hide kids' gender confusion from parents, even if that means sitting across from them in parent-teacher conferences and lying by omission to the very people most responsible for those children's care and wellbeing.

Socially transitioning children at school puts them on a collision course with sex-rejecting medical interventions that cause lower bone density, infertility, cardiovascular problems and other painful, costly health issues.

There is no off-ramp. California's ban on "conversion therapy" applies not just to the abusive practices most people associate with that term, but to any counseling that might reduce children's gender distress without transitioning them. (Multiple states have similarly broad bans on their books, though the Supreme Court just struck down Colorado's.)

Those policies are rooted in academic "queer theory" rather than science, but after a long campaign of infiltration and intimidation, activists managed to align the medical profession with their ideology. Just a few years ago, they could claim that "[e]very major medical association" considered sex-rejecting interventions for trans-identifying youth to be "safe and lifesaving."

But that confidence was never matched by strong evidence.

Thankfully, the tide has turned. There's a growing international consensus that the gender activists were wrong. Scientific reviews in Sweden and Finland, as well as the U.K.'s rigorous Cass report helped convince those countries to dramatically scale back sex-rejecting interventions for children and adolescents.

Last fall, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a comprehensive review titled "Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices," which arrived at the same conclusion: that medically transitioning minors conveys no proven benefits.

The choice between "a trans son or a dead daughter" convinced thousands of parents to approve interventions that irreparably damaged their children. It turned out to be a false dichotomy.

Socially transitioning children at school puts them on a collision course with sex-rejecting medical interventions that cause lower bone density, infertility, cardiovascular problems and other painful, costly health issues.

Evidence also increasingly suggests that trans-identifying kids were not simply "born in the wrong body" but may instead be struggling with deeper issues.

The recent spike in youth gender dysphoria coincided with a massive decline in teen mental health (likely driven by smartphones and social media). Both trends were more pronounced among girls.

One influential study found that 63% of adolescents presenting with gender distress have at least one co-occurring neurodevelopmental disability or mental health disorder.

These kids don't need puberty blockers and hormones. They need psychotherapy, family counseling, thorough clinical evaluation and perhaps treatment for anxiety or depression -- not a rush toward irreversible medical interventions.

People continue fleeing the Shitholes controlled by the left.

EXCLUSIVE: 5.4 Million People Have Migrated To Pro-Trump Counties Since 2020 As The Great Divorce Continues

The past five years have seen a massive migration of Americans out of heavily Democratic counties and into ones where Donald Trump won majorities in each of the past three elections. That's according to an exclusive analysis by Issues & Insights of the latest Census Bureau and election data.

Most analyses of internal migration patterns look only at state-level data. And what they show is that blue states are losing population to red states, and have been for many years.

I&I wanted to go deeper, so we used the latest Census data on migration between counties, and compared that with how these counties voted in the past three presidential elections.

What we found was that millions aren't just moving out of blue states, but are moving out of blue counties within states.

Trump won 2,589 counties in each of the past three elections. From 2020 to 2025, those counties gained 5.4 million people due to net migration -- which measures how many people move into and out of an area. The 433 counties where Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris carried the day saw a net loss of 5.43 million people.

And the 121 counties in which Trump won at least one of the past three elections saw a net gain of 29,000 people over those years.

I&I has been tracking these migration trends for years. In 2023, we found that Biden-voting counties had lost 2.6 million people from 2020 to 2022. We did the analysis again in 2024, and the number had swelled to 3.7 million. The exodus clearly has continued.

...

The 10 counties with the biggest loss of population from 2020 to 2025 were all heavily Democratic -- they voted for Hillary Clinton, Biden, and Harris. (Miami-Dade flipped into the Trump camp in 2024.)

Even if you go further down the list, the pattern remains.

Of the 50 counties with the biggest net gain of population, all but four voted for Trump in the past three elections. Of the 50 counties with the biggest losses due to net migration, all but five are solid blue.

...

Millions of Americans would rather live among Trump supporters than those voting for the likes of Kamala Harris.

A professor was denied emeritus status because he cited long-known and uncontested facts about men having more extreme IQs -- more men are mentally retarded than women, and more men are super-geniuses than women.

I can't stress how uncontested this fact is.

But you're not allowed to say it, because these political extremists are all about TheScience (TM).

Eric Rasmusen, a well-known professor of economics at Indiana University, recently said he was denied his application for emeritus status.

Rasmusen retired in 2021, but decided not to apply for emeritus status until last year when the university stopped offering free access to online journal subscriptions for faculty who were retired but not emeritus, Rasmusen wrote recently on his substack.

"If I continue to be denied access, I will accept that," he told The College Fix in a recent interview. "It isn't fair, but I can ask friends at Indiana University and elsewhere to look up scholarly articles if I need them."

Typically, professors who retire in good status are awarded the title "emeritus," but Rasmusen said he was not. He believes the answer to this question goes back to 2019 and a controversial social media post about men and IQ.

...

Meanwhile, National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood told The Fix that denial of emeritus status is uncommon because "conferring such status on a retiring professor is essentially costless."

Wood said in a recent email that "the only reason to deny it" would be "the danger of reputational damage" such as "credible accusations of plagiarism, research fraud, rape, or other criminal felonies ..."

...

Rasmusen, however, has not faced such accusations nor, as he pointed out, is he lacking in academic prowess.

...

When asked about discrimination against conservative professors in higher education, Wood told The Fix that a conservative professor "may well encounter discrimination during tenure review, promotion, teaching assignments, and a host of other ways. The Rasmusen case, however, is the only one I have heard of in which a conservative professor, having survived all those sorts of attacks, has been denied emeritus status."

Wood told The College Fix that "Rasmusen's account of that denial is highly credible."

Meanwhile, Rasmusen, who is conservative and a Christian, said he believes the emeritus status issue is linked to a controversy over his social media posts.

On Nov. 7, 2019, Rasmusen tweeted a quote from an article titled "Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably." The quote read, "Geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier high IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and moderately low Conscientiousness."
...

To the label of "racist, sexist, and homophobic," Rasmusen responded: "I oppose admitting people to universities based on their race; I open doors for ladies; I say that sodomy is a sin. I suppose that's enough to qualify me for those insults under the Provost's personal definitions."

...

To the statement that "he believes that black students are generally unqualified for attendance at elite institutions," Rasmusen clarified his belief that it "is clear is that *some* students are admitted because of their race -- which means that others are denied because of their race ... Affirmative action may be right; it may be wrong; but that's what it is."

The observation that men are psychologically less "Agreeable" -- and hence more willing to buck conventional wisdom, prevailing hierarchies, and accept the punishment that rules-enforcing mediocrities inflict -- is also uncontested.

As for affirmative action resulting in people being admitted or promoted due to race -- that's the entire point of it. But, again, you're not allowed to say it.

They love TheScience (TM), though. Just ask them!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (164) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hollywood: Shit or Garbarge?

Fantasy authors are getting crankier and louder in their criticism of the Hollywood Shit or Garbage Factory trashing their works.

Even The Hollywood Reporter is admitting this.

Fantasy Authors Are Not Playing: Creators Increasingly Call Out "Unfaithful" Adaptations

From 'House of the Dragon' to 'God of War' to 'The Witcher,' shows are getting smacked by creators for seeming to stray from source material. And there are reasons it's happening now.

Amazon Studios has to be at least a little thankful that J.R.R. Tolkien is no longer around.

First, the studio came under fire by best-selling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson for its Wheel of Time adaptation ("I had my problems with the show," Sanderson said last year. "I won't miss being largely ignored; they wanted my name on it for legitimacy ... it had a fan base that deserved better"). Then last month, the creator of the God of War video game, David Jaffe, savaged a first-look photo (above) from Prime Video's upcoming big-budget adaptation ("It is so bad in so many ways," Jaffe said in a YouTube rant. "Neither of these characters look very interesting or appealing. If this was God of War: Dumb and Dumber edition, this is what you would expect").

To be fair, Jaffe has been a critic of other God of War spinoff efforts since his involvement with the game ended nearly two decades ago, and he added that he trusts the Prime Video show's producer Ronald D. Moore to deliver. But given all the fandom debate that surrounded Amazon's first two seasons of its The Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, not having Tolkien rage-tweeting about the show's Harfoots has to be a blessing.

Prime Video is not alone in having a fantasy creator target its adaptation. The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski has repeatedly thrown passive barbs at Netflix's troubled series, saying things like the streamer "never listened to me" and "I cannot praise the show, it wouldn't be decent" (The Witcher also famously lost its star Henry Cavill amid still-murky circumstances, with the actor having hinted that fidelity to the source material was a core issue for him).

George R.R. Martin -- after years of dutifully holding his tongue over some things about Game of Thrones he wasn't thrilled with -- unleashed a dracarys on prequel House of the Dragon for its deviations from his book, Fire & Blood, amid a falling out with showrunner Ryan Condal. ("We got into season two, and [Condal] basically stopped listening to me," Martin said. "I would give notes, and nothing would happen." Yet Martin has sung the praises of new series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, saying the show is "as faithful as an adaptation as a reasonable man could hope for" and playfully quipped, "and you all know how incredibly reasonable I am on that particular subject").

HBO recently had a slightly similar issue with an acclaimed Green Lantern comic-book writer Grant Morrison, who aligned with outraged fans taking issue with the showrunner of the upcoming Lanterns series joking "green is stupid." Morrison wrote, "What is this jockish dismissal of superhero conventions intended to prove anyway?" The showrunner, Damon Lindelof (who surely had to be amused at being called a "jock") drafted a sincere apology.

Why are authors just now beginning to call out Hollywood Shit or Garbage hacks for crap they've done forever?

The combination of audience fragmentation (where studios no longer need to draw the largest possible viewership on every show) and streaming services collectively serving up hundreds of longform titles a year now allows these stories to be adapted with a level of specificity and loyalty to the source material that wasn't realistic before.

I think they mean that since even a "hit" is only going to get a 2.8 rating -- where hits 40 years ago would get a 15 rating -- then you can afford to give the hardcore audience what they want, and they will no longer accept excuses that you had to water down the material to appeal to a mass audience. The "mass audience" is a dead concept.

...

But streamers are trying to balance making wide-appeal content and pleasing a vocal hardcore fandom that can often have an almost religious view of "canon" -- and now have authors potentially breaking ranks to join fans in their criticisms as well.

"

Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and will only greenlight movies based on names and IPs people remember, even if they don't remember them fondly.

The ultimate proof of this: They've rebooted the Faces of Death video nasties. This "movie," if you can call it that, seems to be about some creeps on the internet recreating gory deaths from the original Faces of Deaths videos, and the question is: Are they real or fake deaths?

Rebooting Faces of Death. What a world.

Speaking of dead franchises with only the glimmer of name recognition:

The budget for Marvel's last-chance movie, Doomsday, is said to be $400 million, with $100-200 just going to Robert Downey Jr. (Though I suspect that might be for both this film and the next one, Secret Wars.) The marketing budget is projected to be $300 million.

$700 million for a movie that most people don't even care about.

"The word is that Doomsday's budget is around $400 million which makes it one of if not the most expensive film ever made," Campea said. "I heard a little birdie told me, you guys will remember that Avengers Endgame was the first movie ever to spend $200 million on a marketing campaign, which was unheard of at the time. I've heard their marketing budget for Doomsday is just a little north of $300 million. Now, here's where it's interesting. If Doomsday is about a $400 million budget and if they are spending about $300 million on marketing, Doomsday will be the first film in history that will need to join the billion dollar club in order to break even."

Even worse, this movie that no one wanted opens on December 18th -- the same day as Dune: Messiah. (Or is it just called Dune Part III?)

Marvel is playing tough-guy and pretending they won't move off that release date. But of course they will. They have to do everything possible to give this piece-of-shit the best possible chance to make money. Warner Bros. doesn't really have to move Dune -- this is the third time they've milked this teat. They can afford to take a bit of a hit in the box office. (And to be honest, it doesn't sound like a crowd-pleaser, anyway: It's about Paul being responsible for literal billions of deaths as he's conned people into fighting his Space Jihad for him for ten years. Interesting way to go, but I don't know if that's going to wow the public. (Then again, I also didn't think the other two would wow the public but apparently they did.))

But if Doomsday fails -- and I think it will - that's the end of the MCU. At least it'll have to be let fallow for five or six years and only brought back as a full DC-style reboot.

Breaking: Disney will not have IMAX screens for Doomsday, because Warner Bros. already locked those down by contract for Dune Part 3. So that's a big hit right there.

So Disney is attempting to destroy the reputation of IMAX, so they can say "Who cares about IMAX? See our crap movie on a normal screen, you're not missing anything." Specifically, they've made up a new standard they're calling "Infinity Vision," and are saying that only 75 screens throughout the country meet that standard. And they're rolling this official new made-up bullshit standard on December 18, 2026-- when both Doomsday and Dune open.

They're basically trying to sabotage Dune to scare Dune away and make it move its release. But in doing so, they're burning goodwill with theaters by labeling almost all of their premium screens "Not up to Disney/Marvel standards."

This is the most arrogant, entitled entertainment company in history. And it should be of no surprise that they churn out almost nothing but substandard slop. Because absurd arrogance goes along with poor performance -- Dunning-Kruger. The incompetent are so incompetent and so unfamiliar with the standards of competency that they don't even realize they're incompetent.

More bad news for Disney:

Based on surveys of 7,000+ moviegoers conducted by Fandango, the summer of 2026 is heavily dominated by major franchises, sequels, and high-profile intellectual property (IP).

Here are the top ten most anticipated movies of Summer 2026:

Toy Story 5 (Disney/Pixar): Voted as the #1 most anticipated film, promising a new chapter for the beloved animated toys.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony Pictures): A new live-action installment in the Spider-Man franchise, highly anticipated by fans.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 (Disney/20th Century Studios): A sequel to the iconic fashion-industry comedy.
The Odyssey (Universal Pictures): Directed by Christopher Nolan, this is one of the few non-sequel films to break the top of the list.
Scary Movie (2026) (Paramount Pictures): A reboot or new installment of the popular horror-comedy parody franchise.
Moana (2026) (Disney): The live-action reimagining of the animated hit, featuring the return of Dwayne Johnson as Maui.
Minions & Monsters (Universal Pictures): The latest installment in the globally successful Despicable Me spinoff franchise.
Mortal Kombat 2 (Warner Bros.): The sequel to the 2021 live-action video game adaptation.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (Warner Bros./DC Studios): A key entry in the new DC Universe (DCU) focusing on Kara Zor-El.
Insidious: The Bleeding World (Sony/Blumhouse): The latest entry in the long-running, successful horror franchise.

Notice anything missing? The Star Wars tv-show-turned-into-movie the Mandalorian and Grogu is missing from the list. It's beaten out by Scary Movie 6, for crying out loud. No shade to Scary Movie 6. But...for crying out loud, Star Wars used to be a bigger franchise than Scary Movie!

Would you like to see the fourth entry of a franchise that produced exactly one movie worth watching, 20 years ago?

Would you like to watch a movie featuring decrepit caveman retard Bobby "the Brain" DeNiro phoning in his 700th performance in a row?

How about a haggard and aged Ben Stiller, who hasn't been funny since Zoolander, whose face is now thin as cracked paper due to rigorous intermittent fasting and AIDS?

And how about notorious anxiety-ridden neurotic weirdo and donut licker Adrianna Grande?

Then boy, do I have the movie for you: Focker-In-Law. I dare you to watch this. It is without a single smile, let alone laugh.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Malcolm in the Middle reboot. Given that it's Current Year and the show is produced by Disney -- and the producer himself has three gay children (out of four -- almost a clean sweep!) and thinks he needs to stuff more "representation" into a show formerly about straight people -- he's made some slight adjustments to the characters we thought we knew.

* A fifth sibling has been added to the mix. And They is a Non-Binary who lectures the dad when he gets Them's pronouns wrong.

* Stevie, Malcolm's black, wheel-chairbound, girl-crazy boob-obsessed pal, is now gay and married to a dude. I guess he was really good at faking.

* Malcolm's three nerdy male friends from school are now in an "asexual throuple."

Doesn't that just make you want to sign up for Disney Minus right now?

Please vote on whether you think these projects are Shit or Garbage? I'm compiling the data.

Here are two possibly decent projects:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:15 PM | Comments (282) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Communist Zohran Mamdani Is Taxing All Luxury Part-Time Homes in NYC

Filthy Terrorist Theater Kid is imposing a so-called pied-a-terre tax on millionaire's apartments, if they only live there part of the year. In other words, if they're a pied-a-terre, a little place in the city to take your mistresses to. A foot on the ground, the term means, approximately. A little place in the city you can visit when you're bored of your country estate.

He's bragging about this and grinning like a chimp.

In other words, he's directly taxing his bicoastal/bisexual celebrity supporters.

Do I even object to this? I think this makes me happy.

The worse the better, as bitter old communists say -- the worse this corrupt system gets, the better for all of mankind, because it will hasten the revolution.

Let them turn their cities into dust and then tell us "Real socialism has never been tried!!1!"

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposal on April 15 to tax expensive second homes as a sign of a progressive tide to tax the rich, but it will only apply to absentee owners.

The pied-à-terre tax puts an annual surcharge on homes valued above $5 million when there is no resident who lives primarily in New York City. The tax, which would need to be passed in the state's delayed budget, would generate some $500 million in revenue annually, according to Hochul's office.

"If you can afford a $5 million second home that sits empty most of the year, you can afford to contribute like every other New Yorker," Hochul said in a statement. Non-resident owners do not pay New York City's income taxes. To avoid taxation, property owners could make the home their primary residence or rent it out someone else who does so.

Hochul, a moderate Democrat up for re-election in November, has been hesitant to raise taxes, which the city cannot do without the state government's permission. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, ran for mayor on a platform of free buses, universal childcare and city-run grocery stores paid for in part by levying higher taxes on the rich.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:15 PM | Comments (276) | Trackbacks (Suck)