February 16, 2026
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (288) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report — 2/16/26
And here's a two-fer from the Oscar Hammestein "You've Got to be Carefully Taught Dept. Firstly:
Number two, thank goodness for the sanity of our military, eh?
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.
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.’”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.
. . .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.
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)
February 15, 2026
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - February 15, 2026 [Doof]
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:01 PM | Comments (469) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gun Thread: Third February Edition!
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!
Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (262) | Trackbacks (Suck)
First World Problems...
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
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!
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 ConferenceThat 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]
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.
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)
February 14, 2026
Saturday Night Club ONT - February 14, 2026 [2 D's]
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (355) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 2/14/2026
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.
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]_-_stained_glass,_heart-cross-anchor.jpg)
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 DayOur Hero
* * *
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.
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Posted by: K.T. at 03:28 PM | Comments (99) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Holiday Weekend 
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*
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?
Have you been turning to coverage of the Olympics to get away from more depressing news? Might not always help.
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)
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
*****
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in sanctuary blue cities.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice. Be exceptional, don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects? You have to be kidding us, amirite?
4) Say an extra pray or two for our country and the people attempting to right the ship.
5) Have a great weekend!
2) Be kind. Be nice. Be exceptional, don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects? You have to be kidding us, amirite?
4) Say an extra pray or two for our country and the people attempting to right the ship.
5) Have a great weekend!
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (385) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 14 February 2026
Top Story
- Japan is taking advantage of the fact that Taiwan's leading-edge chip factories are booked solid to re-enter that section of the market with a new joint venture called Rapidus. (WCCFTech)
Rapidus was launched in 2022 - well before the current chip shortage - as a venture between eight companies including Sony, NEC, and Toshiba, to regain Japan's position in chip technology. Its main goal was to introduce 2nm chips.
It's now on track to start mass production next year, scaling to 25,000 wafers per month in 2028.
That's a year behind TSMC and Intel, but in the current market they won't have problems finding customers.
This second article offers some background. (MSN)
Right now the most advanced chips produced in Japan are at the 40nm node. That's widely used in automotive systems and other embedded tasks, but rubbish for advanced systems - it was introduced in 2008. So Japan is planning to jump 20 years into the future in one go.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (150) | Trackbacks (Suck)
February 13, 2026
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Free. Because I Love You, Have Tonight's ONT!
Hello everyone! Welcome to Friday night. Let's start with an infographic about those nasty Republicans
Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (359) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Friday the 13th Cafe
Lichtenstein Castle, southern Germany
Very neat video of Lichtenstein Castle, basically hanging off a cliff. Baby elephants is asshoe. Dogs is asshoe.
Border collie understands the assignment. Jump rope with a friend.
Introducing a baby to a horse. Which personally, I wouldn't, but it all turns out okay. Flashback: Life during the covid panic. Watching a scary movie.
Lichtenstein Castle, southern Germany
Very neat video of Lichtenstein Castle, basically hanging off a cliff. Baby elephants is asshoe. Dogs is asshoe.
Border collie understands the assignment. Jump rope with a friend.
Introducing a baby to a horse. Which personally, I wouldn't, but it all turns out okay. Flashback: Life during the covid panic. Watching a scary movie.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (286) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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