Mid-Morning Art Thread

Near the Palace
Lyonel Feininger

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (353) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 4/7/26

Good morning kids. This morning it's all about miracles and wonders. on the last episode of the podcast linked here and in the sidebar
also available on the popular platforms listed at the bottom of the post I poo-pooed the Artemis moon mission but colleague and cob CBD observed how the mission was yet another confirmation of, despite all our many and serious problems, the greatness of this nation in being able to send a sophisticated piece of technology and an incredibly skilled and brave crew on a half million mile journey to the moon and return safely please God. it was plain for all the world to see. while I do question the necessity of the government to be funding and involved in space technology and exploration, the Artemis mission and most especially the free market enterprises such as SpaceX are engaging in the necessary task of giving America the edge in securing the ultimate high ground for our national security and future prosperity. So consider me duly chastised in this regard. I hope that despite it being yet another DC Bureaucracy, perhaps Nasa and its partners in the private sector and the War Dept. can overcome the typical pitfalls of bureaucracy and make great strides in the aforementioned. Maybe I'm being more than a bit Pollyannaish, but still, here we are 53 years after the last lunar mission and making history again.

“You’ve made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud,” Trump told the four astronauts just hours after they emerged from the far side of the moon. “Humans have really never seen anything quite like what you’re doing in a manned spacecraft,” Trump marveled. “It’s really special.” The commander in chief was introduced to the crew by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who noted the president “wanted to be the first person to greet you after your return from the far side of the moon.” 

As awe-inspiring as this is, for my money there is nothing more inspiring and incredible as the bravery and daring of our men and women in uniform.

U.S. special operations forces rescued the second crew member from a downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran after a “heavy firefight,” successfully extracting both airmen and all rescue personnel from the country, according to multiple reports.
U.S. officials told Axios and Fox News the high-risk combat search-and-rescue mission recovered the weapon systems officer more than a day after the aircraft was shot down, concluding a complex operation that unfolded behind enemy lines. The weapon systems officer had evaded capture after ejecting alongside the pilot, using Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training to move away from the wreckage and take cover on elevated terrain while activating an emergency beacon, according to reporting cited by Fox News.

“The CIA executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians, who were desperately hunting for our airman. On Saturday morning, we achieved our primary objective by finding and providing confirmation that one of America’s best and bravest was alive and concealed in a mountain crevice, still invisible to the enemy but not to the CIA,” Ratcliffe said. (RELATED: Israeli Airstrike Takes Out Top Iranian Intel Chief, Officials Say)

Well, I imagine if John Brennan was still running Langley, he'd have guided the IRGC right to the downed airmen. The same Brennan who helped concoct the deception campaign known as the Russian collusion hoax.

hopefully now we can finish the job or at long last the Persian people can rise up and finish off the Mullahs.

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States attempted to supply Iranian protesters with weapons this year so they could defend themselves against another massacre, but the effort was not successful because Kurdish intermediaries decided to keep some of the guns for themselves.

I and doubtless many of you had contemplated this kind of move. well to be fair the Kurds have been the targets of the mullahs, Saddam Hussein and the Turks because of their national aspirations and so arming them I suppose was a bridge too far for the Foggy Bottom bottom dwellers. That said to play devil's advocate do we really want to arm a potential insurgent force that could carry out terroristic acts in the same vein as the Basque separatists of Eta or the Ira?
then again the Kurds are not fanatical islamists. but if they can destabilize and counter the IRGC and mullahs maybe it's missed opportunity.

with that...

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.

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

• The cost of carrying Europe.
  What Exactly is NATO’s Purpose in 2026?

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:25 AM | Comments (422) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 7 April 2026

Top Story

• A critical security vulnerability has been discovered in the leaked version of Claude Code. (Adversa)
  
  If you've used Claude Code, you've noticed that it loves running shell commands to examine your codebase, rather than, say, reading it. Or having simple fixed-function code built into the software to do it on your computer.
  
  And it also loves to ask you for permission to run those shell commands.
  
  The vulnerability comes into play when a very long string of shell commands are run together. For the first fifty commands it will check - manually if needed, and in its history of permitted and denied commands if it's in there already.
  
  And on the fifty-first command, it rests. And executes it regardless.
  
  So if someone triggers a long string of commands and the first fifty are innocuous, after that they can take full control of your computer - because Claude Code runs on your computer, and just communicates with the Claude AI service as needed.
  
  The particularly lovely thing here is that Anthropic already fixed this.
  
  But both versions are present inside Claude Code and it using the broken one.
  
  
  
• The cult of vibe coding is insane. (Bram Cohen)
  
  Claude Code is the preeminent vibe coding tool.
  
  Guess how it was coded? Guess how that horrible bug stayed in, even after it was fixed.
  
  You'll never guess.
  
  Oh, you guessed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (87) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Overnight Open Thread [04/06/2026]

The rescue was an Easter miracle. The enemy was large and violent. The rescuers were brilliant, strong, decisive and as cool as anyone can be.

-- President Donald Trump

Bravery never goes out of fashion

-- William Makepeace Thackery

But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

-- Thucydides

Where all your rights become only an accumulated wrong; where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labours...then surely it is a braver, a saner and a truer thing, to be a rebel in act and deed against such circumstances as these than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.

-- Sir Roger Casement

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

-- Alexander Hamilton

Posted by: CBD at 09:52 PM | Comments (696) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Cafe

Jonathan the Tortoise, 193 years young

Raising a beautiful orphaned joey.

A senior dog was dumped at the shelter, but found a better family.

One-dog reenactment of Sunset Boulevard.

Dog-punking: a national scourge. I thought we had outgrown this cruelty.

Dog is the star of the game -- he retrieves the kicking tee after kickoffs. This isn't normal, right? I've never heard of this before.

A golden retriever was used as breeding dog with each of her puppies taken from her. Now she's been rescued. And she treats stuffed animals as if they're the puppies taken from her.

A hero dog protected his family from a bear that slashed and bit him. He's healing up now. The bear remains at large and out of control.

Dog and goose are friends.

Jay Mohr impersonates Bill Burr and his shitty superior attitude.

Naughty little elephant brother.

Hot song from 1936. I know people use AI to make parody versions of early naughty songs, but this is apparently real. Lyrics here.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:00 PM | Comments (395) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Blowin' Up Stuff Real Good Open Thread

This guy is funny. He's a good shot, so he must know about gun safety. But his familiarity breeds contempt. For example, can you spot which weapon-handling mistakes he's making in this video?

I've cued up these videos to the most explosive parts, but there's a lot of good stuff throughout them.

Hunting oxygen tanks.

Shooting an oxygen tank inside a car.

Firing all four barrels of a four barrel shotgun at a watermelon at inadvisably close range.

In one of the dumbest "tests" he does, he puts a grenade in an oven and then blasts it with a flamethrower for a minute (from a yard away, mind you) to see what happens. I don't know if this is real. There's a cut between the grilling of the grenade and the actual detonation.

Shooting a crossbow bolt through spray propellant cans.

A .50 cal Barrett versus propane and oxygen and acetylene tanks. Stay with this one until he takes the second shot, and then skip ahead to him shooting the other tanks. He takes another big second shot here, too.

Shooting a whole bunch of propane and oxygen tanks with an M60.

Can you blow up oxygen and propane tanks inside a van you've rigged to drive in a circle by shooting it with a .50 cal machine gun? I should warn you this one's a damp squib but it's fun watching the van get shot to pieces.

In this one, he shoots at a Pepsi vending machine with ever-larger calibers. He only does real damage with the Barret and I think the .408. I've cued it up to the part after that, when he decides to just put a grenade in it.

Can you explode an oxygen tank inside a safe with armor-piercing incendiary rounds?

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:40 PM | Comments (230) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Iran Rejects Cease-Fire Proposal

Iran Rejects Latest Cease-Fire Proposal, Wants Permanent End to War

Iran has rejected a new cease-fire proposal from the United States, insisting instead on a permanent end to the conflict along with firm guarantees against future attacks, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

The decision, announced on April 6, comes just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face potential strikes on key infrastructure, including power plants and bridges.

Iran communicated its response through Pakistan, signaling that it is unwilling to accept a temporary pause in hostilities.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said in remarks to The Associated Press.

“We only accept an end to the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

Posted by: CBD at 04:20 PM | Comments (307) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Groundhog Daze Open Thread

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (320) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Far Side Fly-By Open Thread

We like da moon.

As we round the moon, the crew will be the farthest away from earth men have ever traveled. (They always have to work some kind of a "FIRST!" into these missions, much like commenters.)

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (461) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Myriad Marbles Open Thread

I'll just be posting open threads today unless something big happens. (If cobloggers really want to post something, let me know. We're wide open.)

Hope you're enjoying your post-Easter Monday.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:20 PM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

King Charles at Easter vs at Ramadan; The Anglican Bishop’s Plea for Charles to Save Christianity in Britain

The titular head of the Church of England did not deliver an Easter message this year. (“Buckingham Palace Confirms King Charles Will Not Issue Easter message this year.” Charles was not so reticent during Ramadan a few weeks back, going on social media and “Wishing all Muslims in the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world a blessed and peaceful Ramadan.” The King also hosted an iftar at Buckingham Palace to celebrate Ramadan in 2025.

King Charles has not been shy about his great admiration for Islam. He has praised it profusely while condemning Christians for hatred and bigotry against Muslims. Not only did Charles apologize for the Crusades, but he has also expressed his respect for Muslim claims to a permanent caliphate in Spain, since the Moors conquered the Iberian peninsula fair and square - before the reconquesta restored Christianity to that part of Europe. Charles has condemned Christians for misunderstanding sharia, and also for misunderstanding our lying eyes when we are appalled at the sight of a woman in a burqa.

In Charles’ 2024 Christmas address, the King was contemptuous of those who engaged in “anger and lawlessness” following the Southport knife attack, but he had not a word of criticism for the attackers. 13 people were stabbed in that incident. The dead included three children under the age of 10. King Charles made it abundantly clear that his sympathies were with the knife wielders, not their victims.

Charles is also famously enamored of another non-Christian religion, the climate cult, throwing his support behind the goal of a net zero future, which would impose a lower standard of living and crippling energy costs on his subjects.

While I have no great affection for British royalty, the institution should serve as a bulwark to protect Christianity against an emerging caliphate. King Charles is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and his royal duties include protection of the Christian faith therein. The King has clearly abdicated that role.

Anglican Bishop Ceirion Dewar recently published a widely distributed letter to King Charles, addressing the existential crisis resulting from Britain surrendering its Christian heritage.

As a Bishop, I cannot stay silent. I have today drafted and sent an open letter to His Majesty King Charles III, the text of which reads as follows:

To:
His Majesty, Charles III,
King of the United Kingdom and the Realms,
Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
Bearer of the…

— Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar FSHC (@BishopDewar) March 17, 2026

I’ve posted the entire transcript of the letter below the fold, but here are a few quotes that capture the gravity of the letter:

• “I write to you neither as a politician nor as a commentator, but as one of your loyal subjects who, as a bishop of Christ’s Church, cannot remain silent while the Christian foundations of this kingdom are steadily dismantled.”

• “From the abbeys of medieval England to the parish churches of our villages, from the preaching of the Reformers to the missionary zeal that carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth, the Christian faith has not merely influenced Britain — it has defined her.”

• “Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age.”

• “What would once have been whispered is now proclaimed openly: that Britain must become a post-Christian state. It is in this context that I write to you, Your Majesty. For the British Crown does not stand apart from this crisis.”

• “Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law.”

• “And so, I write to say this, Your Majesty: The Christian character of this nation is under profound and accelerating assault. If the Crown does not stand visibly and courageously in defence of that inheritance, history will record that the guardians of Britain’s institutions watched in silence as the foundations were removed.”

The full letter is below, but first, I have a crazy, absurd idea as to how Prince Harry, of all people, could be a savior to his homeland when he finally cuts his losses and terminates his regrettable marriage.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Odalisque with Tambourine
Henri Matisse

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (262) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 4/6/26

Good morning kids. I hope you all had a blessed Easter weekend. I had a few personal issues to deal with so unfortunately I'm going to have to keep his morning's post very brief. should be back up to speed by tomorrow with my usual panoply of of links and commentary . Thanks for your patience

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.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 08:17 AM | Comments (425) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily News Stuff 6 April 2026

Top Story

• Samsung has raised its contract memory prices by another 30%. (Notebook Check)
  
  That's after doubling their prices in the first quarter, and whatever they did in the previous quarter.
  
  Best time to buy 128GB of RAM was a year ago. Which I did.
  
  Second best time was New Year's Eve during a short-lived sale of Corsair modules on Amazon. Which I also did.
  
  So I'm set for now.
  
  
  
• Ubuntu has quietly increased the memory requirements for the upcoming 26.04 release. (OMGUbuntu)
  
  To be fair, they increased the requirement from 4GB for 18.04 to 6GB. And that's for a full client install with the Gnome UI; you can install a server with a quarter of that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (190) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - April 5, 2026 [Doof]

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! Mystery click is for you.

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

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (334) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Happy Easter Edition!

There's a hare in my scope!

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 Easter Edition? Seems like only last week it was not the Easter Edition!!

So Happy Easter!!

With that, step into the dojo, bite the head off of a chocolate bunny, and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (120) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Lamb Or Ham, Sam I Am

Yum! Roast leg of lamb is delicious, although some people are not enamored of the slightly gamy taste of most lamb (especially Australian and New Zealand lamb). But there is an easy way to minimize it, and that is simply trimming the excess fat from the meat. And if you have a boneless leg it's even easier, and it works better. The interior fat seems to be the strongest flavored, and of course it doesn't get crispy and browned like the exterior stuff, so trimming that out makes a big difference.

I think American lamb is the best of the three, but it is more difficult to find and certainly more expensive!

*

Ham is...good! Does it rise to the glories of good lamb? No, I don't think so, but it is also much more of a commodity in America, so it is probably more difficult to get high quality ham. I recall a ham from a wild pig that was processed by a butcher in Mendocino County CA, lo these many years ago, that was absolutely spectacular, so it definitely exists!

*
So what's the Horde's preference?

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (209) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Yes, that is a Rabbit corkscrew that failed catastrophically last night. Both handles broke at once, which impressed me in a sad and depressing way.

It's a good American design, and the first versions were excellent. But (and you know what is coming) they began to save money by making them with cheaper and cheaper materials, and the end result is a good product ruined by Chinese manufacturing and bean counters in the C-suite.

I have an old one, and it is the identical design, but with better materials. It worked smoothly and with less effort compared to the plastic-and-pot-metal new one. It failed after many years, and to the company's credit they replaced it, but with an inferior one. I actually repaired it using a roll pin from an AR, and it works fine! Too bad they didn't repair it for me...that would have been truly impressive.

This speaks to our throw-away culture, and the idea that we no longer expect things to last. But it also creates a feedback loop...cheaper materials can't be repaired, so replacement becomes the norm, so repair becomes anachronistic., which drives even cheaper materials and manufacturing.

Yes, part of this is "Get Off My Lawn," because there are many industries that are building absolutely fantastic products. Criticize American car manufacturing all you want for lack of style and soul, but the cars are great. And the gun industry might be building boring-looking stuff, but they run forever!

But part of it is a serious reflection on how our society has changed. Throw-away cultures lose sight of what built them, and perhaps can no longer recover as well and as quickly from major dislocations, because of the expectation that everything is instantly replaceable.

Posted by: CBD at 02:45 PM | Comments (128) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Solid Jobs Report With A Delicious Bonus!

Decrease regulation. Decrease the drain on the economy by parasitic government employees. Send a clear signal that American manufacturing is paramount. Decrease the barriers to domestic production. Begin to even the playing field with regard to cheap imports subsidized by foreign governments.

These are obvious and rational policies that every American politician should embrace, yet one half of them champion exactly the opposite!

Here is the March Bureau of Labor Statistics report. It's long and repetitive, but here are a couple of paragraphs that are nice to see.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 178,000 in March, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in construction, and in transportation and warehousing. Federal government employment continued to decline.

One downside is the growth in healthcare, which is an unbelievably bloated and inefficient industry whose employment is driven by government regulation and interference. One look at most medical offices will prove that point. How many M.D.s compared to the number of clerks and billing "experts" and managers? Most of that overhead is forced by government fiat and the unbelievable complexity of health insurance company's systems.

But here is the best part...

Federal government employment continued to decline in March (-18,000). Since reaching a peak in October 2024, federal government employment is down by 355,000, or 11.8 percent. Federal employees on furlough during the partial government shutdown were counted as employed in the establishment survey because they worked or received (or will receive) pay for the pay period that included the 12th of the month.

That is a lot of leeches that have been plucked off the body of the American economy. Not nearly enough, but it is a solid start, and we should applaud President Trump and his administration.

Posted by: CBD at 01:15 PM | Comments (96) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Tousi TV: Second F-15 Pilot Rescued as Iranian Civilians Aid American Operation to Rescue Him

Tousi reports below. I assume he knows what he's talking about, but take it with grain of salt until we have official confirmation.

Here is a summary:

The US knew where the pilot -- the weapons officer, or WSO, apparently called a "Wizzo" in the trade -- was located due to "unique capabilities." I mean, I think he has a coded radio so I don't know why we're being all cagey about it. He was hiding in a mountain.

The CIA created a deception campaign to trick Iran into thinking he was a hundred miles away (or so) away from his real location.

Iranian Basij forces -- plainclothes soldiers/thugs -- went to the fake location and were "annihilated" by US warplanes sent to greet them. Tousi has video of Iranians coming upon the bodies and saying, "They're all dead."

The US actually created a pop-up secret base of operations deep inside of Iran, about 100 miles (again, I don't know the real distance) south of Teheran. They landed C-130s and little bird helicopters here. I guess this is where the special forces operators struck out from.

One deduction: The US always knew where he was, and told him to just remain hidden and invisible while forces were flown in to rescue him.

One minor hitch in the operation -- one (or was it both?) of the C-130s became stuck and could not take off so they had to be blown up on the ground. This always seems to happen in major special forces operations.

CNN lied and claimed Iranian civilians were flooding into the area to find the pilot on behalf of the IRGC. In fact, they were using their vehicles to jam up the highways to prevent the IRGC from sending troops into the area.

Also, Tousi reports that Trump began secretly arming Iranian civilians since January, when the first uprisings began.

So good news all around. With the civilians armed and openly aiding the US and Israel, I have renewed hopes for the end of the Islamic Occupational Army in Iran.

Update: Trump's post about it.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (251) | Trackbacks (Suck)