Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Update: Trump Blasts "Duplicitous" Iran Leadership

Trump was ready, he says, to unleash a bombing campaign on Iran that would be the most destructive since World War II, but Iran and some Gulf States told him that Iran had accepted the basic framework of a "deal" and so Trump cancelled the attack.

And Iran says "We never agreed to any framework."

It's like the sun coming up and going down every day.

President Donald Trump has called off a major strike against Iran, claiming to have reached a framework for a deal with the regime.

"The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," President Trump announced in a Saturday evening post on Truth Social.

The tentative deal includes "Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT," the president continued.

The pause in the military operation was "subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL," he warned.

It's the Groundhog's Day War:

Tehran talks tough, denies agreement reached

Tehran rejected President Trump's latest peace overture, renewing its threats against the U.S.

"Iran has reached no agreement regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the semi-official Fars news agency reports, quoting a member of Tehran's negotiating team," Sky News (UK) reported.

Update: Trump blasts "duplicitous" Iranian leadership.

An irate President Donald Trump on Monday fumed over "duplicitous" Iranian leadership, after he called off planned strikes on Iran to resume peace talks, only for Iran to deny plans to meet.

"Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting, some would say 'beg,' talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they're not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they're only dealing with 'Oman,'" he posted on Truth Social.

"They then go on to give their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our 'Blockade' or, as some say, 'The United States Wall of Steel!" he wen ton. "Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished."

Trump's remarks follow Iran denying plans to meet with American negotiators on Monday. The president had anticipated a formal resumption of peace talks.

I heard someone say "Iran has never won a war, but never lost a negotiation."

Trump needs to hear that.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:16 PM | Comments (288) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Politico: NJ Democrat Officials Anonymously Admit Far More Illegals Are Registered to Vote Than the Governor "Mikie" Is Admitting; Some Think the Real Number Exceeds Trump's Estimate of 35,000

The cleanest elections in the world, at least when Democrats win.

When they lose, Russia hacked the election.

In May, a bipartisan duo of New Jersey state senators introduced a simple piece of legislation that got little public attention.

It would add one sentence to the state's automatic voter registration law to make sure someone who indicates they aren't a U.S. citizen won't be prompted to register to vote.

The bill turned out to be extremely prescient.

That's because Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed last week that a "software error" at the Motor Vehicles Commission led to roughly 6,600 noncitizens getting added to the state's voter rolls. About 400 of them voted, she said.

Her disclosure set off a political uproar that's resonated well beyond New Jersey, feeding into the Trump administration's push for voter restrictions and setting up a legal battle with the Department of Justice.

But it also exposed an open secret about New Jersey's so-called motor voter law that officials and political operatives have known for years: There's little to stop noncitizens from registering to vote if they want to, or even by mistake. And election officials and campaign consultants from both parties believe that the number of noncitizens being added to the voter rolls is significantly higher than the 6,600 Sherrill cited -- because the state has been automatically registering drivers since 2018, and her figure covers only June 2023 to June 2024.

"It's the honor system," said Hunterdon County Board of Elections Administrator Beth Thompson, who also leads the New Jersey Association of Election Officials.

It's unclear how many noncitizens have registered to vote in New Jersey beyond the one-year period Sherrill cited. The Trump administration gave a preliminary estimate of around 35,000. While New Jersey political insiders don't know if that's true, they're almost certain it's more than 6,600. Some speculated it could be slightly more. Others said it could be even above the Trump administration's estimates.

But Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that the statewide voter database is a mess, and that noncitizen registrants are just one category of people who shouldn't be on it, like people who left New Jersey without notifying election officials and whose names linger until periodic clean ups of the voter rolls.

...

Thompson, the elections administrator, said county elections officials check each registration against a state database using Social Security numbers or driver's license numbers to confirm their identity, and that the information doesn't belong to people who have died. But noncitizens can obtain both forms of identification. "It does not validate any kind of citizenship," Thompson said.

So they have literally no checking of citizenship at all. At best, they check to see if you have a social security number, but illegals can apply for and get those, too.

...

But the existence of the bill, which has yet to advance in the full Senate or Assembly, suggests lawmakers were at least somewhat aware of the system's flaws. (A new law passed during the lame duck legislative session did something similar to Beach and Corrado's bill, but only for those applying for REAL IDs).

Officials admit they have no idea how many illegals are enrolled to vote -- but they're totally sure it's not a problem and never effects any elections, not a single bingle one.

Hello! Here we go again, as a gay robot once said.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (259) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: “Church Ladies of the Left” – AWFLs Are the Fallen Angels of Puritan Christianity

I have periodically started to write a piece discussing how woke, white women (AWFLs) are the “Church Ladies of the Left.” More specifically, my thesis was going to be that when this type of judgmental harridan was involved in a local church and imposing her righteousness on just one congregation, it might have been rough on the pastor and her co-parishioners, but at least society as a whole wasn’t being tormented by this class of person.

From my own childhood circle of church friends, there are several real-life examples of girls who were prissy “Junior Church Ladies” back then, but who left the church and grew up to be anti-Christian woke-scolds for whom politics is now their religion. Their driving purpose in life is to excoriate the rest of us for our sins, which range from the “bigotry” of disallowed opinions, to “Christian hypocrisy,” to the use of leaf blowers. They live in a perpetual state of outrage because some people are leading a life with different values and priorities.

But I would always abort on this piece, because I couldn’t develop it much beyond an assertion that “a certain percentage of white women are just natural-born church ladies, be they Christians or AWFLs” without expanding on possible reasons why.

Before going further, this is also probably a good place to make the disclaimer that there is not a more conservative sub-demographic of women than white women, and at times it gets a little tiresome hearing very online people snarking about white women in general, just because the subset of AWFLs are so annoying. My wife is a mirthful, conservative, white, Christian woman who has patience for neither “church ladies” nor AWFLs, and pretty much the same can be said about all of the women in our circle of friends.

Returning back to the question of why “church ladies” have transitioned into AWFLs, Christian Heiens has offered a partial explanation in a recent series of tweets, as part of a discussion as to why New England is so liberal despite being very white, a demographic that is otherwise very conservative.

Mr. Heiens notes that there is a super-concentration of AWFLs in New England because these women are culturally still puritan church ladies. They traded their forebears’ Christianity for woke secularism, but they never forsook their puritanical intolerance and righteousness.

It’s so liberal precisely because it’s so white. Whites, and specifically Anglo-Saxons, were the world’s first liberals. When we consider that New England is one of the most ancestrally Anglo part of the country and remains very heterogeneous compared to the rest of America, it’s no surprise that places like Vermont or Massachusetts would be so liberal. Things like Progressivism and Wokeism are what happens when Anglo Puritans secularize their theology and universalize their unique cultural way of life. New England did both of these things long ago, which is a huge reason why it’s one of the largest left-wing bastions in America.

I am going to repeat this line outside of the blockquote because it brilliantly and concisely explains one reason why there are Church Ladies of the Left: ”Things like Progressivism and Wokeism are what happens when Anglo Puritans secularize their theology.”

Mr. Heiens went on to speculate as to why Appalachian whites, who are also descended from Anglo protestants, did not become such woke evangelists.

This got me thinking about why Appalachia didn’t follow suit as it was also settled by Anglo Protestants. I think a big reason why is because while New England went down the puritanical/reformist communitarian/institutional oriented route that eventually ended in Wokeism as a sort of secular theology, the Anglo settlers who moved into Appalachia went down the “rugged individualist” path of Liberalism.

While it’s true that Appalachia is more “rugged individualist” than New England, I think this difference is rooted in the provenance of the settlers. Puritans settling in New England tended to be from East Anglia, whereas Appalachia was settled in large part by Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish were the rednecks of Great Britain, and although they may have been protestant, they certainly weren’t puritan. This difference in protestant lineages actually supports the hypothesis that today’s woke AWFLs are linear descendants of 17th Century puritans.

Overwhelmingly, the accusers in the Salem witch trials were puritan women. Today’s AWFL woke-scolds are heirs to their legacy.

This got me thinking about why Appalachia didn’t follow suit as it was also settled by Anglo Protestants.

I think a big reason why is because while New England went down the puritanical/reformist communitarian/institutional oriented route that eventually ended in Wokeism as a…

— Christian Heiens �� (@ChristianHeiens) July 25, 2026

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (217) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread [From the archives]

Chateaubriand Meditating On The Ruins Of Rome
Anne-Louis Girodet

Posted by: CBD at 09:25 AM | Comments (345) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 8/ 3 /26

Good morning kids. While some of you might wince at this admission, I do lurk on Facebook mostly out of habit I guess but at this point it's just to see what certain very select friends and family are up to and birthdays and such. Also, going through health issues these past two years it was nice to actually reconnect with a couple of old dear friends going back to college and even grade school, that otherwise might not have happened, so I'm grateful for that.

But of course there is a downside, and that is that more than a few have revealed their abject cluelessness. One old friend who I have since downgraded to merely an old acquaintance posted his thoughts about the election of Mamdani, even in the face of arguably the most Jewish city in the world devolving into a locus of some of the worst anti-semitism seen anywhere in nearly a century, which continues and likely because of Mamdani and his defenders in the Democrat Party as a whole, and not merely the so-called Democratic-Socialists, is ramping up as this incident clearly illustrates.

The victim’s husband said Dawood Faisal, who allegedly hit two cars while driving through red lights at a high speed, was ‘looking to do damage in a heavily Jewish area’
A Queens man who was indicted for manslaughter late last month after killing a woman in a three-car crash and then fleeing the scene was also charged with hate crimes yesterday for allegedly destroying property outside a kosher bagel shop just days before the crash.

Well, I assume this Yankee-Doodle-Dandy do or Die has been here long before the rise of Mamdani (his ancestors obviously came over on the Mayflower), but then again Mamdani itself was spawned in the cradle of civilization itself, Idi Amin's Uganda.

But getting back to my old acquaintance, he posted a comment during the flare up of campus Jew-hatred in the immediate wake of the 10/7 wave of terrorism in Southern Israel

And speaking of 10/7 in Israel, Oh Lord.

An Israeli survivor of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has reportedly taken his own life on the grave of his girlfriend who was murdered by the terror group.

So, getting back to my old friend, while Mamdani and friends were having multiple orgasms of Jewish babies being roasted alive in front of their gang-raped mothers, he said that New York City has had bad mayors in the past and Mamdani will be gone soon enough and all will be forgotten - - and sadly forgiven since Mamdani has the magic "D" after his name. Having been born and lived much of my life in NYC enduring vermin like Dinkins and then basking in the glorious years of Giuliani only to be subjected to DeBolshvik leaves one to wonder just what the ever-loving fuck is wrong with seemingly intelligent people like my old friends who keep bringing this cancer on themselves while refusing to understand or accept the fact of who and what they reflexively vote for.

So, a different friend and his wife live in a very expensive upper west side condo that has got to be a target for Mamdani's tax assessors. Is it wrong of me to laugh at them. Meh, haven't spoken to them in years, so keep barfing up the same drivel about Trump and conservatives J & J and keep voting Democrat! But anyway, not to worry because Mamdani is just a blip, eh?!

Of course no one on the left is speaking out. Patriots and lovers of freedom, however, can and must do so. For in National Socialist Germany, the harassment and persecution of the Jews did not end with their being barred from certain professions; on the contrary, at that point, it was just beginning. If Mamdani is doing all this now, what will he be doing in five years, or ten? (Those who complacently think he will be voted out after one term should remember that socialism often arrives through the ballot box, but never, ever leaves that way.) And while he has started with the Jews, against whom will he turn next?

Lest you think the cancer of Mamdani is limited to New York City, Think again because he and his ilk are on the rise all over the nation, and they are not going to have to actually win legitimate elections to get or maintain power.

Too often, prominent Democrats have fueled this climate with reckless rhetoric. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) famously urged supporters to confront members of the Trump administration in public, telling crowds they should make them feel unwelcome “anywhere.” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and warned Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price.” These incendiary remarks are not just relegated to the past, but are ongoing calls to action from Democrat leadership. . . Today, that hostility has become institutionalized through efforts like “Project 2029,” a sweeping progressive agenda that proposes dramatically expanding executive authority and bypassing Congress to advance its objectives. At the same time, in addition to smears of “fascism,” leading Democrats have repeatedly described conservatives as an “existential threat to democracy.” When political opponents are portrayed as enemies of the republic, it should surprise no one that unstable individuals feel justified in resorting to violence.

Of course what fists, guns, cars and molotov cocktails can't do, you have criminals in government that can make sure people, dead or alive, vote the right way.

“I’m proud that — after contending with my predecessor’s efforts to deny Virginians their fundamental rights — we have restored the rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who have served their time,” Spanberger said. “These Virginians deserve the right to use their vote, make their voices heard, and be recognized as contributing citizens to our Commonwealth and country.”

The press release comes as Virginia residents in the fall will be able to “vote in a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would allow” felons in Virginia to have their voting rights restored “upon their release from incarceration.”

Elsewhere, we have the continued fallout of Anthony Fauci, who in the last analysis will have a body count approaching that of Pol Pot and Chairman Mao.

COVID was nothing less than a modern-day Holocaust.  It killed roughly seven million people worldwide. Economies crumbled, and trillions of dollars were lost. Families were kept apart on holidays. We watched our grandparents die alone on tablets. Funerals were either not allowed or limited to 10 people. Children didn't go to school, creating years of educational and emotional damage they still feel today.

And over in Spain, there's the Islamic invasion that is merely the promised reconquista of what was Christian Spain back into Al-Andalus. There's a lesson about this that we better learn, my old friends and those like them with their heads up their ass notwithstanding.

It only took hours for tens of thousands of Moroccan illegal aliens to invade the Spanish territory of Ceuta this week. Removing those who remain will take far longer — if Spain even manages to remove them, given a recent court ruling that prohibits immediately deporting migrants who arrive by sea, as many did.
But let Spain’s overrun border be a reminder to Americans when measuring President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts against the mess left by the Biden administration: A government can destroy its border and country within a matter of days, sometimes weeks. Restoring sovereignty after your country is flooded with foreigners is a much more difficult and slow undertaking — and punishing Trump in the midterms won’t make the problem better.

With that, I bid you all to have a good day,

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Robert Spencer: Of course no one on the left is speaking out. Patriots and lovers of freedom, however, can and must do so. For in National Socialist Germany, the harassment and persecution of the Jews did not end with their being barred from certain professions; on the contrary, at that point, it was just beginning. If Mamdani is doing all this now, what will he be doing in five years, or ten? (Those who complacently think he will be voted out after one term should remember that socialism often arrives through the ballot box, but never, ever leaves that way.) And while he has started with the Jews, against whom will he turn next?
  In Mamdani’s New York, It’s 1933 All Over Again

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:28 AM | Comments (357) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 3 August 2026

Top Story

• The Xbox may keep disc support as Sony shoots itself and its customers in the feet. (WCCFTech)
  
  This would be an intelligent and obvious move meaning there is no chance it will happen.
  
  
  
• Xbox has been hit with worldwide price increases. (WCCFTech)
  
  I bought one a while back. On the one hand, it has since increased in price by nearly 50%. On the other hand, it's sitting in my closet.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (196) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - August 2, 2026 [Doof]

Adirondacks, NY - From Earth Photos

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday ONT. Glad you could stop by! Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. How's August treating you so far?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (526) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: First August 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 First August Edition? I told you it was coming! I may not be around much in the comments so please don't burn the place down. Appreciate it!

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 (198) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread – 8/02/2026

Well once again, Mr. CBD has left the kitchen unlocked while he goes on vacation, and something has to be served up. I may not be a chef, but even the busboy has to prepare some food at times, so with apologies to those of you who deserve better, here is the weekly Food Thread.

*****

For the Love of Cauliflower

I love cauliflower, be it baked, boiled, or raw. I always have loved it, even before cauliflower became trendy in recent years.

When I was kid and we had roast beef after church on Sundays, I preferred mushy cauliflower to mashed potatoes as a side, especially when the cauliflower was covered in brown gravy made from the roast’s drippings.

My very favorite dish nowadays in my town is a “Japanese Style Cauliflower,” in which the florets are tempura fried with chili flakes then covered in something called gochujang sauce. (That dish is in the header picture above.) I’m going to ask Mr. CBD to cook some up for the Co-blogger Christmas Party this year.

Well, this item below may not have gochujang sauce, but I’ve discovered a simple but tasty form of cauliflower that I can prepare in just minutes on a busy weeknight – cauliflower hash browns!

I just drizzle a little olive oil in a skillet, then fry up a couple of these pucks with a little salt and pepper. I‘m not eating these because I‘m seeking something healthier than fried potatoes, I just like ‘em. But I suppose they might be a little bit healthier than fried spuds, if healthy is your thing.

Speaking of this vegetable, how do you pronounce it? My family, which hails from the Great Plains down to Texas, all pronounce it “call a flower,” or perhaps “KAH-luh-flower.” But here in the South, I hear a lot of people pronounce it “collie flower,” which I just can’t bring myself to say.

And since I’m talking about cauliflower, I’ll launch into my periodic “al dente vegetable” rant, which I’ve probably done before…

There are vegetables that I love, whether they‘re cooked or if they’re served raw, including broccoli and cauliflower. But I’m annoyed when a restaurant (or more likely a banquet hall) serves me warm, raw vegetables. If you’re not going to cook my broccoli, fine, I like it raw. But what is the purpose of warming it to barely above room temperature and then putting it on a plate.

*****

Spice Rack Inflation

This could be one of Mr. CBD’s First World problems, but have you noticed that no matter how many jars you have in your spice rack, whenever you try a new recipe, it requires yet another a new spice?

That picture is the spice rack in my house. Buried in the back are all the infrequently used spices. The most commonly used ones necessarily migrate to the front.

In a few months, the chili spices will be working their way to the front – especially chili powder, cumin, and paprika.

During the next big cupboard clean-out, perhaps my wife and I can pull out all the spices we’ve only used once, and before throwing them out, challenge ourselves to make a dish that uses them.

*****

Guess That Food Game

Speaking of food challenges, my wife and I have a circle of friends who take turns hosting dinner parties in which we play a parlor game of some sort as the evening’s activity.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 04:00 PM | Comments (313) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems [Doof]

That's a 24 inch linear shower drain. It's in the master bathroom (yes, I still use that term) of the house I'm currently renting. That's only relevant to convey that this was NOT a drain setup that I intentionally chose. Sure, it's a clean finished look to match the stone of the shower floor. But it is a pain in the ass to maintain.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:00 PM | Comments (185) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Unalloyed Evil Of The Welfare State.

Everyone is aware of the radical change in America's attitude toward public assistance and government action in supposed defense of the welfare of Americans.

The vast array of government programs presented to any citizen who is not perfectly comfortable is mind numbing. They claim to provide everything! Housing, food, cell phones (!), internet access, medical care, child care, help with utility bills, transportation, discounts on taxes, higher education, and on and on. Whether those innumerable government programs actually provide those pie-in-the-sky promises is a different question, but we all know that if they do, it comes at an obscene and inefficient cost. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that the many billions of dollars spent each year are often stolen!

They programs are shoved at us every day, from signs at the market touting EBT benefits, to signs on highways with government phone numbers to call for aid, to emergency room medical coordinators frantic to find a government program to pay their exorbitant bills.

The list of who to blame is long, but the heavy hitters are FDR, LBJ, Nixon (Yup!), Obama, and Biden. They conspired to make the default attitude of Americans that of a supplicant, rather than a citizen with rights and responsibilities.

And it worked!

What the Welfare State Unleashed

Indeed, one of the striking features of early America is not that assistance was unavailable, but that many people who qualified for relief were reluctant to seek it. Contemporary accounts from several states—including New Jersey—describe respectable men and women enduring extraordinary hardship before accepting public charity. To modern ears, such reluctance may seem irrational. To them, it was a matter of preserving self-respect.

That moral instinct—that accepting public assistance should be exceptional rather than ordinary—formed an essential part of the American understanding of citizenship until the 20th century.

The first cracks in that understanding appeared during the Progressive Era and deepened during the New Deal. Faced with industrialization, urban poverty, and the Great Depression, Americans increasingly looked to government to perform functions that earlier generations had entrusted to institutions outside of the government. Much of that expansion responded to genuine crises, and programs such as Social Security reflected the extraordinary circumstances of their time.

Even so, the nation’s underlying philosophy was beginning to change. Government was no longer viewed simply as a safety net for those unable to care for themselves; it increasingly became expected to solve all social and economic problems. The shift was gradual and often justified by necessity. But it subtly weakened the older assumption that public assistance should remain exceptional, temporary, and closely tied to preserving personal independence.

Nothing here is surprising...it is the long and sordid story of our creeping socialism.

But another consequence of this plunge into the welfare state and the welfare psyche is that even people who have no need for government assistance in its many forms have been tarnished by it.

We see destitute people overwhelming our cities, and we recoil. We turn away from those in need. And that is a rational response to people who have lost their sense of morality and shame and pride and self-respect. We have come to expect that the government will take care of it, even though we know that government is incapable of that task, and we have the data to prove it! But government has placed obstacles in the way of regular Americans to help their less-well-off neighbors. Churches must jump through hoops to provide a hungry man a hot meal. Charitable organizations are buried under oceans of paperwork and, sadly, some have become vehicles for the self-aggrandizement of their sponsors. Just look at the Clinton's "charity" for evidence of that.

Have we lost all sense of goodness and charity? No, of course not. We are still the most generous people on earth, but the taint of government has injured even that!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (167) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread [08/02/2026] JTB

Welcome to my second attempt at a book thread. I'm still learning to include images so this one is just text [I helped...CBD]. And, as always, I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

I enjoy reading westerns. Not just for the shoot-em-ups (although that is part of the appeal) but for the characters and descriptions of town life and the wild country. The plot is usually fast paced, the books are often under 200 pages and in a few hours you have another novel on your 'books I've read' list. The good guys win, the bad guys lose and justice, not necessarily the law, is served. Vivid and satisfying.

It seems to be the universal opinion that Lonesome Dove is one of the best western novels ever written. I won't argue because I haven't read it yet. (McMurtry does have a place in my heart because he wrote all his books on a manual typewriter.) But when I reread a western, it's usually a Louis L'Amour book. I like the way he can provide insight into his characters and circumstances with just a few lines that reveal but don't disturb the pace of the story.

I like all of his books: Flint, Hondo, Down the Long Hills, and the older history periods like The Walking Drum, etc. But the Sackett series books are the ones that stay with me. Maybe it's the span of generations of a family at different points in history, circa 1600 to the late 1800s. Maybe it's a common thread of toughness and fortitude that binds the different family members even though the main characters, all very much individuals, face different problems in different environments. My favorites in the series are Jubal Sackett, Ride the River, and The Sackett Brand. Sadly, L'Amour died before doing a Sackett story involving the American Revolution.

Any particular westerns that got you interested in the genre or keep you coming back to it? What is the appeal for westerns? The Horde is a very varied group so I'm hoping to hear about western books or authors new to me.

If you need a place to start with westerns, check out Sgt. Mom's (Celia Hayes) books like Lone Star Sons: Being The Entertaining and Mostly If not Always True Adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his Blood Brother Delaware Scout Toby Shaw in the Time of the Republic of Texas, which is a fun read (and a fun title). It's suitable for youngsters and this not so young reader enjoyed it.

By the way, Donald Hamilton (obligatory Matt Helm reference) wrote some westerns in the 1950s and they are excellent. His book The Big Country was adapted for the movie of that name with Charlton Heston. For some reason they were never reprinted and the used copies can be hard to find and are expensive. Definitely worth it if you can find them.

In a recent YT video from Duelist1954, Mike Beliveau lists the top ten selling westerns of all time, the top ten critics choices and his own ten favorites. There isn't a lot of overlap between the lists.

I'm not the first person to notice this but some original Conan stories, especially the ones involving the Picts, are essentially westerns set in Howard's Hyborean Age. The story Beyond the Black River would certainly qualify.

I'm not a fan of most booktubers on YT. I don't care about their latest book haul or that they claim to have read so many books in a short time. Even if true, or possible, what the hell are they getting out of them. I read for pleasure and to expand my world, not to brag about some list to impress others. Having said that, a year of two ago a booktuber, Michael K. Vaughn, suggested June Roundup. This was a casual, informal suggestion to other YT channels to discuss western books during June that they enjoy and why, and reveal some unusual finds they've come across. If you like westerns it is kind of fun.

Recent acquisitions:
- A hardcover edition of Lonesome Dove
- The City of God by Saint Augustine (H/T to A H Lloyd)
- The Penguin Classics edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King
- The Winchester version of Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur (as opposed to the Caxton version that is the standard)

Serendipity: Books I've come across unexpectedly that I'll investigate, and probably buy, at some point. (Not quite in the rabbit hole category.)
- Three Bags Full, the book the Sheep Detectives movie is based on
- Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke and a book of his poetry
- A collection of the correspondence between H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling

Thanks for putting up with my meanderings. What have you all been reading?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (360) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 2 August 2026

Top Story

• Microsoft has vowed to make Windows 11 actually work in 8GB of RAM, which is timely given that the company is shipping Windows PCs with 8GB of RAM. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Before the DRAM Apocalypse advice was simple: Do not buy a system with 8GB of RAM unless it is user-upgradable and you plan to immediately upgrade it.
  
  Now the advice is more along the lines of: Buy a Mac, or run Linux.
  
  Since both of those options hit Microsoft below the water line, the company is finally bothering to start to unshit its bed. Long overdue and the outcome remains to be seen, but at least they're trying. Or claiming to try.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (161) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - August 1, 2026 [Disco & Dino]

Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. We honor the 5th amendment here. And the 1st. Certainly the 2nd. The 10th is pretty good, also.

Come in in, grab a drink or 3. Keep it light and friendly. Jerks need not enter the premises (the moose out front is keeping track).

[Top photo: Terrace of the Halfway Guesthouse, located in the Tiger Leaping Gorge of Yunnan Province, China]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (348) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 8/1/2026

Director DNA

There are some questions in film criticism that never seem to disappear. Every generation argues about the greatest director, the greatest western, the greatest horror movie, the greatest performance. They're fun conversations, even if they almost never arrive at an answer. Over the last few years, though, I've found myself drifting toward a different question, one that I think reveals something more interesting about the people who make movies. If you wanted to explain a director to someone who had never seen one of their films before, where would you begin? Not with the movie that's necessarily their greatest achievement, nor even your favorite, but the one that most completely captures who they are as an artist.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized those are two different questions. Great artists don't spend their careers making the same movie over and over again. They experiment. They wander into unfamiliar genres. Sometimes they discover something remarkable by pushing against the instincts that usually define them. A masterpiece, then, can occasionally be an exception rather than a rule. It may represent the highest point of a career without representing the center of it. Somewhere else in that same filmography there may be another movie (not necessarily better, but somehow more representative) that contains the themes, techniques, and preoccupations that kept drawing the director back throughout an entire career. That's the film I've started thinking of as containing a director's DNA.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (137) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - August 1, 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. For this week, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) is feeling lucky and decided on a hobby shed theme for this Hobby Thread.

A what? A shed theme?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (191) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, August 1

Courtesy Donald Sensing

* * *

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 03:42 PM | Comments (63) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Aug 1

From Mr. Jimm:

Good morning, Katy!

Last summer I tore out all of the coneflowers and roses from our front garden bed, and replaced them with 40 different varieties of daylillies, about 50 plants in all.

The new bed is simply beautiful! Daylily flowers each last only for 24 hours, but each plant sports multiple stems with multiple flowers on each stem. The result is a riot of colors, with a different set of flowers blooming every morning. Something nice to get me out of bed in the morning!

Just BTW that daylily bed is 7 feet by 22 feet.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:46 PM | Comments (45) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thomas Sowell Weekend

Tired of discussions about a certain person in our health care bureaucracy? One person I encountered on social media who supports this individual also stated that Thomas Sowell "always lies".

The Hoover Institution has decided to concentrate on discussions of Thomas Sowell. Surprisingly, they started with his role as a historian rather than as an economist. Can you think of any individuals who could benefit from learning more history?

Posted by: K.T. at 11:06 AM | Comments (167) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

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 Lake Tomahawk.)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Don't be a Fauci.
3) Running with sharp objects once again has been banned.
4) Other than 3) have a great weekend!!!!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:03 AM | Comments (220) | Trackbacks (Suck)