Sunday Overnight Open Thread - May 4, 2025 [Doof]

May the Fourth Be With You!

Greeted you are. Into the ONT you will step. Much fear in the lurkers I sense. Commenting you will learn to do. Fun to be had, there is!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (570) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: May 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! As predicted last week, it's now May. How did that happen you ask? I think it has to do with the calendar and use of magic beans. It's going to be something of a quickie this week guys and gals. Apologies in advance.

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 (277) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Chicken Femurs And Turgid Wine?

Well kids; it's time for your yearly poultry anatomy lesson!

Specifically...comparative anatomy of French vs. American chickens.

And you thought this wasn't a sexy and provocative thread? Hah!

American chicken thighs tend to be quadrilaterals with roughly equal length sides.

French thighs, based on my limited experience, tend to be longer and thinner.

That sounds nuts! Don't chickens migrate across the Atlantic? Aren't they the same varieties?

Nope. I dipped my toe into the waters of chicken varieties and...it's crazy!

But the gold standard in France is a breed called Bresse Gauloise, which is the source of the famous Volaille de Bresse, a very tasty and very expensive chicken that has rigorous standards and a legal definition.

My American comparison is a regional brand called Bell & Evans, a local poultry farm, and the premium chicken from my go-to market. And all three have the shape I described, as has every chicken thigh I have seen in all of my years eating chicken.

So, what's the difference? What were the French breeding for that yielded that shape, and what was the American chicken industry seeking when they got their particular shape?

Don't ask me...I have no idea.

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (312) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

What's that? Oh...the manufacturing date of my hot water heater. It's a well-regarded company, and it seems to have done a good job over the eight years and two months of its installed life.

What a wild coincidence though...it has an eight-year warranty!

Can you guess what the photo below the fold is?

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (162) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Don't We Have More Important Things Going On? Stop The Nanny State Bullsh*t!

I like Youngkin. I think he is a good governor, and he certainly would make an interesting candidate for national office.

But this sort of arrant nonsense makes me think he is far less serious than I had assumed and hoped.

GOP Gov Signs Law That Would Set Daily Time Limit For Kids On Social Media

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill into law on Friday to limit the social media use of minors under the age of 16 to one hour per day.

The Consumer Data Protection Act, supported by both Republican and Democrat state lawmakers, will require social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, to limit minors’ time on such platforms.

Platforms will use “neutral age screen mechanisms” to determine the age of users and then limit their screen-time accordingly, Wavy.com reported. Parents, per the law, will be required to give “verifiable” consent if they want their child’s time on such apps increased or decreased.

First of all, it is almost certainly an unworkable restriction. Any kid on social media is probably more expert than his parents, and can avoid these restrictions with ease.

Second, making social media platforms do the work that parents seem unwilling to do is allowing them to avoid responsibility for their own children. The nanny-statism of this bill is deeply troubling.

Third, anything that receives bipartisan support should be immediately suspect. The Democrat party has an unblemished record of destruction, and anything they want is probably a bad thing. Undermining the family by ceding control to the social media companies is another step in the destruction of the traditional family structure, even if on the face of this is parental control. But it is a step away from allowing families to decide what is best for their children, and a step toward government deciding that!

Do I think that children should have access to social media? Absolutely not. I think it has a corrosive and destructive influence on our culture, and all thinking people should fight against its influence on our children.

Do I think that government should restrict access to social media? No.

Maybe three generations of the destruction of the family by both the Democrat party and its enablers in the Republican party has done the lion's share of the damage. It is incumbent upon us to recover the concept that parents know best, that the family unit is the core of our culture, that government (and its corporate surrogates) should simply stay out of it and let us raise our children as we see fit.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (226) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-4-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

May the Fourth be with you!

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...(jaunty beret costs extra)

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 (277) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 4 May 2025

Top Story

• All the major browsers are set to lose their funding. (Dan Fabulich)
  
  Google pays 80% of the budget for Safari and Mozilla, Edge is just Chrome, and Chrome actually is Chrome. So with Google's illegal practices on multiple fronts coming to a head with the company losing two antitrust cases, the whole metastatic structure is set to implode.
  
  More than that, Google's payments to Apple, which are likely to end abruptly, cover 60% of the latter company's total R&D budget.
  
  
  
• Waah says Mozilla. (The Verge)
  
  And nothing of value was lost. Mozilla killed itself off as a realistic option years ago.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (233) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" May 3, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

(Photo from the Makers Mark distillery in Loretto, KY)

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Tonight's 'mane' attraction, The Kentucky Derby. Did any of you watch the race? Yay or neigh?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:56 PM | Comments (323) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread - Rock's Not Dead [Doof]

(Mystery Click?? Absolutely!!)

Howdy Hordelings! CBD let me take control of the AOSHQ jukebox tonight. Despite his complete lack of appreciation for my favorite band, I want to thank him for allowing me to play music director. Won't ya step on in and rock out for a while?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (333) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - May 3, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it came up with traveling to Canada!

[Top photo: Banff]

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

The Ace of Spades Pet Thread

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread ^TM. The answer is "Yes". Today's opener photo is a rerun. But, it is classy. And you know the Pet Morons are classy.

Your's truly is sitting in for the lovely and talented KT. Let's take a look at the world of animals.

Please leave the current events and politics out at the curb. Or you might find yourself at the nearest shelter.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 03:00 PM | Comments (85) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Gardening Thread

*****

Good afternoon folks. Your's truly will be filling in today for KT who is out on medical leave. She is doing well and hopes to be back soon.

Here is another photo of today's opener. It is a Wild Iris. And we can thank Hrothgar for submitting such beautiful photos.

Which brings me to the following. Everything you want to know about iris' but were afraid to ask.

The tall, beautiful iris flower, named after the Greek goddess who rode rainbows, comes in many magical colors. Despite its divine origins, this beautiful flower is rugged, reliable, and easy to grow. Learn to plant and care for irises for long-term success in your gardens.

About Irises
More than 250 species make up the genus Iris. The most familiar irises are the tall bearded irises (I. germanica), which reach 2 to 3 feet tall. Their distinctive six-petaled flowers have three outer hanging petals (called falls) and three inner upright petals (called standards).

We have a few here at Casa Misanthrope. Bulbs were from my fishing buddy's wife. They seem to be a tough bullet proof type of plant. Just my .02 worth.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 12:05 PM | Comments (66) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

*****

Good morning folks. KT is out on medical leave but is on the road to recovery and is feeling better. So you get me today on several threads.

I'm really not feeling politically engaged at the moment. So you get some art today.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 09:30 AM | Comments (230) | 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 housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Edgar)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Splash the trolls with sarcasm and wit.
3) No running with sharp objects.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 07:27 AM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 3 May 2025

Top Story

• Apple is teaming up with Anthropic on a new vibe coding platform. (Bloomberg) (archive site)
  
  Vibe coding is a term where a developer has no idea how to program - let alone build a complete application - and also no idea about the problems inherent in the application domain. So someone trying to launch, say, an app to guide mining of rare earth elements when you not only can't program but also have no idea what an element is.
  
  Apple's own vibe coding platform was quietly scuttled last year when it turned out to be completely worthless, so they're doing it again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (83) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Keep People From Their ONT And They Are Easily Controlled

Hello folks! Welcome to Friday night! How is everyone doing tonight?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:01 PM | Comments (320) | Trackbacks (Suck)

When Train Songs Briefly Gave Way to Plane Songs

Train songs have played a major role in American culture and they also play a prominent role in the canon of 20th century American music. From “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “Wabash Cannonball” to “City of New Orleans” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” songs about passenger trains captured a sense of their eras.

But by the 1960s, jet airplanes started to replace trains as the dominant form of commercial travel, and the romance of air travel was starting to capture the nation’s fancy. Popular music embraced this exciting new era of travel – along with the heartbreak of a broken relationship ending with the former lover flying off into distant skies.

Here is a bit of the musical magic from that era…

I still hum this song on those infrequent occasions when I change planes at LAX…

”L.A. International Airport” [Susan Raye]

With silver wings across the sky, vapor trails that wave goodbye
To those below who've got to stay at home
I wish that I had flown at night, so I could take that champagne flight
Rid myself of every tear I own.

Soaring high above the heaven, in a 747
Fighting back the tears that curse my eyes
Captain's voice so loud and clear, amplifies into my ear
Assuring me I'm flying friendly skies.

L.A. International Airport
Where the big jet engines roar
L.A. International Airport
I won't see him anymore

*****

Who better than Merle Haggard to sing a country song about airplanes and broken hearts…

”Silver Wings” [Merle Haggard]

Silver wings
Shining in the sunlight
Roaring engines
Headed somewhere in flight
They're taking you away
And leaving me lonely
Silver wings
Slowly fading out of sight

*****

John Denver really should have recorded a sequel to this song to let us know if he ever came back…

”Leaving on a Jet Plane” [John Denver]

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

*****

Airplane songs weren’t all country and folk. Rockers were singing about air travel too.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 07:45 PM | Comments (398) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Friday Evening Cafe [Doof]

(Another cafe mystery click?)

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to another cafe full of wholesome content. Enjoy!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (192) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Economic News, or We're All Going to Die!!!! Or Not. I'm not a Psychic.

April 2, 2025 was Liberation Day, the day that Trump's tariff offensive against the world started. Absent any real numbers, the press focused on the stock market's reaction as proof that it was a bad and destructive thing. Well...

There goes that narrative. Stocks are now back to where they were on April 2 one month later.

Are stocks the economy? No. It's somewhere between investment, speculation, and gambling, and the more time goes on, the more I think it's closer to gambling than anything else. What else is there?

Well, how about this? The below is the 2-year bond yield on US Treasuries over the last three months.

This is important because the 2-year bonds are the main vehicle of financing US debt, and it's lost 50 basis points since Trump took office. The US has a current debt of nearly $37 trillion. 50 basis points saved on that matters when refinancing bonds and directly affecting the amount of interest payments. We're currently at a point where interest payments on debt are probably going to be more than $1 trillion a year. That's more than the DOD's entire budget of about $850 billion.

Shaving down interest rates has an outsized effect on our deficit, and it's why Trump has been so vocal against Fed Chair Powell, an officer who reports to Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent. (Tangentially, Trump does have the power to fire Powell. It's a minor theme of the employment lawsuits going around right now.) The Fed directs interest rates, and the Fed's rates are well out of alignment with market rates, indicating a necessary cut (you know, what Powell rushed to do in October of last year in order to try and help Kamala Harris win the presidency).

Okay, but what else? Who cares about interest rates? I don't really care, even though I know I should. How about this:

There it is:
Native-born workers: +1.04 million
Foreign-born workers: -410,000 pic.twitter.com/SkHM1GnTgN

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 2, 2025

One of the lesser talked about parts of the Biden economy was the growth of jobs at the expense of people who were born here in favor of those who weren't. You can see that in the graph where the red line (foreign workers) was consistently above the growth of the green line (native workers), but this last month saw a sharp change, news brought about by the 177,000 April employment numbers.

There is no one number that can indicate the strength of the economy, but the GDP numbers for Q1 (when you actually look under the baseline -.3%) was actually pretty good, employment seems to be moving in the right direction, and bond yields seem to indicate better management of federal debt.

We are just over 100 days into Trump's presidency. He walked in with what he saw as a mandate to shake things up. We've gotten a lot of noise about how it's all bad, but...all I'm really seeing is signs of hope.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 04:15 PM | Comments (354) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Germany Channels Its Inner Nazi And Makes One Of The Most Popular Political Parties A Legal Target

Sound familiar?

What's next? An arson attack on the German Parliament building that will be blamed on AfD?

German Spy Agency Officially Classifies AfD Party as 'Extremist'

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as extremist.
Having regarded the AfD as a suspected extremist movement since 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), on May 2 designated the populist party as “right-wing extremist,” following an “intensive and comprehensive expert examination.”

This means that intelligence services now have the right to keep it under surveillance.

BfV said in a statement that AfD’s approach to ethnicity is “not compatible with the free democratic basic order.”

According to BfV’s statement, AfD does not consider German nationals with a migration background from Muslim-origin countries as equal members of the German people.

Here is the AdF's statement on German citizenship. It looks a bit different than how they are described in the media.

I know...I know... it's impossible for the 4th Estate to be anything but perfectly neutral and aboveboard. Yet here we are!

The German people made AfD one of the most popular parties in Germany, and clearly the elites in Germany can't tolerate having mere citizens deciding the fate of the country.

Are there true extremists in AfD? Of course. Just like there are true extremists in every single political party on earth. But it is curious that the lunatic violent environmentalists who want Germany back in the stone age aren't classified as extremists. And it is curious that the remnants of the communists who routinely surveilled, tortured, imprisoned, and murdered their fellow Germans aren't classified as extremists. And it is most curious that the Muslims openly advocating for sharia law in Germany are not classified as extremists.

And...Is AfD anti-Semitic and anti-Israel? Uh... not any more than most of Europe!

And AfD and Israel have common cause...they both see militant Islam as an existential danger. And that is in stark contrast to the ruling party: CDU never met a murdering Islamist they didn't like!

So maybe Germany should be allowed their opinions on foreigners taking over their country. Obviously they need Donald Trump to run for Chancellor. Maybe he can clean up Germany's border after he fixes ours!

Posted by: CBD at 02:45 PM | Comments (424) | Trackbacks (Suck)