Gun Thread: First November 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 November Edition? How was your Halloween? we had precisely 1.0 trick-or-treaters. How about you?

Does the time change have you all screwed up yet?

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 (242) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: I Say Whisky...You Say Whiskey? Let's Call The Whole Thing Off!

I was recently given this bottle by a friend, and aside from it being a delicious and surprisingly delicate example of a Highland Malt, it showcases the relatively new attempts by many distillers to age their Scotch or Rum or Bourbon in interesting barrels or casks.

This one was aged in Sauternes casks, which imparted a subtle sweetness that was unexpected, but very, very nice. No monster mouthful of oak and smoke and iodine...it was subtle and smooth and a thoroughly enjoyable glass!

I think many of these attempts are simply to differentiate a particular brand from the huge numbers of similar liquors. But some are genuine attempts to expand the flavor palates of some already very good booze!

In the past I have been suspicious of this newfangled weirdness (get off my lawn!), but after tasting this bottle I will take it more seriously.

[As for the Whisky vs. Whiskey controversy? It's actually more complicated than it seems.]

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (314) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

It amazes me that makers of otherwise good quality stuff will cheap out on bolts. And then they provide an even crappier hex wrench to turn that soft metal bolt or screw so that it is almost guaranteed to strip.

Spend the extra seven cents! I promise...it will be worth it.

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (241) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Voting: A Right, A Responsibility, And An Unalloyed Pleasure!

I did indeed! Because of a prior commitment, I won't be in my home state of the People's Republic of New Jersey on election day, and I wouldn't miss this one for the world! In fact, I would never miss an important election, and almost never have missed even off-year dogcatcher elections. It is the most basic building block of our Republic, and we all have an equal role in it. And it's not just because it is vital to the future of our country...it is also a pleasure.

Yes, our right to vote is clear, but our responsibility to vote is much less clear, and in fact has lost its luster, in part because of the pathetic failure of our government educational system to teach basic civics and a sense of patriotism. And in large part because the vote has become trivial. Early voting, voting by mail, voting for non-citizens, registration for voting that has become a joke, and all of the other silliness that has made voting the equivalent of texting or popping a cup of soup into the microwave.

The importance of taking the vote seriously has been lost, and the gravity of voting in every election has been subsumed in a sea of complexity and confusing signals from all of our thousands of streams of information. Preprinted ballots flood our mailboxes, attack ads bombard us on every screen and billboard, and at least in my state, the candidates are carefully chosen by the power brokers of the state, rather than by the people. Yes, there was a primary, but the winners simply had more money, and more pull with the state political organizations.

The Democrat candidate for governor, Mikie Sherrill, is a backbencher without an original thought in her exam-cheating brain. But she was next in line, so she got the support. The Republican, Jack Ciattarelli, is a professional candidate who seems to be quite well aware of the direction of the wind, but less focused on any meaningful political philosophy other than "I want to be governor."

Luckily for Ciattarelli, the Democrats chose a clueless hack with skeletons in her closet, so he has a chance. Had they been smart, they would have supported my congressman, the execrable but intelligent Josh Gottheimer. He is a cutthroat and a sleaze, but he knows how to campaign.

But the real issue is that the People have allowed their glorious right to vote to be diluted by the actions of those they elected, and by their own actions of treating the vote as a triviality. An informed electorate is a terrifying force that no politician can resist. It sees through lies, and backroom deals, and almost always chooses the best of the lot. Is it perfect? No, of course not. Our history books are full of examples of seemingly excellent candidates becoming exactly what the People voted against!

There is no political system that can provide perfect candidates, so it is up to the voters to take seriously that most solemn and important right and duty. Voting Democrat "Because I have always voted Democrat" is a rule that instantly abrogates one's power as a citizen. Voting for the machine Republican, "Because I can't vote for the Democrat" may work in many cases, but it also yields horrendous results such as the RINOs that infest the halls of power in America. It instantly hands a huge amount of control to the parties that have proven throughout our history that they care not a whit about us, that the only motivating force is their acquisition of power.

Did I vote straight Republican? Yes, I did. I also voted against an increase in property taxes, and wrote in Daffy Duck for school board, instead of the corruptocrat who is running uncontested. Did I help to perpetuate the very system that I just decried? Possibly, but I read the candidates' platforms, and at least I made an informed decision.

Will it also bite me in the ass? Absolutely. I have no doubt that at least a few of the candidates will simply ignore what they ran on and do what is best for them and their power base.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (211) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-02-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (make sure you are inoculated!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, put down that Butterfinger, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

NOTE: TheJamesMadison has started a YouTube Channel and has posted his first official video. Go check it out and subscribe!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (348) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 2 November 2025

Top Story

• SpaceX is set to win a $2 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop and launch tracking satellites as part of the broader Golden Dome defense project. (Yahoo)
  
  Which only makes sense. If you want to launch satellites, there's SpaceX and then there's a long, long gap before you get to second place.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (303) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" November 1, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration the 3D's - The Disco, The Dino, and The Doggo. Welcome to November. The mercury is falling and so are standards. Morons are digging through closets and dresser drawers - finding some questionable fashion choices of years past.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (449) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 11/01/2025

Mario Bava

Mario Bava is as emblematic of Italian cinema as Federico Fellini, Vittorio di Sica, or Roberto Rossellini. Moreso, perhaps. His dreamlike visions of gothic horror, that which he's known best for, is part of a package that includes spaghetti westerns (The Road to Fort Alamo and Jay Colt and Winchester Jack), Giallo horror (The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace), and sword and sandal epics (Erik the Conqueror and Knives of the Avenger), all popular genres in Italy that sold as well, if not better, than the more high brow counterparts and contemporaries aforementioned.

But he's not taken seriously because he worked in genre, which the critical crowd long held as impersonal and beneath serious consideration. That's changed recently (a positive change in the critical community matched by a host of negative things that far outweigh it), so it makes me wonder what would Bava's career had been if he had made Black Sunday or Kill, Baby, Kill in 2015 rather than the 60s and 70s.

The story of Bava's career is far from smooth, though. Working in the Italian film industry, looking to entertain and without some kind of cult following of investors willing to throw a million dollars at him just to make anything, he was constantly working with independent producers, trying to get anything off the ground. That's what really created his varied filmography of different genres, a good bit of which were chasing trends rather than trying to create them. Still, when Bava worked...he worked.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison at 07:45 PM | Comments (122) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - November 1, 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, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. A spin of the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) landed on online or video gaming.

Are you thinking "I don't even know what that means and I'm not wise in the ways of computer games but I'm eager to learn more. I can't wait to get into the content!" I knew it. Enjoy.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (206) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, November 1

* * *

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 03:16 PM | Comments (85) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread

Helianthus maximiliani reached eight feet, both vertically and horizontally. I’ll need to stake it more strongly next year.

I haven't been paying enough attention to the posts of Don in Kansas, and his Soggy Times (which at least were posted in October) have some great photos, going back into summer.

Usually during Kansas summers the problem in the garden is not enough water. Once in a while we get a wet summer, though, and this year’s has been the wettest I can remember. We got heavy rain nearly every week, often three or five inches at a time. It’s still happening; it’s only Tuesday, and already this week an inch and three-quarters has fallen. The problem is compounded by topography. I live in one of the flattest areas of one of the flattest states, and there’s very little slope in my yard. Insufficient moisture can be remedied with a hose, but a surplus is not so easily dealt with. Some of the plants in my garden like all the water, as do weeds and mosquitoes. Others don’t. I’ve been experimenting with dryland plants, which often do well out in the prairie, and everything looked happy and vigorous back in June. But the rains never stopped, and I’ve lost a number of species I had high hopes for.

For those interested in Penstemons: species native to Kansas did fine with all the rain. P. strictus and P. barbatus also look healthy despite the downpours. I’ll have to wait and see on the others.

Below, a few snapshots from summer. More at the link above.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:19 PM | Comments (49) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Teddy Roosevelt, Heroes, Villains and Demons

Teddy Roosevelt was one of the more interesting of our past presidents. A friend on social media recently posted a short video suggesting that he was insane. From his beginnings as a sickly, asthmatic child, he certainly endured many hardships and tragedies and had many adventures.

Back in October of 2002, Glenn Reynolds posted an excerpt from a speech Roosevelt gave about the Nobel prize he received, largely for facilitating an end to war between Japan and Russia. The prize was controversial. Roosevelt was not in Norway for the acceptance speech.

The Instapundit summary has some interesting details but the link to the speech has gone bad. I found another one. This speech was also given in Norway, but in person by Roosevelt.

Presidents don't talk like this anymore:

Posted by: K.T. at 11:09 AM | Comments (251) | 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 Darboy)

1)This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice until the water cannons come out.
3) No running, jogging, sprinting and/or dashing with sharp objects.
4) Have a wonderful weekend!!!
5) And don't forget to fall back with the end of Daylight Savings.

[Could there by a Mystery Click? Hmmm.......]

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:00 AM | Comments (418) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 1 November 2025

Top Story

• AMD has explained that when they said that drivers for their RX 5000 and RX 6000 graphics cards (and integrated graphics with the RDNA 1 and 2 architectures respectively) were entering maintenance mode with only bug fixes to be released and not optimisations for individual games, they didn't mean maintenance mode, they meant maintenance mode. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Everyone clear on that?
  
  Good.
  
  Long stupid story short, they will still be updating the drivers for related boards and APUs, just not promising to address the quirks of every game that comes along.
  
  Also, the release note saying they were dropping support for the USB-C port on RX 7900 series boards was bullshit. Yes, it's in the official release notes; yes, it's officially bullshit.
  
  The previous generation - the RX 400 and RX 500 series, which were the same thing with different numbers - is still kind of dead but we already knew that. You can still find new-in-box RX 580s but they're starting to dry up now. The XFX models I grabbed early this year are completely gone.
  
  Update: Turns out my supplier found another four of them hiding somewhere. Priced around $100 including sales tax.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (153) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Spooky Scary ONTs

Happy Halloween everyone! See any good costumes tonight?

Image source

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (402) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Halloween Friday Cafe

T-1000 costume. I'll post a few more below, thanks to the Massimo/@RainMaker1973 account.

Beware of deceitful children tricking you into giving them triple treats.

Here's a scary scene for you: The Devil himself, confronting none other than Mr. Rourke.

KISS's first appearance on TV, from 1974.

Baby elephant keeps close to her mama's skirts.

Carrie costume:

Super Dave Osborne's first stunt. This is history right here.

Garret sent this over. It's another one of his favorites. More clips from Garret's favorite Center Square Halloween Special.

So I had those links yesterday, but then Soothsayer one-upped me and linked the entire Paul Lynde Halloween Special. I think I saw that. I remember this stupid joke about KISS, something about them fighting as kids, so their moms told them to "kiss and make up." I'm guessing that terrible joke is from this special.

Adorable Caddyshack costume. The kid has no idea what's going on but I'm sure it's fun for his father.

Possum gets a good spooking. And a cougar also gets a good spook.

This is my favorite Halloween costume. First I thought it was just fake. Now I think it's real, and ingenious.

Halloween party snacks. More snacks.

Halloween nachos.

Possibly excessive.

The Japanese lead the world in the Cute/Nightmarish aesthetic.

I rate this as my least favorite costume. You were warned.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (356) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week In Woke

UK Glamour has chosen its "Women" of the Year.

Nine transgenders, Bigots!

They also honored a couple of actual women, including... Rachel Zegler.

The feds are investigating -- prepare yourself -- BLM's founders of defrauding donors to the tune of ninety million dollars.

The Department of Justice has reportedly launched an investigation into whether the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation misused millions of dollars in donations collected during the 2020 George Floyd protests. According to the Associated Press, federal agents have issued subpoenas and executed at least one search warrant as part of the probe, which is being run out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Sources familiar with the matter told the AP that the inquiry began under the Biden administration but has recently gained new momentum under President Trump. The Justice Department has declined to comment publicly, but the investigation centers on allegations that BLM defrauded donors who contributed during the nationwide unrest following Floyd's death in Minneapolis.

The Black Lives Matter Foundation raised more than $90 million in the months after Floyd's death, when cities across the country were rocked by protests that in many cases turned violent, resulting in deaths, fires, looting, and widespread property destruction. Critics of the organization have long accused its leadership of withholding information about how those funds were spent.

Remember when CBS morning show host Tony Dokoupils interviewed racist radical Ta-Nehisi Coates about his pro-Hamas screed against Israel (and Jews)? He pushed back against Coates, which is, you know, illegal. All media personnel are required to pretend that this low-IQ racist's every stupid statement is received wisdom from God Herself.

Dokoupils was forced to attend a struggle session by CBS. He probably would have been fired or suspended, save for the fact that Paramount's owner at the time, Shari Redstone, is Jewish and thought he acted like an actual journalist.

During the interview, Dokoupil asked some pointed questions to Coates about the book, including "Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it?"

He also told Coates: "I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim ... the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist."

After the interview, CBS News executives fielded complaints from staffers and then held a meeting on the unfortunate date of Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel. At meeting, CBS News CEO and her number two, Adrienne Roark, called out Dokoupil, who is Jewish, for the interview, saying it did not meet the network's editiorial standards.

Those words were questioned internally by supporters of Dokoupil at the meeting, as well as by Shari Redstone, the chair of CBS-parent Paramount Global, who backed the anchor, saying he had done a "great job" with the interview. Redstone added that CBS made a "mistake" in reprimanding Dokoupil and in saying it did not meet their standards.

Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks rushed to the defense of McMahon, backing her decision, while also saying the company needs to have "substantive dialogue" about perceptions of bias and "inconsistent treatment."

I bring that up as background to the new news: The "Race and Culture Unit" that Bari Weiss fired en masse (save for a single guy) was the group conducting that Struggle Session. They attacked Dokoupils for challenging Coates, and even faulted him for his... "tone and posture."

Moms for Liberty activist defeats a defamation suit after calling a DEI employee a "woke white savior" with a "god complex."

As you know, truth is a defense in defamation. Though that's not why the case was thrown out. To defame someone, you have to make a factual claim about them which is derogatory and untrue. Opinion doesn't count.

Note that leftwing judges routinely claim that factual claims that liberals make about conservatives -- like that Nick Sandmann approached and bullied the "Native American elder" -- are just "opinion," while they simultaneously argue that clear statements of opinion by conservatives, like that someone is "woke," are factual and thus defamatory.

In this case, the left-wing censorious judges claimed that her speech was so "hyperbolic" that it somehow transmuted opinion into fact.

A Moms for Liberty activist in Wisconsin described a onetime "social justice coordinator" in the local high school as a "white savior" and "woke" woman with a "god complex."

She said the employee is emblematic of diversity, equity and inclusion specialists who earn more than the district's teachers, "woke lunatics ... bullying you into silence and compliance," and should "forfeit her job to a person of color" if she "really wants to promote equity."

Scarlett Johnson spent nearly 1,100 days defending herself against a defamation suit by the coordinator, Mary MacCudden, before a divided state appeals court cleared her name this week, overturning a lower court that said a jury should consider whether Johnson's hyperbolic language implied factual assertions about MacCudden.

The duration of the litigation shows the ongoing legal and financial peril for parental rights activists who criticize government employees using language typical of conservatives against those they consider progressive, authoritarian and hypocritical.

I can personally attest that conservatives accused of defamation will be destroyed by any left-wing judge hearing their case.

"The defamation lawsuit against her was meritless and should have been promptly dismissed," Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty deputy counsel Luke Berg, whose group represented Johnson on appeal, said in announcing Tuesday's verdict, three years to the day after MacCudden filed the complaint in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

But the process is the punishment, as I can also attest.

Canada's top general, everybody. She literally cries about "structural racism."

The University of California system -- taxpayer supported -- now employs a test to determine if you can even enroll in the school. A quiz asks you what pronouns you should use to refer to a transgender, and if you don't say whatever fake pronouns the transgender wants you to use, you're scolded for "harrassment" and blocked from registering.

Read this. A woke Fairfax County, VA prosecutor appears to have deliberately engineered a constitutional violation to set free a repeat sexual felon who accosted a "heavily pregnant" mom and her daughter in a women's bathroom.

When I finally took the stand, the attorney for the Commonwealth asked me if the man who was in the bathroom that day was in the room.

I paused, confused--because I knew what was going to happen next.

The courtroom had been packed all day but as case after case was handled, ours was the last one--now it was just the judge, court reporter, bailiff, the defendant, his lawyer, the Commonwealth attorney, and I.

The arresting officer wasn't in the room. The other victim and her husband had been given a new court date and sent home.

I adjusted my baby against my chest and looked at her as she repeated the question: Do you see the man you reported to police in this room today?

Why was she doing this? What was she doing?

I was sweating in my oversized cashmere nursing sweater and I felt prickles down my back. Everyone was staring at me. I'm not a lawyer. She asked me a question... and she was "on my side" so I should answer it, right?

I adjusted my baby again to give myself a free hand--and I pointed to him.

And just as I expected, his lawyer immediately pointed out there was nobody else present in the courtroom who it could be and therefore we had violated his constitutional right to due process.

The judge agreed. Hell, *I* agreed--but then I asked WHY hadn't the Commonwealth given me a photo array to choose from? Why did she ASK that?

Too late. It didn't matter that he was on surveillance footage entering the bathroom before us and pushing past us as we fled.

He was set free.

As I walked out of the court room the arresting officer spotted me from down the hall and ran over to me "Is it back in this courtroom? Is it starting?"

No, I told him, it's already over. He had been sent to another courtroom "by mistake." He didn't even get a chance to testify. He looked horrified.

The Commonwealth attorney and "victims advocate" that morning assured us they were going to fight for us. They were SO SORRY this had happened to us. They were SO GRATEFUL that I had come to testify in my condition.

Instead they seemingly intentionally let the monster walk free.

It's been two years.

Yesterday he was released on bail for yet another crime--one of at least THIRTEEN he's committed since that day in court--including sexual abuse of a child under 15.

His arrest record from just the last 5 years spans four pages on the Virginia court website.

Look at how many women--and CHILDREN--he's victimized since that day.

Look how many times his victims have gone to court just as I did only to see him set free again and again and again.

This is NOT happening by accident.

This is deliberate.

More here. The guy is constantly sexually assaulting women and masturbating in public and flashing women.

Steve Descano, the prosecutor who keeps setting him free is, get this, a Soros prosecutor.

Virginians 4 Safe Communities
@VA4SafeComm

22h

THIS WEEK: Sex Predator Walks Free

Fairfax Soros DA Steve Descano FREED Child Sex Offender Demetrius Anthony Anderson

40 Charges, 13 Sex Offenses from 2021-2025 including:

* Indecent liberties with child < 15, [PENDING but he's out on bail]

* Peeping Tom x2 [dropped + not guilty]

* Indecent exposure x4, [ 2 dropped, 2 guilty but NO jail]

* Simulated masturbation x5, [4 dropped + 1 dismissed]

OTHER: 9x failure to appear/probation violation, Assault, Trespassing, Disorderly Conduct, Drunk in Public, Forgery, Grand theft etc.

A black principal was suspended (or fired, they won't say) from a Dallas-area high school for taking black students aside and telling them that they're the reason the school is getting mediocre ratings from the accreditation boards. You're not allowed to say this.

You're allowed to scold white children for things they never did, like owning slaves, but you're not allowed to take black students aside and tell them they're bringing the school's averages down.

In a letter Monday to parents and teachers at Woodrow Wilson High School, Dallas ISD officials named an interim principal and said they are investigating a "recent incident" at the campus.

The letter comes after Principal Chandra Hooper-Barnett held a meeting with the school's Black students about their academic performance, two parents told The Dallas Morning News.

Hooper-Barnett acknowledged she held a meeting during an advisory period last week that "caused concern within our school community," according to a letter she sent to families Monday.

"The decision to hold that meeting and subsequent discussion that transpired was not appropriate. I take full ownership and responsibility for what occurred, and I want to assure you that it was never my intent to single out or cause harm to any group of students," Hooper-Barnett wrote.

In the letter, she said she is "committed to learning from this and rebuilding the trust that has been shaken."

Woodrow Wilson, located in East Dallas, served nearly 2,000 students last school year, per state data. Black students made up 6% of the campus population in the 2023-24 school year. The school received a B in this year's academic accountability ratings.

Neither letter addressed the status of Hooper-Barnett, who has led the school for three years. Danielle Petters -- who served as principal of J.L. Long Middle School for seven years and H. Grady Spruce High School for four -- will serve as interim principal of the campus, according to a letter from Aaron Aguirre-Castillo, executive director of Dallas ISD's Woodrow Wilson vertical team.

In her letter, Hooper-Barnett said she would "do what is best for our campus, even if that means stepping aside to allow for healing and growth."

Speaking of grades: A Harvard report faulted professors for giving 60% of students "A's" in their classes, stating that the grading system no longer served the purpose of distinguishing between students in terms of achievement.

Harvard students are crying about it.

Steve McGuire
@sfmcguire79

Harvard reports that it is "failing to perform the key functions of grading."

Its grading practices are "damaging the academic culture of the College."

"Faculty newly arrived at Harvard are surprised at how leniently our courses are graded."

Students say academics feel "fake."

Jack Mac
@JackMacCFB

Harvard just released a fascinating study that shows they've made their school too easy.

They've been giving out too many A's and passing too many students. In 2005, 25% of grades were A's. In 2025? 60%!!!!

How did this happen? They forced their professors to adjust to "less prepared students" and those with "imposter syndrome" or other forms of stress.

Everything is fake...including grades at Harvard.

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (248) | Trackbacks (Suck)

"Rising Democrat Star" Arrested for Covertly Filming Two Political Opponents Having Sex to Blackmail Them

This is the Democrat-Antifa-Media Party.

A Maryland state senator once seen as a rising Democrat star is facing explosive allegations that she conspired to secretly record and blackmail her political critics. Federal prosecutors have charged State Sen. Dalya Attar, her brother Joseph "Yossi" Attar, and Baltimore Police Officer Kalman Finkelstein with conspiracy, extortion, illegal wiretapping, and violations of the Travel Act -- a slate of federal offenses that could bring decades in prison if convicted.

According to a newly unsealed 20-page federal indictment, Attar and her co-defendants allegedly set up hidden cameras disguised as smoke detectors inside an apartment belonging to two of Attar's critics -- one of them a former campaign consultant who had worked on her 2018 campaign but later supported her political rivals. The second target was reportedly in a romantic relationship with the consultant and married to someone else at the time. Prosecutors say the trio not only filmed the pair in bed together but used the footage to intimidate them into silence.

Investigators claim the covert operation was designed to protect Attar's political standing as she eyed re-election and higher office. WhatsApp messages cited in the indictment suggest the senator herself discussed the scheme and its potential leverage. "We have a very easy ... simple way to get her to just shut up and leave us alone," Attar allegedly wrote in one message. "She's worried about her kids' shidduchim." In another message, she added, "I'm not saying we leak this anywhere or ever do that ... but I'm saying we warn her ... 'If you go ahead and screw with me, we're going to leak it.'"

The intimidation campaign allegedly escalated in December 2021, when Joseph Attar met one of the victims at a Baltimore shopping center and issued a chilling threat: "I have hours of footage of you in bed with [Victim 1] ... Go to [Victim 1] and say leave Dalya alone ... or I'll share this video with everyone you know -- every Rabbi in town, your kids, your wife, her daughters." Federal prosecutors say the threats continued into 2022 as Attar's team sought to keep both victims quiet ahead of her re-election effort. To cover their tracks, the indictment alleges, the defendants coordinated through encrypted WhatsApp messages and routinely deleted their communications.

Attar, a Democrat and former Baltimore prosecutor, was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018 and appointed to the state Senate in January 2025. She had been viewed as an emerging figure within Maryland's Orthodox Jewish community, where she built a reputation as a tough prosecutor and vocal progressive on local issues.

Bonus: Kamala Harris shares the heart-breaking moment when she learned she had lost the presidential race. She said there were 200,000 votes she needed to win that her campaign manager "couldn't find."

She uses the same word -- "find" -- that Fatty Fanny Funstuff claimed proved a criminal intent to order Georgia's election officials to fake the vote. Seems like it's a normal bit of campaign jargon.

Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (182) | Trackbacks (Suck)

WSJ Op-Ed: "Transgenderism" Is a Social Contagion, Science Shows
Trans Extremists Push Suicide of a Trans Athlete As Proof Women Should Allow Men In Women's Sports and Changing Areas

Colin Wright wrote an op-ed for the WSJ. He says that the trendlines for transgender identification show that the phenomenon is, as has long been suspected, a social contagion spread by tweens much like many other viral contagions.

The article is paywalled, but Outkick the Coverage digests it.

"If transgender identity were an innate trait, like left-handedness, we would expect identification rates to rise at first when it became socially acceptable, then plateau and remain stable at a fixed level," Wright wrote. "If the phenomenon were instead driven by social contagion, we might expect a boom-and-bust pattern: a spike followed by a rapid decline once the social forces driving it weaken."

But Wright notes that the data doesn't support the idea that trans identity is an innate trait.

"An analysis of campus surveys by Eric Kaufmann of the University of Buckingham and the Center for Heterodox Social Science found that the share of college students identifying as transgender fell 50% between 2023 and 2025," Wright noted. "Psychologist Jean Twenge's analysis of the annual Cooperative Election Study, administered by YouGov, found that transgender identification among 18- to 22-year-olds declined by nearly 50% between 2022 and 2024. She concluded that 'it looks like the peak of trans identification is in the past.'"

While transgender activists argue that transgenderism is inherent in humans, data shows that most cases are much more likely to be a social contagion or cultural fad.

Wright's cited surveys are consistent with a recent pattern among newly released data.

A recent study out of England showed that "incidence rates of recorded gender dysphoria/incongruence increased from 0.14 to 4.4 per 10,000 person years" from 2011 to 2021, which represented a 3,000% increase.

That came on the heels of a German study that showed "for most young people, the gender-identity related diagnosis (F64) does not persist after 5 years."

Essentially, trans identity suddenly spiked in the middle-to-late 2010s, and it's now starting to fall. That pattern more closely resembles a cultural fad or social contagion than the discovery of a new disorder, as Wright argues.

"The overwhelming majority of those driving the trans craze fall into the 'nonbinary' category--adopting identities which are said to be neither, both, or somewhere between male and female. These include labels such as 'demiboy,' 'genderfluid' or 'two-spirit.' These are social identities, not biological ones," Wright said.

Trans enthusiasts reacted to the article by stating that the author "needs to be hunted down."

Meanwhile:

A trans pyrsyn has committed suicide. It's getting press because despite the claim that this always happens, it doesn't actually always happen, so the trans extremists have to milk every actual suicide for all it's worth.

Trans extremists are using the suicide to, get this, pressure women into letting men beat the shit out of them in sports and change in their locker rooms.

Kim Shasby Jones
@KimJonesICONS

This post from @AriDrennen infuriates me.

For so many reasons.

First, any taking of life is tragic. This is a sad ending for Lia Smith.

It is grotesque and depraved of Drennan to use this tragedy to emotionally blackmail women and the public into holding women responsible for a man's suicide bc they didn't want to undress with him or let him compete in women's sports.

Women are NOT responsible for the mental health of men and certainly not required to give up their rights and bodies for a man's emotional well-being.

The age-old threat used against women trying to stop abuse, "if you leave, I'll kill myself", is exactly what Mr Drennan's message is.

Emotional blackmail is NEVER acceptable, not in elite sport, not in "just D3" sport, not in elementary school.

Not in locker rooms at the Y.

To tell a young man that he can be accepted as a woman, that he should get to compete against women, that he should be allowed into womens spaces, that he can become a woman - this is setting him up to fail. It is NOT a failure of women to accommodate his desires, it's a failure of medicine, leadership, and culture for not holding firm the boundaries of reality and helping him figure out how to navigate them.

Women are not tools of affirmation for the emotional support of men.

As a black woman of color and gender, let me add that if your "solution" to trans suicide is just to make every person in the world pretend that men are women, you've failed.

That. Is NEVER. Going. To Happen.

Trans extremists are selling confused mentally-ill people on the idea that one day straight men will have sex with them and marry them because, goshdarnit, they're 100% women and it's their right to insist that everyone acknowledge this "fact."

And when this doesn't happen, they get more depressed and sometimes kill themselves.

So stop selling them on an absurd fantasy that straight men (or lesbians) are going to treat men with dicks-and-balls as if they're Real Women. We're not, they're not, and you are setting up mentally-ill people for a crushing disappointment they're not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle.

Only about 10% of men are willing (or eager) to pretend that men are women. We call this the "Jonah Goldberg Cohort."

Trans advocates are deliberately over-promising the results of "transitioning" and then turning around to the rest of us and telling us, "Well we already promised them they would be accepted without question as literal, real women, so now you have to make good on the promise we made or else they'll kill themselves out of remorse!"

Instead of demanding the rest of us make good on your absurd promise, how about you just stop making that absurd promise?

Maybe trans people wouldn't be so suicidal if you stopped setting them up for the massive fall.

Meanwhile, the world's loudest and crappiest bartender doesn't feel she's getting enough attention.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (311) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump: Nuke the Filibuster, Pass the CR

Around the country, air flights are facing 2-3 hour delays because air traffic controllers aren't being paid.

The heads of United and Delta demanded the Democrats pass the clean CR.

Delta and United Airlines are demanding that Democrats stop holding the government hostage and vote for the clean continuing resolution Republicans already passed, warning that the standoff is punishing federal workers and starting to rattle the economy. Speaking to reporters Thursday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby praised air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and FAA staff for keeping flights running under crushing pressure but said Democrats' inaction is pushing them to the brink. "They've minimized delays. Fewer than two percent of flights have been delayed so far because of air traffic control shortage," Kirby said. "They've done a great job, but it's putting stress on people. It's not fair to those people. It's also putting stress on the economy." Now at Day 30, Kirby said, the Democrat-led shutdown is beginning to show real economic fallout. "The first couple of weeks had no impact on the economy, but as every day goes by, the impacts start to grow," he said. "Airlines are a pretty good real-time indicator of the economy, and we're starting to see minor but steep booking impact. We put the whole economy at risk."

Kirby said he has no interest in Democrats' attempts to spin the fight into a healthcare debate, calling instead for Congress to "pass a clean CR" and hash out policy differences "behind closed doors, without putting American workers and the economy at risk." Delta issued a similar demand, urging lawmakers to "immediately pass a clean continuing resolution," adding that "missed paychecks only increase the stress on these essential workers, many of whom are already working mandatory overtime to keep our skies safe and secure."

The CBO estimates that the Democrats have already succeeded in shaving $14 billion out of the US economy due to the chaos they've caused.

Trump now says: Nuke the filibuster, and pass the CR with a simple majority.

President Trump is done letting Democrats hold the government hostage. On Thursday, he called on Senate Republicans to "play their Trump card" and invoke the nuclear option -- scrapping the filibuster and ending the month-long shutdown with a simple majority vote.

"It is now time for the Republicans to play their 'TRUMP CARD,' and go for what is called the Nuclear Option -- get rid of the filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!" Trump wrote in a fiery Truth Social post after returning from a five-day swing through Asia. He said world leaders kept asking how "the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America" and why Republicans allowed it to happen.

"Majority Leader John Thune, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, are doing a GREAT job," Trump said, "but the Democrats are Crazed Lunatics that have lost all sense of WISDOM and REALITY." He blamed the standoff on a "sick form" of Trump Derangement Syndrome -- the obsession, he argued, that's driving Democrats to damage the country rather than give his administration a win.

As expected, Thune is refusing to nuke the filibuster, because he believes, naively and insanely, that the Democrats will not themselves end the filibuster the moment it becomes useful for them to do so.

Politico:

Republicans are quickly tamping down President Donald Trump's call to eliminate the Senate filibuster as they try to keep pressure on Democrats to end the 31-day government shutdown.

GOP leaders believed Thursday they were on track to reopen agencies as soon as next week. Then Trump threw a fresh complication into their laps overnight when he revived calls for Republicans to invoke the "nuclear option" and eliminate the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation. Without it, Republican senators could reopen the government on their own.

But many GOP senators have vocally defended the filibuster, including Majority Leader John Thune, calling the 60-vote rule a fundamental feature of the Senate and one that works to conservatives' benefit in the long run.

Thune has defended the filibuster multiple times during the shutdown, calling it a "bad idea" to suggest eliminating it. "The 60-vote threshold has protected this country," he said earlier this month.

The Democrats have eliminated the use of the filibuster every single time the Republicans used it to block them. Republicans used it to block federal court nominations; Harry Reid nuked it.

It's crazy to think the Democrats would ever allow Republicans to pull their own shutdown stunt in the future. The GOP is always being taught lessons, but never, ever learns.

It might not matter. Sources say that Democrats plan on ending the stupid shutdown after election day. So shutting down the government is officially, admittedly just a base-stoking electioneering stunt.

Stephen Neukam
@stephen_neukam

NEWS -- There's a sense within the Senate Democratic caucus that next week will bring significant movement toward ending the government shutdown, multiple sources told Axios.

Likely after election day on Tuesday. Lawmakers have made progress on talks around packaging approps bills with a CR.

The major sticking point remains around ACA subsidies.

Dems know it's incredibly unlikely any extension passes the House.
Working group and a floor vote on ACA extension are potential offramps.

Some unrelated matters:

A Mexican senator says Trump esta dijando la verdad.

A prominent Mexican lawmaker has delivered a stunning rebuke of her country's leadership, agreeing with President Trump's long-standing claim that Mexico is effectively controlled by drug cartels. In a video message posted this week, Mexican Senator Lily Téllez declared, "He is not lying -- it's the truth, and the people of Mexico know it."

Téllez, a leading member of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), said that Trump's assessment "doesn't shame us as good, honest Mexicans -- it exposes the corrupt ruling class of MORENA," the leftist party led by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum. "Claudia, you don't represent the Mexican people," Téllez said bluntly. "You represent the MORENA Cartel. You lack any dignity."

The senator accused López Obrador and Sheinbaum of colluding with powerful drug syndicates to secure political power and then allowing them to expand their grip on the nation. "The cartel problem didn't begin with MORENA, but under them, it has exploded," she said. "They surrendered national sovereignty and absolute power to organized crime."

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (378) | Trackbacks (Suck)