Saturday Evening Movie Thread 05/25/2024 [TheJamesMadison]

—Open Blogger

Ishiro Honda

The Japanese Identity

Yes, I will get to Godzilla, I promise, but what easily interested me more about Honda was those early films before the kaiju reared its head out of the sea. This was the sort of stuff that Masaki Kobayashi cut his teeth on in his early career at Shochiku Studios. They're mostly accomplished, touching portraits of people in little love triangles and stuff. It crescendos with the last two films he made before Godzilla, Eagle of the Pacific and Farewell Rabaul.

What's special about them, especially when combined with the implied message in Godzilla, is that they are portraits of a defeated people. Eagle of the Pacific is a biopic about Admiral Yamamoto in the years leading up to the outbreak of WWII, especially around the debate of the Tripartite Pact, and his loyal service to the emperor through the fight with America despite his own personal resistance to the war on more practical grounds regarding industrial capacity. Combine that with the portrait of the central character in Farewell Rabaul, a Japanese naval pilot based in Papua New Guinea who comes to the realization that his "superior" training and "superior" equipment in the form of the Zero is nothing compared to the American pilot who first learned to fly 18 months prior.

These two central characters show the Japanese soldier as loyal to the emperor, personally knowledgeable of the unwinnable nature of the war, dedicated to fighting cleanly, and aware of the doom awaiting the nation. So, you know, probably something of a total fiction when applied to the average Japanese soldier.

And then you read between the lines of Godzilla. In the original film, Godzilla attacks twice (replicating the two nuclear attacks). The destruction eerily recalls the sight of entire cities on fire like the fire-bombing. He's awoken from his slumber by H-bomb testing. None of this is new from me. It's well-accepted and acknowledged that Godzilla is a nuclear-age warning. Where I seem to separate from others is in my interpretation of how the Japanese defeat Godzilla. Some may not recall, but the Japanese scientists actually develop a super-weapon called the Oxygen Destroyer and use it to kill Godzilla. Yes, Godzilla dies at the end. If you take the whole series as connected and flowing from one to the nest, the Godzilla we all know and love is actually the second who appears at the start of Godzilla Raids Again.

Anyway. The Oxygen Destroyer is developed by a reclusive Japanese scientist who refuses to share the secret of its creation with the world, using the only working prototype (and destroying his notes) to kill Godzilla once and for all. So, if Godzilla is commonly accepted as a nuclear age warning, are we allowed to interpret the solution to it? The solution is that the Japanese are smart enough to make an even bigger and more destructive weapon of mass destruction but have the self-control to die with the weapon, only using it one time out of necessity and never again. Combine that with the sanded over portrait of the Japanese people in the middle of a losing war in the previous two films, and you've got a very...glorified view of the Japanese people less than a decade after their leaders and many soldiers were convicted of war crimes at the Tokyo Trials.

Why focus on these three films? (As a side note, I think there's a fourth that falls into this WWII retrospective from Honda, Lovetide about the home-front experience, but it's one of those dozen I couldn't find.) Because the uniformity of the thematic content and the distance into his directing career indicate to me that this was Honda effectively at the height of his artistic powers within the Toho system. And, it's a portrait of a nationalist apologist afraid of nuclear power. If he hadn't been sucked into the kaiju vortex, would he have gotten more didactic? Impossible to say, but I suspect it might be the closest we have to who he was as an artist at his core. It should also be noted that Farewell Rabaul is easily my favorite of his films, would make a marvelous companion piece with John Ford's They Were Expendable, and is great.

Kaiju and Tsuburaya


So, Honda got trapped making science fiction films when it was obvious he wanted to make more. How did he do? Well, it's impossible to talk about Honda's body of work, especially his monster movies, without talking at decent length about Eiji Tsuburaya, Toho's chief special effects supervisor who has credits on every film with special effects Honda made from The Skin of the South (overseeing the late landslide effects) to All Monsters Attack, which is really just a credit out of respect since Tsuburaya had grown ill and was near death during the film's production. He spearheaded every advance in special effects of the era at Toho from the use of miniatures to what became known as suit-mation and the combination of those effects with real-life photography through compositing at increasingly complex scales. A lot of the appeal of these films, from Godzilla stomping to Rodan flying to Mothra covering Ghidorah with silk to trap him to Kumonga really looking like its legs actually support its weight, comes from Tsuburaya and his team (of whom I must note Sadamasa Arikawa who took over from Tsuburaya on day to day functions by the late-60s).

That being said, I want to take a bit to talk about believability. Precious little of these special effects are believable. I find them effective and entertaining, but that's not the same thing. For many people, though, it is. They must see giant monsters and believe them to be real. I do think, though, that there were tools at Tsuburaya's disposal at the time that he could have used to enhance the believability, and it all has to do with scale.

Essentially, Tsuburaya filmed the sequences like anyone might shoot two people fighting: with regular lenses at regular speeds from regular heights. Essentially, 40mm lenses at 24 frames per second at about chest height. If you're trying to sell giant monsters stomping as real, you don't film like that. You use wider lenses (10mm, I would guess), slower framerates (50-60 per second), and lower angles (building the sets on raised platforms so you can get the camera as low as possible). That makes the depth of field more accurately reflect things at that scale, the subjects move slower like they're much heavier, and tower over the audience. The only thing done with anything like consistency was the framerate, but it really wasn't consistent at all. Even within individual sequences, shots at completely different framerates will be right next to each other in the edit.

So, I enjoy the special effects. I find them fun. But, they're not realistic, and I think Tsuburaya had to tools to make them more realistic from 1954 on. I mean, building the set on a platform is not the most expensive thing in the world.

I should also note that Tsuburaya and Honda often butted heads about the silliness of the special effects, Tsuburaya pushing them sillier while Honda wanted them pulled back to more seriousness. The most potent example I've found is a miniature horse in War of the Gargantuas, obviously fake and on screen for only about a second. Tsuburaya reportedly loved it for its fakeness. Honda hated it for its fakeness. So, it's still on screen, but only for a moment. It is also interesting to note that after Tsuburaya's death, the special effects became generally darker and more serious and more believable.

Studio Man


One thing about film discourse that I kind of hate is the use of the word auteur. It's elitist gatekeeping most of the time I see it used. People use it to create this barrier between directors and their works that should be paid attention to and the rest of the dreck that is beneath them. I saw this once trying to take down a very popular film because the director hadn't made anything else good. It wasn't directed by an auteur, you see, so it couldn't be very good.

Ishiro Honda would not fit under that label, and it's true that he has less of an authorial stamp across his films than someone like a Kubrick who maintained nearly complete control over his films from the start. Honda really was a cog in a larger machine, negotiating between the assignments from his producer Tanaka while sharing responsibility with his special effects director for large chunks of most of his films. It makes it harder to pinpoint who he was as an artist because filmmaking is an artistic medium done by committee. However, I think there's still worth in trying to figure him out. Across all of his films (that I could track down...gosh darn it), I saw a talented filmmaker. I saw a man who knew how to frame shots consistently. I saw a filmmaker who wanted to tell more stories. I saw a filmmaker, when given the space, could tell stories well. I also saw a highly constrained filmmakers working against his own artistic interests to operate well within a studio system that pigeonholed him for decades.

When he left Toho after Toho ended its contract system, he went to television for about a decade before one final feature film (the last of the Godzilla films of the Showa Era) and essentially became Akira Kurosawa's assistant director in Kurosawa's final years, helping on Kagemusha, Ran, Dreams, and Madayayo, a key helping hand since Kurasawa was effectively blind by the time he made Ran.

So, Honda ended his career in much the same way that he spent most of it: as a supporting player in someone else's machine. He had spent so much time pushing aside his own creative impulses, and the man who had made more singular visions like Eagle of the Pacific or Farewell Rabaul was simply never going to come back. It's sad, I think. He could have been more than just monster movies. He was more than just monster movies. However, that's really his legacy, and it's pretty accurate. Heck, it's not like the monster movies were a drag. There was a lot of fun to be had. That's not nothing.

Movies of Today

Opening in Theaters:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
The Garfield Movie
Movies I Saw This Fortnight:

Dogora (Rating 3/4) Full Review "I think this is one of those Honda films that deserves something of a re-appraisal, but you apparently need to watch the Japanese version and also recognize that it's not really much of a monster movie." [The Criterion Channel]

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "I just have these niggling issues around how the monsters come together that keep popping up, especially in the runup to the big final fight." [The Criterion Channel]

Invasion of Astro-Monster (Rating 3/4) Full Review "This is just solid B-movie fun, and I had quite a good time with it." [The Criterion Channel]

Come Marry Me (Rating 3/4) Full Review "Combine that with Honda's bankable name, and this feels like a quick effort to make some easy money on Toho's part. That it's a lightly entertaining film on its own is just icing, I suppose. I do wish the finale played out a bit cleaner, though." [Archive.org]

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "So, it's manic and all over the place and thin with the character stuff. The excuses of bringing the monsters together is just as thin. However, the special effects are very good, and the whole embrace of a Bond villain aesthetic regarding the Red Bamboo layer is fun." [The Criterion Channel]

Destroy All Monsters (Rating 3/4) Full Review "If there was to never be another Godzilla movie, this would have been a good way to go out, giving the people what they came for." [The Criterion Channel]

Space Amoeba (Rating 3/4) Full Review "Really, I think this is underappreciated. It's really quite a good example of the kaiju genre that does its job efficiently and well." [The Criterion Channel]

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "Still, the stripped down approach to the monster stuff, the uniqueness of Hedorah, and the surprising brutality of how it all comes to a close is a lot to recommend. However, there's still the didactic messaging, the categorization section, and the overall confusing opening." [The Criterion Channel]

Contact

Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.

My next post will be on 6/15, and it will talk about...honestly, I have no idea yet.

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Posted by Open Blogger at 07:45 PM Comments

The Weekend Hobby Thread (5/18/24) Presented by TRex

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Welcome hobbyists. Do not adjust your interweb. A spin of the Ace of Spades “wheel of hobbies” has come up with wood carving and whittling.

Revealing shapes hidden in blocks of wood. Wood carvers use a wide variety of tools, such as knives, chisels, and saws. Wood carving is different than whittling. Whittling purists use only a hand-held tool -primarily a very sharp knife.

Do you work with wood? Are you a carver or a whittler? Do you have favorite projects? Favorite tools?

Favorite woods? Do you have no talent or aptitude but appreciate the woodland labor of others?

Have you traveled to places known for wood working? Come forth with your stories of wood carving and whittling.

As usual, keep this thread limited to hobbies. Politics and current events can wait for other threads.

Beware of falling knives.

Top photo:
The Erzgebirge region of eastern Germany is south of Dresden and tucked against the Czech border. The Ore Mountains were known for tin and silver mining. With ample softwood forests, the miners whittled and carved wood. When the mines ran dry, wood crafts became a vocation rather than a hobby. Nutcrackers were born in this region.

The small town of Seiffen is the epicenter. Workshops turn out a wide variety of decorations, toys, creches, and home goods. One is the Spanbaum – also known as shaved trees, chip trees, carved trees and curled trees. See how they’re made:

You may know the Bavarian town of Oberammergau for the passion play, put on every ten years.

The village is also very well known for centuries of wood carving.

The carving craft has been at home in the region for over 500 years, and many sources cite the monasteries in the surrounding area as the origin of the carving art.
Around 1520, an outstanding Herrgotts carver in Oberammergau was first mentioned by a chronicler in the nearby Ettal monastery. In 1563, the Oberammergau carvers received their own craft regulations from the abbot of the monastery.

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Are you a beginner in the world of whittling? Doug Linker’s Youtube channel has many videos on whittling projects and skills. He has a series specifically on 1X1 blocks and says carving Easter Island heads is a good way to get started:

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One flavor of whittling is whimsy. These are fun, small-scale sculptures with movement.

Ball in a box:

Chain (with a little power tool help):

Meme Interlude

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Spoon carving has many, many forms. If you can imagine it, it can be carved. Some focus more on carving the entire spoon, while others focus on decorating the handles.

8 Things Efficient Spoon Carvers Do

5 Mistakes Beginner Spoon Carvers Make

The Scandinavian art of Kolrosing – tattooing wood. Kolrosing is often used to decorate spoon handles, but can be applied to anything with a wooden handle.

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Harley Refsal is an internationally recognized figure carver, specializing in Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving. His biography is remarkable and he’s taught thousands of carvers. Profile here:

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“TRex, what about carving wood with chainsaws?” More power?!! Got ya covered. Video from the 2022 US Open Chainsaw Carving Championship:

Chisels, gouges and other similar tools all require handles. Can you make custom handles to fit your taste and comfort? Yes, you can. There are numerous websites and videos on this topic, but this video got chosen for the thread due to the amazing collection of chisels and storage cabinet:

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Thanks much to JTB for the inspiration and brainstorming. The horde has many talents, interests, and experiences. If woodworking isn’t your thing and you can’t find something in the content that resonates with you, hijack the thread for your hobbying as you see fit. We’ll feature a different hobby next time around.

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TRex deserves a big thank you for stepping up to help the Weekend Hobby Thread to move forward while Mr. JJ Sefton and I are on the Injured Reserve list. If you have something relating to hobbies, projects, Jenkins Green Acrylic paint, 20/0 fan brushes, #6 Filbert brushes please forward to petmorons at gmail dot com.

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Ace of Spades Pet Thread, May 25

—K.T.

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

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Hrothgar:

Great post by tcn last night. Best analysis of the human-pet relationship I have seen!

tcn in AK:

Every one believes their dog is the best, and everyone is right.

Some pets become the best over a little time . . . .

Oh, My Love

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Hummingbird Pool Party

Hi KT, Here's a hummingbird pool party. I SO wish I had something like this! - Miley

Looks fun!

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Meet The PetMorons

Update from the ranch:

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The alpaca got sheared today. We no longer have vanilla and chocolate marshmallows, we now have Q-tips!

And a third horse, Rusty

Wandering Neurons.

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Madison is much improved and going home 1900 hours 5/24/24. Thanks for prayers. Eromero

Great news!

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By-Tor's garden helper (noted in the Gardening Thread) is Ruger. You can tell that he is an attentive helper.

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This picture is the one from the Rescue Organization that was on their website. He was just over 1 year old.

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Dear Ace of Spade Pet Morons,

Some time ago I emailed you with a tribute to my prior dog, Astro, sent to the Pet Thread on October 23,2021. You published it, thank you!

So here I am with a tribute to my present dog, Buzz. He just celebrated his 10th Birthday, and is doing great. I got him from a rescue organization and it's been an amazing ride with him. He's a German Shepherd mix, and is a sweet dog that loves people and has an unusual look. He gets attention all the time, while people mostly ignore me, which is as it should be.

I thought it was time for him to be part of the AoS Pet Thread.

QuietOneinNYC

Note - I'm no longer in NYC or even NY State. Things are better. Even for him.

Buzz does have an unusual appearance. He looks like a great dog! Happy Birthday, Buzz!

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With Gunner

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In winter sun

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Guarding the house from moose

Hello, Matt from Alaska here. Gunner (the Aussie) has been here before but was temporarily gone due to a separation. BB (the black one) is an Alaskan Husky who some idiot left at the shelter! can you believe? She's a great dog and only mildly jealous when Gunner visits with us. I've got her to mildly tolerate when moose are in the yard.

So glad that you have BB!

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What a wonderful collection of pet stories today. Thank you for sharing your pets with us.

If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:

petmorons at protonmail dot com

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Until next Saturday, have a great week!

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If you start feeling nostalgic, here a link to last week's Pet Thread, the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, May 11 Some special PetMoron stories and photos there.

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

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Gardening and Adventure Thread, May 25

—K.T.

Happy May! The Horde is coming through with some great photos and information now that almost everyone is through with winter.

First up, the dramatic opening of a night-blooming cactus:

At night opening up . . . Fully open in the morning

Nan in AZ

What gorgeous photos!

Close up of the center

Fascinating flower structure! We see some accomplished photography here on the Gardening Thread sometimes.

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Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From a few days ago:

Summer is almost here , as evidenced by the first fried green tomato sandwich of the season.

By-Tor

For fried green tomatoes, you pick tomatoes while they are really green. They look tasty, but don't eat them raw. The variety 'Lemon Boy Hybrid' is recommended by some people.

There are tomatoes that are green when ripe. They are not picked ripe for green fried tomatoes.

How many in The Horde have had a Green Fried Tomato Sandwich? How do you prefer to make them?

We had someone steal green tomatoes from our plants one year. Think it was for a traditional Mexican dish rather than for sandwiches, though.

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Container garden coming along. This is today's haul. Mint and basil also doing well. And I had a helper, which is nice.

See today's Pet Thread for the helper.

I see some peppers among the tomatoes there. What would you do with a harvest like this?

These tomato plants are doing very well, considering that the containers are relatively small for tomato plants. Planting mix may make a difference.

Maybe CBD can take some notes. Basil goes well with home-grown tomatoes.

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Community Landscaping

PG&E tree work

NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker here.

This is hilarious because we live in the woods and this picture is on our property away from anyone even seeing this except us. PG&E subcontractors come out periodically to clear small trees and brush away from poles and power lines. But this is the first time they've ever set up a sign and cones . . . . in the front area of our house!

No one can even see them or get here except for our long driveway, lol!

The sign says, "Tree work ahead". Hahahaaa!

Must . . follow . . rules.

I'm glad you didn't have to do that landscaping.

They've been in our neighborhood, too. At least to warn people that they will be topping trees near power lines. They didn't show up when they said they would, though.

Our electric bill certainly showed up. The County also placed some insect traps on some of our stone fruit trees to monitor for invasive insects.

*** Somehow, this morning I missed this notice of military appreciation today that she also sent in. A trio of events! Nice for Memorial Day Weekend if you are in Northern California.

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Home Landscaping

Found the sniper. . .

Teresa in Fort Worth

Stealthy! Yet charming.

Also wanted to send a picture of my Clematis Jackmanii. When the landscape guys came through in the fall to do some clean-up, they got rid of all of the ivy that was growing up the fence, and the Clematis was also taken out (even though I asked them not to).

Thankfully, it came back this year, even fuller and lusher than last year!

Personally, I am a fan of the ivy in that part of the yard - we have some mesh wiring attached to the fence and it makes a nice vertical display where nothing else will grow. It dies back in the winter, so we don't really have to worry about it rotting the fence.

Good to know about the deciduous ivy. In parts of California, evergreen ivy is planted as a tall groundcover in some places. It attracts roof rats.

Glad your clematis survived. It is lovely.

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Adventure

Finding a leprechaun at Silly Mountain

Tiny folk are everywhere.

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Gardens of The Horde

Neal in Israel has sent in an update on spring plants. We are only including a few today. More later.

Hibiscus: Not really a sign of spring, but looking stronger than previous thanks to fertilization and spring weather. Photo 1 with a patriotic background in honor of Independence Day.

Best regards,

Neal

The Independence Day reminder fits in with our Memorial Day Weekend post, I think.

More information on Neal's lobelia and violas later. I think they set off the photo above nicely.

And the Amaryllis which made it through the winter look great, too. More later.

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Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden at g mail dot com

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

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Previous Gardening Thread

What has changed since our last post? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, May 11. It was the day before Mother's Day.

Wondering if anyone tried drowning slugs or snails in beer.

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

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It's Memorial Day Weekend!

—K.T.

Good Morning! Do you have plans for the Memorial Day Weekend? There's still time to make some plans.

This is not the Gardening Thread, but partly due to an unusual occurrence last week and partly due to Spring, we have extra flower photos from The Horde, including Red, White and Blue flowers from Don in Kansas, who has been busy with his camera. Aren't they gorgeous?

Rose 'Darlow's Enigma'

Phacelia campanularia

Powerline has one of their fleeting links up to this piece, Reflections on Memorial Day, Mackubin Owens

In 1998, I was invited to deliver the Memorial Day address at Newport City Hall. In my address, I sought to recur to the true meaning of the holiday. Memorial Day, I said, had unfortunately come to signify little more than another three-day weekend, which had obscured even the vestiges of its intended meaning: a solemn time, serving both as catharsis for those who fought and survived, and to ensure that those who followed would not forget the sacrifice of those who died that the American Republic and the principles that sustain it, might live.

Americans, I contended, had forgotten how to honor their war heroes and to remember their war dead. As my friend and fellow Marine, "Bing" West observed several years ago in his remarkable book about Fallujah, No True Glory, stories of soldierly courage deserve "to be recorded and read by the next generation. Unsung, the noblest deed will die."

I noted that what we now call Memorial Day was established by General John A. Logan's "General Order No. 11" of the Grand Army of the Republic dated 5 May, 1868. This order reads in part: "The 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers and otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land." Logan's order served to ratify a practice that was already widespread, both in the North and the South, in the years immediately following the Civil War.

. . . The inconsolable pain and grief of the mother of my fallen Marine with whom I corresponded put me in mind of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Epitaphs of the War, verse IV, "An Only Son": "I have slain none but my mother, She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me." Kipling too, lost his only son in World War I.

But as Oliver Wendell Holmes said in his Memorial Day address of 1884,"[G]rief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death -- of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope and will."

So by all means, have that burger this weekend. Enjoy the barbeque. Go to the beach. But also take some time to watch Taking Chance and remember to honor those who died to make your weekend possible.

The entire piece is worth reading and considering during this weekend, especially if you have young people around.

Memorial Day Weekend Events

Are there still events commemorating Memorial Day in your area? The Central Valley of California is one area where such community events are still observed. Flags, ceremonies, concerts . . .

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Random Observations

Ace included a tweet from Nellie Bowles in his Great Withering of Humankind post yesterday (which some people are bookmarking for later consideration).

Nellie Bowles is not exactly a conservative, but she has been moving toward the right. Not totally, for sure.

David Mikics wrote in Tablet:

Good progressives are tossing the heady days of wine and wokeness down the memory hole. Lucky for us, there was a witness.

Remember the heady days of 2020? Progressives trained by the richest universities in the land suddenly had the chance to remake America in their image, the way they had always dreamed of doing. The result was so obvious and crushing a failure that one is no longer supposed to talk about it.

Four years later, the power elite have discovered that their cosplay revolution is seen as merely ridiculous. Minority groups don't want the new names that have been issued to them. Straight people prefer not to be called cisgender, and gay people don't like being submerged in a tide of heterosexuals who style themselves queer. Even The New York Times, that high conclave of official euphemisms, has begun to soft-pedal chilling locutions like "gender-affirming care for minors," instead referring honestly to puberty blockers and body-altering surgery.

Nellie Bowles' Morning After the Revolution is a grand tour through the craziness that followed the killing of George Floyd and continues to this day, despite the majority of Americans shaking their heads in bewilderment. Bowles, a former Times reporter, started out as a progressive seeker, curious and hopeful about the new thinking, and she is still seeking solutions to racism, income inequality, and attacks on women's rights. But she also sees the absurdity of much of what passed for progressivism, yet was actually narcissistic, neo-racialist, and aggressively inhumane.

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Nellie Bowles has a sense of the ironic:

But to Western elites, anyone who hates us a lot is. . . kind of hot right now. If he's chanted Death to America, we're into him. If he kills thousands of dissidents as part of a fundamentalist religious revival, that's him really putting ancient indigenous values into practice.

The brilliant and always hilarious @NellieBowles torches Ibrahim Raisi and the useful idiots in the media, the UN, and elsewhere in the Western elite who despise America and defend any mass murdering sadist who also hates America. @TheFP pic.twitter.com/mud5LA5rZ4

— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) May 24, 2024

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How's that old Patriarchy doing in the USA?

Steven Hayward:

It is dogma among radical feminists and the identity politics brigades that America is in the oppressive grip of The Patriarchy. It would seem this is obsolete information (I know, facts have nothing to do with anything--"facts" are an oppressive white male construct, like "objectivity"). From our irrepressible pal Mark Perry:

Check out the responses at the link.

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Music

God Bless America, Kate Smith

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America the Beautiful

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Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Serving your mid-day open thread needs

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You may remember that after last week's thread, Preparing for the Unexpected, was posted, the site went down. Unexpectedly!

When the site came back up, Tom Servo said,

I waited all day to make some incredibly pithy and insightful comment on this thread, but now I forgot what it was. It was really good, though.

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

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The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Good morning Horde. It's the start of the summer season. For those of you who prayed for a positive surgery and outcome, "Thank you". This is the first thread of mine since surgery where I sat at the Kitchen table to draft it. This past week's threads were written in bed with my leg propped and iced accordingly. I'm feeling better.

Once again today's Mystery Click was suggested by Hadrian the Seventh. Thanks H7th.

Let us clean up some other housekeeping matters. (Rulz for those of you in Viola, WI)

1) This is and probably will always be an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate away the morning.
2) Be nice to one another even the trolls. We have ways to deal with them.
3) Think about the ER wait time before you run with sharp objects.
4) Have a great weekend!
5) Don't forget to give Annie a big shout out for her work to compile our prayer list week in and week out. Thank you Annie.

Daily Tech News 25 May 2024

—Pixy Misa

• Google is frantically adding filters to its AI search to remove the very stupidest answers. (The Verge)
  
  So it will no longer tell you to put glue on pizza or eat at least one small rock per day but answers that are merely obviously wrong will get through just fine.
  
  
  
• A udm=14 a day keeps the insanity at bay. (Ars Technica)
  
  Adding &udm=14 to the end of a Google search URL turns off the AI response.
  
  For now.

Clowns To The Left Of Me, ONTs To The Right

—WeirdDave

Welcome friends, to Friday meme night. I'd like to ask for a minute of silence before we get started. Kabuso, the dog who became a meme, passed away peacefully in her sleep last night. RIP Doge.

Fido Friday: Fren blocks out bad noise

pic.twitter.com/PDEOEc9OGS

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 25, 2024

Time to feel old

Still some bugs in the AI

Deconstructing Disney

pic.twitter.com/CuIPVfDfod

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 25, 2024

Fame! I'm gonna live forever!

Crooks

Old school baseball

pic.twitter.com/o2qVlmRsLp

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 25, 2024

On humiliation

Baby daddy

How to own an arena

pic.twitter.com/dQcoJpmUzi

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 24, 2024

Nostradamus was posting at 4Chan eleven years ago

Nosmo King was taken?

The organist is kind of a dick

pic.twitter.com/yFR6PvzoMn

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 24, 2024

Do steam locomotives dream of coal fired sheep?

I'm in this meme and I don't like it

Cop brutally attacks innocent young girl

pic.twitter.com/DymPxmpIQm

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 24, 2024

Protip: Make sure to use the right emoji

Ripped from yesterday's headlines

I get asked all the time why some insurance companies won't insure guys who do tree work

pic.twitter.com/JQSN2ZN3wy

— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) May 24, 2024

Tut, tut. Looks like rain

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by prison babes:

Close it up

Never Leave a Dog Behind Cafe

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Tokyo backstreet
@_7yk7_

Radio-controlled car stunt exhibition.

Dog takes itself for a walk.

Some fun parachuting video.

Cat seizes and pounces an innocent dog.

Dog gets vengeance on a cat.

Happy adopted dog. A very happy adopted dog.

Rafting over a waterfall.

Knucklehead bears.

The advanced version of faking the throw.

Vertigo trigger warning.

A service dog gets to meet his hero, Pluto. (He's got a Pluto stuffed toy in his mouth.)

This is why I stick to a Vespa.

River otter being adorable (and also evil).

Cute dog. Oh wait it's a bat.

Huskies making beautiful music.

A man buys a wading pool for his husky. She doesn't know what to make of it, but she sure is excited about it!

A family of tigers out for a stroll.

Cute little farmer boy.

Steve Inman:

Everyone hates TikTokers.

Instant karma for a highway-blocker.

Absolute classic video of clearing the street of a Stinkie.

Catching a dreg keying your car.

Graphic: A guy stabs another guy, and then stalks him, attempting to stab him more. But the injured man then starts fighting back. Tough beginning, beautiful ending.

Just a lot of violence. I wanted to link this just because of his new nicknames for the taser: "Edison Medicine" and "Zeus Juice."

The Week In Woke

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Everything is racist including the bees and the fleas:

CBS copes and seethes about the diverse turnout at the Trump rally.

The WPATH Tapes: audio reveals doctors scheming to "treat" serious mental health problems with... hormone treatments.

Several top doctors advocated for patients, including children, to remain on hormone treatments despite having serious mental health issues, according to footage from a 2022 conference exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an international organization that creates medical guidelines for transgender procedures, hosted an educational series in September 2022 in Montreal, Canada. The DCNF obtained roughly 30 hours of video recordings from the 2022 conference through a public records request.

During one recorded session, Dr. Chris Booth, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia, said that psychotic symptoms should not necessarily prevent a patient from being on hormone therapy. He also discussed dealing with psychiatrists who want to end hormone treatments for patients undergoing psychotic episodes.

Psychosis is a break from reality. So this is a serious mental episode which may involve crazy paranoia, hallucinations, or a false understanding of the reality around oneself.

And they're like -- don't stop the cross-sex hormones! Full speed ahead! We'll get through this psychological storm by running the engines at 150%!

"I've had trans masculine individuals who've come in [to the hospital] with psychotic symptoms, and then the treating psychiatrist wants to stop their hormones" over concerns these drugs were exacerbating the patients' mental health problems, Booth said. "I try to explain to them that having them resume menses would likely be a much greater detriment than having them remain on their hormone therapy."

Resuming your natural menstrual periods is a worse outcome than a psychotic break!

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), people suffering from psychosis "typically experience delusions (false beliefs, for example, that people on television are sending them special messages or that others are trying to hurt them) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that others do not, such as hearing voices telling them to do something or criticizing them)."

The NIH also says psychosis "may be a symptom of a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression" and often begins in a person's late teens to mid-20s.

...

In a separate panel session, Dr. Daniel Metzger, a pediatric endocrinologist at British Columbia Children's Hospital and WPATH member, explained how he had several schizophrenic patients who said they felt like testosterone treatments made their psychosis "a little bit worse."

"I have had a few kids with schizophrenia who do notice that if they push their testosterone too much that it seems to them that it makes things a little bit worse," Metzger said. "So, the patients who have schizophrenia are doing well on their meds. So, they will sometimes moderate their dose a little bit just to keep the voices down or whatever the bad symptom is."

Much more at the link, unfortunately.

A nursery school got a $25,000 grant, for "racial healing," which is just like real healing except totally bullshit. You'll never guess where almost all the money went. Actually, you probably already have. Almost all the "racial healing" money just went to a DEI grifter.

Most of a state "racial healing" grant will be spent on a "diversity, equity, and inclusion" consultant for Elmhurst University's nursing school, according to documents shared with The College Fix.

The Healing Illinois grant comes from the Illinois Department of Human Services and YWCA Northwestern Illinois, according to the grant acceptance letter. The goal is to fund projects supporting "racial healing" and "racial equity."

As The Fix previously reported, the Illinois government plans to spend up to $4.5 million on "anti-racism" and "racial healing" grants like the one to Elmhurst. The university received $25,000 through the program in March to "ensure its Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) curriculum fully integrates diversity, equity and inclusion concepts."

Of that total, $17,000 will be used to hire an outside consultant, while the remaining $8,000 will be spent on faculty stipends for curriculum work, according to the university's grant application, obtained by Do No Harm and shared with The Fix.

Laura Morgan, chief of staff at Do No Harm, which opposes DEI in healthcare, voiced concerns about the money being spent largely on an outside consultant since the university already has a vice president of equity and inclusion.

You can never have too much money being wasted on shiftless DEI layabouts.

Oh no! A Trans Hero won a race against girls and in fact demolished the girls' record in the race, but wasn't not celebrated for xis heroism, but booed by people who thought he was a man cheating to win a race! This is terrible! I sure hope we don't see anymore of this despicable booing for male cheaters.

A female golfer is speaking out against a male cheater and interloper in her sport.

Unfortunately, she's speaking out... anonymously.

Ladies, please find your balls. The men invading your sport certainly know where theirs are.

Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson has a legitimate chance to compete in this month's U.S. Women's Open after earning the first alternate spot at a qualifying tournament earlier this month. One woman forced to compete against the biological male in that event has elected to speak out about the ridiculous situation.

...

One of the 55 women Davidson beat in the qualifier recalled one specific moment that stood out to her during the event.

"Best part was when he/him/she/her/it/the holed out [from] 40 feet off the green and goes 'fu-k yeah' with the lowest male tone I heard all day," the female player, who requested anonymity out of concern over repercussions for speaking out, said via direct messages. "Everyone was in shock and not a single person clapped."

Oh no! More non-clapping for the SHEroes Who Must Always be Applauded! Democracy is in peril!

Scrabble is dumbing the game down to appeal to nearly-nonverbal feral Gen Zers.

For the first time in 75 years, Mattel is making a major change to the iconic board game Scrabble -- and touting a "No More Scoring" gameplay option.

The new launch is a double-sided version of the famous board game -- one side with the original game for those who want to stick to the long-time traditional version, and one side with a "less competitive" version to appeal to Gen Z gamers.

The flip side of the classic game, called Scrabble Together, will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system, be quicker to play and allow people to play in teams.

"The makers of Scrabble found that younger people, Gen Z people, don't quite like the competitive nature of Scrabble," Gyles Brandreth, who co-hosts the language podcast Something Rhymes With Purple, told BBC Radio 4 Today. "They want a game where you can simply enjoy language, words, being together and having fun creating words."

Scrabble Together is marketed for those who find the classic game to be intimidating or for people who have ever thought "word games aren't for me."

I've got an idea: Just print the words directly on the board to save the GenZers some effort. But keep the words short. "Moo" and "moon" and "dog" are a safe bet. Otherwise these genderf*cked little morons will attempt to Challenge the board.

However, some naysayers objected to the changes, calling it "Scrabble for Snowflakes" and "Woke Scrabble" on X.

Oh no! That's an accurate read of reality, and therefore, Illegal.

Last week, the NYT lowered itself to interview Hillary Cass, who told them that the U.S. is out-of-date on "gender therapy" science.

It's not science, it's cult doctrine.

The National Health Service asked Dr. Cass, who had never treated children with gender dysphoria but had served as the president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, to independently evaluate how the agency should proceed.

Nice little insinuation -- only doctors taking money directly in the Big Chop industry are qualified to evaluate the science -- or non-science -- propping up the grift.

Over the next four years, Dr. Cass commissioned systematic reviews of scientific studies on youth gender treatments and international guidelines of care. She also met with young patients and their families, transgender adults, people who had detransitioned, advocacy groups and clinicians.

Her final report, published last month, concluded that the evidence supporting the use of puberty-blocking drugs and other hormonal medications in adolescents was "remarkably weak." On her recommendation, the N.H.S. will no longer prescribe puberty blockers outside of clinical trials. Dr. Cass also recommended that testosterone and estrogen, which allow young people to develop the physical characteristics of the opposite sex, be prescribed with "extreme caution."

Dr. Cass's findings are in line with several European countries that have limited the treatments after scientific reviews. But in America, where nearly two dozen states have banned the care outright, medical groups have endorsed the treatments as evidence-based and necessary.

The American Academy of Pediatrics declined to comment on Dr. Cass's specific findings, and condemned the state bans. "Politicians have inserted themselves into the exam room, which is dangerous for both physicians and for families," Dr. Ben Hoffman, the organization's president, said.

LOL. Yes, she's the politician. You lunatic Pray the Gay to Stay ideologues pushing for children to get mutilated are just "caregivers."

What are your top takeaways from the report?

The most important concern for me is just how poor the evidence base is in this area. Some people have questioned, "Did we set a higher bar for this group of young people?" We absolutely didn't. The real problem is that the evidence is very weak compared to many other areas of pediatric practice.

The second big takeaway for me is that we have to stop just seeing these young people through the lens of their gender and see them as whole people, and address the much broader range of challenges that they have, sometimes with their mental health, sometimes with undiagnosed neurodiversity. It's really about helping them to thrive, not just saying "How do we address the gender?" in isolation.

In other words: Stop pretending that mentally insane people are not mentally insane. Deal with the mental insanity. Don't just give puberty blockers to a disturbed child just because she saw thirty TikToks telling her they would cure all of her untreated psychological problems.

The most common criticism directed at your review is that it was in some way rigged because of the lack of randomized controlled trials, which compare two treatments or a treatment and a placebo, in this field. That, from the get-go, you knew you would find that there was low-quality evidence.

People were worried that we threw out anything that wasn't a randomized controlled trial, which is the gold standard for study design. We didn't, actually.

There weren't any randomized controlled trials, but we still included about 58 percent of the studies that were identified, the ones that were high quality or moderate quality. The kinds of studies that aren't R.C.T.s can give us some really good information, but they have to be well-conducted. The weakness was many were very poorly conducted.

There's something I would like to say about the perception that this was rigged, as you say. We were really clear that this review was not about defining what trans means, negating anybody's experiences or rolling back health care.

There are young people who absolutely benefit from a medical pathway, and we need to make sure that those young people have access -- under a research protocol, because we need to improve the research -- but not assume that that's the right pathway for everyone.

Heresy! Everyone should be at least gay, and preferably trans! Trans is the "no-backsies" form of gayness!

Another criticism is that this field is being held to a higher standard than others, or being exceptionalized in some way. There are other areas of medicine, particularly in pediatrics, where doctors practice without high-quality evidence.

The University of York, which is kind of the home of systematic reviews, one of the key organizations that does them in this country, found that evidence in this field was strikingly lower than other areas -- even in pediatrics.

I can't think of any other situation where we give life-altering treatments and don't have enough understanding about what's happening to those young people in adulthood....

In your report, you are also concerned about the rapid increase in numbers of teens who have sought out gender care over the last 10 years, most of whom were female at birth. I often hear two different explanations. On the one hand, there's a positive story about social acceptance: that there have always been this many trans people, and kids today just feel freer to express who they are. The other story is a more fearful one: that this is a 'contagion' driven in large part by social media. How do you think about it?

There's always two views because it's never a simple answer. And probably elements of both of those things apply.

It doesn't really make sense to have such a dramatic increase in numbers that has been exponential. This has happened in a really narrow time frame across the world. Social acceptance just doesn't happen that way, so dramatically. So that doesn't make sense as the full answer.

But equally, those who say this is just social contagion are also not taking account of how complex and nuanced this is.

The people who say this is mostly a social contagion are the ones who aren't viewing this with enough nuance??!!

Oh well, she's trying to gently prod the insane towards sanity.

TIME Magazine reports that Governor Ron DeSantis made it more difficult for a man to get an abortion.

Bro do you even hear the stupid shit that's turdling out of your mouth?

What Is Causing the Great Withering of Humankind?

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The human species is electing for voluntary self-extinction, just like the anti-human left demands.

Fertility rates have fallen way below replacement level throughout the entire industrialized world, and this is starting to cause major problems all over the globe. Aging populations are counting on younger generations to take care of them as they get older, but younger generations are not nearly large enough to accomplish that task. Meanwhile, there aren't enough qualified young workers in many fields to replace the expertise of older workers that are now retiring. Sadly, this is just the beginning. As I discuss in my new book entitled "Chaos", if fertility rates continue to drop we could potentially be facing an unprecedented global population collapse in the decades ahead. This has become so evident that even the mainstream media is starting to do stories about this. In fact, an economist that was just interviewed by the Wall Street Journal is warning that "demographic winter is coming"...

Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation. The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world's superpowers.

In high-income nations, fertility fell below replacement in the 1970s, and took a leg down during the pandemic. It's dropping in developing countries, too. India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement.

"The demographic winter is coming," said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, an economist specializing in demographics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Here in the United States, if we want to maintain a stable population we need the fertility rate to be at 2.1 or above.

Unfortunately, our fertility rate dropped to just 1.62 last year, which was an all-time record low...

In the U.S., a short-lived pandemic baby boomlet has reversed. The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 last year, according to provisional government figures, the lowest on record.

Had fertility stayed near 2.1, where it stood in 2007, the U.S. would have welcomed an estimated 10.6 million more babies since, according to Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

Our native-born population has been in decline for quite some time.

The only reason why the U.S. population as a whole has not been shrinking is because of the tremendous amount of immigration that has been happening.

But even though it is not shrinking, the U.S. population has been rapidly getting older, and it is being projected that just six years from now seniors will actually outnumber children for the first time in our entire history...

He recounts various other grim milestones of human decline, and then asks what's causing this.

As I have warned my readers for many years, sperm counts have dropped to catastrophically low levels all over the planet.

If sperm counts continue to decline at the rate they have been, eventually most males will be infertile.

Infertility is also at frightening levels among our young women. I am sure that most of you know couples that desperately want to have children but have been unable to do so.

Meanwhile, our culture has become rabidly anti-child and rabidly anti-family, and as a result there are vast hordes of young people that have decided that they never want to be parents.

...

Humanity has become incredibly selfish and self-centered, and as a result we have stopped caring about the future.

All throughout human history, successful societies have always greatly valued marriage, family and children.

But now we have embraced "new values", and we are rapidly destroying the bright future that we could have had.

Coincidentally, my friend Dave Reaboi suggested the video linked below, which may offer insight into what's going on with the human population.

An ethnologist named John Calhoun sought to study the effects of "utopia" on rodents -- from 1958 to 1962, he experimented on rats, and then from 1968 to 1972 he experimented on rats. These were long experiments, charting the rise and fall of populations over many generations.

His "mouse utopia" (called "universe 25") had space for over three thousand mice, plenty of food for all, plenty of fresh water for all. The habitat was cleaned daily to make sure that the mice lived in clean and relative disease-free conditions. Obviously there were no predators.

The mouse colony increased rapidly in numbers -- at first. After Phase A, the introductory phase, the mice began doubling in population every 55 days in what Calhoun called Phase B.

In Phase C, the population growth slowed drastically, doubling every 315 days. Male mice grew frustrated at constant challenge from other male mice, and many gave up. Many females began living as hermits, nesting in high places and never interacting with other mice.

He also observed what he called "autistic" behavior in the mice. And this was before the word "autistic" was thrown around willy-nilly.

From his paper: He developed a term called "behavioral sink" to describe the fall of the mice.

Many [female rats] were unable to carry the pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption.

The common source of these disturbances became most dramatically apparent in the populations of our first series of three experiments, in which we observed the development of what we called a behavioral sink. The animals would crowd together in greatest number in one of the four interconnecting pens in which the colony was maintained. As many as 60 of the 80 rats in each experimental population would assemble in one pen during periods of feeding. Individual rats would rarely eat except in the company of other rats. As a result extreme population densities developed in the pen adopted for eating, leaving the others with sparse populations.

In the experiments in which the behavioral sink developed, infant mortality ran as high as 96 percent among the most disoriented groups in the population.

In Phase D, which Calhoun called "the Death Phase," more and more mice began becoming asexual or homosexual. Fertility dropped even among the mice who were still interested in sex. There was much more violence among the mice, including cannibalism and even females killing and eating their own young.

A strange phenomenon was observed in Phase D -- a new caste of male mice called "the beautiful ones" showed no interest in mating with females, and also no interest in fighting other males for the right to mate with females. He called them "the beautiful ones" because their only interest, apart from eating and sleeping, was grooming their own fur.

Some mice began antisocial super-predators -- attacking other mice, biting them and marking them and maiming those mice to make them physically identifiable as "outcasts."

Calhoun said the mice died two deaths -- first of their spirit, then their physical bodies withered.

Eventually all the mice died. He has various theories about why this happened. Maybe it was just a consequence of the stress of overpopulation. The mice's needs were all cared for, but maybe the stress of bumping into so many mice throughout the day changed their behavior.

This was certainly the conclusion seized upon by Malthusians in the 1970s, who began demanding population control to keep the earth from going the way of "universe 25."

Calhoun also speculated that young mice were born into a world in which all the usual social functions (leadership, second-in-command, etc.) were all occupied and, having no place to aspire to in the hierarchy, either checked out of "mouse society" altogether, or else became aggressively antisocial mice.

Another possibility, discussed by the video below, is that external pressures force a pattern of behavior that humans have wound up calling "morality" on a population, and when those pressures are removed, and this pattern of behavior called "morality" is no longer a useful survival skill, a population sinks into degeneracy, conflict, and self-imposed extinction.

Alarming stuff. It's pretty hard not to read that and think, "Oh, we're in Phase C and running fast towards Phase Death."

You know I'm always looking to blame crap on the internet. I'm going to offer my own speculation that while we have not hit (outside of major cities) levels of overpopulation that would case mass insanity, we have created virtual overpopulation via the internet.

In universe 25, the mice had all the food and water they wanted. They even had enough space for over 3000 mice (the population grew to only 2,200 before stagnation and then die-off). So while the mice had enough room to live, they may have been stressed by all the disagreeable interactions they had with so many mice in a day.

Most people, in their real lives, will only have negative interactions with people maybe 10 or 15 times a week. And those will mostly be with bosses and coworkers and family members. Rare will be confrontations with strangers.

But social media gives us the opportunity for 20 or 30 negative interactions with strangers per day.

So maybe humanity, while not in actual overpopulation mode, feels the stress of virtual overpopulation, and reacts like the mice in the "mouse utopia."

I guess that is the most optimistic assessment, because it suggests a relatively easy fix.

The video's pretty depressing so maybe save it for later and watch it Sunday evening. Mondays are always down days anyway.

The Science (TM) is Infallible!
Plus: GAINZZZ

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Government "science" is made by the best and brightest.

If you missed it, new studies seem to prove that the "crazy conspiracy theorists" who said that fluordizing America's water supply was a bad idea were (are) right -- fluoride is linked to behavioral problems in children, and to behaviors similar to autism.

Fluoride. Autism. Linked.

The case for putting fluoride in water has always seemed particularly weak to me, not because there is no evidence that fluoride can strengthen teeth but because of its topical application mechanism. Consuming fluoride is actually bad for your bones and hence, your teeth, at least in higher quantities. It is called fluorosis. The NIH has a paper on the positive and negatives regarding fluoridation, which helps explain why it is very uncommon in Europe, where most countries have ceased the practice of adding the substance to drinking water.

Antifluoride lobbyists start with the fact that fluoride is not an essential nutrient and no disease has ever been linked to a fluoride deficiency.[11] In fact, fluoride is claimed to be a cumulative poison and biologically very active even at low concentrations because it interferes with hydrogen bonding and inhibits numerous enzymes.[12] Only 50% of the daily ingested fluoride is excreted through the kidneys. The remainder accumulates in bones, the pineal gland, and other tissues. Initial studies on animals showed that fluoride accumulation in the pineal gland led to reduced melatonin production and an earlier onset of puberty. The same researcher then showed in later studies that fluoride can also accumulate to very high levels in the human pineal gland.[13] Fluoride toxicity can lead to renal damage in children. Researchers studied 210 children living in areas of China with varying levels of fluoride in water (0.61--5.69 ppm). Among this group, the children drinking water with more than 2 ppm fluoride -- particularly those with dental fluorosis -- were found to have increased levels of NAG and y-GT in their urine, both of which are markers of kidney damage. The children's urine also contains increased levels of lactic dehydrogenase -- a possible indicator of liver damage. A diseased kidney is unable to effectively excrete fluoride, so individuals with compromised kidneys are at risk of developing fluorosis even at normal recommended limit of 0.7--1.2 ppm.

Fluoride has been shown to be mutagenic by causing chromosome damage and interference with the enzymes involved with DNA repair in a variety of cell and tissue studies carried out in animals.[14] Recent studies have also found a correlation between fluoride exposure and chromosome damage in humans.[15,16] The only government-sanctioned animal study to investigate whether fluoride causes cancer, in 1990, found a dose-dependent increase in cancer in the target organ (bone) of fluoride-treated, male rats.[17] This led to a 14-year research carried out by Harvard University that showed a significant link between fluoridation and a rare form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma in young boys, consistent with the results of the 1990 animal study.[18]

Fluoride as a neurotoxin has been proven in several animal studies. A 2006 National Research Council report stated that it is apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain and the body by direct and indirect means.[19,20] This finding was confirmed by a study where groups of children exposed to 8 ppm fluoride in water were found to have lower average IQs, less children attaining high IQ, and more children affected by low IQ.[21] While 8 ppm is much higher than the fluoride level added to water in fluoridation programs (0.7--1.2 ppm), these results are in congruence with previous studies[22] from China that indicate that fluoride may affect IQ at lower levels.[23]

So it's linked to reduced IQ, kidney problems, hormone disruption, and of course, cancer.

And the "experts" swore it was safe to add it to our water supply.

Because just brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste is too hard for some people.

So we all have to be dosed with a dangerous chemical.

To prevent... tooth decay.

And of course the former director of the CDC now admits that the non-vaccine hurt young people and was never advisable for anyone under 30.

DiedSuddenly @DiedSuddenly_

This is huge:

The former director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits Covid shots caused 'significant side effects' among young healthy people.

He also admitted that the vaccine wasn't really "necessary" for people under 50 years old.

He THEN admitted that many young and healthy people have suffered "significant side effects" from Covid mRNA shots.

Although this is a significant admission, it's a little too late.

DO NOT forget that 2 years ago, the same CDC signed off on forced vaccinations for workers, mandatory vaccines for pregnant women, and many people lost their livelihoods for refusing. Those who complied are now having to live with significant injuries.

But that's not all of the wonders of science government health bureaucrats bequeathed us.

The British government "did not put patient safety first" while covering up a multi-decade tainted blood scandal, leading to thousands of related deaths, a report published Monday found.

Britain's National Health Service allowed blood tainted with HIV and Hepatitis to be used on patients without their knowledge, leading to 3,000 deaths and more than 30,000 infections, according to the 2,527-page final report by Justice Brian Justice Langstaff, a former judge on the High Court of England and Wales.

The important thing, though, was that no gays were made to feel "bad" by having their blood donation refused.

Langstaff oversaw a five-year investigation into the use of tainted blood and blood products in Britain's healthcare system between 1970 and 1991.

The report blames multiple administrations over the time period for knowingly exposing victims to unacceptable risks.

Patients were exposed through a variety of methods, including blood transfusions or being given blood plasma or other blood products to treat conditions like hemophilia.

In several cases, health officials lied about the risks to patients. In others, patients were infected during research without their knowledge or consent, including children whose parents' consent was not sought.

Public health "experts" lying to the public for political reasons? That's hard to believe. I'm going to need some proof.

...

The situation could "largely, though not entirely, ha been avoided," Langstaff found.

"Standing back and viewing the response of the NHS and of government, the answer to the question 'was there a cover-up?' is that there has been. Not in the sense of a handful of people plotting in an orchestrated conspiracy to mislead, but in a way that was more subtle, more pervasive and more chilling in its implications. To save face and to save expense, there has been a hiding of much of the truth," Langstaff wrote.

"Over decades successive governments repeated lines to take that were inaccurate, defensive and misleading. Its persistent refusal to hold a public inquiry, coupled with a defensive mindset that refused to countenance that wrong had been done, left people without answers, and without justice. This has also meant that many people who are chronically ill have felt obliged to devote their time and their energies to investigating and campaigning, often at great personal cost."

Glad we don't have any of that in America.

Say, speaking of medical disinformation pushed by the government which has resulted in the sickness and death of millions of people, with the government directly responsible for so many unnecessary deaths that they will never, ever admit and repudiate their error -- this deadly diagram is still being pushed by the government.

Make sure you avoid fats and only eat a few servings of meat per day. And fill yourself up with 6 to 11 servings of delicious, healthy carbohydrates like bread and rice!

And yet: a small study suggests that a low-carb keto diet helps clear up acne.

MSNBC Horrified and Ass-Mad to Hear from Minorities Supporting Trump

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Look at the grim stone face on this MSNBC reporterette as black and Hispanic people tell her they support Trump. She looks like garrett being told what a vagina is.

Later in the clip she reports from the studio, and does push back against the studio groupthink that these must be paid chaos agents or whatever.

Heather McDonald: The Coming Crime Catastrophe In California

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The coming crime catastrophe?!, I hear you saying.

But it's about to get worse. California passed a law giving murderers and gang-members -- all criminals, really, but let's focus on the worst offenders -- the right to have their previous sentences voided if they can prove that anyone of their racial group had been discriminated against by the courts in the past.

Not that their own trials were tainted by bias -- just that someone in the past had experienced bias.

So California is about to begin releasing thousands and thousands of hardcore killers back into the streets.

California is about to demonstrate what a world constructed from the tenets of critical race studies looks like. The sentencing reversal in California v. Windom is the result of a recent law that will likely bring the state's criminal-justice system to its knees. The Racial Justice Act, passed in 2020 without meaningful public review, turns long-standing academic tropes about implicit bias and white privilege into potent legal tools. And the floodgates are about to open. Starting this year, the RJA allows anyone serving time in a California prison or jail for a felony to challenge his conviction and sentencing retroactively on the ground of systemic racial bias.

The Racial Justice Act operationalizes the proposition that every aspect of the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks. But according to the act's legislative authors, it's too hard to prove such bias in the case of individual arrests and prosecutions. Therefore, the act does away with the concept of individual fault and individual proof. From now on, statistics about past convictions are sufficient to invalidate a present trial or sentence.

The RJA explicitly repudiates a key Supreme Court precedent that had governed bias challenges in criminal trials. The plaintiff in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), Warren McCleskey, a black man, was facing the death penalty for murdering a white police officer in Fulton County, Georgia. McCleskey presented a study purportedly showing that killers of all races in Georgia were more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim was white. Blacks who killed whites were at greatest risk of capital punishment. That alleged historical disparity in sentencing invalidated his own death sentence, argued McCleskey. The Court, in a 5 - 4 decision, disagreed.

Defendants must show that criminal-justice decision-makers were purposefully biased against them, in order to throw out a conviction or a sentence under the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court ruled. Statistics purporting to show a historical pattern of bias are not enough to support the requisite showing of individual discriminatory purpose against a particular defendant.

Thanks to the RJA, McCleskey no longer governs bias challenges in California. From now on in California, statistics purporting to show a pattern of bias in the past are enough to invalidate a current arrest, criminal charge, or judicial sentence.

And what statistics they are! The Antioch Racial Justice Act case, California v. Windom, exemplifies the analyses that pass muster under the act. Through discovery requests to the district attorney's office, defense counsel assembled a database of 89 defendants who had been charged with gang murder in Contra Costa County from 2015 to 2022. Forty-eight of those defendants were black. There were 41 defendants in the comparison pool, made up of any nonblack race the defendants could get their hands on, since white gang-murder defendants in Contra Costa County were virtually nonexistent. Sixty-two percent of the black gang murderers (30) got a sentence of life without parole because of the egregiousness of their killings. It was that so-called LWOP sentence that the four defendants in Windom were challenging. A little over 53 percent of the nonblack gang murderers (24) got a sentence of life without parole. The defense expert, University of California--Irvine criminologist Richard McCleary, used fancy statistical footwork to massage those small differences in an already-small sample size into larger significance. That was the least of the analysis's problems, however. The real deficiency was that McCleary discarded the rule of comparing like with like. He made no effort to determine the criminal histories of the defendants in the various comparison pools to see if those defendants really were similarly situated. He made no effort to determine how heinous were the murders committed by members of the various comparison pools.

But charging and sentencing always take a defendant's particular history and the details of his crime into account. Two defendants can both be charged under an aggravated assault statute, but if one defendant has 11 prior convictions for attempted murder, robbery, and carjacking, say, while the second defendant has never been arrested before, a prosecutor will seek different sentences in their two cases.

...

After the judge had ruled in California v. Windom, a Contra Costa prosecutor commissioned his own study of the data. It turned out that the black gang members in the life-without-parole pool had committed more heinous murders than the nonblack gang members, as measured by the special circumstances in their cases. Once that difference was considered, there was no racial difference in the likelihood that a defendant would get life without parole. The district attorney’s office chose not to publicize the study and has not made it publicly available.

Just the News: Federal Investigators Have Known for Years That Biden Repeatedly Met With Hunter's ChiCom "Business" Partners

—Disinformation Expert Ace

And they let him lie and lie and lie, without so much as a heads-up.

Federal agents gathered evidence during the 2016 election that Hunter Biden had used access to his father on an official government trip to Beijing aboard Air Force Two to connect prospective Chinese business partners with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to a massive cache of documents recently turned over to Congress and obtained by Just the News.

"They got to meet Dad. All very good. Talk later," Hunter Biden wrote in a December 2013 email confirming how he connected his Chinese associates with his father in a Beijing hotel after the vice president had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The younger Biden also bragged in his emails that his father was so enamored with China's communist leader that "I think they are in love with each other," the emails showed.

"They all most (!) kissed on departure," Hunter Biden wrote in one of the emails seized by federal agents.

Did he spell it that way? This crackhead whoremonger "graduated law school," but he doesn't know how to spell "almost"?

The previously nonpublic communications were among 3.3 million pages of emails, bank records, and corporate memos that FBI, IRS, and Securities and Exchange Commission agents collected in 2015 and 2016 with subpoenas during a criminal investigation into a fraudulent bond scheme involving a Native-American tribe.

The younger Biden wasn't charged in that case, though several of his business partners were. But agents in that probe did gain extensive access to Hunter Biden's bank files, corporate records, and communications, including some that were not located on the first son's now infamous laptop that would be seized by the FBI in 2019 and become a subject of political controversy a year later.

Jonathan Turley writes that there is clear evidence that Hunter Biden repeatedly lied to Congress -- and wonders if Merrick Garland will convene a grand jury to investigate his crimes.

LOL, Jonathan Turley is so funny. I didn't know he was this funny!

Attorney General Merrick Garland has long maintained that he is a completely apolitical figure who only follows the law. Critics have challenged that claim on key cases, including those related to Hunter Biden. However, Garland may now face one of the clearest tests of his claim in his tenure. The House committees have issued a public report alleging three different instances where Hunter Biden allegedly committed perjury. The question is now what Garland is prepared to do about it.

When Hunter testified, I wrote columns suggesting that he might take the Fifth Amendment to remain silent because the risk was too great that he might lie or mislead investigators in his answers. With months of preparation, he decided to run the gauntlet and now appears to have exposed himself to the possibility of additional criminal charges.

Hunter Biden has still not responded to the specific allegations, but on their face they appear strong. Notably, the Justice Department spent considerable time and money to pursue false statements against figures like Michael Flynn over just one statement describing a meeting with Russian diplomats. These are instances where Hunter was under oath, prepared for months, and had counsel present.

One of the instances concerns the controversial WhatsApp message where Hunter not only threatened a Chinese businessman to send him massive amounts of money but said that his father was sitting next to him at the time. Millions were later sent to the Bidens. The infamous WhatsApp message stated in part:

"I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."

The response of Hunter to questions about the message was curious and evasive. Hunter said that he had only two things to say about that message. He denied that his father was sitting next to him despite saying that he had no memory of sending the message. Second, and most importantly, he stated "the Zhao that this is sent to is not the Zhao connected to CEFC" who "had no understanding or even remotely knew what the hell I was even Goddamn talking about."

The Committee staff maintains that Biden's WhatsApp account shows that he only ever communicated with one Zhao -- Raymond Zhao -- and that he most certainly did not know what he was "talking about."

Another alleged lie was Hunter's denial that he ever helped people associated with Burisma secure visas. He told Congress that he was unwilling to provide "any work as it related to visas that they needed" and that he would "never pick up the phone and call anybody for a visa." The Committee has produced an email in which Hunter's associate Devon Archer references the revoking of Burisma CEO Nikolay Zlochevsky's visa. It states that "Hunter is checking with Miguel Aleman to see if he can provide cover to Kola on the visa...Please send Hunter an email with all Kola's passport and visa documents and evidence and copy me. We'll take it from there."

Read the whole thing. There are more lies.

Now Garland faces an unavoidable choice in treating this referral as he did Trump cases (in sending this to a grand jury) or scuttling alleged perjury made by the son of the President before Congress. It is far less challenging legally than it is politically for Merrick Garland.

If the rule of law still governs at the Justice Department, Hunter Biden could be facing a third front in his ongoing legal struggles.

LOL, good one, dude.

Turley linked this Politico article reporting that "Sugar Brother" Kevin Morris, possibly a CIA operative paid to keep Hunter Biden out of jail, is bankrolling Hunter Biden's incredibly expensive defense, for some reason.

Why does no one in the media ever ask why a man Hunter Biden just met a few years ago is spending millions and millions of dollars on him?

Are they lovers?

Or is Morris just Hunter's appointed Deep State sponsor?

Anyway, Politico reports that this "Sugar Brother" -- merely an overcompensated lawyer, not a tech billionaire -- is finally running out of money.

Less than a month before the start of his first trial, Hunter Biden may be losing a key financial lifeline.

Kevin Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who has long supported the president's son, has told associates that he has run out of resources to help fund Biden's legal defense, according to a person close to Morris who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

"The reason Kevin got involved financially in the first place was that he could see that no one was going to help Hunter," said the person. "Now, four and a half years later, there's still no help -- and now Kevin is completely tapped out. So just when Hunter is facing two criminal trials starting in a few weeks, he has no resources. It's pretty dire."

Reached for comment about this reporting, Morris confirmed the person's account but declined to elaborate further. A spokesperson for Biden's legal team also declined to comment.

Don't worry, guys! I'm pretty sure that Hunter will just sell a couple of more watercolors to anonymous Chinese "art lovers."

Raise your hands if you think it's plausible that one man would spend himself into near-bankruptcy paying the back taxes and expensive legal fees for another man he only barely knows and is not, as far as we know, having sex with.

Even if they were having sex-- spending all of his money on the meth-mouthed gutter rat Hunter Biden? What?

Below: A dramatic interpretation of Hunter Biden begging "Sugar Brother" Kevin Morris to join his legal team.

Did You Enjoy the Democrat Media's "Russian Disinformation" Op 2015-2021? Well If You Did, Have I Got Some Great News For You!

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The Democrats and the Democrat Media are losing, so they're bringing the Russian Disinformation Op back for the fourth? fifth? election in a row.

Mollie Hemingway:

The media plan to spend the rest of the year framing opposition to Democrats as the result of Russian disinformation, even though it's a lie.

As Joe Biden's presidency fails and his 2024 campaign falters, the media and other Democrats are hitting the big red panic button and bringing back their Russia-collusion hoax for another spin.

Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host who sets Democrat talking points, spent last week claiming Biden's 2024 troubles aren't due to his unpopular policies or lack of mental acuity but rather a secret and nefarious Russian plot to help Donald Trump win the election. Scarborough excitedly claimed Republicans in Congress were working with Russian President Vladimir Putin to help Trump win. Putin endorsed Biden in February, for what it's worth.

Democrats' ability to push their Russia hoax 2.0 is hampered by the previous Russia-collusion hoax they peddled from 2016 through 2019. That lie was exhaustively and painstakingly debunked, but Scarborough has bitterly clung to it and wants to rewrite history.

"One of the maddening things that you will see out there, people talking about the Russian hoax. They keep talking about the Russian hoax," Scarborough said, calling out The Wall Street Journal for its reporting against the Russia-collusion hoax. "Russian disinformation is being spread on the House floor by Republican members. Here we have more reporting of what has never really stopped. That is, Vladimir Putin and Russia are trying to help Donald Trump get elected again! Hoax? There is no hoax!" he shouted.

...

The cause of last week's Scarborough hysteria was an anonymously sourced New York Times story describing a single video it claimed had been produced by Russian operatives purporting to be Ukrainians. The video, which may or may not have been watched by any Americans, apparently claimed Ukrainians were being told by the CIA to help Biden win. The anonymous "current and former" CIA officials said this meant Russians were meddling in U.S. elections. The story was exactly like the hundreds of other New York Times stories that ran in the first iteration of the Russia-collusion hoax -- anonymous intelligence sources, lack of substantiation, and outlandish inferences.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., tweeted out a link to the story with the note, "Trump/Russia. Trump/Russia. Trump/Russia. How obvious does it have to be??"

A CIA spokesman told The New York Times the claim made in the video was "patently false" and the "type of disinformation that the intelligence community has long warned about." He added, somewhat hilariously, that "C.I.A. is a foreign-focused organization that takes our obligation to remain uninvolved in American politics and elections very seriously."

Among a wide variety of other domestic-focused activities, CIA employees helped organize the letter signed by former CIA leaders on the eve of the 2020 election falsely claiming that the very real Hunter Biden laptop detailing the corrupt Biden family business was Russian disinformation. That CIA-fueled lie was spread by American media and was highlighted in one of the two presidential debates that cycle. Americans who spoke accurately about the laptop were censored by Big Tech.

...

One of the panelists on the Scarborough show last week was Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton's communications director [!!!] ...

"The hardest thing to combat in 2016 was no one believed us. Even after there had been reporting on what Russia was doing in the [Washington] Post, we'd go to the press and say, you know, we think a lot of this is coming from Russia. It was just so fantastic for everyone, that they couldn't really -- you know, they couldn't appreciate that that's what was really happening. Now people do know that," Palmieri said.

They're also creating a pseudo-legal pretext to censor like they've never censored before, of course.

I recently complained that Democrats are constantly pumping out disinformation -- like, specifically, the Michael Brown "Gentle Giant" racial killing hoax -- and when it's proven that they're lying, they do not apologize.

They merely stop repeating the line. For a few months.

Then, once the heat has died down, they begin pushing the lie again.

Remember, this the party that wants to shut down all speech by Republicans they claim is "disinformation."

But their own disinformation? It speaks to a Higher Truth and sparks many Necessary Conversations about race.

I mention this because the left, including the NAACP and congresscriminal Cori Bush, just celebrated Michael Brown's birthday and claimed he was killed by "police violence." Which is a lie -- he was killed by his own violence. He roughed up a much-smaller shopkeeper, and when a cop told him to get his fat ass out of the middle of the road, he started punching the cop through his window and grabbed his gun.

Even Obama's/Eric Holder's DOJ debunked this toxic, racial-strife-making lie.

But it's back, because the left is nothing but disinformation. It's all Marxist mythology, and mythology isn't fact-checkable.

Rep. Cori Bush:

"Police kiIIing black people is responsible for 50,000,000 additional days of Poor Mental Health Days per year." pic.twitter.com/dP9YFItWbx

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 20, 2024

Will Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd, and Brian Stelter be covering and rebutting this toxic disinformation, or nah?

I'm thinking "nah."

Close it up

25,000 Rally for Trump in the South Bronx, Leaving AOC Sputtering With Flop Sweat Glistening In Her Mustache

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Shave your mustache, Madame. I must insist you shave your mustache immediately.

Former President Donald Trump rallied an impressive crowd of 25,000 in the Bronx, promising to "make New York City great again." The rally, held in a traditionally Democratic stronghold, saw Trump criticizing the Biden administration and vowing to work with local Democratic leaders to improve the city and state.

Key Details:

The rally, held in the Bronx, drew an estimated crowd of 25,000, far exceeding the initial expectation of 3,500 attendees.

Trump's rally was held at Crotona Park in the Bronx, a deep-blue area of New York City.

The former president promised to work with Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrat Mayor Eric Adams to fix the city and state, saying, "As soon as I get back into the Oval Office, I am going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call your mayor and your governor and I'm going to say...'I want to come back and help'...we're going to get this state and this city at a level that it's never seen before."

Diving Deeper:

Trump's visit to the Bronx, a stronghold of Democratic support, is a break from political norms. The former president used the rally to criticize President Biden's administration, particularly its handling of the economy. Speaking on his economic accomplishments, Trump said, ""We lifted 6.6 million people out of poverty... and real middle class income rose over $6,000 a year. Under Biden, it's a disaster... real earnings for African Americans are down 5.6%."

THE MORNING RANT: Mega-Woke Retailer Target “Unexpectedly” Has Another Disappointing Quarter with Declining Top-Line Revenue

—Buck Throckmorton

Since May 2023, when Target precipitated a ferocious backlash with its collection of “Pride Month” merchandise targeted at children, I’ve been monitoring Target’s quarterly financial performance. Target’s wokeness goes far beyond its vulgar, inappropriate children’s merchandise, of course. As I documented a few months ago, Target has also welcomed men into its women’s restrooms and prohibited police from arresting shoplifters in its stores.

Target’s embrace of degeneracy has repelled customers, caused a decrease in store traffic, hurt its earnings, and most importantly, it has caused a top line reduction in revenue. Sales are lower. No matter what clever metric is being touted (margins, adjusted earnings, etc), nothing can change the fact that the top line revenue number started going down after Pride Month (June) 2023 and Target can’t reverse the trend, because those lost customers aren’t coming back. Coincidentally enough, while Target is seeing decreasing same-store sales, Walmart is seeing increasing same-store sales. Walmart is also gaining new customers while Target is losing customers.

Wall Street “experts” and analysts keep being surprised by Target’s revenue and earnings problems, and they must then try to explain why the company keeps falling short of Wall Street estimates. Yet none of the analyses I’ve read has acknowledged that there is significant anti-woke boycott that persists against Target. The business press strangely blames “inflation battered” households for not spending money at Target, while simultaneously reporting elsewhere that inflation has been defeated and that consumers are doing great, causing the stock market to reach record highs due to consumers’ joyful and abundant spending.

Well, Target just released its earnings report for the quarter ended 3/31/2024 and it was another “unexpectedly” bad quarter, falling short of “expert” predictions, with same-store sales continuing to show a year-over-year decline.

“Target earnings miss the mark as inflation-battered shoppers avoid buying things they don't really need” [Yahoo Finance – 5/22/2024]

Target (TGT) missed the earnings mark in the first quarter. Blame inflation-battered US households, its execs say. The "biggest challenges" Target is hearing about from its shoppers are "inflation in food and household essentials," chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said on a call with reporters detailing first quarter results.

By contrast, just a few days earlier Wal Mart reported exceptional results for the same quarter, with its CFO stating, “We’ve got customers that are coming to us more frequently than they have before and newer customers that we haven’t traditionally had.”

“…customers that we haven’t traditionally had.” In other words, customers who used to shop at Target are now shopping at Walmart.

This Forbes Business piece lists some of the lowlights of Target’s disastrous quarter. Here is a comparison of Target’s quarterly results to Wal Mart’s:

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Old Barn, Connecticut
John Atherton

Friday Morning Report (5/24/24)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Good morning Horde. Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. Let us never forget the men and women who died while in service to our country.

So let's see what is below the fold: