FROM RADIO FREE COLORADO, IN EXILE, THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ALL YOU FELLOW COLD WAR CHILDREN OUT THERE: There’s nothing that 2024 can throw at us worse than the ‘mutual assured destruction’ they told us was inevitable before we were adults. Europe – The Final Countdown.
And yet, here we are. Sursum corda!
OPEN THREAD: Last of the year. Try to be worthy.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Second H3 launch planned for February.
OUT NEXT WEEK FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: The Attack. An October 7 style attack in the United States? It could happen. (Bumped).
GOOD NEWS FOR OTTERS: Thriving Otters in North America Linked to Nuclear Weapons Tests. Here’s Why.
REALLY? SO WHY DO PEOPLE SEEM DUMBER NOW THAN WHEN SMOKING WAS COMMON? Alarming Study: Smoking Causes Brain Shrinkage – “It Sounds Bad, and It Is Bad.”
I’m surprised people put those in.
The truth of Hamas’s depravity runs counter to the preferred narrative of many in the West.
THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND; SHECKY HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: Comic legend Shecky Greene dies at 97.
READER FAVORITE: DMoose Forearm Exerciser – Hand, Wrist, and Forearm Strengthener. #CommissionEarned
THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! Report: Chinese Spy Balloon Used U.S. Internet Provider.
The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation. Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.
The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed.
Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communications sent via the American internet service provider.
That’s in addition to earlier reports that US-made equipment was found inside the balloon’s hardware: Chinese spy balloon used US technology: Report.
In February, Noah Rothman described the spy balloon as being an actual ‘Sputnik Moment,’ but in 1957, Ike was much more concerned about US enemies, in sharp contrast to Sundown Joe and his Obama-era retread handlers in 2023:
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Mugshots shared on social media by California law enforcement must use name and pronouns provided by arrestee, new law says.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Out partying on New Year’s Eve? Here’s a safety checklist.
LOOKING FOR A YEAR-END DONATION IN A GOOD CAUSE? Consider donating to FIRE, a campus free speech organization I’ve supported for years. They do excellent work.
I also recommend the New Civil Liberties Alliance. I sit on their board and they’re making major legal inroads against the administrative state.
SO ABOUT LAST NIGHT’S COWBOYS-LIONS GAME: Refs Appear To Steal Win From Detroit On Atrocious Call.
It’s hard to not understand Campbell being so unbelievably upset and frustrated. Instead of leaving Dallas with a 21-20 win and a 12-4 record, the Lions went home with a loss after a truly mind-boggling call.
Everyone on Detroit’s sideline seems to believe Decker reported, and the film appears to confirm that. Instead, the refs claim a different player reported as eligible and flagged the successful conversion.
Either every single person on the Lions is wrong and the tape is wrong or the refs made a massive mistake.
Or, after the ref’s call, Lions coach Dan Campbell could have sent his team out to kick the extra point instead of childishly ordering up three high-risk two point conversions in a row at the end of the game, and sent it into overtime:
The Lions succeeded in creating confusion. Three linemen — 58, 68 and 70 — all walk/run toward the ref. How many Lions does it take to report 1 lineman as eligible? 68 needed a personal escort from 58? 70 ran onto the field making a beeline for the ref as if he's reporting… https://t.co/ZoA3yK9Ovj
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) December 31, 2023
LOL: Navajo Nation president asks NASA to delay Moon launch over possible human remains.
More here. “In other words, though the Navaho have no plans to ever go there, have done nothing to try to explore it, and have no remains of any tribal members on the flight, he wants to claim the Moon as controlled entirely and forever by the Indian tribes of North America because of a law designed solely to protect specific archeological sites on Earth, where Indian remains are discovered.”
I dunno, kinda sounds like someone’s holding out for a payoff to get out of the way.
RIP: Dan Greenburg, droll humorist and author, dies at 87.
Dan Greenburg, who gained a national following with his irreverent, mordantly funny books about sex, marriage and Jewish mothers, then reached a far younger audience with chapter books about paranormal adventures and a math-averse superhero named Maximum Boy, died Dec. 18 at a hospice center in the Bronx. He was 87.
The cause was complications of a stroke he had last year, said his son, journalist and author Zack O’Malley Greenburg.
A onetime industrial designer with a fondness for tongue-in-cheek humor, Mr. Greenburg wrote more than 70 books but was probably best known for his first, the 1964 bestseller “How to Be a Jewish Mother: A Very Lovely Training Manual.” The satirical self-help guide sought to answer such pressing questions as “How many miles away should you allow your child to move?” (the answer came in the form of a math equation: “Distance = M.P.H. x Lambchop Defrosting Time”), elucidated culinary techniques like the “Proper Form for Administering the Second Helping” and featured a glossary for terms such as “unmarried surgeon: the answer to a mother’s prayer.”
“Give your son Marvin two sports shirts as a present,” Mr. Greenburg advised in one chapter. “The first time he wears one of them, look at him sadly and say in your Basic Tone of Voice: ‘The other one you didn’t like?’ ”
While Borscht Belt comedians had long poked fun at the image of the anxious, overbearing Jewish mother, Mr. Greenburg’s book reached a wider audience, selling more than 270,000 copies in its first year alone. The book “established the Jewish mother as a nationally and internationally recognized stereotype,” according to “You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother,” by Joyce Antler. It was adapted into a hit 1965 comedy album by actress Gertrude Berg, and two years later it made its way to Broadway in the form of a short-lived musical revue.
Greenburg’s book eventually became a springboard for one of the funniest hours of television ever produced: When the Jewish Mother Was an Icon.
A half hour before the taping started on November 12, 1970, Mel Brooks went into the bleachers in the studio at WNEW, New York City’s Channel 5, and warmed up the crowd. It was like he was back to his days as a tummler working the crowd in a Catskills resort. “He was in the audience doing shtick,” Greenburg remembered. “He was so on it was unbelievable.” Laughter rumbled through the set by the time [David] Susskind started his introductions at the top of the program. Usually unflappable, Susskind was breaking up as George Segal lovingly blew thick clouds of cigar smoke into the host’s face.
Within moments, Brooks went into overdrive. He announced in all the years he lived with his mother, he had never seen a piece of furniture. Sheets to keep the dust off had always covered it. “But what’s criminal is that my mother has four great paintings that we’ve never seen,” he proclaimed. When Goldberg talked about how the small Jewish population was dispersed in his hometown of Kansas City, Brooks said: “I bet they all get together for pogrom—gathered in one big Jew cellar while the Gentiles go thundering by!”
Susskind started [David] Steinberg off by asking if his mother were still alive. The comic stared into space as if he were trying to remember. He then described a dream in which they were in a ballroom on a luxury liner. “We danced until dawn,” he said. “I’m three and she’s 52 and I’m just about to get her into my crib—and I wake up.”
Brooks topped him later by claiming he had left the Jewish faith because the sign of the cross was easy to make in a time of panic. He demonstrated how a Star of David would require both hands. “Two triangles,” he said. “That’s a lot of work!”
The show became a joyride powered by a relentless, unpredictable Brooks, who could fill any pause in the conversation with a routine or a song. The performance had the technical crew in the show’s control room rocking with laughter. Assistant director Jim Shasky said the camera operators on the studio floor laughed so hard they were unable to keep their shots steady. “The live audience really set the tone,” said Herman. “I remember one of my assistants, a redhead, was the only person not laughing. She was a nice non–Jewish girl from California. I don’t think she knew what was going on.”
“It was anarchy,” said Segal, who sent the studio audience into convulsions when he got up from his chair to do a song from his days as a Dixieland jazz bandleader and stepped on the cord of the lavaliere microphone that hung around his neck. He started to choke when the cord tightened like a noose. When Susskind got face to face with Segal to help him, the actor looked in the host’s eyes and said softly, “What are you doing later?”
But it was Brooks who kept on taking command. He thought of the rest of the panel as straight men, and they knew it. “They were all funny,” he said. “As far as I was concerned they were very, very good, but I was better. It was just give me the mike and stand back and I’ll take care of the evening.”
“Mel has got that streak in him, that ‘I’m taking this over no matter what,’?” Segal said. “Welcome to the Mel Brooks Show. But that was okay. He was being Mel and that was the best part of him really. I don’t know what you call that kind of aggression, but it certainly worked on that show. Mel was totally comfortable with David Susskind. David kept giving him rope and Mel kept advancing.”
“Mel and I were sort of discovering each other there,” said Steinberg. “You could see me half improvising and finding material I didn’t even know I had on the show. At some point I realized all I wanted to do—whatever subject David Susskind hasn’t found, I wanted to find another one for Mel.”
* * * * * * * *
Brooks didn’t recall any immediate response to “How to Be a Jewish Son.” After viewers clamored for Susskind to run it again, the show was repeated annually around New Year’s Day. Its popularity and legend grew along with Brooks as he became a major comedy box office attraction as a director and performer during the 1970s with Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, and Silent Movie. “Suddenly I’d hear about the show from one person and another,” he recalled. “It was very much like The Producers,” referring to his first film, released in 1968. “It made an explosion when it opened, and it was kind of quiet and little by little it gathered its own steam and its own force and moved forward. It got to be legendary. The same thing happened with this show. You never know what’s going to happen. Who knew that this little roundtable interview show, certainly not a great forum for my talent, would be one of the best things I ever did in my life? It would launch me as a first-rate comic personality. Who the hell knew? It was amazing.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a complete unedited version of the show online, but it’s been uploaded to YouTube in a series of 15 minute clips:
Click over to YouTube to see the rest.
SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Raskin: Trump Among Tiny Number of People Who Have ‘Disqualified Themselves’ for Presidency.
[Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)] added, “If they’re falling for the argument that this is undemocratic. Is it undemocratic that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm can’t run for president because they weren’t born in the country? Of all of the forms of disqualification that we have, the one that disqualifies people for engaging in insurrection is the most democratic. It’s the one where people choose themselves to be disqualified in terms of your age or where you were born. That’s not up to. But Donald Trump is in that tiny, tiny number of people who have essentially disqualified themselves.”
The effete left has never looked too fondly at Queens, but I’m really looking forward to Raskin explaining how Trump is blocked by “Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, which reads, ‘No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the office of President.’”
TO SERVE MAN: Cops: Pastor Tried To Deep-Fry McDonald’s Cook.
Latoya Gladney, a 44-year-old manager in training at a McDonald’s in North Carolina, told police that her employees were “disrespecting” her last night, so she called her husband “to assist her.”
Investigators allege that when Dwayne Waden, a 57-year-old church pastor, subsequently arrived at the restaurant in High Point, he chose not to turn the other cheek.
Cops say Waden walked into the kitchen and began punching Theodore Garlington, a McDonald’s cook, in the face. Waden also allegedly wrapped his hands around Garlington’s neck and began “pushing his head toward the deep fryer,” according to a police report.
Before Garlington, 34, could be dipped in hot oil, several employees interceded, pulling Waden (seen at right) off the victim.
To be fair, with 2023 winding down rapidly, McDonald’s is really running late in adding McSoylent to its menu.
LOOKING FOR A YEAR-END DONATION IN A GOOD CAUSE? Consider donating to FIRE, a campus free speech organization I’ve supported for years. They do excellent work.
I also recommend the New Civil Liberties Alliance. I sit on their board and they’re making major legal inroads against the administrative state.
DEAL OF THE DAY: MIBODE Cordless Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
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