Archive for 2025
June 21, 2025
READER FAVORITE: Solareye Compressed Air Duster – 180000RPM Electric Air Duster. #CommissionEarned
Guam, you say?
And since we didn’t mention it yesterday, in the interest of being a full-service news aggregation Weblog, we must now warn more sensitive readers in advance that what is heard cannot be unheard. Watch: Hank ‘Guam Might Capsize’ Johnson Releases Anti-Trump Song and Good Lord, Make It Stop.
Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) – he of ‘Oh noes, Guam might capsize’ fame – put out an anti-Trump song on social media for reasons known only to him.
It’s genuinely an injustice that his staff didn’t stop him from releasing it. I mean, tackle the guy out of his chair before he hits the ‘post’ button if you have to. Just make sure this never sees the light of day.
Johnson uploaded the video to his X account, where he is celebrating June as Black Music Month.
“This year, I decided to come back with another jam session for you all,” he wrote. “Here is my rendition of ‘Hey Joe’ by the Godfather of Rock, Jimi Hendrix.”
Iowahawk is succinct in response:
This video summoned zombie Jimi Hendrix back from the grave, just to light Hank Johnson's guitar on fire pic.twitter.com/nogTfjDY6g
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 20, 2025
Barring that, could someone at least give Johnson a decent guitar tuner before he inflicts another video upon us?
In his 2000 book, How We Got Here: The 70’s: The Decade that Brought You Modern Life (For Better or Worse), David Frum wrote:
Americans over a certain age are often surprised to see diminutive women patrolling their city’s meanest streets. The policemen of their childhood were tall, commanding figures. Have the cops shrunk? Well, yes. In March 1973, the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration issued an order forbidding any local police department that received federal funds (that is, all of them) to maintain minimum height requirements—the rules disqualified too many women. In 1977, the Supreme Court seconded LEAA by striking down Alabama’s minimum height requirement as a violation of the 1964 act. The federal government lived up to its own principles. In 1971 it waived size and strength requirements for its own police forces. In 1977, New York City acceded to a judicial order and permitted women to apply for fire-fighting jobs. None of the applicants passed the department’s strength test so the judge ordered the strength test made easier until sufficient numbers of women could pass.
Thus leading to this cringe-inducing moment, which made the rounds on social media in January during the devastating L.A. fires:
LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson:
"Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place." pic.twitter.com/BofTVr6dWP
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Report: Two big Asian reuse milestones, Vandenberg becomes SpaceX west.
LET’S TALK ABOUT CHATGPT-INDUCED SPIRITUAL PSYCHOSIS:
Responding to the recent New York Times article that depicted people such as an accountant becoming convinced via ChatGPT that “he was trapped in a false reality and could escape by disconnecting from this simulated world—eventually believing ChatGPT when it told him he could jump from a building and fly,” Katherine Dee writes, “this always happens with new communication technology:”
And with similar severity, too!
Twenty-five years ago, media scholar Jeffrey Sconce traced this history in his book Haunted Media, showing how we have consistently linked new communication technologies with the paranormal and esoteric. It’s not a random coincidence or sign that we’re in a “uniquely enchanted” age1 but rather a predictable cultural response, one we’ve been replaying over and over for hundreds of years.
Spiritualist mediums claimed to receive messages from the afterlife through Morse code. These operators saw themselves as human receivers, bridging the material and astral. The technology that sent messages across continents without physical contact made it easy to imagine messages crossing the veil.
Radio seemed to throw every word into what Sconce calls an “etheric ocean,” a limitless and invisible sea where messages bobbed about like bottles adrift. By the late 1920s, the big broadcast companies tried to “net” that ocean with fixed frequencies and scheduling. Sconce writes about how fiction reflected this taming of the radio waves. The wistful romances of amateur “DXers”2 scanning the dial gave way to sinister tales of mass hypnosis, government mind-control rays, and Martians commandeering the airwaves.
Television, again, added another layer, perhaps most iconically portrayed in the 1982 film Poltergeist:
Read the whole thing.
I WAS TOO BUSY FOR YOGA YESTERDAY, BUT NOT TODAY: Stretching into summer: Yoga workouts mark solstice in longest day.
DAVID THOMPSON: Dumb, Yes, But Fashionable.
From the world of cinema and pretentious agonising:
* * * * * * * *
The dogmatic scolds who bang on about “cultural appropriation” rarely display much understanding of how culture comes about. Perhaps they imagine that the world would be richer and more pious without Akira Kurosawa’s vivid reworkings of Shakespeare, or his ‘appropriation’ of American band music of the 30s and 40s, and without Kurosawa’s own films inspiring Sergio Leone and George Lucas, etc. The riffs and copying, the to-and-fro, are to a very large extent what culture is.
There is a easy remedy for Boyle if he truly wishes to expunge his guilt:
Otherwise, as Rob Henderson of City Journal tweets, “Get all the money and applause for making it, then all the moral credit for saying you wouldn’t make it. Some people always know precisely the correct next move on the chess board.”
The left is still trapped in Redneck Nation territory; consider the implications for potential audiences. As one wag commented in response to Wayne Burkett’s tweet above, “If a white person can’t tell that story because they can’t learn about India and tell it…then there’s no point to a white person WATCHING that story or buying a ticket to see it, either. You already told me I won’t understand it, and can’t learn from it, because of my race.”
THREAD:
The thing about the conservatives opposed to selling Federal lands (e.g. I noticed @L0m3z ), is that they clearly have not actually read @BasedMikeLee 's actual bill. Massive failure of literacy on the part of the based right.
So let's look at the bill!
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) June 20, 2025
TALES FROM THE FRENCH LAUNDRY: THE NEXT GENERATION. Gavin Newsom Sipped Cabernet While Los Angeles Burned.
As riots engulfed Los Angeles and mobs vandalized public buildings, incinerated vehicles, and assaulted law enforcement officers, California governor Gavin Newsom was enjoying a swanky wine-tasting party in Napa Valley.
The wine-tasting was held on the afternoon of June 7, 2025, at the Odette Estate Winery, which Newsom co-founded in 2011. Dubbed “Vineyard Vibes,” the event was a fundraiser for the PlumpJack Foundation, founded by Newsom’s sister, and featured “contemporary yet sophisticated” wines, live jazz music, and locally made pizza and smash burgers. “It’s the perfect kick-off to summer fun,” read promotional language. “The fete will take place on the Winery Crushpad, where we’ll gather for music, food, conversation, and delicious wine!”
A source who photographed Newsom at the event expressed shock that the governor was in attendance, given that riots had broken out in Los Angeles the day before. “I couldn’t believe it,” the source said. “He was just walking around like this was an everyday occurrence.”
Violence and destruction in crime-ridden California? They are an everyday occurrence.
UPDATE: Clueless gov in tapas bar:
SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Liquid Death Is Selling Empty Iced Tea Cans Containing Ozzy Osbourne’s DNA.
Liquid Death, purveyor of canned water, has announced that it’s selling 10 empty cans of iced tea that were drank by Ozzy Osbourne and were then sealed to contain his DNA.
Dubbed “Infinite Ozzy,” these 10 cans are valued at $450 apiece and are being sold via the Liquid Death website to anyone lucky enough to snag one. Each was laboratory sealed and signed by Ozzy himself, with their timely arrival coming just weeks ahead of Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s final concert on July 5th in Birmingham, England.
“Once technology and federal law permit, fans can use this DNA to try to clone Ozzy in the future and enjoy him for hundreds of years to come,” stated Liquid Death’s publicity team on the goal of the campaign. Added Ozzy, “Clone me, you bastards.”
Shouldn’t we get Leonard Nimoy properly cloned first, before it’s Ozzy’s turn?
THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Down With Monarchy Edition. “This week, Democrats turned out across the country to protest against monarchy–monarchy being, apparently, when the president tries to execute the laws as required by Article II. Anti-law enforcement riots continued, although by week-end they were petering out. Tucker Carlson mounted a defense of the mullahs, for no apparent reason. But we all learned the population of Iran.”
READER FAVORITE: Headlamp Rechargeable 2980 High Lumens Super Bright LED Head Lamp for Adults. #CommissionEarned
IN ORDER TO SAVE THE FRANCHISE, DISNEY REALLY NEEDS TO GREEN LIGHT THIS STAR WARS SEQUEL ASAP:
This guy messed up his A.I. prompt. He wrote Battle of the Philippine Sea June 1944, US Navy vs Imperial Navy. He was supposed to write "Imperial Japanese Navy." pic.twitter.com/HaeWVekG1G
— Asian Dawn (@AsianDawn4) June 19, 2025
MAYBE DON’T HIRE COMMIES NEXT TIME: After Ono fiasco, Florida GOP lawmakers demand transparency in new UF presidential search.
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: Pakistan formally recommends Trump for 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.
READER FAVORITE: ForestLeaf Colostrum Powder 50% IgG Highest Pure Concentration. #CommissionEarned
A CESSPIT OF BIGOTRY: House committee investigates Harvard for alleged discrimination in faculty hiring.
EIGHT VIP CHARACTERISTICS: J. Warner Wallace is one of the most successful cold-case homicide detectives ever. For years, he was featured on NBC’s “Dateline” explaining how he solved a particular old and challenging case. He knows good and bad evidence when he sees it.
Thanks to that ability to assess the value of evidence, Wallace has also become one of the best-known Christian apologists in the world. On HillFaith today, Wallace discusses eight characteristics of evidence he has found that indicate purposefulness rather than random chance.
Fortunately, Instapundit has a wonderfully intelligent readership that can offer reasonable arguments for and against a multitude of thoughtful views, including Wallace’s eight characteristics. That, rather than ad hominem for or against, is what I seek in posting this link.
THE ABA STANDS UP FOR RACISM: ABA Files Motion To Dismiss Lawsuit Challenging Its Race-Based Law School Scholarship Program.
OUT SOON FROM SALENA ZITO: Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland.
THE SECOND COMING OF AMERICA’S FUNNIEST WRITER:
Though P. J. O’Rourke passed away three years ago, his sharp wit and defense of freedom continue to resonate in a world still tempted by interventionist solutions. Reclaiming his work is more vital now than ever. What he told us through laughs and jabs in recent decades has proven to be one of the sharpest diagnoses of the dangers of postmodern left-wing ideology—and one of the most inspired reflections on why we must root our societies in individual liberty, private property, the free market, and the Judeo-Christian values that shaped the West for centuries.
Progressives want bigger government, and often conservatives don’t want it as small as we ought to like. O’Rourke knew all too well that the larger the state grows, the smaller individuals become. He devoted much of his work to explaining this in a way anyone could understand—even those not particularly interested in politics. His words resonate today in a new light, and fortunately, they remain easy to access: the Internet is full of O’Rourke’s articles, and all his books are still in print. The ideas, the jokes—the profound, the outdated, and even the ones that haven’t aged all that well—are still out there, waiting to be discovered by any digital wanderer with a sense of humor and a thirst for sharp thinking. It’s almost frightening to realize that some of O’Rourke’s tech-related jokes would go completely over a millennial or zoomer’s head today. And it’s even more pitiful to think that some of his old comments would be cancelled in today’s dull, hypersensitive postmodern world. Perhaps it’s because, as he once said, “One of the problems with being a writer is that all of your idiocies are still in print somewhere.” Incidentally, that’s where O’Rourke found his only point of agreement with environmentalists: “I strongly support paper recycling.”
Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing.