November 28, 2025

November 27, 2025

J.D. IS USUALLY RIGHT:

Posted at 9:51 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OPEN THREAD: I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY: The flammed together ‘new episode’ feels totally pointless.

The problem is, the new episode isn’t all-new at all. It’s essentially the bonus material from the 2003 DVD edition of Anthology padded out to 50 minutes: the three surviving Beatles being interviewed together at George Harrison’s home and at Abbey Road, loosely jamming old rock’n’roll songs – and an early McCartney effort, Thinking of Linking – on acoustic guitars and ukuleles; working on the new tracks at Paul McCartney’s home studio with producer Jeff Lynne; and sitting at a mixing desk while George Martin plays them multitrack recordings from the 60s.

Some of the footage is sweet – there’s a lovely moment where Ringo addresses his bandmates with a plaintive “I like hanging out with you guys” – and some of it is oddly telling: you could divine a lot from George Harrison’s visible exasperation as the sessions for Free as a Bird and Real Love drag on. (Off camera, he famously refused to work on a third Lennon demo, Now and Then, deeming it “fucking rubbish”. McCartney and Starr eventually finished the track in 2023, 22 years after Harrison’s death.)

To be fair, in the 1990s, the technology just wasn’t there to separate Lennon’s voice from his piano, and reduce the noise from recording demos on a pair of cassette recorders in the Dakota Building. Lennon’s “Now and Then” is a wisp of a song, but today’s track separation and audio restoration technology at least allowed McCartney, Starr and Giles Martin to mount a killer arrangement and production on top of Lennon’s demo.

But as Alexander Larman asks, regarding the new Anthology album at the Spectator: When will the Beatles bandwagon end? “I can’t help thinking – allied to the underwhelm of ‘Now and Then’ – that, for the first time, the sheer accumulation of detail and trivia runs the risk of letting daylight in upon magic, and making the Beatles seem, well, ordinary – which is something that they never were, or never could be. Perhaps McCartney and Ringo, who are both awaiting the Sam Mendes-directed films about each member of the band – expected in 2028 – might be advised to step in and say, ‘Right lads, enough is enough’, and to let the whole, magnificent enterprise rest in dignity. You might even say that it was time to let it be.”

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

NATIONAL GUARD MEMBER CRITICALLY WOUNDED IN SUSPECTED TERROR ATTACK IN WASHINGTON DC UNLIKELY TO SURVIVE, DAD SAYS.

UPDATE: Trump Announces That National Guard Member Sarah Beckstrom Has Passed Away After D.C. Terrorist Attack.

Posted at 8:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

YEP:

Posted at 7:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, THEY’RE NOT WRONG ABOUT THE “INVADING ARMIES” PART: German Christmas market installs ‘anti-tank’ barriers meant to stop invading armies, public media cheers ‘creative’ solution.

The German town of Külsheim is dealing with the soaring costs of terror-proofing German Christmas markets with a very festive solution: anti-tank barriers.

The German public media reporting this news does not even blink about how absurd the situation has become, but instead actually praises the “creative solution” of the anti-tank barriers. For skeptics, the anti-tank barriers may serve as a comical or tragic illustration of German Christmas markets moving beyond a mere police state and right into something resembling a militarized zone.

The Christmas market in Külsheim, which has a population of approximately 5,000 and is located in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, has announced it is saving money by recycling anti-tank barriers for its Christmas market.

Located in the Main-Tauber district, Tageschau notes that “four disused concrete anti-tank barriers with a diameter of 1.4 meters were converted for the Christmas market.”

The barriers were painted with white and red paint, and were produced at the cost of €1,000 per anti-tank barrier when paint and working time are considered.

Flashback: Protesters call for Islamic state in Germany.

UPDATE:

MORE:

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

DEVOLUTION IN ACTION:

Posted at 6:10 pm by Glenn Reynolds

VDH: Can the ‘Lost Generation’ be found?

All through K-12, young men, particularly white males, have been demonized for their “toxic masculinity” that draws accusations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.

In college, the majority of students are female. In contrast, white males — 9-10 percent of admittees in recent years at elite schools like Stanford and the Ivy League — are of no interest to college admission officers.

So they are tagged not as unique individuals but as superfluous losers of the “wrong” race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Gen Z men saw themselves scapegoated by professors and society for the sins of past generations — and on the wrong side of the preposterous reductionist binary of oppressors and the oppressed.

Traditional pathways to adulthood — affordable homes, upwardly mobile and secure jobs, and safe and secure city and suburban living — had mostly vanished amid overregulation, overtaxation, and underpolicing.

Orthodox and loud student advocates on campus — climate change, DEI, the Palestinians — had little to do with getting a job, raising a family, or buying a house.

During the Biden years, white males mostly stopped enlisting in the military in their accustomed overrepresented numbers.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, they had died in frontline combat units at twice their percentages for the demographic. No matter — prior Pentagon DEI commissars still slandered them as suspects likely to form racist cabals.

Gen Z males seemed bewildered by women and sex — and often withdrew from dating.

Never has popular culture so promoted sexually provocative fashions, semi-nudity, and freewheeling lifestyles, and careers of supposedly empowered single women.

And never had the rules of dating and sexuality become more retrograde Victorian.

Casual consensual sex was flashed as cool everywhere on social media. And when it naturally proved in the real world to be selfish, callous, and empty, males were almost always exclusively blamed as if they were not proper Edwardian gentlemen.

Soon, young men feared sexual hookups and promiscuity as avenues to post facto and one-sided charges of harassment — or worse.

Happily for confused young men looking for a little sexytime, based on the ad that ran before this afternoon’s Chiefs-Cowboys game, it’s ChatGPT to the rescue!

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

UN-HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Why Do Journos Hate This Holiday So Much?

It’s that wonderful time of year when families get together to enjoy turkey, football and most importantly to express gratitude for all they’ve been blessed with. Of course the liberal media want you to use that day of giving thanks to instead lecture your conservative family members about America’s atrocities.

Over the years the MRC has tracked liberal journalists’ hatred of this very American holiday and how they’ve tried to ruin it for everybody.

The following are some of the most egregious examples of lib journos attempts to wreck Thanksgiving:

Fortunately, America’s Newspaper of Record has some timely good news for angry leftists:

 

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Thanksgiving Day Guide for Americans of Class and Taste.

From my earliest memories, Thanksgiving meant a few important things: 1) I got to eat a turkey leg the size of my head at the dining room table while the adults talked about adult things, which is where, with my opinions, I always felt that I belonged, 2) a house packed with family, which meant my grandma’s spiritually psychedelic cherry-based Jell-O dish, hide-and-seek with my cousins in the basement, and ghost stories over coffee after the sun set and my aunt was totally blasted, and finally 3) yelling. Like, truly an insane amount of yelling, actually, now that I sit here and think about it, as my mom and dad battled for dominance in the kitchen. But today, I am my family’s Thanksgiving Day lord commander (to general relief).

I have been responsible for Thanksgiving dinner for a few years now, and while I accept requests, and polite feedback, I do not tolerate bullshit. My parents are out of the kitchen. I am in charge of the menu. There is still, somehow, a lot of fighting.

This is a piece for people who either already own responsibility for hosting Thanksgiving, would like to take that responsibility over, or would like to quietly judge whoever in their home’s in charge. Thoughts on the proper — the CORRECT — holiday menu, tips for success, and a look inside my kitchen.

Enjoy.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 4:11 pm by Ed Driscoll