Knuckledragger

Holy shit. One of my closest friends from college was murdered not far from where she lived. Sunny was one of the toughest people I've ever met. I can scarcely process this.

Ukraine accuses Putin of humiliating Trump with devastating attack on Kyiv. Russia launches record number of drones and ballistic missiles in seven-hour assault shortly after its leader spoke to US president.

File under: Exceeding the attention span of nearly everyone. Five hours of Gamers Nexus explaining why chaotic tariffs are a dumb idea and how they ruin everything. I watched the first installment over a couple evenings while grinding loot in an RPG. I haven't watched the second one yet.

In the parlance of our times, RIP Bozo. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by prostitution scandals, dies at 90.

A guy I've known on Discogs since like 2002 picked up some dream speakers. Kid for scale.

That's an expensive cat warmer.

ABC of AFX.

Iran says it launched attack on US forces at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base.

More room porn than anything else. Via this real estate listing and /r/audiophile.

There's a web comic called beanytuesday. Way back in 2018 (almost 7 years ago to the day), he did a series of intentionally poorly drawn 2018 election candidates. One of them has had an enduring legacy. No, not ol' Hills. Gen Z loves to meme this one. It's newly relevant.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Jaws. It's kind of a big deal around here.

Y'all familiar with the legend of Pentagon Pizza? Also, Nimitz headed to the Middle East.

RIP Melissa Hortman, a state representative from Minnesota. Shot and killed in what was pretty clearly a targeted act of terrorism.

(OC) Don't ask me why I made this. It's arguably an insult to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I stayed up later than I should have last night watching news clips about Israel/Iran. It's fascinating what one can learn upon escaping the US corporate media bubble. I heard a fairly insightful take on Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi is not a long term strategist. He thinks very short term, he's just (A) been in power and in the public eye for decades and (B) gets a continual tongue bath from most US media. Bibi's MO is [impulsively do thing] -> [deal with the ramifications of his previous action by doing another impulsive thing.] The consequences for this pattern (besides regional instability, bloodshed an chaos) is that to stay in power he has had to increasingly align himself with formerly fringe far right elements of the Israeli political landscape. Bibi's prime directive is to stay in power so he can stay out of jail (reminiscent of a certain other political figure, but I digress...) I have read for years that to really get a proper sense of the true positions of Netanyahu and the Likud party in general, find their Hebrew language statements and run them through Google translate. The results paint a very different picture than what he says in English.

Yesterday, members of the opposition party were set to vote to dissolve the Knesset. That vote failed. Netanyahu remains in power. Also yesterday, the US did an emergency evacuation of personnel from Iran. Tonight Israel has attacked Iran. The news is still filtering out. Reports of large explosions in the Iranian capital. This can and will get ugly.

That statue is, as the kids say, caked up.

I have questions.

This shit is crazy. King of the Hill actor Jonathan Joss fatally shot in Texas after argument with neighbor. EDIT: The second page didn't paste for some reason:

This video is probably exceeds the time and interest of anyone here. I've had it on while working on photos. I have mixed feelings about it. Piers Morgan is an insufferable, pompous jackass and physical evidence that the denizens of my fine state didn't toss quite enough things into the Boston Harbor back in the day. I don't know much about Sean Carroll. Eric is the, uh, less crackpot of the two Weinstein brothers. This is damnation with the faintest of praise. There was a time, maybe 15 years ago where I heard him speak on learning disabilities and thought he was seriously smart. It could be he was, in that moment and on that subject. It's also just as likely that I fell for a grifter. It wouldn't be the first time. In any case, Eric stages a Chernobylesque meltdown here because the "serious" physics community doesn't regard his crackpot theories in the, ahem, gravity he'd like. Sean Carroll is a polite academic type and responds to the full state of Eric's emotional diaper as best he can. Piers, whose job it is to have as much drama as possible on his show, barely manages to contain his smirk while thinking "this is going to get SO many views" to himself. The temper tantrum starts around the 20 minute mark.