Peggy Noonan’s WSJ editorial today isn’t particularly good. One paragraph did get my attention:
Democrats so far are nonexistent as the opposition. In the long term their passivity is a strategy: Let Mr. Trump control immigration and kill woke; that will remove the issues people most hate about the Democratic Party. Once he solves them, the issues are gone. In the short term this isn’t a strategy but another indication of lostness: They don’t know what they believe in and have no leader. The idea that Barack Obama will swoop in to save them is ridiculous. That selfish man isn’t interested in a fight that would expose him to fire.
She also really didn’t like Biden’s last minute pardons.
yes she’s not very serious, we’ve realized since 2008
I too watched all of the shows. This just brought up a lot of good memories. Simpler time. I was 9 in Oct, ’55. B&W TV, 3 channels. There were others. Howdy Doody. Captain Midnight.
Who can forget the morning test pattern, while waiting for HD to come on.
Thanks for that video. A true trip through my childhood TV. Amazing that both adults and kids would watch those shows and both groups enjoyed the experience.
You should also do a piece on the ubiquitous Saturday morning cartoon shows. I can’t believe I would make sure to be up and in front of the TV by 830am. I think I got some my best education though by watching Looney tunes, especially Bugs Bunny. In a similar vein the afternoon shows such as Rocky and Bullwinkle had a level of sophistication that still amazes me today.
TV shows of the 50’s:
What happened to “The Honeymooners ?”
Agree physicsguy,
The Warner Brothers cartoons and Jay Ward’s work had a lot of jokes and puns that helped educate kids on broader culture. And they were hilarious!
Yesterday someone posted a link to a post on Grim’s Hall. This post was below that one and I think some folks here will find it interesting:
well you can only get someone to water, you can’t make them drink,
most people do understand what was done for them,
One surprise is that I’ve Got a Secret had notably higher ratings than its sister program What’s My Line?. They’re both entertaining, but the latter is more structured.
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What gets you about old episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show is that he could retain an audience by putting on performers of every popular genre.
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Walt Disney is a figure who is retrospectively underappreciated. I hate the current misrule at the company he founded.
IMO, The Bullwinkle Show (in all its segments), the various iterations of Looney Toons, and (perhaps) some of the Hanna-Barbera output like The Flintstones is what’s worth remembering of animated productions.
I Love Lucy is an overall top ten show, not just for the 1950s. Although sometimes it’s jarring to watch: Ricky corporally punishes Lucy in at least one episode, and while I didn’t actually see her inhale while pregnant, she was at least holding a lit cigarette while pregnant.
It’s also interesting to see how little our basic middle-class lifestyle has changed since then: Lucy doesn’t have computers obviously but she has mostly the same appliances, and doesn’t have servants to do housework. 1955 was 70 years ago, and 1955 Lucy doesn’t live too differently from 2025 Lucy, but very differently indeed from 1885 Lucy.
1955 is before my time, but I’ve seen all those shows, just not when they originally aired.
Who is seriously reading Noonan these days? As miguel notes, she has not been serious in a very long time.
Did you notice all the TV shows sponsored by the cigarette companies with everybody smoking? What happened to “Your Hit Parade” of the 1950’s? I used to enjoy that as a child,
I didn’t actually see her inhale while pregnant, she was at least holding a lit cigarette while pregnant.
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My mother smoked during all four pregnancies.
That is something a lot of people miss. Our grandmothers saw and adapted to much more change than our mothers or us.
2nd biggest news all morning seemed to be “Mexico refuses to accept US deportation flight” – which brought down a tad my excitement about new SoD Pete Hegseth. McConnell’s past help to the GOP is now forgotten as I lump him in with the other two witches…
Anyway, I follow PS Karoline Leavitt on X, and she straighten out the mistaken news on the flights out of America ‘n into Mexico:
This comes in addition to unrestricted returns at the land border, the deportation of non-Mexicans, & reinstatement of Remain-in-Mexico. Mexico has also mobilized 30K National Guard.
Earlier – ‘This is false, Mexico is NOT refusing flights. A White House official has refuted the claim saying: “the flights thing was an administrative issue and was quickly rectified.”’
An aside note – President Trump seems tough on Mexico, Canada, Greenland, and Denmark – but weak on Iran, who is sponsoring attacks on US Troops and ships…
I went to read Peggy Noonan’s piece after reading Mike Plaiss’ post.
Well.
It is not a real editorial, Mike. It is her opinion, so also a defacto editors’ opinion, implicit pure and simple, since it was published.
And like all of Noonan’s output, it is hyperverbose and often wrong—ill thought out. She claims Trump is sometimes “dangerous”, without any supporting facts, but she falsely claims conservatism. She speaks, lives, and breathes Manhattan. IMHO!
I have quit reading her.
Trump’s DoJ dismisses charges (with prejudice) against Dr Eithan Haim, the Texas whistleblower on transgender surgeries. This was one of the more outrageous abuses by Biden’s DoJ.
Yesterday, I watched the news to check on the happenings around the country. At one border crossing, the Border Patrol was driving the people halfway across the bridge and letting them out to walk the rest of the way. There was a gate which closed after them. Nice.
On the WH website https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/ they are posting transcripts of the press meetings. These are actual transcripts, including all of the words spoken including all of the ahs, ums, repeated words and not cleaned up.
I noticed that they are not numbering the “Executive Actions”, yet. At this point in time, you have to use the full title of the action. There still needs to be a bit of cleanup/reorganization of the information.
I’m adding this website to my daily reading to get a good feel of what happened.
The I Love Lucy show was a classic. A decade or two ago, I got interested in old Hollywood “film noir.” I was surprised to see a young Lucille Ball in one of them set in NYC. A gritty dark film, so different from Lucy the funny lady. “The Dark Corner (1946).”
Our grandmothers saw and adapted to much more change than our mothers or us.
Rufus T. Firefly:
My grandmother grew up in Oklahoma when it was a territory, Geronimo drank Dr. Pepper at her father’s drug store, she saw two world wars, the Great Depression, and the moon landing. So yes, she saw a thing or two.
With the coming of AI I suspect our generation and children will be witnesses to an even more shocking amount of change.
AI is happening very, very quickly and no one really knows where it will land.
A more conservative friend just posted a humorous statement on his FB page:
“Looks like the TDS locusts have awaken from their dormancy.”
and fetterman proved all hat and no cattle, voting against hegseth, as did the Turtle, meanwhile Ras Baraka threw up some false news about roundups, surprise surprise,
When I started over a year ago with ChatGPT 3.5, I couldn’t have a political conversation at all without feeling like I was talking to a Biden press secretary parroting the party line.
ChatGPT 4.o is much more flexible towards conservative viewpoints and in general. Less boilerplate in its responses. More ability to connect dots.
ChatGPT 5 comes out late this year or early next year. It’s hard to say how much better it will be, but better it will be.
from the perspectives of just 30 years we seem to at the indicators of the dystopia of demolition man, (the film opens on an ocean of flame, akin to what we see in the city of angels) from the perspective of 50 years, we have woody allen’s peculiar vision in sleeper, there was also an odd offering of the late raul julia ‘overdrawn at the memory bank’
yes looney tunes is an antidote to the real pretense you see on the telescreens and the blank pages,
1) Looks like Felon President Trump may be a recidivist already!? That’s quick!
The move sparked concerns from Republican and Democrat lawmakers that the president may have broken a federal law requiring Congress to be given 30-day notice of such firings…
***
‘At this point, we don’t believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,’ Hannibal Ware, IG for the Small Business Administration…
2) What’s up w/ ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith?! I never cared for him as a sports dude, but he can be quite interesting on political topics. Is he looking for a job as a political news dude? Or maybe he’s planning to run for political office? Is he planning on replacing Sharpton or one of the other black overseers? I dunno…
Smith was asked for his views by Maher on the late-night chat show as he sat alongside Democratic congressman Ro Khanna.
***
He said: ‘The man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts and the American people still said “he’s closer to normal than what we see on the left”.
‘Why? Because when you talk about the transgender community, for example, and you’re talking about issues that pertain to less than one per cent of the population, the Democratic party came across as if that was more of a priority than other issues.
***
‘What voter out there can look at the Democratic party and say “There’s a voice for us, somebody who speaks for us, that goes up on Capitol Hill and fights the fights that we want them fighting on our behalf”.
‘They didn’t do that and that’s why their behinds are home, and that man is back in the White House. He’s doing what he said he was going to do. He promised you he was going to do these things and he walked into office and that’s exactly what he’s doing.’
He unfairly (IMHO) bashed Trump on pardoning Stewart Rhodes & Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, so he’ll need to move further right for me…
3) CoS Susie “Ice Maiden” Wiles had apparently froze Trump’s ‘First Buddy’ outta having his own office in the West Wing. No co-presidency for Elon…she’s cold ‘n mean! 😉
Donald Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles has issued a brutal takedown of Elon Musk as she refuses to grant him an office in the West Wing.
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Wiles, a 67-year-old veteran of GOP politics, saw her first victory on Trump’s first day in office when he confirmed Musk would not have a desk in the West Wing.
Musk was reportedly pushing for his own room just yards from the Oval Office but his DOGE team will instead be based in the Eisenhower building, which is across the road from the White House.
The chief administrator of DOGE must also report to Wiles, a sign of her control over the White House.
***
‘She has an abundance of charm and she’ll need every bit of it to survive this job,’ said Chris Whipple, author of a book on the 2024 Trump campaign, noting that there were four chiefs of staff in Trump’s first term.
huxley:
My grandmother died two years before the moon landing. But she started out seeing Buffalo Bill and the performers in his Wild West Show shop at her grandfather’s store in the 1880s.
Niketas…”1955 was 70 years ago, and 1955 Lucy doesn’t live too differently from 2025 Lucy, but very differently indeed from 1885 Lucy” I’ve read that the term ‘gas stove wife’ was applied to those fortunate women that were affluent enough not to have to deal with a wood or coal stove.
Owen Young, who was president & chairman of GE from 1922-1939, offered a vivid description about what a farm wife’s Monday…wash day…had been like before the coming of electricity. Cite at my Quillette article here:
I was surprised to learn from IMDB that “The Honeymooners” was only on for one season, 39 episodes. It was canceled because of low ratings. Probably a mistake by the network, given its subsequent popularity. I recall that “Seinfeld” had relatively low ratings its first season, but was given another chance.
Karmi quoted: Musk was reportedly pushing for his own room just yards from the Oval Office but his DOGE team will instead be based in the Eisenhower building, which is across the road from the White House.
Good! Politics won’t get human civilization past the Great Filter.
@David Foster:Owen Young, who was president & chairman of GE from 1922-1939, offered a vivid description about what a farm wife’s Monday…wash day…had been like before the coming of electricity.
You might also try “The Egg and I”, autobiographical stories by a woman who moved from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula from 1927 – 1931 and had to learn how to deal with farm labor, and her battles with her stove.
In case you are wondering why I didn’t take a good book, settle down by the stove and shut-up, I would like to explain that Stove, as we called him, had none of the warm, friendly qualities ordinarily associated with the name. In the first place he was too old and, like some terrible old man, he had a big strong frame, a lusty appetite and no spirit of cooperation. All attempts to get Stove to crackle and glow were as futile as trying to get the Rock of Gibraltar to giggle and cavort. I split pure pitch as fine as horsehair and stuffed his ponderous belly full, but there was no sound and no heat. Yet, when I took off the lids the kindling had burned and only a few warm ashes remained. It was as mysterious as the girl in high school who ate enormous lunches without apparently chewing or swallowing.
Incongruously, things did boil on Stove. This always came as a delightful shock, albeit I finally stopped rushing to the back door and shouting hysterically to Bob, quietly and competently at work, “The water is BOILING!” as I had done for the first few hundred times I had witnessed this miracle.
I put my first cake into the oven with such a sense of finality that I almost added a Rest-in-Peace wreath, and I felt like Sarah Crewe when I came in from the chicken house and the air was vibrant with the warm spicy smell of baking.
On the coldest dreariest mornings Stove sulked all over his end of the kitchen. He smoked and choked and gagged. He ate load after load of my precious live bark and by noon I could have sat cross-legged on him and read Pilgrim’s Progress from cover to cover in perfect comfort.
Stove was actually a sinister presence and he was tricky. The day we first looked at the place, I remarked that he seemed rather defiantly backed up against the wall, but such an attitude could come from neglect, I thought, and so when we moved in the first thing I did was to clean his suit, take all the rust off his coat and vest, blacken every inch of him, except his nickel which I polished brightly, and then I built my first fire, which promptly went out. I built that fire five times and then Bob came in and poured about a gallon of kerosene on top of the kindling and Stove began balefully to burn a little. I learned by experience that it took two cups of kerosene to get his blood circulating in the morning and that he would only digest bark at night. In the summer and spring I didn’t care how slow he was or how little heat he gave out. Bob and I were out doors from dawn to dark and we allowed plenty of time for cooking things and all of the wood was dry and the doors were open and there was plenty of draught. But with the first rainy day I realized that Stove was my enemy and would require the utmost in shrewd, cautious handling.
Incidentally if you’ve only known “The Egg and I” through the movie, be prepared for quite a different tone. The stories are more black humor, by a woman doing her best to try to get through an increasingly difficult situation, which ended in divorce and starting over somewhere else.
When I first moved out here I encountered a nearby road called Egg and I. This, I thought, was a weird name for a road. It seemed to have some local significance because of the “The Dog and I” groomers and the “The Keg and I” tavern. A little web surfing turned up that it was the road to the chicken ranch.
Last time I drove towards Sequin, there was still an “Egg And I Avenue” not far from town. The movie was filmed near Chimacum.
We shop at Safeway in Sequim because the QFC in Chimacum is tiny. 45 years ago the Milwaukee Road railroad tracks ran through Sequim right through where the Safeway deli is now.
We had a small wood stove in our basement, when I was a kid. We used it to incinerate cardboard etc. It had a big enough stove top for two pots, but we never used it that way.
Lol all the Western Washingtonians come out of the woodwork if you mention “The Egg and I”.
The book is available free from gutenberg.ca, read it if you haven’t.
Betty’s first meeting with Ma Kettle:
My first batch of bread was pale yellow and tasted like something we had cleaned out of the cooler. I tried again. This batch had the damp elasticity of the English muffin that tasted like something we had intended to clean out of the cooler but was too heavy.
At Bob’s gentle but firm insistence I took a loaf, still quivering from the womb, to a neighbor for diagnosis. Unfortunately, the neighbor, Mrs. Kettle, was just whipping out of the oven fourteen of the biggest, crustiest, lightest loaves of bread I had ever seen. I put my little undernourished lump down on the table and it looked so pitiful among all those great bouncing well-tanned beauties that I had to control a strong desire to jerk it up, nestle it against me protectively and run the four miles home.
Mrs. Kettle had fifteen children and baked fourteen loaves of bread, twelve pans of rolls, and two coffee cakes every other day. She was a very kind neighbor, a long-suffering wife and mother and a hard worker, but she was earthy and to the point. She picked my stillborn loaf from the table, ripped it open, smelled it, made a terrible face and tossed it out the back door to her pack of mangy, ever hungry mongrels. “God-damn stuff stinks,” she said companionably, wiping her hands on her large dirty front.
She moved the gallon-sized gray granite coffee pot to the front of the stove, went into the pantry for the cups and called out to me, “Ma Hinckley had trouble with her bread too when she lived on your place.” I brightened, thinking it might be the climate up there on the mountains, but Mrs. Kettle continued. “Ma Hinckley set her bread at night and the sponge was fine and I couldn’t put my finger on her trouble till one day I went up there and then I seed what it was. She’d knead up her bread, build a roaring fire and then go out and lay up with the hired man. When she got back to the kitchen the bread was too hot and the yeast was dead. Your yeast was dead too,” she added.
Having quite obviously been given the glove, I hurriedly explained that we had no hired man and the barn was now a chicken house. Mrs. Kettle heaved a sigh for all good things past and poured our coffee. With the coffee she served hot cinnamon rolls, raspberry jam and detailed accounts of the moral lapses of the whole country. It was almost noon when I left for home, clutching a loaf of Mrs. Kettle’s bread, two pocketfuls of anecdotes for Bob and a few hazy instructions for myself.
All I ever knew about “The Egg and I” was “The Bullwinkle Show” episode titled “The Yegg and I”.
There was a cute little breakfast restaurant here in Abq called “The Egg & I.” Sadly it expired from COVID.
When we went on our honeymoon to England in 1971, we visited distant relatives of mine in Kent. He was a British Airways pilot, and the house was lovely. She had an Aga stove, coal-fired, which she kept going day and night.
huxley, Good news! The Egg and I did not expire from Covid, rather the owner retired and sold it to her manager of many years. All employees who wished were able to continue working there. It operates under the name Sunnyside Up these days and is one of the best breakfast, brunch and lunch spots in town.
Kelly:
That is good news! I tried looking up The Egg & I on the web and all I found were messages that it was permanently closed around 2020.
I usually stick with the Eggs Benedict.
And now we have Trump showing up on a Las Vegas casino floor. The crowd goes wild:
Trump says he celebrating his new “No taxes on tips.”
No doubt. And he’s also letting everyone know there is a new President in town, one with boundless energy and who enjoys mingling with the common folk.
Trump makes the difference obvious between himself and Biden/Harris. It’s sad how many people voted for Harris, mostly out of habit or fear, but I’d say Trump is winning over a lot of Harris voters.
I was surprised to learn from IMDB that “The Honeymooners” was only on for one season, 39 episodes. It was canceled because of low ratings. Probably a mistake by the network, given its subsequent popularity. I recall that “Seinfeld” had relatively low ratings its first season, but was given another chance.
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As a stand-alone television series, it was on for one season. It was a recurring sketch around 10 minutes in length which appeared with varying degrees of frequency on all four of Gleason’s variety shows.
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Jackie Gleason played Ralph Kramden in all sketches from 1951 to 1970 and Art Carney played Ed Norton in all the sketches in which the Norton character appeared over the same period.
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Pert Kelton played Alice Kramden in the sketches which appeared on Cavalcade of Stars (1951-52); Audrey Meadows played Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952-57), On The Jackie Gleason Show: American Scene Magazine (1962-66), Sue Ann Langdon played Alice in most of the small number of sketches, with Audrey Meadows appearing as Alice a couple of times. On The Jackie Gleason Show (1966-70), the role of Alice was played by Sheila MacRae.
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Elaine Stritch was the original actress cast to play Trixie Norton on Cavalcade of Stars in 1951. Gleason replaced her after one episode. Joyce Randolph played the role from that time until 1957. In the few sketches which appeared on American Scene Magazine, Patricia Wilson played Trixie. Jane Kean played Trixie on the last iteration of The Jackie Gleason Show.
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Last I checked, Sue Ann Langdon and Patricia Wilson were still alive at 87 and 94 respectively. Joyce Randolph died about a year ago at age 99.
Well, this post sure fired up the nostalgia!
The YouTuber followed with best shows of 1958, which surprised me when I looked at the two line-ups: (per Nielsen Ratings).
(Born 1952 FWIW, I was too young to remember any from the actual year 1955).
1955: (10) I’ve Got a Secret (9) The Millionaire (8) Dragnet (7) You Bet Your Life (6) December Bride (5) Jack Benny (4) Disneyland (3) Ed Sullivan (2) I Love Lucy (1) The $64,000 Question
(Some of these I never saw even in later years, either because they aired too late, my parents tuned into something else, they didn’t air in our area (there were some shows we only saw at Grandma’s in the summer), or they were gone and I never encountered reruns)
1958: (10) Wyatt Earp (9) I’ve Got a Secret (8) The Real McCoys (7) Tales of Wells Fargo (6) Maverick (5) Danny Thomas/Make Room for Daddy (4) The Rifleman (3) Have Gun, Will Travel (2) Wagon Train (1) Gunsmoke
(We didn’t watch all of these but I certainly saw episodes of the ones that weren’t regular viewings.)
No Westerns in the first list; 3 years later, 7 made the top ten!
Many of the earlier ones were still around, because I remember watching them or their later incarnations.
The series keeps going if anyone is interested.
In 1965, she hit my better-remembered shows, mostly in color by that time (junior high).
And my favorite: Man From U.N.C.L.E. — back when that kind of convoluted spy-craft was fictional.
Aaand the series keeps going.
The Forgotten Shows of 1964 were very interesting — several things I remember fondly disappeared after only one year, often despite critical acclaim. The Rogues was one of the best, IMO.
I am familiar with “The Egg and I” but don’t remember if that is from reading the book or seeing the movie. Until I checked Wikipedia, I had no idea that “Ma and Pa Kettle” were characters from those, spun off to their own movie series.
Betty McDonald is a very familiar author to me for her series of books about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Our second-grade teacher read those to us whenever we had to stay inside during recess because of bad weather.
@ Tommy Jay > “A decade or two ago, I got interested in old Hollywood “film noir.” ”
This one’s for you.
Is there no limit to what AI can do?
The open thread is made for news like this.
Picked up a link from a post at Ace (which also has some other interesting news bits) which eventually led to this from the Washington Free Beacon. https://ace.mu.nu/archives/413301.php#413301
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration shut down a highly trained, all-volunteer team of certified firefighters in early 2024—a move that rendered the California National Guard incapable of sending a complete firefighting force to Los Angeles until 10 days after the deadly fires broke out in the city, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Launched in 2020, Team Blaze was an on-call strike force staffed entirely with certified firefighters of the California State Guard, a volunteer militia force that reports directly to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Former State Guard commanding general Jay Coggan said its members attended regular trainings at their own expense, and an outside charity procured much of the team’s firefighting equipment at no cost to the state. California was obligated to pay Team Blaze only when the unit was activated to fight a wildfire, and by 2023 Coggan had plans to expand its ranks to 1,000 certified volunteer firefighters on standby all across the state.
But in January 2024, the Newsom administration disbanded Team Blaze after barring its charitable benefactor from providing free firefighting equipment to its volunteers. [see below]
Team Blaze had to return its equipment to the state and many of its firefighters quit, while those that remained were transferred to support a separate state initiative called Task Force Rattlesnake, a senior enlisted leader in the California State Guard told the Free Beacon.
Task Force Rattlesnake is composed of “hotshot” Type I handcrews trained to carry out the most dangerous frontline wildfire duties. Rattlesnake deployed 14 of its Type I handcrews to Los Angeles after Newsom activated the National Guard to help quell the wildfires, California National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Brandon Hill told the Free Beacon. Hill disputed that Team Blaze was disbanded, saying the force was “incorporated” into Rattlesnake “as their reserve detachment.”
Type I handcrews put out wildfires where they stand, but they count on the support of Type II handcrews working behind them to prevent the fires from spreading further. Team Blaze maintained a force of Type II handcrews, and when it was disbanded in early 2024, the California National Guard was left with no Type II handcrews on standby.
…
Coggan, the former State Guard commander who founded Team Blaze, said the 10-day delay could have been avoided had his unit still existed. Coggan said Team Blaze’s Type II handcrews could have been on the ground in Los Angeles within hours of the initial outbreak working to quell the flames and saving lives.
…
Team Blaze’s days were numbered after Newsom appointed Major General Matt Beevers to serve as acting head of the California National Guard in August 2022. Beevers was no fan of Coggan, who happened to be a Jewish attorney as well as commander of the State Guard. Beevers allegedly referred to Coggan as a “kike lawyer” during a private June 2022 conversation with his predecessor, Dave Baldwin, according to California Military Department Inspector General records obtained by the Free Beacon.
…
Beevers cut a critical line of funding for Team Blaze through a January 2023 ruling that prohibited the State Guard from accepting “gifts” from the California State Guard Foundation, a charity run by Coggan that provided firefighting equipment for the force and covered the training costs for its volunteers.
…
Beevers, in his January 2023 ruling, said Coggan’s charity could only support the volunteers of the State Guard, and by extension Team Blaze, if it conveyed its contributions through a separate fund under Beevers’s control. But not long after, the Beevers-controlled fund refused to accept a $137,680 contribution from Coggan’s charity to finance a scheduled training for members of Team Blaze and the State Guard.
[AF: I think this is a clear example of Catch-22.]
…
Hill, speaking on behalf of Newsom’s office on Friday, told the Free Beacon that the administration “does not regret” the moves it made in 2024 that left the California National Guard without a standby force of Type II handcrews. Hill said Team Blaze was ineffective because it had “little to no funding for equipment and maintenance,” but did not address the Newsom administration’s ruling in January 2023 that deemed it illegal for Team Blaze to accept charitable funds to pay for its equipment and maintenance. Hill added that the administration’s move to assign the remnants of Team Blaze to serve as reserve detachment for Task Force Rattlesnake was a “much more efficient use of government resources”
…
Sunday morning Babbling & Piddling:
1) Maybe this app can be used by more than just bloggers. WordPress now has a limited amount of DATA allowed in Media Library – 1 GB on the free blogs (?) compared to 3 GB previously. My old “Linux Newbie – Since 1996” blog still has 3 GB, and there are 430.2 MB of used DATA. It’s a private blog now – with many posts and pics deleted, and plans to eventually delete the whole blog. My Hostinger WP blogs has something like 100 GB of storage space—I’ll die before using all of that.
The Squoosh app takes like a 1.84 MB png file and reduces it to a 104 KB jpg file. To the naked eye it looks the same. I made a lot of ‘Steps’ pics on that Linux blog on how to install various Linux Distros—there are like 600+- Distros, and I had done posts on a lot of them. One popular post was how to add This PC to the Windows 11 Taskbar—Windows posts were also popular, since the blog catered to Windows’ users who might be potential Linux users. Apparently MS ignored it when upgrading from Windows 10 to 11, and you could no longer move This PC easily to the Taskbar—in fact, if you had it there, then the upgrade removed it. I moved that post to the new blog:
Take a lot of steps to install install and/or add and/or tweak stuff, so lots of pics are involved. Squoosh is an image compression tool that reduces the size of image files. For video files I use Handbrake.
2) Here’s a Trump Tally update__not much of a change, but was so relieved by Pete Hegseth being confirmed that I added that in Trump’s “Strong” column – for selecting him for the Secretary of Defense slot:
Strong:
1) Pre-Jan 20 was very well organized w/ Trump quiet. CoS Susie Wiles has done a great job!
2) Quickly picked Admin & staff pre-Jan 20.
3) Inauguration Day 2025 shows total preparation made by good leader – unlike being unprepared during his first term.
4) Moved fast on illegal immigration promises – plus lots of helpful EO’s.
5) Have to give Trump a Strong on his choice of Pete Hegseth as SoD – and solid work by the GOP Senate to get him confirmed!
Weak:
1) Failed to end Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours.
2) Re-designates Iranian-backed Houthis as terrorists – lets Iran continue to back them!?!
A commenter a few days ago made the observation that we are witnessing a mass psychotic break among the liberal/left population. Over the past week, as I’ve commented before, I’ve seen a huge uptick in insane comments from that population after the inauguration. Check this out from this morning:
“The first action that really upset me, was the green-lighting of future violence against the resistance, clearly demonstrated by the freeing and pardoning of violent J6 offenders.
The second action was the overtly cruel act of stripping Dr. Anthony Fauci of his security detail, protection made necessary only because of DJT’s specific targeting of the former public health leader.
My prediction is that there will be two kinds of terrorist attacks by MAGA members. The first will be sophisticated attempts by trained paramilitary groups on high profile targets such as Fauci. While, of course that horrifies me, I am powerless to prevent such acts. Nor will I be personally affected.
The second, however, could potentially directly affect me, and friends like me. I could see that those of us who are outspoken blue dots, living in the red rural MAGA countryside, will be targeted for harassment by local wannabe ‘patriots’.
While I am hopefully wrong, I would be foolish not to make plans accordingly.”
Comments on the post were generally in agreement and many expressed fear they are going to be targeted. One woman even said that for the first time in her life she may buy a gun to protect herself from the MAGAs that are going to be coming after her. Insanity descending into extreme paranoia. What’s scary is that these people are working themselves into such a frenzy.
Open Thread Sunday:
China’s New Stealth Aircraft – “J-36” and the challenge to US Air Power (with Justin Bronk) – Perun
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:01:31 — What We’re Talking About
00:02:02 — Welcome Back Justin Bronk
00:02:32 — Us Air Dominance
00:04:14 — the PRC Answers
00:06:07 — Previewing What Comes Next?
00:07:46 — “J-36” Key Features
00:12:29 — J-20 vs B-21
00:14:15 — the Age of Stealth Over? (No)
00:15:03 — J/H-XX
00:19:27 — the Weapon Bay Question
00:29:29 — Multi-domain Development
00:36:57 — the Missile Race
00:43:31 — Stealth vs Stealth
00:45:30 — Two Solutions: Complexity and/or Size
00:48:00 — the Form Factor Challenge
00:50:35 — Leveraging UCAVs
00:54:54 — PLAAF Modernisation
00:59:36 — Channel Update
Paranoia — how crazy sad!
This appalls & angers me beyond words, how the Left’s propaganda arm (– news it ain’t) & lying Dem politicians have so successfully gaslighted & terrified it’s audience. Even convinced them that the label “MAGA” implies danger!
I never understood, from way back in Trump’s 1st term, what basis they had.
And when LGBTers act (then& now) like they are a big target … Where’s any evidence??
And this term, the crazy media hosts are blabbering that Trump is coming to lock them up!
Projection, much??
As if Trump has time to even think of them.
Their narcissism runs deep!
Karmi, thanks for your post on adding “This PC” to the Windows 11 task bar
I’ve bookmarked it, as I’ll be getting a new laptop soon (I hope).
I’m going from Windows 7 to 11, and am kinda dreading the learning curve.
AF, that’s incredible….
(Heh, actually it’s not. For the Cover-Up Party it’s par for the course…. Guess the next step is to blame the fires on Trump’s incendiary bluster…)
@ Marlene – I went from Win7 to Win10 Pro because I couldn’t stand either version of Win8. Almost went from Win7 to Linux, because I thought Win10 wasn’t that good at first.
I test all kinds of OSes, and first tests of Win10 just didn’t ‘Feel‘ right. Started a blog on Linux in Feb of 2019 thinking I would move permanently to Linux – by the end of 2019 an update/upgrade of Win10 Pro suited me just fine, and I LOVED Windows again. Linux just became a secondary OS for me. Nowadays – people use at least 2 OSes…
Marlene wrote – I’ll be getting a new laptop soon (I hope)
“hope” is for Obama – get that Lappy! Win11 Pro is the best OS I have ever used, and am sure Win11 standard is the same. Not a big learning curve, but certainly a little from Win7…
physicsguy
Comments on the post were generally in agreement and many expressed fear they are going to be targeted. One woman even said that for the first time in her life she may buy a gun to protect herself from the MAGAs that are going to be coming after her. Insanity descending into extreme paranoia. What’s scary is that these people are working themselves into such a frenzy.
‘The horror! The horror! Just tossed my *SPECIAL* Chicken Bones and they said that physicsguy’s comment @ 10:30 am—has all the ingredients for the “liberal/left population” to accidentally start killing themselves each other__which then will cause MSM to start blaming MAGA. Er, OK, bones…
UPDATE: just did a double-check on the bones reading and changed “themselves” to each other…sorry for the misread.
I was born in ’52 so I only saw TV shows from that year in syndication. But I saw almost all of them from that list.
I’ve watched a few of Groucho’s “You Bet Your Life” recently and I still marvel at Groucho’s off-the-cuff sense of humor. When I was a kid, I didn’t know who Groucho was and I kept trying to understand the show as a game show.
Of course it wasn’t a game show, but an opportunity for Groucho to be Groucho.
Years later I discovered that Groucho had struck up a relationship with Bud Cort of “Harold and Maude” fame. They hit it off. Groucho’s health was declining and Cort was invited to move in to Groucho’s household to help care for Groucho, where Cort lived off and on for several years.
I still wonder about their cute meet. Groucho had seen Cort in “Harold and Mauce” and invited Cort to a party at Groucho’s. Cort took a cab over. Let Cort tell it:
____________________________________________
I was really nervous. I took a deep breath. And as I went to knock on the door, just as my fist connected with the door, the door opened, and there was Groucho in a beret. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both at the same time gasped and he slammed the door in my face.
Well, now I’m standing there, ’cause my cab had left, and I’m thinking, Now what am I going to do? And then the door opened again, and it was Goddard Lieberson, who used to be the president of Columbia Records. He said: “Groucho, this is Bud Cort. He just made a film with Ruth Gordon.” And Groucho looked at me and said: “Ruth had the hots for Harpo. I’m sorry, I thought you were Charles Manson. Come on in.”
Peggy Noonan’s WSJ editorial today isn’t particularly good. One paragraph did get my attention:
She also really didn’t like Biden’s last minute pardons.
yes she’s not very serious, we’ve realized since 2008
https://x.com/HenMazzig/status/1883163307215057126
I too watched all of the shows. This just brought up a lot of good memories. Simpler time. I was 9 in Oct, ’55. B&W TV, 3 channels. There were others. Howdy Doody. Captain Midnight.
Who can forget the morning test pattern, while waiting for HD to come on.
Thanks for that video. A true trip through my childhood TV. Amazing that both adults and kids would watch those shows and both groups enjoyed the experience.
You should also do a piece on the ubiquitous Saturday morning cartoon shows. I can’t believe I would make sure to be up and in front of the TV by 830am. I think I got some my best education though by watching Looney tunes, especially Bugs Bunny. In a similar vein the afternoon shows such as Rocky and Bullwinkle had a level of sophistication that still amazes me today.
TV shows of the 50’s:
What happened to “The Honeymooners ?”
Agree physicsguy,
The Warner Brothers cartoons and Jay Ward’s work had a lot of jokes and puns that helped educate kids on broader culture. And they were hilarious!
Yesterday someone posted a link to a post on Grim’s Hall. This post was below that one and I think some folks here will find it interesting:
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2025/01/loving-big-brother.html
One of the J6 pardonees is refusing the pardon.
well you can only get someone to water, you can’t make them drink,
most people do understand what was done for them,
One surprise is that I’ve Got a Secret had notably higher ratings than its sister program What’s My Line?. They’re both entertaining, but the latter is more structured.
==
What gets you about old episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show is that he could retain an audience by putting on performers of every popular genre.
==
Walt Disney is a figure who is retrospectively underappreciated. I hate the current misrule at the company he founded.
IMO, The Bullwinkle Show (in all its segments), the various iterations of Looney Toons, and (perhaps) some of the Hanna-Barbera output like The Flintstones is what’s worth remembering of animated productions.
I Love Lucy is an overall top ten show, not just for the 1950s. Although sometimes it’s jarring to watch: Ricky corporally punishes Lucy in at least one episode, and while I didn’t actually see her inhale while pregnant, she was at least holding a lit cigarette while pregnant.
It’s also interesting to see how little our basic middle-class lifestyle has changed since then: Lucy doesn’t have computers obviously but she has mostly the same appliances, and doesn’t have servants to do housework. 1955 was 70 years ago, and 1955 Lucy doesn’t live too differently from 2025 Lucy, but very differently indeed from 1885 Lucy.
1955 is before my time, but I’ve seen all those shows, just not when they originally aired.
Who is seriously reading Noonan these days? As miguel notes, she has not been serious in a very long time.
Did you notice all the TV shows sponsored by the cigarette companies with everybody smoking? What happened to “Your Hit Parade” of the 1950’s? I used to enjoy that as a child,
I didn’t actually see her inhale while pregnant, she was at least holding a lit cigarette while pregnant.
==
My mother smoked during all four pregnancies.
https://x.com/chris_nado56703/status/1863710284013343085
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/thenewthinkery/id/34907260
Niketas,
That is something a lot of people miss. Our grandmothers saw and adapted to much more change than our mothers or us.
2nd biggest news all morning seemed to be “Mexico refuses to accept US deportation flight” – which brought down a tad my excitement about new SoD Pete Hegseth. McConnell’s past help to the GOP is now forgotten as I lump him in with the other two witches…
Anyway, I follow PS Karoline Leavitt on X, and she straighten out the mistaken news on the flights out of America ‘n into Mexico:
Yesterday, Mexico accepted a record 4 deportation flights in 1 day!
Earlier – ‘This is false, Mexico is NOT refusing flights. A White House official has refuted the claim saying: “the flights thing was an administrative issue and was quickly rectified.”’
An aside note – President Trump seems tough on Mexico, Canada, Greenland, and Denmark – but weak on Iran, who is sponsoring attacks on US Troops and ships…
I went to read Peggy Noonan’s piece after reading Mike Plaiss’ post.
Well.
It is not a real editorial, Mike. It is her opinion, so also a defacto editors’ opinion, implicit pure and simple, since it was published.
And like all of Noonan’s output, it is hyperverbose and often wrong—ill thought out. She claims Trump is sometimes “dangerous”, without any supporting facts, but she falsely claims conservatism. She speaks, lives, and breathes Manhattan. IMHO!
I have quit reading her.
Trump’s DoJ dismisses charges (with prejudice) against Dr Eithan Haim, the Texas whistleblower on transgender surgeries. This was one of the more outrageous abuses by Biden’s DoJ.
https://www.thefp.com/p/eithan-haim-we-took-on-the-federal
Yesterday, I watched the news to check on the happenings around the country. At one border crossing, the Border Patrol was driving the people halfway across the bridge and letting them out to walk the rest of the way. There was a gate which closed after them. Nice.
On the WH website https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/ they are posting transcripts of the press meetings. These are actual transcripts, including all of the words spoken including all of the ahs, ums, repeated words and not cleaned up.
I noticed that they are not numbering the “Executive Actions”, yet. At this point in time, you have to use the full title of the action. There still needs to be a bit of cleanup/reorganization of the information.
I’m adding this website to my daily reading to get a good feel of what happened.
The I Love Lucy show was a classic. A decade or two ago, I got interested in old Hollywood “film noir.” I was surprised to see a young Lucille Ball in one of them set in NYC. A gritty dark film, so different from Lucy the funny lady. “The Dark Corner (1946).”
Our grandmothers saw and adapted to much more change than our mothers or us.
Rufus T. Firefly:
My grandmother grew up in Oklahoma when it was a territory, Geronimo drank Dr. Pepper at her father’s drug store, she saw two world wars, the Great Depression, and the moon landing. So yes, she saw a thing or two.
With the coming of AI I suspect our generation and children will be witnesses to an even more shocking amount of change.
AI is happening very, very quickly and no one really knows where it will land.
A more conservative friend just posted a humorous statement on his FB page:
“Looks like the TDS locusts have awaken from their dormancy.”
and fetterman proved all hat and no cattle, voting against hegseth, as did the Turtle, meanwhile Ras Baraka threw up some false news about roundups, surprise surprise,
When I started over a year ago with ChatGPT 3.5, I couldn’t have a political conversation at all without feeling like I was talking to a Biden press secretary parroting the party line.
ChatGPT 4.o is much more flexible towards conservative viewpoints and in general. Less boilerplate in its responses. More ability to connect dots.
ChatGPT 5 comes out late this year or early next year. It’s hard to say how much better it will be, but better it will be.
from the perspectives of just 30 years we seem to at the indicators of the dystopia of demolition man, (the film opens on an ocean of flame, akin to what we see in the city of angels) from the perspective of 50 years, we have woody allen’s peculiar vision in sleeper, there was also an odd offering of the late raul julia ‘overdrawn at the memory bank’
yes looney tunes is an antidote to the real pretense you see on the telescreens and the blank pages,
1) Looks like Felon President Trump may be a recidivist already!? That’s quick!
Trump sparks Republican alarm in overnight bloodbath of government watchdogs
2) What’s up w/ ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith?! I never cared for him as a sports dude, but he can be quite interesting on political topics. Is he looking for a job as a political news dude? Or maybe he’s planning to run for political office? Is he planning on replacing Sharpton or one of the other black overseers? I dunno…
Stephen A. Smith shocks Bill Maher audience with blunt verdict on why Donald Trump is president
He unfairly (IMHO) bashed Trump on pardoning Stewart Rhodes & Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, so he’ll need to move further right for me…
3) CoS Susie “Ice Maiden” Wiles had apparently froze Trump’s ‘First Buddy’ outta having his own office in the West Wing. No co-presidency for Elon…she’s cold ‘n mean! 😉
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ chief of staff launches brutal takedown of Elon Musk as she REFUSES to give him a West Wing office and issues stark warning over being ‘co-president’
huxley:
My grandmother died two years before the moon landing. But she started out seeing Buffalo Bill and the performers in his Wild West Show shop at her grandfather’s store in the 1880s.
Niketas…”1955 was 70 years ago, and 1955 Lucy doesn’t live too differently from 2025 Lucy, but very differently indeed from 1885 Lucy” I’ve read that the term ‘gas stove wife’ was applied to those fortunate women that were affluent enough not to have to deal with a wood or coal stove.
Owen Young, who was president & chairman of GE from 1922-1939, offered a vivid description about what a farm wife’s Monday…wash day…had been like before the coming of electricity. Cite at my Quillette article here:
https://quillette.com/2022/07/21/steam-electricity-slavery-and-societal-sustainability/
What happened to “The Honeymooners ?”
I was surprised to learn from IMDB that “The Honeymooners” was only on for one season, 39 episodes. It was canceled because of low ratings. Probably a mistake by the network, given its subsequent popularity. I recall that “Seinfeld” had relatively low ratings its first season, but was given another chance.
Karmi quoted: Musk was reportedly pushing for his own room just yards from the Oval Office but his DOGE team will instead be based in the Eisenhower building, which is across the road from the White House.
Good! Politics won’t get human civilization past the Great Filter.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-great-filter-a-possible-solution-to-the-fermi-paradox/
@David Foster:Owen Young, who was president & chairman of GE from 1922-1939, offered a vivid description about what a farm wife’s Monday…wash day…had been like before the coming of electricity.
You might also try “The Egg and I”, autobiographical stories by a woman who moved from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula from 1927 – 1931 and had to learn how to deal with farm labor, and her battles with her stove.
Incidentally if you’ve only known “The Egg and I” through the movie, be prepared for quite a different tone. The stories are more black humor, by a woman doing her best to try to get through an increasingly difficult situation, which ended in divorce and starting over somewhere else.
When I first moved out here I encountered a nearby road called Egg and I. This, I thought, was a weird name for a road. It seemed to have some local significance because of the “The Dog and I” groomers and the “The Keg and I” tavern. A little web surfing turned up that it was the road to the chicken ranch.
Last time I drove towards Sequin, there was still an “Egg And I Avenue” not far from town. The movie was filmed near Chimacum.
We shop at Safeway in Sequim because the QFC in Chimacum is tiny. 45 years ago the Milwaukee Road railroad tracks ran through Sequim right through where the Safeway deli is now.
We had a small wood stove in our basement, when I was a kid. We used it to incinerate cardboard etc. It had a big enough stove top for two pots, but we never used it that way.
Lol all the Western Washingtonians come out of the woodwork if you mention “The Egg and I”.
The book is available free from gutenberg.ca, read it if you haven’t.
Betty’s first meeting with Ma Kettle:
All I ever knew about “The Egg and I” was “The Bullwinkle Show” episode titled “The Yegg and I”.
There was a cute little breakfast restaurant here in Abq called “The Egg & I.” Sadly it expired from COVID.
When we went on our honeymoon to England in 1971, we visited distant relatives of mine in Kent. He was a British Airways pilot, and the house was lovely. She had an Aga stove, coal-fired, which she kept going day and night.
huxley, Good news! The Egg and I did not expire from Covid, rather the owner retired and sold it to her manager of many years. All employees who wished were able to continue working there. It operates under the name Sunnyside Up these days and is one of the best breakfast, brunch and lunch spots in town.
Kelly:
That is good news! I tried looking up The Egg & I on the web and all I found were messages that it was permanently closed around 2020.
I usually stick with the Eggs Benedict.
And now we have Trump showing up on a Las Vegas casino floor. The crowd goes wild:
–“President Trump makes surprise visit to Vegas Casino floor, “USA, USA” chants heard near craps table”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGwRTVyNwd4
Trump says he celebrating his new “No taxes on tips.”
No doubt. And he’s also letting everyone know there is a new President in town, one with boundless energy and who enjoys mingling with the common folk.
Trump makes the difference obvious between himself and Biden/Harris. It’s sad how many people voted for Harris, mostly out of habit or fear, but I’d say Trump is winning over a lot of Harris voters.
I was surprised to learn from IMDB that “The Honeymooners” was only on for one season, 39 episodes. It was canceled because of low ratings. Probably a mistake by the network, given its subsequent popularity. I recall that “Seinfeld” had relatively low ratings its first season, but was given another chance.
==
As a stand-alone television series, it was on for one season. It was a recurring sketch around 10 minutes in length which appeared with varying degrees of frequency on all four of Gleason’s variety shows.
==
Jackie Gleason played Ralph Kramden in all sketches from 1951 to 1970 and Art Carney played Ed Norton in all the sketches in which the Norton character appeared over the same period.
==
Pert Kelton played Alice Kramden in the sketches which appeared on Cavalcade of Stars (1951-52); Audrey Meadows played Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952-57), On The Jackie Gleason Show: American Scene Magazine (1962-66), Sue Ann Langdon played Alice in most of the small number of sketches, with Audrey Meadows appearing as Alice a couple of times. On The Jackie Gleason Show (1966-70), the role of Alice was played by Sheila MacRae.
==
Elaine Stritch was the original actress cast to play Trixie Norton on Cavalcade of Stars in 1951. Gleason replaced her after one episode. Joyce Randolph played the role from that time until 1957. In the few sketches which appeared on American Scene Magazine, Patricia Wilson played Trixie. Jane Kean played Trixie on the last iteration of The Jackie Gleason Show.
==
Last I checked, Sue Ann Langdon and Patricia Wilson were still alive at 87 and 94 respectively. Joyce Randolph died about a year ago at age 99.
Well, this post sure fired up the nostalgia!
The YouTuber followed with best shows of 1958, which surprised me when I looked at the two line-ups: (per Nielsen Ratings).
(Born 1952 FWIW, I was too young to remember any from the actual year 1955).
1955: (10) I’ve Got a Secret (9) The Millionaire (8) Dragnet (7) You Bet Your Life (6) December Bride (5) Jack Benny (4) Disneyland (3) Ed Sullivan (2) I Love Lucy (1) The $64,000 Question
(Some of these I never saw even in later years, either because they aired too late, my parents tuned into something else, they didn’t air in our area (there were some shows we only saw at Grandma’s in the summer), or they were gone and I never encountered reruns)
1958: (10) Wyatt Earp (9) I’ve Got a Secret (8) The Real McCoys (7) Tales of Wells Fargo (6) Maverick (5) Danny Thomas/Make Room for Daddy (4) The Rifleman (3) Have Gun, Will Travel (2) Wagon Train (1) Gunsmoke
(We didn’t watch all of these but I certainly saw episodes of the ones that weren’t regular viewings.)
No Westerns in the first list; 3 years later, 7 made the top ten!
Many of the earlier ones were still around, because I remember watching them or their later incarnations.
The series keeps going if anyone is interested.
In 1965, she hit my better-remembered shows, mostly in color by that time (junior high).
And my favorite: Man From U.N.C.L.E. — back when that kind of convoluted spy-craft was fictional.
Aaand the series keeps going.
The Forgotten Shows of 1964 were very interesting — several things I remember fondly disappeared after only one year, often despite critical acclaim. The Rogues was one of the best, IMO.
I am familiar with “The Egg and I” but don’t remember if that is from reading the book or seeing the movie. Until I checked Wikipedia, I had no idea that “Ma and Pa Kettle” were characters from those, spun off to their own movie series.
Betty McDonald is a very familiar author to me for her series of books about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Our second-grade teacher read those to us whenever we had to stay inside during recess because of bad weather.
@ Tommy Jay > “A decade or two ago, I got interested in old Hollywood “film noir.” ”
This one’s for you.
Is there no limit to what AI can do?
Star Trek – 1940s Film Noir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2anadsN7Ks
The open thread is made for news like this.
Picked up a link from a post at Ace (which also has some other interesting news bits) which eventually led to this from the Washington Free Beacon.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/413301.php#413301
RTWT, but please put down anything you are holding before you start, or you will throw it at your computer screen.
https://freebeacon.com/california/gavin-newsom-shut-down-a-volunteer-wildfire-response-force-leaving-la-firefighters-shorthanded-for-10-days/
Sunday morning Babbling & Piddling:
1) Maybe this app can be used by more than just bloggers. WordPress now has a limited amount of DATA allowed in Media Library – 1 GB on the free blogs (?) compared to 3 GB previously. My old “Linux Newbie – Since 1996” blog still has 3 GB, and there are 430.2 MB of used DATA. It’s a private blog now – with many posts and pics deleted, and plans to eventually delete the whole blog. My Hostinger WP blogs has something like 100 GB of storage space—I’ll die before using all of that.
The Squoosh app takes like a 1.84 MB png file and reduces it to a 104 KB jpg file. To the naked eye it looks the same. I made a lot of ‘Steps’ pics on that Linux blog on how to install various Linux Distros—there are like 600+- Distros, and I had done posts on a lot of them. One popular post was how to add This PC to the Windows 11 Taskbar—Windows posts were also popular, since the blog catered to Windows’ users who might be potential Linux users. Apparently MS ignored it when upgrading from Windows 10 to 11, and you could no longer move This PC easily to the Taskbar—in fact, if you had it there, then the upgrade removed it. I moved that post to the new blog:
Windows 11: Create & Pin “This PC” icon to the Windows 11 Taskbar
Take a lot of steps to install install and/or add and/or tweak stuff, so lots of pics are involved. Squoosh is an image compression tool that reduces the size of image files. For video files I use Handbrake.
2) Here’s a Trump Tally update__not much of a change, but was so relieved by Pete Hegseth being confirmed that I added that in Trump’s “Strong” column – for selecting him for the Secretary of Defense slot:
A commenter a few days ago made the observation that we are witnessing a mass psychotic break among the liberal/left population. Over the past week, as I’ve commented before, I’ve seen a huge uptick in insane comments from that population after the inauguration. Check this out from this morning:
“The first action that really upset me, was the green-lighting of future violence against the resistance, clearly demonstrated by the freeing and pardoning of violent J6 offenders.
The second action was the overtly cruel act of stripping Dr. Anthony Fauci of his security detail, protection made necessary only because of DJT’s specific targeting of the former public health leader.
My prediction is that there will be two kinds of terrorist attacks by MAGA members. The first will be sophisticated attempts by trained paramilitary groups on high profile targets such as Fauci. While, of course that horrifies me, I am powerless to prevent such acts. Nor will I be personally affected.
The second, however, could potentially directly affect me, and friends like me. I could see that those of us who are outspoken blue dots, living in the red rural MAGA countryside, will be targeted for harassment by local wannabe ‘patriots’.
While I am hopefully wrong, I would be foolish not to make plans accordingly.”
Comments on the post were generally in agreement and many expressed fear they are going to be targeted. One woman even said that for the first time in her life she may buy a gun to protect herself from the MAGAs that are going to be coming after her. Insanity descending into extreme paranoia. What’s scary is that these people are working themselves into such a frenzy.
Open Thread Sunday:
China’s New Stealth Aircraft – “J-36” and the challenge to US Air Power (with Justin Bronk) – Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exD-ZrG1XTA
physicsguy:
Indeed “paranoia strikes deep”
For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield
https://youtu.be/gp5JCrSXkJY
Paranoia — how crazy sad!
This appalls & angers me beyond words, how the Left’s propaganda arm (– news it ain’t) & lying Dem politicians have so successfully gaslighted & terrified it’s audience. Even convinced them that the label “MAGA” implies danger!
I never understood, from way back in Trump’s 1st term, what basis they had.
And when LGBTers act (then& now) like they are a big target … Where’s any evidence??
And this term, the crazy media hosts are blabbering that Trump is coming to lock them up!
Projection, much??
As if Trump has time to even think of them.
Their narcissism runs deep!
Karmi, thanks for your post on adding “This PC” to the Windows 11 task bar
I’ve bookmarked it, as I’ll be getting a new laptop soon (I hope).
I’m going from Windows 7 to 11, and am kinda dreading the learning curve.
AF, that’s incredible….
(Heh, actually it’s not. For the Cover-Up Party it’s par for the course…. Guess the next step is to blame the fires on Trump’s incendiary bluster…)
+ Bonus (Close Encounters of the Prophetic Kind?)…
“ Martin Gurri: Trump Has a Mandate to Lead. What Comes Next?”—
https://www.thefp.com/p/martin-gurri-trump-has-a-mandate-inauguration?utm_medium=email
H/T Powerline blog.
@ Marlene – I went from Win7 to Win10 Pro because I couldn’t stand either version of Win8. Almost went from Win7 to Linux, because I thought Win10 wasn’t that good at first.
I test all kinds of OSes, and first tests of Win10 just didn’t ‘Feel‘ right. Started a blog on Linux in Feb of 2019 thinking I would move permanently to Linux – by the end of 2019 an update/upgrade of Win10 Pro suited me just fine, and I LOVED Windows again. Linux just became a secondary OS for me. Nowadays – people use at least 2 OSes…
“hope” is for Obama – get that Lappy! Win11 Pro is the best OS I have ever used, and am sure Win11 standard is the same. Not a big learning curve, but certainly a little from Win7…
physicsguy
‘The horror! The horror! Just tossed my *SPECIAL* Chicken Bones and they said that physicsguy’s comment @ 10:30 am—has all the ingredients for the “liberal/left population” to accidentally start killing
themselveseach other__which then will cause MSM to start blaming MAGA. Er, OK, bones…UPDATE: just did a double-check on the bones reading and changed “themselves” to each other…sorry for the misread.
I was born in ’52 so I only saw TV shows from that year in syndication. But I saw almost all of them from that list.
I’ve watched a few of Groucho’s “You Bet Your Life” recently and I still marvel at Groucho’s off-the-cuff sense of humor. When I was a kid, I didn’t know who Groucho was and I kept trying to understand the show as a game show.
Of course it wasn’t a game show, but an opportunity for Groucho to be Groucho.
Years later I discovered that Groucho had struck up a relationship with Bud Cort of “Harold and Maude” fame. They hit it off. Groucho’s health was declining and Cort was invited to move in to Groucho’s household to help care for Groucho, where Cort lived off and on for several years.
I still wonder about their cute meet. Groucho had seen Cort in “Harold and Mauce” and invited Cort to a party at Groucho’s. Cort took a cab over. Let Cort tell it:
____________________________________________
I was really nervous. I took a deep breath. And as I went to knock on the door, just as my fist connected with the door, the door opened, and there was Groucho in a beret. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both at the same time gasped and he slammed the door in my face.
Well, now I’m standing there, ’cause my cab had left, and I’m thinking, Now what am I going to do? And then the door opened again, and it was Goddard Lieberson, who used to be the president of Columbia Records. He said: “Groucho, this is Bud Cort. He just made a film with Ruth Gordon.” And Groucho looked at me and said: “Ruth had the hots for Harpo. I’m sorry, I thought you were Charles Manson. Come on in.”
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001217mag-qa-cort.html