More of a slowdown than anything else. It’s coming along, but I’ll use it as an excuse for late posting.
Meanwhile I’ll just observe here that we turn the clocks back this weekend, which means it will get dark very early here. Ugh.
But the good news is that, in a bit over a month, sunsets will be getting later again. Looking on the bright side. And yes, I know the winter solstice – the shortest day – is later than that. But the earliest sundown comes in early December.
[NOTE: This post is a slightly-edited repeat of a post from 2008.]
No, I didn’t make it up. It really is National Candy Corn Day, the day “the nation celebrates its favorite vegetable.”
No doubt all of my readers, being unusually well-informed people, were already aware of that. But did you know it is estimated that in this country thirty-five million pounds of the classic treat (invented in the 1880s) are sold every year? And by the way, my original post from 2008 had the number at twenty million, according to the same Wiki link, so the number had nearly doubled by 2016, the year of the most recent update at the site.
I personally might be responsible for approximately a ton of that if I gave in to my worst impulses. However, I keep my addiction in tightly-controlled check.
It is part of my penance to confess here that I really love the dreadful stuff and always have, and I’m far from alone (my impression is that candy corn is one of those things a person either loves or hates). Once I even went to a Halloween party dressed as a piece of candy corn, and believe me I was already a grownup. In fact, I’m planning to dress that way again this year. The first time I did it, no one guessed what I was supposed to be, although I thought it was obvious.
Apparently I am not the only adult who has dressed up as candy corn on Halloween. And no, I didn’t look like this—more’s the pity (although to be technical, isn’t she dressed as two pieces of candy corn, the body and the hat?):
I heard on Fox News (can’t give a link here because I was unable to find the information online) that candy corn is the Halloween treat most often stolen by parents from their kids’ Halloween stash. I believe this to be undeniably true. It is a guilty, shameful secret for most, but I am glad this is finally seeing the light of day.
There are various gourmet variations on candy corn, and I’ve sampled quite a few in my day. A helpful reader sent me some information about this Brach product for example, which includes:
Green Beans, Roasted Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, Apple Pie and Coffee. (Fans of Ginger Glazed Carrots, which were part of last year’s batch, should note that flavor is gone.)
I had tried the earlier version, and it was terrible. This sounds even worse. It’s the good old Brach’s original candy corn that I continue to crave; there is no other brand worth eating, and believe me I’ve tried many a substitute. The Brach’s version been sold out where I live for quite some time, but I purchased it early.
And here’s a burning question: do you eat your candy corn in sections? And, if so, do you consider the top to be the yellow part or the white part? I’ve always seen the little white triangle as the “foot” of the candy corn, but I learned when I designed my costume years ago that most people see it the other way. For those who might be inclined to disagree with me, I offer the following exhibit from the realm of science; the kernel grows with the tip – corresponding to the white part of the candy – down, embedded in the cob:
We can’t really blame it on Biden; certainly not totally, because who knows how much input he had into so many things that occurred during his presidency? But it was indeed his presidency during which the apparatus of the federal government was unleashed on the opposing party. Big time:
More than 160 Republicans, including current Trump administration officials, may have been investigated by the FBI under former President Joe Biden, as part of the bureau’s sweeping Arctic Frost probe, documents show.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, US Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro are among the prominent GOP figures named in FBI files released by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, detailing the massive scope of the Biden-era Justice Department’s investigation into allegations of 2020 election interference.
“What we’ve learned is it was much broader, much more expansive, than we ever thought,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The idea on the right that the 2020 election wasn’t valid, as well as the J6 outburst in relation to it, were the gifts that kept on giving for the Democrats. Their surprise at Trump’s victory must have been immense, because I don’t think they thought it possible that any of their investigative shenanigans would ever be revealed.
Previously released Arctic Frost documents showed more than 90 conservative groups, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA nonprofit, were targeted in the probe.
Smith also received metadata from the phones of eight Republican senators and a GOP House member that would have allowed the special counsel to see who they called or texted as part of the Arctic Frost investigation.
The idea is to have Jack Smith give closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. He wants it to be public.
No matter what ends up being revealed, it’s not at all clear what the remedy would be.
In other news, Jonathan Turley opines on Trump’s appeal of the criminal “hush money” case:
President Trump has filed the appeal in his criminal case. Many of us criticized the case as based on a legally unfounded legal theory tried before a highly biased judge. The brief is a devastating litany of errors ignored by a prosecutor and court hellbent on conviction…
That refers to this case, which had most Democrats gleefully intoning that Trump’s a convicted felon.
Lovely guy, that Mamdani.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
Speaking at a New York University event in September 2023, Democratic socialist state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani made one of his most despicable, antisemitic remarks yet. He said, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it is been laced by the IDF.” …
Contemptible as Mamdani’s dubious connection between the NYPD and Israel is, it was not original. He was merely parroting a talking point from the long-running, anti-Israel “Deadly Exchange” campaign, which was created by the anti-Zionist, left-wing advocacy group, Jewish Voice for Peace. …
At the time, LI’s Samantha Mandeles noted that the campaign, which sought “to blame American Jews and Israelis for alleged U.S. domestic police violence against minorities,” played a large role in “bringing the Middle East conflict to the streets of Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere.”
She explained:
“The conflict provided a new opportunity for ‘intersectional’ anti-Israel agitators to portray Israel as the common denominator in oppressions all over the world, including racism in the United States.”
In other words, the Jews killed George Floyd, according to Mamdani and many on the left. This approach tries to play on resentment of Jews by other minorities, and to build on it. It’s a variation on older themes, and as we know, it’s become a dominant force on the left.
Meanwhile on the right we have over-the-top anti-Jew conspiracy theorist Candace Owens (I’ve written about her in this post) as well as “duh, I’m just asking questions” Tucker Carlson, who aired the idea that COVID was engineered to spare Jews, and states that “Zionist Christians” – that is, pro-Israel Christians – are people whom he “dislikes more than anybody” and accuses of “heresy”:
Tucker Carlson tells Nick Fuentes he despises Christian Zionists more than anyone on earth, calling Christian Zionism a dangerous heresy within Christianity.
He names Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, John Bolton, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush as examples.
Carlson says Christian Zionism… pic.twitter.com/741M5Tuvbj
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) October 28, 2025
Carlson has millions of followers, and they act as multipliers spreading poison all around. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discount them. Just to take one tiny little example, on one “X” thread that displayed that same Carlson video, there’s this lovely sentiment in a response, “Most Christians agree. Christian Zionism: the belief that God favors a group that rejects Christ and has given them a land where they’re allowed to kill rape and torture without judgment … .”
I see that sort of thing – and worse – constantly online. Although it may not have made enormous inroads yet, it’s gaining. I think that Carlson wants to be Kirk’s successor – although Kirk was, in his own way, certainly a “Christian Zionist” – and to wrest control of the Christian right from the Israel-sympathizers.
I went back to the endodontist yesterday for session number two, which I must admit was a better experience than session number one had been.
It lasted a shorter time; maybe an hour. It didn’t hurt, although it was uncomfortable. That huge rubber boot in the mouth isn’t fun, nor is the constant scrape, pressure, drill, whatever – all without a word from the dentist except laconic and mysterious instructions to the assistant such as, “Number 30, please!”
I was concerned this time because the dentist had said, after the first session, that it had been impossible to find the fourth root. The tooth involved was a large molar which supposedly should have four roots. This time, the conclusion was that it has no fourth root and so the quest was abandoned.
I hope that was correct. I hope this is – as they say in the real estate business – my “forever” restoration. Wouldn’t want to have to upgrade to an implant. As it was, I practically had to take out a mortgage to finance the root canal. And it doesn’t even have a view.
Hard to know what to say about this:
First, to refresh your memory on Clouseau:
And this is the sort of incompetence I’m talking about, in the Louvre investigation:
As a manhunt continued on Monday for suspects in the Louvre Museum jewel heist, the Paris Prosecutor said she fears the investigation might be harmed by the “hasty disclosure” over the weekend of the arrests of two other robbery suspects.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the information made public about the arrests in the Louvre case should not have been disclosed.
“I deeply regret the hasty disclosure of this information by informed individuals, without consideration of the investigation,” Beccuau said in a statement her office released Sunday night.
Beccuau added, “This revelation can only harm the investigative efforts of a hundred or so investigators” searching for the stolen jewelry and the perpetrators still at large.
Under French law, the suspects in custody can be held for 96 hours before prosecutors have to charge or release them.
The article also says the apprehended suspects are “French nationals.” But then it goes on to add this:
One of the suspects has dual citizenship in France and Mali, and the other is a dual citizen of France and Algeria, investigators said, adding that both were already known to police from past burglary cases.
And they were nabbed when about to escape to – you guessed it – Mali and Algeria, respectively.
The article has photos of some of the jewels stolen; they have not been recovered. The men also left DNA at the crime scene.
More:
[Louvre Director Laurence Des Cars] said all of the museum’s alarms worked properly, as did its video cameras, but noted a “weakness” in security that was taken advantage of by the thieves. She said the only camera installed outside the Apollo Gallery was facing west and did not cover the window where the thieves broke in and exited.
“The weakness of the Louvre is its perimeter security, which has been a problem for a long time … certainly due to underinvestment,” des Cars told the lawmakers.
So the Louvre authorities knew about this weakness, but never did anything about it because of – lack of money? The Louvre is very large, but apparently one more camera might have helped. And wouldn’t a museum need an alarm systems that goes off when windows are breached or broken? The Louvre thieves used power tools to cut the window, as well as to cut the glass cases that held the jewels.
Some more background about the theft:
I’ve not been taken in by a scam – so far. But never say never. The crooks are getting more and more clever.
And so I’d like to warn you about this con game, in which the scammers manage somehow to phone their potential victims in such a way that caller ID identifies the call as coming from that person’s actual bank. They also seem to already have information about the target’s bank account.
Very sophisticated. Here’s an example of how it works:
[Noel Phillips] was bled dry earlier this year by a group of scammers who used phone number-spoofing technology — software used to misleadingly alter caller ID information — to empty his bank account, taking all of his life savings, totaling nearly $30,000. …
Just seconds before getting a phone call from would-be wrongdoers, he’d received an alert from his Chase app, claiming an unauthorized transaction of $500 had been withdrawn from his account.
“The timing of the call was immaculate,” said Phillips. “After they explained that my account had [been hacked], I immediately asked, ‘Well, how do I know you’re Chase Bank?’ Then I hung up, Googled the number for Chase, and it was the same number that had called me.”
But the thieves had spoofed the bank’s phone number and immediately called back from it. He answered — and that would ultimately change his life for the worse.
“They proceeded to tell me that my account was under attack, and that they suspected employees at my local branch had stolen my personal details,” he recalled. “They said they’d launched an investigation, and that I needed to move my money into a hidden or ‘decoy’ account that already had my name on it.”
Phillips began panicking.
There wasn’t just one voice scaring him into submission — there were at least five, even people posting as law enforcement and federal agents.
“There was the ambient sounds of a call center,” added Phillips, now realizing the background faux noise was likely an AI sound effect tool.
“And everyone had solid American accents,” remembered the Brit. “So I’m thinking, ‘OK, this is not the typical call from abroad. This is legitimate.’”
Don’t count on the banks making good on the money, either.
The lesson to be learned is that banks never call to ask you for information, or to ask you to withdraw money, or anything of the sort. And if anyone does call you with anything suspicious, hang up and call the actual bank to verify even if the call seems to have come from the bank’s phone number.
This guy goes around interviewing couples on how they met, and some of his videos are very touching. But he doesn’t always luck out with the couples thing:
The first one describes the details of Sinwar’s plans and instructions for 10/7, written in his own handwriting a few months before the event, and recently discovered by the IDF. It’s extraordinary. The gist of it is that all the sadism – and the broadcasting of the horrors on social media – was meticulously planned, and why:
Here’s another excellent video. The topic is why people believe anti-Israel propaganda, and what to do about it: