Brilliant! – Page 16

Trump has a posse

Posted on December 14, 2024 by Mike

And it’s hella-cool.

Meant to go further into this back when it happened not quite a month ago and let it get by me—then, as I was out earlier running a cpl errands, heard Kid Rock’s classic barroom brawl of a tune “Cowboy” on the car radio, and it reminded me. If the above ain’t one helluva pic, I sure don’t know what would be. Backstory:

Donald Trump Returns To Madison Square Garden For UFC Fight, Flanked By Elon Musk and MAGA Allies
Before a roaring crowd, the president-elect walked into the “World’s Most Famous Arena” to Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” less than a month after his controversial rally.

Link is to the de-paywalled version of a typically twee Vanity Fair article whose very first ‘graph should suffice to explain why I won’t be excerpting anymore of it than this.

President-elect Donald Trump returned to Madison Square Garden for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on Saturday, less than one month after his supporters descended on New York City for the then-candidate’s hate-filled homecoming rally.

“Hate-filled.” Yeah, Kid Rock has a little something for ya on that, shitlib fucksticks.

FAIR WARNING: Definitely NSFW, for rough language. Then again, I figger if y’all let liberal use of the “F” word get your panties in a bunch, you wouldn’t be hanging out here in the first place, amIright? Hey, every single asswart he hurls the word at in the vid richly deserves it, so there’s that too.

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Pick us another winner, Donald

Posted on December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 by Mike

It appears that he has, actually.

BOOMITY! Donald Trump Names Harmeet Dhillon As Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights
With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of Donald Trump’s nominees for his second administration have been home runs with conservatives.

Yesterday, however, Trump announced another pick that may have had his voters cheering the loudest of all.

Can’t honestly say I know a heck of a lot about the lady, but from the way the Leftard sob-sisters are carrying on about her (more on that at the link, and it’s hilarious), she sounds pretty damned good to me. Trump runs down just a few of her finer qualities, to wit:

I repeat: sounds pretty good to me.

Justice, for once, is served

Posted on December 9, 2024December 9, 2024 by Mike

I’m stunned.

Daniel Penny acquitted in subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, sparking applause, uproar in NYC courtroom
A Manhattan jury has cleared Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a crowded subway — a caught-on-video killing that sparked fierce debate over the city’s mental health system and crime underground.

The courtroom erupted in applause as the panelists acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide — which could have put him behind bars for up to four years — in Neely’s chokehold death aboard a crowded uptown F train in May 2023.

The part I bolded is probably the most stunning of all. Oh, and by the way, NYP: it was NOT a “chokehold death” as you so manipulatively claim. More on that later.

Penny immediately broke out a huge smile and turned to hug defense attorney Thomas Kenniff — even as Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, was escorted from the courtroom.

“Racist f—ing country,” one Black Lives Matter supporter yelled as she left the room. Another Neely supporter, turning to Penney, screamed, “It’s a small world, buddy,” before leaving the room.

If Penny and his family aren’t already halfway to their new FLA home by now, they’re nuts. One of Penny’s lawyers asks the most pertinent question of them all.

Jurors sided with Penny’s defense attorneys, who had argued that the Marine veteran was justified in rushing to protect his fellow subway straphangers when he subdued the erratic homeless man. The lawyers had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold caused Neely’s death.

“Who do you want on the next train ride with you?” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, in his closing statement in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“The guy with the earbuds minding his own business who you know would be there for you if something happened? Or perhaps you just hope that someone like Jordan Neely does not enter that train when you are all alone, all alone in a crowd of others frozen with fear?”

Or, perhaps, this fine, upstanding New Yorker:

This is what Democrats have let New York City become. Absolutely revolting. I hope Daniel Penny is found innocent and gets the hell out of that shithole. pic.twitter.com/jhHfifwHKw

— Jaimee Michell (@thegaywhostrayd)

December 7, 2024

Now for that “chokehold death” horseshit.

Twilight of the Race Hustle
“There is nothing more fake than when the libs pretend to have an emotional outpouring over some dead loser they didn’t give a f**k about while they were living.” — Aimee Terese

Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.

Again: bold mine, and entirely dispositive. Meanwhile, via Ace, NYC’s rational, eminently fair minded Nee-grow community is reacting to the verdict with all the sober, judicious moderation we’ve come to expect from them—ie, by declaring a total chimp-out.

BLM leader Hawk Newsome calls for “black vigilantes” to get active following Daniel Penny’s acquittal pic.twitter.com/yRtqDHecIX

— Amit Shah (Parody) (@Motabhai012)

December 9, 2024

You got a mighty big mouth on ya for somebody who represents 13-14% of the total population, I’d say. Whyn’tcha shag your sorry ass down here to South Cackalacky with that shit, see how that works out for ya.

Got a cpl-three more links on this story waiting for attention, but I wanted to go ahead and get this much up quick as I could, so expect updates later on.

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A noble idea

Posted on December 7, 2024December 8, 2024 by Mike

Ever since my Madeleine was born, I’ve thought a great deal about, but somehow never quite gotten around to, putting together for her a sort of quasi-biographical compilation encompassing but not necessarily limited to:

My stories of the rock ’n’ roll road life and the many musical icons, actors, painters, authors, and other such notables and quotables I’ve rubbed elbows with along the way
Other enduring interests of mine such as riding and wrenching on custom go-fast Harley Davidsons and vintage beater Fords
Shooting, full-auto subguns in particular
Aviation and aircraft, both military and civilian
Reading and/or writing, both fiction and non-fiction
Website design, construction, and management
US history, Civil War v1.0 in particular
Philosophy, logic, and Western literature
Rockabilly, blues, bluegrass, trad country, classical, swing, and early (ie, pre-bebop) jazz
Composing, recording, and performing my own original music
My years in NYC

It would be a fine thing, I think, to be able to pass this stuff on to my daughter for purposes of self-explanation, a way for her to know who and what her Daddy was to the fullest extent practicable. And now, thanks to AoSHQ’s scampydog, I’ve found what looks to be a handy dandy kick-in-the-butt motivator for getting started on this admittedly daunting project at last. Namely: Your Father’s Story.

About this item

✨YOUR FATHER’S STORY: Have you ever wanted a more in-depth look at your father’s life? What he valued most from his parents or maybe a funny habit that he had as a child? This journal will uncover all of the little things you might not know about your father.

✨DOCUMENT HIS LIFE: The Your Father’s Story journal is filled with prompts for your father to write his memories and knowledge to pass on to you, give you more insight into his live and experiences that have helped shape him and in turn, help shape you.

✨CHERISH THE MEMORIES: Strewn throughout the journal are inspirational quotes as a reminder to treasure the moments, to remember what was and have the courage to pass it forward.

✨LAYOUT: Prompts are divided into six chapters with one to two questions on each page. Gift our journal to your father and discover new details about his journey through life.

✨PREMIUM PAPER: Let his story unfold on premium cream-colored writing paper. We care about preserving your memories, our “Acid-free” paper resists the yellowing and crumbling that comes with age.

✨YOUR STORIES SERIES: Get to know your family history with our new guided journal series. Click the blue “Piccadilly” button under the title to find all our family journals, sketchbooks, guided journals, notebooks and more!

Pretty cool, no? Next time I get my hands on a few spare shekels, I’ma look into picking one of these things up. A bit too rich for my po-ass blood on Amazon, but they can be had on eBay at a more reasonable tariff.

Update! The above mention of full-auto subguns reminded me of my personal all-time favorite pic of Madeleine’s mama, to wit:

Snapped by Yr Humble Hoste at Shooter’s Express in Mt Holly, immediately after the ex had popped off an entire thirty-round stick magazine at full auto for the first time in her life, using the über-righteous H&K MP5 chambered in the venerable Europellet 9mm. Her beatific, rapturous smile should tell any deprived soul who hasn’t experienced the deliriously pulse-pounding thrill of full auto pretty much everything he/she will ever need to know about how much fun it really, truly is.

Man, I seriously LOVE that photo, it’s a real gem. Like I always say: you haven’t really flown until you’ve flown an open-cockpit biplane, and you haven’t really shot until you’ve shot full auto. Trust me, that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nuttin’ but the truth. Oh yes, I knew that huge grin was coming, so I stood behind her waiting for it, digital camera in hand (what was that little thing anyhow, Sony, Canon? Can’t remember now, but it’s still around here someplace), prepped, aimed, and ready to capture the moment.

A cpl of other MP5 snaps, then. First up, my dearly beloved NYC partner in crime Rachel, now tragically deceased:

God only knows how Rachel managed to find a range in NYC where she’d be allowed to shoot an MP5, much less the MP5 itself; she emailed me that pic with no further explanation, and insouciantly laughed me off every time I asked about it, which was just like her. Then again, knowing that wild, wilfull, and wanton woman as well as I did, it must be acknowledged that if anybody in the world could pull off such an extraordinary feat, it would have to be her. Could ONLY be her, actually.

6 feet nothing of mostly long, shapely legs, thick, stick-straight black hair, and big giant titties; eternally sarcastic; unfailingly cheerful, confident, and socially adroit; the snappiest dresser you ever did see, whether in a lovely vintage dress and heels or her preferred black jeans, T-shirt, and scuffed-up engineer boots—verily, Rachel was in a class of her own. They broke the mold and threw away the pieces the day that girl was made. Of all the multitudinous Pyrsynzz Of Vagina I’ve known over lo, these many years, I never met another quite like Rachel Gudera, bless her big ol’ heart.

Rachel also happens to be the naughty little girl who once sent me the best Christmas card I ever received. It’s on the hard drive somewhere, I think; I’ll see if I can dig it up and post it in an update.

Of course, I simply MUST throw in a snap of little ol’ moi firing SE’s rental MP5, right before I reloaded and passed the sweet-shooting little beastie along for the ex-wife to get her projectile-weapon rocks off on.

Good times, folks, good times indeed.

Not nice update! A-yup, found the aforementioned Xmas card. CAUTION: definitely NSFW, this one. Delicate, less-worldly sorts are hereby advised to avert their eyes. I’ll tuck it below the fold so as not to spook the horses, frighten the children, or offend the aged and infirm.

Continue reading “A noble idea” →

Due, and long past due

Posted on December 7, 2024December 7, 2024 by Mike

Can’t remember if I’ve ever run this wonderful Louis Prima chestnut here before, but if not, it’s high time I made amends for that nearly-unforgivable Yuletide lapse.

Couldn’t find a vid of that tune with the incomparable Keely Smith, alas. Bound to be footage of a live Prima performance of it out there someplace—probably rotting away in a dusty cardboard box in somebody’s closet, attic, or garage—that includes Louis’s winsome wife, so maybe next Christmas it’ll turn up. Meanwhile, as we wait for that frabjous day to arrive at last, enjoy another jolt of the magical Prima elixir.

I absolutely love the note-perfect combination of Louie clowning, showboating, and generally making an ass of himself with the somber-faced Keely pretending to be disinterested, bored stiff, even downright annoyed by her ol’ man’s antics. Best of all, hard as Keely tries to keep her mask of cool detachment firmly in place, now and again the ludicrous onstage carnival before, beside, and behind her simply overwhelms her disdainful facade: she loses her self-control and above-it-all poise and breaks down into giggle-fits, sometimes into helpless laughter.

It’s all in good fun, an obvious truth placed well beyond dispute by everyone in attendance. Just a quick look at the vid tells the story: singers, backing musicians, house technicians, and audience members alike, every face has an honest, happy grin plastered all over it.

Man alive, but what a fantastic show Louis Prima, his understatedly-beautiful, alluring wife Keely Smith, and Prima’s minimalist combo put on back in the day. Louie’s longtime tenor saxomophonist, the legendary Sam Butera, was one of the very best sax-men ever to put lips to mouthpiece, take a deep breath, and just wail. Watch this one, I triple-dog dare you to disagree.

See what I mean? You’ll all recognize that number, I imagine, if only in its David Lee Roth cover-version guise. I’m just about certain I HAVE posted that vid here before, but it’s so friggin’ good it merits an encore, and plenty of ‘em too. Biographical info on sax-master Sam Butera, including a Cliff Notes-style summarization of how the blessed, incredibly fruitful musical union of the Primas and Butera came to pass.

SPOILER ALERT! Said union boils down to blind luck; happenstance; felicitous timing; and a nudge in the right direction from the notoriously fickle hand of Lady Fate. In other words, just one of those things—another of the unforeseeable turns of fortune that can sometimes occur in this Earthly vida loca. It was meant to be, no more nor less.

Sam Butera (August 17, 1927 – June 3, 2009) was an American tenor saxophonist and singer best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene.

Butera was born and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, where his father, Joe, ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. He heard the saxophone for the first time at a wedding when he was seven years old, and, with his father’s encouragement, he began to play.

Butera’s professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine when he was only eighteen years old, and, by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.

As the big band era wound down and heavy touring became less common among jazz musicians, Butera re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The 500 Club was owned by Louis Prima’s brother, Leon, and it was this connection that led him to his much-heralded Vegas-based collaborations with Prima and Smith.

Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas somewhat hastily, having signed a contract with the Sahara without having first assembled a back-up band. From his Vegas hotel room, Prima phoned Butera in New Orleans and had him assemble a band posthaste. Butera and the band drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas in such a hurry that they had not taken time to give their act a name. On opening night in 1954, Prima asked Butera before a live audience what the name of his band was. Butera responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck.

Butera remained the bandleader of The Witnesses for more than twenty years. During that time, he performed with Louis Prima and/or Keely Smith on such Prima-associated songs as “That Old Black Magic”, “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Come on-a My House,” and “I Wan’na Be Like You” (from Disney’s The Jungle Book). Richard and Robert Sherman, composers of the songs for the Disney animated film, agreed to cast Prima, Butera and their band after executives from the Walt Disney Company urged them to travel to Las Vegas to witness the band’s live act in person.

Butera is noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics. The arrangement he made with Prima of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” has been covered by David Lee Roth, Los Lobos, Brian Setzer, The Village People, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. In addition to his accomplishments as a saxophonist and composer, Butera is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr.

After Prima’s death in 1978, Butera renamed his band “The Wildest,” and played for another 25 years, mostly at Las Vegas lounges. As Burt Kearns recounts on PleaseKillMe, “He paid tribute to Louis Prima every night, opening each set with ‘When You’re Smiling’ and closing with ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ leading the horn section on a stroll through the audience, slapping palms, shaking hands, and somehow continuing to blow that saxophone, as always, with a smile on his face.”

Folks, THAT’S entertainment for sure and certain, of a stripe they just ain’t making anymore. They don’t make ‘em like Louie Prima, Keely Smith, and Sam Butera anymore either, and that’s a crying shame.

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The Donald steps up to the plate

Posted on December 7, 2024December 7, 2024 by Mike

Going to bat for his unfairly-beleaguered and -beslimed SecDef nominee, which right-on-time show of fighting spirit, will to win, and steely resolve I’m mighty damned happy to see. If it holds up, I’d consider that a highly encouraging indicator of the shape of things to come.

Trump confident Pete Hegseth will be confirmed as defense secretary: ‘Senators call me up saying he’s fantastic’
President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he’s been hearing rave reviews from senators about Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth and is confident he will be confirmed.

“It looks like Pete is doing well now,” Trump told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, in a clip from her interview with the president-elect that will air Sunday.

“I mean, people were a little bit concerned,” Trump continued. “He’s a young guy, with a tremendous track record actually. He went to Princeton and went to Harvard. He was a good student at both. But he loves the military and I think people are starting to see it so we’ll be working on his nomination along with a lot of others.”

Yeah, well, we all know who those concerned “people” were, and fuck them right in the liver with a sparking cattle prod. May every man Jack of them die screaming, then burn in Hell for a thousand years. Such as:

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who on Thursday suggested that she wasn’t quite yet a “yes” on Hegseth, met with the nominee on Friday and plans to continue the conversation next week.

“I just had another substantive conversation with Senator Ernst,” Hegseth wrote on X. “I appreciate her sincere commitment to defense policy, and I look forward to meeting with her again next week.”

On the meeting, Ernst tweeted, “At a minimum, we agree that he deserves the opportunity to lay out his vision for our warfighters at a fair hearing.”

Sleazy, slimy, Swamp-stinking rat. As I already said, Punch ‘Em Out Pete knows the score.

Earlier this week, Hegseth slammed the onslaught of anonymously sourced media reports that have imperiled his confirmation.

“It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Yessir, that is precisely what it is, with the usual assist from dirty Vichy GOPe RINOs like Ernst. A testimonial to Hegseth’s fitness for the position which is more than good enough for me.

Will Cain, one of Hegseth’s former co-hosts at “Fox & Friends Weekend,” came to his ex-colleague’s defense Friday after the Washington Post downplayed the significance of Hegseth’s two Bronze Stars.

“Was just hanging out in [Hegseth’s] office (with his permission) and found this. Is this cool? I don’t know can someone ask [the Washington Post]?” Cain wrote in a tweet which included a photo of an Army Commendation Medal awarded to Hegseth in 2005.

The citation on the commendation noted that Hegseth’s “leadership and initiative directly resulted in the capture of two high value targets with ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and effectively marked the end of an insurgent mortar cell.”

Gee, hire a warrior with battlefield skills and experience for a job best suited to a warrior with battlefield skills and experience—what could possibly be more appropriate, more sensible, more just plain old right than that, prithee tell?

Alternatively, we could just rely on the simon pure, reliably honest, fair, and trustworthy WaPo’s advice on this matter, I suppose. *spit*

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Good enough for me

Posted on December 4, 2024December 4, 2024 by Mike

The increasingly impressive Tom Homan—who seems not to have either a jot or tittle of bullshit in his big, burly frame—sings a jubilee of righteous praise for the loverly Kristi Noem, who as y’all know I’ve always liked a lot my own self.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan praises DHS pick Kristi Noem: ‘She understands it’
Homan told The Post he and Noem had a productive discussion at Mar-a-Lago recently to strategize about sealing the border and carrying out mass deportations, adding that their chat made him “very confident she’s going to do a great job.”

“I briefed her on many of my plans and my thoughts,” said Homan, who wouldn’t elaborate on details of what the two discussed. “She asked very, very detailed questions, so she understands it.”

Homan has previously shared some of his plans for addressing illegal immigration, saying he’d “flood” sanctuary cities with ICE agents if those areas refuse to work with the feds. He also has said the incoming administration will use the military to aid ICE in carrying out deportations.

If confirmed, Noem will oversee the operations of federal border authorities and immigration officers as the Trump administration seeks to shut down illegal crossings and carry out mass deportations.

While serving as South Dakota governor, Noem was the first to deploy state National Guard troops to the border to help Texas deter illegal crossings.

Putting her money where her mouth is, I believe that used to be called in the more homespun, down to earth circles.

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Moar Musk, STAT!

Posted on November 30, 2024November 30, 2024 by Mike

The further down the red-pill rabbit hole Elon goes, the more you just gotta love the guy. At this point the man’s not merely an inspiration, a genius, or a legend, even; he’s well on his way to becoming a bona fide American hero.

Elon Musk asks if the IRS should be ‘deleted’ after agency begs for $20 billion – here’s how X users responded
Billionaire Elon Musk asked social media users Wednesday if the Internal Revenue Service should be “deleted” — a day after a top Biden-Harris administration official urged Congress to give the federal agency $20 billion.

“The IRS just said it wants $20B more money,” Musk, who will co-lead informal Department of Government Efficiency under President-elect Donald Trump, wrote on X.

The world’s richest person then asked users for their thoughts on the tax authority’s budget situation.

“Do you think its budget should be: Increased, Same, Decreased, Deleted,” Musk asked in a poll.

More than 60% of X users preferred having the IRS’s budget “deleted.”

Only 3.9% said the federal agency’s budget should remain the same, 5.6% felt it deserved more money and 29.9% said the IRS budget should be decreased.

The Tesla CEO’s tweet follows Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo making a desperate public plea for billions of dollars in more funding for the IRS.

“The IRS is going to potentially have to make dramatic decisions about stopping hiring and starting to budget for a world in which they don’t have $20 billion, which will stop a lot of their progress,” Adeyemo told reporters on a press call Tuesday.

”If they don’t get that $20 billion that is at risk they would run out of enforcement money at the current pace sometime in fiscal year 2025,” he added.

Aw, what a shame; that’d be just awful. SRSLY, I can’t stand it, I’m bawling over here. Why, it’s Literally Genocide!©, that’s what it is.

Swine. Somewhat surprising, to me at any rate, how many Xwitter habitués appear to be supportive of what until recently would have been considered by most to be a quite radical proposition.

One can only wonder what the crazed lackwits over at Bluefly or whatever the fuck it’s called had to say about this fooferaw. Assuming they can even type, what with a veritable gullywasher of mouth-foam, flop sweat, and bitter tears spattered over their keyboards, monitors, and clothing and all. Not that I care one (1) iota about any of their tomfool jabberwocky, natch.

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Publick Announcement

Posted on November 29, 2024November 29, 2024 by Mike

Sorry ‘bout giving Memezapoppin’ a miss this week, gang, but after receiving a whole slew of truly toothsome T-day-related memes this past week via a private arch-con email list I’m a proud member of—which boasts a solid line-up of some of the most trusted names in ReichWingNaziDeathBeast© blogdom—I thought I’d use some of ‘em for my regularly-scheduled Friday Substack thang, which will be up in a trice.

Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful, y’all.

Update! As diligent CF watchers have no doubt gathered already from the Donnybrook update above, she’s up and running as promised.

End Times alert!

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Mike

Well whaddya know, maybe Woke really IS dead after all.

Apple just released the ad of the year. I would have never expected such a pro-family ad to come from this company.

Watch. Try not to cry… pic.twitter.com/2Yh7yCoodj

— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza)

November 28, 2024

When the Superdooperdoublesecretultraüberlibs at Apple release an ad as White family-positive as this—not a jot or tittle of mockery, sarcasm, or sneering; no thinly-veiled insinuations of LiterallyHitlerGenocideNaziSupremacissism in sight—something’s going on out there.

Steve Jobs must be spinning in his grave. Which, just this once, is by no means a bad thing.

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Brine shrimp

Posted on November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 by Mike

Anybody out there old enough to remember Sea Monkeys?

Sea-Monkeys is a marketing term for brine shrimp (Artemia) sold as novelty aquarium pets. Developed in the United States in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut, they are sold as eggs intended to be added to water, and most often come bundled in a kit of three pouches and instructions. Sometimes a small tank and additional pouches are included. The product was marketed in the 1960s and 70s, especially in comic books, and remains a presence in popular culture.

Ant farms had been popularized in 1956 by Milton Levine. Harold von Braunhut invented a brine-shrimp-based product the next year, 1957. Von Braunhut collaborated with a marine biologist, Anthony D’Agostino, to develop the proper mix of nutrients and chemicals in dry form that could be added to plain tap water to create a suitable habitat for the shrimp to thrive. Von Braunhut was granted a patent for this process on July 4, 1972.

They were initially called “Instant Life” and sold for $0.49, but von Braunhut changed the name to “Sea-Monkeys” in 1962. The new name was based on their salt-water habitat, together with the supposed resemblance of the animals’ tails to those of monkeys.

Sea-Monkeys were intensely marketed in comic books throughout the 1960s and early 1970s using illustrations by the comic-book illustrator Joe Orlando. These showed humanoid animals that bore no resemblance to the crustaceans. Many purchasers were disappointed by the dissimilarity and by the short lifespan of the animals. Von Braunhut is quoted as stating: “I think I bought something like 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising a year. It worked beautifully.”

Good old American marketing genius and ingenuity, that’s what, enhanced by a heaping helping of old school medicine-show hucksterism. What reminded me of it all was this post over at BRM. I tried leaving a comment over at Peter’s joint, but I don’t think it took.

There are several iterations of the Sea Monkeys ad findable via Luxxle search, but the one I remember best is this one:

Please note the disclaimer at bottom left—truth in advertising if ever I saw it, although as a kid I of course would pay it no heed. After refusing for a few years, my Dad finally consented to order some for me back then, and I must say the main result of the whole project was profound disappointment. Be all that as it may, one has to ask: was the world really a more fun place then, or were we all just more gullible? All things considered, this might be the perfect time to embrace the healing power of “and.”

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Happy Turkey Day!

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Mike

Correction…PARROT day.

Via Ace. This parrot one doesn’t quite beat my all-time fave version of the song (the Ramones, performed live below; it’s originally by the Trashmen, IIRC), but it’s a near-run thing.

In the midst of fascist darkness, the lamp of liberty remains lit

Posted on November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Mike

An enheartening FauxVid reminiscence.

In the summer of 2020, when the entire nation seemed to have gone mad with fear of the COVID virus, some Long Island retailers gave only lip service to the draconian lockdowns, masking dictates, and “social distancing” requirements. They published the “rules,” but put little or no effort into imposing them on their customers. Those were the ones I patronized. Yet it was all too obvious that most Long Islanders had been cowed by the bellowings from Fauci and the politicians who saw in his pronouncements an opportunity to increase their power over us.

Masking was ubiquitous. People avoided coming close to one another. The floors of supermarkets were festooned with markings about social distancing. Some put up signs making the aisles into “one-way streets.” It was beyond depressing.

But I do remember one bright spot. It occurred in a Walgreen’s pharmacy / general store. I was there to collect a prescription: blood pressure medications. On my way to the pharmacist’s counter I spied a young woman accompanied by three small children. The young woman was shopping as casually as anyone I’d ever seen. Her kids followed her quietly, exhibiting perfect public behavior rarely seen in toddlers today. And none of the four were masked.

The young woman smiled when she noticed me looking at her and her children, for I was unmasked as well. We greeted one another and exchanged some small talk as the children clustered around us. Her English was excellent. It developed that she was a widow, a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe who’d just been granted resident alien status.

Of course the conversation eventually came to the pandemic and the lockdowns. I complimented her on not giving in to the fear campaign. It made her eyes brighten. She smiled and nodded.

“They did this sort of thing to us in my native country,” she said. “Arbitrary rules, pulled out of the air. There wasn’t even an excuse for it, much of the time.”

“It gladdened me to see another person who won’t bend to the madness,” I said.

Her smile acquired a tinge of pride. “I didn’t come here to put up with more of that nonsense,” she said. “I came here to be an American.”

It kept a smile on my face the whole day.

As well it should’ve, Francis. These days people like her are much more truly American than all too many who were born and raised here, alas.

Here legally too, no less—a rarity indeed. Refreshing all the way around, I’d say.

2

1

From MAGA to MEGA

Posted on November 23, 2024November 23, 2024 by Mike

The Jeddak of Jeddaks gets positively jiggy with it.

Trump’s agenda is not compatible with American decline. Trump wants America to thrive. He wants America to be strong.

Just as a weak country must weaken its allies, a strong country can afford to strengthen them.

This would be a complete break with decades of implicit US foreign policy.

Trump has said repeatedly that he wants Europe to pull its weight in NATO, meeting the 2% GDP threshold that all member states are theoretically expected to fulfill, but which almost none of them actually do. Being a businessman, he frames this in financial terms: why should America pick up the tab for Europe’s defence? Which is certainly an urgent matter, given the disastrous state of America’s national debt. But this has inevitable geopolitical consequences. A remilitarized Europe that can actually defend itself is a Europe that is no longer at the mercy of the American military.

Making Europe Great Again isn’t solely a matter of investing more in European militaries. Such an agenda reaches into everything. Arabs and Africans need to be remigrated, in vast numbers. The rainbow parades need to stop: a continent of prancing sodomites is not a continent that can defend itself. And, of course, the economy must be revived: the overly intrusive regulatory fetters must be peeled off and set on fire, in order to make it possible for Europeans to once again exercise that famous, world-shaking creativity. People talk about “American ingenuity”, and Americans are ingenious, but this is only because Americans are a subspecies of European.

Extending MAGA to MEGA is not a matter of charity. The interconnectivity of the world makes MEGA essential to MAGA, and vice versa. The vampire strategy of ruling by weakening the imperial dependencies a little faster than they weaken the imperial core just results in the whole system getting weaker, which is a problem when your opponents are pursuing the opposite strategy domestically.

MEGA is also domestically important. The people running Europe are loyalists of the US deep state. As one example, the EU has been used as a way for the American deep state to try and do an end run around the US Constitution and reintroduce internet censorship, particularly on X, via the back door: the Eurocrats and their tame courts are quite happy to help them with this. There’s also a symbiotic relationship between Eurocrats and their left-wing American counterpart in the deep state: leftist policies are implemented in European political laboratories, which are subsidized by the American economy; their ‘successes’ are then cited as reason to bring these same policies home to America. If Trump is serious about dismantling his enemies at home, he also needs to crush their allies abroad.

This absolutely magisterial piece is a long ‘un indeed, of which you will most definitely want to read the all, folks.

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Star Trek: 765874 – Unification

Posted on November 21, 2024November 21, 2024 by Mike

If you’re any kind of Star Trek fan at all, you’re gonna find this one…AWESOME.

A bit under eight minutes of unalloyed beauty, wonder, and joy, that’s what. Involving as it does the Genesis planet of fame and legend, I have to wonder what this might set the stage for, Trek-wise.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

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