This new light truck made in Toledo- will it be a clone of the Gladiator? They already announced a Gladiator 392 is coming, so maybe they want/need more volume and will make a Dodge, I mean Ram, Dakota 392.
the RAM spinoff never made sense to me. They're walking back the Wagoneer as a discrete brand and calling it what I presume is what everyone else has been all along, the Jeep Wagoneer.
The only reason for spinning off Ram is either so you can kill off Dodge or else you see it as a damaged brand and doesn’t have enough status to sell high dollar—and more importantly to Stellantis (ask your doctor of Stellantis is right for you) high margin vehicles.
It seemed like spin-off/cash-out prep in case - either through M&A or bankruptcy - they had to chop apart their business, separating their "high value" assets (RAM and Jeep) vs the rest.
Ofc, FCA didn't realize at the time that so long as you put V8's in a Dodge, it tended to sell better than some low-rent SUV meant for Brazil or Albania being branded as a Jeep.
Ford seems kinda interested in the same for Bronco, seeing as there aren't any blue oval logos anywhere.
The Ram spinoff makes perfect sense if you've ever been in front of one on the road. Ain't no way for them to Dodge you with that little stopping distance.... :o
We are reliably assured that any investment in the USA will always be somewhere between performative and outright kayfabe so... if Ferrari sells 5000 cars a year in the states, and their tariff load can be reduced by $20,000 each, it would balance out in just... 130 years!
Sir, you lampooned “analysts” above. One wonders why, when…
…Ferrari trades at a substantial MULTIPLE of revenue, EBITDA, and earnings. So it would not take 130 years for shareholders - the only people who really matter in Ferrariland - to benefit.
I’ve done plenty of multiple arbitrage myself; nice move for a bank to classify Onlyfans “interest” savings as fee income (high multiple) rather than credit intermediation (low multiple).
The only problem with the scenario where a $13B spend results in >$13B of "value" is... where do you get the $13B in the first place, and how do you pay it back?
Thank you for the Jedi brain post - that wraps up things my friends and I have been saying for years into a neat package. I’m always jealous of your racing stuff - I think my wife would absolutely love doing it, but north Jersey is not exactly a mecca of autosports, and the membership at Monticello is a bit out of my price range.
1) Despite amicus curiae briefs from Atlantic Legal Foundation, Landmark Legal Foundation, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, and a group of legislators (Sen. Cruz, Sen. Blackburn, Sen. Budd, Sen. Banks, Sen. Lee, Sen. Schmitt, Rep. Babin, Rep. Gooden, Rep. Nehls), certiorari DENIED in a case challenging the illegal OPT and H-4EAD work visas. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/DocketFiles/html/Public/24-923.html
Ah, H-1B. I met a fella from India who's in his early twenties, last weekend. He completed his undergraduate degree while in India, and moved here a couple of years ago to complete his Master's, both in Computer Science, with a focus on machine learning. While he was in school, he was being paid under the table by his uncle to work the front desk at a hotel overnight, to the tune of $8 an hour.
Now that he's got his degree, he's being sponsored by a company based here in the US and is working for them under a W2 contract as a developer. I asked him if they were paying him well, and he said they were. So well, he's making $23 an hour. $23 an hour, before taxes! For someone with a master's degree in CompSci! If that's not exploitation, I don't know what is. Exploitation of him for being paid so little, and exploitation of the system, for not having to pay an American a wage commensurate with that level of education. He didn't say which company it was, but merely that it was "big."
I'm not saying he's lying, but I live in the low cost of living south and know that Masters H1Bs in CompSci here are starting out at about 70-80k. Several companies here even under the previous admin were getting fined for not paying enough. Companies do underpay especially for starting positions relative to Bachelor's because as I understand it, The DOL has a wide range of wages to work with. What this means is undergrads get left out of jobs because they can pay an H1B the same rate as a masters.
What's most concerning is that so many departments in so many "critical infrastructure" companies (banks, semiconductors as above) are controlled by CCP members and citizens of 2 Indian states:
No, not “reformed”. Blown up completely and after some time recreated where/if it makes sense for the American population, not the corporate oligarchy.
In the fall of 'white man civilization', assuming she hadn't been stabbed in the neck on the subway, that vapid dipshit would be the concubine of some warlord (and be happy for it) until which time he got bored of her and handed her over to his grunts to run a train on. From which wounds she would gracelessly expire of sepsis in a trash heap. The End. Roll credits.
/Our heroine wakes up in a cold sweat from the trash heap dream, rolls over to fellate the man who keeps her warm, fed and with functioning indoor plumbing. Scenes of the warlord play in her head, or maybe a sparkly vampire or a minotaur.
I might point out that white Christian men spent five centuries traveling the globe, hauling the rest of mankind out of the mud and into the light of civilization, making possible the abundance that allows them to complain about stupid shit.
Oh, yes, and by "we" you mean the Egyptians. (Latin script was an evolution of Etruscan script, which itself was a version of Phoenician script, which came from Egyptian hieroglyphics.)
Since you used four zeros in your answer, would you like to also discuss the invention of the zero? ;)
Jack, thanks for your excellent writing, and thank you for not banning me from your site, something that happened recently when I made the mistake of commenting on a leftist blog. Evidently, the guy is open, but not open to criticism or different leaning comments. But you seem to handle the situation pretty well With your comment section. Anyway, really enjoy your ideas, especially the idea of Jedi brain.
Hey, Jack, congrats to you and your family for your various successes "at speed."
We, you and I do have something in common. Previously I mentioned I have no interest in automobile racing. We have both done bagels. Were you actually in the business, baking bagels for sale?
I made them at home for friends and family. They were very good and I was not "snotty" about the water we used (see New York bagel bakers).
Final thought: PLANET OF THE APES must champion chimps, right? Why wasn't Jane Goodall featured in at least one of those films?
"Final thought: PLANET OF THE APES must champion chimps, right? Why wasn't Jane Goodall featured in at least one of those films?"
I'm thinking that nobody thought to ask to see if she would have been interested, as I'm recalling the Gary Larson/The Far Side cartoon (according to him, anyway) where he poked fun at her ("that Jane Goodall Tramp"), everyone who worked around Goodall lost their minds, and she couldn't understand why they lost their sh!t, she thought it was hilarious.
Having heard her speak in person, also not entirely convinced that she would have pulled off a guest-starring spot, although it would have been freaking awesome to have given her a minor walk-on role while in the skin.
Well, they had chimps, gorillas and orangutans. I read that during breaks in the filming, the actors would hang out with others in the same makeup and exclude the others. That'd be fertile ground for some psych student to research
You referenced the NYTimes…their record is intact of getting everything wrong. It would be fascinating to know if their writers are really this stupid or are they simply giving the editors the manure they want. Perhaps both are true.
"It would be fascinating to know if their writers are really this stupid or are they simply giving the editors the manure they want."
For whatever reason, my spouse insists on listening to NPR, and the NYT's "The Daily" radio show where we get to hear the totally-not-one-sided-at-all-no-just-ask-me Rachel Abrams and various other faux-journalists who failed at hiding their overeducated, Cali Valley Girl speech patterns. I have no idea why my spouse listens to these people, it's journalism of the lowest order (hey, maybe there was an actual reason for that spending cut?), it's all emotional rabble rousing, and I spend most of my time shouting at the radio whenever these squeaky-teenaged-sounding psychopaths are on the air.
I find myself unable to listen to their drivel (and I've tried), but I generally sound like someone with Tourette's Syndrome after a couple of minutes. I read the Sunday NY Timnes just to torture myself. Their narrative has gotten so tired that even they must be exhausted pushing it. The ploy is simple...they take one example of any situation, and extrapolate it out to be the norm. Decades ago, it truly was the "paper of record". Today...it's the paper for the bottom of your parrot's cage.
My favorite thing about NPR is their afternoon show named “All Things Considered”, because they only consider the same 5 things over and over: illegals, trans, Palestinians, LGTBTBBQs, and Nazis.
It is fun to hear them twist any story, no matter how far away it is in relation to their only 5 subjects, back to their required 5 subjects.
One of their stories could start with a bagel shop, but by the end 1-5 of their 5 required subjects will be mentioned.
The seams are starting to show around age and inexperience. I noticed this most during post-COVID recovery, where the non-halo NYT econ reporters were writing as if they'd never lived through a recession before... because they hadn't. There were many things about the recovery that could've been reported better had the team lived through - and reported on - the post-2008 crash.
And while it is obvious gospel here at ACF, when I once mentioned in passing to a NYT econ reporter (friend of a friend) that DEALERS were the OEM's customers, not us, he just stared at me like I was talking about particle physics.
Back in the day, many NYT reporters came from those industries. William Cohan was at Lazard and Merrill. William Langewiesche was a pilot. Liz Rosenthal worked in the ER. Do any news outlets even have an auto-veteran journalist?
"I'm going to rent one of those piano-throwing trebuchets to casually toss him several hundred feet into the air in an attempt to try to capture some of those swanky drone shots!"
1. "Someday they’ll find five hundred hours of music D'Angelo decided not to release, and it will all be fantastic."
I am reminded of Prince's entire published music catalog, and my attempt to slog my way through it, hoping to find another Purple Rain in the mix somewhere, and coming away from the experience with the distinct feeling of "now there's a month's worth of lifespan I'll never get back". And apparently Prince...along with Eddie Van Halen...have bazillions of unreleased albums just tucked away (there's also apparently an entire Duran Duran album buried...was supposed to come out after "Astronaut"), waiting to be dumped, I mean unleashed, I mean released to the public someday. Given Kevin Smith's assessment of Prince (there's a mildly hilarious story about Smith being selected to do a documentary out there), yeah, methinks that anyone who claims to be hiding thirty albums or more worth of content needs to be taken in the same context of "plague rats, avoid".
2. "It’s very easy to demonize people or groups you’ve never met or barely know."
If you're particularly good at it, there is potential for fun and profit.
3. "We can close by noting that Jedi Brain and Avatar Brain are both, at their root, comforting theories of mind. After all, if defeating evil is as simple as blowing up one space station, then it’s possible, right? And if white men really are the source of all the world’s evil, well, aren’t they vastly outnumbered by the good guys? If only reality were as simple as an animated film… or even as simple as our favorite non-animated films."
I am unsure if these two groups are poster children for Dunning-Kruger (or at least my understanding of DK, anyway), or are felony-level data cherry pickers, or are a combination of both. It's mildly terrifying as to how seriously these people are convinced by the blatherings they emit.
4. In regards to Stellantis and reinvesting in 'Murica, that's great and everything, but nobody in their right mind (in my isolated universe, anyway) wants to own anything built by them, nor wants to work in any of their dealerships. Given the most recent gaffe by Stellantis ("Our Jeeps are made out of Legos, because they're always becoming bricks!"), yeah, at some point this mighty, blundering cruise vessel known as the U.S.S. Internet Connectivity needs to make its final port of call to the Gadani Ship Scrapyard and be scrapped once and for all. And don't even get me started on the engineering rush to the bottom of the other 'Murican truckmakers.
5. "Atari Finally Buried Each And Every One Of Those F**kin’ “E.T.” Cartridges In A Landfill, Won’t Make Any More Of Them; Analysts Surprised To See The Stock Rise"
An odd side note: I worked with someone some years ago who claimed to be one of the head shipping guys at Atari, he had some Polaroids, spoke of amazing Friday parties, and also mentioned a Faraday cage in which some engineers worked and developed a lot of the standup Arcade games that Atari was famous for (of which random people were pulled in to test).
Much hay was made over Ernest Cline's 2014 discovery of the ET games (and others) in a New Mexico landfill (by the way, his books are absolutely terrible, if you find a copy of "Ready Player None", burn it), but the friend laughed about it when I showed him the link to this story, and he finally responded with, "but what about the site in Ireland?"
Pardon?
"Yeah, I helped set up equal-sized shipments for two dump sites, one in New Mexico and one in Ireland."
Okay, why Ireland?
"F*** if I know? Atari was actually dying after they screwed up the 2600 Pac-Man release, ET was simply the last little nudge over the edge. From what I remember, an assload of ET games went to New Mexico, but we shipped just about as many to Ireland. Have you ever tried to ship a million or so game cartridges anywhere in a hurry? We were just trying to find places out of the way to dump all of this crap."
He's sticking to the story about there being a site in Ireland.
I was guessing the DeLorean factory in Belfast, given the absolute state of Belfast in that era even before Thatcher's veto of government support, but apparently it's a thriving "industrial estate:"
I'm thinking that given the state of Ireland at the time, if this Irish burial actually happened, kind of surprised that it wouldn't have generated a lot of positive press for that country, "this is the best thing to happen to Ireland in at least a century, not just any country is allowed the prestige of surreptitiously burying a lot of unwanted plastic home video gaming system cartridges and then sealing off the lot in concrete for a rapidly devolving American company!" They could have made a big to-do about the whole thing, and then gathered all 741 still-living Irish male actors with the last name of "Byrne" together to dedicate the site.
Could have something to do with how tech companies in the 90’s ran all of their ROW revenue through a company in the Republic of Ireland because of that country’s generous tax laws to get tech companies to locate operations there.
1. I just popped into dear old malfunctioning Google to try to put "Atari, Ireland" into the search bar, came back as "urban legend".
2. The guy who told me this wasn't exactly the type of expressive, creative type of guy who was voted "Most Likely To Come Up With A Completely BullshIt Story About The Last Days Of Atari" during his senior year of high school, so I'm almost sort of possibly likely to maybe perhaps somewhat kinda believe the guy.
3. I'm thinking that Ernest Cline probably knows where the Ireland site is (if it even exists), but given that maybe four people recognized who he was in New Mexico in 2014, I'm not sure he would be able to handle the shock of that massive number of fans who can recognize him being reduced down to only two or three, so we're not likely to ever discover the location of that cache.
This is the funny thing about this Atari story: We tell everyone and their third cousin where we bury radioactive waste, but we desperately try to hide nearly a million Atari cartridges from the view of prying eyes.
DeNiro is just an actor. You cant expect anything of them. Steve McQueen was right; it's a profession for sissies and drama queens.
I do find it amusing that he never, and I mean not one time, had a half decent looking girlfriend. The average assistant manager at Wendy's has a hotter chick than De Niro ever did.
That's the funny thing with De Niro, the moment he decides that he's more than an actor and goes off script, most everyone who sees him recoils in horror and says this:
DeNiro is one of those guys who I don’t ever want to listen to unless someone else has written his words for him. Whenever he tries to write his own material he sounds unhinged.
We started Enterprise as our new family show about a month ago. We should be wrapping up season one next week. It is my first time through since broadcast and I KNOW it gets better after season 1.
The surprising thing is that it is pretty OK from the get go. It is modern enough, they only take about 5 episodes to figure out stuff that absolutely doesn't work, unlike TNG which took 2 seasons, and it isn't weighed down by too much canon. I think my daughter will enjoy TNG a lot more having Enterprise as her introduction.
All of it is a comedown after finishing the Battlestar reboot, and she has enjoyed Stargate since before it was even reasonably appropriate.
Personally, I LIKED the way Galactica ended, but I wouldn't call it a family show if we're including kids. Stargate, yeah, absolutely. It's nice to see a sci-fi show where America is not only still around, it's one of the heroes.
Regarding Star Wars, one of the most complex and nuanced examinations of good, evil, and the vast moral gray between them is a Star Wars project: Andor. Highly, highly recommended. The “hero” is a rebel assassin who is a thief by trade, has zero compunction about murdering his way out of trouble, but is driven by love of family in the beginning and commitment to the cause of freedom by the end. The “villain” is a law and order type naval intelligence officer who is whip smart, ambitious, insightful, and very good at her job. She falls in love with a good if naive man, and the bureaucracy they serve slowly crushes them through a series of moral compromises, big and small. Great TV. The sci-fi angle is merely an interesting setting.
Listen, I paid serious money a while ago to replace the two volume Star Wars comic book that I got in 1977 and then lost, so I am NOT trying to suggest that I'm above ANY of it, but...
What does it say about our society that some of the most nuanced and interesting theater/TV exists in the world of "Glup Shitto"? As Randal exclaims in "Clerks 2"... "Does a machine have to transform into something in order to keep your attention?"
I think it’s the only way to get a paltry 600 million dollars to get your vision on the screen. I’m pretty sure Tony Gilroy doesn’t even like the IP. That being said, there’s a bunch of great stuff coming out of A24. Reminds me of 70’s cinema.Raw and experimental. I am so tired of capeshit.
The only TV I own right now sits on top of my kitchen cabinet. I always forget to watch it. If I ever felt the desire to watch TV, I'd say Fuck That Noise Man and go buy a commercial dryer. Watch my clothes run in a circle for an hour.
Infinitely more entertaining than anything new on TV right now.
Firsties?
See also: Stellantis Bricks
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/
Covered on Sunday! The news is here first!
I wanted to get in a Lego joke but forgot about it.
Sometimes the timing isn't right and something doesn't work out so you just have to lego.
Of my eggo!
This new light truck made in Toledo- will it be a clone of the Gladiator? They already announced a Gladiator 392 is coming, so maybe they want/need more volume and will make a Dodge, I mean Ram, Dakota 392.
the RAM spinoff never made sense to me. They're walking back the Wagoneer as a discrete brand and calling it what I presume is what everyone else has been all along, the Jeep Wagoneer.
The only reason for spinning off Ram is either so you can kill off Dodge or else you see it as a damaged brand and doesn’t have enough status to sell high dollar—and more importantly to Stellantis (ask your doctor of Stellantis is right for you) high margin vehicles.
It seemed like spin-off/cash-out prep in case - either through M&A or bankruptcy - they had to chop apart their business, separating their "high value" assets (RAM and Jeep) vs the rest.
Ofc, FCA didn't realize at the time that so long as you put V8's in a Dodge, it tended to sell better than some low-rent SUV meant for Brazil or Albania being branded as a Jeep.
Ford seems kinda interested in the same for Bronco, seeing as there aren't any blue oval logos anywhere.
Bronco could be a separate brand very easily. The strong sales of the "Diet Bronco" suggest it.
VW could be selling 200,000 Scouts as easy as falling out of bed right now if they hadn't insisted on making them golf carts.
They'll never do it because they've decided to make Hummer an all-EV brand but the Hummer HX concept from 2008 would let GM compete in that sector.
The Ram spinoff makes perfect sense if you've ever been in front of one on the road. Ain't no way for them to Dodge you with that little stopping distance.... :o
Clever
I wonder what sort of deal Elkann has going with Agent Orange re: Stellantis. Maybe he’ll get some tariff relief on his cash cow in exchange?
We are reliably assured that any investment in the USA will always be somewhere between performative and outright kayfabe so... if Ferrari sells 5000 cars a year in the states, and their tariff load can be reduced by $20,000 each, it would balance out in just... 130 years!
Sir, you lampooned “analysts” above. One wonders why, when…
…Ferrari trades at a substantial MULTIPLE of revenue, EBITDA, and earnings. So it would not take 130 years for shareholders - the only people who really matter in Ferrariland - to benefit.
I’ve done plenty of multiple arbitrage myself; nice move for a bank to classify Onlyfans “interest” savings as fee income (high multiple) rather than credit intermediation (low multiple).
The only problem with the scenario where a $13B spend results in >$13B of "value" is... where do you get the $13B in the first place, and how do you pay it back?
Silly, Jack... questions like this are for us poors!
print 13b
Thank you for the Jedi brain post - that wraps up things my friends and I have been saying for years into a neat package. I’m always jealous of your racing stuff - I think my wife would absolutely love doing it, but north Jersey is not exactly a mecca of autosports, and the membership at Monticello is a bit out of my price range.
Your money would be better spent driving to Watkins Glen than joining Monticello. But thats a trip!
If you need to buy a tow vehicle anyway:
https://www.c-130hercules.net/index.php?/forums/topic/13059-operational-c-130-for-sale/
"IS THIS STILL AVAILABLE?"
1) Despite amicus curiae briefs from Atlantic Legal Foundation, Landmark Legal Foundation, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, and a group of legislators (Sen. Cruz, Sen. Blackburn, Sen. Budd, Sen. Banks, Sen. Lee, Sen. Schmitt, Rep. Babin, Rep. Gooden, Rep. Nehls), certiorari DENIED in a case challenging the illegal OPT and H-4EAD work visas. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/DocketFiles/html/Public/24-923.html
2) For once, YOU can make an official comment on the tepid reforms proposed to the H-1B visa lottery here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/24/2025-18473/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b
3) More and more non-engineers are taking an interest in the program lately.
A long-term history (neglecting the 1993 "60 Minutes" exposé) by a psychology major: https://youtu.be/VEA7vQKJ8aQ
A recruiter who realizes "It's worse than I thought": https://youtu.be/NpsD7tMxckg
Ah, H-1B. I met a fella from India who's in his early twenties, last weekend. He completed his undergraduate degree while in India, and moved here a couple of years ago to complete his Master's, both in Computer Science, with a focus on machine learning. While he was in school, he was being paid under the table by his uncle to work the front desk at a hotel overnight, to the tune of $8 an hour.
Now that he's got his degree, he's being sponsored by a company based here in the US and is working for them under a W2 contract as a developer. I asked him if they were paying him well, and he said they were. So well, he's making $23 an hour. $23 an hour, before taxes! For someone with a master's degree in CompSci! If that's not exploitation, I don't know what is. Exploitation of him for being paid so little, and exploitation of the system, for not having to pay an American a wage commensurate with that level of education. He didn't say which company it was, but merely that it was "big."
I agree, the system needs reforming.
I'm not saying he's lying, but I live in the low cost of living south and know that Masters H1Bs in CompSci here are starting out at about 70-80k. Several companies here even under the previous admin were getting fined for not paying enough. Companies do underpay especially for starting positions relative to Bachelor's because as I understand it, The DOL has a wide range of wages to work with. What this means is undergrads get left out of jobs because they can pay an H1B the same rate as a masters.
Americans also get left out of jobs because employers can get an "OPT" on a *student* visa so both sides get to avoid FICA taxes.
This aside from the fact that a substantial amount of "American" jobs are controlled by various divisions of the "H-1B Mafia" or "Bharat Cartel":
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/real-hiring-criteria-is-are-you-telugu-indian-redditors-take-on-h-1b-goes-viral/articleshow/124461260.cms
What's most concerning is that so many departments in so many "critical infrastructure" companies (banks, semiconductors as above) are controlled by CCP members and citizens of 2 Indian states:
https://cis.org/North/H1B-Hiring-Bias-within-Bias-Discrimination-within-Discrimination
No, not “reformed”. Blown up completely and after some time recreated where/if it makes sense for the American population, not the corporate oligarchy.
In the fall of 'white man civilization', assuming she hadn't been stabbed in the neck on the subway, that vapid dipshit would be the concubine of some warlord (and be happy for it) until which time he got bored of her and handed her over to his grunts to run a train on. From which wounds she would gracelessly expire of sepsis in a trash heap. The End. Roll credits.
that vapid dipshit would be the concubine of some warlord
I suspect the 21st century version of this is happening.
"I will come over and sleep with you 3-4 nights a week but we are not dating*"**
*Guys it is cruel to do this and you shouldn't do this
**If you do this, you will also end up with 4 daughters
*director's cut, deleted scene, before credits*
/Our heroine wakes up in a cold sweat from the trash heap dream, rolls over to fellate the man who keeps her warm, fed and with functioning indoor plumbing. Scenes of the warlord play in her head, or maybe a sparkly vampire or a minotaur.
I was waiting for the minotaur's return!
protip: this only works if youre a high value guy
Karma's a bitch.
I might point out that white Christian men spent five centuries traveling the globe, hauling the rest of mankind out of the mud and into the light of civilization, making possible the abundance that allows them to complain about stupid shit.
Fine. Next time build it yourself.
Further, stop using everything we invented right effing now!
By “we” I mean Western Civilization.
And by "invented" you mean "stole from the Chinese and made better use of it," like gunpowder and the printing press. :)
yeah
we invented it into something better and more useful so its ours now
like how johnny cash did a cover of hurt and now its his song
I hate that Rick Rubin shit.
Ah, but WE invented a proper language that doesn't need a 10,000-key keyboard.
Oh, yes, and by "we" you mean the Egyptians. (Latin script was an evolution of Etruscan script, which itself was a version of Phoenician script, which came from Egyptian hieroglyphics.)
Since you used four zeros in your answer, would you like to also discuss the invention of the zero? ;)
we wuz etruscans an sheit
white mans burden turned into white mans fatigue
Yeah, pretty much.
How does that white, anti-white imbecile feel about her dad? And, he must be really proud!
And by the way, empathy isn’t the only tool in the toolbox.
I only read the comments from the pictures with her showing cleavage. Seemed deranged.
If you’re white, those cleavage shots were not for you! How dare you!!!!
raping her with my eyes i guess
If you're oogling it, it's for you!
The Last Psychiatrist, paraphrased
Jack, thanks for your excellent writing, and thank you for not banning me from your site, something that happened recently when I made the mistake of commenting on a leftist blog. Evidently, the guy is open, but not open to criticism or different leaning comments. But you seem to handle the situation pretty well With your comment section. Anyway, really enjoy your ideas, especially the idea of Jedi brain.
I have never banned a commenter who was something besides an anonymous spam account, and hope to never do so.
Especially not someone who pays!
"not open to criticism or different leaning comments"
wow thats incredible
im only learning this now
Hey, Jack, congrats to you and your family for your various successes "at speed."
We, you and I do have something in common. Previously I mentioned I have no interest in automobile racing. We have both done bagels. Were you actually in the business, baking bagels for sale?
I made them at home for friends and family. They were very good and I was not "snotty" about the water we used (see New York bagel bakers).
Final thought: PLANET OF THE APES must champion chimps, right? Why wasn't Jane Goodall featured in at least one of those films?
"Final thought: PLANET OF THE APES must champion chimps, right? Why wasn't Jane Goodall featured in at least one of those films?"
I'm thinking that nobody thought to ask to see if she would have been interested, as I'm recalling the Gary Larson/The Far Side cartoon (according to him, anyway) where he poked fun at her ("that Jane Goodall Tramp"), everyone who worked around Goodall lost their minds, and she couldn't understand why they lost their sh!t, she thought it was hilarious.
Having heard her speak in person, also not entirely convinced that she would have pulled off a guest-starring spot, although it would have been freaking awesome to have given her a minor walk-on role while in the skin.
THIS is the greatest Far Side cartoon of all time:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/very-funny-stuff-in-2025--14003448837036577/
the cow tools one might be his most famous comic becuase it was complete ass
😁 Rumour has it that "bagel company" is an euphemism for a former employer with whom Jack reached a confidential settlement.
Another rumour is that Jack was the scab who replaced the striking Kramer.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/DtoyvmmQ71EAAAAd/kramer-seinfeld.gif
Both of these could be equally true!
Is jacks subtle way of telling us he is actually jewish. Lets get The conspiracies going
Well, they had chimps, gorillas and orangutans. I read that during breaks in the filming, the actors would hang out with others in the same makeup and exclude the others. That'd be fertile ground for some psych student to research
monkey racism
someone could make that phrase even more racist but im not going to bother
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycZPTQgERk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMHJDsfLcA
You referenced the NYTimes…their record is intact of getting everything wrong. It would be fascinating to know if their writers are really this stupid or are they simply giving the editors the manure they want. Perhaps both are true.
"It would be fascinating to know if their writers are really this stupid or are they simply giving the editors the manure they want."
For whatever reason, my spouse insists on listening to NPR, and the NYT's "The Daily" radio show where we get to hear the totally-not-one-sided-at-all-no-just-ask-me Rachel Abrams and various other faux-journalists who failed at hiding their overeducated, Cali Valley Girl speech patterns. I have no idea why my spouse listens to these people, it's journalism of the lowest order (hey, maybe there was an actual reason for that spending cut?), it's all emotional rabble rousing, and I spend most of my time shouting at the radio whenever these squeaky-teenaged-sounding psychopaths are on the air.
These folks are the real-deal acolytes.
I find myself unable to listen to their drivel (and I've tried), but I generally sound like someone with Tourette's Syndrome after a couple of minutes. I read the Sunday NY Timnes just to torture myself. Their narrative has gotten so tired that even they must be exhausted pushing it. The ploy is simple...they take one example of any situation, and extrapolate it out to be the norm. Decades ago, it truly was the "paper of record". Today...it's the paper for the bottom of your parrot's cage.
My favorite thing about NPR is their afternoon show named “All Things Considered”, because they only consider the same 5 things over and over: illegals, trans, Palestinians, LGTBTBBQs, and Nazis.
It is fun to hear them twist any story, no matter how far away it is in relation to their only 5 subjects, back to their required 5 subjects.
One of their stories could start with a bagel shop, but by the end 1-5 of their 5 required subjects will be mentioned.
LGBTBBQ?
Brown your meat without cooking it!
I always add BBQ to LGBT.
I just tell people that’s what the “+” stands for!
Not sure if youre a bears fan or not but people have been calling caleb lgbtqb and i cant stop laughing at it
long ago i invented a bltg sandwich: blt with guac.
actually the + stands for hiv positive
which they are
You mean the bagel shop that refused to make a bagel in the image trans swimmer?
And just by chance he/she is an illegal queer Palestinian who hates Nazis!
It's female swimmer that previously was a male swimmer prior to being a female swimmer while supporting "Gays for Hamas".
Its All Things Considered Except for Any Other Point of View.
Two things can be true.
The seams are starting to show around age and inexperience. I noticed this most during post-COVID recovery, where the non-halo NYT econ reporters were writing as if they'd never lived through a recession before... because they hadn't. There were many things about the recovery that could've been reported better had the team lived through - and reported on - the post-2008 crash.
And while it is obvious gospel here at ACF, when I once mentioned in passing to a NYT econ reporter (friend of a friend) that DEALERS were the OEM's customers, not us, he just stared at me like I was talking about particle physics.
Back in the day, many NYT reporters came from those industries. William Cohan was at Lazard and Merrill. William Langewiesche was a pilot. Liz Rosenthal worked in the ER. Do any news outlets even have an auto-veteran journalist?
I'll add this since Jack didn't; The Commander's photography is improving also.
Thank you. MidOhio is a tough gig for him because he is 16 years old and can't go to the fence. Everything you see here is 200 to 400mm zoom.
"I'm going to rent one of those piano-throwing trebuchets to casually toss him several hundred feet into the air in an attempt to try to capture some of those swanky drone shots!"
who needs a drone when you have a bell ranger and a child on a rope
1. "Someday they’ll find five hundred hours of music D'Angelo decided not to release, and it will all be fantastic."
I am reminded of Prince's entire published music catalog, and my attempt to slog my way through it, hoping to find another Purple Rain in the mix somewhere, and coming away from the experience with the distinct feeling of "now there's a month's worth of lifespan I'll never get back". And apparently Prince...along with Eddie Van Halen...have bazillions of unreleased albums just tucked away (there's also apparently an entire Duran Duran album buried...was supposed to come out after "Astronaut"), waiting to be dumped, I mean unleashed, I mean released to the public someday. Given Kevin Smith's assessment of Prince (there's a mildly hilarious story about Smith being selected to do a documentary out there), yeah, methinks that anyone who claims to be hiding thirty albums or more worth of content needs to be taken in the same context of "plague rats, avoid".
2. "It’s very easy to demonize people or groups you’ve never met or barely know."
If you're particularly good at it, there is potential for fun and profit.
3. "We can close by noting that Jedi Brain and Avatar Brain are both, at their root, comforting theories of mind. After all, if defeating evil is as simple as blowing up one space station, then it’s possible, right? And if white men really are the source of all the world’s evil, well, aren’t they vastly outnumbered by the good guys? If only reality were as simple as an animated film… or even as simple as our favorite non-animated films."
I am unsure if these two groups are poster children for Dunning-Kruger (or at least my understanding of DK, anyway), or are felony-level data cherry pickers, or are a combination of both. It's mildly terrifying as to how seriously these people are convinced by the blatherings they emit.
4. In regards to Stellantis and reinvesting in 'Murica, that's great and everything, but nobody in their right mind (in my isolated universe, anyway) wants to own anything built by them, nor wants to work in any of their dealerships. Given the most recent gaffe by Stellantis ("Our Jeeps are made out of Legos, because they're always becoming bricks!"), yeah, at some point this mighty, blundering cruise vessel known as the U.S.S. Internet Connectivity needs to make its final port of call to the Gadani Ship Scrapyard and be scrapped once and for all. And don't even get me started on the engineering rush to the bottom of the other 'Murican truckmakers.
5. "Atari Finally Buried Each And Every One Of Those F**kin’ “E.T.” Cartridges In A Landfill, Won’t Make Any More Of Them; Analysts Surprised To See The Stock Rise"
An odd side note: I worked with someone some years ago who claimed to be one of the head shipping guys at Atari, he had some Polaroids, spoke of amazing Friday parties, and also mentioned a Faraday cage in which some engineers worked and developed a lot of the standup Arcade games that Atari was famous for (of which random people were pulled in to test).
Much hay was made over Ernest Cline's 2014 discovery of the ET games (and others) in a New Mexico landfill (by the way, his books are absolutely terrible, if you find a copy of "Ready Player None", burn it), but the friend laughed about it when I showed him the link to this story, and he finally responded with, "but what about the site in Ireland?"
Pardon?
"Yeah, I helped set up equal-sized shipments for two dump sites, one in New Mexico and one in Ireland."
Okay, why Ireland?
"F*** if I know? Atari was actually dying after they screwed up the 2600 Pac-Man release, ET was simply the last little nudge over the edge. From what I remember, an assload of ET games went to New Mexico, but we shipped just about as many to Ireland. Have you ever tried to ship a million or so game cartridges anywhere in a hurry? We were just trying to find places out of the way to dump all of this crap."
He's sticking to the story about there being a site in Ireland.
I was guessing the DeLorean factory in Belfast, given the absolute state of Belfast in that era even before Thatcher's veto of government support, but apparently it's a thriving "industrial estate:"
https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/thatcher-blocked-plans-to-save-delorean-plant-lz98pjq9gmk
https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/the-delorean-factory-belfast-history-location-and-key-facts/
I'm thinking that given the state of Ireland at the time, if this Irish burial actually happened, kind of surprised that it wouldn't have generated a lot of positive press for that country, "this is the best thing to happen to Ireland in at least a century, not just any country is allowed the prestige of surreptitiously burying a lot of unwanted plastic home video gaming system cartridges and then sealing off the lot in concrete for a rapidly devolving American company!" They could have made a big to-do about the whole thing, and then gathered all 741 still-living Irish male actors with the last name of "Byrne" together to dedicate the site.
(Pleasant sigh)
Could have something to do with how tech companies in the 90’s ran all of their ROW revenue through a company in the Republic of Ireland because of that country’s generous tax laws to get tech companies to locate operations there.
1. I just popped into dear old malfunctioning Google to try to put "Atari, Ireland" into the search bar, came back as "urban legend".
2. The guy who told me this wasn't exactly the type of expressive, creative type of guy who was voted "Most Likely To Come Up With A Completely BullshIt Story About The Last Days Of Atari" during his senior year of high school, so I'm almost sort of possibly likely to maybe perhaps somewhat kinda believe the guy.
3. I'm thinking that Ernest Cline probably knows where the Ireland site is (if it even exists), but given that maybe four people recognized who he was in New Mexico in 2014, I'm not sure he would be able to handle the shock of that massive number of fans who can recognize him being reduced down to only two or three, so we're not likely to ever discover the location of that cache.
This is the funny thing about this Atari story: We tell everyone and their third cousin where we bury radioactive waste, but we desperately try to hide nearly a million Atari cartridges from the view of prying eyes.
0. I always thought Gene Roddenberry did a much better job of tying in politics into a TV show.
1. Speaking of which, the new Star Trek Academy looks terrible. It looks girl boss driven.
2. I never thought the first Avatar was that good as it was just Fern Gully. The second one was even worse.
3. Heat is probably my favorite movie. It's sad where DeNiro has gone. I can't watch anything new of his.
DeNiro is just an actor. You cant expect anything of them. Steve McQueen was right; it's a profession for sissies and drama queens.
I do find it amusing that he never, and I mean not one time, had a half decent looking girlfriend. The average assistant manager at Wendy's has a hotter chick than De Niro ever did.
That’s cause the wendys guy is fucking teenagers. At least when i was ateen. He is probably banging abuelas now
That's the funny thing with De Niro, the moment he decides that he's more than an actor and goes off script, most everyone who sees him recoils in horror and says this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av1przlCavA
DeNiro is one of those guys who I don’t ever want to listen to unless someone else has written his words for him. Whenever he tries to write his own material he sounds unhinged.
Actor minus script = incoherence.
The first avatar was cool for is time. Pretty 3d hige screen! I turned the second off after twenty minutes
Star Trek's last hurrah was "Enterprise."
And I don't know who said, "Hey, you know what 'Star Trek' needs? Deconstructive comic relief! We'll call it 'Lower Decks!'" bu he was an idiot.
I was mostly okay with Lower Decks until the start of the fifth season, and then the whole thing went "Discovery"-style horribly awry.
I still haven't gotten through the first season of "Enterprise", I just can't wrap my mind around the concept of Scott Bakula.
We started Enterprise as our new family show about a month ago. We should be wrapping up season one next week. It is my first time through since broadcast and I KNOW it gets better after season 1.
The surprising thing is that it is pretty OK from the get go. It is modern enough, they only take about 5 episodes to figure out stuff that absolutely doesn't work, unlike TNG which took 2 seasons, and it isn't weighed down by too much canon. I think my daughter will enjoy TNG a lot more having Enterprise as her introduction.
All of it is a comedown after finishing the Battlestar reboot, and she has enjoyed Stargate since before it was even reasonably appropriate.
The 90s was Golden Age Trek.
Personally, I LIKED the way Galactica ended, but I wouldn't call it a family show if we're including kids. Stargate, yeah, absolutely. It's nice to see a sci-fi show where America is not only still around, it's one of the heroes.
I think the end of Galactica was fantastic. I appreciate how they had written themselves into a corner a bit and they just left some things a mystery.
"You know it doesn't like that name."
I may think Uncle Sam's Misguided Children is a cult that's high on its own bullshit, but James Cameron HATES them.
Nah, USMC is filled with killers, and always has been. I mean that as a compliment.
Regarding Star Wars, one of the most complex and nuanced examinations of good, evil, and the vast moral gray between them is a Star Wars project: Andor. Highly, highly recommended. The “hero” is a rebel assassin who is a thief by trade, has zero compunction about murdering his way out of trouble, but is driven by love of family in the beginning and commitment to the cause of freedom by the end. The “villain” is a law and order type naval intelligence officer who is whip smart, ambitious, insightful, and very good at her job. She falls in love with a good if naive man, and the bureaucracy they serve slowly crushes them through a series of moral compromises, big and small. Great TV. The sci-fi angle is merely an interesting setting.
Listen, I paid serious money a while ago to replace the two volume Star Wars comic book that I got in 1977 and then lost, so I am NOT trying to suggest that I'm above ANY of it, but...
What does it say about our society that some of the most nuanced and interesting theater/TV exists in the world of "Glup Shitto"? As Randal exclaims in "Clerks 2"... "Does a machine have to transform into something in order to keep your attention?"
I think it’s the only way to get a paltry 600 million dollars to get your vision on the screen. I’m pretty sure Tony Gilroy doesn’t even like the IP. That being said, there’s a bunch of great stuff coming out of A24. Reminds me of 70’s cinema.Raw and experimental. I am so tired of capeshit.
I had those comics books but some asshole kid stole them from me at school. I hope he enjoys hell.
The only TV I own right now sits on top of my kitchen cabinet. I always forget to watch it. If I ever felt the desire to watch TV, I'd say Fuck That Noise Man and go buy a commercial dryer. Watch my clothes run in a circle for an hour.
Infinitely more entertaining than anything new on TV right now.
Here's The Hero as my youthful self came to know him:
The Hero is naturally handsome, confident, tough, socially intelligent and street smart.
The Hero is a little too quick to throw a punch, but quick-thinking enough to fix the problem.
The Hero is always right, even if his by-the-book superiors can't see it.
The Hero can lose everything, but can always get the girl.