Reminded yet again that it's so typical that all those who rhapsodize wistfully about the beauty of snow are always the people who never, ever have to shovel it.

Finished the first three episodes of S2 of THE NIGHT MANAGER. The first episode feels like clumsy, ham-handed wrenching of the show from S1, complete with cameos to dispatch characters from it-- but by the third episode, it goes and does exactly what I'd hoped it wouldn't do. *ugh*

Wait, what?!? www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZI...

How is it an "of course..." moment that Cheetolini's DoJ would go after the widow of a victim rather undertake even an iota of internal reflection or scrutiny? I've said before, I'll have to say it again endlessly: there's no limit to the depths these slimeballs will gladly sink.

Oh, fuck off.

Very much this. / I guess technically I'm still "on" the Xit-hole, but I surmised locking it and leaving it idle wiser than letting the Xitterati colonize the name or the handle with bots and such.

All-licensed thugs, that's all they are. If there's ever a sane US president again, ICE can't just be fixed: it has to be abolished entirely -- and repercussions meted out accordingly.

Now that 2025's gone, it seems safe to say that the truly groundshaking performance of the year came not from DiCaprio or Chalamet or some other star, but from a 14-y/o boy* from Manchester with no prior screen-acting experience. And it wasn't even close. *at time of filming

Utterly horrifying.

Let's face it: ICE was always going to "turn" this way, if it hadn't officially anyway. It was never 'if,' but 'when.'

Telling isn't it that all the "protect our girls" people are still on X despite what Grok is doing.

Has anyone asked any of the AIs what's the best way to destroy AIs? The more and more sinister this all gets, the more I suspect the only way will be to sic them on each other. (And, no, that won't turn out well, either.)

If any Dem is ever allowed to be president again, the amount of bleaching and scrubbing for all of this insanity is going to be ENORMOUS. That's a big 'if,' though.

When I was a kid, my mom got so tired of my renting STAR WARS from the video store that she just picked up something animated from the shelf and rented it instead. Later, I went to watch it while she and Dad were at work. Oooh, boy... Anyway, guess what's on Prime now?

Of all the things to see trending, MILDRED PIERCE was something I never would have predicted.

CUT TO: Bill Burr pre-emptively moaning about criticism. "Only 356? Texas would gladly do that in a weekend and nobody'd be bitching about me..." www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...

BTW, as a Canuck, I also love that @jumblejim.bsky.social last words for his bio are "Former Dionne quintuplet."

Thanks to @willharrisinva.bsky.social, I just learned that the great @jumblejim.bsky.social is on BSky, mostly posting his quick ratings of movies. And, as if I needed reason to think more highly of him, Mr. Beaver was on one hell of John Gielgud run recently. That's just so pleasing somehow.

So odd how BlueSky is naming Roddy McDowall as "trending" and then directing to a tonne of posts which don't even mention him. It's all POSEIDON ADVENTURE-related, but that's some bizarre AI-ish weirdness: does BSky just do some weird unapparent associating? /btw, I still miss Roddy...

An okay ending for STRANGER THINGS, but not a great one. Much could've been trimmed; many over-repeated beats; very little for Winona Ryder or Linda Hamilton to do. Some nice moments, some very grasping ones, some odd omissions. A decent enough finale, but maybe a satisfying one was impossible.

Must say, I've been impressed with some of the surprising depth of S2 of PERCY JACKSON. Considering it's basically just a children's adventure tale, each episode so far has had more complexity and nuance than I expected. I also like that it's all played earnestly: definitely the right choice.

Mercifully, I rarely get any of this, but my parents-- esp. my father-- are getting fed AI slop non-stop. And, worse, so damned much of it. It's terrifying. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

An icon of her time, but so dispiriting how she became one of those celebrity backers of the far-right. For all her concern for animals, she didn't think or feel much for people who weren't like her. She's not an easy figure to mourn. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

It never matters how old you get: your parents will never heed a damned word you're saying, at least not for years and until circumstances force them to admit otherwise. It's the old cliché: parents trying to warn heedless children. But it has always, always gone both ways.

The best thing about Christmas? When it's finally f*cking over.

Psst... it's not the app causing the hate. Everyone else knows that. And if you're having "real" discussion on X or Threads, that says more about you than anything else.

Meanwhile, we're supposed to give a damn that Harvard student journos snuck into one of Summers' classes... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

So, nobody should trust them and they'll be exorbitantly-costly, functionally-inoperative and susceptible to Russian influence. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

BREAKING: WATCH the full 60 Minutes CECOT segment here. This was sent to me anonymously. It appears to be the segment CBS' Bari Weiss killed. www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-...

Were he somehow alive today, even Sterling Hayden would say, "No, THAT'S Jack. D. Ripper."

And "you don't cross the chaplains" was right there, waiting for you...

Wake me if and when they do. They had to know something like this was coming sooner rather than later. One thing's sure, though: Margaret Brennan won't be one of them.

This would be worthwhile, if the federal govt could override the vile Notwithstanding Clause, still the worst and most rotten element of Trudeau the Elder's constitutional bargain. But, until that clause goes (good luck with that), provincial govts can hijack anything with no federal recourse.

NARRATOR: It never did.

It'd hard not to think of KEN PARK in relation to this, whether that's fair or not. If you haven't seen it: don't-- don't ask, just leave it there. If you have, you can likely reckon where my worries are.

This is tragic news, but something I long feared might happen, given his dark and complicated history (broadly put, more "fault" of others than him). He was a fine actor, never credited enough, who I wish had a happier life. Rest In Peace. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Call it The Fasc Minajerie...

Margaret Brennan's question is absolutely galling.

Sounds like it's a version of the MOCA -- which is formally a cognitive assessment, but is often applied to gauge validity of effort during psychometric testing. It's meant to be pretty easy, and designed to identify either significant cognitive impairment or disingenuous responses. Egad.

It's worth taking a look at Friedersdorf's recent writing for The Atlantic, if only to be alerted to the jawdropping fatuousness of his analysis. He's an embodiment of disingenuous journalism. You can practically read his latest in Claude Rains' voice. www.theatlantic.com/author/conor...

Anyone who imagined today's DOJ doc-drop to be anything other than a deliberate fiasco was being willfully naïve. The stunt was in the works once Cheetolini did his phony pirouette on the matter. And US media outlets are, as ever, going to play along.

honest to fucking god no one has ever had more chances and more excuses made for them than this giant merkin-topped pile of moldy tangerine peels

Every year TCM does one of these memorials and every year it's a dozen times better than what the Academy comes up with. And, every year, these seem to get harder and harder. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF8_...

Wow.

Oh damn it, where did I put my shocked face? It's got to be around here somewhere...

There are so many things which i should love about FALLOUT (the technical skill, the visuals, the songs), it's all just flat for me. Songs I love feel like grasping needle-drops. Visuals feel like game shots. But so sick of post-apocafiction. Just so done with the genre.

Again, I will never understand why Republicans won't just throw him overboard. At this point, whatever he "provides" is minuscule compared to what he demands. I know it's largely simple, basic cowardice-- but who are they kidding? This is only going to get so much worse.

I remember saying this exact thing about 10 years ago. Ten years ago. And, somehow, far more than enough people kept ignoring the hideously obvious. But, now, finally, people are realizing... [CUT TO: current coverage in the Post and the NYT] *sigh* It never f*cking ends, does it?

Honestly, this Deadline headline could've stopped after the first three words. deadline.com/2025/12/trum...

Oh my... local TV station is now re-airing (of all things) the episode of THE A-TEAM guest starring L.Q. Jones and... wait for it... Boy George. 80s TV was a weird, wild f*cking thing. No wonder my generation turned out the way it did.