COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

train of morning thought: what would be the modern version of Maoist backyard blast furnaces? backyard lanthanide (rare earth) separation plants! so that's my morning reading: how to separate the f-block elements in the tool shed for fun and profit.

"laser-sharp" not "laser-focused" pls

the collapse of white mainline Protestantism in the US took place because those churches, however fitfully and slowly, listened to Dr. King, and their adherents couldn't handle it. now we have racist Odin worshippers champing at the bit to reenact MIDSOMMAR. great great.

man, people allegedly on the left who think Trump is funny were you dropped on your head by every single member of your family as a child? I am legitimately curious. maybe it's because I'm older than bones but I remember actually *good* Borscht Belt comedians.

so... the Chicago Police Department used to disappear people into its facilities. this received much less media attention than you would expect for death squad-adjacent behavior. pretty sure Miller and ICE saw that and extrapolated that no one would care what happened to non-citizens.

way back when, I caught parts of an episode with a glowing allegorical figure at a dinner party who had converted a Victorian policeman into primordial soup, and Doctor McCoy figured it out before his companion could partake. much much later I learned it was the legendarily weird "Ghost Light".

this looks like a delicious soup, kind of Northern Californian Mexican. but that's not what caught my eye...

I was vaguely wondering what the ancient ineffective Danophile in Vermont thought about adding an even smaller and colder state to the US. turns out he sees it as a political opportunity to advance his platform. great great you fucking simpleton

psychological insight: all the restaurants that fit that bill for me I associate with a woman much more than the food

I wish Garry Wills' book, THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: ARMING FOR ARMAGEDDON (1968) was... known, I guess. it has all 2026's favorite hits: law enforcement operating as racial paramilitary forces, the spread of military equipment into organizations under nominal civilian control, depraved indifference.

Robert Bechtle, Alameda Gran Torino, 1974

Abbot Bradley R. Vanden Branden, the most Wisconsin name I have seen in a while he looks exactly how you think

the attempted heist movie it ends with the sinister Finnish janitor wheeling another batch of neo-Confederate bodies to the heating plant furnace SISU III: THE EMIGRANT

Ceiling of mosque in Erbil, Iraq

As we get ready for the winter Olympics, I visited the Portage Curling Club to learn all about curling. Winter recreation is a big deal in Wisconsin, and this year, the Portage Curling Club is celebrating 175 years of welcoming curlers and spectators from all over the country.

Wayne Thibaud - Heavy Traffic

Whoever made this Head of John the Baptist had definitely witnessed a real decapitation!

One of the strangest-looking birds we saw in Peru, the Hoitzin, is also one of the most unusual. Like cattle, it's a ruminant, meaning its digestive system ferments plant matter. The Hoatzin is the last surviving member of a bird line that branched off in its own direction 64 million years ago,

something bugged me about this review, and it came to me in a dream (what do *you* dream about?) Ing wrote this story with a message -- it's why he delved so deep into media studies -- and his characters are supposed to be exemplars. the reviewer... objects to the character of the exemplars?

This is a Persian carpet of ceilings, looking up into one of the towers in the Royal Apartments at the Norman Palace in Palermo

controversial opinion: the Packers losing the playoffs to an upgrade of our fine Illinois brethren (or soon to be Indiana, I guess) is better than getting shellacked by Seattle.

it makes many white people who learn this about their family history very uncomfortable, because the obvious question then becomes: why did we stop? and the answer is usually staring at them in their face. sometimes in the mirror.

does anyone remember the minor Minnesota lawyer John Hinderaker? he's perhaps better known by his flatulent "Hindrocket" pseudonym after his Power Line website was declared "Blog of the Year" by Time Magazine in 2004. anyhow, for decades he dealt in anti-Somali, anti-Hmong bullshit in Minnesota.

you know what I don't ever need to hear from alleged Packer fans? homophobic comments about Williams's nails. in his day, Lombardi would have made you wish you had never been born. this is documented.

the big Internet commerce site is trying to push tinned fish at me "but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. it's not turquoise, it's not lapis. it's actually cerulean."

sure sure do you know what the NFL really needs? a bunch of meathead wannabe Weird Al Yankovics coming up with rhymes for "cooze" to slander Josh Allen's marriage but Americans *will* love St. Europe, even when it grievously sucks

I think there's a decent chance we'll have our second CIA president and no I don't mean Buttigieg

did *not* expect THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE to be hornier than ANORA

FB feeding me a story about the vigilante mob that beat Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker one) like a drum on the street until the police arrived. 1985. the narrator was approving. and I completely get it, and it's still... not great.

reminded again how *crappy* American trains were for their heyday, which was less than a century, and how *extractive* they were to all levels of society, except robber baron.

Going through some old images, found these Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser designs. I'll finish 'em out in watercolor eventually, but for now, sharing 'em as is!

the two ichthye (finally a chance to use the Greek dual)

TFW members of the professional class believe in social urban legends about things they have never seen up close, then reinforce each other's misconceptions with arrogant chin-stroking the abandoned outhouse of intellect

mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressæ, et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur id est, age, Satana, fac mihi hunc diem

USENET.

It used to be said that the internet is for porn, but I think we have now conclusively proven that it's actually for gaslighting.

if i were someone regularly appearing on ESPN from a home setup, i would: 1) commission good fakes of the art stolen from the Gardner museum in 1990 2) exclusively decorate my backdrop with those fakes 3) wait until the internet noticed this 4) never offer public comment

as someone who attended a university with a Scandinavian studies program you hope that the applicants are just really into hygge and Moomintrolls and Björk, you know? but then you see the piles of Hamsun at the university bookstore and realize maybe the Quisling Clinic in town was a selling point

'They Shall Take Up Serpents' marks Sublime Frequencies' first American release, with Ian Brennan documenting a West Virginia church where drumming grandmas + flatpicking guitarists enter trance states and put decades of rock posturing to shame. Gimme Danger — Ian Brennan Among the Snake Handlers:

I think Political Science *really* needs to deal with the bias we have against good news. I get that everything is dark/terrible, democracy is in retreat, etc. etc.... But we can't even tell stories that are glimmers of hope, because there *must* be a downside? At least according to R2?

in the Star Trek Mirror Universe, Reagan, W, and D.J. Trump are the great reformers who represent a road not taken for the Terran Empire, kind of like the Gracchi.

it's not even a new scam. "I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin."

oh yeah! flan for the single guy. (my late cousin Richard used to bring over flan for Thanksgiving. I was always impressed by the caramel.)

oh Christ the new viral personality that the obsessive dorks at the other site have discovered is an actress who looks like my sister.

they enjoy being cruel to people they believe break the norm in unacceptable ways. those ways are pretty much exactly the ones legally defined as discrimination (except for veteran status, since these dinguses are mostly the 101st Chairborne). those groups are protected classes for a reason.

scrolling past this I briefly thought the salad dressing bottles were tombstones

So some lady let Trump hold her Nobel Peace Prize, so what. I have had the exact same honor.

yes but old heads on the Internet have other associations with its composition

"starring Britt Lower, Rhea Seehorn, Jamie Lee Curtis and David Dastmalchian" this has to be made up. someone is just madlibbing using the names of actors from popular Apple TV shows.