INCENTIVES WORK:

Dear Big Tech,

Build the community a new school and a new football stadium. You’ll get your data center.

You’re welcome.

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) August 25, 2026

I UNDERSTOOD THIS REFERENCE: Mojtaba Khamenei Is (Still) Dead.

STANDING UP AGAINST RACISM:

Let's translate – the Trump administration is urging schools to suspend troublemakers even if they are predominantly black, so that the kids of whatever race and background, who actually want to do some learning, are able to do so. https://t.co/9RMcYjgl4Z

— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) August 25, 2026

FROM CAROLINE FURLONG:  Theophany.

Ten years ago the Savients took over Niban, forcing the independent inhabitants into poverty and despair. Bass White saw the careless cruelty of the Savients kill his mother and his father. When a resistance cell is discovered in his city bloc, the Savients seek to make everyone pay.

With his wife Amie, Bass races into the caverns to escape the Savients’ brutal enforcers: the Atrasai. The couple barely make it to the limits of known territory outside their underground city, however, before the Atrasai catch up with them. It would take a miracle to save them…

…or a combat medic robot.

Join Bass and Amie in this sci-fi story of healing, hope, and wonder. After a decade of fear and pain, even a little light can bring out the best in man and machine. But will the best be enough to heal?

OBSESSION WITH DEI RUINS EVERYTHING:  Marvel MISTREATS its Black Heroes, Actually. (Video.)

WE’RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE NOW:  Ukrainian drones attack Russia’s Plesetsk military spaceport.

WOULDN’T LOBOTOMIES BE MORE HUMANE?  Monmouth U. Trains Educational Counseling Majors to be ‘Social Justice Advocates’.

GOOD:  HUD To Investigate UMass-Amherst and U. Nevada-Reno Over Race-Focused Dorms After Equal Protection Project Complaints.

JAPAN FIGHTS BACK:  Higher Residence Permit Procedure Fees for Foreigners in Japan Will Take Effect on October 1.

AND HE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE:  How Gavin Newsom Subsidized the Migrant Invasion. The California governor has spent nearly $1 billion on nonprofits that want, among other things, to dismantle the border, “abolish ICE,” and help immigrants “living with HIV.”

MORE LIKE THIS. I TRUST PRIVATELY FOUNDED RESEARCH BETTER THAN GOVERNMENT PAID RESEARCH:  A horrible tragedy inspires a billionaire to fund medical advances.

AGAIN, INTERESTING TIMES:  GTA VI Will Burn Down The Game Industry. Here’s Why. (Video.)

RATHER THE BOOM ITSELF IS THE REASON:  One very critical thing to know/remember about ‘the trades’ and ‘why did we get rid of votech in HS?’ I’m a late boomer and not one to automatically blame everything on boomers, but… the boomers are a big reason.

RIDICULOUS:  Abdul El-Sayed asks Fox News’ Jesse Watters ‘Are you circumcised?’ in bizarre moment as he defends sex change surgery for minors.

INTERESTING TIMES:  Oh yeah, this’ll be fun.

THEY’LL BREAK THEIR TEETH:  U.S. Muslim Brotherhood authorizes $140M annually to help Muslims take control of American government.

IT DOESN’T COMPUTE:  I Had the Effing Denominator.

ONLY MARXISTS JUDGE ENTIRE GROUPS OF PEOPLE AS THOUGH THEY WERE UNIFORM WIDGETS:  Still About Men And Women.

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, IT’S HITTING HARD HERE IN DOLLY COUNTRY:

An apt day to remember that Dolly Parton once recorded a cover of Stairway to Heaven – and, in defiance of every moral law in the universe, she absolutely owned it. pic.twitter.com/rpeIUuumaC

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) August 25, 2026

Meanwhile, at my house:

This picture of Dolly is in my dining room. She makes us smile. RIP dolly. pic.twitter.com/X3hSAjcmPf

— Helen Smith (@HelenSmithPhD) August 25, 2026

Flashback: Dolly Parton on the Cas Walker show on local Knoxville TV 1967.

Plus, 14 year old Dolly Parton in Fountain City, Knoxville.

NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER: It’s been 20 years since Pluto lost planet status. Will it ever get its title back? The debate as to whether Pluto is a dwarf planet, or a fully fledged planet, continues to rage.

ABE GREENWALD: Harping on Natalie.

All the fuss began a week and a half ago, when Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia made a dig about the two of them. Trump, he said, “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Ossoff was referring to Trump’s covertly switching planes on his return from Turkey in July. The president had left Marco Rubio (and others) on the possibly targeted Air Force One while making off with a small group including Harp.

This became a juicy story for several reasons. Harp is an attractive young woman who’s always at Trump’s side, and Ossoff seemed to be insinuating that there’s something inappropriate about their mutual fondness. And when Ossoff, a possible Democratic contender in 2028, then denied that he was implying anything of the sort, a bipartisan game of gotcha was underway. While Republicans voiced their disgust over Ossoff’s innuendo, Democrats and liberal media went digging into Harp.

Which is interesting. Because while the left went looking for dirt in the life and letters and family members of a young woman who had survived bone cancer, lost her father to suicide, and committed the crime of working for Trump, feminists were beginning to organize in support of Lindsay Clancy, a suburban mother who had killed her three small children.

That’s just an aside I couldn’t resist. What’s more surprising is that the tale of the president and his loyal aide makes Trump look better than any story I’ve ever read about him.

Read the whole thing.

SUGAR ISN’T GOOD FOR YOU: These Babies Grew Up With Strict Sugar Limits. Decades Later, The Results Are Dramatic. “Compared with the babies who didn’t experience sugar rationing, the babies who were sugar-rationed for their first 1,000 days were 69 percent less likely to develop liver cancer in their adult lives. They also saw reduced incidence of prostate cancer (52 percent lower), lung cancer (41 percent lower), rectal cancer (40 percent lower), and breast cancer (36 percent lower). The sugar-rationed babies also tended to show longer telomeres – the caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect our genetic material, which are linked to longevity.”

THIS ARTICLE IS ILLUSTRATED WITH A PICTURE OF A HAMBURGER, THOSE AREN’T ULTRAPROCESSED: Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to 30% Higher Prostate Cancer Risk.

ROB LONG IN 2020: The Beauty Parton.

At the 2017 Emmy Awards, Dolly was reunited with her co-stars from the 1980 hit comedy Nine to Five. It was nine months into the Trump administration, and two of the presenters weren’t about to let you forget it. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda let loose mini-screeds against Trump. Dolly looks uncomfortable, then defuses the awkwardness by making a joke about the size of her breasts. And the podcasters want to know—they need to know—why Dolly didn’t attack Trump along with her co-stars and friends. Doesn’t she hate the guy? (Translation: Please tell us you hate the guy!) For the first time in the podcast, Dolly seems confused. She doesn’t hate Donald Trump. She prays for Donald Trump.

And if the podcast producers thought they were frustrated by her refusal to be a feminist or an LGBTQ activist, they’re stopped cold by this admission. Dolly prays for Trump, by which she means, she’s not praying that he wins reelection or lowers his handicap. She prays that God will grant him wisdom and foresight and guide him as he leads the nation. Praying for the president—any president, every president—is actually part of the official liturgy of the Episcopalian church. But this is problematic for Dolly’s interviewers, for whom basic religious faith seems weird and baffling. They keep asking How does she do it? And she keeps answering them By writing songs that are emotionally true and not being a political activist and praying for God’s guidance. And they just don’t hear it. Can’t be that. Gotta be something else.

Dolly Parton’s singing “I Will Always Love You” to Porter Wagoner is one of those moments you hear about and think, This is going to be an Oscar-winning movie scene someday. But what came after the song wasn’t so nice. Porter Wagoner sued Dolly Parton for $1 million and trash-talked her for years. And then, a few years later, when she was a superstar and he had fallen on hard times, she bought his music-publishing company from his creditors and gave it back to him.

Weren’t you furious with him? the podcast producers want to know. He sued you. He took your money. Some have said he abused you. Again Dolly demurs. See it from his side, she says. Wagoner made her a star. He took a chance on her, introduced her to an enormous audience, stood by her. She was grateful to him. And she forgave him. She helped him financially and reconciled with him and was there at his deathbed to remind him that the words she sang to him years before were still true.

You forgave him? they ask, as if the word is strange and foreign and written in a different alphabet. Forgiveness, she says. “That’s all there is.”

Mary Katharine Ham adds:

I of course admired Dolly's music and business acumen. But she also lived with such obvious gratitude, fueled by faith. She came from nothing, but with no chip on her shoulder. Quite the opposite. You can look through the window of her one-bedroom childhood home on display at…

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) August 25, 2026

Tweet concludes:

You can look through the window of her one-bedroom childhood home on display at Dollywood while listening to “Coat of Many Colors” and know she was rich long before she was rich and she wanted everyone else to know it, too.

Related:

President Trump ordered all American flags to fly at half-staff for a full week in honor of country music legend Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday. https://t.co/K9zxTfj2g6

— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) August 25, 2026