June 18, 2026

DOES THE “MEET CUTE” TAKE PLACE AT A CROSS-BURNING?

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

FROM CAROLINE FURLONG:  The Guardian Cycle, Vol.1: In Dreams and Other Stories.

A man whose debts must be paid by vengeance. A woman desperate to save her husband. A grieving father finding a young enemy soldier on his veritable doorstep…

These fantasy and soft sci-fi stories wonder whether or not heroes need families. Are we not told that families slow the hero down? Is it not typically implied that they get in the way of the adventure? Are they a burden, or truly the greatest strength from which the hero and those he loves can draw?

Six tales in this collection center on family, faith, and self-sacrificing love as men and women fight for the ones whom they hold most dear. Whether the enemy is inner turmoil, a nightmare, or a demon really does not matter. If the threat seeks to harm a member of the family, it is going to pay dearly.

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt

EVENTUALLY THE HUMAN WAVE AS WEAPON WOULD FAIL JUST THIS WAY:  Send Them Back!

Posted at 4:26 am by Sarah Hoyt

June 17, 2026

OOF:

UPDATE (From Ed): After plenty of well-deserved ridicule the New York Post deleted their tweet, but fortunately, Archive.today saved a copy before it “unexpectedly” vanished:

Screenshot
Posted at 11:00 pm by Stephen Green

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT:

 

To boldly go where George MF Washington has gone before: Seen The Lights Go Out On Sunset.

Obviously it’s not Netflix or Amazon’s fault that The Strip is no longer The Strip in any recognizable way. The decline of the restaurants, bars and clubs along Sunset’s iconic length are no one’s fault but the owners and managers of those businesses. But whenever the one industry which dominates a company town begins to collapse, the first to suffer are those luxury business which cater to that industry’s youngest and hippest who have the most disposable income to spend. The inexorable disappearance of popular bars, luxury restaurants and other exclusive cultural signifiers are the leading indicators of a keystone industry in decline.

The Night of the Living Dead feral homeless don’t help matters, either. If only there had been someone running for mayor of L.A. who vowed to do something about them:

This is how the L.A. Times covered him:

Speaking of which, if you missed it Monday: Now That Spencer Pratt Is Out of the Race, CNN Can Safely Tell You How FUBAR L.A. Is:

UPDATE:

Posted at 10:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: After 20 Yrs, Al Gore’s Like ‘I Was Right, I Was Right, I WAS RIGHT!’ — ABC News, ‘Why, Yes, He Was.

Yet, here’s the shameless snake oil salesman, now a silver-haired, senior citizen who must need a new revenue stream, out front and center, drawing attention to his hysteria-inducing piece of fictional fundraising.

Worse, a national ‘news’ organization is indulging this egotist’s rosy-eyed reminiscing as if the manipulative fabrications in that blatant propaganda piece weren’t basically all outright frozen walrus poo dressed up for gullible human consumption as certified free of destructive pathogens.

Let’s walk down memory lane for a second – circa 2007 or so – and wrap ourselves in the sonorous sound of Gore’s doleful intonations describing mostly submerged Florida because half of Greenland (or Antarctica, or both – your choice) has melted and ‘fallen away.’

Florida? That was gone by the mid-1990s:

Oh, and speaking of ABC News and its global warming predictions, in 2008, they predicted that Manhattan would also be underwater — by 2015:

On June 12, 2008, correspondent Bob Woodruff revealed that the program “puts participants in the future and asks them to report back about what it is like to live in this future world. The first stop is the year 2015.”

As one expert warns that in 2015 the sea level will rise quickly, a visual shows New York City being engulfed by water. The video montage includes another unidentified person predicting that “flames cover hundreds of miles.”

Then-GMA co-anchor Chris Cuomo appeared frightened by this future world. He wondered, “I think we’re familiar with some of these issues, but, boy, 2015? That’s seven years from now. Could it really be that bad?”

Nahh — but why take chances? Tax the blue zones. A climate change tax measure Democrats and Republicans alike should get behind.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

TO BE FAIR, SO ARE HIS SUPPORTERS:

UPDATE:

Posted at 6:58 pm by Glenn Reynolds

GREAT MOMENTS IN DUE DILIGENCE: Jeff Bezos told Trump the Washington Post was his worst investment before slashing staff: ‘People there are terrible.’

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called the Washington Post his worst investment in a conversation with President Trump months before gutting the newsroom, according to a new book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.

“The people there are terrible,” Bezos told Trump over dinner in December 2024, according to an excerpt obtained by The Post ahead of the June 23 release of “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.“

“They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen,” Bezos said, focusing his ire at the business side of the publication after losing more than $100 million that year.

About two months after the dinner, Bezos ordered the Washington Post’s opinion pages to promote “two pillars: personal liberties and free markets” — as subscribers peeled off in protest of the paper withholding its endorsement from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Bezos this February authorized the sweeping downsizing of the celebrated Watergate paper, eliminating roughly a third of its workforce, including all staff photographers and the sports section.

Bezos’ candor with Trump was described by Swan and Haberman as part of a larger effort by Big Tech titans to cozy up with the incoming president, who had spent his four years in political exile railing against what he viewed as bias by news outlets and major internet platforms.

Trump told Bezos “this Washington Post is really unfair. You’ve got to take better care,” the book says.

“Bezos commiserated with Trump over their December dinner, indicating that he, too, was deeply frustrated with the Post, though for a different reason.”

“In Trump’s telling, Bezos told him he had lost half his friends over the investment,” the authors write. “Bezos would tell others that wasn’t quite right: He hadn’t lost friends, but people close to him had urged him to sell the newspaper.”

The brand names will likely continue, but we’re witnessing numerous mass media-era stalwarts in their dotage: the Post, late night talk shows, and Hollywood, all being devoured or radically transformed by changes in how we consume opinion and entertainment. The New York Times survives via its various non-news offshoots: “News remains the institution’s center of gravity, but Games, Cooking, Wirecutter and The Athletic have given its advertising team a broader set of commercial entry points. Some are built around habit, others around purchase intent, fandom or utility. Crucially, many feel less intimidating to marketers that might otherwise hesitate at the idea of advertising with a news brand.”

In contrast, Bezos’ Amazon is what is keeping the lights on at the WaPo, and the staff at the paper believed they should essentially be considered tenured academics with Bezos having no say in how his investment is operated. As we’ve seen in recent years, the WaPo’s entitled leftist journalists have had numerous Scott Pelley-style flameouts before being shown the door.

Posted at 6:49 pm by Ed Driscoll

A CRIMINAL COVERUP BY A POLICE FORCE THAT APPEARS TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN THE CRIMES:

“Cop night.”

Posted at 6:38 pm by Glenn Reynolds