August 29, 2026

HOW IT STARTED: Just go, Rambo.

At least one Connecticut newspaper is having some fun with the dissembling of U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal about what he did during the Vietnam War.

The Republican American of Waterbury has taken to calling the brittle, strikingly thin Blumenthal “Rambo,” after the beefy fictional hero of cinematic treatments of the war.

And the newspaper has, with tongue undeniably in cheek, has taken to calling “Rambogate” the furor that has erupted over Blumenthal’s periodic false claims to have served in Vietnam.

How It’s Going:

How retarded do you have to be not know the purpose of the yellow safety stripe on the platform of an Amtrak station?

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Burning Man tells AI glasses wearers: Don’t be a creep, get permission to record.

  • Burning Man organizers have published the 2026 survival guide.

  • In it, they say attendees (nicknamed “Burners”) are allowed to bring smart glasses, but to be mindful of how they use them.

  • The guide says they should ask before recording others. On socials, some Burners are plotting how to get them barred.

Smart glasses are allowed at Burning Man 2026. Organizers say: Just don’t be a creep about it.

“Before using any device — including cellphones, cameras, or smart eyewear — you must ask and receive permission from anyone who may appear in your frame, whether they are the main subject or in the background,” Burning Man’s 2026 Survival Guide says. “This applies to people’s personal moments and their creative offerings alike.”

Burning Man seems awfully xenophobic — why don’t they want Kenyans to live vicariously by seeing images and video of the festival? Meta Glasses Send Nude, Bathroom Photos Unknowingly to Kenyan Workers for Review.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

INGSOC, THE EARLY DAYS:

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

JIM GERAGHTY: Finally, ICE Catches and Detains the Worst of the Worst.

[Milo] Yiannopoulos, the controversy-courting gadfly who was once driven from social media for stating that sexual relationships between teenage boys and adults could happen “perfectly consensually” and can be positive experiences for adolescents, is as subject to the law as anyone else. (Onetime immigration enforcement hardliners are now arguing that Yiannopoulos should be allowed to stay, because he is “spiritually American.” The grifter class knows nothing, understands nothing, and believes nothing, beyond “I should get what I want.”)

Usually, the less attention paid to him, the better, but the last time I paid attention to him, Yiannopoulos was contending that there was a possibility that Charlie Kirk faked his own death.

He’s your problem now, United Kingdom.

But for once, is ICE being cruel and over the top in punishing an illegal immigrant?

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

HE’S A DEMOCRAT, ULTIMATELY.

Posted at 12:47 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE LEFT DEFENDS ITS OWN. RUTHLESSLY.

Posted at 12:26 pm by Glenn Reynolds

TO BE FAIR, THEY’VE GOT QUITE LEGACY TO LIVE UP TO: Terrible Terrorist Tabloid: Rolling Stone Anoints Hasan Piker a Top ‘Influencer’ For 2026.

Piker infamously said, “America deserved 9/11.” Rolling Stone staffers apparently thought that America deserved the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing as well, based on the cover image they ran of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, making him look like he’s the next Jim Morrison:

But then, some things never change at Rolling Stone:

As the 1960s kept ending, the next installment was the arrest of Charles Manson and four of his followers for the horrific murder of five people, including actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski, at a luxury mansion north of Beverly Hills. When Manson’s trial began in 1970, Wenner [who would then have been about age 24–Ed] leaped at the story with an idea for the headline: “Charles Manson Is Innocent!”

Wenner’s headline was less insane than it sounds to modern ears. Manson was already an object of media obsession, a former Haight-Ashbury denizen who drifted to L.A. and collected hippie acolytes for LSD orgies and quasi-biblical prophecies. While the straight world viewed him as a monster, much of Wenner’s audience saw him, at least hypothetically, as one of their own. The underground press of Los Angeles, including the Free Press, cast him as the victim of a hippie-hating media. Manson was a rock-and-roll hanger-on. Wenner was convinced of Manson’s innocence by his own writer David Dalton, who had lived for a time with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, a Manson believer. “I’d go out driving in the desert with Dennis, and he’d say things to me like ‘Charlie’s really cosmic, man.’ ”

* * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, a lawyer in the DA’s office, believing he was doing a favor for a friend of [David] Felton’s at the Los Angeles Times and that this hippie rag from San Francisco was a benign nonentity, brought Felton [then-recently hired away from the L.A. Times by Wenner] and Dalton into the office to show them the crime scene photos of the butchered bodies of Manson victims — including a man with the word war etched in his stomach with a fork. Dalton blanched when he saw the words “Healter [sic] Skelter” painted in blood on a refrigerator, instantly recalling what Dennis Wilson told him about the coded instructions Manson heard in the Beatles songs. “It must have been the most horrifying moment of my life,” said Dalton. “It was the end of the whole hippie culture.” Jann Wenner changed the headline.

Flashback: Sticky Fingers: A New Biography Explores the Seedier Side of Jann Wenner.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

WHEN COMMIES AREN’T ACTUALLY MURDERERS, THEY’RE HAPPY TO EXCUSE OR JUSTIFY MURDERERS:

Fascinating history, and new to me.

Posted at 11:14 am by Stephen Green