April 12, 2026

GREAT TRAINING SHOES: I went to a training event recently and got to wear the new Brooks Women’s Glycerin Flex Neutral Running & Walking Shoe. The shoes are supposed to move with your feet and be more flexible and they were, but also provided stability. I bought a pair and am very happy with them Give them a try if you need a cross-purpose shoe.

Posted at 1:02 pm by Helen Smith

I DON’T THINK THE BIG BANG THEORY WAS INTENDED TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE FOR HOSPITAL ROBOTICS:

Deploy the Shelbots!

To be fair, the Shelbots are brilliant tailors as well. They were the forerunners of the oversize suit craze of the 1980s:

 

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

ROBERT SPENCER: Truth-Teller Encounters the Buzz-Saw of the Establishment Narrative.

What happens when someone dissents from the leftist establishment narrative in a way that is so compelling and convincing that the continued wide acceptance of that narrative is imperiled? What happens is that the leftist media establishment deploys its strongest rhetorical weapons against the offender, hoping to destroy or at least cripple the dissident before he or she is able to amass a significant following, or to dishearten and disperse that following if it already exists. This is why the April 2026 issue of Tablet magazine contains a massive article, over 6,000 words long, damning with faint praise the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or.

Former New York Times writer Judith Miller, who for decades has been a reliable conduit for the establishment line, pulls out all the stops to ensure that her readers will come away with the idea that Bat Ye’or, for all her admirable qualities, is a bit of a nutter. It is a shabby way to treat one of the great thinkers of our age, and demonstrates how deeply threatened the academic left is in the face of the truths Bat Ye’or has uncovered.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

NEVILLE AGAIN:

 

On Friday, London Telegraph columnist Jake Wallis Simons wrote: Starmer has just shown the world what a truly pathetic leader he is.

At least Neville Chamberlain had rhetoric. The phrase may have represented the nadir of British appeasement, but “peace for our time” had a lovely ring to it. Keir Starmer, however, probably finds its resonances with the Book of Common Prayer distasteful, given that modern Britain is for “people of all faiths and none”. So he plumped for “fed up” instead.

“I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses’ bills go up and down on energy,” he told Robert Peston in the Gulf. Forgive me if I do a little sick. The Prime Minister didn’t seem to mind when, thanks to Ed Miliband, Britain had the highest industrial electricity prices in the OECD even before the war in Iran. But when prices rise because of a struggle against the most evil regime on Earth? That gets right up his nose.

If I were an Iranian parent, say, who had lost a child when the regime massacred more than 30,000 people in 48 hours in January, or a relative of a victim of Tehran’s recent surge in executions, my sympathies for Starmer’s irritation at rising domestic bills might be limited.

The inevitable made-for-Netflix movie depicting Starmer as the eight-dimensional chess playing mastermind of Operation Epic Fury should make for mind-blowing viewing.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

TRUMP ANNOUNCES BLOCKADE OF STRAIT OF HORMUZ AFTER IRAN PEACE TALKS COLLAPSE:

President Trump on Sunday announced plans to blockade the Strait of Hormuz after negotiations in Pakistan to end the Iran war collapsed.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “The Blockade will begin shortly. Other Countries will be involved with this Blockade. Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION.”

The president said the blockade will be enforced in an effort to stop Iran from policing the strait to its economic benefit while other countries suffer.

“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” he said. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”

He additionally said the U.S. Navy will “seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran.”

Earlier: “Iran played its biggest card and the main result is that the United States became the world’s emergency gas station and China’s cheap energy subsidy evaporated. This is either the most elaborate coincidence in the history of geopolitics… or someone planned the sequence Venezuela -> Iran -> profits!”

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: When Hollywood Did It Right: Pirates of the Caribbean.

Will Turner’s fire is lit, his adventure begun, with the help of another classic story trope… the older wiser mentor figure who is at best wildly eccentric and at worst completely insane. This trope too goes back to the very beginning of Western storytelling, but we see it very clearly in many of today’s most popular mass entertainment franchises, some of which are still throwing off sequels, prequels and reboots, from “Star Wars” to “The Matrix” to “Point Break” to “Highlander.” The twist with “Pirates of the Caribbean” is that Johnny Depp did too good a job with Captain Jack Sparrow and accidentally whoopsied himself right into the lead role.

But that was merely a happy accident. Like “Star Wars” and all those other enduring movie examples which we could name, “Pirates of the Caribbean” is a classic male-oriented adventure in both form and function, and that is precisely why it worked so well.

Which brings me to the female lead, Elizabeth Swann, played by Kiera Knightley. Elizabeth is beautiful, of course, but also smart, funny and capable… she is for all intents and purposes a classic Hollywood “modern woman.” But here is the most critical piece, she is a modern woman within the context of the world in which she lives… a world that is a Georgian Era Patriarchy which exists on a distant island colony run with ruthless discipline by the officers and men of the Royal Navy. As such, the men in Elizabeth’s orbit do not cower before her superior intellect, nor are they driven to their knees by her unparalleled strength and wisdom. And she is certainly not a ninety-five pound Scarlett Johansson throwing two hundred and seventy pound men across rooms like they were Jenga blocks.

Elizabeth Swann is simply a woman, emotional and flawed and heroic, in all the ways we used to understand makes a woman, in the days before The Culture decided that being a woman was not enough.

And now I’m going to write something that should not be controversial, but which has become so here in our highly politicized “modern culture.” I’m going to write very clearly and deliberately so that I cannot be misunderstood… and yet I will be misunderstood, deliberately so, because the activists whose grift is based on pretending to misunderstand the most fundamental things about human nature can allow it to be no other way, lest their lucrative grift collapse entirely.

So, here goes… men and women are fundamentally different and often want different things from the entertainment they consume. Generally speaking, women are not as interested in adventure movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean” as men are, and are less likely to pay to see them in theaters. Notice I did not say all women are disinclined to see these kinds of movies, I said that generally speaking, men prefer them more than women do.

By the same token, the audiences for movies like “Hamnet” and “Wuthering Heights” are overwhelmingly female, something I have never heard anyone suggest is a societal problem that needs to be remedied by fundamental industry-wide changes in the way those movies are developed and made. And yet this is precisely what has happened at companies like Marvel, DC and Lucasfilm, where the stubborn refusal of women to attend action-adventure movies in the same numbers as men is treated like some kind of national emergency. When it comes to romantic dramas, on the other hand, we seem to understand that men and women want different things from the movies they consume… and that’s OK.

(Slight pause so that all those readers who have just fainted can be revived)

We good? Everyone still with me?

Keep your fainting couch nearby and read the whole thing.

Posted at 10:52 am by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE:

So why now? California ended up “with eight Democrat candidates and two GOP candidates in the primary, and depending on what poll you consult, it is possible that two Republican candidates might emerge as the two top primary winners, guaranteeing a Republican governor emerges in the general election. In other words, the distorted, undemocratic system installed in California by the Democrat majority is backfiring on them, and now they are scrambling to save themselves—and the only way to do that is to dilute or eliminate the support to one of the leading Democrat candidates, thereby kicking that support to another Democrat, thereby guaranteeing that at least one Democrat is on the ballot in November for the two-candidate general election. And Eric Swalwell is the designated fall guy.”

Posted at 8:45 am by Ed Driscoll

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Will Public Accept Sanitized Michael Biopic?

The April 24 release was slated to begin in 1993, when Jackson was first accused of sexually inappropriate contact with a minor.

Not anymore.

Those moments, and others allegedly shot for the movie, didn’t make the final cut, according to Variety. Nor did other problematic chapters of his life.

But the sequence with investigators who arrive at Neverland Ranch to search for evidence is one of many that were left on the cutting room floor. “Michael,” which Lionsgate will release in the United States on April 24, was supposed to explore the impact of the allegations on Jackson’s life, with much of its third act devoted to the scandal. But that finale was scrapped, along with any mention of the child molestation accusations, according to sources with knowledge of the production.

Why?

Variety ticks off two reasons. One, recent Jackson projects have done something similar, and the public outcry has been limited or non-existent.

Two, the legalese tied to the movie helped make this sanitized version possible.

The third, unofficial reason? Team Jackson had a heavy hand in the production and is invested in the film’s financial future. And the King of Pop’s, too.

Will the public cry foul or marinate in the memories? Those box office predictions suggest the latter.

Flashback: The sexual predators everyone still worships.

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll

“SO TO SUMMARIZE: Iran played its biggest card and the main result is that the United States became the world’s emergency gas station and China’s cheap energy subsidy evaporated.”This is either the most elaborate coincidence in the history of geopolitics… or someone planned the sequence Venezuela -> Iran -> profits! I’ll let you figure out which one.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

GREAT MOMENTS IN HARD-HITTING INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM:

Tavares describes himself in his X profile as “Undisputed champion of East Bay politics. Author of East Bay Insiders, the must-read newsletter for East Bay political and local govt watchers.”

Guys, say it with me: Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

Evergreen:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

THIS:

Hell, it’s looking like we didn’t even invent war. And capitalism is good.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds