The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Our Patriotic Duty: Fill the Sky

Posted on | July 4, 2026 | No Comments

We bought wholesale by the case this year, shopping the “Early Bird” special in April, but we did not stop there. Every time I thought, “OK, we have enough fireworks now,” the universe answered: “More.”

So we kept buying and buying. As late as Friday, July 3, I added a dozen more big booms for the Grand Finale, because that’s what matters most — end big, so that the audience is left in a condition of astonishment.

Last night we finished fusing up the last mortar racks. If you look at the photo closely, see on the right side those four black boxed with silver swords? Those are Excaliber canister shells (“Excals”) and we’ve got 96 of them in the show, along with 96 Neon Skies canister shells (in the cardboard case next to the Excals) as well as 66 Whistling Blasters, 12 King Arthur canister shells, 42 Nishiki Blast canister shells (willow effect) and six other canister shells — 318 total. That’s in addition to the dozens of cakes (repeaters) that will be fused together on barrage boards.

As I’ve explained before, the reason that consumer fireworks (1.4G) are so much fun is that you don’t need safety “setbacks” as long as those required for professional (1.3G) shows. Instead of seeing the shells break way off in the distance, the greater proximity of consumer fireworks makes it feel like the breaks are “in your face” — as if you are inside the barrage, an almost hallucinogenic feeling. Just to give you a small understanding of what we have planned, we have three boards in the finale composed entirely of smaller 200-gram cakes, which will break lower than the artillery shells. Those three boards comprise a total of 540 shots that will be fired in about 20 seconds (i.e., 27 shots per second), and that’s just one element of the grand finale. Intensity.

Beyond the intensity fact, the other thing is to “fill the sky” — from top to bottom and side to side. We’ll use many angled effects, and there will be color comets and mine effects shooting up from the ground, so that the barrage is panoscopic. I’d like to continue this pyrotechnic lecture, but now I’ve got to go supervise the show-day preparations, and there’s no more time. Sunset is at 8:42 and showtime is an hour after that. We must go do our patriotic duty on this, our nation’s 250th birthday.



 

Category: Fireworks

In The Mailbox: 07.03.26

Posted on | July 4, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Happy Independence Day!

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: A Day With Captain Kidd’s Treasure (1699),
357 Magnum: Hollywood Still Blaming the Fans
EBL: “Gettysburg” – The Glorious Burden – Iced Earth, Gettysburg : Day 3, The Great Awakening, Don’t over complicate it, and A meal for the 4th of July?
Twitchy: Oligarch Ro Khanna Says Fauxcahontas’ Ultra-Millionaire Tax Is The Ultra-Moral Way To Cancel Student Debt, Patti LuPone Furious After Her Gay Cruise Banned From Turkey, and Colorado DSA Candidate Shares Secret Socialist Solution To All America’s Problems
Louder With Crowder: DSA Co-Chair, who admits out loud is “goal is Communism,” names the Democrat he wants to run for President, Woke mayor calls for trans “refugees” to move to Seattle,  and Hillary Clinton still won’t calm down about Trump whipping her butt in 2016, demands changes to the Constitution
Vox Popoli: Nothing to Fight With
According To Hoyt: Postponement and the feeding of Hoyts, Back From Liberty con, Stop Rending your garments, Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty, and Quick Request for the Huns and Hoydens
Monster Hunter Nation: So where should I start with your books?
Upstream Reviews: Heartlanders
Stoic Observations: The Blickity Black Impulse

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Video Footage Showing White Teen Getting Arrested Right After Being Assaulted Sparks Outrage in Britain, New York City Appropriates $7 Million for ‘Trans Equity,’ Drag Queen Story Hours, LEGO Faces Backlash Over Pride-Themed Content Aimed at Kids, CFPB Orders Remote Employees to Relocate to Washington or Lose Jobs, and Backlash After Columbus, Ohio Announces It Will Raise the Flag of Somalia at City Hall
BattleSwarm: RAM Cartel? I Seriously Doubt It, Hey Universities, You Can Take Money From The ChiComs, Or From Uncle Sam, But Not Both, Russia Update: Gas Shortages, Plane Shortages, Crimea’s Collapse, and LinkSwarm for July 3
Behind The Black: Skyroot announces launch window for 1st launch of Vikram-1 rocket, Sunspot update: The ramp down to solar minimum continued to stall in June, Katalyst’s Link rescue spacecraft launched successfully, German rocket startup Isar wins another launch contract, and Corroding glacial debris inside Martian crater
Cafe Hayek: On Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures”
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday – the 250th Edition
Chicago Boyz: Shall It Be Sustained?
Don Surber: Defining MAGA
First Street Journal: The ‘transgendered’ would find their lives far simpler if they’d stop trying to make their beliefs other people’s business
Flopping Aces: Democrats Built A Socialist Monster To Terrorize Republicans – Now  It’s Eating Their Safe Seats First
The Geller Report: California Democrats Push to Make Muslim Holy Days State Holidays, Orthodox Jewish Man Ordered to Get Permit to Host Prayers at Home, Over 1,900 Non-Citizens Arrested in Trump Administration on Terror-Related Charges During Biden Years, America-Hating DSA Expands Congressional Beachhead , and TRUMP BY FREEDOM TRAIN
Hollywood In Toto: Obsession Remains Hollywood’s Biggest Mystery of 2026, The Invite Takes Hilarious Look at Marital Miscommunication, Citizen Vigilante Shoots to No. 1 on Prime Video Chart, Legacy Media Mourns Supergirl’s Box Office Collapse, and Does THIS Explain Taylor Swift’s Massive Charity Gift?
Legal Insurrection: Explosive Diarrhea Parasite Spreads Across America Ahead of Independence Day, Men in Women’s Bathrooms – CriticalRace.org Report Highlights Coming Title IX Battles, Alexis Podesta Wore FBI Wire in Investigation of Newsom’s Former Chief of Staff, Donny Deutsch of MSNOW Sounds Alarm for Democrats Over DSA Takeover, and Mamdani Trashes America, Trump in Speech Marking Country’s 250th Birthday
Nebraska Energy Observer: Drones? Eff yeah, Loud, Proud, and Rowdy, and on a Mission, Jefferson, and What’s in a Flag?
Outkick: Sports world turns out for Taylor Swift’s MSG wedding, USA’s Folarin Balogun criticizes ref’s red card, ESPN makes right decision in removing Rich Eisen, Flyers make stunning offer for Ducks star, and Matthew McConaughey fires up Americans with patriotic speech
Power Line: Gratitude, A Funeral for the Ayatollah, The Suicide Charge that Saved America, The “Democratic Socialist” agenda, and Unprecedented Heat Wave?
Shark Tank: Palm Beach PBA Endorses Belinda Keiser In FL-22
STUMP: Preliminary 2025 Mortality – Deaths Down Again!,
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The People’s Bicentennial as Spoilsports
Transterrestrial Musings: The Democrat Civil War, The Corruption In Sacramento, The College “Educated”, The Real Deep State, and The Revolution
Victory Girls: America’s 250th Not Ruined By Trump Or Any Human
Watts Up With That: Air Conditioning vs. Climate Activism: UK/EU Face the Music, The Times May Be A-Changin’, Closer to the Fire – Increasing Tropical Sunlight, Europe’s “Soaring Climate Damage” Narrative Runs Into an Inconvenient Dataset, and Meet the Climate Activist Shortlist of Candidates to be Next UN Secretary General
The Federalist: Why All Patriots Should Watch The Patriot On America’s 250th Birthday, The Best And Worst Pavilions At The Great American State Fair, Awe-Struck World Cup Tourists Should Remind Us What Makes America So Great, Mamdani Is Telling A Brazen Lie About ‘Capitalist Mismanagement’ Of New York, and 5 Easy Homemade Staples I’m Bringing To The July 4 BBQ (And You Should Too)
Mark Steyn: A Top-down Willed Failure, Live Around the Planet, A Heart That Listens, Girl Power, and The Full Homer

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Tools & Home Improvement
New Releases – Tolls & Home Improvement
Amazon Essentials


 

Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 07.02.26

Posted on | July 3, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: A Day Discovering The Palace at Nineveh (1849), also, The Day The Thirteen Colonies Broke The King’s Chain (1776)
357 Magnum: Antifa Threaten to Kill Texas Judges,  Sony Deletes Movies PlayStation Owners “Purchased” and United Kingdom Moves to Outlaw Air Conditioning
EBL: Lemon Caper Cod, Governor Tim Walz ?? Child Rapists, MAGA Red Card , Raft of the Medusa, and Marquis De Sade
Twitchy: WNBA’s Alyssa Thomas Whines People Are Calling Her A Thug For Throat-Punching Caitlin Clark, Heavily-Armed Troon Wannabe Terrorist Arrested – Check Out This Arsenal, and Alexandria VA Promotes Snitch Line For Sparklers
Louder With Crowder: Atlanta thinks $130 million in glass dividers will stop people from evading fares, Zohran Mamdani Defeats Capitalism? Not So Fast, Tim Walz pardons illegal who abused a 10-year-old girl just to prevent him from getting deported, Japanese World Cup tourists discover the gun aisle at Bass Pro Shops, and City Hall raises Somalian flag over government building after canceling fireworks show for AMERICA’S 250th
Vox Popoli: Arktoons Update, Israel Admits Genocide, and Convergence in the UK
Sensurround: Why I Disagree With “Dropping The T”
Jim McCoy: The Ten Realms, also, Time To Nominate Your Favorites For The Dragon Awards
John C. Wright: Political Activism in Fairy Stories
Cedar Sanderson: The Ages of Men, also, Lightly Toasted Marshmallow Strip #10

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Insane Troon Planned Casino Massacre in Las Vegas, ‘Huge Cache of Weapons’ Found, Universal Human Equality Does Not Require Universal Citizenship, Los Angeles Dodgers Donate $1.1 Million to Pro-Immigration Groups After ICE Raids, LA Votes to Give Illegals the Vote, and John Brennan Sues Trump Administration to Preserve Records in Probe
Animal Magnetism: Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 93 – Implements of Self-Defense
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For June 26, The Babylon Bee Presents The Second Civil War, Fujimori Wins Peru Presidency (Note: This Is Not A Repeat From 1995), Texas Supreme Court Halts Harris County’s Illegal Alien Slush Fund, and The End Of Humphrey’s Executor: Death Knell For The Deep State?
Behind The Black: 1776 – The 250th anniversary of the egg hatching, Long term monitoring of the dry-ice cap at the Martian south pole, Academic publisher Springer Nature to divest itself of woke Scientific American, Military contractor Anduril experiences engine explosion during static fire test, and FAA eases supersonic flight restrictions over U.S., as per Trump order from 2025
Cafe Hayek: Maybe the Final Days for Cafe Hayek, Beijing Is Helping Secure Trump’s Goal of Reducing So-called ‘U.S. Trade Deficits with China’, With Friends Like Trump, U.S. Producers Need No Enemies, Ronald Reagan Is Glad That He’s No Longer Alive to Witness This Fiasco, and Have Europeans Been Ripping Americans Off in Trade?
CDR Salamander:  You Can Restart A Shipyard
Chicago Boyz: Baseball, Pride, & Gessler’s Hat, The Humiliation of Scott Wiener, Of Data Centers, AC, & Light Beer, , and The Heat Is On!
Da Tech Guy: Trump Economy vs Obama Economy Final Result 48 days jobless vs 2-7 years, also, July Indulgence Calendar and an Update on the Knights of Columbus Monthly Chosen nights
Dana Loesch: SCOTUS Upholds Birthright Citizenship,
Don Surber: Trump’s Supreme victory, also, Girls sports for girls only
First Street Journal: Democrisy! Democrats claim, without any proof, that President Trump is a sexual predator, but then pardon a convicted child rapist to try to keep him from being deported, Another victory for normal people, Supreme Court Rules POTUS Has Authority To Remove “Independent Agency” Heads, Tennessee To Review Immigration Status Of All On Government Programs, and Why does The Philadelphia Inquirer censor the news?
Flopping Aces: Elon Musk Kicks Ro Khanna’s Ass, SCOTUS Just Reminded The Left That “Temporary” and “Border” Aren’t Suggestions, They Tried To Bury Mike Lindell With Lawfare, $6.5 Billion Later The “Fraud Isn’t Real” Clowns Are Standing In The Looted Ruins, and The Left Finally Found Lawfare It Hates
Gates Of Vienna: Citizen Vigilante – A Flawed but Thought-Provoking Vigilante Thriller, Islam Can Run, But It Can’t Hide From UK Grooming Gang Report, and Algeria vs. Senegal — Who Will Win?
The Geller Report: Under Mamdani, Drag Queen Children’s Story Hour Now Receives More City Funding Than the Department of Veterans Services, Boston Mayor Wu Proposed Million Dollar Cut in Veterans Services, Holds Somali Flag Raising Ceremony Instead, Israel Vindicated, UNRWA Fires 70 Of Their Terrorists, Cackling Kamala Reaches Out to Mamdani and AOC With an Eye on 2028, and A ‘Thousand Zohrans’
Glenn Reynolds: Ditching The Seventeenth
Hollywood In Toto: Daily Wire’s Run Hide Fight: Infidels Tease Is Pure Fire, Is Media Running Cover for Supergirl’s Box Office Numbers? Liberal Bill Maher Says the Unthinkable, The Furious – Child-Trafficking Thriller Packs Savage Punch, and Is This Why Seth Rogen Trashed Sylvester Stallone?
Legal Insurrection: ‘Astroturfed’: Jill Biden’s Memoir Falls From NY Times Bestseller List, Former Olympic Athlete Indicted for Allegedly Vandalizing Reflecting Pool, DOJ Takes Aim at Birth Tourism After Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Energy Dept. Moving to Drop ‘Green New Scam’ Appliance Mandates, and Speculation Swirls After Veteran NPR Reporter Publishes False Story About Alito Retiring
Nebraska Energy Observer: About Time. but Don’t Count the Chickens Yet, Working Steel, Why the World Cup Really Does Matter, Sunday Matinee, and A Look Back – How America Made Itself
Outkick: MLB Drops Hammer On Wilson Contreras, Dana White Says President Trump Wouldn’t Stop Pushing To Embiggen UFC Event, ESPN Must Hold Stephen A Smith Accountable, Riley Gaines & Womens’ Sports Activists Celebrate SCOTUS Decision, and Wife & Mistress Join Forces After Sext Mistake/Alleged OnlyFans Dating Scam/Marrying The Logical Choice
Power Line: 1776 Live, A pardon too far, Not Everyone Hates Trump, OK to hate, and Can Europe Be Saved?
Racket News: Controversially, SCOTUS Rules For Common Sense
Shark Tank: Blaise Ingoglia Endorses Byron Donalds For Governor
Shot In The Dark: Joe Does Citizen Vigilante
STUMP: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day 2026!,
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Academic Madness, Firing Line Friday: Resolved: That the Government Has the Right to Regulate the Internet, and Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States
Transterrestrial Musings: Happy Century Of Life, What Capitalism Will Look Like, The Spoils System, America’s Tradesmen, and Russia Is Losing
Victory Girls: Dear Democrats: Our National Party is Still On — Shut Up and STAY HOME, Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. Back In The House After Depression, Ro Khanna: The Anti-Oligarch Oligarch, The DSA Didn’t Hijack the Democratic Party. It Found an Open Door, and Democrats Had Better Start Listening To Their Own Pundits
Watts Up With That: The Democrats’ Green Delusion – Using the Iran War to Double Down on Renewables, The “Green” Shell Game – Why Virginia’s Return to RGGI Is a Bad Deal for Families, Technical Note on the Possible Variation in Sea Level Rise “Accelerations” over the Next 5 Years, PBS News Is Wrong, Climate Change Is Not Causing Georgia’s Drought, and Renewable Energy Will Impoverish Humanity
The Federalist: SCOTUS Win For Trump Admin Should Motivate Us To Eliminate TPS Completely, Daughters Of The American Revolution Leader Threatens Members For Speaking Out In Favor Of Women, One-Third Of Americans Can Barely Read, But They Can Still Vote, 37 All-American Diners, Hash Houses, And Greasy Spoons To Fuel Your Summer Road Trip, and SCOTUS Pasting Birth Tourism Into The Constitution Demands A Legal System Rebuild
Mark Steyn: Mamdanistan, Dispatches from My Coma, Openings and Closings, The Battle of the River Plate: Powell and Pressburger go Back to War, and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Tools & Home Improvement
New Releases – Tools & Home Improvement
Amazon Essentials


 

Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 07.01.26 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | July 1, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Thanks to everyone who bought stuff from my Amazon links last month. Always appreciated!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

SKSCartoons gets b& from Instagram

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: White Guilt – The Suicide Note of the West
357 Magnum: Mass Shooting in Germany
EBL: Karl “The Architect” Rove Supports SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Decision, Olive Oil Fish, Grant Figured Out Lee’s Flaw, “Monkey To Man”, and The Field Of Lies
Twitchy: CA State Senator Wiener Votes Down Ban on Registered Sex Offenders Holding Office, Need A Mirror, Hillary? and The White House’s Submission For Unmatched X Post
Louder With Crowder: Mutant rats are becoming immune to poisons and are taking over major U.S. cities, Angel mom ANNIHILATES Democrats, Adolf Hitler’s Baby Photo Made Its Way Into a New Jersey Middle School Yearbook, Mayor Zohran Mamdani Says He Is Proof That Communism Fixes Problems Created Under Capitalism, and SCOTUS Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship EO – But Congress Can Fix It If They Have The Guts
Vox Popoli: Clown World Wants War, Upcoming Game Test, Germany Learns the Hard Way, Supreme Court Upholds Paper, and The Cat Commotion
Stoic Observations: You Don’t Know Who You Are
Cedar Sanderson: Lightly Toasted Marshmallow Strip #9
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Post-Convention Sleep Disorder
john C. Wright: Losing Religion – John Derbyshire
Upstream Reviews: Graham Bradley – Summer Reading List

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: No, I Can’t Wait Until The Full NDAA Is Out
Dana Loesch: SCOTUS Upholds Mississippi Voting Law
Don Surber: Obama’s red revolution
STUMP: Congressional Morbidity & Mortality Watch – A Quickie Update

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Snacks & Sweets
Survival Food
Amazon Essentials


 

Category: Linkagery

July 1: Captured at Gettysburg

Posted on | July 1, 2026 | No Comments

Like much else in the “official” history of the Civil War, that map of the opening engagement at Gettysburg — east of Willoughby Run, on the slope of McPherson Ridge — may not be completely accurate.

One of my pet peeves about how Gettysburg has been depicted is the portrayal of Buford’s Union cavalry as having fought some kind of desperate battle in delaying Maj. Gen Harry Heth‘s Confederate division in its advance from Cashtown that morning. Having spent quite a deal of time researching this subject, including personal observation of the terrain, I assert without qualification that the Union cavalry did little or no damage to the advancing Confederates. Once the first shots were fired by Buford’s advance vedettes (an honor claimed by Lt. Marcellus Jones, 8th Illinois Cavalry), east of Marsh Creek, what happened was this: Confederate Brig. Gen. J.J. Archer, commanding the lead brigade of Heth’s division, deployed the 5th Alabama Infantry Battalion as skirmishers, to protect the column marching behind them from any further harassment by the Yankee cavalry. The eastward march on the Chambersburg Pike then continued for more than a mile until reaching the crest of Herr Ridge. At that point, the advance halted, having come under fire by Buford’s troopers deployed on the other side of Willoughby Run, about 400 yards to the east of the ridge. Buford was supported by a battery of artillery (commanded by 21-year-old Lt. J.H. Calef), which opened fire as Heth and his officers were reconnoitering the position.

Heth deployed Archer’s brigade to the south of the road (which is now U.S. Highway 30) and deployed the brigade of Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Davis to the north side, with the artillery battery of Maj. William J. Pegram in the center. Meanwhile, on the Union side, Maj. General John F. Reynolds arrived on the field, riding in advance of the army’s First Corps. Reynolds consulted briefly with Buford, and quickly sent a note to the army commander, Maj. Gen. George Meade, promising to fight the Rebels “inch by inch.” As Reynolds’ infantry approached, they heard the firing and marched faster, the head of the column being what was to become known as the Iron Brigade. Reynolds directed them toward Willoughby Run, south of the Chambersburg Pike, while sending the next brigade, under Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler, to the north side of the road.

Before these Union troops could reach their assigned position, however, Heth had finished his reconnaissance and, his two lead brigades now formed into line of battle near the crest of Herr Ridge, ordered them to advance eastward. This detailed narrative I relate as contradiction of the way these events have been depicted by “official” accounts of the first day’s battle at Gettysburg, with Buford’s cavalry heroically holding off the Confederates. All that the Union cavalry had done was to (a) force Archer to halt long enough to deploy a battalion of skirmishers and (b) to put up a sufficient show of force at Willoughby Run to compel Heth to deploy a full infantry battle line. If the Confederates had been completely unopposed in their march toward Gettysburg, they would have crossed Willoughby Run before 9 a.m. As it was, by the time Heth ordered his battle line to advance, it was around 10 a.m. No doubt, the Yankee troopers on the other side of the stream were firing their carbines at any target they could see, but so far as is known, during the whole of this engagement they neither suffered any casualties themselves nor inflicted any on the Rebels. Packed away in my garage is a notebook in which I have a copy of Col. Birkett Davenport Fry‘s account of Gettysburg. Fry commanded the 13th Alabama in Archer’s brigade, and nowhere in his account of the fight on July 1 does he suggest that their advance from Cashtown was seriously impeded by Buford’s cavalry.

Having vented about my pet peeve, then, I then recount what happened to my great-grandfather, Winston Wood Bolt, who was a private in Company K of Fry’s 13th Alabama. Most historians have the 13th Alabama as the right flank regiment of Archer’s brigade as they advanced from Herr Ridge, down a slight slope to Willoughby Run, and then up into the woods toward McPherson Ridge on the other side. About this time, on the Union side, the first elements of the Iron Brigade were reaching the field. Near the Chambersburg Pike, Reynolds was supervising the deployment of two regiments (the 2nd and 7th Wisconsin) from the Iron Brigade when he was shot dead. Some historians have attributed Reynolds’ death to a Confederate “sharpshooter,” but it was most likely just regular volley fire from the nearest troops of Archer’s brigade, probably the 7th Tennessee Regiment.

The Iron Brigade in action at Gettysburg

Any visitor to Gettysburg who takes time to walk over this part of the battlefield (as I have) will perceive that Willoughby Run crosses the road almost diagonally, so that the left side of Archer’s brigade probably crossed ahead of the right flank and, most likely, the alignment got disrupted. The first Union forces to reach the field were up by the road, and the 13th Alabama curled around facing toward the northeast — and then disaster struck. The last regiment of the Iron Brigade to arrive (the 24th Michigan, which had been bringing up the rear of the column) came over McPherson Ridge to the southeast, completely outflanking the 13th Alabama. The Confederate line was then rolled up from right to left, resulting in the capture of Archer and about 100 of his men, including my ancestor, Pvt. Bolt, who spent the next two years as a prisoner of war.

Having a personal connection to historic events inspires a deep concern for the preservation of our national heritage, which it seems some of my fellow citizens do not share. But why drag John Roberts into this, huh?



 

Category: History

In The Mailbox: 06.30.26

Posted on | July 1, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: DCU – Is It the Dead Cinematic Universe, or the D-She-U?
Doug Ross: A Day Finding The Oldest Bible On Earth (1947)
EBL: Forever My Girl, Sardine Magic Sicilian Pasta, John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett – Disappointing, “The Globe”, and The Globe
Twitchy: The Amish Clearly Don’t Want To Assimilate Into American Society & The Right Doesn’t Care, Third Reich Rugrat, and Elon Musk Responds To Nicholas “Dog Rape” Kristof’s List Of Children He [Allegedly] Killed With Aid Cuts
Louder With Crowder: Nancy Pelosi leaves her crypt long enough to attend Pride Parade, Man arrested for shooting his BB gun at cyclists who were indecently exposing themselves in public, Woman goes on trial for “villifying” a grown man because she says he can’t breastfeed, Democrat “Reverend” Claims Not Affirming Trans People Is A Disgrace To God, and Killing Ourselves with Kindness – A Review of “Suicidal Empathy” by Gad Saad
Vox Popoli: His Satanic Majesty, A Shaky Ceasefire, The Baen Drain Continues, Attritional Math, and The Only Skull CD
Cedar Sanderson: Au Revior, LibertyCon
Sensurround: A Brief Review of the Radical Theory That Laws Should Apply To Everyone
Upstream Reviews: Gone Fission – Our Summer Break Begins

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The Vandalism Of The Royal Navy Is Reaching Its Endgame
Dana Loesch: Erika Kirk May Face Her Husband’s Killer In Court
Don Surber: The Declaration of Dependence
Glenn Reynolds: Bringing Back The Spoils System? Yes, Please
STUMP: New York Pensions & Primaries

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Home & Kitchen
New Releases – Home & Kitchen
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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 06.29.26

Posted on | June 30, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

In case you missed it, there was some excitement this past weekend about an Uwe Boll movie.
Also, the Based Book Romance sale continues!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: The Day Cortez Met Montezuma (1519), CIA & USAID – The Comic Explainer, A Day Opening King Tut’s Tomb (1929), and The Day A Shipwreck Was Found That Stunned The World (1900)
357 Magnum: How Should a Woman Defend Herself? also, SCOTUS Strikes Down Hawaii Law Restricting CCW
EBL: Fish Kebobs, Omnivore, Citizen Vigilante, Broken Crown : Edward IV, and Happy 100th Birthday Mel Brooks
Twitchy: Nate Silver Looks At Sales Figures For Dr. Jill Biden’s Book, Nick “Dog Rape” Kristof Names Kids [Allegedly] Killed By Elon’s DOGE Cuts, and CATO Simp Whines That ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Good Hasn’t Been Charged Or Fired
Louder With Crowder: Angry Joy Reid lashes out and demands Donald Trump be canceled from history, New polls show just how much Americans support Donald Trump’s common-sense illegal immigration reforms, High School Counselor Writes Kids’ Book Advocating Cutting Off Family Members Who Do Not Affirm LGBT Identities, Bad news! Joy Behar declares she is embarrassed to be an American, and “They are afraid to fight”: Trump wastes no time mocking Democrats letting their party be taken over by commies
Vox Popoli: The Degradation of AI Writing, The EU’s Inverted Values, It’s Too Late Now, The Collapsing Empire, and Further Advances
Defending The Wood Perilous: The Crazy Life of an Author, also, The Crazy Lives of Suffering Authors
Cedar Sanderson: Lightly Toasted Marshmallow Strip #8, June Garden Tour, and Driving Dys Topia
John C. Wright: A Rare Moment of Judicial Sanity, Utopia Hates Reality, and SFF Is Everything Else
Sensurround: Haul Asteroid Ore, Charlie Brown! My Muse Is A Bitch And She Beats Me, The Legend of Don Esteban “Murcielago” Cortez, and Quantum Physics
Upstream Reviews: Masters of the Universe, also, Sneak Preview – Fossil Force
Stoic Observations: Social Entropy
Incensepunk Magazine: Out of the Silent Planet

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Baldilocks: Balm of Goodness, also, Simple Questions
CDR Salamander: Have You Completed Your ASW PQS? Fullbore Friday, and The Battle of Jutland at 110 – On Midrats
Don Surber: Europe needs AC, also, Did we keep a republic?,
Elizabeth Nickson: Young White Men Will Save Western Civilization. Why?
Glenn Reynolds: The Commies Mount An Across The Board Push
Racket News: Zohran Mamdani & The Nitwit Revolution
STUMP: Lightning Safety Week 2026

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Automotive
New Releases – Automotive
Today’s Deals


 

Category: Linkagery

Woke ‘Supergirl’ Bombs Badly

Posted on | June 29, 2026 | No Comments

Helen Slater (left, in 1984) and Milly Alcock (right) as ‘Supergirl’

Let’s start by stating the obvious: Sixty-six-year-old grandpas are not the target audience for super-hero action movies and, even when I was part of the target demographic, age-wise, I really never was much of a fan of movies about comic-book characters. Like, I vaguely remember going to see the 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman movie, and I’ve seen at least one Batman movie, the 2002 Spider-man and 2008 Iron Man, but that’s about it. Just not the kind of guy who lines up for whatever DC/Marvel project comes out off the Hollywood assembly line.

So now we have the latest franchise-killing “woke” failure:

Supergirl didn’t just flop at the box office this weekend; it is a flop of epic proportions, an abysmal failure that will be remembered only as a failure.
With a disastrous $38 million domestic opening and an even more humiliating overseas take of $30 million, Supergirl is a bigger domestic flop than The Marvels ($46 million), The Flash ($55 million), Black Adam ($67 million), and Morbius ($39 million). . . .
The production and promotion budget for Supergirl is right around $250 million. That makes the break-even number at $450 to $500 million. Supergirl will be lucky to hit $200 million worldwide. Warner Bros. is looking at massive losses.

Much like when the anti-male 2016 Ghostbusters remake flopped, the defenders of Vaguely Queer Supergirl are blaming right-wing “backlash” and “toxic masculinity” for this box-office catastrophe.

Had to screencap that Variety headline just so no one would suspect me of inventing it. Much of the problem with Supergirl is the decision to cast Milly Alcock in the lead role. She is perhaps best known for playing Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in a 2022 prequel to the popular Game of Thrones series. Whatever her merits as an actress, however, she doesn’t have the bombshell vibe that, for example, Gal Gadot brought to the successful 2017 Wonder Woman. Keep in mind that the canon backstory of Wonder Woman is a heckuva lot more “queer coded” than anything known about Supergirl, who made her first appearance in a 1959 edition of Action Comics as Superman’s cousin from the planet Krypton.

Leaving it to film critics to assess Milly Alcock’s onscreen performance, perhaps the bigger problem is that, off-screen, the actress simply couldn’t stop running her mouth in publicity interviews:

[A]pparently bizarre comments and financial failures are what the [producer] James Gunn era at DC Studios is all about. Because the latest pre-release tracking data on this weekend’s “Supergirl” release has gone from disastrously bad to monumental failure. And the film’s star, Milly Alcock, is sure to shoulder some of the blame.
Alcock, as a reminder, implied in a March interview that she’d been receiving criticism for being a woman starring as a…female superhero. Which makes little sense.
“It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” she told Vanity Fair. “We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
When reaction to those remarks was generally negative, Alcock got defensive and doubled down.
“I didn’t even say ‘men’ — I said ‘people!’” she said in a profile for Variety. “And they got so angry. I was like, ‘You’re proving my point. You’re proving my point!’”
Apparently unaware that those remarks then proved she had, in fact, been referring to unknown male fans who supposedly criticized her for playing “Supergirl.” But that wasn’t the only odd statement she made during that portion of the press tour.
Alcock said much of the criticism came from those who said they were a “dad” or “Christian.” Which apparently disqualifies them from having an opinion about a movie or casting decision. Or means that any comments are supposedly hypocritical.
“And it’s from a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts,” Alcock said. “Or someone’s name and then ‘Dad of four, Christian,’ which is hilarious to me.”
As if that wasn’t enough, just a few days ago, Alcock addressed the sexuality of the “Supergirl” character in a response to a question from Queerly Radio. When the host asked whether that was something Alcock had “explored” her character’s supposed “queerness” in preparing for the role, she answered, “It wasn’t, but in honor of ‘Pride month,’ as I’m getting all these questions…I don’t know. I think that what makes this film beautiful is that it’s not centered around a man, it’s not centered around love at all. I don’t really know. I don’t know. I don’t know. She probably goes both ways.”

“Look! Up in the sky! It’s SuperQueerGirl!”

The people making movies — and making decisions about who gets hired to make movies — in Hollywood don’t ask my advice and, as I say, I’m not the target audience here, but permit me to offer just a few observations on what went wrong with Supergirl:

  1. People don’t want politics in a summer blockbuster — So far as I am aware, no one has detected any overt political message in Supergirl, so why was Milly Alcock out there turning the pre-release publicity tour into a Gender Studies lecture?
  2. Respect the audience — If you’re making a comic-book super-hero movie, maybe you should think about the fandom of comic-book super heroes. Just throwing that out there. Instead of viewing the original fandom as a hostile force to be insulted, perhaps the alleged geniuses running Hollywood studios should try to appeal to this pre-sold potential audience.
  3. Respect the source material — Just glancing at the plot summary on Wikipedia, Supergirl begins with something close to the original backstory. But did the filmmakers try to match the spirit of the old D.C. comics character?

Some research into the Action Comics catalog might yield many possible suggestions for a movie plot, but one idea that occurs to me is the contrast implicit in the difference between the character titles: Superman and Supergirl. Why not scout around for a teenage actress to play the lead and write a script that has a coming-of-age theme, the ingenue super-hero, as it were? She’s got her Kryptonian powers on a learner’s permit and has a girlish awkwardness about her? Or maybe make her sassy, getting lessons in humility as she learns from her mistakes?

There are all kinds of fun possibilities in the basic concept, and shouldn’t movies be about fun? Isn’t that what the kids want while they’re munching popcorn and slurping their overpriced sodas?

But what do I know? I’m just a 66-year-old grandpa.



 

Category: Movies
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