PJW on the Glastonbury music festival and its implications

The problem for pluralistic societies is their lack of an immune system when cultural pathogens enter.

buyer's remorse among some in Canuckistan

Still no news about Poilievre?

Freitas with a nuanced take on Trump and tariffs

Nick Freitas, a conservative in the Virginia House of Delegates, expresses an interestingly nuanced point of view re: Trump and tariffs. In the video below, Freitas says:

• Trump does indeed seem to be using tariffs as a negotiating tactic, thus putting Freitas in that school of thought.
• Trump himself is arguably against tariffs: as evidence, Freitas notes that when countries back down from the threat of tariffs and agree to Trump's business terms, Trump removes the tariff threat right away. (Kevin's note: the press sees this 180º and immediately attributes it to Trump's being mercurial and flip-floppy instead of looking more deeply at the principle behind the actions.)
• Trump recognizes and is not ashamed of the fact that the US remains the world's economic and military superpower—a state of affairs not changing anytime soon. Tariffs are a way of leveraging this power.
• Countries cannot be friends: countries can only have interests, and the US needs to act in its own interests.
• The danger of Trump's using tariffs as threats is that other countries might conclude that having the US dollar as the world's reserve currency may not be in that country's best interests, which is how you end up with organizations like BRICS.
• Tariffs are like chemotherapy: you don't do chemotherapy because it's good for you: you do it because it's bad for the cancer. When the cancer is gone, you stop the chemo. So it is with tariffs.

Freitas says other things as well. Watch the video. On 2X speed if you're impatient.

Nerd Cookies and the "Tron: Ares" trailer

"Ballerina": review

L (facing away): Ana de Armas as Eve; R: Keanu Reeves as John Wick, who understands revenge

I took time out from binge-watching the TV series "Psych" (review pending—I'm currently in Season 4 of 8) to watch Len Wiseman's "Ballerina," often subtitled "From the World of John Wick." The movie stars Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick (in his final screen appearance), Norman Reedus, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ian McShane, and Keanu Reeves. It also contains a quick cameo by Anne Parillaud, the star of the original Luc Besson actioner "Nikita" from 1990.

"Ballerina" follows the story of Eve Macarro, a girl whose highly trained father (David Castañeda) was killed in front of her by a cult led by the Chancellor (Byrne). Eve is picked up by Winston (McShane) of the Ruska Roma, a society that trains children over years to become talented, resourceful assassins who eventually take their places in a global network of killers. The plot is a fairly simple one, showing us Eve's brutal training (including a gun-assembly scene straight out of the late-90s Korean action-drama "Shiri") under the owlish gaze of the Director (Huston) and her harsh-but-fair mentor Nogi (Duncan-Brewster). Eve is constantly reminded that women are at a physical disadvantage in any fight with men, so she must learn to use her wits and her own individual advantages, as a woman, to win fights. At the Ruska Roma, men and women spar together all the time, with both sexes encouraged not to hold back. When Eve attains a high enough level, she gets a huge, identifying tattoo on her back with the Latin phrase Lux in Tenebris—Light in Darkness—above her shoulder blades. (You'll recall John Wick's tattoo: Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat, or "Fortune favors the bold."

Eve has never forgotten that this cult, known by its cruciform wrist scars, killed her father and is the reason why she never knew her big sister, presumed dead. As Eve trains, her desire for revenge proves to be a great motivator, and despite the Director's command not to seek revenge against this cult, whose Chancellor is still alive, Eve ignores the Director and sets off on her own to locate the cult's base and kill the Chancellor. This prompts the Director to send John Wick, the Baba Yaga, after Eve to stop her because the Ruska Roma and this cult have coexisted for a thousand years, and killing the Chancellor would mean all-out war between the two societies. Eve uses her resources to find out where the cult's base is located (it's in a real-life city called Hallstatt, in Austria), and she sets out to kill the Chancellor. Along the way, she meets a former cult member who is trying to escape with his daughter, and she discovers her missing sister is alive and part of the cult. In the end, though, Eve must confront John Wick, who has been tasked with killing her if she refuses to drop her vendetta.

"Ballerina" is a bit of cotton-candy entertainment—there and gone, and having little in the way of substance. It's a spinoff movie; John Wick is only a minor, bookend character in this story, appearing near the beginning and again at the end. When Eve first meets him, she is still a starry-eyed trainee who has heard stories and legends about the Baba Yaga (Wick's bizarre nickname: Baba Yaga, something like a viciously wicked or weirdly benevolent forest spirit from Slavic lore, is traditionally female); Wick, world-weary, advises Eve not to follow the path of the Ruska Roma and revenge, but the young lady has made her choice. When Wick and Eve meet again, it is in the midst of much less positive circumstances, and Wick very quickly proves to be Eve's superior in every way.

"Ballerina" seems to have heard the complaints about Mary Sues and girl-bosses. Eve's training is depicted as brutal—a long litany of failures punctuated by occasional, but significant, successes, with Eve's grit seeing her through to each new stage in her development. Even after graduating from the Ruska Roma, Eve still has to work hard when fighting teams of men; her fights often feature plenty of feminine grunting and screaming. The fight choreography itself is fairly on par with what you'd expect from a regular John Wick film, and the spinoff's action is enjoyable if, as with the main films, you suspend your critical faculties with regard to the laws of physics. There's one scene in particular in which Eve traps a guy behind a large, metal door; she's also stuck a grenade behind the door, which she uses as a shield. The enemy combatant is blown to bloody shreds, but the door moves not an inch, which strikes me as implausible with all of that overpressure from the exploding grenade. (Eve's feet and ankles also suffer no damage from that explosion.) I could go on and on about the problems with the movie's physics, but when you watch a John Wick movie, you know the action is going to be cartoonish and silly.

Ana de Armas has proven to be a talented actress; she's Spanish-Cuban (dual citizen), and her English has improved greatly over the years. She still has an accent, though, which makes it weird when we transition from young Eve—who speaks with a perfectly American accent—to the mature Eve who now speaks with a distinctly Spanish accent. Come to think of it, the town of Hallstat is depicted as filled with cult-member families who all seem to yell tactical instructions to each other mostly in English rather than in German (only one cultist, played by the always-reliable Swiss actor/stuntman Daniel Bernhardt, takes time out to say "Verdammte Sheiße!"—"Goddamn shit!"—at one point). And Gabriel Byrne as the Chancellor, the head of this cult, makes no effort at all to speak German but is, instead, his usual Irish  (but English-accented) self. Anjelica Huston as the Director speaks with something approaching a Russian accent, but I was more distracted by the extremity of the plastic-surgery work that had been done to her face. When will actors and actresses learn that we, the audience, can easily see these vain attempts to hide the ravages of time? I admire Justine Bateman, a rare Hollywood conservative who advocates natural aging, all the more.

What else is there to say about such a thinly plotted revenge movie? If you've seen the preview trailers, you've already guessed how three-quarters of the plot is going to go, and sure enough, the movie itself follows that plot to the letter. Per the John Wick tradition, the entertainment comes not from knowing the story's outcome but in watching the various creative ways in which the bad guys die—a double-tap to the head, an axe to the face, or multiple stabs to the armpits and through the clavicular region.

The town of Hallstatt was a good sport to let its good name be tarnished for cinematic purposes. According to the movie's mythology, the entire town is filled to the brim with cult members, with everyone of fighting age picking up a weapon to face off against the rampaging Eve. While I won't reveal how the film concludes, I'm sure you can guess, and one big question is what shape the ensuing war between this cult and the Ruska Roma must have taken. This seems like the sort of plot point that might lead to a sequel.

In all, I thought "Ballerina" (named for the ballet program that the distaff half of the Ruska Roma goes through because of some ancient, sexist notion that all girls love to dance) was a perfectly serviceable action movie—entertaining as long as you keep your expectations well managed. As with most of the Wick films, I could see many aspects of the story that could have been improved with better writing and characterization. That said, I can't fault the way the action choreography was directed. If nothing else, the film was well paced and never boring. Watch it if you have nothing else to do. Even inside "the world of John Wick," this light and fluffy spinoff has little to no impact on the larger story.

exposed as a communist/socialist, but is he therefore doomed?

Didn't this guy already (and unabashedly) make it clear which way he leaned? And didn't people vote to nominate him, anyway? I'd say the fundamental problem is with the voters, not with this joker. And as people keep pointing out, the ones who voted for him do not represent the general populace of New York City. They are the rich and privileged "limousine liberals" or "champagne socialists." They are not the hoi polloi.

Ben Stiller went full retard

But how will he vote from now on? Talk is cheap.

😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/41VU1XPGzc

— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) June 28, 2025

finally—arrests!

Click to see the full tweet:

🚨BREAKING: Dan Bongino Announces Takedown of $15B Healthcare Fraud Scheme

“Results matter—talk is cheap. If you steal from the public or betray your oath, we’re coming for you.”

Deputy Director Bongino just released details of the biggest health-care fraud takedown in… pic.twitter.com/Ibz2Key9qa

— Walter Curt (@WCdispatch_) June 30, 2025

vaping the Precious

as I'd threatened to do

Tuesday was something of a keto feast: I had keto "baguettes" (from my old Hungry Elephant recipe) and keto fondue. The fondue is from a recipe that switched out only one carby ingredient: the cornstarch that normally coats the pieces of cheese to keep everything from splitting as you stir. The recipe called for a teaspoon of xanthan gum for two pounds of cheese and two cups of wine. The only other carby element was the white wine, which wasn't exactly replaceable (macros: about 3% carbs by weight, which isn't bad at all).

mise en place

You can see the oven's hot spots and cool spots.

I added powdered Parmesan cheese this time, which may have helped with browning.

This bread is at its freshest and lightest when it's straight out of the oven. After it cools down, it becomes a lot denser and heavier. Good with butter, jam, herbed cheese, or crostini toppings.

That said, no one will ever mistake these for real baguettes. They lack the outer crust and inner crumb.

Gruyère and Emmentaler, diced and mixed.

wine added, along with white pepper, black pepper, lemon juice, nutmeg, and xanthan gum

after melting and ready for dipping

that first dip

I ended up cubing up all of the bread and using it, and even after such a vulgar feast (which was also my only meal of the day), I still had plenty of cheese left over, so I might see about using the cheese for a keto croque madame.

But now: I fast for three days: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'll have to avoid overeating over the coming weekend. That's the danger of fasting: the desire to overeat afterwards.

Note: the recipe I used noted that you can just make a traditional fondue using cornstarch or arrowroot powder (which I also have—very carby) as a binder because the amount of powder involved still means a very low per-serving carb amount. I might do that next time: xanthan gum is good in certain recipes, and it did work this time to preserve the fondue's texture, but you can still feel a certain unpleasant, slick texture when you use it.

fun with AI filters

This was hilarious until it got a little racist.

images

UK: what if you want to be deported, but the system says no?

Dave Cullen on "slop Trek"

let's peek into his theory-hole

inside the filthy machine: the marionette strings

obnoxious, violent LaMonica McGiver is having money trouble

I bet she'd feed a lot of people if you roasted her at a luau.

sonagi

Happy July! In Korea, July and August are the worst months for summer heat, with the monsoon generally happening in July and the first half of August, so as you might imagine, I'll mostly be staying indoors, and any walking I do will be at night. It's very doubtful that, even at night, I'll be doing any long or longish walks: ambitious walking—such as I'm capable of in my deteriorating state—will resume in late September.

I just took a look at the National Weather Service site to see the forecast for the first eleven days of July, and it's looking as though today is the only rainy day, with a sonagi (rainstorm, rain shower) happening this afternoon, starting around 4 p.m. I'm wondering whether I should step outside for that, but frankly, I'm not hopeful.

For Americans, July means the Fourth for Independence Day, and the 20th for Moon Landing Day. Personally, I find this and August to be the two worst months of the year—terrible months to be out on vacation unless, like my buddy Charles, you're vacationing in a cooler place like Scotland, where it's currently around 50ºF (10ºC). Otherwise, if you're not in the Aviemore area, wouldn't you rather have your long vacation during a season with lower, more pleasant temperatures? In Korea, that would mean having a long fall break during the October-November period, and spring vacation during the March-April period (despite the April showers). In a just world, that's when we'd have our vacations.

I was lucky to work at a company with a flexible boss who allowed me to do my long walks during generally pleasant weather, normally the September-October time frame. Last year was a bit of an exception, what with my injury having changed my walk calendar somewhat (it got very, very cold toward the end: the walk started in October, then I took November off to heal, and the trek ended in December). In South Korea, at least, it's best to be out and about in the fall or spring. Winter is cold and sometimes dreary—not to mention very snowy in the northeast—and summer is like spending four months inside Kim Kardashian's hot, sweaty, suffocating ass crack: the absolute worst time of year to be traveling. Not that there's ever a good time to find yourself lost inside Kim Kardashian's ass.

diversity!

There’s more diversity of thought on the Right than the Left.

That alone explains a lot. pic.twitter.com/KiiS6Tas4X

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 20, 2025

Freitas on why public-school education sucks

Here's one reason among many not to inflict a public-school education on your kids. These days, if I had kids of my own, they would never set foot in a public school, and they'd never attend a regular university. 

one of the greatest sociological changes of our era

Peter Pan needs help, ya wankah!

Douglas Murray vs. the media talking head

No, the BBC host didn't "nearly explode." But he was rude and interruptive. And it became obvious that he, like so many American "journalists," was learning nothing from the encounter. These people all deserve to be hung alive on meathooks.

easy quiz on gerunds (Dictionary.com)

Dictionary.com quiz! As long as you know what a gerund is, you ought to get at least 7 of the following 8 questions right. Only Question 6 might throw you off. Look between the [brackets] below for answers and explanations.

Question 1 of 8
True or false: a gerund looks like a verb, but it acts like a noun.

a. True
b. False

Question 2 of 8
Which sentence uses swimming as a gerund?

a. I went swimming yesterday.
b. Swimming is my favorite sport.
c. Let’s go swimming at the beach.

Question 3 of 8
How is the gerund being used in the following sentence?

Sleeping is hard if you suffer from anxiety.

a. subject
b. subject complement
c. direct object
d. preposition

Question 4 of 8
Identify the gerund in the following sentence: 

Diana quickly grew tired of the constant complaining of the rude customers.

a. quickly
b. grew
c. complaining
d. tired

Question 5 of 8
Which sentence uses cooking as a gerund?

a. Chef Romero, cooking with gusto, prepared a 10-course meal.
b. Cooking is a useful skill to learn.
c. The chefs are cooking steaks.

Question 6 of 8
How is the gerund being used in the following sentence?

His favorite activity is reading.

a. subject
b. subject complement
c. direct object
d. preposition

Question 7 of 8
Identify the gerund in the following sentence: 

Craig enjoyed staring at the ocean on stormy days.

a. staring
b. enjoyed
c. at
d. on

Question 8 of 8
Identify the gerund in the following sentence: 

The magazine is focused on fishing and the lives of fishermen.

a. is
b. focused
c. fishing
d. lives

ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS (highlight to see):

[1. (a) True. A gerund is a verbal, i.e., a word derived from a verb, usually ending in -ing and acting like a noun, which means it can be a subject, object, etc.

2. (b) swimming. The subject of the sentence is Swimming. "Swimming is..." The word Swimming also ends in -ing.

3. (a) subject. If the sentence says "X is...", then X, being a noun or noun phrase, is the subject.

4. (c) complaining. Short cut: look for the word ending in -ing.

5. (b). Cooking is being used as a subject. A gerund ends in -ing and functions as a noun.

6. (b) This one might be more difficult. It's obviously not (a) because the subject is "His favorite activity," which is a noun phrase, not a gerund. It's not (c), either, because there's no transitive verb, e.g., the verb to hit in the sentence Jerry hit him. Transitive verbs take direct objects (him in this case). That leaves only (b). A subject complement is a word, usually a noun or an adjective, that's in the predicate and referring to or qualifying/modifying the subject. If it's a noun, it's also called a predicate nominative: Kevin is a teacher. If it's an adjective, it's a predicate adjective: The tree is big.]

7. (a) staring. It's the only word ending in -ing. Duh. Staring is also the object of enjoy. Enjoyed what? Enjoyed staring. Nouns can be objects. Gerunds function as nouns.

8. (c) fishing. Again, it's the only word ending in -ing.]

MY QUIZ

Think you know gerunds now? Don't confuse them with present participles (which also end in -ing). A couple examples:

• Staring at her boobs, I lost track of what she was saying. (participle)
• Staring at her boobs was a full-time activity, and it's what got me slapped across the face. (gerund: Staring... was, i.e., Staring is the subject)

So—participle or gerund?

1. I like hosting parties.
2. Robbing a bank is not my idea of fun.
3. What the hell are you doing, cowering in the corner?
4. Blinking furiously, she said, "Trusting you was a mistake!"
5. Blinking furiously, she said, "Trusting you was a mistake!"
6. We must devote our efforts to eliminating the competition.
7. "Hold still," the snake, trembling in anticipation, hissed to the mouse.
8. That fart is still rumbling through this house, even decades later.
9. We're sick of all the lying and vomiting.
10. Sharting is such sweet sorrow.

Leave your answers to my quiz in the comments.

as of right now, the future's not so bright for the Dems

real birria tacos

The tacos that McCrarey's girlfriend likes to eat aren't real birria. The taco shell has to be pan-fried in the consommé.

a keto-rice experiment (coming soon)

When I have a moment over the next week or so, I might try making my own keto "rice." I can use my keto Spätzle recipe, stuff the batter into a piping bag with a narrow tip, and squeeze out spaghetti strands into boiling water. I can then let the strands boil, pull them out, drain them, shallow-fry them to within an inch of their lives, then cut the fried strands into "grains" of rice (the sequence of these steps might change when I'm experimenting with the procedure). While I do plan to order the aforementioned pack of keto orzo, this method might turn out to be a better, less expensive long-term solution than buying keto orzo.

images

What idiot puts a comma after "Dear"?

We're going through an action-figure-meme phase.

So Heinlein was right.

Plata o plomo—silver or lead, i.e., take the bribe or get the violence.

He's too busy munching his dad's tumors, gathering inspiration for his art.

Some ignorant people still don't get the charm or effectiveness of homeschooling, though.

Asshole.

no, Letitia's not out yet

...but New Yorkers are poised to vote the bitch out.

watch Max Miller carefully pan-fry some twisty spirals

NYPD threatens mass walkout if Mamdani becomes mayor

If New York City is truly stupid enough to give this loud of a fuck you to its police department, the people deserve whatever's heading their way.

Nerdrotic & friends on 2025's tentpole superhero flicks

Schiff praises Trump??

There's got to be a catch.

using old leftovers

Good God, I've had this bánh mì sauce by Joshua Weissman sitting in my fridge ever since I'd made those bánh mì in late 2023. The sauce never went bad, and a little voice my head said it'd be a good substitute for the faux teriyaki sauce that also serves as a generic Chinese sauce for American-style Chinese dishes like my usual shrimp-chicken-cashew bowl (with bell peppers,* chili** peppers, and shrooms... all of it piled on rice*** in my pre-stroke, pre-heart-attack days). So I went out today and bought some cashews, some peppers of various colors, some frozen shrimp, and some prepackaged sous-vide chicken breast. I belatedly realized, after I'd thrown everything together into a low-carb meal, that I should also have bought some mushrooms. Now, the combination of chicken and shrimp also lends itself to curry dishes (although for curry, I'd switch out the veggies with peas, carrots, potatoes, and maybe cauliflower), but I was committed to using up the rest of Joshua Weissman's bánh mì sauce. And I did. The result, even without mushrooms, was a success. Below are two pics.

a wide shot of the low-carb bowl

a food-porn closeup

It was a decent meal. Tomorrow, I'm doing a keto fondue, then I'm fasting for the remaining weekdays—Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. My A1c is down to about 6.8 according to my calculations; it can go further, but I'm happy with my progress thus far, and meals like today's are part of that process. The fasting won't hurt, either. If I can get down to about a 6.5 A1c by my July 9 appointment, I'll be happy, but for the moment, merely remaining under 7.0 is the modest practical goal. This appointment, with my cardio doctor, comes only two months after my previous one in May, which had been with my diabetes doctor.

__________

*Capsicum in the UK, Oz, etc., despite not having any noticeable capsaicin. That culture loves misnaming things, which is why ground beef is called mince (a very fine dice—not ground at all) and the word pudding refers to fucking everything.

**It's chilli, with two "L"s, in the UK, Oz, and elsewhere.

***I recently saw keto orzo on iHerb (orzo is a pasta that looks like long-grained rice, making keto orzo a viable rice substitute), but the listing showed it was out of stock. I clicked on the "inform me" button, so I'll be flagged the moment the product comes back into stock.

Nerdrotic on how Hollywood deliberately alienates its audience

Michael Heaver and "monumental decisions"

Dave Cullen: woke gives way to AI slop

the Drinker meditates on his "Rogue Elements"

I watched The Critical Drinker's short film "Rogue Elements," based on characters from his novels. The short had a small budget, and it shows, and even though the Drinker normally gets a lot of love from his fans, the comments to his film did not spare his feelings one bit.

detailing a nasty Cadillac Escalade

how to make an impression

another deep dive into pizza

As much as I like pizza, I will never be this much of an aficionado.

images

I like the seeming bullet holes. But they may be too precise for sandpeople.

If you're a leftie, just say anything. I'm sure no one will notice.

lookin' pretty Photoshopped in that bottom pic

The outrage gland is what prompts commenters to write personal responses to my general comments that never specifically targeted them.

What's the problem with the first sentence?