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Sunday, October 04, 2026
Is Paris always burning?
When the adults in the room, including the government, are afraid, the mob takes over.
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It must be Paris burning again. So, what’s new? What are they burning the city over this time? Who is angry at whom?
Two things happen every year in France. First, everybody is on vacation in August. And second, there is some angry guy burning something over this or that.
The latest is that students started the fires this time. This is from Jeffrey Blehar:
The schools of France are currently in flames, with the nation several days into a national bout of student rioting: From the quasi-Belgian northern hub of Lille to the banlieus of Paris to the streets of Marseille, schools are burning, as high school students across the nation have blockaded and rampaged against their schools and anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. I know what you’re thinking: Student rioting? In France of all places? The deuce you say!
But there are significantly darker undertones this time. The rioting has only escalated in the last two days. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called an emergency meeting of the French cabinet and declared a national crisis — far too late, in the opinion of many. The immediate flashpoint for the rioting is still hazy — it seems to have spread via social media, quelle surprise — but the media is universally reporting it as an oh-so-French rebellion by “the kids” against having to work too hard at school.
Having to work too hard in school? Like having to do homework? I thought that working hard in school is how you trained the next generation to be successful and positive adults. I guess I must be old-fashioned to think like that.
This is from Blehar again:
There were also confrontations between children and police in Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes in western France, and Marseille in the south. At the Lamartine lycée, in the north of Paris, students waved placards complaining they had exhausting timetables. One read: “8am-6pm. More hours of lessons than sleep.”
More hours of lessons than sleep? That’s weird. Don’t they sleep at home? How many hours of sleep does a student need?
Still confused. The best explanation is from Daniel Foubert:
It’s a long post (too long to reproduce here), but this part explains so much:
Authority becomes embarrassed to exercise authority. Rules exist, but nobody wants to enforce them. The majority understands that the situation is absurd, yet waits for somebody else to restore normality. A determined minority quickly learns that if it creates enough disruption, institutions will adapt themselves to the disruption rather than stop it.
And once that reflex becomes normal, it spreads far beyond schools.
You begin to get a society in which blocking roads, occupying universities, shutting down public buildings, preventing people from working or studying, and paralysing transport are treated not as exceptional breakdowns of normal life, but almost as recognised forms of political expression.
It is COWARDICE elevated into a social norm: the refusal to confront, to sanction, to impose limits, to say no. A whole culture of retreat in which passivity is mistaken for tolerance and fear of conflict for moral superiority.
France has become spineless, gregarious, barbarian.
Yes, we’ve seen this movie before. The insane are running the asylum. The criminals are running the streets. The teachers are scared of students. And so everything goes to heck. And what do the country’s leaders do? Nothing, because they’re scared of the mob too.
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October 1966: "Good vibrations" was released by The Beach Boys
"Good vibrations" was so ahead of its time that it still sounds innovative today. It was released in October 1966 and moved to # 1 by December!
It is rare for a "pop song" to get better with age.....this one does everyday!
It was the first single after the "Pet Sounds", or the greatest Beach Boys LP ever released in the early summer of 1966. Over time, it became the 6th best song ever, according to Rolling Stone's Top 500 songs! It also came in as # 24 in Songs of the Century.
"Good Vibrations" was followed by "Heroes and Villains", another one of my all time favorites.
Aren't those harmonies amazing? Cheers for Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson and Al Jardine!
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1957: Sputnik and the space race was on!
On this day in 1957, the USSR put Sputnik in orbit and things were never the same. The Sputnik incident inspired Homer Hickam, a teenager in West Virginia who went on to become a NASA engineer. I remember watching "October sky" a few years ago. It was a great movie about how Sputnik changed a life down here. He wrote a series of books about it.
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Saturday, October 03, 2026
Talarico under Piker's thumb. The students burning Paris. Baseball post season. Happy # 85 Chubby Checker
Talarico under Piker's thumb. The students burning Paris. Baseball post season. Happy # 85 Chubby Checker....
Under my thumb?
Hasan Piker knows exactly who’ll be calling the shots if James Talarico wins in Texas.
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Down in Texas, we are watching a lot of TV ads about the Paxton-Talarico campaign. I will vote for Paxton, but the ads are indeed entertaining. I love the one about Talarico saying that the billionaires are after him or that he is just another Texas guy who loves a good steak and a beer. They are certainly doing their best to turn a freak into a normal guy.
The whole rebranding of Talarico is not persuading Hasan Piker. This is what Piker said in a recent interview:
Hasan Piker says he'll make sure James Talarico follows his far-Left agenda if he becomes a Senator:
"After James Talarico wins...we have to remind him that...we are the force that allowed him to win this seat of power, and if he wants to maintain it he’s got to play ball.”
Well, there it is in full living color. Hasan, the harmless streamer, is reminding us all that James Talarico is under his thumb. If elected, Talarico will play ball and return to the land of six genders and neighbors with a uterus.
Honestly, is anyone surprised that this effort to rebrand Talarico is a fraud? This is the same Talarico who hates gerrymandering and then ran to Illinois, where Democrats drew the districts: 14 Democrats, 3 GOP!
I hope that Paxton’s ads keep reminding the voters that Talarico is a Texas version of Piker.
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Happy # 85 Chubby Checker
We say happy birthday to Chubby Checker who was born in South Carolina on this day in 1941.
I don't remember this song but I love song stories. Chubby Checker's "The Twist" has an amazing story:
"The song that would make Checker rich and famous—"The Twist"—had been a non-hit in 1958 for its writer, Hank Ballard, best known for 1954's "Work With Me Annie," which was then considered filthy enough to warrant an FCC ban.
Believing "The Twist" to be a potential smash, but unwilling to have the controversial Ballard on his American Bandstand, Dick Clark picked the wholesome Chubby Checker to record a cover.
With the help of Clark's tireless on-air promotion, "The Twist" turned Chubby Checker into an overnight success when it shot to the top of the Billboard pop chart in September 1960.
As all hit records do, "The Twist" then faded away. The dance craze it popularized did, too, as America's teenagers moved on to things like the Mashed Potato and the Pony.
Chubby Checker had a second #1 hit just five months after "The Twist" with "Pony Time," and then something remarkable happened.
A full year after the initial success of "The Twist," a gossip item in the New York papers placed actress Merle Oberon and the elderly exile Prince Serge Obolensky of Russia at the Peppermint Lounge, Twisting the night away. Suddenly a fad was reborn—this time among American adults, who took to the Twist with an alacrity that must have provoked uncountable cringes among their teenaged children.
Soon enough, "The Twist" began a remarkable second run up the charts, reclaiming the #1 spot on January 13 and finally relinquishing it on this day in 1962.
It was the first and only time a pop single has fallen completely out of Billboard's "Hot 100" only to re-attain the #1 spot in a completely separate release."
Here is the song.
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October 3, 1951: "The Giants win the pennant" beating the Dodgers!
The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is one of the greatest in sports.
In 1951, the Dodgers and Giants had a special playoff to settle the NL pennant.
It came down to the bottom of the 9th.
It was Ralph Branca vs Bobby Thomson:
At 3:58 pm, Branca’s second pitch, another fastball, came in high and tight. Thomson swung, his uppercut driving the ball deep toward the corner in left.And the Giants did win the NL pennant but lost to the Yankees in the World Series!
Pafko, dashing toward the high wall, ran out of room. The ball landed in the first row, just above the 315 ft. sign for a three-run home run. Game over.
The Polo Grounds shook as the euphoric crowd erupted. Joe King wrote in The Sporting News, “(Thomson’s homer) touched off scenes in this place which never before had been witnessed in connection with the winning of a pennant.”
Friday, October 02, 2026
Brazil election on Sunday plus Piker talks Talarico
Brazil election on Sunday plus Piker talks Talarico....
Another exciting finish in Brazil
A presidential vote in Brazil may come down to the last second.
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Last Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys lost to Baltimore in Rio. The game was settled by a field goal with one second on the clock.
Next Sunday, a presidential vote in Brazil may come down to the last second, too. It will be close and controversial, as we are hearing from the Guardian:
Sunday’s election in Brazil could hardly be a clearer-cut choice -- nor a closer call. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, is neck and neck in the polls with Flávio Bolsonaro, the son and champion of the jailed far-right former president Jair. Mr Bolsonaro senior is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to “annihilate” democracy after losing the last election.
Brazil is Latin America’s largest democracy, but military dictatorship is in its recent past. Mr Bolsonaro wants to free his father and those who rioted in his support in 2023. The senator has campaigned as a less crass and temperamental version of his father, but he is no less extreme. For many on both sides, this is a vote against a man they detest more than an endorsement of their own candidate. Most voters disapprove of both men.
Who will win? I don't know. My hope is that Mr. Bolsonaro wins, but our southern neighbor is polarized as never before. In many ways, their politics is like ours, with families arguing about the candidates and young women making dating selections based on where you stand on the election. As a Brazilian said on a recent TV interview, we argue about politics these days like we used to fight over "futbol."
Beyond Brazilian politics, a Bolsonaro victory would confirm the Latin American movement toward center-right leaders. In other words, a Bolsonaro presidency would align much closer to Trump-Rubio policies in fighting cartels and promoting free-market economies. It won't end the infighting in Brazil, but the White House is cheering for Bolsonaro rather than Lula.
So get ready for an exciting finish down in the land of "futbol" and pretty ladies walking on the beach.
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