POKING AROUND AT THE END OF THE YEAR

Animated sex toy Wannabes gather at Mar-A-Ludicrous on Christmas. Vegas whores are classier than these Republican wet dreams

My apologies to all the excellent, intelligent, intellectual, independent, interesting women who amaze me daily by continuing to think what I do here is interesting. I personally think that photo says everything needed to be said about the modern Republican Party. The “blue haired Republican ladies” of Nixon’s era have been replaced by this collection of animated blow-up sex dolls. Add these embarrassments to Elmotrucks and you have the perfect description of the male Republican organ-between-their-ears; I was going to write “brain” but that would imply there was some “intelligence” involved with these people.

From the Department of I’m Not Surprised In The Least (h/t Adam Tooze’s Chartbook): When America’s creaky food supply chain was unwinding pandemic-era disruptions in 2022, two of the country’s largest grocery store owners looked around the market and figured out that if they were ever going to compete with Walmart, they would have to grow. A merger seemed like an ideal solution for Kroger and Albertsons. So after some talks, Kroger agreed to buy Albertsons for $24.6 billion in stock and cash. That deal would have created a grocery behemoth, combining Kroger’s 2,700 stores and its 9.2% market share with Albertsons’ 2,300 stores and 6.4% market share into the second largest U.S. grocery chain. (That would have still trailed far behind Walmart, which last year sold 23.6% of all groceries in the U.S.) But it all fell apart this month when a judge ruled that the Federal Trade Commission was right: The deal might be good for the supermarket chains, but it was bad for consumers, reducing the number of towns where Kroger and Albertsons compete and keep prices down. The companies had tried to pre-empt the FTC’s objections. But their plan to divest almost 600 stores to a grocery wholesaler with scant experience in retail was deemed unworkable by the judge. Now Albertsons is suing Kroger over the nixed deal, arguing that Kroger had failed to help present a workable divestment plan to the FTC because it wanted to back out of the deal. Albertsons is seeking $6 billion in damages, the premium it says its shareholders have lost because the deal was scuttled.

From the Department of When You’re In A Hole Keep Digging Deeper: King Elmo’s war on MAGA has quickly gone nuclear. Musk liked a post that asserted Americans are too “retarded” to fill the country’s tech workforce and supported the idea that top roles should be taken up by “better educated” people from overseas. In response to Musk’s perceived endorsement of the post, X user Steven Mackey reposted a video of Musk from 2021 in which he spoke about SpaceX’s plans for a fully reusable rocket. “Everyone’s basically—without knowing it—they’ve got a mental straight jacket on. They’ll work on optimizing the thing that should simply not exist.” Mackey applied the logic to H1B, asserting that the visas could be “something that shouldn’t exist.” A mere six minutes later, the King hit back with a scathing retort: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.” He added, “Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” Steve Bannon jumped in with a post on Gettr: “Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’- need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler.” Elmo’s AI, Grok, then joined the argument against its creator, after someone asked whether or not Elmo was an H1B immigrant: “No, Elon Musk was not an H1B visa worker. He is a South African-born Canadian-American entrepreneur who moved to the United States on an F-1 visa for education and later became a U.S. citizen.” Meanwhile, Mackey, Elmo’s original target, clarified: “I personally am the biggest fan of Elon on the planet and I always will be.” You. Cannot. Make. This. Shit. Up.

From the Department of Vichy America Is Growing (Allegedly): Felon34 wrote a post on Anti-Truth Anti-Social that was supposed to tell Elmo that All Is Forgiven Come Home, in which he said that Bill Gates— whom Forbes says is the 16th richest person in the world— personally asked for an audience with him. The somewhat incoherent post (is there another kind?) said: “Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.” Maybe he should have attached the photo of the Mar-A-Ludicrous Animated Sex Toys.

From the Department of Yes He Had It Coming: A new poll regarding the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by NORC at the University of Chicago published Friday shows that 78% of those polled said that alleged killer Luigi Mangione had a great deal or a moderate amount of responsibility for the death; 72% blamed health insurance companies' denial of coverage for the death; 67% said profits by the insurers were to blame; 53% blamed “wealth or income inequality in general.” 10% said Mangione bore no responsibility, an issue which is likely to dog jury selection when he goes on trial in Manhattan.

From the Department of Art Does Too Follow Life: Warner Bros. announced Friday that Tom Cruise will star in an untitled film from two-time Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), set to be released on Oct. 2, 2026. The logline reads: “The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.” Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde, and Riz Ahmed are among the other actors in the cast. My take: casting Cruise as Elmo is a stroke of genius.

From the Department of Some People Never Learn: Kevin O’Leary, of Shark Tank fame, says half of Canada is “interested” in merging with the U.S. “Canadians over the holidays—the last two days—have been talking about this,” O’Leary told Fox Business. “They want to hear more.” The 70-year-old Montreal native said he’s headed to Mar-a-Lago to start a conversation that, at the least, may lead to his homeland and the U.S. striking a partnership agreement akin to the European Union. “So secure the northern territories, give a common currency, figure out taxes across the board, get everything trading both ways, create a new, almost EU-like passport—I like this idea and at least half of Canadians are interested,” he said. O’Leary may not be the best barometer for what the average Canadian thinks, however. O’Leary, worth an estimated $400 million, has ditched the great white north for sunny Miami Beach. He was also soundly rejected by voters when he ran for the leadership of the Canadian Conservative Party in 2017 and won just one percent of the vote. Proof 1,324,698 that there is no connection at all between the brain and the bank account.

Finally… something nice.

From the Department of This Day In History: “After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty’s ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.” So begins “The Voyage of the Beagle,” Charles Darwin’s account of his five-year trip around South America, between the islands of the Galápagos, and back to England, which inspired his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin was 22, a recent graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge, where his intention to become an Anglican priest had morphed into studies in botany, animal biology and geology. Fitzroy appointed him to help with “collecting, observing, & noting anything worthy to be noted in Natural History.” The Beagle reached the Galápagos in September 1835. Darwin “industriously collected all the animals, plants, insects & reptiles” from each of the islands. Later, someone aboard pointed out that “the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he could with certainty tell from which islands any one was brought.” This gave Darwin the idea that evolution could take different paths of speciation depending on an island’s unique conditions. Perhaps small changes in species over time, branching out from a single ancestor, could result in starkly unique tortoises. 60 years ago next month, I departed for a voyage to the Galápagos, aboard a ship supporting the largest scientific expedition to visit the islands since Darwin. This was before all the #$%$#$!! cruise ships polluted the islands; while working as a Bearer for the scientists, I saw the finches that were Darwin’s ultimate proof of evolution. The birds are all the same, except for their beaks; each occupies a different ecological niche on their island, with different food available. I personally like that it was this little bird that upended religion.

Now all we have to do is face the arrival of Year Less Than Zero next Wednesday.

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