Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, declared the death of the Republican Party on Friday following this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC).
The RNC kicked off earlier this week in Milwaukee where former President Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP’s nomination for the 2024 election delivering an over 90 minute speech. The four day event featured various speakers including Trump's family members, GOP officials and candidates, as well as entertainers, celebrities, and industry leaders.
Following the convention, Kinzinger, a vocal Trump critic who represented Illinois until 2023, took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize the convention and to declare the death of the GOP.
“The convention spoke loudly: the GOP is dead. Now that we know it, time to push hard,” the former congressman wrote, sharing a link to his Substack page in which he further wrote about the convention.
If I wanted to be wildly over-cynical, I would suggest that people like Kinzinger and Romney not only don’t like the former president, they are speaking out against him so should the party ever finally wake up from this fever dream, they’ll be able to step in as its new leaders, untainted by connection to the cause of the calamity.
This is, instead, an episode of Ultra Fight, a series of 196 five minute episodes that ran from September 1970 to September 1971.
Envisioned as a “zero cost” show by Tsuburaya, it originally consisted of stock footage from both Ultraman (episodes #1-41) and Ultraseven (episodes #42-71 and 130).
Realizing that there wasn’t enough stock footage to fill-out the entire series, new fights were filmed with Ultraseven battling various kaiju, including those he hadn’t faced in his own series (like Woo in the image above). These fights were staged in empty fields and sandpits, and had no special effects at all. The new Ultraseven fights made up episodes #72-129 and 131-196.
This short fight/episode formula would be repeated several times, most notably (or is that notoriously?) for Redman (1972).
they did a new series where Sevenger (originally appearing in Ultraseven, but became a regular character in Ultraman Z) got his own mini-series, Sevenger Fight
The commentary is priceless, with them all saying that without the frill, Jirass looks “somewhat familiar”.
Now that it’s possible to grow affordable gems in the time it takes to watch a movie, the race is on to save the value of the most precious stone.
Which begs the question - why should they?
First off, diamonds are NOT that rare. We’ve got tons of them. The DeBeers company maintains their scarcity by limiting the number that enter the market.
But if they can now be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of finding them and digging them up, exactly why should we be asked to pay current prices? When costs go down on manufacture of a product, that’s supposed to translate to a lower price, so the amount of profit remains the same.
This is exactly why you should buy crafted sapphires. Only a step down on the Mohs Hardness Scale, visually similar to diamonds, and lab-grown so they cost a fraction of diamond.
I once worked on a phone campaign to disallow the trees around your crater from being cut down…
I am deeply deeply in love with you 💙 Thanks so much for your conservation effort!
It’s the small things we all do together that can make a big difference! 💙💙💙💙 And you’ve done it!!!
People just gotta know what Crater Lake and Wizard Island looks like
What in the Skyrim
been there several times. And yeah, Skyrim feels super duper Oregon in a lot of ways.
We gonna talk about Crater Lake, and Wizard Island and not mention the Old Man of the Lake?
The Old Man of the Lake is a log that floats around the lake. It is somewhat strange in that it floats vertically. It’s roughly 30 feet tall, with only about 5 or so feet sticking out above the surface of the water. It was first ‘offically’ recorded in the early 20th century, though there are oral reports of it as far back as 1896 (and likely earlier still given the cultural importance of Crater Lake to the Klamath tribe of that area.
The Old Man should have rotted away long ago or at the very least become waterlogged and sank into the water fully, but nope. Over a hundred years, and there is this log still in the water just floating.
So y'know how I said the fact that it floats vertically was 'somewhat strange’? Let’s get into some actual strange territory regarding the Old Man. It moves. Against the wind. It has been recorded moving in paths that do not make sense, never getting stuck on the shore of Wizard Island, nor the area of shore around the lake. Now that’s strange.
So now let’s get freaky: The free-floating Old Man posed a hazard to boats since it moves, and only a small portion of it was above water. (though personal boats are no longer allowed on the lake) Anyway, in 1988 a team was using a small submersible to explore the lake. The scientist figured it’d be a good idea to moor the Old Man near the coast of Wizard Island out of their way, for safety. So they tied some rope to it, to move the Old Man. As soon as they did so, the clear blue skies of a warm August day turned dark. The wind kicked up, bad, and it started to rain, then hail, then snow in the span of a few minutes…again in August. Now snow in that area is common, but not in the summer months. It gets super warm in that area in summer (like 70 to 90 degrees on average) So the scientists decided to nope the fuck out of the water, because of this freak storm. They unmoored the Old Man, preparing to get the fuck out of dodge of this summer snowstorm. As soon as the rope loosened and was in the water, as quickly as the storm had come on them, the darkened skies cleared and it was once more a fine sunny summer day.
As a kid, I spent my summers with my family who lives like… 40 some odd miles from Crater Lake National Park so I had this knowledge just kinda buried in my head somewhere.
I excitedly added a thing about the old man before I checked the notes so now I’m gonna reblog this great story instead but here is the old man!!!
“The Old Man floats vertically through the lake on a calm day”
“THE OLD MAN FLOATS. VERTICALLY. THROUGH THE LAKE ON A CALM DAY”
The more people hear about fascism and Project 2025, the more people will walk away from Republicans.
The more people are able to identify Republican propaganda on crime stats, voter fraud, and blatant racism toward immigrants/migrants, the more people will walk away from Republicans.
Ending IVF? Banning birth control? Taking away same sex marriages?
Americans don’t want fascist christians in their bedrooms, all while rapist Trump is given free reign to commit adultery for decades.
All democrat campaign ads should just be quotes from republicans. With video wherever possible.
