“I believe it is vital – to civilization, to liberty, to everything we wish for our species, especially for our young. Reading shapes the way we think. Not the content (that too, but it is near irrelevant). It shapes the way we CAN think, which opens our capacity to think. It requires translating and assembling symbols into words, words into concepts, images -things in themselves far bigger than the little word. It’s a process the brain uses to process and store information, but more importantly, to create from. Reading is training this, the younger a child starts, the easier it becomes and more building blocks they have. It is also compound interest for there on in.It is a genie repressed in illiterate societies. It is a genie that, once freed, cannot ever be put back. Those who champion freedom, must champion reading, and particularly reading fiction, because that trains the mind in taking symbolic logic into creating what is not. Into building something far beyond the mere literal meaning of words, transforming them. That is what drives us, makes us human, gives us dreams. That will give us the stars.
Without that we’re little more than sheep.
With it, we have a key to being far more.” ~~ Dave Freer
Science: Entire Planet of Cats Distracted by Laser Pointer
Straight Line of the Day: If Canadians Move or Die, Can We Move In?
What’s Wrong in Canada?
Free Beacon | 8/18/26 | Jonathan Leaf
Nickname: “Maple”
Last year, roughly 150,000 Americans chose to leave the United States. … 120,640 Canadians left Canada. The numbers aren’t so different. But the United States has eight-and-a-half times as many people. So, if the United States had the same rate of emigration, we would be losing close to 1.3 million people each year. That’s more than live in Boston and Miami combined.
Here’s an even more shocking statistic. In 2016, Canada legalized assisted suicide. Now eight times as many Canadians die from euthanasia as in car accidents. Increasingly, Canadians are anxious to leave either for another country or the undiscovered country.
No offense meant to our Canadian commenter. It’s a beautiful country; that’s why we’d want to move there.
Bond Girlathon Friday : Results from 8/14/2026 : New Matches for 8/21/2026

Nice to see the sun again. So, what’s going on?
Results from 8/14/2026
| Mie Hama | No Preference | Lola Larson |
|---|---|---|
| 97 | 3 | 41 |
| Akiko Wakabayashi | No Preference | Trina Parks |
|---|---|---|
| 131 | 3 | 13 |
New Matches for 8/21/2026
Match 1
Tsai Chin (Ling) vs Denise Perrier (Marie)
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Tsai Chin | 0 – 7 – 0 | 273 – 9 – 1009 |

Ling
Actress: Tsai Chin Nationality: Chinese Bond Movie: You Only Live Twice (1967) Synopsis:
In the opening scenes of the film, Bond is shown in bed with Ling, as the two discuss why Chinese girls taste different from all other girls. Ling gets up and presses a button that rockets the bed upwards into the wall, and two gunmen enter the room to kill Bond. It is later revealed to the audience that Ling was helping to stage Bond’s death in order to keep his enemies off his back.

Tsai Chin
VS
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Denise Perrier | 2 – 5 – 0 | 336 – 36 – 791 |

Marie
Actress: Denise Perrier Nationality: French Bond Movie: Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Synopsis:
As Bond seeks out Blofeld to get revenge for the death of his wife, the trail leads him from Tokyo to Cairo, where he interrogates a gambler about Blofeld’s whereabouts. “Marie… ask.. Marie.” Bond finds Marie, who asks “Is there something I can do for you?” Bond replies with “There’s something I’d like you to get off your chest”, and then removes her Bra and begins to strangle her with it.He gets the information he wants and pursues the lead.

Denise Perrier
Match 2
Karin Dor (Helga Brandt) vs (16) Izabella Scorupco (Natayla Simonova)
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Karin Dor | 2 – 5 – 0 | 459 – 11 – 866 |

Helga Brandt
Actress: Karin Dor Nationality: German Bond Movie: You Only Live Twice (1967) Synopsis:
Helga Brandt was a SPECTRE henchwoman who pretended to fall in love with Bond and switch to his side, only to try and kill him the next morning. For failing to kill Bond, Brandt is killed by head of SPECTRE Blofeld, who drops her into a pool of piranha fish. Helga Brandt was very similar to prior Bond girl Fiona Volpe, as the producers tried to replicate their prior success.

Karen Dor
VS
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| (16) Izabella Scorupco | 5 – 2 – 0 | 834 – 6 – 509 |

Natalya Simonova
Actress: Izabella Scorupco Nationality: Polish-Swedish Bond Movie: Goldeneye (1995) Synopsis:
Natalya Simonova was a programmer working at a Russian Space Control Centre along with Boris Grishenko. Xenia Onatopp and General Ourumov staged a test drill in the centre, and after getting the launch keys, Onatopp shot everyone in sight. Natalya managed to escape, and made contact with Boris over the Internet. Unfortunately, Boris was a traitor working with Onatopp, and Natalya was captured.After she escaped a near death experience with Bond, the two paired up, and Natalya’s computer skills helped Bond overcome the traitors.

Izabella Scorupco
Quote of the Day
“How do you know when you’ve made it in America? When your grown-up kid declares he’s a socialist. It means you’ve given your family a level of material comfort and security so unquestionable that your child has never even thought about how it happened. The very life you’ve provided him is like a seamless work of art in which all the grueling spadework has been successfully hidden. Good for you. Bad for everyone else.” ~~ Abe Greenwall
Straight Line of the Day: What Is the Difference Between Courtesan and Cortisone?
Cartoons and Memes
Quote of the Day
“But let’s be serious about these condescending leftists. They knew Arday was a phony. They also knew he was useful. His existence supported their narrative, so that irritating objective truth thing could be dispensed with. But he was never their peer; he was their pet. They tried to make Jason Arday into something he wasn’t — an intellectual and a genius — because he was a good-looking black guy with the kind of lengthy dreads that send a tingle down the legs of childless liberal wine women who spend their endless free time reading Ibram X. Kendi’s tomes (that relic of Woke 1.0 is yet another clown whose scamming was too much even for left-wing academia to bear) and doing the work to ameliorate their appalling residual whiteness.” ~~ Kurt Schlichter
Rejected Straight Line: “Two Ducks, a Duck, and Another Duck Walk Into a Barn…”
Straight Line of the Day: So Why Are There No Straight White Male Novelists?
The Absence of Young Male Novelists Signifies the Death of American Culture
Chronicles | August 14, 2026 | George P. CrossHere’s an interesting question: how many white American men born after 1984 have had a literary piece published in The New Yorker? The answer is zero. How did we get here, and who let this happen?
Every literary generation used to produce its Roth, Updike, Bellow, Wolfe, McCarthy, or Franzen. Today’s literary establishment shows no interest in producing young men of comparable prominence—especially if they’re straight and white.
This is not a new or underdiagnosed problem; in fact, it appears to be a point of pride for the new generation of literary critics and publishers alike. Penguin Random House has no problem publishing it’s demographics yearly and celebrating the slow but consistent decline in white editorial staff.
Acclaimed novelist Joyce Carol Oates had no issue tweeting that “a friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested.”
(Three out of four paragraphs use the word “interest.”)
Due To Circumstances Beyond Our Control, the Website Seems To Be Functioning Today
Bond Girlathon Wednesday : Results fro 8/12/2026 : New Matches for 8/19/2026

We are off to a good start for round 10.
Results from 8/12/2026
| (2) Diana Rigg | No Preference | Francoise Therry |
|---|---|---|
| 190 | 1 | 20 |
| (15) Maud Adams | No Preference | (16) Sue Vanner |
|---|---|---|
| 128 | 5 | 61 |
New Matches for 8/19/2026
Match 1
(6) Caroline Munro (Naomi) vs (7) Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight)
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| (6) Caroline Munro | 9 – 0 – 0 | 1458 – 13 – 422 |

Naomi
Actress: Caroline Munro Nationality: English Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Synopsis:
Naomi was an aid for Karl Stromberg, and escorted Bond and Anya Amasova to Stromberg’s oceanic citadel, the Atlantis. After Bond’s meeting ended, Stromberg instructed henchman Jaws to kill the two spies. In an intense chase sequence with Bond and Amasova driving a Lotus Esprit, Jaws shot at them from a car, another henchmen tried to kill them with a sidecar-missile, and Naomi tried to shoot them down from a helicopter. She met her end as Bond blew up her helicopter with a surface-to-air missile.

Caroline Munro
VS
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| (7) Britt Ekland | 6 – 3 – 0 | 1329 – 15 – 660 |

Mary Goodnight
Actress: Britt Ekland Nationality: Swedish Bond Movie: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) Synopsis:
Mary Goodnight was Bond’s assistant in Hong Kong, and previously his secretary in London. She helps Bond to locate Miss Anders, the girlfriend of hitman Scaramanga. The two almost spend the night together on multiple occasions, and at one point Goodnight is embarrassingly shoved into a cupboard when Miss Anders pays Bond a surprise visit. Goodnight is eventually kidnapped by Scaramanga, but after Bond kills him, Goodnight helps Bond escape his Island.

Britt Ekland
Match 2
Olga Bisera (Felicca) vs (11) Madelaine Smith (Miss Caruso)
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| Olga Bisera | 1 – 8 – 0 | 414 – 16 – 1368 |

Felicca
Actress: Olga Bisera Nationality: Bosnian Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Synopsis:
Felicca worked for Aziz Fekkesh, a black market dealer who was selling the microfilms of a submarine tracking system. Fekkesh instructed Felicca to entertain Bond, should he call round, so that henchman Sandor could kill him. In their brief time together, Felicca took a liking to Bond, and when she saw Sandor about to shoot him, she spun round and took the bullet herself.

Olga Bisera
VS
| Contestant | Record | Total Scores |
|---|---|---|
| (11) Madelaine Smith | 6 – 3 – 0 | 1183 – 6 – 807 |

Miss Caruso
Actress: Madeline Smith Nationality: English Bond Movie: Live and Let Die (1973) Synopsis:
Miss Caruso was an agent of the Italian Secret Service. She was asleep with Bond at his home when, just before 6am, the doorbell rang. Bond answered the door to find M, who announced an urgent mission. He also casually mentioned that the Italian’s were complaining about their missing agent, Miss Caruso. In a scene lit with humour, Bond continually distracts M to avoid him finding Caruso, with a little help from Miss Moneypenny, who had accompanied M.

Madeline Smith
Quote of the Day
Straight Line of the Day: I Keep Confusing NASCAR With NASDAC. What’s the Difference?
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