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slot vip bet login If Sad Beige Mom, Nattie Powell’s, latest Glinda-fied Step2 My First Christmas Tree makeover TikTok has you mourning the classic and very viral evergreen look , then you’re in luck. You can still find the Step2 My First Christmas Tree , along with other festive editions like the My First Snowman and My First Gingerbread House , available for purchase at retailers like Amazon, Walmart and the Step2 website itself. You may even find them on sale and deliverable ahead of the holiday, if you shop like Rudolph and run, run, run to cart as soon as you can. Unfortunately, the Step2 My First Advent Calendar that came back on the scene in July is either out of stock or not promised by Christmas anywhere that it’s sold. However, you can get notified on restocks from Step2 directly . The charm of these collectibles Complete your ‘My First’ scene with these TikTok-famous Christmastime finds The Best Deals in December Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com . Danielle Halibey can be reached at dhalibey@njadvancemedia.com . Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips .We are well-connected but isolated in AI age: IISc directorNone

Greg Gumbel, Longtime CBS Sports Broadcaster, Dies at 78Greg Gumbel, a longtime CBS sportscaster, has died from cancer, according to a statement from family released by CBS on Friday. He was 78. Related video above: Remembering those we've lost in 2024 “He leaves behind a legacy of love, inspiration and dedication to over 50 extraordinary years in the sports broadcast industry; and his iconic voice will never be forgotten,” his wife Marcy Gumbel and daughter Michelle Gumbel said in a statement. In March, Gumbel missed his first NCAA Tournament since 1997 due to what he said at the time were family health issues. Gumbel was the studio host for CBS since returning to the network from NBC in 1998. Gumbel signed an extension with CBS last year that allowed him to continue hosting college basketball while stepping back from NFL announcing duties. In 2001, he announced Super Bowl XXXV for CBS, becoming the first Black announcer in the U.S. to call play-by-play of a major sports championship. David Berson, president and CEO of CBS Sports, described Greg Gumbel as breaking barriers and setting standards for others during his years as a voice for fans in sports, including in the NFL and March Madness. “A tremendous broadcaster and gifted storyteller, Greg led one of the most remarkable and groundbreaking sports broadcasting careers of all time," said Berson. Gumbel had two stints at CBS, leaving the network for NBC when it lost football in 1994 and returning when it regained the contract in 1998. He hosted CBS’ coverage of the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics and called Major League Baseball games during its four-year run broadcasting the national pastime. But it was football and basketball where he was best known and made his biggest impact. Gumbel hosted CBS’ NFL studio show, “The NFL Today” from 1990 to 1993 and again in 2004. He also called NFL games as the network’s lead play-by-play announcer from 1998 to 2003, including Super Bowl XXXV and XXXVIII. He returned to the NFL booth in 2005, leaving that role after the 2022 season.Singapore companies ‘slightly optimistic’ about next 6 months, after exiting sales contraction phase in Q3: survey

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO struggled with deputies and shouted while being led into court Tuesday as new details emerged about his possible motivation behind the ambush. In his first public words since a five-day search ended with his arrest at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, Luigi Nicholas Mangione emerged from a patrol car shouting about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” while deputies pushed him inside a courthouse. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family is fighting attempts to extradite him to New York so that he can face a murder charge in the Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson , who led the United States’ largest medical insurance company. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said that at the time of his arrest, Mangione was carrying a handwritten document expressing anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed and power. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin. In social media posts, Mangione called “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski — who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology — a “political revolutionary,” according to the police bulletin. Mangione remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors were beginning to take steps to bring Mangione to New York, but at a brief hearing Tuesday, defense lawyer Thomas Dickey said his client will not waive extradition and instead wants a hearing on the issue. Mangione was denied bail after prosecutors said he was too dangerous to be released. He mostly stared straight ahead at the hearing, occasionally looking at papers, rocking in his chair or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion but was quieted by his lawyer. “You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said afterward. “He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.” Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York City, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. Images of Mangione released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police showed him pulling down his mask in the corner of the McDonald's while holding what appeared to be hash browns and wearing a winter jacket and beanie. In another photo from a holding cell, he stood unsmiling with rumpled hair. New York police officials have said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs. A law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said a three-page, handwritten document found with Mangione included a line in which he claimed to have acted alone. “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the document said, according to the official. It also said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. From surveillance video, New York investigators determined the shooter quickly fled the city, likely by bus. Mangione was born into a life of country clubs and privilege. His grandfather was a self-made real estate developer and philanthropist. Valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, he went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said. “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland Del. Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” From January to June 2022, Luigi Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu. Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin. “Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. "There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they’re saying he committed.” At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said. Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago. ___ Scolforo reported from Altoona and Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Contributing were Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale in Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore; Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.

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Prayers are pouring in for Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold on Sunday afternoon. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Thanks for the feedback.Sportscaster Greg Gumbel dies from cancer at age 78Reports: Yankees sign LHP Max Fried to 8-year, $218M deal

It didn't take long for Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs to make an impact in Sunday's game against the San Francisco 49ers. Josh Jacobs gets free for a big gain early! : #SFvsGB on FOX : https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/injfKW5zxb The Packers RB continued his first-half dominance with a TD run in the second quarter that put Green Bay up 17-0 at the time. Josh Jacobs TD! And then gets for his Lambeau Leap! : #SFvsGB on FOX : https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/fFyMzjs5BR Jacobs' success on the ground was the story of the first half. With 19 carries for 91 yards and a TD, Jacobs could not be contained by the San Francisco defense. As a team, the Packers had 125 yards on the ground to just three for San Francisco. Had it not been for two Christian Watson drops just before halftime, the Packers could have had a larger lead. Sunday's performance continues an impressive first season for Jacobs in Green Bay. Jacobs' 838 yards rushing coming into Sunday rank third in the NFL, only trailing Derrick Henry (1,185) of the Baltimore Ravens and Saquon Barkley (1,137) of the Philadelphia Eagles. Jacobs' TD run on Sunday gives him five on the ground this season. If Jacobs can keep running the ball with this amount of effectiveness, it should help balance out the offense and take some of the load off QB Jordan Love down the stretch.Stock market today: Wall Street climbs as bitcoin bursts above $99,000

That's the verdict of former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore, who has told sundayworld.com that Arteta could be under huge pressure if he fails to deliver success this season Mikel Arteta Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is under pressure to deliver genuine success this season and the club’s board may run out of patience with him if he fails to deliver. That's the verdict of former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore, who has told sundayworld.com that Arteta could be under huge pressure if he fails to deliver success this season. Arsenal’s win against Nottingham Forest on Saturday ended a run of poor results for an Arsenal side that slipped nine points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool heading into this months international break. That has inspired Collymore to suggest Arteta will be the fall guy if Arsenal fall any any further behind the leading contenders for the major trophies. "At Arsenal, I think it's time Mikel Arteta took some serious heat," Collymore told sundayworld.com with New Betting Sites . "You look at what Pep Guardiola has won in recent years and he was not immune from criticism in recent weeks when things went against Man City. "Then you see Arteta in a press conference looking so confident and you would think his body of work includes six Champions League wins and the last five Premier League. "It's nice in some ways and none of us like to see managers get sacked, but the start that Arsenal have had would put a manager under pressure. "I know Arsenal have a big social media presence and at the start of this season, their fan groups were saying what a great chance they had and their time had come. "They brought in Riccardo Calafiori, they have Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard in midfield, they have creativity with Kai Havertz and yet they are a long way behind Liverpool already. "They are virtually giving up a point a game on the league leaders at the moment, so watch this space with Arsenal." Collymore predicts the pressure will mount on Arteta in the second half of this season as he added: "If they are in the top three, but a mile off Liverpool and Man City, I wonder whether this will be Mikel Arteta's last chance. I could see a change of direction from Arsenal in that scenario. "The Arsenal board have given him a long time to get it right, but one FA Cup isn't good enough for the amount of investment they have put into it."

By Tia Goldenberg and Jon Gambrell Tel Aviv, Nov 25 (AP) Israel has said that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a "heinous antisemitic terror incident". The UAE's Interior Ministry later said authorities arrested three suspects involved in the killing of Zvi Kogan. The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Sunday said that Israel "will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death". Israeli authorities did not say how they determined the killing of Kogan was a terror attack and offered no additional details. Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords. The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE. Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack. The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment. However, senior Emirati diplomat Anwer Gargash wrote on the social platform X in Arabic on Sunday that "the UAE will remain a home of safety, an oasis of stability, a society of tolerance and coexistence and a beacon of development, pride and advancement". Early on Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being "missing and out of contact". "Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report," the Interior Ministry said. The ministry later said that three "perpetrators" had been arrested "in record time" without giving additional details. Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was "deeply shocked" by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened. Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action". He said he trusts they "will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice". Israel also again warned against all nonessential travel to the Emirates after Kogan's killing. "There is concern that there is still a threat against Israelis and Jews in the area," a government warning issued Sunday said. Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners. The Rimon Market, a kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday. Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment. While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE. Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country. Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October. (AP) DIV DIV (This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)All Blacks win in Turin but struggle against a passionate Italy

Captain Harry Wilson cuts a forlorn figure after the Wallabies' grand slam dream died. Photo: AP PHOTO Wallabies' captain Harry Wilson says his crestfallen crew have been left "hurt" by the end of their British Isles grand slam dream at the hands of a buoyant Scotland. Black Friday Sale Subscribe Now! Login or signup to continue reading All articles from our website & app The digital version of Today's Paper Breaking news alerts direct to your inbox Interactive Crosswords, Sudoku and Trivia All articles from the other regional websites in your area Continue Yet at least there was one elated Australian at Murrayfield after the comprehensive 27-13 defeat. Scottish captain Sione Tuipulotu, Melburnian born-and-bred, proved inspirational for the hosts, his opportunist try in front of his own Glasgow-born gran on Sunday (Monday AEDT) sparking plenty of emotion. Granny Jaqueline ended up handing over the Hopetoun Cup to the former Australia Under-20 player - the Wallaby who got away - as the visitors reflected gloomily on the reality check of a four-try-to-one beating. Sione Tuipulotu powers in for the score that made his gran smile. (AP PHOTO) To cap a chastening day, the Wallabies were left fretting over an arm injury to superstar cross-code centre Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, who, on his second start, went off clutching his wrist after handing out a hit on Tuipulotu, which the Scottish captain described as "humungous", late in the first half. Apart from a bullocking start, the Wallabies were constantly blunted by a much superior Scottish defence to the porous English and Welsh rearguards of the past fortnight. A side that scored 13 tries in their first two matches only scored on a breakaway in the 75th minute, when Harry Potter, with a fittingly magical little juggling act before he finally touched down, celebrated a debut try. But the tries from Tuipulotu, a national record-breaking 30th for Ruhan van der Merwe, flanker Josh Bayliss and the brilliant Finn Russell, who scored 12 points, were a fair reflection of the Scots' dominance as they crashed through too many Wallaby tackles. Australia's Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, right, watches after being injured in the first half. (AP PHOTO) "It is disappointing. I know everyone really wanted to be part of history, so it does hurt," said Wilson. Neither he nor Joe Schmidt were about to search for excuses despite a hugely difficult week in which the Wallabies had been deprived of training by frozen pitches and getting snowed in at their hotel. And in the 24 hours before the game, they lost both key hooker Matt Faessler through injury and poorly lock Jeremy Williams. "We were already a little bit glued together," conceded Schmidt. "But it's a really good exercise for us to be put in that situation against a good team and I felt they stayed really competitive - albeit you can't miss 30-plus tackles in an international against a really good team and expect to get the result." Yet with the frozen conditions miraculously replaced by blue skies on a perfect day for rugby, the Wallabies did enjoy a first 15 minutes on the front foot, in which they ought to have been rewarded by more than Noah Lolesio's 12th minute penalty. From then on, the Scots increasingly bossed them, and there could be no excuse for Tuipulotu latching on to a long line-out throw to barge between Andrew Kellaway and Len Ikitau for a score on his emotional day. "I don't really score many tries so that was pretty special to score while my gran was here - and knowing how much she also wanted to beat Australia!" beamed Tuipulotu. He was later sent crashing by Suaalii, but still the former Rooster came off worse, leading to the pair having a no-love-lost contretemps afterwards. Tuipulotu was really up for all this. "He's got pretty numb arm, but we're hopeful it's not too bad," said Schmidt. "But losing Joseph early didn't help." Tuipulotu raises the Hopetoun Cup trophy after their victory. (AP PHOTO) After Russell and Lolesio exchanged early penalties following the break, the crowd were incensed in the 50th minute when Tom Wright stood his ground in defence, taking out Scottish halfback Ben White who was making a break. Irish ref Chris Busby ruled no penalty and no card, and as if enraged by perceived injustice, the Scots roared forward to put in van der Merwe. The Wallabies' wheels began to come off as Bayliss ploughed over in the corner, taking three players with him, and Russell went over for a nicely-worked fourth. It was all hugely anti-climactic after the first two legs of the tour had proved so exhilarating, but for Schmidt, a return to Dublin to play his old charges Ireland next Saturday (Sunday AEDT) gives his developing side a chance to depart on a high. "Scotland are a good side and, hopefully, people can still see there's some quality starting to be built through through an Australian side that's actually starting to show a bit of depth, albeit with some pretty inexperienced players," said Schmidt. Australian Associated Press Share Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Email Copy More from AFL Marinoff, Garner favourites to be named AFLW's best Joanna Guelas Tough-tackling Conway ready for Roos Steve Barrett Lions mow down Crows, storm into AFLW grand final Steve Barrett Marinoff, Garner favourites to be named AFLW's best Joanna Guelas Tough-tackling Conway ready for Roos Steve Barrett Lions mow down Crows, storm into AFLW grand final Steve Barrett Ruthless Roos thump Power to charge into AFLW decider Anna Harrington More from sports Sunday roast: Why Caps believe again, and the United screamer you need to see Caden Helmers • No comment s 'It reinforces what you do': The Canberra horse race making a difference Caden Helmers • No comment s This ACT Comets quick is about to take on India's all-stars for the PM's XI Caden Helmers • No comment s Sunday roast: Why Caps believe again, and the United screamer you need to see Caden Helmers • No comment s 'It reinforces what you do': The Canberra horse race making a difference Caden Helmers • No comment s This ACT Comets quick is about to take on India's all-stars for the PM's XI Caden Helmers • No comment s Tragedy drives one. One was the last pick. Meet Canberra's newest AFL players Caden Helmers • No comment s More from Rugby Wallabies' slam hopes slayed by Scots at Murrayfield 27m ago Nine-try England hammer Japan 1hr ago Error-prone All Blacks struggle to a win over Italy Wallabies' bounce helps Schmidt convince Campo and co Aussie Hansen's try double for Ireland, Wallabies next Springboks thump hapless Wales, complete unbeaten tour Newsletters & Alerts View all DAILY Your morning news Today's top stories curated by our news team. Also includes evening update. Loading... WEEKDAYS The lunch break Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. Loading... DAILY Sport The latest news, results & expert analysis. Loading... WEEKDAYS The evening wrap Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. Loading... WEEKLY Note from the Editor Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. Loading... WEEKLY FootyHQ Love footy? 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Stock market today: Wall Street drifts lower as it waits for inflation dataAuthored by David B. Collum, Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology - Cornell University (Email: dbc6@cornell.edu , Twitter: @DavidBCollum), Dave Collum’s annual Year in Review covers a wide range of topics including finance, geopolitics, conspiracy theories, healthcare, energy, and cultural issues, with a focus on skepticism towards mainstream narratives and the potential for significant societal and economic shifts. Every year, David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis ( 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020 , 2019 , 2018 ) full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year’s is no exception, with Dave striking again in his usually poignant and delightfully acerbic way. Click here for a PDF version of this report! Part 1 Part 2 (Coming Later This Week) Part 3 (Coming in January of 2025) I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something. ~ Richard Feynman What is a woman? ~ Matt Walsh We have reached crisis levels of doubt. It is The Age of Unenlightenment or what Brett Weinstein calls the Cartesian Dark Ages. ref 1 NSA analyst and radical Islam expert Stephen Coughlin says he no longer knows who is calling the shots. ref 2 How do you know what is a fact? AI-generated images and videos have reached near-perfection. The pathological liars in the mainstream media spew agitprop for the pathological liars inside the beltway, all backed by the pathological liars of the Deep State running the fact-check programs. I use the Deep State phrase first introduced by Berkeley scholar Peter Dale Scott as a catch all to avoid wading through all the possible three- and four-letter agencies domiciled in multiple countries that might be the culprit du jour. A more pejorative and colloquial synonym, “The Blob”, was coined by Obama but has only recently begun trending. If this is all new to you, check out Mike Benz on the Joe Rogan Experience for a crash course (#2237). ref 3 My frustration levels soar when I try to provide what I believe is an uncomfortable truth and my victim responds, “I Googled it, and you are wrong.” Oh for fuck’s sake: how many Deep-State-sponsored fact-checkers told you that? It feels like we are suffering from a non-kinetic assault from somebody using Sun Tsu’s Three Warfares Doctrine: psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal warfare. ref 4 I have no idea where this is coming from, but I have ground my brain to mush trying to understand why so many of our leaders show no evidence of foundational beliefs in the American Experiment. Paul Harvey nailed it in his 1965 diatribe, “If I Were the Devil.” ref 5 Take the three minutes to listen. When finished, ask what Paul would add to a 2024 revision. Walter Kirn: I feel that my information gathering system is broken. Matt Taibbi: Yup. I feel the same way. ref 6 There are days in which I yearn for the return of the era of frontier justice. You couldn’t afford to be a dickweed in the olden days because it was too easy for someone to lay waste to you when nobody was looking. Throughout this document you will be introduced to people and ideas that make you wish some form of justice would return. I have a solution. We try to use the justice system under the new administration, but if that fails, we round up some of the most serious miscreants—I’m thinking Fauci et al. , a few Soros-funded prosecutors in the Department of Justice, and maybe even some of those iatrogenic doctors irreversibly damaging kids—and give them an all-expense paid trip—a three-hour tour—to the tropical paradise called “Snake Island.” Snake Island is a biological anomaly. It is teaming with the most venomous snakes in the world—an estimated 5 snakes per square meter. They feed on shorebirds that must be killed instantly. It is against international law to go there, which strikes me as government overreach. Let’s do a dump-and-run of these cretins: “We’ll be back in a couple hours, gents.” Conspiracy Theory. Every year I denounce people who shy away from conspiracy theories. When you find yourself saying, “I am not a conspiracy theorist but...” you just revealed that you are one. Embrace the label. Men and women of wealth and power conspire. If you disagree, I am baffled that you made it this far through this document. Buckle up because it is gonna get much worse. Michael Shermer, a professional debunker of conspiracy theories, included in his book Conspiracy a series of metrics somebody came up with to determine whether a theory is weak or strong. Michael morphed it into a metric of how nuts you are. He should know because he is a professional! He probably works for the See Eye Ay. As an aside, the word “debunk” is inherently flawed because it implicitly presumes the conclusion that something is wrong, and then you set out to prove it. I read and write to see where it takes me. It might show my suspicion I was right or wrong, but the theories I choose to examine—the rabbit holes I go down—are pre-determined to be worthy of further study. Occasionally, I am told to “stay in your lane.” I try to resist my favorite response—“You sack of shit”—which happens to be exactly the phrase I use when somebody doesn’t use their blinker. Then I calmly point out that nothing important is accomplished by people worried about staying in their lane. Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great. ~ Cher Let’s see how you do on the Collum Conspiracy Test (CCT) to obtain your CCT score (CCTS). Read the 30 declarative statements listed below that are in conflict with standard narratives. Keep score on a Post-it by giving yourself: I’ll give you my CCTS when you are done. Now for the quiz... If you got a perfect CCTS of either zero or 60, get professional help. You have an unstable personality. A CCTS above 50 suggests you only spotted the explicit sanity checks; you are a loon but not necessarily at risk of harm to yourself or others. A score of 40–49 tags you as a World-class rabbit chaser. A CCTS of 20–39 places you in the Zerohedge bell curve. Below 20 means you are not a die-hard conspiracy theorist but occasionally spot oddities. I hasten to add that, if you think the world is that straightforward, the Joe Rogan–Marc Andreessen podcast (#2234) ref 7 and Rogan-Mike Benz mind bender ref 8 combo platter will adjust your attitude. As promised, I scored 40; exactly which declarations scored me points is my business, although this Year in Review and previous Year in Reviews ref 9 , 10 , 11 offer some insights. Also, my scale is conservative... I did a curious experiment using Twitter’s “Grok” AI product. The result was rather humorous and serves a dual purpose as a stylistic biographical sketch and bolus for my insatiable narcissism. This is unedited. No phrases like “insufferable douche bag” were deleted: Hey Grok: Describe the general theme of posts on Twitter by @DavidBCollum Grok: Ah, @DavidBCollum, a character on Twitter, or should I say, X, whose posts could be described as a cocktail of wit, skepticism, and a dash of financial insight, all served with a side of humor. Here’s the general theme of his posts: In essence, @DavidBCollum’s X posts are a blend of financial wisdom, cultural critique, personal life, and a good dose of humor, all served with a side of skepticism towards the mainstream narrative. If Twitter were a bar, he’d be the bartender who knows all the good stories, tells them with flair, and makes you question your drink’s price. One of my Twitter buddies, @BenjaminWHart, has been calling me Andy Rooney for years now. I should just declare victory, type QED, quit while I’m ahead, and get a real life. This is the greatest thing I have ever seen that didn’t include female nudity of some kind. ~ John Ziegler, journalist This 2024 Year in Review, also called the Urine Review by my wife or YIR for short, comes in three parts. Bob Moriarty: When are you going to release part three? We wait patiently. Me: Not clear, but I am writing. It is a monumentally complex task compared to the other chapters. Moriarty: I hate it when you whine. Warning: I have provided an overview and implications of the election, but you will be shocked and disappointed (or not) at how little I dug into the nearly 200 pages of notes I had collected. Kilograms of ATP got fried and countless hours of my life were squandered trying to understand Biden and then Harris. And then—*poof*—on November 5th these two DNC Trojan Whores were both gone. We became unburdened by what could have been. 11/5 will live in infamy as the DNC’s 9/11. But all those quotes and anecdotes underscoring the total absurdity of the election seem irrelevant now. I am confident, however, that we collectively dodged a bullet by sending these two sociopaths to the political light. My wife created this for me in 2016... Of course, Trump’s victory was a bipartisan surprise as the polls convinced the Left that Kamala was a legitimate contender while those of us on the Right believed The Blob would find a way to stop Trump at any cost. The election was disruptive on so many levels, and has left us with a geopolitical landscape smothered by a pea-soup fog. I am confident that the Trump Presidency 2.0 will have little connection to the 1.0 release. I am optimistic because the system is broken and needs to be razed and rebuilt. The team he is assembling, for better or worse, includes some young brawlers with a sense of purpose gained from locking horns with the system. It is personal for many of them. Thus, the razing part looks like a lock whereas the reconstruction will be a far trickier task. As to the apparent non-trivial number of apparent losers being hired, I urge people to assume that they were vetted by The Donald’s inner circle and fit nicely in whatever is his plan. Doubtless, Trump et al. will generate plenty of material for a 2025 Urine Review. Source Material. You are born into the last chapter of a whodunnit mystery. If you wish to follow the thread you must read the preceding chapters. My efforts to do so are often reflected in the books I read compiled in the “Books” chapter (Part 2). I choose them carefully because my time is precious. They are invariably from the non-fiction shelf, although I often wonder if they have been shelved wrong. Jonathan Turley’s The Indispensable Right , for example, scrutinizes the battles for free speech in America at the Supreme Court level. It is scholarly and riveting, which are two words that are usually juxtaposed. Jonathan forces you to view free speech through a different lens. I write so that knowledge of these important matters may not fade away like the fleeting memories of a passing dream. ~ Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647, source vague I have come to realize that history is a highly fluid series of opinions that are prone to revision. By example, the section entitled, “A Revisionist History of WWII and FDR” is about a journey through a half dozen books that blindsided me. I gave a 20-minute talk on that topic at the New Orleans Investment Conference. ref 12 , 13 Yup. The revised history of WWII and FDR in 20 minutes. I also love ZeroHedge. Strap on your bullshit filter, but ZeroHedge is often at the vanguard of breaking stories. Twitter has become the other go-to place for the global events of the day. Love him or hate him, Elon saved the day by buying Twitter for the low, low price of $44 billion and then firing 90% of its employees who were contra-functional. Many are now working for FEMA where special skills are neither needed nor encouraged. Elon also brought in a number of new functions including its AI chatbot, Grok, and another AI-based editorial function in which a Tweet can be automatically clarified or revised based on follow up comments. I should add that this document was created without AI except when explicitly mentioned. Twitter was the only place to keep track of the rising stardom of Catturd and Brendan Dilley, legendary memers, and Hailey Welch, known by her boyfriends and now the world as Hawk Tuah Girl. Haliey is more than just a hot chick from the sticks; she pulled off a pump and dump on a new crypto. ref 14 That is how you “Hawk Tuah!” Twitter was also the only place to get the unabridged story of the assassination of Peanut the Squirrel by the New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), first reported on November 1. The head of the DEC had to go into hiding. ref 15 The memes—oh those fabulous Twitter memes—smothered the election posts for 24 hours. 11/1 is the 9/11 of 2024. No squirrel has done more to underscore the evils and overreach of government since Rocky the Flying Squirrel battled the Rooskies. You can’t help but notice that the political right dominates the meme world, which turns out to be of consequence. My theory is the left has no sense of humor. Twitter also serves as my LinkedIn, providing extraordinary digital networks and resources, but it can also break your spirit... Or get a little nasty at times... That Dave Collum guy. I think he is the greatest. I think he is smart as fuck. I enjoy reading his stuff. I enjoy reading his letter. I enjoy listening to him. But I don’t agree with everything he says. I agree with maybe half of it. But he is entitled to his point of view, and I’m entitled to mine, but it’s guys like that that make you think. ref 16 ~ Mark Cohodes (@AlderLaneEggs) This nugget of sociobiology serves as a reminder that this is my Year in Review, not yours. I am offering to share it at fair market value—no cost. You’re welcome. Don’t I risk losing readers? Nope. You’re it. Creating this review forces me to organize 500–700 pages of notes, quotes, and jokes before they go down the memory hole never again to see the light of day. This section is all me—my 2024 Dear Diary entry. I am often asked some variant of, “How do you still work at Cornell with those ideas?” My first answer is that Cornell University is a great institution that has a faction of nutjobs on the faculty. This question has, however, become more than rhetorical on occasion. In 2020 I got my ass whooped by a cancellation because of a statement on social media that got me publicly denounced in an open letter by the former President. The heinous crime: I supported the police in a Tweet. Oh the humanity! I still have a little scar tissue from sleeping with loaded rifles and steak knives strategically placed around the house. (I am not joking.) Occasionally somebody will denounce me on Twitter and tag Cornell (@Cornell). Trying to undermine somebody’s livelihood because you are offended is sinister. You certainly have the right to be offended, but you don’t have the right to never be offended. I respond to such subtle jabs by leaving @Cornell in the thread and then “bitch slapping” the asshat. It is better than hunting them down like a mad dog and “beating them with a bag of oranges”, which is my natural instinct. ( 23andMe DNA traced me back to an inbred tribe in the Neander Valley.) We have an enormous number of expensively schooled imbeciles who are badly educated at great expense. ~ George Will The younger generation is getting harder to understand and very easy to offend. I feel like Jane Fookin’ Goodall on her first day. They have no sense of humor because every joke has an edge—a butt of the joke—and they don’t think that is fair. I got into a kerfuffle with my class on day one by dropping too many jokes that would have been innocuous in smaller doses, but it largely subsided when they realized that I care about them and that many of my stories and anecdotes provide serious career and life lessons, albeit deeply embedded in my Tourettes-like outbursts. I talk to them about the highly distracting digital world that must be resisted. If you have been following social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s work such as Coddling the American Mind or his latest, The Anxious Generation , you realize it is not their fault: smart phones and social media have turned their brains into tapioca pudding. You might as well park them in front of a one-armed bandit in Las Vegas for 15 hours a day. Now imagine a 12-year-old boy with ritalin coursing through his veins deep-diving Pornhub. Would that kid ever study? Would he ever leave his room? If he somehow managed to get a date—the stats showing a collapse of teen dating are horrifying—would you want your daughter to beta test his new-fangled skills? As parents, do not underestimate the severity of this problem. OK. I got off topic again. I tend to do that. Overall, my year was uneventful, with most of it fitting neatly in the sections on “Investing” and “Healthcare”. I wrapped up my research program this year after a 45-year streak of pretty credible success. The final chapter was my call: I burnt the ships in the harbor by not submitting grant renewals. Credentialed experts and The ScienceTM say that, in addition to the void left by less responsibility, your serotonin and dopamine levels drop, which is offset by being too old to give a fuck. I can feel it. Here is a funny story. Cornell suffered a period of tremendous turbulence arising from Palestinian protests. One of my colleagues in the humanities in a moment of minimal clarity noted that he was “exhilarated” by Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis on October 7th, 2023. He seems to be light on the humanity part. This period of rampant free speech cost Cornell and Universities across the nation a ton of shekels as Jewish bazillionaires started disowning them. Imagine, however, if a WWII veteran came back to Cornell in 1969; it would have looked way worse. If you were donating to your alma mater thinking its faculty was a pillar of mental stability, that one’s on you. But the chaos just wouldn’t subside, so one night I gripped and ripped a tweet: I got a call from my brother-in-law who happens to be a trustee and knows everybody . He opens the convo by reciting part of that tweet. The dialog ensued: Me: “How the hell did you see that?” Brother-in-law: “My boss sent it to me.” Me: “Your wife? How did she see it?” Brother-in-law: “My other boss.” Me: “You are self employed. You don’t have a boss.” Brother-in-law: “The Chairman of the Board of Trustees.” As the story goes, the Chairman cold-called him and asked if he by chance knew this guy Collum. Apparently, a faculty member who isn’t whining like a little punk-assed bitch about being oppressed is a trustee-level moment. “Yes. He is my brother-in-law.” Laughter ensued. Enjoy every sandwich. ~ Warren Zevon on his deathbed He who frames the question wins the debate. ~ Randall Terry This year, I did a Zerohedge Debate organized by Liam Cosgrove of The Grayzone and moderated by Bill Fleckenstein. Steve Keen asserted mankind would largely end by 2050—that is not one of my snarky fake claims—whereas I dismissively called it a gigantic grift to monetize the sun. ref 1 , 2 My intellectual high-water mark was the allusion to AI as “squeegeeing drippings from the floor of the internet.” My now-annual trip to the House of the Rising Sun for Brien Lundin’s New Orleans Investment Conference is always a blast where I meet up with old friends, press the flesh with digital friends, and make new friends. Brien dug long and hard to eventually find the bottom of the barrel (me). You can spot some serious contemporary legends. You think that is cool? Take a look at past participants... I averaged one podcast per week (>70 year-to-date). In one with Mike Farris and Diana West on her studies of WWII (see the section “Revised History of WWII and FDR”), Diana noted that her twice-weekly appearances on The Lou Dobbs Show to discuss current events prevented her from thinking deeply or writing seriously. That captured what I was experiencing. Podcasts do, however, serve a purpose much the way gigs at comedy clubs help comedians test drive their ideas. My list of podcasts below is for archival purposes. Mike Farris takes the gold for most invites. Nick Bryant is the scholar on pedophile networks. His chat was important to my studies of child trafficking (Part 3) and in expanding my network of experts and confidants. Tommy Carrigan’s four-way Rumbles in the Jungle with Tom Luongo and Jim Kunstler are always raucous. My interview with Michelle Mikori set the click-count record this year, but the comments section suggests the viewers would have enjoyed it without the audio on. A couple of sites offer bot-driven compilations, including one that professes to rate them. ref 3 , 4 I like the freedom of podcasting. With podcasting, you can really mess around with the form and the format. You can do as much time as you like without having to pause for commercials. ~ Adam Carolla Here is a list of podcasts and links for 2024: Collum could narrate a proctology exam & make it interesting. ~ Vincent J. Curtis (@VincentJCurtis1) I once live-tweeted a cystoscopy: “It burns! It burns!” I will rise to meet Vincent’s challenge. Last year I had a 1.5 inch bladder stone removed by Dr. Darth Vader with his light saber. He inflicted superficial damage that forced him to re-insert the catheter and leave it for a week. Why an entire week? Because he works on Wednesdays. I was not happy about that. This year, my prostate, which was very large due to old age in manly sort of way I guess, was removed by a surgeon named Dr. Weiner. The non-statistical probability of choosing a career that reflects your name is called “nominative determinism”, ref 1 which suggests you should steer clear of Doctors named Butcher, Hack, or Ripper. It is not a perfect rule: Dr. Richard Titball is not a gender reassignment surgeon but rather a professor of biochemistry. ref 2 His students must be ruthless as evidenced by my irresistible urge to make him the “butt” of my joke. You will not hear this often, but I highly recommend the procedure. I went from two-minute dribbles with countless sleep interruptions to blowing out 14 ounces in 4–5 seconds in a 6–8 foot arc. (I should add that those were separate measurements; I am not that talented...yet.) Livin’ the dream. But let me give you old farts a little advice. For the first couple of post-op urinations, sit your ass down unless you wish to see a replay of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. It was a ten-minute cleanup of the floor and walls. When I was a kid, I wanted to be older. This is not what I expected. The only room I can enter and remember why I went there is the bathroom. Over-nourishment makes me hold my breath while I tie my shoes. I can no longer get off the floor without grunting. I am dotting my ‘t’s and crossing my ‘I’s. As my hearing gets worse, the blinker on my car runs unabated. I repeat: old age is not for pussies. The decay of our healthcare system continues. For the first time in US history, life expectancy is dropping. Last year I took a cue from Gretchen Morgenson’s and Josh Rosner’s These are the Plunderers ref 3 and wailed on the swath of destruction to the healthcare system by the private equity Borg. ref 4 Monetary policy incentivizes private equity strip-mining of companies by making capital too cheap. When you buy up hospitals, sell off their assets, and sell the shells to dumb money with a 47% probability of bankruptcy down the road, you are a menace to society. Healthcare is now almost completely corporatized, which means that there is a big middleman who wants the Big Vig. Doctors must act in the corporate interests ref 5 by upselling costly tests and treatments. I am not breaking any HIPAA rules: this is my chart. Are they upselling me? The growing number of doctors in the US has not kept up with the demand as the aging boomers increasingly burden the system. It remains a challenge to attract doctors to less profitable subdisciplines and practices in rural settings. Ken Langone endowed NYU Medical School several years ago, making it free and the most desirable med school in the country. As the movement toward endowed tuitions has spread to other schools, the stated logic is that graduates can serve the public better if they are debt free. ref 6 Alas, tuition benefits have not achieved their stated goals but have made being a doctor even more profitable. Meanwhile, the wait time to get an appointment has increased 24% in 20 years ref 7 (much worse from personal experience), which starts looking serious when you have a big, bloody turbocancer lesion hanging off your face. Firing doctors for refusing to vaccinate was about as helpful as defunding the police. ref 8 The soft corruption infecting the healthcare system over the decades undercuts the quality of patient care. The CDC set up a not-for-profit organization ref 9 to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from pharma to put a chokehold on healthcare. ref 10 I highly recommend The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy; ref 11 your blood will boil. For a less biased treatment, and I say less biased because Kennedy hates Tony Fauci, try Sickening by Harvard’s John Abramson in which he describes his role in the scandal in which Vioxx caused 60,000 deaths ref 12 as well as other disasters emanating from the highly conflicted clinical trial-industrial complex. ref 13 A recent study found that clinical trials paid for by pharma showed 50 percent higher drug efficacies than those funded independently. ref 14 This so-called ”sponsorship effect” worked so well with the bond rating agencies leading up to the Great Recession. This year I added Sharyl Attkisson’s Follow the Science to my reading list. She brilliantly describes 25-year career at CBS writing about science and the pharmaceutical industry. Her journey has led to her deep-seated revulsion of the Pharma Blob. ref 15 I also forced myself through The Pfizer Papers , ref 16 which is more of a reference book than a reading book. An army of 3200 volunteer doctors and scientists mowed through gazillions of documents pried loose from Pfizer by a FOIA request. I elaborate in the section entitled “Covid-19 and the Vaccine.” Plot spoiler: Pfizer knew from the very start that the vaccine was wreaking havoc. I would suggest that the whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa—slightly off balance. ref 17 ~ King Charles (no kidding) In my consultations with colleagues across academia, I sense a widely held belief that the quality of students has dropped precipitously. This stems from a host of factors including iPhone addiction, helicopter parenting, participation trophies, and upbringings in which no-pain no-gain seems to have gone out of favor. The common refrain is, “Why should I learn it if I can just look it up?” The simple answer is that you need an operating system to think. Why is this being mentioned in a section on healthcare? Your future doctors may be surgically rooting around in your chest cavity like a truffle pig guided by YouTube videos. We return to related issues in the section on “College”, but I urge you to find doctors who are old enough to not be the iPhone Walking Dead. Let’s shoot back. Rumor has it Trump won the election, and Kennedy is being put in charge of Health and Human Services. There is no reason to doubt that he will be the most aggressive leader of that massive government organization in its history. At the next level down, the frontrunner to run the National Institutes of Health is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medical School. He is a mild-mannered, very bright health policy expert who has developed new attitudes about the healthcare system as one of the three creators of the Great Barrington Declaration. ref 18 (For laughs, I looked at Wikipedia’s writeup on the Great Barrington Declaration, ref 19 and it is a complete sack of propaganda to push the authoritarian narrative that I have come to expect from that once revolutionary idea.) Both Kennedy and Bhattacharya have battled the Healthcare Balrog and emerged victorious. They could be revolutionary. While on the topic of eating organic food, brother-sister pair, Calley and Casey Means, appeared out of nowhere in a Tucker Carlson interview discussing decidedly unhealthy food and healthcare. ref 20 This was not by chance but rather the first salvo in the battle to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) that is a major plank of the Trump administration. Ozempic, Wegovy, and other related anti-obesity drugs hit the ground running this year. The drug companies have restrictions on what they can advertise off-label, but they bypass the restrictions by exploiting famous Hollywood butterballs trying to become marketable again. We have created the ‘solution’ to treat the problem, without really being disciplined and empathetic enough to stop the creation of obese children in the first place. ref 21 ~ Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, pediatrician I am guessing that somewhere down the road we will discover huge side effects. You are treating the symptom not the disease. Bypassing the most overt phenotype arising from eating dogshit—Dunlop’s Syndrome in which your “belly done lops over your belt”—may not be healthy. And yet some health authorities, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommend it for teens, which will enable consequence-free Cheeto-Mountain Dew diets while they sit around staring into their iPhones. ref 22 Yay. That cannot be good, but I am expecting worse. Side effects include Anxiety, insomnia, and depression, all accompanied by a 45% rise in “suicide ideation.” ref 23 Muscle loss ref 24 seems to be causing “Ozempic Eyes” or “Ozempic Face” ref 25 in which you pick up that starving-POW look. When you are talking about the human biome, it is likely to be FAFO (fuck around find out.) At least your pall bearers will thank you. That BBC headline is spot on: death is the leading cause of not ageing. The profitability of a drug that must be taken for life causes spittle to drool down the chins of pharma CEOs. At $1000 per month without prescription coverage, Ozempic Wallet may become a thing. Euthanasia seems to be cool again. A depressed 28-year-old Dutch woman scheduled to be euthanized in May found happiness as the big day approached. ref 26 In Canada, its popularity has exceeded that of the ice bucket challenge. The CEO of United Health got assassinated by a pro. ref 27 Inscriptions on the bullet casings—“Deny, Depose, Defend”—suggested the company’s record of having the highest denial of coverage percentage in the business ref 28 left one critic a little grumpy and offered him complementary body piercings. This is a rapidly evolving story. The perpetrator has supposedly been identified, leaving the world mystified about why and even if he did it. ref 29 Note to the Elites: this is the shit that happens when the plebes feel like they have no civilized path forward. This is a Fourth Turning move. With especially poor timing, insurance company Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield announced that they would not cover the cost of anesthesia if the surgery took longer than a prescribed time. That policy was retracted fast , ref 30 presumably straight from the desk of the CEO trying to avoid the wireless hole puncher. I suspect that the announcement was already in the chamber to be fired out to the public when the United Health CEO got whacked. FAFO. The new shingles vaccine, Shingrix, was released in time to battle the shingles pandemic among the recently vaccinated. But they are provided for free! Yeah. Right. Government handouts mean you are paying. How broke will we be when all pharma products are free? That would have tremendous palliative benefits of reducing the diseased CPI. And since you have no idea what is in those devilish jabs, I should point out that Shingrix is an mRNA gene therapy. Are you going to jump on that bandwagon again and hope it doesn’t cause bleeding from every orifice? I’ll pass, thankyou very much. I’ve seen claims that healthcare is approaching 20% of US GDP. I have witnessed a huge spike in construction of healthcare facilities in my little college town of Ithaca. Economists love GDP, but let’s unwrap that. Would you be better off if you needed no healthcare whatsoever? Of course. Soaring boomer healthcare costs reflect the cost of keeping a rapidly depreciating fleet of aging Chevy Chevettes, Ford Pintos, and Corvairs on the road. And a headline from Bloomberg... Health and Human Services’s 2025 budget includes the keyword “equity” 829 times. Hundreds of billions are spent chasing the DEI bogey while your health falters. ref 31 And, by the way, why is DEI considered so profoundly important while tagging a hire as a DEI hire is verboten? Dear Kamala: the gold miners are gouging the price of gold. It’s up 10% per year under President Jill Biden. Can you please tell them to stop? Thanks. ref 1 ~ Zerohedge Gold had both a strong year (+30% ytd) and was not particularly newsworthy. Gold bugs always look forward to Ronald-Peter Stöferle’s and Mark J. Valek’s In Gold We Trust comprehensive treatise on the yellow metal and related topics. ref 2 I am not a technical analysis guy but the most highly respected technical analyst of gold, Mike Oliver, said gold would launch if it broke $2500. Although I would not call $2600 a launch, it held above that level to close the year at $2650 (as of 12/16/24) despite a sell-the-news $200+ swoon following the 2024 US elections. While some viewed the election sell-off to be about fundamentals, I think it was just an unwinding of a doom bet on election carnage (rioting, eating cats and dogs, shit like that). Despite detractors, gold is the #2 reserve currency below the dollar. Most are unaware that gold “IPO’d” in August 15, 1971, it has delivered a nearly 8% annualized return priced in dollars. The claim that gold is 5x gain relative to equities and bonds if that is a mean regressing proportionality. Remember that what follows this period of recessionary deflation will be MMT or some facsimile thereof. That is the ‘big bomb of debt’ monetization that ends up sending gold beyond a bull market towards a parabolic surge. ~ David “Rosie” Rosenberg A few nuggets are worthy of mention: Another wage-price spiral attributable to rising oil prices would be very reminiscent of the Great Inflation of the 1970s, when the price of gold soared. In this scenario, $3,500 per ounce would be a realistic target for gold through 2025. ~ Ed Yardeni (@yardeni) The most likely wildcard path to a gold price of $3,000/oz gold is a rapid acceleration of an existing but slow-moving trend: de-dollarization across “Emerging” markets central banks that in turn leads to a crisis of confidence in the U.S. #dollar...” ref 10 –Citigroup analysts Silver is schizophrenic in that it is less of a monetary metal than gold and much more of an industrial metal. As shown below, US traders smack it around, but that is just day trading. When powerful short sellers in the big banks get caught offsides on a big bet, the price will likely get stepped on temporarily. The silver bulls view silver as a leveraged play on gold, but will that be true going forward? A bullish argument is that Joe Sixpack gets more bang for the buck for silver—an ounce for $30. But that seems like a relevant rallying cry only in the final meme/mania phase, and this is no mania yet. The gold–silver ratio is said to have been 7:1 in ancient Rome and is now in the ballpark of 90:1. Some say that the 16:1 ratio in the Earth’s crust is the target for mean regression, but that is probably too simplistic given the complexities of the mining industry. Doomberg warns that there are no big advances in battery technology, and the incremental advances are all in large companies. He urges you to never invest in a story stock promising a breakthrough. Silver’s importance in the Samsung’s newest rechargeable batteries does seem encouraging. The importance of silver in solar panels and the difficulties in recycling them makes silver a good bet should the climate cult continue to help the climate grifters who, in turn, are playing into the hands of the authoritarians. That every electronic device on the planet uses largely non-recyclable silver should drive demand for silver. ref 13 One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do...I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up... I wait for a situation that is like the proverbial ‘shooting fish in a barrel.’ ~ Jim Rogers, in Market Wizards Let’s begin with savings. I think you save for retirement whereas you invest to fight inflation. Four decades ago (1981), I was a cash-poor new homeowner. I began furnishing it from yard sales but eventually progressed to 18th and 19th century American antiques. They were in a bull market as boomers began homesteading and caught the country bug in large numbers. I now live with really nice furniture that may not be worth what I paid but has not followed IKEA crap off the depreciation cliff. I was doing OK in these formative years including steady flows into retirement accounts, but one day I was reading a USAir magazine story that asked rhetorically, “Are you saving enough for retirement?” I realized I could do better and followed their suggestion to increase the rate of savings incrementally. For many years now I have sheltered 25–30% of my gross salary into retirement. This was true even during the kids’ college years. Last year, for example, I socked away 25% despite purchasing a new SUV for my wife and some aggressive distributions to the next generation. Well, this year, owing to wrapping up my research program, the 25% of my salary deriving from Federal grants evaporated, and my savings dropped to 4%. Technically speaking, I lived paycheck-to-paycheck. I also realized, however, that next year I turn 70 and will get nearly $60,000 per year salary boost from Social Security, which was good timing. I am, however, pondering retirement so that I can go to my office everyday as usual but work for free. Raising children is an enormously expensive endeavor. ~ Malcolm Gladwell My son, a professional violinist, went on a 6-week whirlwind tour of Europe shopping for a new violin. He found nothing of interest until, on nearly the last day, this 1725 Carlo Antonio Testore came across the auction block at Tarisio, and, with 100% funding by the Bank of Dad (BoD), he grabbed it. This six-digit purchase (with all six to the left of the decimal point) is owned by the BoD; he will inherit it. Was it a good buy? I think so. The kid has a good head, keen eye, and fabulous ear. I do not include this violin in my personal savings calculations; it is a hard asset. The mid-19th-century dining room table with the stunning tiger maple on which the Testore resides cost $700. That was a good buy too. An interesting aside, a 1714 Stradivarius is about to cross Sotheby’s auction block at an estimated World-record-beating $12–18 million. ref 1 (Of course, the very best are owned by institutions and will never hit the auction block.) To recap my 45-year investment history, I was 100 percent long-bonds via TIAA from 1980–1987 until a discussion with a colleague in the wake of the ’87 crash convinced me I should hit the equities hard. I averaged in , but did so aggressively, and became wildly enthusiastic about tech by the early ‘90s. I was a poster child for the bubble. However, I had learned enough about markets to conclude that something was wrong. In July of 1998 I jettisoned half of my CREF-based index funds and watched the market tank into the Asian Flu. Feeling half genius and half moron, I was determined to get the second half out if the market rallied back. It did, and I was out of indexes by early ’99 and had tight stops on tech favorites as well as a handful of other real winners. They were all gone by mid ’99, pocketing 700% each on Worldcom and Dell, for example. (I never bought a dot-com.) Without a single share of an equity, I paid off the tail-end of my mortgage (debt-free ever since) and went long gold (cost basis 10% of My Net Worth Positions 1.0–10% of My Net Worth Positions 0.10–1.0% of My Net Worth Positions 50%). The bottom is in when the Fed stops dropping rates. The Fed started dropping rates in March 16th, 2024. Let the games begin. I hasten to add that these correlations of rates and returns don’t necessarily indicate causation. The greatest credit event of all would be a recession in which US yields went up, not down. ~ Michael Hartnett By the end, we’re 40 times leveraged with 0.1% growth to get what looks like 4% growth...find me an economist who can tell me what the real unleveraged growth of America is, and people will have an epileptic fit even thinking about it because it’s teeny. ~ David Murrin I am getting increasingly concerned that we have to endure another decline of 5 percent or more before the year is out. ref 33 ~ Sam Stovall, CFRA Research’s chief investment strategist, way over his skis I feel like a lot of what’s perceived as wealth is an inflation illusion. ~ Stephanie Pomboy The Magnificent Seven. The Mag 7—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—are the modern-day Nifty Fifty of 1967 or the 14 Japanese companies rounding out the top 20 companies in the world in 1989. Both offered up spectacular gains, culminating in catastrophic prospective losses. Sometimes the ten largest are discussed, but they lack the catchy name recognition. The Mag 7 are collectively overpriced, moreso than when I launched a diatribe against them in 2022, gloating about their recent beatings only to watch them humiliate me. ref 37 Nvidia (NVDA) has become the market and will be the focus of my scorn. Before projectile vomiting my sour Nvidia grapes, I want to share a few random bullets about the collective Mag 7 and the other players in the Mag 7—the Mag 6—that caught my attention. The only thing less valuable than Tesla stock is a fully grown adult at P. Diddy’s house. ref 38 ~ Lewis Black If you think Silicon Valley knows what it’s doing financially, you really have to rethink things. ~ Jim Chanos, Kynikos Apple’s index representation is set to increase after Buffett’s sale fully unleashed the amount of stock available for trading. In turn, index-tracking funds will need to purchase the shares to mimic its growing heft. ref 43 ~ Bloomberg, failing to understand the definition of “float” ref 44 Nvidia (NVDA) is the poster child of the New Era. I have seen cats chase laser pointers with less enthusiasm. I suspect NVDA and its CEO will be pictured on milk cartons when the next big whoosh lays waste to the indices. Some hang the Ponzi moniker on NVDA owing to massive valuations (50x revenues), shady dealings with Coreweave, and a CEO with bad press from past shenanigans. ~Me, 2023 YIR Nvidia. While nuclear-powered AI is said by some to be the greatest thing since the internet, profits from AI seem to not be materializing. The big players could spend huge bucks just to keep up with each other. Google is at risk of its invader-proof moat drying up. If the generations of technology roll over faster than the R&D can be amortized, AI companies could suffer death by creative destruction. ref 46 Meanwhile, the pick and shovel maker Nvidia has become the first $3 trillion company with a capacity to gain or lose hundreds of billions of dollars in a single day. They added more than the equivalent of Goldman Sachs in one night. Nvidia has become the technology market. To get to a [pre-10:1-share-split] $740 share price simply requires NVDA to maintain a monopolist-like operating profit margin of 55% for the next decade, while also growing sales 10x to more than $600bn. For context, the entire industry sold $527bn worth of chips last year. ~ Jesse Felder (@jessefelder) not knowing that the price would soon double The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Nvidia’s appeal of a court ruling that accuses the company of committing securities fraud. ref 60 ~ Bezinga Headline NVDA investors won’t want to read (and apparently didn’t) Nvidia gets subpoena from US DoJ, Bloomberg News reports –Reuters, another headline NVDA investors didn’t read Nvidia has been a high-wire act for some time. ref 64 ~ Marc Cohodes, 2002 There are a number of people who could have put Jensen in jail. ref 65 ~ Marc Cohodes, 2024, quoting a source I think it is the biggest bubble I’ve ever seen. Nvidia is up $1 trillion in one month. ~ Fred Hickey, The High-Tech Strategist Nvidia is highly unlikely to be a long-term winner as the demand for picks and shovels occurs at the beginning of a gold rush, and then rapidly fades. ref 69 ~ Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research So there you have it. Nvidia is the market. It has offered investors >170% one-year return and a 2400% five-year return. Will their 80% profit margins and valuations at >40x revenue and 100x levered-free cash flow hold up over time? During the dot-com bust Nvidia swan dived 90%. Could the drop be bigger this time? I said yes, ref 70 but what do I know? Here is the bullish case that says they just keep going up. ref 71 AI will likely be transformative and highly profitable, but probably to those who can buy the body parts at a deep discount after a period of carnage. Nvidia provides the infrastructure—the pipes—for AI. Corning provided the infrastructure—the light pipes—for the telecom sector and internet. I have a few questions. Will history refer to the “Magnificent Seven” as a success story or will they become the “Malignant 7” and join the Nifty Fifty and Dotcoms in the Hall of Shame? That I need not even define “Mag Seven” for the reader is a tell. The Yahoo Finance page has a picture of Jensen Huang every...single...day. He has been on countless magazine covers. This seems like the magazine cover jinx that is now an infamous top call, but—and this is Kim Kardashian-sized but—Jensen has not yet been on The Economist . However, as they said in Starwars, there is another... Market Bullets. Before my final wrap up, let’s peek at a couple of funny stories of the type that emerge before the proverbial tide recedes. Chewy surges after ‘Roaring Kitty’ discloses stake. ~ Yahoo Finance Headline When a stock surges 90% because of the “Return of Roaring Kitty”, you know we are currently living in one of the most speculative environments in history. ~ Otavio Costa By the way, what does a whale that can move markets by simply spouting out his blowhole actually look like? This is Roaring Kitty. Are you not entertained now? The Game is indeed nearly over. In conclusion, we are witnessing the great cycle of life. As the markets pull out of some secular low and climb the wall of worry, credit loosens, entrepreneurs begin taking baby steps at creating new wealth, eventually reaching a climax—a blow-off top. Prior to the collapse, the smart guys will have already snuck out the back door to safe havens, leaving the risk in pension plans run by Hillbillies. As the collapse wreaks havoc and crushes the nouveau poor, the “elites” will foreclose on the malinvestment and confiscate the portions of the wealth that survive the washout for pennies on the dollar. Who bought the real estate that went on the auction block in 08–09? Not you or me. Après le deluge, the cycle starts all over again. A 1994 paper by Romer and Akerloff described the great wealth transfer of the boom-bust cycle. I’ve saved my really big concern for last. We appear to be in yet another investment mania. Wall Street guys call it a “blow-off top”, which is coded language for getting you to keep putting your money in through fear that you will miss the best part—the Grand Finale. Lincoln made that mistake too. Yet, somehow, nobody seems euphoric. The Roaring 20s got their name for a reason. The dot-com boom felt like we had catapulted into the future. The housing mania that drove the markets to the ’07 top was euphoric as nouveau homeowners thought Oprah would be giving everybody a house and a pony. During this latest high, by contrast, the Left Half think their lives are over because the Orange Man won. The Right Half voted for the radical reform because they have had enough of the Left Half. The Bottom Half are working two jobs to pay their bills because of the surging cost of living. The Top Half will do anything to avoid returning to the Bottom Half (including selling into a panic). Politicians are despised, the mainstream media is hated, and the healthcare profession killed people. Universities are viewed as neo-Marxist training camps and too damned expensive. It feels like a mix of 1860 USA and 1789 France. Here is the Really Big Question: If everybody is so grumpy at the top, what the hell is the next recession and accompanying bottom going to look like? There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. ~ Albert Einstein, 1932. To state the obvious, energy runs the world. The entire growth of civilization is about harnessing enthalpy (heat) to overcome entropy (chaos). Without the constant input of enthalpy, civilization will decay into a state of maximum entropy, and Bartertown may be our best-case scenario. Beginning with The Quest for Fire , every major advance in cultural evolution demanded increasing energy efficiency from trees, peat bogs, whale blubber, coal, oil, natural gas, and the atom. I am convinced that anthropogenic climate change is a load of anthropogenic crap brought to us by tens of trillions of dollars of anthropogenic grift and global authoritarianism. I have run out of patience with policymakers, corporate decision-makers, and investors who collectively throw up their hands and say, ‘Don’t blame me.’ There is no excuse to fall for the myth of being victimized by the unprecedented. –Stephen Roach in Myth of the Unprecedented Here is where I cut the psychopaths some slack: maybe they are in a position to see that changes are coming and, to quote a famous former governor, “Fuck your freedoms.” The Club of Rome was not nuts asserting exponential growth on a finite orb is arithmetic nonsense as brilliantly described in talks by Albert Bartlett. ref 1 The obvious and final play is nuclear. Perceived risk is amplified by the vivid imagery of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima setbacks; there were no fatalities at the former two, and an estimated 31 died in the immediate aftermath of Chernobyl. By contrast, wind turbines kill several dozen people per year. My interest in energy and electric vehicles is a combination of curiosity, investment opportunity, and tracking the twisted globalists’ quest for global domination. There are plenty of energy experts; I find the pseudonymous Doomberg to be a fabulous source of grounded wisdom. ref 2 The energy transition is failing and will fail. ref 3 ~ Barry Norris, the founder and chief investment officer of UK hedge fund Argonaut Capital Partners LLP Electric Vehicles. The electric vehicles (EVs) came on too fast. You cannot legislate solutions to technical problems. The EV market appears to be heading for a shakeout that is not just about a bursting bubble on Wall Street. It is bullet time: Something super weird is going on, as Tesla was the *only* car company attacked! ref 11 ~ Elon Musk on the German attacks on Giga factory The investment community’s belief that EVs will displace the internal combustion engine remains as strong as ever. We vigorously disagree... Despite claims to the contrary, our research suggests EVs are less energy efficient than internal combustion engine automobiles. As a result, they will fail to gain widespread adoption. ref 15 ~ Goehring & Rozencwajg Electric vehicles (EVs) are piling up on lots across the country as the green revolution hits a speed bump, data show. ref 18 ~ USA Today, November 14, 2023 The road to electrification could be bumpier than anticipated. ~ Stephen Scherr, Hertz CEO...oops...ex-CEO The Twittersphere pointed out that Volkswagen was run by Nazis. She deleted her Twitter account. Well, hells bells. Let’s get more government in the game... I have a particular fondness, I must tell you, for electric school buses. I love electric school buses! I just love them for so many reasons! Maybe because I went to school on a school bus. Hey, raise your hand if you went to school on a school bus! ~ Kamala Harris, former future President The bottom line seems to be that EVs cost way more than ICEs to buy, finance, insure, and repair. They hold value like bananas left on the countertop. You can’t refuel them in two minutes. They can catch fire, rip through tires because of the excessive weight, get written down near zero after a fender bender because the integrity of the battery is unknowable, experience software crashes worse than Windows 95, witness precipitous drop in miles per charge in cold weather, strain the grid, and bankrupt rental agencies because of all of the above. ref 34 Otherwise, they’re great! That leads to the ultimate question: where will we get all the green energy to power all those green cars? The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt Biomass-Derived Energy. I’ve written about biomass before. its problems were vividly laid bare by, of all people, Michael Moore in his Planet of the Humans documentary. ref 35 Destroying the World’s arable soils so that you can drive your car is insane. Of course, the corn lobby will keep the ethanol subsidies coming much the way wool subsidies refuse to die. Otherwise, I sense the idea has already died on the vine. We built a heck of a lot of wind capacity in 2023 in the United States, but the actual amount of wind electricity produced went down simply because you have wind droughts. ref 36 ~ Dan Kish, energy economist, Institute for Energy Research (IER) Wind Turbines. Wind is close behind. Construction and disposal of wind turbines are environmentally brutal. The ornithologists detest the deaths of migratory birds while missing the possible benefits of catching them with nets to make raptor stews. Turbines turn pristine landscapes into eyesores. I used to fish off Wolf Island in the Saint Lawrence River. It is now a big wind farm. Next time you drive by a windfarm, count how many turbines are not turning. Wind turbines seem likely to follow biomass into the dustbin of history. If you want an interesting takedown, listen to this 4-minute riff on wind turbines in the show Landman . ref 37 Let’s shoot them with a few bullets anyway. Solar Power. Cradle-to-grave analyses of the efficacy of alternative energies require a detailed investigation of the overall cost, resource depletion, net energy cost after the consumption of fossil fuels have been accounted for, and all of the above when it comes time for the grave. Analyses by many including David MacKay, ref 43 , 44 , 45 whose work came highly recommended by energy security analyst Iddo Wernick, ref 46 have convinced me alternative “green” energies cannot replace fossil fuels. The incentives for those in the alternative energy industry to carry out such detailed analyses is akin to the incentives of Pfizer to find all the flaws in their drugs and vaccines. The problem of solar panel disposal will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment because it is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle. ref 47 ~ Forbes Hundreds of millions of solar panels are in service; most have a lifespan of under 30 years. Each year, their electric output drops by at least half a percent, and given enough time they must be replaced. Best I can tell, nobody has figured out how to solve the “intractable problem of hazardous waste disposal” ref 48 once the solar panels have gone to the light. I am by no means an expert, but this serves as a warning to eco-bliss-ninnies who embrace alternative energies without much thought. Developers who pocketed huge profits and are arguably responsible for them cradle-to-grave will be long gone when that grave part arrives. I am just topping off years of casual reading about energy, admittedly accruing wisdom incrementally: As Europe and the rest of the World get pounded by energy shortages, people may soon be begging for nuclear power plants in their backyards — NIMBY turns RIMBY (right in my backyard). ~ Dave Collum, 2023, cited In Gold We Trust Nuclear Energy. I have been confident for awhile now that nuclear power was going to return. It must return. The bombing of the Nordstream pipeline struck me as a trigger. Freezing a few asses off in a chilly Northern European winter would have the Germans begging for a plant in their backyards. That didn’t happen, but there emerged an urgent push for nuclear energy that came with little warning inside the Trojan Horse of AI. Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter. ~ Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Chips used for AI suck up 5–10x more power than standard CPU systems. ref 58 I call it a Trojan Horse because I believe the enthusiasm for AI is not just putting pressure to find better sources of energy. AI is being used to generate the “buzz” to get sign-off by the public on nuclear energy. I can imagine a future in which Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are the largest components in the XLE energy index. All the cool kids like Gates, Fink, Jensen, and Altman are on the bandwagon. Moreover, the timescales often cited are in years not decades. Something has changed. The big money is all in, which means nuclear energy is surging. I am playing catchup here, but the “next gen” or “second gen” small modular reactors (SMRs) can be mass produced. Our nuclear sub fleet illustrates the basic idea. Cost estimates are all over the map, but the wild variations appear to trace to regulatory uncertainties, which can be bulldozed if the mood is right. Energy whiz Doomberg did a back-of-the-envelope calculation showing that the footprint of a traditional reactor is

GameStop Discloses Third Quarter 2024 ResultsThe Reform UK leader pushed back against reports suggesting that legal action would be the next step, saying he would make a decision in the next couple of days about his response if there is no apology for the “crazy conspiracy theory”. Mr Farage also said the party has “opened up our systems” to media outlets, including The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times, in the interests of “full transparency to verify that our numbers are correct”. His remarks came after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused Mr Farage of “fakery” in response to Reform claiming they had surpassed the Tories in signed-up members. Mrs Badenoch said Reform’s counter was “coded to tick up automatically”. A digital counter on the Reform website showed a membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election earlier this year. Mr Farage, on whether he was threatening legal action or not, told the PA news agency: “I haven’t threatened anything. I’ve just said that unless I get an apology, I will take some action. “I haven’t said whether it’s legal or anything.” He added: “All I’ve said is I want an apology. If I don’t get an apology, I will take action. “I will decide in the next couple of days what that is. So I’ve not specified what it is.” Mr Farage, on the move to make membership data available to media organisations, said: “We feel our arguments are fully validated. “She (Mrs Badenoch) has put out this crazy conspiracy theory and she needs to apologise.” The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News & FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. I am now demanding @KemiBadenoch apologises. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 27, 2024 On why Mrs Badenoch had reacted as she did, Mr Farage said: “I would imagine she was at home without anybody advising her and was just angry.” Mr Farage, in a statement issued on social media site X, also said: “The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. “Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News and FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. “I am now demanding Kemi Badenoch apologises.” A Conservative Party source claimed Mr Farage was “rattled” that his Boxing Day “publicity stunt is facing serious questions”. They added: “Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.” Mrs Badenoch, in a series of messages posted on X on Thursday, said: “Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.” There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party’s leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in the autumn. Mrs Badenoch claimed in her thread that “the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”. Elsewhere, Mr Farage described Elon Musk as a “bloody hero” and said he believes the US billionaire can help attract younger voters to Reform. Tech entrepreneur Mr Musk met Mr Farage earlier this month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, amid rumours of a possible donation to either Mr Farage or Reform. Mr Farage told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool – Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on and, frankly, that’s only just starting. “Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key. Of course, you need voters of all ages, but if you get a wave of youth enthusiasm you can change everything. “And I think we’re beginning to get into that zone – we were anyway, but Elon makes the whole task much, much easier. And the idea that politics can be cool, politics can be fun, politics can be real – Elon helps us with that mission enormously.”

Aadhaar card online update: Deadline nearing, here’s how to complete the process on timeEarlier today, Kendrick Lamar shocked the world by dropping his new album GNX with absolutely no notice. The release followed months of rumors that he had a new project on the way. So far, social media users aren't disappointed. As reactions continue to roll in, listeners are taking note of any particularly interesting references. This includes a few on the opening track, "wacced out murals." In the second verse, Kendrick appears to call out Lil Wayne and others for their reaction to him securing a headlining slot at the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. This was announced back in September and quickly sparked outrage among hip-hop fans and artists. Many felt as though the opportunity should have gone to Lil Wayne, a pioneer of the genre who's from New Orleans, where the event will take place. Weezy himself even hopped online amid the backlash to address the apparent snub, admitting that he was hurt by it. “That hurt, it hurt a lot ... I thought there was nothing better than that spot, on that stage, on that platform," he said at the time. Read More: Kendrick Lamar Recalls Snoop Dogg Supporting Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle” On New Album It looks like Kendrick is feeling a bit slighted himself, however. In his song, he recalls supporting Lil Wayne and expresses disappointment that it's not been reciprocated. “I used to bump Tha Carter 3 , I held my Rollie chain proud / Irony , I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” he raps. “Got the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me, all these n***** agitated I’m just glad it’s on they faces." Lil Wayne isn't the only one Kendrick calls out in the track, however. He also recalls Snoop Dogg posting Drake 's infamous AI diss, "Taylor Made Freestyle," on his Instagram Story shortly after it was released. He seemed let down by that too, claiming that he couldn't believe it and hoped it was just "the edibles." Read More: Kendrick Lamar Fans Can't Believe They Have A Whole New Surprise Album In Their Hands [Via]American Airlines introduces new boarding technology to stop line-cutting at gate

South Carolina winning run comes to abrupt end after Dawn Staley warning

Evans 1-7 1-2 3, Diakhate 2-6 0-0 4, Avinger 2-7 1-3 5, Flournoy 3-13 0-0 8, Makolo 2-7 0-0 4, Verse 1-3 2-4 4, Summer Davis 2-5 0-0 4, Indya Davis 0-0 0-0 0, Turner 6-16 0-0 15, Totals 19-64 4-9 47 Hall 2-7 0-0 4, Merkle 6-11 0-0 12, Campbell 7-11 0-0 14, Murray 8-16 1-1 24, Oden 1-6 1-2 3, Johnson 1-4 1-1 3, Elliott 3-8 1-1 7, Jekot 0-0 0-0 0, Walker 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 28-63 4-5 67 3-Point Goals_Georgia 5-18 (Avinger 0-2, Flournoy 2-6, Makolo 0-1, S.Davis 0-2, Turner 3-7), Penn St. 7-17 (Murray 7-14, Oden 0-1, Johnson 0-1, Elliott 0-1). Assists_Georgia 11 (Avinger 5), Penn St. 20 (Campbell 7). Fouled Out_Georgia Turner. Rebounds_Georgia 38 (Verse 9), Penn St. 45 (Merkle 11). Total Fouls_Georgia 17, Penn St. 13. Technical Fouls_Georgia Turner 1, Verse 1, Penn St. Johnson 1, Oden 1. A_735.

Celebrity-inspired Thanksgiving recipes, plus last-minute holiday meal ideasEx-CJI Chandrachud removed fear of law from political defectors, claims Raut