A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Anne Rice’s Talamasca: The Secret Order
The Institute
It: Welcome to Derry
The Last of Us
The Walking Dead: Dead City
Yellowjackets
As Deadline Hollywood reported, It: Welcome to Derry leads this category with five nominations, followed by Anne Rice’s Talamasca: The Secret Order and The Institute with two then The Last of Us, The Walking Dead: Dead City, and Yellowjackets with just the series nomination. On that basis, I think It: Welcome to Derry is the favorite and I expect it will win. I didn't vote for it; I voted for The Last of Us because Stranger Things is competing in fantasy. Honestly, I think The Walking Dead: Dead City is the zombie show with a better chance of winning at these awards. Remember, electorates matter.
Best Television Presentation:
The Beast in Me
Black Mirror
Murderbot
Nautilus
The Pitt
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
One other show about the zombie apocalypse leads its category, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon with three nominations. The rest have just this one nomination, so I think The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is the favorite. If it wins, it will be without my help; I voted for Emmy, Critics Choice Award, and Golden Globe winner The Pitt. I think it's a ringer in this category, but I don't care.
I have one or two more posts planned for the Saturn Awards nominees before the awards on Sunday night, so stay tuned.
The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films has officially announced the nominees for the 53rd Annual Saturn Awards, and Stranger Things 5 is leading the pack for television. The series secured a nomination for Best Fantasy Television Series, cementing its status as the "king of nostalgia horror" even in its final season.
But the honors didn't stop at the series level. The cast also cleaned up with several individual nominations, proving that the performances in the series finale were some of the strongest in the show's decade-long history:
Best Actress in a Television Series: Millie Bobby Brown
Best Young Performer in a Television Series: Sadie Sink & Noah Schnapp
Best Guest Star in a Television Series: Linda Hamilton
The show is tied with other genre giants like Andor and IT: Welcome to Derry, each earning 5 nominations. The ceremony is set to take place on Sunday, March 8, 2026, at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles, with Joel McHale returning to host for his fourth consecutive year.
The same search that retrieved this video returned six other shorts, mostly about Sadie Sink and Noah Schnapp's nominations. That's a sign of an enthusiastic fandom.
Meanwhile, Outlander fandom, which skews older, is running a Twitter/X campaign with images like this.
This isn't quite the official campaign Starz ran in 2021, but it is something.
Between the two, I voted for Stranger Things, although I would not be the least surprised if Outlander wins.
By the way, seeing Ghosts and Wednesday here makes me miss the Best Genre Comedy category that debuted at last year's awards. If it had returned, I'd have voted for Wednesday.
Follow over the jump for the two acting categories I haven't covered yet.
Last year, we challenged marching bands at all collegiate levels to come up with the most exciting, unique, and impressive performances of our songs. The submissions are in, we’ve watched the videos, and we’re thrilled to announce that the University of South Carolina has taken the top prize in the 2025 Collegiate Edition of the annual competition. Congratulations Gamecocks! A huge thank you to all the incredible bands who participated this year.
The winners across seven categories listed below will receive more than $165,000 in total prizes. In an exciting twist on our second For Whom The Band Tolls competition, this year’s first-place Division 1 winner will have the opportunity to record a Metallica song and the EA SPORTS™ College Football Theme Song, both to be included in the EA SPORTS™ College Football video game!
The victors in each category will receive instruments and equipment for their programs provided by us with the support of our generous sponsors, including Sweetwater, TAMA, Hal Leonard, KHS America, and more.
And the winners of the Metallica Marching Band Competition Collegiate Edition are…
Follow over the jump for the complete shows of the winners.
Jon Stewart dives into America and Israel’s impromptu attack on Iran, Trump’s laid-back war announcement from the Mar-a-Lago basement, and MAGA’s refusal to sell the American people on the plan, purpose, and duration of the war. Plus, Jordan Klepper reveals America’s calculated war strategy: winging it.
Twenty-five years ago, one of my reactions to 9-11 was to look at Bush the Younger's administration and be reassured that at least these people, particularly Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell, knew how to fight a war, no matter what my other opinions were of them. It took me two years, after it became obvious they were botching the occupation of Iraq, to figure out that they didn't really have a plan for an occupied Iraq beyond shock doctrine. I have no such illusions about Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump and Pete Hegseth; it's obvious from the get-go that they don't have a plan at all beyond being so intimidating that Iran just backs down. That's not happening. Once again, the voices Trump listens to, both inside and outside his head, are not reliable sources. Speaking of unreliable sources, watching all these people, particularly Tulsi Gabbard, praise Hoover Harding Cleveland for being the "peace candidate" has aged really poorly.
President Trump still hasn't told the American people why he's bombing Iran, the U.S. and Israel have sent mixed messages about whether the goal is regime change, and Secretary Hegseth boasted that the military will disregard customary rules of engagement during this campaign.
Stephen is right; Bush the Younger did sell the Iraq War to the American people and the world and got an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) the year before we invaded. Hoover Harding Cleveland didn't bother. Democracy? Representative government? Rule of law? Who cares? Not Hoover Harding Cleveland!
Not only does Hoover Harding Cleveland have neither a plan (maybe Benjamin Netanyahu does) nor respect for process, he can't even decide on a pretext. I suspect all of his excuses are equally valid or invalid to him. He'd be more honest if he said "I felt like it." That's an emotion, not a reason, but at least he and I would believe it.
Seth takes a closer look at the Trump administration launching a war with Iran without any clear strategy for how it would end, how long it would last or who would take over.
In a Yahoo News essay, Leerhsen describes the Trump he worked with from 1988 to 1990 as mostly "bored out of his mind," a "failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he'd held the all-important press conference."
Trump was making huge, outrageously leveraged, financially ruinous deals, but day-to-day, he spent "surprisingly large" amounts of time "looking at fabric swatches," Leerhsen writes. "Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation," and "some days he would do it for hours," probably because fabric swatches "were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn't."
Leerhsen elaborated Thursday evening on CNN. "At this time, like, things were really going to hell in his business," but "in the center of that was this quiet office where he was going through fabric swatches most of the day, and in the middle of all this Sturm und Drang, he was oblivious to it," he told Erin Burnett.
Nearly 40 years later, he hasn't changed, except to get older and more set in his ways.
Early Saturday morning just after midnight the Pentagon launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran, Trump monitored the attack from his bunker at Mar-a-Lago, he claims that the operation in Iran could last four to five weeks or longer, six Americans were killed in the counter-attacks, even Ted Cruz said that he saw “no indication” that Iran was close to getting nuclear weapons, we all thought he was supposed to be the President of Peace, Trump is all of a sudden about toppling regimes even though he thought not being able to make a deal was seen as a negative, he rambled about drapes during a Medal of Honor ceremony, Melania was in New York to preside over a meeting of the UN Security Council, former President Bill Clinton testified for more than six hours about Jeffrey Epstein, and Lauren Boebert explains inflation.
In addition to not having a serious plan, Hoover Harding Cleveland and his maladministration have terrible opsec. That'snothingnew.
I made enough fun of the First Lady in Randy Rainbow sings 'The Fate of Melania' and other parodies, so I'll move on to Lauren Boebert. She caused trouble with the Clinton depositions and couldn't define inflation. As Jimmy K pointed out, she never graduated high school and doesn't follow the rules. She should be happy there are worse Republican politicians, otherwise, I'd make a label for her. Maybe I should anyway.
Whether you're launching Benjamin into manhood or missiles into the Middle East, Mar-a-Lago has all the amenities!
Marjorie Merriweather Post, who build Mar-A-Lago, wanted it to be the Winter White House. That eventually happened, but I wonder if Post would be happy about how that came true and what Hoover Harding Cleveland uses it for. Maybe not, but I'm not holding a seance to find out.
India Naftali reports from the Jaffa port, where the Indian Embassy in Israel and Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality have organized a special Holi-Purim festival to celebrate both holidays.
Early Tuesday morning, the moon will go red and we will witness a total lunar eclipse.
At around 3 a.m. on March 3, we will see March’s full moon pass through Earth’s shadow, turning it a copper color for 58 spell-binding minutes.
Shannon Schmoll, the director of Abram’s Planetarium at Michigan State University, joined Local 4 Live to talk more about the eclipse.
It might be clear enough to see the Moon early this morning. I'll probably be asleep, but if I'm up, I'll look.
Oliver had two comments about Paramount purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery, but the first one didn't get uploaded to YouTube and the second is buried deep inside last night's main story. I'll embed that after the season premiere, ICE & DHS.
John Oliver discusses ICE’s repeated atrocities over the past months and explores the massive entity overseeing it all: the Department of Homeland Security. How it started, who runs it, and how many hats Kristi Noem owns.
I knew DHS was big, but I didn't know it was the third largest federal government department by number of employees behind the Department of Defense (not War, not until Congress acts) and Department of Veterans Affairs. By size of budget, DHS is sixth behind Health and Human Services, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Transportation. Welcome to the US government being an insurance company with an army. That's still a lot of money. As the graphic below shows, ICE alone has a budget larger than militaries of Turkey, Spain, and the Netherlands and just smaller than Canada's.
All of those are facts I didn't know before watching this segment, which meant that I learned three new things, making today a good day.
Now for the sequel, last night's Police Body Cameras. Watch carefully for the remark about Paramount; blink and you'll miss it.
John Oliver discusses why police body cameras can be useful, or useless, depending on whether they’re used properly, and yeah, he also discusses what it looks like to arrest a giant mouse. Because of course he does.
In theory, body cameras are a good thing, but we should be careful, if not downright vigilant, about how police use them in practice. This includes review of body camera footage, the equivalent of which Oliver seems to be daring Paramount to do to his show. Looks like he will have an even more hostile relationship with Paramount than he had with AT&T. That should be entertaining.
Congratulations! May the new ownership keep Oliver around for the awards the show wins, although that didn't save Stephen Colbert. Then again, Paramount renewed The Daily Show, so there's hope.
President Trump (James Austin Johnson) and Sec. Hegseth (Colin Jost) speak after the United States launched a series of military strikes against Iran.
I was hoping for a mocking of the State of the Union, but, no, Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump had to top himself just four days later. The result was this cold open with whatever the writers could come up with in one day. They weren't happy about it, either.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like American Girl Doll collectors complaining about alleged changes to the dolls.
I wish I were surprised at Hawking being in the Epstein files. If I have learned nothing else from this scandal, it's that Epstein was relentless in cozying up to rich, powerful, and influential men and a lot of those men not only didn't resist his efforts, but seemed to enjoy them. Hawking was one of them. Surprised, no. Disappointed, yes.
Follow over the jump for Weekend Update's interviews and the monologue.
"A woman whose initials, when spoken aloud, not only describe her mind but her body and soul." *Snork* She hasn't changed these past nine years, inside and out.
That interview needed a song, which Randy provided his second time around with her in Just BE BEST!
THE RANDY RAINBOW SHOW: "Just Be Best!"
Randy has changed; he didn't include that this a parody of "Be Our Guest" in the video description, although maybe he didn't need to; it's exactly what I expected.
That's a wrap for today and the month of February. Stay tuned for highlights of tonight's Saturday Night Live as tomorrow's Sunday entertainment feature to begin March's blogging. SNL has lots of news to laugh at so we and they don't cry.
What happens when a planet crosses a climate tipping point it can’t recover from? Venus may hold the answer.
Scientists think Venus once had oceans, water, and a climate that may have resembled early Earth. But something pushed the planet past a threshold. Water evaporated, greenhouse warming spiraled, and Venus became the hottest planet in our solar system.
So what was that tipping point? And could anything like it happen on Earth?
In this episode of Weathered, Maiya May explores the science behind runaway greenhouse effects, ancient volcanic carbon releases, and one of the most surprising climate wildcards scientists have discovered: the potential collapse of stratocumulus clouds.
From crocodiles in the Arctic during past hothouse climates to cutting-edge models of cloud loss under extreme CO2 levels, this episode investigates what keeps Earth’s climate stable and what could push it toward irreversible change.
Earth isn’t turning into Venus anytime soon. But Venus reveals something more important: what happens when a planet loses its brakes.
That was something I learned back in November. The new fact I learned today was about how stratocumulus clouds, which form at the top of the marine layer, work and what the model predicts would happen when carbon dioxide levels go about 1200 ppm. That makes today a good day, as any day I learn something new is a good day.
This wraps up today's evergreen educational entry. Stay tuned for an entertainment entry I will share next month. Randy Rainbow just uploaded a new song!
