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.
Since 2010, the Marche du Nain Rouge has drawn thousands of people to Midtown Detroit each year in a vibrant celebration of community.
I started this blog in 2011, but it took me until 2013 to begin covering the Marche du Nain Rouge. That written, I've been blogging about it long enough that I can say I'm an early adopter.
A festival where creativity wins and the evil spirits are chased away.
I can imagine the after parties. That way, I don't have to attend!
Both of these videos assume some knowledge of the Nain Rouge. I'm sharing Halloween Cocktails 2025: The Lore of the Nain Rouge both to get my new readers up to speed and because I can't resist a good, or at least competent, cocktail recipe video that includes supernatural lore.
Happy Halloween, friends! The lore we are bringing you this wonderful Halloween weekend is based around a Detroit legend known as the Nain Rouge...
I wonder if any of today's after parties are serving one or more of these drinks. Whether or not, drink responsibly!
That's a wrap for today's post. I might observe World Water Day late, or skip it until next year. Stay tuned to find out.
Fox 5 Morning News celebrates Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
I'm with you, Shally.
I'm moving on to the blog's 15th birthday, because lingering more on Nowruz would make me even sadder. On that note, I'm sharing a childhood memory in video form, Put Another Candle on My Birthday Cake - Sheriff John Birthday Song sung by
Bruce Kaplan (Claudia and Bruce).
Claudia Russell and Bruce Kaplan perform their version of the Sheriff John Birthday Song aka the Birthday Polka. If you're from Los Angeles and grew up in the 1950s and early 60s, you very likely know this song.
Unless you grew up in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s, you probably don't know who Sheriff John is, so I'll let Wikipedia explain.
Sheriff John was an American children's television host who appeared on KTTV in Los Angeles from July 18, 1952, to July 10, 1970, on two separate series, Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade and Sheriff John's Cartoon Time. He was played by John Rovick[1] who served as a radio operator-gunner in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, surviving 50 combat missions in the European Theater of Operations. After the war he became a radio announcer, moving to television in its early days. He developed the program's concept himself.
As Sheriff John he began each program entering his office, singing "Laugh and be happy, and the world will laugh with you." He then said the Pledge of Allegiance and read a safety bulletin. He showed cartoons including Q.T. Hush, Underdog, Crusader Rabbit, and Porky Pig; he was often visited by farm animals.[2] An artist, Sketchbook Suzie, drew pictures requested by viewers; he would complete squiggles sent by the children and make a squiggle for them to complete. He also gave them lessons on safety and good health habits.
The show's highlight was the birthday celebration. Sheriff John read as many as 100 names, then brought out a cake and sang the Birthday Party Polka ("Put Another Candle on my Birthday Cake").
I used to watch this show every day after school and have fond memories of it, so when I saw YouTube recommend this video, I knew immediately that it would be today's song. I especially couldn't resist because Claudia and I dated in 1987 when we both worked at the Tar Pits.* It's good to see her again.
That's a wrap for today's double (triple if one counts today as Twitter/X's 20th birthday) celebration. Stay tuned for Marche du Nain Rouge as the Sunday entertainment feature.
*Yes, Claudia is an ex-girlfriend, but she's not the ex-girlfriend I usually mention. As I've written many times, the latter lived in Canada while we were dating, while Claudia and I were both living in Los Angeles. Coincidentally, both have since moved to the San Francisco Bay area. I would find it ironically funny if they have encountered each other while not knowing they both know me.
The Cadets present their 1993 program, "In the Spring, At the Time When Kings Go Off to War". Selections include:
In the Spring, When Kings Go Off to War; Ballet Sacra & On a Hymn song of Philip Bliss
All by David Holsinger
Drum Corps International (DCI) added context in its official upload, Spotlight: 1993 Cadets.
The Cadets' Championship-winning 1993 production, "In the Spring, At the Time When Kings Go Off to War," brought a medieval battle to the football field.
Speaking of official uploads, I'm sharing Cadets History - 1993 from The Cadets account in case Jeff Gray's video gets taken down.
"In the Spring, At the Time When Kings Go Off to War" In the Spring, When Kings Go Off to War, Ballet Sacra, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss
Finished 1st - 97.400
That's a wrap for both today's post and the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Stay tuned for Nowruz and this blog's birthday.
It feels kinda silly to make this video but there are still people super focused on coal and it just feels like they haven't listened to any of the people who know exactly why coal is just not going to be a part of our future power mix, and why that actually has nothing to do with the environment.
I had a feeling "people super focused on coal" referred to Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump, who is choosing an old technology, coal and other fossil fuels, over a newer one, renewables. Hank confirmed it at 11:24 when he showed an executive order of Hoover Harding Cleveland's, then talked about how people who still support coal believe anything that is different from the way things were in 1985 is "woke," making his rant a twenty-minute subtweet. I'm more than OK with that.
Rant or not, I learned a lot from Hank, including about combined-cycle power plants, lead being in coal exhaust along with mercury and radioactive materials, and this graph, which I can show to my students.
Welcome to blogging as professional development.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for the Vernal Equinox, the last post of the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
A lot more depends on fossil fuels than you might expect. Like your medicine cabinet. No, not the plastic pill bottles… the pills /themselves/ might be derived from crude oil. It might be possible to change that and use plastic instead, but we'll need some unexpected help.
Also, this video reminds me that the Commoner's Laws lessons about pollution, "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)" and "There is no free lunch" about the problem and "Nature knows best" for the solutions, also apply to recycling. "Everything is connected to everything else?" Hey, this video connected plastic pollution and recycling to drug chemistry and manufacturing, so it hit all four laws!
That's a wrap for today's post. I'll have more to say about recycling no later than America Recycles Day. In the meantime, stay tuned for another brief educational entry I can share next month, followed by the Vernal Equinox.
In Irish folklore, Cú Chulainn was one of the greatest warriors ever to live. From his first battle against a vicious hound at the age of 6 to his last against an entire army just two decades later, Cú Chulainn lived a legendary, but short life. Some might call him a tragic hero, but is it tragic to get everything you ever wanted?
No, Dr. Moiya McTier, it's not really tragic. Cursed and blessed at the same time, maybe, but not any more tragic than the story of El Cid, which the ending reminds me of.
The Blood Of Cu Chulainn Official Music Video by Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna...
The Blood of Cu Chulainn has become known as the Theme to The Boondock Saints films, but was first released on Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna's 1998 album, A Celtic Romance: Legend of Liadain and Curithir.
I couldn't resist the music, animals, and landscapes, although as a biologist and geologist, I could tell that many of the latter are not Irish. No matter, they're pretty and fit the music.
Get ready to celebrate ST. PATRICK’S Day with the most viral green cocktails!
These drinks are festive, fun, creamy, and refreshing — perfect for your St. Patrick’s Day party. Whether you’re hosting friends or celebrating at home, these cocktails will bring the luck of the Irish straight to your glass!
He's not Tipsy Bartender, but he said "And there you have it" to make up for it.
That's a wrap for today's holiday. Stay tuned for an educational post I can share next month.
I first wrote "the dessert bananas people eat are threatened by fungus because of the unintended effects of growing monocultures of clones" ten years ago, and I haven't stopped warning my students about it since. It's right up there with bees as a story I tell my students, although I write about bees a lot more here than bananas. The last time was 2021 and the time before that was 2014. The latter was an audition for a video to show my students instead of "The Top Banana" trailer, and it failed. They decided that they liked the more fun teaser for a documentary that never happened than the more informative Seeker video. I didn't even try the Business Insider video. I'm planning on trying again with Bananapocalypse: Why Bananas May Go Extinct by Vice News.
I think I showed the Vice News video once three years ago and it didn't get nearly the reaction that "The Top Banana" regularly gets, so the latter stayed in my lectures on biodiversity as natural capital. I plan on trying one more time with Vox explaining why The banana is under threat.
Bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruits. They’re a staple crop in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the US, the average person eats more than 25 pounds of bananas per year.
The banana found in nearly every lunch bag, smoothie, and cereal is likely a Cavendish banana (a single variety that accounts for 99 percent of global exports), despite there being over 1,000 different species of bananas. This kind of uniformity is what allows the beloved banana to be cheap, durable, and ubiquitous.
It also makes them extremely vulnerable.
A variant of Panama disease, a soil fungus that once wiped out the world’s most commercial banana, the Gros Michel, in the 1950s, is back. And this time, there’s no obvious replacement for it waiting around the corner. So what will it take to save one of the world’s most beloved fruits?
This video explores how monocropping became both a blessing and a curse in the search for the most commercially viable banana, how this assumed ubiquity could lead to the end of the banana as we know it, and what scientists are doing to prevent the extinction of the Cavendish.
Between giving up the Cavendish for other varieties of bananas or accepting genetically modified Cavendish bananas, I'd bet on Americans accepting GMO Cavendish bananas first. We already eat a lot of GMOs in our corn and especially soybeans and have for years.
The rest of the world may not be so accepting and might be persuaded to expand the diversity of the bananas they eat.
This video reminds me of another Vox video I show to my students right after "The Top Banana" trailer, The race to save endangered foods.
Wild animals aren’t the only ones facing extinction.
...
We’re letting foods we’ve eaten for thousands of years disappear from farmers’ fields, and from our plates. Saving them isn’t just a matter of cultural preservation. In the next 30 years, we’re going to need to learn how to feed more people on a hotter planet, and the more genetic varieties we lose, the harder it’ll be to adapt.
To learn more about the foods facing extinction in the US and around the world, check out the Ark of Taste, a project of Slow Food USA.
Journalist Mark Shapiro’s book, Seeds of Resistance, goes into much more detail about the risk that genetic homogeneity poses to our food supply. He also profiles some of the efforts, many led by indigenous communities, to preserve older seed varieties.
For more on seed relabeling, check out the Farmers Business Network’s 2018 Seed Relabeling Report.
The chart on declining global yields for corn, wheat, and rice comes from an article in the academic journal Disasters and Climate Change Economics from agricultural economists Mekbib G. Haile, Tesfamicheal Wossen, Kindie Tesfaye, and Joachim von Braun. Their prediction model takes into account both climate change and price volatility, which is why their estimates are higher than those of some other researchers.
Special thanks to Marie Haga of Global Crop Diversity Trust, and Marleni Ramírez of Bioversity International for sharing their knowledge with me.
The students like this one, too, which I play right after "The Top Banana," but I wonder whether two Vox videos back-to-back will have the same impact.
I've spread the myth about banana flavoring being based on the taste of the Gros Michel before I watched this video. Now I say that banana flavoring is more like the smell of Gros Michel. That made watching this video worth it to learn that fact alone and correct my teaching. As I've written before and hope to write again, any day I learn something new is a good day.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
There’s a saying that, when Rome falls, the whole world will fall. Which frankly seems a little melodramatic and egotistical on the part of the Romans. Except that they kinda had a point when you realize the fall of Rome affected basically everything in Europe up to and including /the body size of wild animals/. Here's how the fall of the Roman Empire made animals smaller.
When I created this blog, I called it "A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it." I've shifted away from that, making this more "A blog about sustainability with a science fiction slant and a Detroit perspective," as it says on the Crazy Eddie's Motie News Facebook page (if you're still on Facebook, please follow), but I've never changed the description here after 15 years. That's because, deep down, I still believe in the mission I set for myself in March 2011.
SciShow's video demonstrates that the collapse of the Western Roman Empire affected not only humans and their domesticated animals, but also the wild animals, mostly mammals, around them. Welcome to one of Commoner's Laws, "Everything is connected to everything else."
I turn to The History Guy for a lesson about the significance of the date, Beware the Ides of March.
He likes alliteration even more than I do! Speaking of alliteration, I can't escape entertainment entirely today, so I'm sharing Vehicle (Remastered) by Ides of March.
Vehicle (Remastered) · Ides Of March
That's a wrap for today's sort of holiday. Stay tuned for an educational post I can share next month followed by a celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
In a battle for the worst, find out who will win and who will be denied the $4.97 gold-spray-painted Razzie statuette! And stick around to the end - there's a surprise!
I'm only tolerating the AI animation because it was a deliberate slap at the Seven CGI Dwarves, so it had a point. Also, Melania's hat emerging from the water is only a surprise to people those who weren't paying attention. The Razzies telegraphed this revelation in The Razzie-Buzz is deafening!.
Ice Cube and War of the Worlds (2025) win the battle for most Razzie take-homes!
Kate Hudson redeems her previous Razzie nods with her pitch-perfect performance in Song Sung Blue.
It was a decisive battle and War of the Worlds won the 46th Razzie® Awards hands down! Becoming a cult hate-watch classic almost immediately, War of the Worlds (the 2025 version) has been cemented in Razzie history as a near sweeper of our $4.97 trophy winner. Remake, Actor, Screenplay, Director, and Picture win huge for this Amazon Prime offering. Utterly destroying H.G Wells classic novel, director Rich Lee (maybe inspired by Ed Wood) chose a goofy gimmick, hack dialogue, and a particularly hilarious performance by its lead, Ice Cube, to seize 2025’s biggest number of statues.
Another reimagined winner was the Disney 2025 version of Snow White, whose artificial dwarfs couldn’t escape the Razzie for a couple of trophies. It cost a fortune and lost a fortune, perhaps cursed by Walt himself for having ignored his dying wish for it never to be remade.
Other winners include Rebel Wilson for her not-quite-believable performance as an action hero in Bride Hard with weaponized curling irons and Scarlet Rose Stallone for her modernized performance in the odd western, Gunslingers.
This year’s recipient of the Razzie Redeemer Award is Kate Hudson for her pitch perfect performance in Song Sung Blue after a string of Razzie nods (Music, Mother’s Day and My Best Friend’s Girl) following her Oscar nomination for Almost Famous.
At least these were the pickings of our globe-spanning, opinionated Razzie Award Members.
...
Full List of 46th Razzie Award Winners
WORST PICTURE - War Of The Worlds (2025)
WORST ACTOR - Ice Cube / War Of The Worlds (2025)
WORST ACTRESS - Rebel Wilson / Bride Hard
WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Scarlet Rose Stallone / Gunslingers
WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR - All Seven Artificial Dwarfs / Snow White
RAZZIE REDEEMER AWARD - Kate Hudson for “Song Sung Blue”
WORST SCREEN COMBO - All Seven Artificial Dwarfs / Snow White
WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL - War of the Worlds (2025)
WORST DIRECTOR - Rich Lee / War Of The Worlds (2025)
WORST SCREENPLAY - War Of The Worlds (2025) / Kenny Golde, Marc Hyman
RAZZIE REDEEMER AWARD – Kate Hudson / Song Sung Blue
“Wins Per Picture”
“War Of The Worlds” (2025) = 5 (Worst Picture, Actor, Remake -
Rip-Off, Director, Screenplay)
Disney’s Snow White (2025) = 2 (Worst Supporting Actor, Screen Combo)
Rebel Wilson in “Bride Hard” = 1 (Worst Actress)
Scarlet Rose Stallone = 1 (Worst Supporting Actress)
I close with The Three Stooges wishing a Happy Pi Day!
Happy #PiDay from The Three Stooges! We're celebrating 3.14 with a pie to the face today.
Pies in the face to all the Razzie "winners!"
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature. Should I cover the Best International Feature Film nominees at the Oscars, animation and song, or something else?
Including Bugonia got pushback in the replies; several users questioned its inclusion or flatly stated that it's not horror. I'm agree; it's science fiction that appeals to horror fans, but it's not horror.
Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic and the fifteenth anniversary of the Fukushima triple disaster. Stay tuned to see which one I write about.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is expected to discuss further investment and energy cooperation when she meets with U.S. President Trump this month — with nuclear power and related technology likely to remain a key theme. On the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, CNBC's Kaori Enjoji examines how this deepening economic and energy engagement could draw Japan further into a geopolitical tug-of-war and weigh on its companies.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is a lot like Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump in choosing an old technology over a newer one. In her case, it's nuclear energy over renewables. In his case, it's coal and other fossil fuels. I think she's maker the smarter choice. I really don't like coal and would pick nuclear energy over it, although I really prefer renewables.
Takuma Hashimoto was just three when the 2011 tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown near his home in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture. Now, the 18-year-old student is training to become a nuclear engineer. His journey mirrors a national shift; 15 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan is choosing energy security over its nuclear trauma. As the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East squeeze global supplies, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is leading a pivot back to nuclear power. With public support at record highs, Japan is waking up to a stark reality: for the most resource-poor G7 nation, nuclear energy is no longer a risk, but a lifeline.
The world's biggest nuclear power plant is back on line in Japan. Engineers flipped the switch to power up the plant 15 years after the Fukushima disaster, which killed an estimated 20,000 people. Tokyo Electric Power Company is responsible for Fukushima, and is also in charge of this plant. That fact alone has residents near the facility opposed to the plan.
Al Jazeera’s Patrick Fok reports from Kashiwazaki in western Japan.
Two things. First, the tsunami killed the overwhelming majority of victims, not the meltdown. Second, the Fukushima plant performed as designed; it was the failure of the backup generators, which the tsunami drowned, that led to the meltdowns. The higher seawalls help protect against both of those reoccurring, so I'm relieved to see them.
That's a wrap for today's anniversary. Stay tuned to see if I cover COVID-19 tomorrow.
There are obviously lots of angles to this story, and it’s dangerous to wade into things without knowing how they will play out. So we waited to see if anything positive might emerge after the initial assassination of the despicable Khamenei (whose name was in an early draft of a chorus), and what the Trump administration/regime’s purported rationale was … and over subsequent days as we watched the grotesque media performances by Hegseth, the missiles killing children not just tyrants, and the escalation of damage and casualties without any sign of a coherent policy or endgame, we made the song about how it’s dangerous to wade into things without knowing how they’re going to play out.
If we’d known undead Tony Blair was going to remerge from the media crypt with some pearls of wisdom on Sunday, we would have probably made space to take the piss out of that ... but it would have been counterproductive to just parachute in (a bit like in 2003).
The original track “Eve of Destruction” was only reluctantly laid down at the end of a recording session by a gravelly-voiced Barry McGuire, and the demo leaked to a radio station where it was an instant hit in a country torn apart and increasingly divided over foreign wars and domestic protests in late 1965. Phil Sloan wrote the song months earlier, after the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was central to LBJ’s justification for US escalation in Vietnam. We had it on our radar for a future conflict, but want to give a shoutout to Kevin Ellis for urging us to use it to address this conflict.
If you want to hear a properly mixed folk-pop song of ours about the heroic protest movement in Iran, then you can find “Zan Zendegi Azadi” on our forthcoming album.
With luck, this might not be worth sharing in April, because by then the conflict might be over. High oil prices are bad for the economy and worse for Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump and the Republicans running for Congress. He might just declare victory and quit bombing. All of us should be so lucky.
Like many suburban malls in America, Westminster Mall was the classic indoor shopping experience when it opened in 1974. It lasted through renovations, recessions and major store closures, all continuing to be a local community hub. However, it would ultimately close in 2025 and in just a matter of weeks, it's interiors were completely trashed. After making headlines for it's steep decline, it seems now that the mall will best be known for the destruction that followed its closure. So join me today as we find out what happened to the once local California icon that was, the Westminster Mall.
Jake Williams managed to find an example of the entire rise and fall of the American mall in this one site. That bodes well for his next feature-length project of the same name. May it fare better than Closed forStorm, which showed great promise, but didn't make as much of a splash as Class Action Park. That was fun, but not very thoughtful; Defunctland made a smarter video on a much smaller budget.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for something brief I can share in April, no fooling.
Happy International Women's Day! Yesterday, I asked "Actresses and other female-dominated categories at the Oscars, anyone?" I didn't see any comments to the contrary, so that's what I'm covering for the Sunday entertainment feature today as filtered through Gold Derby's odds. Jessie Buckley leads Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role as the original Anne Hathaway in Hamnet with every editor and expert plus 96.3% of users. Rose Byrne sits in second with the support of 2.5% of users. She's followed by Renate Reinsve at 0.6%, Emma Stone at 0.5%, and Kate Hudson at 0.1%. I voted for Stone at the Saturn Awards and hope she wins tonight; she's not winning here.
The contest for Best Actress in a Supporting role is more competitive, as Amy Madigan currently leads as the choice of 80.0% of editors, 58.3% of experts, and 49.0% of users, Teyana Taylor, winner of the Critics Choice and Golden Globe, close behind with the support of 10.0% of editors, 19.4% of experts, and 27.7% of users, BAFTA winner Wunmi Mosaku on her tail as the pick of 10.0% of editors, 22.2% of experts, and 21.7% of users, with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning far behind at 1.3% and 0.3% of users, respectively.* That's quite a change from late January, when Taylor led the Gold Derby odds. While I voted for Ariana Grande at the Saturn Awards, I expect Madigan to win tonight and am rooting for her to win on the 15th.
Follow over the jump for the nominees in three craft categories dominated by women.
I told my readers, "I have one or two more posts planned for the Saturn Awards nominees before the awards on Sunday night, so stay tuned." Without any further ado, here are the nominees for Best New Genre Series.
Best New Genre Series:
Alien: Earth
Outlander: Blood of My Blood
Pluribus
Robin Hood
Spartacus: House of Ashur
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
Pluribus leads this category with four nominations, followed by Alien: Earth and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew tied at three each, then Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Robin Hood, and Spartacus: House of Ashur with just this one. The professional choices are Pluribus and Alien: Earth, both of which earned Critics Choice Award nominations and the former also a Golden Globe nomination along with awards for Rhea Seehorn for her acting. I voted for Pluribus, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Alien: Earth wins instead. I also wouldn't be surprised if Star Wars: Skeleton Crew or Outlander: Blood of My Blood upsets both of the professional picks. Both of the latter have dedicated fandoms and the former was a really fun adaptation of Treasure Island combined with Goonies/Stranger Things that worked in a Star Wars setting. As I last wrote in Animation and International Film nominees at the Saturn Awards, "the Saturn Awards are about entertainment not art, they don't care for subtle, and they love to stick it to the experts." Also, electorates matter.
Follow over the jump for the remaining television nominees plus all of my votes and some predictions.
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.
