If you can't remember having amnesia, how can you be sure it really happened?

Ex-Mr. Kellyanne Conway Cries as He Admits Blowing His Children’s Inheritance on Defeating Trump
April 9, 2026

29-Year-Old NASA Nuclear Propulsion Engineer Went Missing Last July, Found Dead in Burned-Out Tesla Wreck
April 23, 2026

□ [“Trump Announces Israel and Lebanon Have Agreed to Extend Ceasefire by Three Weeks"]

This annoys me less than the same ceasefire for the same reason with Iran.  At least with Iran, it's direct and we should just wipe them out.  I'm positive that Iran's involved with Lebanon although I have no idea whether they're the cause or if they're just supporting their own people.  This actually does sound like a more-valid way of bringing peace to the region and I'm sure whoever's in charge of Iran doesn't like it.

□ [“NYT:   Iranian Supreme Leader Is Waiting for Prosthetic Leg, Will Need Face Surgery"]

Did he otherwise look in decent shape?  How was his voice?  They did speak to him directly, didn't they?  Or are they just reporting what government officials want people to hear?  Something about that seems kinda iffy.  The NYT could at least cite their sources who spoke to the Ayatollah in the last couple days, just to confirm that he's still alive.  Otherwise, what are they paying for?

It's slowly becoming clear that the last fifty years or so of leftism has been directed by Iran and the New York Times is one of their central pillars, so nothing about this seems believable.  It's entirely possible he's still alive but as the spiritual leader of the nation, his supporters would need to promote that constantly.  Otherwise he just looks weak and easy-to-ignore, basically the same situation his father has been in for the last couple months.  That's not going to help win a war against the infidel.

New Jersey Congressman Has Been Missing for Over a Month - No One Has Seen or Heard from Him
April 23, 2026

US Soldier Used Classified Information on Maduro's Capture to Profit $400,000 with Polymarket Bets
April 23, 2026

□ [“Thousands of Californians Finally Get Permits to Rebuild from Wildfires After Trump's EO"]

The left runs the government, they allowed the fires, did nothing to stop them, burned down all these houses and then prevented people from rebuilding.  Trump took action with an executive order in January with overruled all the regulation and delays.  I'm not saying California deserves that but it's still a good move.  I also think it's an example of the larger plan we're getting a glimpse of.

Essentially, hoping I'm not being naively-optimistic, the plan was to pull back and let Democrats show off who they really are.  They've won most of the random elections that have happened since November 2024 and their ilk is already causing problems, even for their voters.  A Muslim socialist became New York City mayor and has almost completely failed to keep any of his promises.  Not only that, he's being sued by a neighborhood of rich people who voted for him because he's trying to build a homeless shelter there.  Leftists don't want poor people around them yet here they are.  Meanwhile Virginia's new governor is pushing programs she campaigned against.

All across the board, they're showing that they'll lie to gain power and already gloating about the tyranny they'll inflict on people they don't like as soon as they get the chance.  That's what I suspect the administration planned.  Between his experience with negotiations and the stern military men he's appointed, they are using tactics and strategy to build up to the mid-terms.  Meanwhile Democrats are busy trying to delude themselves into thinking they're doing great.  They did that in November 2024, and June 2024 before that, and look how that worked out for them.

California continues to be the main symbol of what they're doing.  Gavin Newsom thinks he's entitled to be installed as POTUS and doesn't have much to show for his years of failing upwards.  He was supposed to be replaced by Eric Swalwell who was the big favorite just a couple weeks ago.  They're still trying to avoid explaining why they put themselves into this mess and haven't even gotten around to explaining Biden and Harris.  I don't know how it's possible but I really do think the Trump administration has prepared for this.  Newsom spending a billion dollars to bring in hundreds of thousands of illegals isn't really going to help them.

London rental ads exclude applicants based on religion and offering “Muslims only” housing
April 23, 2026

The first two issues of Spider-Man consist of two stories each.  It is not known what order they were created in.  The second story in each issue was 10 pages, the length of the story in Amazing Fantasy #15, so it's most-likely that they were created to run in that title, before learning that the book had been cancelled, cover-dated August 1962.  So when the new series was started, March 1963, longer stories were created to fill out the remaining pages, before moving to stories that filled the whole issue.

For convenience, I assume that the respective stories in each issue were created in that order, #1 story two, #2 story two, #1 story one, #2 story one.  That may just be my own aesthetics and unless someone can dig up Marvel payment records from 63 years ago, we will never know the truth.  The reason I put them in this order was because that I do assume Spider-Man had always intended to be the centerpoint of the franchise, interacting with other characters.  In this story, he meets the Fantastic Four.

It's not even a special event, noteworthy for its own sake.  Carrying on from the death of his uncle, Peter Parker needs to bring in money, so he thinks he can get a job with the FF.  It's a quick two-page scene, entertaining for what it is, then it gets back to the main topic of the story.  Jack Kirby would do an expanded version of it a couple years later, selling the same thing to the Fantastic Four audience, just in case they weren't the same readers.

Marvel heroes to this point did not fight standard supervillains, they fought monsters, aliens and Russians.  Although the Chameleon is a Russian spy, he's otherwise treated as a normal supervillain.  His plan is to trick the hero and impersonate him while committing a crime so he'll get the blame.  The use of a fistfight to solve the problem was modified.  In a fight with police, Spidey didn't even realize he had revealed the Chameleon who was now impersonating an officer, and ran away thinking he had failed.

Ditko's layout and pacing also stands out, changing camera-angle often to show what's going on while other times leaving it the same for multiple panels to show the reaction of the characters.  It's been a long time since I looked this closely at other superhero books from this era so I don't know how brilliant and original this really was at the time, but it still stands up quite well.  It's a very entertaining way to push the new character.

The next story is the most out-of-character event in Ditko's run.  At school, Peter is picked for a weekend job by a scientist.  His first task will be to pick up a radio sent in for repairs.  The repair shop is suspicious so later Spider-Man investigates and discovers aliens planning to conquer the Earth.  Once again, the pacing is actually quite good although the story just gets dumber as it progresses and we never hear about this again.  Every single other Ditko story had something that would eventually return or be relevant, this was essentially one of the monster stories Marvel was already doing.

The opening story in #1 is where the overall tone of the series is seen.  Peter recaps his origin and tries to think of ways to bring in money to earn a living and support his aunt.  Crime's not an option and no entertainment company will pay him cash.  This introduces the media tycoon J. Jonah Jameson.  He hates Spider-Man just because he can and is also promoting his son who is an astronaut.  Back in the early-60s, those were the ones promoted as heroes.  Of course Jameson's son has rocket problems, only Spidey can save him and that just gives the media another excuse to hate him.

The theme of big media and business is introduced and will slowly build through Ditko's run.  The point was that Spider-Man was trying to do the right thing and ended off worse at the end of the story because of it.  That's a believable human problem everyone can relate to.  It's unknown how much Lee and Ditko really thought about this and how much they were just trying to crank out stories to entertain kids but it's still a more intelligent narrative than you'd expect from superhero comics.

The first story in #2 brings in another supervillain, the Vulture, and continues to expand the different aspects of Peter's life.  He has schoolmates who hate him, an aunt who raised him but needs money and we're still developing the mass media part of the story.  JJJ wants pictures of the Vulture.  Aunt May gives Peter a camera his uncle used to have.  She's already started selling things to make ends meet, why hasn't she sold that already?  Never mind, anyway, Peter now has someone who will pay him for pictures of Spider-Man, a happy ending.

The battle scenes of these stories certainly look good, lots of running around and clever camera angles.  Each story has included a part where Peter shows his interest in science.  Not remotely realistic but still believable and helps develop the character.  The bullies at school are very one-dimensional, probably another way to appeal to the sort of comics readers this was aimed at.

The media aspect is still being developed.  The basics for J. Jonah Jameson are there but he's currently a magazine publisher.  The Daily Bugle won't be introduced until next issue.  There is a secretary seen at the front desk whom I will assume is Betty Brant although there's not enough detail at this angle to prove that.

It's interesting to see how slow the development was here, all things considered.  Action Comics #1 just showed Clark Kent walking into a newspaper, getting a job and immediately dealing with Lois Lane without any delay.  By comparison, even these short stories were deeper and more thoughtful.  The subject matter could be very subtle but would continue to grow and show why this character would be the heart of the Marvel franchise.

The dialogue and storytelling just comes off as excellent, at least by comparison to their competitors.  As many problems as Lee and Ditko would have for the thirty-eight issue run, it was already intriguing and was just getting started.  I have (mostly) grown out of superhero comics by now but I can still see the appeal works like this had back in my youth.  Considering these stories are over a decade older than I am, it's easy to see why the franchise would continue to grow.

Somali Jihadist/Ilhan Omar Donor Gets Slap-on-the-Wrist Sentence — 8.5 Years for Trying to Join ISIS
April 23, 2026

□ [“British Cabinet Ministers Turn on Starmer Over His Mishandling of the Mandelson Vetting Crisis"]

He'll probably be gone quickly.  There's the fact that he couldn't vet his own people who turned out to be tied to Epstein.  We're even told that he ignored warnings about this and ordered his ambassador to the US to pass no matter what.  He's also been accused of taking free expensive gifts and letting criminals out of jail but that's not a problem for leftists.  His appointees have to resign for their own ethical problems, still not a problem.  It's the connection to Epstein.

This is making the point that a lot of the worldwide elites were tied to him.  I'm getting the theory that whoever handled the public release of Epstein files did a 'control F' and replaced a lot of names with "Trump."  That way Trump-haters would give it tons of attention while the real names would know that it's going to be turned on them once the truth comes out.  We see an early example of that here with Starmer, he needs to be dumped now before anyone else gets caught in the trap and they know they're going to be caught.

It is surprising how all the noise about Epstein from the left has died down.  They still recite the old rhetoric about how it's proven that Trump molests children but they never get around to showing that proof in public.  They certainly never wonder why the Biden administration never did anything about with all that evidence right there.  But like I said, this is just generic leftist ranting, no different from complaining about global warming or how white men are bad.  They can't apply it to reality but that doesn't bother them.  The real problem is that they might get caught doing what they accuse others of.  That's why they need to turn on their own as quickly as possible.

Germany Unveils Strategy for Turning the Bundeswehr Into Europe’s Strongest Military by 2039
April 23, 2026