How did the cat learn how to play the fiddle? And tell him to stop, it's making the cow act crazy.

“Muslim Only” Event at Taxpayer-Funded Texas Waterpark Canceled After Threat to Withhold State Grants
May 7, 2026

The official story is that Martin Goodman was golfing with a higher-up at DC who told him about the success they were having with Justice League.  When Goodman went back to the office, he told Stan Lee to do a rip of Justice League and everything followed from there.  Stan Lee has said it the golf game was with Jack Liebowitz, DC's publisher and co-founder.  I'm not sure that was actually established but have found nothing else to go on.  It was mid-1961.

Perhaps it was actually at a meeting of the Comics Code Authority, which both publishers were part of.  Or maybe golfing was just how they handled meetings, chatting about 'saving comics.'  I dunno, maybe it was a demon-worshipping cult.  The point is I don't think was just standard chit-chat on the seventh green.

DC was a huge company that had spread into other media, particularly through selling movie or toy rights to characters like Superman.  Even the lesser characters, someone would probably pay a chunk of money to try developing a production somewhere.  When it failed, the rights returned to the company who could sell them again, a nice source of regular income.

They had also been exploring all the legal problems.  This was a visual medium where its characters had to look the same everywhere.  This helped define them as intellectual property while still allowing for modifications, such as Superman happening to look like George Reeves.  Hollywood studios and actors were also developing rules about their visual images.  Lawyers were paid to get involved in these discussions and make decisions which had nothing to do with creativity.

This could be seen in their eagerness to sue Fawcett Comics for their Captain Marvel book.  It outsold Superman so the only possible reason must be that it was a rip-off of Superman.  DC sued multiple times but never won.  Captain Marvel looked nothing like Superman, his origin was different and just using the same superpower wasn't really a rip-off.  When that failed, another DC lawsuit claimed that a particular Captain Marvel story was a copy of a particular Superman story.  The court ruled that yes it was but DC had waited years to file a lawsuit.

The legal costs, plus the fact that comics were selling less, meant that Fawcett gave up anyway.  They went out of business and, a couple decades later, would sell the Captain Marvel rights to DC.  This would cause its own legal problems with Marvel and become its own example of how IPs can be distorted or destroyed over decades.

As part of the Comics Code, they had also seen the problems with EC Comics in the early-50s.  EC was founded by Max Gaines who was also one of the co-founders of DC Comics but he died and it had been taken over by his son, William Gaines, who produced the comics the company is known for.  They had published more gruesome material which was also a problem for a visual medium.  The US Senate had even started investigating this which is why the Comics Code was formed, although I assume they weren't after comics themselves.

Senator Estes Kefauver (D-TN) spent a long time in Congress going after organized crime, monopolies and juvenile delinquency, so there were reasons to look into the comics industry.  They regularly load trucks with product and send them across state lines for a sleazy industry, sounds like something the federal government would want to investigate.

All of this would have been part of discussions with the Comics Code and probably the golf games with Martin Goodman.  They could even discuss William Gaines giving up on EC and going away with his remaining title, Mad.  He turned it into a magazine but it was still distributed by DC's distributor.  This had all happened just before DC had decided to bring back more superheroes.

The official story is that they just decided to give it a try so they stated with The Flash, then added Green Lantern and Hawkman.  Eventually some of the new characters got together with some of the old and formed an updated version of the Justice Society.  That much make sense, they had been developing the use of IPs in a visual medium for twenty+ years and this just a modern version of putting them together for a regular series.

The part that's hard to figure out is why they needed to reboot any of them.  That's why I cite Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman as the examples, if you think it's been years since the kids have seen these characters and want to try selling them again, why was it so important to keep the superhero name and the powers but change everything else?  They're fictional characters, you can change them anyway.  Whatever Jay Garrick and Alan Scott's original jobs were, just make them a police scientist and test pilot with new origin stories.

Lots of speculation but I can't figure out the real reason for this.  I do suspect it had more to do with the lawyers making decisions than it had to do with what editor Julius Schwartz has said about making them more 'modern.'  The readers saw them as heroes, role-models, adventurers, fantasies.  The company saw them as intellectual properties that could be connected, interacted and modified as needed for product in other mediums.

All of this was going on and would probably have been topics of discussion in golf games.  Liebowitz was putting out the basics for creating a franchise to a business partner he'd known for years.  I often wonder if this was part of a deliberate plan, perhaps setting up a controlled opposition.  DC had lawyers and distribution, they knew as much about how well Marvel was doing as Goodman did.  Or maybe it was just an experiment and if it fails, only Goodman would be hurt.

So after the golf game, Goodman did not just tell Stan Lee to do a rip-off of Justice League and that's how we get the Fantastic Four.  Because DC had legal muscle, Marvel had to be very careful.  Their first several new characters were quite different from normal superhero archetypes.  I think the plan was to build a franchise from the start, planning multiple titles that were designed to interact with each other.  The Avengers was the real goal, using established characters, and bringing back the most popular of the golden age heroes, most notably Captain America.

There were other characters that did get rebooted but only a few names were reused in the early days.  The Human Torch, the Angel, Black Widow and Electro are the only ones that showed up fairly early as Lee, Kirby and Ditko did their thing.  The Falcon and Vision were in the late-60s.  You could make an argument about Invisible Man but having never heard of him before, I have no clue if that was reused to introduce Sue Storm.

Interestingly, Sub-Mariner was not rebooted.  Maybe it was because his creator Bill Everett was still active in comics and worked at Marvel.  Or maybe it was just a decision that Namor would work better as a villain this time around.  It's also not clear how much thought went into this at the start and how much was developed on-the-fly.  Some thought had to go into how to do a franchise instead of one comic that people liked and built from there.

I haven't made a complete search but while looking into all this stuff, I noted that a number of Marvel titles seemed to do something around issues 4 or 5 which set a new direction for them.  Fantastic Four #4 brought back the Sub-Mariner, the second golden age hero to return after the Torch.  Hulk #5 was Jack Kirby's last issue because the title wasn't selling so no reason to keep him there.  Steve Ditko would be moved in to do short stories that were soon used in one of Marvel's other titles.

Spider-Man #5 featured Doctor Doom, as far as I know the first time a superhero has fought some other IPs villain, unless there were special reasons.  In World's Finest #88 (June/July 1957) Superman and Batman had teamed up to fight Lex Luthor and the Joker, a novelty that had rarely been seen before.  Also another example of putting IPs together.  X-Men #4 had another Sub-Mariner appearance and of course there was Avengers #4.

For a monthly series in the news-stand market, it would take about four or five months to find out how well a book had sold.  I don't know if that translates to bi-monthly comics which was what Marvel produced at the time but if this is the equivalent, it explains why #4 or #5 had events like this.  The title was successful enough to not get cancelled immediately.

Even if it wasn't successful, the company still had options.  As mentioned, the Hulk didn't sell.  But Green Man was still rampaging around the Marvel Universe, useful as a giant monster.  He would appear in Fantastic Four #12 in March 1963, the same month his final issue came out.  He would be a central plot-point for founding the Avengers under Loki's influence - used in the 2012 movie - but left the team the following issue.

Marvel would have their first official multi-part story in Fantastic Four #25-26 where the FF fought the Avengers over the Hulk, just a couple months before Spider-Man ran into him during his first battle with the Green Goblin.  In Avengers #16, the old members would leave and be replaced, while Iron Man's final speech to Cap was about finding the Hulk.  Those weren't even his only appearances in the early days, I'm just citing the issues I've read which stuck out to me.  Like the Sub-Mariner, like the Human Torch, like Spider-Man, these were characters used specifically to meet other characters, tying the IPs together as a franchise.

All of this centered around that golf game.  There was the build-up of DCs characters, leading to the Silver Age and the Justice League.  Then there was the Marvel Age which some of us are still living through, good or bad.  And DC had to make it official in comics, having the Silver Age Flash meet the Golden Age Flash in "The Flash of Two Worlds."  The cover-date for that story was September 1961, two months before that 'rip-off of the JLA.'

I'm not remotely interested in numerology and know nothing about it, but even I see something relevant here.  Flash #123 Fantastic 4???  I can't be the only person who's noticed this.  This looks like a crucial element in establishing a multiverse of corporate IPs and I definitely think that was discussed during the golf game.

Federal Trade Court Strikes Down Trump Backup Tariff Plan
May 7, 2026

□ [“Absolute Chaos Erupts as Tennessee Passes New Congressional Map"]

They're bonkers.  That's all they are.  We are definitely in Civil War 2.0 and I'm surprised they didn't have any men-with-guns on their side.  The guards had to drag protesters out of the House, they're yelling how this is "evil."  These are the established laws of the state, just like California is doing.  They're just showing that *some people* aren't capable of recognizing this.  All they can do is go crazy and recite leftist propaganda.

Strange how only one skin-color needs special congressional districts for themselves.  They aren't capable of competing elsewhere like hispanics or asians.  The 'blacks-only' Memphis district that's being taken apart by this new map is represented in Congress by a white male, that's how far they've fallen.  And these politicians are just showing what an elite class they are by obsessing over this instead of real problems that real people are having.

To have any chance of stopping this, they're going to need obedient judges.  There's clearly nothing that's against Tennessee law so a normal lawsuit won't do anything.  And what other options do they have?  Behaving like this in public?  That won't work.  Otherwise, maybe they can call China and Iran for help.  Just remember, whatever options they have, Republicans in California have them too.

Biden-Paroled Illegal Alien Sexually Assaulted Elderly Women at Wisconsin Nursing Home
May 7, 2026

□ [“US and Iran Exchange Fire in the Strait of Hormuz – US Intercepts Iranian Attacks on 3 Navy Ships"]

Nice little ceasefire you have here, shame if something should happen to it.  I'm guessing no one even pretends there's still a ceasefire, official statements by Trump and Centcom didn't even mention it.  I guess I'm surprised that Iran has any ships to send out although now they have a few less.  For some reason they're not using drones or missiles.  Might be a tactical reason, maybe they're all being aimed at UAE so they're not available.

Someone in the CIA leaked a report to the media, saying Iran still has lots of weapons left and can survive this blockade for several months.  There's the obvious issue of treachery but what evidence does anybody have that this is accurate?  Four unnamed people "familiar with the document" say so, that doesn't actually mean it's true.

One thing that doesn't seem to get much attention is that a lot of leaders, particularly leftists, are surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear.  Yes, that means a big worry about Trump too but my question here is more about whoever's left to be in charge of Iran.  Tell them they're still fully armed or risk being purged.  I have a similar question about Saddam Hussein and I've heard contradictory explanations from higher-ups who were in Iraq at the start of that war.  It wasn't so much that Saddam did or didn't have WMDs, it's that he believed he did because that's what his people told him.  Iran's rulers are in a similar situation now.

But we're still in the 'waiting game,' wondering how long this will last.  Reportedly Iran accidentally hit a Chinese ship.  If true, it means they aren't very good at their job although I assume China will accept the damage for the time being.  Like Congress, they're staying mostly quiet about this.

18-Year-Old Black Male Sprays 80+ Bullets at Oklahoma Campground, Killing Teen Girl, Injuring 22
May 7, 2026

□ [“Kamala Harris Wants Democrats to Release 2024 Campaign Autopsy Report"]

This could be funny.  I'm guessing she wants it released because she didn't get to see the report.  It was hidden from the public and that includes her.  She's still hoping to run for POTUS again and just wants some tips.  She doesn't think there's any chance that it'll say anything bad about her.

This means the party's internal conflicts will start becoming public.  I'm not sure how many real supporters Harris has but she must have some, at least in the media.  Some people really want to know what went so wrong to install her, others really want to keep that secret.  There are probably also people who aren't that attached to either side but could say 'just release it' or insist that it's all in the past so just forget it.

Then there's the donors, they're probably have something to say too.  How did she spend so much money in barely three months that she wound up in debt?  They'd like an answer before they give any more money and are not encouraged by the leftists loudly demanding to seize all the wealth.  If the party wants their help in upcoming elections, they'll need to answer some questions.  But those answers won't just attack Harris, it'll go after the whole *woke* agenda the party has pushed, showing that voters don't want that.

Just a guess but I'd assume this won't go anywhere, not in public anyway.  Behind closed doors, someone will finally get enough pull to shut the others up so they conform to whatever the party's next step is.  I assume they'll continue being obnoxiously leftist but I'm just a pessimist.  There's probably at least a small chance they'll start doing a 180, even if it comes off like blatant lies.  We see that now with how they *love* the America Trump is destroying.

But this is another iceberg waiting for the Democrat ship to crash into it.  There are members speaking out to insist the party stop this, a small number but slowly growing.  Then there's the wave of pro-abortion/pro-trans ads on social media, not to mention the increased violence of leftist protestors.  These problems will build through the summer and fall, getting ready for the mid-terms.  No idea what the results will be but those will show how the party will need to prepare for 2028.  Because Trump is a dictator or something.

Rutgers Cancels Anti-Israel Graduation Speaker After Students Threaten to Boycott
May 7, 2026