Boston's celt-punk godfathers Dropkick Murphys share UK tour plans for 2025

Steve DiStanislao looks back on playing alongside David Bowie, David Gilmour and Richard Wright for one very special evening

Some people are born into a profession. Such is the case with our little rodeo wrangler. Folks, you have never seen a baby ride a Roomba like this tyke. Currently riding as the featured star for the Baby Roomba Rodeo Roundup, young Wells is making a name for himself. When he isn’t saddled with a ton of chores, he is practicing his Roomba riding. Sometimes, he even makes the Roomba help him finish his chores early. @courtneyander7 When you’re actually a Buller Rider but your mama says you gotta do your chores first ♬ original sound – Courtney & Wells Wells has been riding Roomba since he was old enough to sit up without assistance. His uncanny balance allows him to keep his seat in the saddle for long, grueling rides. Of course, Wells might grow up to be a police officer. @courtneyander7 Bad Boyz!!!! ♬ original sound – Courtney & Wells His heart currently seems set on the rodeo circuit. Here he is on an award-winning championship ride. He’s dressed for the part, complete with an oversized belt buckle, Stetson, and some snazzy cowboy boots! @courtneyander7 Mama out here acting like i can make this kinda mess all by myself! ….i had some help ♬ original sound – Courtney & Wells Wells will continue his training by riding on the Baby Roomba Rodeo Roundup. Eventually, he’ll move into competition with the Youth Rodeo Association (YRA). His mom, Courtney, watches him to ensure he receives the proper training at a young age without burning out. Wells might be able to take over the top-earning bull rider title from J.B. Mauney. Mauney made a whopping $7,419,474.90 lifetime earnings before a broken neck forced him to retire from bull riding. Image from TikTok. Of course, it is also possible that Wells will give up on the Baby Roomba Rodeo Roundup and focus his attention on chores and vacuum cleaners. We’re sure his mom will smile no matter what path he chooses. For now, you can catch Wells on his wild Roomba rides by following the family on TikTok. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Rip-Ridin’ Roomba Wrangler: Watch Baby Cowboy Prove He’s A Natural appeared first on InspireMore.

At least we won't be able to see them

The length of the primary cycle for solar activity has been attributed to the combined gravitational effects of Venus, Earth, and Jupiter.The spectacular auroral show of May 10 has made millions of people familiar with solar activity who had not been aware of it before. Inevitably, many want to know why sunspots and coronal mass ejections occur on an 11-year cycle. Most astronomers can only shrug, but a small minority think they have an answer, and some of them have just provided more detail for their case.Millions of people have, on first learning that the Sun’s activity peaks every 11 years, noticed that this is quite similar to the length of Jupiter’s orbit (11.86 years). Might there be a connection? Generally, this has been a passing thought, with no explanation of how the two might be linked. However, researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) think tides raised by the planets within the Sun could be responsible.Known as the “planetary hypothesis”, the idea runs that tides produced by planets’ gravity cause vortexes of current within the Sun known as Rossby waves, which in turn affect solar magnetism. The whole thing sounds a bit like astrology, however, and most astronomers have treated it with great suspicion. The Moon, Sun, and (to a minor extent) the planets produce tides on Earth. The planets also raise tides on the Sun, varying in size depending on their mass and distance. After all, Jupiter has enough gravitational influence that it and the Sun orbit a combined center of gravity outside the Sun’s surface.Whether this matters in any noticeable way is more contentious. The 11-year pattern in the Sun’s activity that is now nearing a peak is known as the Schwabe cycle after 19th-century astronomer Heinrich Schwabe. However, this is only one of a number of observed solar cycles, including both much shorter and much longer ones, which have proven equally hard to explain. We know other stars undergo similar cycles, although in most cases our data is quite recent.Solar maxima are not like a metronome – thus the debate as to whether this one is happening early – but on average they are 11.07 years apart. The significance of the 11.07-year period, as opposed to 11.86 years for Jupiter to make an orbit, is not immediately obvious, but Dr Frank Stefani of HZDR argues it represents a beat created by alignments of Jupiter, Venus, and Earth. Stefani has long thought this is not a coincidence, and now presents what he claims is a mechanism. "You can think of it like a gigantic dynamo,” Stefani said in a statement. “While this solar dynamo generates an approximately 11-year activity cycle in its own right, we think the planets' influence then intervenes in the workings of this dynamo, repeatedly giving it a little push and thus forcing the unusually stable 11.07-year rhythm on the Sun.""We have now found the underlying physical mechanism. We know how much energy is required to synchronize the dynamo, and we know that this energy can be transferred to the Sun by so-called Rossby waves. The great thing is that we can now not only explain the Schwabe cycle and longer solar cycles but also the shorter Rieger cycles that we hadn't even considered previously," Stefani added.The authors conclude that when two of Venus, Earth and Jupiter line up it creates the sort of effect seen in the “spring tide” on Earth when the Sun and Moon’s pull combines to create an enhanced effect. This activates Rossby waves comparable to high and low pressure systems in Earth’s atmosphere. These alignments occur on 118, 193, and 299-day cycles, matching the shorter Rieger cycles observed in solar activity. All three planets align more rarely, but when they do so the effect is larger, which is why the Schwabe cycle is so much more obvious than the shorter ones. Other planets have similar but smaller effects; Stefani and co-authors claim to be able to spot lower peaks in activity caused by alignments of Mercury and Saturn with the three most influential planets.Stefani also predicts these planetary effects should create a 193-year cycle, but we haven’t been watching the Sun long enough to confirm that.Even Stefani admits his work is not conclusive. “We'll probably only be 100 percent certain when we have more data,” he said. Other astronomers may be considerably harder to convince. The movements of the planets spit out a lot of numbers; stare at them long enough and it’s easy to become convinced you’ve found a pattern that matches the messy data from the Sun. We haven’t been tracking sunspots that long, after all, although efforts have been made to estimate previous solar activity based on carbon-14 concentrations in tree rings and historical reports of auroras. The further we go back in time, the shakier the data set, and the less clear it is whether the 11-year cycle of solar activity is permanent, as Stefani’s claims require.The authors speculate about much longer cycles, such as those that take into account alignments of the four gas giants. However, perhaps the only way claims like this will become truly convincing is if matches can be found between other stars’ cycles and their own planetary systems.The study is open access in Solar Physics.

In the spring of 2020, Ian Smith became a nationally recognized figure because he and his associates defied local and state demands that they keep their business — Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey — closed due to COVID concerns. Smith was eventually arrested, and he and co-owner Frank Trumbetti ultimately lost hundreds of thousands of dollars simply for keeping their gym doors open.Now four years later, Smith has scored a major legal victory: A New Jersey court has dismissed with prejudice all the municipal charges against him. Blaze News spoke with Smith and others connected with him to find out what this ruling means for him personally and the general fight against government overreach going forward.'Guided by the facts': When running a business becomes a crimeSmith and Trumbetti initially complied with the shutdown first imposed in New Jersey by Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy in March 2020 and temporarily closed Atilis Gym, which had just opened nine months earlier. The official statement from the governor claimed the shutdown of supposedly non-"essential" businesses like health clubs would be in effect "until further notice," but the general consensus throughout the country was that it would last only two weeks."From day one, we’ve made a commitment to be guided by the facts," Murphy said at the time. “We know the virus spreads through person-to person contact, and the best way to prevent further exposure is to limit our public interactions to only the most essential purposes."Smith characterized the entire process as 'a charade' and an 'eff you' initiated only because he wanted to run a business against the governor's wishes.By May 2020, the shutdown remained firmly in place, but Smith and Trumbetti decided to reopen Atilis anyway, convinced that people needed a place to exercise to stay healthy and that everyone could determine the risk of COVID for themselves. Smith told Blaze News that they also took several precautionary steps to minimize the chance of COVID transmission at the gym: installing a state-of-the-art ventilation system, providing sanitizer bottles, and inviting people who showed up to take their temperature and participate in contact-tracing measures voluntarily.Those efforts seemed to pay off. Not a single case of COVID has ever been traced back to Atilis Gym. "Nobody ever got ill," Smith claimed.Despite documented evidence that Atilis was a safe place to be, Smith and Trumbetti were repeatedly hounded by police who were seemingly eager to enforce the governor's onerous shutdown order. The gym owners were then arrested in July 2020, even as Murphy continued to release thousands of state inmates back onto the streets, ostensibly in the name of COVID safety.Smith claimed he was personally assessed more than 80 municipal citations for crimes such as violating a governor's order, public nuisance, and disturbing the peace.The Borough of Bellmawr also cited the owners for operating without a license. Smith and Trumbetti were, in fact, operating without a license, but only because the borough had suspended it that August, a step that John McCann, one of Smith's attorneys, called highly "unusual" because New Jersey municipalities don't have any jurisdiction over health club licenses."The state of New Jersey is the exclusive authority for issuing health club licenses," McCann said. "And we believe those charges were improperly brought."Smith said the borough then forced him to participate in "a lower administrative hearing," which he said was "not a legal proceeding" but did "sort of use court rules." Smith characterized the entire process as "a charade" and an "eff you" initiated only because he wanted to continue running a business against the governor's wishes. Photo shared with Blaze News. Used with permission.'Literally had nothing else': Atilis Gym supporters fight backAs daunting as the political and legal pressure was for Smith and others at Atilis Gym during that time, they did have an army of dedicated supporters who kept showing up. That summer, the gym averaged about 800 visitors per day, Smith said.'We took a trip to Philadelphia, and we just drove over. Can we work out?'Most of the people who went to Atilis during the shutdown were "regulars," he noted. One such regular was Joe Cohen, a former member of the U.S. military who gained weight and struggled mentally when he retired from the service in 2017. Cohen then met Smith who not only became his personal trainer but a friend, too.Cohen told Blaze News he worked out with Smith at least once a week during the shutdown. Cohen said he also found relief from some of his issues with PTSD by communing with others at Atilis rather than staying locked in his home, alone with his thoughts. "It was keeping me sane," Cohen said, "because without the gym, I literally had nothing else to do besides walk outside.""I had a bunch of friends [at Atilis]," Cohen added. "I made a lot of friends."In addition to familiar faces like Cohen, Atilis also experienced a high volume of what Smith called "travel traffic," mostly because the owners' lockdown defiance received national publicity on popular TV programs like Tucker Carlson's now-defunct Fox News show."There would be people be, like, 'We took a trip to Philadelphia, and we just drove over. Can we work out?'" Smith recalled to Blaze News. "It'd be a family. It'd be, like, a husband and wife and their three kids." Photo shared with Blaze News. Used with permission.'They grabbed Atilis Gym's money': Hefty fines and legal casesThe 80-some municipal citations were just part of the legal trouble for Smith and Trumbetti. They also faced cases in state, federal, and appeals courts, and the process to adjudicate these cases took years. "We were sort of all over the place," Smith told Blaze News.'It's, like, now we're friends because we know we're of the same ideology.'It was also expensive. In addition to legal fees and court costs, Atilis Gym was fined $15,497.76 for each day it was open in defiance of the shutdown order. "That was enough at the time to drain our bank accounts," Smith said. In all, Smith estimates that the government seized more than $200,000 from the business and personal accounts of Smith and Trumbetti. "Including loss of wages and stuff like that, between the two of us, we're probably [out] close to $1.5 million if not way more," he said.Attorney McCann gave a similar version of events."You had the state coming after them ... [at] a Superior Court with a charge of violating the health commissioner's shutdown order," McCann explained to Blaze News. "In the Superior Court of New Jersey, that's where they grabbed Atilis Gym's money."To date, none of those seized assets have been returned, the men said.Fortunately, gym members and supporters began donating generously because they respected the owners' courage in defying government lockdown orders. A GoFundMe account even paid for some of the fines assessed in connection with the Superior Court, though that account was temporarily frozen after opponents mass-reported it as a scam.Smith and Trumbetti also began raising money in other ways. Perhaps most notably, they started selling T-shirts with the message "Bellmawr for Everybody" emblazoned across the front. The shirts were wildly popular. In just the first week, the owners racked up $100,000 in sales, depleting their entire inventory, Smith claimed. People as far away as Canada, Australia, South Africa, and even Qatar ordered shirts to stand in solidarity with the folks at Atilis Gym.Despite the skyrocketing sales though, the revenue generated by the shirts did little more than keep the business afloat. "The shirts essentially went to keeping the lights on, keeping the rent paid, and [covering] the legal bills," Smith explained.The T-shirts did, however, offer one other benefit to the owners and the community: They helped people make connections with others of like mind at a time of severe alienation and isolation. People suddenly felt confident approaching a stranger wearing an Atilis shirt, Smith said. "It's, like, now we're friends because we know we're of the same ideology." Screenshot of photo shared with Blaze News. Used with permission.'To push back and bring justice': Resolution to municipal chargesThough the money that came in from shirt sales and GoFundMe donations was helpful, it did not make all of Atilis' legal problems go away, and some of the cases against the gym and its owners lingered in the system for years, even as the cases for others associated with Atilis were brought to a conclusion. Last summer, attorney John McCann helped resolve the cases of eight Atilis gym-goers who were cited for working out at the gym or participating in its events during the shutdown. Most entered plea deals resulting in fines of about $70, Smith's attorney John McCann recalled. Yet, the municipal charges against Smith and Trumbetti remained. So, McCann began pestering the court and the local prosecutor to bring these charges toward a resolution.'What the state did here, it makes no sense.'Earlier this year, McCann filed a motion to dismiss all 80-some municipal charges. Among other things, McCann argued that Bellmawr lacked the authority to impose those charges or to suspend the gym license since the state regulates health clubs.It seems he was persuasive. On April 24, 2024, nearly four years to the day after Smith and Trumbetti took the bold step to reopen their business despite government orders, Municipal Court Judge Carol Fabietti ruled to dismiss all the shutdown-related municipal charges against them with prejudice, which means the state can never refile those charges again.In an X post celebrating the development, Smith did not hold back. "This victory opens the battlefield again and gives us options to continue to push back and bring justice to the treasonous actions of Phil Murphy and his lackies (sic)," Smith wrote."S*ck my d*** Phil Murphy," he added in closing.IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - PLEASE SHARE THIS THIS POST. 4 years ago today, we reopened Atilis Gym in direct violation of an unconstitutional order by Governor Philip Murphy to close small businesses in New Jersey.The support we received locally, nationally, and internationally…— Ian Smith (@iansmithfitness) May 18, 2024 John McCann, though more diplomatic in his language, likewise expressed relief at the decision. "The state held these charges over these guys' heads for four years," McCann told Blaze News. "What the state did here, it makes no sense."But now, finally, the "fight is in [the] rearview mirror," McCann added.Neither Gov. Murphy nor the Borough of Bellmawr responded to Blaze News' request for comment.'Nobody is coming to save you': Hope in the wake of state persecutionIndeed, Judge Fabietti's ruling has given many Atilis affiliates a reason to rejoice.'It’s amazing how we are four years into understanding the crimes behind COVID fascism, yet not a single person has been punished.'McCann, who has been practicing law for decades, believes the apparent exoneration of Smith and Trumbetti represents a ray of hope in a sometimes frustrating legal system. "We got a judge who was willing to call the balls and strikes. She didn't put her finger on the scale," he noted to Blaze News.Blaze Media pundits Steve Deace and Daniel Horowitz are also thrilled that there has been a measure of justice for at least some of those persecuted in connection with the "wicked edicts" of the COVID "scamdemic.""It is time to let justice roll on like a river," Deace said in a statement. "I hope this is the vanguard of a trend."Deace added that he would also like to see further legal retribution against the persecutors. "What went on during COVID is among the darkest times in our history, and brought Western Civilization to the brink," his statement continued. "Everything bad happening in America right now either originated with the scamdemic, or was exacerbated by it. Which is also why we need Nuremberg-like tribunals with Nuremberg-like punishments."Horowitz made a similar call for holding leaders to account for their acts of "COVID fascism." "While it’s refreshing to finally see people acquitted of the crime of merely living their lives, it’s those who made these wicked edicts who deserve to be prosecuted," Horowitz said. "It’s amazing how we are four years into understanding the crimes behind COVID fascism, yet not a single person has been punished. The time has come for state legislators to permanently enshrine a human right to bodily autonomy and to clarify that states do not have the police power to force vaccinate, mask, or shut down businesses and churches. If liberals can change state constitutions to promote baby murder under the guise of health care freedom, then most certainly we can preserve bodily autonomy and property rights under the banner of health care freedom."Smith has since sold his share of Atilis Gym and relocated to Florida, where he now works with a telehealth business. A one-time Ron Paul supporter, he also expressed an interest in joining the political fray despite an unsuccessful congressional bid a couple years ago."I'm involved just helping out a lot of local campaigns here," Smith explained to Blaze News. "I live outside of Jacksonville. So, we have a very nice community here, and things are good here, but you kind of always have to be on guard and watch the local officials and the state ones. So, that's where I'm a lot more interested right now."As a dedicated patriot who fought the system and won, Smith also continues to promote the traditional American value of self-reliance and self-determination. In his X post about the judge's ruling, Smith gave some empowering advice for freedom-lovers everywhere, no matter their circumstances: "Nobody is coming to save you, save yourself. Spit on your hands and hoist the black flag. No quarter." Photo shared with Blaze News. Used with permission.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Kansas City Chiefs’ star kicker Harrison Butker sent shock waves through our ruling class earlier this month by delivering a commencement address at Benedictine College, a small Catholic liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas. Rather than speaking about the LGBT community and its travails or the continued oppression inflicted on birthing beings by “the patriarchy,” Butker gave women graduates this inflammatory advice: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into the world.”At that point tears began to well up in Butker’s eyes as he proceeded to explain: “I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I’m on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.”No mealy mouthed compromise with the other side should even be considered.Our woke masters, upon receiving news of this oration, went ballistic. Soon, a heap of negative letters arrived in the offices of the professional football team that Butker helped lift to a world championship. All his critics called for Butker’s termination. The Democratic mayor of Kansas City, no doubt playing to his feminist base, tore into the commencement speaker. And the harpies on “The View” stormed against the “extremist, cultlike religion” that caused Butker to express his blasphemous thoughts. Taylor Swift erupted in a spasm of anger against Butker, who quoted the lyrics from one of her songs with insufficient respect.These critics were correct that Butker was challenging, at least by implication, the oppressive woke theocracy under which normal Americans are now being forced to live. Every human institution that until recently was considered beneficial and natural, like distinctive sex roles for men and women and the nuclear family, is now under attack. And the failure to condemn these institutions in the name of equity, diversity, and the war against the patriarchy brings swift retribution from the media, the administrative state, and corporate capitalists.One of the striking aspects of the reaction to Butker’s defense of traditional marriage and motherhood was the mostly tepid defense that issued from the conservative establishment. The major lines of defense were as follows: Butker wasn’t saying women can’t work. He was just saying that career women might want something more, like a home life and a Mother Day’s card. Why, asks Kirsten Fleming in the New York Post, should we put down marriage and kids as a complementary vocation?We were also told that Butker gave his address at a conservative Catholic college, somewhere in flyover county, and the people who invited him probably expected him to give the kind of homily he delivered. And finally, Butker was just expressing his opinion, and according to his presumably conservative coach Andy Reid, “We respect everybody to have a voice.” This makes Reid’s team “a microcosm of America.”The problem with these defenses is that they’re glaringly inadequate. They are a timid pushback against the woke left, which in a few decades (and even within a few years) has made war on all those stabilizing social institutions that we once took for granted. Butker’s statements are not to be discreetly contextualized or explained away. They are to be unconditionally defended as what all sane people believed up until the wokesters began poisoning our politics and culture. No mealy mouthed compromise with the other side should even be considered.The frequently made point that Butker was not denying women the chance to have careers is true. But he was also suggesting that the domestic role of women was indispensable for a functioning human society. Butker was also indicating that this role was a vocation ordained by God for the good of humankind. Throughout most of my life, the view of men and women jointly creating and sustaining families in different capacities was the accepted one. That started to change when the onetime communist Betty Friedan expanded her mischievous activities to subverting the family by convincing women that they were enslaved as mothers and wives.By now it’s quite late in the day to be standing with Butker. Even an order of nuns housed at Benedictine College savaged the speaker for his opposition to abortion and his caustic comments on DEI.Soi-disant conservatives have tried to “explain” Butker in a way that trivializes his message. In the process, they have avoided assailing the left with appropriate pugnacity. The result of this customary tactic of the conservative establishment is to surrender more and more ground to the other side. Truly defending Butker should entail upholding what until recently were normal social views. That, and not softening the shock of what he said, is the only way to fight back against a powerful, determined enemy.

Arguments for American withdrawal from the African nation may seem plausible, but they don’t stand up to scrutiny. 

It has only been hibernating.