It's another season of the Bachelor. Ben seems very vulnerable and lacking in self-confidence. It's hard to tell if that's the way he really is, or its just a story line crafted from the "edit" from last season. (His reaction to being rejected was to voice his fear he was unlovable.)

The women so far are the typical mix of beach blond bombshell wannabes, weirdos (the dentist), annoying chirpy voices (the one who just passed the bar exam), and sad sacks who are going to share their personal tragedies with us, regardless of whether we want to hear about them. I'm having a hard time telling one blond from another. I also don't like Ben's haircut, it's way too short. His eyes seem much closer together than they did last season. And where are his muscles?

Will I make it through another season? Too soon to tell.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The final season of Downton Abbey is about to begin.

I watched the Royals for the first time this weekend. It's incredibly trashy and very hard to follow. But better than what Hollywood has offered this year.

In unrelated UK news, ISIS released a video threatening David Cameron. It had a wannabe Jihadi John doing executions. Some think he is Abu Rumaysah al-Britani (protest video with him in UK is here.) From a production value standpoint, I thought it was pretty weak. While ISIS has multiple video departments, I wonder if the al Hayat media producers have all been killed off. Very few of ISIS' recent videos have a "wow" factor.

Saudi Arabia executed 47 people including a Shia cleric, angering the world. It also broke off relations with Iran. (Skip the NYT version, it has auto-play video.)

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As much as I disliked 2015, I have very positive feelings about 2016. I don't much believe in resolutions, so I can't offer up any, but here's an open thread for yours, and anything else that's on your mind.

TalkLeft was down from yesterday until just now. The hosting Company in New York had a problem, moved the site to new hardware, and then could not establish network connectivity until just now. Hopefully it's all fixed. A big thanks to our webmaster Colin who kept at them to hurry up.

This is an open thread, Happy New Year's Eve to all. What are your plans tonight? [More...]

The U.S. today said it killed 10 ISIS leaders this month. One was an associate of the "mastermind" of the Paris attacks.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

(This is just a computer rant, and a pretty boring one at that. You may want to skip it and make better use of the five minutes it will take to read it. Just saying....)

Yesterday afternoon my Netgear AC1900 router (an R7000) lost its connection to the internet. Nothing would restore it. Both my networks (2.4 and 5GZ) were no longer in the list of recognized available networks. They were disconnected.

I spent an hour on the phone with Comcast doing the usual, turning on and off the cable box, modem, router, etc. They told me it was a Netgear issue and helpfully gave me the phone number for Netgear support. (Comcast was right because when I moved my laptop to the living room near the router and modem, and plugged an ethernet cord into the laptop, the LAN worked fine.) But I wanted my wireless back so I'm not tethered to the living room couch. So then I spent almost half hour on the phone with Netgear. [More...]

The time between Xmas and New Years is like a dead zone. But, since some people, including me, will sometimes have something to say, I'm going to fill it with open threads.

Here's one, all topics welcome.

What's Christmas Eve without Darlene Love?

It's the day before Christmas.....
We wish you all a happy and healthful holiday.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome. [More...]

Christmas is just around the corner. I hope that as you're putting a little something in the pocket of your babysitter, doorman, housekeeper, shoe shiner, hairstylist, secretary, whomever, you will remember the bloggers whose sites you visit and read day after day, whether for enjoyment or enrichment, and make a note to add them to your gift list. If you'd like to give to TalkLeft, just click on the graphic below. You can use paypal or a credit card.

All amounts are welcome, it's the thought and appreciation behind the gift that counts. [More...]

Update: For some reason, the "recent comments" in the sidebar have been disappearing. The only thing I can think of is perhaps some commenters used too many characters in the subject line of their comments, making them not fit in the space. So can you please try using short subject lines in your comments for a while so I can see if that's the problem? Thanks.

It's been days since our last open thread. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

OMG, the announcer made a mistake announcing the winner of Miss Universe. He announced the winner was Ms. Colombia.

After the applause they crowned Ms. Colombia, and she was waving to the crowd with her flowers and little flag of Colombia when the show host came back to the stage and said "Ok Folks, I have to apologize, the First Runner is Colombia. Ms. Universe 2015 is Philippines."

He read the wrong name. Ms. Colombia, who doesn't speak English and used an interpreter all night, had no idea what happened. Either did Ms. Philippines, the intended winner, even though she does speak English.

[More....]

Argue about data theft here.

I've been doing it on twitter - @armandodkos .

Open Thread.