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Sophie Cunningham Is Bringing MMA to the WNBA

When the Indiana Fever took on the Connecticut Sun the other night, most fans came for Caitlin Clark. What they got instead was a glimpse of something else, something the WNBA hasn’t fully reckoned with yet. That something was Sophie Cunningham, and she brought more than just defense. She brought backup. She brought grit. She brought an edge that said, “We’re done taking your cheap shots.”

It started with a hard foul. But it ended with a statement.

The play-by-play won’t tell the full story, but here’s the rundown. Early in the game, Caitlin Clark got a little shove from Jacy Sheldon, but it wasn’t long before her teammates Tina Charles and Marina Mabrey were there to gang up on the three-point shooting star. After hitting the deck, Clark made all three technical free throws like a seasoned vet. But the message was clear: Connecticut wanted to send a warning.

They didn’t realize Indiana had an answer waiting.

Later in the game, tensions flared again. Another hard foul. This time, it wasn’t Clark. Sophie Cunningham entered the fray and delivered her own version of justice. Anyone watching closely could tell that Sophie was not playing around.

See, there’s something about Sophie that casual fans might not know: she’s got martial arts training. That’s not metaphor. That’s muscle memory. So while most players might push and shove, Sophie knows how to handle the situation.

And that’s the line Connecticut didn’t know they had crossed. When you gang up on a rookie just because she’s drawing national headlines, you’ve already shown your cards. But when the rookie keeps her cool and sinks three in a row, and then her teammates start clapping back? That’s when the game changes.

Let’s be honest: the WNBA has had a rough time handling the Caitlin Clark era. Some players are annoyed by the attention she gets. Others try to “welcome” her with elbows and hard fouls. And still others cry foul, literally, when the refs blow the whistle on those tactics.

But what’s becoming more clear by the day is that Clark isn’t alone anymore.

At the start of the season, the narrative was that she had to carry Indiana. That she was the star on a struggling team. That if you shut her down, the Fever would collapse. That was true, until it wasn’t.

Now, players like Aliyah Boston, Kelsey Mitchell, and yes, Sophie Cunningham, are stepping up. Not just to support Clark, but to redefine what this team is. They’re not just the “Caitlin Clark Show” anymore. They’re a squad. A unit. A team that’s finding its voice and its bite.

And let’s not overlook the irony here. DeWanna Bonner and Alyssa Thomas have made a name off being physical. They play tough. They don’t back down. But when Sophie clapped back, suddenly there were complaints. Suddenly, there were accusations of being “too aggressive.”

Sheldon complained! She complained to the refs. When they didn’t hear her, she complained to her own team. But wait! Earlier, she was puffing up when she was in a 3-on-1 against Clark. Now, she’s crying? Does that make sense? Oh, the hypocrisy…

It’s almost like some people only want physical play when they’re the ones dishing it out.

Here’s the real message Connecticut and the rest of the league should take home: if you foul Caitlin Clark, she’ll make you pay at the line. But if you target her, if you bully her, if you think she’s an easy mark because she’s a rookie with endorsements?

You’ve got another think coming.

Because now she has teammates who will take up for her. And some of them, like Sophie Cunningham, didn’t come to play games. They came to win. And if winning means standing up, squaring up, and letting the league know that the Fever are not the punching bag anymore?

Then that’s exactly what they’ll do.

This isn’t just about one player. It’s about a cultural shift. And if the WNBA isn’t careful, they’re going to get left behind by a new wave of players who aren’t afraid to push back.

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Out of Her League: Angel Reese Is Playing the Game, But Caitlin Clark Is Running It

Emily Mae Young Bloopers Would Have Made The Commercial

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The Scripted Storm: Why News Chooses Ratings Over Truth

If you judged the state of the world based solely on the evening news, you’d think we’re three bad days away from an apocalypse. Earthquakes, riots, crime waves, collapsing economies…etc. It’s doom in high definition, every hour, on the hour.

But then you walk outside. The sun’s out. A dog is licking itself. A barista jokes with a regular. Life, strangely enough, looks…fine. Pretty normal, actually. So why does it feel like the world’s falling apart?

It’s not just your anxiety talking. It’s the 24/7 media cycle pumping catastrophe into your brain like an IV drip. And the truth is, the world isn’t in nearly as bad a shape as the news wants you to believe.

Panic is profitable. Peace is boring. And the truth? That’s somewhere in between. It rarely makes the cut.

Disaster Porn is the News Business Model

“The news said we were out of toilet paper. Turns out, they were just full of it.”

The media doesn’t just report the news. It curates it, selecting the most dramatic, fear-inducing stories because fear keeps you watching. Ratings rise when emotions spike. Calm minds don’t click. But show a burning building, a screaming protester, or a weatherman clinging to a street sign? That’s engagement. And it’s not subtle.

Take the now-infamous clip of a reporter “battling strong hurricane winds”—wobbling dramatically on camera, looking like he might fly away—while, in the background, two guys stroll casually by in shorts and windbreakers. No urgency. No drama. Just a regular day in North Carolina.

Or the reporter in the boat. She’s paddling slowly through floodwaters, solemnly delivering a message about climate catastrophe. Then two people casually walk through the water in front of her. It barely reaches their ankles.

These aren’t honest mistakes. These are produced moments, crafted for drama but not truth. It’s not that the media is lying. It’s that they’re staging reality to match the narrative. And that’s even more dangerous.

[image error]Good News Doesn’t Sell, So It Gets Buried

“The truth didn’t die. It just stopped making ratings.”

Here’s what you don’t hear on the nightly broadcast:

Global poverty has dropped dramatically over the last few decades.More people today have access to clean water, electricity, and healthcare than ever before in human history.Life expectancy is up. Infant mortality is down. Literacy rates are soaring.Violent crime? In many areas, it’s been steadily decreasing for years.

But don’t expect a breaking news banner for “Crime Down Again: Families Safely Eat Dinner.”

It’s not just that the news is bad, it’s that bad news is the only news you’re shown. The rest gets left on the cutting room floor because calm doesn’t go viral.

This Is Your Brain on Fear

“These days, the only thing breaking on the news is trust.”

All of this has a cost, and it’s not just frustration. It’s mental health. According to psychologists, consuming a steady stream of negative news can lead to increased levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness.

There’s even a name for it, and it’s called headline stress disorder. We’re biologically wired to respond to threats, so when the news serves us a buffet of fear every day, we internalize it. We assume the world is burning, even if our personal lives are fine. The news used to tell us what happened. Now it tells us what to fear.

The Real Danger: A Distorted Worldview

“I want a weather report that doesn’t scream like it’s auditioning for Broadway.”

Much like how the media turned a rare sinkhole event into a frightening spectacle, the industry consistently peddles panic at the expense of truth. When you’re told the world is chaos, you start to believe there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s called learned helplessness, the idea that everything is broken and no amount of action will help. That mindset is poison.

It leads to:

Polarization: If everything’s terrible, we start looking for someone to blame.Outrage fatigue: Constant anger burns out the very people most capable of making change.Isolation: People tune out completely, feeling like nothing matters.

The irony? Most of the actual good in the world is happening on the small scale, like local communities solving problems, neighbors helping neighbors, and grassroots efforts making a difference. But you won’t see it unless you go looking for it.

So What Can We Do?

“I trust horoscopes more than headlines. At least astrology admits it’s guessing.”

You can’t change the media, but you can change how you view it.

Take a news fast. Give yourself permission to go a day or a week without headlines.Balance your input. Follow outlets that practice solutions journalism; they report the problems and the efforts to fix them.Limit your time. Don’t doomscroll. Set a timer. Get the info you need, then log off.Go local. Most real change happens in your neighborhood, not in Washington, not on cable news.Ask this question every day: “Did the news tell me what’s really happening or what they knew would keep me watching?”

If the only thing you consume is poison, don’t be surprised when you feel sick.

It’s Not That Bad, They Just Want Us To Think It Is

The world has problems. No one’s denying that. But there’s a difference between honest reporting and fear-based storytelling. Between informing and manipulating. Between showing what matters and staging what sells. It’s time to see the game for what it is.

So next time you see a journalist yelling into the wind while the dog-walker in the background barely notices the breeze, just smile. You’re not crazy. You’re just learning how to see past the spin.

The post The Scripted Storm: Why News Chooses Ratings Over Truth appeared first on Michael Allen.

The Great Rear Awakening: A Nation Obsessed with Booty Beauty

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away (probably your local Target), women were content with a little lotion and a loofah. But oh, how the times have changed. We are now living in the age of Booty Beauty—a glorious, cheek-sculpting era where your backside gets more spa days than your face ever dreamed.

If your behind isn’t exfoliated, toned, plumped, polished, misted, or massaged on a daily basis… girl, what are you even doing with your life?

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge the booty renaissance. It’s no longer just about having a nice butt—no, no, no—it’s about maintaining it like it’s a vintage car you only drive on Sundays.

We’re talking peach scrubs, butt masks, anti-chafing balms, and firming creams with names like “Cheeky Miracle” and “Glute Glow.” There are entire product lines now dedicated to your caboose. Megababe leads the way with products like Butt Stuff and Le Tush. Some women have more creams for their butt than they do for their face. And we’re just supposed to nod like that’s not wildly hilarious and slightly alarming.

The Booty Beauty Routine

Step 1: Dry Brush the Bum
Dry brushing. Yes. That stiff-bristled torture device that your ancestors used to scrape paint is now the first step to sexy cheeks. Apparently, brushing your butt helps circulation and makes it “look more alive.” I didn’t know butts could look dead, but now I’m terrified mine does.

Step 2: Exfoliate Like You’re Sanding a Door
Next up, scrubbing. Not your everyday Dove body wash. No. You need volcanic ash whipped with Himalayan salt in a jar that smells like pink grapefruit and ambition. The instructions are always like: “Massage firmly for 3–5 minutes while thinking loving thoughts toward your rear.” OK, sure.

Step 3: Butt Mask Time
This is real. People are out here applying clay masks to their butts. You haven’t lived until you’ve sat in your bathroom, cheeks out, trying not to sit down while a cold sheet mask shaped like two peaches clings to your dignity. Bonus points if it tingles—it means it’s working (or you’re having an allergic reaction).

Step 4: Moisturize and Firm
Now comes the cream stage. This is where you slather on something that promises to “lift and smooth” your butt like it’s going on a Tinder date. Some even have caffeine in them, because apparently your butt is tired and needs a coffee. The sacrifices you make for booty beauty. Who knew?

Step 5: Mist Your Assets
And finally, booty mist. Yes, a fine spray for your posterior. For hydration. For shimmer. For the glory of the gods. I sprayed one once and nearly slipped on my own ambition. But my butt? Glorious.

The Price of Beauty (Is in the Butt)

Booty Beauty is not for the financially faint of heart. These products don’t come cheap. Some women are out here spending $45 on a single cream that basically smells like an orange ate a jalapeño. And don’t even get me started on the new trend: LED butt masks. We’re plugging in our posteriors, y’all. If aliens are watching, they’re definitely skipping Earth.

But the best part? Nobody really sees it. This is not makeup or lashes or even a haircut. This is beauty for you and you alone. You walk around knowing that if your pants fell off, your butt would be glowing like a sunset in Bali. And there’s something oddly empowering about that.

The Booty Beauty Roundup

Listen, if polishing your posterior brings you joy, live your truth. Slap on that butt serum. Schedule that Brazilian booty facial. Steam those cheeks like a fresh bao bun. It’s your life.

Just know that you are perfect exactly as you are—even if your rear hasn’t been moisturized since 2017. But if you ever feel the need to pamper your peaches, now you know—you’re not alone. There’s a whole army of women out here exfoliating their way to glory, one cheek at a time.

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Vengeance: A Love Story Hits Harder Than You’d Expect

When you hear the title Vengeance: A Love Story, you might expect a gritty romance, a revenge thriller built around heartbreak or lost love. And with Nicolas Cage in the lead role, maybe something emotionally charged but ultimately cathartic. What you get instead is a harrowing story of sexual violence, a broken justice system, and the raw aftermath of trauma that may be too real for many viewers to sit through. This is not a love story. This is a punch to the gut.

Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2003 novella Rape: A Love Story, the film opens with a crime so brutal it’s hard to watch—because it’s meant to be. Teena Maguire (played by Anna Hutchison), a single mother, is gang-raped by four men in a park after a Fourth of July party. Her 12-year-old daughter, Bethie, witnesses the entire thing, hiding just out of sight. That experience alone would be enough to break most children, but Bethie finds herself on her own, walking through the streets at night, traumatized and confused.

Enter John Dromoor, played by Nicolas Cage, a Gulf War veteran and local detective. When he discovers Bethie alone and soon finds her mother’s battered, barely-alive body in a boathouse, the path forward is supposed to be clear: the men responsible should be locked away. But justice, as this movie brutally reminds us, is often a performance for the privileged.

Don Johnson plays Jay Kirkpatrick, the high-priced, smirking defense attorney who knows how to weaponize bias, discredit witnesses, and turn truth into suspicion. His courtroom scenes are nauseating in their realism—calling into question Teena’s character, implying she “asked for it,” and doing everything in his power to twist the narrative until the perpetrators walk free.

via Patriot Pictures

This is where Vengeance: A Love Story becomes something else entirely.

Cage’s Dromoor is no superhero. He’s not delivering long-winded speeches or breaking bones in a choreographed ballet of justice. He’s silent, simmering. And when he decides to take matters into his own hands, the film doesn’t glorify it. It just lets it happen, with the same cold finality that Teena faced in that boathouse.

The Question That Lingers: Why So Graphic?

The rape scene in this movie is not implied—it is shown, and it’s shown in detail. For some viewers, especially survivors of sexual assault, it will be too much. And that opens the door to a necessary question: why do filmmakers feel the need to push boundaries to this extreme?

Some will argue it’s about realism. That sugarcoating violence, especially sexual violence, minimizes the horror and disrespects victims. Others will say that when something is so graphic it triggers panic, nausea, or trauma in viewers, especially those with lived experience, it ceases to be storytelling and becomes exploitation.

There’s no easy answer. But Vengeance: A Love Story doesn’t seem to use the violence for shock value. It feels angry. It feels personal. It feels like the filmmakers are challenging the audience to stop looking away from what happens every day in real life—and from what happens next when the justice system fails.

Still, that doesn’t make it easier to watch.

A Misleading Title with a Brutal Message

The title might be the most misleading part of the entire film. There is no romance between John and Teena. No candlelit scenes. No affection blooming in the aftermath of pain. If there is “love” in this story, it’s in the form of protection—a detective who decides one child’s trauma, one mother’s life, is worth more than the red tape and courtroom games. But even that feels more like duty than romance.

What Cage delivers is a restrained performance of a man haunted by war, justice, and the weight of witnessing too much. He barely speaks, but his face says what the script doesn’t. He’s not a romantic lead—he’s a man with a trigger and a line he finally chooses to cross.

Should You Watch Vengeance: A Love Story?

Only if you’re ready. Vengeance: A Love Story is not entertainment in the traditional sense. It’s not fun, it’s not escapist, and it’s definitely not romantic. But it is honest in its rage. It asks difficult questions about victim-blaming, privilege, and the thin line between justice and revenge.

For fans of Nicolas Cage who appreciate his quieter, more haunted performances, this is worth seeing. For those curious about how fiction intersects with painful reality, it may hold value. But for survivors of sexual violence, proceed with caution. The film may hit harder than any warning label can prepare you for.

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Rare Photos Of Hot Celebrities Leaked

In the mid-90s, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape was leaked and they didn’t really need it, but it gave them a lot of attention. Whether or not Kim Kardashian meant to do it, her leaked video actually put her on a whole new level of stardom. If it’s hot, it’s going to get the internet’s attention and sometimes it seems, that’s all the web wants.

But the trend is old now. We can move on. If people are trying to get famous, maybe they could try another way because hot photo leaks and sexy viral videos that weren’t “supposed” to go public, it’s all been done to death now. And it’s been done again. A new batch of photos have been leaked by hackers and they’re being spread across the internet so fast, celebrities didn’t get a chance to stop it.

Before enjoying the erotic photos with some videos in there as well, take a look at the history and how it got here…

The Hot Couple

The trendsetters who started it had to manage the scandal and actually, there wasn’t anything to manage. Tommy Lee had a reputation already and even as a fan of Pamela Anderson, it wasn’t as if no one had ever seen her nude before. She had done nude photoshoots for Playboy and other magazines throughout her career. Of course, a sex tape does take that to a whole new level. But remember, this video was supposed to be filmed by them and only for them.

The film somehow got leaked and that was before the internet got huge. It was in the timeframe where it could have been a digital file on a computer but it wasn’t. It was a physical tape that was stolen from the house and the fact that they were hot celebrities meant that video was worth some big money. So, it wasn’t a publicity stunt. No evidence points toward that. But it did get some publicity and eyes were watching.

Kim Kardashian Takes A Shot

After Kim Kardashian graduated high school, being a stylist and her famous last name gave her access to celebrities. Of course, she had known Paris Hilton since they were kids and she worked as a stylist for her as well at one point. But everyone knows how driven Kim is. She wasn’t going to stay a stylist to the stars forever. She wanted so much more for herself.

The story goes that she tried to keep the video from getting leaked. Her lawyer tried to stop it and who knows if that’s true. Who knows if any of it’s true because she says she has never alerted the paparazzi about who she was dating and where they would be to make sure convenient pictures were taken of her? The family is the master of getting attention and it’s hard to tell. But the video did make her famous and that was all she wanted. Everything after that is, as they say, history.

Paris Hilton Had One Too

But if you know the dates, Paris Hilton’s video was leaked first in 2003. Kim’s didn’t come out until another four years. Of course, Paris didn’t need a leaked video to make her famous. She was already known as a socialite and the heiress of the Hilton empire.

With just this history of the trend, it would appear Kim’s was possibly the only one back then that was intentional. Pam and Tommy didn’t have anything to gain from it. Paris Hilton didn’t either. But Kim watched her life go in places she wasn’t able to take it before and that has meant all the difference. Look it up anywhere and what you’ll find is that it was at that moment her life was changed.

If you’ve come to see the new batch leaked of hot celebrity photos and videos, the intimate and steamy stuff they tried to keep private, you can enjoy them here:

Hot Celebrity Gallery

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Report On The Report About How People Don’t Read Reports

It was a beautiful free-for-all. The government was just handing out money left and right. All you had to do was come up with something that sounded important and write up a report. They couldn’t give you the money fast enough.

And the best part about it was that it was all phenomenal money. We’re not talking nickel-and-dime nonsense. They were cutting checks for millions. A person would have to be an idiot if they asked for anything less.

All the complaining about welfare but these guys were making big bank off the government teat. When I heard about the proposal one researcher threw together, that’s when I got a bright idea for how I could apply for my debit card to the government ATM. He convinced the government to give him $3 million to write a report about how no one reads reports. You can’t make this stuff up!

So, I put together a proposal to write a report on the report about how no one reads reports. But because I was going to have to go through mounds of old research and then collect data of my own, I figured my work was at least worth $5 million. When it was approved in record time, I smacked myself in the head. I could have asked for more.

No big deal though. With $5 million coming my way, I started making plans where I could conduct my research. Do you know there’s a Ritz-Carlton in Colorado that costs over $6,000 a night? I knew that I was going to have to stay at least a week there to get the data that I needed. But most of my research was going to have to be done in Coastal locations like Malibu, Sarasota, Myrtle Beach, and Bar Harbor. It had a nice ring to it so I put it in the plans.

I took one look around and looked really hard. Upon first observation, not one person was reading a report. When I was eating lunch at the hotel restaurant, no one was reading anything other than the menu. When I laid out by the pool, I didn’t see much evidence of it there either. It’s true. People aren’t into reports. But I was going to need some more convincing.

I ordered room service for dinner that night and made plans for my next destination. I had a thought while I was getting a massage at a spa that I was taking advantage of a good situation. But all that went away when a nice fruity cocktail was handed to me while fingers were walking up and down my spine. In fact, I completely forgot what I was thinking about.

After two years, I really wasn’t any closer to uncovering the truth. So, I filed for an extension and was granted it. They even asked me if I needed more money. Who’s going to turn down more money?

The next year was a huge blur. But one day, I woke up on the floor of my hotel room holding a napkin with notes scribbled on it. There was also a phone number written in lipstick but the notes caught my attention. It appears that somewhere in a total blackout, I had actually started to write down some thoughts. I was really onto something. Nothing to do with reports though.

Who reads those anyway? I’ll probably just hand the government a stack of papers with gibberish on them. Actually, that would prove that no one reads them and I’ll probably get an award or something for it.

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All Michael Allen Books Available For Free Now At Amazon

Joker Joker Deuce is the latest to be added to the list of Michael Allen Books, a psychological thriller that takes a very dark look at the internet and how easily a stalker can find anyone anywhere at any time. It was released before October but readers who like horror don’t need Halloween to enjoy a good scare, which it definitely goes there.

In a recent 5-star Review from a reader on Amazon, technology is the scariest part of the story. To bring the story to real life, Facebook will suggest friends to you, a suggestion given by an algorithm that is aware that you had an interaction with that person, no matter how briefly. You may have also noticed that Facebook will suggest merchants to you based on what you have browsed. If you’ve ever ordered a pizza and then seen an ad from that pizza place, that’s the same technology it uses to suggest friends that you happen to bump into walking down the street or standing in line at the same store.

It might not seem so scary on the surface but a few years ago, members were ready to leave the site because they found it to be a big violation of their privacy. Add to that a tech-savvy guy who knows the dark web and uses apps that are available to everyone to track down his victims. As his mind spirals further into insanity, the cruelty he shows toward his innocent targets becomes increasingly savage.

The Paperback copy is $14.97 while the Kindle version is $2.99. But through Kindle Unlimited, you can read Joker Joker Deuce for free and that goes for all the Michael Allen Books.

If you want to go back to the beginning, it starts with the first installment of the daughter’s series. It’s a series of books that are not yet finished because there are a few more yet to write but A River in the Ocean is where it all begins.

Chris is raising his daughter by himself because her mother passed away. He used to live in Fredericksburg, Virginia before one opportunity after another took him places throughout the country. But finding himself alone to raise his daughter by himself, he decides to return home where the beautiful Rappahannock River roars through town.

One night, Chris is in a terrible accident that almost takes his life. While he’s in a coma, his daughter is being raised by a quirky couple who have good attentions but they hardly know what they’re doing. When Chris comes out of his coma, he has amnesia and has to put the pieces of his life back together. The memory of his daughter haunts him like a ghost while she’s starting to realize that she’s a little out of place. He didn’t know he was looking and she didn’t know she needed found.

The daughter’s series continues with The Deeper Dark where a hero comes home from the war to find out that his whole world has moved on without him. The only person he has left in his life is his daughter. They have some catching up to do but she’s happy he’s alive and he’s happy to be back.

That is until he finds out what actually happened to him over there. It wasn’t random that his plane had a malfunction or that he ended up in a POW camp for years. What was random was when the POW camp was simply abandoned one day but he was left there to die.

The truth is a highly layered web of lies that he begins to expose one by one. That’s when the corrupt network behind it all threatens the life of his daughter. No one knows how far he’s willing to go to save her life in this action-packed book that keeps you reading with 5-star reviews to prove it.

I have added each of these Michael Allen Books to the Kindle Unlimited catalog. So, you can enjoy them one after another if you’d like. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them and look for more to come out in the very near future.

Bonus: Trailer for Joker Joker Deuce

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The Awful Tragedy of the Very Rare Sinkhole

It’s hard to trust the ground we walk on these days. I have never heard about a sinkhole as much as I have in just the last couple of years.

When I was growing up, sinkholes weren’t on the news or in the newspapers. I had monsters under my bed. My house was attacked by locusts one year and I had to walk through them to get from the school bus to the front door. I also suffered a dog attack but that didn’t change the way I felt about dogs. That just changed the way I dealt with them.

If I had ever heard about a sinkhole, I would have had nightmares all my life. The first time I heard about one was possibly fifteen years ago. I remember the tragedy that day when I heard about a family who was in their house minding their own business when a sinkhole suddenly swallowed it. Everyone got out alive except for one man who went down with it. They couldn’t save him.

I was a fully grown man when I heard the news and I started having nightmares. The reason I started having nightmares was because I was even thinking about that sinkhole throughout the day. What if that happened to me? What if that happened to someone I love? Where are these damn sinkholes and how can I know when they are going to open up?

Imagine walking down the sidewalk in London and a sinkhole opens up right in front of you. It’s big enough to swallow the street and if it keeps growing, it could take a few houses down with it. That’s what happened recently and the people of this English Village are a little freaked out about it.

Is there something going on that we should know about? Are we starting to witness the wear and tear of all the digging and the infrastructure that these genius city planners have put our cities through?

The earth is massive and resilient but it might not like us too much. The animals are fine because they only take what they need and they leave very little footprint. But humans are ripping and tearing everything apart like it’s no one’s business. If that has anything to do with it, these sinkhole episodes are trying to tell us something.

I’m all for building beautiful cities and having nice places to visit around the world. What I’m not looking forward to is every square inch being paved with concrete. But that won’t happen because the earth will definitely kick us out by then.

If I’m on the wrong track, then some genius needs to step up and find out how sinkholes occur. It would be nice to know so that we can stop them from happening. At the very least, I’d like to know where I can park my car.

The post The Awful Tragedy of the Very Rare Sinkhole appeared first on Michael Allen.

Making Money On Facebook By Being Absolutely Ridiculous

There are plenty of ways of making money on Facebook that range from selling products on the platform itself to driving traffic to a site where customers can buy the products there. Sometimes, shuffling the traffic around is enough to make money in itself. But Facebook keeps developing and they’ve come up with a new way to earn an income online. All it takes is being utterly outrageous.

The thing is that this new way of making money on Facebook is an invitation-only program that literally pays members just for interactions. Getting the Likes and the Shares used to be a hobby for Facebookers that put a huge smile on their faces. But they don’t have to do it for free anymore. They can get paid for their Likes and the entire Comments section as well.

To make it legitimate, Facebook calls it the Performance bonus program and even refers to its members as “creators.” To be fair, some of them actually are. But with everything that is good, there is an element that comes in and takes advantage of a good thing.

It’s all over Facebook and it gets easy to detect when you start to see it. At first, you think the poster made a simple mistake like spelling a name wrong or getting the facts twisted. But no, they are doing it on purpose and it’s only to spark those interactions.

Imagine a post that talks about Katie Ledecky and highlights her career as an American swimmer who is doing phenomenally in the 2024 Paris Olympics. The thing is that the post is accompanied by the Danish swimmer Victoria Bierre, a student at the University of Copenhagen. Of course, there will be thousands of Likes and hundreds of Comments about how beautiful she is and how awesome she is as an athlete.

via Instagram/victoria_bierre

There might even be thousands of Shares because people aren’t paying attention to the post with the picture accompanying it. Then, there are people who will notice and they’ll comment that the picture is wrong. There might be thousands of comments about who is actually in the picture and how it’s not Katie Ledecky.

Of course, because everyone is on the internet, there will be some awesome name-calling like “moron” and “idiot.” Some people even have the special ability to throw around even more juicy words than those. But do you think the poster cares?

No. Because they’re laughing all the way to the bank after making money. Every interaction they get on that post is just more coin in their pocket. They might even comment back and say, “Thank you” with a nice smiley face to let you know they appreciate your participation in making them rich.

What really works is being obnoxious. Misspelling Michael Jordan’s name will stir the pot. Jumping into a social issue with an absolutely moronic take will set a post on fire. Make anything up and make sure it touches on the triggers that ignite people the most. That’s the formula for making money.

Recently, there was an absurd post about Oliver Anthony and a song he wrote called, “I Don’t Care About Your Pronouns.” With over 11,000 Likes, Hates, Loves, and Wows with about 1,000 comments as well as over 1,000 Shares, that poster was sitting pretty well on a nice Facebook payout. Of course, a subject like that is going to cause a ruckus.

The fact is that the song doesn’t even exist. It’s just an absurdly ridiculous post that throws Oliver Anthony under the bus, a musician on the rise. What a good way to create some haters for him! The problem is that some Facebookers are so triggered, that they’ll dive right into the comment section with their opinions before they even take a moment to look it up first.

In this incident, the information looks innocent enough. But as a fan of The Big Bang Theory, an alarm should start going off when looking at Mayim Bialik and Jim Parsons. The post says they’re dressed up like Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki’s characters. Something doesn’t add up right. They’re actually dressed up like the characters played by Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg.

That’s no major issue. It won’t cause a war or anything. But it’s enough to get fans of The Big Bang Theory to comment all about it and thousands of them will keep making the same correction over and over. Each reaction is another coin in the cash register.

That’s how easy it is. The most absurd thing about all this is the Fact-Checking system Facebook has in place. If a poster states an opinion, Fact-Checkers are there to inform readers of the potential hazard of being exposed to it. If a Facebooker posts a joke, the Fact-Checkers come running to dispute the premise and contest the punchline. But these “Performance bonus program” posts don’t come with a warning label. They are free to spawn misinformation at will.

So, being an invitation-only program means that Facebook hand-picks these members to create a stir on the platform. What they found is that the easiest and most effective way to do it is by being absolutely ridiculous. It’s a cool gig if you can get it.

The post Making Money On Facebook By Being Absolutely Ridiculous appeared first on Michael Allen.

Kanye West Jaw-dropping And Strange Grammy Humiliation Ritual

Of course, the Grammys are about entertainment and viewers should expect a high level of performance with celebrities vying for attention. Sometimes, they try to outdo each other and that means stepping on toes and throwing a few elbows to get their names in the headlines. But what Kanye West had his wife Bianca Censori do on the Red Carpet was way beyond that.

I watched the clip from Sunday night’s show and thought, that’s more evidence that this man needs medical attention. His mental faculties have been in decline for years and it’s well documented, even if you only take the clothes that he wears out in public into consideration. But Kanye West wasn’t the only one in his little show on Sunday night. He brought his wife into it and put her on full display.

To be honest, she looked like she was doing something she really wasn’t happy doing. She started out with a huge fur coat that covered her entire body. I’m sure PETA was gasping but those gasps quickly turned to gasps of an entirely different kind when she dropped the coat to the floor and revealed that she was wearing a see-through dress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

It’s the Grammys. Most celebrities are enjoying themselves in clothes that they’re proud to show off for the designer who gave it to them. But Bianca wasn’t allowed to participate in the show like that and that’s exactly how I feel about it. She did what Kanye West ordered her to do.

Then, he made a ceremony out of it. He took a stance as he stared at the cameras. That’s when Bianca was given her cue to bare herself to the world, Kaney’s trophy. When the term “Humiliation Ritual” comes up in polite society, this really does seem to be what they’re talking about.

How does Kanye go from making gospel albums praising Jesus to making his wife parade around naked? This looks like a humiliation ritual to me. They shouldn’t have let her in. https://t.co/3i0A2LbSGp

— Ginjie 𝕏 (@breauxbot) February 2, 2025

Did she get to mingle with the other celebrities? Did she enjoy her night dressed like that? It’s like Eyes Wide Shut with Bianca being shown off for all the elites to enjoy a look as they talk amongst themselves in their little cliques. She’s the side entertainment of a much bigger show.

It’s like Kanye got jealous of Diddy getting all the attention. He’s Hollyweird too. He can make people do stuff. Just watch!

But he isn’t the only one getting the whispers today…

This is when I start believing that there are 'humiliation rituals' in Hollyweird….. pic.twitter.com/EDynRkoLDN

— SickofEverything (no dms-sorry!) (@SickOfEverythi6) February 3, 2025

Some celebrities just make off the wall choices. They want attention and they know how to get it, by being as outrageous as they can. But there just might be something to these “humiliation rituals” everyone keeps talking about.

How else can you explain a fashion designer thinking its a good idea to have models carrying another model down the catwalk with her crotch in her face? Or anything that happens in those fashion shows because quite frankly, they all seem to be on drugs. It’s either drugs or humilitation rituals. There is no other way to describe it.

Here we have Jaden Smith with a house on his head. Nothing to see here, just another one of those fashion designer hats. It’s probably Versace.

The post Kanye West Jaw-dropping And Strange Grammy Humiliation Ritual appeared first on Michael Allen.