April 17, 2025

WHAT IS A WOMAN? JK ROWLING IS A WOMAN, A GENUINELY TOUGH WOMAN:

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

BURGMENTUM, BABY: Burgum Takes the Wind Out of the Empire State’s Plans. “As much as I cracked on Doug Burgum as a presidential candidate, he is going gangbusters as Interior Secretary and is proving to be another of Trump’s inspired picks. All I can say is molto well done to him. As for the offshore waters South of Long Island, I hope the folks really enjoy them now. Things are always better savored when you realize what you almost lost.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 2

IMPRESSIVE: High School Student Discovers 1.5 Million Potential New Astronomical Objects by Developing an A.I. Algorithm. “Matteo Paz from Pasadena, California, recently won the first place prize of $250,000 in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search for combining machine learning with astronomy. Self-described as the nation’s ‘oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors,’ the contest recognized Paz for developing his A.I. algorithm. The young scientist’s tool processed 200 billion data entries from NASA’s now-retired Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) telescope. His model revealed 1.5 million previously unknown potential celestial bodies.”

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green 45

CHANGE? Meet the Man Who Murdered the Democratic Party. “A pair of earthshattering, history-altering, Chris Christie-sized stories broke this week, but they’ve (mostly) skated beneath the political periphery. That’s because you can’t grasp the sheer enormity of the consequences until you connect them together.”

Posted at 11:12 am by Stephen Green 139

I’VE HAD SIMILAR THOUGHTS: Is It August 1941 Again? If So Is There A Chinese Operation Z In The Works?

For many years before the United States entered World War II, tensions between the United States and Japan escalated. In the months prior to December 7, 1941, those tensions reached the breaking point. Responding to the Japanese occupation of airfields in French Indochina, the U.S. froze all Japanese assets on July 26, 1941. On August 1st, it imposed an embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan. Without those exports, the Japanese economy and military would grind to a halt.

The Japanese were faced with a clear choice. The sanctions imposed by the United States were a fatal blow to Japan’s economy. Tokyo could knuckle under, or it could strike first.

That didn’t work out very well.

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green 311

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: James May reviews a fully driverless car (video).

The video goes on quite a bit too long, but for longtime Top Gear viewers, the punchline is a hoot.

It does make me slightly less apprehensive about riding in a self-driving car though: Lyft plans to launch robotaxi service in Dallas in 2026. “The ride-sharing company Lyft said Monday it plans to roll out a full self-driving robotaxi service in Dallas next year. The announcement comes as rival Uber plans to launch its self-driving taxi service with Google’s Waymo cars in Austin, Texas, next month.”

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll 32

THE DEMOCRATS’ APPEAL IS BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE: Politico: Guess Where Voters Are Getting Tired of La Résistance? “Voters, on the other hand, have had enough … even in California. According to Politico’s new poll, Golden State voters have no real interest in going to war with Donald Trump. Instead, they seem less enthused than ever about the state’s one-party rule and the fruits it has borne.”

Fruits of a poisonous tree.

Posted at 9:49 am by Glenn Reynolds 67

JOYLESS GUARDIAN WRITER SAYS: The Blue Origin flight showcased the utter defeat of American feminism.

This lede is just too precious for writer Moira Donegan’s utter lack of self-awareness while decrying our lack of self-awareness: “There are some spectacles of US decadence and decline that almost seem too on the nose – the sort of orgies of vulgar provocation or fantastic lack of self-awareness that exceed the limits of parody, so that if they were in a novel, you’d think the writer was laying it on a little thick.”

Say what you will about the merits of Blue Origin’s all-female passenger flight but those women touched the edge of space on an American-built joyride that you can’t get in Britain at any price.

If that’s decadence and decline, then what do you call Britain’s ongoing dewesternization?

Posted at 9:39 am by Stephen Green 140

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Loading Up on Popcorn to Watch Trump Break Harvard. “No one on the Right has even taken a brief, easy run at the grifters in Academia before. President Trump is going after them and their money hard. There’s a lot at stake here. The rot in Academia is so deep that getting rid of it without burning it all down (a guy can dream) can’t be done with halfhearted measures.”

Posted at 9:08 am by Stephen Green 49

UNEXPECTEDLY! David Hogg Turning Out to Be a Terrific Pick for DNC Vice Chair.

It has been a busy spring since winning a Democratic National Committee Vice Chair post [Beege adds: 1 of 5 VCs], an event I can only attribute to the current state of Democratic Party upheaval and disarray, and, evidently, the overwhelming lack of a single, sane member.

Hogg’s ascension was the lunatic cherry on top of the DNC Crazy Town sundae – we all know who’s in charge of the asylum now.

It didn’t take the twee lad long to exercise his tremendous powers of persuasion. Two weeks after winning, DNC members were already being persuaded that this attention Hogg was a big mistake.
…
Some were questioning the wisdom of elevating a media-made creature of so little accomplishment, particularly at a time when the party was being held in so little regard.

When you’re considered too young and callow for the party currently going all-in on AOC as the party’s future…

Posted at 8:37 am by Stephen Green 63

OH, HE REALLY SHOULD: Will Trump Do a Bob Jones on Haahvaahd?

New York Post: Harvard may be free to target Jews — but not on the taxpayers’ dime.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds 85

MASK DROPPED: CNN and Taylor Lorenz Exposed Their Motivation.

Earier in her CNN interview, [Lorenz] justified her appreciation for [Luigi] Mangione:

It’s hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone standing a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don’t lionize criminals, as if we don’t have, you know, we don’t stand murderers of all sorts, and we give them Netflix shows. There’s a huge disconnect between the narratives and angles of mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels. And you see that in moments like this.

Lorenz loves that Mangione allegedly murdered the United Healthcare CEO. She lit up with joy when discussing it. Her elation over it — and her statement that he was a “morally good man” exposes her motivation behind doxxing anonymous conservatives on social media — she wants certain people with opposing viewpoints dead.

It isn’t a stretch to connect the dots here — a national left-leaning journalist felt it necessary to expose the identity of an anonymous conservative video aggregator who was gaining traction by exposing the far-left’s insanity. That same journalist considers the alleged murderer of a healthcare CEO “revolutionary, famous, handsome, smart, and a morally good man.”

She was doing it all because she can justify murder and violence against those she disagrees with — she wouldn’t necessarily personally do it, but if she could expose the identities of people she doesn’t like and where they live — she’d be OK with, “a morally good man” taking it from there.

CNN not denouncing her actions or this interview implicates their motives as well. After all, it doesn’t seem like that long ago since the network sent reporters to ambush random elderly women at their homes for sharing pro-Trump memes.

Unlike CNN’s gushing Donie O’Sullivan, Fox News’ Sean Hannity tried a more aggressive approach to get Lorenz to put the breaks on her pro-assassination rhetoric, but not surprisingly, Lorenz is sticking to her guns:

No, I think we already know the answer to that based on her actions last year: “Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz on Monday pushed a false claim that a Los Angeles synagogue was auctioning off Palestinian land this week—a conspiracy theory that led to violent, anti-Semitic protests outside the Jewish house of worship on Sunday.”

Not to mention calling then-President Joe Biden a “War Criminal:”

And I think we all know the answer to this dilemma as well, based purely on aesthetics:

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll 97

ICYMI: You’ll Never Believe What Slow Learners the Democrats Are. “Democrats want their party to become more progressive than what, exactly? Sorry, I didn’t mean to mislead you, but this actually raises a whole host of questions about current progressive policies and proposals — and I don’t even need to drink my lunch before asking them all.”

Posted at 8:06 am by Stephen Green 22