April 10, 2025

OK, WHO’S BRINGING THE POPCORN? Reuters is reporting that Sarah Palin and the New York Times are headed back to a courtroom where the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate will try convincing a second jury the newspaper defamed her in an editorial about gun control.

My sentiments here.

 

Posted at 12:29 pm by Charles Glasser 7

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT, MUCH VENTING OF SPLEEN: Chuck Todd Finally Confesses but There’s a Catch. “Dinosaur legacy media has-been Chuck Todd finally admitted that he helped hide Joe Biden’s decline because he didn’t want to help Donald Trump. But there’s one little problem with Todd’s confession: He doesn’t understand that he’s guilty of anything.”

Posted at 12:14 pm by Stephen Green 18

COLONIALISM, STRAIGHT UP:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green 77

NIFTY: New Design Means SpaceX Can Launch More Starlink Satellites at a Time.

In 2024, SpaceX typically launched 20 to 23 Starlink satellites per launch. But last month, it increased the number to 27 and 28 per flight while using the same Falcon 9 vehicles. This comes after it made a design change to the V2 Mini Starlink satellite, which can deliver 96Gbps of network bandwidth each.

The V2 Mini satellites debuted in early 2023, with the goal of delivering even higher quality broadband on the older V1.5 satellites. Since then, SpaceX has improved the design, resulting in the “V2 Mini Optimized.”

I’m excited to see what the bigger and faster V3 brings once Starship comes into service.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green 14

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does Social Security have a dead beneficiary problem after all?

Millions of invalid numbers don’t exist for no reason:

Previously: Democrats are absolutely terrified of Elon looking into Social Security.

Posted at 10:55 am by Stephen Green 173

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: All The President’s Men and the End of Objective Reality.

Much of the blame for this situation lies with Hillary Clinton. Hillary, whose ego was so broken by her surprise loss to Donald Trump in 2016 that she concocted a conspiracy theory in which Trump was a Russian mole “installed” in the White House as part of an election “stolen” by Vladimir Putin so that America could be delivered into the clutches of the Russian oligarchy, and who then demanded that America’s press and “elite” institutions avenge her loss and personal humiliation on the basis of that entirely made up conspiracy theory.

And oh, how well it worked. Huge majorities of Democrat voters believed it then and continue to believe it now. And once you believe that the President is literally a foreign agent actively working to destroy the country, well, you are obliged to act… and when I think about the assassination attempts in Butler and West Palm Beach, the phrase “by whatever means necessary” comes to mind. But for mainstream Democrats as a party, the belief in this conspiracy has forced them into an official policy of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Which is to say, anything that Trump says, does or supports must be resisted (sometimes violently) because, by definition, he is an agent of a foreign government bent on destroying the country.

Is Trump a brilliant political strategist? I don’t know, but I would submit that he doesn’t have to be. He has recognized the fact pattern I’ve outlined above and has been able to maneuver Democrats and their most rabid Resistance voters into a series of unpopular positions simply by taking the 80% side of a series of 80/20 issues and daring the Left to take the 20% side. And they have obliged him, because they have left themselves no other choice.

Conspiracy theories are dangerous that way, and not just to the body politic. They are corrosive, lethal even, to our own minds and to the way we see the world.

Except, of course, when they turn out to be true. But George MF takes readers on a deep dive into Watergate with this one, and it’s fascinating reading.

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green 73

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese Lunar Rocks Suggest a Thirsty Far Side of the Moon.

Back on Earth with the Chang’e-6 samples in hand, the researchers sought mare basalts, or hardened grains of lava that erupted from within the lunar mantle. Some of these basalts, as much as 2.8 billion years old, contained olivine, a crystal that formed as ancient magma inside the moon cooled, preserving information about the composition of the mantle early on in lunar history.

The amount of hydrogen trapped in the olivine allowed the scientists to deduce the amount of water present in the mantle back then: between 1 and 1.5 grams of water for every million grams of lunar rock.

Prior measurements from samples collected on the near side of the moon — by the United States, the Soviet Union and more recently China — were as much as 200 times as wet.

The stark difference in the ranges of water content derived from lunar near and far side samples could suggest that the part of the moon invisible to us on Earth is much drier overall, Dr. Hu said.

Or maybe that’s what Beijing wants us to think.

Posted at 9:39 am by Stephen Green 16

INFLATION FALLS:

Prediction: Near-instant pivot from “Trump promised to lower inflation, where’s progress?” to “Ackshually, low inflation is bad.”

That said, a tip-over to actual deflation would be bad, since deflation hurts debtors more than creditors, and the United States is the world’s biggest debtor.

Posted at 9:33 am by Glenn Reynolds 128

HOLLY MATHNERD: Idea for Graduation Season Consideration: Don’t send your kids to college. I have a nephew who’s 22. Went to welding school instead of college. Now making close to six figures, and heading for nuclear-welding training where he’ll make well into six figures. Likes the work, likes the people, has a good reputation for quality and punctuality, and a delightful fiancee.

Posted at 9:26 am by Glenn Reynolds 93

HUH. I WONDER WHY THAT WOULD BE?

Posted at 9:17 am by Glenn Reynolds 124

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: I’m Always Going to Be a Big Fan of Sticking It to China. “Beltway Tariff Theater continues to dominate the news. There is plenty of other stuff going on, but none of it is as gripping as watching President Trump continue to do president stuff that we’re not familiar with, especially the whole ‘carry out campaign promises’ thing.”

Posted at 9:08 am by Stephen Green 20

DON SURBER: World cheers Trump’s 10% tariff: On Wednesday, he created Wall Street’s biggest day in 24 years. “Watching the Trump’s Tariff War from afar, I find it hilarious. He has managed in the past week to get the world to accept a 10% tariff on everything while triggering Red China to engage in an actual tariff war that is financially suicidal for the communist regime. The headline from Never Trumpland was ‘Trump Caves on Tariffs After Insisting They Were Essential.’ These clowns must work for minimum wage because their negotiating skills are nonexistent.”

Posted at 8:40 am by Glenn Reynolds 83

SLOUCHING TOWARD WORLD WAR III: China denies significant numbers of its citizens are fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for the war, according to a U.S. assessment last year.

The Kremlin has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day halt in the fighting in Ukraine. The Kyiv government has consented to it. Both sides are believed to be readying spring-summer military campaigns.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in Beijing that China has played a “constructive role in politically resolving the Ukraine crisis.”

Lin told a daily news briefing Wednesday that “the Chinese government always asks Chinese citizens to stay away from conflict zones, avoid getting involved in any form of armed conflict, and especially refrain from participating in any party’s military operations.”

His comments appeared to indicate that the captured Chinese had joined Russia’s ranks on their own initiative. Both Russia and Ukraine allow foreign soldiers to enlist.

North Korea remains less circumspect: North Korea has sent 3,000 more soldiers to bolster Russia’s war on Ukraine, South Korea says.

Posted at 8:37 am by Stephen Green 51