May 8, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Wherever you go, that’s where you are.

Posted at 10:25 pm by Ed Driscoll 353

HEH, INDEED:

Related:

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 371

HAHA, IT’S NOT ACTUALLY “YOUR MONEY” IN ANY MEANINGFUL SENSE, RUBE:

Posted at 6:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 260

YOU WOULD NEED A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

I assume Biden will still be able to pull in speaking fees but there’s some doubt about how much even sympathetic groups are willing to pay.

Posted at 5:16 pm by Stephen Green 361

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Skynet Might Be Fiction, But It’s Coming for Our Jobs “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… EVER, until your job has been fully automated!”

Posted at 4:22 pm by Stephen Green 38

MARK FELTON: VE-Day Airborne Mission! Operation Doomsday (Video).

I love the moment at 13:32 when RAF Air Commodore Lawrence Darvall refuses to shake hands with Luftwaffe General Benno Kosch during the surrender ceremony. (On the other hand, I’m not sure why Felton currently has a photo of Anthony Hopkins and the extras from 1977’s A Bridge Too Far as his screen capture.)

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 30

ACTUALLY, YES YOU DO NEED TO EXPLAIN — IDEALLY TO A PROSECUTOR:

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green 325

GOOD QUESTION: How Can You Be a Cop in a City That Hates You?

There might be no city in America that monitors its police force more than Chicago. There are at least six oversight agencies scrutinizing the department’s every move. There are even 22 civilian councils—one for each police district—tasked with moving grievances up the chain. Plus, noncitizens—“regardless of immigration status”—get to contribute their “perspectives and experiences” through a first-of-its-kind Noncitizen Advisory Council. Then there is the fact that since 2019, the department has been under a 236-page federal consent decree. That followed a lawsuit won by Black Lives Matter Chicago and other activist groups.

A lawyer who helped represent BLM Chicago told me the group has a “direct role in shaping oversight” of the police department’s reform process. The NAACP also has “intervention authority,” the lawyer said.

Given all of that, perhaps it is no surprise that Chicago police are struggling with a suicide rate that was more than 60 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2017 report from the Justice Department.

Through public records requests, The Free Press was able to uncover that 53 officers, including 12 retirees, have committed suicide in the past decade. The situation is much worse than previously thought, with past estimates putting the figure at “more than 30 police employees.” The Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, which distributes police pensions, told me that one out of every five deaths they logged since 2015 was a suicide.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green 102

GODFATHER CAUSES FILM TO SLEEP WITH THE FISHES: Where, Oh Where, Did Megalopolis Go?

Francis Ford Coppola got a standing ovation at the Dolby Theatre on April 26. He got the AFI Life Achievement Award (see page 42), heartfelt tributes from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and George Lucas, and, toward the end of the night, a glowing speech from Adam Driver, who hailed Megalopolis — the legendary director’s $120 million self-financed, genre-bending epic that stars Driver and pulled in just $14 million during its blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run in the fall — as “a piece of art.”

What Coppola didn’t get — and apparently doesn’t want — is a distribution deal that lets anyone actually see Megalopolis on a home screen. It’s not on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes or anywhere else with a play button. It can’t even be found on DVD. For all the hosannas recently lavished on it, Megalopolis has become the most celebrated invisible movie of the year.

There is, it turns out, a (somewhat) logical explanation for the disappearing act. One of the perks of spending $120 million of your own money on a movie is getting to decide exactly how — and where — it gets seen. And according to sources close to Coppola, the last thing the 86-year-old auteur wants is for Megalopolis to be watched on a television set.

“He wants it to play in theaters, the way it was intended,” says one insider.

So, instead of a digital release, Coppola is taking the film on tour. Days after the AFI tribute, he boarded a flight to Boston for a sold-out screening at the Coolidge Theater. Later this month, he’s headed to Detroit.

It may not be the most efficient way to earn back that $120 million, but as Driver reminded the AFI crowd, commerce was never the point. “Believe me, I was there,” he said. “There was no talk about how we could make this more commercial.”

No doubt about that — Nina and I were happy to be the audience in Fort Worth in October: Megalopolis: Making Sense of Francis Ford Coppola’s Fever Dreams.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 69

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Posted at 2:33 pm by Stephen Green 79

HOW IT STARTED: Frontier Airlines agents jeer at passenger after hitting him with surprise fee: ‘You thought you were gonna get on your flight?’

Wild viral footage has captured Frontier Airlines gate agents getting into a bust-up with a passenger who had sniped, “I’m never flying this sh—y airline again” after being hit with an unexpected $25 fee just to check in.

The caught-on-camera saga erupted when the male passenger — a 45-year-old married father of three — was trying to check in for his Frontier flight from Raleigh, NC, to Boston last Friday after a week-long business trip.

The passenger, who didn’t want to be identified, told The Post he’d arrived at the airport with roughly 50 minutes to spare but wasn’t able to check in on the electronic kiosk because, unbeknownst to him, he had missed the airline’s 60-minute pre-departure window.

When he went to speak to a Frontier employee, he was told he needed to cough up a $25 fee to check in at the desk per the airline’s policy.

That’s when he claims things turned sour.

That’s putting it mildly:

How it’s going: Agents Fired for Mocking Customer ‘And You Thought You Was Gonna Get on Your Flight.’

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 355

BRAVO: ‘Operation Sindoor’ Nails Mastermind of Daniel Pearl Kidnapping. “Whatever the ongoing consequences of India unleashing its missiles on Pakistani terror encampments the night before last – things either chill out or escalate – word has broken this morning of a true service to humanity they performed by knowing exactly where to rain down hell for revenge.”

Thank you, India, for avenging Daniel Pearl.

Full details at the link, and they are plentiful.

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green 25

I’M NOT GETTING MY HOPES UP BUT I DO APPRECIATE THE GESTURE:

Posted at 1:34 pm by Stephen Green 68