AS WE LEARNED DURING COVID, MASS TRANSIT AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE MAKE A DANGEROUS COMBO: Passenger with measles traveled on a train from NYC, Amtrak says.
March 27, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Firm wins Space Force funding to provide an ‘aircraft carrier’ in orbit.
In interviews about the concept with Ars, company officials were fairly vague about specific details of what orbital carriers will be able to do. A news release published on Wednesday morning, highlighting the Strategic Funding Increase, or STRATFI grant from the United States Space Force, also lacks specifics. The Space Force would prefer to keep the vehicle’s operational capabilities under wraps.
But in general, the idea is to provide an unpressurized module in which one or more satellites can be pre-positioned in orbit.
Such a module would isolate the satellites from the space environment, sparing their batteries and sensitive electronics from harsh thermal cycles every 90 minutes, and provide some shielding from radiation. In addition, the orbital carrier would obfuscate the satellites inside from observation by other nations or hostile actors in space. Then, when a satellite is needed, it can be deployed into multiple orbits by the carrier.
It might be smart if the carrier were designed to look like an ordinary comms satellite.
POINTING AND LAUGHING IS A CORRECT AND CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSE: Megyn Kelly and Glenn Greenwald Point and Laugh at Natasha Bertrand’s Classified Info ‘Outrage.’
HOW TAXPAYER MONEY IS SPENT:
I listen to a lot of NPR and my favorite tic of theirs is what I like to call Two Good Facts/Two Bad Facts. Once you hear it you can’t unhear it.
If it’s a Dem policy or politician, they get Two Good Facts. “Kamala Harris, who is (1) gaining in the polls, has a new proposal to…
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) March 26, 2025
MARK JUDGE: Norm Eisen and Dana Milbank Are Scumbags.
HERE’S WHAT THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FUNDS: The level of woke jargon is very high here:
Despite well-intentioned university efforts to support Black undergraduate STEM students, policy and practice reforms run the risk of not appropriately benefiting all Black people due to pervasive, deficit-based assumptions about Black racial identities and the types of structural engagement needed to advance holistic, racial well-being in transformative and sustainable ways. Stated simply, STEM contexts do not adequately support Black undergraduate STEM students because STEM educators and practitioners remain unsure of what Blackness means for individuals, thereby constraining true racial equity endeavors. Contemporary literature regarding race posits instead that embodiment(s) of Blackness differ across multiple dimensions and axes, including ethnic identity (e.g., African American, Caribbean American, Nigerian American), place identity (e.g., South, Midwest), and generational identity (e.g., first-generation, second-generation, third plus generation). Black students from different ethnic and generational identities having varied perceptions of the racial climate and understandings of their STEM experiences. Recognizing the scope of Blackness and its implications for creating and sustaining holistic, heterogenous conceptions of racial equity in STEM, the team will establish a collaborative network among six institutions (two HBCUS, two PWIs, one majority Black institution, and one HSI) located across the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest regions of the US to study how Black undergraduate STEM students? notions of Blackness vary with respect to these dimensions. … (Rest of Abstract here.)
This project–entitled “Examining Blackness in Postsecondary STEM Education through a Multidimensional-Multiplicative Lens”–fetched $1,633,132.00. So far only $767,25 has been disbursed.
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ILYA SHAPIRO: DOGE-ing It Up from Texas to Tallahassee to Tucuman.
PARTICULARLY GENZ MALES — THE WOMEN, FOR SOME REASON, NOT SO MUCH: Gen Z Is The Most Conservative Generation In Decades Because They’re A Victim Of The Left’s Failures.
Obama was elected president in 2008 and served for eight years of their lives. The Obama administration was the furthest left in American history (though Obama assiduously sought to hide it) until the Biden administration supplanted it. Those twelve years of Obama and Biden encompassed the majority of Gen Z’s formative years.
Outside those twelve years, the left continued its ascendancy in American culture. Even when they didn’t hold the White House, leftists — operating from their enclaves in deep blue cities and states, the worlds of academia, entertainment, sports, media, and even business — have steered Gen Z’s society toward failure upon failure.
Gen Z simply has no memory of anything else. From classrooms to the workplace, they have encountered a Berlin Wall of DEI initiatives. It is no wonder that (having been so forced-fed) they cynically say DEI stands for “didn’t earn it.”
The #MeToo movement also dominated a large portion of Gen Z’s lifespan, portraying men as implicitly suspect and putting boys under a microscope, — except when the left and Democrats cynically forget what’s inconvenient for them (e.g., the various allegations against Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, and Andrew Cuomo, who is now running for the Democrat nomination for NYC mayor).
Of course, Covid dominated Gen Zers’ lives and consciousness as it did with no other generation.
COVID was when the left began overplaying its hand and they went wild during the Biden Cabal.
YES, AND IT WOULD HAVE WORKED LAST TIME, BUT PEOPLE HAVE GOTTEN SMARTER: ‘Signal Gate’ is a political operation intended to sow discord within the Trump White House.
Related:
The best part about Signalgate is how no one rolled over like a little bitch in the face of Democrats, the regime media, and the spineless on our side. pic.twitter.com/NcjuX4x0mX
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 26, 2025
SUMMER OF LOVE CONCLUDES:
It's so satisfying to watch elite libs who were singing from the rooftops about reparations and going into ecstasy about George Floyd, now wake up with this massive cultural hangover. The era of Robin DiAngelo is officially over.pic.twitter.com/nHcReq8fg1
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 26, 2025
CHRIS QUEEN: The Left’s ‘Inevitability’ Has Proven Hollow. “One of the constant drumbeats of the left is that its policies and cultural movements are inevitable. Progress always marches in the leftists’ direction, they tell us. They’re ‘on the right side of history,’ after all, and they like to remind us of that every chance they get. But is that true? Recent years have shown a backlash against the ‘inevitability’ of the left.”
ICYMI: ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY: A Supreme Court Remedy for Nationwide Injunctions: Congress gave the Supreme Court the authority to curb them by clarifying the Rules of Civil Procedure.
Federal trial judges blocking presidential acts via nationwide injunctions are creating a serious conflict between the executive and judicial branches. The flood of such injunctions provoked President Trump to take to social media and call for the impeachment of a judge who issued a temporary restraining order. Chief Justice John Roberts responded in a statement to reporters that impeachment is inappropriate and the administration should rely on “the normal appellate review process.” Unsatisfied, Mr. Trump wrote on Thursday: “Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country! . . . If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”
There is something the justices can do to rein in nationwide injunctions: exercise their authority under the Rules Enabling Act of 1934 to amend the federal rule on injunctions.
The recent outbreak of nationwide injunctions damages our constitutional system. They were almost unheard of before the 1960s. Only 12 were issued against George W. Bush and 19 against Barack Obama during each of their two terms. Joe Biden faced 28. Mr. Trump faced 86 during his first term, almost all issued by Democrat-appointed judges. Two months into his second term, more than 15 have already been issued.
Because nationwide injunctions often appear politically motivated, they create cynicism about the courts and the law. Worse, they enable lower-court judges to thwart the president’s Article II authority even in national security and defense. Lawmakers have introduced bills to halt nationwide injunctions. One recently passed the House Judiciary Committee and will likely pass the full House—then go to the Senate to die in a filibuster. . . .
An amendment to Rule 65 couldn’t take effect until Dec. 1. But once proposed—by May 1, as required—it would likely have an immediate, beneficial chilling effect on rogue judges. For the sake of the Constitution, the court should act quickly.
Yes, it should.
March 26, 2025
TIM WALZ BEING TIM WALZ:
Tim, this is a hobby farm and the owner of the property is a liberal activist.
The mayor’s wife works for your administration. The only reason you chose this spot for your photo op is that you couldn’t find a real farmer willing to host you. https://t.co/kycl59iibJ
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) March 26, 2025
HOW TO DO IT:
Catching a Liberal White Lady tweeting in 2020 that she took a day off to fully absorb a v. important book about reparations, and making her admit under oath she probably didn't read it after all is an all-timer of Liberal White Lady moments. https://t.co/ErGUfVVN23
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) March 26, 2025
Congress: "Do you think that white people should pay reparations?"
Katherine Maher: "I have never said that, sir."
Whoops 👇 https://t.co/BiIa3XPjKb
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 26, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Let’s see how he does up there, without all the assistance!
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Hegseth Kicking Himself For Not Just Getting 13 Soldiers Killed And Giving $80 Billion In Weapons To Terrorists. “‘I apologize for not exposing our soldiers to terrorist attacks and giving billions in high-grade weaponry to Islamists hellbent on killing us,’ said Hegseth. ‘My job wouldn’t be in jeopardy today if I had simply handed control of an entire country over to the people who perpetrated September 11th. I promise to rectify these terrible shortcomings to the satisfaction of the Democratic Party.’”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches new Tianlian data relay satellite to support human spaceflight.
WHAT 23ANDME TOLD AMERICA ABOUT ITSELF:
Many headlines have ensued, but what commentators seem to be missing is this: The disintegration of 23andMe represents a cultural collapse as well as a financial one. This is the tale of a zeitgeist fueled by both the self-loathing of white liberals and a reflexive anti-Americanism throughout the mainstream—phenomena that the current vibe shift has upended like Tupperware over a trash can, its vestiges sliding off like so many moldy leftovers into the abyss where fads go to die.
Back in 2017, with victimhood associated with blackness, brownness, or another minority racial status, white people were conversely assigned the role of society’s Bad Guys. Reactions varied: Certain white Americans leaped at the opportunity to confess, repent, and pay through the nose to self-flagellate at events like the infamous “Race2Dinner” parties where, for several thousand dollars, a real, live person of color would come to your home and call you a racist.
For those of lesser means but similar dispositions, 23andMe offered another path to redemption, by promising to find “surprises” in one’s ethnic makeup. As one white man, who discovered he had “Hidden African DNA,” wrote reassuringly in the 23andMe blog: “Our histories are not as black and white as we believe.”
This is not to say that every person who submitted a cheek swab for analysis was marinating in racial self-hatred; plenty of people were simply curious, hoping to uncover a bit of family history (or, for those who bought the 23andMe+ Total Health package, their risk factors for various genetic conditions). But if you were struggling with white guilt, 23andMe could apply the gloss of scientific rigor to your search for a get-out-of-oppressor-status-free card—a state of affairs that was lampooned in a 2017 episode of South Park, in which customers of a company called “DNA and Me” received their test results and gleefully announced themselves as members of oppressed groups (“I’m 21 percent victim!”).
You’ll never get to be the CEO of NPR with such a racialist worldview. Oh wait:
An absolute clinic from @realBrandonGill here. pic.twitter.com/tEA0CAwhT0
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) March 26, 2025
NANCY WILSON MORPHED INTO PAULINE KAEL SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson says it’s ‘more embarrassing’ to be an American now than during the Vietnam War.
Wilson, 71, made the remark in a recent interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she reflected on the legendary rock group’s 1975 hit “Crazy on You,” which was her sister and Heart vocalist Ann Wilson’s critique of the Vietnam War.
“We were kind of embarrassed at that time to call ourselves American because of the dirty politics of the Vietnam War,” Wilson shared.
“To be as subtle as possible, it’s more embarrassing now,” she said.
Wilson’s perspective isn’t just about politics. She also sees rampant sexism and misogyny in today’s culture that echoes another of Heart’s most famous songs, “Barracuda.”
“[Barracuda] is even more relevant in the salacious billionaire culture with the grab-them-by-the-pussy mentality,” Wilson declared. “These songs will be there long after we are gone.”
Despite her disappointment with where America is today, Wilson added that she sees change on the horizon.
“I think for women* in the culture the pendulum will come back again, and there’ll be another renaissance in the arts to push back against the oppression of the cranky old rich white guys,” she noted. “I hope I am alive to see that next revolution.”
Well, not all women, of course: Heart to Sarah Palin: Don’t Play ‘Barracuda.’
(Classical reference in headline.)
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Gondolas in Denver? One entrepreneur believes it can lift downtown up.
Downtown Denver is often referred to as a trailhead — but not often the main attraction — for tourists visiting the Rocky Mountains.
But what if building a gondola, bringing an iconic symbol and transit option from mountain ski resorts to downtown, could turn it into a destination?
This is the idea that Ryan Ross, the owner of a private investigation firm on the 16th Street Mall, offers to revitalize Denver’s downtown, which has been struggling with empty offices, businesses closing and disruptive construction since the pandemic.
Ross is proposing a three-loop gondola system connecting downtown’s most popular attractions, people-moving sidewalks on 16th Street Mall and a 1,000-seat indoor-outdoor amphitheater by Skyline Park.
He created a nonprofit to promote the project called New Downtown Denver and submitted the proposal to the newly-expanded Downtown Development Authority, the city’s financing tool expected to inject $570 million into downtown to revitalize the urban core.
“Downtown Denver needs a big infusion of energy and vitality and safety and fun,” Ross told The Denver Gazette. “And what they’ve (city officials) done so far is not helping.”
Getting the money for a gondola won’t be an easy lift, he said.
Yes, I guess it’s more of a Shelbyville idea…
