June 30, 2026

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Supergirl — The Most Predictable Of Disasters.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

WOEING:

Exit quote: “We question $127.9 million in payments to Boeing, in addition to the $43 million we questioned in a prior 2019 CCP-related report, for a mission that is far from certain.”

Posted at 2:31 pm by Stephen Green

SPACE: This Scrappy Little Rocket Company Just Made a Big Play Against Elon Musk. “Maybe you’ve heard of Rocket Lab, the scrappy New Zealand-based launch company whose innovative Electron small-lift rocket quickly became one of the most popular in U.S. service, thanks to its high success rate and rapid launch cadence. Except for nerds like me paying close attention to the launch industry, Rocket Lab gets a little lost in SpaceX’s shadow. But that might be about to change with the company’s multibillion-dollar acquisition.”

Posted at 2:16 pm by Stephen Green

CHANGE: Cornerstone University launches ‘100%’ smartphone business degree.

Cornerstone University, located in Grand Rapids, is offering an associate’s degree and bachelor’s degree in strategic business management along with a master’s in organizational leadership through its new program.

Students pay a fixed rate of $2,400 per four-month term or $3,750 for the graduate level work. The intended audience is working adults.

According to the program’s website, SOAR aims to remove the financial barriers of traditional higher education by providing an affordable tuition structure where students “pay at least 50% less than other private online colleges.”

To achieve this, the platform prioritizes providing a “flexible schedule” driven by “engaging microlearning” through original podcasts, videos, audiobooks, and presentations developed by Cornerstone faculty. The goal is “to help students soar in all aspects of career and life.”

It remains to be seen whether smartphone degrees are worthwhile. But at a time when private schools are under tremendous financial pressure, adding tuition-paying students at basically zero marginal cost to the school seems smart.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

WANT AIR CONDITIONING IN FRANCE? EASIEST WAY TO GET IT IS A TRIP TO THE MORGUE:

So far, somewhere over a thousand French people—older folks, mainly—have died in the heat wave that hit Europe in recent days.

That’s a preliminary number, and it’s in addition to the “normal” number of unnecessary deaths that occur every summer due to a lack of air conditioning. That’s just how many more people than you would expect in a normal summer week or two to die from excess heat. Because air conditioning is unusual in France and other European countries, more people die every year from heat-related causes than die of gunshot wounds in the United States.

You could say that in Europe, the most prolific murderers are the bureaucrats who make A/C difficult to get.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la mĂȘme chose:

Like France, England has imported just the chaps to send you to the morgue:

And MI6 has assigned their best spy to the case:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

MOST OF IT COMES FROM CHINA AND THE “GLOBAL SOUTH:” One Of The Biggest Sources Of Mercury In Fish Isn’t What You’d Think. Although “China has been the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic Hg since 1971. . . . Hg emission hotspots have significantly shifted toward the Global South (Fig. 3b), with Latin America, Africa, South and Southeast Asia experiencing rapid increases (Fig. 3a). In 2021, despite representing only one-fifth of the global economy59, the Global South (excluding China) constituted two-thirds of global emissions.”

No doubt some dumbass deputy mayor in France will blame the U.S. though.

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP IN MAJOR BLOW TO TRUMP:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, finding that the order violates the 14th Amendment.

Trump’s order declared that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

Writing on behalf of the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts says children born to parents who are in the United States unlawfully or temporarily are “born in the United States” and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

“Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth,” he wrote.

On to Plan B:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHANGE (IT BACK): Ford rehires experienced engineers after AI misses the mark.

Ford has rehired experienced human engineers to help address the shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) tools meant to tackle quality issues in the automaker’s production processes.

The hiring push helped Ford top the JD Power 2026 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS) for the first time since 2010 amid improvements in the quality of its new vehicles, and follows some hard-learned lessons about the ability of AI to replace human knowledge in production processes.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said on a press call Wednesday, according to a report by Bloomberg.

“Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles,” he said.

The current Shiny New Thing is AI, but at least once each generation some Shiny New Thing comes along that makes people forget that lesson about human experience.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

CHECKS OUT:

From the replies: “Europeans are now rioting just to get cooled off by the water canons.”

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green