May 27, 2026

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: NYC Gallery Sold an AI-Generated Ansel Adams Photo Without Permission.

The New York Danziger Gallery displayed for sale an AI-generated version of Ansel Adams’ photo “Moonrise Over Hernandez” without consulting the photographer’s trust, effectively stealing the legendary artist’s work and dramatically altering it with AI for the sake of profit.

The work, which can be seen above, is described as “A.I. Generated” from the prompt “Make a realistic color version of Ansel Adams’ iconic ‘Moonrise Over Hernandez’.” It is further described as “Proofed, regenerated, & photoshopped from 11/25 – 4/26. Printed by master printer Esteban Mauchi Editions of 10 in 3 sizes – 20 x 24” , 24 x 30”, 30 x 40.’”

The image was part of The Photography Show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, which ran from April 22 through April 26, 2026. Images sold at this show in the past typically cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Ansel Adam’s trust published a public statement on Instagram over the weekend, confirming that despite its best efforts at communication, the Danziger Gallery used Adams’ name and his photo for commercial purposes without its permission.

The gallery responded: NYC Gallery Says it Has ‘Every Right’ to Create AI Version of Iconic Ansel Adams Photo.

But in a statement released last night, James Danziger says he has “every right to create a new and transformative work” since the Adams’ Moonrise photo, taken on November 1, 1941, has passed into the public domain.

“I had long believed the image was in the public domain but to confirm this beyond doubt, I hired one of the most respected copyright lawyers in the country to insure [sic] this was the case,” Danziger writes defiantly. “It was indeed confirmed to be in the public domain and I was free to create a transformative color rendition of the image and to exhibit and sell the resulting prints.”

Given the increasingly photo-realistic power of AI image creators such as Dall-E, stock image providers such as Shutterstock have got to be terrified of AI stealing their lunch.

 

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHINA IS ASSHOE: Analyst on China’s spent rocket stages: ‘Things only continue to get worse.’

In the early decades of spaceflight, the Soviet Union, the United States, and other spacefaring species paid little heed to these upper stages, also known as “rocket bodies.” They were ejected into all manner of orbits, there to remain for decades before ultimately succumbing to the slow pull of Earth’s gravity at higher altitudes.

But in the last 20 years or so, most countries (and the private companies operating within their borders) have taken a more responsible attitude toward disposing of these upper stages. This is because, as it turns out, having large, multi-ton blocks of metal spinning uncontrollably around low-Earth orbit becomes a problem over time.

The Soviet Union, and later Russia, is the biggest offender, with about 800 metric tons of rocket bodies in long-lived orbits between 600 km and 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface, according to data from the European Space Agency’s Space Debris Office as well as Jonathan McDowell’s General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects. The United States, by comparison, has about 57 metric tons of spent upper stages in these orbits. However these numbers are more or less holding steady or, in the case of Russia, slowly declining as stages fall out of orbit.

By contrast there is striking growth in China’s rocket body mass. In the past five years, the mass of Chinese rocket bodies in long-lived orbits has risen from less than 100 metric tons to 252, according to a new analysis by Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell.

“China… continues to abandon many rocket bodies in high low-Earth orbit,” Shell wrote on LinkedIn early Monday. “The total mass of orbital debris is a key variable influencing the long-term sustainment of space. There is broad agreement that abandoning rocket body upper stages in long-lived orbits is not a best practice. In fact, all the major space-faring nations have acknowledged this.”

That’s an awfully expensive junkyard Beijing is putting up there.

Posted at 12:44 pm by Stephen Green

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY:

Actually, based on photographic evidence, dinosaurs only fought in WWII:

And we didn’t go to war with Albania until we deployed the B-3 bomber against them in the mid-1990s. They even made a movie about it:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

POTUS 47 KEEPS HAVING MORE FUN THAN THE LEFT CAN STAND:

Posted at 12:28 pm by Stephen Green

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Critics blast scope of Colorado’s semi-auto gun licensing list.

In the run-up to Colorado’s semi-automatic gun licensing scheme, going into effect on August 1, the Colorado Department of Revenue released guidelines which includes approximately 900 firearm makes and models that will be heavily regulated by the looming new law, many of which have gun-rights advocates calling foul.

As previously reported by Complete Colorado, the Democrat-backed Senate Bill 003, passed during the 2025 legislative session, heaps a long list a list of new burdens on potential gun buyers prior to purchasing a semiautomatic firearm.

Among other things, the law requires Coloradans complete a 12 hour, in person, firearms course through their local sheriff’s office, after a background check and application fee is collected. A final exam must be completed with a 90% minimum passing score.

After course completion, all personal information will be uploaded into a course record system granting them five years of eligibility to purchase a semiautomatic gun.

Earlier this month, The Colorado Department of Revenue released their ‘Specified Semi-Automatic Firearms Guidance’ which included 152 pages worth of firearms regulated under SB-003.

Plus: “Kopel continues that the gun rights prohibitionists behind this law lied about its regulatory reach.”

Well, yeah.

I’d just add that when it comes time to renew, previously law-abiding CCW holders might decide that it’s “better to be judged by 12 men than be carried by six” rather than comply with the new law’s time-wasting rules and high compliance costs.

Or just move elsewhere, which is what’s on my radar.

Posted at 11:42 am by Stephen Green

WE KNOW WHO THAT’S AIMED AT:

Posted at 11:26 am by Stephen Green

CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE CIVIL RIGHTS:

Posted at 10:55 am by Stephen Green

WAIT, WHAT? School president cites study finding guns don’t increase crime to oppose campus carry.

New Hampshire lawmakers should vote down campus carry because some people might feel less safe, according to a university president.

Legislators were considering House Bill 1793, which would prohibit public universities from regulating guns on campus and establish a commission to study campus carry. The bill officially died last Thursday, however.

According to a student government survey cited by The New Hampshire, a majority of respondents said they would be less likely to attend UNH if campus carry were allowed. In response to the perceived campus climate, the student senate passed a resolution opposing the bill.

President Elizabeth Chilton also took an institutional stance against the law, sending out both a campuswide message and testifying to the state senate judiciary committee. She (pictured) submitted testimony along with Don Birx, president of Keene State College and Plymouth State University, and Mark Collopy, the police chief for UNH.

They said “research from states that have adopted campus carry has found increased fear of crime, lower perceptions of campus safety, and reduced confidence in campus police.”

But neither study found a link to actual crime and campus carry.

Neurotic feelings are more important than rights, or even basic safety concerns.

Posted at 10:40 am by Stephen Green

ENTHUSIASTICALLY AND ENTERTAININGLY TONE-DEAF:

Posted at 10:24 am by Stephen Green

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Sanders’ anti-oligarchy tour spent $608k on elite travel.

Sanders is barnstorming the country on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, a series of rallies aimed at opposing President Trump and supporting economic populism. To defray its cost, he is raising and spending money through his principal campaign committee, Friends of Bernie Sanders. Even as Sanders rails against billionaires’ political clout and economic inequality, his committee has relied on elite trappings more commonly associated with the wealthy.

The Center Square examined Friends of Bernie Sanders’ filings with the Federal Election Commission from the start of the tour in January 2025 through March, a 15-month stretch when Sanders was the featured speaker at 32 rallies at cities, university campuses, and small towns around the country. More than half a dozen other members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a New York Democrat, have also spoken at the rallies.

To travel, the committee paid $562,117 for 11 private jet trips and $16,633 for a chauffeured car or limousine service 11 times. For lodging, it paid $29,064 to stay at a four-star hotel 15 times.

Being in Friends of Bernie Sanders isn’t cheap, but pretending to stick it to the oligarchy that you’re actually a part of never was.

Posted at 9:38 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Another Rough Runoff Night for Trump Detractors. “I got quite a few emails and comments after that the Republicans simply needed to get the runoff election behind them in order to begin focusing on Talarico. Well, that happened last night, and the contest wasn’t even close.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green

DON SURBER ON THIS YEAR’S PRIMARIES: Well, bye.

For RINOs this year, May was the cruelest month as MAGA voters primaried those who defied their orders.

In Indiana on May 5, Republican voters rejected six of the seven incumbent state senators who defied the desire to redistrict the state’s congressional map to send two more Republicans to Washington.

In Louisiana on May 16, Senator Wild Eyes Bill Cassidy finished third in the primary meaning he won’t be in the runoff primary that will decide the nomination. Cassidy voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment. MAGA impeached and convicted Cassidy.

In Kentucky on May 19, MAGA voters sent Congressman Thomas Massie packing. He’s headed to the Libertarian Party where he belongs. He’ll replace Jill Stein as their perennial losing presidential nominee.

In Texas on May 26 (last night), MAGA voters toppled Senator John Cornyn in a runoff against primary against Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general. The race was close until Trump endorsed Paxton. That blew Cornyn off the map as Paxton beat him by 27 points.

The media is lying when it frames the issue as Trump’s revenge against perceived enemies.

This is MAGA voters flushing the commode. The electorate has had it with politicians who promise voters everything but give them Dem Lite.

Democrats are on the 20 side of every 80/20 issue and yet Republican representatives and senators keep blocking action on those 80/20 issues.

Yes.

Again:

Hey, even Texas Democrats have started taking out the smelliest trash: Sex therapist who vowed to put ‘American Zionists’ into ‘castration’ centers loses Texas Democratic primary.

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:59 am by Glenn Reynolds

VDH: Spare Us the Selective Outrage.

Consider this hypothetical: the United States is roughly 34 times larger than Israel, with roughly 340 million to Israel’s 10 million citizens. Apply that asymmetrical magnitude to a thought experiment about how Americans would react to a proportional slaughter of their own.

Suppose that some 200,000 Sinaloa cartel killers (34 times the size of Hamas’s 6,000) swarmed across the southern border. They then began massacring 40,000 American civilians (34 times the Israeli number of 1,200 dead)—as well as torturing, dismembering, raping, and beheading. And then they were followed by thousands of tag-along civilians eager for loot and torture themselves.

Further imagine that the killers returned south across the border with 8,500 American hostages (34 times the 251 Israeli hostages). Once there, they then descended into a vast multibillion-dollar labyrinth of cartel tunnels beneath the cities of Sinaloa, protected by supportive and sympathetic citizens. Their tunnel entries and exits would be built beneath hospitals, schools, and churches.

So what exactly would the U.S. do if neither the Mexican government nor the cartel planners agreed to hand over the hostages and surrender the killers?

Take our case to the UN?

Ask NATO member Spain to chair talks?

Go to Geneva to negotiate with El Chapo and his henchmen?

If the Left got its way, yes.

And of course read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:36 am by Stephen Green