October 23, 2026

YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS:

Posted at 10:26 am by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Pedal to the Metal: NASA’s Psyche Heads Toward Asteroid Belt.

“It’s now ‘pedal to the metal’ to the asteroid Psyche,” said Don Han, the Psyche mission’s navigation lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managed for the agency by Caltech. “We will be running our propulsion system at every available opportunity, pausing only for necessary engineering activities. The thrusters will be operating nearly 90% of the time from now until we reach the asteroid.”

Where conventional spacecraft thrusters rely on large quantities of fuel to provide powerful bursts of thrust for relatively short periods of time, the Psyche spacecraft’s solar-powered propulsion system uses electromagnetic fields to steadily deliver up to 250 millinewtons of force — about the amount of force that you would feel from the weight of holding one AA battery.

Yes, but it adds up.

If the mission confirms Psyche’s potential, it could become the most valuable object in the solar system aside from Earth.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

SUCCINCTLY PUT:

Posted at 9:36 am by Glenn Reynolds

THIS IS NO SURPRISE:

Not only is SpaceX retiring Falcon 9, but the overwhelming majority Starship launches will likely be devoted to in-house Starlink and Starmind deployments.

Posted at 9:24 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Somebody Please Get the Democrats an Ativan and an Election Defeat. “Stella Parton isn’t an outlier among the Dems. These are the people who will be voting for the people who may end up holding a lot of power in the United States government. Some of them are already in place. They’ve all been very open about what they want to do if they’re in charge again.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green

LE CHANGEMENT:

Translation:

Testimony from a friend of mine, a shopkeeper in Paris.

“My shop was looted on October 17. A motorcycle shop, right in the heart of Paris. Twenty-one years I’ve poured everything into it. I pay my taxes, I’m a family man,” and last night he called all his friends, including me. Tomorrow we’ll be about twenty of us inside the shop, doors locked.

If it comes down to a confrontation, we’ll face it. I won’t let myself get looted a second time. Enough with the complaints that lead nowhere, enough waiting for someone else to protect what I’ve built.

“Tomorrow, it won’t be the police watching over my store anymore. It’ll be us.”

When the State abandons protecting the property of hardworking citizens, all that’s left is this: friends who organize and refuse to take it lying down.

Call it a militia if that suits you. To us, it’s just not getting looted again.

This is what happens when the authorities can’t or won’t take the necessary action.

Posted at 8:53 am by Stephen Green

OUCH:

Full opinion here.

Posted at 8:36 am by Glenn Reynolds

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Anduril and Colossal Team Up for Warhound.

On Thursday, a joint venture between Dallas’ Colossal Biosciences and defense technology company Anduril announced its emergence from stealth. The startup is called Warhound, and its pitch is that with Colossal’s genetic engineering capabilities and Anduril’s cybernetic augments, it can create a new generation of working military dogs better suited to, and better protected from, today’s advanced battlefields.

Warhound, which will based in Dallas, raised $200 million in its seed round led by Sequoia Capital. The release describes Warhound as a “vertically integrated platform, combining Colossal’s enhanced genetics platform and secure biobanking capabilities of America’s top-performing dog arsenal, controlled delivery through cloning with best-in-class training and animal care.” The dogs will then be outfitted with ear and eye protection from Anduril, as well as connected with Anduril’s AI and augmented reality Eagle Eye headgear technology, to enable dogs and their handlers better situational awareness in the field.

For those familiar with the early 1980s-era RPG Traveller, you’ll know that the Vargr had to start somewhere.

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll

REAL NEWS VS. THE FAKE STUFF:

Posted at 8:29 am by Glenn Reynolds

THIS SEEMS RIGHT: BIA: Asylum Seekers Who Go Home Abandon Their Applications. “The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) — the DOJ administrative tribunal that reviews immigration decisions — recently issued an opinion in Matter of M-R-I-, concluding that applicants for asylum and related humanitarian protections who go back to their home countries on advance parole ‘absent compelling reasons for the return’ abandon those applications. That’s common sense — if an alien claims a country is too dangerous to return to, he shouldn’t voluntarily go there — but let’s wait to see what the federal courts think — and how they analyze the administrative decisions.”

Posted at 8:27 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE LEFT OUTED ITSELF BY TRYING TO SMEAR THE LATE LINDSEY GRAHAM:

Jesse James Rose, a writer for The Advocate, argued that those he considers “hostile” to LGBTQ rights do not deserve privacy and defended exposing Graham.

That’s a fun new standard by which to invade privacy.

I don’t particularly like politicians who undermine my First and Second Amendment rights. Can I violate their privacy? Somehow, I’m guessing Rose would say that’s (D)ifferent.

The other thing is this: Swamp Watch says this project was a year in the making; Graham died July 11. Who did it serve to out a dead man, save their own egos?

Absolutely no one.

Related:

 

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

IF WE HAVE TO GO THERE, LET’S GO THERE:

Posted at 7:51 am by Stephen Green

KURT SCHLICHTER: Dem Hack Drops the Mask and Lets Her Fascism Freak Flag Fly.

The sour, bitter face of our enemy is the face of the chubby girl who always tried to get between you and her hot roommate — except instead of a double-bagger trying to block your shot, she’s now a Democrat trying to condemn you to serfdom. It’s the same face you see worn by malignant amphibians like Elissa Slotkin (D-CIA), a particularly loathsome creature who trumpets her time at the Central Intelligence Agency to establish her phony USA! USA! bona fides. This comes at the same time she supports a Jew-hating communist to be her co-senator who is, at minimum, a slobbering affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Whether her flex is calculated or stupid is a puzzlement; does she think she’s exploiting him instead of being exploited herself? It is useful to remember how the Iranian mullahs took power and then immediately shot all their erstwhile leftist allies. Regardless, they deserve each other; we don’t deserve either.

When fascism comes to America, it will come from the left, because the left is where fascism comes from. It will come in the form of a Democrat, a Democrat who pretends to be patriotic and points to her résumé as if it’s proof. And it will be dressed like an HR director at a mid-tier company in a second-tier town.

Exit quote: “That brings us to the next thing we need to do, which is vote. We can keep these aspiring hitlers out of office if we show up at the ballot box. After you had this US senator say that she wanted to basically outlaw the Republican Party, do you really think sitting out the midterms because your gas is a little more expensive from defeating the Iranians after 50 years is a good plan?”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll