September 15, 2026

THE CHURCHILL EFFECT: Yesterday’s Swedish Elections and Our Midterm Parallel.

Speculation is that part of what may have provided some of the malaise that led to the progressives eking out what may be a numbers win – remember, they still have to form a government and it looks to be extraordinarily difficult at the moment – is the success that the conservatives had in beginning to right the ship in such a short time.

This certainly sounded familiar to me.

Much more at the link, and here’s some background from last week: How to Virtually Eliminate Gang Violence With This One Weird Trick.

Posted at 12:43 pm by Stephen Green

HOW THE ANTI-AI SAUSAGE GETS MADE:

Related: New op drops:

More: “Make it a rule. Carney want that? Nope.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE LEFT PROJECTS, ALWAYS:

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

INEVITABLE: A Visa Restriction Too Far.

Regular BattleSwarm readers know I’ve become quite the immigration hawk. All illegal aliens should be deported, NGOs that helped carry out the illegal alien invasion should be investigated, disbanded and their members prosecuted, the cost of applying for a H-1B visa should be raised above $100,000, and the government should crack down hard on companies (I’m looking at you, Microsoft) who have abused the H-1B system to avoid hiring Americans.

But now someone has finally come up with a crackdown idea that’s just stupid and counter-productive.

Even a smart and well-intentioned government will come up with some genuinely bad ideas. Keep it small and divided is the best defense.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM TIM WALZ’S MINNESOTA:

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

NON-STORY: Costco nearly doubles cost of motor oil, limits purchases.

Costco’s Kirkland Signature full-synthetic motor oil 5-quart two pack now costs around $58, well above the approximately $30 it had been selling for just last year, and limiting customers to buying two boxes a week. It is also limiting purchases of Mobil 1’s full-synthetic motor oil 1-quart six pack, which sells for about $44, to five per membership.

A price hike and purchase limits may take you back to the days of empty shelves where toilet paper once stood, but this likely won’t impact you as much as you may immediately fear.

Unless you’re responsible for “a fleet of thousands of cars,” you probably don’t have to worry about it much, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, told Nexstar.

“The normal car requires four to five quarts every 5,000 miles or so,” De Haan said, describing Costco’s limit as “what would be an extremely reasonable amount.”

But putting that in the headline doesn’t generate as many clicks.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

ONCE THE JEWEL OF PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION:

Posted at 10:35 am by Glenn Reynolds

DON’T WORRY, THERE’S STILL ROOM FOR THINGS TO GET MORE ABSURD:

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

PLENTY OF COOLING POTENTIAL: Should Data Centers Go Seasteading?

“Some developers are now exploring the ocean as a new location for AI infrastructure in the hopes that underwater data centers could improve energy use and cooling efficiency while using less fresh water and land area than onshore buildings,” writes University of North Carolina Greensboro management professor Nir Kshetri, who studies the social and environmental effects of emerging technology. He calls under-the-sea data centers “a promising new approach for supporting the growth of AI.”

Underwater data centers would be not technically be “seasteaders”—autonomous entities based far enough offshore that they’re not subject to the rules of any government.

Even if underwater data centers could be based physically far enough from shore that they’re not in anyone’s national waters—not necessarily impossible, but impractical, costly, and a logistical nightmare—they would still be subject to various rules of international waters and would still need cables connecting them to land. They would also be run by tech companies based within an existing country’s borders and subject to that country’s oversight and regulations.

Orbital data centers require no cables.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

HE’S A RISK:

Posted at 9:21 am by Stephen Green

THIS IS WHAT 21ST CENTURY “CONSPIRACIES” LOOK LIKE:

Posted at 9:11 am by Glenn Reynolds

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: SCOTUS Has a Sylvia Plath Episode Regarding Mail-In Ballots. “Just three weeks ago, I wrote here that the Supreme Court was attempting to preserve ‘a modicum of sanity’ in our thoroughly insane vote-by-mail lunacy. There were still a lot of legal challenges in the judicial pipeline and there were concerns about the timing of the changes to the rules. Last night, SCOTUS decided that the dangerous status quo was safe for now.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

PROGRESSIVISM AS A TEMPER TANTRUM, EXHIBIT #1,000,006: Pete Buttigieg Says Dems Must Pack SCOTUS Because It’s Too ‘Partisan.’ “This is Buttigieg complaining that the rules must be changed when they no longer favor Democrats. It’s the same argument they make about the Electoral College every time they lose a presidential election.”

His actual priorities while in office: Buttigieg says America’s highways are racist and infrastructure bill will help fix it.

I’d also add that if the “infrastructure” bill actually accomplished anything tangible and lasting — while Buttigieg was SecTrans — I’ve yet to hear of it.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

WELL, THAT WAS EASY. Don Surber: We Beat Climate Change! Hurricanes are a thing of the past, right?

Climate change is dead according to the rules laid out by its proponents. They said there would not be snow. There was. They said there would be lots of hurricanes. There aren’t.

Richard Feynman wrote, “First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.”

A decade later, he warned, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.”

It’s not science if it can’t make correct, testable, predictions.

Posted at 8:24 am by Glenn Reynolds

IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT: Neuroticism, Narcissism, and Nihilism Strangled Natalism. “Birth rates keep falling in almost every country. Fertility rates have remained below replacement rate for a generation in most of the developed world. Yet a birth gap has emerged. People who start families are having children at rates consistent with history. The overall decline is driven by the growing share of those who have none. We must do everything we can to counter the demoralization. The dating, labor, and housing markets critical to family formation are are broken.”

None of this is an accident.

Posted at 8:21 am by Glenn Reynolds