HMM:

MORE OF THAT MALE PRIVILEGE ON DISPLAY:

IT’S BIG: Cowboy Space unveils ‘Big Iron’ rocket to launch 20,000 AI data centers.

“It’s a fundamentally novel approach to rocketry in the modern era, in our opinion,” Bhatt said during the event. “The idea is that you have a two-stage rocket where the upper stage of the rocket itself transforms into the satellite.”

That rocket is called Big Iron, Bhatt told us on Monday night. And so is the data-center satellite, as both are considered to be part of the same system.

The stainless-steel rocket will be 282 feet (86 meters) tall and 15.4 feet (4.7 m) wide. It will be powered by Cowboy Space’s Clydesdale engines — nine in the first stage and one in the upper stage, the same configuration employed by SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

The upper stage, meanwhile, will stay in orbit as a Big Iron satellite.

Novel approach — wish them luck.

THIS IS A VARIATION ON THATCHER’S RATCHET EFFECT, BUT MORE LAWLESS:

DIRTY TRICKS: Democrat Campaign Recruited ‘Decoy Dan’ Sullivan to Run in Alaska. “Now The New York Times is reporting that, in fact, Peltola’s campaign is responsible for the second Dan Sullivan entering the race, claiming to be a Republican despite his previous voting record. A Peltola staffer in summer 2025 acted upon instructions from top campaign aides to search out as many Dan Sullivans in Alaska as possible, The Times reported. The staffer put together a list.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Colorado voters hit a perfect storm of Prop NN distraction.

There’s a good chance you will never receive another TABOR tax refund for as long as you live.

If Proposition NN wins, whom should we blame? Three suspects: the car-wash pricing strategy, Victor Marx and Kyle Clark.

In any normal election, NN would lose easily. Whenever Colorado voters have been asked to surrender their tax refunds, they vote with their middle finger.

People enjoy keeping their own money. Go figure.

Tax-refund-grabbing Proposition CC failed in 2019 by nearly seven points. Its successor, Proposition HH, lost in 2023 by Yankees-versus-Rockies numbers: almost 19 points.

If politics had any consistency, NN would lose by even more. It is far more destructive than either CC or HH.

CC and HH would have “de-TABORed” Colorado, allowing the legislature to keep your tax refunds. But neither changed TABOR’s spending formula of population growth and inflation.

NN lets the legislature rewrite that formula whenever it wants.

Translation: If Colorado ever appears likely to collect excess revenue again, lawmakers can simply move the goalposts until the excess disappears. They keep the surplus. You don’t get a refund. No voters required.

This is a very big deal. Why is no one talking about it?

It’s no accident — there’s a distraction game going on, both on the ballot and in the local media.

DON’T MESS WITH BESSENT:

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Clinton-Appointed Judge Lends a Hand to California Voter Fraud. “The Department of Justice has been trying to clean up messes in California, a state that produces more messes than any other. Its latest effort just ran into one of the many Dem-appointed activist judges who are riddled with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

ELON SHOULD DO GOOD THINGS HERE ON EARTH! OH, WAIT:

SLOWLY, BUT IT IS HAPPENING: America’s Military Presence Reshapes Hormuz.

The tide is beginning to turn in the battle for the Strait of Hormuz—thanks to the U.S. military. It is performing two tasks superbly and simultaneously: the implementing of a naval blockade of Iran and facilitating the export of non-Iran oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Excluding humanitarian shipments, the naval blockade has largely prevented Iranian imports or exports by sea, depriving it of $25 billion in crude-oil export revenue. That makes it more difficult for Iran to fund domestic repression, bankroll international terrorism and rebuild its military.

Meanwhile, about 400 merchant ships have sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, while U.S. forces have helped Gulf partners ship more than 100 million barrels of crude oil over seven days. That’s possible because the U.S. military has decimated Iran’s navy, cleared the strait’s international shipping lanes of mines and degraded Tehran’s missile and drone capabilities.

It is too soon to declare mission accomplished.

Not sure how that happens so long as there’s enough of the Islamic Republic left to contest Hormuz.

WELL SAID:

BLUE STATE BLUES: Minecraft billionaire is latest California resident to flee state — as he offloads $70M Beverly Hills mansion.

Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson is looking to unload his $70 million Beverly Hills megamansion, becoming the latest tech billionaire to loosen his ties to California as some of the state’s wealthiest residents head for the exits.

The Swedish gaming mogul, who famously outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the trophy estate in 2014, is asking exactly what he paid 12 years ago — despite pouring millions more into upgrades, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The listing comes amid a broader retreat by some of California’s richest tech figures, with billionaires including Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin establishing footholds in Florida as the Golden State grapples with a proposed wealth tax to be voted on next week.

The only thing more mobile than capital is the people with oodles of it.

JOEL KOTKIN: BEGUN, THE GENERATIONAL WAR HAS.

Although conditions differ by country, the spark behind these protests lies in both the real and the fitfully imagined: high housing prices, food inflation, lack of good jobs and failing education systems are not figments of their imaginations. At the same time, cries of poverty seem a bit overwrought for a generation that enjoys the most wealth in history and, in the West at least, their protest seems to stem from being raised to think they were special, only to find out that the world is not such a welcoming place.

The new generational war is fueled by a deep pessimism among those under 40 about the future. This, noted a 2022 Pew study, is particularly marked in Japan, France and Italy, with majorities of adult parents seeing a bleaker future for the next generation by more than three to one. The United States also does poorly with 72 per cent, while Canada does even worse, clocking in at 75 per cent.

People have been telling young people their future was going to suck since I was a kid, even as society has gotten steadily richer, healthier, and safer. And rioting is unlikely to make a better future. But the people encouraging the rioting are mostly old, and do not have young people’s interests at heart.