August 10, 2026

RESCUE MISSION FOR THE RESCUE MISSION: Katalyst Space makes progress in restoring control of Swift servicing spacecraft. “Katalyst said it was planning to upload a ‘significant flight software update’ in the coming days to allow for attitude control in the spacecraft’s current configuration. That will allow the company’s engineers to restore full attitude control of the spacecraft and resume plans to head toward NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.”

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:

Posted at 4:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OPSEC:

Posted at 4:35 pm by Stephen Green

THAT’S NOT FUNNY (ACTUALLY, YES IT IS): The Joke that Sparked Death Threats for Arynne Wexler.

Wexler shared the fallout from an immigration bit with “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” last week.

Wexler said she was shocked that another joke from her repertoire drew little outrage. She has compared Muslims to pit bulls, suggesting the majority of both groups aren’t violent, but …

She didn’t get blowback from pit bull owners from that routine. Instead, she heard positive feedback from dog owners.

The one that sparked the death threats?

She was at the White House in the spring of 2025 as part of an influencer gathering. She got some face time with spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, and she opened with the riff that caused a kerfuffle. Leavitt brought up President Donald Trump’s work with deportations and securing the southern border.

That gave Wexler an opening.

“I can attest to the fact that deportations are working because my Uber drivers finally speak English again,” she told Leavitt.

“Everyone laughed,” she recalled. “I leave the room and my phone is blowing up … I’m getting so many death threats in my Instagram, to my web site. I was put in touch with the FBI because I was getting so many threats over it … over that joke.’”

“And I put [the gag] on Instagram because I can’t help myself,” she added.

Read the whole thing. And don’t miss the clip of her doing the Pit Bull/Muslims bit.

Posted at 4:20 pm by Stephen Green

STILL NOT TIRED OF WINNING:

Posted at 4:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS VS. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: A Tale of Two Chiefs. “There is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by not deciding more than is necessary to decide. Then there is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by deciding more than is necessary to decide. Which Roberts do we get in each case?”

Posted at 2:15 pm by Glenn Reynolds

PAST GERALDO IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RIVERA:

Not to mention, our celebrity betters have informed us that “Haiti is Great Already:”

As have our top journalists:

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Jason Arday taught me. Here’s what I learned.

At first, my classmates were charmed by Arday’s cheerful attitude and inspirational stories. To start with, too, they were interested in his claims that white people were guilty of every kind of prejudice. Yet as the module progressed, and he failed to turn up for yet another class, things began to change. It gradually dawned on us that we were learning nothing of substance, and that much of his talk was nonsense.

When it came to our assessment, Arday recommended we answer one of the two essay questions — there were four options — that mentioned ethnicity. This, after all, was the only thing he’d talked to us about. I remember one young, black, female student coming to me in the library as we began to draft our essays and saying: “I don’t know what to do, I’ve read my notes and there is nothing there I can use!” She wasn’t the only one, and I offered advice as best I could, writing my own essay using the online resources Arday’s predecessor had left.

In the end, Arday gave me 70% for my essay. That sounds good — except that my average for the year was 75%, meaning my overall result was dragged down. Particularly as Arday had given my work no feedback, I asked for a meeting. At Roehampton, marking is blind, so he wouldn’t have known who’d written which essay. In our meeting, I explained that 70% was a low mark for me and asked him to provide feedback. Suddenly, his friendly, confident demeanor changed. I now saw a side of him I’d never seen before: angry, but also scared. Arday implied that I was racist, and said that the only reason I wasn’t happy with 70% was due to my “white privilege”. He was clearly upset at being questioned, and I ended the meeting as quickly as possible.

Arday left Roehampton shortly afterwards, and I never saw him again. Given that he could neither teach nor support his students, it’s little wonder that he appeared psychologically incapable of coping with criticism. The University of Roehampton was seemingly aware of his failings yet did nothing, avoiding controversy by allowing him to move on to another set of students.

Still though, students of Arday will have learned a lot about where not to place apostrophes in their thesis titles:

And how to copy and paste your way to superstardom:

Arday himself claimed to have worried, “What if I have completely overestimated my capabilities? What if my story ends up being a cautionary tale like Icarus about flying too close to the sun?”

But it must have been quite a rush at the apogee of his ascent: “Whether or not he even knows it, Jason Arday played the rotten, elitist, box-ticking, minority and sick note obsessed education regime brilliantly. He outwitted the cleverest people in Britain – well, people who like to think they’re clever. He outsmarted those who would have us believe they’re the enlightened and have the right to rule. People who opine that vaccination should be mandatory. That was an actual Cambridge Union debate a few years ago, never let us forget. Bright young things lined up to argue for an end to bodily autonomy. These people are numbskulls. So never mind Arday’s grammar, consider the grand sweep of his achievement. He has shown us that the emperor has no clothes. One way or another, he has had Cambridge over, and I care not a jot for Cambridge as a victim, nor do I care for the buyer’s regret of the liberal elite who suddenly claim to be shocked that a person who can’t always spell or get grammar right could rise to the top of academia by playing on certain narratives.”

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Post walks LA’s once-iconic Van Nuys Blvd. for a week – here’s disturbing scene we found.

The historic LA street that was once the iconic epicenter of Valley youth culture is now nothing more than a boulevard of broken dreams — featuring drug-riddled homeless encampments and boarded-up stores.

Van Nuys Boulevard — where teens used to famously cruise through the middle of San Fernando Valley, showing off their hot rods and gathering at hamburger stands — has become home to hordes of out-of-control druggies and threatening vagrants who leave behind so much garbage that local workers have to use leaf blowers to disperse it.

One of the few businesses still operating in the now-decrepit area was even forced to move its customer entrance — because the bums’ camps blocked the original one.

“It’s so sad, so sad.  We are in California, the best state in the United States, right?” said George Barak, who is originally from Syria and was working his second day as a cashier at the 99-cent store when he talked to the California Post.

Aziz Saxenian, a Los Angeles native and dental assistant who works at another local company struggling against the troubling tide in the onetime beloved quirky heart of the Valley, said, “They settle in front of our businesses.

“Customers say, ‘Oh, can’t you get rid of them?’ ”

The Post walked a stretch of the dilapidated boulevard between Sherman Way and Victory Boulevard on a recent morning and found a wasteland of crack pipes, needles and empty bottles of whiskey in front of makeshift tents.

As they’re driving through the sun-bleached streets of L.A. at Christmastime, Annie Hall says to Alvy Singer, “God, it’s so clean out here,” to which Alvy jokes, “It’s that they don’t throw their garbage away.  They make it into television shows.” But then, Annie Hall was made a half a century ago. A very different L.A. isn’t exactly a beacon for tourists these days:

Fortunately, the DSA are on the scene to really beef up LA’s law enforcement:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

IRAN’S ‘PROOF OF LIFE’ VIDEO FOR SUPREME LEADER BLOWS UP IN ITS FACE:

We haven’t seen any real evidence that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is even alive since the first attack of Operation Epic Fury on Iran on February 28.

Now the regime has released a video of the guy we like to call the “Cardboard Ayatollah.”

Iran released a rare video Sunday of its supreme leader appearing in prime condition amid his long absence from the public eye and swirling reports of deteriorating health.

The country’s semi-official Mehr News Agency flaunted video of Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, sitting in a circle and speaking with a group of men, with no context of when or where the scene took place.

So first, there’s no evidence this was after the attack.

Second, there’s no evidence of the horrible injuries he supposedly received, which suggests it was recorded before Operation Epic Fury, although you can not see the right side of his face. Supposedly, he had leg and facial injuries in that attack.

RedState’s Nick Arama writes, “The regime was trying to buffalo people. The only reason they would do this is if they couldn’t produce any real proof of life video, i.e., he is probably dead.”

Where have you gone, Miles Monroe? The mullahs turn their lonely eyes to you:

Posted at 12:21 pm by Ed Driscoll

THERE’S JUST NO PLEASING SOME PEOPLE: Trans American who fled to Europe claiming asylum from Trump makes humiliating return after being placed in an Islamic refugee center… but she’s already complaining about life in the US.

‘The situation I have in the US as a trans person, not good, right? But here, I will be hurt or killed,’ Arc told local outlet Pow News.

‘It is too dangerous to walk to the grocery store because of the people that live in the camp, and I’m one of them, I live here. You see these guys in yellow vests, they actually wear them because there are so many stabbings.’

Ter Apel has been deemed dangerous by the Red Cross, who said aid volunteers feel ‘unsafe’ at the site, adding that violence ‘cannot be controlled.’

Last month, Arc returned to the US, but the software engineer’s transition back to the States hasn’t been the easiest.

From the healthcare system to the expensive grocery prices, she’s finding life difficult along the Pacific Coast after a year away.

‘First time shopping in the US, and In-N-Out too. America is really, really loud and overwhelming. And everything is so expensive,’ she wrote on Threads shortly after returning.

‘The Dutch complain about groceries being expensive, but good grief, San Francisco is a whole different experience.’

So the problem isn’t really with Trump’s America but with the Left’s San Francisco.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE DISTAFF DEMOLITION DERBIES:

Earlier:

 

Posted at 10:48 am by Ed Driscoll