June 18, 2026

LIKE, FLAMING?

More and more, the state is just a trillion-dollar grift operation.

UPDATE (From Ed):

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Posted at 4:45 pm by Stephen Green

MURICA:

Posted at 4:33 pm by Stephen Green

JAMES PIERESON: The Age of Friedman.

The following remarks were delivered on receiving the Milton Friedman Award at the Pacific Research Institute in New York City June 16, 2026.

It is a special honor to receive an award named for Milton Friedman, pathbreaking economist, friend and advocate for liberty, fierce debater and intellectual combatant – a man whose ideas have shaped the modern world. It is not an exaggeration to say that we live today in the Age of Friedman, an era shaped by his ideas about the importance of monetary policy in the performance of modern economies, and the role played by central banks in managing money supply.

That was not all, not by any means. Milton Friedman was a fierce advocate of market economies not only because they worked, but because they promoted liberty, which was to him the most important principle of all. One of his early books, Capitalism and Freedom, published in 1963, which I encountered in college, made this case from historical and philosophical points of view, much as Hayek did in The Road to Serfdom. Along the way in that book, Friedman set forth numerous applications of free market principles that are influential today: school choice and school vouchers, a negative income tax to replace welfare programs, and private accounts in social security, among them. He was the rare academic economist who could speak to the public as well.

He advanced those ideas in other forums as well, including in his award-winning television series, Free to Choose, and in a regular column for Newsweek magazine, in which he expressed many controversial ideas, for example: that the welfare state increased poverty, public unions were harming schools and student achievement, and government regulation was responsible for inflation, unemployment, and stagnation. Free to Choose reached millions of viewers, in the same year as Ronald Reagan was poised to win the presidency – and to put some of those ideas into practice.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

ICYMI: The Iran War Was Easy. The Peace Is the Problem. “There’s so much to pick apart here, but there are really only three things that matter: ‘Status quo,’ ‘End all sanctions,’ and ‘$300 billion.’ As for the efficacy of a denuclearization plan involving the UN… I just throw my hands up in the air.”

Posted at 4:22 pm by Stephen Green

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Crash and Burn Gaming — The Anita Sarkeesian Story.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

NOW THAT’S A LONG HAUL: Qantas to launch world’s longest nonstop commercial flight between Sydney and London.

Qantas plans to launch what it says will be the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight in October 2027, connecting Sydney and London with a journey expected to last up to 22 hours.

The Australian airline announced Wednesday that nonstop flights between the two cities will begin operating as part of its long-awaited Project Sunrise initiative, which aims to connect Australia’s east coast directly with major global destinations.

Qantas unveiled the first of its specially configured Airbus A350-1000ULR aircraft at Airbus’ manufacturing facility in Toulouse, France. The aircraft has been modified for ultra-long-haul travel and includes an additional 20,000-liter fuel tank that allows it to travel more than 16,000 kilometers, or nearly 10,000 miles, nonstop.

The Sydney-London route will become the first nonstop service between Australia’s east coast and the United Kingdom. According to Qantas, the flights will reduce travel time by as much as four hours compared with existing one-stop itineraries.

Four hours savings vs 22 hours on a single plane…

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green

THEY’RE JUST HERE TO DO THE CRIMES AMERICANS WON’T: Illegal Alien Theft Ring Skimming Credit Cards, Stealing Fuel. “Credit card skimmers have been around to steal credit card info for a while now, but this is the first time I’ve read of them also being used to quickly encode new cards for the purpose of stealing gas.”

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

THIS SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE JUST A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO:

Posted at 2:33 pm by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: ChatGPT.

The New Hotness? ChatVSOP! Meet my snooty AI sommelier. Like many wine drinkers, my family and I are taking notes from Claude.

These days, I am not the only one turning to Daddy AI for wine advice. The New York Times recently ran a piece on the customers consulting chatbots in restaurants, so they know where to start with terrifying wine lists. Sommeliers, for their part, are largely delighted about this development. “People making the conscious effort with AI, it means they’re curious, and that makes me happy,” said Claudia Rossellini, wine director of the restaurant Bavel in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the internet abounds with techy types bragging about online cellars coded by AI. “How I Built an 80,000-Line Open Source Wine Cellar App in 6 Weeks with Claude,” is a typical headline, in this case by one Johan Eklund of “wine cellar management” app Cellarion. Reddit is also full of happy AI users for wine help. “I know almost nothing about wine,” writes one. “Rather than get the same bottle of Pinot Noir over and over, I tell Claude what I am having and it gives me a few good suggestions!”

To wit: my parents and I decided to find out what our Claude “sommelier” could teach us. To do so, we peered at a collection of bottles kindly made for the taking by the daughter of my late great-aunt, a glamorous, chain-smoking, Vienna-born mother of two. Where to start?

Hope pulsed as it does. Should we go with the 1982 Bouchard Père & Fils Meursault? Pictures were uploaded to Claude; the response was extensive and damning.

Claude took one look at the color and declared it was oxidized, which happens when wine is stored at “too warm a temperature.” The wine would then “taste flat, nutty, and vinegary – not pleasant.”

I’ve used ChatGPT a few times on my iPhone when shopping the wine departments at H-E-B and its Trader Joe’s inspired spinoff, Central Market. I uploaded photos of the bottles on the shelf, it OCRed the text on the labels and gave me descriptions of each type of Chablis, until it described the last one as “Ahh, Jean-Marc Brocard Sainte-Claire Chablis 2024 — now we’re talking. This one is a serious reference-point Chablis…If you’re choosing one bottle and want the most true Chablis experience from this shelf: Jean-Marc Brocard Sainte-Claire is the pick.”

I don’t know if it’s one “serious reference-point Chablis” — but it wasn’t bad at all.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: SAF Backing Former Virginia AG’s Challenge to State’s New ‘Assault Firearms’ Ban. “Unlike other lawsuits filed challenging this ‘assault weapons’ ban, this case is unique in that plaintiffs are arguing they have the right to buy the banned arms to preserve their ability to function as the militia that is preserved under the Virginia constitution’s Militia Clause,” Cuccinelli said. “Most other cases are making Heller-like arguments, and we feel this case is a good vehicle to ensure this unconstitutional ban is looked at by the court from every angle.”

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Nick Searcy Reveals Ugly Truth Behind Sean Penn’s Jan. 6 Project.

The Jan. 6 riots matter. And the topic is ripe for a theatrical retelling. That’s not the key takeaway, and veteran actor/director Nick Searcy spelled out the bigger picture on his X account.

You see, the left funds their propaganda, and is willing to lose millions of dollars to get their lies out in an attractive form. While conservative investors will not put their money up to make anything to counteract it. This is why we lose.

Searcy isn’t wrong. Conservative filmmakers routinely fail to get their projects funded. Searcy knows this all too well. He’s helped some small, feisty documentaries get made, like “The War on Truth,” but he’s struggled to get other fictional films off the ground.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE (From Ed):

Posted at 1:35 pm by Stephen Green

MY MOTHER HAS ALWAYS CLAIMED THAT IT DOES: Does Coffee Count Toward Your Daily Water Intake? Here’s What Experts Say. Coffee contains enough water to help. But: “However, Larson adds that high amounts of caffeine might increase fluid loss for some people. This usually happens around 400 milligrams or more, or four or more cups of coffee per day.”

Four cups? Those are rookie numbers.

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DON SURBER: “Hello. I’m the Boss:”

Kris Sidial is a prominent derivatives trader, volatility specialist, and Co-Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of The Ambrus Group. He is on vacation in France. He tweeted:

I’m in Versailles right now, staying at the Waldorf, which is connected to the Palace of Versailles.

When we arrived, the receptionist told us the gardens would be closed because, “President Trump is coming.”

I turned to my fiancée and said, “That’s an odd thing for a French citizen to say, wouldn’t you say Macron?”

It’s a very interesting psychological dynamic that exists globally right now with Trump. On a micro level, this small interaction probably reflects the broader perception of why he believes he can walk into meetings of that caliber and project himself as “The Boss.”

President Trump is The Boss.

Indeed, he did visit the Versailles with Macron in tow. Gone are the days when Macron could try to one-up Trump in a handshake. In his second presidency, Trump realizes he holds the cards.

Likely the Secret Service requested the closure of the garden for security reasons. None of the other G7 leaders fear assassination, which reflects their importance. Trump leads the United States, which has an economy larger than the rest of the G7 combined—despite having 100 million fewer people.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll