February 16, 2026

LEFTIST VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVES SELDOM ARE:

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Posted at 6:28 pm by Glenn Reynolds

RIP: Expansive Actor Robert Duvall, Dead at 95.

Every Robert Duvall performance is an unexpected one. Unlike many actors who have had the length of a career as long as his, his performances are unique and nuanced, diverse and always revelatory. Duvall’s roles as Tom Hagen in The Godfather and The Godfather II, Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, and Lt. Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now are the works that most people tend to reference as his most memorable performances. The ones that stick with me are Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies, Frank Hackett in Network, and Sonny Dewey in The Apostle.

Duvall said to American Cowboy magazine that Lonesome Dove’s Gus McCrae was the role that stuck with him the most. After he completed the 1989 television miniseries, Duvall said he was ready to retire.

I can retire now, I’ve done something I can be proud of. Playing Augustus McCrae was kind of like my Hamlet.

The world is grateful that he kept giving us Hamlet-level performances for another 30 years after that, until his last screen appearance in the 2022 period thriller, The Pale Blue Eye.

On Sunday, the Great Director called, and scene on his denouement. Robert Duvall has passed away at the age of 95.

One of the most versatile actors who ever lived:

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Tenants in NYC public housing won’t be allowed to complain about city landlord at Mamdani’s ‘rental ripoff’ hearings.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “rental ripoff” hearings will not allow those in publicly operated housing to provide testimony. This is despite the fact that the government agency running the units has consistently been called the “worst” landlord in the Big Apple.

The first “rental ripoff” hearing, a pillar of Mamdani’s campaign when he ran for mayor, will take place on February 26. However, only those who are in privately owned buildings are allowed to offer testimony about bad housing conditions. There are around 500,000 tenants that live in housing controlled by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), but they won’t get to participate in the hearings, per the New York Post.

Private landlords were enraged about the city itself dodging questions about publicly-owned units while those renting out private units are encouraged to badmouth their landlords about such issues as “rental junk fees” for amenities and other concerns.

“The city’s own tenants — those living in public housing — are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. “It appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.”

So much “gooder and harder” that I can hardly pop enough corn.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

LOL, JAKE TAPPER:

Posted at 4:28 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test.

On Thursday, NASA’s launch team tested the seals by partially filling the core stage with liquid hydrogen. This “confidence test” ended earlier than planned when the launch team encountered a new problem that reduced the flow of fuel into the rocket. In a statement released Friday night, NASA said workers will replace a filter suspected to be the cause of the reduced flow before proceeding into the next WDR.

The confidence test ended as the launch team transitioned to “fast fill” mode for liquid hydrogen, when pressures and flow rates put the finicky seals through the most stress. However, NASA said engineers achieved several key objectives of the confidence test.

Isaacman wrote Saturday that the test “provided a great deal of data, and we observed materially lower leak rates compared to prior observations during WDR-1.”

Here’s the core problem, and it isn’t the hydrogen: NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket.

During the news conference, I asked about this low flight rate and the challenge of managing a complex rocket that will never be more than anything but an experimental system. The answer from NASA’s top civil servant, Amit Kshatriya, was eye-opening.

“You know, you’re right, the flight rate—three years is a long time between the first and second,” NASA’s associate administrator said. “It is going to be experimental, because of going to the Moon in this configuration, with the energies we’re dealing with. And every time we do it these are very bespoke components, they’re in many cases made by incredible craftsmen. … It’s the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes, and how it vents, and how it wants to leak is something we have to characterize. And so every time we do it, we’re going to have to do that separately.”

So there you have it. Every SLS rocket is a work of art, every launch campaign an adventure, every mission subject to excessive delays. It’s definitely not ideal.

It’s a hot mess that costs $4 billion per launch, not including substantial development costs.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

COLLEGE FOOTBALL BUYOUT MADNESS. There is too much money sloshing around in college football. I think it’s time for a minor league, and a return to “students who happen to play football.”

Posted at 2:17 pm by Robert Shibley

18 MONTHS SEEMS A LITTLE OPTIMISTIC… ER, PESSIMISTIC? Microsoft AI Head: Most White Collar Jobs Automated In 18 Months. “There are places where where AI might replace experts, namely those that use wide but highly structured datasets for narrow decision points, like some areas of regulatory law. But are decision makers really going to remove the ability to blame underlings for mistakes?’“Sure we lost $100 million, but the AI told me it was OK!’ is probably not going to wash as an adequate ass-covering maneuver. And, as I noted before, who is going to put an AI in charge of Accounts Payable when a single glitch could drain your entire bank account?”

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

BLUE STATES ARE MOVING LEGISLATION FORWARD TO RESTRICT HOW MUCH YOU CAN DRIVE:

The “15 Minute City” concept is gaining traction on the left, especially in Great Britain, where the Labour Party and leftist cities are seeking to impose harsh restrictions on vehicle use.

Here in the U.S., blue states are pivoting toward mileage caps, which would establish maximum “vehicle miles traveled” (“VMT”) allowed for an entire state, with regulators then creating “incentives” to reduce individual driving so as to achieve the VMT objective. From News Nation: “Massachusetts bill aims to reduce driving to meet climate goals”:

A bill in Massachusetts aims to reduce how much driving occurs as part of the state’s climate strategy. The legislation, spearheaded by Democratic State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, would require transportation officials to set goals for “reducing the number of statewide driving miles.”

Because this is such an unpopular idea, Democrat politicians in Massachusetts are trying to hoodwink their voters by naming this legislation the “Freedom to Move Act.” There is just an amazing level of duplicity in the name of that legislation, since the specific intent is to limit individuals’ freedom to move about as they choose.

As Lauren Fix correctly notes about The Freedom to Move Act, “When reducing driving becomes a formal state objective, personal mobility inevitably becomes something to be managed.”

Meanwhile, over on the left coast, California is working on further punishing its citizens for the sinful act of driving a car. The deep blue state already has the highest gas taxes and most expensive gasoline in the country, with consumers paying about $1.50 more per gallon than the national average. The state Assembly (the lower house in the California legislature) has now approved a bill that would “study” the implementation of a mileage tax. From NBC San Diego: “California Proposal Causes Confusion Over Future of Road Mileage Tax; A California bill studying a potential mileage tax has passed the state assembly.”

The study would explore the concept of a road usage charge, where drivers could one day pay based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they purchase.

Rest assured that any California mileage tax will be in addition to gasoline taxes, not in lieu of them.

Flashback to Charles Cooke in 2017: The War on Driving to Come. Or as Iowahawk warned right around the same time, America “needs a Second Amendment protecting the right to keep and bear cars.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll