November 12, 2026

YES:

And here’s Kurt: Red State GOP Organizations Need to Get Their Act Together.

There’s no one fatter and lazier than a deep red state’s Republican organization, with few exceptions, and this bit us badly on the butt last week. Now, California is not a red state — not anymore, though it was when I grew up there — but this little story kind of sums up the problem with Republican organizations. They aren’t about winning; they are social clubs. I was at some GOP event and sat down for rubber chicken next to somebody who proudly announced he was the Republican chair of, say, the 69th District and had been for 20 years. I asked him when the last time a Republican won in the 69th District was, and he looked at me like I was insane, like it never occurred to him that electing people might be a remotely relevant consideration for a district chair. The answer, of course, was “Never.” The Republicans had never won it. But he had his gig, a nice seat on the dais, and that was what mattered. Not victory. Just his place in the social club that is the California Republican Party.

In the red states, we got too used to winning easily. Far too used to it. We got so used to winning that it never occurred to us that we might not win, and it never occurred to us that we might have to work to win. We forgot that we need to earn votes, that we don’t just inherit them by right. Sure, some marquee candidates were awful,  but it wasn’t just the marquee candidates who lost. It was everyone from governors down to assistant deputy dog catchers. If you had an R by your name, you were about as popular as an openly herpetic participant in a polycule orgy.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

Posted at 5:55 pm by Stephen Green

THIS JUST IN: Pretty Girls Sell Automobiles! Annie Leibovitz Photographs Florence Pugh for Jaguar’s New Type 01.

Annie Leibovitz has teamed up with Hollywood star Florence Pugh and British carmaker Jaguar.

Jaguar has undergone a rebrand in recent years, culminating in the launch of the Type 01, a bold electric GT that doesn’t look like classic Jags. The British car firm will start taking orders for the Type 01 in 2027.

Pugh is an English actress, known for films like Oppenheimer, Black Widow, and Little Women. She has signed on to become Jaguar’s first-ever brand ambassador.

And notice she’s doing so without the hideous septum piercing she wore when she was promoting Oppenheimer in 2023:

It’s certainly a much more conventional way of advertising cars than whatever this was:

I think Don Draper would approve the new campaign. But on the other hand, if Jag doesn’t move any product, they can blame the lack of sales on the same Annie Leibovitz curse that’s doomed numerous leftist politicians. Or as Iowahawk observed in 2022, “Whom the gods would destroy they first make pose for Annie Leibovitz.”

Posted at 5:40 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT OUGHT TO LOWER HOME PRICES RIGHT AWAY:

Posted at 4:37 pm by Stephen Green

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! The Logic-less Crusade That Just Killed a Data Center.

The data center was set to be constructed on a piece of land that once held a mall. That mall closed 24 years ago, in 2002, and the area has been vacant since. Upon hearing the news that the lot was set to be developed, Taylor Frazier McCollum recalls that she “was like, ‘Oh, hell no.’” Why? Were the weeds sacrosanct? Were the server racks destined to be installed atop ground that, in happier days, played host to a beloved Foot Locker? Did the ghosts of a defunct Zales call out to her in the night? “Why would you want to bring water-polluting, diesel-generating data centers right down the street from where people live, work, play?” McCollum asked. “It just didn’t make sense to me.” That the plans “didn’t make sense” to her is no doubt true. But it is true because she is evidently ignorant, reckless, and, in this particular case, allied with a Marxist group that is directly linked to China.

Is it rude to say that? So be it. Where, I wonder, does Taylor Frazier McCollum think that money comes from? Where does she expect that Prince George’s County is going to get the funds it will need to close its budget deficit or to pay for her grandfather’s new roof? Most of what McCollum believes about data centers is hysterical nonsense — the product of a rolling, Luddite moral panic that has activated the worst instincts in the electorate. Still, suppose, for the sake of argument, that McCollum is correct to assume that a data center would be less desirable than a new mall, or a museum, or a field full of daisies. So bloody what? We do not live in Eden. We will never live in Eden. Life is full of trade-offs. If we want energy, we need energy infrastructure. If we want paychecks, we need jobs. If we want tax revenue, we need businesses to provide it.

Earlier: The single mom who blocked a data center from replacing an abandoned mall? She collaborated with a communist group funded by China.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

MAYBE GERMANY WOULD HAVE LOWER EMISSIONS WITHOUT ALL THE ENERGY-WASTING VIRTUE SIGNALS:

Posted at 4:06 pm by Stephen Green

CHANGE:

Posted at 3:35 pm by Stephen Green

SPACE WAR: Study Shows a Single Nuclear Blast Could Disable 99% of Satellites in a Matter of Days.

In the researchers’ simulation – incorporating the 13,300 satellites active in low-Earth orbit as of January this year – a nuclear blast in the region of the South Atlantic Anomaly would disable 25 percent of the entire fleet after one day.

At the end of day three, 78 percent of satellites would be disabled, which would increase to 98 percent after a week, and 99.4 percent by day 15.

Even in a scenario where spacecraft were given strengthened radiation protection, 99.3 percent of all satellites would be disabled within 30 days.

In another hypothetical situation, deploying a much weaker 100-kiloton warhead, neutralizing 99 percent of satellites would take a year.

But radiation wouldn’t be the only peril.

As soon as a detonation occurs and the first satellites lose control over their maneuverability, it would increase the risk of collisions in space, with the researchers estimating approximately 20 resulting collisions within the first two years.

After 10 years, the collisions would have left approximately 3,900 new fragments of space junk orbiting Earth.

Donald Kessler, call your office.

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE:

Related: DIY, Elon-Style:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

NO WONDER THE SWAMP WANTS HIM GONE:

Posted at 2:32 pm by Stephen Green

GREAT MOMENTS IN SECURITY THEATER:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll