October 17, 2026

FREEDOM LESSONS IN THE TESLA ROCKET CAR: Yes, Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Rocket (TRR) was only airborne in controlled flight a few seconds, but that’s just the barest of hints of what could be coming in the transportation field in the near future, thanks to the freedom that enables innovators to take risks, develop new ideas, test them, then be rewarded when market success arrives.

Check out my new Substack column today on Mark Tapscott’s Copy Desk concerning the long list of technological innovations encouraged and enabled through individual freedom and free enterprise.

Posted at 2:16 pm by Mark Tapscott

REAL-WORLD HERO:

More:

It happened in Michigan, where a stranger had forced the teenager into a van at gunpoint. When the man brought her into a Sunoco gas station and demanded that she buy him cigarettes, clerk Abdulrahman Abohatem immediately sensed something was wrong. The girl was visibly frightened, and her desperate attempt to signal him confirmed his worst fears.

Abdulrahman had no idea what the man might do next. But instead of staying safely behind the protective glass at his counter, he stepped out and confronted him. He physically placed himself between the stranger and the girl, told her to get behind him, and ordered the man out of the store.

It was an extraordinary act of courage. Abdulrahman was an ordinary gas station employee putting himself in harm’s way to protect a teenager he had never met.

More at the link.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Stephen Green

OH, THAT ECO- APOCALYPTICISM: They War-Gamed Dimming the Sun. It Went Even Worse Than You Think.

The simulation, titled Exploring Geopolitical Tipping Points and Climate Cooling Strategies, saw a couple dozen foreign-relations experts, scientists, military personnel, and former government officials from across the world convene in a meeting room at Queen Mary University of London. After making introductions over coffee and little yogurts, they sat at tables arranged in a square with the name of the country or organization each person was playing: national governments, climate NGOs and nonprofits, indigenous groups, and tech companies. Golja was assigned to provide technical advice to help participants make scientifically literate decisions.

The point of the game was to stress-test the world’s response to a group of prospective technologies known collectively as solar radiation modification. These technologies promise to reverse global warming by reflecting away a portion of the sunlight reaching Earth, for example by spraying particles of sulphur dioxide or some other manufactured substance into the atmosphere. The cooling effect of this kind of solar geoengineering is widely accepted. It would mimic the well-known impacts of large volcanic eruptions, which temporarily cool the planet by half a degree or more. But the fallout is less certain—and less equal. Some regions will suffer: Models predict drying in sub-Saharan Africa and more intense tropical storms in the Atlantic. The cooling effect would also last only as long as the geoengineering continued; after that the global temperature could shoot back up with wild and hard-to-predict effects.

Until recently*, the idea of solar radiation modification was a speculative niche of climate science. That has changed fast. Private firms are exploring solar geoengineering as a commercial opportunity: Last year, a US-Israeli startup called Stardust Solutions raised $60 million, and in May it released details of a suite of new inventions it claims would give humans the ability to dial down the global temperature as desired. In August, Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX might be a candidate for delivering geoengineering interventions, threw his voice behind solar geoengineering, writing on X: “Space satellites to control temperature and massive geo-engineering will be needed or it will be game over.”

* Define “recently,” please. Presumably Obama rejected such craziness when his “science” “czar” was discussing it in po-faced tones with AP in 2009, at the peak of Barry’s Hopenchange era:

But why futz around with half measures?

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

QUESTION ASKED: Why were Victorian elites so effective?

Books about successful people often make success sound rather unappealing. Education should be intense and rigorous, focused on driving up IQ and on the ‘STEM’ quaternity of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Once adulthood is reached, life follows an austere pattern, with a 5am start, cold baths, daily visits to the gym, little or no alcohol, a Huel-rich diet, and Stakhanovite working hours. This last point generates particular excitement, and descriptions of powerful people dwell with eager fascination on how many hours they devote to their labors.

The elites of Victorian Britain operated differently. Their schools and universities were not terribly academic and had very little STEM. As adults, they got up late, drank a lot, and spent a remarkable share of their waking hours partying. They loved feasting, sports, holidays, dancing, and dressing up. Contrary to their stodgy reputation, they were probably a lot of fun.

Despite this, the elites of nineteenth-century Britain were, by their own lights, extremely successful. For much of the century, Britain was the richest country on Earth. Its companies dominated global commerce, industry and finance. Its huge navy reigned over the world’s oceans, and its tiny army won a long sequence of wars while keeping watch over an enormous empire. Britain progressed gradually toward democracy with none of the revolutions and civil wars that wracked continental Europe. There is a longstanding view that the prosperity of Britain’s elites came at the cost of the hundreds of millions whom they subordinated and oppressed, and no doubt that is at least partly true. But on their own terms, the British ruling class enjoyed a victorious century.

Maybe the Victorian elite succeeded in spite of being feckless and incompetent: the Industrial Revolution created great wealth, which they enjoyed passively and parasitically. We cannot run controlled experiments on Victorian Britain, so this thesis is hard to test. But I want to explore the possibility that a relentless focus on soft skills, team building, and intra-elite networking actually worked rather well. Huel, STEM, and cold baths have their merits. But the example of the Victorians should make us hesitate before concluding that there is only one way to rule the world.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE FUTURE…:

…and its enemies:

How many years — decades? — closer has Musk brought the future?

So far.

Posted at 1:13 pm by Stephen Green

JONAH GOLDBERG: Addicted to Protest – On Greta Thunberg and the omnicause.

In 2019, The Washington Post ran an irate op-ed titled, “Politicians and pundits used to refrain from publicly attacking kids. Not anymore.” Another columnist for The Guardian began a tirade with: “A bunch of grown men have begun bullying a schoolgirl.” That “bullying,” the author explained, was “proof the right has run out of ideas.” I am happy to condemn some of the attacks on the kids, but I am also happy to condemn the tactic of putting kids in rhetorical harm’s way.

We should catch up on what Thunberg, now 23, is doing these days. This week she was in France lending her eminently assailable moral authority to the protesters in France setting fire to cars, purportedly in anger over substandard spending on schools. “The whole world is watching with awe,” she said approvingly of the protests, which included one teen taking a makeshift blow torch to a woman’s face. “This generation is one that has been growing up with a sense of hopelessness for the future, when we can see our future and our rights taken from us,” she said. “Of course people are going to fight back.”

One might wonder what school funding has to do with climate change. Also, back in 2019, Thunberg insisted that she didn’t want “hope,” she wanted “panic” over climate change, “the only thing that matters.” Now she thinks a lack of hope justifies pretty much everything she approves of. Pick a lane.

Old and Busted: Greta Thunberg calls for LA and the planet to abandon fossil fuels.

—UPI headline, November 1st, 2019.

The New Hotness? Throw fossil fuels!

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

POMPOUS SCOTT PELLEY APPEARS, CLAIMS BARI WEISS WANTS TO ‘DESTROY’ 60 MINUTES:

The interviewer later asked, “So, the latest season just debuted last month. Have you watched?” Pelley slowly admitted, “No.” Then Pelley said, “You know, I was there almost 30 years. And at CBS News, almost 40 years. And there is some heartbreak involved in all of this. And so I really couldn’t.”

As Perez Wadsworth moved to a different question to fearmonger about David Elliosn’s ownership of CNN, Pelley interjected, “But the ratings are off 25%.” After the audience laughed, he joked, “My wife did call that to my attention.”

Perez Wadsworth then asked Pelley for his advice for CNN employees. He responded as if he were a hero, “Stick to your ethics and hold the line. Stick to your ethics and hold the line. Oppose everything that shocks the conscience of a credible, reliable journalist.”

Unfortunately though, Pelley is reliable in not being a credible journalist: CBS’s Scott Pelley Loses a Fight Rigged in his Favor.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

REMINDER:

Posted at 12:22 pm by Glenn Reynolds

REINDUSTRIALIZATION:

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: A nightmare for pilgrims traveling to holy sites amid Houthi strikes. “Activist ‘Islamophobia’ articles and condemnations about Israel’s war on jihadists occupy more space and get more attention among the Western woke mainstream media, than: Muslim on Muslim violence, Palestinian violence on Jewish civilians, black-on-black violence, which is a massive problem everywhere (not just in American inner cities, but across the Caribbean and Africa as well), and the ever-ignored Christian persecution, including a genocide in Nigeria by Muslims.”

Posted at 10:16 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

And of course the woman didn’t get a pass — because she’s a Republican.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

JOE WON’T BE REMEMBERED, BUT TO BE FAIR, HE DOESN’T REMEMBER IT EITHER.

Posted at 8:47 am by Glenn Reynolds