September 29, 2026

WELL SAID:

https://twitter.com/joelpollak/status/2104882881612927456

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

ROGER SIMON: Elon Musk and Why the Midterms Don’t Matter. (Or don’t matter much.)

Okay, I admit my headline is overstated, but not excessively.. The midterms are important, though they are not nearly as significant as many more important things occurring simultaneously on this planet. In fact, they may be what’s been called “small beer” in the end.

In this era of rocketing rocket development, not to mention myriad other forms of advancing technology, politicians have been superseded as the real difference makers. We are now in the hands of the techno elite, and no one fits that definition in a positive way better than Elon Musk.

AI is integral to this, and there are other names (Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of ChatGPT, both tarnished by being funded by the incarcerated Sam Bankman-Fried), but Musk is the best of the lot because beyond promulgating AI through Grok (and putting it in his cars), he actually manufactures things, an extraordinary amount of amazing things, while employing and expanding the new technology.

If one were to write a history of the most significant person of this century thus far, it would be Musk by a landslide.

Just today (Sep 28), his SpaceX successfully launched Starship for its first orbital mission. Starship happens to be the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built by humans. According to AP, it “carried 26 of the latest and most advanced [of Musk’s] Starlink satellites to join the 11,000 older models already providing internet service. They popped out of the spacecraft one by one, drawing more cheers from the SpaceX crowds looking on from the launch site at Starbase, Texas.”

Today’s launch was deliberately crashed by the flight crew after three hours as a precaution and we will not get to see one of those spectacular grabbings by giant pincers of this behemoth spacecraft. Maybe next time. It marked, however, what has been called a generational leap in satellite technology through SpaceX’s unique “Pez-style” dispenser.

In collaboration with NASA, Musk is clearly setting the pace, actually outpacing nation-states in space travel for our species, arguably the future of humanity. At the same time, his Starlink internet connection may be the most potent instrument for finally inspiring a revolution against the brutally sadistic Iranian theocrats—or so I am told by someone inside that country with whom I am in clandestine contact while researching the EMET sequel.

Related:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Newsom signs law easing rules requiring students to learn English, change will impact 1 million. “They furthermore said too many students classified as English learners were held back months or even years after mastering the language. Under the new law, students will have to pass only one state-approved English assessment to show they are proficient, the newspaper also reports.”

You’d have to trust Sacramento’s figures to put any stock in that.

I look at the new law as just more sand in the gears of America’s once-might assimilation machine.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

THIS IS SOME OF THE WORST REPORTING I’VE SEEN DURING DECADES OF BAD REPORTING:

The legacy media deserves nothing but contempt.

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

UGH: A Horrific Find in Mexico’s Mass Graves. “Given that the number of clandestine graves found in Mexico is also on the rise, it’s entirely possible that the number is much higher. The Mexican government likes to downplay this topic, but a United Nations committee on enforced disappearances has estimated that more than 4,500 graves have been found, containing over 6,200 bodies and 4,600 human remains, in addition to some 72,000 unidentified human remains. Other human rights organizations have cited similar numbers.”

Posted at 11:10 am by Stephen Green

FACT: The math at the pump: Before you blame Trump, follow the damn barrel.

What I reject is the lazy explanation that says, “There’s a war in Iran, therefore gas is expensive.” That is like explaining a hamburger’s price by showing me the cost of a cow while ignoring the slaughterhouse, trucking company, restaurant, taxes, labor, and the gentleman behind the counter who apparently believes adding bacon now requires financing.

Crude is the raw material, not the finished product. EIA breaks gasoline prices into crude-oil costs, refining costs and profits, taxes, and distribution and marketing. Showing only a crude-oil chart is showing one chapter of the book and pretending you’ve read the ending.

Refining is especially important because EIA reported in September that elevated crude prices and elevated crack spreads are contributing to higher pump prices. Crack spreads measure the difference between the value of refined products and the crude used to produce them. When those spreads become unusually large, refining becomes a much bigger part of what motorists pay.

You can’t fill’er up with gas nobody was able to refine.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

GOOD TIMES:

Anyone else having flashbacks to when the media helped sell the 1992 economy as the worst since the Great Depression?

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

VICTORIA TAFT: Want to Kill Christianity in America? Try This One Simple Trick the State of Maine Pulled. “While mom was adjudicated to be a good mother, dad was working behind the scenes to establish that taking their daughter to church was harmful. He hired a cult expert out of California, and the expert began watching Calvary Chapel of Greater Portland’s Sunday sermons as they build a case against Ava attending church.”

Posted at 10:08 am by Stephen Green

I VOTED FOR THIS: Once Recession-Proof, D.C. Feels the Pain From Federal Workforce Reductions. “Downsizing of the federal workforce concentrated in the DMV area—the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia—has hit many residents hard, and some are considering leaving or have already done so. While it’s not nice to wish troubles on anybody, there’s nothing wrong with introducing government employees to the same risks and uncertainty that participants in the private sector face every day.”

To say the very least.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

GOOD NEWS:

Posted at 9:37 am by Glenn Reynolds

ANACONDA STRATEGY UPDATE:

Posted at 9:19 am by Glenn Reynolds

HENCE THE BLACK-PILL MOBYING ONLINE TO SUPPRESS THE VOTE:

Posted at 9:06 am by Glenn Reynolds

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: AOC May Have Greatly Overestimated Her Political Shelf Life. “Ocasio-Cortez has to be struggling with the knowledge that she might not be the prettiest mean girl in the Dem commie clown car. She’s pretty much just been able to giggle her way through everything since she got to Congress. Now she wants to be a grown-up and there are candidates out there who need more from her than the ability to make unserious Instagram content.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

OUR AWFUL LEADERSHIP CLASS:

Posted at 8:35 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHINA IS ASSHOE: Beijing’s Trojan Yacht.

Ferretti Group, the Italian builder of luxury yachts, is also a defense contractor. Since 2016 it has supplied patrol and fast-attack craft to the Italian Navy, Coast Guard and Carabinieri, and Rome designates it a strategic asset. Its “dual-use” technology can be used for both military and non-military purposes. The hull that lets a Pershing sports yacht exceed 45 knots, the composites that trim radar signatures, the propulsion that quiets the acoustic profile and the integration of sensors and weapons stations are engineered the same for both civilian customers and maritime security services. For example, Ferretti’s FSD195 naval interceptor craft, which is employed by a variety of countries, is derived from a Pershing hull.

Ferretti’s controlling shareholder is Weichai, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate founded after World War II to manufacture arms for Mao’s People’s Liberation Army. Today, Weichai builds diesel engines that power everything from trucks to mobile rocket launchers for the Chinese military. One customer, Norinco, answers to the Chinese Communist Party’s state-asset system. Weichai’s joint-venture partners are spread across countries adversarial to U.S. interests, including Russia, Belarus, and others.

Weichai owns 39.5 percent of Ferretti but was able to capture eight of nine board seats at the company’s May board meeting.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Punch back twice as hard.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds