April 14, 2026

A REMINDER THAT NOT EVERY GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE HAS LOST ITS DAMN MIND:

Posted at 12:58 pm by Stephen Green

CREEPY: Meta is reportedly building an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg.

Picture this: You’re a senior Meta employee looking for feedback from the CEO. But, instead of hearing from the real Mark Zuckerberg, you get a response from a Zuckerberg AI character. As absurd as that sounds, it could eventually be a reality.

Meta is reportedly working on such an AI character, training it on Zuckerberg’s mannerisms, tone and publicly available statements, according to the Financial Times. The character is also learning about the CEO’s thoughts on recent company strategy, with the idea that it could offer advice to Meta employees.

The company has reportedly, for some time, been working on creating photorealistic, 3D animated AI characters that can manage interactions. However, it now appears to be focusing on this Zuckerberg AI character, which would interact with employees when the CEO can’t or doesn’t want to.

Clippy, only it’s the CEO?

No thanks.

Posted at 12:43 pm by Stephen Green

THE FALLOUT FROM HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTER:

Posted at 12:31 pm by Ed Driscoll

HE’S RIGHT:

So is Sunny:

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP:

This, of course, is why they depend on importing voters and indoctrinating other people’s children.

Posted at 12:16 pm by Glenn Reynolds

PODCAST:

Lots to chew on here.

Posted at 11:56 am by Stephen Green

COMPLIANCE COSTS: Taxpayers to spend $477 billion on tax season.

Taxpayers are expected to spend 6.93 billion hours and more than $477 billion to be in compliance with the 2026 tax filing season, according to a new report released Monday.

Tax Day is Wednesday. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation released a report with estimates on how much time and money Americans are expected to spend.

The report estimated the average American will spend 12 hours and $290 to complete their tax return. The report anticipated a decrease in compliance burdens from its peak of 7.93 billion hours in 2023.

The report estimates that tax compliance costs include $319.7 billion in lost time and at least $157.1 billion in out-of-pocket expenses, including tax software and professional services.

“Time is money,” said Damien Brady, vice president of research at NTUF.

The Founders assembled an army following much smaller impositions.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

PEOPLE MAKE DECENT MONEY SPOUTING GIBBERISH ON X:

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

THE BIG PICTURE: All in All, It’s Just Another Brick in the Wall Around China. “Last year, Chinese Communist Party boss Xi Jinping played the rare earths card, forcing President Donald Trump to slow his roll on decoupling from the Middle Kingdom. This year, Trump played the oil card against China — first in Venezuela, then in Iran — and he just slapped it on the table again in Indonesia.”

Posted at 11:10 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S RIGHT, WHEN YOU GO TO THE MOON, YOU GET TO NAME STUFF:

According to her website, Halligan “has independently researched systems theory and the neurological basis for cycles of collapse, mapping how consciousness, trauma, and non-linear time affect human systems, identity, and the evolution of intelligence in form,” and now “writes, teaches, and consults on the evolution of intelligence and the design of future-conscious systems.”

But still can’t figure out how naming stuff works.

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green

I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS: House Republican: ‘Rapists should be hung, period.’

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Monday that “rapists should be hung” in the wake of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) recently facing sexual assault allegations, but he insisted he wasn’t talking about the California Democrat.

“Rapists should be hung, period. No questions. And so — now I’m not — I don’t want the Secret Service to come, I’m not talking about Eric Swalwell, I’m not threatening a member of Congress,” Ogles told conservative influencer Benny Johnson on his show when asked about the allegations against Swalwell.

“But the point is, is we got to say enough is enough, we can’t allow this type of behavior,” he added.

The word Ogles left out is “public.”

Also, public hangings for rape and other high crimes might make a nifty alternative for those term limits we can never seem to get.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

QUESTIONS ASKED: “I would have to ask his holiness very frankly: You had 30,000 people gunned down in Iran just a few weeks ago, we heard nothing from the Vatican on that at all…You have a terror, a government, close to a nuclear weapon. Is it acceptable for the Catholic church to look away from that?”

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

“DEMOCRACY” MEANS WHATEVER DEMOCRATS NEED IT TO MEAN:

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

RIDE THE PAPAL RECURSION!

 

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll

“AUTHORITARIAN” NOW MEANS “ANYONE AUTHORITARIAN LEFTIES DON’T LIKE”:

More:

Poisoning the well is Obama’s specialty, always has been.

Posted at 9:52 am by Stephen Green

CONRAD BLACK: Trump Will Win the War With Iran.

There is not the slightest pretense of bipartisan support for the war effort and as the Democrats demanded peace they went on record proclaiming that Iran was not a threat to America, that the United States is losing the war, and had been dragged into a quagmire.

When the negotiations came, they denounced them. The negotiations did not last long. Iran’s failure to concede the verifiable and permanent elimination of its nuclear military program and the abandonment of funding for international terrorism, particularly on the borders of Israel, and end all pretense of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, means the war will be resumed and those goals will swiftly be achieved by the Americans and the Israelis.

At that point all the scaremongering of the Democrats as the “progressives” devour and intimidate whatever is left of moderate Democrats, will be exposed as a fraud. Congressman Ro Khanna’s demand for Mr. Trump’s removal because of mental incompetence and the disintegration of Congressman Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign because of his aggressive womanizing have lowered the farce of the California Democrats to hitherto unexcavated levels.

There is little that the voters of America like better than victory in a “splendid little war” at a low cost (Theodore Roosevelt on the Spanish-American War). This was the story of Presidents Polk in Mexico, McKinley in Cuba and the Philippines, and even, for a time, the Bushes in Iraq. In the aftermath of Iran’s refusal to concede the nuclear and terrorism issues, the United States and its allies will seize Kharg Island, close Iran as tightly by sea as it is by air, strangle it of the ability to support terrorism, and impose a permanent aerial arms embargo on nuclear military development; all at minimal cost to the United States and Israel in the lives of their servicemen.

Don’t get cocky.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

AND ANOTHER ONE:

From the replies: “Trump has been the ‘great revealer’ of these folks.”

Posted at 9:21 am by Stephen Green