May 12, 2026

HONESTLY, SHE ISN’T ANY BETTER ON PAPER TO ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING:

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green

DAILY MAIL GOT THIS HEADLINE ALL WRONG: Netanyahu’s shock plot to split with US as Trump’s Iran peace proposal unravels sending oil prices soaring.

Benjamin Netanyahu plans to ‘wean’ Israel off American financial support, just as Donald Trump’s Iran peace proposal unravels and oil prices surge.

The Israeli prime minister was pressed on the financial support his country receives from the US during an interview with CBS News anchor Major Garrett on Sunday.

‘Do you believe it’s time for the state of Israel to reexamine and possibly reset its financial relationship to the United States?’ Garrett asked, to which Netanyahu responded, ‘Absolutely.’

‘And I’ve said this to President Trump. I’ve said it in – to our own people. Their jaws drop,’ the leader continued. ‘I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have.’

This isn’t a “split” from the US, but how Israel will maintain freedom of action the next time an anti-Israel Biden or Obama takes office.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

RICK BEATO: Watch This NYT “Music Critic” Embarrass Himself…AGAIN (Video).

In which Beato stumbles into Michael Crichton’s Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the ‘wet streets cause rain’ stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

Of course, it’s worth noting that the Timesmen trashing conventional songwriters and the tradition of songwriting are both writing and appearing in their video for entirely performative reasons:

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

ALINSKY’S RULE FIVE REMAINS UNDEFEATED:

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

THE AI FILMMAKER OUTRUNNING HOLLYWOOD:

Hollywood’s been going insane over AI for the past three years, starting back when the tech was barely capable of generating Will Smith eating spaghetti. SAG-AFTRA went on strike for over 100 days in 2023, and contract negotiations are stalled again; the union’s pushing to make synthetic performers “as expensive as humans” and floating ideas like a “Tilly tax” on AI generated characters (it’s named after Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated “actress”). James Cameron, no Luddite by any stretch of the imagination, called AI-generated performances “horrifying.” Luca Guadagnino (of Call Me by Your Name fame) said AI actors mark “the end of the industry as we know it.”

But [Charles] Curran isn’t “horrified.” He’s excited.

And, unlike the “slop artists” Hollywood fearmongers envision taking their jobs, he’s devoted to the craft.

“I’m a really ferocious film watcher,” Curran says. “I watch over 300, sometimes 400 films a year. I have a film school background and I love cinema. I just genuinely do.”

He’s made movies for 20 years. After film school at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Curran worked in commercial filmmaking, producing movies for Nike, Google, and the World Economic Forum. He released a feature film, See Know Evil, in 2018.

“The people who are the best at storytelling should be the ones with the best tools to tell their story,” he says — not the people who happen to live in LA and know the right people. It’s ironic that Hollywood — supposedly home to culture’s visionaries — struggles to accept AI’s white pill, as Curran sees it.

“If you look at someone like Jia Zhangke in China, who’s an incredible filmmaker, probably one of the most important of the 21st century, he has no qualms about [AI filmmaking],” Curran explains. “He just kind of says, ‘Cinema’s always been a technology-driven art….’”

Curran concedes that AI video isn’t perfect. “It’s just very difficult to keep consistent characters, environments, and geometry without it changing shot to shot.” But the models are improving; these are solvable problems.

They sure are; Curran is the man creating the recent banging videos in support of the Spencer Pratt campaign:

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Don Lemon Teases Presidential Run.

Former CNN host Don Lemon once again teased a 2028 presidential run during an appearance last week at the Vanity Fair “Truth Tellers” summit in London.

“I’m a man of a certain age,” he said when asked about the possibility of running for president. “Why not?”

The moderator, journalist Kara Swisher, chuckled, according to Vanity Fair.

“You laugh,” Lemon replied. “I’m a self-made millionaire, from a country where my ancestors were enslaved, so I think that’s a pretty big accomplishment. … I made it to the top of my profession.”

Lemon left out that he was dismissed from that top position by CNN in 2023 over accusations he mistreated female co-workers and after making what was seen as a sexist comment that then-GOP candidate Nikki Haley was “past her prime.”

I’d laugh this off, but I can never tell when the Dem base of self-flagellating neurotic women will attach themselves to a candidate.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

YES:

Posted at 8:50 am by Stephen Green

YOU CAN’T HATE THE NEW YORK TIMES ENOUGH–THIS IS HOW THE HAMAS PROPAGANDA MACHINE WORKS: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a lengthy piece alleging systematic sexual assault on Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails. The piece was based on extremely dubious sourcing, and included the absurd allegation, which has circulated for months with no actual evidence provided, that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. Even a credulous fool might have paused at that one.

But it looks like Kristof, and the Times, are no mere credulous fools. A very extensive, detailed, and exquisitely sourced report was released today documenting, in gruesome detail, Hamas’s sexual depravity on 10/7 and its sexual crimes against the hostages it kidnapped to Gaza. As @aizenbergt55 comments on X, “If you do not believe @nytimes knew EXACTLY what they were doing with the timing of the Kristof “opinion” piece [ie, trying to preempt justified outrage at Hamas’s sexual crimes by suggesting that Israel similarly engages in such crimes] I have a nice bridge to sell you.”

UPDATE: Checking in with the Times today, it turns out they will publish the ridiculous “rape dog” allegations, but not a word in today’s paper about the report referenced below.

Posted at 8:48 am by David Bernstein

#JOURNALISM IN THE TRADITION OF WALTER DURANTY:

Posted at 8:45 am by Glenn Reynolds

GREAT MOMENTS IN ENVIRONMENTALISM: Lambo Fury as Green councilor proudly posts footage of himself driving gas guzzling Lamborghini days after his election — despite his party’s ‘war on motorists.’

A Green councillor has proudly posted footage of himself driving a Lamborghini just days after he was elected – despite his party’s ‘war on motorists’.

Mohammad Baghdadi Khan uploaded the video of him at the wheel of the gas-guzzling supercar alongside footage of him winning his seat last week in the Halliwell ward of Bolton, Greater Manchester.

The film featuring the Lamborghini Huracán Spyder – which cost up to £270,000 – appears to have been taken during a wedding in 2023 when a fleet of supercars ferried guests to the venue.

He also posted footage of himself driving what seems to be his regular car – a Mercedes with personalised number plates – which he used while campaigning.

He boasted if elected he would be ‘standing up for the people, the community, fighting for what’s right’.

In his campaign pledges, also posted online, Mr Khan – known as Baggy Khan – promised to work for ‘greener spaces’ and supported taxes for ‘billionaires not workers’.

His decision to flaunt his cars was branded an ‘absolute joke’ and ‘hypocrisy’ by many, given his party’s motoring policies.

I don’t want to hear another word about Glenn Reynolds’ carbon footprint.

Related: The Greens: the new nasty party.

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll

MONEY: However you feel about their creator, TrumpIRAs are sorely needed.

As a progressive economist, I wrote a paper in 2021 with a generally conservative colleague, Kevin Hassett, who now directs the National Economic Council in the Trump White House. We agreed then on the basic arithmetic of the American retirement crisis. We still do. That’s why people like him and people like me can all say: Trump’s executive order establishing TrumpIRAs, signed last month, is simply the right move for American workers.
…
Trump’s executive order targets the most fundamental failure in this system: access. Roughly 56 million American workers have no employer-sponsored retirement plan — no account to contribute to, no match on offer from their employers, no on-ramp to the capital markets that have built wealth for everyone else.

The order establishes a federal retirement account — TrumpIRA.gov — paired with a refundable $1,000 annual government match and automatic enrollment. That last part matters enormously. The research Hassett and I conducted found that automatic enrollment paired with a government match substantially increases participation among low- and moderate-income workers. When saving is the default and the government matches your first dollar, people save. A worker earning $40,000 who contributes $1,000 annually and receives a $1,000 match, over 40 years at a 6% real return, retires with more than $310,000 in today’s dollars. Most of that is compound growth. Getting workers into the market early is the entire intervention.

It’s a good plan — and it’s always nice to see a progressive who doesn’t suffer from TDS. A near-miracle, really.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

THIS REMOVES THE WHOLE POINT FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE: No Drinks At Sea? The New Crackdown On Cruise Ships. “Vacationers were not thrilled to hear the news.”

Ya think? It seems to me like the Bahamas are going out of their way to be less hospitable lately.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

DOUBLE STANDARDS ARE THE BEST STANDARDS BECAUSE YOU GET TWICE AS MANY:

That should clear things up for you.

Posted at 8:28 am by Stephen Green

JOHN LUCAS: Enough Already!

Personally, I think jerking the Iranians around with negotiations that never go anywhere is fair turnabout.

Posted at 8:25 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE:

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll