June 8, 2026

HAHA. ONLY WHEN IT SUITS THE NEEDS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT.

Posted at 7:38 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE:

Posted at 6:24 pm by Glenn Reynolds

I LIKE THEIR WHOLE-BEAN ESPRESSO: Italian coffee giant Lavazza launches single-serve tablets to make espresso in the U.S.

The Italian coffee giant unveiled Tablì last year and launched the new brewing system first in Italy. The tablets, made of compressed ground coffee without a coating, binder or gelatin, can only be used with a Tablì coffee machine made by Lavazza. Each tablet is marked with the words “100% coffee. At launch, the tabs will come in five varieties: espresso, double espresso, decaf espresso, super crema and lungo, or a “long shot” espresso brewed with more water.

“The result that we’ve been able to achieve was through a very complicated industrial process in order to be able to have [the coffee tablet] very compact, to be able to deliver it without destroying it, to have it able to work in a coffee machine,” Lavazza CEO Antonio Baravalle told CNBC.

Tablì is the result of Lavazza’s acquisition of the Italian startup Caffemotive in 2020. The new system took five years of development, more than 15 patents and a new production facility in Gattinara, Italy, to bring it to market.

Anything that speeds up the delivery of caffeine with decent flavor is worth trying once.

Posted at 5:52 pm by Stephen Green

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Is the Karmelo Anthony Trial the Distraction Democrats Have Been Waiting For?

A guilty verdict or a plea deal? Another young black man has been unfairly punished by the judicial system! Let’s riot.

An acquittal? This faultless young black man was unfairly targeted by the judicial system! Let’s riot.

And the Democrat Party is rubbing its hands with glee. They love nothing more than summers of riots, and this setup is just too perfect. While they twist themselves into rhetorical knots trying to defend a Nazi (sham) oyster farmer who mocks veterans and mistreats women – and has possibly done worse on the Kik app – the Karmelo Anthony trial is the answer to their sinister prayers and their Graham Platner-sized problem. American cities being looted and burned is the very distraction they need.

Even better, the teen takeovers that have been blighting urban areas in recent months – something Democrat mayors won’t address because the chaos is the point – dovetail nicely with the brewing unrest. These kids have a long, hot summer stretching before them and nothing better to do.

So watch McKinney closely. Whatever the jury decides, the narrative machine is already warming up, the activists are already primed and ready to go, and Democrats are already preparing to squeeze every last drop of political juice out of another tragedy.

If you see strategically-placed pallets of bricks suddenly popping up in your neighborhood or lawyers start carrying Molotov cocktails, you’ll know the Democrats have mobilized, and things are about to kick off. Never let a crisis go to waste, after all.

Flashback: Welcome to protest season, where the cause changes but the tactics stay the same.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Everyone Needs a Boot Knife: SOG and Cold Steel.

UPDATE: Reader John Steakley writes:

Everyone needs a knife, boot or otherwise.

Three years ago I was with my wife in St. Augustine for a wedding. She and her sister went shopping in a store that didn’t interest me so I went next door. That store had a selection of knives, one of which looked like a good-quality folding knife with a tanto blade, a serrated section, and a glass breaker butt point for under $30. So I bought it.

I’ve carried it since. I’ve been surprised at how handy it is to just have a knife in your pocket. I use it for something almost daily.

Every man should carry a pocketknife.

Posted at 4:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THEY STILL MIGHT FINISH BEFORE CALIFORNIA: Peru election result close as vote counting continues. “It put the left-wing Roberto Sánchez on a marginal lead of 50.3% of the vote, compared with the right-wing Keiko Fujimori on 49.7%. While not an official count, the tally has been an accurate indicator of the final result in previous polls.”

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

MASSIE IS JUST AUDITIONING FOR HIS POST-CONGRESSIONAL PODCAST CAREER ALONGSIDE TUCKER AND MEGYN:

Posted at 3:32 pm by Stephen Green

JIM TREACHER: I Believe Lyndsey Fifield.

According to Graham Platner, everybody in his life knew he had a Nazi tattoo… except him. And it’s their fault for not telling him.

That’s his story. I guess he didn’t have time to come up with a better one.

Even for a Democrat, this guy is full of $#!+. He makes Obama look like George Washington.

So, yes, when Graham Platner calls Lyndsey Fifield a liar, he’s lying. That’s what Nazis do.

Adolf Hitler himself called it the Big Lie. The more brazen and audacious the falsehood, the more likely people are to believe it. Because who would have the gall, the impudence, to be so horrible?

Well, Graham Platner would.

It worked for that guy, and it’s working for this guy. The Democrats love their new pet Nazi.

“Uhhhh, he’s not a Nazi. He’s a socialist!” I love that one. As if they’re polar opposites. No, those philosophies are on one end of the scale, and on the other end is freedom, liberty, the truth.

Not all the Democrats are on board, though.

John Fetterman, who knows a thing or two about lying to get elected, is now promising to wear a suit every day if Graham Platner can prove that he didn’t send pictures of his penis to underage girls.

I’ve said a lot of things about John Fetterman, but I’ve never said he’s not funny.

And he’s bucking his own party again, which I appreciate. All the Democrats who lied about his stroke during his election now hate his guts. They think he owes them a bunch of lies in return, and he won’t comply. I like that. He got ya.

Then you have James Carville, who’s always good for a quote. And it tends to be something he ends up wishing he hadn’t said.

“Listen to what political super-genius James Carville has to say about Graham Platner,” Treacher writes. Here’s a transcript: James Carville endorses ‘f–ked up’ Graham Platner, compares him to US allying with Stalin to win WWII.

“If you believe, as I do, that the country is in imminent peril — I mean imminent peril — who is most likely to slow this criminal in charge? Susan ‘Blueberry Jelly’ Collins, or five degrees off dead center Graham Platner?” Carville asked. “I think it’s Graham Platner.”

“And you know if Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill could work with Joseph Stalin — who, by the way, well, I’ll tell you this, he was a bad guy, a really bad guy, alright — then I can overlook a tattoo,” Carville added.

So the guy with the Nazi tat isn’t the second coming of Hitler, here’s merely the modern day equivalent of Stalin. Hey, you know what the two had in common? And what they share with the modern-day left? As Batya Ungar-Sargon writes: The Left Has Made Offending Jews the Cornerstone of Its Agenda.

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:51 pm by Ed Driscoll

IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING: Inflation inside the electronics you buy may soon become a bit more sticky. “When the Jubail petrochemical and industrial complex in Saudi Arabia was struck by Iranian missiles on April 6 and April 7, it was the final blow in a convergence of factors — geopolitical, financial, physical — that knocked out a key world reservoir of resin, leaving the crucial component for circuit boards in short supply. The plants had already shut down at the end of March as it became clear transit through the Strait of Hormuz was untenable during the conflict, and it is still not back online.”

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT: Scott Pelley Isn’t a Serious Journalist.

In Britain, news anchors have traditionally been called “newsreaders.” That’s because this is what they are. Their job is to make sure that their hair is coiffed when they read from the teleprompter. Pelley was a male bimbo: a himbo.

Over the years, he made many absurd and bombastic statements. For example, in 2006 he presented a completely uncritical two-part report on climate change. When critics asked him why he didn’t speak to anyone who questioned the assertions of those who said that climate change was an existential threat to humanity, he responded by saying that this idea was akin to Holocaust denial.

By contrast, Pelley’s new bosses are serious journalists. Both forged meaningful careers as writers and editors. Bari Weiss, who is Bilton’s boss and the editor in chief of CBS News, made a name for herself through her work as a writer and editor at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. After leaving the Times, she started and built up the Free Press, which has two million subscribers and top writers like Sir Niall Ferguson and Nellie Bowles. Bilton also wrote for the Times, and he has been a contributor to Vanity Fair and a documentary filmmaker for HBO. They are genuine writer-editors.

Who will replace Pelley in the talking-head role? There’s been online chatter that Weiss and Bilton are considering trying to recruit Joe Rogan as a replacement for Pelley. While the chatter is probably just that—chatter—the deal has provoked an outburst of dismay in the media establishment. To which I would say: Why not? The job of on-camera talent is that of a performer. Pelley was known to end some broadcasts by taking off his glasses for effect as the camera dramatically panned into him. That was his way of ending on a weighty yet “intimate” note.

I used to edit future CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil’s writing at New York Press. Tony is someone of intelligence, character, and sensitivity. However, let’s be honest: His on-air value starts with his good looks. This is what news personalities ordinarily are required to display. Rogan is a different fish. Yet, while he may not be pretty, he’s shown that he can command an audience. So, would he be any less qualified than Pelley? Or might he be more qualified?

Who’s to say? What can be stated is a provable fact: The main reason 60 Minutes continues to be America’s most-watched news program is its lead-in, NFL football.

Related:

“He did something jaw-dropping to me. He read a statement from his phone.” It’s telling that Pelley claims he had a meltdown over that, considering he makes (or made) bank by reading words off of teleprompters. When ABC hired a young Leonard Di Caprio to interview Al Gore for a 2000 “Earth Day” special, Jonah Goldberg wrote:

For example, in 2000, ABC News selected Leonardo DiCaprio to interview Bill Clinton about the environment for Earth Day. The staff, including Sam Donaldson, and outside critics erupted in a barrage of outrage. How dare ABC suggest that a dim-bulb movie star can do the same job as a seasoned journalist? The defensiveness was telling. Because the truth is that most news readers are little more than actors. That’s one reason so many attractive young women want to be an actress/model/news anchor when they grow up.

Consider Barbara Walters. In the ’70s and ’80s, it was drummed into us that she was the Susan B. Anthony of American journalism. Even today, whenever her bona fides as a serious journalist are questioned, she gets her hackles up and plays the angered feminist. Then she returns to asking Hollywood movie stars what kind of tree they would be if they could be a tree and hosting that paragon of Cafe Vienna Moment journalism, The View.

Indeed, the current host of The View, Meredith Vieira, is NBC’s first choice to replace Couric. Vieira has another job: She hosts the daytime version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Ms. Vieira’s official bio touts up front that she won a Daytime Emmy as a game-show host and buries the fact she won five real Emmys for her work as a 60 Minutes reporter.

Is Pelley off to Substack-land? Maybe. But who will do the writing?

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

PUT. THE SMARTPHONE. DOWN. Why Are Birthrates Down? You Might Be Looking at the Answer.

Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College, and Ezekiel Hooper, her student, used the spotty early rollout of the iPhone as a way to isolate the effects of the phone on fertility. The first iPhone was released in June 2007, they wrote, and was available only on the AT&T network until February 2011. The study compared fertility rates in U.S. counties that had near-universal AT&T coverage with counties that had little or none.

Their paper, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the iPhone caused as much as half of the fertility decline between 2007 and 2011. The most pronounced effects were among young people aged 15 to 24.

What happened in the counties with iPhones? One theory, Professor Myers said, is that young people began to socialize more on their phones and less in person, and consequently were less likely to have sex and become pregnant.

Professor Myers said iPhones may also have made pornography more accessible, which led young people to substitute it for sex, or young people may have used them to obtain better information on avoiding pregnancy, including contraception and abortion.

Researchers not involved in the study said the results were persuasive.

Makes at least as much sense as any other explanation I’ve seen.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

JOHN NOLTE: Steven Spielberg Hopes to Break a Pretty Dreadful 20-Year Run with Disclosure Day. 

The last 20 years have been quite a step down from a filmmaker whose name once stood for the best the movies had to offer. No one’s questioning Spielberg’s technical skills. Ready Player One and West Side Story both prove Spielberg still knows where to place his camera, compose a shot, and edit a sequence. The problem has been his choice of material and the execution of that material story-wise.

So now he’s returned to two areas that have worked out well for him in the past: aliens and superstar screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, Lost World (which is underrated), and War of the Worlds. Granted, Koepp also wrote the dreadful Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but I blame George Lucas for that debacle.

I must say, though, the Disclosure Day trailer doesn’t do much for me:

Then there’s Spielberg’s current PR pitch in which he runs around on all The Shows saying he believes there is life on other planets. It reeks of the desperation of a guy who’s sweaty to make headlines for his $120 million movie.

I just hope he doesn’t go too over the top in hyping his movie:

Didn’t Stanley Kubrick already do this almost 60 years ago with 2001: A Space Odyssey?

The God concept is at the heart of this film. It’s unavoidable that it would be, once you believe that the universe is seething with advanced forms of intelligent life. Just think about it for a moment. There are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe. Each star is a sun, like our own, probably with planets around them. The evolution of life, it is widely believed, comes as an inevitable consequence of a certain amount of time on a planet in a stable orbit which is not too hot or too cold. First comes chemical evolution — chance rearrangements of basic matter, then biological evolution. Think of the kind of life that may have evolved on those planets over the millennia, and think, too, what relatively giant technological strides man has made on earth in the six thousand years of his recorded civilization — a period that is less than a single grain of sand in the cosmic hourglass. At a time when man’s distant evolutionary ancestors were just crawling out of the primordial ooze, there must have been civilizations in the universe sending out their starships to explore the farthest reaches of the cosmos and conquering all the secrets of nature. Such cosmic intelligences, growing in knowledge over the aeons, would be as far removed from man as we are from the ants. They could be in instantaneous telepathic communication throughout the universe; they might have achieved total mastery over matter so that they can telekinetically transport themselves instantly across billions of light years of space; in their ultimate form they might shed the corporeal shell entirely and exist as a disembodied immortal consciousness throughout the universe. Once you begin discussing such possibilities, you realize that the religious implications are inevitable, because all the essential attributes of such extraterrestrial intelligences are the attributes we give to God. What we’re really dealing with here is, in fact, a scientific definition of God. And if these beings of pure intelligence ever did intervene in the affairs of man, so far removed would their powers be from our own understanding. How would a sentient ant view the foot that crushes his anthill — as the action of another being on a higher evolutionary scale than itself? Or as the divinely terrible intercession of God?

Kubrick uttered (or typed) that quote in 1970, four years after Time magazine boldly went where Nietzche had gone before on its cover and asked “Is God Dead?” But that was still the era of mass media. In 2026, it will be interesting to see if Spielberg’s attempt to drum up some controversy Last Temptation of Christ/Brokeback Mountain-style over his new science fiction film helps to goose ticket sales.

It could backfire: “The more artful leftie websites have taken to complaining that the religious right deliberately killed Brokeback at the box-office by declining to get mad about it.”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll