BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Blue Origin successfully launches New Glenn.
January 17, 2025
FOR A LONG TIME FEMINISM HAS BEEN AN EXCUSE FOR WOMEN TO TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER: On what women want.
And I say this as someone who thinks that Neil Gaiman has serious mental/emotional issues (Science fiction, eh? The 90% of deranged pervs give the rest of us a bad name) and who read the expose while going “I can’t believe people do this stuff. Not real people.”
A SAD RESULT OF LA TAX LAWS: BOMBSHELL: Some LA Fire Fighters Don’t Even Live in California.
I’M GETTING VERY TIRED OF “KIDS THESE DAYS”: I’m pondering why I find myself more sympathetic to Greer’s position than to Rufo’s.
SURE. NOT UNLESS THEY’RE THE PEOPLE HE CHOOSES/WHO GIVE THE RIGHT KICKBACKS: Newsom Doesn’t Want People to Make Offers on Burned-Out Homes. (It’s a video.)
HOPEFULLY THAT’S THE END OF HER IN PUBLIC LIFE: This is the woman the left tried to deify.
IT’S ANOTHER UNIVERSE: Farewell Address – Joe Biden’s Delusion Bubble.
January 16, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Be here now.
HEY GROK, WRITE A MOVIE OUTLINE THAT’S A CROSS BETWEEN DOWNFALL, WAG THE DOG, THE FINAL DAYS, AND MEAN GIRLS: Karine Jean-Pierre Pisses Off Lapdog Press By Bumping John Kirby and His “Peace Deal” Briefing to Focus on Her “Goodbye Party.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: India completes on-orbit docking test in step towards major space plans.
TREASURY SECRETARY NOMINEE SCHOOLS RON WYDEN: “China will build 100 new coal plants this year. There is not a clean energy race. There is an energy race.”
DEMOCRACY DIES IN HACKNEYED CLICHES: The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America.’ This week, the Post began trying out a new mission statement: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
The statement is meant to be an internal rallying point for employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Executives are not planning to replace its more strident public slogan. Suzi Watford, The Post’s chief strategy officer, has been previewing it to some employees this week.
To be fair, the Bezos Post will have to have some seriously “riveting” storytelling to make up for the Graham family’s earlier attempts to really push the envelope. Come back Janet Cooke and Mark Felt, all is forgiven!
Darrin Bell, the cartoonist who made this, was just arrested with child porn on his computer pic.twitter.com/lVuUVhRfB0
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) January 16, 2025
FAILURE ANALYSIS:
Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.
Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Huh? CBS Wonders If Biden Will Be Compared to FDR and Washington or Wilson and JFK.
CBS’s Ed O’Keefe wonders if Biden will be compared in the history books “alongside Franklin Roosevelt and LBJ and George Washington in terms of great presidents who did big things or does he end up in the conversation with Woodrow Wilson and James Garfield and John Kennedy of, if they had lived longer, if they had been healthy enough, if they had been able to do more, how would we have assessed them.”
And he’s right!
—Not the Bee, February 20, 2021.
● Woodrow Wilson’s reputation continues to decline.
—The Economist, November 21st, 2024.
● The Hater’s Guide to Woodrow Wilson.
— Dan McLaughlin, NRO, March 16th, 2022.
● FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.
—Frontiers of Freedom, December 14th, 2015.
● New Documents Reveal FDR’s Eugenic Project to ‘Resettle’ Jews During World War II.
—Steve Usdin, Tablet, April 29, 2018.
—The London Daily Mail, May 23, 2013.
—Speech by Ayn Rand, 1963.
—All the President’s [JFK’s] Women.
—The New York Post, November 10th, 2013.
● JFK and the Death of Liberalism.
—Jeffrey Lord, the American Spectator, May 31st, 2012.
● Lyndon Johnson: The Not-So-Great Society.
—Video from Amity Shlaes, the author of Great Society, at PragerU.
● Poverty in the U.S. Was Plummeting—Until Lyndon Johnson Declared War On It.
—Daniel J, Mitchell, Foundation for Economic Education, October 16th, 2018.
So by a process of elimination, Garfield’s looking pretty awesome in comparison. And anybody who’s been portrayed over the years by Lorenzo Music, Bill Murray and Chris Pratt can’t be all bad.
WHAT ARE THE DEEP SEVENS UP TO NOW? Scientists Found Signs of a Hidden Structure Inside Earth’s Core.
IT’S NOT SO MUCH THAT JOE DIDN’T WRITE IT. IT’S THAT HE COULDN’T WRITE IT.
What makes this post especially wild is the simple fact that Biden didn't even write it.
We're being warned of misinformation from people who are literally impersonating the president – and running the country in Joe Biden's name.
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) January 16, 2025
IT’S ON: Starship’s Seventh Flight Test.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Great launch, hot-staging succeeded. Heading for booster catch.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Booster caught. Elon, you da man.
ONE MORE UPDATE (STEVE):
Starship Flight 7 breaking up and re-entering over Turks and Caicos pic.twitter.com/iuQ0YAy17O
— Alex Davenport (@adavenport354) January 16, 2025
Version 2 of the Ship upper stage did not enjoy a nominal flight. Looking forward to learning what happened.
MORE (FROM GLENN):
it is beautiful though 😭 pic.twitter.com/rQpdrsJ8VX
— strwb (@strwbcom) January 16, 2025
That’s okay. SpaceX’s secret is that it’s not afraid of failure, it’s only afraid of not learning from it.
Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed! ✨
pic.twitter.com/nn3PiP8XwG— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025
Improved versions of the ship & booster already waiting for launch 🚀
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025
COMPROMISES WERE MADE: 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Tested: Better Mileage with Some Trade-Offs.
CROWDFUNDING: Mr. Wonderful’s Plan to Buy TikTok. “This Reg A+ Test the Waters offering is made available through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. This potential investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. This potential investment, if any, may be made through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc.”
That’s a hard pass from me.
STATEMENT FROM SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE:
I just read an extremely disturbing IG report. Last December, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized and failed to follow the law by notifying the White House or Congress. Similarly, his deputy, Secretary Kathleen Hicks, also refused to follow protocol and report the transfer of authority.
Now, the Inspector General’s report just released reveals that this doesn’t just happen once. Secretary Austin did the same thing again five months later, last June, and he hid it from everyone. Now look, I get it.
People get sick. It happens to all of us, and I sincerely hope Secretary Austin is healthy. But it is dangerous and deeply concerning that our Secretary of Defense left the United States vulnerable when he was completely out of commission.
Not once, but twice, and he didn’t feel the need to tell his boss either time. So, thanks to Joe Biden, we have wars all over the world. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am deeply, deeply disturbed to learn that we have had two significant lapses in the chain of command that have left our country wide open for attack.
Just as you’d expect, there will be zero accountability from the Biden administration. So, thankfully, change is on the way. In five days, President Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as our 47th president, and the Senate will swiftly confirm Pete Hegseth as our next Secretary of Defense.
We will have accountability, accountability and strength in the Pentagon once again, and it can’t come soon enough. God bless.
I’d recommend calling Austin back to active duty, followed by a court-martial for dereliction, but he doesn’t seem fit to stand trial.
But he’s fine to serve as SecDef, according to Joe Biden.
