April 21, 2025

21ST CENTURY CAREER DECISIONS: Actors who sold AI avatars stuck in Black Mirror-esque dystopia. “For actors, selling their AI likeness seems quick and painless—and perhaps increasingly more lucrative. All they have to do is show up and make a bunch of different facial expressions in front of a green screen, then collect their checks. But Alyssa Malchiodi, a lawyer who has advocated on behalf of actors, told the AFP that ‘the clients I’ve worked with didn’t fully understand what they were agreeing to at the time,’ blindly signing contracts with ‘clauses considered abusive,’ even sometimes granting ‘worldwide, unlimited, irrevocable exploitation, with no right of withdrawal.'”

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

ARE YOU AN AI ALARMIST OR ACCOMODATIONIST? I’m a bit of both when it comes to education, but I think having an infinitely patient tutor for those who do want to learn could be a huge blessing.

Posted at 4:33 pm by Robert Shibley

DAVID MARCUS: These 3 are auditioning to be Democrats’ next George Floyd. “As we speak, the holy trinity of the supposedly oppressed that graces the altar of the progressive media ecosystem are alleged murderers Luigi Mangione and Karmelo Anthony as well as alleged MS-13 gang member and human trafficker in the country illegally, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”

Look at who they venerate to understand where they want to take the country.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

CALIFORNICATION: Colorado regulators raise emissions fees significantly, create new reporting requirements.

A Colorado regulatory panel agreed Friday to raise fees on industrial companies by as much as 67% and to implement a new system, beginning in 2027, under which those firms must report even small levels of emissions for 342 different toxic air contaminants.
…
However, groups such as the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute Colorado and Colorado Utilities Coalition said they want the division to meet new performance standards focused on speeding permit review.

The average number of days between submission of permit applications and issuance of permits by CDPHE has risen by nearly 2-1/2 times, from 165 days in 2019 to 459 days in 2024, according to data that the state provided to the Joint Budget Committee. At the same time, addition and expansion of fees on the operations of emitters means Colorado businesses are paying $12,738 per ton of volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxides, said Christy Woodward, Colorado Chamber regulatory affairs advisor.

Kristen Derr, an environmental specialist for pipeline company Williams, said her company filed an application to upgrade a compressor station in 2022 — and waited 13 months for it to even get assigned to a permit reviewer before taking another 15 months to get approved. Julia Griffin, senior air permitting and compliance specialist with Kinder Morgan, described a permit application she filed to reduce fugitive emissions in March 2024 and noted that CDPHE has spent 308 hours on it and billed her $43,000 but hasn’t awarded a permit yet.

Message sent: Manufacturers not welcome here.

My libertarian friends keep telling me about Gov. Jared Polis’s light regulatory touch, but I keep reading stories like this one.

Previously: You traded the 1st and 2nd amendments for legal weed. Was it worth it?

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Posted at 2:39 pm by Stephen Green

IT’S GOTTA BE EITHER CLIMATE CHANGE OR RFK, JR.: What causes breakthrough measles infections? “3% of the identified cases are so-called breakthrough infections. People got sick despite being either partially or fully vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot.”

Posted at 2:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NRO reaches milestone with over 200 satellites deployed in two years.

The NROL-145 mission lifted off Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8:29 a.m. Eastern. This marked SpaceX’s 10th launch of satellites for the NRO’s proliferated architecture, which includes Starshield imaging satellites built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.

A proliferated architecture refers to the strategy of using numerous smaller satellites rather than fewer large ones, creating networks that are more resilient against potential threats and capable of providing more comprehensive coverage.

Impressive — both the cadence and NRO having enough imagination to take advantage of it.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

OBAMA’S ENDANGERMENT FINDING MAY DIE SOONER THAN EXPECTED: Steven Milloy has been fighting the environmental zealots of the Left for decades, so the man knows a thing or three about how confrontations are likely to turn out. In an important Issues & Insights column, Milloy explains his optimism about killing the Endangerment Finding (EF) from the Obama EPA, used to justify every major federal environmental initiative since 2009:

“Before the Trump administration’s shock-and-awe approach to shrinking government commenced in January, my colleagues and I imagined that the EF would be reversed more less in the same way that the Obama administration had promulgated it, through the cumbersome Administrative Procedures Act. There would be a proposal seeking public comment published in the Federal Register, mandatory consideration of the likely hundreds of thousands of public comments, a final decision and then years of litigation with an uncertain outcome.

“But that has all now changed.

“On April 9, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, “Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations,” directing agencies to come up with lists of regulations that run afoul of recent Supreme Court decisions. Select illegal regulations, as determined by the Trump administration, will then be terminated without the notice-and-comment process of the Administrative Procedures Act. The rationale is simply that: (1) the regulations are illegal per the Supreme Court decision; (2) they are no longer operative; and (3) terminating them does not require any sort of due process, so to speak.”

In other words, forget about endless APA process, the EF could soon be no more, and, as Milloy further explains, those getting tax dollars under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — what Trump calls the ‘Green New Scam’ — would be well-advised not to count on  such future revenues.

 

Posted at 1:17 pm by Mark Tapscott

DO TELL:

Posted at 12:52 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SMART: Taiwan Drone Alliance Quadruples Size, Fortifies Supply Chain.

Taiwan’s state-backed drone industry alliance has grown from 50 members at its September 2024 inception to more than 200 today and is expeditiously decoupling from China-based supply chains, Chairman Hu Kai-Hung tells Aviation Week.

Hu, who also serves as the chairman of Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), says that the drone alliance is laser-focused on creating a “non-red supply chain”—the red referring to China—to align with the requirements of the U.S., which has flagged the security threats posed by Chinese drones.

Members of the Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance (Tediboa) are required to prove the origin of their components, Hu says.

We should be doing the same.

Related: Drones now account for 80% of casualties in Ukraine-Russia war.

That’s remarkable. Artillery — the previous champ — topped out last century at 60-70% of casualties, depending on the war.

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: This just in: Americans love nukes! “New Gallup data show attitudes toward nuclear energy doing a U-turn from negative views in the mid-teens to strongly positive views today. In less then 10 years, positive views have spiked by 17 points while negative views have plummeted by 19 points. That’s taken net support (favor minus oppose) from -10 to +27.”

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green