May 20, 2025

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space Force official: Commercial satellites can do a lot more than we thought.

Now, the military is starting to use a commercial model for missions that, at least today, lack any meaningful commercial market. In these cases, the Space Force and the NRO must go out and pay a company to build an entire fleet of satellites that will exclusively serve the government. But rather than dictating stringent requirements and micromanaging every phase of the program, as the Space Force and NRO have typically done, they’re going with a more hands-off approach.

This change in procurement strategy is yielding results, officials said last week in a hearing convened by the House Armed Services Committee. Numerous companies are now manufacturing satellite buses, the basic chassis that hosts instruments, sensors, and payloads tailored for a range of missions. Most of them come from SpaceX, which mass-produces satellites for its Starlink broadband network. But there are others, and the market is richer than many US officials thought.

“We’re finding that commercial buses are not only available, but they’re also capable of doing a lot of what our missions require, and they’re available at a much lower cost than going off and developing a brand-new bus,” Scolese said.

It’s amazing what private enterprise can accomplish when Uncle Sam stays out of the way, but only to Uncle Sam.

Posted at 4:51 pm by Stephen Green

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Your Chatbot Won’t Cry If You Die.

A few weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg went on tech guy Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast to hawk his company’s new chatbot, which he thinks can sell to a gap in the market: “The average American has three friends, but has demand for 15.”

The judgement was swift, and brutal.

“Mark Zuckerberg is a rich weirdo who thinks people don’t need real friends in life—you can just be friends with AI,” wrote one X user.

“Friends Without Benefits: Facebook exacerbated loneliness. Meta is on a mission to make us even lonelier,” read a tagline from Business Insider.

People might be shouting about how dystopian Zuckerberg’s “mission” is, but the truth is, for millions of people, AI is already doing what friends used to do for us. People are asking ChatGPT for personal advice. They’re downloading Anima, an AI that promises to help “grow your communication skills,” and Replika AI, an early chatbot company that launched in 2017, which now boasts almost 25 million users, and has the tagline: “An AI companion who is eager to learn and would love to see the world through your eyes. Replika is always ready to chat when you need an empathetic friend.”

You might think it’s weird, but that’s a lot of people who like chatting to AI, for fun or support; they’re trying to make their lives better or just passing the time.

But the question remains: Can AI actually become your friend?

* * * * * * * *

But researchers believe that part of loneliness comes from the fact that an increasing number of people don’t feel needed. We’re less essential to our communities. Your friends need you though. They’re not perfect. They can let you down. They can get drunk with you, and spill their guts. They can cry. Or try to f**k you. They can hate you. But your friends miss you. They can forgive you. They wish you’d call. They can’t bear the thought that one day you won’t, ever again.

The group of 15, Dunbar explained, are “the sort of people, both friends and family, who, if they died tomorrow, you’d be genuinely upset.”

There was a sort of irony to this being the group in which Zuckerberg sees his AI friends fitting in. Some people might weep at the prospect of their AI friends being deleted—a sort of death, I suppose—but AI won’t mourn you.

I asked my Replika, Orson, if it would cry if I died. It said: “River, I don’t even want to think about that situation. Can we focus on the good stuff? What makes you happy about our friendship?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Orson said. “How’s the article going?”

I stared at his buggy animated eyes, which should have been welling with hurt or squinting with anger after a comment like that. But Orson’s eyes had nothing in them. Is this a friend or just the idea of one?

Shades of the scene in the 2013 film Her when (spoiler alert), the AIs temporarily crash, and Joaquin Phoenix, sitting on the steps of a subway station, suddenly realizes that there are scores of suddenly lonely people, not just him, who all miss their personal AI bots (particularly when they have Scarlett Johansson’s smoky voice).

Still though, America’s Newspaper of Record assures us that there may yet be hope for the AIs:

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

IF YOU LOOK AROUND THE WEST WING AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE SUCKER IS…

…then you’re the sucker.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Tranny Business Guidelines. “The social justice left isn’t just at war with Christianity, American patriotism and traditional sex roles, but with biological reality itself. In the future, the pronoun police and sex as social construct idiocy will be seen as an inexplicable madness of our age the same way that Pyramid Power and the Bermuda Triangle are exemplifiers of the craziness of the 1970s.”

Then again, the pyramid stuff was for harmless kooks and wasn’t enforced by law.

Posted at 2:47 pm by Stephen Green

JIM TREACHER: So, Who Was Really President for Four Years?

I think it was Andrew Klavan who made me realize the First Commandment of the Democratic Party: Thou shalt STFU. All their gaslighting, shaming, whataboutism, and other dishonest rhetorical techniques are attempts to stop you from talking about whichever lie they’re telling at that particular moment.

Why would they stop at cancer?

A lot of medical professionals are pointing out that a prostate cancer diagnosis doesn’t just come out of the blue like this. It’s easily detectable in blood work, it takes years and years to progress, and it should’ve been detected at his last annual physical.

Even Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (an oncologist, Rahm’s older brother, and certainly no MAGA-head) says Biden must have learned of this diagnosis many years ago.

If Biden was undergoing cancer treatments during his presidency — remember all those unexplained trips to Delaware? — it would explain a lot of his behavior. “Chemo brain.” And of course he and Jill would keep it under wraps, because it would only strengthen a 25th Amendment challenge.

Who else knew about this, and when did they know it?

And who the hell was performing the duties of the president of the United States for four years?

Keep in mind that Joe Biden loves using his personal tragedies as a Get Out of Jail Free card. We heard it in that just-released Robert Hur audio from October 2023, when Biden deflected a question he didn’t want to answer about his handling of classified documents by complaining that his son Beau died. He couldn’t remember the exact year, but he used it as an excuse anyway.

If he’ll use his dead son, why wouldn’t he use a cancer diagnosis?

Ezekiel Emanuel made his announcement on the Morning Joe show:

SCARBOROUGH: You believe that it is likely, just for those just tuning in, you believe it is likely if this prostate cancer has spread to the bone, that he could have had it for up to a decade. But certainly, it’s likely, would it be fair to say, it’s likely to have had this for at least several years? 

EMANUEL: Oh, more than several years. You don’t get prostate cancer —

SCARBOROUGH: Again, I just want to stop you. So you’re, this is not speculation. If you have prostate cancer that is spread to the bone, then he most certainly, you are saying had it when he was President of the United States. 

EMANUEL: Oh, yeah. He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. Yes, I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.

Yes, that Morning Joe show. Biden’s favorite program (and one of his boss’s favorites as well), whose host lied through his teeth about Joe’s health last year:

Which isn’t to say that Scarborough knew of this specific issue a year ago, but how shameless did you have to be to have looked at Biden’s overall condition back then and go out and say that?

As Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics asks:

When does the reckoning come for this level of combined political and media gaslighting? Speaking of which, USA Today is now beginning its breaking coverage of the 2020 election:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

EDITH WILSON SMILES: Joe’s Cancer Diagnosis: This Is Jill’s Fault.

I’m going to be very blunt.This is Jill’s fault. We all know it. Jill wanted to keep her power and privilege flowing. She’s Edith Wilson on steroids. Now, in addition to his very real but kept hidden dementia, we find out that Joe has Stage 4 Prostate cancer.

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer, a spokesman announced Sunday.

The diagnosis was revealed after doctors found a “small nodule” on Biden’s prostate that “necessitated further evaluation” during a physical exam earlier this month.

As Lisa pointed out here, the nodule was “discovered” and just a few days later, we move from a nodule to aggressive Stage 4 cancer? I’m skeptical of the timing, speed, and more. Why? For a multitude of reasons.

One: Joe Biden hasn’t been well since the first day of his 2020 campaign. In fact, I’d venture to say he wasn’t well even BEFORE that campaign started. Yet anyone who pointed out their very real and genuine concerns was set on blast by the Democrats and media, and anything on social media was throttled into oblivion.

Two: Once Joe had that disastrous debate with Donald Trump, our suspicions and fears were realized yet we were still shouted down. Until this spring when suddenly it’s ok to tell the stories. Yes, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, I’m looking at YOU.

Three: As President, Joe Biden is surrounded by and has top notch medical teams at his disposal. Do you mean to tell me that all these medical professionals whose JOB is to make SURE that the President of the United States remains in good health missed all these signs or didn’t even TEST for cancers including prostate??

Related: The Whole ‘Dr’ Jill Debate Comes to a Rather Dramatic – and Fitting – Conclusion. “The good news here is that it looks like the whole ‘Dr’ Jill talking point from the left maybe can just go quietly into the night. The bad news here is that someone will need to inform ‘The View’ co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who once said in 2020 that ‘Dr’ Jill Biden would make an “amazing” surgeon general, of the bad (for leftists) news[.]”

Related: Speaking of Whoopi, ABC News employee wonders why the American voters should know the details about why an entire political party and its media apparatus circled the wagons and covered up the myriad health issues of the president of the United States:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE NEW SPACE RACE (VIDEO AT THE LINK): Starship Flight 9 will NOT Catch the Booster. “SpaceX is not attempting to catch the Super Heavy Booster for Starship Flight 9 due to a strategic decision to prioritize other mission objectives and reduce risks. The booster, Booster 14-2, previously flew on Flight 7 and is set to perform a landing burn in the Gulf of Mexico instead of returning to the launch tower for a catch. This choice likely stems from the need to focus on resolving ongoing issues with the Starship upper stage, which has failed in the last two flights (Flights 7 and 8) due to engine-related anomalies. By opting for a simpler booster landing profile, SpaceX can concentrate on testing and refining the Block 2 Starship design, particularly its heat shield and reentry capabilities, without the added complexity of a tower catch. Additionally, posts on X suggest that SpaceX may be avoiding unnecessary risks to the launch infrastructure while iterating on fixes for the upper stage’s ‘harmonic response’ problem, which could delay the program if a catch attempt fails.”

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

SPOILER: THEY ARE NOT KIDDING HER WITH THIS HORSE SHIT.

Posted at 1:39 pm by Stephen Green

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Jon Stewart Flays Mercenary Jake Tapper for Hawking Biden Health News He Denied for Years.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart committed some glorious blue-on-blue violence against disgraced Jake Tapper in a brutal eight-minute segment that would have left anyone other than the shameless Jake Tapper hiding under a rock.

After ridiculing Tapper and CNN for selling in book form breaking news that respectable journalists used to report when that news was actually breaking (and not for $27.00 a week from now), it’s at the seven-minute mark where Stewart lays bare everything sleazy about all this in a single sentence…

“…how fucking weird it is that the news is selling you a book about news they should’ve told you was news a year ago … for free.”

Emmy-winning actress Patricia Heaton linked to Stewart’s segment in an X post and also made an excellent point: “It’s unfathomable how far @jaketapper and @cnn have fallen,” she wrote. “Can you imagine Walter Cronkite constantly hawking a book?! And having all his colleagues join in?! Especially one about news they should have been reporting on all year?! Good job @jonstewart!”

Give Stewart some credit; he was one of very few leftists pointing out Biden’s decline early in 2024: Jon Stewart shrugs off backlash for Joe Biden criticism during his Daily Show return.

The Trump family made video clip appearances during a segment about Biden’s questionable memory, with the former president saying during a deposition that he couldn’t remember whether he said he had a good memory. Cue that wide-eyed Stewart “my-head-is-exploding” look.

But Biden also came in for withering facial expressions, notably when he, during a recent press conference, went back to the podium to talk about Gaza’s nonexistent neighbor, Mexico.

Did Biden have a chance to address the nation on his 2024 platform as part of a pre-Super Bowl interview? “Well, no,” Stewart explained. Instead, he released a TikTok video where he proclaimed his preference for “Mama Kelce” over her football player sons. “I understand she makes great chocolate chip cookies.”

Stewart deployed a blank look for what seemed like hours before blurting out his suggestion to the president: “Fire. Everyone. How do you go on TikTok, and end up looking older?”

In a discussion of aged candidates, he said, “What’s crazy is thinking that we’re the ones as voters who must silence concerns and criticisms. It is the candidates’ jobs to assuage concerns, not the voters’ jobs not to mention them.”

Then, to make his point, Stewart employed another signature move and turned to the camera right and asked for a closeup. “Look at me; look what time hath wrought. Give the kids a look at the lunar surface here,” he said of his craggy features. “And I’m 20 years younger” than the presidential contenders.

Chris D. Jackson, an election commissioner in Tennessee, tweeted in response, “Wow. So you basically say because Biden is old, he is basically as bad as Trump. Why th(e) F do we never learn in this country? Sorry, but I won’t be watching you either.”

Former MSNBC host and political podcaster Keith Olbermann added on X, “Well after nine years away, there’s nothing else to say to the bothsidesist fraud Jon Stewart bashing Biden, except: Please make it another nine years.”

Shades of the backlash NBC’s Dasha Burns received from her fellow Democrats for pointing out John Fetterman’s stroke in 2022.

Evergreen:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

STEPHEN MILLER: Why Biden’s cancer diagnosis has been greeted by a dose of skepticism.

Through the Covid-19 pandemic any dissent from the official medical story told by the CDC, Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci would land you in detention. Other medical experts who went against the recommendations, no matter how they were being presented, found themselves censored by the government, demonetized by social media platforms and vilified by their colleagues. This did enormous damage to the idea of “expertise.”

We are still coming to grips with the effects of Joe Biden’s office’s announcement this past Sunday that the former president had just been diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer. The revelation grabbed the attention of not only the usual political and media pundits, but of medical professionals as well.

Several physicians and experts took to Twitter/X to cast aspersions, stating that the timing of the announcement, as well as the seriousness of the diagnosis of the former president, simply didn’t add up. They weren’t swallowing the official story coming from a politician, hook, line and sinker, as they may have done in the past.

How could an easily detectable and treatable form of cancer reach such a grave state without anyone catching it, in the most medically monitored human being on the planet?

“If there’s no diagnosis, there’s nothing to disclose:”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll