SO I JUST FINISHED JON GABRIEL’S NOVEL, Sink the Rising Sun, and it’s excellent. It’s a WWII submarine warfare novel, along the lines of Scott Cook or P.T. Deutermann’s work. Comparing them is high praise for Gabriel, but his book is every bit as good. Highly recommended.
Archive for 2024
December 27, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China suffers commercial rocket failure but sets record for annual launches.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT A TRAIN THAT’S MAGIC[AL THINKING]: Amtrak probes claims of train leaving 100 stranded at DC’s Union Station.
A post on the Amtrak subreddit went viral after one user claimed that a train left without 100 passengers in Washington, D.C.
According to the Reddit post, the 10 p.m. Northeast Regional train departed Union Station without its lined-up passengers.
Passengers were notified to line up for boarding 20 minutes before the scheduled departure. However, by 10:15 p.m., they realized the train had already left.
The station manager reportedly stated that the train departed because no one boarded, but passengers contend that the gate to the platform was never opened to allow them access.
Assuming the Rededit post is based on a real incident, first class job by Choo-Choo Joe, and his transportation secretary, who was hired because he ticks an identity box and because he likes trains too:
Taxpayers pay more than $3 billion a year to fund a train service that is so incompetent it recently left a stop without all of its DC passengers, because Amtrak knows it doesn’t need to operate functionally or efficiently to stay in business. Defund it. https://t.co/Rj6EsFfDdF
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) December 27, 2024
WHO WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING, BESIDES ALL THE PEOPLE WHO SAW IT COMING AND WERE CALLED RACISTS? Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: ‘Keep it quiet:’ Here’s what to know and do if you win the Mega Millions jackpot.
If you do win, please hit the tipjar, and hit it hard!
MAKE THEM PAY:
🚨BREAKING: Over 100 January 6 defendants are filing a $50 billion class action lawsuit against the Department of Justice. pic.twitter.com/Z9daZidv2b
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 27, 2024
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: My Mind Was Blown by His New High Score. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, Florida Man earned a new personal best, Florida’s ‘Grumpy Old Men’ reboot, and Delta Airlines has gone to the dogs.”
In this column [Peggy] Noonan takes note of Biden’s patent incompetence to perform as president. Noonan recounts the story of Woodrow Wilson’s final years when Edith Wilson filled the president’s shoes. Gene Smith provided a popular account of the story in When the Cheering Stopped (1964). Noonan draws on Scott Berg’s biography Wilson (2014). It is at least worth noting in this context that I have referred to Jill Biden as “Edith” in posts extending back to “Quotations from Dementia Joe” (September 13, 2020).
I wish some cynical editor at the Journal had headlined Noonan’s column This Just In. Although it appears to have escaped Noonan’s notice, Biden’s decline has been visible to observers at least since since the 2020 presidential campaign. Mark Halperin states that he observed Biden’s senility up close in 2017. He hammers on Biden’s calling out to deceased Rep. Jackie Walorski at a White House event in September 2022: “Where’s Jackie?” This was in public over two years ago.
“Noonan calls herself a conservative,” but as Scott Johnson of Power Line wrote in August of 2020, she “all but endorsed Obama” at the end of October 2008, when it was obvious that Barry had the election virtually locked up, and Noonan wanted to jump aboard the bandwagon. During the 2020 election cycle she praised first Kamala Harris (“The daughter of East Bay professors grew up to become an excellent performer of politics,”) and then as Conrad Black observed in September of 2020, “Noonan’s decision to go full-metal-jacket for Joe Biden in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday opens a new flank in the Democratic assault on the incumbent president.”
Noonan would have regained some of the credibility she lost on the right for endorsing Obama if she had been willing during Biden’s term to consistently point out his obvious inability to lead, but that would risk being uninvited to Georgetown and Park Ave. cocktail parties.
UPDATE: Peggy Noonan Predicts A Romney Victory In The Most Anti-Nate Silver Column Imaginable.
Reason 4: Romney is winning the yard-sign battle, at least in Noonan’s eyes.
And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.
—Business Insider, November 5th, 2012.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China suffers commercial rocket failure but sets record for annual launches.
The launch was China’s 68th launch attempt of 2024, surpassing the national record of 67 launches in a calendar year, set in 2023. The 68 launches include two failures, both of commercial solid rockets: Kinetica-1 and Hyperbola-1 from iSpace in July.
China is second for launches in 2024 behind the U.S., with over 150 launches including Rocket Lab launches from New Zealand, and ahead of Russia, with 17 launches. U.S. launches were dominated by the SpaceX Falcon 9, while Russia’s annual launch activity continued to decline, from 25 in 2021, 22 in 2022 and 19 in 2023.
China overall fell well short of a 100 launches forecast by state-owned main space contractor CASC early in the year.
SpaceX (so far) accounted for 125 those 150+ US launches, plus three Starship test flights.
WAIT, THEY CAME OUT AFTER HUNTER’S BLANKET PARDON? New Photos Emerge Showing Biden Corruption at Work.
INTERESTING TIMES: What Are Russia and China Thinking?
YOUR QUADRENNIAL/OCTENNIAL REMINDER THAT HOMELESSNESS IS ONLY A PROBLEM WHEN THERE’S A REPUBLICAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE:
ahhhhh right on time, the media rediscovers these strange GOP cicadas emerging from hibernation https://t.co/eDuujnSXKh
— NeverTweet (@LOLNeverTweet) December 27, 2024
UPDATE (From Ed): When James Taranto was editing the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web Today” column, his recurring leitmotif on the DNC-MSM and homelessness was:
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
“If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition’s arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation.”–Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.
FLASHBACK: When Rulers Despise the Ruled.
CORN, POPPED: Two of ABC’s top stars at war as ‘historic tension’ between them is revealed.
ABC News legends David Muir and George Stephanopoulos secretly loathe one another and are mired in a ‘historic’ feud, it has been claimed.
The two newsmen have been known to have tension and now are barely seen on screen together as a result, as revealed by Oliver Darcy in a holiday edition of the Status newsletter.
‘There certainly has been historic tension — to put it lightly — between the two anchors,’ Darcy wrote in response to a question about the dynamic between Muir and Stephanopoulos.
‘That has resulted in headaches for the network’s bosses. But viewers may notice that, for the last few years, Stephanopoulos has been absent during politics-focused special coverage, such as Election Night. Those duties now fall squarely to David Muir.’
The two news anchors have reportedly had a professional rivalry for years, which widened when Joe Biden’s advisors chose Stephanopoulos to conduct the first interview with the president following his disastrous debate performance.
They deserve each other, but judging by ABC News’ ratings, fewer and fewer people deserve either one of them.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Instant Pot Duo Plus 9-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker. #CommissionEarned
THIS IS A MIXED BAG: Expected Decline in Carry Permits Continues as Constitutional Carry Grows: As constitutional carry grows, the perceived need for a permit falls. In a way that’s good. But on the other hand, permitholders are a coherent interest group in a way citizens as a whole aren’t.
BRAVO: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe phones home after surviving historic close sun flyby. It’s alive! “The spacecraft is programmed to send home a more detailed status update on New Year’s Day, Jan. 1. It’s only then that scientists will know whether the spacecraft indeed collected the expected observations of the sun from the flyby, Michael Buckley, a spokesperson at JHUAPL, which oversees the Parker Solar Probe mission, told Space.com in an email. ‘This gives the team a better picture of overall spacecraft and subsystem/instrument health, including whether Parker’s data recorders are full.'”
THERE’S DOUBLING DOWN ON STUPID AND THEN THERE’S HOWEVER MANY TIMES THIS IS: You Won’t Believe Who Jen Psaki Thinks the Future of the Democratic Party Is. “Psaki believes the Democrats missed a ‘big opportunity’ by passing over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in favor of Rep. Gerry Connolly for the top spot on the House Oversight Committee.”
READER FAVORITE: Thermajohn Long Johns Thermal Underwear for Men Fleece Lined. #CommissionEarned
HMM:
https://t.co/L3MRKr1f1s OK, so what does she know that we don't? Last time I checked, Denmark was a NATO member, and she's the Prime Minister. That would be like Biden stocking up on canned goods. Anybody worried about this? Does the rest of NATO feel the same way?
— John Bulkeley (@bulkeley_john) December 27, 2024
You’d think the PM would already be prepared.
CAN WE SUE THEM IF THEY LIE TO US? Should chatbots have rights – and should we care? I mean, rights generally go with responsibilities.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Yeah, We’re Going to Lose World War III to China (Part II) “Communist China celebrated party founder Mao Zedung’s birth earlier this week by debuting new weapons systems meant to drive the United States out of the Pacific — platforms that are barely on our drawing boards.”