Archive for 2024

WTF IS GOING ON HERE?

Seriously, is this real? And if so, why?

Related: “This is the weirdest s**t I have seen in politics.”

I did get the mockery of the communion. And apparently, as you can see at the link above, it is real, and meant to help Kamala’s campaign.

UM…:

It’s real and it’s far from spectacular.

SPACE: Debate over Space Guard rekindles amid growing reliance on satellites for disaster relief.

The role of satellite communications in disaster response has expanded. Starlink, a satellite internet system operated by SpaceX, has become a critical resource for emergency connectivity, offering stable internet access when terrestrial networks are down.

During Hurricane Helene’s aftermath, the Federal Emergency Management Agency shipped 180 Starlink kits to North Carolina, reinforcing calls for better integration of satellite technology into disaster relief efforts.

Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, noted the shift in his own perspective. Formerly opposed to the idea of a Space National Guard, Pace said Klein’s comments brought back memories of past debates about state-level space programs.

“Back when Governor Jerry Brown proposed a space program for California, I didn’t think it was a great idea,” Pace said. “But now, seeing the role that Starlink has played in North Carolina’s disaster response, I’m beginning to think there might be room for a Space National Guard.”

Having any spare space resources — much less enough spares to activate in times of crisis — is a luxury that was almost unimaginable a few years ago.

OUCH: Bankrupt Fisker says it can’t migrate its EVs to a new owner’s server.

Car publications were already warning consumers to steer clear of the Ocean as early as this March, despite massive price cuts that saw these electric SUVs being offered for less than $25,000. A New York-based company called American Lease was less deterred by this warning and in June agreed to purchase the remaining Fisker inventory—approximately 3,300 cars for a total of $46.3 million dollars. By October, American Lease had paid Fisker $42.5 million and had taken delivery of about 1,100 Oceans.

That was the plan until the end of last week, at least. Last Friday evening, Fisker informed American Lease that the Oceans “cannot, as a technical matter, be ‘ported’ from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by” American Lease.

American Lease says it “cannot overstate the significance of this unwelcome news,” particularly since it had already paid Fisker the vast majority of the agreed price.

Caveat emptor.

BECAUSE THEY’RE BETTER THAN HIM? Why Ta-Nehisi Coates Hates Israel. “It could also be that Coates hates reporting because he is bad at it.”

Every reporter knows the a-ha moment of living through the anecdote that will make the perfect lead or kicker. No such perfect anecdotes have ever happened to Coates or, if they did, he was oblivious to them. His previous book, Between the World and Me, was an indictment of America as a racist hellscape, yet the worst act of racism he recounted from his own life—not something he read about in a newspaper or a history book—was a white lady on an escalator who shouted at his dawdling son, who was blocking her way, “Come on!”

The pivotal firsthand anecdote in this new book is equally underwhelming. At a checkpoint outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers made his party of a dozen or so people wait for 45 minutes. That’s it. “Was it that we had cameras? Was it that our guide was Jordanian? No justifications were given, no questions asked, no instructions offered,” he writes. “Watching those soldiers stand there and steal our time, the sun glinting off their shades like Georgia sheriffs, I could feel the lens of my mind curving to refract the blur of new and strange events.”

Let us grant that checkpoints of all kinds are a pain. Even going through customs at a First World airport can be a tedious and capricious process, where inconveniences turn easily into humiliations; security checkpoints in dangerous parts of the world are commensurately worse. Nevertheless, it is a fragile hook on which to hang condemnation of an entire nation.

I’m sure it was infuriating. The essence of all upscale lefties’ fury: Don’t you know who I am?

WHAT “COMPASSIONATE GOVERNMENT” LOOKS LIKE:

WATCH THIS:  “WSJ Opinion:  ‘Get the Jew’:  The Crown Heights Riot Revisited.”  It’s easy to forget about significant events of the past.  Don’t let yourself forget.  This is one where the WSJ is helping us remember.  Among other things, the Crown Height Riot led to Rudy Giuliani’s election as mayor.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Deadspin Loses Major Motion in Defamation Case Over Blackface Column. “The opinion turned on whether this could be treated as opinion as opposed to a statement of fact. California law applied in the case and the court focused on two opinions that held that claims of racism can be statements of fact.”