SOMETIMES WE NEED TO REMEMBER WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE: The global launch industry in 2024: A year of amazing highs and depressing lows, with the best yet to come.
Archive for 2025
January 3, 2025
BEHOLD, IT’S A TREND. A BAD TREND: Outgoing North Carolina governor commutes 15 death row sentences.
THIS TOO NEEDS TO BE BEATEN TILL THE TRUTH COMES OUT: About Those J6 Pipe Bombs…
BECAUSE BIDEN WASN’T QUITE DONE CHEAPENING ALL OUR HONORS AND TRADITIONS, YET: J6 Kangaroo Sham: Liz Cheney Gets Presidential Participation Trophy.
WE ALSO NEED ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE LYING HERE: Renewed Outrage Over Rotherham, Other UK Child Exploitation Cases After Elon Musk Demands Accountability.
THEY KEEP PUSHING AND THE RETALIATION WILL ALSO BE GLOBALIZED: When They Say ‘Globalize The Intifada’ They Mean Like The New Orleans Terrorist Mass Murder.
YES. WE ARE. THE ADULTS HAVE COME HOME, AND WE’RE THE ADULTS: Starting 2025 – We’re Baa-ack!
And a lot of brats are due for a right skelping.
HEADS ON A SWIVEL: Firelight.
January 2, 2025
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED:
Interesting https://t.co/JwnsXHN1EZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Make it special.
ANNALS OF CORPORATE TONE DEAFNESS:
A jihadist killed and maimed dozens of innocent Americans in a hate-fueled rampage, and the CEO of Allstate thinks Americans watching the Sugar Bowl need a lecture from him on overcoming “an addiction to divisiveness and negativity?”
Absolutely not!! pic.twitter.com/CuyOYoz1mg
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 2, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China to debut new Long March and commercial rockets in 2025.
JOHN HINDERAKER: Covidiocy and Cancer. “One of the worst aspects of the covid fiasco of 2020 was the shutting down of ‘nonessential’ or ‘elective’ medical care. Worldwide, many thousands of checkups, routine procedures and so on were foregone, with consequences that will unfold over the coming decades. . . . A million cases of cancer that were not diagnosed in timely fashion, and in many cases remain undiagnosed today.”
IT’S COME TO THIS: Embarrassing: New Orleans’ 65-Year-Old DEI Police Chief’s Shocking Admission on City’s Missing Preventative Sidewalk Barriers “I didn’t know about them” (Video).
[New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick] told reporters, “What you see behind us is what we call hardening the target. We have brought in heavy trucks. You will see when you go down Bourbon, you will see yellow, what we call ‘archers,’ and they are along the sidewalk. That would be to be preventive.”
“If someone had or if this particular terrorist went around up on the sidewalk, that’s what that would do. It would slow that down for anyone who thought that they could breach our targets. Those are some of the main differences we are done in the quarter.”
“Also, you are going to see an incredibly large presence of police. We are, though, confident, but we want our community to feel confident and know they are confidently safe. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“Right now, I can declare to you that the Bourbon Street is open.”
A perplexed reporter asked, “Chief, where did those ‘archers’ come from….the yellow archers, where did they come from?”
Kirkpatrick, “Actually, we have them. I didn’t know about them, but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out.”
But what happened to the barriers that should have been there over the holiday season in the first place? Barriers to stop vehicle attacks were in the process of being replaced in New Orleans.
There have been proposals over the years to turn much of Bourbon Street into a pedestrian plaza managed by a team focused on making it safe, Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser said Wednesday. He told The Associated Press that it’s important to examine every aspect of safety following the New Year’s Day carnage.
“You can’t prevent something like this when someone wants to kill people*,” Nungesser said, “but I’m hoping we take a hard look at what we do because there will be another one, whether it’s in New Orleans or elsewhere.”
Addressing the removal of the bollards, Nungesser said, “How does that happen for a major event?”
* Offer void on CNN: CNN Shames Those Labeling New Orleans ISIS Attack As Terrorism.
“I’D RATHER HAVE A SISTER IN A WHOREHOUSE THAN A BROTHER IN THE FBI:”
Usually the scandal is the FBI had the terrorist on its radar and didn't prevent attack. In this case, scandal is the FBI didn't have the guy who PUBLICLY JOINED ISIS on its radar because it was too busy raiding Mar-a-Lago and going after parents and pro-lifers. https://t.co/4uriamDBR4
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 2, 2025
THIS SEEMS HIGHLY PLAUSIBLE: Common ADHD Drug Could Make Some People Better Drivers.
“KNUCKLEHEADS.” Heh. Just The News quoting Elon Musk:
“The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards. Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken,” Musk posted on X.
“Cybertruck is the worst possible choice for a car bomb, as its stainless steel armor will contain the blast better than any other commercial vehicle,” he also said.
Of course, I still think the damn thing is fugly and overpriced, but still…
MARK JUDGE: Captain Kirk Doesn’t Care That I’m Sober.
RUY TEIXEIRA: The Democrats’ Culture Denialism.
[F]undamentally today’s Democrats are culture denialists. That is, they do not consider cultural issues real issues. They are typically viewed as politically motivated distractions or as expressions of something else entirely (i.e., racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, etc.) They are not treated as issues that need to be dealt with on their own terms.
The current Democratic discourse is rife with examples. Here’s Massachusetts Democratic Representative Jim McGovern as tweeted out by progressive group CAP Action:
Get it? No one would normally object to Democratic policies around trans issues or immigration issues. Backlash against them is just ginned up by Republicans for nefarious political purposes. The real issue is the depredations of big corporations. The clear implication is that Democrats don’t need to change their positions on either trans and immigration issues but instead should point out to befuddled voters that these are non-issues and that their real enemy is corporate America (hissss!).
Which seems odd, considering that corporate America — or at least its management — are Democratic Party stalwarts, despite being their go-to rhetorical whipping boys. But eventually, the Dems might want to update their leather helmet-era playbook, considering that in late 2022, Tom Cotton told CEOs who tolerate wokeness don’t come crying to the GOP:
In a viral video from a Nov. 29 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, spoke out against McMullen and other corporate leaders who expect Republicans to defend them against Democratic lawmakers pushing for industry regulation.
He said that while the GOP has a history of supporting free enterprise, corporate leaders cannot expect Republicans to come to their defense if their companies enforce policies that discriminate against or censor conservative employees.
I’ve cautioned companies for years that if they censor their conservative employees, they shouldn’t come to Republicans when Democrats come after them.
My message to these companies: best of luck. pic.twitter.com/rgOvdEuoaa
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 29, 2022
“I’ve cautioned them for years that if they silence conservatives and center-right voters … if they discriminate against them in their company, they probably shouldn’t come and ask Republican senators to carry the water for them whenever our Democratic friends want to regulate them or block their mergers,” he said in the video.
Cotton’s comments were in response to the religious discrimination lawsuit that was filed after two Kroger employees in Arkansas were fired for refusing to wear company aprons with a rainbow logo, which is often used as a symbol for the LGBTQ community. The Cincinnati-based company settled the lawsuit, agreeing to pay the former employees $180,000.
McMullen, at the hearing, reiterated that the heart with the rainbow was a branding symbol, not a political statement.
To McMullen and other CEOs seeking GOP support against regulation, Cotton said, “I’ll say this: ‘I’m sorry that’s happening to you. Best of luck.'”
As for “billion-dollar insurance companies,” as we’ve seen since the beginning of December, Democrats have declared a fatwa on their CEOs: Shock poll: 41 percent of young voters find killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO acceptable.
UPDATE: Insurance company CEO speaks pablum calling for a new civility after — checks notes — radicalized Muslim kills at least 14 people yesterday in New Orleans:
Turned on the Notre Dame – Georgia game for it to start with this ridiculous propaganda from @Allstate on yesterday’s terrorist attack:
“We need to overcome an addiction to divisiveness and negativity… & accept people’s imperfections and differences”??!!!
You’re JOKING. pic.twitter.com/Xiwdek3BoP
— Isabel Brown (@theisabelb) January 2, 2025
As Collin Rugg jokes on Twitter, “If only Shamsud Din Jabbar had heard this message two days ago!”
I THINK THE LAMBORGHINI MIURA WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAR OF ITS TIME, BUT A SPOILER DOESN’T MAKE IT PRETTIER: Liberty Walk Lamborghini Miura Is an Extreme Makeover.
SAVE TIME WASHING YOUR T-SHIRTS: True Classic 6 Pack, Men’s Short Sleeve. #CommissionEarned
OUR GERMANS WERE BETTER THAN THEIR GERMANS*: How a Nazi Scientist became an American Hero (Video).
* QED:
Image of Apollo 11 and 12 taken by India's Moon orbiter. Disapproving Moon landing deniers pic.twitter.com/kY4rn0sOoT
— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) January 2, 2025
GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: Putting the Joy of Storytelling in a Tech Bro Chokehold.
For all the changes which have roiled the movie business over the last 50 years, the basic process has remained essentially the same. Creative artists drive to a motion picture studio and meet with a “creative executive.” In that meeting the artist pitches their vision for a movie. Afterwards, the executive goes to his or her boss and re-pitches a thumbnail version what they were just pitched. Maybe the two executives kick around some ideas… “we could get Nolan, or Taika… maybe even Tom Cruise”, they might dream together. And sometimes, after all the dreaming has come to an end, the boss takes that leap of faith and says “yes, let’s develop that idea.” But again, remember what William Goldman said… “nobody knows anything”… so at the end of the day, that “yes” is delivered with a shrug… at best.
Thus begins a process in which tens of millions of dollars will be spent without the guarantee that there will be even a single customer willing to pay for the resulting product.
There was a time when the senior executives doing the shrugging had great instincts for what the audience wanted and got the “shrug” right more often than they got it wrong… but we no longer live in that world. The corporatization of Hollywood brought a new business sense to the art of making movies. And by “business sense” I mean an instinct for cost-cutting, a willingness to default to “no” rather than “yes” and the desire to always choose the sure thing over the artistic gamble. Over time, experience running widget factories in the “legitimate” business world, or time spent on the money side of the Hollywood machine became a more important metric for hiring studio bosses than whether or not the candidate had ever greenlit a hit movie before. “No one knows anything” has never been more true, and the Shrugers have never been more scared… never less sure of their instincts.
Enter the Tech Bros, led by Netflix and Amazon.
What follows is not an improvement.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
