Archive for 2025

October 26, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 26th, 2025

SKYNET SMILES:

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

200 YEARS AGO, THE ERIE CANAL OPENED AND AMERICA WAS NEVER THE SAME: “The Erie Canal not only transformed America, but, by allowing for the export of massive amounts of Midwestern farm products to Europe, American farmers drove a large number of small farmers in Europe out of business. Many of them made their way to America…In two decades, more freight was moving down the Erie Canal than was being floated down the Mississippi River from the Midwest to New Orleans. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Erie Canal created modern America, but it’s hard to imagine America today without it.”

Posted at 1:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY: Disney’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere Bombs in the U.S.A.

As great as I found director Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, nothing about its box office failure is surprising. And it is not only a failure; it is a shocking failure for box office analysts who projected an opening as high as $25 million with a $15 million worst case.

Well, as of this morning, the groomers at the Disney Grooming Syndicate are wishing that worst-case scenario had come about, because Deliver Me from Nowhere is staring into the abyss of a pathetic $9 million weekend debut and a humiliating fourth-place finish.

According to various reports, Nowhere cost $60 million to produce, at least another $50 million to promote, which means Disney will need to gross at least $200 million worldwide just to break even

That ain’t happening.

So, what did happen? How did a biopic about Freddie Mercury gross almost $1 billion worldwide? Bob Dylan’s biopic grossed $140 million. Elton John hit $195 million. Springsteen will be lucky to gross half of Dylan’s $140 million worldwide.

Well, as I said, the failure isn’t surprising.

To begin with, Deliver Me From Nowhere is not a jukebox musical. People know this is not a greatest hits biopic, and people want to hear the greatest hits. What’s more, the one album Nowhere does cover, 1982’s Nebraska, doesn’t have any hits. It’s a stripped-down, dark, and dreary folk album. Springsteen fans love Nebraska, which brings me to the next problem… The major one…

Bruce Springsteen has not been Bruce Springsteen for a long, long time. A massive part of his fan base was made up of the working class. The men who raced in the streets, worked in the factories, lived on the margins, counted the days till Friday and payday, and kept our world turning with their dirty hands and broken dreams…

As “Miami” Steve Van Zandt told the London Times last year, “‘When Bruce got vocal behind the Democrats, we probably lost half the audience. There’s nowhere we can’t do business.’ But some places feel like enemy territory now? ‘A little bit, yeah. We’re ten times bigger in Europe. We might play six stadiums in America and sixty in Europe.’”

Fortunately, Miami Steve is doing all that he can to repair the rift between the Boss and Trump supporters: Steven Van Zandt Is Bruce Springsteen’s Guitarist. He Hates You. He Wants You Dead.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

HELL FROZE OVER: WaPo Defends Ballroom in Editorial.

Now, it would be no surprise to find an opinion piece by a moderate or conservative defending the ballroom addition, even if the Editorial Board were the same as before. Publishing an occasional piece by a Republican to present the image of balance is standard practice.

But this piece is an Editorial, presented as the official position of the Editors. And it is a slap in the face to liberals, both by endorsing the ballroom itself and by slamming how hard it is to do anything in America anymore.

The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.

In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.

Everybody who is not Trump-deranged knows that if any other president had done the same thing, the reaction would be entirely different. The issue is Trump, not the ballroom. Nobody has any special feelings about the East Wing–it’s likely that many people who are blowing their tops didn’t even know that it existed. They probably thought the East Wing was just the eastern half of the Executive Mansion, which is really a different building entirely.

“CBS now has Bari Weiss. The Washington Post agreed with Donald Trump. Hell may indeed be freezing over.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

SUSPECTS ARRESTED OVER THE THEFT OF CROWN JEWELS FROM PARIS’ LOUVRE MUSEUM:

Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world.

The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the world’s most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Hercule Poirot always gets his man!

Related: Is DEI to blame for the Louvre heist?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025
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