Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

March 30, 2026

OPEN THREAD: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the depths of the Open Thread.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

KONNICHIWA, JAPAN! Americans and Japanese Bond on X Over BBQ’d Meats and Mutual Respect.

Translation: “The high level of trust in a beaver wearing an American’s red baseball cap is abnormal lol.”

Buc-ee’s, always ripe for expansion, may have just discovered a whole new territory to explore.

Naturally of course, “it’s total crickets [from the MSM] when Japanese and Americans voluntarily, joyfully, and directly bonded on X. Why? Because this lovefest is not anti-Western. It’s not anti-American. It’s not pro-authoritarian. It’s two free peoples with no pretensions looking at each other going ‘hey, you’re pretty cool actually.'”

Posted at 9:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

HILARIOUS! Rubio to George Stephanopoulos: Maybe You Need to Write It Down.

Rubio had to remind him that not everything is made public and for good reason. Apparently, George is sad that he’s not allowed in on national security briefings or something. “Well, what I mean is – yeah, so you have people that are saying some of the right things privately. Obviously, they’re not going to put it out in press releases, and what they say to you or put out there for the world doesn’t necessarily reflect what they’re saying in our conversations,” Rubio said. “But at the end of the day, we have to see if these people end up being the ones in charge, seeing if they’re the ones that have the power to deliver. We’re going to test it.”

Then came the best part. George implied that if these talks failed, the war would expand.

“This operation is about very specific objectives,” Rubio replied. “The President laid them out on the first night of the operation. I’ll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don’t know what the clear objectives are. Here they are.”

But before he laid them out, he said to George, “You should write them down.” It was so beautifully condescending. And then Rubio laid out the objectives… yet again:

Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factories so they can’t make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future.

All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon.  That was our objective from the beginning; that remains our objective now. We are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule on some of those things, and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.

After that, George cut the segment. Whether he actually ran out of time or knew he’d been owned is to be determined.

Video at link.

Posted at 8:43 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

AN ARMY OF SNAKE PLISSKINS:

Related: Adam Carolla on Gavin Newsom and why people are leaving California. (Topic starts at 11:35 of this new Reason TV video in case auto-cue fails): 

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

A COOL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BICYCLE MENACE: 85 bikes seized after authorities stop planned Bay Bridge takeover.

The California Highway Patrol said they alerted San Francisco police of a large group of cyclists riding recklessly on city streets, believed to be heading to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to enter the roadway and take over the bridge.

Officials noted the cyclists were seen riding directly at moving cars, swerving in and out of traffic and coming close to pedestrians on city streets.

As CHP and San Francisco PD responded to the area, authorities said SFPD Real Time Investigations Center began tracking the group and updating the officers.

Eventually, the group entered the bridge riding the wrong way up the Harrisson Street off-ramp, according to police. There, they met a group of CHP and SFPD personnel.

The California Highway Patrol said 85 participants were detained, cited for riding a bicycle onto a freeway and released. 85 bicycles were also seized by law enforcement on scene, according to authorities.

Much more like this, please.

 

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

GOD AND MAN AT THE PENTAGON:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

KINSLEY GAFFE:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

ED MORRISSEY: WaPo: On Second Thought, Our Reporter in Iran Is a Regime Hack.

CNN: We never learned our lesson from the Eason Jordan era.

Washington Post: Hold our beer.

Alternate headline: American Public Finds New Reasons to Hate the Media.

On Friday, the Washington Post accused the US military of a potential war crime. Its reporters in Iran took photos of what were purported to be anti-tank land mines supposedly tossed into residential areas, including in Shiraz, supposedly to deter the movement of mobile missile launchers (via Twitchy):

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

THE MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO. How it started: Dodger Stadium workers ratify new labor contract. 

“This is a historic day for Dodger Stadium workers,” said Susan Minato, co-president of United Here Local 11. “As the team goes on to play for the top prize in baseball, the workers who serve the food and pour the drinks have also won.”

Wages for all workers will increase by at least $10 an hour, the union said, but a wide swath of employees — including stand workers, dishwashers and cooks — will see their hourly pay rise by $13.

A minimum guaranteed hourly tip of $8 will help boost employee wages, union members said. As an example, a concession worker who was was earning $18.14 an hour under the 2020 labor contract will now make $30.94 an hour.

—The L.A. Daily News, October 13th, 2022.

How it’s going:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

March 29, 2026

STAR TREK AS A DRAMA? It’s an idea so crazy, it just might work — as it did during the original series’ brilliant first season:

Posted at 5:46 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: Love Story: The Death of the Kennedy Myth and the End of the Political Nepo Baby.

The show is about John and Carolyn, but it’s also very much about what it meant to be a Kennedy back in the day. And one of Love Story’s strengths is the way in which it constantly seems to be putting before the viewer the question of whether these people, these Kennedys, were deserving of all the attention they got. And it certainly leaves open the possibility that the answer to that question is no.

Like most of the TV that’s made these days, it was a visual smorgasbord of the conspicuous consumption of the rich and famous—ostentatiously set breakfast tables, gorgeous beach homes, endlessly expanding loft apartments, beautifully appointed rooms and stunningly tailored clothing. But the beautiful interior shots are contrasted with the absence of an inner life when it comes to the main characters, who appear to spend no time at all dwelling on ideas about the world or anything that extends beyond their own personal crosses.

What were JFK Jr.’s politics, beyond “generic Democrat”? What did he think about the world around him? The character portrayed in Love Story is motivated only by careerism. He fails the bar. He doesn’t like being a lawyer. Will his magazine, which only exists because he can trade on the family name, succeed? He has no thoughts beyond making sure his image lives up to the expectations of the family name.

A more pretentious show might have given us evidence that there was more to John than his need to be a Kennedy. But this show allows the viewer to contemplate the very real possibility that there just . . . wasn’t. The point wasn’t to make the world a better place; it was to be seen doing so.

Exit quote: “The replacement of public service with careerism is one of the defining problems in our elites today. It’s not that older political celebrities weren’t personally ambitious, of course. But there was a worldview there, a theory of the case about why you wanted to be the one to assume power, what you would do if you were given the chance.”

Some notable exceptions apply, however: “The Question:” Ted Kennedy and the Pitfalls of Running for President. “One of the most obvious questions a candidate may be asked is why do you want to be president? Why you? Why now? This isn’t the 19th century, after all, when presidents had to be dragged to the White House under the guise of modesty. Why do you want to be president is a simple question with a complex answer–and candidates should be prepared to offer one. Failing to do so could be fatal to any campaign. Just ask Ted Kennedy.”

Related: Paramount made bank on a film titled Love Story in late 1970 and much of 1971. It seems odd to see its title recycled by another production, though apparently one as equally trite:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

HE’S NOT WRONG:

Even the History Channel concurs:

 

Posted at 4:24 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

ANALYSIS: Absolutely True.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE LEARING CENTER:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Tony Blair says the Left has to end its ‘unholy alliance’ with Islamists to stamp out anti-Semitism.

‘Progressive’ politicians are failing to tackle leftwing anti-Semitism because they won’t tackle the ‘unholy alliance’ between parts of their movement and hardline Islamists, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that figures on the left are failing to confront extremists who see all Jews as supporters of Israel and the Netanyahu regime and therefore ‘fair game’ for violence and intimidation in the wake of the Israeli war in Gaza.

His intervention comes after an arson attack that destroyed four Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green, north London, last week.

Sir Tony, who is now involved with Donald Trump‘s Board of Peace initiative, said that while people were free to criticise Israel for its actions in killing thousands, they were failing criticise the Hamas terror attack which triggered the war, and the groups actions during the fighting.

Writing for CBS chief executive Bari Weiss’s The Free Press blog, he said: ‘The problem is that, under pressure from party activists and parts of the Muslim community, many progressive politicians who do sincerely reject anti-Semitism are not making these arguments, and failing to take head-on this literally ”unholy alliance” between parts of the Left and Islamists in our own societies whose ideology leads inexorably to anti-Semitism.

‘Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if anti-Semitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.’

He also warned that ‘without a challenge to the ideology that encourages anti-Semitism, while clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society.’

That’s nice. But it was Tony Blair’s Labour Party that created the conditions in which antisemitism flourishes in 21st century England: Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser.

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”.

As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

Critics said the revelations showed a “conspiracy” within Government to impose mass immigration for “cynical” political reasons.

Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s.

—The London Telegraph, October 23rd, 2009.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026
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