Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 8, 2025
SPACE: Did something just hit Saturn? Astronomers are racing to find out. “Around seven asteroids or comets are thought to hit Saturn every year, but we have never spotted one in the act. Now, it seems one astronomer may have caught the moment of impact and the hunt is on for other images to verify the discovery.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: About That Kamala Harris Comeback…
HOUSING: Delistings Surge Nearly 50% as Sellers Who Can’t Get Their Price Quit the Market in Frustration.
Delistings jumped 47% nationally in May from a year earlier, in a sign that sellers would increasingly rather wait than negotiate, according to the Realtor.com® economic research team’s latest monthly housing trends report. Year to date, delistings are up 35% from the same period in 2024.
The increase is partly due to the overall expansion in active inventory, which was up 28% in June from a year earlier. Newly listed homes increased 8.8% from a year ago, but remained flat over the past two months.
Still, delistings are outpacing new listings, with 13 homes delisted in May for every 100 homes hitting the market—up from 10 in the spring of 2024 and 2023, and just six in 2022.
A rate cut or two might help.
DECOUPLING: Trump admin to ban China from buying US farmland. “The policy is part of a wider multi-agency approach to protect America’s farmland, foods, as well as other critical infrastructure from Chinese influence. ‘American agriculture is not just about feeding our families, but about protecting our nation and standing up to foreign adversaries who are buying our farmland, stealing our research, and creating dangerous vulnerabilities in the very systems that sustain us,’ Rollins added during the press conference.”
I MISSED THIS ONE, TOO, BUT THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY — RIGHT, GOVERNOR?
I missed this…probably because the story and his resignation dropped midday on July 4th, when absolutely no one was paying attention.
A sneaky little PR move on his way out! @GovKathyHochul will hope this is never mentioned again… https://t.co/TfO5EmgF3f
— Chrissy Casilio (@ChrissyCasilio) July 8, 2025
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: New concealed carry burdens heaped on law-abiding Coloradans.
A state law in effect as of July 1 layers on new education and training burdens for obtaining and renewing permits for the carrying of a concealed handgun in Colorado, this despite data suggesting permit holders are already an exceptionally responsible and law-abiding group.
House Bill 24-1174 passed along party lines in the Democrat-controlled legislature last year, and among other things significantly expands classroom training requirements to obtain a concealed handgun permit (CHP), to include a live-fire exercise and a written exam, with instructors “verified” by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
The bill additionally requires a “refresher” class for the renewal of a permit, which includes the exam and live-fire mandates. Nowhere does the bill cite evidence of any issues arising from previous requirements, nor of CHP holders as committing acts of gun violence.
This is on top of the fingerprint-based background check already long required by law.
The in-person course, among other things, covers firearm handling, shooting and storage, as well as state laws on self-defense and purchasing, owning, or transporting a firearm. The course can be broken up into hourly increments if necessary.
Colorado concealed carry permits are valid for five years, and a CHP holder may renew their permit up to 120 days before expiration.
Despite a growing hostility towards CHP holders by the legislature and anti-gun rights groups, Colorado continues to see an uptick in concealed carry permits.
With Democrats dominating both chambers by two-to-one margins, the question isn’t whether they’ll come up with some new infringement, but how quickly — and how annoying.
DEFINING GENIUS DOWN: You’re a genius! You’re a genius! You’re a genius! “It’s good to see student’s potential, not just their problems. What’s not so good is to pretend that everything’s just fine when it’s not. Constantly looking for ways to improve teaching and curriculum? Good. Constantly changing the meaning of words so nobody has to face up to failure? Bad.”
INDEED: Biology Isn’t Bigotry: California’s War on Girls’ Sports. “In Gavin Newsom’s California, the rules aren’t written for girls anymore. They’re rewritten around boys.”
PRIORITIES: California Ready To Rumble With Trump To Keep Men In Women’s Sports.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) in June announced it found California in violation of federal civil rights for allowing men to compete in women’s sports and access women’s spaces, such as locker rooms and restrooms. CDE apparently notified ED it would not be complying with the Trump administration’s proposed resolution, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced on X.
The California department said it “respectfully disagrees” with the Office of Civil Rights’ (OCR) findings and added “it will not sign the Proposed Resolution Agreement,” according to the email posted by McMahon. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which was also found in violation of the same law, told ED it “concurs” with CDE’s response.
“California has just REJECTED our resolution agreement to follow federal law and keep men out of women’s sports,” McMahon wrote in the X post. “Turns out [Democratic California] Gov. [Gavin] Newsom’s acknowledgment that ‘it’s an issue of fairness’ was empty political grandstanding.”
McMahon warned Newsom that the state will not be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
I wonder how this might effect Newsom’s red-state outreach.
THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Honda scraps EV SUV development due to decreased US demand. “Instead, the company aims to curb investments in EVs and redirect efforts towards increasing production of profitable hybrid vehicles.”
Hybrids make a lot more sense, economic and environmental — and don’t require boatloads of tax dollars to get carmakers to build them or consumers to buy them.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Reagan Really Nailed It When He Said Libs ‘Know So Much That Isn’t So.’ “The Democrats are more untethered from reality now than ever before, which has had me pondering this Ronald Reagan gem a lot: ‘Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.'”
HE’S RUNNING: California governor plans to tour 8 GOP-leaning SC counties in effort to engage rural voters.
Newsom will speak in several Upstate counties on July 9, including Laurens, Pickens, and Oconee. He also plans to stop in Marion, Chesterfield, Florence, Kershaw, and Chesterfield counties.
SCDP said the counties Newsom will visit have faced obstacles such as job loss and devastation from natural disasters, including wildfires and hurricanes.
Several Upstate counties faced severe damage from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 and the Table Rock Complex Fire in March 2025.
Each of these SC counties on the tour also holds a strong Republican voter base. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance won roughly 76% of the votes in Pickens County, 70% in Laurens County, and 81% in Oconee County.
It’s easy to laugh at Newsom — and I certainly do — but more Republicans should visit blue districts and listen to their concerns.
Connections matter, and Dems often understand this in ways Republicans don’t seem to.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Harmeet Dhillon: Civil rights being rebuilt after ‘cultural shift’ under Trump.
The Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division is undergoing a complete internal transformation under President Donald Trump’s second term — not just of enforcement strategy but of personnel, institutional practices, and long-held assumptions about how federal civil rights laws should be applied.
“When my memos went out, that culture changed,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the division, told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. “There’s literally been lawyers there who spent their entire careers — over 40 years — doing the same thing, no matter who the president is.”
More than half of the division’s attorneys left during the first quarter of this year, Dhillon said, clearing the way to rebuild the division from the ground up on the promise of sweeping changes under Trump. New hiring of career lawyers and political appointees is underway to align the department’s civil rights enforcement with what Dhillon elucidated as the plain text of the law and the trajectory set by the Supreme Court.
Dhillon explained to the Washington Examiner that many of the attorneys who left had worked under previous Democratic administrations and were not receptive to Trump’s directives.
Say what you will about the corrupt old patronage system, but at least it cleaned house every four or eight years.
ROBERT SPENCER: Here’s Kamala Harris’s Snarling Response to Inquiries About Old Joe Biden’s Condition. “As vice president, Kamala Harris must have known that all that, and more like it, was going on. And yet she still had the audacity to unleash the F-bomb at Democrats who were concerned about Old Joe’s condition, and to give the impression that she was really afraid that Trump would install himself as some kind of fascist dictator, in line with the most febrile of the left’s fever dreams.”
July 7, 2025
James Gunn is opening up about what “Superman” is really about.
In his Sunday profile with The Times of London, the DC Studios head went deep on the themes and ideas that drive his highly anticipated “Superman.” He explained that the superhero epic encompasses “the story of America,” and at a basic level, is about a man searching for a better life away from his original home.
“I mean, ‘Superman’ is the story of America,” Gunn explained. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”
All he had to say was, “It’s about truth, justice, and the American way” to get people buying tickets.
UPDATE (From Ed):
And as Frank J. Fleming writes:
That was the topic of a sketch during Saturday Night Live’s earlier, funnier years, when Jane Curtain asked, “What If Superman grew up in Germany, instead of America?”, leading into an appearance from Dan Aykroyd as Hitler-supporting Uberman, and as Klaus Kent, his not-so-mild mannered disguise as a clerk in the Nazis’ Ministry of Propaganda.
JUST DON’T GET RID OF THE GREEN ONES: Kennedy’s Battle Against Food Dyes Hits a Roadblock: M&M’s.
POWER, UNLIMITED POWER: Google Bets Big on Nuclear Fusion.
In the U.S., Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) engineers are developing a fusion project consisting of a doughnut-shaped machine known as a tokamak and called SPARC, which they hope will achieve a nuclear fusion reaction. CFS is a company that spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018. The firm has raised over $2 billion in funding to develop the machine, although it is not certain how long it will take and whether it will be able to achieve a net surplus of energy once it is up and running. However, the company’s target is to construct the world’s first fusion-fuelled power plant in Virginia by the early 2030s.
This week, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, came to an agreement with CFS to purchase power from its nuclear fusion project. Google signed the technology’s first direct corporate power purchase agreement, according to the tech company. CFS CEO and co-founder Bob Mumgaard stated, “Without partnership and without being bold and setting a goal and going for it, you won’t ever reach over those challenges.” The financing forms part of a new funding round for CFS, after Google invested $1.8 billion into the firm during its previous 2021 round.
It would be nice if this pans out, but commercial fusion power has been just around the corner since I was a kid — at least.
PRETTY MUCH, YEAH:
“The NWS didn’t issue warnings”
They did.“They didn’t send out texts to residents.”
They did that too.“They were understaffed.”
They weren’t.“It was climate change.”
It happened in 1987 too.“It’s Trump’s fault!”
It wasn’t.“Well, we want it to be.”
Yeah, we know.— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) July 6, 2025
DO THE LETTERS F AND O MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU? The New York Times wants your private ChatGPT history — even the parts you’ve deleted. “Soon, lawyers for the Times will start combing through private ChatGPT conversations, shattering the privacy expectations of over 70 million ChatGPT users who never imagined their deleted conversations could be retained for a corporate lawsuit.”
HE TRAVELED THE ROAD FROM “SHARP BUT MAYBE A LITTLE GLIB” TO “APOLOGIST FOR DICTATORS” IN NOTHING FLAT: Tucker Platformed Iran’s Laughable Denial of Assassination Wish Against Trump.