FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: He’s McLovin’ the High-Speed Police Chase.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
November 10, 2023
THIS ISN’T A GOOD TIME FOR EXPENSIVE ALTERNATIVES: Beyond Meat plans layoffs as US sales plummet. “The higher price of plant-based meat has also hurt U.S. sales at a time when consumers are stressed about inflation, he said. Brown said the company lowered some prices in the third quarter but didn’t necessarily bring new customers into the category.”
ENJOY THE MEMBERBERRIES: Hail Mary Sue: ‘Marvels’ Trailer Features Male Avengers to Save Female-Led Film. “They do pop up in the just-released trailer meant to reverse the bad buzz surrounding the project. It’s odd to see a trailer released the day before a film opens, but Team MCU is in trouble.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Average credit card balances top $6,000, a 10-year high, as delinquencies rise. “Balances jumped 15% from a year ago, according to a separate quarterly credit industry insights report from TransUnion, while the average balance per consumer hit $6,088, the highest in 10 years.”
And we haven’t even hit the Christmas shopping season.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: How to Identify the Marxists 101: Biden’s New Pronoun Mandate Is a Dead Give-Away. “Language is a key tool to conquering people, and pronouns are the preferred cutlass of the Marxists.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: If the next Starship makes it through staging, you can call that a win.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, said before the April 20 launch that a successful test flight would mean the rocket didn’t blow up on the launch pad. This time, SpaceX hopes to make it a little further. Ideally, the flight will go into space and reach full duration, a 90-minute trip around the world that will end with a reentry and splashdown of the Starship upper stage in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii.
Let’s call that a stretch goal. If that’s how the flight ends, you’ll probably hear the hollering all the way from South Texas. It would mean nearly everything worked on the humongous Starship rocket, including all or nearly all of the engines on the booster and upper stage, a daring new method of separating its booster from the upper stage, a brand-new steering system design, the Starship’s ceramic heat shield tiles to protect it during reentry, and complex guidance, navigation, and control algorithms.
It would unlock the next steps in SpaceX’s Starship program. Perhaps SpaceX could meet Musk’s goal of launching Starlink satellites on Starship toward the end of next year. Maybe SpaceX can start demonstrating refueling Starship in orbit, a major milestone for NASA’s Artemis program, which will rely on getting Starship to the Moon to serve as a landing craft for astronauts traveling to the lunar surface.
In June, Musk predicted that there’s a roughly 60 percent chance that Starship will make it to near orbital velocity on the second test flight. The rocket won’t quite attain the speed necessary to reach a stable orbit around Earth, so if it makes it that far, Starship will fall back into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean about 90 minutes after launch.
At the other end of the spectrum, let’s assume Starship blows up before clearing the launch pad. That would probably set back the privately run rocket program by at least six months. It took nearly that long for SpaceX to repair the extensive damage, but not destruction, at the launch pad following the April 20 test flight. It might even prompt more scrutiny from regulatory agencies, throwing another wrench into SpaceX’s schedule.
It seems to me that getting through the first three minutes of flight would be enough to show that SpaceX is on the right path with Starship.
Godspeed…
JUST RELEASE THE WHOLE THING: Nashville Police Put 7 on ‘Administration Assignment’ After Leak of Manifesto.
IT SAYS “SHOCK” IN THE HEADLINE BUT I AM NOT SHOCKED: SHOCK — One In Five Democrats Side With Hamas. “The political split was fairly wide, though all three major political groupings in the U.S. supported Israel by 50% or higher. The results include Democrats (54% Israel support, 20% Hamas support, 26% not sure), Republicans (71% Israel support, 7% Hamas support, 22% not sure), and independents (50% Israel support, 6% Hamas support, 44% not sure).”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump/Tucker 2024 Because YOLO and Why Not? “How much fun would it be to throw a true wildcard non-politician into the VP slot? This election is already going to be beyond weird, it might as well be the fun kind of weird.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘B’ is for below grade level (and chronically absent). “Achievement is down and absenteeism is way up, yet report cards show the same grades — or higher — as before the pandemic, concludes False Signals, a new report by EdNavigator and Learning Heroes. No wonder ‘families believe that everything is back to normal or will be soon.’ No wonder demand is low for tutoring and summer school.”
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Olympic Athlete: ‘My Testicles Don’t Make Me Less of a Woman.’
IRAN HARDEST HIT: Normalization with Israel ‘still on the table’: Saudi minister.
Falih responded to a question about normalization in a discussion session at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum held in Singapore: “This matter was on the table, and it is still on the table, and it is clear that the recent withdrawal (from the talks) explains why Saudi Arabia is so determined to make a solution to the Palestinian conflict part of broader normalization in [West Asia].”
When Falih was asked whether Saudi Arabia would use economic tools, such as the price of oil, to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, he laughed and replied: “This is not on the table today. Saudi Arabia is trying to achieve peace through talks that seek peace.”
In 1973, Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo on the United States and other countries for their support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War against Egypt and Syria.
According to Falih, in the coming days Saudi Arabia is expected to host three separate summits with the participation of Arab, African and Islamic countries, aimed at promoting a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I don’t know if they’ll find a peaceful solution but it’s a sure thing they wouldn’t complain (at least not privately) about a violent solution that locked out Iran.
November 9, 2023
NOT ANTI-WAR, JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: Six Tlaib Fundraisers Linked to Terrorism, Report Says.
BECAUSE THE RUBBLE HASN’T BOUNCED FAR ENOUGH YET AND THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE OF IT: Israel should not stop bombing Gaza.
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR IS BACK (ALTHOUGH IT NEVER REALLY WENT AWAY): Brazil nabs Hezbollah operatives said to be planning attacks on Jews. “This counterterrorism operation has already led to the apprehension of two individuals in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state and home to the biggest local Jewish community. One was apprehended at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport having just landed from Lebanon.”
100 MILLION BROKEN EGGS AND NOT A SINGLE OMELET: Victims of Communism Memorial Day.
BIDENOMICS IS WORKING: Credit card balances spiked in the third quarter to a $1.08 trillion record. “Steadily, persistently higher prices have caused consumers to spend down their savings and increasingly turn to credit cards to make ends meet.”
DOES HE UNDERSTAND ANYTHING? Does Joe Biden Understand He Did Anything Wrong?
HMM: Dick Morris to Newsmax: Biden Will Drop Out Before Convention.
Best-selling author Dick Morris, a current adviser for President Donald Trump, predicted Wednesday on Newsmax that while President Joe Biden will remain in the primary elections, a different person will end up getting the nomination at the Democratic National Convention when he drops out of the race.
According to the theory, Morris told “Wake Up America” he developed with his friend, pollster John McLaughlin, Biden would run in all the primary elections, and being largely unopposed, he’ll get the delegates for the convention.
“They will keep them until a few days before the convention and then he would announce he’s not running, release his delegates, and there would be a floor fight for the nomination,” Morris said. “But at least there wouldn’t be a long primary battle.”
On the one hand, a floor fight would solve the can’t-get-rid-of-Kamala problem and high-level Dems have made it known they think Biden needs to step aside. On the other hand, Morris says a lot of wild stuff that makes for entertaining news but maybe not-so-great predictions.