Read it.

“Imagine if your job is to write jokes that are funnier than what Democrats are already doing in real life,” Dillon said with a smile.

Truest thing you know.

Read it.

Try searching your full name online right now and see what surfaces. Within a few clicks, you’re likely seeing your home address, phone number, age, and even details about family members.

If that’s what a simple search turns up, just imagine what malicious actors can find when their business relies on exploiting your personal data. If there was a big red delete button, you’d set a new record for how fast you could smash it!

The problem is there isn’t one, unless you know where to look…

My favorite method is to track down people publishing my information online and kill them in horrible ways as an example and warning to others. But, then, I’m retired and have a lot of time on my hands. KEYWORDS: #ganching #somethinglingeringwithboilingoilinit

Watch it.

Inquiring minds want to know.

The New Neo.

She says it better than I could. He will be missed.

Read it.

President Trump gave a speech at Fort Bragg today to a record crowd of U.S. soldiers. As part of his remarks, the president announced that the forts that used to be named for Confederate generals will have those names restored, including Fort Hood, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee.

Read it.

The Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law. This 143-year-old law embodies an American tradition that sees military interference in civilian affairs as a threat to both democracy and personal liberty. However, recent events have revealed dangerous gaps in the law’s coverage that Congress must address.

I suspect the author to be of the progressive persuasion, if not an actual Trump-hater. But this is the only useful discussion of the Act that I could find, and people need to know about it.

Babylon Bee.

Me, too.

As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or in the better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X….. What I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of….

He works, he votes, generally he prays-but he always pays….

—WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, YALE UNIVERSITY, 1883

ZMan:

Something I did not cover in the show, but will probably be an issue this week, is the role of the usual suspects in the Los Angeles riots. Mike Benz has been posting about the fact that the National Endowment for Democracy has tentacles in these riots. Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, was a long-serving member of the board of directors at NED. When she was in Congress, she was on a committee that oversaw the organization.

This is how the regime operates. It has access to hundreds of billions of dollars it uses to place its people in key posts inside the administrative state and get its friends elected. This is why it is impossible to cut a cent of spending from the budget. Instead of starting a race war, this time they are hoping to create a legume rebellion. This time, it seems that the Trump admin is prepared and maybe even let the Los Angeles thing play-out so they had a reason to go hard on it.

Watch it.

Some excellent thoughts on what is going on in the world today.

Epoch Times.

Do we really need fewer routines and more excuses to sit and stare at our computers while machines do even more work for us?

Count me among the skeptics. We have been replacing household routines with machines for a century. Some have merit because the manual way is too arduous. I would rather have a vacuum cleaner than beat out rugs, even if the latter method is better in the long run. Same with dishwashers and washing machines. I get that they save time.

But there comes a point when it is all too much. The trigger for me was the “smart” lightbulb. That’s where I drew the line. I would rather stand up and turn it off and on than become nothing but a couch potato with a smartphone. There are reasons perhaps for the ability to remotely manage household temperature, but if I were building today, I would look long and hard for analog over digital thermostats.

Need? No. Want? Almost certainly yes. The point this author ignores is that you can do things the Old Fashioned Way if you want to (sometimes the old ways are best) but you won’t need to. No one is forcing you to sit on the couch rather than getting up to turn off the light You’ll have the power to choose.

Yes, a portion of the population will choose to be ‘couch potatoes’ rather than Amish. That’s their choice. And that’s a choice that they ought to have.

But natural selection works. In a hundred years, we will know which method is ‘better’ – assuming that both don’t survive as being most appropriate for different types of people.

Read it.

Examples of decentralized society in history are often hidden. They are hidden because those in decentralized societies never bothered to keep records. They are also hidden for the purposes of the current state. I have previously written about anarchy in the Southeast Asian Highlands as one example. Here, I will present the time of the Middle Ages as another.

Read it.

All this while, we have been fixated on different manifestations of life as we find it on Earth. We see bacteria, zebra fish, or fruit fly and start wondering whether we got lucky here on Earth, or whether our universe contains many more similar instances of life.

But, is this even the right question to ask? If we’re identifying life as we know it on Earth, we’re blinding ourselves to the only instance of life as we know it (with self-replication, cells, DNA, etc.). But, why should we expect life to be the same way in the rest of the universe?

Are cells fundamental? Does life have to be necessarily carbon-based? Sure, we can define life as anything. It’s an overloaded term. But if we keep defining it with traits we observe on Earth, we will be like that guy who only searches for his keys under the street light because that’s the only thing he can see.

Of course, to discover alien life, we need to first know what we’re looking for. But defining all life as being Earth-like is too myopic. What should we do?

Paul Graham.

An essay has to tell people something they don’t already know. But there are three different reasons people might not know something, and they yield three very different kinds of essays.

…

The impact of an essay is how much it changes readers’ thinking multiplied by the importance of the topic. But it’s hard to do well at both. It’s hard to have big new ideas about important topics. So in practice there’s a tradeoff: you can change readers’ thinking a lot about moderately important things, or change it a little about very important ones. But with younger readers the tradeoff shifts. There’s more room to change their thinking, so there’s a bigger payoff for writing about important things.

The Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.

He was gathering data at another slaughterhouse in 2010 when, late one evening, he spotted two carcasses resembling the outlier he’d seen years before. Lawrence—by then an animal-science professor at West Texas A&M University—immediately called the head of his department. It was nearly 11 p.m. and his boss was already in bed, but Lawrence made his pitch anyway: He wanted to reverse engineer an outstanding steak by bringing superior cuts of meat back to life. He would clone the dead animals, and then mate the clones. “Think of our project as one in which you’re crossbreeding carcasses,” he told me.
A few years later, Lawrence and his team turned two tiny cubes of meat, sliced off exceptional beef carcasses at a packing plant, into one cloned bull and three cloned heifers. After breeding the bull with the heifers, Lawrence slaughtered the offspring to assess the quality of the meat, and found it to be just as terrific as the originals’. The next generation’s meat was even better than that—superior, even, to that of animals bred from the cattle industry’s top bulls.

Read it.

The Autopen machine is a mechanical device used to automatically recreate genuine-looking signatures of a given person. These machines were first developed around the beginning of the 20th century but only became widely used in the last 60 years or so.

Although most people are unaware of their existence, Autopen machines are widely used by government institutions, businesses and celebrities. Certainly all U.S. presidents since Eisenhower have used them at one time or another (JFK was one of the first big users). In the context of this site obviously the most important users are the NASA astronauts, all of whom were (and still are) given access to these machines and encouraged to use them.

The use of Autopens machines is generally justified by the fact that they allow the signee to spend their time on their job rather than signing autographs or routine documents. In the case of NASA there was no way that the Apollo astronauts could have routinely signed all autograph requests and still done their jobs so NASA had to choose between refusing all requests or sending out Autopenned signatures.

Choosing the latter option probably made a lot of people happy at the time as the vast majority of recipients would have been unaware that the signatures were not genuine. Even some astronauts unknowingly ended up with Autopen signatures of their fellow astronauts in their own personal collections.

Fake it ’til you make it.

NavyMatters.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a reserve inventory of crude oil intended for use in the event of war or extreme emergencies. Oil is stored in 62 salt caverns at four sites along the Gulf of Mexico and holds a total of 714 million barrels of crude oil. In the event of war, the reserve could be used not only for direct military oil needs but also to supply defense industries. To give an idea of the practical impact of the SPR, as of Jan 2022, the SPR represented around 1450 days of total U.S. petroleum net imports at the usage rates at that time.

As an emergency supply, the importance of maintaining the supply at full capacity is self-evident. Unfortunately, President Biden drew down the storage levels for political gain in violation of the intent of the reserve.

As they do.

Babylon Bee.

Sounds about right to me.

Read it.

The Trump administration is weaponizing the Democrat playbook against the Wokerati.

Read it.

On Tuesday, the Morning Midas—a roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) vehicle carrier—was abandoned by its crew in the central Pacific Ocean following an onboard fire, according to a Bloomberg report.

The vessel was transporting approximately 3,000 vehicles, including an estimated 800 electric vehicles (EVs). The fire’s origin has not been confirmed, though lithium-ion battery ignition remains a possible cause given the cargo profile and previous mid-sea incidents involving EVs (see here & here).

Morning Midas had departed China in late May with a scheduled port call in Mexico, according to Bloomberg data.

Babylon Bee.

Sounda fair.

Daily Record (UK).

A horrifying incident on the Byford Dolphin oil rig on November 5 1983 resulted in the instant death of five workers, with a sixth narrowly escaping but left with life-altering injuries. The crew were carrying out routine maintenance work at the time, according to a YouTube video that has now garnered over 5 million views.

The video explains how the men met their tragic end while working on the oil rig situated in the North Sea near Norway after an abrupt pressure change wreaked havoc on their bodies. Roy Lucas, 38, Edwin Coward, 36, Truls Hellevik, 34 and Bjorn Giaever, 29, William Crammond, 33, and Martin Saunders, 30 were all on duty on the rig at the time of the catastrophe.

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.

Daily Record (UK).

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

I guess they’re just white supremacists who want to destroy the planet.

Read it.

The new US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has challenged France to match its advocacy for a Palestinian state by creating a new one on French soil. He suggested that France “carve off a piece of the Côte d’Azur,” also known as the French Riviera, for the establishment of such a state. This proposal has prompted an angry response from Paris.

How very Trumpian.

Read it.

Russia is using a new Chinese laser system to shoot down Ukrainian drones, according to pro-Russian Telegram channels. The system seen in a video posted to Telegram on Thursday appears to be at least extremely similar to a system Beijing has apparently already provided to Iran, which you can read more about here.

The video, posted on the Military Information Telegram channel, opens with scenes of troops inside a vehicle, flicking switches and looking at heavily pixelated screens. The next scene shows the system rising out of the vehicle and then being rotated by a soldier in the vehicle using a joystick. It then cuts to small fiery holes being burned into a metal plate. A subsequent view shows the plate with four holes burned through it, apparently created by the laser.

ZMan:

After recording the show and thinking about things while editing it, I think we might be about to see the end of the Trump presidency. I cannot get over the scene of Senator Poofberry and Senator Stolen Valor declaring that they are now running Ukraine policy – while in Kiev. So far, not a word from anyone in the Trump administration about it. That means they are either too stupid to see what is happening or they can do nothing about it.

The only positive spin is that they know Graham is lying and does not have the votes to get the bill through the Senate or they know the House will ignore it. That is not much of a positive. Foreign Policy is the domain of the executive and the only way a president can conduct foreign policy is if the rest of the world thinks he is in charge of foreign policy. Otherwise, he is nothing more than a grocery clerk running errands for whoever is calling the shots.

If Trump cannot get this under control in the next couple of weeks, his party will abandon him. It is not as if the Cuck Party was enthusiastic for him. They have fallen in line thus far mostly because he has had oligarch support for his domestic agenda. If Lindsey Graham is able to put a saddle on Trump and ride him around like a pony on foreign policy issues, then everyone is going to wonder if they are backing the right horse, to mix metaphors.

Read it.

U.S. tariff revenues reached an all-time high in May as President Donald Trump’s trade policies started to fill government coffers.

According to the May 28 Daily Treasury Statement, revenues from “customs and certain excise taxes” climbed to a record high of $23.28 billion this month, up from $17.431 billion in April.

May was the first full month that Trump’s levies took effect. Most of the tax collections occurred on May 22, exceeding $16 billion.

Shortly after his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement, the administration imposed 10 percent tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

Fiscal year-to-date—the federal government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30—tariff revenues total $93.85 billion.

Rasmussen Reports.

Voters are overwhelmingly concerned about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and a majority would support an American military strike to end the threat.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 77% of Likely U.S. Voters are concerned that Iran may be developing a nuclear weapon, including 44% who are Very Concerned. Only 18% are not concerned. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

While negotiating with Iran over the issue, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters would support military action by the United States to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, including 28% who would Strongly Support it. Thirty percent (30%) would oppose a U.S. strike against Iran, including 17% who Strongly Oppose such military action. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

Read it.

In the immediate sense, the schools being defunded are in trouble financially, even Harvard. Half of Harvard’s research budget comes from the federal government. Even if it wins in litigation, the instability could cause researchers to go elsewhere. And maybe they should.

If I were an enterprising president of a mid-tier state school, I’d be doing my best to convince the administration that my institution is free from antisemitism, open to bringing more intellectual diversity to campus, and will wisely use the money.

The bigger problem for higher education is existential. For a long, long time Americans gave support to elite educational institutions, billions of taxpayer dollars, based on the idea that they were of invaluable contribution to the country. But do we need more over-credentialed people in this country who passed through the DEI crucible, or do we need more welders and shipbuilders?

Read it.

Americans are taught in school that the Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation of 1930 greatly exacerbated the Great Depression and sent the world spinning off into a decade of debt deflation and economic contraction.

This seems to make sense until we remember that the history of the United States over the past century was written largely by progressives. In fact, the Great Depression began in 1920 with a decade of falling prices for farm products, a deflationary wave that eventually engulfed the real estate sector and the entire US economy.

What is missed by many discussions of Smoot-Hawley during and after that period, is the fact that the economic collapse of the 1930s was already a given with or without the new tariff law. The impetus behind the political decision to raise tariffs was a misguided reaction to the collapse of agricultural prices, but the force behind this deflationary wave was primarily “positive” factors such as new technology and innovation. The deflation that began after WWI decimated farm communities and eventually led to the collapse of real estate prices, particularly Florida real estate.

ZMan counts up the points.

The first four months of the Trump restoration have exceeded everyone’s expectations for no other reason than it has shifted the conversation. The bad guys are still battling everything in the courts and Congress, but unlike the first time, Trump seems to have a plan, and he has been aggressive in executing it. As a result, he has been setting the agenda rather than the bad guys. The one place where he is failing is with Ukraine, where it looks like he has painted himself into a corner.

When Trump came to power, the choices with regards to Ukraine were to either abandon the whole thing and get blamed for tanks in Kiev or continue the Biden policy and get blamed for tanks in Kiev. To his credit he tried to shake things up by talking directly to the Russians and bypassing the snakes in the foreign policy community while doing it, in an effort to reset the board. Clearly, the snakes and the bad guys did not see that coming, so they were unprepared for it.

The problem is that the facts on the ground have not changed, so there is no deal Trump can make with the Russians to end the war. Zelensky will never do any peace deal as that means the end of him. The nationalists in Ukraine will never accept a deal, which is why Zelensky cannot do a deal. The Europeans seem convinced that peace in Ukraine means the withdraw of America from Europe, so they are fighting like hell to keep the war going, even as it harms their positions.

Why, yes, I do have a cold. Why do you ask?

Read it.

These folks’ logical flaw is to assume that the biological processes in your body are just as predictable and controllable as transistors on a microchip. What they don’t understand, or choose to ignore, is that the human organism is far too complex and unpredictable for that level of control.

Power Line.

“Los Angeles ranks No. 1 in move-outs for second year, PODS data shows,” reports KTLA-5 on the continuing exodus from the Golden State. The station adds,

The report, analyzing customer move data from January 2024 through March 2025, found that California, with seven cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area, ranked among the top 20 areas with the highest number of move-outs.

The latest PODS study, released last week, shows that nine of the top ten destinations are in the Southeast (North Carolina west to Texas) plus Boise, Idaho (#7, up from #11 last year).

As KTLA noted, Los Angeles repeated as the #1 departure city. Nine of the top ten losing cities are located in blue states, with the lone exception being Miami, Florida.

ZMan watches the turns.

This is the time of year when entertainers, politicians and famous rich people are asked to deliver commencement speeches. Inevitably they deliver tirades against normal people and in favor of the latest trends. This season, the popular chant with this sort is the “rule of law” which is ironic given that the people chanting it spent the last decade obliterating the concept. The question that is rarely asked is why is it that rich people are so eager to support this stuff?

It is not just the ditzy actors who are prone to this. A part of getting rich in America is adopting the politics of the rich, which is hostile to normal things. Rich people, until very recently, were solidly behind open borders. They backed the street violence and chaos of the last decade through donations to the thicket of not-for-profits. The billionaires underwrote the entertainment content that preached the bizarre social theories at the root of their deranged politics.

On the surface, it makes little sense. If you are a rich person, you should not want to undermine order, as it is the rules that make you rich. You got your wealth because of the system, so the system is your friend. Think a little further, however, and you can see why the rich might want to make the rules more opaque. It is a form of pulling up the drawbridge behind them so new schemers cannot get in on the action. They got theirs, so it is time to keep you from getting yours.

Axios, a Voice of the Crust.

Here are five steps Trump’s taking to try to keep Republican control of the House, where the GOP has an eight-seat majority — including vacancies created this year by the deaths of three Democrats.