May 16, 2025

APPLE CARPLAY ULTRA, First Look. “It’s not Apple taking over all the software programming in your dashboard but rather inserting itself between you and the automaker’s software. To do that, it’s expanding CarPlay’s reach beyond the central infotainment screen to every screen on the dashboard. The biggest target: your digital instrument cluster.”

Um.

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: US FAA approves license modifications for SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday said it approved license modifications for the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission, but did not immediately allow it to fly.

SpaceX will not be allowed to launch until the FAA either closes its Starship Flight 8 investigation or makes a return to flight determination, the FAA added.

Let’s get this done.

Posted at 4:54 pm by Stephen Green 1

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The armed citizen needs to know more than just defensive tactics and how to shoot. “Not long ago, I went to an area gun show and, of course, took a couple of guns to trade. At the safety table were two middle-age deputy sheriffs, nice guys. I handed one a double-action Smith & Wesson revolver and gave the other a double-action Colt revolver. The first deputy held the gun and just stared at it; he clearly didn’t know how to open it. I told him to push forward on that little button right there. He did, and the second deputy started pushing forward on the cylinder release on the Colt. No sir, you have to pull back on that one. The first deputy, with an embarrassed grin, said that you learn something new every day.”

Posted at 4:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 44

BUILT TO LAST: NASA Revives Voyager Thrusters ‘Considered Dead’ for 20 Years. “NASA’s engineers revived a set of thrusters on board the Voyager 1 spacecraft to use as backup while the mission goes offline for ongoing upgrades to a radio antenna used to communicate with deep space missions, the space agency revealed this week. Voyager’s primary roll thrusters had stopped working in 2004 after losing power in two small internal heaters, but the team managed to restart the thrusters while the spacecraft cruises through interstellar space at a distance of 15.14 billion miles away (24.4 billion kilometers).”

Posted at 3:52 pm by Stephen Green 38

NIFTY: US Ally Revives Aircraft Carrier Plan Amid North Korea Threat. “The South Korean military will move forward with its aircraft carrier project after making modifications, newspaper The Chosun Daily reported on Monday. The original plan called for the construction of a 30,000-ton vessel equipped with F-35B stealth fighter jets. Under the revised project, the proposed aircraft carrier will be transformed into a ‘multifunctional unmanned combat force command ship,’ capable of carrying dozens of drones for a range of missions, including combat, self-detonation, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

Posted at 2:50 pm by Stephen Green 56

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Real Reason Yale Professors Are Leaving Trump’s America.

“We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.,” a Wednesday New York Times headline read.

* * * * * * * * *

At the heart of the issue is a redefinition of the word “fascism” in such a way as to make it sound like it means the same thing as “patriotism.” These Yale professors — and a good many people who think like them — find the American assertion that this country, with its quasi-sacred founding and its insistence on the rights of man given him by God, is an exceptional one a troubling concept. They seem to equate “Make America Great Again” with Adolf Hitler’s “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.”

But to do so ignores the very close association between fascism and racism, specifically antisemitism. Hitler, as you will remember, was virulently opposed to any race other than his Aryan one. He imagined a world in which blue-eyed, blond-haired giants ruled the earth, and Jews, Roma, and his detractors no longer existed. It’s this connection with racism that Snyder, at least, hasn’t quite fit into the picture.

In a recent piece with the Free Press, Peter Savodnik noted that Snyder’s depiction of Yale as a cloister of free speech and acceptance simply defies the reality that has unfolded at Yale after October 7, where pro-Hamas demonstrators antagonized Jewish students and even poked one woman in the face with a Palestinian flag. As a progressive, Snyder, according to one of his colleagues at Yale, may find it hard or even impossible to “imagine that those on the left could hate Jews.”

To the historian, Trump’s decision to investigate antisemitism on campus is merely an excuse to bully universities. “Nobody ever goes after universities in order to help Jews,” he told Savodnik.

The result is that fascism has become a cheapened term that, at least in popular progressive parlance, has become confused with patriotism. The love of one’s country is a duty, Cicero affirms. That’s not to say that the country should become a god in the popular imagination, but that we should be proud of it, work for its benefit, and wish it well.

Flashback: The Left’s fear of fascism under Trump is the ultimate example of projection.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 141

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Marlboro Man Thought He Was Usain Bolt. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we learn what happens very quickly when a smoker tries to outrun police, why you shouldn’t replace your license plate with a piece of cardboard that says ‘PRIVATE,’ and Britain’s delusional depths.”

Posted at 2:19 pm by Stephen Green 1

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: The Motorola RAZR is back. But, like everything these days, with “too much AI.”

Posted at 2:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 10

DATA REPUBLICAN APPEARS TO BE UNSTOPPABLE:

Full text:

Today, I launched a powerful new tool that indexes the National Endowment for Democracy journal… and here’s what it uncovers:

🔍 Dozen-plus Open Society Foundation staff, funded by George Soros, are writing in a U.S. government-backed journal.

🇺🇸 That journal is part of our taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-government operation tied to foreign “democracy” missions- and Congress sits on its board.

No conspiracy theories. This is hard data.

📎 This proves Soros and our intelligence apparatus are deeply intertwined.

You can sift through the data yourself, right here.

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green 67

‘WE OCCASIONALLY MISJUDGE:’ Pulitzer Board Told Me I Was out of Line When I Asked Why the Organization Gave an Award to Palestinian ‘Poet’ Who Made Hateful Comments About Israeli Hostages.

[Pulitzer Prize administrator Marjorie Miller] told the Free Beacon that the Pulitzer Prizes “are based on a review of works that have been formally submitted for consideration.” See no evil, hear no evil.

In media interviews, meanwhile, Abu Toha has continued to shed light on the board’s most profound misjudgment of honoring an apologist for terrorism, lying on MSNBC over the weekend when he said, “First of all, I did not question [Damari’s] status as a hostage, because she is a hostage.”

Pressed, gently, by the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell about why he lashed out at the media for humanizing Israeli hostages, Abu Toha snapped, “Do you know what I’m going through every day? Do you know how many members of my family were killed? … And you are requesting me [sic] how to use language here?”

How to use language is precisely a journalist’s job—and a poet’s, too. It’s not outlandish, then, to believe that Abu Toha meant exactly what he said and said exactly what he meant: No mercy for the men, women, and babies Hamas kidnapped on Oct. 7.

But hey, the Pulitzer board, they occasionally misjudge. Don’t you dare report on it.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 40

HOW COULD ANYBODY TELL? Living in a bedroom community in Northern New Jersey just outside NYC, I used to be held captive by the incredibly random, um, “service” (yes, those are scare quotes) of NJTransit. So when the engineers go on strike, can we really tell the difference?

 

Posted at 1:31 pm by Charles Glasser 18

JOE CONCHA: Jake Tapper’s ‘bombshell’ book on Biden’s decline is a laughable attempt to rewrite history.

Thompson’s claim that every White House “is capable of deception” again makes the hilarious case that reporters believed what the Biden team was telling them without raising any questions.

Remember, this was the same White House that insisted inflation was transitory or was part of the mythical “Putin price hike.”

This is the same team that claimed the border was secure.

It’s the same team that actually accused Republicans of wanting to defund the police.

And the same team that said Hunter Biden’s laptop was a product of Russia and COVID-19 didn’t come from a lab that literally studies coronaviruses.

Not exactly a track record of honesty.

Tapper and Thompson’s Original Sin is on track to be a bestseller when it hits bookstores next week. The authors will profit nicely from it.

But in terms of something that can’t be bought, a thing called integrity, both men can kiss that goodbye.

Just like most of the rest of legacy media that took part in the worst “cover-up” in modern American history.

Soon to be a major motion picture? Jake Tapper’s bombshell book on Biden mental decline could be made into a movie.

A high-stakes bidding war is brewing in Hollywood over the rights to the upcoming political exposé by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson detailing the decline of Joe Biden, according to a report.

With the release set for May 20, Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Endeavor — representing Tapper and Thompson respectively — have begun quietly circulating the manuscript to select producers, according to the Status newsletter.

But while the talent agencies angle to sell the screen rights, the book’s explosive claims and the timing of its release are drawing fierce criticism against the authors and other journalists for failing to aggressively cover the evident signs of Biden’s deterioration.

All the President’s Men is now best thought of as these days as a fictional political thriller ala The Manchurian Candidate than a serious look at Nixon’s Watergate scandal. But at least it’s built around the classic Hollywood tropes of reporters doggedly pursuing a story. A movie version of Tapper and Thompson’s book has the potential to be hilarious. Picture scenes of journalists repeatedly seeing Biden continuing to descend downhill, and then alternately ignoring them and issuing condescending “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes” public statements.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 140

I DON’T DOUBT THEIR SINCERITY BUT PUTIN SO FAR HAS BEEN GIVEN LITTLE REASON TO COOPERATE: Rubio and Trump: This Is the ‘Only Way’ to End the War in Ukraine. “Yeah, it’s my assessment and I think it’s the President’s assessment. By the way, I think he said publicly today that the only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here – nothing is going to happen at this point – given everything we know, after months of working on this, nothing is going to happen until President Trump sits across the table from Vladimir Putin and puts it on the line and puts it on the table. I think that’s the only chance we have at peace at this point given everything we’ve seen over the last few weeks. There’s been talks, there’s been negotiations, there’s been trips and meetings. But in the end, I think we’ve reached the conclusion, and rightfully so, as the President has, that the only way this is going to happen – if it has a chance to happen, the only way it happens is – is the President directly engages with Vladimir Putin.”

Posted at 1:17 pm by Stephen Green 91

UNEXPECTEDLY: California’s Adam Schiff Has Picked Up Dianne Feinstein’s Ban-The-Guns Torch. “Sen. Schiff introduced S. 1531, the Assault Weapon Ban of 2025, and made the announcement through a video he posted to social media. Usurpingly, his claims about the previous federal ban are false. His video message immediately received a brutal Community Note, tagging the first-term senator’s message as ‘incorrect.’ Companion legislation was also introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) as H.R. 3115, with the same title.”

Posted at 12:46 pm by Stephen Green 29

WHEN TWO-TIERED JUSTICE COMES TO AN END. UNEXPECTEDLY!

As science has proven, “tit for tat” is the only way to ensure honesty in repeat-player interactions.

Posted at 12:44 pm by Glenn Reynolds 187