A senior German politician and ally of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has resigned as parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democrat (CDU) party after he and his husband used a surrogate mother to become parents, a practice he has criticised in the past and his party is vehemently opposed to.Surrogacy is banned in Germany, a policy Jens Spahn refused to relax when he was health minister in 2020, so he and his husband, Daniel Funke, used a surrogate mother in the US.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
Conservatives Are The Same Everywhere
Not sure if that is comforting or enraging.
"Resolve"
That was a favorite word of W.
Godspeed, heroes,” Hegseth wrote on X while reposting a news release about the service member deaths. “Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve,” he added.
At some point I started saying that the purpose of staying in Iraq was to kill everyone who wanted us to leave, at which point we would leave.
That was a sensible, well-defined mission compared to whatever this is.
"Stiffens our resolve" for what? To send more people to kill and die, but FOR what?
Saturday, July 18, 2026
Never Bet Against Elon
Maybe it will all collapse, finally.
About 30 per cent of the roughly 640mn SpaceX shares available to trade have been borrowed to sell short, up 10 percentage points over the past 10 days, highlighting how traders are becoming increasingly sceptical of the company’s market prospects.“Investor enthusiasm for SpaceX seems to have cooled,” said Dec Mullarkey, managing director of SLC Management. The company’s equities and bonds are suddenly “pricing in more risk”, he added....About 900mn further SpaceX shares could become available to trade as soon as next month when certain lock-up provisions for pre-IPO investors expire. Traders who doubt there is sufficient demand for the deluge of extra equity are cashing out now as a result, market participants say.“With more shares coming to market in August, [SpaceX] could announce that they’ve conquered the moon and found gold inside it and there still wouldn’t be enough money out there to buy the stock,” said the chief investment officer of a small North American hedge fund. His firm made $20mn shorting SpaceX earlier in July, he said.
This Is Excellent News For Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Mostly linking to reminisce about the several month period during which Ron was the most important politician in America.
Still immensely popular among Florida Republicans but barred by term limits from seeking reelection, DeSantis has refused to hand the baton to Donalds and has spent months publicly and privately arguing the Naples congressman is unfit to replace him. He has even shared his reservations directly with Trump, according to a person close to DeSantis with knowledge of a recent conversation between the two.
Nothing Really Matters
I won't say very many positive things about the Iraq war era, but it was the case that people treated the whole thing with a degree of gravitas, or faux gravitas at least. Sure that was also a part of the marketing myth, and a reason for self-important pundits to gaze at their reflected importance, but there was still the fading notion that going to war was a big deal. People were going to die, and that mattered.
All the cable news NATION AT WAR graphics were toxic in their own way, but at least they acknowledged that it was actually a big deal
Friday, July 17, 2026
Sure Why Not
Iran does not fit neatly into the Epcot Pavilion. It is 4 times the size of California. I suspect a land invasion would be difficult.
At Least The War Is Over
Attacks on desalanization plants are potentially catastrophic.
Iranian strikes on Friday hit a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait, damaging one of the key sources of drinking water in the small desert nation.
OH NO ELON
What was advertised as a critical launch of Elon's rocket was not a go.
As I keep saying, betting against his shenanigans has long been a loser, but maybe this time!
Good Enough For Some Alito
I imagine that Foxbrained nutter was the real audience.
None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome.Instead, White House officials have framed the disclosures not as an attempt to re-litigate past elections, but rather as an attempt to correct vulnerabilities ahead of November’s midterm elections. That’s despite the fact that the second Trump administration has shuttered many federal organizations that were tracking and publicizing foreign influence campaigns.And White House officials suggested the information, some of which has been known for years, was withheld from senior top elected US officials, including Trump, for political purposes.
A decent article but "the president lies all the time about everything" should be baked deeply into all reporting and it just isn't.
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Sure Why Not
Everything is corrupt.
Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on that speech and more than a dozen others on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Four More Wars
One thing "we" are incapable of learning is that invading and occupying a country is hard.
It isn't the only reason, but I do think the general American view that other countries are fake and also can fit into the Epcot Pavilion has sonething to do with it. Even "little" islands are quite large. Cuba is the size of Tennessee!
LOS GLOTONES!
It's Tariff Week, Again
Gramps is on his nostalgia tour, playing the hits to state fair crowds.
The US plans to impose a 25% tariff on some Brazilian imports, after a yearlong investigation concluded that the country had engaged in “unfair” trade practices.
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