Happy Hour

Eventually, betting against Elon will pay off.

You Don't Have To Hand It To Her

Nothing a certain type of person loves more than imagining they've converted a conservative.

I disagree with @LauraLoomer on 1,000 things, but I admire her willingness to rethink Ukraine and go there. One of the things we pundits aren't good at is admitting when we're wrong--let alone seeking out information that contradicts our priors. She has courage to do just that. https://t.co/1mmPnIJrSW

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) July 22, 2026

Discovery

I suspect they'll find a judge to overturn this, but funny for the moment!

Donald Trump must divulge detailed financial information from his many businesses as part of his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, a federal judge ruled during a discovery hearing on Tuesday, according to news reports.

The ruling by US magistrate judge Enjoliqué Lett could open a unique window into the hundreds of businesses owned by Trump’s family trust. It also highlights a potential drawback for Trump’s strategy of bludgeoning critical media with multibillion-dollar lawsuits.

"The president can sue anyone he wants and also the people he sues can't fight back in the normal ways" would be a likely outcome, because freedom, or something. 

SUPERTRAINS

We all know being able to get from A to B quickly is nice, but I think it is underappreciated how much fast trains are like little wormhole ships. What if you could step on a train in NYC and be in Boston in an hour, with relatively inexpensive service every 5 minutes? Suddenly, NYC and Boston are effectively "next to" each other.

This train will have a trip time from Tokyo to Osaka of 67 minutes. That's half the current (already fast) time.

At some still unfixed point in the future when the magnetically levitating Linear Chuo Shinkansen train makes its first 505km per hour journey across central Japan, it will streak through Shizuoka prefecture in a little under 64 seconds.

It has taken more than a decade of wrangling for Japan to be able to say that with confidence; it will be many more years before anyone is actually boarding the train itself and likely many more years after that before people genuinely think of central Japan as the “linear economic zone” imagined by the government that is seamlessly joined by the train.

A couple of years ago, I was somewhat "amused" to learn that this project was being held up by one obstinate governor, the governor of the 64 second Shizuoka prefecture. That's the kind of problem I generally imagine is unique to the US's fractured governance and legal system.

As for how we would pay for it, well, look up the cost of your local highway interchange upgrade project.

But How Will We Pay For That

Once you notice that the usual deficit scolds go quiet any time money is conjured for cops (broadly defined) and war, you realize you can ignore them and anyone who takes them seriously.

The war with Iran has cost the US some $37.5bn (£28bn) so far - an increase of nearly $8bn since the last estimate in May, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said.

Similarly, I don't need to be a military spending expert to know that Hegseth is lying and the real cost is already multiples of that. 

Indeed

Often the proxies in "proxy fights" are things which actually matter in and of themselves, but also highlight deep fundamental differences. What has happened with Israel and its support from the US, Europe, and most of their media and politicians, matters in and of itself, and also demonstrates a deeper rot infesting our betters.

As Coates said, "If you can't draw the line at genocide, you probably can't draw it at democracy."

And Then Odysseus Boards The Hyperloop To Make His Journey Faster

Sure why not.

“Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of ‘The Odyssey’ that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer,” Musk wrote, without offering any further details on the venture. Watch footage of the AI-generated “Odyssey” below.

As someone on social media regularly jokes, the defenders of Western Civilization have yet to encounter it.

I don't know what's funnier: the idea that we will get this movie in any form, or the idea that Musk has any idea what "historically accurate and true to the art of Homer" would actually be in any meaningful sense.

Grok Imagine employees (I assume they exist) just ordered several cases of liquor.

Morning

Late start

Happy Hour

Get happy

Afternoon

I got nothin'

At Least The War Is Over

From what I understand, the plan was a decapitation strike (kill the leader) and then replace him with someone more pliant, but Israel killed all of those guys too.

I suspect the "Venezuela" would not have worked in any case, but Israel had other plans.

For a brief moment, we won!

AI Psychosis

I don't really use AI aside from what google forces on you when you search (and I mostly use the DO NOT USE AI setting), but AI summaries were shoved into my running app. 

Those AI summaries have a bit of useful information, combined with informing me that every single workout is just great. It never says, "That was a shit run, pal."

I'm always doing the right thing, somehow. Long and fast? Smashed it! Short and slow? Perfect recovery run!

There's nothing wrong with a bit of cheerleading in your workout app. I don't think I'm going to get AI psychosis from it. But it is enough to see how it can cause it a problem if it accompanies you to everything you do.

I'm not the first one to observe this: but many people are frying their brains in the same way that rich people have had their brains fried by their sycophants and servants.  Though they are doing this without the accompanying money, which might cause some additional problems.

On Your Own

It is very funny.

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has described the renewed US war on Iran as the ideal outcome for Israel, provided Israelis do not have to fight it themselves.

"Israel has no interest in joining the campaign - the current situation is the best for us," Smotrich said on Tuesday in comments carried by Kan news.

The finally got an American president to bite. 

It's Tariff Week, Again

Back in his happy place.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday imposed 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods, declaring that Canada has unfairly discriminated against American autos, alcohol and dairy products.

In various ways, much of the rest of the world has allowed itself to be colonized by the US, and perhaps they should all read the Declaration. I still remember the beginning bit from memorizing it in 5th grade:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

It doesn't all apply, of course, but there are some relevant bits. 

 

Morning

Taco Tuesday.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Making Vows That Just Can't Work Right

I'm not sure we're really "in" Iran now?

Piss Christ

Funny.

A New York sculptor has been left furious after spending $100,000 of his own money to build a lifesize statue of Charlie Kirk, only to find that no one wants to buy it.

Sergio Furnari, originally from Italy, had hoped the statue of the deceased far-right activist, which he intends to display in Times Square, would raise “millions” of dollars. Instead, he said he has been inundated by messages from people saying they intend to urinate on the sculpture.

Reading the rest of the article, it's just a pure grift attempt but he wasn't quick enough. 

Hiding the Consequences

Again, the New York Times is reporting this, but are we going to have full coverage on the Islamophobia Hour with Troop Respecter Jake Tapper (for example)? He made Troop Respecting one of his brand$, so I would expect him to be very mad about this stuff!

Central Command has also stopped announcing how many sites in Iran it hits each day for the same reason, U.S. officials say.

In the days since the collapse of a fragile truce, the Pentagon has provided little information about the American military strategy after nearly five months of war. The last major Pentagon briefing on the war was in early May.

In the past several months, the Trump administration has failed to disclose how the Iran war has drained U.S. supplies of critical, costly weapons, and how Iran retained and rebuilt substantial missile capabilities.

The subject of American casualties in the war is similarly sensitive. The deaths of two Army soldiers in Jordan on Friday and another service member in northern Iraq bring to 17 the total number of American military personnel killed since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.

The Pentagon’s casualty reporting protocols call for publicly identifying deceased service members only after 24 hours have passed since next of kin were notified. The names of troops wounded in action are not typically released.

"Meddling"

Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and the various party organizations are not (in theory) in charge of selecting primary candidates. In practice things aren't so neat and nobody really denies that, but it does mean that they shouldn't be handed the presumption of power over the issue, either by journalists or, of course, themselves.

Sen. Bernie Sanders had just announced his intent to unseat a sitting House Democrat — this time, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus from North Carolina — when Rep. Hakeem Jeffries decided it was time to confront Sanders himself.

The House Democratic leader warned Sanders against meddling in House primaries, particularly one involving a Black Democrat, in such a critical midterm election year, according to three Democrats familiar with the conversation.

“He seemed to not care,” Rep. Greg Meeks of New York, a Jeffries ally who was also on the call, said of Sanders, recalling the previously unreported phone call. The intervention from those powerful Washington Democrats came just before incumbent Rep. Valerie Foushee edged out her challenger, Nida Allam, in the March primary.

There is the norm of House members not trying to other House incumbents, and the same for Senators and the Senate, but we have recent examples of House members supporting challenges against sitting Senators.  Such as:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Rep. Joe Kennedy in his Senate challenge Thursday, a surprise move that could provide a significant boost over incumbent Democratic Sen. Ed Markey as the contentious Massachusetts race comes to a close in less than two weeks.

Pelosi wasn't just some backbencher.  She was (as it says) Speaker!

Also this is internalizing some assumptions that aren't always true:

At the heart of the debate: whether to nominate candidates more friendly to the party establishment and seen as wooing swing voters, or to pick democratic socialists or further-left progressives who can energize a restive party base but who risk alienating independents.

Amusingly, the problem is actually right there in the text. I am open to the idea that candidates who are more "centrist" in some sense are better able to woo swing voters (though this is very debatable!), but there is basically no reason to think candidates who are "more friendly to the party establishment" are better able to do that.

The "party establishment" is notable for its ability to woo donors! These are not the same things.