… because he noticed Abigail Adams' headline query at National Review: Do Ballerina Androids Dream of Electric Nutcrackers? Inspired by this post from "gorklon rust":
— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 14, 2025
Tesla recently shared brief footage of its humanoid robot “Optimus” dancing. It is a weirdly entrancing video because there’s something both frightening and awe-inspiring about a physically competent humanesque robot, especially one that can pull off a jazzercise combination. My logic is that a robot capable of line dancing is also capable of strangling me to death, but maybe I’m just an alarmist.
One thing in the video was particularly striking to me: Although most of its dance steps are best suited for a frat party, Optimus apparently had been taught — or, I guess programmed with — some specific ballet moves. Anyone who has taken a ballet class would readily detect that Optimus posed in an arabesque, a passé, and a fifth position. Optimus doesn’t have great technique, but maybe that’s an improvement for a future model, since Elon Musk declared that “Optimus will perform ballet perfectly.” I don’t know whether I should interpret that as a promise or a threat, but I nevertheless think it is cool that something so eerily futuristic and high-tech fused with something so traditional and tech-free.
Being a philistine dance-wise, I was mainly creeped out by Optimus's resemblance to the Empire's killer droids I'd just seen in Andor Season 2, Episode 8. Eek! They're here already!
Also of note:
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One must have a heart of stone to read of the negation of the earlier election of David Hogg without laughing. Jonathan Turley tells the story while keeping a straight face, though. Circling the Firing Squad: The Democratic Party Moves to Negate Earlier Election of David Hogg.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is about to show the perils of circling a firing squad. In its announcement that it will nullify the election of David Hogg and another Vice Chair, the DNC reminded the public why they have left the Democratic Party. The sudden decision that there were procedural irregularities in the election (after Hogg said that he would target older Democratic incumbents) leaves the DNC looking more like the CCP. However, it gets worse.
Hogg caused a controversy by announcing that he will work to primary older Democratic incumbents through his group, Leaders We Deserve, to bring young candidates into the party. The leadership ordered him to retract the pledge or resign. He did neither.
Then, the DNC announced that there were “irregularities” in how he and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta won two of the three vice chair positions.
The reason? One of the losing candidates, Kalyn Free, filed a complaint during the original election alleging that the DNC failed to follow rules on gender diversity.
For additional amusement, click over for video of DNC leaders trying to explain those rules.
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Well, I got mine anyway. I was wondering if we'd have (additional) airport chaos last week as TSA's "deadline" for REAL ID compliance hit. Jim Harper was paying attention, and… REAL ID Day After-Action Report: Stalemate.
On May 7, 2025, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was scheduled to attack American air travel. Terrorism works by inducing overreaction from victim states. So, yes, the TSA’s work to restrict travel by law-abiding Americans gives a win to the 9/11 attackers, nearly a quarter-century on. No doing business in other states, no visiting the new grandbaby—unless you have enrolled in the national ID system created by the REAL ID Act.
But the attack didn’t come. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced the day before that American travelers would not be turned away. As The Wall Street Journal’s travel columnist reported, lines were shorter at many airports. My experience flying on May 9 without a federally compliant ID was smooth. I decline strip-search machines, so I already get a pat-down (or “freedom massage”) each time I fly, which is probably what travelers with noncompliant IDs got.
But internal contradictions exist with the policy, Jim thinks, and he predicts "collapse, sooner or later, of the national ID project." So, good.
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You don't have to be a moron to understand it, but it helps. Jeff Maurer sees a silver lining: The Qatari Plane Scandal is Different Because Morons Understand It.
Those of us who have spent years stunned by Trump’s flagrant and frankly kind of impressive corruption often ask ourselves: “Why does nothing ever stick to this guy?” Trump is so corrupt that corruption seems to be the only thing he devotes energy to other than sexual harassment and golf. Most of us have forgotten Trump scandals that would have sunk any other president; if George H.W. Bush had run for office while hawking $100,000 watches from a personal merch store, there would be a chapter in every civics textbook titled “Watchgate”. But when Trump does it, we laugh it off as Dennis the Menace-esque hijinks.
The simplest explanation for why Trump gets away with so much is that most of his scandals are just barely too complex to put the national panties in a twist. Many people seemed to view the Mueller Report as a report on whether or not prostitutes peed on the president, and when the answer was “no”, tales of obstruction of justice felt like a bait-and-switch, a bit like luring people into a porno theatre and then showing My Dinner with Andre. Trump’s first impeachment included the phrase “Ukrainian Prosecutor General”, which must be one of the most brain-numbing three word phrases possible, right up there with “Consumption Tax Study” and “Canadian Sorghum Yields”. January 6 might have sunk Trump had his timing not been perfect; Republicans skipped impeachment because they thought Trump would just go away, and by the time Trump ran again, the public forgot where things left off, like that SNL sketch where no one on The Sopranos can remember what happened on the previous season of The Sopranos.
In this morning's news: Democratic congressman pushes Trump impeachment but backs down from vote. Come on, you guys!
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Speaking of morons… Saul Zimet (who is not a moron) notes the ends of the horseshoe keep getting closer: MAGA Adopts One of Karl Marx’s Key Misconceptions.
“Globalization” has become a pretty notorious buzzword, and this can sometimes obscure the fact that it is largely (although not entirely) reducible to a set of private voluntary exchanges that occur across national borders. To the extent that President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has consistent policy positions, those positions are predominantly about reducing globalization by preventing Americans from making voluntary transactions with those who lack U.S. citizenship—for example, tariffing imports to hinder U.S. citizens from engaging in international trade and barring commerce between U.S. citizens and many immigrants by detaining or deporting those immigrants or prohibiting their entry into the country.
When a government deploys mass coercion against peaceful people, as we have seen under Trump’s trade and immigration policies (which is not to say that all illegal immigrants are peaceful), the government’s representatives and apologists tend to roll out a series of moral justifications. These arguments can elucidate the character of the political faction in power, and MAGA has been no exception. Throughout the last few months, one of their defenses of Trump’s trade and immigration policies, contrary to the pre-MAGA Republican Party’s free market rhetoric, has frequently been the allegation that low wages for voluntary labor are exploitative.
“Globalization” has become a pretty notorious buzzword, and this can sometimes obscure the fact that it is largely (although not entirely) reducible to a set of private voluntary exchanges that occur across national borders. To the extent that President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has consistent policy positions, those positions are predominantly about reducing globalization by preventing Americans from making voluntary transactions with those who lack U.S. citizenship—for example, tariffing imports to hinder U.S. citizens from engaging in international trade and barring commerce between U.S. citizens and many immigrants by detaining or deporting those immigrants or prohibiting their entry into the country.
When I was a youngster reading about Marx's ideas, I couldn't help but notice his "exploitation", shorn of moralistic language, essentially meant nothing more or less than "paying people market wages".
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