Dinesh D'Souza -- Death of a Nation

This was a movie made several years ago, maybe in 2018. The point being that I know that it isn't new, but it IS new to me.

There's some new information ( once again to me ) presented. Perhaps it may be considered new to others as well.

It's been written many times here that there's no big difference between communists and fascists. So that isn't new to me. The historical view shows that this is actually quite true. Fascism was well-known to be a creature of the left during the time of Mussolini and Hitler. How many folks knew that? I didn't. Just goes to show ya, I guess.

If I, being one who follows politics a lot; didn't know that, then it stands to reason that many folks out there don't know that.

But I suppose these same folks wouldn't care, or wouldn't bother finding out for themselves if this is true.

Indeed, you cannot convince a man who will not be convinced. You CAN convince a man who is mostly convinced anyway.

I write that because it seems to be a rather powerful movie that should have moved the needle, but really didn't. Why do you suppose that is?

Here's a trailer for the film. It is on Tubi. I just watched it for the first time today. Highly recommended.

Starship 12 failure analysis

6/12/26:

Not claiming to be a steely-eyed rocket man here. However, I can always give my two-cents as to what happened that caused the failure of the booster to perform as intended on flight 12.

In my opinion, the whole problem boils down to timing. The rocket engines in the second stage have to light up just at the right time. These same rocket engines have to be gimbaled so that the engines are pointed at exactly the right angle at the same time. These same rocket engines have to hit the top of the booster at exactly the right place. All of this is a complicated maneuver that depends upon exactly correct timing. If anything happens at the wrong time or wrong place, the whole process will fail. I think that is exactly what happened.

It's not an engine problem, in other words.

It is probably easily corrected, in other words. We should see flight 13 within a few weeks.

Jun 10, 2026:

This video is from Alpha Tech. It is probably a bit too long, or I'm too impatient. Take your pick!

In my opinion (which nobody asked for), I think it is obvious even to a non-steely-eyed rocket man that it couldn't have been SpaceX's intent to have its Starship's plume hit the grid fin of the booster! Therefore, the booster was out of its expected position.

If the booster is out of position, then obviously something went wrong with the hot staging. Everything else follows from this important fact.

You don't need a twenty plus minute video to explain that.

I don't want to be too critical ( even though I am anyway ), it is mostly an informative video.

SpaceX IPO

Starts at $150, and trading higher.

Already a $ 2 Trillion market cap. Not much OPPO there, if you ax me.

You didn't ax me? Well, bless my soul.

Buy low and sell high. This is a bit rich, even if SPCX may be siting on the most fabulous wealth creator in the history wealth creation.

Could it ever rise 100 fold? If it did, imagine what valuation that would be. Insane. It is already insane. They haven't proven the system yet.

Two-tier Keir

The things they do to be beautiful. /sarc

For those who love to hate "X", and other "icky" folks:

We’re at the stage now where beheadings are regrettable, but tweets are unforgivable.

— Dr Philip Kiszely (@KiszelyPhilip) June 11, 2026

Most recent LP Fusion Report

It seems that the folks over there believe that they are close to proof of concept. Plus, they want to get government funding in order to build their machines.

Their chief scientist is no Elon Musk. He doesn't have the genius for the business end.

Shucks, if it works, one would think the world would beat a pathway to his door. The world is a cold, cruel place. It may not work that way, after all. It may not work (the business end) in any case. We'll see.

Note: the embedded page below is of my own page. Scroll down to see the report embedded into my page. An embed to an embed. What a concept!

Bongino Show, 6/10/26

Jipped in progress at about the 32 minute mark.

AI has to save Sosh Scurity? For the record, AI doesn't HAVE to be a bad thing, but I think it most likely will be. Just like nuclear power didn't HAVE to be a bad thing, but was turned into that.

Anyway, Elon Musk has a plan. You know what? The guy with the plans (Musk) may be the one who can get it all done, but the left wants to destroy him because he bought Twitter, and said some critical things about their itty-bitty selves.

Well boo-friggin'-hoo that their itty-bitty feewings got hurt. Is Musk a savior? Nope. He puts his pants on one leg at a time like us all. But he is doing things. All I see out the lunatic left is destruction. We have a problem with Sosh Scurity cuz of what the left did with population through abortion and homosexuality---as well as other dumb stuff that they do or don't do.

A few words about Gold

6/10/26:

A golden oldie! Quite literally, in fact...

Yours truly made lots of money off gold rush of yesteryears, not that that matters anymore. If you think of it as a loss in buying power, then selling your gold for profit really isn't profit. No way I could've held what I had because of you know what.

Nevertheless, nearly $5k for one ounce of gold seemed rather pricey. It may have topped out for now. A pullback seems to be in progress. How long will that last? I have no crystal ball. Don't follow the markets anymore anyhow.

Update later the same day:





Apr 5, 2011:

I write about this from time to time, and I guess it is a good time to do it again.  I was reading an essay on Kitco, by the Aden sisters , and I saw this chart

Let me point out a few things here.  Look at where the trend begins, just after Bush was inaugurated.  To be even more accurate, it began when the previous top was exceeded, and when the previous low was higher.  The higher low was just after the inauguration in 2001; when the higher high took place was early in 2003.  It so happens that Fed policy became very accomodative at that exact moment in time.  Just a coincidence?  I think not.

What I get out of this is that the 911 event has put a strain on our finances and that the Fed and the government is financing it by inflationary policies.   The war in Iraq began in March 2003.  By that time, gold was not in a big uptrend yet.   It broke above 500 in 2006.  Guess what happened that year?  The Democrats came into power in Congress.  Actually, they won the election and took power the next year.  The war in Iraq had been dragging on and the government was losing control.  By the time 2008 was rolling around, the price of gold was clearly reaching historical heights.

Democrats couldn't force us out of Iraq, and were favorably inclined to spend more.  No control over spending, neither for domestic spending nor for the war spending.

Recession occurred and the only response that the government had was to increase its spending even more.  But that's what got us into this mess in the first place.  Turning to bigger government is like drinking from the same well that is making us sick.  Time to stop drinking from that well before they poison us all with national bankruptcy.