How much money does Jeff Bezos need, anyway?

The New Neo Posted on by

Says Liz Warren (who’s got a fair amount of money herself, although she’s nowhere near Bezos territory):

What a brilliant, never-heard-of-before idea, Liz! And while we’re at it, could I have some of your eight million or so? I’d only take maybe two million, leaving you with about six – more than anyone really needs. I’ll put it to good use, and I don’t think you’d really miss it.

Here’s a takedown of Warren’ proposal, with some details.

Some of the responses to Warren’s tweet are pretty good, too, such as:

Just stop, we all know your scam.

Democrats raise taxes.
Money flows to NGOs packed with Democratic operatives.
Those operatives take their cut, write a check to Democratic campaigns
Report back that the problem still exists and needs more funding.

And

Bezos spends $15B, develops a space program, creates new technologies.

California spends $15B to build high speed rail, zero miles delivered.

You’re proposing to move capital from the best capital allocator to the worst, one rife with fraud and overspending.

Big blue marble

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are photos of earth taken from Artemis, and an explanation for why they are somewhat darker than previous space photos of earth:

The differences in color between the two photos stem from the settings used to take them, and where in space they were taken from.

NASA’s Flickr page, where the Artemis II crew’s photos live, shows the type of camera and the settings used to take the picture. Most of the settings are usual for taking photos, except for one. The ISO setting, which controls the camera’s sensitivity to light, is set to a staggering 51,200. For context, a common ISO setting for pictures taken on Earth is around 200.

The reason Wiseman had to use such a high ISO was that his spacecraft was on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, meaning to the astronauts’ naked eyes, the Earth appeared much darker than it does in the photo. The sun is actually what’s causing the bright light on the bottom right of the Earth.

And here’s a post of mine from February of 2005, very early in my blogging career, on the subject of first seeing photos of earth from space:

I’m not so very old, but when I grew up and artists or scientists drew conceptual drawings of the earth from outer space, the globe was always pictured as just that–a globe like those spinning ones in school, tethered to their metal stands (only, of course, without the metal stands). No clouds at all. Despite the fact that we all should have known better–all we had to do was look up at the sky most days to see those voluminous clouds–no one did seem to know better.

I still remember the shock of seeing those first photos …

By now we’ve incorporated the clouds into our mental image of the earth. Here’s one of those early photos, though – the “Big Blue Marble” one:

And here’s my very favorite so far, the “Earthrise” photo taken in 1968:

If you’d like to see a history of photos taken of earth, please go here.

The Iranian regime says no to a ceasefire

The New Neo Posted on by

Is anyone on earth surprised at this refusal? I don’t see how they can agree to anything reasonable. They are apocalyptic fanatics who do not care what happens to their people and believe that chaos and destruction will usher in the Mahdi they’ve been waiting for. It’s not a recipe for successful negotiation.

Excerpt:

Iran has rejected the proposal for a temporary ceasefire with the United States, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Monday.

According to IRNA, Iran is demanding a complete end to the fighting in the region, along with a protocol to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s response conveyed to mediators consists of 10 clauses, the report noted. “The gaps are very significant,” a source familiar with the details told The Jerusalem Post.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by the end of Tuesday that would allow traffic to start moving again through the vital route for global energy supplies.

While answering reporter questions outside the White House on Monday, Trump said that the war could end “very quickly” if Iran went along with the deal, adding that the people the US is currently negotiating with were “reasonable and not as radicalized.” He stressed that the Tuesday deadline he has set for Iran to make a deal is final, adding that Iran’s proposal was significant but not good enough.

I suppose it really does depend on the identity of the negotiators. I wouldn’t trust any of them if they’re part of the current regime (and if they’re not, what power would they have to fulfill any promises?). Hard to say what’s going on, but Trump’s deadline is tomorrow night.

Iran’s bravado and defiance is probably sincere if they believe in their own Twelver eschatology. It also plays to the left, as well as other Muslim countries.

I plan to write a longer post on the subject tomorrow.

Jonathan Turley seems to agree with me on birthright citizenship and a constitutional amendment

The New Neo Posted on by

Specifically, on the need for a constitutional amendment to deal with the problem, if SCOTUS won’t:

Those words from Chief Justice John Roberts during this week’s oral arguments signaled that the conservative justices are unlikely to reject birthright citizenship. Of course, nothing is certain until this summer when the Court issues its opinion in Trump v. Barbara. However, we need to consider the need for a 28th Amendment to reaffirm the meaning of citizenship.

As some of us stressed before the oral argument, the odds were against the administration prevailing in the case, given more than a century of countervailing precedent. There are good-faith arguments against reading the 14th Amendment as supporting citizenship for any child born in this country. It is doubtful that the drafters of the 14th Amendment could have envisioned millions of births to illegal aliens. They surely did not imagine foreigners coming to this country for the purpose of giving birth — or even, without ever entering the U.S., contracting multiple U.S. residents to carry babies to term for them as surrogates.

The historical record is highly conflicted. Some drafters expressly denied that they intended for birthright citizenship to be covered by the 14th Amendment.

The final word actually rests with the public. We can amend the Constitution to join most of the world in barring birthright citizenship. There is no more important question in a republic than the definition of citizenship.

We are becoming a virtual mockery as we watch millions game the birthright citizenship system.

It seems quite obvious to me, and as far back as 2014 I’ve said an amendment on this would solve the problem – if it could be passed. I see that in June of 2025, Republican House of Representatives member Andy Barr introduced such an amendment:

If passed, Barr’s amendment would clarify the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s clause that persons must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States to be citizens.

Barr’s amendment would clarify that “a person born in the United States may only be considered ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is — (1) a national of the United States; (2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or (3) an alien with lawful status under the immigration laws performing active service in the armed forces.”

Nothing seems to have happened on that. No surprise there; it’s very difficult to pass an amendment (or an amendment to an amendment, which Barr’s proposal seems to involve?):

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. The Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Since the President does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process, the joint resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval.

Good luck with that; I don’t see it happening. There aren’t many things on which two-thirds of Congress can agree, and this is not one of them, IMHO – although it should be.

More details of the airman rescue in Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a host of information out there, so much that it’s hard to pick and choose what to link to or embed here. But I think this one is good in terms of details of the operation. In addition, it goes into a tie-in-with Operation Eagle Claw, Carter’s failed hostage rescue effort from 1980 (I wrote about that sad fiasco in this previous post):

ADDENDUM: Another excellent take:

King Charles: defender of which faith?

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the many differences between the US and England is that the latter has a state religion: the Church of England, originally founded when King Henry VIII wanted to jettison his first marriage and wed Anne Boleyn. We all know how that second marriage worked out, but the Church itself triumphed for many years although attendance has been declining for quite a while.

The monarch is supposed to be very much involved, although it’s somewhat complicated:

Although the monarch’s authority over the Church of England is largely ceremonial and is mostly observed in a symbolic capacity, the position is still relevant to the established church. As the supreme governor, the monarch formally appoints high-ranking members of the church on the advice of the prime minister of the United Kingdom, who in turn acts on the advice of the Crown Nominations Commission. Since the Act of Settlement of 1701, all Supreme Governors have been members of the Church of England.

In addition, the monarch is known as the “defender of the faith”:

In common with his predecessors for almost 500 years, The King is known as Defender of the Faith. This is part of his full formal legal title and appears in many official items such as proclamations and Parliamentary Writs of Summons. …

The Church of England is known as the “Established Church”, meaning that it is established by law and has a unique relationship with the state, forged in the settlement developed in the time of Elizabeth I and subsequent reigns intended to calm the upheavals of the Reformation period.

At the coronation King Charles III, like every monarch since George I, takes a special oath to maintain “the settlement of the Church of England and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established”. He also undertook a separate oath at his Accession to uphold the security of the Church of Scotland.

And yet neither England nor Britain is a theocracy, and all religions are allowed and protected. In fact, Elizabeth II emphasized this:

At her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II delivered a landmark speech explaining the concept of the Established Church in a multi-faith society.

She said: “The concept of our Established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.

But not all religions are equally tolerant of other religions, and many (not all, but many) Muslims would like Islam to become dominant. What’s a faith defender to do?

King Charles doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of defending of the Church of England or even of Christianity these days, and his failure to issue an Easter statement, combined with his issuance of a recent statement for Ramadan, has a lot of Christians worried:

Buckingham Palace previously confirmed that the king would not be giving an Easter message. The palace told GB News that an Easter message from the monarch is not an annual statement, like the Christmas message.

It is expected that Charles’s silence would upset some Christians as he wished Islamic practicing people a “blessed and happy Ramadan” on social media in February.

It’s actually not a royal tradition to always give an Easter message, although it often occurs. This year, I think the sharp contrast between the Ramadan message and the lack of an Easter message has caused the intensity of the problem, plus a widespread perception that King Charles isn’t a believing Christian and hasn’t been one for a long time (including rumors that he’s a secret Muslim).

This has prompted Anglican Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar to issue this open letter to King Charles. A few excerpts:

His Majesty, Charles III,

King of the United Kingdom and the Realms,

Supreme Governor of the Church of England,

Bearer of the ancient title Defender of the Faith. …

For more than a thousand years the Crown of this realm has stood in solemn covenant with the Christian faith.

The laws of this land were shaped by it.

The liberties of our people were nurtured by it.

The conscience of our civilisation was formed by it. …

Yet today that inheritance is being quietly but deliberately eroded. Across the institutions of this nation there is a growing hostility toward the faith that built them.

Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age.

Within the very Church that bears the name of England, voices have arisen that appear more eager to mirror the spirit of the age than to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. …

The Sovereign of this realm bears a title that is not merely historic but sacred in its origin and meaning: Defender of the Faith. Those words are not decorative. They are a charge.

They speak of a monarch whose duty is not merely to preside over the ceremonies of the Church, but to stand as a guardian of the Christian inheritance of the nation.

Yet many among your subjects now ask, with increasing anxiety: “Who will defend that inheritance today?” …

Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law.

Those words bind the conscience of the sovereign. They remind the Crown that its authority is not merely constitutional but moral. The monarch is not merely a symbol of national continuity, but a custodian of the spiritual inheritance that shaped this realm. …

The issue before us is not nostalgia. It is civilisation.

[NOTE: Please see also this post of mine on the decline of Christianity in Europe.]

Wonderful news – the missing airman has been rescued by US forces

The New Neo Posted on by

What a tremendous relief. For hours today I had heard rumors that the rescue had happened, but they were unconfirmed until just a short while ago:

US forces have successfully rescued and extracted the missing crew member of an American fighter jet that was shot down over Iran following “one of the most daring search-and-rescue operations” in the country’s history, President Trump announced early Sunday.

“WE GOT HIM! My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History, for one of our incredible Crew Member Officers, who also happens to be a highly respected Colonel, and who I am thrilled to let you know is now SAFE and SOUND!” Trump posted on Truth Social just after midnight.

The Air Force officer — a weapons specialist who has not yet been publicly identified — was one of two aboard an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down on Friday. Both had ejected over southwestern Iran, triggering a massive high-risk rescue mission.

The weapons officer was injured during the ejection, but was still able to walk, a US official told Axios.

“He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine,” Trump said.

The crew member was recovered in a dangerous Saturday night operation following intense fighting near the crash site, as US forces carried out a complex operation deep inside Iranian territory.

We will probably never know every detail. But it sounds as though he was able to get to high ground and set off a signal to US forces that told them where he was, and that they knew that information for nearly 24 hours. You can bet the Iranian forces were pursuing him with extreme zeal, because capturing and parading him would have been the fulfillment of a dream for them. Don’t forget that the mullahtocracy began with a bunch of US hostages; anyone of “a certain age” (as I am and so many readers here are) probably recalls it vividly.

I was tremendously worried that the Iranians would find him before we did, but that didn’t happen although there were apparently heated firefights involved, including the following:

A senior military official told the outlet that the mission was one of the most challenging and complex in the history of US special operations.

The airman evaded capture for up to a day in mountainous terrain, using survival training to move away from the wreckage and hide on elevated ground while signaling for rescue. He had little more than a pistol as Iranian forces scoured the area and mobilized civilians to hunt him down, the Times reported.

“This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his Commander in Chief, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow Warfighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue,” Trump added.

The airman and the rescue team safely evacuated Iran and flew to Kuwait, where the injured airman could be treated, according to the Times.

The operation unfolded amid reported airstrikes and clashes in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, where local officials said multiple people were killed or wounded, as US special operations forces and Air Force pararescue teams engaged in a fierce firefight with Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Basij fighters searching for the downed crew member.

Searching frantically but unsuccessfully, something which probably disappoints our own MSM and Democrats.

Sometimes life imitates movies, and this one has a happy ending. Would that the whole war will have a happy ending

E-Z Pass isn’t always so easy

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been using an E-Z Pass transponder for many years. There are quite a few toll roads near me, and it makes using them much easier.

But suddenly, the other day when I was out on a drive, I noticed my transponder wasn’t working. The light wasn’t turning green as I went by. I couldn’t figure out why.

I checked my account online. All was in order. My credit card information was updated. There was money in the account. And so I tried calling the E-Z pass information number – and got a helpful message saying I was number 102 in line.

That’s not a typo. Number one hundred and two.

Could there really be over one hundred people waiting patiently to speak to an actual person? I can understand waiting if you’re up to something like number five in line, but anything above that seems bizarre.

So I thought it might be a glitch, and decided to call back the next day. Well, the next day I was number 110 in line. Not an improvement.

I ended up emailing them and being told that my transponder had probably given up the ghost from old age, and that I would need to bring it in to exchange it. That was a bit of a trip, but not too bad. You’re charged for a new one, by the way.

I forgot to ask about that 100+ wait line. I was just so happy to get it all fixed.

I know some people don’t like to use E-Z Pass because they don’t like to be tracked. But these days you’re being tracked whether you use it or not. Every time you pass a toll booth (although they’re not all booths anymore, of course), some sort of record is kept, at least of license plates.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords – although come to think of it, they’re not so new anymore.

There’s fraud even on Everest

The New Neo Posted on by

Is nothing sacred?:

Dozens of Mount Everest guides have been accused of poisoning foreign climbers as part of a scheme to create emergencies and collect millions in insurance money.

Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau reportedly uncovered the $20 million insurance fraud scam in 2018, but recently reopened the investigation.

Guides would allegedly create emergencies for tourists from countries like the U.K. or Australia, where it would be more difficult for insurance companies to verify incidents in the Kathmandu area of Nepal, the Kathmandu Post reported.

Authorities say guides would wait for climbers to experience mild altitude sickness, and then urge the climbers to take acetazolamide tablets, which treat altitude sickness, albeit with “excessive” amounts of water that would worsen symptoms. In one case, a guide was accused of mixing baking powder into a climber’s food to bring on similar symptoms. In both cases, the guides would then call for a helicopter to extract the sickened climbers.

Another method described by the Kathmandu Post involved the guides working together with climbers, and telling them to fake an illness so they wouldn’t have to descend the mountain on foot.

Helicopter companies, local hospitals and more remote hospitals were also alleged to be part of the scam, as guides had reportedly falsified the need for emergency helicopter evacuations and additional treatment.

The Kathmandu Post reported that Era International Hospital took in more than $15.87 million and Shreedhi International Hospital received more than $1.22 million in connection with falsified rescue operations.

Services including Mountain Rescue Service allegedly carried out 171 unnecessary rescues, collecting $10.31 million; Nepal Charter Service allegedly collected $8.2 million; and Everest Experience and Assistance was linked to $11.04 million in international insurance claims, the outlet reported.

Sound sort of familiar?

Everest has become big business – and can fraud be far behind? Apparently not.

There are even allegations of poisoning, although not fatal poisoning – just the baking soda sort of thing. But talk about betrayal! People depend on these guides for their lives.