DL Open Thread: Sunday, May 4, 2025

A Cardinal Fan?:

Photo: The White House

The Musk Myth As Kabuki Theatre? Howzabout a little schadenfreude to start your day?:

It’s ornate. It’s stylized. It’s ritualized. And like all Kabuki, it is not meant to reflect reality—it is meant to perform power. But now, the performance is faltering. The cast is walking offstage. The spotlight is dimming.

Tesla’s board is searching for alternatives. The White House has iced him out. And in Wisconsin—a swing-state stage Musk tried to buy—the audience booed. It may have been the moment the curtain finally dropped.

LBR Flips On Crypto.  Looks like the lobbyists will have to pony up a bit more:

A group of pro-crypto Senate Democrats said Saturday they would oppose GOP-led stablecoin legislation that some of them previously supported if it goes to the floor in its current form, a stunning twist that could jeopardize the bill’s path forward.

A group of nine Democrats who have previously backed industry-friendly crypto legislation wrote in a statement Saturday that “the bill as it currently stands still has numerous issues that must be addressed,” adding they “would be unable to vote for cloture should the current version of the bill come to the floor.” The statement was signed by four Democrats who voted in favor of the stablecoin bill when it cleared the Senate Banking Committee in March: Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Mark Warner of Virginia, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Andy Kim of New Jersey.

‘Pro-crypto’.  ‘Industry-friendly’.  Our Senate delegation.

Why MAGA Hates Science.  It tells us (well, them) things they don’t want to hear:

But why do our new rulers want to destroy science in America? Sadly, the answer is obvious: Science has a tendency to tell you things you may not want to hear. Medical research may tell you that vaccines work and don’t cause autism. Energy research may tell wind power works and doesn’t massacre birds.

And one thing we know about MAGA types is that they are determined to hold on to their prejudices. If science conflicts with those prejudices, they don’t want to know, and they don’t want anyone else to know either. So they really want to destroy science.

Again, this isn’t hyperbole, and it’s not about the long run. American science is being gutted as you read this.

Speaking Of Science:  ‘Greenhouse Gas Butter’?:

Scientists at Savor, a firm founded in 2022, have developed ways to convert these gases into fat molecules, and ultimately butter, in what they claim is “the most efficient, most resilient, least polluting way known to science.” The goal is to create sustainable fats without cows or crops, thus reducing the land needed for agriculture, which is responsible for nearly 12 percent of global emissions. Savor takes captured carbon dioxide or methane from natural gas and puts it through a thermochemical process to build butter, tallow, and even ice cream. The company isn’t the only one making food from gas. Novozymes, part of the pharma giant Novo Nordisk, and Air Protein both use a fermentation process that eats up CO2 to create proteins, and AIR Vodka is made using captured CO2.

Write your own jokes.

Trump Does To Australia What He Did To Canada.  Swings another election to his disadvantage:

Anthony Albanese says his job is to “represent Australia’s national interest” after his thumping election win, shrugging off questions about when he might visit the United States to speak to Donald Trump about tariffs and trade.

Trump cast a long shadow over the opposition’s campaign, particularly after early Coalition policies including a “government efficiency” push and public service cuts proved unpopular. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who lost his own seat of Dickson, had intermittently flirted with Trump-style politics, as did the shadow minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whose mid-campaign call to “make Australia great again” was seen as a decisive moment by some in the Labor government.

The makeup of the Senate is still to be confirmed but Albanese is likely to enjoy one of the most progressive parliaments in Australian history. The ALP national president, Wayne Swan, said it was an opportunity for Albanese to “further reshape our nation as a prosperous, egalitarian and forward-looking society”, with some in Labor already thinking the size of the win and the decimation of the Liberal party as being an opening to lock down the Treasury benches for many years to come.

Sometimes the musical choices are all-too-obvious.  Which is not to say there isn’t a place for obvious:

Amazon Hit With Violations At Middletown Facility.  Just ‘documentation and paperwork violations’, a spokesperson sniffs:

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control issued the notice in an April 1 letter. It stems from an inspection Feb. 10 by three DNREC employees.

The alleged violations include:

• Failure to retain a facility-signed manifest for three years from the date waste was accepted
• Failure to perform annual hazardous waste management training
• Failure to submit a contingency plan to local emergency responders
• Failure to accurately list emergency coordinators in a contingency plan.

Hey, I believe them.  Why would they lie?  Just curious, how much FOIA-exempt money did we throw their way?

Coming tomorrow:  Pre-file Profile, featuring the most interesting bills that have just been introduced in the General Assembly.

What do you want to talk about?