I have a lot of faith in the weirdo Elon Musk – he has produced big successes in techno companies that I like, including SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, and StarLink. And all these companies seem to have a theme, a common purpose – to eventually get humanity a foothold in space. But his Twitter purchase/offer of $43B, now seen as likely to succeed, mystifies me. What does a social media company add to the recipe? All of Musk’s other companies are home-grown, in which his engineering expertise is a huge factor. Twitter’s tech is not exactly rocket science. And if Musk is simply spending $43B to acquire Twitter because he doesn’t agree with a moderated speech platform, spending it because he’s got it to spend, what does that mean to the shareholders in his other companies? (So far it means Tesla stock is down.) It’s a mystery.

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Western democracies dodged a big bullet yesterday when France re-elected Macron. Le Pen was their version of Trump, and the last thing we need is another European country turning to authoritarianism. Nice job, French voters.

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Start the clock. I submitted my passport renewal application to the US Dept. of State today, all fees paid for an expedited renewal. I sure hope it takes less than two months, as the international flights I need to book are likely to get very expensive in the final three months before departure.

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My fascination with The Moon continues. I want this. And not related to The Moon, but I also saw a shirt at the Avocado Festival yesterday that I liked a lot. National Sarcasm Society.

Title picture above and the ironic shot below are from the Avo Festival.