Elon Musk | Bob Schwartz

January 24, 2025

Unhappy Americans are leaving the country—for Bedrock and Orbit City

Will Elon Musk run against Cosmo Spacely for mayor of Orbit City?

There are many Americans unhappy with the return of Trump to the White House. While it is an extreme response, a small number have decided to leave the country to live elsewhere, or at least claim they will.

Surprisingly, two of the destinations for refugees may be Bedrock and Orbit City. These places are best known from the reality shows The Flintstones and The Jetsons. These popular programs followed the day-to-day lives of typical families in different eras—the Flintstones in a time when most things involved rocks and dinosaurs did much of the heavy lifting, the Jetsons in a time when people traveled by flying cars and both maids and dogs were robots.

Will it be better in Bedrock or Orbit City than it currently is in America? Only time will tell. However, it is thought that presidential advisor Elon Musk is seriously considering not only moving to Orbit City, but becoming its mayor. Is Musk unhappy? Will he end up running against Cosmo Spacely, George Jetsons’ boss and the wealthy CEO of Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc.? Once again, time will tell.

November 14, 2024

The bluebird of happiness left X. Now The Guardian, other media, and many people have. You should too.

“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.”
The Guardian

The Guardian newspaper announced that they are no longer posting on X. In part:

We wanted to let readers know that we are no longer posting from any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter). We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.

This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.

The Guardian isn’t alone. Other media organizations and X users are also leaving.

You should too. It won’t seem easy. Twitter (its brand before Musk killed the bluebird of happiness) developed into a social media platform that was simple to use and had global reach. The current alternatives have not yet reached its utility. But, and this is the watchword of the moment, we have choices and we can choose. No one said it would be easy to stand up and be counted.

Elections make us think that voting at the ballot box is the only way we can have our voices heard. Every movement that isn’t about elections would beg to differ.

Make a difference. Join the bluebird of happiness and leave X today.

November 1, 2012

Losers and Winners

In the first Presidential debate, which Barack Obama lost, Mitt Romney directly attacked the President on government support for energy innovators:

“Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives. You put $90 billion — like 50 years’ worth of breaks — into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said, you don’t just pick the winners and losers; you pick the losers.”

Today, that “loser” Tesla won. The Tesla Model S was named by Automobile Magazine as the 2013 Automobile of the Year:

The auto industry is tough enough for a giant like General Motors. What we can say with this award is that Tesla deserves to succeed. It has managed to blend the innovation of a Silicon Valley start-up, the execution of a world-class automaker, and, yes, the chutzpah of its visionary leader [Elon Musk]. The result is the Model S. It’s not vaporware. It’s our Automobile of the Year.

Sometimes picking winners and loser is difficult. Sometimes it’s not.