July 17, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Do that comment voodoo that you do so well.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Liberal Goes Back In Time To Kill Hitler (Video).

Posted at 9:15 pm by Ed Driscoll

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: CBS cancels The Late Show, Stephen Colbert to end program in May 2026.

“‘THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT’ will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” CBS said in a statement. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘THE LATE SHOW’ franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.”

CBS said it was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” adding, “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

“I found out just last night, next year will be our last season,” host Stephen Colbert told his studio audience in a video posted on Instagram. “The network will be ending ‘The Late Show’ in May.”

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” Colbert continued.

* * * * * * * * *

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Colbert’s Thursday night guest, reacted on X, “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

The above sentence may be a clue as to why Colbert is being fired:

Next stop CNN?

Related: Past performance was no guarantee of future results with Colbert:

UPDATE: Colbert’s not a good enough actor to hide his anger over being told by CBS that he’s being axed:

MORE: Here’s Clay Travis discussing Colbert’s next gig, and how he lost his current one:

Posted at 8:52 pm by Ed Driscoll

GOOD: FDA to end dozens of ‘obsolete’ rules for U.S. food items. “The Food and Drug Administration now contends that additional consumer protections mixed with advances in food science, production and agricultural practices have made it unnecessary to keep many of the older ‘recipe standards.'”

Posted at 6:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Going fuzzy: NY drops exams for ‘portrait of a graduate.’ “Starting with the class of ’28, New York high school students won’t have to pass Regents exams in English, math, science and social studies to earn a diploma, reports Alex Zimmerman on Chalkbeat. The Class of ’31 will have to meet ‘portrait of a graduate’ requirements.”

Posted at 4:53 pm by Stephen Green

CBS REPORTER CLAIMS HE GOT ‘PTSD’ AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT – The Reason Is Mind-Boggling:

CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Scott MacFarlane made a rather remarkable claim during an interview with former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd on Wednesday.

MacFarlane and Todd were discussing the discipline doled out in recent days to multiple Secret Service agents over their response to the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The CBS reporter somehow found a way to make the trauma his own, not because of the actual shooting that nearly killed the President, but because MAGA supporters were going to kill him.

“For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America,” the melodramatic guest recalled. “And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck.”

“I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because I think of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us,” MacFarlane continued to quiver. “If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.”

Edward R. Murrow, who covered the Blitz while reporting on location from London during WWII left the broadcasting booth a long time ago. But I’m sure MacFarlane considers Trump and his supporters to be the modern day equivalent of the people who were dropping the bombs on England back then.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

TAPSCOTT TWO-FER THURSDAY: First on The Washington Stand today, President Donald Trump is doing more with a smaller, less costly White House staff than any of his three predecessors, according to spending and personnel data compiled by Open the Books.

Second, again on The Washington Stand, Open the Books dug deep into foia.gov data on response times of federal departments and agencies and found some stunning statistics about lengthy delays. At the Department of Commerce’s Office of the Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, for example, the average wait time for “simple” FOIA requests is 836 days!

And while we’re at it, whaddya say, let’s just go ahead and make it a three-fer: Over on HillFaith, J. Warner Wallace, the cold-case murder whiz, examines claims that whole Jesus thing is a product of ancient pagan myths.

Posted at 4:29 pm by Mark Tapscott

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: And Just Like That, 16-Year-Olds Can Vote in the Next British General Election.

In one of the ultimate nanny states on Earth, which is seriously looking at implementing a complete social media ban on 16-year-olds and younger because they are too immature to handle the pressures online…

A possible ban on social media for under-16s in the UK is “on the table”, the technology secretary Peter Kyle has told the BBC.

Speaking on the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, he said he would “do what it takes” to keep people and in particular children safe online.

…they will now also be given the right to vote during a national general election, ergo determining the direction and future of the country.

That might not go the way that Labour expects, however:

A similar result could happen in Old Blighty, James Hanson writes at the Spectator: Britain’s votes for teenagers ruse will backfire.

I have long suspected that Labour’s real reason for wanting votes at 16 is to further its own electoral interests. But this, too, is wrong on a number of levels. Firstly, no constitutional change should ever happen for party political reasons. Secondly, it is deeply naive to assume that 16 and 17-year-olds are more likely to be attracted to Starmer’s technocratic government than to the radicalism of Reform or a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn.

There is a reason Nigel Farage is by some distance the most followed British politician on TikTok. As unlikely as it may seem, the tweed-clad former City boy connects with younger voters in a way the Labour leadership simply doesn’t. If the bright sparks in Downing Street think this teenage voting ruse will help Starmer’s prospects at the next election, they should be careful what they wish for.

In any case, the newest chapters of Peter Hitchens’ The Abolition of Britain continue to write themselves.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

BACKUP: The ISS is nearing retirement, so why is NASA still gung-ho about Starliner?

NASA hopes commercial space stations can take over for the ISS after its retirement, but there’s no guarantee SpaceX will still be flying Dragon in the 2030s. This injects some uncertainty into plans for commercial space stations.

One possible scenario is that, sometime in the 2030s, the only options for transporting people to and from commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit could be Starliner and Starship. We’ll discuss the rationale for this scenario later in this story.

While the cost of a seat on SpaceX’s Dragon is well known, there’s low confidence in the price of a ticket to low-Earth orbit on Starliner or Starship. What’s more, some of the commercial outposts may be incompatible with Starship because of its enormous mass, which could overcome the ability of a relatively modest space station to control its orientation. NASA identified this as an issue with its Gateway mini-space station in development to fly in orbit around the Moon.

It’s impossible to predict when SpaceX will pull the plug on Dragon. The same goes with Boeing and Starliner. But NASA and other customers are interested in buying more Dragon flights.

Boeing is something like $2 billion in the red on Starliner, and it seems unlikely the company will ever sell enough flights to bring the program into the black.

Still, if NASA needs a backup plan and Boeing can claw back some of those losses, I suppose it makes sense.

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Caffeine May Slow Cellular Aging By Activating A Protective Stress Response.

The study, published in Microbial Cell, discovered that caffeine induces a stress-like response in cells, activating a longevity pathway called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK).

AMPK functions like a cellular fuel gauge. When energy runs low or during times of stress, AMPK activates, forcing cells to conserve resources, repair damage, and clean up faulty components by recycling parts of themselves.

In biology, too much stress harms cells, but small amounts can actually help them adapt and repair, preventing damage from piling up. Over time, this helps tissues stay healthier, which supports a longer lifespan.

“Our research, at least in terms of caffeine, suggests that AMPK gets turned on because caffeine is exerting some sort of stress on the cells,” Alao said.

Have at least two cups of coffee, just to be safe.

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green