OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.

HMM: Using the Moon as a digital backup location.

AND BIGGER FISH TO BITE ‘EM: Great White Sharks Were Scared From Their Habitat by Just 2 Predators.

And yes, unlike George Costanza I know the difference between whales, sharks, and fish. But it was a good headline!

DECONSTRUCTING THE NYT: “The quote is presented in a context that feels intended to generate empathy for those who’ve been affected by the ‘increasingly aggressive raids.’ But that ‘landscaper’ — that is, person in the landscaping business — was, apparently, competing unfairly with anyone in that business who is dutifully following federal law and not hiring those in the country illegally.”

CAFFEINE: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? A Common Stimulant Could Hold the Key to Preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Caffeine may help prevent SUID by reducing oxygen loss in infants, offering a new direction for research.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Ford’s Lastest Mustang Mach-E Recall Goes Global: Ford has instructed dealers to stop selling the EV until dangerous door locks are fixed.

WILL THE MILITARY ACADEMIES DUMP RACIAL PREFERENCES? They’ve been ordered to, so the fact that this is not an automatic “yes” should be pretty big worry.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: Electrification Takes the New 2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X Hyper ’Vette to 1,250 HP!

NATION EUTHANIZING ITSELF MAKES EUTHANASIA LEGAL: U.K. House of Commons Narrowly Passes Assisted-Suicide Legislation.

READER FAVORITE: Solareye Compressed Air Duster – 180000RPM Electric Air Duster. #CommissionEarned

OLD AND BUSTED: “A Chicken In Every Pot.”

The New Craziness Hotness? A fighter jet in every Israeli home!

BREAKING: Blueprint of a Fighter Jet being hid in an Israeli home

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/I53YMhP5OR

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) June 19, 2025

Wouldn’t the jet blast cause a terrible stain on the carpets when it took off?

(No word yet if there’s an Imperial Star Destroyer in the basement as well.)

A DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE WOULD FIX THIS: Gun Business: Indicators of Industry Unease Moving Toward Full-Blown Concern.

TYLER O’NEIL: SPLC Finally Clears Up ‘Major Misconception’ About Whether It Is ‘Anti-Christian.’

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which the FBI cited in its notorious memo on “radical traditional Catholics,” puts conservative Christian nonprofits on a “hate map” alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, claiming they are part of the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”

For years, the SPLC claimed it was a “major misconception” that the SPLC is anti-Christian.

“A major misconception—one that is deliberately promoted by anti-LGBT hate groups in order to accuse the SPLC of being ‘anti-Christian’—is that the SPLC considers opposition to same-sex marriage or the belief that homosexuality is a sin as the sole basis for the hate group label,” the SPLC claimed. “This is false. There are many organizations, such as Focus on the Family, that oppose same-sex marriage or oppose homosexuality on strictly biblical grounds that the SPLC does not list as hate groups.”

Yet this year, the SPLC added Focus on the Family to the “hate map,” branding it—you guessed it—an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.” Meanwhile, the language about the “major misconception” no longer appears on the SPLC website. No matter, I have it archived here (the 2017 version) and here (the 2020 version).

Thanks, SPLC. I’m glad to have that “major misconception” cleared up.

To be fair, the SPLC puts out a lot of major misconceptions.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Cleanup on Aisle 7, Seriously Big Cleanup. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn the difference between the men’s room and the canned foods aisle, how to avoid your angry wife with style, and why a tractor is not the best choice for a getaway vehicle.”

KEEP YOUR FOOD FRESH: Vacuum Sealer for Food. #CommissionEarned

BE PREPARED: Shell CEO: Contingency Plans Ready If Strait Of Hormuz Closure Triggers Energy Shock.

Shell Plc is preparing contingency plans in case the conflict between Israel and Iran broadens and disrupts oil and gas flows through the critical maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz.

On Thursday, CEO Wael Sawan told Bloomberg’s Shery Ahn at the Japan Energy Summit & Exhibition in Tokyo, “If that artery is blocked, for whatever reason, it has a huge impact on global trade,” adding, “We have plans in the eventuality that things deteriorate.”

The situation would have been much more fraught not so long ago, before fracking turned the US back into a net energy exporter.

JUDGE ORDERS COLUMBIA PROTESTER MAHMOUD KHALIL RELEASED ON BAIL. With all the people during the campus protests that committed actual crimes/offenses, it was always weird that the feds focused on Khalil, on whom they failed to pin a single crime in three months of detention.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: “‘Sex and the City’ actress Cynthia Nixon said her trans son, a biological female, is an ‘observant Jew’ who is currently on a hunger strike in Chicago to support Gaza, according to Newsweek.”

Are we sure he isn’t on a hunger strike to protest mom’s appalling taste in food? Flashback to 2018: Cynthia Nixon Orders Cinnamon Raisin Bagel With… Lox And Capers. “On Sunday, Cynthia Nixon became the latest aspiring [New York mayoral] office-holder to briefly lose her mind while attempting to eat on the campaign trail, when she ordered—in public and on purpose—a cinnamon raisin bagel with lox from Zabar’s on the Upper West Side. She didn’t stop there, but went on to request red onions, capers, tomato, and plain cream cheese to the mess. Again, this was on a *shudders* cinnamon raisin bagel.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Personalized cancer vaccines slow tumor recurrence in mouse models.

OH SURE, THEY CHANT “DEATH TO AMERICA,” BUT…: MSNBC Analyst, a Former Obama Official, Calls Iran ‘Most Western Nation’ in the Middle East.

MSNBC political analyst and former Obama administration official Rick Stengel questioned why the United States is aligned with Israel rather than Iran, which he called “the most Western nation” in the Middle East. Though Iranians chant “death to America,” Stengel said, they also “love American movies.”

“Why is it a foundation issue for Trump that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon?” Stengel, who served as an undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs under former president Barack Obama, asked during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC. “Why are we allied with Israel?”

When pressed on Iranians’ “death to America” chants, Stengel recalled a 2014 trip to the country. “I was sitting … at a rally,” he said. “These young guys were chanting ‘death to America.’ … They finished the chants. And two young men came over and said, ‘Are you American?’ I said yes, [and they said,] ‘We want to welcome you to our country. We love American culture. We love American movies.'”

The 1963 comedy album, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks at the Canne Film Festival kicked off thusly (audio available at the Wayback Machine):

CARL REINER: Ladies and gentlemen, we are at the Cannes [pronouncing it “Can”] Film Festival here in Lower Italy. And we are going to meet some of the producers, directors, and stars of the films that are being exhibited here for the annual competition.

First, I’d like you to meet the German representative from Nartsi? Narsi? Narzi? From the Narzi Film Company! Herr Adolf Hartler. Good afternoon, Herr Hartler.

MEL BROOKS: Heil Hartler! How are you?

REINER: Now, this is a strange name. It’s Narzi Films.

BROOKS: Yes, we… well, we… well…

REINER: That doesn’t have anything to do with Nazi, does it?

BROOKS: No, are you kidding? They are our worst enemies. We are against them. We always were! Are you kidding?

* * * * * * * *

REINER: Sir, sir, you’re wearing your bathing suit, I noticed.

BROOKS: Yes, yes.

REINER: And as you scratched your head, I noticed a little “SS” tattooed under your arm. What does that mean?

BROOKS: Oh, oh, oh, well, wait! That’s the Simon Says!  Umm, umm, Simon Says, We played that on the beach. I’m the captain of the Simon Says team! And that’s where we get SS from! I’m serious about the game, I love it, and so I had myself tattooed, “Simon Says!”

REINER: How did you feel about the motion picture, Stanley Kramer’s motion picture, Judgment at Nuremberg?

BROOKS Unfair!

REINER: Why did you consider it unfair?

BROOKS: Well, because he didn’t tell the whole truth. What was the picture about? Really about a misunderstanding, really, wasn’t it? I mean, look, you have, you send people to camp, don’t you, in the summer? We sent a few people to camp. I don’t know what the whole fuss is about! Sent some nice people to camp…mostly in the summer!

I’m pretty sure Brooks and Reiner thought they were recording a comedy album, not a how-to guide for “Progressive” diplomacy with the Middle East.

#METOO: I’m Sick and Tired of the ‘America Sucks’ Conservatives!

REPLICATION PROBLEMS? Inaccuracies found in key studies for blockbuster heart drug ticagrelor.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese sats appear to be attempting first-ever on-orbit refueling, sat tracking firms say.

A Chinese satellite designed for refueling missions has been dancing awfully close to another Chinese bird in orbit, raising the possibility Beijing is about to pull off — or already has pulled off — the first-ever on-orbit gas-up, according to satellite tracking firms.

Last week Slingshot Aerospace watched China’s experimental SJ-25, which Beijing launched in January and has said publicly said was meant for refueling missions, approach another satellite, SJ-21. But the view from terrestrial telescopes wasn’t able to confirm docking, much less refueling, so Slingshot concluded the data was “inconclusive” as to what exactly happened.

“If docking did occur, then the duration of that event would be no more than three hours,” a Slingshot spokesperson told Breaking Defense of the June 13 event.
…
A successful space refueling between satellites, known in US Space Force parlance as a space mobility operation, would be “definitely a big deal,” according to Victoria Samson, Secure World Foundation’s chief director of Space Security and Stability.

Indeed.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Let US Bombs Destroy Iran’s Fordow Uranium Plant — Not Israeli Nukes.

I wrote this column Tuesday night. It’s drawn some heated but interesting reactions. Here’s the lede:

The Israel-Iran War Over Nuclear Weapons could end with a nuclear blast. Why have a reluctant Washington send two American B-2 stealth bombers each dropping a 30,000-pound (15-ton) Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) conventional bomb destroy Iran’s buried Fordow uranium enrichment facility?

Israel has nuclear weapons, everyone knows that. One well-placed Israeli nuke — say, 5 kilotons? — could penetrate and shatter Fordow, and, with a seismic shudder and internal structural collapse, end the ayatollah dictatorship’s 35-year pursuit of nuclear munitions.

Is this a plausible scenario?

A plausible military scenario requires the technical capability to execute the central mission. Israel has the nuclear capability and the delivery systems (likely aircraft). The U.S. has the conventional weapon capability and delivery system (B-2). Israel has also achieved air superiority over Iran — combat aircraft can fly almost anywhere.

War, however, is politics using violence. That’s what Carl von Clausewitz thought. The usual interpretation: Political goals should direct and restrain violent capabilities.

Oh, but those human beings who just know they are on a glorious mission of conquest, and maybe God or the gods or history or Karl Marx is on their side!

Ayatollah Iran exemplifies this Divine Conqueror delusion. Iran calls little Israel a “one bomb state.” The Tehran quip states a goal, one with violent direction. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, the Islamic revolutionary regime’s destructive record of war, terror and crimes against humanity tells sane humans an unrestrained megalomaniacal ayatollah would target Tel Aviv for nuclear immolation.

Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons — not yet. If they had one, it would have been used in the last five days.

However, as long as Fordow exists, the ayatollahs can continue to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, and, when this fracas ends, begin a new nuclear weapons quest.

A little later:

The fact Israel hasn’t nuked Fordow is a definitive statement about Israeli national values, current intentions and positive future goals. Put simply, Israel stands with Earth’s constructive nations. Enrich your wallets, not your nuclear weapons. Let’s make a deal.

Hope you’ll read the wholte thing.

ACTIONS MEET CONSEQUENCES: