21ST CENTURY QUESTIONS: Calculating what it would take to park a solar sail at Alpha Centauri.

MATTIS A HIT IN JAPAN: South Korea, too.

YEAH, HE’LL NEVER BECOME PRESIDENT UNLESS HE REALLY TONES DOWN HIS LANGUAGE: WashPost Writer: Trump/GOP Will Be ‘in Trouble’ for Saying ‘Illegals.’

Related: My Family Had To Follow Immigration Law. Why Shouldn’t Refugees?

IN THE AGE OF TRUMP, EVEN MY OWN MILD-MANNERED CONGRESSMAN IS GETTING FEISTY: Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. Rejects Town Hall Meeting, Citing “Kooks, Extremists And Radicals.” “He also said some of those opposed to the agenda of President Donald Trump are ‘sore losers.'” He also knows that they’re a minority in his district, which went heavily for Trump.

WELL, IT’S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOOD BLASTER AT YOUR SIDE: This Micro Machine Gun Slingshot Is Adorably Fearsome.

NOT-SO-LONE WOLVES: ISIS using encrypted communication to remote-control attacks on the west.

OUT: BLACK KIDS BEATEN BY DEMOCRATS FOR BEING “UPPITY.”

In: White kids beaten by Democrats for being “Trumppity.” “As a parent, it’s so upsetting. . . . I feel like my son was made an example of, it was a tricky situation, it was politically charged.”

CAROLINE GLICK: Trump’s Way Of Winning The War. “While Trump occasionally pays lip service to making peace in the Middle East, his real goal is to win the war against jihadist Islam. And he rightly views Israel as a woefully underutilized strategic ally that shares his goal and is well-placed to help him achieve it.”

ANDREW KLAVAN REPORTS BACK FROM THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST:

It was clear that Trump was out of place at the gathering, that he simply does not have the language and behavior of Christian spirituality in him, even to use (as so many pols do) as a cover for hypocrisy. I suspect President Trump does not see himself as a moral leader, but more as something like our top mechanic. “I fix things — that’s what I do,” he told the crowd.

Ah well. I guess that means, if we are going to recover the Biblical bedrock of our nation’s values, the people are going to have to do the work themselves.

Not to sound optimistic, but that may not be such a bad thing.

Read the whole thing.

BUDWEISER’S PRO-IMMIGRANT SUPER BOWL AD IS ‘MOSTLY FICTION,’ ANHEUSER-BUSCH EXPERT SAYS: “‘Adolphus Busch did not arrive poor and struggling,’ author says.”

No word yet if Busch drove an Audi when he arrived in the States, however…

IF ONLY THEY FOUGHT OUR ENEMIES THIS HARD: The State Department Goes to War on Donald Trump. “Arguing with the president about the nation’s philosophy is not a good use of their time: if they fundamentally disagree with the president’s principles, and they wish to condemn them rather than persuade him, they should resign and go to work for somebody’s campaign. This dissent memorandum is most notable not for its number of signatures but for its almost totally disingenuous character: by ideologically framing it the way they did, the drafters guaranteed that Trump would disregard the material points about the executive order’s deficiencies. Like the activists in the streets, these diplomats are merely protesting Trump, not trying to change his policies.”

THE NINTH CIRCUS STRIKES AGAIN: Appeals Court Denies DoJ Request to Reinstate Visa Ban.

IS IT TIME TO Tame IRS Imperialism?

MEGAN MCARDLE ON THE SUPREME COURT: Liberals Will Not Like How This Revenge Plot Ends:

I thought Republicans should have confirmed Garland, and I’ve written before that the arms race to procedurally hack the U.S. government — via controlling the Supreme Court, or dreaming up ever-more-arcane uses of the parliamentary rules — is bad for the country and needs to stop. That doesn’t mean I think it’s going to. The escalating tit-for-tat game over the Supreme Court has been going on at least since the 1980s, and arguably long before that, in the post-New-Deal era when courts began tilting noticeably leftwards. Under Reagan, conservatives sought to reverse that by grooming conservative justices for all levels of the courts. Democrats tried to keep them from doing so, culminating in the disgraceful treatment of Robert Bork. Ever since, we’ve been locked in a spiraling cycle of payback.

Everyone understands that this is destructive; everyone wishes it to stop. The catch is, they also believe that it needs to stop after they themselves get last licks in. And so it continues.

Thus I was unsurprised when Democrats began talking about a filibuster before they even knew who the nominee was. . . .

So I’m struggling to see what the point of this is, other than revenge. I do see why people want revenge. And revenge can play a useful role in politics, policing the worst excesses of the other side.

But there’s a reason that they say revenge is a dish best served cold. People who seek vengeance without stopping to count the potential costs to themselves often end up hurting their own side worse than the enemy. Democrats are already in an electorally vulnerable position, and facing a president who uniquely terrifies them. That’s probably a good time to stop, take a careful assessment of their tactical position, and imagine what battles they might need to hoard their ammunition for. Instead, they seem prepared to storm the barricades with all guns blazing. Unfortunately, the American system of justice, and perhaps even the Democrats themselves, are the ones most likely to be wounded by the engagement.

Ask yourself who has more to gain, or lose, from the discrediting of the Supreme Court, and you’ll know the answer to who has more to gain or lose from this fight.

NOT SILENCED, JUST GIVEN A BIGGER AUDIENCE: Milo Yiannopoulos will return to Berkeley to give his speech.

And did I mention his forthcoming book, Dangerous, has been #1 on Amazon all week?

UPDATE: From the comments: “Trump should offer him a National Guard escort. And publicly compare it to the Little Rock Nine.” This is America. Despite the Black Bloc fascists standing in the Berkeley schoolhouse door, a proud gay man will be allowed inside!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Also from the comments.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. MSNBC’S Morning Joe: You Know, Democrats Haven’t Really Moved Beyond 2006. Actually, I think they haven’t really moved beyond 2000. Al Gore’s withdrawn concession in that race opened up a psychic wound that has never really healed.

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FAKE NEWS: Errors From The Press Are Piling Up In The Opening Weeks Of The Trump Administration. “Journalists can’t seem to get their stories straight in the opening weeks of the Trump administration, whether in tweets or in articles where falsehoods have been spread almost daily. The mistakes have not just been from newer liberal news outlets such The Huffington Post or BuzzFeed, but from legacy media like Reuters, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.”

FAKE NEWS: Google Redefines The Word ‘Fascism’ To Smear Conservatives, Protect Liberal Rioters.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Left Wingism Overtakes ‘March for Science.’

If science properly understood ever becomes conflated in the public mind with left wingism, it will profoundly harm that crucial sector and thence, the human future. Science is already too politicized with policy or ethical debates wrongly called questions about whether one side or the other is “anti-science.” I suspect that if we dig deep enough, we would find George Soros money paying for all of this. Be that as it may, no reputable scientist should march in the March for Science.

No one who talks about “intersectionality” has any claim to intellectual respectability.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Romney: Trump has gotten off to a ‘strong start.’

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is praising President Trump’s “strong start,” citing his early push to fulfill various campaign pledges.

“We’re all watching with interest. He’s obviously gotten off to a very strong start in terms of making a series of executive orders and making the changes that he promised during the campaign,” Romney told the Deseret News on Friday.

The 2012 GOP presidential nominee acknowledged that Trump has faced “some bumps in the road.”

Trump has issued a series of executive orders, but has faced huge backlash over his Jan. 27 order denying entry to nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The executive order sparked a flurry of lawsuits challenging the ban’s constitutionality and was temporarily stopped nationwide by a Bush-appointed federal judge on Friday.

Romney, a prominent critic of Trump during the 2016 campaign who was briefly considered for the position of secretary of State in Trump’s administration, expressed optimism over Trump’s presidency.

“I expressed honestly what my belief was with regards to temperament and character. Now the time has come for us to recognize we have a new president and we have hopes he will be successful leading our country,” Romney said.

Trump has exceeded my expectations and, apparently, Romney’s.

UPDATE: Jack Welch’s, too:

Retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch says his two-hour White House meeting with President Trump and other business executives “far exceeded my expectations” and covered issues ranging from immigration to financial regulations to women in the workplace.

“I’m telling you it was one of the best meetings I’ve ever been to in my life in terms of real stuff, real issues being discussed,” Welch told the Herald by phone last night. “No phony baloney. Nothing like that.”

Welch said he has met with nearly every president since 1981, and found Trump surprisingly well-versed on topics, engaged and genuinely focused on the task of creating jobs.

“Real guy and really concerned about every worker in the country,” said Welch. “Solid, down-to-earth, on top of the issues. The guys at the GE plant in Lynn would love him.”

Yep. But will they vote Republican in 2018?

OUR EFFORTS TO DATE HAVE FAILED. WE MUST REDOUBLE OUR EFFORTS! “How protesters plan to get under Trump’s skin wherever he goes.”

Plus:

By the way, wasn’t that Hillary Clinton’s plan for the debates — “get under Trump’s skin”? Wasn’t there an old idea way back then that Trump was “thin-skinned”* and could be defeated by getting under his skin? He’d self-destruct? That’s how I’ve packaged my memories of how everybody who tried/failed to keep Trump from winning.

Yeah, that worked out. Lesson: Trump’s thin-skinned when he wants to be, not when you want him to be.

THE EASTER BUNNY WILL NEVER LOOK THE SAME AGAIN: Medieval attack of giant, killer rabbits.