MY OBSERVATION IS THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF WOMEN OUT THERE DRINKING LIKE MEN: More older women are drinking hard. “The difference was striking: Among men, the average prevalence of binge drinking remained stable from 1997 to 2014, while it increased an average of nearly 4 percent per year among women, the researchers found.”

KURT SCHLICHTER: Nuke ‘Em ‘Til They Glow. “The Democrats must learn through pain, specifically the agony of watching Neil Gorsuch take the seat that they stompy-feet insist belongs to Merrick Garland. For too long, they’ve packed the bench with liberal partisans committed to exercising raw power as an end-run around democracy and the Constitution. Well, if raw power is the rule, then they need to choke on it. And we should laugh at their pain even as we amplify it via the Nuclear Option.”

I believe you mean the “Reid Option.”

MONEY WELL SPENT? It Took Three People Two Months to Create Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Logo.

CONRAD BLACK: Could Donald Trump Seize The U.S. Political Center? Stranger Things Happened.

In the climate created by the nastiest campaign in recent history, and one in which the honesty of the press was a legitimate issue, followed by the greatest electoral upset at least since 1948, coalitions will have to be assembled gradually and from different pieces, issue by issue. Most of us who do not know the congressional personalities had no alternative but to assume and hope that Speaker Ryan and the president’s congressional liaison and the able Health and Human Services secretary, former congressman Tom Price, could count the noses correctly in putting their bill together, to get it to the Senate, where the greater contest was expected. Our confidence was misplaced.

There must be a consensus, even within the Capitol, that the United States simply has to get its system working and become governable again. Everyone there knows that the Republicans won and that the Clinton, Obama, and Bush eminences were rejected amid widespread public discontent with decades of misgovernment.

The argument in democratic politics is always whether the center is a position of strength or weakness, and that depends on whether it can push the Right and Left off to the shoulders, which in these circumstances means crowding over 40% of last year’s primary voters off to the sides, unless large numbers can be induced to succumb to the grace of conversion. Donald Trump is not everyone’s idea of a centrist, but in this crowded scene, he is the only prominent candidate for that honor that we have.

Black’s thesis has been somewhat obviated by events, such as the President railing against the House Freedom Caucus this morning, about whom Black said “Trump will need the Freedom Caucus and can tailor some projects to attract their support.” But there is a broad center to be won, provided Trump can rein in his instinct to fight everyone all at once.

INSPECTOR OBAMA AND THE RED PANTHER: His bumbling, grasping, leaking aides are responsible for the Russian fiasco.

SPYING: House Intel Dem invited to view documents at White House.

DAVID HARSANYI: Why ‘Fight Club’ Still Matters.

Rereading “Fight Club” might have made me feel older, but its satire and prose still stand out in a culture teeming with phony edginess. Perhaps it’s just sentimentality about the ’90s, but so much of today’s output seems an exercise in back patting. “Mr. Robot” or “Girls” — or, well, any other supposedly socially conscientious film, show, or novel that pops into my head while writing this — are preachy exercises that bolster notions already fully embraced by its audience. No one is challenged, because being challenged means being offended.

Not long ago, I ran across an article in which Palahniuk took credit for the use of the term “snowflake,” a moniker some people on Right use to insult the easily outraged on the Left. The line in the book is: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.”

“There is a kind of new Victorianism,” Palahniuk told the interviewer. “Every generation gets offended by different things, but my friends who teach in high school tell me that their students are very easily offended.” Palahniuk went on to say that the “modern Left is always reacting to things. Once they get their show on the road culturally they will stop being so offended.”

Read the whole thing.

It doesn’t feel like Fight Club could get written or published today, or if it did that it would find an audience of 20-somethings, such as these campus snowflakes demanding that “We Don’t Want Our Professors to Be People Who Voted for Donald Trump.”

REVIEW: 2017 Audi S6.

SARAH HOYT: When Reality Kicks Back.

TWICE-POISONED RUSSIAN DISSIDENT: ‘Clash of Generations’ Driving ‘Turning Point’ Against Putin.

At an Atlantic Council event today with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), [Vladimir] Kara-Murza said doctors gave him about a 5 percent chance of recovery. “I look better than I feel,” he noted, adding doctors warned him of another poisoning that “if you have a third time, that’ll be the last one.”

He is determined to return to Russia after his rehabilitation and full recovery. “I do want to go back and I will go back… our work is important,” Kara-Murza said. “…There’s nothing more the Kremlin would like than for us to give up and we’re not going to give them that.”

Kara-Murza emphasized that the “vast majority of those who came out to the streets of Russia last Sunday were young people… these are the Putin generation who have never known any other political reality.”

This new generation, he said, are getting information from sources other than just state TV and “increasingly recognize” that the Kremlin is damaging their future.

“I have to admit I was surprised about the scale… but I was not surprised about the participation,” he added.

Putin is even more brazen than the Soviet leaders of old, but it remains to be seen if he can be just as ruthless at suppressing his own people.

PHOTO GALLERY: 747 In-Flight Lounges of the Past.

HEALTH: Lonely People Report More Severe Cold Symptoms, Study Finds.

SALES ARE RED HOT: Samsung Galaxy S8 hands-on: Samsung produces a stunning redesign.

OH: China says ‘no such thing’ as man-made islands in South China Sea.

China, which claims most of the resource-rich region, has carried out land reclamation and construction on several islands in the Spratly archipelago, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The building has included airports, harbors and other facilities, involving in some cases the dumping of massive amounts of sand to build up land on what were reefs or structures that may only have been exposed at low tide.

But ministry spokesman Wu Qian implied that was perhaps a misunderstanding, though he said there was construction work which China had every right to do as the Spratlys were inherent Chinese territory.

Who you gonna believe — a Communist spokesman or your own lyin’ eyes?

THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP:

If you’ve missed the latest progressive uproar because you’ve been avoiding WaPo (which I’m paid to read for you) and/or Twitter (which sucks), Tyler O’Neil has you covered.

What is Mike Pence’s alleged “medieval vision?” As Parker reported, “In 2002, Mike Pence told the Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.”

Perhaps, following the major scandal of President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Pence decided to avoid any appearance of impropriety or infidelity, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Mike Pence had served in Congress for years, and had major political ambitions. He did end up becoming governor of Indiana and vice president to boot.

Pence and his wife (not to mention his campaign manager or chief of staff) may have set ground rules to make certain no enterprising photographer could snap a picture intended as blackmail later on — or a juicy story on a left-wing website. Stranger things have happened.

But Social Justice Warriors on Twitter had a different interpretation — Pence’s personal self-limitations are … the right-wing version of Sharia law!

Xeni Jardin, who I’ve enjoyed reading on occasion in the past, doesn’t come off well in this piece.

Read the whole thing.

SHARKNADO: “Don’t go into the flood water”: Huge man-eating shark found on road as Australia is battered by Cyclone Debbie.

SPACE: Peek inside Blue Origin’s capsule for space tourists. Including “the largest windows ever in space.”

BREAKING: Ryan Says ‘About 90 Percent’ of House GOPs Now Agree on Healthcare Bill.

FACEPALM: Wellesley Faculty Says Free Speech Infringes on Liberty.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Why was that Russian billionaire in Charlotte? He was looking in on his investment.

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev’s luxury jet generated global intrigue when it landed in the swing state of North Carolina days before the election and at nearly the same time as candidate Donald Trump.

Asked why Rybolovlev’s Airbus 319 flew in at least twice to Charlotte, his spokesman would say only for “a business meeting.” And now it’s clear: Spokesman Brian Cattell confirmed Tuesday the Russian oligarch’s family trust has invested in a billion-dollar company in Concord, North Carolina, called Alevo.

I had been assured that Russia’s major investment was in President Trump.

USEFUL INFORMATION: Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival.

SPACE: Giant Waves That Drive Weather on Earth Have Just Been Found Rippling Across Our Sun. “The discovery could explain why solar activity such as solar storms and flares are so hard for us to predict – something that could become an issue in future if a powerful solar flare is directed straight at Earth.”

FASTER, PLEASE: How 3D Printing Could Bend the Cost Curve in Healthcare.

It won’t be long now before “3-D printing, is there anything it can’t do?” becomes your favorite new Instapundit meme.

CHANGE: Trump Spurns Bipartisanship, Vows to ‘Fight’ Fellow Republicans in 2018.

President Donald Trump vowed to fight against Democrats and members of his own party in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

In a tweet on Thursday morning, the president departed from past platitudes about party unity and bipartisan outreach and instead retreated to his own corner, ready for battle.

Asked if this tweet meant the president was advocating for primary challenges to members of his own party’s House Freedom Caucus, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told NBC News “the tweet speaks for itself.”

Repeal is dead, or at least dying, and it wasn’t the House Freedom Caucus that killed it.

SHE BLINDED ME WITH PSEUDOSCIENCE: J Scott Armstrong: Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method. “Fewer than 1 percent of papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method, according to research by Wharton School professor and forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong. . . . ‘People just don’t do it.'”