THIS IS GONNA HARSH SOME NARRATIVES: Black Panther’s Home Country Is ‘Practically Alt-Right Africa,’ Reviewer Says.

WASHINGTON POST: No, there haven’t been 18 school shootings in 2018. That number is flat wrong.

STINKING TO HIGH HEAVEN (CONT’D): Mueller’s ‘Pit Bull’ Andrew Weissmann Busted for Withholding Evidence in Previous Case.

ADVANTAGE: VODKAPUNDIT.

● Shot:

McDonald’s is almost certainly doomed. Or at the very least, [Steve] Easterbrook is the wrong guy to head up the burger chain — any burger chain, for that matter.

To understand why I’ve come to this conclusion, read the very next line from the story:

Easterbrook plans to unveil his plan for turning McDonald’s into a “modern, progressive burger company” on May 4.

Now maybe I should withhold judgement until I see this plan next week. Maybe a bold headline like “McDonald’s Is Doomed” is just the kind of baseless clickbait fear-mongering I try to resist indulging in.

But a progressive burger company? Really?

* * * * * *

This shouldn’t be rocket math. Progressivism has come to mean top-down, pre-engineered, overpriced, “we know what’s best for you,” nannystatism — which is not what I consider to be a fun meal with the kids.

A fun meal with the kids is decent, fast, inexpensive dining on American food. There’s nothing “progressive” about it. And any attempt to force that square peg into the round hole of our hungry mouths is doomed to failure.

—Steve Green, “McDonald’s Is Doomed,” PJ Media, April 23, 2015.

● Chaser: McDonald’s slims down Happy Meal by banishing cheeseburgers.

—Headline, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, today.

DOUBLING DOWN: New drone ship under construction for SpaceX rocket landings.

The third drone ship in the company’s fleet of ocean-going rocket recovery vessels is under construction, Musk said. He wrote on Twitter that it will be named “A Shortfall Of Gravitas.”

The name of the new landing platform is a nod to “Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall,” a starship featured in the “Culture” science fiction novel series by the late Scottish author Iain M. Banks.

SpaceX’s two other drone ships are also named for sentient, planet-sized ships in Banks’ novels: “Just Read the Instructions” currently based at the Port of Los Angeles for launches out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned at Port Canaveral for SpaceX missions from Florida.

Musk wrote that “A Shortfall of Gravitas” will be stationed in Florida to support high flight rates of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, and allow for dual ocean landings of the two side boosters carried on the Falcon Heavy rocket.

Happy landings…

STILL EASIER TO UNDERSTAND THAN A ROTARY: How Mazda’s Engine Of The Future Works.

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Products.

Plus, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

TAKE OFF AND NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT: In Wake Of Corruption Trials, Maryland Ponders Disbanding Baltimore Police Department.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Guy Spends Almost A Year Gluing 42,000 Matches To Make A Giant Sphere, Sets It On Fire.

There’s video at the link, and as the fire consumes more and more of the sphere, it begins to look more and more like the Eye of Sauron.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The U.S. Navy Is Funding Four Different Kinds of Laser Weapons.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT BORDER CONTROLS WERE RACIST: Colombia tightens borders as Venezuela crisis worsens.

SCOTT GREER: Lefty Journalists: Free Speech For Me But Not For Thee.

Just last week, many of the same leftists crusading against Norton and Weiss were defending Deadspin contributor Jesse Farrar over his offensive humor. In a tweet, Farrar joked he wanted to drown conservative students. When Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk remarked that the dark tweet was probably a joke, the leftist writer insisted, “I am not joking.”

That was all a part of his particular humor, but it’s understandable why a few did not think it was a joke. He did flat-out say “I’m not joking,” which demands everyone understand his unique sense of humor to know he’s not.

Conservative outlet IJR reached out to Deadspin for comment on the matter. Deadspin deputy editor Barry Petchesky replied that he couldn’t argue against drowning conservative students. “And while I would not personally advocate the method mentioned in Farrar’s obvious joke Tweet you seem to be using to try to snitch on him to his employers, I can’t argue that it wouldn’t make the world a better place,” Petchesky told IJR.

Man is that funny.

Farrar’s leftist defenders believe that everyone should understand his humor and it’s a serious outrage to report his jokes to his employers, forgetting that they do this all the time to their political opponents.

What fun is free speech when even un-credentialed proles can use it?

COLONIZATION: Brian Wang: We can build a great near term future in space.

TYLER O’NEIL: Dem. Repeats Discredited SPLC ‘Hate Group’ Smears 5 Times to Defend Planned Parenthood.

PUT. THE TACO. DOWN: DACA, Taco Tuesday, and the lessons of “Glengarry, Glen Ross.”

It’s Michael Walsh, so read the whole thing.

BECAUSE GIVING PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED DOESN’T BUY VOTES LIKE GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT: Why does replacing food stamps with food so anger liberals?

ALL-AMERICAN DECOY: Slang for a guard posted in the open. (For more, see Embrace the Suck.)

SCIENCE: Biologist Gets a Fake Star Trek Paper Accepted by 4 Dodgy Science Journals. “A new study published – yes, published – in an ‘American’ science journal (and accepted by three others) details how an experimental attempt to cross the transwarp barrier and achieve Warp 10 can have devastating and unforeseen consequences on human physiology. Wait… what? Okay, if you’ve gotten the sense that something might be amiss with this purported science experiment, congratulations: you’re already doing better than the editors of the American Research Journal of Biosciences. They just published this hokum without realising the ‘research’ is actually a thinly disguised storyline of Star Trek: Voyager, Episode 31, ‘Threshold’.”

To be fair, who actually watched Voyager?

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Happy Valentine’s Day To My “Person.”

NICE: Cisco to Repatriate $67 Billion Under New Tax Law.

I seem to recall being told seven or eight years ago by some very smart people that “business climate” was a myth and didn’t matter.

JOE PAPPALARDO: The Very Real History of Death Stars: Nazis, Soviets, and the U.S. all thought an orbiting killer satellite might not be such a bad idea.

MICHAEL VAN DER GALIEN: Trump’s Spending Cuts ‘Are Totally Imaginary.’ “Overnight, they’ve become the biggest spenders in American history. And they’re proud of it.”

TO BE FAIR, IT’S MEANT TO BE: Steven Pinker: Identity Politics Is ‘An Enemy of Reason and Enlightenment Values.’