KURT SCHLICHTER: Apocalypse Ruth.

I am of the contingent that looks at the odds and figures that her tenure is drawing to a close. I could be wrong. So could the many connected and informed people who have passed on to me the rumors that her condition is much worse than is being let on. Remember that an ailing Justice Rehnquist assured us in a statement that he intended on returning to the Court soon, and that seven weeks later he was being buried. Our hopes and prayers for her health aside – and many conservatives are offering them even as they would love her to retire – my money is still on a 2019 fight to replace her.

The Notorious RBG fans are not going to react well.

Read the whole thing.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! Self-Defense Against a Knife: Tips & Tactics From an Expert.

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Plus, deals on Outdoor Heating.

BRUCE BAWER: A Trump of One’s Own. “The fact is that while the Western European political class and its allies love to sneer at Donald Trump, millions of ordinary citizens across the continent wish dearly that they had a Trump of their own. Only last week, for example, a caller to Nigel Farage’s radio show in Britain expressed the desire that Trump, and not Theresa May, had negotiated Britain’s exit deal with the EU. Farage shared her sentiments. Then there’s the up-and-coming Dutch political leader Lennard van Mil, known in his country as a ‘gayservative’ (short for ‘gay conservative’), who can be seen in many photographs online wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ cap.”

Read the whole thing.

THE INSTAWIFE ON THE MARIE KONDO CRAZE: Could You live With Just 30 Books?

I got rid of, literally, thousands when we moved several years ago, but I still probably have over a thousand.

173RD AIRBORNE BRIGADE ASSAULTS THE ALPS: A cold weather training exercise with the Italian Army’s Alpine Brigade Julia. Look at the equipment load. Sometimes light infantry doesn’t feel light — if you’re the light infantryman.

OBSESSED ABC FRETS OVER MORALITY OF PERFORMING AT SUPER BOWL:

ABC is still obsessed with potential boycotts at the Super Bowl and the treatment of Colin Kaepernick. The day after the NFL officially announced that Maroon 5 and others would be performing, Good Morning America offered a full report, hyping opposition by liberal actress Amy Schumer. In contrast, CBS allowed just 30 seconds on the topic and NBC focused simply on this past weekend’s results.

GMA reporter Janai Norman began, “Headlining the Super Bowl was thought to be a huge honor. But it’s been a tough spot to fill. Many artists distancing themselves from the big show in support of Colin Kaepernick and other players taking a knee to protest racial injustice.”

She underlined, “Maroon 5 had been the unofficial pick for months, but reportedly struggled to find guest performers partly due to backlash over the NFL’s handling of Colin Kaepernick and players’ right to protest.”

Norman reminded that far-left actress Schumer “[called] out Maroon 5 in an Instagram post saying, ‘I think it would be cool if Maroon 5 backed out of Super Bowl. Stand up for your brothers and sisters of color.’”

This is bordering on obsession for ABC.

But it has its limits: Norman isn’t chiding her bosses at Disney for continuing to air Monday Night Football on sister network ESPN in 2018, if she wanted to go all-in for her advocacy of America’s wokest former QB.

WAPO: Palm Beach used to be a nice town for billionaires. Then Trump came along.

Hand it to the Washington Post: They know how to play to their Progressive base.

COMPARE THIS TO THE EARLIER POST ON VITAMIN D AND SUN: Daily vitamin D could be a lifesaver for some COPD patients. “Taking vitamin D supplements was associated with a 45 percent reduction in lung attacks among patients who were deficient in vitamin D, but there was no reduction among patients with higher vitamin D levels, the investigators found.”

ANALYSIS: SAD BUT TRUE. Black lives matter, until they’re ended by black people.

It’s clear why the narrative around Jazmine’s murder should attract so much furor. The life of a black child being taken by a racist in a post-Charleston, post-Pittsburgh America should anger us. Yet it’s less clear why this furor should suddenly desist upon the revelation that the suspected killer is not white, but black. Black lives do matter — but the backlog of ignored tragedies in Houston similar to Jazmine’s case suggests that attention given to black lives by some within the activist movement is more selective than it seems.

In February 2017, eight-year-old De’Maree Adkins was killed by bullets that struck her while she slept in the backseat of her mother’s car. In June 2017, Messiah Marshall, a 10-month-old baby, died in his father’s arms after being shot outside his family’s apartment complex. The next month, 14-year-old O’Cyrus Breaux was shot and killed at his own birthday party. Within days, he was joined by 14-year-old Jaquan Neal. Then in January 2018, 16-year-old Stephen Verdell Jr. was shot and killed after leaving the Victory Prep Academy. In March, eight-year-old Tristian Hutchins became the victim of a drive by shooting while sitting in a car with his sister. She survived with a bullet injury in the leg, but Tristian died after a month-long battle at Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Though all similar to Jasmine’s case and in proximity to one another, these murders garnered a different response — if there was a response at all. National media didn’t provide blanket coverage. They were never mentioned by Mr King. Their names didn’t trend on Twitter. Activists didn’t crowdsource investigations. And their families didn’t receive any donations from celebrities. Why don’t these black children matter to ‘racial justice’ activists? Because without exception, their killers are also known or believed to be black.

This is the cruelest, most negligent form of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

AT AMAZON, Lightning Deals Galore.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Tech Giants Don’t Deserve Our Trust. “It’s easy to imagine the Cambridge Analytics scandal or any other major data leak as the result of some aberrant behavior. That one company or another has harvested your data or left it unsecured because that company is specifically and particularly greedy, incompetent, or careless. It’s a belief structure that leads to Facebook and company acknowledging that they ‘didn’t do enough’ and promising to be more vigilant next time, as if that will solve the problem. But the frequency and diversity of these stories reveals a deeper problem: that spying and security leaks are the natural outcome of the industry as it exists.”

PETER JACKSON’S RESTORED WWI FOOTAGE UNDERSCORES THE FLACCIDITY OF TODAY’S CULTURE: Can any culture raise ‘rough men’ ready to defend it against a ruthless enemy when it cannot even fix in the minds of its developing youth what their sex is?

In the span of 100 years, Britain has gone from producing men who were so eager to fight and die for their country that 16-year-olds lied about their age to enlist when the minimum age was 19, to teaching primary school boys that they can have periods just like girls and offering feminine hygiene products in boys’ bathrooms. This phenomenon isn’t unique to the U.K. U.S. colleges, like the University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, and Brown University offer menstrual products in their men’s rooms, in the name of “menstrual equity” and as a sop to a miniscule “transgender” population.

Can any culture—British, American or any other—raise “rough men” ready to defend it against a ruthless enemy when it cannot even fix in the minds of its developing youth what their sex is? What would Winston say?

I don’t think he’d be very happy with Gillette’s latest virtue signaling to the woke few (which, needless to say, is a very different group than Churchill’s “Few”) rather than the masses of men who buy their products:

UPDATE: As always, A+ trolling by Titania McGrath:

(Bumped. Found via Maggie’s Farm, which as always, is loaded with additional links for your reading pleasure.)

JUSTICE: Cesare Battisti, Italy’s Most Notorious Communist Fugitive, Captured in Disguise. “Left-wing Italian militant Cesare Battisti wanted for four murders in Italy three decades ago was caught after escaping Brazil’s new far-right leader.“

You would think a story about the capture of someone wanted for four murders wouldn’t need to include a scare mention of Brazil’s “far-right leader,” but Battisti is a Communist and this is The Daily Beast.

WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTI-SEMITISM? Women’s March Organizer Tamika Mallory Defends Calling Louis Farrakhan ‘the Greatest of All Time’ (video).

TONI AIRAKSINEN: More Than 30 UT Students Doxxed for Crime of Being Conservative. “Students targeted for ‘liking’ Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza on Facebook.”

IT’S HARD NOT TO BE SUSPICIOUS THAT THERE WAS SOME DEGREE OF TARGETING GOING ON, GIVEN THAT HE’S A GUY THAT ALL OF LAW ENFORCEMENT HATES: “Ghost guns,” underage sex, and the First Amendment: Defense Distributed’s legal saga.

HAPPY 15TH BLOGGIVERSARY TO ANN ALTHOUSE.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Bernie Sanders staffs up for 2020.

I hope Bernie’s 2020 campaign will be a safer space for women than 2016 or 1972.

I LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT: Sitting For Too Long Could Increase Your Risk of Dying – Even if You Exercise.

I’ve found that my smart watch’s hourly nag to get up and move around for 60 seconds tends to get me away from my desk and doing something for much longer — most hours, anyway. I couldn’t tell you if that’s doing any direct good for my health, but it does wonders for my mood.

I’M NOT MUCH OF A BLOODY MARY DRINKER, but my dad used to make them with Spicy Hot V8 and celery salt and those were delicious. Everyone Agrees: Here’s the Key to the Perfect Bloody Mary. Brunch drinking isn’t a big thing for me. I’ll occasionally have a beer or a glass of wine at lunch, but generally drinking before dinner makes me sleepy throughout the day. Even in law school, I’d down a big cup of coffee before Friday happy hour.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: New Research: Semen May Actually Cure Depression In Women.

HERE’S WHY PEOPLE, JOBS ARE FLEEING BLUE STATES TO LIVE IN RED ONES: Yes, it just makes common sense that people who can leave states with high taxes, onerous regulations and high unemployment.

But Antonio Chaves, writing in American Thinker, provides an absolutely devastating presentation of the data showing the sources and depths of distress for middle and lower-middle class people living in places like California and Maryland.

It’s a data-intensive read, but well worth it. And Chaves offers some interesting thoughts on how red-state leaders should respond to the droves of former blue-staters crossing into the jurisdictions.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN:) My Welcome Wagon idea is more urgently needed than ever.

YOU SELDOM SEE A HEALTHY-LOOKING VEGAN: Vegans ‘have twice as many sick days as their meat eating colleagues.’