FLASHBACK: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.

SINCE IT’S COLD, here’s my recipe for Lamb and Guinness Stew.

And don’t forget the Insta-Chicken.

And it’s not my recipe, but this slow cooker salsa chicken is good on a cold night.

SOMEBODY’S AIMING TO BE THE NEXT GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA: Pennsylvania Democrat apologizes for calling early miscarriages ‘just some mess on a napkin.’

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS: Birth coach is ‘hounded out’ of industry charity Doula UK after transgender activists branded her Facebook message claiming only women can have babies ‘offensive.’

Sorry, women, you had a good run. But now men are taking over everything that used to be yours. It’s a man’s world again, baby.

AS IT SHOULD: Californians’ anger at politicians and PG&E intensifies as wildfires and blackouts continue. If Gavin Newsom has another year like the one just past, Trump may carry California.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University Of Maryland To Restructure, Terminate Contracts Of 100 Faculty Who Can ‘Recompete’ For Their Jobs. Having to “recompete” for your existing job is an old thing in the corporate world, but now it’s coming to academia.

ENDORSED: Let’s Not Pay Congress If It Can’t Pass a Budget on Time.

VICTORY GIRLS: Katie Hill and the Mythical Double Standard. Oh, there’s a double standard. It’s just not the one being invoked.

RIGHT BETTER PAY SERIOUS ATTENTION TO KANYE WEST CONVERSION: Something unexpected is going on here that just might be hugely significant for the future of American politics.

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IS THERE ANYTHING HE CAN’T DO? Headline: Thanks to Trump, STD rates hit a record high.

DON SURBER: NYC Loses The Man Who Saved It.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: A partisan impeachment vote is exactly what the framers feared.

OH, I HAVE SOME IDEAS ABOUT THAT: Why is Adam Schiff — as chair of the Intelligence Committee — running the impeachment inquiry?

OPEN THREAD: Disport yourselves as usual.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Aging of U.S. population may result in more heart disease-related deaths.

OUCH:

Why are leftists so hatefully insensitive to women?

OLD WHITE GODS, NOT YET DEAD: Why Architectural Elites Love Ugly Buildings.

In large parts of post-World War II Europe, the bombs of war were followed by a three-decade-long blitz of dogmatic Modernist social engineering and megalomaniac town planning, most of it taking inspiration from the then hugely fashionable theories of the Swiss architect who called himself Le Corbusier. The most forgiving thing one can say of it all was that the trauma of the war had given rise to a widespread mood of alienation from all things past. But the consequences of this alienation from the past and an intelligentsia intoxicated with utopian dogma were a tragedy, and one that unfolded on a vast scale.

Great swathes of eminently salvageable traditional urban fabric fell victim to so-called “slum clearance,” to be replaced by a utopian landscape of impersonal and often windswept “public” open space that quickly became a joy only to the thug and criminal. These barren landscapes were dotted with high-rise blocks, concrete beehives that could fulfill the utopian fantasies of their creators if their mainly working-class residents had somehow been mentally reprogrammed. Meanwhile, mature town centers, with their urban fabric comprising a complex tapestry of building types, were casually violated and desiccated, their history now counting for nothing. A “libido for the ugly” was in full flux.

At least it’s over now? Well, yes and no. Certainly the arrogant certainties of utopian collectivism mercifully crumbled in the 1970s. Almost everyone now understands that to let architects and town planners decide what society’s “needs” are—and then dream up megalomaniac schemes for the wholesale satisfaction of these needs—is akin to kitting your small child out with power tools and a bag of cement, and setting him loose to decide what your home needs. Everyone, that is, except in the ivory towers of architectural academe; its luminary authors of revered set texts and in the more high brow professional journals.

Almost everyone now understands that the Corbusian legacy was entirely malign, even if they have never heard of the man himself. And the question is often asked how his grim concrete megalomania ever came to hold such sway in the first place. Step inside a Western school of architecture to pose this question, and you might get a shock. You are likely to find that the so-called “fathers” of the International Style in general, and Le Corbusier in particular (he of the tabula rasa concept of urban renewal in which everywhere “must” be “totally rebuilt” using only concrete), are still revered as the philosopher kings of architecture.

Read the whole thing.

(Classical allusion in headline.)

HIGH EARNER NOT RICH YET:

I GET THIS: ‘After His Death, I Didn’t Cook Anymore’: Widows on the Pain of Dining Alone. I do most of the cooking by far in our household, but when I was single I always found cooking for one boring and tedious. I think it would be worse to have to do it because of being widowed. Maybe I’d turn it into an excuse to be more experimental in my cooking. Maybe not.

Most striking is the kindness of the couples and families who invited the widowed to have dinner with them regularly. Reach out to people who are grieving if you can. It makes a big difference.

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GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Terminator: Dark Fate Bombs At The Box Office.

Let’s not beat around the bush, Terminator Dark Fate is an unoriginal disgrace on just about every level. The very fiber of this film comes off as someone who is ashamed that the foundation of this franchise does not fit their current day intersectional feminist worldview, so they decided to change it by repealing and replacing everything they felt was problematic with more progressive friendly elements.

Let’s start with John Connor. The character who is the primary protagonist of the Terminator franchise is killed minutes into the film and is completely removed from the equation only to be replaced by the new hero of Daniella “Dani” Ramos. This is why progressive think tanks are killing cinema and entertainment as we know it. Because in the world of intersectionality, the only thing they see is a white male action star who just doesn’t fit the bill of the modern Hollywood diversity and inclusion agenda so he must be replaced. If you thought it was bad enough that they made John a villain in the last movie, the progressive Gods decided it was time for him to die thus rendering the plot of multiple films completely and utterly useless.

Well, that explains why the filmmakers were issuing insult-the-audience pre-postmortems ala “Lady Ghostbusters” back in July.

THE COPYCAT EFFECT: Media reports on celebrity suicides could trigger copycats.

PLEASE CLAP: ‘So sad!’: Beto O’Rourke campaign ‘cheer guides’ uncovered in Des Moines arena.