AT LEAST THEIR NEWS ANCHORS APOLOGIZE FOR HAVING LIED:  Iran’s State News Anchor Resigns.

IF THE THINGS IN THE DEM PRIMARY ARE ELECTABLE…  WELL, AMMO AND CANNED GOODS. GO DEEP:  Who’s “electable”?

A PIECE FROM THE DAY JOB: Agile is a Thing of the Spirit.

Almost 20 years ago, the Agile Manifesto proposed a change in the way software is developed that values

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

Twenty years later, people still don’t understand how radical that was — including a lot of people who think they are practicing agile.

OBAMA HUNG THEM TO DRY SHAMEFULLY BEFORE. LET’S NOT DO THAT AGAIN:  “There can not be another massacre of peaceful protesters…The world is watching”.

YEAH, WELL, BRACE. WE’RE ACCELERATING TO AN EVENT HORIZON OF CRAZY:   “I don’t have answers, I only have questions edition.”

GUYS, LOOK, FIGHTING THE REVOLUTION WAS FAIR AND SQUARE. YES, EVEN KILLING THEIR DUDES (MOSTLY HESSIANS, ANYWAY).  AND YES, THEY DID BURN THE WHITE HOUSE IN 1814. BUT WE’VE BEEN AT PEACE A LONG TIME NOW. DID WE NEED TO SEND THEM A WOKE-BOMB?  My opinion on Harry’s and Meghan’s divorce from the Royal family.

DOES IT MAKE ME A BAD PERSON THAT THIS MAKES ME CHEER? GIVE THAT PRESIDENT A STAR. A GOLD ONE, OF COURSE:  Bernie-Warren feud turns nasty, so of course Trump fans the flames on Twitter.

I mean, look, the Democrat primary is a clown car that collided with a dumpster fire. We might as well make the flames higher and prettier.

YEAH? WELL, GO AHEAD, RENOUNCE YOUR CITIZENSHIP. WE’LL HOLD A WHIP AROUND TO BUY YOU A ONE-WAY TICKET TO THE COUNTRY OF YOUR CHOICE. IT WILL BE EXPENSIVE, BUT SOME THINGS ARE WORTH THE MONEY:  Poll Finds Over a Third of Young Americans Say Other Countries are Better.

WELL, IT’S HARD TO FIND A LOT OF SKIN COLORS ALL RUNNING THE SAME SOFTWARE IN THEIR HEADS, YOU KNOW?  Yale Pumps Millions into Faculty Diversity Hiring Efforts.

AND THAT’S THE TRUTH:  Economics Prof Blasts Higher Education for Wasting Tuition Dollars on Diversity Hires.

YEAH? NO ONE CARES. I DOUBT THIS WILL GET THAT MUCH PENETRATION IN THE HINTERLANDS. SOME OF US WORK FOR A LIVING:  Fashionable millennial men in NYC are embracing nail art.

ABSURD. THE PRESS ASSURES ME THAT HE’S EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR. This is America: Deafening Cheers Break Out For Trump At National Championship Game.

NYT DISCOVERS THAT RED-STATE TYPES ARE WILLING TO DEFEND AMERICA, AND BLUE-STATE TYPES NOT SO MUCH. HILARITY ENSUES. “The South, where the culture of military service runs deep and military installations are plentiful, produces 20 percent more recruits than would be expected, based on its youth population. The states in the Northeast, which have very few military bases and a lower percentage of veterans, produce 20 percent fewer. . . . In 2019, Fayetteville, N.C., which is home to Fort Bragg, provided more than twice as many military enlistment contracts as Manhattan. . . . In Los Angeles, a region defined by liberal politics where many families are suspicious of the military, the Army has struggled to even gain access to high schools. By law, schools have to allow recruiters on campus once a semester, but administrators tightly control when and how recruiters can interact with students. Access is ‘very minimal,’ said Lt. Col. Tameka Wilson, the commander of the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion. Predictably, enlistment rates are low.”

They’d rather see you on welfare than serving your country.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Anni Ultimi: A Roman Stoic Guide to Retirement, Old Age and Death. I was thinking about this after Roger Scruton’s death; another Roger — Roger Simon — loved this book when it came out.

PEOPLE ARE DEFECTING EVERYWHERE: New York Dem Rebukes Schumer, Pledges to Vote GOP Until Party Returns to ‘Sanity.’ “The assemblyman lambasted Schumer and national Democrats for downplaying the impact the Trump administration has had in fostering economic growth.” Dov Hikind isn’t a nobody in NY politics.

DON SURBER: Media Misses The Big Story.

It is the story of their lifetimes, and the journalists are blowing it — bigly.

A billionaire playboy comes down from his three-story penthouse apartment overlooking Manhattan to enter the presidential race. He is a world figure, best-selling author, TV star, and ladies man. He offers himself as a tonic to the national morass, and an alternative to selecting another President Bush or Clinton.

That is a fantastic story. America replaced an affirmative action hire with a competent businessman. While our real-life Batman may have been born a millionaire, he worked to expand his fortune 1,000-fold — just like the Bruce Wayne of fiction.

How did the leading “conservative” periodical play it? “Witless Ape Rides Escalator” read the National Review headline. And media coverage after that was all downhill. The part of the country that still believes in the media is convinced that it is run by a bumbling Hitler who just got lucky on the economy and on avoiding World War 3 three or four times now.

The press isn’t interested in giving us the story. The press is interested in selling us a narrative.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

WE HAVEN’T HAD A NEWSCASTER WITH THAT MUCH INTEGRITY SINCE HOWARD BEALE. AND HE WAS FICTIONAL. IRAN’S STATE NEWS ANCHOR RESIGNS. “More fallout from Iran’s shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner: a news anchor on Iran’s state television has resigned, apologizing to the people of Iran for ‘lying to you on TV for 13 years.'”

UPDATE: More resign.

OPEN THREAD: Make it special.

I LOVE HOW QUICKLY OUR EXPERT PROFESSIONAL CLASS THROWS EXPERTISE AND PROFESSIONALISM OUT THE WINDOW WHERE POLITICS COMES UP: Dismissing Her Political Opponents As Mentally Ill, Yale Psychiatrist Who Diagnosed Trump Diagnoses Alan Dershowitz.

Related: The Suicide of Expertise.

Also related: Trump and the Crisis of the Meritocracy.

WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? CNN? THE DEMOCRATS? Venezuela Mourns Soleimani. “For many years, people have commented on the seemingly-incongruous alliance between radical Muslims and Communists. In fact, however, there is no mystery: both are hostile to the values of advanced Western civilization and yearn for tyrannies that are not, in practice, particularly different from one another.” Likewise the Democrats and CNN.

Related: Kurt Schlichter: Democrats Always Choose America’s Enemies Over America. That’s not fair — they opposed the Nazis. Once the Nazis broke their peace treaty with the Soviet Union. . . .

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT WOULDN’T LIKE THE MOVIE EITHER: Little Women Goes to War.  Why, to the horror of feminist critics, aren’t men rushing to see Little Women? For the same reason that Alcott didn’t enjoy writing the novel: it’s a children’s story. She preferred adult fiction, wrote it only because she needed the money, and never liked the way the story ended. She would be even less charmed by the misandry and whininess in the current movie, which distorts the story and exaggerates the oppression of women in Alcott’s day in order to preach today’s progressive orthodoxy.

THE PUBLIC BARELY RESPONDED TO OFFICIAL UFO FOOTAGE, SO I THINK WE’RE OKAY: Mars sample return is coming, so scientists urge preparing the public for it now.

AT AMAZON, save big on Wheels and Tires.

Plus, Winter Deals on Major Appliances.

JOURNALISM OF THE SORT THAT OUR PERFUMED-POOBAH “FIREMEN” DON’T DO: Tear gas and water cannons: Hong Kong students brave the front lines to livestream the protests.