NOT A BAD SOURCE FOR THOSE OF US DESIGNING COVERS EITHER:  The 7 Principles of Art and Design.

NO! I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED SHOCKED:  UN Agency Admits Hamas Had Attack Tunnel Under Gaza Schoolyard Bombed By Israel.

That the UN admitted it, that is.

AND WE SHOULD BELIEVE ANYTHING OUT OF THE DOJ, BECAUSE?  DOJ Claims It Recovered Millions in Bitcoin Paid to Colonial Pipeline Hackers.

SURE. SUPPOSING VOTES ARE ALLOWED TO COUNT:  Signs of hope for the right among Hispanic voters in Texas

SURE. WE WERE STAMPEDED:  More evidence the COVID-19 panic was just that: an unwarranted panic.

And by “we” I mean the western world, not me personally.

AND ANOTHER ONE:  Today’s blacklisted American: College volley ball player blackballed for her opinions.

OH, TEH GRAUNIAD, YOU ARE MOBILIZING US, JUST NOT TO YOUR SIDE:  Guardian: “The Climate Movement Must do More to Mobilise Older People”.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, IGNORE THE GOVERNMENT:  Follow the science, at least on nutrition.

SPEAKING OF NARRATIVE:   The Storytellers.

IT’S ALL LIES AND ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL THE NARRATIVE:  Biden’s Tone Deaf Democracy Op-Ed.

LATIN COUNTRIES HAVE A REMARKABLY FRANK WAY OF DEALING WITH WOMEN LIKE COMMIE LAWHORISH:  Kamala Handed Out Cookies, But Greeted With Jeers In Guatemala.

Yes, they are also and for real sexist. But they are not female supremacists and therefore women who are the worst of the breed can be pointed out. Also, apparently unlike Europeans and Americans, Guatemalans can do math and know the probability that the 2020 election was legal and clean is somewhere south of Zero. Good for them.

DOES SCOTUS REALIZE IT CAN’T ALLOW THE NONSENSE TO CONTINUE:  SCOTUS: Green Cards Cannot Be Granted To Those Here Illegally.

HOW’S THAT “WELCOME WAGON” PROJECT COMING ALONG? “Newcomers moving to Texas will also receive a pamphlet outlining the history and policies that make Texas what it is, thus putting the ‘welcome wagon’ project that myself, Glenn Reynolds, and others have sought to establish into state law.”

But this is only the beginning.

WELL, SOMEONE’S EMBARRASSING:

OPEN THREAD: No masks required.

THANKS, PRESIDENT TRUMP! U.S. Administers 302.8 Million Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines – CDC.

EXPRESS DELIVERY: US Air Force wants a commercial Rocket Cargo Vanguard to fly stuff anywhere on Earth. “If the project, called Rocket Cargo, goes as planned, it would take advantage of a swiftly growing rocket industry competing to send satellites into space. While the search for rocket companies has just begun, a concept released by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) evokes the sleek, silver Starship prototypes being tested by SpaceX in South Texas. In the past decade, newer industry entrants such as SpaceX, Relativity Space and Rocket Lab — fueled by new efficiencies in rocket manufacturing, self-landing stages and increased demand for CubeSats — are rising to compete with industry standbys such as Arianespace and United Launch Alliance.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak: The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.

The possibility that the pandemic began with an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is attracting fresh attention. President Biden has asked the national intelligence community to redouble efforts to investigate.

Much of the public discussion has focused on circumstantial evidence: mysterious illnesses in late 2019; the lab’s work intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality (known as “gain of function” research). The Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to release relevant information. Reports based on U.S. intelligence have suggested the lab collaborated on projects with the Chinese military.

But the most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science. In particular, consider the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the disease Covid-19.

In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its genome at a prime location. Doing this leaves no trace of manipulation. But it alters the virus spike protein, rendering it easier for the virus to inject genetic material into the victim cell. Since 1992 there have been at least 11 separate experiments adding a special sequence to the same location. The end result has always been supercharged viruses. . . .

In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as “double CGG”) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2.

In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.

Next question: Was it “innocent” gain-of-function research, or was it intentional bioweapon work? And was the leak accidental, or deliberate? Bear in mind that secret military programs often have nested cover stories, where when one is penetrated, it leads to a new one. Natural germ in “wet market” –> lab leak –> deliberate release? Who knows? That last may be impossible to determine, unless a Chinese defector spills the beans or something. One way to address this in the future is to ban gain-of-function research, so that if it happens you know it’s illicit. Too late for that in this case, of course, since U.S. taxpayers, through the NIH, were actually funding this research.

FASTER, PLEASE: Researchers identify a molecule critical to functional brain rejuvenation.

HAS TWITTER’S MANAGEMENT NEVER HEARD OF THE STREISAND EFFECT? Twitter Suspends Anti-Big Tech Activist Mike Davis For Defending CNN Comparison To The Gimp In Pulp Fiction:

Twitter suspended Internet Accountability Project (IAP) founder Mike Davis on Sunday after the anti-Big Tech activist defended a post comparing CNN’s Brian Stelter to the Gimp from “Pulp Fiction.”

Davis’s suspension stemmed from his criticizing Twitter for temporarily suspending former Trump Treasury Department staffer Will Upton for the initial post.

* * * * * * * *

After Davis came to Upton’s defense over the suspension, Davis wound up in Twitter jail himself.

“I’d be very upset if I were The Gimp, as well. But you know The Gimp’s a fictional character, right?” Davis wrote.

Twitter did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s request for comment, but lifted Davis’ suspension shortly after the publication of this article Monday afternoon.

I would never have seen either Tweet, had Twitter’s management not temporarily suspended these accounts to defend a fellow leftist — and now I can’t unsee the comparison. Shades of Chris Cuomo melting down over being called “Fredo” by a random Rush Limbaugh fan. As James Hasson‏, formerly of the Washington Examiner tweeted in August of 2019, “The funniest part of the Cuomo freakout is that if he’d just said ‘get a life, I’m out with my family,’ then people would have sympathized with him. But because he took it to 11 and compared ‘fredo’ to the n-word—and CNN PR doubled down on it—everyone will now call him Fredo.”

MARK JUDGE: When Our Ex-Con, Ex-Priest, Kiddie Porn-Sharing Sex Ed Teacher Slammed Brett Kavanaugh for Drinking Beer in High School.

HEH:

UNEXPECTEDLY! Men make more extreme choices and decisions, find scientists. “We found men were much more likely than women to be at the extreme ends of the behavioural spectrum, either acting very selfishly or very altruistically, very trusting or very distrusting, very fair or very unfair, very risky or very risk averse and were either very short-term or very long-term focused.”

BABYLON BEE’S DEMAND LETTER TO NEW YORK TIMES: This one is a beaut!

‘WHO’S GONNA TELL HER?’ Cher’s so angry at these Senate ‘traitors’ that she called for the wrong Dem to be removed from office:

Was it over when Kirsten Gillibrand bombed Pearl Harbor?