HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? This Giant, Hazardous Asteroid Almost Certainly Won’t Hit Us, Probably, NASA Says.

Well, if the experts aren’t worried about it, then I’m . . . uh oh.

SHOCKER: Study: Social media ‘likes’ of ‘moral outrage’ spread more extreme views.

Huh. Do tell.

CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT FAILED: Writing in the American Spectator, Scott McKay argues the conservative movement is dead, if it is defined as the Old/New Right Plus Bush Chamber of Commerce Republicanism:

“When you’ve gone from surrendering on gay marriage to failing to summon up convincing arguments for obvious things like ‘boys shouldn’t play on girls’ sports teams’ or that the least racist nation on planet Earth was founded to promote slavery, you aren’t really conserving much of anything anymore, are you?

“When you went from failing to reform government programs like Social Security and Medicare, when it was patently obvious they would eventually bankrupt the government, to signing off on a trillion-dollar bacchanal of ‘infrastructure’ spending only a quarter of which can reasonably fit in that definition, you’re not a fiscal conservative.

“When you progressed from creating a security state capable of spying on everyone in the world with marginal accountability to having little to say when that security state gets politicized and nearly effects a coup d’etat on a duly-elected American president, we can’t really say you’re conserving our liberty.”

McKay advocates a new “Revivalist” movement that sounds an awful lot like what I heard one night in October 1964 on television when a guy from “Death Valley Days” came on the screen and delivered what became known as “The Speech” that launched the Reagan Revolution.

He wasn’t perfect, but he won the Cold War and got Congress to pass the biggest tax cut in American history, rebuilt American military might and respect, and showed how presidential leadership can restore a large measure of the shared civic spirit that once was the norm.

I was one of the legions of idealistic young Americans he inspired to enlist in the movement to save America and who in some key respects were the “Wide Awakes” of our day. Reagan was the right man for the time. But that was 1980. This is not. A revival would be great but would it be enough?

ADDERALL FOR LIFE: Just 10% of kids with ADHD outgrow it, study finds.

“HOW SOON IS NOW?” — THE B-SIDE THAT DEFINED THE SMITHS (Video):

It’s a backing track so strong, it can survive Morrissey’s sing-songy vocal, which seems to be from an entirely different song.

HEH. Via a friend.

PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1975: US Embassy in Kabul directs staff to destroy sensitive documents as many diplomats prepare for evacuation.

THIS IS A BIGGER DANGER TO THEM THAN COVID: Study: Ultra-processed foods supply two-thirds of calories in U.S. child, teen diets.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: ‘We Don’t Like Cuomo Now,’ Says Every Late-Night Host In Perfect Robotic Unison.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Liberals Look in the Mirror and Scream.

And here’s a pro tip for the fussy boys of Twitter: You already libel us as “Nazis” and “fascists” – which is weird because we aren’t socialists, national or otherwise – so it’s not like you doing it with even higher-pitched shrieks than usual is going to make it more compelling or get us to care. Nor is it a particularly persuasive flex to somehow assert that a bunch of proposals which a dozen years of my columns oppose are actually proposals that I really support, and that I could not possibly be mocking the pinkos, and that I somehow inadvertently let slip out some sort of inner Mussolini and only tacky blue checks are clever enough to detect the hidden truth. Again, we have the continuing liberal dilemma: Are they dumb, or do they merely think that the people listening to them are dumb?

But I did mix in some plausible initiatives among the outrageous ones. The lines about increasing our carbon footprint and deporting all illegal aliens – yeah, those are good ideas.

In the end, holding up the mirror to these saps had exactly the effect that I sought to achieve – these dorks are so easy to play. Utterly without even the self-awareness to hide their Stalinist aspirations, they demonstrated that they were fine with those authoritarian tactics, just not with those particular objectives. The thread’s modest proposals included banning Marxism, control of social media, and punishing dissenters. Their response was that I should be banned, that social media should toss me off, that I should lose my job, and that I should be reported to the cops. A bunch of freedom advocates reported me to Twitter, so I got a flurry of those “German law” notices. Basically, their view is that suppressing rights is not inherently bad. It’s only bad if done to them. When done to us, it’s a moral imperative.

Not surprisingly, the party whose organizing method is “the moral equivalent of war” happily views American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means, to flip von Clausewitz’s axiom on its head.

CHANGE: FDA OKs second Pfizer, Moderna booster shot in vulnerable Americans. I have a friend who has had two shots of Pfizer and also had Covid, and she shows no antibodies, probably due to the immuno suppressive drugs she takes for MS. She’d be a candidate, but if the two shots and the actual disease don’t do it, why should one more shot?

On the upside, she wasn’t especially sick when she actually had Covid.

WHY ARE TRUMP SUPPORTERS SO RELUCTANT TO GET VACCINATED? “They’re Experimenting On Us” — Why Black New Yorkers Don’t Trust The Vaccine.

Earlier: Why Don’t They Believe Us?

JIM TREACHER: Happy Friday the 13th to Those Who Celebrate —You’re entitled to your religious beliefs.

ROBERT SPENCER: Star Wars Filmmaker Makes Documentary Slamming ‘Islamophobia,’ Ends Up Showing Why There Is ‘Islamophobia.’

Flashback: The Radicalization of Luke Skywalker: A Jedi’s Path to Jihad.

HOW AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FAILS: People are suspicious of favoritism! Maybe it’s not a favor at all.

WHEN THERAPISTS BECOME ACTIVISTS:

Until roughly five years ago, people seeking mental health care could expect their therapists to keep politics out of the office. But as counselor education programs and professional organizations across the country embrace a radical social justice agenda, that bedrock principle of neutrality is crumbling. Mental health professionals—mainly counselors and therapists—are increasingly replacing evidence-driven therapeutics with ideologically motivated practice and activism.

The Graduate Counseling Program at the University of Vermont, for example, intends to “structurally align” itself with the Black Lives Matter movement and begin “the work of undoing systemic white supremacy.” After George Floyd’s death, the Johns Hopkins University Counseling Center advised would-be students to “consider us one of many resources in the difficult but necessary work of engaging with internalized bias, recognizing privilege, and aligning values of anti-racism and allyship with embodied and sustained practice.”

Such sentiments are not limited to mission statements—they are playing out in the real world of clinical training. Some counseling programs encourage students to engage in social justice activism. Most troubling of all, trainees are being taught to see patients not as individuals with unique needs, but as avatars of their gender, race, and ethnic groups. Accordingly, more and more counselors encourage their patients to understand their problems as a consequence of an oppressive society. White patients, for instance, are told that their distress stems from their subjugation of others, while black and minority patients are told that their problems stem from being oppressed.

What could go wrong?

THE JUDICIARY CONTINUES TO DISAPPOINT: “This Is No Way to Rule a Country:” If an eviction moratorium is needed, why wouldn’t the legislature try to enact one?

It is precisely the way to rule a country, if the rulers fear accountability to the people.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Solar Power from Space? Caltech’s $100 Million Gambit.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Scottish Schools Will Allow Kids as Young as Four to Change Gender Without Asking Parents.

MISTER, WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE FRANK RIZZO AGAIN: Not a Joke: Philadelphia Mayor Announces Double-Mask Mandate.

Yes, this mayor:

SCIENCE: Aged skeletal stem cells interfere with healing and promote ‘inflamm-aging.’

PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1975: Afghanistan Falling Just A Month After Biden Says It’s Unlikely Taliban Will Take Over (Video).

More here: “For the last seven months I’ve watched Generals engage in twitter fights with people, debate the merits of Critical Race Theory on Capital Hill. It seemed like our generals were more concerned with fighting Tucker Carlson than they were the Taliban.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” PARTY: CNNers Revel in Rand Paul’s YouTube Ban For….Saying What CNN Said a Week Ago? “Speaking of misinformation, [CNN Newsroom guest host Erica Hill] was not entirely fair in describing what Paul said that got him banned. What Paul said was, ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.’ That is practically identical to what [former Biden advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm] told Hill’s colleague and Inside Politics host John King on August 2: ‘We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.’ So, if a CNN-approved guest says something, no problem. If you asked, they’d likely cite the fact that Osterholm is an author, college professor, former Biden Covid advisory board member, and frequent broadcast and cable network news guest. In fact, they get posted on YouTube. But the moment a Republican says it? Oh, they deserve whatever censorship comes their way.”

HEATHER MAC DONALD: For the Love of Music: Conductor and violinist John McLaughlin Williams’s work constitutes a profound rebuttal to the constricting vision of today’s race arbiters.

PARTYING LIKE IT’S 2020: Just Like COVID-19, The Murder Hornets Are Back, Too.