IGNORE THE BAIZUO BULLSHIT:

Here’s the article.

IN THE WORDS OF THAT GREAT FUTURIST ROCKY ROCOCO, MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO: Tesla Teases A Custom Robotaxi, Are They Crazy?

MINI ME-ME-ME: Get a Load of Dr. Fauci’s Office in What May Be His Last CNN+ Interview.

WELL: Court Rules That New York’s Rabidly Partisan Redistricting Map Was Improperly Gerrymandered. “The 2012 map created 19 Democratic districts and eight Republican seats. The current map will have one less seat due to New York’s loss of population. But this new map would have cost Republicans five seats. Does this mean that in a state with 27 congressional districts only three Republicans will be allowed to serve?”

OUR EFFORTS HAVE BEEN USELESS, WE MUST REDOUBLE THEM: Shanghai further tightens Covid restrictions after weeks of strict lockdown.

FASTER? PLEASE! Space Force looking at U.S. needs for ‘responsive space.’ “The demonstration is part of a congressionally directed effort to create a ‘tactically responsive launch’ program. Congress inserted $50 million in the 2022 defense budget, arguing that DoD should figure out how to use commercial launch services during a conflict to replace damaged satellites or deploy new ones quickly if needed.”

JUST FINISHED LARRY CORREIA & STEVEN DIAMOND’S Servants of War, which is kind of like a cross between Monster Hunter International and Starship Troopers. Or something. Anyway, a gripping read that I quite enjoyed.

WAIT, NOW WE’RE DOING PAST-LIFE THERAPY FOR MARS ROVERS? Mars rover searches for evidence of past life at ancient river delta.

COVID IS OVER: 95% of Cases In Mumbai Are Asymptomatic, Doctors Say ‘No Cause for Concern.’ “Meanwhile, in China, the Communist country’s chief financial, commercial, and shipping hub will remain under lockdown until COVID is ‘eradicated.'”

WHEN REALITY STARTS TO INTRUDE: Biden launches $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants, to help combat climate change.

HMM: Researchers identify bacteria linked to aggressive prostate cancer.

AND ANOTHER ONE GONE: Harris chief of staff Tina Flournoy leaving administration. “Flournoy is the highest-ranking official to leave the vice president’s office, and news of her exit comes after a series of other departures from Harris’s staff.”

CHANGE: The future of Anglicanism is African: British Christianity is being revived by migration.

BARELY INTO HIS SECOND YEAR: Biden Has Now Surpassed Jimmy Carter’s Record of Incompetence.

HERSCHEL SMITH: All Famines Are Man-Made.

JOEL KOTKIN: Serfing the Future: Where our masters keep us down.

Me, I like the story of the British traveler in Tennessee in the early 1800s who asked a farmer if he could direct him to his master. The reply: “I reckon the sumbitch ain’t been born yet.”

HOW TO SMEAR CHRISTIANS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING: That’s the title of a book review that just may be the most enjoyable and perceptive piece of such writing I’ve encountered in, well, a very long time.

Rebekah Curtis reviews “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes du Mez. You know instantly from its title what sort of vacuity is behind J&JW and so would never buy it.

But Curtis’ so reminds of the cat idly dallying with its soon-to-be-dinner mouse that her tongue-in-cheek review is a delight to read. For example:

“J&JW’s point is that white evangelicals (should we just call them whitevangelicals?) are not very good Christians. They prefer America to other countries, a horrifying inclination akin to liking your own dad better than other people’s dads.

“A conservative Baptist seminary seeks out faculty members who oppose women’s ordination, making them closed-minded and sexist. People who think having children is good and important show interest in the act by which children are conceived, believing that it may also be affected by questions of goodness and importance are the real perverts.”

There is much more not to be missed.

STEPHEN MILLER: CNN+ crashes and burns.

CNN+ and its historic collapse after a $300 million launch is indeed reflective of the CNN roster of talent. CNN+ gave programs to network names like Brian Stelter, Jake Tapper and Don Lemon. All of these hosts (and others) have enough trouble drawing an audience on regular cable broadcasting, let alone streaming.

Over the past six years, CNN has become the network of resistance to Donald Trump and the Republicans, without a single opposing viewpoint for balance. Although former CNN president Jeff Zucker is gone, CNN has not moved on from his “All Trump, All Fox News, all the time” model. Much of the talent that made their names off that model still remain at CNN.

That’s all fine and well if that’s what CNN wants. But the network continues to pretend otherwise. Until it can reconcile those two models, it will never succeed. Brian Stelter still acts as though he is a straight news man when in reality he is little more than a janitor for a largely agenda-driven industry. Jim Acosta made his reputation as a grandstanding anti-Trump White House reporter and was rewarded with a show.

So to disagree with Licht, CNN won’t recoup any kind of value with its audience until it cuts loose personalities like that, as well as its sinking streaming service. CNN’s talent is the problem.

The truth hurts.

R.I.P.: Cynthia Albritton, aka Cynthia Plaster Caster, superfan famed for making molds of rock stars’ private parts, dead at 74.

ROBERT SPENCER: Don’t These People Ever Go Away? “The answer is on the bottom line. Six of the fifteen richest counties in the country are in Virginia and Maryland, right outside Washington, D.C. Public service in the United States has become a lucrative exercise in mutual back-slapping, with numerous well-heeled lobbies eager to pay a cash-strapped congressman or senator outlandish speaker’s fees after he gets them what they want on the legislative floor.”

DEAL OF THE DAY: Valano Men’s Long Sleeve Shirts UPF 50+ Sun Protection. CommissionEarned

BATTLESWARM BLOG: Narco Tanks of Mexico. “Cartel violence waxes and wanes, and regular readers know that the cartels are heavily armed. Even so, it may come as a shock to many that Mexican drug cartels have their own ‘tanks’ (AKA ‘Monstruo’), i.e. up-armored civilian vehicles more accurately described as technicals or armored cars.”

SETTING THE BAR FOR TRAUMA AWFULLY LOW: Black Student Union says it’s traumatized by black speaker’s ‘America is Not Racist’ speech.

I mean, you just lived through winter in Buffalo. That alone is more traumatic than any speech.

I LIKE THE CUT OF HER JIB: Tulsi Gabbard Clown-Slaps Mollycoddle Romney Over ‘Treasonous Lies’ Quip.

HIGHER EDUCATION FACES SUNLIGHT: Mao bust removed from Washburn University following news report.