THE THINNING OF THE HERD BEGINS:

🚨Breaking News: Tim Scott has officially ended his campaign for President in 2024. pic.twitter.com/oM5MHBVfaY

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) November 13, 2023

OPEN THREAD: Go for it.

JULIETTE OCHIENG: Silence of the Gentiles: Not so silent. “It must be really tough on left-leaning Jews right now . . . to find out that most of your fellow leftists hate your guts and support those who would see all of you pushed out of Israel or murdered.”

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: 80 Years After Hitler Failed, Nazis Finally Seize London.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The Chinese military’s skyrocketing influence in space. “China’s multiplying presence in ‘the final frontier’ is part of a reawakening to the importance of space around the world. The fundamentals aren’t new. In 1970, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) noted the importance of space exploration, and China is one of a growing number of countries recognising the tremendous economic, strategic, military and political potential of activity in space. The annual number of payloads launched into orbit has increased tenfold in the past decade, and the global space economy is estimated to sit at US$469 billion, with yearly revenues from space 6.4% higher in 2022 than in 2021.”

THIS IS HOW THE MOVIE STARTS: Physicists Simulated a Black Hole in The Lab. Then It Started to Glow.

THAT’S HIS DEVIOUS PLAN FOR CONQUEST!

Invite Xi to stay year-round. https://t.co/ZBxbc48rXN

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) November 12, 2023

FLOP: Diving Into the Painful Truth: Brown University’s Surprising Belly Flop Study.

ANSWER: THEY KNEW. Media in Panic Mode Over Questions About Whether They Knew in Advance About Hamas Attack on Israel.

On October 7, four photojournalists who provide reporting and photos for the likes of the Associated Press (AP), CNN, the New York Times, Reuters, and other outlets were allegedly at the Israeli border with Hamas terrorists who committed acts of atrocities against innocent Israeli civilians that shocked the world. Since an Israel-supporting news watchdog website reported the claim, everyone wants to know if these Gaza-based reporters knew in advance about the attack and, more importantly, if they could have saved lives by alerting the world about it. The question arises: Did the AP, CNN, the New York Times, and Reuters know about the Hamas terror attack in advance?

The allegations have sent major media into panic mode and generated even more mistrust in the corporate press.

The website HonestReporting, which chronicles coverage of Israel by an increasingly one-sided press to contrast the “Pallywood” and crisis actor coverage by Hamas and its agents, asks: “Is it conceivable to assume that ‘journalists’ just happened to appear early in the morning at the border without prior coordination with the terrorists? Or were they part of the plan?” 

Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace smile:

DELICIOUS, HEALTHY MEAT: I lost 80 lbs with the carnivore diet and it transformed my health.

HOW IT STARTED: Mobs of “teens” Loot a Washington, Dc Cvs, Literally Picking Its Shelves Clean:

“Youngsters.” Whatever euphemisms we can think of to make hardened thieves appear to be innocent scamps.

“When you walk into this CVS, you’d think the store is closing because there’s barely anything on the shelves,” WTTG reporter Sierra Fox said.

Spoiler:is closing. CVS will close 900 locations by the end of 2024.

What are the odds that the Columbia Heights, DC store will remain open?

Or that any stores in DC will remain open?

How long do these idiots think that people are going to continue spending good money so that human-shaped locusts can steal them blind?

There will be no shops left in Washington DC, and then they’ll start whining about “food deserts” and “CVS deserts.”

How it’s going: CVS in Washington DC replaces stock with PHOTOGRAPHS of items as it battles with out-of-control crime and moves to shut 900 stores.

Due to the out of control crime, CVS in DC now doesn’t even keep merchandise on the shelves. Instead they just put photos of the items they have in stock. Dystopian pic.twitter.com/ppdanxhbr1

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 12, 2023

Last year, Virginia Postrel explored “What Shopping Did for American Equality:”

Since the mid-19th century, modern retailing has tested the practical meaning of equality and freedom.

When A.T. Stewart opened his multistory dry goods store in 1846, the Manhattan merchant introduced two revolutionary practices that we now take for granted. He let anyone come and browse freely, whether or not intending to buy, and he charged every customer the same price. Both policies changed the everyday meaning of social equality.

At Stewart’s, wrote a journalist in 1871, “you may gaze upon a million dollars’ worth of goods, and no man will interrupt either your meditation or your admiration.” The store and its many emulators established a new social norm. Any well-behaved patron, regardless of class or ethnicity, could freely examine the merchandise without being pestered or pressured to leave.

In many American cities, that era is rapidly coming to a close. To absolutely butcher Edward Grey regarding WWI, the lights are going out in many retail stores across America. Will we see them relit in our lifetime?

FIVE US SERVICE MEMBERS DEAD AFTER MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASH OVER MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Updated).

TOO SOON TO SAY ‘WE TOLD YOU SO?’ “And now we take you on location, to the CBC’s highly anticipated launch of #IslamophobiaAwarenessMonth.”

FLASHBACK:

Follow the science: Testosterone to help normal straight men who are deficient in the natural substance lead better lives is heavily regulated and treated with suspicion. Testosterone to help “trans men” lead the lives they choose should be dispensed like candy.

For that matter, why shouldn’t bodybuilders with “body dysmorphia” be prescribed true anabolics? They’re just trying to bring their actual body in line with their preferred look, same as the trans folk.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Masculinity is toxic except when women want to look like men.”

Plus:

Alex Blumberg:[LAUGHTER] I’ll say. Wow. Testosterone didn’t just turn you into a man. It turned you into Rush Limbaugh.

Griffin Hansbury: I know. That I was not expecting. That I was not expecting. . . .

Alex Blumberg: Or something. Are there other ways– other than the visual and other than the libidinal, are there other ways that you feel like testosterone has altered the way you feel or perceive?

Griffin Hansbury: Something that happened after I started taking testosterone, I became interested in science. I was never interested in science before.

Alex Blumberg: No way. Come on. Are you serious?

Griffin Hansbury: I’m serious. I’m serious.

Alex Blumberg: You’re just setting us back a hundred years, sir.

And:

Meanwhile, also from This American Life, the most NPR line ever: “I have rage. Unfortunately, it’s impotent rage.” Also, the highest testosterone level among the NPR males is 274, which I believe is treatably low. . . . .

Plus: “If I can’t be the most manly in public radio, where the hell can I be the most manly?”

Good question.

THIS IS NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S ANTI-SEMITISM:

One way to begin to understand this more clearly is to think about the popular meme that shows a glowering Trump (my favor[ite] kind of Trump) with the legend, “It’s not me they’re after—it’s you. I’m just in the way.” We can paraphrase this by saying, “It’s not Israel we’re after—it’s the entire project of Western civilization. Israel is just in the way.” It is not for nothing that Iran, for example, has been calling the United States “the great Satan” for 40 years now. If they were to succeed in destroying Israel, we know who would be the next primary target.

John has already posted the video I include again at the end here because I want to add the question: If Israel/Gaza is the issue, then why are these protestors going to such trouble to take down the American flag?  (On Veteran’s Day, no less.) I think we all know why perfectly well.

Here’s more photo evidence, from a London protest:

Exit quote: “Just more reminders that the issue is not the issue.”

QUESTION ASKED: Did Zelensky lie all this while? New report claims Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream sabotage.

FRAN LEBOWITZ: Pretend It’s a Museum (Video).

The woman from the Met who restored Rembrandt’s 1653 painting “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer” says it will not be displayed behind glass, which seems like a huge potential error given the Extinction Rebellion radicals who want to ban petroleum by using petroleum-based adhesives to glue themselves to valuable art and film themselves on an iPhone that’s been manufactured using petroleum. Her restoration skills may be called into play much sooner rather than later, if they do.

Related: Pretend It’s a City, Martin Scorsese’s new documentary series about Lebowitz, reveals her delightfully reactionary character.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The best at-home STD tests of 2023.

“FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA”: BEZOS APPROVES. When useless idiots meet people who try to hide behind coy excuses, this is what happens. From Just the News:

“Multiple online sellers on Amazon are selling merchandise with the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has been labeled antisemitic by Jewish groups and condemned by the White House.

Well, not really condemned, more of a “some people find it hurtful” mush-mouthed statement.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib D-Mi. who was censured by the House claims the phrase is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”

Who is she kidding? Oh, some useful idiots on college campuses and apologist “journalists” who never studied history, I guess.

Here’s the thing nobody want to point out: The destruction of Israel and death of all Jews is written into the damned Hamas Charter itself.

Article Seven is so *ahem* aspirational:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).”

I suppose the problem is nobody wants to ask: Aspiring to what?

We know.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Ninja K32014 Foodi NeverDull Premium Knife System. #CommissionEarned

GOOD: The Juno spacecraft spotted evidence of a salty ocean on Jupiter’s biggest moon.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Bill Maher Calls Out ‘Pro-Hamas’ Media.

SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: ‘Travesty in darkness’: Trump backs drive to televise his D.C. election subversion trial.

I’VE NOTICED THIS: Where and how you sit matters when getting blood pressure taken at the doctor’s office.

YOU DON’T WANT CHIKUNGUNYA: FDA approves vaccine to prevent infection with the chikungunya virus.