OPEN THREAD: It’s all you.

SMART, BUT KINDA EMBARRASSING FOR BLUE ORIGIN: Amazon adds Falcon 9 to multi-billion-dollar Project Kuiper launch campaign.

IT’S NICE WE’RE STILL GETTING USE OUT OF THOSE: Apollo Samples Reveal The Moon Holds Hydrogen Hurled From The Sun. But I thought we already knew that.

THAT WOULD BE NICE: Can Type 2 Diabetes Be Reversed for Good? Experts Weigh In.

READER BOOK PLUG: Enemies Among Us.

SO THAT PROBABLY MEANS THERE’S A NEW VIRUS, BASED ON RECENT HISTORY: Respiratory illnesses in China not caused by new virus, CDC director testifies.

Right? Plus: “The United Nations health agency has asked China to provide more information about the surge in respiratory illnesses, NBC News reported. Both the Chinese government and WHO have faced criticism over a lack of transparency in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Add the CDC to that list.

HMM: EPA’s Own Data Shows Only 19% of All Climate Stations Reported Warming Since 1948.

Related: UN: Okay, Maybe the Planet Isn’t Warming That Quickly.

OOPS: NHTSA Opens Investigation Into the Chevy Volt.

READER FAVORITE: ThermoPro Lightning 1-Second Instant Read Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned

SKYNET SWIMS: Watch this eel robot effortlessly glide underwater.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Trick prompts ChatGPT to leak private data.

JAMES LILEKS: What Are We Nostalgic For?

We have a nagging feeling that our urge for reinvention makes us lose something we’ll regret when it’s gone. The newspapers of the ’20s, an era of astonishing energy and sophistication, are full of laments for the loss of the old ways. The ads of the ’30s had amused affection for the Gay ’90s. Simon and Garfunkel wondered where Joe DiMaggio had gone. Tony Soprano was haunted by the fact that he’d come in at the end of something. Every American era will be reviled as it unfolds and admired when it is over.

The difference now is that we’ve stopped evolving and entered a remix culture, where the vast past is just a thrift store of costumes and artifacts, consumed in solitude through glowing glass rectangles, shared in an incorporeal community where avatars speak in unpunctuated text, memes and algorithmically selected TikTok moments. It’s a level of hell Dante never named, the one populated entirely by willing volunteers.

But don’t despair. There’s a lot that’s grand about our current age. People will, one day, have nostalgia for 2023. The reasons may vary. I hope it’s because the seeds of a better world—more or less, overall, all things considered—are growing today, and we don’t notice them for all the brambles and thistles. I fear the nostalgia may be due to how free and prosperous our era seems in retrospect. They might wonder if we knew how good we had it. Ice machines, gas stoves, private cars, home ownership, no social credit, hot showers without timers, actual hamburgers made from meat instead of crickets…

A golden age!

Well yes. If some can look back on the 1970s in a nostalgic fog as an earlier example of a golden age, many likely have similarly rosy memories decades from now about 2023.

INDUSTRY: Car Expert Sandy Munro Estimates Tesla Can Make 250,000 to 500,000 Cybertrucks per Year.

Related: Drive by Wire and 48V Architecture in New Cybertruck. “The Tesla Cybertruck is twice as efficient as a Hummer EV.”

KNOW YOUR PLACE, PEASANTS: Climate elites should take easyJet flights like the rest of us, or be quiet.

As usual, this is more “eat the rich” thinking than anything remotely helpful. The world is not fast on its journey to hell in a hand-basket because of private jets flying in and out of the UK. But then, the Greens love to ban things, blame the West for everything, and cry catastrophe, much more than they like to create, invent or solve things.

That said, the idea of banning some private jets is appealing. Specifically, those in use by the climate elite: the Leonardo DiCaprios, Barack Obamas, Harry and Meghans and Silicon Valley executives of the world. In fact, anyone who bleats on about the evils of flying – low-cost flights possibly being the most democratic invention of all time – should be prevented from boarding their private jets.

When it comes to their international lifestyles, only two options can satisfy after years of incessant hypocrisy: they can take easyJet like the rest of us, or they can stop preaching.

But they won’t, of course. The hypocrisy is the message to the rest of us from the Inner Party: John Kerry flew on private jet to accept climate award: ‘Only choice for somebody like me.’

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Vitamin D supplements do not prevent bone fractures in children, finds study.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Watch Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood Sing ‘Imagine’ at Rosalynn Carter’s Funeral.

Because “Imagine there’s no heaven” and “Imagine there’s no countries” are comforting words inside the church funeral for a 96-year-old former first lady of America.

OLD AND BUSTED: Welcome Back, Carter!

The New Hotness? Welcome back, Johnson! Muslim leaders in swing states launch campaign to ditch Biden in 2024.

Their main objection to Biden, according to the outlet, is that he has not sufficiently pressed Israel for a cease-fire in their war against Hamas.

The campaign is titled the #AbandonBiden National Coalition.

“Right behind me, what Mr. Biden should see is 111 electoral votes. And he won last time with 74,” Salam continued.

While the leaders of this movement are not supporting Biden, they made it clear they are not supporting former President Donald Trump either.

“We’re not supporting Trump,” coalition member Jaylani Hussein said. We’re not going to make the same mistake of thinking about President Biden the way we thought. We don’t have two options. We have many options, and we’re going to exercise that.”

While the Corbynization of the Democratic Party has long continued apace, which candidate will be sufficiently pro-Hamas to win their support?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: When astronauts become farmers: Harvesting food on the moon and Mars.

WHY DON’T PEOPLE WHO EXPRESS GRAVE CONCERN ABOUT PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES CALL ON HAMAS TO RELEASE ITS HOSTAGES AND SURRENDER?: Because they don’t really care about Palestinian well-being. The allegedly “pro-Palestine” movement’s main objective is to destroy the State of Israel, for various reasons–antisemitism, Islamism, pan-Arabism, hatred of the West. The welfare of actual Palestinians is at best a secondary concern. This, among others things, is why you see virtually no voices who claim to be concerned with Palestinian well-being calling on Hamas to surrender. Hamas’s surrender would surely be good for the Palestinians. It would end the war and its attendant destruction, and it would mean that some new group would govern Gaza, and that new government could hardly be worse than the corrupt, Islamist, war-mongering dictatorship of Hamas. But, and here’s the key, Hamas’s surrender would also benefit Israel. And the “movement” is happy to sacrifice both immediate and long-term Palestinian well-being to harm Israel.

YES, THEY NEED TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON: If Dems can target billionaire Elon Musk to control speech, who WON’T they target?

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Man, 26, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ allegedly kills one, injures two in Paris knife attack near Eiffel Tower.

IN THE MAIL: From Robert Spencer, Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. #CommissionEarned

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST, PART DEUX:

I DON’T KNOW, I CAN IMAGINE AN AWFUL LOT BY WAY OF NEW DEMOCRACY: Harvard law professor tells audience to ‘imagine a new democracy.’. But I feel certain what I imagine isn’t what she’s imagining.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Swing State Muslims Vow to “Abandon Biden” Next Year.