OPEN THREAD: Take it away.

PLANETARY DEFENSE: Here’s what we’ve learned from NASA’s DART asteroid-slamming mission so far.

WHERE WE ARE NOW:

NOW OUT FROM LARRY CORREIA: Tower of Silence.

WAIT, WHAT? Alzheimer’s May Not Actually Be a Brain Disease, Expert Says.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: The Audacity of Woke: The revolution will be accessorized.

I MEAN, IT’S OKAY, BUT . . . Docs and Patients Don’t Prefer Telehealth Despite Pandemic Popularity.

YES: Antibiotic consumption and resistance is a ‘two-way street’ between animals and humans.

ROGER KIMBALL: The truth comes out about Beijing’s balloon.

Well, well, well. The world seems amazed at the news that the Chinese spy balloon that meandered over the entire continental United States this winter was, you know, spying. That’s what spy balloons do: they spy. They collect intelligence — in this case, information from some of America’s most sensitive sites (I was going to say “secure sites,” but that would clearly be inaccurate). What do they do then? Like bees collecting pollen, they transmit what they collected back to the hive, which, mirabile dictu, just happens to be located in Beijing.

Anyone who was paying attention knew this. Did secretary of state Antony Blinken? Did puppet-in-chief Joe “Chocolate-Chip” Biden? Probably. But there is knowing and then there is knowing. The latter includes acknowledging what you know, which neither they nor SecDef Lloyd “Stand Down” Austin nor chair-entity of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark “White Rage” Milley did.

Nope, it was ostrich time all around — by which I mean that our heads were buried in the sand. Which is why the NBC report that — can you believe it? — Beijing’s spy balloon was not only collecting secrets but also transmitting them back to Comrade Pooh-Bear Xi caused a little ripple in the pond of public complacency yesterday. “Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive US military sites, despite US efforts to block it.” You don’t say?

In accordance with the prophecy: Biden Says He’ll Shoot Down Chinese Spy Balloon As Soon As He’s Done Letting It Spy.

— The Babylon Bee, February 3rd.

A MANUAL TRANSMISSION? Volvo Patents New Tool to Combat Car Thieves.

I HAVE A FRESH BATCH OF UNEXPECTEDLIES READY FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: LA County jails are overcrowded. ‘Let’s just cut them loose.’

FILM LADD: The Avengers vs The Wild Bunch (Video).

GET WOKE, GO…: Head of Bud Light marketing definitely not a “WASSUP”/bayou frog type.

OUT ON A LIMB: John Lennon — No Model to Emulate.

THEN IT’S SAFE TO ASSUME THAT THEY AREN’T: Massachusetts School Official’s Job Offer Rescinded Because He Called Two Women ‘Ladies.’

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: As AI-machine learning emerges, Americans’ doubts grow: You know who’s super-positive about AI, however? The Chinese. Think about it.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Moves Up Starship Launch Date, New Clues Suggest.

If Musk succeeds with Starship, its launches (and recoveries) will be even more frequent that the 100-launch goal he set for Falcon 9 this year.

BREAKING: Former President Donald Trump Arraigned in Historic Bonfire of American Civil Norms.

DAVID SOLWAY: Assault and Battery: Beware Those EVs. “There can be little doubt in any serious person’s mind that Green technology is an unmitigated disaster. It is no longer an issue of Big Oil, which the Leftwaffe is strafing and bombing daily, but of the multi-billion-dollar industry of Big Green, or the Climate-Industrial Complex. The game has changed.”

READER FAVORITE: UABRLA Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor. #CommissionEarned

NICK ARAMA: Those ’34 Charges’ Against Trump May Not Be What They Seem.

I want to re-up my comments from Saturday when I said this “charge stacking” is likely what would happen. Prosecutors can try to charge as many things as they can, even if those charges only pertain to one incident. So let’s assume for the moment in this alleged “falsification of business records” charge, that Trump had to file a form that had signatures or initials on the same form multiple times. Each signature/initial could be counted as a potential charge, even if it’s all on the same form and just one incident. So if you had a 34-page form with signatures or initials on each page, you could potentially make 34 charges out of it. We’ll know when we see the real indictment to see precisely what they are talking about. It’s also a bit of flooding of the jury, all they would have to agree to is one to convict. This increases that possibility.

But I think this is mostly about making Trump look bad to the public and the potential jury pool. It’s about having people go “34 charges!!!” and say how awful Trump is, when it all may apply just to the one matter. It’s trying to make the turkey of a case look like it’s something more than it is by buffaloing people with the number. I think it’s more evidence of the bias in this matter, as this shows Bragg trying to throw everything and anything against the wall to try to make something stick when what he truly has is a legally pathetic case.

The mainstream media is certainly playing along, shouting “34 charges” but barely whispering what they are.

THE TYRANNY OF CLICHES: ABC’s Donna Brazile: DeSantis Running on a 1950s America, Not 2050s.

THAT’S WEIRD. WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING? Oil Prices Rise As Output Is Cut.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Radical enviros want Great Salt Lake given personhood.

DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH: Could Trump Prosecutor Alvin Bragg Go to Prison? It’s Possible.