THIS IS RIGHT: We Don’t Need A ‘National Divorce,’ We Need More Federalism.

I wrote the same thing over a decade ago. That said, I think we’re probably more likely to get secession than constitutional government at this point. Too much graft is tied up in federal overreach.

And I’m so old that I remember when Democrats were calling for secession if Trump engaged in “dangerous militaristic adventurism.” Instead, Trump — who started no wars and produced real peace in the Mideast to boot — was simply reviled on other grounds.

Related: “Secession is for losers, because under today’s federal government, losing is intolerable. If you think that you can’t win nationally, you want to secede locally. If we had a more tolerable federal government, even losers wouldn’t want to secede.”

WASH YOUR HANDS: Norovirus is spiking across the United States: Often called “stomach flu,” it isn’t a flu at all, but it is very contagious.

HEH: New York City Mayor Eric Adams Takes a Shot at Ron DeSantis. Hits Himself Instead. “DeSantis is on a three-city tour comparing and contrasting Florida’s crime rate with the crime rate of Democratic big cities. He’s also on something of a recruiting drive for police officers.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW. Blue Origin Making Solar Cells from Lunar Regolith.

YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID: Don Lemon to Undergo ‘Formal Training’ After Nikki Haley Remarks, Will Return to CNN Show Wednesday.

Honestly, I thought CNN would take the opportunity to fire Lemon, who underperforms on his better days. They probably should have, too.

GOOD POINT: “If equity is so important, why not eliminate varsity sports?“

WAS IT A MAIL-IN BALLOT? Letter from 1916 arrives at London man’s home.

ANGLING FOR THAT POST-PRIMARIES GIG ON MSNBC: 2024 GOP Fantasist Hogan Says Opposing Trans Propaganda in Schools Is ‘Authoritarian.’

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: 20 minutes of daily exercise may ward off hospitalization in middle age.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Eric Swalwell spent more campaign cash on travel and luxury accommodations than Nancy Pelosi. “Swalwell has consistently used donor funds on limousines, flights, yachts, and posh hotels, including internationally. The spending came as Americans in both his district and around the country faced rising inflation that drove food, fuel, and energy costs through the roof.”

FIND YOUR WAY: Rand McNally 2023 Large Scale Road Atlas. #CommissionEarned

JAY LENO’S GARAGE: The Beginning of the Z Cars: the Nissan Fairlady Z (Video).

BUGATTI CHIRON SUPER SPORT REVIEW: a historic moment for mankind — and the combustion engine. 5/5: Here’s why a top speed of 273mph allied to a price of £3.2 million is neither vulgar nor despicable

KRUISER: NY Times Already Busy Repackaging Biden as Working Class and Thoughtful for 2024.

THERE’S A REASON: When they don’t tell you the race. “If the hate crime were White on Black, you would see headlines screaming the fact in the national news, along with renewed calls for a national conversation on race. But when the perpetrator is Black–and this is often true when discussing crimes, including with descriptions of fugitives we are supposed to be on the lookout for–that fact is not reported at all.”

USED TO: Mark Pulliam: Liberal law professors used to love the U.S. Supreme Court.

It’s fun watching them turn on a dime now that it’s not a wish-fulfillment device anymore.

FALLOUT: Putin Halts Nuke Pact With US, Vows to Push War in Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia will suspend its observation of the New START treaty with the US, dealing a blow to the last accord limiting their nuclear arsenals, as he vowed to press on with his faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is fighting for its “historic lands” in Ukraine and “will fulfill the tasks set step-by-step, carefully and consistently,” Putin told the Russian parliament and top officials in Moscow on Tuesday. Russia won’t be the first to resume testing of nuclear weapons as a result of its suspension of New START, though it will do so in response to any US test, he said. 

US President Joe Biden extended the nuclear treaty by five years to 2026 as one of his first acts upon taking office in 2021 shortly before it was due to expire, after Putin had pressed his predecessor Donald Trump without success to agree to a deal. The US and its NATO allies “want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and crawl into our nuclear facilities” by demanding inspections under the treaty, Putin said, describing the requests as absurd.

Trust is broken, verification is out, China is engaged in a strategic breakout — there isn’t anything left of nuclear arms control except for the testing ban.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: ‘The Last of Us’ Zombie Apocalypse Could Be Real Says WHO Expert and You’ll Never Believe the Cause.

Plus:

• Loudon County, Virginia is “hiding something big.”
• Princeton lecture delved into the”erotic relations between Blackness, soil, and Dead (matter)” because of course it did.
• The most excited dog in the world.

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

COLD WAR II: China successfully tests ‘phantom space strike’ weapon which can overwhelm an enemy’s missile defence systems ahead of a nuclear attack.

China has successfully tested a ‘phantom space strike’ – a new tactic to overwhelm and sabotage missile defences by emitting fake target signals from space.

Military engineers announced earlier this month they had completed a computer simulation and achieved positive results.

The tactic is designed to overwhelm the enemy on the basis that there is only so much a missile defence system would be able to cope with.

Previously: STRATCOM Chief Warns Of Chinese ‘Strategic Breakout.’ “It really doesn’t matter why China is and continues to grow and modernize. What matters is they are building the capability to execute any plausible nuclear employment strategy — the last brick in the wall of a military capable of coercion.”

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Meghan Markle ‘has been upset and overwhelmed by her depiction on South Park for DAYS’ after it described her as ‘sorority girl, actress, influencer, victim’ in scathing episode.

Related: Megyn Kelly: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle ‘won’t recover’ from South Park dig.

STANDING UP AGAINST SEXIST BIGOTRY: Jordan Peterson, dozens of academics attack Ivy League anti-male bias.

OH, BOTHER! Winnie the Pooh and Piglet star in a R-rated horror flick.

Say it isn’t so. A much-beloved childhood literary character and his sidekick have become the stars of a dark and grisly movie. It’s all because of the end of copyright protection and its entrance into the public domain.

In the 1920s, many copyright protections on content were introduced in the pop culture of the era. They were set up to expire 95 years later. That’s now. The characters of our childhood, and the childhoods of other generations, are in the public domain. Without copyright protection, it’s open season for screenwriters.

It’s not just Winnie the Pooh and his friend, Piglet, that have gone dark and murderous. The filmmaker behind “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” also has two other movies planned based on characters that are entering the public domain. Rhys Frake-Waterfield has “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” and “Bambi: The Reckoning” in the works. Next year, Disney will lose Mickey Mouse. The exclusive rights to Mickey’s likeness as depicted in his first cartoon, Steamboat Willie will be in the public domain. In the next 10 years, Bug Bunny, Batman, and Superman will be up for grabs in the public domain, too.

To be fair, we’ve already had Yogi and Booboo star in an R-rated horror flick over a decade ago:

GRAMMARLY IS SLOW, OFTEN WRONG, AND INCREASINGLY WOKE: Grammarly Will Ruin the World Before Bing Destroys It. “This is how the world will end. Not with hordes of shiny, red-eyed monstrosities with rail guns blowing us to smithereens. No, it will end with AI slowly driving us insane. One person at a time.”

I REMEMBER WHEN HIGHER EDUCATION WAS DEFENDED AS PROMOTING CIVILITY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP: Auburn student paper editorial: So WHAT if a racist group chat called white people names?

HMM: China beats Tesla to Nigeria’s lithium riches.

Kaduna, a state in northwestern Nigeria, has selected China’s Ming Xin Mineral Separation Nig Ltd. (MXMS) to build the country’s first lithium-processing plant, with a plan to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).

On January 13, the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency tweeted pictures of its leadership team reviewing the plant’s construction. According to Kaduna State’s mining company, the plant is being built on 9.3 hectares of land. Khalil Nur Khalil, the executive secretary of the state’s investment promotion agency, told Rest of World that the plant is a “game changer,” which he believes will lay the foundation for Nigeria’s ambitions to build “battery factories” and produce “EVs in Kaduna.”

This comes more than five months after the Nigerian government claimed it had rejected Tesla’s proposal to purchase raw lithium from the country.

The only reason we’re becoming dependent on foreign resources like lithium is Washington and various state government like California forcing us.