I APPLAUD HER FOR GIVING IT A REAL TRY, BUT IT WAS ALWAYS DOOMED: Report: Kellyanne Conway And Her NeverTrump Husband Split, Hire Divorce Lawyers.

Women shouldn’t marry weasels.

LATELY THE ECONOMY IS WEAPONIZED AGAINST SMALL BUSINESSES:  Telling people ‘start a business’ can be terrible advice.

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start a business. Just that you should figure out a plan before you do. I mean, arguably substack blogging and book writing are businesses, after all.

LIKE A WORLD FREE FROM INEQUALITY, IT SIGNALS ONLY A LACK OF FREEDOM:  A world free from sin.

I’M SHOCKED:  “Resumes Including ‘They/Them’ Pronouns Are More Likely to Be Overlooked, New Report Finds.”

OPEN THREAD: Say anything.

ME ON SUBSTACK: How I Was Wrong About Covid. With a notation that Charlie Martin and Sarah Hoyt were right all along.

SPACE BATTLESPACE PREP: A Chinese spacecraft has been checking out US satellites high above Earth.

HMM: Struggle to Recognize Faces? Face Blindness May Be More Common Than Scientists Assumed.

Modern people have to recognize — and even just look at, without recognizing — hundreds or thousands of faces a day. Most humans historically didn’t see that many faces in a lifetime. And the faces they did see almost always came with lots of contextual cues.

My memory banks are saturated. A couple of times I’ve been talking to a former student and realized that for most of the conversation I thought that I was talking to a different former student from a few years earlier or later who looked like them.

600 HAND AXES? THAT’S AN ARSENAL! NOBODY NEEDS 600 HAND AXES! WE NEED SENSIBLE HAND AXE CONTROLS. Nearly 600 obsidian handaxes from 1.2 million years ago found in Ethiopia show early humans were smarter than we think.

DEMOCRATS STILL PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1859: CPAC 2023: Tulsi Gabbard accuses Democrats of becoming ‘racists they claim to hate.’

GERMANY STILL PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939: Monument of Fundamental Rights Vandalized by Climate Activists Near German Parliament.

A group of activists known as the “Last Generation” has caused outrage after pouring black paint over an art installation known as “Basic Law 49” in Berlin.

The installation, created by Israeli artist Dani Karavan, consists of 19 panes of glass, each engraved with one of the 19 articles of the Basic Law in their 1949 version.

Flashback: Rupert Darwall on the Alarming Roots of Environmentalism.

If you look at what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s, in their environmental policies, virtually every theme you see in the modern environmental movement, the Nazis were doing. It happens to be historical fact that the Nazis were the first political party in the world to have a wind power program. It also happens to be a fact that they were against meat eating, and they considered…it…terribly wasteful that so much grain went to feed livestock rather than to make bread. It’s also the case that they had the equivalent of fuel economy rules because they had the most expensive gasoline in Europe and so they basically had very few people driving cars…I think actually the most extraordinary thing that I came across was this quote from Adolf Hitler where he told an aide once, “I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in changing people’s lifestyles.” Well, that could be…That’s extraordinarily contemporary. That is what the modern environmental movement is all about. It’s about changing people’s lifestyles.

Given Karavan’s background, is “Basic Law 49” also starting to become fascinated by what the National Socialists were doing in the ‘40s as well? (And/or what they were doing in 1937.)

THE WAR ON RURAL COMMUNITIES: Joel Kotkin: Energy Colonialism Will Worsen the Urban-Rural Divide.

In his drive to conquer China, Mao Zedong and his most famous general, Lin Biao, stoked “a peasant revolution” that eventually overwhelmed the cities. In those days, most Chinese toiled on the land, a vast manpower reservoir for the Communist insurgency. Today, in a world where a majority lives in urban settlements, such a strategy would be doomed to failure.

The small percentage of rural and small-town residents in most advanced countries — generally under 20 percent — lack the numbers to overwhelm the rest of society. Political and economic elites feel free to ignore the countryside, but they may find they do so at their peril. Although now a mere slice of the population, rural areas remain critical suppliers of food, fiber (like cotton), and energy to the rest of the economy.

Residents in agricultural areas have good reason to feel put upon. Their industries are often targeted by regulators and disdained by the metropolitan cognoscenti. They may not be hiding in the caves of Yan’an, but farming communities from the Netherlands to North America are rebelling against extreme government regulations, such as banning or restricting critical fertilizers or the enforced culling of herds. Meat and dairy producers are assaulted in a hysterical article in the New York Times that predicts imminent “mass extinction” caused by humans and suggests that to keep the planet from “frying” we will need to reduce meat and dairy consumption in short order.

This is occurring at a time — following decades of remarkable boosts in agricultural productivity — when food insecurity and high prices are again plaguing even wealthy countries but particularly the poorer countries in Africa. This shortfall has worsened, in part due to the Russia–Ukraine conflict, which has reduced the reliability of food exports from the Ukrainian bread basket, making Western production more critical.

Regardless, the inhabitants of the periphery — the vast area from the metropolitan fringe to the deepest countryside — and the farming that flourishes there will face an extraordinarily well-funded green movement that is now depicting “industrial farming” as one of the principal villains in their ever-expanding climate melodrama. Although greens may support the notion of small farmers using artisanal methods, and the wealthy certainly can afford the much higher food prices, niche farming cannot support most farming communities or provide ordinary consumers with reasonably priced groceries.

To be fair, that’s all part of the plan.

The rebellion brewing in the rural reaches may just be in its early phases. Residents in the periphery increasingly see themselves in the cross-hairs of urban interests, particularly by the climate-change policies driven by the ultra-rich and their lavishly funded nonprofits and urban activists. In Europe, where green policies, particularly those resulting in high fuel prices, have hit exurbanites and farmers hardest, they fought back in the gilets jaunes movement. Whether farmers or small commercial enterprises, the increase in the fuel price, part of the attempt to curb carbon emissions, was a direct assault on their future. Their slogan: “Les élites parlent de fin du monde, quand nous, on parle de fin du mois.” “The elites speak of the end of the world while we speak about the end of the month.”

Similarly, the famously efficient Dutch farmers are protesting the government’s attempt to impose emission reductions on agriculture and ban chemical fertilizers. Recently, they have been joined by their Spanish, Polish, and Italian counterparts. Although hardly the peasants of Mao’s era, theirs is largely a class protest against the well-to-do and connected who claim environmental piety by paying “green” indulgences through carbon credits and other virtue-signaling devices, while imposing “enlightened” policies that devastate the less well-off.

Environmentally focused governments are concentrating on reducing agricultural production. There’s a certain irony in the fact that this will hit farmers in the Netherlands, a model of efficiency, both agriculturally and in terms of emissions reduction. Up to 3,000 farms will be closed. In the next few decades, the total of closures could reach 11,000, while another 17,000 might have to cut back their livestock. And there are plenty more examples of cutbacks planned for elsewhere in the EU.

Again, that’s all part of the plan. Making ordinary people’s lives worse isn’t an unfortunate side effect of these policies. It’s the goal of these policies.

NONE OF HIS NOMINEES ARE CHOSEN FOR COMPETENCE. SEE, E.G., JENNIFER GRANHOLM AND PETE BUTTIGIEG. Biden’s FAA Nominee Can’t Answer a Single Question About Aviation.

BRUSSELS: Tractors block Brussels roads in farmer protest. “Flemish farmers are up in arms over a green push by the government of their Dutch-speaking region aimed at slashing nitrogen emissions from fertilisers and livestock.”

SHE’S DEMENTED AND DELUSIONAL, WHICH PUTS HER IN THE MAINSTREAM OF HER PARTY: Even After a Historic Landslide Defeat, Lori Lightfoot Doesn’t Seem to Realize It Was All About the Crime.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Ambimall Floor Lamp for Living Room. #CommissionEarned

IT’S NOT HARD: WHEN THE NEWS ARTICLE SAYS LEFTISTS OR GREENS ARE IN CHARGE, EXPECT FOOD SHORTAGES: Machine learning model focuses on news articles to predict food crisis outbreaks.

WELL, GOOD: Embolization could provide relief from enlarged prostate without drugs.

ONE MAN’S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN’S FREEDOM FIGHTER: Reuters: 70 years after death, Stalin’s polarizing legacy looms large.

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Josef Stalin’s death, attitudes to the Soviet Union’s wartime leader remain mixed in the nations he once ruled with an iron fist.

During three decades of dictatorial rule, Stalin oversaw rapid industrialisation and victory over the Nazis but also the deaths of millions in purges, Gulag labour camps and famine.

With Russia embroiled in conflict again in Ukraine, in what the Kremlin says is a fresh existential battle for national survival, memories of the Soviet dictator loom large.

“Firstly, thank you for the victory (in World War Two),” said 21-year-old Madina in a typically mixed view of Stalin’s legacy among people on the streets of Moscow.

“Secondly, he is a negative person for me because there were a lot of deaths. A lot of executions, shootings, expulsions, arts were banned, etc. So it’s impossible to have a clear position one way or the other,” she added, declining to give her second name.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953, aged 74.

Though public commemorations remain largely taboo and streets no longer bear his name, his reputation has in recent years undergone something of a renaissance.

To boldly go where the New York Times went in 1953: “Stalin Rose From Czarist Oppression to Transform Russia Into Mighty Socialist State.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

“OZEMPIC FACE” ISN’T REALLY A THING, it’s just the consequence of losing a lot of bodyfat. I’ve had a number of friends — and my dad — who lost a lot of weight post-40 and they all looked a bit droopy or funny for a while because it takes a long time for your skin to tauten up. And to some degree, a skinny face just tends to look older. So I believe that there’s no specific aging angle here, just what happens when you lose a lot of weight fast.

THE NYPD HAS HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR MASK OBSESSIVENESS, MANHATTANITES: NYC police want shoppers to remove masks before entering stores.

Face masks, once an essential Covid-19 protective measure, are now being worn by criminals to conceal their identities, according to New York police who are urging businesses to unmask customers before letting them in stores.

The recommendation is a 180-degree turn from mask-wearing norms at the onset of the pandemic. During peak periods of infection, federal agencies mandated mask-wearing in public places, while many businesses required customers to wear them on the premises.

Now, however, some businesses are banning customers from entering the premises with face masks on, saying the policy change is needed to identify thieves. And after numerous incidents, the New York Police Department is urging business owners to make shoppers remove their face masks and flash their features before being let in.

“We’re seeing far too often where people are coming up to our businesses, sometimes with masks and latex gloves, and they’re being buzzed in, they’re being allowed to enter into the store and then we have a robbery or some kind of property being stolen,” NYPD chief of department Jeffrey Maddrey said recently in an address to the local business community.

It’s good to see the NYPD is following the science these days, even if many New Yorkers have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of their Mass Formation Psychosis. Or as fellow Insta-co-blogger John Tierney wrote late last month: The Real Science on Masks: They Make No Difference.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I married my stepdaddy — and it was the best decision I ever made.. “Christy assured followers that her mother — who can allegedly be seen in the background of the wedding video taking photographs of the happy couple — is in full support of their union.”

LIGHTNING DEAL: Zitahli Belt for Men. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)

MARK JUDGE: Want to cure American amnesia? Teach history backward.

There is a simple step America’s educators can take to improve civic awareness dramatically. Teach history backward.

That’s how I learned it. One of the best teachers I ever had was a man who taught me high school history. On the first day of class, he announced that we would be learning U.S. history starting with recent events. We began with Watergate and the Vietnam War, then moved back through the 1950s, the Red Scare, and the Korean War. From there, we covered World War II, the Great Depression, then the 1920s. Eventually, near the end of the school year, we found ourselves in the American Revolution.

It was a curriculum that worked brilliantly. It was the early 1980s, and Vietnam was something very real to those of us in high school and college. Many of us had friends, neighbors, and family members who had served in the war. It was exciting to study the conflict.

It also made liberal bias very difficult to weaponize. When the topic being taught involves living people who can challenge the accuracy of the curriculum, it makes it hard to bowdlerize the truth the way something like the “1619 Project” does.

It sounds like a reverse-action version of Whig History, which is much more enjoyable for most students than its successor, Black Armband History.

CAFE HAYEK: A Telling Tale of Toil. What the pundits and tweeters don’t know about those manufacturing jobs they’re trying to save (just not for their own children).