OPEN THREAD: Disport yourselves below.

SPACE: Rolls-Royce unveils early-stage design for space nuclear reactor.

FASTER (THAN LIGHT) PLEASE: “It turns out that the presence of such superluminal observers does not lead to anything logically inconsistent, moreover, it is quite possible that superluminal objects really exist.”

WEIRD, HEART ATTACK RATES WERE FALLING FOR DECADES: Heart attacks on the rise among young adults, but many are unaware of risk.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL CONFIRMS CHINESE HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON WAS SEEN OVER MONTANA.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! DEPT. (ILHAN OMAR EDITION): After Pouncing, Seizing, Gloating, Latching, etc, etc, etc , Now “Demonizing” Republicans Are “Exacting Revenge”…

Evergreen:

JANICE FIAMENGO: The Henpecked Hero: Public Usefulness but Rarely Domestic Happiness for the Modern Good Man. “But why is she disappointed at all? The question of the woman or girl’s anger arises and is never answered in any of these programs. Are we to condemn the man because he didn’t grovel harder with an emotionally volatile woman? Because he didn’t compromise his professional obligations? Because he is so dedicated to his demanding and often dangerous job that he is emotionally spent when he comes home—or because what he deals with is so brutal that he can’t talk about it? So often in these scenes of castigation, one is struck by the ludicrous inappropriateness of it all. How dare this girl berate her father? How dare this woman debase her man? And why does he put up with it? . . . Women are almost never directly criticized in these portrayals, and are almost always presented as objects of love and longing for the hero. Yet it is hard not to notice that they are not clearly worth the male effort being expended. They are certainly never expected to meet the standards of self-control, arduous dedication, and mental toughness required of the men.”

BIDEN’S NEW CLIMATE STRATEGY: STAY HOME.

The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t all bad, a new Biden administration plan to fight climate change argues: It at least “highlighted major opportunities” to reduce travel demand and lower carbon emissions through “remote work and virtual interactions.”

The plan—which President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency and Energy, Transportation, and Housing departments released in January—aims to “eliminate nearly all greenhouse gas emissions” from the transportation sector by 2050, mostly through a transition to electric vehicles. Also included in the plan, however, is a controversial call to reduce “commuting miles” through “an increase in remote work and virtual engagements,” including in education.

Make sure you read the last part of the final sentence of that excerpt carefully. Yes, they’re talking about working remotely and using Zoom calls or similar technology to hold meetings. But they added the phrase “including in education.”

Has anyone on Joe Biden’s team been paying any attention to the news for the past year? The school closures during the lockdown were disastrous for students. (And they were pretty hard on many parents as well, of course.) Students’ educational achievements cratered. Their emotional development was stunted. High school grades and graduation rates dropped, along with college admissions.

And now Joe Biden is pushing to have more of that “remote learning” make a comeback in the name of climate change? Have we learned nothing from the past three years? One thing we definitely learned was that children were at the lowest risk of bad outcomes from COVID, so the schools were probably the last places we should have shut down.

I can’t shake the feeling that this brings us one step closer to a declared “climate emergency.” You people can all stay locked down in your homes voluntarily to save the polar bears or we can declare an emergency and lock you down like we did during COVID.

As Stephen Miller asked in February of 2021:  Are you ready for the climate lockdowns? It’s only a matter of time.

SPACE: The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA, OF COURSE: Astronomers Just Discovered 12 New Moons Orbiting Jupiter. “With the advent of these 12 previously undiscovered moons, the gas giant now has 92 known orbiting entities, surpassing Saturn’s amazing collection of 83.”

HMM: Was It Personal? Authorities Investigating Rumor That Tyre Nichols Was in a Relationship With Officer’s Ex. So we shift the narrative from white supremacy to toxic masculinity, I guess?

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Fifth Circuit strikes down firearms prohibition under domestic violence restraining order. “The question presented in this case is not whether prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order is a laudable policy goal. The question is whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), a specific statute that does so, is constitutional under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. In the light of N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), it is not.”

The way to keep Rahimi from possessing a gun might be to keep him in jail longer on his many criminal offenses.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has thoughts.

MORE THAN JUST A GUN BUCKET: How to Choose a Good Holster. Tamara Keel has been going on about the importance of holsters for years, and when she talks guns, I listen.

ALL OF OUR INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED: ‘Toe the line:’ Professor leaves academia as DEI corrupts STEM.

READER FAVORITE: RAK Magnetic Wristband for Holding Screws. #CommissionEarned

I’M FINE WITH THIS: Plodding Senate lowers expectations for new Congress. “As House Republicans spar with the Biden administration and pass a bevy of messaging bills, the Democratic-controlled Senate is off to a much slower start. Four weeks into the 118th session of Congress, the upper chamber has taken just a few votes and is only now organizing its committee rosters, foreshadowing what could be an unproductive two years.”

THE UNEXPECTED NEAR-PEER WAR: Ukraine’s Nation In Arms.

Eleven months of combat and suffering demonstrate that on the battlefield Ukraine can defeat a Russian invasion then launch limited but sustained (and thus effective) local counter-offensives.

As Month 12 begins, satellites photograph trenches and shell holes, wire services report artillery slugfests and cable TV experts speculate on new attacks when the Russians get more soldiers, when the Ukrainians deploy Leopard 2 tanks.

In other words, the war has become a bloody stalemate between two armies that refuse to lose.

Read the whole thing.

NAVAL MINES IN THE BLACK SEA: A Jim Dunnigan “How to Make War” WEAPONS update. The post also discusses Iranian mines in the Red Sea. Apparently they’ve sunk several Yemeni fishing boats.

WITH ENOUGH FOIL, YOU CAN EVEN TURN THEM INTO Ds: How to turn AAA batteries into AAs.

FIGHT THE POWER: Penn law dean hit with grievance over drawn out Amy Wax investigation. She said some stuff they didn’t like about admissions, probably because it was true. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten the details. What’s there to “investigate?”

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: China will lose half its population by the end of the century — and the ripple effects will be catastrophic.

This year India is set to surpass China’s population, and in a few years it will surpass China’s working-age population — people 20 to 69. The United Nations has estimated that if China’s birth rate remains at its super-low level and the country fails to position itself as an attractive destination for migrants, the country will lose nearly half of its population by the end of this century, a contraction of roughly 700 million people.

Strong growth in its working-age population over the past several decades allowed China to become the world’s factory — over 70% of solar panels, 60% of farm machines, and 25% of robots are constructed with components from Chinese suppliers. Because of its manufacturing prowess and importance to supply chains, China’s shrinking working-age population has enormous, direct effects on the global economy. It’s also an omen for the US and Europe: If they don’t turn around their shrinking birth rates, they face the same economic fate as China.

But: “The large population decline is projected even though it assumes that China’s total fertility rate will rise from 1.18 children per woman in 2022 to 1.48 in 2100.”

Without that rise in fertility — which seems unlikely — China’s population will shrink even faster.

NICE: Astronauts awarded Congressional Space Medals of Honor. “Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley received medals for bravery for soaring to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2. It was the first time in 17 years that the medals have been awarded.”

WELL, GOOD: Trump vows to end ‘left-wing gender insanity’ if re-elected.

FINALLY: House removes Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee in party-line vote.

DISRUPTION: ChatGPT Plus is here — and it has Google in its sights.

Can it really destroy Google’s business model in just two years? While Buccheit’s comments can appear hyperbolic, there could be some substance to them. Buccheit believes that ChatGPT and AI can erode Google Search’s dominance in the market, and even the need for a search engine results page entirely.

He makes no claim regarding AI’s ability to destroy — for example — the Google Pixel phones like the Google Pixel 7 Pro or the company’s Waymo self-driving car project. However, the money for these projects is largely fueled by Google Search — specifically Google Search’s ad revenue from the search engine results page.

In this instance, Buccheit is onto something. The New York Times reported recently that Google declared “code red” regarding AI and is now planning to integrate AI into its search engine and chatbot features at a severely accelerated pace. If true, it shows just how scared Google is by AI like ChatGPT threatening its business model.

Stay tuned.