OPEN THREAD: Do that comment voodoo that you do so well.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Private Odysseus moon lander beams home 1st photos from space.

FRED HOYLE, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Life Spreads Across Space on Tiny Invisible Particles, Study Suggests.

BECAUSE IT MIGHT MAKE WOMEN FEEL BAD ABOUT THEIR CHOICES AND THAT’S NOT ALLOWED: Karol Markowicz: Why is noting married people are happier and kids do better with married parents so controversial?

FLASHBACK: Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone: Thoughts on education, age segregation, and politics.

COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Democrats add ‘Hamas amendment’ to Holocaust education bill. “Local antisemites staged an online campaign to flood the state legislature with demands that the Holocaust education bill be watered down to focus on other genocides. Additionally, some wanted students to be taught that Israel commits genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, even though that’s an antisemitic smear.”

FASTER, PLEASE: New research helps create new antibiotic that evades bacterial resistance.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Drive in Ice and Snow.

DISPATCHES FROM THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” PARTY: Suddenly, Politico Discovers DC’s ‘Ugliest Protest Trend’ When Blinken’s Targeted.

When the far-left protests outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices, the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) think that’s freedom of speech in action. The Washington Post published a puff piece on a woman disturbing the peace outside Brett Kavanaugh’s home: “We’re about to get doomsday, so I’m not going to be civil to that man at all.” The Trump era made disturbing conservative dinners at restaurants a tactic that’s “not going away.”

But turn the target around to Biden’s Secretary of State, and Politico on Friday found an “ugly” protest trend: 

Antony Blinken’s Family Is the Latest Target of Washington’s Ugliest Protest Trend

Yelling at Antony Blinken’s kids does not help Gazan children.

And? Saul Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals for leftists to target the earlier generation of earnest FDR-style liberals in the early 1970s; his rules are simply being aimed in his intended direction once again.

In any case, as Kurt Schlichter has warned: Liberals May Regret Their New Rules.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Obscene award against Trump is testing the New York legal system’s integrity.

READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) Wireless Ear Buds. #CommissionEarned

PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1791:

So arm the citizens.
Got it.
Thanks. https://t.co/VMGJh7SeUF

— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) February 16, 2024

As Kevin Williamson wrote in his 2019 book, The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics, “The Bill of Rights ought to be titled ‘A List of Things You Idiots Don’t Get a Vote On, Because They Aren’t Up for Negotiation.’”

Earlier: Charles Cooke: On the Peculiar Coverage of the Kansas City Shooting.

THE TRUTH SOMETIMES WINS OUT: Even The Washington Post Concedes the Biden Administration’s Favorite Gun Control Lie Is, In Fact, a Lie.

It’s only true if you count adults as children, but hey, anything for the cause.

SHE’S AN INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR, BUT SHE’S ALSO A WEAK ONE: Gov. Hochul was right about Israel — until the left forced her to apologize.

Gov. Hochul last week committed candor in public – a rare event indeed – but just 24 hours later she was groveling before one of the most noxious movements in Empire State history.

There she was Friday night, all-but begging forgiveness for having included an “inappropriate analogy” in a “poor choice of words” while addressing a fundraising dinner the previous evening.

Speaking to the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York at Gotham’s venerable Pierre Hotel Thursday, Hochul had sharply called out Iranian cat’s-paw Hamas while underscoring her support for Israel post-10/7.

The bloody-fisted terrorist organization “must be stopped” she said. And Israelis couldn’t be expected to live with “that threat, that specter, over them.”

Anodyne words, to be sure – but so far, so good.

Then she told the truth, which so many New Yorkers can’t handle.

“If Canada ever attacked Buffalo,” she projected, “I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day. You have a right to defend yourself, and to make sure that it never happens again. And that is Israel’s right.”

No equivocation there. Nor should there have been.

But the comment was on video, which went viral, with entirely predictable impact – and then there was Hochul, tendering an apologetic back-track to the New York Times.

Why kowtow to the yammering activists? They represent a minority, and they’re quite visibly horrible people.

WELL, GOOD: UTI drug gepotidacin performs well in clinical trials compared to nitrofurantoin.

RIKKI JOINED MIKE ROWE’S “THE WAY I SEE IT” PODCAST AND WE BOTH JOINED SCOTT BARRY KAUFMAN TO TALK ‘CANCELING’ on his “Psychology” podcast. Check out these newly released episodes and a whole lot more in the Eternally Radical Idea’s Weekend Update!

AND DADS’ USE OF LIQUOR: Support from grandparents may reduce moms’ use of antidepressants.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A SENSIBLE OUTCOME: ADA Doesn’t Require Employer to Keep Customer-Facing Employee Whose Tourette’s Leads Him to Use Slurs.

READER FAVORITE: TROND Travel Power Strip, 2-in-1 Detachable Portable Charging Station. #CommissionEarned

IT’S FINE TO MOCK RELIGIONS, AS LONG AS THEY’RE NOT ISLAM: University defends Glitter+Ash ‘queer’ Lent observance amid backlash.

WELL, YES: PROF GIORDANO: Leftist ideology erodes real scholarship.

AT AMAZON, Shop the President’s Weekend Sale. #CommissionEarned

CHECK OUT THE FEARSOME ‘AGGREGATOR’ AND FIRE’S ‘TOP 10 WORST CENSORS’ in the Eternally Radical Idea’s weekend round-up of all things free speech (and more!)

WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS: Another nail: 58% call Biden presidency a ‘failure.’

ROGER KIMBALL: Donald Trump is facing a wall of legal trouble. It’s possible that with all these darts being thrown, one will stick and he will be brought down. More likely, I think, is that he will prevail.

Worth noting, too, that the courts of New York (and Delaware, in going after Elon Musk) are sending a signal to businesses that they’re no longer trustworthy legal environments. And the politics of the moment aren’t important, because anyone can wind up targeted by the blob in the future. I suspect we’ll see a gradual move to other jurisdictions by many.