OOPS: Iran Gas Pipelines Explode in Act of Sabotage, Officials Say.

Iranian officials said two explosions struck natural-gas pipelines in the country early Wednesday, calling the blasts a terrorist attack, which comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Sabotage caused the blasts, which ruptured gas pipelines in the provinces of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari and Fars, disrupting supply in parts of the country, according to the Iranian oil ministry’s official Shana news service. The pipelines are part of the country’s gas supply grid, taking gas from Asaluyeh, a hub for Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field.

No group has claimed responsibility for the explosions on Wednesday. Arab separatists in southwestern Iran have claimed attacks against oil pipelines in the past, but rarely in other areas. Accidents occur regularly in Iran’s industry, which is struggling from poor infrastructure and maintenance after decades of mismanagement and sanctions.

The damage on Wednesday was limited and supply disruptions were contained by diverting gas from other provinces to the affected areas, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji said, according to state media. He said the supply was stable and the repair work would be completed soon.

A pity, if Owji’s claims are correct.

SPOILER: IT’S BEEN A GOOD ONE. Concealed Carry Crime Stats 2024: The Impact of Permitless Carry on Crime in the U.S.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Disgusting: Washington Democrat Lawmakers Introduce ‘Hamas Amendment’ to Holocaust Education Bill.

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Cosmos History Made! Scientists Discover Water On Asteroids For First Time.

DEVELOPING: Multiple People Shot Near Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Victory Parade.

FOLLOW THE “SCIENCE.” When will Nature and NEJM tell me who to vote for? Scientific journals should continue to sacrifice trust to change ~0 votes.

This isn’t about impact on the elections, this is about editors betraying their trust to get positive strokes from their friends.

CHRIS QUEEN: A Lesson in Perseverance for Conservatives.

Anyone who has spent much time around Athens, Ga., has seen Michael Davenport at work. He sets up in various places around town with his easel and canvases and creates his art. A donation bucket sits nearby, and people stop to watch him work and drop money in the bucket.

What’s unusual about Davenport? He has no arms, and he “paints” with his mouth, using markers as his medium. When he was 13, Davenport lost his arms in an electrical accident, but instead of wallowing in his plight, he took art classes as a teenager and didn’t look back.

Living and working in a college town with a rabid fanbase, Davenport’s milieu is Georgia Bulldogs artwork. Most of his pieces portray the classic Georgia Bulldogs logo or Uga, the beloved English bulldog mascot, although his Instagram page shows Atlanta Falcons and (gasp!) Alabama Crimson Tide canvases.

Davenport has been homeless, and robbers have attacked him twice over the past several years. The community has rallied around him with donation campaigns, and adversity hasn’t dampened his spirit.

Read the whole thing.

READER FAVORITE: EKG Monitor: Capture Heart ECG Metrics On-The-Go. #CommissionEarned

UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS: Amazon Prime Video Ad Tier Sparks Class Action Lawsuit From Subscribers. “When Amazon altered its terms, users who had signed up for annual subscriptions were also impacted. They allege the change is deceptive.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Gold nanoparticles found to reverse brain deficits in multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Happy Valentine’s Day, You Undatable Hater MAGA Slime.

CHANGE: CDC to update its COVID isolation guidance, ditching 5-day rule: Report.

FASTER? PLEASE! Supreme Court gives Smith one week to respond to Trump on immunity.

WELL, GOOD: Clinical trial shows rheumatoid arthritis drug could prevent disease.

REQUIRED READING: Kruiser’s Handy Election Year Guide to Topics the Democrats’ Media Hacks Will Be Censoring.

TREAT YOURSELF TO A VALENTINE’S DAY GIFT: CakCity Men’s Digital Sports Watch. . #CommissionEarned

WELL, GOOD: New project seeks to guide AI use in treating neurodegenerative illnesses.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Future military target-tracking satellites to be operated by U.S. Space Force. “This network of satellites, known as Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI), is being developed by the National Reconnaissance Office in partnership with the Space Force. These sensors in space would give commanders on the ground persistent video-like surveillance capabilities that in the past were provided by aircraft such as the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS).”

Harder to shoot down, too.

SO GOOD FOR GAIA! South Africa Faces Most Severe Nationwide Power Cuts in Months. “South Africa is facing the most severe nationwide power cuts in months after state-owned power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. announced that it would implement so-called Stage 6 outages — taking 6,000 megawatts of demand off the grid — from midnight Saturday until further notice.”

BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DO: Democrats Have Another Dirty Trick to Play on Illegal Immigration. “Let’s call this threat what it really is: political blackmail. ‘Give the Democrats what they want,’ ICE said in effect, ‘or we’ll unleash even more illegals on you.’ And what the Democrats want, I don’t need to remind you, is more illegal aliens.”

JUST ANOTHER UPSIDE OF GLOBAL WARMING: Our luscious blue Earth used to be a frozen snowball.

Imagine a time when your favorite character in the Disney movie “Frozen” roamed the Earth — many millions of years ago, scientists say the picture in your mind was a reality. However, like Olaf probably wasn’t traversing that icy ancient Earth, Elsa wasn’t the one responsible for making our planet a big snowball in the first place. Nope, it was the great Mother Nature.

As hard as it might be to think that, at one point, Earth was a bright white bundle of ice and snow, research from a group of scientists from Australia offers pretty concrete evidence of this idea. Moreover, the team might’ve even uncovered how exactly the situation arose. “Imagine the Earth almost completely frozen over,” Dr. Adriana Dutkiewicz, Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and professor at the University of Sydney said in a statement.”That’s just what happened about 700 million years ago; the planet was blanketed in ice from poles to equator and temperatures plunged.

“However, just what caused this has been an open question.”

I blame a lack of Proterozoic SUVs.

NARRATOR: “IT WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA.” Now We Know Who Thought It Was a Good Idea for Biden to Deliver His Angry Speech.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Why People Hate The Media. “With layoffs left and left across America’s newsrooms, there’s lots of hand-wringing over the state of newspapers and ‘journalism’ these days. Notably absent from these laments are any mention of leftism, wokeness, or the naked contempt today’s MSM journalists display again and again for ordinary Americans. Indeed, it’s such a long running theme on this blog that I had to wade through years of Media Watch-tagged posts to find one of the many specific takedowns of that contempt…”

PRIORITIES: Amid $14 million in budget cuts, UNH closes art museum, keeps DEI administrators.

IT’S “MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTEST” WHEN THEY DO IT: Trans Activists Stage Another Insurrection.