RELIGIOUS TYPES SHOULD JUST SHUT UP: It is a not uncommon view in some quarters of the American public policy debate that “religious people” should just keep quiet in the public square and not seek to “impose their morality” on the rest of us.

Tim Barnett of Red Pen Logic offers a rejoinder, via world-famous atheist Richard Dawkins, on HillFaith this morning, arguing that all laws are based in some degree on somebody’s moral values, so the issue is how should laws be made and by whom. Hey, something to think about on this Hump Day in this fourth week of 2024.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Global shipping rates skyrocket as Red Sea crisis deepens.

New data from Freightos Terminal released Friday shows that rates for shipping goods from Asia to Northern Europe surged 461% compared to mid-October, before the diversion of vessels in the region began. Rates on the route from Asia to the North American East Coast and to the North American West Coast have also skyrocketed, climbing a respective 130% and 97% since the end of October.

Carriers have also announced surcharges that range from $500 to as much as $2,700 per container.

About 15% of world shipping traffic, including 30% of global container trade, passes through the Suez Canal to and from the Red Sea. But to avoid being attacked or having their cargo stolen, many ships are instead sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, which is the long way around Africa. The Houthi attacks on commercial ships have not stopped even after the U.S. and the U.K. launched strikes against Houthi assets in Yemen.

Biden’s “little bit pregnant” non-commitment to either war or peace will just drag the situation out.

AT AMAZON, Shop the Winter Sale. #CommissionEarned

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: RealClearInvestigations: Public Education’s Alarming New 4th ‘R’: Reversal of Learning. “The alarming plunge in academic performance during the pandemic was met with a significant drop in grading and graduation standards to ease the pressure on students struggling with remote learning. The hope was that hundreds of billions of dollars of emergency federal aid would enable schools to reverse the learning loss and restore the standards. Four years later, the money is almost gone and students haven’t made up that lost academic ground, equaling more that a year of learning for disadvantaged kids. Driven by fears of a spike in dropout rates, especially among blacks and Latinos, many states and school districts are apparently leaving in place the lower standards that allow students to get good grades and graduate even though they have learned much less, particularly in math.”

It’s wrong to entrust your kids to public schools.

WELL, GOOD: New School Board Restores Native Warrior Logo.

SO JUSTIN TRUDEAU GOES TO JAIL NOW, RIGHT? Canada’s Act of Emergency Powers to End Truckers’ Protests Was Unjustifiable, Rules Court.

WOEING: Delta Boeing 757 airplane loses tire moments before takeoff in Atlanta: ‘Sounds like we got a problem.’

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK:

Falcon 9 launches 22 @Starlink satellites to orbit from California pic.twitter.com/c4VQWo5Kx2

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 24, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Just one tonight, I’m not made of money here.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Amy Coney Barrett Says Ruling For Open Border Has Nothing To Do With Landscaping Work She Needs Done This Summer.

BREAKING: Biden Wins New Hampshire Primary—Sort Of.

To be fair, “sort of” is how Biden wins in recent years.

RICK TUMLINSON: The White House versus the private sector in space.

MICHAEL WALSH: To Save America, Abolish the TSA. “In retrospect, it’s clear that Osama bin Laden emerged the victor of 9/11:”

More than twenty years later, it’s clear to everyone who flies that what we have is not safety, but safety theater — the illusion of safety, conducted by uniformed government employees of last resort whose mission as it has evolved is not to provide the phantasm of “security” but to obstruct, hamper, harass, and hinder Americans as they attempt to go about their lives. “The Transportation Security Administration marked another year of progress,” reads a blurb on their website. You can bet more “progress” will be forthcoming in 2024.

And was this unconscionable violation of the plain language of the Constitution met with the universal opposition, disdain, and outrage that it deserved? Of course not. From 1968 to 1972 there was a spate of airplane hijackings by Cuban radicals; “On to Cuba!” became a punch line on late-night comedy, and the introduction of metal detectors at airports and the presence of sky marshals put an end to it. After 9/11, the appearance of one failed “shoe bomber” has meant your shoes come off forever. And while the new, improved, intrusive TSA might manage to scoop up some weapons in advertently packed in luggage from those parts of the country where guns or knives are part of everyday life, it misses many, many more — up to 70 percent. Possibly it has discouraged a few terrorists from attempting to emulate the late sheikh of Araby, but why bother? After all, why hijack a plane when you can just walk across the undefended, roundheeled southern border, get free transport — no ID necessary! — into the interior and there bide your time?

Earlier: US travelers outraged by airport signs appearing to allow migrants onto flights without ID: ‘I’m quite offended.’

UPDATE: TSA Agents Confiscate Dana Loesch’s Assault Microphone Stand.

(Updated and bumped.)

MY LATEST NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Why I love the blue-state refugees moving to my red state.

RIP: Former CBS Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood dies at 91 following battle with dementia.

TRUMP WINS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. “Trump will become the first Republican to sweep competitive votes in both Iowa – where he won by a record-setting margin eight days ago – and New Hampshire since 1976, when the two states cemented their status as the first two nominating contests.”

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE: Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST MATT YGLESIAS…: Leftwing hack and Nepo Baby Matthew Yglesias frets that having a media packed stem-to-stern with crusading puritanical progressives isn’t an unmitigated good for the left.

The people who produce the news are primarily young college graduates living in big cities, a demographic that skews way to the left of the electorate. And the audience for this news, though less ideologically skewed than the producers, is still significantly to the left of center.

That dynamic is a powerful force multiplier for platforming and disseminating new left-wing ideas, including ideas that go from edgy to dominant — like “gay couples should be allowed to get married” — as well as ideas that provoke massive backlash the minute they get any purchase — “maybe cities don’t need police departments.” It’s a major structural feature of the media landscape that helps explain why the general policy trajectory over the past generation has been toward the left.

Yglesias adds, “But electorally, it’s a decidedly mixed bag, since the journalists, though clearly on the left ideologically, aren’t partisan propagandists.”

They aren’t? As with gambling in Rick’s Cafe, you’ll be shocked to know there’s gaslighting going on from Matt Yglesias:

BREAKING: Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF HOMOPHOBIC TIME TRAVELING HACKERS:  MSNBC’s Joy Reid defends underage gay porn for children… but posted homophobic blogs.

(Classical allusion in headline.)

HOW STRONG IS STRONG ENOUGH? “Keep in mind that this is part of the reason you hired a coach: to be objective. Your feelings about how hard the set was are irrelevant.”

IS THIS REAL LIFE? IS IT JUST FANTASY: Is Your Life Real?

Related thoughts here.

LIVE RESULTS: Will the New Hampshire Primary Bring Us Any Surprises?

HOW IT STARTED: Mocking anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes — but may be necessary.

—Michael Hiltzik, the L.A. Times, January 10, 2022.

How it’s going: L.A. Times to lay off at least 115 people in the newsroom.

The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it was laying off at least 115 people — or more than 20% of the newsroom — marking one of the largest workforce reductions in the history of the 142-year-old institution.

The move comes amid projections for another year of heavy losses for the newspaper.

The cuts were necessary because the paper could no longer lose $30 million to $40 million a year without making progress toward building higher readership that would bring in advertising and subscriptions to sustain the organization, the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said Tuesday.

Drastic changes were needed, he said, including installing new leaders who would focus on strengthening the outlet’s journalism to become indispensable to more readers.

—The L.A. Times, today.

I’m sure the laid off L.A. Times staffers will keep rockin’! as they enjoy their funemployment. It’s a blessing in disguise, after all.

Related: Kids and parents turn to coding to boost college, career prospects.

—The L.A. Times, August 1st, 2014.

UPDATE: More classic headlines: Children apologize to their dying elders for spreading COVID-19 as L.A. County reels.

—The L.A. Times, January 12th, 2021.

And of course: Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned.

—The L.A. Times, August 21st, 2021.

THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” PARTY ON ELECTION DENIALISM:

WATCH: President Biden refers to former Virginia Governer Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Glenn Youngkin in 2021, as "the real governor". pic.twitter.com/7u68tV40cd

— News Bro (@Newzbro) January 23, 2024

UPDATE: Election Denier or Senile Old Man? Biden Refers to Terry McAuliffe as ‘Real Governor’ of Virginia.