THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Starship docking system readies for moon missions in tests with NASA.

Related: China to debut new Long March rockets in 2024.

I SUPPOSE IT’S A TRIUMPH OF SORTS THAT OBESITY IS OVERTAKING HUNGER AS A GLOBAL PROBLEM. Scientists Confirm The World Now Has Over 1 Billion Obese People.

VISION: Unexpected Surprises Revealed: NASA’s Planetary Radar Images Asteroid As It Approaches Earth.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: My chat (+transcript) with James Walker of microreactor startup NANO Nuclear Energy.

NUMBERS: Gun-Free School Zones & Shootings Statistic (2024 Updated).

JOHN LUCAS: Cutting Down the Law to Get at the Devil: An anti-morality performance premiers in New York.

THOSE ARE ROOKIE NUMBERS. YOU GOTTA PUMP THOSE NUMBERS UP. More than 28.1 Million Modern Sporting Rifles in Circulation. “Total domestic firearm production reported in 2021 was 12,521,614—an increase of 28.6 percent over 2020 reported figures.”

If you don’t like that, maybe stop giving Americans so many reasons to buy guns and ammo.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: His ‘Fast & Furious’ Reenactment Hysterically Failed. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have the world’s punniest madame, how not to pull over for a rest stop, and Gaza’s very own Master Thespian.”

MAKING AND SELLING CARS AT A PROFIT IS HARD BUT EVS ARE HARDER: Fisker warns it’s running out of cash and may not make it through 2024.

COVID HYSTERIA WAS A PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER: Rate of antidepressant dispensing to young people rose faster after March 2020, especially among females.

THE SAFE GUESS IS THAT’S WHAT EVERYTHING IS FOR THE NEXT EIGHT MONTHS: Was Google’s AI All About Election Interference to Stop Trump?

I DON’T WANT EITHER KIND: Report: Second type of prostate cancer identified by AI. Well, to be fair, AI also gives us a black George Washington so I’d double-check that.

THAT’S MISSING SOME ZEROES: Joe Biden got $40K in China funds, brother James admits in bombshell impeachment interview.

SO STOP GIVING AMERICANS SO MANY REASONS TO DRINK: Alcohol-related deaths rise sharply in U.S., hitting women hardest.

KRUISER: Trump Derangement Syndrome Meltdown of the Week — Open Borders Because Ohtani or Something.

SCIENCE: Mpox outbreak slowed because of behavior changes, not vaccine. And monkeypox went away entirely — you never hear about it anymore. . .

BE PREPARED: TROND Travel Power Strip, 2-in-1 Detachable Portable Charging Station with 3 AC Outlets. #CommissionEarned

BRYAN CAPLAN ON GEORGE MASON’S ORWELLIAN ‘JUST SOCIETIES’ COURSE REQUIREMENT. “This is quixotic, I know, but let me try to break through the woke academic echo chamber with some harsh truths. If you promote DEI for a living, the reality is that normal, apolitical people see you as a racist, sexist, censorious fanatic. They don’t say so publicly … because they are afraid of you. They don’t tell you privately … because they are afraid of you. But when they’re speaking to people they trust, they vehemently disagree with you—and yearn to see you all fired.”

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The Era of the Joyless Blockbuster.

The root problem with the current era of blockbusters is that the movie studios, which were long ago subsumed by multi-national corporations which live and die by their stock prices, are focused on something other than great storytelling.

It’s a bit of a simplification, though not a big one, to say that if you wanted to make a movie in the 70’s, you only had to convince one man… Frank Yablans at Paramount, for instance, or Thom Mount at Universal. But here in the Era of the Joyless Blockbuster, before you can actually physically make a movie, you must convince what is called a studio “greenlight committee” to “greenlight” your movie.

The modern greenlight committee is composed of not just creative executives, but also executives from a bunch of other departments as well, including marketing, physical production, legal, consumer products and, of late, the local Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer. These “non-creative” folk will care whether or not the movie is “good” only up to a point… what they’ll care about most is that the movie is something they can easily sell to audiences, that it pushes the proper “messaging”, that it’s something they can make on a sensible budget, or that it can generate multiple streams of ancillary income… preferably all four.

Over time, creative executives trying to get big summer blockbusters made have learned to lean into what the greenlight committee wants… which is to say maximum profitability, maximum “representation” and the need to deliver a “four quadrant product.”

To a large extent, storytelling has become a secondary consideration.

Read the whole thing.

CHRIS QUEEN: The Far Left Vs. Everybody Else: A Tale of Reactions to the Murder of Laken Riley.

FLASHBACK: SCIENCE: Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists: Perpetually raging about the world’s injustices? You’re probably overcompensating.

MATT MARGOLIS: I Finally Tried the Apple Vision Pro. “My gut says it would eventually enhance my productivity, I’m not convinced it would improve it enough to justify the price tag. But that could be because of the limited things I got to experience in the demo. I’d need a few weeks of using it and learning how to take full advantage of it to know for sure, and to fully grasp what long term usage is like. Can I research and write multiple articles on it daily? Could I research and write another book with it? All the superficial and fun stuff is great, but not enough to get me to buy it.”

My impression is that Vision Pro is certainly the nicest computer you can wear on your face but still not productive or light or inexpensive enough to want to.

THE ONLY THING HE’S EVER SHOWN ANY APTITUDE FOR IS PLAYING OFF HIS FAMOUS NAME: Hunter Biden’s Explanation for Threatening Text to Chinese Exec Is Beyond Stupid.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY ALL THE SMARTEST PEOPLE THAT MAGA ATTENTION SPANS WERE TOO SHORT TO MAKE A BOYCOTT STICK: Bud Light boycott likely cost Anheuser-Busch InBev over $1 billion in lost sales.

The world’s largest brewer may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales because of the backlash to its brief partnership with a transgender influencer to promote Bud Light beer.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) reported record revenues for 2023 Thursday but said its “full growth potential was constrained” by its US business, where sales were hurt by a boycott of Bud Light over a sponsored Instagram post with Dylan Mulvaney.

One more time: the boycott wasn’t about Mulvaney nearly as much as it was about Bud Light’s sneering marketing exec who put the promotion together and was caught on tape sneering at Bud Light drinkers.

THEIR CURRENT BOSS IS EMBARRASSING THEM: Border Patrol Union Slams Biden, Praises Trump.