SYSTEMIC RACISM IS REAL: PA school board member refuses to vote for ‘cis white male’ for president: ‘wrong message.’

AT AMAZON, save on Luxury Items.

A SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Finally, The Gibson’s Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College. “The Gibsons have collected the over $36 million owed them. Sadly, David Gibson and “Grandpa” Allyn Gibson did not live to see this day. By stretching out the appeals Oberlin College waited them out, but the rest of the family survives. We wish the Gibson family well.”

ABOUT TIME, IF TRUE: US scientists reportedly make fusion energy breakthrough. “The Financial Times today reported three separate sources confirmed a recent experiment at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California yielded successful results. The experiment reportedly produced a net gain in energy produced for the first time since observations began back in the 1950s. The Financial Times said the fusion reaction, ‘produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy, which was about 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers, the people with knowledge of the results said, adding that the data was still being analysed.’ The US department of energy told the news outlet it will announce “’major scientific breakthrough’ at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Tuesday.”

Here’s the (paywalled) FT story.

TURNS OUT THERE’S MORE PROBLEMS THAN YOU THINK WITH WORKING AT HOME:  A Forgotten Sale And An HR Complaint.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Artemis, Tiangong successes in US-China space race leave Russia eating cosmic dust.

REMEMBER I DID A POST ASKING FOR HELP FOR A FRIEND WHO ENDED UP IN THE HOSPITAL FOR A WHILE, AND WAS TRYING TO RESTART HIS BUSINESS?  HE’S GOT IT GOING:  Hair Borne Defenses.

And there’s a discount coupon for instapundit readers:  INSTAHOYT

For a review of the product.

OPEN THREAD: Keep rockin’!

THE NEW SPACE RACE (CONT’D): China’s new space station opens for business in an increasingly competitive era of space activity.

NOT PRETTY: “Rest Room Sink Fungal Communities.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Japanese company’s lander rockets toward moon with UAE rover.

IT’S NOT REALLY A BATTERY BUT AN RTG, A RADIOISOTOPIC THERMAL GENERATOR: Britain to build first Americium space battery. “The move comes amid a growing push to secure sources for such technologies amid global supply chain issues. Traditionally, spacecraft have been powered by Plutonium-238, a radioisotope produced only in the United States with a limited supply capacity. They have also been produced in Russia, with that source no longer available.”

As we gear up for a new space race, everything needs to be scalable.

HMM: Retired football players more likely to report age-related diseases. “NFL players, especially former linemen, had fewer disease-free years and earlier high blood pressure and diabetes diagnoses. Two age-related diseases, arthritis and dementia, were also more commonly found in former football players than in other men of the same age.”

SHOCKER: European Parliament vice-president arrested in Qatar corruption investigation. “Police arrested Eva Kaili, a Greek socialist MEP, on Friday hours after the four others had been detained for questioning. At least three were either Italian citizens or originally came from Italy, a source close to the case said. Ms Kaili, 44, is the partner of one of the four, Francesco Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant with the European Parliament’s Socialists and Democrats group, the source said.  Pier-Antonio Panzeri, a former MEP who served as a socialist in the Parliament between 2004 and 2019, was also reportedly arrested.”

Plus: “The Belgian newspaper L’Echo reported on Saturday that “several bags full of (money) notes” were found at Ms Kaili’s Brussels home, which police decided to search after her father was caught carrying a large amount of money in a suitcase.” Somewhere, Hunter Biden sneers — if your bribes can fit into a suitcase, you’re small fry.

SPACE: NASA’s Orion capsule blazes home from test flight to moon.

THE RULES SHIFT TO FIT THE POLITICS OF THE MOMENT: Twitter Files 4.0 reveal how executives changed policies to permanently ban Trump.

PREDICTABLY: Biden’s Nauseating Hypocrisy On Guns Takes a New, Dangerous Turn.

HOLIDAY DEAL: ThisWorx Car Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Sea urchin sperm is surprisingly useful to robotics experts.

FASTER, PLEASE: Experimental cancer therapy shows success in more than 70% of patients in global clinical trials.

GENESIS: Artists Who Changed Music – Part 2

ARE YOU REALLY SURPRISED? Relief sculpture of man holding his penis is oldest narrative scene, archaeologist claims.

JOHN ROBB DISSECTS ELON MUSK’S TWITTER STRATEGY:

The battle for Twitter keeps rolling on. Here’s a round-up of the online war and how Musk uses Twitter’s interior lines to a significant effect:

Apple

Assumption or rumor: Apple was considering banning Twitter from their AppStore due to pressure from the networked #swarm.

Data point: Apple, Twitter’s largest advertiser, had already paused its advertising.

Opportunity: Apple came under fire for supporting China’s suppression of COVID protests (they limited airdrop).

Maneuver: Elon leaks the rumor that Apple is considering a ban.

Maneuver 2: Elon points out Apple’s abuse of its platform’s dominance.

Effect: Apple gets more negative coverage in one day than in a year.

Hidden maneuver: Twitter offers Apple significant incentives to resume advertising (Apple spent $180m in 2022).

Result: Elon meets with Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO), and the threat of a ban is dismissed. Apple resumes advertising on Twitter. An anchor participant in the war against Twitter is removed.

The Twitter Files

Musk makes a strategic play to prove Twitter is restoring free speech.

Maneuver 1: He does this by releasing internal Twitter e-mails showing government requests to suppress people and ideas on the platform.

Maneuver 2: He provides these documents to the allies (substack personalities like Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss) he generated by unbanning accounts instead of the establishment press (he can’t open source them because they aren’t anonymized).

Effect: The stories generated show cooperation between the political parties and Twitter on censorship.

Result: While the files generate little national coverage in the traditional press, they have a strategic impact.

They provide Musk with legitimacy (“defender of free speech”) for his actions.
They protect against government action in the future (requests or investigations). Assumption: he will quickly make government pressure public.
Directing the distribution builds up the value of the online press (on Twitter, substack, etc.) at the expense of traditional media.

Sounds about right.

CLEARLY THEY’RE NOT EATING ENOUGH ASPARAGUS: FDA approves diabetes pill for cats.

TWITTER FILES DUMP NUMBER 4: How Donald Trump was banned.