OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Musk outlines plans to increase Starship launch rate and performance.

WOEING: Terrifying video shows engine of Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 ripping apart during takeoff.

NO KIDDING: Large Cities And Cancer Share An Unexpected Similarity.

CHANGE: Historic: Trump’s Palm Beach Fundraiser Raised Double the Amount of Biden’s Star-Studded Event.

MICROBIOME NEWS: Cholesterol-gobbling gut bacteria could protect against heart disease.

USING IMMIGRATION TO HOLD WAGES DOWN:

That chart was a good chart. Biden's immigration surge is making sure it doesn't happen again, though. And our lowest-wage workers had a lot more catching up to do … https://t.co/vhaQKCnEnt

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) April 6, 2024

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Scientists Shed New Light on the Anti-Aging Effect of Vitamin D.

BE PREPARED FOR SPRING: VIKING Garden Hose Nozzle, Heavy Duty Nozzle with 8 Spray Patterns. #CommissionEarned

WOEING: An engine cover rips off a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, forcing an emergency landing.

SELF-DEFENSE: The Low Ready Position: A few moments to assess what’s going on can make a big difference.

THE SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, ALVY SINGER CONNECTION REVEALED! Lawyer’s Argument: SBF Suffers From Anhedonia:

• His mother’s letter: Barbara Fried flagged her son’s social awkwardness, which she framed as putting his life at risk, per Business Insider. “I genuinely fear for Sam’s life in the typical prison environment. Sam’s outward presentation, his inability to read or respond appropriately to many social cues, and his touching but naive belief in the power of facts and reason to resolve disputes, put him in extreme danger.”
• His father echoed that: Joseph Bankman wrote the prison setting “would put Sam in an environment where his responses to social cues will sometimes be seen as odd, inappropriate, and disrespectful; when that happens, he will be in significant physical danger. Nothing can justify putting him at that risk.”
• His lawyers’ argument: They say a lesser sentence is appropriate because FTX’s customers will end up getting their money back during bankruptcy proceedings (in part because of savvy investments Bankman-Fried made in the AI company Anthropic). “That recommendation is grotesque,” they wrote, noting “victims are poised to recover—were always poised to recover—a hundred cents on the dollar.”

• His lawyers’ argument II: The Wall Street Journal notes they also bristled at the prosecution’s depiction of Bankman-Fried as a high-roller with a “lavish penthouse lifestyle in the Bahamas.” They said his goals were altruistic, not self-serving, and that material possessions don’t motivate him. “Those who know Sam are sensitive to the tragic fact that nothing in life brings him real happiness. Sam suffers from anhedonia, a severe condition characterized by a near-complete absence of enjoyment, motivation, and interest. He has been that way since childhood.”

Yes, I get SBF and the earlier, funnier Woody Allen confused all the time, myself:

Until it was finished, ”Annie Hall” was hush-hush. Nobody knew where the shooting was going on in New York or even what the name of the movie was. Mr. Allen didn’t know the name either. He and Mr. Brickman considered 100 possibilities. Right up until the end, the favored title was ”Anhedonia.” But hardly anyone knew what the word meant, so it was jettisoned.

”Anhedonia is a psychological state where nothing gives a person pleasure,” he explained. “The word hedonism is in it. We diagnosed that as Alvy’s problem; nothing gives him any pleasure.”

SBF may or may not be impacted by anhedonia, but does he suffer from the crippling effects of anatidaephobia?

(H/T: The Ricochet “Glop” podcast.)

SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: We were very wrong about birds.

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: San Francisco Bill Would Let People Sue Grocery Stores for Closing Too Quickly.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a remarkable policy that would allow people to sue grocery stores that close too quickly.

Earlier this week, Supervisors Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin introduced an ordinance that, if passed, would require grocery stores to provide six months’ written notice to the city before closing down.

Supermarket operators would also have to make “good faith” efforts to ensure the continued availability of groceries at their shuttered location, either through finding a successor store, helping residents form a grocery co-op, or any other plan they might work out by meeting with city and neighborhood residents.

Lest one thinks this is some heavy-handed City Hall intervention, the ordinance makes clear that owners still retain the ultimate power to close their store. It also creates a number of exemptions to the six-month notice requirement. If a store is closing because of a natural disaster or business circumstances that aren’t “reasonably foreseeable,” it doesn’t have to provide the full six months’ notice.

Still, should stores close without providing the proper notice, persons affected by the closure would be entitled to sue the closed store for damages.

San Francisco’s city government apparently can’t stop their city’s doom spiral, so why not extort those supermarkets closing up as a result of it? I’m sure that won’t accelerate the city’s descent at all.

HMM: Screening with a PSA test has a small impact on prostate cancer deaths but leads to overdiagnosis, finds study.

GOODER AND HARDER, CA: Why gas prices in California ‘have gone ballistic.’

Gas prices have been on the rise nationwide, but for California drivers, they’ve skyrocketed in a short amount of time.

The Golden State’s average at the pump surged by $0.23 to $5.27 per gallon on Friday from a week ago, according to AAA data. Meanwhile, the nationwide average sat at $3.54 per gallon on Friday, up $0.04 during the same period.

Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, points to refinery challenges as the main culprit for California’s surging prices, including an important Phillips 66 refiner in the Bay Area halting gasoline production in favor of renewable diesel.

“Throw in regularly scheduled maintenance that will occur at two critical refineries in May and the normal penchant for speculative buying in global markets in the second quarter, and you have wholesale prices that have gone ballistic,” he said.

Kloza calculates gasoline in San Francisco, less taxes and other costs, is at a premium of almost $60 per barrel more than current crude levels. 

On Friday West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) futures topped $86 per barrel while Brent (BZ=F), the international benchmark price, settled above $91 per barrel.

Flashback: Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

It’s as if “Elitist environmentalists hate the working class” or something.

SCIENCE: NASA to launch rockets from Virginia to study upper atmosphere during eclipse.

Plus: NASA to fly aircraft along eclipse route to study the sun and Earth’s atmosphere.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Of Course the New York Earthquake Was Due to Climate Change. What Else Could It Be?

PRINTING “YUMMY!” ON THE TIDE PODS WAS A BIT MUCH: Procter & Gamble recalls 8.2 million laundry products for defective packaging.