OPEN THREAD: How was your weekend?

DIVERSITY: ‘We have doubled the number of nationalities aboard’ ISS as all-European SpaceX Ax-3 astronauts dock at space station.

FRED HOYLE SMILES: What if Life on Earth Began When Interstellar Objects Crashed Here?

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: The Coldest Place. And the survival power of bitching.

FROM SPIKED, a report on the German Farmers’ Revolt.

THE DREAM SINCE HENRY FORD’S TIME: The Green Spark: A Catalyst Transforming Water Into Energy Wealth.

TAMARA KEEL: Volume of Fire: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? “Practice, practice. . .”

THIS SEEMS LIKE A TERRIBLE IDEA: Kevin McCarthy foe Tim Burchett could face primary challenge after voting for ouster. I know both Tim Burchett and Jimmy Matlock and I like them both. But I think that Tim was right to vote against McCarthy, and I don’t think we need a primary fight. Though it’s kinda late for that anyway. Perhaps this talk is more by way of a brushback pitch.

WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE MINUTES AWAY JUST NOT COMING: Sordid Lessons from Uvalde School Shooting; Justice Department Cites “Cascading Failures.”

CHANGE: BREAKING: Ron DeSantis Suspends Presidential Campaign, Makes Endorsement. “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge.”

IN DEFENSE OF BAD THIRD-ROW SEATS. The one in my SUV isn’t great, but it comes in handy sometimes. And it’s better than the one in the Mitsubishi Outlander, for sure.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: Demand and Production of 1 Billion Humanoid Bots Per Year.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Research suggests European Alps eroding slower than >10,000 years ago.

HMM: Measles is most infectious disease known to science. Adults should consider getting another MMR vaccine. I’m afraid that the Covid debacle has produced a general distrust of vaccines, even proven and beneficial ones.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Why Americans Have Lost Faith in the Value of College: Three generations of ‘college for all’ in the U.S. has left most families looking for alternatives.

For three generations, the national aspiration to “college for all” shaped America’s economy and culture, as most high-school graduates took it for granted that they would earn a degree. That consensus is now collapsing in the face of massive student debt, underemployed degree-holders and political intolerance on campus.

In the past decade, the percentage of Americans who expressed a lot of confidence in higher education fell from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup. A decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2011 has translated into 3 million fewer students on campus. Nearly half of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college after high school, even if there were no obstacles, financial or otherwise. Two-thirds of high-school students think they will be just fine without a college degree.

The pandemic drove home a sobering realization for a lot of middle-class American families: “College for all” is broken for most.

Plus: “Of 100 random freshmen enrolling in college today, 40 will not graduate. Of the remaining 60 that earn a degree in six years, 20 will end up chronically underemployed. In other words, for every five students who enroll in a four-year college, only two will graduate and find a job based on their degree.”

Perhaps college was always mostly a positional good, whose chief value was that only a few people could go. When so many people could go, it lost its value.

If only there had been some sort of warning.

IT’S NOT A “PROGRESSIVE PRIORITY” FOR THE KIDS’ SAKE: Does preschool help kids — or harm them?

IF YOU’RE A REPUBLICAN THIS GETS YOU CALLED RACIST: Fetterman: The American Dream is Threatened by Illegal Immigrants.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: There is one administrator for every three undergrads at UVA: analysis.

PUSHBACK WORKS: University of Utah drops diversity statements from hiring after governor called them ‘bordering on evil.’

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Are our elites crazy?

SOME PARTS OF THE 21ST CENTURY ARE LIVING UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS:

Amazing SpaceX 🚀
Thank you pic.twitter.com/KYaN09Iw9O

— Tesla Pablo 🔋 (@pablo9948967714) January 20, 2024

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Biden Report Card: Overseas weaknesses tested, more student deadbeats bailed out.

LOSING MY RELIGION: “So that missionary impulse tied to an overly propositional understanding of religion creates a context in which the missionary is constantly searching for new ways of articulating their propositions within a blue state grammar. It’s a rare bird who can do that work well without slowly being tugged more and more to the left.”

WHEN THE ACTUAL CITIZENS ARE SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS: US Travelers Fed Up With Preferential Treatment for Migrants. “Newly arrived illegal migrants are not only exempt from many of the rules above and are allowed to fly for free, but they don’t even have to show an ID if they don’t have one. And this has some citizens seeing red.”

Why do we put up with this? Because we’re afraid of being called racist by scoundrels.