OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX creates history: Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket launches to space 600th time.

HEY, WITH DON LEMON I’M JUST GRATEFUL IT’S NOT SEXUAL ASSAULT:

Every protester in this video has committed a federal crime

They can all be easily identified

Don Lemon needs to be in custody by the end of the day if the administration is to ever be taken seriously again https://t.co/0A54AHGuSK

— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) January 18, 2026

STALIN’S AUTHORITARIANISM WAS LEFT AUTHORITARIANISM, AND THE AMERICAN LEFT WAS LARGELY OKAY WITH IT:

“Authoritarianism is bad—unless it’s leftist authoritarianism”

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 18, 2026

EXERCISE IS MEDICINE: The Best Medicine For Joint Pain Isn’t What You Think, Says Expert.

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists Develop IV Therapy That Repairs the Brain After Stroke: New nanomaterial passes the blood-brain barrier to reduce damaging inflammation after the most common form of stroke.

RIGHT?

I'm no historian but I don't think there's ever been a situation in the last 100 years where the people storming the churches were the good guys. https://t.co/oGwZeQK4kC

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 18, 2026

UPDATE:

"Me and my street militia are going around demanding to see people's papers and shutting down churches. You know, to fight fascism"

— Seamus (FreedomToons) (@seamus_coughlin) January 18, 2026

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Business Is Apparently Selling AI-Hallucination-Filled Documents to Unwary Litigants, Court Says.

SOMEONE SHOULD MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT THIS: Ford’s Betting Hard on its 30-Year-Old V8 to Beat Ferrari Again.

DRAMA QUEEN GENERAL: California AG Bonta Files for En Banc Review of Open Carry Ruling to Ward Off ‘Fear, Chaos, and Intimidation.’

Dude, take a Midol and chill.

TRUE: The Patriarchy Isn’t What’s Making You Unhappy (Online Feminism Is).

FIGHT THE POWER: Sacramento teachers seek to remove union control.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Intuitive Machines (LUNR) Rockets 10.7% as Analyst Sees Strong Year for Space Stocks.

CHANGE: Letter writing enjoys a revival as fans seek connection and a break from screen time.

BUT OF COURSE: Penn worries about Venezuelan students post- Trump invasion; student paper cites only critical Democrats.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: ‘LaWhore Vagistan’ to lead Harvard lecture linking drag, politics, and Kamala Harris’ ‘chitthi brigade.’

DOUBLE STANDARD POLICING:

Brendan O’Neill on Insta. Truth. pic.twitter.com/XtGKRIkd7K

— Gareth Roberts (@OldRoberts953) January 17, 2026

NO MORE ENEMIES IN HIGH OFFICE: Michigan’s El-Sayed Boasted of Refusing To Face American Flag for National Anthem During Iraq War: The left-wing Senate hopeful recounted the decision in his 2020 memoir.

THIS WOULD BE ADDRESSED BY MY “TAX THE BLUE ZONES” PROPOSAL!

Climate change season must be over now.

Democrats are hypocrites. pic.twitter.com/UK1Gtx3YP7

— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) January 16, 2026

Which would never pass because they know climate change and rising sea levels are bullshit.

CHRIS BRAY: What Blue Zone Collapse Looks Like: “In my last post, I said that the Blue Zones are functionally insolvent. ‘The well is dry.’ Several commenters responded with the observation that they’ve been hearing this story for twenty years or more, but the Blue Zones are still going, so what insolvency and collapse are you talking about? But the collapse of the Blue Zones doesn’t look like Enron or K-Mart; California doesn’t shut down. The state has 39 million golden geese to cut open. There’s a lot of ruin in a state. But the collapse remains real, and it’s already happening. It looks like this.”

DOUBLE-STANDARD JUSTICE: Authorities’ inaction on threats against Trump voters is alarming.

In America, threatening a voter with death is both unacceptable and a felony. In 2024, Pennsylvanians with Trump signs in their yards received anonymous, chilling death threat letters, a crime the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Pennsylvania State Police and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are doing nothing about.

“We know where you live,” the menacing letters said. “You are in the database. In the dead of a cold winter’s night, this year or next and beyond, there is no knowing what may happen. Your property, your family may be impacted, your cat may get shot. And more.”

Why has no one been arrested, going on 15 months after these threats were made?

An orchestrated effort to threaten to kill Trump supporters unfortunately hasn’t seemed to matter to our appointed and elected guardians of American values. But it does matter to Americans who value our precious civil society.

History proves that threats of political violence are too often followed by actual political violence. Unfortunately, the institutions responsible for protecting civil society from political threats of violence in Pennsylvania have failed.

They could find who sent this, if they wanted to. They don’t want to.

OPEN THREAD: Party on.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The Artemis Rollout Begins.

WELL, GOOD: Scientists Find Way to Turn Tumor-Protecting Cells Into Cancer Killers.

I’D LIKE TO SEE A FOLLOWUP ON THIS 2022 STORY: AI programs can tell race from X-rays, but scientists don’t know how. Here’s why that’s bad. “There’s also the possibility that the results of the study show some innate difference between races. Alan Goodman, a professor of biological anthropology at Hampshire College and coauthor of the book “Racism Not Race,” told the Globe he is doubtful of this.”