HMM: Allergies seem nearly impossible to avoid — unless you’re Amish.

I’M SURE THIS IS RFK, JR.’S FAULT: California resident tests positive for plague after flea bite. Streptomycin or doxycycline will fix it up.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION EDITION: U. Wisconsin med school admits black students at 6 times rate of Asians.

INSURRECTION! Five Sanctuary Campuses in Boston, Cambridge shield illegal aliens from ICE.

IT’S SHOCKING HOW OFTEN A BACK TO BASICS APPROACH BEATS NEW WOKE THEORIES. LIKE, ALL THE TIME?

Black students in "racist" Mississippi clobbering black students in "anti-racist" California on the NAEP. https://t.co/cCfvR3n6dz

— i/o (@avidseries) August 20, 2025

GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE DONE RIGHT? Roger Kimball: On promising developments at the National Endowment for the Humanities. “Pursuing the first, and in consultation with doge, McDonald has reviewed a host of neh grants dating back to 2021. So far, he has terminated 1,477 awards, totaling $431,580,341. He has also canceled all Biden-era woke programs and special initiatives and ended or suspended nineteen “agenda-driven” programs. He has reduced his staff from 183 to fifty-nine full-time employees, a reduction of about 70 percent. He also eliminated remote-work options, requiring all staff to come to the office five days a week. On the second front, McDonald has striven to return the endowment to its original purpose: bringing the riches of the Western humanistic tradition to Americans across the country.”

Plus: “The larger issue concerns the persistence of the progressive, anti-American feeling that has defined elite opinion since the 1960s. To the extent that there is in American society a recoiling from what Elon Musk described as the “mind virus” of woke ideology, many of the pro-American reforms that McDonald has instituted have a good chance of outliving the moment. Only time will tell whether optimism about that apparent shift in the national consciousness is justified. Looking around, we conclude that the reorientation is real, deep-seated, and probably long-lasting. Donald Trump deserves a lot of the credit for this change. Brisk, competent lieutenants like Michael McDonald are playing a major role as well. Bully for them.”

MATT TAIBBI: Mean Mr. Mustache: Even the “suck on this” version of Thomas Friedman was nicer than this one.

Buried lede: Tom Friedman is still alive?

GETS? Don Surber: Newsom gets weird.

CLEARLY THIS IS BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS HAVEN’T BEEN LEFTIST ENOUGH: NYT and NPR: “There Is a Stampede of Voters Away from the Democratic Party.”

OBAMA IN A NUTSHELL: Built up as big, but in substance very small.

Fun fact: the Obama Library will hold no books, papers, or presidential documents of any kind. All of it has been digitized and will only be accessible on some computer.

In other words, the entire thing could have been replaced with a USB drive. https://t.co/9pfixB3eE8

— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) August 20, 2025

FRANK TIPLER: Plato Solved the Problem of Evil 2,300 Years Ago. With application to the Trump assassination attempt.

DUKE WAS ONCE A DECENT SCHOOL: Duke Is Abandoning American History.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:

🚨 BREAKING: A student in Florida was nominated by his own teacher as "Most Likely to Become a Dictator" because he was a conservative, a parent just revealed.

The teacher allowed students to label him a "N@ziphile" because he was interested in WW2 history and ROTC.

They… pic.twitter.com/giiXqW4iIl

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 20, 2025

Sending your kids to public school is looking like parental malpractice.

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

WE CAN USE THEM TO DELIVER WATER TO MARS, TOO: ‘Devil Comet’ contains ‘strongest evidence yet’ that comets delivered water to Earth.

Of course, as Martyn Fogg demonstrated in his magisterial Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, you need a fair number of comets, and bigger isn’t necessarily better. Past a certain size, the impact blows most of the water back into space. Although maybe you could slow them down before impact somehow . . .

CULTURE MATTERS:

Yes.
The Smithsonian takes government money and spends its time trashing this country. We are going to decide how to curate our history and no longer subcontract it out a bunch of anti-American leftist jerk offs.
I so voted for this. https://t.co/zescl3yYCy

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 20, 2025

And if what’s in the Smithsonian’s exhibits doesn’t matter, then get rid of the Smithsonian. Because what’s the point?

BUT A .475 NITRO EXPRESS WOULD TAKE THEM DOWN IN THE SAME WAY: Giant Dinosaurs Would Have Chomped You Up in Very Different Ways.

WHAT DOESN’T GET PROGRESSIVES UPSET? Arrest at the National Mall Has Progressives Upset. “It was turning into the next BLM-style outrage video in real time. And then people got word from ICE who this guy was and why he was wanted. . . . ICE has sent a statement on this man’s detention, saying his name is David Perez-Teofani and that he was arrested in Fairfax County in 2024 and charged with aggravated sexual battery against a minor under 13.”

HEIGHTISM IS A REAL THING: ‘Being short is a curse’: the men paying thousands to get their legs broken – and lengthened.

Warning: Pretty graphic surgical photo.

IT LOOKS TOO COOL TO ACTUALLY MAKE: Ford’s Modern Stripped-Down 2-Seat Bronco Roadster “Not Intended for Production:” Talk about rug pulls—Ford’s latest Bronco concept is inspired by the 1966 U13 Bronco Roadster and dripping with appeal.

DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH: Prosecutors charge man who allegedly used botnet to take down X this spring.

ABOLISH THE ATF: Why Is a Navy Vet Still Sitting in Prison When Nothing ATF Found in His Home Was Illegal?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space warfare: US officials warn of hijacked satellites, orbiting space weapons.

BEING FAT IS BECOMING A CHOICE: A new understanding of amylin receptors could pave way for next generation of weight loss drugs.

SOUNDS LIKE A PATH TO SUPERPOWERS: Walmart shrimp may have been exposed to radioactive material, FDA says.