OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: JAXA institute studying Mars lander concept.

SPACE: Fram2 Polar Orbital Flight: First Inside Views.

SO I VAGUELY REMEMBER THIS “Nick Rockefeller” guy from law school. Who wasn’t a Rockefeller at all, as it turns out, but a conman named Spiro Pavlovich III. He faked out Harvard, too. Twice!

This is not as unusual as it sounds. A guy who started with my class at YLS turned out to be a fraud as well, and was booted after a year when he was caught, not by the law school but by the law firm he worked at as a summer associate.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: How to Write a Killer First Sentence.

HOLLY MATHNERD: Systemic Misogyny: A Theorem Disproved. What my feminist professors lied about. “Turns out, the oppressors were just guys. And the cage I thought they built? Feminism handed me the blueprints — and I helped weld the bars.”

CHANGE: FAA closes investigation into SpaceX Starship Flight 7 explosion.

CHANGE: Goodyear’s Retro Airship Graphics Celebrate 100 Years of Blimpin.’ The blimp, the blimp, the blimp is back, sporting throwback graphics as a matter of fact.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Federal Measure Would Deregulate Short-Barreled Rifles, Shotguns, AOWs.

ALIENS: Alien Clues in Strange Martian Stone: Scientists Stunned by Rover Discovery.

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Scientists consider cross-breeding to save Australia’s orange-bellied parrot from extinction.

UGH: Implant-derived metals found in cerebrospinal fluid.

HMM: Fasting every other day outperforms calorie cutting, clinical trial indicates.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A story about enrollment at Howard University, a leading HBCU founded in 1867, reveals that Howard’s student population is only 25% male. Apparently, this is not that unusual for HBCUs. “This very much seems like a problem worth addressing. As someone quoted in the story points out, it’s hard to achieve upward mobility in today’s world if you don’t go to college. But I also wonder if this isn’t a case where something has changed more generally and black male students are just a leading indicator. There have been plenty of recent stories about a gender gap among all students headed to college.”

THE PARASITES DON’T LIKE THE SUNLIGHT: Brown U. student journalist started looking into administrative bloat. Now he’s being investigated.

THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING: 10 examples of outrageous spending on Florida’s campuses.

IT’S ALL THEATER:

After a few weeks of major excitement from the left akin to that time they beat Susan Collins in Maine but actually did not, and the Democrats did not take Mike Waltz’s seat in Florida.

Randy Fine did, well, fine. The Gaetz seat was no surprise. The hype from the left was just that — hype.

In Wisconsin, the Democrat-backed progressive won the state Supreme Court seat. Despite the GOP outspending her and having Elon Musk campaign for Brad Schimel, Susan Crawford trounced him. It turns out it is harder than progressives claimed to buy elections.

The left is now, yet again, trying to get Trump to oust Musk. They wanted to blame him for Randy Fine’s loss. They cannot do that. So they’ll do their best to pin Schimel’s loss on him.

Given how special elections go against parties in power, it is hard to pin this on Musk, particularly in Wisconsin, but they’ll try.

It is all theater.

The theater also played out in the United States Senate.

Well, that’s what happens when you put the theater kids in charge.

TODAY IN IVY LEAGUE NEWS: Columbia student arrested for allegedly throwing unlit Molotov cocktail from dorm window.

Princeton Says Trump Administration Is Halting Research Grant Funding. “Princeton University said the Trump administration is suspending funding for research grants, making it the fourth Ivy League school to be targeted by the president. Chris Eisgruber, Princeton’s president, said in an email to students and staffers Tuesday that the New Jersey school received notices that U.S. agencies were ending ‘several dozen’ research grants. He didn’t say how much they were worth.”

Related: Harvard’s $9 Billion Scramble to Avoid Becoming the Next Columbia. “Harvard now finds itself in the hot seat. On Monday, the White House targeted the university with a review of $9 billion in federal funds as part of Trump’s rapidly escalating campaign against what he views as left-wing ideology and antisemitism on campuses.”

#JOURNALISM: The Atlantic’s Giant Fake News Screw-Up: It is not a human tragedy if somebody who is involved in MS-13 ends up being removed from the country.

DON SURBER: Food stamp nation: A federal nutrition program promotes childhood obesity. “While liberals blame food deserts—an attempt to blame and shame corporate America—conservatives are doing something about it by mandating food stamps be used to purchase food—not candy. It’s nice of Jack Kennedy’s nephew to work to make food stamp purchases nutritious again.”

Flashback: ““Knoxville’s Federally-Designated ‘Food Deserts’ Include Super Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger. Plus a couple of tasty oriental supermarkets.” And a Trader Joe’s. Plus: “If food deserts actually exist, why can’t both the USDA and the local bureaucrats make an accurate map of them?”

OF COURSE SHE IS: Rashida Tlaib To Speak at ‘Palestinian Diaspora’ Conference Alongside Avowed Terrorist Operative.

IF YOU KEEP COMPARING ADMIRABLE PEOPLE TO HITLER, SOME PEOPLE ARE GOING TO START THINKING HITLER MIGHT HAVE BEEN ADMIRABLE TOO: Are Democrats Whitewashing Hitler with Lame Attacks on Trump?

Related:

Actual Nazi Struggling To Stand Out Now That Everyone Is A Nazi https://t.co/JbcxclDEQv pic.twitter.com/LfzYrhK9Pl

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 1, 2025

YOU WOULD NEED A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

Turns out when you die on every 80-20 hill, you wind up at roughly 20% approval. Who could’ve known? https://t.co/away2hk8lq

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) April 1, 2025

Flashback: One of Trump’s best moves has been, repeatedly, to get the Democrats to take the “20%” side on the so-called “80/20 issues.”

A BIG WIN:

Yeah! https://t.co/x99NunhUkA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2025

This, along with the wild record turnout, bodes well for the still-go-be-decided Supreme Court and legislative races.

UPDATE: Or not. The Democrat candidate for a crucial state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin is projected to win Tuesday’s special election. “Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, a former prosecutor and the Democrats’ pick, faced off against Waukesha County Judge and Republican pick Brad Schimel for the 10-year-term court seat. At publishing time, Crawford is ahead 57.8%-42.2% with 36% reporting. This is disturbing news for Wisconsin, a state Trump won by just 30,000 votes in 2024, as the future of the state could well depend on this state Supreme Court seat.”

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.