FASTER, PLEASE: Not too big, not too small: Why modern humans are the ideal size for speed.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: India plans lunar sample mission for 2028.

HMM: Study advises seniors to delay elective surgeries after heart attack.

SQUIRREL! It’s just days to the election, and by the way American did you vote yet? and I have decided to talk to you about a dead rodent.

A year ago, Longo moved to rural New York to open the P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, which currently houses 300 rescue animals.

Their bucolic coexistence was shattered when on October 30th Longo’s house was raided by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. Armed agents showed up with a warrant they’d obtained after receiving an anonymous complaint. They held Longo and his German wife outside for five hours. While their home was ransacked in a search for their illicit animals, his wife was interrogated about her immigration status, because everyone knows German women are a big illegal immigration problem, Germans being infamously bad at following rules and keeping their paperwork in order.

Plus: “The director of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, under whose watch this farcical tyranny unfolded, is apparently named Karen, which is just a bit too on the nose.”

And:

The obvious line to take on this is that the government can’t seem to prevent illegal migrants from pouring across our various borders (indeed, it subsidizes them), while it will go all hands on deck to assassinate an illegal squirrel and his raccoon friend, but this is just anarchotyranny for you. This story isn’t really about the prefix of that portmanteau. It’s about the suffix.

We live in a society in which a vengeful busybody on the other side of the country can anonymously harness the implacable machinery of the state to ruin the lives of people they’ve never met, who are generally powerless to do anything to obtain satisfaction from the faceless bullies hiding within. . . .

No one believes that Peanut’s death made the world any safer, including the anonymous stool pigeon that sicced the NYDEC on him, or the mouth-breathing toughs sent by the NYDEC.

Peanut’s death was about power. The state’s goons got to rip apart someone’s house and snuff out the lives of helpless cute animals, which made them feel powerful, and the snitch got to snicker from the sidelines, which made her feel powerful.

Safety is just the excuse. It is a very effective excuse, one that the managerial state and its cultists and clients in the general population adore, because it morally disarms all opposition to their tyranny.

This is why the Peanut story resonates, and why The Atlantic, naturally, sides with the squirrel-killers.

THE E.V. BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Ford Motors’ EV October Surprise: Auto workers could lose $5,000 from EV losses. Thanks, Shawn Fain.

Talk about an October surprise for Michigan auto workers. Ford Motor Co. on Thursday said it will idle production of its F-150 Lightning electric truck in Dearborn from mid-November through the end of the year.

Ford’s production stoppage follows a string of ominous announcements, starting in October 2023 when it announced plans to lay off about 700 workers who build the Lightning. In the spring Ford said it would eliminate two of three work crews at the Dearborn plant. In August it scrapped a planned electric SUV.

“We continue to adjust production for an optimal mix of sales growth and profitability,” Ford said Thursday. As any business should. Ford’s EV sales have lagged projections despite steep price cuts. Blame in part a market glut caused by government EV mandates.

Ford has sold a mere 22,807 Lightnings so far this year—a far cry from the 180,000 the Dearborn factory was originally supposed to produce. The EV lobby and its friends in the press fawned over the Lightning when it debuted two years ago. The Lightning supposedly signaled that EVs had finally gone mainstream. Not quite.

Chief Financial Officer John Lawler this spring explained that battery advances are needed for mass adoption. “The bigger the vehicle, the bigger the battery. And the battery is the most expensive thing in the vehicle. And then the bigger the battery, the more weight. The more battery you need, the less efficient the vehicle is,” he said. “So the costs just spiral out of control.”

Ford’s EV division has lost $3.7 billion during the first three quarters of this year—about $55,000 per EV—and expects $5 billion to $5.5 billion in losses this year. Under the UAW contract, workers earn a $1,000 bonus for every $1 billion in company profit. The EV losses could result in $5,000 in reduced pay for Ford workers.

They can thank United Auto Workers boss Shawn Fain for backing the Biden Administration’s force-fed EV transition. Stellantis and GM have also reduced shifts and laid off thousands of workers who make internal-combustion engines. Yet Kamala Harris and Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is running for Senate, keep saying EVs will be fantastic for auto workers.

One reason the election polls have narrowed in Michigan is that auto workers watching the EV transition from the front passenger seat don’t believe them.

Nor should they.

PUNISH THEM: NYU facing accreditor complaint: ‘Orwellian’ censorship of student, faculty opinions.

STOP WITH THE HYPOCRISY. YALE IS BUILT ON STOLEN LAND, AND NAMED FOR A MAN WHO TRADED IN SLAVES. Yale Astronomy Department features ‘BIPOC’ support statement on website, attacks alleged ‘police brutality.’

DEMOCRATIC COPE: Pollster Zogby: ‘God help whoever wins this one.’

IT’S COME TO THIS:

NY be like pic.twitter.com/VQT2nZdpn5

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) November 3, 2024

WITH GOOD REASON: Nearly 6 in 10 Americans Aren’t Convinced Kamala Harris Worked at McDonald’s: Poll. The NYT dubbed claims that Harris never toiled under the Golden Arches ‘burgerism.’

How many people believe anything she says?

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Did Government-Sponsored Disinformation Worsen COVID-19? “The weaponization of fear of death from an infectious disease as a component of an intentional propaganda campaign designed to modify human behavior is morally abhorrent, and is associated with a wide range of direct economic and mental health harms. These harms were never considered during the development and deployment of this HHS-sponsored psychological warfare technology-based propaganda campaign. This type of messaging and propaganda meets the criteria of State-sponsored disinformation.”

ICYMI: Harris would be as much a figurehead as Biden — and we’d be ruled by the swamp.

OPEN THREAD: Let’s go.

CHANGE: Globalstar soars on Apple’s $1.5 billion satellite investment.

APEX, BABY: One Super Predator in Africa Instills Even More Fear Than Lions. “The fear of humans is ingrained and pervasive.”

SALENA ZITO: Trump has reason in Pennsylvania to feel better than Harris. “In interviews across the state, middle-class voters, white, black, and Hispanic, are now voting shoulder to shoulder, not divided by race but by the economic despair they are experiencing together. Food costs, gas prices, utilities, car insurance, rent, and mortgages (if they can even afford to buy a house) are driving their vote.”

Related: Mark Halperin: Kamala in Trouble in Wisconsin.

Yesterday, Halperin published a story on his 2Way channel in which he made some dramatic claims about the battleground states. First, he claimed that his sources tell him Kamala Harris is unlikely to win in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona. That’s not exactly a shock at this point as most polls seem to show Trump up slightly in those states.

The big news is what he said next. If Harris loses those states, her only path to 270 is the blue wall. She must win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. “It could be that Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania but loses the White House because she loses Wisconsin,” he said. He added, “My reporting is that she’s in trouble in Wisconsin.”

Don’t get cocky. I hope this is true, but it shouldn’t encourage anyone to slack off.

FASTER, PLEASE: Tiny Gold “Frying Pans” Kill Bacteria on Implants, Reducing Antibiotic Need.

FOR LIZ CHENEY AND HER FAMILY:

Ironically, this was once fake hero John Kerry’s fight song.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Why Are So Many People Upside Down on Car Loans?

SKYNET DRIVES: Why Mercedes, General Motors, and Google Are Pushing AI For Cars.

LIKE HOLLYWOOD, NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING: Political pros no better than public in predicting which messages persuade, researchers find.

HMM: Sixth Circuit Will Rehear En Banc Case Involving High School’s Pronoun Policy.

WOEING: What is happening with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft?

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Biden invokes wartime powers to address IV fluids shortage.

I ALREADY VOTED FOR HIM, YOU CAN STOP SELLING ME:

I already voted for him on Monday. I can’t vote for him again.

Oh, and you left out the possibility of replacing Alito and Thomas (and maybe Sotomayor) with 40-year-old originalists who don’t consider the 2A to be a second class civil right.

— Shooting News Weekly (@SN_Weekly_) November 1, 2024