OPEN THREAD: Enjoy!

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SLS contract extension hints at additional Artemis delays.

THAT THEIR ROCKETS ARE BLOWING UP IS NOT A BIG DEAL; EVERYONE’S DO FROM TIME TO TIME. IT’S THAT THEY AREN’T DOING MUCH ELSE. Blue Origin Rockets Crumple And Explode in Two Incidents.

I’d very much like Blue Origin to succeed, and as great as SpaceX is it would be better with competition. But come on, guys, show me something.

NOW THEY TELL US: Alzheimer’s May Not Actually Be a Brain Disease, Expert Reveals.

WELL, THE GUY SPEAKING WAS SHOT BY THE OPPOSITION: Trump says he thinks that Biden withdrew because he was “threatened… violently.”

#JOURNALISM:

311,457,587 people saw the original lie. 2,598 people saw the retraction. https://t.co/GPG59rjApq

— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) August 22, 2024

EVERYTHING THAT GUY JUST SAID IS BULLSHIT:

DNC speakers Weds who went to Ivy League schools:

Cory Booker (Yale)
Amy Klobuchar (Yale)
Bill Clinton (Yale)
Jared Polis (Princeton)
Olivia Troye (Penn)
Mindy Kaling (Dartmouth)
Pete Buttigieg (Harvard)
Amanda Gorman (Harvard)
John Legend (Penn)

Vance Man Bad! Class traitor! https://t.co/353CzDVwmG

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) August 22, 2024

KEEP AN EYE ON THAT DR. SMITH CHARACTER, HE LOOKS SHADY: Starliner Stranded in Space? NASA Answers FAQs on Astronauts’ Return Status.

TAKE DOWN THE JUNIOR ANTI-SEX LEAGUE, FOR STARTERS: Joel Kotkin: Will we survive the sex war? The era of eros is coming to a close.

Related:

"Depression increased the most among liberal young women, where it went from 15% in the late 2000s to 46% in 2021-22 — more than tripling in a little more than a decade."

— Jean Twenge pic.twitter.com/5VOeE2NIo5

— Paul Graham (@paulg) August 21, 2024

Leftist politics make everyone neurotic and unhappy. This is not by accident, but by design.

Related: Neurosis and the Curley Effect.

UNSURPRISING: Study: Scrolling through online videos increases boredom.

THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Ford Kills Plans for Large Electric SUVs, Switches to Hybrids.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: District Court Tosses Machine Gun Possession Charge, Rules They’re ‘Bearable Arms.’

The full opinion — which I have not read yet — is here.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Pros And Cons Of A Defensive Revolver.

FOR GIANT DANGEROUS MAMMALS, I LIKE THE IDEA OF A LONG SPEAR: Ice Age humans may have used pikes to hunt mammoths.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA wants clarity on Orion heat shield issue before stacking Artemis II rocket.

GOD KNOWS THEY NEED SOMETHING: New app might help young adults handle anxiety.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Federal Court: California Must Issue Concealed Carry Permits To Out-of-State Residents.

HMM: New ‘platelet score’ being used to gauge risk of stroke, heart attack. “The test assesses whether a person’s platelets are ‘hyperreactive,’ and thus prone to abnormal clotting that blocks arteries, according to the report published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.”

IT’S A PENCIL-NECK PROFESSION NOW: Where are Today’s Athlete Journalists?

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: Kamala Harris at the DNC: Supersized Joe Biden: The vice president has come full circle to the very agenda that landed the president with rotten approval ratings.

Democrats rolled out Joe Biden late on the first night of their Chicago convention, eager to get his obligatory moment over before disappearing him until November. Yet it seems fitting Biden led the week, since everything but his face remains on the ballot. The Kamala Harris policy agenda has turned out to be nothing more than supersized Biden 2.0.

A month into her coronation, the Democratic nominee is finally fleshing out an agenda and has settled the big question of whether she’d revert to her 2020 progressive platform or chart any different path from Biden. Answer: a resounding no. She’s instead doubling down on the failing status quo. So much so that the Harris team didn’t even bother to put its stamp on the party platform, which was released in July under the expectation of a Biden renomination.

The campaign and press will continue to repackage her as “fresh,” but the policy substance is pure Biden redux–only wilder, spendier and more damaging.

Yeah, pretty much.

PUSHBACK WORKS: Jack Daniel’s renounces ‘woke’ agenda, latest iconic US brand to ‘bring sanity back’ to business. “Brown-Forman, the parent company of the Tennessee distiller, ‘preemptively announced,’ Starbuck wrote, that it was renouncing a series of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and left-leaning initiatives.”

CAN YOU BLAME THEM? Jewish high school grads avoid Columbia amid anti-Israel protests.

Flashback: Jewish students, come here to the South — where you’ll be safe.

YOU SPELLED “RISIBLE TRADITION” WRONG: UMass will teach ‘rich tradition’ of ‘transnational Black feminist’ and ‘queer Marxist theorizing.’

JEFFREY CARTER: The BLS and Jobs: Not a Miss of 25%, a LIE of 25%.

LOL:

It’s nice to see Bill Clinton up there speaking and not some impeached, womanizing rapist. #DNC2024

— 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦🥥Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) August 22, 2024