RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Monsters We Have Known. “One of the controversies surrounding the coverage of the chaos in Haiti has been the reluctance of mainstream outlets to mention such matters as voodoo and cannibalism in connection with gang violence, as if the influence of the occult and barbaric were somehow anti-black or racist. But it is universal.”

OPEN THREAD: Saturday night’s alright for threading.

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Sorting for Stupidity? Thoughts on the state of the federal government.

NOW OUT FROM BOB ZUBRIN: The New World on Mars: What We Can Create On The Red Planet.

FASTER, PLEASE: Breakthrough Therapy Obliterates Deadly Brain Tumor in Days.

A PACK NOT A HERD: Be Afraid, But More Importantly Be Armed: Citizens Will Be Best First-Line Defense Against Terrorists Coming Across Border.

Shades of Kurt Schlicter’s The Attack.

HOSTILE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT ON ACCOUNT OF RACE: Davidson College forces athletes to watch ‘only whites are racist’ video. “The students with whom we have spoken about this film found it offensive, divisive, and personally insulting.”

Related: Employers’ Talking “About Race—Any Race—With a Constant Drumbeat of Essentialist, Deterministic, and Negative Language” Risks Racial Harassment Liability.

THEY DIDN’T LISTEN: TOO MUCH GRIFT AND OPPORTUNITY FOR OPPRESSION. The Prophets: D.A. Henderson. Years before Covid, the scientist credited with eradicating smallpox warned against shutting down the world to combat an epidemic.

In 2006, ten years before his death at the age of 87, the legendary epidemiologist D.A. Henderson laid out a plan for how public health officials should respond to a major influenza pandemic. It was published in a small journal that focused mainly on bioterrorism—and was quickly forgotten.

As it turns out, that paper, titled “Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza,” was Henderson’s prescient bequest to the future. If we had followed his advice, our country—indeed, our world—could have avoided its disastrous response to Covid.

This month marks the four-year anniversary of lockdowns on a global scale. And though the pandemic has passed, its consequences live on. The lockdowns embraced by the U.S. public-health establishment meant that millions of young people had their education and social development disrupted, or left school for good. Mental health problems rose substantially. So did incidents of domestic violence and overdose deaths.

It didn’t have to be that way.

“D.A. kept saying, ‘You have to be practical, and you have to be humble, about what public health can actually do, especially over sustained periods. Society is complicated, and you don’t get to control it.’ ” But they wanted to.

CHANGE: FDA approves Rezdiffra to treat liver disease.

REMEMBER, PENN IS TRYING ITS HARDEST TO FIRE AMY WAX FOR CRITICIZING ITS ADMISSION POLICY: Anti-Semitic Cartoonist Will Teach Fall Course at Penn, Ivy League School Announces. “One cartoon depicts Zionists sipping Gazan blood from wine glasses, a version of the ancient blood libel employed in anti-Semitic propaganda. Another shows Jews in a Nazi concentration camp holding signs that read ‘Stop the Holocaust In Gaza’ and ‘Gaza, The World’s Biggest Concentration Camp.’ A third depicts a Nazi flag with a Star of David drawn in place of a swastika.”

But at least he didn’t say anything hurtful about the results of affirmative action.

SO IF I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER WHAT I WENT THROUGH, I SHOULD HAVE A BACON CHEESEBURGER? Fatty food before surgery may impair memory in old, young adults.

IF VEGANISM WERE HEALTHY, VEGANS WOULD LOOK HEALTHIER: Harvard doctor says animal products are essential for mental health – in blow to veganism: ‘The brain needs meat.’ “One study published in 2022 surveyed 14,000 Brazilians between 35 and 74 years old and found those who followed a vegan diet were twice as likely to be depressed — even if they had similar nutrient intakes to carnivores. And a meta-analysis published in 2020 and including 160,000 meat-eaters and 8,500 meat-abstainers also found those who cut meat from their diet were significantly more likely to be depressed.”

That vegans have mental health issues isn’t exactly a shock.

WHY POLICING URBAN VOTER FRAUD IS SO IMPORTANT: Democrats Control 18 States With Just a Single County in Each – Inside the Impact of Urban Election Rigging – 2024 Addendum.

WE’VE LAGGED SHAMEFULLY ON THIS: From the Deep Sea to D.C.– How China Fears Have Put Ocean-Floor Mining on Washington’s Radar: The possibility of harvesting the seabed is growing in popularity among lawmakers amid a push to extract rare minerals for defense applications.

THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES: Universities Are Making Us Dumber.

ARS TECHNICA: After Thursday’s flight, Starship is already the most revolutionary rocket ever built: For fun, we could compare Starship as it exists today to other available rockets.

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED:

Ship in space pic.twitter.com/ge5vJ0q9jW

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 16, 2024

Related:

I can confirm, men have feelings. #Starship pic.twitter.com/73FCf9sWui

— David Leeds (@LeedsExplore) March 16, 2024

WHY IS THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT PROTECTING HAMAS? Qatar Offered to Expel Hamas; Blinken Said No.

LOSS OF TRUST: People Aren’t Buying the Boeing Whistleblower ‘Suicide.’ “It’s been almost a month since Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in a car outside of his hotel in Charlotte, South Carolina. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head and was found with a pistol in his hand. Authorities tentatively attributed the death to suicide. But friends and family members, along with some investigators are raising doubts about that explanation. Barnett had been in the midst of testifying as part of a lawsuit against Boeing over safety shortcomings at their production facilities. A close friend recounted a disturbing conversation earlier this year when he said that he could potentially wind up dead because of his whistleblowing activities and that if anything happened to him it would not be suicide.”

After Jeffrey Epstein, people are deeply suspicious.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Inflation woes: Home buyers need 80% more income to buy than 4 years ago.

DOUBLE-SECRET JIGGERY POKERY: DOJ Keeps Plan Secret for Biden’s Election Executive Order. “The Biden Justice Department continues to claim presidential privilege to block release of its strategic plan to turn out the vote, although at least two other federal agencies have made their plans public. In defending a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, the Justice Department is keeping under wraps its plans to implement President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order, under which most federal agencies are required to develop a strategic plan for increasing voter participation in elections.”

NATE SILVER: Democrats are hemorrhaging support with voters of color: The trend is real in polls, and in at least some election results.

Woke stuff is mostly popular with neurotic white people and the grifters who feed off of them.

Flashback: Dems are losing the multiracial working class on basic lifestyle issues.

MATT TAIBBI: Why the TikTok Ban is So Dangerous: Did they tell you the part about giving the president sweeping new powers?

The unfortunate situation we’re in is that I think that TikTok is a dangerous information weapon from a hostile power, but I trust our own rulers only slightly more than the CCP.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The New Campus Fanaticism: Exclusion, Scapegoating, and Extremism are Taking Over. “A striking characteristic of this wave of protests: Those most affected by them are other students and faculty on campus, who often seem to be their intended targets. . . . Campuses have a fanaticism problem. Facing it effectively requires leaders to recognize that similar forces are at work today as during earlier episodes of violent activism. A policy of complacency and appeasement has not diminished radicals’ appetite for confrontation or their desire to rewrite the rules.”

Appeasement never does.

OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.