OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.

FASTER, PLEASE: Get ready: SpaceX’s Starships are coming. We could see a half-dozen flights of the giant silver rocket this year alone. “Starship’s first crewed moon landing for NASA is scheduled to take place in September 2026, on the agency’s Artemis 3 mission. Getting Starship up and running in time to meet that deadline will require a lot of work — and SpaceX has rolled up its sleeves. The company has already built four more Starships at its Starbase facility in South Texas, which hosted today’s launch.”

WERE THEY ANALYZING JOE BIDEN SPEECHES FROM A DECADE AGO? Scientists Identify Speech Trait That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline.

MICROBIOME NEWS: Unlocking the Secrets of Aging: Researchers Reveal Key to Intestinal Balance.

HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT: Warners Chief Diversity Officer: We’ll Make Dissenters to DEI Miserable Enough to Leave. “He doesn’t specify that he wants white men to self-deport, but, come on, they’re the people getting screwed by DEI, so they’re the ones most likely to oppose it.”

His name is Asif Sadiq and he seems like a lawsuit ready to happen. Employers’ Talking “About Race—Any Race—With a Constant Drumbeat of Essentialist, Deterministic, and Negative Language” Risks Racial Harassment Liability.

I’M SURE THIS IS TRUE: Investing in nonelite colleges would improve education more than tweaking Harvard’s demographics would.

BIG BROTHER TARGETS GUN OWNERS: House Committee Investigates Government’s Spying on Those Who Exercise Second Amendment Rights.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Begin Loading Your Own Ammo: It doesn’t take a huge investment to churn out your own cartridges.

WHEN BUREAUCRATS STRIKE: After third successful test flight, FAA grounds Starship for “mishap” investigation. Iterative testing is not a mishap. “Starship will remain grounded until the FAA concludes its investigation and awards a fresh launch license. . . . The regulator said it would be involved in every step of the process. It will need to approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions the company intends to take, before a license can be reissued.”

FASTER, PLEASE: FCC Lets SpaceX Starlink Use E-Band for Four Times the Bandwidth.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: New York Magazine’s “Freedom of Sex” is the ultimate example of the lunatic nihilism that’s consumed America’s intellectual class.

MORE SUPPORT FOR THE “IT’S A BAD FLU” THEORY: Long COVID ‘indistinguishable’ from other post-viral syndromes a year after infection, researchers find.

Related: Long Covid: even faker than you thought. “The term ‘long Covid’ should be dropped from use, because Covid has no more aftereffects than the flu or other mild respiratory illnesses, according to a major new study from Australia released yesterday. The study showed that only 3 percent of people who had Covid had ‘moderate-to-severe’ aftereffects a year later – numerically fewer than those infected with influenza or other mild respiratory diseases.”

SKINNY: Studies: Regardless of starting weight, Zepbound helps obese people shed pounds.

MARK JUDGE: Peter Thiel Needs to Write Me a Check. “The right’s refusal to support artists leads many people to abandon conservative politics—or to not join.”

REINING IN HIGHER ED: New Indiana higher ed law mandates intellectual diversity, enacts post-tenure review.

WHY IS MIT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTISEMITISM? Pro-Hamas statement quietly scrubbed from MIT website as school faces congressional investigation: The statement was deleted around the same time that the House Committee on Education and the Workforce asked on March 8 for documents from MIT relating to anti-Semitism on campus.

JOHN JUDIS & RUY TEIXEIRA: The Democrats and the Rise of Racial Radicalism: How racial radicalism has undermined the Democrats’ appeal. Nobody supports that stuff except grifters, commies, and loser academics.

PAUL BEDARD: CIA played key Jan. 6 roles, texts reveal.

JOE BIDEN SAYS A LOT OF THINGS: Joe Biden Says His Fellow Syracuse 1Ls Gave Him A Standing Ovation In Their First Torts Class.

WHY IS MIT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTISEMITISM: MIT Refused To Host Dennis Ross. It Invited a Hamas Apologist Instead. Dalia Mogahed, who described Hamas terrorism as legal ‘resistance,’ slated to speak as a part of MIT’s ‘Standing Against Hate’ Initiative.

And why is Sally Kornbluth still president at MIT?

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Wholesale Inflation Surges at Double Expected Rate.

Unexpectedly!

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: More Americans Are Treating Their 401(k)s Like Cash Machines. “A record share of 401(k) account holders took early withdrawals from their accounts last year for financial emergencies, according to internal data from Vanguard Group. . . . Americans are dealing with conflicting financial forces. While hiring has been strong and workers’ earnings keep rising, the cost of groceries, child care and car insurance keeps climbing. More people are carrying heftier balances on their credit cards. Emergency distributions hit back-to-back record highs in 2022 and 2023, according to Vanguard, which administers 401(k)-type accounts for nearly five million people and published the data ahead of an annual report scheduled for June. The Internal Revenue Service allows withdrawals for hardship-related reasons, including preventing evictions and paying medical and tuition bills. People who take them from traditional accounts must pay income tax, plus often a 10% penalty if they are younger than 59½ years old. Nearly 40% of those who took a hardship distribution last year did so to avoid foreclosure, compared with 36% in 2022.”

DON’T TANGLE WITH ELON, HE’S SMARTER THAN YOU, AND USUALLY FUNNIER TOO. NBC Tries Chewing Elon Musk Out for Haitian Cannibal Story, Ends Up Biting Self on the Arse Instead.

DON’T GET COCKY:

In the CNN electoral map, Donald Trump already has enough votes to win.

This map is 272 Trump, 225 Biden. pic.twitter.com/QuB8ieUpTl

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) March 14, 2024

That’s if the election were held now. It’ll be held in November, after plenty of time for shenanigans.

OPEN THREAD: Hang on baby, Friday’s coming.