FREEDOM FLU… CATCH IT! American Airlines cancels 230 flights, delays 600+… Sickout is spreading.

KRUISER: ‘The Green Lobby Is Running Biden’s Brain’ — Windmills Edition.

HMM: Army Halts Widely-Hyped Multi-Billion Dollar Advanced Augmented Reality Goggle Program. “The U.S. Army has paused the acquisition of advanced augmented reality headsets for its troops, a program it had heavily publicized in recent years. This revelation comes less than a year after the service announced it had awarded Microsoft a contract potentially worth close to $22 billion to produce tens of thousands of these Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems (IVAS) in the coming years.”

Is the technology not ready? The money better spent elsewhere? Something else? No one is saying yet.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): My bet is on “the tech was irretrievably compromised by the Chinese.”

SAD SAD SAD: Rolling Stones Go Woke, Retire ‘Brown Sugar’ from Concert Playlist. “Now that cancel culture has discovered classic rock, where will it end? I made a short list.”

This one is just for our PJMedia/Townhall VIP members, so if you’ve been thinking of becoming a member, you can do so here — and don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code.

And ICYMI: Forget What You’re Being Told. Here’s the Real Reason for California’s Trucker Shortage.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China set to send 3 astronauts on longest crewed mission yet. “China is preparing to send three astronauts to live on its space station for six months — a new milestone for a program that has advanced rapidly in recent years.”

MEET THE NEW PROTECTED CLASSES: Facebook rule protects journalists and activists as ‘involuntary’ public figures. “The social media company, which allows more critical commentary of public figures than of private individuals, is changing its approach on the harassment of journalists and ‘human rights defenders’, who it says are in the public eye due to their work rather than their public personas.”

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Misery Index: How Are Average Americans Weathering the Biden Economy?

THAT’S (NOT) TRANSPARENCY: Southwest CEO Talking Out Of Both Sides Of His Face. “Kelly still hasn’t come clean about the reasons behind the cancelled flights. He needs to do that, and to clarify Southwest’s positions on imposing vaccine mandates on their employees, at a bare minimum.”

THEY KEEP PAYING THE DANEGELD: Target Continues Woke Crusades, Gives Another $100 Million to ‘Black-Led’ Organizations.

I DOUBT THE CRYPTO BANS WILL STOP WITH CHINA: This is the true scale of China’s bitcoin exodus. “The figures, gathered by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) found that by the end of August 2021, the percentage of bitcoin mining taking place in China had ‘effectively dropped to zero’. That is a staggering reversal for a country that, as late as September 2019, was believed to be home to 75.53 percent of global bitcoin mining operations.”

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Mayorkas says No More Workplace Raids to Arrest Illegal Aliens.

DON’T GET COCKY: House GOP Leader McCarthy hauls in a record $57.8 million during first nine months of the year.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: The Woke Social Media Minority Can’t Bully the Sane Majority Forever. “There are millions of people in this great land who aren’t quivering basket cases in constant search of a reason to be offended. Nobody is going to get canceled from them. They like being entertained. Kevin and I are putting together a little tour that will bring us to them. No cancel worries anywhere on the horizon if one of them doesn’t like a joke.”

SOD OFF, SWAMPY: Steaks Could Soon Become Champagne-Like Luxury.

BIDEN, INC. REMAINS A PARTLY-OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF THE CCP: From China With Love: Biden Bought Chinese Drones Over Pentagon Objections.

THREAD:

Failures? The Democrat-Media Complex got exactly what it wanted.

I THINK THIS IS MORE ABOUT DAVE CHAPPELLE’S WELL-EARNED POPULARITY THAN NETFLIX’S SPINE: Netflix Shows Us How to Stand Up to the Left-Wing Mob.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: How the Media Make Cancel Culture Worse. “Reporters are very much pro-Cancel Culture. They haven’t collectively said as much, and some may be uncomfortable admitting so in public. Their actions say otherwise. Scream, to be more precise.”

TRANSLATION: SHE HATES THIS COUNTRY. ‘Shameful Past’: Kamala Harris Criticizes European Explorers in Vicious Speech.

CAN YOU GUESS WHICH FORTUNE 500 COMPANY WON’T MANDATE VACCINES? Hint: It’s arguably the most science-driven of all.

WE’RE FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND WE’RE HERE TO HELP: Forget What You’re Being Told. Here’s the Real Reason for California’s Trucker Shortage.

What if I told you that in California, the trucker shortage is a self-inflicted wound?

What if I told you the wound was inflicted by Democrats?

You can’t find your shocked face, can you?

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AN AMERICAN HERO: 11-year-old kid shoots intruder in leg, says the perp ‘started crying like a little baby’ and ‘hope he learned a lesson.’

SHOCKING: Army Suicides Up Nearly 50% Over Same Time Last Year. “Today’s news is even worse than the headline number would make it appear, since the active duty suicide rate had already hit a new record in 2020.”

AND NOT FOR THE BETTER: Masks Are Changing How Kids Interact.

With all the things to worry about in 2021, it hadn’t occurred to me to fret about the social impact that masks might have on my son; I’d been so relieved that his public elementary school, in San Francisco, would require them. But here we were. Huxley couldn’t tell his new classmates apart; he had trouble hearing them; he wasn’t sure whether they could hear him; and he became especially disoriented around lunchtime, he said, because that was when all the kids took their masks off. Suddenly they looked like entirely new people. Normally he’s pretty good at making friends, but the confusion was giving him anxiety.

“Even for adults, it is difficult to recognize faces in masks,” says Changhong Liu, a psychologist at Bournemouth University, in the U.K., who studies face recognition. People process faces holistically, he told me, taking in all the features in combination—which is impossible when some of those features are obstructed by a mask, or even sunglasses. And until about age 14, children are still developing their facial-recognition skills.

Some psychologists and educators worry that such impairment in facial processing can lead to a spate of challenges with socialization and communication.

If a mask-loving, San Francisco progressive can come around to the dangers of masks, anyone can.

NOBODY TELL JOE: Smoke and Mirrors: Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Doesn’t Actually Exist.