BATYA UNGAR-SARGON SOUNDS THIS THEME IN HER RECENT BOOK: The Engineered Impoverishment of the American Middle Class: People can endure hardship and a people can endure adversity, but a people will not endure deliberate betrayal forever.

BAD BUNNY IS NO DADDY YANKEE.

Over 5 MILLION concurrent viewers were watching @TPUSA’s Halftime Show.

What a triumph.

America is witnessing a massive cultural shift.

We are winning 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/EpQqWI0LWT

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 9, 2026

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW:

North sea fisherman here, we have starlink on our boat and it's bloody brilliant 👏 pic.twitter.com/OZfSmu9tRi

— FROG YOCKS (@FogYocks) February 8, 2026

I love the appearance by Arthur C. Clarke.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

AMERICANS WILL USE ANY MEASUREMENT TO AVOID THE METRIC SYSTEM: This supermassive black hole jet is more powerful than the Death Star’s laser.

A REPORT FROM A FRIEND IN COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA:

I want to relate something to you that is worth you blogging about. File under “(Some of) The Kids are Alright.” I am at a restaurant in Columbia called Publico that serves pitchers of mimosas. It is easily 98% women which is odd. But when they played the national anthem, everyone in the place sang along. Honestly it made me tear up. And lots of the undergrads I have talked to are from the North. These colleges are doing something right and they are succeeding. But a bunch of 20-something undergrads spontaneously singing the National Anthem really got to me. I think we’ll fine.

You’re feeling the change of the guard.

SHOCKER: Ending Race-Conscious Admissions Changed Racial Composition of Incoming Classes.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF FINANCE: Student loan debt can stymie retirement saving.

I THINK THAT’S BEEN THE CASE FOR A WHILE:

My latest for @thetimes

"Many educated elites have long excused rule-breaking among people in more disadvantaged communities, arguing that the system is stacked against them…Now, bizarrely, they are extending that same moral leniency to themselves."https://t.co/qS9fsVY3VG

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) February 6, 2026

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Carmakers Rush to Remove Chinese Code Under New Federal Rules.

REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Life in Chicago: While the Mayor Attacks ICE Agents, Gangs Shoot Up Their Rivals in Broad Daylight.

ROGER SIMON: Letter to Myself: ‘Why Do You Write?’

A GOOD SONG FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR: A Hazy Shade of Winter.

SCIENCE: Researchers find brain mechanism behind ‘flashes of intuition.’

HMM: Analysis-Hims’ $49 weight-loss pill rattles investor case for cash-pay obesity market.

NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES: Local barbecue smoker tends the fire overnight to fire up brisket.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE (CONT’D):

Sometimes climate scientists get cross when you point out their claims have become unfalsifiable.

If any kind of weather is proof of a trend in climate rather than variability in weather, then it’s not science. pic.twitter.com/cGqjGAftvY

— Matt Ridley (@mattwridley) February 8, 2026

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE:

Hang this WaPo in the Louvre pic.twitter.com/0LZgvLUXrt

— Gray Connolly (@GrayConnolly) February 8, 2026

LOSERS DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR OTHERS: Arkansas State U. protesters want ‘accountability’ following alleged racist incidents: Want a ‘commitment’ administrators ‘will not use the First Amendment to defend ‘derogatory’ speech.’

“Reports of racist incidents” on campus are usually hoaxes.

DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH: University of Minnesota arrests 67 at hotel protest, leftist student group slams school. “The University of Minnesota arrested 67 people at an anti-ICE protest outside of a campus hotel. The school’s chapter of Students for a Democratic blasted the school in multiple social media posts, calling for it to ‘LET THE GRADUATE PROTESTERS THE F*** OUT.’”

Lock them up and expel them.

#JOURNALISM:

Exactly. Which is why they deserve no sympathy when they continue to destroy the institution they claim to love.

— Shooting News Weekly (@SN_Weekly_) February 8, 2026

ICYMI: “But now that we are learning that hundreds of billions—at least—of government expenditures go to fake nonprofits and businesses, and that likely a similar amount is sent out in inflated costs attached to legitimate government contracts, it has been dawning on me and others that some significant fraction of our apparent economy amounts to storefronts that provide little to no actual goods and services.”

MESSAGING: Trump Officials Have Been Working Hard to Alienate a Critical Core Constituency They’ll Need in November – Gun Owners.

Know your core constituencies.

JOSHUA TREVIÑ0: England As It Really Is. “On the one hand, this is ordinary. England is under no obligation to meet an American standard. On the other hand it is deeply out of the ordinary, because the England we find is increasingly alien even to the English. . . . This does not strike the American as a cause for celebration, but perhaps we love England more than its academics do.”

NEWS YOU PROBABLY CAN’T USE: How to cross the Atlantic in short hops.