OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
February 2, 2026
TO BE FAIR, I’M REALLY NOT AT ALL SURE IT’S POSSIBLE.
Fetterman's entire thing is to say "hey can you maybe be progressive without being a fucking psychopath?" and much of his party say that no, they can't https://t.co/Hr1KRtxNEH
— Sunny (@sunnyright) February 3, 2026
HMM:
I would really hate to think that the coordinated, almost symphonic response of the Powers that Be to the COVID pandemic was made possible somehow by the discipline enforced through membership in the so-called Epstein Network.
Man would I hate to think that. https://t.co/OSWhXXB5wP
— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) February 2, 2026
SPACE: ‘Back to the Moon’: Time magazine salutes Artemis 2 astronauts in special commemorative cover issue. I wish them luck.
“FOLLOW THE SCIENCE,” THEY SAID, AS THEY LIED ABOUT THE SCIENCE:
Six years ago today, a group of scientists got on a phone call and decided to lie to the world.
Fauci. Collins. Farrar. Andersen. Garry. Drosten.
They privately believed COVID looked engineered. So they wrote a paper saying the opposite — and used it to censor anyone who asked… pic.twitter.com/mQAfJjIF4X
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) February 2, 2026
Related thoughts: Flashback: We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong.
WAR’S SAD AFTERMATH: Hospital evacuated after 8-inch WWI artillery shell discovered in patient’s butt. It was not actually an 8″ shell as generally known, as it was reportedly 1″, not 8″, across. I guess they mean it was 8″ long.
THE MET’S SWAN SONG? Kelly Jane Torrance: Pursuit of politics and personalities ruined the Met Opera — America’s biggest performing-arts institution.
Then, as if to prove why the company’s having trouble raising money at home, audiences savaged its just-ended run of the Bizet classic “Carmen.”
The ripped-from-the-headlines production, brought back from the 2023-2024 season, moves the action from 1820 Seville, Spain, to modern-day America.
Instead of sumptuous costumes and striking sets, star mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina traipsed across the stage in denim cutoffs and cowboy boots, while bass-baritone Christian Van Horn’s Escamillo crooned his “Toreador Song” dressed as a rodeo rider.
Carmen works not in a cigarette factory but for an arms manufacturer, and the troops were transformed, as many saw it, into ICE agents.
It wasn’t money, though, that led superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann to declare at year’s end that he’d no longer appear at the Met.
The big box-office draw — one of the greatest singers of his generation — heavily hinted that Met leadership was behind his decision.
“I felt very bad about how they treated the chorus and orchestra in the pandemic. They didn’t get paid at all. Musicians had to move out of New York or move in with their parents. I did a livestreamed concert and asked listeners to donate. That didn’t go down well,” Kaufmann told BBC Radio’s Norman Lebrecht.
Few opera singers look their best in Daisy Dukes. And yeah, the Met was pretty awful to its worker bees. But it wasn’t so great to them before, or after.
Plus:
It used internet celebrities to promote its opening-night production, “Grounded,” a new “antiwar opera,” as Gelb called it — but that didn’t work.
The opera, about a military pilot who gets pregnant, was the season’s worst attended, selling only 50% of capacity.
Other contemporary, woke operas fared similarly.
Get woke, go broke.
IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Scientists Identified a New Blood Group After a 50-Year Mystery.
WELL, BYE. Like a Week and a Half Long or So?: Mayor Mamdani’s Political Honeymoon Is Over.
Don’t get rid of him though. He’ll be a huge asset for the GOP in the midterms.
SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: What Really Happened on Easter Island? New Evidence Challenges Long-Held Myths. It wasn’t death by overdevelopment, as modern morality-tale spinners have suggested. It was just a century long drought.
HAHA:
— I laughed (@found_it_funny) January 31, 2026
SO MUCH FOR THE ALL-EV LINEUP: VW’s New Diesel Performance Truck Could Come to the US.
THE WSJ HAS LOST WHATEVER NEWS MOJO IT ONCE HAD:
"Gabbard answered written questions about the allegations from the inspector general’s office … That prompted the acting inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, to determine the allegations specifically about Gabbard weren’t credible."
They are deathly afraid of Tulsi. https://t.co/WBUW2WFSfK
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) February 2, 2026
UPDATE (From Ed):
What a spectacular own goal by the Wall Street Journal stenographers who wrote this hit piece on Tulsi Gabbard. They actually compare their supposed scoop to a John le Carre novel, apparently oblivious to the fact that in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the plot revolves around a… https://t.co/pLZgCUL0D0
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) February 2, 2026
21st CENTURY QUESTIONS: How often do AI chatbots lead users down a harmful path?
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Heart disease remains the top threat many women never see coming.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Doctors share the best ways to get the most from a bidet.
EZRA KLEIN AND MUZZLE VELOCITY:
He didn’t seem overwhelmed at all, and that was at night, on a gruelingly noisy plane, grilled by reporters after an evening event where, as WaPo puts it, “Trump tries humor, gets some silence, at black-tie dinner with ‘people I hate.'”
He seemed to be up for all of it. But I’m pretty sure Klein wants to think otherwise: “This is a presidency that is, by any measure, failing. Trump is unpopular; his brutality and his tariffs have turned immigration and affordability, once among of his strongest issues, into liabilities. Trump’s opposition is increasingly united and mobilized; Democrats are besting Republicans in elections all across the country and disciplined, brave, beautiful protest movements have emerged in the cities ICE has sought to occupy.”
By any measure? That can’t be true. He’s at least succeeding by that measure of “muzzle velocity” and the measure of courage and optimism in facing a hostile press. Ironically, Klein is exhibiting the same kind of optimism, energy, and boasting to which Trump is so deeply committed.
One of them’s right and it’s not Young Ezra. Who’s not so young as he was when that name was coined, but the, none of us is.
I ALREADY LOVE HER, YOU DON’T HAVE TO KEEP SELLING ME:
IT’S AN INSURRECTION, AND AN INSURGENCY, AND IT’S FOREIGN-FUNDED AND ORGANIZED:
Julio Rosas has spent years documenting left-wing riots. "What I’ve witnessed over the past five years is the emergence of something else entirely: networked, coordinated, ideologically committed groups that operate more like cells than citizens."https://t.co/lYLY7grNZ6
— Junto (@ReadJunto) February 2, 2026
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW A THING OF THE PAST: After huge snowstorm Penn climate scientists warn about . . . global warming.
Classical reference in the headline.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Texas State to host ‘Trauma-Informed Yoga’ and ‘Condoms Cocoa and Consent’ events.
THE GOVERNMENT AS CURRENTLY CONSTITUTED IS JUST A MONEY LAUNDRY FOR POLITICAL TYPES:
Truly insane levels of fraud!
18% of home healthcare billing nationwide is coming from one county in California … https://t.co/D7bez2Esan
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2026