OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Artemis moonsuits take a dive.

METFORMIN UPDATE: Diabetes Drug Used For More Than 60 Years Found to Unexpectedly Affect The Brain.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Fauci’s follies — time to toss the ‘science is settled’ groupthink.

Fauci’s continuous four-decade tenure, unprecedented for an NIH institute director, gave him deep institutional knowledge, relationships across government, and high public visibility.

After so long in office, he had connections everywhere — and he used them with relish.

People who crossed him were unlikely to get funded; people who pleased him had a much better shot.

No wonder he saw himself as the embodiment of science itself.

But science isn’t something that people are; it’s something people do.. It’s a system in which hypotheses are tested, supported or falsified, and developed further.

And allowing one person, with all his human biases and weaknesses, to hold so much power over science for so long can only do that system harm.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

HMM: Hair Loss May Be an Overlooked Side Effect of Ozempic and Mounjaro.

PUTIN’S QUAGMIRE: More Fuel Tankers, Warehouses and Oil Refineries Are Burning in Russia.

THEY’RE THE POWERHOUSES OF THE CELL: Mighty mitochondria: Scientists uncover new role for fighting bacterial infections, including drug-resistant superbugs.

DO THEY THINK IT’S STILL 2020? THERE’S PLENTY OF OIL. Ferrari Thinks Biofuels Can Help Keep Combustion Alive. And “climate change” as an issue is already fading.

COVERING THE IMPORTANT NEWS:

MY NEPHEW HAS AN AR-15 IN .458 SOCOM. IT’S IMPRESSIVE. Ammo: .458 SOCOM.

MISOGYNY IS IN OUR DNA!!! Female mammoths were cavemen’s preferred prey.

AIR CONDITIONING FOR EVERYONE! German official calls for national heat action plan for 2027. Haha, just kidding. They seem more concerned with “tackling climate change,” which no doubt means further carbon emission reductions that will be a pimple on the ass of China’s increased emissions.

CHANGE: Strength training is replacing weight loss as the top goal at the gym — and it has to do with GLP-1s.

ICYMI: ANDY KESSLER HAS A NICE COLUMN ABOUT MY SEDUCTIVE AI BOOK IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Archived version here.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Kitchen Habits That Are Truly Dangerous and the Ones That Are Just Gross.

THE LEADERS, AT LEAST, ARE NOT COMPLACENT, THEY ARE COMPLICIT: Europe Is Suicidally Complacent About the Islamist Threat.

I LOVE THIS:

Important announcement: I am upping my offer, $10 million dollars for a head-to-head basketball game between the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces and a boy's high school state title team of my choice. If the Aces beat my team, I will give them $10 million.

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 3, 2026

There’s no way they will accept, of course, which tells you all you need to know.

MOST ENVIRONMENTALISM IS MORE FOCUSED ON MAKING YOUR LIFE WORSE THAN ON MAKING THE PLANET BETTER: Don Surber: The plastic straw man argument. Communists: Making life miserable for the middle class one mandate at a time.

AND? U. Tampa English professor claims Trump’s words contribute to declining support for trans rights.

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO? University of California weakens due process in student discipline cases.

ACADEMIA IS, IN FACT, TOTALLY BROKEN.

That there’s even a controversy about this story is incredible. If a Cambridge prof can plagiarize this carelessly and get away with it for years, and still have defenders, shows academia is totally broken https://t.co/R5TNdxBYgt

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) August 2, 2026

HUH. GO FIGURE.

This conversation on Reddit has gone viral: A 30 year old woman who doesn’t want kids is complaining that she can’t find the high-effort, successful man that she’s looking for who has everything together because these men all want to have kids, and the ones who don’t want kids… https://t.co/Nl0dgmkO7W

— Lisa Britton (@LisaBritton) August 2, 2026

THE NASHVILLE BOOK SCENE GOES JUDENFREI: ‘White. Blonde. Jew’ author says store canceled event amid backlash. “Just two days after Nashville bookstore Bell Bird Books issued a statement defending its book launch with “White. Blonde. Jew.” author Alyssa Rosenheck, the event now appears to have been cancelled. Rosenheck said in a statement on July 31 that Bell Bird Books cancelled the event days earlier amid ongoing social media backlash and calls to boycott the store. Critics said the event was promoting Zionism, the belief that the Jewish people have the right to the creation and protection of a sovereign state in Israel.”

So what if it is? Zionism is good, and this is supposed to be America. You can bet that the “Republicans banned books” people are okay with this, too.

CDR SALAMANDER: Shipbuilding, Merchant Shipping, Commerce, and the American Project.

EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED, BUT SOME ARE MORE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT: Fifth Amendment Fauci’s Narcissism Destroyed Faith in Scientific Methodology. Congress may be investigating COVID, but the deeper scandal is how one bureaucrat reshaped science into dogma.