They did, however, call you a kafir, and would like to be able to call you a dhimmi. But you have a point.

Read it.

Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite helped rescue six skiers after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe on February 18, according to California emergency officials.

Authorities said the group maintained contact with rescuers for roughly four hours despite having no cellular coverage in backcountry terrain. The rescue offers a clear real-world example of Apple’s satellite emergency system in a life-threatening situation.

An avalanche hit a guided ski group in Nevada County, California, near Lake Tahoe, leaving six survivors stranded without cell service. They managed to contact rescuers using Apple’s Emergency SOS feature on the iPhone and a separate emergency beacon.

This is why I use an iPhone. Apple has features that you don’t often need but, when you do, you need them badly.

I haven’t worn a watch since I got my first cellphone in 1998, but I’m seriously contemplating getting an Apple Watch just for the health monitoring capabilities.

Read it.

I’d be happy to pay to read the Wall Street Journal if I could get it for 10 cents a copy, as I did in my first job in 1978, rather than paying over $500 a year for a subscription.

Smithsonian

In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a strange bone alongside a trove of ancient catapult projectiles in Córdoba, Spain. According to a study published this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, the bone may be from one of Hannibal’s war elephants, which the Carthaginian general used against Romans in the Second Punic War.

The bone “could prove to be a landmark,” lead author Rafael Martínez Sánchez, an archaeologist at the University of Cordoba, tells Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe. Until now, “there has been no direct archaeological testimony for the use of these animals.”

The dig was conducted ahead of construction for a medical facility on the Colina de los Quemados archaeological site. Archaeologists documented evidence of occupation at the site across hundreds of years beginning around the Late Bronze Age. However, their most intriguing discoveries date to the late Iron Age.

One thing about which I am curious, and which I have never seen discussed, is how they got the elephants across the Pillars of Hercules into Europe. It wasn’t as if the Carthaginians had LSTs.

The Register.

They’d be fools not to Microsoft proved that last century—you may not be interested in fucking politics, but politics is interested in fucking you.

The Economist, a Voice of the Crust.

Just six years ago Democratic states looked like they were better at educating children than Republican ones. Their pupils scored higher on reading and maths tests. But since the pandemic students in places like Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have shot up the national rankings.

Gee, I wonder why? Perhaps by eliminating Woke indoctrination and actually teaching facts and skills?

Adjust the results for such things as student poverty, and the “southern surge” is even more impressive. On a ranking compiled by the Urban Institute, a think-tank, Mississippi comes top (see chart 1). Florida, Texas and Louisiana also beat Massachusetts, the state that scores best when disadvantage is not taken into account.

Notice that they can’t give you straight data; it has to be ‘adjusted’—which is how we got the Climate Change Crisis.

It helps that red states have gone back to basics: legislators in state capitals have enacted new rules that require teaching reading via phonics and holding failing schools accountable. Those decisions matter a great deal for classrooms. But America is made up of more than 13,000 school districts, most of which have the autonomy to set policy, too. That gives cities and towns across the country the opportunity to run small experiments to figure out how to get students to learn—and then to double down on what works.

And there it is. Education majors need not apply.

The Telegraph (UK).

Sir Keir Starmer has blocked Donald Trump from using RAF bases to strike Iran.

The Government is yet to give consent for the US to use military bases in the UK to launch bombing runs, because of concerns they would breach international law.

The US is putting together contingency plans for a direct attack on Iran, with long-range bombing and refuelling aircraft sent to the Middle East in recent days. It is the largest US military build-up in the region since 2003, when the country went to war in Iraq.

We ought to remove all of our military assets from Britain and leave them twisting in the wind. Allies act like allies. If you aren’t going to act like an ally, then piss off.

The Times (UK).

Sir Keir Starmer has appointed Dame Antonia Romeo as Britain’s first female cabinet secretary.

Romeo, the current permanent secretary at the Home Office, will replace Sir Chris Wormald, who was sacked by Starmer last week.

Downing Street said the appointment had been made after a “detailed due diligence process” overseen and approved by the first civil service commissioner.

The Feminist Party keeps on destroying the British government and British society.

This will end badly.

Watch it.

Tim Pool lays it out.

Inside Trump’s ICE Concentration Camps (Tim Dickinson/The Contrarian)

Theres’s Credible Evidence of Trump’s Sex Crimes (Jay Kuo/The Status Kuo)

Journalists Arrested in Cameroon While Reporting on Trump’s Secretive Deportation Program (Pranav Baskar/New York Times)

Trump, weeks after backlash over racist post, hosts Black History Month reception (Associated Press)

Judge Voids Ruling Backing Trump Mass Detention Policy

The Trump administration is increasingly trying to criminalize observing ICE (Meg Anderson/NPR)

The ‘Enigma’: Why JD Vance Befuddles the World (Nahal Toosi/Politico)

Not Subtle: PBS Skips Rubio’s Munich Triumph to Bash ‘President Trump, Demolition Man’

Newsbusters.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr said at a press event Wednesday that he got a big laugh when he looked back at the way CBS “Late Show” Host Stephen Colbert used a hoax to manipulate the media this week.

Rebuking the legacy media’s blind regurgitation of Colbert’s claim that CBS prohibited him from airing an interview with Democrat Texas Senate primary candidate James Talarico because the FCC banned the interview, Chairman Carr pointed out that even CBS says that neither the network nor the FCC prevented Colbert from airing the interview.

Instead, the media-savvy Rep. Talarico (D-Texas) and Colbert played a hilarious hoax on the all-too-predictable media, Carr explained.

“When I stepped back and looked at the entire arch of the news story yesterday, I was highly entertained. I think it was one of the most fun days I’ve had on the job, watching for the hilarity of how this story played out,” Carr said:

Read it.

France is witnessing an extraordinary religious resurgence, as record numbers of young people flock to churches for Ash Wednesday and baptism, Le Figaro highlights in a recent article.

Once considered a global bastion of secularism, the country is seeing a 17% rise in adult baptisms in Paris alone, with figures jumping over 50% in just two years. According to analysts, this spiritual awakening is largely driven by a generation searching for direction and meaning in a world dominated by “materialistic indigestion” and geopolitical instability.

Read it.

Four years ago, amid the run-up to the 2022 Winter Olympics, an Indigenous-led Canadian group announced it was seeking to bring the 2030 Olympic games to the province of British Columbia. One reason to support the project, the national CTV News network told readers, was that it would help heal emotional wounds caused by the claimed discovery of 215 “unmarked graves” of Indigenous students on the grounds of a former Kamloops, B.C. residential school in May 2021.

“With the recent confirmations of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites… many Canadians are only now confronting the ugly truth of the country’s past—and beginning to understand the important role reconciliation will play in its future,” wrote Vancouver-based CTV News reporter Ben Miljure. “A successful bid could bring those important issues onto the world stage.”

Canada’s Unmarked Graves: Four Years, No Bodies Found

A new book catalogues the damage to Canadian society caused by a 2021 social panic over non-existent ‘unmarked graves.’

The Foundry.

Former CNN host Don Lemon has pleaded not guilty to federal charges for his role in the invasion of a Minnesota church last month, claiming he was merely covering the “protest” as a journalist, but the church’s pastor says Lemon was “in on the terror.”

Jonathan Parnell, the pastor of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, had been attempting to read aloud from the Bible when agitators opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement disrupted the Jan. 18 service. He wrote about the event for WORLD magazine Tuesday.

Parnell recalled that “several individuals scattered throughout the sanctuary rose together and, like a flash mob, converged with chants and clenched fists.” When the mob shouted, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” that led worshippers to flee, “fearing it was an active shooter situation.”

My first reaction to hearing “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” would be to shoot. But that’s me.

Read it.

Workers following weeks of debate and opposition from Jewish groups over their potential ban.

“After careful deliberation, IFSW members voted against this motion,” the National Association of Social Workers, the U.S. affiliate of the International Federation of Social Workers, said in a statement.

The vote to suspend or expel the Israeli union on Wednesday would have required 75% of the union’s 67 voting member nations to vote for the measures.

The vote stemmed from a complaint issued by the Irish, Spanish and Greek affiliates of the federation, who accused the Israeli union of failing to seek an exemption from mandatory military service for its members.

Watch it.

China is doing some strange things with robots.

If I were rich, I’d hire these guys as my security team. i doubt that they would be overly troubled by Illegal Orders.

The Telegaph (UK).

On Wednesday morning, one US government official thought there was a 90 per cent chance of the US declaring war on Iran within weeks.

By Wednesday afternoon, when Donald Trump demanded Sir Keir Starmer keep hold of the Diego Garcia military base, some had upgraded it to a “99 per cent chance”.

Exactly why Mr Trump suddenly turned on the Prime Minister’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and rent back the joint US-UK base is unclear. He had issued a tepid endorsement of the agreement just two weeks ago.

But the theory spreading around Washington is that the US president’s hand was forced by the prospect of imminent war with Iran.

The Telegraph (UK).

US fighter jets tracked as heading towards the Middle East could be laying the groundwork for a major bombing campaign.

The uptick in warplanes travelling to the Gulf is likely to be used to clear the way for heavy bombers to strike at the heart of Iran’s regime, experts have said.

Large numbers of American combat aircraft and support planes such as air-to-air refuellers have been seen moving eastwards this week.

The combination of the approaching USS Gerald R Ford strike group and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which is already positioned in the Arabian Sea, analysts predict that Donald Trump is preparing a sustained military campaign against Iran.

The Telegraph (UK).

Naval sailors are to go on strike over pay so low that it may be in breach of minimum wage laws.

Personnel from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) will stage a walkout in the near future following a strike vote by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union.

RFA sailors crew tankers and supply ships used by the Royal Navy. The union claimed it cannot show that all its members “are even being paid at least the minimum wage for the hours they are required to work”.

The latest vote was accompanied by the claim that RFA sailors’ 12-hour working shifts at sea may not comply with minimum wage laws, which guarantee an income of £12.21 per hour for those aged 21 and over.

The War Zone.

Russia is developing a new balloon-borne system that could provide battlefield access to high-speed data communications at a time when its forces are desperate to keep connected. The testing of the Barrage-1 balloon comes as Ukrainian troops are taking advantage of Russia’s loss of access to the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation network. Both sides have become dependent on the SpaceX system for daily wartime operations, but the restrictions on Russia’s use of Starlink are allowing Kyiv’s forces to fend off attacks in some areas while advancing in others. You can read more about Russia’s Starlink troubles in our initial story here.

As we previously noted, the introduction of Starlink to the battlefield in Ukraine revolutionized how war is waged, giving users high bandwidth, relatively secure communications basically anywhere, all in a small, off-the-shelf package. Though Elon Musk’s SpaceX company provided them to Ukraine, Russians soon came to rely on them as well. However, earlier this month, the company created a list of verified users, cutting Russia off from the system and throwing its troops into disarray. We will talk more about that later in this story.

The War Zone.

The construction of new silos for the U.S. Air Force’s future LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) means that units charged with defending them will have to update their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Air Force Security Forces personnel regularly train to protect existing silos housing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs, as well as associated launch facilities, or even recapture them if necessary. The need for totally new silos and other infrastructure has been a major issue for the Sentinel program, contributing significantly to delays and cost overruns that triggered a total restructuring that is still ongoing.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, highlighted how Sentinel will impact Air Force Security Forces units in a brief report released earlier today. This comes a day after the Air Force put out its own update on the new ICBM program, stating that the current goal is for the restructuring effort to wrap up before the end of the year and for the first launch of a prototype LGM-35A to occur in 2027. The hope now is that Sentinel will begin entering operational service sometime in the early 2030s. The original schedule had called for the missiles to reach initial operational capability in 2029.

Watch it.

If you receive spam calls, you will have noticed the gap between your answering a phone and the point where the robodial system connects you to a Real Person.

What scammers want to do is to start a conversation in which they can elicit a recording of you saying “yes” or some sort of affirmative statement that can then be weaponized against you.

Proper phone protocol is for the person who calls you to identify themself and tell you who they are and why they are calling. If, instead, they give you something like a breezy “Hey! How ya doin’?”, either hang up or become rude. My invariable practice is to say “Who are you and why are you calling?” Any word-salad you get in response ought to be the signal to hang up.

Watch it.

I know practically nothing about Canada. This guy lives in British Columbia and has some very interesting things to say aobut the Alberta situation.

Groups sue Trump administration over Pride flag removal at Stonewall  Of course they do. Forget that it’s a Federal monument and he has the perfect right to do that.

Trump Becomes A Lame Duck In Europe As Leaders Court Democrats At Munich Conference | Alex Ward  Be careful, this ‘lame duck’ can stomp you into the ground.

Jeremy Carl is latest Trump nominee facing Senate pushback over history of antisemitic remarks

Unluckily Woke: Anti-Trump US Figure Skater Finishes 13th at Olympics  Perhaps God is trying to tell her something.

The Trump admin argument that masks “are for officer safety reasons” is actually an admission (Chris Geidner/Law Dork)  In Narratve Media Fantasyland. The obvious ‘safety reason’ is so that they won’t be personally identified and wind up with a mob at their front doors threatening their spouses and children, which everybody knows is the reason why proglodytes are trying to ban them from wearing masks.

Norway Faces Up to Trump’s Demands for the Nobel Peace Prize (The Atlantic)  Which will never happen from a group that gave it to Barack Obama merely for being the Magic Negro.

Trump’s damage is done. Democrats – and Europe – are struggling to define what’s next (Kasie Hunt/CNN)

With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules (Hiroko Tabuchi/New York Times)  Doesn’t matter. California has plenty of them, and no auto manufacturer can afford to ignore the California market.

Detroit Police Chief Targets Officers Allegedly Coordinating With ICE

Agreements that allow local police to work with ICE skyrocket (Julia Ainsley/NBC News)

Trump Risks Igniting a Nuclear Wildfire (New York Times)

Anti-system voters are turning on Trump over Epstein (Christian Paz/Vox)  They hope, they hope, they hope.

February 15, 2026 — The Trump administration’s white nationalist project was on full display … (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters …)

NAACP asks judge to protect against ‘misuse’ of voter data seized by FBI in Georgia’s Fulton County (Kate Brumback/Associated Press)

Epstein sympathized with Kavanaugh during supreme court confirmation, emails show (Stephanie Kirchgaessner/The Guardian)  Epstein cooties!

The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead (The Guardian) Polluting the air all the way….

“Just making s**t up” — David Roberts sounds off on the EPA (Aaron Rupar/Public Notice) Proglodyte Projection: When the Left accuses you of doing what they do (or are planning to do).

Libertarians warned about the ‘imperial presidency.’ Too few actually warned about Trump. (Anthony L. Fisher/MS NOW)  Democrats, of course, are quite comfortable with a Woke imperial Presidency. It’s Trump the object to.

The Case for Keeping ICE and CBP Defunded (Ryan Cooper/American Prospect)  Orange Man Bad!

Trump’s second year: Whiplash (Politico)  You know you’re over the target when you’re getting flak.

ICE Barbie’s Alleged Lover Slammed by His Colleagues Over Cringey Side Hustle (Tom Latchem/The Daily Beast)  The best in American high-school journalism.

Push for Congress to block Trump pardons draws GOP backing (Andrew Solender/Axios)  One thing you have to give the Democrats, they never forgot which side they’re on … unlike Republicans.

New York Times Front Page ‘Analysis’ Condemns Trump’s ‘Cult of Personality’: Obama Who?

Minneapolis anti-ICE activist group promotes ‘jury nullification training’ amid high-profile cases (Jenna Gloeb/Alpha News MN)

Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore slavery exhibits to the President’s House (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The View Wants You to Stop Criticizing Olympians Who Criticize America

Bill Kristol: The Administration’s Stupid Ethnonationalism (The Bulwark)  You’d never know that at one time Bill Kristol pretended to be a patyriot.

CNN Is Obsessed With Eking Out A Win on Its Dumb Trump Economy Scare Porn

Democrat lawmakers rush to bash Trump even as jobs, inflation reports beat projections (Leo Briceno/Fox News)

Hillary Clinton gets in testy exchange with European leader over Trump (Ashleigh Fields/The Hill)

Hillary Clinton Spars With Czech Leader Over Trump

The Disastrous First Year of RFK Jr. (Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark)

Epstein ranch in New Mexico bought by family of ‘Trump Republican’ candidate (Sara Braun/The Guardian)  Epstein cooties!

Hillary Clinton accuses Trump administration of Epstein files ‘cover-up’ in BBC interview (Jessica Parker/BBC)  Like being called ugly by a frog.

Obama Took On Recession, Health Care and Iraq. What He Didn’t See Coming Was Trump. (Peter Baker/New York Times)

Trump somehow got worse on public health after covid (Noah Berlatsky/Public Notice)

Newsbusters.

Call it irony or call it hypocrisy, CNN’s The Situation Room was awash with it during their Wednesday newscast when the pro-choice outlet’s Pamela Brown clutched her pearls over Christian women choosing to put being a mother and a wife above their careers. Brown parachuted into a “patriarchal Christian communit[y]” she fishing for stories about domestic abuse. She looked on in confusion, horror, and disgust as a woman explained why she wanted to be a stay at home mom and be “submissive” to her husband.

In a continuation of her smear campaign against Christians from the previous day where she framed them as radicals and a threat to the country, Brown said she “embedded with a tight knit conservative church community in southeast Texas” to gawk at how they lived.

She opened the segment by warning that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was follower of a pastor who taught his followers to adhere to “specific gender roles, where wives submit to their husbands and make being a mother and homemaker their primary role, while the husband acts as the head of the household and makes the executive decisions for the family.”

Read it.

James Heidorn, who taught at Gary Elementary School in West Chicago, found himself at the center of a community firestorm that cost him not just his teaching position but his identity as an educator, all for posting two words on Facebook: “Go ICE.”

The incident began in late January when Heidorn, a 14-year physical education teacher, responded to a news story about a local police department pledging cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His personal Facebook post sparked immediate backlash in the heavily Hispanic district, with local activists circulating screenshots and demanding action against him.

Hot Air.

There is major drama brewing in the Lone Star State, and the Democrats just got caught playing dirty. In this episode, we spill the tea on why Stephen Colbert and CBS refused to air an interview with Democrat James Talarico. They claimed it was because of “Trump” and the FCC—but the truth is they are terrified of giving equal airtime to Jasmine Crockett. We break down the Democrat party’s “white guy preference,” why the establishment is actively sabotaging Crockett’s Senate run, and why Republicans need to rally behind John Cornyn to save the majority. Plus, we look at the latest UpOne Insights poll that shows 82% of Americans—including 66% of Democrats—demand stricter immigration enforcement.

Read it.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s statement that Britain has been “colonised by immigrants” has sparked a fierce reaction. From Starmer to Bluesky, to the Athletic and all the football social media pundits in between, the co-owner of Manchester United has been bombarded with the same attack lines repeatedly. He has been called a tax dodging, racist immigrant hypocrite.

Such an uproar has flared up in such a short space of time because Ratcliffe is radically different from those who have issued similar statements before. Ratcliffe is not a political figure: you do not see billionaires nor football club owners voicing discontent like this. The pushback has been fierce because Ratcliffe has no political incentive to say any of this. He isn’t running for office, seeking favour, or chasing votes — which makes his intervention harder to dismiss. Part of the backlash, too, reflects an unease that his diagnosis may be accurate.

The remarks came from an initial conversation regarding the economic challenges Britain faces in general, not solely on immigration. The snippet that has been so widely shared is merely part of a wider statement of the economic problems Britain faces; Ratcliffe refers to the issues of “immigration” and “nine million people” on benefits simultaneously.

Newsbusters.

On Monday’s CNN This Morning, the “Group Chat” sounded less like analysis and more like a Democratic messaging session.

Discussing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s claim that the SAVE Act is “Jim Crow 2.0,” CNN senior reporter Zach Wolf wasn’t troubled by the incendiary historical comparison. Instead, he fretted that Democratic Senator John Fetterman had gone “off message” by refusing to echo it.

Is the CNN motto still “Facts First”? Or is it “Keeping the Democrats On Message”?

Fetterman said: “I would never refer to the SAVE Act as, like, Jim Crow 2.0… I don’t call people names or imply that it’s some kinds of things as something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow.”

Read it.

Topline: Eight Massachusetts state agencies and 13 colleges spent $6.8 million to settle grievances, partly in secret, brought by their own employees from 2019 to 2024, according to a Jan. 16 report from State Auditor Diana DiZoglio.

Newsbusters.

Quiz: How many times has Barack Obama been “fact checked” by PolitiFact since he left office in 2017?

Answer: Seven — in nine years. Only one was a “Mostly False.” There was one “True,” two “Mostly Trues,” and three “Half Trues.”

By contrast, PolitiFact dumped eleven “fact checks” on Donald Trump in the first 45 days of 2026 — and eight of them are “Mostly False” or worse. Three are “Half True,” and nothing is True at all.

Read it.

This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures.

Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through socialist and far-left policies.

The rush of liberal Democratic officeholders to Europe was telling.

A new poll shows that a record 58 percent of voters believe their party is “too liberal.”

But Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez found a welcoming audience in Europe.

Occasional-Cortex never opens her mouth except to stick her foot in it.

The New York Times,  Paper of Record for the Crust.

And Jeffrey Toobin is all in. (Next to senile Larry Lessig at Harvard, Jeffrey Toobin is perhaps the most famous proglodyte lawyer in the country.)

The Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization founded in 1982, is justly famous for providing a right-wing agenda for the courts and for promoting its allies to be judges and justices. The American Constitution Society, its lesser-known liberal counterpart, recently announced new leadership, and a new goal: to expand the use of the courts to oppose President Trump’s agenda.

Phil Brest, the new president of the A.C.S., which was founded in 2001, participated in a largely unsung success of Joe Biden’s presidency: Serving in Mr. Biden’s White House counsel’s office, Mr. Brest, now 38, helped the president nominate and win confirmation of 235 federal judges, which is more than Mr. Trump’s total in his first term.

Those judges — and others appointed by Democratic presidents — have proved that the most effective resistance to Mr. Trump has come not from Democratic politicians but rather from federal judges. In the last several weeks alone, these judges, many of them Biden appointees, have ordered the release from immigration custody of five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father and their return to their home in Minnesota; blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to thousands of Ethiopians living in the United States; and directed the Trump administration to allow members of Congress to make unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities.

There is the Democrat program red in tooth and claw.

Read it.

Eilish’s look of constant eyes-half-closed makes her look like a dullard.

At this year’s Grammy awards, pop artist Billie Eilish made national headlines not for her music, but for a political statement wrapped in an award acceptance speech.

After thanking her supporters and fellow artists, she added, “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but, that no one is illegal on stolen land.”

This comment echoed two familiar positions of modern, progressive left-wing ideology: first, that the United States should allow unrestricted immigration and, second, that Americans are living on land illegitimately taken from Native Americans.

While it may be tempting to dismiss such rhetoric as another example of celebrity activism at an awards show, doing so would miss a more troubling reality. The idea that America is fundamentally “stolen land” is not confined to award show stages, it has become increasingly embedded into the schools that teach America’s children.

Lifehacker.

You don’t have to want to live forever (a la the millionaire-immortality-influencer Bryan Johnson) to want to live longer. I’ve seen a larger shift in the fitness industry lately, where a focus on “longevity” has replaced where you might have once seen the words “beach body.” All around us, the language has shifted from “get shredded” to “increase healthspan,” from “tone up” to “build bone density.” In this new era, the goal isn’t just looking good at the beach, but making sure you can still walk on that beach when you’re ninety.

On its face, this is a welcome change. I’ll always advocate for metrics of success that are less about how you look in a mirror, and more about how well your body functions across decades. At the same time, I’m skeptical of the ways “metabolic flexibility,” “muscle mass preservation,” and “inflammation control” are replacing “beach body” in the wellness lexicon. Is this truly progress in how we think about health?

Again: A fundamental reimagining of why we exercise is not altogether bad. I’m just not convinced that’s what’s happening here. Is this obsession with longevity actually in good faith? Or are we being sold the same old products and insecurities, now wrapped in shiny new scientifically sounding packaging?

Read it.

Across Europe, the public celebration of Ramadan has become a focal point for cultural and political tension. From Belgium to Germany, the increasing visibility of Islamic rituals in public spaces, supported by municipal authorities, has led to a series of confrontations.

In Zele, Belgium, the Eyyüp El-Ensari Mosque initiated the hanging of festive Ramadan lights in Zwaanstraat with the approval of the municipality. According to the mosque board, the lighting provides extra connection during Ramadan. The mosque plans to expand the project even further next year.

The move triggered immediate political opposition. The right-wing Vlaams Belang party held an event in Zele, despite a municipal ban on their gathering. The party argued that the “oil slick of Islamization” is spreading, pointing to a perceived double standard where traditional Christmas markets are rebranded as “winter markets”—while Islamic symbols receive official support.

In Muslim countries, Christian churches are expressly forbidden to ring bells for their services, the parallel practice o the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer.

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The Polish Defense Minister has cancelled a supplementary training course for military personnel that focused on “gender perspectives in military operations.” The move follows criticism from the conservative opposition and alleged discontent among soldiers, which prompted W?adys?aw Kosiniak-Kamysz’s change of plans.

The topic of supplementary gender training was proposed by the chairwoman of the Council for Women’s Military Service and approved by the defense ministry’s human resources department, the ministry stated on Monday.

The Foundry.

Anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activists in Minneapolis are setting up blockades.

They’re demanding ID from drivers.

In short, they’re setting up their own borders—against America’s laws and law enforcement.

It’s not the first time “protesters” have done this.

Read it.

activist who was last week attacked in Lyon. French authorities opened a murder probe on Monday and have since detained 11 suspects.

Among those who have been taken in by officers is Jacques-Elie Favrot, a (now former) assistant to Raphaël Arnault. Arnault is a member of parliament from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party and, importantly here, founded the ‘antifascist’ La Jeune Garde group, which officials believe was involved in the deadly attack.

Read it.

I ought not to be obliged to point out what a bad idea this is.

The Foundry.

Oh, ya think?

Jewish Telegraph Agency.

An annual festival in Andorra drew condemnation from the country’s small Jewish community after an effigy bearing the Israeli flag was staged in a mock trial and then hung and shot.

The incident was part of the traditional Catalan festival Carnestoltes, which occurs yearly before Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter. At Monday’s festival in Andorra, where a mock king is typically tried and burned, organizers instead used an effigy wearing blue with the Israeli flag painted on its face.

During the festivities, the Israeli effigy was symbolically tried, hung, shot and burned, according to social media posts and a report in the Israeli outlet YNet.

So far has the rot spread.

Jewish Telegraph Agency.

The news here is, of course, not that she did it, but that she was called to account for it.

Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Since assuming office last year, Florida Jewish Rep. Randy Fine has ignited pushback on a regular basis over his comments about Muslims and Palestinians.

This week anger over a new tweet from the GOP Congressman spilled over even further, igniting a wide rebuke from Jews and pro-Israel figures on the other side of the aisle — some of whom are now calling for Fine’s censure or resignation.

The blowback followed Fine’s tweet on Sunday in which he stated, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

Of course, if the headline had reas “Muslim Democrat X Draws Sharp Criticism After Suggesting He Prefers Dogs to Christians”, (a) nobody would believe it because nobody ‘respectable’ would criticize it, and (b) nobody would believe it because it wouldn’t be news. Muslims say that sort of shit all the time and nobody blinks because it’s so common.

Read it.

My, what a surprise.

Nothing is more inevitable than the formula “Elect a socialist => Taxes get raised”.

No socialist ever lowered taxes.

No socialist ever lowered government spending.

UPDATE: New Yorkers Report Warmth Of Collectivism Feels Strangely Like Crushing Tax Hike (Babyulon Bee)

UPDATE: Mamdani says tax hike is needed to stop ‘fiscal crisis.’ Critics aren’t buying it.

Read it.

It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the northern Californian woods, a seven foot tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The image is endlessly copied in popular culture – it’s even become an emoji. But what was it? A hoax? A bear? Or a real-life example of a mysterious species called the Bigfoot?

The film has been analysed and re-analysed countless times. Although most people believe it was some sort of hoax, there are some who argue that it’s never been definitively debunked. One group of people, dubbed Bigfooters, are so intrigued that they have taken to the forests of Washington, California, Oregon, Ohio, Florida and beyond to look for evidence of the mythical creature.

But why? That’s what sociologists Jamie Lewis and Andrew Bartlett wanted to uncover. They were itching to understand what prompts this community to spend valuable time and resources looking for a beast that is highly unlikely to even exist. During lockdown, Lewis started interviewing more than 130 Bigfooters (and a few academics) about their views, experiences and practices, culminating in the duo’s recent book Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: on the borderlands of legitimate science.