THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Critical To China’s Space Program Blows Up Just 85 Seconds After Launch.

According to Space News, China National Radio (CNR) published a report around the time of liftoff on what the mission was expected to accomplish, referring to the payload as Zhongxing-4B. The report now shows a 404 error.

The outlet reported that Zhongxing satellites are possibly used for military communications.

Monday’s launch marked China’s 56th orbital launch attempt of 2026 and its fourth failure of the year. Earlier setbacks included a Long March 3B failure and the failed debut of the Ceres-2 solid-fueled rocket in January, followed by the loss of the Tianlong-3 rocket during its maiden flight in early April, Space News reported.

The Long March 7A is not an experimental rocket making its first appearance. It debuted in March 2020, but the inaugural mission ended in failure as well after the rocket exploded, the outlet reported.

Space is hard. But China made a great leap forward, to coin a phrase, last month on one of the hardest parts: China catches its first reusable booster.

THE SUICIDE OF THE WEST (CONT’D):

🚨 Cambridge University: first the Jason Arday disaster, now this.
They’ve appointed Farah Ahmed as Assistant Professor of Education — a woman who called Western education a “threat” to Muslims, democracy a “corrupt tradition,” and literacy plus qualifications un-Islamic. She…

— Donna-Louise (@NoLongerTheFuzz) August 11, 2026

KAROL MARKOWICZ: Lefties like AOC need to answer some questions before we move on from ‘Woke 1.’

Related: Far-left wants you to forget their ‘hot takes’ burned cities to the ground.

ME OVER AT LAW & LIBERTY: Sullivan Revisited: The outcome of the famous libel case rests on fabricated legal foundations.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE LEFT THE STATE YEARS AGO: Colorado’s one-party rulers enjoy a progressive press pass. “Unfortunately, the demographic and political realities of this state mean nothing about this will be changing any time soon. With most of the state’s politicians clustered in the blue Front Range, Democrats know that they don’t have to venture into parts of the state where they might face tough questions. They don’t have to appear on the media outlets that the red parts of the state watch and read. Why would they when there’s no penalty for it? No one will hear the complaints from outlets like Center Square over Weiser’s lack of transparency when he can easily shout any story down by talking to Colorado Public Radio.”

“Democrat operatives with bylines” remains as true as ever.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:

Billions of dollars are expended each year to pay the salaries of people whose literal job is engaging in institutionalized Red Guard assaults on their fellow citizens. https://t.co/cXzv8E1aLJ

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) August 11, 2026

TAKE A LESSON:

Remember this when someone says voting doesn’t matter. https://t.co/EHcx485l2h

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) August 10, 2026

Flashback: Too-close Tennessee election warns GOP: Damning the left isn’t enough.

FLASHBACK:

MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN:

You want to know why @realDonaldTrump is focused on Greenland? He’s always one step ahead. https://t.co/XZwDnfav6I

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) August 11, 2026

No word yet on when Greenland will be getting their own “Disneyland of gas stations,” but it’s likely only a matter of time:

SOLID CONCLUSION, BUT I THINK HE MEANT “JUST EXPECTED” AT THE START:

Just incredible that I hadn’t even heard about this yet. She voted against a bill that criminalized adults trying to sexually pursue children.

Dems have themselves a real winner with the DSA candidate in Wisconsin. https://t.co/M0ewQIiHP7

— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 11, 2026

LIGHTNING DEAL: FOUCSSOMEI Under Bed Storage with Wheels. #CommissionEarned

ROBERT SPENCER: Romeo and WHO? “Next month, Riverside Studios, a trendy “arts centre” in London, is proudly (what else?) presenting Romeo and Hamed, which it describes as ‘a bold, provocative queer reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy from debut writer Scott Horgan.’ It is likely quite provocative, and queer it certainly is, both in the old and new senses of the word, but bold? Nah. The play, you see, was originally called Romeo and Mohammed, but the leftists at Riverside Studios allowed themselves enough “Islamophobia” to realize that a production with a title like that could get them all killed, and they decided to tone it down a bit.”

Where is James Talarico to explain that Mohammed was nonbinary?

THE COMEDY CONTINUES:

You’re going to have to explain the difference between a man saying he’s a woman and a man saying he’s a woman. https://t.co/UINQf27BEV

— Lola (@thefempire50) August 9, 2026

This is where the entire trans cult falls apart. We are told three of these men are women, we must accept, welcome and treat them as women without exception, including giving them full access to women's sport.

The forth man is apparently only pretending pic.twitter.com/nEaTgbRRPK

— RS Archer (@archer_rs) August 9, 2026

OLD AND BUSTED: Paper Lion. 

The New Hotness? Politburo Compliant:

"I started off as a sports journalist and ended up a Communist" has turned out to be a depressingly common career arc. https://t.co/SWLlaCABd7

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) August 11, 2026

UGH: US emergency oil reserve falls below 300M barrels for first time since 1980s.

Flashback: Oil purchase to fill strategic reserve dropped from stimulus. “Senate Democrats took credit for stripping out that money from the Senate bill, unveiled Wednesday, calling it a ‘bailout’ for the oil industry.”

And: Well, Biden Screwed Us Forever on Another Damn Thing.

YET. AI Cannot Give Writers Something to Say.

ASTROTURF ALL THE WAY DOWN:

I ran into a “Republicans for Talarico” type lady here once, came into my replies talking about how she was a lifelong conservative Republican voter who’d been forced to support Democrats because of how radical the Republican Party had become, so I searched her history and found… https://t.co/9k6DEAjPBY

— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) August 10, 2026

“PERHAPS MAMDAMI STILL SEES THE WORLD IN TERMS OF THE TOP-HATTED, TUXEDO WEARING, DIAMOND TIE PIN GARBED, PIED-A-TERRE DWELLING CAPITALIST ELITE, which it is his moral duty to tax. But I think the world has changed:”

The very word "Pied-à-Terre" provides a glimpse into Mamdani's world that few ordinary people are familiar with. It goes back to a world before motels, air BNBs and time share.

In that world the well-to-do person had a country house and primary residence. Then he had a town…

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) August 11, 2026

I MEAN, HE’S NOT WRONG: Henry Rollins: ‘Communist Countries Suck.’

MAN BITES DOG: AN EXCELLENT, NON-PC ARTICLE IN THE ATLANTIC. Confessions of a Token Black Professor. Why I Quit the Tenure Track: The insufferable hypocrisy of elite academia. (Link was free to me, but here’s an archive link just in case.)

I attended an informal orientation event for early-career Black faculty, where I assumed we would talk about our research interests or simply get to know one another. Instead, the gathering felt more like a combined therapy session and HR seminar. At one point, someone casually rattled off a series of local establishments to steer clear of, vaguely implying that they were filled with bigots. Alarmed by the notion that race relations were so bad in Lewiston that there were places I should avoid eating, I asked why one restaurant in particular had earned a reputation for intolerance. My colleague said that a student of color had worked there and not liked it very much.

The source of the most intense racial monomania on campus, I came to realize, was senior leadership. . . .

In retrospect, it is no coincidence that wokeness blossomed at prestigious American colleges at the very moment when those schools were facing rising discontent over student debt and tuition costs. For the academic aristocracy, touting fealty to Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, trans rights, and other progressive movements served as a convenient distraction from the intractable economic and social issues that the colleges themselves were perpetuating. This allowed higher education to reclaim the moral high ground after Occupy Wall Street and the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign—to say nothing of the anti-elite fury that gave rise to Donald Trump—had kicked mud all over academia’s ivy-twined walls. Even better, embracing social-justice rhetoric and adopting schemes to boost faculty diversity were cheap. Cheaper, anyway, than lowering tuition or hiring more tenure-track professors.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

Plus, this sequel on X:

I applied at Bates College during this time and my research is on Edward Abbey and American environmentalism @Tyler_A_Harper. Unless there was another similar candidate, I think this is me. Surreal! pic.twitter.com/jiPYs2vLrc

— Eytan (@EytanPol) August 10, 2026

I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: Wait, Rubio Revoked How Many Visas? Just Wait Until You See Why.

ON SUNDAYS I DO A PROMO POST FOR (MOSTLY) INDIE AUTHORS: Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

Sometimes Sunday comes on Monday.

STOPPING FRACKING WOULD HAVE WEAKENED AMERICA, AND THAT WAS THE GOAL:

It is the hydraulic fracturing scare all over again, often with the same protestors I saw in 2010.

Almost everything we do in our everyday lives is facilitated by a data power center just in the same way that almost everything we use every day requires natural gas.

So we need… https://t.co/zTR5FKmZ4p

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) August 10, 2026

WE SURE DID:  America Got ‘Faucied’.

VERY SOCIALIST:  Mamdani’s Anti-Rent Advisor Faces Eviction Over Four Years Of Unpaid Rent .