1. It’s Tuesday, February 24, 2015. It’s 25 days until spring. It’s a goddamn 1 degree above zero outside.

2. Here’s more proof that Fox News is like ISIS, courtesy of The New York Times and, apparently, Fox cell leader Bill O’Reilly:

“Mr. O’Reilly’s efforts to refute the claims by Mother Jones and some former CBS News colleagues occurred both on the air and off on Monday. During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter’s coverage was inappropriate. ‘I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “‘You can take it as a threat.’”

Like ISIS, Bill O’Reilly and Fox feel compelled to threaten and intimidate those who call out their violations of standards, as both conduct campaigns of excess in the name of righteousness.

 I’ve said that I understand President Obama’s strategy of not using terms “Islamic extremists” or “Islamists.” Using that terminology would give ISIS the mantle of Muslim legitimacy — and given how they’ve slaughtered and tortured other Muslims, much less innocent non-Muslims, they’re not entitled to it.

The same applies to Bill O’Reilly and Fox News. Calling them “journalists” gives them a level of credibility they’re not entitled to have. Not if they’re threatening real reporters trying to do their job with “everything I have.”

That’s what ISIS does, too.

3.   Giving a child peanut butter at an early age seems, to a nervous new parent, like a strange and risky way to help prevent peanut allergies.

But, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, that’s what works.

My concern when I saw this was whether the study was funded by the peanut industry. If it was, it was hidden in the material I saw on the NEJM site.

I would imagine, though, that if this research bears out, Mr. Peanut is going to find his way to pediatricians’ offices, next to the baby formula teddy bears and the spare Pampers.

P.S. I would have linked to the CNN.com story about this, rather than the L.A. Times. But, alas, the autostart video ad and the display ad in the top left corner of the CNN story are for Planters. Sigh.