Read it.

This story about a bogus professor of Islam in Germany brings to mind the silver-tongued philosopher and snake-oil salesman Tariq Ramadan.

Reported Kremlin Leak Appears to Confirm Existence of Trump ‘Kompromat’ (Daily Beast)

16 members of Florida white supremacist gang charged in sweeping indictment

Matt Gaetz’s campaign paid $25000 to lawyer who represented Jeffrey Epstein (Washington Post) OH NO! EPSTEIN COOTIES!

The Washington Post’s attack on Tucker Carlson misses the mark

The Name “Asian Carp” Said to Cast Asian Culture and People in a Negative Light (Among Those Who Can’t Distinguish Between People and Fish)

Nasty Nightline Accuses Parents Protesting CRT Of Enabling Racism, Whitewashing History

Scientists Warn That Within 6 Months Humanity Will Run Out Of Things To Call Racist Babylon Bee.

Booksellers Association Calls Book on Trans Fad ‘Violent’ and ‘Harmful’

MSNBC Guest: GOP Is a Greater National Security Threat Than Al Qaeda AND ISIS

Amazon Workers Quit Over Sale Of Book Discussing ‘Transgender Craze’

‘Squad’ member Pressley donates to bail fund group that supports abolishing police

University of Alabama in Huntsville sued for allegedly violating state’s ‘Campus Free Speech Act’

Biased CBS Reporter QUITS, Now Free to Be ‘Candid’ About Pro-Abortion Views

Chinese Communist Party Officials Share Viral Video Urging Nuclear Strikes On Japan

CNN Praises Texas Dem Lawmaker for ‘Sacrifice’ of Abandoning Her Post

Arizona Senate Seeks More Voter Data as Election Audit Raises Questions

Ontario’s Grade 9 Will Be Taught That “Mathematics Has Been Used To Normalize Racism”

CHINA: Taliban Welcome Their New Chinese Overlords

Illinois first state to tell police they can’t lie to minors in interrogations

White Boy Summer, Qatar Edition: Fart Denier Eric Swalwell Rides Camel, Bares Nipples on $84K Desert Junket

Superintendent Who Eliminated Entrance Exam at Nation’s Top High School To Resign

Facebook axes CrowdTangle team over data suggesting right-wing success

Democrats Openly Assault Honest Elections, Ohio’s Top Election Official Says

Child Tax Credit: Janet Yellen Calls For Payments To Be Permanent (NPR)

Biden’s Vaccine “Strike Force” Plan Stinks Of Desperation

Biden Admin to Border Agents: Prepare for the Flood

Hunter Biden Prosecutor Avoided Moves That Would Have Revealed Probe Sooner

Ensuring Competition Requires Economic Freedom, Not an Executive Order  But it is a characteristic of the defective Democrat approach to governance that they think an executive order solves all ills.

Federal Prosecutor Paused Hunter Biden Investigation Before Election, Shielding Then-Candidate Joe From Public Embarrassment

Migrant Arrests Rose to 190,000 in June Despite WH Insistence Crossings a Seasonal Issue

Federal Judge Rules DACA Is Illegal, Blocking New Applications

Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany (The Guardian)

Paging Greta: China To Release 10 Million Tonnes Of Highly Polluting Coal From Reserves

Somalia is Furious They Have Not Yet Received their Climate Finance

Another Biden Administration eco-con

Pseudoscience Test vs. Global Warming

Greenland suspends oil exploration because of climate change

The Greens Hijack Biden’s $3.5 Trillion Budget Proposal (That Could Be A Blessing)

Black Lives Matter blames US, praises Cuban regime, social media erupts

41 Percent Of Baltimore High School Students Earn Below 1.0 GPA: Analysis

Study: Black Mock Jurors Appear to be Racially Bigoted Against Whites

Black Women Still Receive Just A Tiny Fraction Of VC Funding Despite 5-Year High  Assumed but not demonstrated: Why just being a ‘black woman’ somehow gives you magic powers in tech business.

Aspiring Rapper Update

Another Aspiring Rapper Update

Why Violence and Looting Has Exploded Across South Africa

NAACP, PTA Official to Parents Attacking Critical Race Teaching: ‘Let Them Die’

NYPD Releases Shocking Video Of Daytime Execution-Style Killing Of Man Riding Citi Bike

73 Year Old Vietnam Vet Dead After Being Beaten In Broad Daylight During Attempted Carjacking In Chicago

Yet Another Aspiring Rapper Update

More Vaccinated People Are Dying of COVID in England Than Unvaccinated – Here’s Why

LA County Reinstates Mask Mandate As COVID Cases Rise, Young Black Residents Dominate Unvaxx’d

WHO To Correct ‘Errors’ In Report On Early COVID Cases In Wuhan, Won’t Release Underlying Data

CDC Defends US Transit Mask Mandate as Some Call for Scrapping

Is Ivermectin for Covid-19 Based on Fraudulent Research?

More States Block Mask Requirements, Dr. Gottlieb Says LA’s Decision Was “The Wrong Move”

Utah Gov. Cox: Vaccine Hesitancy Is ‘Literally Killing People’  That’s the chance you take with freedom.

CDC Director Walensky Warns of ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’ STOKE THAT FEAR! STOKE THAT FEAR!

Read it.

Consumers’ Research, a consumer advocacy group, launched a series of advertisements Thursday calling out Coca-Cola’s “woke hypocrisy” for its reported defense of China and alleged health concerns associated with its sugary drinks.

Part of the campaign is a video advertisement satirizing a Coca-Cola commercial, which is set to music with lyrics like “Just drink Coke, the road to obesity” and “China is our labor supplier that drives our stock price even higher.” The group also created a website, “alwayswokacola.com,” to continue to expose the company.

Read it.

If you had any doubt that big tech has been colluding with the federal government, the feds have confirmed their attack on the first amendment without any apologies.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has jumped into the fray of overplaying government power by publicly calling for all media outlets to edit out or refuse to publish what he calls “misinformation”; this term is a substitute for “information we don’t like or don’t agree with.” His behavior is an attack on the Constitution, an insult to our citizenry, and a demonstration that the federal government will use any tactics, legal or illegal, to achieve its agenda. He issued a 22-page document trying to justify his actions.

Read it.

Michigan’s Republican senators, who hold a majority in the state Senate, used a procedural method this week to support the repeal of a decades-old emergency powers law with a petition that cannot be vetoed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Michigan senators voted along party lines, 20-15, backing the petition to repeal the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945, which was brought by the group Unlock Michigan and various people critical of Whitmer’s use of emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

It is fascinating in a way how so much of the current crisis parallels events in Europe a century ago, despite the many differences. This is supposed to be the peak of liberal democracy, but it feels more like the dying embers of the old aristocratic order that evolved out of the 19th century in response to the French Revolution and the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Then as now, the one thing agreed upon is the current order is not satisfactory. The old order has failed.

The past is never a perfect parallel to the present, but the many points of comparison between then and now is what matters. The rise of industry forcing people into cities, altering the power arrangements in European societies set off massive cultural changes that resulted in two great industrial wars and the rise of communism. The technological revolution is having the same impact on the West today. The world after the internet is a very different place from the world before it.

“I wish the coronavirus would hold a press conference and explain how we can protect ourselves from our government.”

— Heard from Scott Adams, who quoted a guy who quoted a guy who didn’t reveal who first said it.

Read it.

An oral cholera vaccine grown in genetically modified rice has passed its first human trial — and while it’s not the first cholera vaccine, it could be the easiest to distribute in places that need one the most.

Severian scratches his head.

Everyone has asked that about the Republican Party at some time, and while the last few years have changed the answer, in most sentient beings’ minds, from “maybe” to “oh hell yes,” it’s not always the case. I’m not going to defend the GOP here — I know full well they’re merely the “right” wing of GloboHomo — but it’s interesting to think about those situations where emergent behavior looks like deliberate failure.

Bodycam footage raises doubts about state rep’s racism claim for traffic stop: ‘Driving while Black’

The Economist Publishes Bizarre Story Bemoaning Lack Of “Diversity” In Italian Squad

“It’s A War Zone” – South Africa To Deploy 25,000 Troops  As Country On Brink Of Civil War 

2 Mass Shootings in Chicago in Just Hours

BLM Issues Statement Supporting Marxist Cuban Tyranny

Bad News: Teachers Are Teaching CRT. Good News: They’re Teaching It About As Well As They Teach Math  Babylon Bee.

BLM Changes Name To ‘Black And Brown Lives Matter Unless They Are Being Oppressed By Communists’  Babylon Bee.

“Sick Of Westie Whites” Blatant Anti-White, Anti-Asian Racism In Schools

Gizmodo: US Wheat Crop Devastated… Because Climate Change  Gizmodo is nominally a tech site but everything goin’ be politics bye and bye….

Gizmodo: Cable TV Keeps Bumping Climate Scientist Katharine Hayhoe

Report: Philadelphia’s Proterra Fleet in Complete Shambles

Navy more focused on diversity training than potential China threat: report

“Woke Coke” – UK Drug Dealers Peddling ‘Ethically Sourced’ Cocaine

Full-time minimum wage workers can’t afford rent anywhere in the US

Colbert Lies: GOP Voting Laws Will ‘Effectively Disenfranchise’ Blacks

What the Hell Happened to Bill Kristol?

BLM Under Fire for Praising Cuban Government

Tucker Goes All In, Airs Evidence “Improperly Duplicated” Ballots From 2020 Election

MSNBC Celebrates 25th Anniversary By Fantasizing: 16 More Years of Dem Rule!

Minneapolis Police Destroyed Evidence During Floyd Protest Last Year

Nancy and Paul Pelosi Making Millions in Stock Trades in Companies She Actively Regulates

MSNBC’s Ruhle Eager to Live in ‘Barbie DreamHouse’ of Socialism

YouTube Pulls Live Feed Of Arizona State Senate Election Audit Hearing

The Continued Betrayal of David French

Cuba Officially Promoted To ‘Not Real Communism’  Babylon Bee.

After Defending BLM Riots, MSNBC Ready to Jail Cuba Protesters

Nicolle Wallace: As an Ex-Republican, I Know They NEED Minority Voter Suppression

Another School Falls to Woke Culture by Erasing Its Catholic History

Reid and Cross Trash ‘Half-Witted’ Conservative School Board Members

Top U.S. General Said Trump Preached ‘Gospel of the Führer’ (New York Magazine)

New book shows top US generals planned ways to stop Trump in case of coup (CNN)

Is It Finally Time to Begin Calling Trumpism Fascism? (New York Magazine)

The Trump Org’s Implosion Starts With a Divorce (Daily Beast)

Professor singles out ‘average White guy’ in lecture, says skin color benefits him over Black students

Dangerous Rhetoric: Reid, Pals Paint GOP as Terrorists Who Want to Create Another 9/11

Republicans Didn’t Vote to Defund Police, ‘Fact-Checkers’ Grudgingly Admit

Prison Requested for Capitol Rioter Who Carried Trump Flag into Senate Chamber  But not for ANYBODY who participated in the Antifa riots.

Historically Ignorant Behar: GOP Afraid of ‘Slavery,’ Wants Country Back in ‘the 1850s’

Read it.

A significant event in the history of technology happened yesterday, and it passed so quietly that we almost missed it. The last few remaining NTSC transmitters in the USA finally came off air, marking the end of over seven decades of continuous 525-line American analogue TV broadcasts. We’ve previously reported on the output of these channels, largely the so-called “FrankenFM” stations left over after the 2009 digital switchover whose sound carrier lay at the bottom of the FM dial as radio stations, and noted their impending demise. We’ve even reported on some of the intricacies of the NTSC system, but we’ve never taken a look at what will replace these last few FrankenFM stations.

Read it.

A fund formed in response to the deadly racial violence four years ago in Charlottesville, Virginia, said Thursday it will award $3 million in grants to more than three dozen groups and sites nationwide to help preserve landmarks linked to Black history.

Lesson: Riot and they will give you money.

Yeah, that’ll work out great.

Read it.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Yes, Donald Trump’s final days in office were even worse than we thought (CNN)

Drunken Giuliani urged Trump to ‘just say we won’ on election night, book says (The Guardian)

Trump Appointee Who Threatened to Keep Working Despite Biden Firing Whines: I Can’t Log In (Daily Beast)

NY lawmakers want to ban Chick-fil-A from rest stops over its LGBTQ stance Except that Chick-Fil-A doesn’t have  an ‘LGBTQ stance’.

Feds arrest 5 family members from Texas in new US Capitol riot case (CNN) But they can’t ever seem to find any Antifa members.

Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

NBC: People Don’t Date ‘Trump-Lovers’ Due to ‘Bigotry’ and ‘Sexual Intolerance’

Mel Gibson Salutes Trump At UFC Match, Blue Checks Lose Their Minds

Education Department Nominee Says Trump Title IX Changes Let Students Rape ‘With Impunity’

Democrats Agree to Return to Texas if Greg Abbott Leaves (The New Yorker)

Texas State Democrat mocked for calling himself ‘fugitive’ after fleeing state to block voting bills

De Blasio wants Manhattan congestion fee ‘as fast as humanly possible’

NAACP Offers Bail for Texas Democrats Who Left State

‘HOW DO YOU FIGHT THIS?’ MSNBC Panics Over a Possible Midterm Red Wave

CensorTrack EXPOSES Big Tech, Amasses 2,500 Cases of Online Censorship

FLASHBACK: Media Enabled Castro’s Brutal Communist Regime

Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of journalists

Largest Peaceful Protest In Cuba In 6 Decades, Why Is AOC Hiding?

Twitter Says Government Demands To Remove Tweets From Journalists, News Outlets Jump 26%

Brave Texas Toddlers Flee State On Jet When Told To Eat Their Vegetables  Babylon Bee.

After Mocking Rising Crime, Cuomo, Lemon Worry Voters Now Blaming Democrats

Many Hong Kong Citizens Fleeing Amid China’s Crackdown

Governor Abbott Bribes Charter Plane Pilot To Take Texas Democrats Back To California Babylon Bee.

Facebook Knifes Its Own Analytics Tool to Hide Its Ben Shapiro Problem

Pa. County Won’t Offer Up Voting Machines to Election Audit

Georgia County Ballot Images Prompt Speculation Of “Provable Fraud”

Stacey Abrams Gets Emmy Nomination  Best portrayal of a fat ugly racist black female political agitator.

Ignoring race won’t help anything

How Critical Race Theory Led to Kendi

The Flight From White Down Under

Over 70 Killed As South Africa “Crumbles” Despite Military Intervention

Apocalypse in South Africa

Maine Bans New Wind Power Projects In State Waters

Curry: The State of Climate Science in 5 Minutes

Six Facts The Left Doesn’t Want You To Know About Global Warming

Guardian: The Florida Building Collapse was a George Floyd Climate Action Turning Point

Moon wobble to bring surge in coastal flooding in 2030s, NASA study predicts  OH NO WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!

EU Unveils Absurd Climate Change Targets “To Give Humanity A Fighting Chance”

MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. We’re on Schedule

EU unveils sweeping climate change plan

CNN Says Cuban Protests Likely Due To Climate Change

Over 10k species risk extinction in Amazon, says landmark report  And who would miss them? Not me.

Environmentalists “Feel Burned” By Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, Want Another $2.1 Trillion In Climate Spending  They just love spending OUR money, don’t they?

Claim: Chamber of Commerce Membership is Climate “Guilt by Association”  It certainly makes you a Democrat fellow-traveler.

Biden Admin Waives Sanctions on Iranian Oil Trade As DOJ Announces Charges On Spy Network

Nets Back Biden’s Vilification of GOP as Greatest Threat to America

Joe Biden, shameless liar

‘Voter ID Is The Greatest Attack On Democracy’, Says Man Trying To Seize Complete Federal Control Of Elections Babylon Bee.

Report: Traumatized Ex-Harris Staffers Terrified at Thought of Her Becoming President

Biden Taps Son of Top Dem Donor for Product Safety Post

Hunter Biden, Watercolor Grifter

Read it.

The attacks on meritocracy in higher education come from multiple directions. Universities throughout the country are discontinuing the use of school entrance exams like the SAT because they are “racist.” The National Educational Association, the largest teachers union in the country, even peddles this argument.

One Harvard University professor has written an entire book explaining how meritocracy is a myth that needs to be reconsidered. Other college professors go so far as to call meritocracy an example of white supremacy. For someone consuming the predominant narrative, it seems that merit is a stumbling block for creating an optimal system of higher education.

Read it.

A shorter, manageable introduction to just eight interesting claims. We’ll start with my three favorite claims that didn’t pan out; then we’ll cover four claims I think should be taken seriously (ok, three claims and one set of claims); and then we’ll look at one claim that raises more questions than answers for me.

Read it.

Former Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Scott Gottlieb said on Wednesday that people may not need to get regular COVID-19 booster shots “forever” if people “get a much more durable response” from the vaccine.

Read it.

Facebook lawyers have filed a petition for recusal to the FTC, asking for chair Lina Khan to not be involved in discussions about pursuing an antitrust case against the social media giant.

New Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has already faced a recusal petition following the reported start of an antitrust investigation into Amazon’s buying MGM. Now Facebook’s lawyers have done the same as Amazon’s, arguing that Khan’s previous criticisms of the company mean its case cannot receive fair consideration.

According to the Financial Times, in almost 8,000 words, Facebook cites multiple instances of Khan’s comments or actions which it maintains mean she should not be involved in a case.

The Biden administration has engaged in appointing unprecedented numbers of activists to regulate companies that they have spent years hating on.

Read it.

Our current ‘intellectual property’ laws, like any monopoly, brings rent-seekers out of the woodwork to leech off of the productive work of others.

ZMan.

“The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable” is an old Soviet era joke about the party’s habit of rewriting history to serve the current moment. Like so many things Soviet, it applies well to the current American regime. Not only do they rewrite the past, but they also magnify events from the past to make them seem like they just happened yesterday. They diminish more recent events so they seem distant. The old communists were amateurs compared to liberal democrats.

Read it.

An Iranian intelligence officer and three alleged members of an Iranian intelligence network have been charged in Manhattan with plotting to lure a U.S. journalist and human rights activist from New York to Iran, authorities said Tuesday.

An indictment in Manhattan federal court alleges the plot was part of a wider plan to lure three individuals in Canada and a fifth person in the United Kingdom to Iran. Victims were also targeted in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said. The identities of the alleged victims were not released.

The Other McCain is on the case.

Longtime readers will remember Barrett Brown, the former “Anonymous” spokesman who went to federal prison after a September 2012 incident in which he threatened an FBI agent’s family in a bizarre 13-minute video rant on YouTube. That episode went down while I was trying to cover the 2012 presidential election, but Barrett had been threatening me (and also Patterico) in connection with some of the weirdness swirling around Neal Rauhauser, which is a very long story.

Read it.

St. Paul police have released the bodycam footage of the July 4 traffic stop of state representative John Thompson. I have embedded it below. The first minute and the last minute capture the interaction. He was driving with a Wisconsin driver’s license at a time when his driving privileges had been revoked as a result of an unmet child support obligation.

The officer asks him: “Why in such a hurry?” Thompson responds: “I don’t think I took off like a bat out of hell. I just drove off.”

Thompson tells him he’s “a state representative in this district right here, man.” The officer responds: “With a Wisconsin license?” Good question!

Thompson puts his racial hustle into overdrive when the officer returns with a ticket for driving with a suspended license. Tom Hauser adds that he has Minnesota addresses outside his legislative district (tweet at bottom). R-a-a-a-cism!

Neighbors See Trump Waiting by Mailbox for Reinstatement Notice (The New Yorker) Really? Really!

Billionaires Spending Their Own Money To Go to Space Has Progressives Howling For a Wealth Tax

Republicans now stand for lawlessness and disorder (Washington Post) Uh, no, that’s Democrats….

The Family Secrets Fueling the Trump Organization Indictment (Daily Beast)

Marjorie Taylor Greene Unleashes Transphobic Attack on Caitlyn Jenner (Newsweek)

What happens at Sun Valley, the secret gathering of unelected billionaire kings? (The Guardian)

Hotel cancels ‘America First’ rally after learning Gaetz and Greene were featured speakers

Donald Trump just accidentally told the truth about his view on polls (CNN) Accidentally!

Fact check: Untethered to reality, Trump lies over and over about the 2020 election at CPAC (CNN) Lies!

Why are White evangelicals embracing an anti-democratic movement? Because they’re panicking.  (Washington Post) And of course a writer for the Washington Post knows all about what ‘white evangelicals’ are thinking.

Families sue Universal Orlando after mascot uses white power gesture

Elementary School Lecture Compares Immigrant Detention at Southern Border to Japanese Internment During WWII

New York Dems Seek to Block Chick-fil-A from State’s Rest Stops

Our climate change turning point is right here, right now (The Guardian)

A ‘wobble’ in the moon’s orbit could result in record flooding in the 2030s, new study finds Almost certainly Republicans’ fault.

China will benefit when Biden caves to climate activists

Foreign Affairs: No Time for Nuclear Power to Save Us from Climate Change

The Strange Rehabilitation of the Black Panther Party  Read David Horowitz’s book.

Gavin Newsom loses bid to list himself as Democrat on recall ballot

Twitter U-turns after conferring society’s highest honor – a blue check mark – on very obvious bot accounts

Abbott: Texas Dem Lawmakers Who Fled State Will Be Arrested Upon Return

MSNBC’s McCaskill Admits ‘Painful’ Truth: Fleeing TX Dems Akin to GOP Filibuster

Democrat Groups Plan To “Fact Check” Private Text Messages

NBC Applauds Texas Dems Subverting Democracy With Shameless Stunt

Democrat Governors Afraid Cuban Desire For Freedom Could Spread To The U.S.  Babylon Bee.

YouTube Censors Video of School Board Meeting on Mask Mandates

Other States Look To Texas For Advice On How To Get Democrats To Leave  Babylon Bee.

“It Needs To Be Hard For People To Remain Unvaccinated”: Making The Case For COVID Challenges

House’s Democratic Socialists Notably Silent on Cuba Protests

California Reconsiders Math ‘Social Justice’ Curriculum Overhaul Following Opposition

Cuban Police Arrest Regime Critic During Live Interview

BACKLASH: CNN Mercilessly Mocked for Biased Story Protecting Biden from Rising Gas Prices

Biden on Track to Have Most Expensive White House Staff in US History  Spending money is pretty much what Democrats do.

The FTC train wreck continues

Biden’s ‘Competition’ Executive Order Is a Central Planner’s Dream

Biden Taps GOP Former Sen. Jeff Flake for Turkey Ambassador  Don’t think of it as selling out; think of it as buying in.

Hunter Biden’s Art Sales: Ethical Mess Made Worse by White House

Oversight Members Outline ‘Pattern of Ethical Issues’ at Granholm’s Energy Department  Gee, Rick Perry never had these problems….

Yellen Urges Development Banks To Stop Fossil Fuel Funding

Read it.

Sure, why not. I’m thinking of jumping in myself. (Oh, wait, that would be moving to California? Never mind….)

Read it.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that regulations setting a minimum age of 21 for handgun purchases from licensed dealers violates the Second American rights of those citizens.

The three-judge panel in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered the ruling in a split vote 2-1, with an appointee of former President Donald Trump writing the majority opinion, arguing the laws relegated “either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status,” CNN reported.

“Looking through this historical lens to the text and structure of the Constitution reveals that 18- to 20-year-olds have Second Amendment rights,” Judge Julius N. Richardson wrote. “Virtually every other constitutional right applies whatever the age. And the Second Amendment is no different.”

Read it.

A publicity stunt could cost Texas Democrats up to $1.75 million after lawmakers went maskless on their privately chartered planes to Washington, D.C., violating Biden administration regulations on air travel.

More than 50 state legislators chartered private flights on Monday in an attempt to prevent the Republican-led legislature from passing a number of election- and gun-related bills. The group posted a photo aboard an airplane showing that at least 18 participants on one flight shunned masks, a violation that carries fines up to $35,000 per offense and potential criminal penalties, should federal officials take action.

Which they won’t. Prediction: Nobody will get fired. Nobody will go to jail. Rules don’t apply to Cloud People; only to Dirt People.

The violation of federal law constitutes the latest legal woes for the Texas Democrats after the state’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott, said he would order the arrest of the legislators when they return home.

Legal woes are legal woes only when the people who are supposed to enforce the law actually enforce the law. Prediction: Nothing will be done. The Crust takes care of its own.

Read it.

Paul Fussell will have none of it. He believes America has one of the most hypertrophied class systems in the world, that its formal equality has left a niche that an informal class system expanded to fill – and expanded, and expanded, until it surpassed the more-legible systems of Europe and became its own sort of homegrown monstrosity. He says he prefers the term “caste system” to “class system” when describing America, conveying as it does a more rigid and inescapable distinction, and that he uses “class” only out of respect for conventional usage.

Read it.

The FCC has granted Amazon permission to use 60GHz radar in some future device to monitor people’s sleeping habits and sense gesture commands.

Amazon requested a waiver [PDF] from the US communications regulator to build a gadget that emits radar waves and “operates at higher powers than currently allowed” in June. Ronald Rapasi, acting chief of the FCC’s office of engineering and technology, officially approved the request this month.

The mysterious gizmo, referred to as a “radar sensor” in the FCC’s response [PDF], would emit radar waves at frequencies between 57 and 64GHz. It was described as a “non-mobile device” that has to be constantly plugged into a power source to work. Amazon said the sensors would be used to help less physically able users interact with the device through gesture commands, and could promote for “sleep hygiene.”

Can mind-control space lasers be far behind? (Did you think Jeff Bezos was going into space just for fun?)

Read it.

Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have built an inflammatory-aging clock that’s more accurate than the number of candles on your birthday cake in predicting how strong your immune system is, how soon you’ll become frail or whether you have unseen cardiovascular problems that could become clinical headaches a few years down the road.

In the process, the scientists fingered a bloodborne substance whose abundance may accelerate cardiovascular aging.

Rapper Shot 64 Times as He Leaves Chicago Jail  Yet more Republican lawlessness

33% of Adult Male African Americans Have Felony Convictions,