RICK MORAN: Trump Would Be a Fool to Stop Talking About Illegal Immigration.

I DUNNO, LOOKING AROUND I’M INCLINED TO SAY “FASTER, PLEASE.” Opposition To Smarter Babies In United States.

HOW GOOD ARE A RALLY CAR’S BRAKES? THIS GOOD.

AT AMAZON: Men’s Grooming Deals.

IS THERE ANYTHING THEY CAN’T DO? Naps May Improve Our Frustration Tolerance.

I PREFER SCUBA: How to Explore the Ocean’s Depths Without Leaving Your Desk.

WHAT DID OMAR SHARIF THINK WHEN HE PLAYED CHE GUEVARA? Michael Ledeen fondly reminisces about great times with his friend, Omar Sharif:

One day in the mid-sixties I was on a Pan Am 747 from London to Chicago, sitting next to my then-employer, Omar Sharif.  I was a member of the “Omar Sharif Bridge Circus,” an unlikely assemblage of professional card players from France, Italy, Egypt…and, given my presence, the United States.  We played high-stakes exhibition matches against local teams in front of hundreds of spectators.  Mostly my role was pure show-biz;  I explained what the players were thinking, told anecdotes…you know, entertainment.  Every now and then they even let me play a few hands.  Life was spectacularly good,  not least because Omar was such a good fellow, a real buddy well met, easy to be with, easy to laugh with, a very fine card player, a gambling addict, and man did he know his red wine.  And race horses.  The big downside was that no woman was going to pay me the slightest attention.

After a few hours of catching up on sleep, Omar fished a paperback out of his carryon and turned pages quite rapidly.  It was the autobiography of Che Guevara.  He had never discussed politics with me and I was surprised, but it turned out he had agreed to play Che in a movie (1969).  What did he think?  “What an idiot!”  And that’s the way he played the failed revolutionary in the film.

Read the whole thing. As Michael writes, “Ciao Omar, may eternity bring you even more pleasure than you gave us.”

CHARLIE MARTIN: Is the Science Ever Settled? Theories, Hypotheses, and What Science Really Does.

MIDNIGHT RAIDS, SECRET SUBPOENAS: IRS’ LOIS LERNER CLOSE FRIENDS WITH LEADER WHO TARGETED SCOTT WALKER.

IT’S LIKE BLACK FRIDAY IN JULY: Amazon Prime Day is coming on 7/15. But you have to be a Prime member; if you’re not, you can sign up for a free trial now.

Also, Amazon’s Off To College and Back To School sales are underway. Back to school? Already? Yep.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: I Learned the Hard Way: Don’t Install iOS 9 Beta on Your Primary iPhone.

THE NEW YORK TIMES QUIETLY BREAKS OUT THE AIRBRUSHES:

NYT changed Ellen Pao quitting from “disagreement with board” to “mutual agreement with board.” No notification. http://t.co/jUDHwfvg0O

— Joe Colangelo (@Itsjoeco) July 11, 2015

And many more revisions beyond that:

The NYT updated their Pao resignation story like this, with no mention of the updates at all. http://t.co/74JbAJA1LY pic.twitter.com/Sz8NYb3lEY

— Kevin W. Glass (@KevinWGlass) July 11, 2015

As Ann Althouse writes, “I know, you’re going to say, why are you surprised? It’s the New York Times. Why do you even read it? But put the usual reflexive retorts aside for a moment and take a look at how bad this example is. It’s a news report, not an opinion piece, and it assumes, over and over, that Pao is the victim of sexism (even though her downfall had to do with her involvement in the firing of another woman).”

UPDATE: Background on Pao’s resignation here, for those coming in cold to the story:

Pao told media outlets that she was not fired, calling her departure a mutual decision because she disagreed with the Reddit Board about the site’s growth potential. But in a sarcastic parting shot at her critics, Pao told the Wall Street Journal that she won’t miss the constant criticism of her within Reddit’s user community, which dogged her throughout her unsuccessful sexual discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins and continued to grow over her involvement in the site.

Read the whole thing.

SO, SOMETHING THAT A LOT MORE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THAN UNDERSTAND? The Future Of The Web Looks A Lot Like Bitcoin.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Laura Montgomery, Sleeping Duty.

REPLACING THE MANUAL with augmented reality.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR RECIPES, Mary Chastain’s got you covered.

GERMAN TEXTBOOKS AND ANTI-ISRAEL LIBERAL ELITES: At Commentary, Evelyn Gordon writes “a German study showing that educated elites, rather than the far-right fringes, are the wellspring of anti-Semitism in that country; just last month, another study found that the same is true for anti-Israel sentiment. And the reason for this goes beyond the obvious fact that anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism are related:”

The background to the new German study is a series of polls showing shocking levels of anti-Israel sentiment among ordinary Germans: For instance, fully 35 percent “equate Israeli policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi policies toward the Jews.” Given the vaunted “special relationship” between Germany and Israel, such findings raise obvious questions about how so many Germans developed such warped views.

So a group of German and Israeli researchers decided to analyze German textbooks to see what exactly German schools are teaching their students. They examined 1,200 history, geography and social studies textbooks from five German states, and concluded that these books portray Israel almost exclusively as a militarist, warmongering society.

Israel’s robust democracy, respect for human rights and other achievements are absent in these books. The illustrations consist of “tendentious and one-sided photographic presentations” of Israeli soldiers threatening or inflicting violence on Palestinians.

To quote from a 2012 article at the Israeli YNet Website:

To quote psychiatrist Zvi Rex: “Europe will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” Europe doesn’t want to live under the psychological burden of Auschwitz forever. The Jews are living reminders of the moral failure of Europe. This leads to the projection of guilt on Israel and the remaining European Jews.

Gordon also notes that in America, 47 percent of Democrats “deemed Israel racist, with only 32 percent disagreeing, and a whopping 76 percent said Israel has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy. But in truth, it shouldn’t be news to anyone by now that anti-Israel sentiment, like its kissing cousin anti-Semitism, is primarily the province of the liberal elites.”

Read the whole thing.

RELATED: “A BBC documentary has substituted the word ‘Israelis’ for ‘Jews’ in its translation of interviews with Palestinians, its maker has admitted.”

Unexpectedly.

WANT TO REVISIT YOUR YOUTH? WHY NOT TRY PAPER-AND-PENCIL ROLEPLAYING GAMES: “So you experimented in college. Well, I’m here to tell you that you needn’t feel ashamed,” Moe Lane writes.

PLAN TO REQUIRE BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR AMMUNITION SALES QUIETLY SUSPENDED IN NEW YORK:

The administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo agreed on Friday to suspend a plan to require background checks on ammunition sales, putting in doubt part of the gun control law that he considers one of his proudest legacies.

The decision, which the administration did not publicize, was the result of an unusual deal the governor’s office reached with the State Senate’s Republican majority. The Senate’s Democratic minority and the speaker of the State Assembly condemned the move.

Yet another Friday afternoon news dump.

IN THE MAIL: From Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves.

Plus, today only at Amazon: 65% Off Select Panasonic Bluetooth Water-Resistant Open-Ear Headphones.

And, also today only: Culina Magnetic Knife Holder 12″ Wall-Mount, $9.95 (50% off).

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 793.

JOURNALISM: No, the Oregon bakers weren’t fined for doxxing the complainants.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Pols’ High Anxiety Over Higher Ed.

College, once a sure ticket to the middle class, is causing a lot of anxiety these days. People are concerned about its cost, about low graduation rates and about the poor employment prospects of some graduates.

Hillary Clinton complained about the burden of student debt in a speech in New York last month. Senator Marco Rubio devoted much of a speech on economic opportunity this week to his own ideas for reforming higher education. We’re beginning to see the outlines of two rival approaches to addressing these problems. Democratic solutions center on increased federal spending and regulation, and Republican ones on increased competition. As a result, the next election could matter more than most for the future of higher education.

In particular, progressives want to use increased federal funding as leverage to get schools to act the way federal policymakers want them to. Thus President Barack Obama’s proposal to spend $60 billion to eliminate tuition at community colleges that “adopt promising and evidence-based institutional reforms to improve student outcomes.” A related idea is to have the government publish ratings for colleges, the better to make them responsive to the desires of Washington. The progressive approach exposes newer players, such as for-profit schools, to special scrutiny.

Conservatives, on the other hand, increasingly favor policies that provide new options for students: new educational institutions, new financing methods and new information for evaluating them. Rubio wants to liberalize accreditation rules to break up what he calls the higher-education “cartel.” He wants to make it easier for private institutions to extend student loans in return for a share of students’ future income. He thinks vocational education should get a greater share of federal funds. He thinks prospective students should have access to data about how well graduates of specific college programs fare at getting jobs. And he wants higher-education institutions, whether new or old, for-profit or not, to be accountable to customers rather than to the government.

If they’re accountable to customers rather than to the government, though, that reduces politicians’ leverage.

INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM AND MISOGYNY: Democratic Senate Candidate Accuses DSCC Of ‘Insensitivity’ Towards ‘African-American Women.’

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on bestselling products, updated every hour.

Also, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Featured Digital Deal. The deals are brand new every day, so browse and save!

JOURNALISM: Turns out the water Tom Selleck was accused of stealing was paid for.

IRAN MADE ILLEGAL PURCHASES OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY LAST MONTH:

The question is not whether Iran can be trusted to uphold the nuclear deal now being negotiated in Vienna (it can’t), but whether the Obama administration and its P5+1 partners can be trusted to punish Iran when it violates the agreement?

Experience shows that unless Iran violates the deal egregiously, the temptation will be to ignore it. For instance, Iran got away with selling more oil than it should have under the interim agreement. More ominously, Tehran repeatedly pushed the envelope on technical aspects of the agreement—such as caps on its uranium stockpile—and got away with it. The Obama administration and other Western powers have so much invested in their diplomatic efforts that they’ll deny such violations ever occurred.

Or as Lee Smith writes elsewhere at the Weekly Standard, “Obama is counting on Iran to be a cornerstone of a regional peace similar to what the Congress of Vienna built in 1815. The more likely result is that he has unleashed a monster.”

Speaking of which, “‘Death to America’ Flag Barbecue in Iran ‘No Mere Sideshow’ as Talks Continue.”

JOEL KOTKIN: Countering Progressives’ Assault On Suburbia.

THE JUSTICE WHO STANDS ALONE: Giving Clarence Thomas His Due:

For political observers, the story of the Supreme Court’s recently concluded term was the clash of two great colliding forces. On one side stood the Court’s always-unified liberal bloc, fortified by the apostasies of Republican-appointed Justice Anthony Kennedy and sometimes Chief Justice John Roberts, most prominently in cases involving same-sex marriage and Obamacare. On the other side stood Justice Antonin Scalia, a lion in winter, caustic and witty in his dissents. But for close watchers of the Court, another theme ran through this term: the breadth and depth of Justice Clarence Thomas’s institutional critique of the Court itself for straying from the Constitution, failing to apply its own precedents evenhandedly, neglecting the separation of powers and federalism, and allowing itself to be manipulated by runaway executive agencies.

Like a medieval monk preserving Western culture through the Dark Ages, Thomas soldiered doggedly on, carrying the largest writing workload on the Court, pressing his point in cases small and large, sometimes at odds with his conservative colleagues, often alone. Perhaps history will never return to the path he is marking, but no one can say we weren’t warned.

Supreme Court justices are often little known or understood by the general public, and in Thomas’s case, his image is further obscured by his race, the controversies surrounding his 1991 confirmation, and his famous refusal to ask questions at oral argument. Thomas’s critics outside the legal profession tend to fall back on open attacks on his race (a “clown in blackface,” said Star Trek actor, Facebook meme-sharer, and gay-rights crusader George Takei recently) or unsubtly coded attacks (such as Harry Reid’s assertion that Thomas wasn’t smart or a good writer like Scalia, though Reid couldn’t name any of his opinions).

Read the whole thing.

HOW TWITTER CAN GET YOU KILLED: Terrorist talk online is evolving into a major threat.

SO, NO FLYING CARS, BUT IN THE 21ST CENTURY WE’VE AT LEAST GOT THIS: KFC Just Changed The Game With The “Chizza,” A Pizza With A Fried Chicken Crust.

As a friend said on Facebook, we may not have hoverboards, but if you stick with these you’ll find yourself on a Hoveround!

FALLEN ANGELS WAS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? Is a mini ICE AGE on the way? Scientists warn the sun will ‘go to sleep’ in 2030 and could cause temperatures to plummet.

I’m sure global warming is to blame, somehow.

RICH KARLGAARD & MICHAEL S. MALONE: Building a Winning Political Team: Ronald Reagan knew how to do it. So did Bill Clinton. Their secret? They ignored the conventional wisdom.

As the 2016 presidential candidates start the long downhill run to the primaries early next year, the real test of their campaign teams begins.

If history is any guide, many of today’s highflying contenders will fall to earth in the next nine months, dragged down by dysfunctional organizations. What is astounding is that for all their experience running gubernatorial, senatorial or corporate staffs, most of this year’s candidates will repeat the same mistakes that have sunk their predecessors for generations.

For example, Jeb Bush is assembling a team of “superstars,” some of the best names in the campaign business. Hillary Clinton has pulled together staff based primarily on their compatibility and loyalty to her. Both strategies are usually recipes for disappointment.

We have been studying how effective teams work. Much research has been done the past 15 years that can shed light on this question—by anthropologists, sociologists, brain scientists and even cultural historians, who have uncovered common organizational archetypes that have held through the ages. If we’ve learned anything, it is that conventional wisdom about building and leading successful teams is almost completely wrong. . . .

As sensitive as presidential candidates are to the tiniest shifts in public opinion, they can be shockingly obtuse about problems in their own organizations. But even an excellent politician can crash and burn without the right support from a well-oiled team. Remember: In business you can come in second or third and still be successful, but not in politics.

True.

I SENSE A PATTERN HERE: New York magazine notes that “Climate scientists are dealing with psychological problems,” though I’m not sure which is the cause and which the effect:

One psychologist who works with climate scientists told Richardson they suffer from “pre-traumatic stress,” the overwhelming sense of anger, panic, and “obsessive-intrusive thoughts” that results when your work every day is to chart a planetary future that looks increasingly apocalyptic. Some climatologists merely report depression and feelings of hopelessness. Others, resigned to our shared fate, have written what amount to survival guides for a sort of Mad Max dystopian future where civilization has broken down under the pressures of resource scarcity and habitat erosion.

This kind of doom and gloom is not shared across the board, but nearly all climate scientists harbor serious doubts about the industrialized (and industrializing) world’s willingness to meet the challenges we face, which of course compounds their trauma. And perhaps the biggest indicator of that unwillingness is the constant attacks climate scientists endure at the hands of climate-change deniers — attacks that leave their own psychological bruises.

Meanwhile, another religion plots violent jihad against the infidels:

Professor’s Manifesto: Vegans Must Illegally Overthrow Society to Save the World http://t.co/RZw2wZRDRm pic.twitter.com/Y6r5Zaaexp

— National Review (@NRO) July 10, 2015

A few years ago at City Journal, Fred Siegel explored the last half century of “Progressives Against Progress:”

Crankery, in short, became respectable. In 1972, Sir John Maddox, editor of the British journal Nature, noted that though it had once been usual to see maniacs wearing sandwich boards that proclaimed the imminent end of the Earth, they had been replaced by a growing number of frenzied activists and politicized scientists making precisely the same claim. In the years since then, liberalism has seen recurring waves of such end-of-days hysteria. These waves have shared not only a common pattern but often the same cast of characters. Strangely, the promised despoliations are most likely to be presented as imminent when Republicans are in the White House. In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen.

And just imagine what they’re telling their children about how awful the future will be.

JOHN FUND: History Shows That Donald Trump Is Perfectly Willing To Play A Third-Party Spoiler.

THIS WEEK’S FRIDAY NIGHT NEWS DUMP: Army National Guard Announces Data Breach:

This incident is unrelated to the breach of federal civilian employee personal information reported last week and on Thursday by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), officials confirmed.

“All current and former Army National Guard members since 2004 could be affected by this breach because files containing personal information was inadvertently transferred to a non-DoD-accredited data center by a contract employee,” said Maj. Earl Brown, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau.  The data includes the Soldiers’ names, full Social Security numbers, dates of birth and home addresses.

“The National Guard Bureau takes the control of personal information very seriously,” Brown said.  “After investigating the circumstances of these actions, and the information that was transferred, the Guard has determined, out of an abundance of caution, to inform current and past Guard personnel that their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was among the files that were transferred.”

“The issue was identified and promptly reported, and we do not believe the data will be used unlawfully,” Brown said.

That doesn’t sound very comforting.

I COULD SEE HIM AS PRESIDENT, OF THE INTERNET: Donald Trump, King of Trolling His Critics, Should Be the Internet’s Choice for President.

WHAT WILL WE DO When Antibiotics Don’t Work Anymore?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Forge A Sword In Fire.

Back when I was in high school, a couple of friends of mine and I made Roman armor (lorica segmentata), cut and hand-riveted. We cheated on the swords, though, the blanks for which were bootlegged through the metal shop at Oak Ridge via a family friend.

TODAY IS THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SCOPES TRIAL. Let me just note that what you think you know about it is probably wrong — especially if what you think you know about it comes from watching Inherit The Wind. I highly recommend Ed Larson’s excellent treatment, A Summer For The Gods. And here’s a Court TV special on the case from some years back, featuring me, Larson, John Seigenthaler, and Arthur Miller.

SCOTT JOHNSON: Reckon with this.

After Dylann Roof murdered nine pastors and churchgoers in the course of Bible study in Charleston, President Obama couldn’t wait to use the occasion for his narrow political purposes. “Let’s be clear,” he said with urgency in his voice. “At some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence … doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.” The implication, of course, was that additional gun control legislation was required but that his political opponents refused to see the light.

Now we learn in whose power it was to do something about it, and it wasn’t anyone Obama was talking about. The Washington Post reports: “Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was only able to purchase the gun used in the attack because of breakdowns in the FBI’s background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday.” The White House, of course, declines to comment.

If there has ever been a smaller man or bigger jerk than Barack Obama holding the office of president, we need to know now.

What I notice is that the worse Obama does at his job, the more racist America seems to become.

COOKING WITH tinfoil hobo packs.

BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T LOOK LIKE SHE COULD BE HIS CHILD: Megyn Kelly: Why hasn’t Obama commented on the killing of Kate Steinle by an illegal? Also, the fact that the killer’s gun belonged to a federal agent is awkward.

CHANGE: Is There A Light At The End Of The Law School Tunnel? “The June 2015 figure is even more impressive because it reflects a whopping 10.9% increase in first time LSAT takers from June 2014. LSAT also reports that law school applicants are down only 2.0% for the Fall 2015 entering class.”

Maybe the glass really is half full.

BY ITS FRUIT, THE TREE IS KNOWN: Janice Fiamengo: Was Feminism Always Bad?

AT AMAZON, Most Wished For Video Games.

I WONDER HOW OFTEN STUFF LIKE THIS HAPPENS AND NOBODY NOTICES? The Mixed-Up Brothers of Bogotá: After a hospital error, two pairs of Colombian identical twins were raised as two pairs of fraternal twins. This is the story of how they found one another — and of what happened next.

After six months, Janeth left Strycon for another job, but even then, whenever she and her boyfriend ran into William, she wondered if she should have told Jorge about his double. That question tugged at her until finally, on Sept. 9, 2014, a slow day at her new job, Janeth texted Laura an image of William to show Jorge.

Laura went upstairs to piping to get Jorge’s reaction to the photo. Jorge, smiling, took a look at her phone. He swore. ‘‘That’s me!’’ he said. He stared at the image.

William was wearing a yellow Colombian soccer jersey, practically a national uniform on the day of big matches. Jorge often wore one just like it, which made it all the more apparent just how thoroughly the young man in the photo looked like him. A friend was walking by Jorge’s desk, and Jorge flagged him down for a second opinion.

‘‘Tell me what you think of this photo,’’ he told his friend, handing him the phone.

You look fine, the friend said.

‘‘Except it’s not me,’’ Jorge said. He could not stop staring at Laura’s phone.

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER CONSUMER REVOLT DRAWS BLOOD: Ellen Pao Out as Reddit CEO; Co-Founder Huffman Takes Over.

UPDATE: Ellen Pao Steps Down as CEO After Reddit Revolt. All those readers and volunteers turned out to be equity holders, actually.

Meanwhile, IowaHawk is on it!

Olbermann, Archuleta, Pao #theycomeinthrees

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 10, 2015

Thanks to Ellen Pao, Asian-Americans will no longer be saddled with the insidious stereotype of being bright, hardworking and competent.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 10, 2015

Anybody know of $500k+ tech industry job openings for a lawsuit-happy SJW with no technical experience? Asking for a friend

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 10, 2015

NOBODY’S PERFECT: Alexander Stokloss: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Tesla Model S P85D Road Trip.

FOCUSING ON THE IMPORTANT ISSUES: “Day Before Hack Announced, OPM Released ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination’ Guide — OPM’s seven ‘top priorities’ includes ‘diversity’ but not ‘security.’”

Which is reminiscent of former New York Times editor Howell Raines’ classic line regarding the program that resulted in the hiring of Jayson Blair: “This campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse.” As Wlady Pleszczynski of the American Spectator wrote in 2003, “you’ve got to love that Freudian slip, in which Raines puts a higher premium on diversity than on quality.”

Which sums up both ends of the Northeast Corridor rather well this week, doesn’t it?

I sense a pattern in the force https://t.co/WbSjhVwZVU

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 10, 2015

On #TheLead: FBI messed up racist shooter's gun background check; OPM director resigns in wake of cyber disaster; VA hospital boondoggle

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 10, 2015

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF FACT-CHECKERS AND EDITORS: Washington Post Writer Who Accused Amy Schumer Of Racism Never Saw Her Standup or TV Show:

The Interrobang; Have you ever watched Amy’s television show… in preparation for the article?

Stacey Patton: Nope. Not at all.

The Interrobang: Her stand up set[s]? have you ever watched any of them?

Stacey Patton: Nope. None of them.

Who needs facts and research, when you have feelings that need expressing? Even after Patton smeared Schumer as a racist, her interviewer is still willing to give her a pass. Because, once again, feelings:

I don’t doubt that Dr. Patton means well.

In an era where the left can point their finger at anyone and weaponize him or her as a racist — including their own — I do.

And note this:

@Olivianuzzi Wait til you get to the comments, where the professor replies and goes into character assassin mode.

— Autumn Florek (@AutumnFlorek) July 10, 2015

Which is exactly how Patton lashed out on Twitter earlier this week to anyone who complained, when her article was originally greenlit by her enablers at the Post. As John Schindler asks today on Twitter, “Why is WaPo giving a forum to these sorts of low-information #SJWs?”

SO CAN WE BAN THE FBI NOW, LIKE WE DID THE CONFEDERATE FLAG, SINCE THEY PLAYED A BIGGER ROLE? FBI Admits: Breakdown in background check system allowed Dylann Roof to buy gun.

Also, remember, the San Francisco shooter used a federal agent’s gun.

Will anyone go to jail? Will anyone even lose their job? Will anyone be sued? Of course not. Accountability is for the little people.

UPDATE: “With this Roof failure, I think it’s time to impose civil liability on govt workers whose incompetence kills.”

RIP, OMAR SHARIF: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA STAR DIES AGED 83:

Egypt-born Sharif won two Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination for his role as Sherif Ali in David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia.

He won a further Golden Globe three years later for Doctor Zhivago.

Earlier this year, his agent confirmed he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

His agent Steve Kenis said: “He suffered a heart attack this afternoon in a hospital in Cairo.”

While he was under contract in the 1960s to Hollywood impresario Sam Spiegel, Sharif starred in some of the biggest films of the era; the aforementioned Lawrence, Dr. Zhivago, and alongside Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. His career tapered off in the 1970s, and concurrently, his love of the gaming tables increased, which did not serve him well:

‘I don’t think I could live without a deck of cards in my hands,’ he declared, when asked on BBC radio’s Desert Island Discs in 1978 what luxury he would need most as a castaway. But the cards and the casinos were bankrupting him.

After losing £750,000 in one night at roulette, he was forced to sell his house in Paris, and announced: ‘I don’t own anything at all apart from a few clothes. I’m all alone and completely broke. Everything could have been so different if only I had found the right woman.’

His gambling addiction, he admitted, was madness, but he could not stop. He blamed boredom, and the loneliness of living out of a suitcase. His agent became used to Sharif’s desperate calls, demanding work so that he could pay urgent debts.

Often, the actor even had to reverse the call charges. But however many shoddy movies he made, he was always ‘one film behind my debts’.

He hated the roles. Though he could act in six languages — English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Greek — he had an accent in all of them, and so was always cast as ‘a foreigner’: a Sultan, a Spanish priest, a Mexican cowboy, or Genghis Khan.

However, Sharif’s cinematic immortality is assured thanks to Spiegel and David Lean. Lean gave Sharif arguably the best entrance for a virtually unknown actor in the history of cinema in Lawrence:

Thanks to Lawrence’s blockbuster success, Spiegel convinced Sharif that the Oscar was his, but it wasn’t to be:

Spiegel was intent on making Peter O’Toole the focus of Lawrence of Arabia’s American promotion, and consequently he refused to fly Omar Sharif to the U.S. But O’Toole balked when he heard the plan. “He said, ‘Bollocks,’ and he meant it,” Sharif recalled. “‘Omar is going and we’re going together.’” It was fortunate that the Egyptian actor was included, since he was a great asset to the campaign, winning over reporters everywhere, whereas O’Toole behaved disgracefully, leading Spiegel to remark, “You make a star, you make a monster.” When the blond leading man wasn’t giving interviews while drunk, he was demanding outrageous sums for appearing on television.

Lawrence of Arabia received 10 Oscar nominations. A few hours before the ceremony, Sharif went to Spiegel’s suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel. “The only sure thing, that year, was that I was going to get the Academy Award,” Sharif said. “David told me, ‘Now, Omar, when they call your name, I want you to walk slowly up the aisle, like you did in the film—don’t rush, don’t run.’ … Sam said, ‘Baby, walk slowly.’” The actor was so prepared that as soon as Rita Moreno started reading the nominees, he got off his chair. “I was walking slowly, as David had told me. Then she said Ed Begley.”

Ouch. However, as with Peter O’Toole, the film made Sharif a much in-demand actor during the 1960s. And would lead to a star turn of his own. After O’Toole refused the role, Lean gave Sharif the chance to star in Doctor Zhivago. Zhivago was pummeled by New York critics during its initial release in 1965, likely because of its anti-Soviet theme, but much beloved by the general public. Its success staved off the collapse of MGM until the end of the 1960s.

It’s the one big film from the ‘60s I’ve never seen on the big screen and would love to. It’s a stunning film on Blu-Ray, and long overdue for a reassessment as one of the last great old-style epics from Hollywood before it too succumbed to a sort of Soviet-style cultural revolution in the late ‘60s and early 1970s.

MAKING ECONOMY-CLASS AIRCRAFT SEATING even worse?

BARACK TO THE FUTURE: “Until the new mega-fixes are in place” at OPM, Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club writes in a post appropriately titled “God Help Us All,” “proposals have been floated to return the entire system to paper,” such as this one:

The Office of Personnel Management and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have figured out how to keep the security clearance process going while the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing (e-QIP) system is offline for cybersecurity fixes.

Under the new interim procedures, OPM and ODNI said the applicant must provide hard copies of forms SF86, SF85, SF85P to the sponsoring agency, but not to OPM or ODNI.

“When the e-QIP has been restored, the applicant will re-enter his or her personal information history into e-QIP so that the required investigation may be completed through the regular process,” the memo said. “Agencies shall maintain a list of all investigations initiated using these interim procedures and the subsequent date the investigations are processed through e-QIP when e-QIP service is restored.”

“Reverting to paper may actually improve security.  Consider why this might be so,” Richard adds:

The great benefit of paper clearance forms (and one might add, paper ballots) is that it limits the ability of bureaucrats to play games with data.  The lower tech medium puts the kibosh on all the plans, mandates and improvements they are just dying to implement. All that gender stuff is hard to implement when you’re faced with a stack of paper reaching to the ceiling, besides making the information harder to leak, misuse or steal.  It disempowers the bureaucrats.

The fact that reverting to lower tech may actually improve security suggests that lack of money isn’t the problem, nor are the shortcomings of computer hardware. The biggest shortage plaguing the elites today is a deficit of intelligence. They are a menace to themselves and to the public; and are not even smart enough to know how dumb they are.

The reason why reducing OPM to low tech paper may help things is akin to why taking the Bugatti keys away from an irresponsible teenager prevents an accident from occurring. “Just take the skateboard kid. It’s really all you can handle.”

In the meantime, the Democrat operatives with bylines at CNN know where the real blame in this scandal lies:

Republicans acknowledge to @evanperez they didn’t properly vet Archuleta’s qualifications http://t.co/1PeEHUgmGU pic.twitter.com/qwuDlQIIqs

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 10, 2015

How about, you know, the guy who appointed her? https://t.co/xIM4t2dLN4 — Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 10, 2015

The MSM is there to help ensure that the buck never stops on Obama’s desk — unless it’s good news.

UPDATE: Just as a reminder, in 2013, “Hispanic groups threatened the GOP, if they should filibuster the unqualified walking Security Risk Katherine Archuletta:”

@JoeFL65 @AceofSpadesHQ And screengrabbed, just in case that dissappears. pic.twitter.com/8pz1ZM3E7Z

— Stoo (@_s2_11) July 10, 2015

I GUESS THEY DON’T GET OUT MUCH: The Washington Post seems surprised that libertarians support legalized prostitution.

AT AMAZON, Prepare for Storm Season.

JOURNALISM: Facebook Instant Articles Just Don’t Add Up for Publishers.

Here’s the deal. When economies of scale were high, and cost of capital was too, this created a barrier to entry that let print publications earn relatively high profits. With barriers to entry low, that doesn’t work anymore.

BREAKING: OPM HEAD KATHERINE ARCHULETA RESIGNS: “Now, at least, the White House can claim with a straight face that they are trying to turn a corner at OPM. That won’t do much for the 21 million people whose most-sensitive personal and economic data ended up in hostile hands, but at least they no longer have to listen to Archuleta’s pathetic refusal to take any responsibility for the disaster.”

And just as a reminder:

Speaking of which, “I miss having grownups running the country. I really and truly do,” Moe Lane writes. Instead, with the current administration, it’s only because Archuleta has gone from loyal foot soldier to “Public Relations problem, she becomes an actual problem, a real problem worthy of Obama’s attention, and so she must go,” Ace of Spades adds.

ANDY KESSLER: A Dearth Of Tech IPOs May Mask Bubble Trouble: Only eight companies backed by venture capital have gone public in 2015. That’s a long way from last year’s 115.

Aside from Tesla and a few others, most of the hot companies with eyebrow-raising values are staying private. Uber is rumored to be raising $2 billion in funding for a valuation of $50 billion. Blue Apron, which ships three million meal kits a month to hungry millennials, has taken in $135 million at a $2 billion valuation. Food-delivery companies Instacart and Delivery Hero are worth a few billion each.

Yet none is going public. The delay can perhaps be blamed in part on Sarbanes-Oxley, a 2002 law that beefed up oversight and made it more expensive to be a public company. There’s also the 2012 JOBS Act, which increased the threshold for public reporting to 2,000 shareholders from 500. Whatever the causes, there is no longer a rush to go public if companies can raise sufficient private capital. “Now, after the IPO, it’s much worse,” Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma put it in June. “If I had another life, I would keep my company private.”

As a shareholder and a lifelong bubble watcher, I’m disturbed. Public markets enforce discipline on companies and push them to improve. . . .

But with Uber at $50 billion, surely we’re in a bubble? Remember: A bubble is not created by high valuations. A bubble is a psychological phenomenon in which investors are tricked—by the company or themselves—into believing that a profit stream is sustainable when it really isn’t.

Case in point is the dot-com bust of the late 1990s. Many companies told me at the time that Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley would take them public as soon as they could strike a deal with AOL. So AOL would invest on the stipulation that the company buy pop-up ads on various sites within AOL. Thus AOL turned its cash into sales. The madness stopped when companies ran out of money and AOL ran out of companies.

In 1999, Microsoft invested $250 million in the online ailment manual WebMD in exchange for WebMD paying $30 a month for thousands of physicians for dial-up Internet via, you guessed it, Microsoft’s MSN. Amazon invested $30 million in Drugstore.com in exchange for Drugstore.com paying $105 million over three years for a branded tab on Amazon. It all looked good, but it couldn’t last. It is no different from Bear Stearns using its balance sheet to spike mortgage-backed securities from 2005-08.

Today’s startups aren’t passing money in circles like this yet, though I suspect it will happen. With so many private firms holding wads of cash, the ability to use their balance sheets to drive sales will be too tempting. But without the disclosures required of public firms, this logrolling may be hidden from view.

Hmm.

READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Joe Roselius emails: “I would appreciate it if you could plug my brother-in-law, Ashlee Vance’s new book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.”

RECENT ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS ARE MAKING ME THINK SKYNET HAS ALREADY TAKEN OVER: 3D-Printed Explosive Jumping Robot Combines Firm and Squishy Parts.

TRANSPARENCY: Sacramento Mayor Sues Own City, Local Journalist To Keep Public Records From Being Made Public.

Kevin Johnson: Three-time NBA All-Star. Former (embattled) president of the National Council of Black Mayors. Outgoing (non-embattled) president of the US Conference of Mayors. Frequent litigant. Destroyer of public records. Suer of his own city. Only a couple of these can be considered flattering.

In his latest litigious effort, Mayor Johnson is mounting a multi-pronged attack on both a Sacramento journalist and his city government. At the center of it are documents Johnson claims should be exempt from public records requests: emails sent from his personal Gmail account but which discuss official business.

See, he should have had his own email server.

LOOKING FOR PARENTING-RELATED BLOGS AND ADVICE? The new PJM Parenting section has your Real Life Parenting Weekend Link Roundup.

NO APOLOGY NECESSARY:  Greg Jones at The Federalist: “Sorry, Everyone, America Isn’t That Racist.”

It’s called “proof by example,” and it happens all the time. We take one event and point to it as evidence of a trend or, even worse, a universal fact—a dog attacked my child, therefore all dogs are vicious and should be put down. Despite its popularity, particularly in political debate, proof by example is a logical fallacy. But logic is officially an endangered species in today’s hyperpartisan political environment.

Recent events nationwide, particularly the cold-blooded murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, at the hands of a revoltingly racist white supremacist, have propelled this faulty reasoning to new heights. Dangerous ones, in fact: the conversation surrounding race in America has rapidly evolved into a hyperbolic echo chamber into which today’s pundits, politicians, and professors repeatedly shout their false narrative. . . .

The most serious accusation, however, was lobbed from what has become the most ridiculously reactionary arena in all of American cultural and political life: academia. In response to the Charleston slayings, Occidental College Professor Caroline Heldman labeled America a “white supremacist society.” You hear that? Constant racism; America is a sewer; we are all white supremacists. Apparently the America of 2015 is identical to the America of 1860.

News to me, and if I had to guess to 99 percent of the other 300-plus million Americans that peacefully coexist with members of all races day in and day out. Unless, of course, I am so lucky as to “exist in a vacuum” of peace and tranquility light years beyond what most Americans experience. Judging from my neighborhood, and a few commonly ignored statistics, I highly doubt it.

America is a lot of things; racist isn’t one of them.

Consider, for example, that in 1958 a mere 4 percent of Americans approved of interracial marriage. By 2013, that number had grown to 87 percent. In 2012 these once-taboo unions hit an all-time high. . . . In fact, just a little more than two years ago The Washington Post, the same paper that featured Robinson’s editorial, found that America was in fact among the least-racist nations in the world.Ku Klux Klan membership has shrunk drastically from millions a century ago to fewer than 5,000 today. . . .

Most of us interact with people of numerous races daily without conflict or incident. Our friends, and even spouses, have skin colors different than ours, as do our teachers, doctors, and nurses. That’s because proof by example isn’t reality, and the actions of one man or three cops do not define a society of more than 300 million.

The heightened liberal/progressive cry of “racism!” has caused me to start disregarding the appellation. It’s now just background noise that I tune out, rather than taking seriously. Perhaps more significantly, it has started to make me look at blacks with trepidation and less comfort, because now I wonder if they always think such bad things about me regardless of how I behave toward them. I am even beginning to look at old friends and colleagues differently, because I wonder if they think of me as “white,” and “privileged,” rather than just a person who has faced struggles just like everyone else.  That’s not progress, folks; it’s regression.

Thanks so much for all the racial healing, President Obama. You have really used the “first black President” title to help heal past wounds and move this country forward to a happier, more unified place.

WHAT YOU’D SEE if you were flying across the Galaxy.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Boeing just patented a jet engine powered by lasers and nuclear explosions. Personally, I think that everything should be powered by lasers and nuclear explosions. Technically, though, these are thermonuclear explosions, which of course only makes it cooler. . .

IN THE MAIL: From John Birmingham, Emergence: Dave vs. the Monsters (David Hooper Trilogy).

Plus, today only at Amazon: “X-Men and the Wolverine Collection” on Blu-ray, $21.99 (69% off).

And, also today only: Up to 50% Off Select Bike Racks.

ECONOMIC FIGHT CLUB: KRUGMAN, STEPHEN MOORE SLUG IT OUT AT FREEDOM FEST: “All in all this was a very interesting discussion. Of course I was not convinced by anything Krugman had to say but I did think it was a good-faith conversation on a variety of topics. If this shows up on video somewhere I urge you to watch — it is well worth your time.” While you’re waiting, don’t miss Liz Sheld’s play-by-play recount.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 792.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: “OPM Doesn’t Know Who It Will Hire to Protect the 21.5 Million Individuals Affected by Hack.”

PUBLIC PENSION CRISIS: Passing the Disappearing Buck.

Welcome to the village of La Grange, IL., where local officials hope that more than just the good among their peers do indeed die young. At least, that’s what their pension plans indicate. . . .

Basically, the outdated tables don’t factor in the increases in life expectancy. In La Grange, the switch to the more recent mortality tables saw the village’s minimum required contribution increase by 20 percent. At the same time, in order to keep their funded statuses within reason (often while increasing future outlays), pension funds use estimates of expected investment returns that are at best Panglossian and at worst criminally deceptive. . . .

To put this in context, an average diversified portfolio yielded only “a 2.6% net annualized rate of return for the 10-year time period ending Dec. 31, 2013.” The disparity between projected and actual returns is dire, and means that any estimation of pension liabilities is understated.

In the private sector, such a shuffling of assets, or passing of a disappearing buck, is known as a Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, union bosses—who purport to care deeply and singularly about the protection of their employees—continue siphoning assets from the drying well, hoping their day of retirement comes before the day of reckoning.

Reckoning day — put your money in the mattress.

MEDIA FAIL: THE FLAWED EARLY COVERAGE OF 1995 OKLAHOMA CITY FEDERAL BUILDING BOMBING:  From Joseph Campbell, whose previous book was the Blogosphere favorite Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism, and whose latest work is 1995: The Year the Future Began. At his new 1995-themed blog, Campbell writes that when it came to the Oklahoma City bombing, “The news media — especially broadcast outlets — leaned hard on what proved to be an erroneous presumption.” Unexpectedly:

As such, the reporting in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing offers a telling reminder about how early news accounts of a major disaster tend to be misleading and off-base.

“It is,” I write in my latest book, 1995: The Year the Future Began, “a vulnerability the news media seldom seem to anticipate, or to learn from.”

In pushing the flawed narrative in April 1995, the news media effectively laid the groundwork for enduring suspicions that the bombing at Oklahoma City was the work of a broad and shadowy international conspiracy which, in one inventive telling, included the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef.

But as I write in 1995, the 20 years since the bombing at Oklahoma City has produced no compelling evidence that the conspiracy extended beyond an undistinguished trio of disaffected U.S. Army veterans: Timothy J. McVeigh, the remorseless ringleader who was executed in 2001; Terry Nichols, the principal accomplice who is in prison for life, and Michael Fortier, who knew about the bomb plot but did nothing to stop it.

That, I write, “was the likely extent of a ragtag conspiracy that brought about the Murrah Building’s destruction,” killing 168 people and injuring more than 680 others.

“But for many Americans,”I add, “it was just too ragtag, too improbable to embrace. The gravity of the attack in Oklahoma City — not unlike the assassination of President Kennedy — seemed to cry for a plot more substantial and a conspiracy more elaborate and sophisticated than misfit Army buddies angry at the federal government.

But the news media’s first instincts 20 years ago were to press the Middle East angle, and press it hard.

In contrast of course, today, the CAIR-chastened media now sees the vast right wing conspiracy hidden behind every corner, with shadowy Reds (Red Staters, in this case) lurking everywhere.

I recently read Campbell’s new book, and it’s a fascinating snapshot of a year that foreshadows our current era in many respects; his chapters on the Oklahoma City bombing, the OJ trial and even the birth of Internet institutions such as Amazon are particularly engrossing, with many new details for those who thought they knew all the angles to those once ubiquitous stories.

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS MILTON FRIEDMAN HAS FORESEEN: Why The Euro Is Failing.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on bestselling products, updated every hour.

Also, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Featured Digital Deal. The deals are brand new every day, so browse and save!

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Wisconsin’s Friend at the IRS: Emails Show a Common Cause in Restricting Political Speech:

Wisconsin’s campaign to investigate conservative tax-exempt groups has always seemed like an echo of the IRS’s scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. It turns out that may be more than a coincidence.

Former IRS tax-exempt director Lois Lerner ran the agency’s policy on conservative groups. Kevin Kennedy runs the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) that helped prosecutors with their secret John Doe investigation of conservative groups after the 2011 and 2012 recall elections of Governor Scott Walker and state senators.

Emails we’ve seen show that between 2011 and 2013 the two were in contact on multiple occasions, sharing articles on topics including greater donor disclosure and Wisconsin’s recall elections. The emails indicate the two were also personal friends who met for dinner and kept in professional touch. “Are you available for the 25th?” Ms. Lerner wrote in January 2012. “If so, perhaps we could work two nights in a row.”

This timing is significant because those were the years when the IRS increased its harassment of conservative groups and Wisconsin prosecutors gathered information that would lead to the John Doe probe that officially opened in September 2012. …

These interconnections matter because they reveal that the use of tax and campaign laws to limit political speech was part of a larger and systematic Democratic campaign. Speaking at the University of Wisconsin in 2010, President Obama sent his own political message to investigators.

“Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, [Republicans] are being helped along this year, as I said, by special interest groups that are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on attack ads. They don’t even have to disclose who’s behind the ads,” he said. “You’ve all seen the ads. Every one of these groups is run by Republican operatives. Every single one of them—even though they’re posing as nonprofit groups with names like Americans for Prosperity, or the Committee for Truth in Politics.”

Conservative nonprofits like the Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce were later subpoenaed and bound by secrecy orders as their fundraising all but ceased. Liberals worked together to turn the IRS and the GAB into partisan political weapons.

Reminder: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Sending The IRS After His Enemies.

WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? WE ARE! AT THE TWERPS WHO MOCKED ROMNEY FOR WARNING ABOUT CHINESE HACKERS: Twitchy rounds up numerous examples of low information voters from 2012 who look awfully foolish today, not the least of which was the “Security-illiterate OPM director [who] accused Mitt Romney of having ‘little understanding’ of [the] 21st century:”

Mitt Romney’s statements reveal “little understanding of what’s going on in the 21st century”: http://t.co/0JBikUFh #RomneyNotReady

— Katherine Archuleta (@Archuleta2012) October 22, 2012

I’ve saved a copy of the above Tweet, just in case Ms. Archuleta’s Twitter account is also “hacked,” and it disappears.

TWEET OF THE DAY: “We’re at the point where we’re just managing the decline” should be the epitaph of Obama’s Presidency. Though to be honest, it’s not so much being managed as being encouraged.

IF BY “POSSIBLE,” YOU MEAN “LIKELY,” SURE: Is it possible the biggest threat to the bull market in U.S. stocks is Washington, D.C.?

IT’S LIKE WE’RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO WIN: The Staggering Cost Of A Largely Failed Fight Against ISIS.

UPDATE: Related: A Strategy To Defeat ISIS Without Strengthening Iran. I think the White House wants to strengthen Iran.

OFFICER JACK DUNPHY ON THE FOLLY OF POLICE ‘DE-ESCALATION:’ “As has been recently proved in Baltimore, where a decline in arrests was mirrored by a spike in violent crime, the only thing restraining the predatory impulses in some people is the fear of the police. Remove that fear and you unleash terror on the city.”

But then, in their heart of hearts, some view that as a desirable feature, not a bug.

BILL WHITTLE’S AFTERBURNER: Democrats’ Horrible Racist Past.

ASHE SCHOW: Due process for campus sexual assault is not a left/right issue.

The fight over campus sexual assault and due process has somehow devolved into a Republican vs. Democrat issue. The most vocal supporters of draconian sexual assault policies are Democrats like Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. There are several prominent Republicans on a Senate bill to curb sexual assault, but none have made a name for themselves as a proponent.

Meanwhile, the print and online commentary voices defending due process rights for the accused have been mostly right-leaning. The only television voice on the issue of due process has been Fox News.

There have been exceptions to this, but unfortunately, the issue has become a way for political opponents to score points against each other. Those who favor due process are accused by liberals of being “rape apologists,” while those who favor the accusers are excoriated by right-leaning media.

That sentiment has muddied the issue. Due process used to be deeply important to liberals. Toughness on crime was more commonly associated with Republicans. Now the tables have turned and it makes no sense.

Due process should concern everyone. So should sexual assault.

Related: Police officer brags about circumventing due process in sexual assault cases.

FORMER CNN ANCHOR LYNN RUSSELL: ‘NOTHING TO DEBATE,’ HAVING A GUN SAVED MY LIFE.

A MUST-READ FROM ACE: Donald Trump And The Class War Within The RNC.

The war is between two groups. My terminology may not be perfect, and there is lots of give in these terms, but the war is between the Middle/Working Class (hereafter just the Middle Class) and Professional Class, which I sometimes call the “Comfortable Class.”

Both classes, frankly, disgust me, depending on the day of the week.

The Middle Class is naked with class resentment and don’t seem to mind if the world knows they are seething angry at the Professional Class (whom they feel, correctly, disrespect them). They tend to push a “politics” which is less about actual policy and more about asserting the cultural class supremacy of the Middle Class.

The Professional Class is composed of both actual professionals, who are a fraction of the class, and the larger number of people who aspire to join the Upper Middle Class, but are actually Middle Class.

The Professional Class loves denigrating the Middle Class. One of its proudest achievements is that it’s not the Middle Class, but something more.

Also, the Comfortable Class does in fact enjoy showing the liberals that they’re not like that rabble, the White Working Class, by making a bigger deal than necessary over PC lapses by the Middle Class.

The Comfortable Class is very PC. It has, in fact, incorporated most of the mores and forbiddances of the Establishment Left. When people call members of this class “sort of liberal,” they’re 100% accurate.

This is why you’ll never see true conservatism win in DC — the actual representatives you send to DC are almost entirely members of the Comfortable Class, or soon will be (you become the fish you swim with). And they are in fact much, much closer to the Establishment Left than they are the mores and customs of the Middle Class they are nominally allied with.

I despise this class more than the Middle Class.

I’m going to be perfectly honest now and tell everyone what I hate about them.

Read the whole thing.

OF OBERGEFELL AND OSTRACISM: After the Supreme Court’s decision on Same Sex Marriage, Dan McLaughlin of Red State was quoted as saying, “Now the contest begins to see who’ll be the angriest winner.” Last week it was George Takei of Star Trek making racist slurs against Clarence Thomas. This week, Max Lindenman of Patheos spots Sally Kohn tossing her name into the ring:

Just as I was learning not to hate the term “national conversation,” gay marriage supporters have decided to quit speaking to us. That would, at any rate, be the earnest wish of Daily Beast columnist Sally Kohn. In last Sunday’s piece, “The New, Post-Homophobic Christianity,” she ticks off all the denominations that have changed their teachings on homosexuality and asks “Will anti-gay Christians be politically and socially ostracized?”

Her answer: “I sure hope so.”

Regarding the social part, I’m curious to know what, exactly, Kohn is thinking. As Br. Dominick Bouck, O.P. observed in First Things, there was a time not so long ago when she was ready to credit “conservatives” with being “emotionally correct,” if nothing else. Did she read the majority decision in Obergefell and exclaim: “By the Goddess! All along those bastards were playing footsie with due process and equal protection! ‘Emotional correctness’ my eye!”? Or is she convinced that offering us the cold shoulder is the best way to make us change our minds?

Or as Ed Morrissey asks at Hot Air, is religion “The new Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”

(H/T: The Anchoress.)

THE HILL: Top three House Republicans want OPM head fired.

The top three House Republicans on Thursday called for the firing of the agency head at the center of what’s believed to be the largest government data breach of all time.

Moments after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) revealed that the personal information of 22.1 million people had been exposed by two separate hacks at the agency, three GOP leaders called for agency chief Katherine Archuleta to resign.

“President Obama must take a strong stand against incompetence in his administration and instill new leadership at OPM so we can move forward in a fashion that begins to restore the confidence of the American people,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.) released coordinated statements also calling for Archuleta’s head.

In recent weeks, a growing chorus of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle has called for Archuleta’s firing, arguing she repeatedly ignored the warnings of her inspector general, who raised numerous red flags about the OPM’s security weaknesses.

Related: Senate Dem: OPM Head Must Go.

Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) on Thursday became the highest-ranking Democrat to call for the resignation of the agency head at the center of one what’s thought to be the largest government hack ever.

Minutes after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) revealed that the personal data of 22.1 million people — more than 5 times the initial estimate — had been exposed by two separate hacks at the agency, Warner called for the agency’s chief, Katherine Archuleta, to resign.

He is the first Senate Democrat to do so.

Prediction: He won’t be the last. And Archuleta, of course, mocked Mitt Romney for worrying about Chinese hackers in 2012.

If I were Mitt, I’d run in 2016 with bumper stickers that say “I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!” Because, you know, he was right about everything.

INTO THE ABYSS — FROM THE HALLS OF ACADEMIA TO THE COVER OF VANITY FAIR: “The Caitlyn (née Bruce) Jenner case has engendered if not a new subject at least a newly publicized and sensationalized one. For an old-timer like myself, transgenderism is reminiscent of the postmodernism that swept the universities several decades ago,” Gertrude Himmelfarb writes in the new issue of the Weekly Standard:

Indeed, transgenderism now looks like a more dramatic, audacious, and, it may be, perilous form of postmodernism. Like postmodernism back then, so transgenderism today is moving very far, very fast. Before it goes much further, one might look back upon its predecessor as a cautionary tale, recalling its aspirations but also its tribulations.

A passage from an article I wrote almost 20 years ago may help put the current issue in historical perspective:

Imported from France (which had acquired it from Germany), postmodernism made its appearance in the United States in the 1970s, first in departments of literature and then in other disciplines of the humanities. Its forefathers are Nietzsche and Heidegger, its fathers Derrida and Foucault. From Jacques Derrida postmodernism has borrowed the vocabulary of deconstruction: the “aporia” (the dubious or enigmatic nature) of discourse, the “indeterminacy” of language, the “fictive” nature of signs and symbols, the self-referential character of words and their dissociation from any presumed reality, the “problematization” of all subjects, events, and tests. From Michel Foucault it has adopted the focus on power: words and ideas as a means of “privileging” the “hegemonic” groups in society, and knowledge itself an instrument and product of the “power structure.” Thus traditional discourse and learning are impugned as “logocentric” (dominated by the word), “phallocentric” (dominated by the male), and “totalizing” or “authoritarian” (in the presumption that reality can be contained and comprehended).

Read the whole thing.

RELATED: Speaking of Heidegger, ‘Professor Shocked, Shocked To Find Out Prominent Nazi Was An Anti-Semite.’

WELL, YES: Wired: The OPM Hack May Have Given China a Spy Recruiting Database.

FUNNY, UNTIL I SAW HIS PICTURE AT TPM, I DIDN’T REALIZE HE WAS BLACK: Ohio Judge Refuses To Marry Same-Sex Couple. That didn’t show up in the other reporting I’ve seen.

MEH. THEY’VE TURNED INTO MSNBC-WITH-ATHLETES ANYWAY. ESPN Tightens Its Belt as Pressure on It Mounts.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Vanity Fair: The Troubling Question in the French Jewish Community: Is It Time to Leave? If you’re a Jew, and you’re wondering if it’s time to leave, then it’s probably past time. “Last December, Créteil endured the brutal case of a 19-year-old woman whose apartment, which she shared with her boyfriend, was broken into. One of her assailants allegedly said, ‘You must have cash here because you are Jews.’ They then gang-raped her.”

HISTORY: Harry Reid and Donald Trump used to agree on immigration.

WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHES WORLD’S LONGEST #HUMBLEBRAG: I tried to escape my privilege with low-wage work. Instead I came face to face with it.

SO IF HILLARY IS ELECTED, HUMA ABEDIN WILL HAVE A BEDROOM AT THE WHITE HOUSE. The real question is, will Bill?

RIP KENNY STABLER, who certainly helped make the ’70s more fun:

Ken #Stabler, #Raiders and #Tide QB, dies of colon cancer http://t.co/EGiBghLW1s via @washtimes

— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) July 10, 2015

FALLEN ANGELS WAS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? Snow lingers into summer in winter-weary Boston.

CIRCUS CIRCUS: WELCOME TO AMERICA’S REALITY CLOWN SHOW:

This has nothing to do with political solutions and everything to do with entertainment factor; this is the culture we as a people chose when we went to the voting booth in November of 2008. We decided showmanship, stage-fainting, snake oil and promises of ocean level decreases were more important than substantive policy ideas and solutions. We elected a President based on what Hollywood studios and corporate branding experts told us, and those same people haven’t stopped giving us their opinion in the form of tweets or slogans written on hands ever since. Conservatives, desperate to join a culture that has all but decided to pass them by (or force them out completely), aren’t so much looking for an articulate salesman to get them back in the conversation as they are looking for an indestructible tank to bust through the wall and take it instantly by force.

The talk-radio powered part of that base thinks they’ve found it in Trump.

Read the whole thing.

DEMOCRATS ARE SOCIALISTS, IF YOU BELIEVE BERNIE-MANIA, Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post today. But didn’t the Post itself confirm this at the start of the Obama administration, back when the paper still published Newsweek?

THE WHITEST PRIVILEGE: “The American’s Left’s blond-haired, blue-eyed fantasyland,” as charted by By Kevin D. Williamson:

The Left occasionally indulges in bouts of romantic exoticism — its pin-ups have included Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Mao Zedong; we might even count Benito Mussolini, “that admirable Italian gentleman” who would not have been counted sufficiently white to join Franklin Roosevelt’s country club — but the welfare states that progressives dream about are the whitest ones: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. The significance of this never quite seems to occur to progressives. When it is suggested that the central-planning, welfare-statist policies that they favor are bound to produce results familiar to the unhappy residents of, e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia — privation, chaos, repression, political violence — American progressives reliably reply: “No, no, we don’t want that kind of socialism. We want socialism like they have it in Finland.”

Translation: “We want white socialism, not brown socialism!”

Read the whole thing.