DON SURBER: Do Not Rebuild In Ferguson.

From a kid who survived the Hough Riots in Cleveland nearly a half century ago, some unsolicited advice to the business owners in Ferguson, Missouri: Do not bother rebuilding. Your customers do not want you. They tore up your stores — twice. And after one of them robbed a store. These are not protests. They are pogroms aimed at the middle class. Take the insurance money and run.

Police officers, too, should leave. Why risk a criminal trial or worse for doing your job?

Homeowners, too. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic — it does not matter. You are middle class. They do not want you. Leave. . . .

Backed by looters and violent people, liberals are telling the American middle class they do not want you. They want an America where you are either a billionaire knocking down tax subsidies, or jobless and on federal assistance. . . . The looters won, thanks to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and Governor Jay Nixon — Democrats all — who ignored the truth and the facts of the case to fan the flames of violence, across the country. People have begun calling these the Obama Riots. Expect more.

It does seem like you need to either be a New Oligarch or a member of the dependent classes to get any attention from these folks.

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21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Teaching People That Porn Isn’t Real.

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STORY TO WATCH: Teens beat motorist to death with hammers in St. Louis.

I COULD LIVE WITH THAT: A 2016 ballot without Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush? You heard it here.

Charlie Cook, one of the most respected political experts in the country, believes Hillary Clinton has only a 25-30 percent chance of running for president, and in any case he thinks she is either “rusty” or “she has lost her fastball.” He bases that on her disastrous book tour, in which she said some very inappropriate things and also did not sell many books.

The author of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter for almost 30 years also disappointed a local audience when he did not give Jeb Bush much of a chance of gaining the Republican nomination.

“Bush has two issues working against him to win the Republican primary for the 2016 presidential election,” Cook said. “One is immigration reform, which he favors; and two, is his advocacy of education reform.”

Neither of those causes would sit well with Republican primary voters, Cook said.

I’d be very happy to avoid a Bush/Clinton campaign.

AMERICA ELECTED ITS BLACK PRESIDENT IN THE HOPES OF GOING POST-RACIAL. Instead — much like a lot of cities that elected their first black mayor — we got the retreat to identity.

WELL, NO, NO SHE CAN’T. BUT IT’S STILL A COOL STORY. This 77-year-old grandma can lift more than you. Although on a percentage-of-bodyweight basis she’s got me beat hollow.

JOHN HINDERAKER: My New AR-15. “One thing about an AR-15, it is great for deterring looters. Not that we have any looters in my neighborhood. Heck, we hardly have any Democrats.”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Not working for the working class: The key to Obama’s struggle with white working class voters is not ‘white,’ but ‘working.’

SPACE: Wanderers – a short film by Erik Wernquist.

TOM MAGUIRE: When Pundits Just Don’t Get It, Part Forever.

SO LAST WEEK I TALKED ABOUT THE STRUGGLE FOR POSITION in the Democratic Party, between it’s urban-black wing and its gentry liberal wing. Now we see another blow struck: Deval Patrick warns Hillary Clinton: Inevitability is “off-putting.”

“I don’t mean that as a criticism of her; I just think people read inevitably as entitlement,” he added. “And the American people want, and ought to want, their candidates to sweat for the job, you know, to actually make the case for why they’re the right person for the right time.”

Translation: If you want me on board, you have to make it worth my while. . . .

Meanwhile, the Gentry Liberals are fighting back: Democrats assail Wall Street ties in Obama administration.

President Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss to serve as the Treasury Department’s top domestic finance official is drawing fire from an unusual sector: his fellow Democrats.

Liberal lawmakers like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have been quick to oppose Weiss, a major investment banker with Lazard.

Among their grievances is the fact that Lazard’s work is primarily in international finance and he is nominated for a domestic position. They’re also critical of his role in structuring several tax inversion deals, which have drawn criticism from the president himself.

But an underlying thread to the Democratic opposition is a fatigue with filling top-ranking administration spots with officials that have spent significant time working for or on behalf of Wall Street titans. Warren penned an op-ed in The Huffington Post criticizing the administration’s approach under the headline “Enough is Enough.”

It’s amusing to watch this infighting, but it’s not serious — it’s just positioning for a piece of the 2016 pie.

JERRY POURNELLE: Civilizing Barbarians.

IS IT JUST ME, OR DID COPS USED TO BE MADE OF STERNER STUFF? Cops Arrest Man for Pointing Banana at Them, Say They Feared For Their Safety.

Or perhaps they need to take the Self-Defense Against Fruit course.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Did they read him his Carmen Miranda rights?”

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Female Teachers: The Sex Offenders No One Suspects. “Women are given more lenient sentencing than men, says Shoop, who has served as a forensic expert in hundreds of sexual abuse cases in the U.S. ‘My experience has been that females get time served and probation, where men get 15 years for the same offence,’ he says. A 2012 University of Michigan study, ‘Estimating gender discrimination in federal criminal cases,’ found a gender divide in sentencing generally in the U.S.: men received 63 per cent longer sentences on average than women, and women were twice as likely to avoid incarceration if found guilty. Two decisions involving former Oregon high school teachers, found guilty of having sex with students earlier this year, bear this out. Denise Keesee, 39, received 30 days in jail and five years probation for two counts involving a 16-year-old male student. In another jurisdiction, 56-year-old Charles McLauchlin was sentenced to almost 10 years in prison for second-degree sexual abuse and online corruption of a minor involving a 16-year-old female student. . . . The trust accorded female teachers is precisely what allows them to offend.”

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UPDATE: First link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

SHOCKER: Internet Picture Memes Are Full Of Lies.

LESSONS ON CENSORSHIP from Syria’s Internet filter machine.