THIS DOESN’T SOUND GOOD: 13 Illegal Immigrants Arrested in California Wearing U.S. Marine Uniforms. But where do poor, starving children get U.S. Marine uniforms?

THE END TIMES ARE HERE: Mystery Animal Roams the Streets in California.

THE FUTURE OF SPYING: Algorithm recovers speech from vibrations of potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass. “In other experiments, they extracted useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant.”

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OUT: REPUBLICANS ARE DEMOGRAPHICALLY DOOMED BECAUSE THEY RELY ON WHITE VOTERS. In: Hey, you know, there are actually a lot of white people out there voting. “Given that whites still make up about three-quarters of the voters in the nation and will likely be the clear majority for decades to come, there is every reason to believe that whites will have a real say in who governs.” Democrats’ crude racial appeals to minorities may even encourage whites to vote with more race-consciousness than in the recent past.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: How The Bureaucracy Punishes Whistleblowers.

Pedene, 56, is the former chief spokeswoman for this VA hospital. Now, she is living in a bureaucrat’s urban legend. After complaining to higher-ups about mismanagement at this hospital, she has been reassigned — indefinitely — to a desk in the basement.

In the Phoenix case, investigators are still trying to determine whether Pedene was punished because of her earlier complaints. If she is, that would make her part of a long, ugly tradition in the federal bureaucracy — workers sent to a cubicle in exile.

In the past, whistleblowers have had their desks moved to break rooms, broom closets and basements. It’s a clever punishment, good-government activists say, that exploits a gray area in the law.

And its prevalence illustrates the fundamentally corrupt nature of the bureaucracy.

CHANGE: The Long, Slow March Toward Gun Rights In The Courts. “But in the end, the courts seem to be coming slowly into alignment, and the consensus is that private ownership for the purpose of self defense, both in the home and in the public square, is in keeping with the founders’ intentions.”

DIRTY TRICKS: Democratic activists were behind controversial Klan ads in Mississippi.

HELEN AND I TEST-DROVE A Q7 A FEW YEARS AGO AND THE INTERIOR WAS GORGEOUS BUT IT WAS KIND OF POKEY: 2016 Audi Q7: Here’s Everything We Know About the Next-Gen SUV.

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ACADEMIA AND THE Kardashian Index.

I’LL WANT THAT IN A RUN-FLAT: This is how you test a wheel that will go 1100 mph: 10,429 revolutions per minute is the magic number.

FORGET DRONES: These tethered blimps can spy on cities below.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE “GENDER PAY GAP.”

DEMOCRATS LAUNCH RACIAL ATTACKS IN KENTUCKY: “Apparently, in the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, it is incredibly important to point out that Mitch McConnell’s wife, former labor secretary Elaine Chao, is ‘Asian,’ and therefore, allegedly, ‘not from’ Kentucky.”

Related: Liberal Political Hack Launches Into Racist Tirade Against McConnell’s Wife.

Also: Dem tries to hide tracks after anti-Asian race-baiting in Kentucky Senate race.

You know, between this and all the affirmative-action stuff, I’m beginning to think that Democrats don’t much like Asians.

POPULAR MECHANICS: What if a Solar Flare Hit the Earth?

WHAT HAPPENS TO OIL PRICES when ISIS takes Baghdad? “As of today it is at least theoretically possible to scenarize a world oil shock at least equal to the so-called ‘Arab oil embargo’ of 1973-74 in terms of oil export supply cuts from several key regions and producer states – Russia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and possibly the GCC Arab Gulf exporters.” Whether you buy this or not, it’s certainly an argument to push domestic production as quickly as possible. I suppose opening federal lands for exploration is out of the question, though . . . .

And anyway, we’ve got Smart Diplomacy^TM on the job, so no worries!

UPDATE: Richard Fernandez asks: “Whose side is Obama on?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: ISIS Advances As Kurds Run Out Of Ammunition.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TODAY IS ON THE CIA AND THE IRS: Public Servants Acting As Public Masters.

ROGER SIMON: Welcome To The 1930s.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 452. Still plenty of material here.

THE ECONOMICS OF JANE AUSTEN:

Austen was a year old when the modern science of economics was invented. Adam Smith, Jane’s neighbor to the north in Scotland, published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, commonly known today by its pithier final four words. Its most famous line is the rallying banner for free marketeers even in 2014, a winning defense of the power and driving force of the very commercial self-interest that the established churches of Europe derided: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their self interest.” . . .

But if any Smith book was likely to have sat on an Austenian side table, it wasn’t The Wealth of Nations, but the work that Smith himself considered foundational, and thus revised a staggering six times over the course of his lifetime, up until the year of his death. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) introduced Smith’s concept of sympathy. This was a word used slightly differently in Smith’s time than in our own, and doesn’t have much to do with the modern tendency to click like on a Facebook friend’s engagement announcement to show our support, or to feel terrible about the plight of child soldiers. It referred instead to the mortar of civilized society, the way that we modify our behavior as we come to an understanding of how others see us and realize that they cannot regard our problems in the same close and passionate way that we do.

People are always rediscovering the Theory Of Moral Sentiments.

FROM “REPORTING FOR DUTY” TO ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE: Kerry’s disappearing act sends the wrong signal. I disagree. Given Kerry’s performance, the smartest of “smart diplomacy” is to have him vanish from the radar screen.

I GUESS THIS WOMAN DOESN’T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION: Why do so many straight women prefer penetration to oral sex? Because here’s a hint: Evolution tends to conserve traits that promote the creation of descendants.

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