SPYING: Phone Firewall Identifies Rogue Cell Towers Trying to Intercept Your Calls.

I AGREE: Is there a creativity deficit in science? If so, the current funding system shares much of the blame. I went to a brainstorming session a couple of years ago with a bunch of scientists and Silicon Valley types and the consensus was that if you were trying to squeeze the creativity out of science you couldn’t do much better than the current funding system.

AT AMAZON, Generators & Portable Power for Storm Season. They’re predicting a cold winter.

Plus, trade in your iPhone.

QUIZ: Were You “Adrift” At 22?

Nowadays, a good chance you’d still be in college, and nowhere near graduating, since only 56% graduate within 6 years.

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Newly discovered asteroid will narrowly miss Earth on Sunday. It’s a bit troubling that it was discovered so late, and 25,000 miles isn’t far at all. It’s not all that big as asteroids go, but . . . .

CRONY STATISM: Red light camera industry fights citizen vote. That’s because they pretty much always lose these votes. They prefer sweetheart deals with insiders, which is how we got them here in Knoxville.

TOOLS FOR A POST-ANTIBIOTIC WORLD: Tiny buckybombs could make bacteria explode.

SORRY, CALIFORNIA: Tesla picks Nevada for Gigafactory.

KINDLE FREEBIE: Quantum Mortis: A Mind Programmed is free on Kindle today.

A WHILE BACK, I SUGGESTED THAT GOP MONEYBAGS WOULD BE BETTER OFF BUYING WOMEN’S MAGAZINES THAN DONATING TO KARL ROVE.

Now: The new Cosmo: Love, sex, politics? “The magazine known for its celebrity covers, fashion tips and relationship advice is diving into politics on Monday with its #CosmoVotes campaign, a new effort that will include candidate endorsements, stories on women-centric issues by a recently hired political writer, and a social media effort to get readers to the polls and be part of ‘the party of the year.'” Translation: They’ll be shilling for the Dems even more than usual, as part of the desperate effort to use tired War On Women themes to save the Senate in November.

Too bad the GOP didn’t listen to me in 2012. Related thoughts here.

FASTER, PLEASE: Experimental Vaccine Shows Promise Against Dengue Fever. Now we need one against Chikungunya.

IF YOU QUIT ALLOWING AIRLINE SEATS TO RECLINE, it’s just another reason not to fly. You keep giving me more of them, and I keep flying less.

ANOTHER FEMINIST NARRATIVE COLLAPSES IN THE FACE OF THE FACTS: Men Are Harassed More Than Women Online. Women just complain about it more. But, then, they complain about everything more.

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Scientists Use Sex to Override Bad Memories in Rats. So sex can be a PTSD treatment? Didn’t we already know that?

THE FOLKS AT THE CORDAIR FINE ART GALLERY WERE HIT PRETTY HARD BY THE NAPA EARTHQUAKE, and they’re having an Earthquake Recovery Sale. Check it out, and snap up some bargains!

WHO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION REGARDS AS THE REAL ENEMY — FOX NEWS! State Dept.’s Marie Harf Issues Firm Rebuke To … Bill O’Reilly. Well, ISIS rapes, murders and decapitates. O’Reilly gets people to vote Republican.

SO, BASICALLY, THEY’RE FOLLOWING THE IVY LEAGUE APPROACH: Islamic State Brands Itself as a Unique Multi-Racial Melting Pot. Not unusual for totalitarians to do this: We saw the same from communists. It was mostly a lie with them, and it’s probably the same here.

POINTS AND FIGURES: The Gov. Pat Quinn Minimum Wage Challenge. Illinois’ problem is not enough jobs because businesses are fleeing a corrupt, high-tax, high-regulation, high-graft state. Minimum-wage theater won’t fix that, but it might distract some low-information voters.

FEMALE PRIVILEGE: Female Teacher Who Had Sex With A 9th Grader Won’t Have To Register As A Sex Offender.

UPDATE: Allegations of sexual misconduct by teachers: Is there a gender bias? “In the eyes of the law, these cases are no different, though young, female teachers systematically see more lenient sentencing compared with their male counterparts.”

YOU WERE WARNED: Mitt Romney 2008 Ad on Jihadism.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 483.

OBAMA’S WAR OF CHOICE, WHERE HE LOST THE PEACE, ISN’T DOING SO WELL: Missing Libyan planes raise 9/11 terror fears.

SMART DIPLOMACY: “We Didn’t See This Coming.” Commitments on Three Fronts Test Obama’s Foreign Policy.

UPDATE: From the comments: “That is so funny. Sarah Palin saw it coming from her front porch.”

OH NOES: “The Hunger Games, The Giver and Divergent all depict rebellions against the state, and promote a tacit right-wing libertarianism.”

Over at the Guardian, Ewan Morrison is pissed off that young-adult novels don’t preach a left-wing, progressive vision. In fact, he writes, many of the most popular titles actually undermine the collectivism at the heart of so many utopias-gone-bad. . . .

Jeebus, the sourness runs strong in this one. Morrison is in such a rush to denounce the neoliberalism of the books that he manages to misrepresent them. Far from being anti-community, these books are anti-collectivist, at least when the group is based on involuntary servitude, perceived mental and physical capacities (mostly the result of genetics in these books), or accidents of geography. To the extent that they—like virtually all novels—rely on individual protagonists, those heroes are all about political and social equality rather than any sort of elevation of the great man or woman at the expense of others. None of the books he cites is against community per se. They are against reactionary states that rule by dictate rather than democracy (whether in a the voting booth or the marketplace).

So, yeah, they’re poison for “progressivism.”

Plus, from the comments: “What, they forgot the Harry Potter series? The Ministry of Magic is the epitome of socialistic incompetence and there is very little standing in the way when Voldemort shows up to take over. Hogwarts is practically a bastion of libertarianism – until the Death Eaters kill Dumbledore and take over the school.”

And, amusingly, from the original Guardian piece comments: “The truth is that the masses are increasingly right wing with an antagonism to politics and to the state. They need to be confronted.” Confront away, big boy.

See Harry Potter And The Half-Crazed Bureaucracy for more along these lines. There’s also discussion from Bill Whittle, Stephen Green, and Scott Ott in the latest Trifecta.