THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, GAY ESCORT SERVICES WOULD BE TREATED AS NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Homeland Security Raids Rentboy.com. DHS “will use its unique authorities to disrupt and dismantle” gay escort sites, says special investigator.

How about we dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, which was a mistake from day one.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why salad is so overrated. “It occupies precious crop acreage, requires fossil fuels to be shipped, refrigerated, around the world, and adds nothing but crunch to the plate. . . . Four of the five lowest-ranking vegetables (by serving size) are salad ingredients: cucumbers, radishes, iceberg lettuce and celery. (The fifth is eggplant.) Those foods’ nutritional profile can be partly explained by one simple fact: They’re almost all water. Although water figures prominently in just about every vegetable (the sweet potato, one of the least watery, is 77 percent), those four salad vegetables top the list at 95 to 97 percent water. A head of iceberg lettuce has the same water content as a bottle of Evian (1-liter size: 96 percent water, 4 percent bottle) and is only marginally more nutritious.”

I like a nice salad. But yeah.

I MENTIONED THE Bug-A-Salt Rifle yesterday.

Here’s a review by SayUncle. I think, though, that this is the original model, not the 2.0 version linked above.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together…Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

—Hollywood mogul David Geffen, via Drudge.

WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES WITH IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS: Inside the Migrant “Jungle” in Northern France.

IF YOU THINK GOVERNMENT SHOULD EVER BE LIMITED, YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DIE IN FIRES: “Hey, that’s not me saying it. That’s Slate saying it.”

ARTHUR BROOKS ON WHAT YOUR VACATION SAYS ABOUT YOU.

Mine was clearly sending me mixed messages last week:

HAS THE INTERNET AND PC (I.E. ANTI-MALE) CULTURE KILLED THE NIGHTCLUB INDUSTRY?

SO THE PARIS TRAIN THING IS a reason to bring back the draft? I don’t think so.

TALKING HOME RECORDING WITH MITCH GALLAGHER OF SWEETWATER: If you follow my Twitter feed* you may have seen a few photos from my trip last week to the heartland, with visits to Fort Wayne, Chicago, and Plano, Illinois, home of Mies van der Rohe’s epochal modernist residence, the Farnsworth House.

Fort Wayne, Indiana is home to the giant campus and warehouse of Internet music retailer Sweetwater.com. While there, I interviewed Mitch Gallagher, their editorial director and chief YouTube clip producer (and former Keyboard magazine editor) for a 17-minute podcast interview at the PJ Lifestyle section on both how Sweetwater grew from one man and a ’66 VW bus with a four-track recorder in the back to the giant operation it is today, and on what it takes for someone to get started recording his or her own music. Take a listen here.

* What, you’re not following me on Twitter? Well, that’s easy enough to rectify…

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Inspector General Slams Ambassador To Japan Caroline Kennedy’s Embassy as Amateur Hour: “Having a celebrity socialite run the huge embassy was as foolish as it looked.”

Hey, America was warned about placing celebrities in charge of huge government organizations in 2008, and foolishly ignored the danger signs:

HMM: ‘Metabolic Switch’ Toggles Our Cells to Store or Burn Fat. “Genetic risk factors like this one are often seen as bad cards; unlucky strokes of fate that we can’t do a damn thing about. But thanks to recent advances in synthetic biology, the idea of restoring normal functionality to bunk genes isn’t so crazy anymore. In laboratory cells and mice, Kellis and her collaborators are investigating whether fat-hoarding IRX genes can be switched into the fat-burning variety.”

We’ve all got a lot of things we’d like to be able to switch off, or on.

HERO: UNABLE TO CARRY ON, WOMAN CHUGS ENTIRE BOTTLE OF COGNAC AT AIRPORT SECURITY.

The ghosts of Keith Moon and John Bonham called, said you might want to dial it back a couple of notches…

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists discover how to ‘switch off’ cancer: Remarkable breakthrough means diseased cells can be made healthy again. Hope this pans out.

PJM PARENTING: WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF BEING AN OLDER PARENT?

FOX NEWS STAFFERS WARN TRUMP TO BACK OFF OF MEGYN KELLY AFTER FEUD REIGNITES: Funny how, much like Obama in 2008 and 2009, Trump only goes after Fox News, isn’t it? Though to be fair, get back to me when Trump or a national surrogate threatens to through a journalist through a plate glass window.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Craig DeRoche, Highly Functional: A Collision of Addiction,Justice and Grace.

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: FDNY rescues 910-pound woman through apartment window.

WHO IS TOBY MILES? The roots of Lois Lerner’s latest secret email account: “Her use of the mysterious account has prompted speculation into the source of the name. “Toby Miles,” according to a former Lerner colleague, is the name of Lerner’s dog: Toby is the dog’s, and Miles is the surname of Lerner’s husband, Michael Miles. . . .Lerner was not alone in her use of an e-mail alias. Lisa Jackson, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, used the e-mail alias ‘Richard Windsor,’ apparently derived from the name of a dog her family owned while living in Windsor, New Jersey.”

THE INSTA-WIFE ON OLD DOMINION’S HIGHER-ED POLICE STATE: “Go ahead and drop off mom too.” “If women and white knight university presidents are too fragile for this type of prank, they should have their own free standing universities (asylums) where they can live in a bubble filled with other people just like them filled with unicorns and butterflies. These people are idiots and the frat guys are freedom fighters. Fight the good fight and stand up for free speech, even if it is offensive.”

Punch back twice as hard.

Related: Sigma Nu’s banner is protected speech. And it’s not very offensive.

UPDATE: Old Dominion University President John R. Broderick earns $368,493 in annual salary. Post that on your house, as a reader suggests. . . .

DON SURBER: Billionaires For Bernie! “The rich long ago figured out how to profit from socialism. Why do you think FDR, JFK and Jay Rockefeller supported bigger and bigger government? And so George Soros (worth $9 billion before Obama’s presidency began, $24 billion today) indulges in this luxury. And this year Soros is underwriting large chunks of the campaign of that young man Bernie Sanders.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rising UNC Student Loan Default Rates Indicate Fundamental Problems.

MOE LANE: Twitter Will Probably Keep Blocking Politician-Archiving: “Twitter almost certainly values having politicians on Twitter more than it values holding those politicians accountable for what they say on Twitter. Therefore, Twitter will do little things to please its politician-tweeters. Not archiving their Tweets is a very nice ‘little thing’ for Twitter to do.”

KURT SCHLICHTER ON LANGUAGE: Liberals Use PC Words Because They’re Convenient To Them. Here Are Words To Use Instead.

MARC THIESSEN: An Ominous Precedent For Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Clinton likes to point out that she is not the first senior national security official to conduct official business on a home computer system. She’s right about that, but the precedent should not give the Democratic presidential front-runner much comfort. Former CIA director John Deutch was also found to have stored classified documents — including top-secret intelligence — on computers in his homes in Bethesda and Belmont, Mass., leading to an investigation by the CIA inspector general and a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Deutch was stripped of his security clearance and ended up reaching a plea agreement admitting to his crimes — but was saved by a last-minute pardon from none other than . . . President Bill Clinton. The parallels between the Deutch and Clinton cases suggest that come January 2017, instead of planning her presidential transition, Clinton may find herself lobbying for a last-minute pardon of her own.”

To be fair, I think her plan is to pardon herself.