SPEAKER RYAN’S CONDITIONS: It looks like Paul Ryan will do the job, but he’ll do it on his own terms.

He laid them out at a Republican-conference meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, telling his colleagues he wants the bickering to end. That means, Republicans said as they exited the meeting, he wants universal endorsements from the various caucuses, specifically from the conservative Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the more moderate Tuesday Group. He gave members until Friday to let him know if they could rally behind him, so that he could make preparations or give other candidates the opportunity to do so. “If I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve,” Ryan reiterated to reporters later. If not, he said, “I’ll be happy to stay where I am at the Ways and Means Committee.”

This is very much like what Mitt Romney did when asked to take over Bain Consulting. I wonder if Ryan consulted him?

SILICON VALLEY’S REAL DIVERSITY PROBLEM? IT’S AGE.

In Silicon Valley there is one underrepresented group in particular — one that by law is entitled to fair treatment in hiring and employment practices — that not only has failed to enter this conversation, but is often regarded as anathema when it comes to headcount.

And that is people over 40. Or 45. Or 50, or 60. You know . . . old people.

The illegal age discrimination in Silicon Valley is so bad that people are getting plastic surgery to “pass” as young. Why are all these lefty enclaves such hotbeds of prejudice and discrimination?

SHE’S PRETTY: Holly Burt contending for title of longest legs in America measuring at 49.5 inches from hip to heel.

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE: “Yes, my friends: The Empire is good. Now, more than ever.”

How can you be an Obama, Sanders, Hillary, or heck, even a Trump supporter, and think anything else?

SO, BASICALLY, THE MILITARY IS BEING RUN BY PUBLIC SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS NOW: Air Force probes punishment for pilots grounded over Miley lyric texts. “The top Air Force general is getting involved in the case of several pilots who were grounded after exchanging text messages that referenced Miley Cyrus lyrics — but were seen by their commanding officers as evidence of drug activity.”

CAN YOU SEE THE REAL ME? “October 19 was the anniversary of the release of [the album version of] The Who’s rock opera Quadrophenia, a movie I loved in high school. This would have been normal, I guess, for a teenager in the mid-1970s, but I was in high school around 1990, when Vanilla Ice and the New Kids on the Block were riding high on the charts.”

I loved Quadrophenia as well.  To celebrate the 35th anniversary of its film version’s release, I wrote a lengthy post last year exploring the twin early ’60s British cults of mods and rockers and how they were born via what Tom Wolfe calls “Information Ricochet,” and how in turn the mods led to a very different — yet entirely related — film full of angry young men dancing the night away in suits and ties, Saturday Night Fever.

FORMER CHAIRMAN ACCUSES BBC OF ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS.

Why, it’s almost as if there’s a powerfully corrosive internal culture that makes it near-impossible to trust the BBC’s reportage on a variety of issues.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: If Bernie Sanders didn’t have to fight in Vietnam because of his beliefs, why do business owners have to participate in gay weddings in spite of theirs?

As early as the American Revolution, citizens whose religious beliefs reject violence in all cases have been granted accommodations and have not been forced to fight. The guarantees of religious freedom in the First Amendment solidified the right to refuse combat service owing to deeply held moral beliefs. In the 1965 Seeger decision, the Supreme Court extended conscientious objector status to pacifists whose beliefs were not based on any orthodox religion.

All of this leads to an intriguing question: if Sanders didn’t have to fight in Vietnam because of his beliefs, why do business owners have to participate in gay weddings in spite of theirs?

Because the Constitution only gives you rights to avoid things lefties disapprove of. Duh.

SEE, THIS IS WHERE THE TRADITIONS INVOLVING EGGS AND TOILET PAPER COME INTO PLAY:

I saw this on Facebook and I’m pretty sure it’s a parody. But these days, who can tell? I see it as evidence that we live in a society that is beyond parody.

“RENOWNED ELECTRONICS INVENTOR HEADS FOR FAMOUS HIGH-TECH CENTER:” “According to multiple reports, Ahmed Mohamed is going to leave Irving, Texas, and move to Qatar — but not before he picks up his clock from the local police department,” and after meeting Mr. Obama, to boot.

Qatar does seem to be quite the attraction for frustrated scientific geniuses, doesn’t it?

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: NASA Picks Winners for 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Design Contest.

MAGICAL THINKING, PART DEUX: ‘Director of Women and Gender Studies’ Calls on Obama to Ban Firearms.

I’m sure Mr. Obama will get right on that, as soon as he’s done implementing George Clooney’s earlier wish that he ban automobiles.

MAGICAL THINKING: Kerry: Climate Change Greater, Easier to Solve Than ‘Mind-Bending False Assumptions About Islam’

Freud called it displacement.

WHAT HATH DAN WROUGHT? Finally — Dan Rather interviewed in a PJ Media video, violating all of the space-time continuum rules of mixing dinosaurs and humans in the same TV segment.

As our longtime readers know, Dan’s former producer Jonathan Klein inadvertently named the site for us when he barked in reply to a question from Bill O’Reilly in September of 2004 on how Rather had eviscerated his credibility. “It’s an important moment, because you couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances, and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks.”

It was indeed a stark contrast, but not in the way Klein (and Rather) had intended. Which brings us to Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal: Dan Rather, Still Wrong After All These Years.

HEALTH: The Fats You Don’t Need to Fear, and the Carbs That You Do. Nobody who pushed the terrible advice, though, has paid any price at all. Imagine if pharma companies had made a similar error, with similar consequences. And this article still isn’t all the way there.

AND NOW FOR THE WEEK’S REAL NEWS: Taylor Swift Backpedals on “Bad Blood” as Her Throne of Lies Crumbles Beneath Her.

YOU PROBABLY THINK HIPAA PROTECTS YOUR MEDICAL PRIVACY: Not if federal bureaucrats want your records. All they have to do is issue an administrative subpoena. The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Kathyrn Watson says forget the Fourth Amendment because Congress decided administrative subpoenas don’t need prior approval by a judge

I AGREE: Why the Miura Is the Greatest Lamborghini Ever Made. It still looks terrific, and not a bit dated, today.

THIS SOUNDS KINDA FAMILIAR, IN A WAY: UK vision of future 2020 soldiers with sensor laden body armor.

HAVING SOLVED ALL OF MANHATTAN’S PROBLEMS, BILL DeBLASIO TURNS TO REDUCING ITS SODA CONSUMPTION — and his Democrat operatives with bylines are eager to help: The New York Times and the Daily News near-simultaneously advocate for increased soda taxes.

Perhaps the goal is to implement the Blue Zone Taxes incrementally, but isn’t there a paradox here? Don’t all those additional taxes more greatly harm those with lower incomes, thus increasing income inequality?

SECURITY: Common advice on how to make a strong password is misleading, according to a new study of password-guessing techniques.

WHEN UNCOMFORTABLE LEARNING IS TOO UNCOMFORTABLE: Suzanne Venker: Williams College dropped me from its ‘Uncomfortable Learning’ speaker series. Why?

Related: Cost of attending Williams College for one year: $63,290.

UPDATE: Note that it was the students who dropped Venker, not the administration, which wasn’t clear from the original headline at Fox.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Tuesday that it is investigating reports that a supervisor used government time to recruit workers for private sex swinger parties at his home.”

INTELLIGENCE: IARPA’s New Director Wants You to Surprise Him: Jason Matheny, former leader of the Office for Anticipating Surprise, hopes to cast a wide net to help solve spy-agency problems.