TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 836.

“SMART DIPLOMACY” UPDATE: Beijing: What Pivot?

Washington harbors doubts about China’s June 30 announcement that it had completed its land reclamation projects in the Spratly Islands, according to the WSJ. The article also makes clear that the Pentagon thinks China is still on track to militarize the artificial atolls (not excluding the suspiciously airfield-shaped one, notably). What’s more, the report highlights how Beijing has persisted in its strategy of expanding its territory incrementally. According to the Pentagon, as of May China had reclaimed 2,000 acres, and by June it was up another 900.

It looks like Beijing isn’t too worried that any U.S. pivot is going to get in the way of its regional ambitions. As we’ve said before, however, China may be gravely mistaken if it assumes that the U.S. won’t ever take more drastic measures to oppose its aggression. In the meantime, President Xi’s visit with President Obama in Washington next month may be rather tense.

Well, it won’t be tense if Obama doesn’t care. Related: Scary Signs From The Korean Peninsula. Obama’s interested in consolidating power at home, and doesn’t much care what happens to American interests abroad. The Chinese, and the North Koreans, know that.

JUSTICE: Inspector Gotcha: New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has zealously used his office to pursue cases favored by left-wing activists. A political operative wielding the power of the state.

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TRADITIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE, HOWEVER, WAS LESS THAN MASSIVE: Massive Planned Parenthood protests across US. “Despite the massive turnout, several people said there was little to no media presence at the events.”

The point of journalism, in today’s America, is to make sure that Americans don’t know things that might cause them to vote Republican.

INSIDE: ONE OF HILLARY’S EMAILS. World’s oldest message in a bottle ever found finally washes up after 108 years.

IMMIGRATION: Terror Attack On Train Puts Spotlight On Schengen.

The ease with which the terror suspect in the failed train attack moved around Europe has put the spotlight on the passport-free Schengen Area.

Calls for tighter border security within Europe are expected to increase after it emerged that the gunman overpowered by passengers in France on Friday was known to anti-terror authorities in France, Belgium and Spain.

Charles Michel, Belgium’s prime minister, called for urgent talks with France, Germany and the Netherlands on increasing security on cross-border trains.

However, the European Commission said the Schengen treaty on freedom of movement was “non-negotiable” and there were no plans to change it. But it said increased security controls could be compatible with Schengen “if they do not have an effect equivalent to border checks”.

The train originated in the Netherlands, passing Belgium before entering France — three of the 26 Schengen countries where people travel without the need for passports and security checks. Passport and luggage checks are, however, carried out on Eurostar services that run to Britain, which is outside the Schengen Area.

I predict that more countries will choose to be outside the Schengen Area if this keeps up. Even the Germans are talking about it:

The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, on Saturday called the train episode “a terrorist attack” and proposed “an urgent meeting of transport and interior ministers from Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands to reinforce antiterrorist measures, notably identity and baggage controls,” his office said.

Attacks like this one, combined with Europe’s difficulties this summer with a surge of migrants and asylum seekers from Iraq, Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Libya and other countries, have made some officials question the open borders under the Schengen Agreement, which allows free movement without border controls across much of the European Union. Even the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, has suggested a new examination of that agreement because of the large flow of migrants to Germany and other northern countries from entry points in Greece, Italy and Hungary.

Borders exist for a reason.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE! Student charged over false sexual assault accusation.

A University of Arkansas student who claimed she was sexually assaulted will face felony charges for her false report, according to the Arkansas Traveler.

Police are charging junior Lindsey Sweetin with filing a false police report. Sweetin claimed she was groped by a stranger in a parking garage on Feb. 26. But witness testimony and video surveillance cast doubt on Sweetin’s claim and she eventually admitted to lying.

“Individuals need to be held accountable for their actions,” Capt. Gary Crain of the UA police department told the Traveler. “In this case, what was reported to the police did not happen, and therefore, just like anyone else who commits a crime, they have to be held responsible.”

This was the second false report of sexual assault at the university in the past year. Previously, Julia Garcia, another student, had claimed she was raped in a different UA parking garage. Again, video surveillance proved she was lying.

I’m glad they’re punishing these women, and reporting their names.

THE HILL: Poll: Most black people prefer ‘all lives matter.’

Two out of three black people prefer the term “all lives matter” to “black lives matter,” according to a Rasmussen poll released Thursday.

Only 31 percent of black people surveyed said that the statement “black lives matter” most closely comports to their own beliefs, compared to 64 percent who chose “all lives matter.”

Seventy-eight percent of total respondents also chose “all lives matter,” including 81 percent of white and 76 percent of minority respondents, according to the poll.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley drew criticism for telling a group of Black Lives Matter protestors that “all lives matter” at an event in New Hampshire last month.

O’Malley has since apologized for the claim.

“That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect,” O’Malley said. “I did not mean to be insensitive in any way or communicate that I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”

GOP primary front-runner Donald Trump called O’Malley a “little, weak, pathetic baby” for apologizing.

Yeah, pretty much.

JENNIFER GRANICK: The End Of The Internet Dream? In 20 years, the Web might complete its shift from liberator to oppressor. It’s up to us to prevent that.

INSOMNIA THEATRE RETURNS! “IS THE FEAR OF BEING OFFENSIVE KILLING FREE SPEECH?” — I had the pleasure of sitting down with spiked! editor-at-large and self-proclaimed propagandist Mick Hume while I was in the U.K. in July. We talked about all-things free speech, from the growing tendency in the U.K. to ban offensive speech to European blasphemy laws to his new book, Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?. If Mick’s name looks familiar, it may be because of his great piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, “Even Speech We Hate Should Be Free.” Check out the video, the op-ed, and his new book!

WHEN FEMINIST BULLIES ATTACK: Can Canada understand Free Speech?

IMMIGRATION BACKLASH: Sweden’s nationalists lead polls for first time.

More people support Jimmie Åkesson’s Sweden Democrats than any other political group in Sweden, according to a new poll which puts the nationalists in the lead for the first time in history.

The Sweden Democrat party has been gradually rising in popularity since it scored 12.9 percent in the country’s last general election in September 2014.

But a survey by pollsters YouGov published in Sweden’s Metro newspaper on Thursday suggested that 25.2 percent of those questioned would now vote for the nationalists, who are calling for dramatic cuts in immigration to Sweden.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrat party – which remains in favour of helping large numbers of refugees from war torn nations – scored 23.4 percent in the poll. The centre-right Moderates, led by Anna Kinberg Batra who took over from the country’s former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt earlier this year, saw their share cut to just 21.0, having previously scored higher than their ruling rivals in recent surveys.

The Sweden Democrats, with roots in the country’s most radical extreme right, entered parliament in 2010 with the ambition of curbing Sweden’s immigration and refugee policy.

If the establishment won’t give the people what they want, then “radical extreme” people will arise to do so.

THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF THIS GOING AROUND, LATELY: Bartender Foils Robbery at 14th Street NW Restaurant. “He announced his intentions as soon as he got to the bar and I just clocked him in the jaw.”

Related: Metairie bar hostage standoff ends when patron overpowers gunman. “As the SWAT team members arrived, a woman ran out of the bar shouting ‘they got him!’ Deputies entered from the back of the bar, and learned that one patron had jumped on Schlumbrecht and overpowered him and took away the AK-47. Several other customers helped hold the gunman down, according to the release.”

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Forecasts of the decline of capitalism are premature.

If you define capitalism as the interaction of individuals with a market economy, the system is advancing, not retreating. New-economy websites such as Airbnb and Etsy allow people to earn money in new ways—renting out their homes while they are on holiday, or selling arts and crafts. In the past, homeowners might have struggled to find renters and hobbyists to find buyers; aggregator websites make the task much easier.

It is true that some of these new websites undermine existing business models, just as file-sharing wrecked music-publishing companies. But investors expect most of these companies to be profitable eventually, judging by the valuations they attract. Google started as a free internet-search business but has found a way to monetise its reach. The move from an economy based on physical goods to one based on software and intellectual property seems to be allowing higher returns on capital than before. The internet has been in wide use for 20 years or so, and corporate profits are close to a post-war high as a proportion of American GDP.

By reducing the cost of information, the internet kills some business models. But not all. New models will appear and people will always be willing to pay for products that convey status, whether luxury watches or fast cars or branded clothing. They can stream music for nothing, but people will spend vast sums to hear rock bands play live.

Another new-economy effect is that the old idea of lifetime employment is fading. More people will follow “portfolio careers”, switching from one employer, or even industry, to another as the economy changes. This will require them not just to learn new skills as they age, but to monitor the economy for new opportunities.

Many more people are likely to be self-employed, offering services to a wide range of customers. In a sense, they will be artisans, not employees. Activities such as sales, marketing and accounting—matters that salaried employees leave in the hands of specialist colleagues—will become the responsibility of the individual. Such workers will have to be more, not less, sensitive to the market economy than the typical office drone.

And then there are pensions. Two decades ago, many workers could rely on a paternalistic system under which companies provided a retirement income linked to their final salary. New private-sector workers merely build up a savings pot, which they must use to see them through their retirement years as best they can.

Lefties hate the sharing economy, and self-employment, because both tend to turn people into capitalists.

THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT: Yelp Is Now Rating The IRS: 2.5 Stars. Actually, on the few occasions we’ve dealt with the IRS, they’ve been helpful and polite. But then, we never dealt with Lois Lerner. . . .

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): DA: Malvern Prep counselor promised teen Harvard admission for sex.

A guidance counselor at a prestigious private school in Chester County is accused of pursuing a teen student for sex, even promising him admission to Harvard University in an effort to coerce him.

Emily Feeney, 40, of Wayne, Pa., was a swim coach and Director of College Counseling at Malvern Prep for two years. She has since been fired, District Attorney Tom Hogan said.

“The defendant was extraordinarily predatory in the way she attacked this 16-year-old boy, going after him again and again and again,” said Hogan. . . .

“When it’s happening between a 40-year-old adult and a 16-year-old child – with that difference in power and authority – that is the sort of sexual abuse that we worry about,” said Hogan.

Investigators said hundreds of emails were recovered after a search warrant. They say Feeney was sending messages from her Malvern Prep work email account.

Should’ve used her own private server.

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Looking At Living Cells Down To Individual Molecules.

WHEN THE STORY FITS THE NARRATIVE TOO WELL, BE VERY SUSPICIOUS: Alice Goffman’s Implausible Ethnography: ‘On the Run’ reveals the flaws in how sociology is sometimes produced, evaluated, and rewarded. “If science is bitterly competitive, and it isn’t set up to catch liars, and there are great rewards for liars who don’t get caught, then one doesn’t need a Ph.D. in social science to realize that this system will produce a whole lot of lying, and that a lot of that lying won’t ever be discovered. . . . Goffman’s book confirmed the suspicions of many readers that not only police misconduct but also standard policing practices, and indeed the very structure of the criminal-justice system, play key roles in maintaining the oppressive and dysfunctional status quo in America’s inner cities. In retrospect, the widespread failure to notice On the Run’s contradictions, incongruities, and improbabilities can be explained, in part, by the same factors that led Science to publish Michael LaCour’s fraudulent study, which told a story many readers wanted to hear about how to overcome opposition to gay marriage.”

Plus: “In the case of On the Run, groupthink and confirmation bias provide only part of the answer to the question of how this at best unreliable book achieved mainstream acclaim. Something more invidious than negligence and wish fulfillment is at work here. . . . Alice Goffman is a product of system that uncritically rewards the kind of things she was doing, even when those things may have included engaging in serious crimes, or serious academic misconduct.”

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GREENFAIL: LED Lights Add To Pollution.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) — which are touted for their energy-saving properties — are actually making light pollution worse. And the change is so intense that ISS crew members can see it from space. . . .

Cities around the world have been replacing energy-guzzling streetlights with brighter and whiter energy-saving LEDs. In fact, New York City is retrofitting all of its 250,000 street lights with LEDs in what the city is calling the biggest project of its type in the country.

But energy savings does not necessarily translate to happy city dwellers. In a piece in The New York Times, Brooklyn residents complained about the glaring white light creeping into their homes and eyes, causing many restless nights.

LEDs worsen light pollution by giving off more blue and green light than the high-pressure sodium lights they normally replace. And this artificial light pollution washes out the night sky and is linked to many negative consequences. Disrupted night and day cycles can confuse nocturnal animals and alter their hunting interactions, migratory patterns, and internal physiology.

It can also mess with our internal clocks.

Unintended consequences.

A PACK, NOT A HERD: Packing heat in Detroit: Motown residents answer police chief’s call to arms.

In a city plagued by chronic unemployment and crime and guarded by a dwindling police force, residents of Detroit are increasingly taking protection of themselves, their families and property into their own hands. Those who do so responsibly have the blessing and backing of Detroit Police Chief James Craig.

“When you look at the city of Detroit, we’re kind of leading the way in terms of urban areas with law-abiding citizens carrying guns,” Craig said recently.

The chief’s call to arms, which first came in December, 2013, has been answered by thousands of men and women tired of being victims and eager to reclaim their beleaguered city.

A glimpse of our future?

I DUNNO, I FEEL LIKE I COULD FIND WORK FOR A FEW DOZEN TERMINATOR ROBOTS RIGHT NOW. Ban or No Ban, Hard Questions Remain on Autonomous Weapons.