CLOSE CALL: How a 1967 Solar Storm Nearly Led to Nuclear War.

The U.S. Air Force began preparing for war on May 23, 1967, thinking that the Soviet Union had jammed a set of American surveillance radars. But military space-weather forecasters intervened in time, telling top officials that a powerful sun eruption was to blame, according to the study.

“Had it not been for the fact that we had invested very early on in solar and geomagnetic storm observations and forecasting, the impact [of the storm] likely would have been much greater,” Delores Knipp, a space physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “This was a lesson learned in how important it is to be prepared.”

Read the whole, fascinating thing.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Here are the Anti-Israel Tweets from Hijab-Wearing Olympian.

“But, but, but she wants to change the perception about Muslims.”

FAILURE MODE: Delta Airlines Computer Failure Part of a Pattern.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Dem Senate candidate and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland: Scalia’s death ‘happened at a good time.’

JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE. Study: Networks dedicate over 5X more coverage to Trump comment than Mateen at Clinton rally.

THE NEW YORK TIMES CAN’T BEST PROMETHEUS OVER FIRE’S DOWNSIDES, David Marcus writes at the Federalist:

The Times piece is steeped in determinism. One doesn’t choose to smoke; one smokes because human beings discovered how to control fire. Women don’t choose to stay home with the kids and cook; they do so because the use of fire demands it. This is distinctly at odds with the ancient story of fire. In the ancient version, fire imposed choice; it did not dictate our evolutionary outcomes as demographics on a social scientist’s spreadsheet. Fire was, rather, an angry invitation from the gods to fend for ourselves and see how we like it.

This matter of choice versus predetermination is central to the progressive worldview. On every issue including sexual orientation, transsexuality, even drug and alcohol abuse, the virtue or fault is never in us or our choices. While the conservative or religious person sees free will with all of its challenges and tests, the progressive or atheist sees inescapable tendencies born of ancient ancestors rubbing sticks together.

Plus this quote from Chesterton:

Novelist G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” He could easily have been talking about our obsession with science in the current year. What good are the studied opinions of dead white men who lived before microscopes? What could ancient texts possibly teach us about the human condition in our enlightened age? As it turns out, they can teach us quite a bit.

Read the whole thing.

IT’S THE ELECTION COLLECTION, on Amazon Instant Video.

#GREENFAIL: China’s Solar Binge Is Turning Into a Hangover.

REPORT: CARLY FIORINA ANGLING FOR REINCE PRIEBUS’ JOB.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 11 Incredible Things You Can Build Using Only 2 x 4s.

TRIAL BY JURY MAKES IT TOO HARD FOR THE STATE TO CONTROL PEOPLE: Trial by Jury, a Hallowed American Right, Is Vanishing. “Legal experts attribute the decline primarily to the advent of the congressional sentencing guidelines and the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences, which transferred power to prosecutors, and discouraged defendants from going to trial, where, if convicted, they might face harsher sentences.”

See also my Ham Sandwich Nation paper on this.

VIDEO: I LEARNED MORE AT McDONALD’S THAN AT COLLEGE. From Olivia Legaspi at Prager University:

I can understand and relate to that — I learned far more running a small business in the early 1990s than in college. Its very sink or swim nature is a powerful incentive to learn as much as possible about your clients and what they want, the products your selling, and the local world to whom you market.

Related: Five Red Flags That Scream ‘Don’t Hire This Person.’

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Bloomberg, Daily Caller: Bombshells in top Clinton aides’ e-mails tie back to former Marc Rich partner.

OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Wargaming the Electoral College.

Trump’s path to 270 has narrowed considerably since last month.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER? Malia Obama Caught on Video Smoking Pot at Lollapalooza?

Whatever your views are of marijuana, its recreational use is illegal in Pennsylvania, even at Lollapalooza.

President Obama famously wrote about his drug use as a young man in Dreams from My Father:

I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though—Mickey, my potential initiator had been just a little too eager for me to go through with that.

You have to wonder if maybe there is a cavalier attitude about drugs in that family, especially considering some of the shady characters that regularly parade through the White House.

Well, yes. But don’t look to the DNC-MSM to connect any dots — as John Nolte likes to say, Democrats sure got it good.

GOOD — I CERTAINLY ENJOYED THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY A DECADE AGO: TriStar, Mark Gordon & eOne Revive ‘The Chronicles Of Narnia’ With ‘The Silver Chair.’

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: 2016: Is Anybody Actually Trying To Win This Thing?

LAWYERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS GROUPS GET MILLIONS IN TAX DOLLARS: They do it by filing “citizen suits” demanding more regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior and other federal agencies, according to Michael Bastasch and Ethan Barton of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The suits are authorized – some might say invited – under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA), among others. These “sue and settle” legal charades happen behind closed doors where the lawyers for the activists groups confer with lawyers for the government to work out a “settlement.”

The lawyers fees for the plaintiffs are paid by the taxpayers, a provision of the laws which provides a significant incentive to do as many depositions and file the maximum number of motions before the settlement talks commence.

“Federal agencies paid out $30 million to attorneys for 237 citizen suits under the ESA. Citizen suits under CAA paid out the second most, at $13 million for 224 suits, and the 51 CWA suits resulted in $6.7 million in federal payments,” according to Bastasch and Barton.

The Sierra Club is the most frequent user the provision, suing federal agencies 34 times between 2009 and 2012, often represented by Earthjustice, which was spun-off of the club in 1997.

“Earthjustice has received $4 million from suing federal agencies 39 times since 2009, according to TheDCNF’s findings. The group declined to speak with TheDCNF when asked about getting attorney’s fees paid for when suing the government,” according to Bastasch and Barton.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Substantial’ Number of Syrian Refugee Applicants Have Been Rejected.

The reasons, which shouldn’t surprise you, include “terrorism and national security concerns.”

VA HOSPITAL BOUGHT $311,000 IN TVS “BECAUSE THEY HAD FUNDS AVAILABLE:”  Taxpayers give bureaucrats money so bureaucrats can spend it just because they have it. That’s apparently the attitude the prompted officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs Detroit hospital to buy $311,000 worth of TVs that were never used and ended up in storage.

Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group reports that the TVs were bought in 2013 and intended for use in a new patient area to be constructed. Three years later and the new patient area has yet to be built and the warranties on the unused TVs have expired.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1189.

JACK DUNPHY: Chicago Car Thief Is Latest Martyr for Black Lives Matter.

Related: Report: Street Gangs Targeting Chicago Police for Assassination.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Leak In The College Bubble?

When the housing bubble burst and sent the economy into a tailspin, the college bubble started to inflate even more rapidly. Desperate to compete in a brutal labor market, workers faced intensifying pressures to rack up degrees. Colleges (even marginal institutions) found a pool of captive consumers willing to pay high prices for their dubious credentials. And businesses, which had a dominant edge in the slack labor market, had the luxury of tossing out applicants without impressive educational histories.

But now that the labor market is tightening, each of these dynamics is changing, and the artificially inflated value of a college degree may be starting to come back down to earth. . . .

This trend couldn’t be more welcome. As we’ve noted before, college—at least for many students, and in many areas of study—”functions more and more as a signaling device for employers and a networking tool for the middle and upper classes rather than as a rigorous educational program.” There are a number of interests that would like to see this system sustained—academic bureaucracies, downwardly mobile children of the rich, and investors in student debt chief among them. But employers, students, and the public at large are all better served by a job market that allocates opportunities based on actual skills and knowledge, rather than empty letters on a resume.

All is proceeding as I have foretold.

ROGER SIMON DISCOVERS THE REAL REASON THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HATES TRUMP.