TOO GOOD TO CHECK:  Rejoice, red wine and chocolate can make you look younger.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard Just Hosted an Anal Sex Workshop Called ‘What What in the Butt.’

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IT DOES SEEM THAT WAY: Texas shooting: Gun laws aren’t the problem, government incompetence is.

But as was revealed Sunday, in what is becoming a common theme in these mass shootings, no amount of background checking would have stopped the shooter in Sutherland Springs, Texas from purchasing his firearms, because the federal government failed to do its job properly. It’s not the first time. . . .

But even when the FBI has all the data needed to flag someone from purchasing a gun, there have been examples of gross incompetence as well.

Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people during evening services at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.

Roof was not legally permitted to own a firearm due to an unlawful drug possession charge from earlier that year. Roof’s record listed the wrong arresting agency and because of this error, he was able to legally purchase the weapon he used in the shooting. Victims of family members killed by Roof have filed suit against the U.S. government because of this avoidable error.

Hold the government and its employees liable in the same way you’d hold nongovernmental entities and people liable. No immunity.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Should Children Form Emotional Bonds With Robots? I think the answer is “yes.” It’ll help prepare them for the sexbots they’ll be marrying as adults.

ELI LAKE: The Promising Crisis in Saudi Arabia: Purging rivals is often a bad sign. But in this case it may show an impatience to reform. I don’t know what’s going on there, and I suspect that few people, even in Saudi Arabia itself, do.

THE POTENTIAL CANCER RISKS of drinking alcohol.

THE MEDIA SEEM TO BE BENDING OVER BACKWARD TO JUSTIFY HIS BEATING: Rand Paul’s neighbors rip media ‘landscaping dispute’ reports.

The Bowling Green, Ky. neighbor who allegedly sucker attack Sen. Rand Paul last weekend, causing six broken ribs, was aggressively anti-Trump and anti-GOP in his social media, calling for the impeachment of the president and urging Russia investigator Robert Mueller to “fry Trump’s gonads.”

Captured screen grabs of Rene Boucher’s Facebook page provided to Secrets and taken down since the event also show that the anesthesiologist was a fan of the #NeverTrump clan.

His lawyer said that politics played no part and it has been suggested that the two verbally tussled over lawn clippings, leaving the impression that the Republican Kentucky senator was a negligent landscaper.

But seven neighbors in the Rivergreen gated community told Secrets Wednesday that the Pauls are friendly homeowners who kept their property tidy.

“The Paul’s landscaping looks just like everyone’s place in Rivergreen. Wish I could get him to cut my lawn,” said neighbor Robert Warner. “As a friend, neighbor and senator, Rand has been first class in every way. What I find amazing is the fact that he cuts his own grass. Our neighborhood is fortunate that the Paul’s live here,” he added.

All seven neighbors expressed shock at the “scary” attack on Paul as he was doing yard work last Saturday and they dismissed reports that it was the result of poor landscaping. However, they are puzzled about why Boucher, 59, allegedly tackled Paul, 54, who was wearing ear plugs at the time. Boucher has been charged with assault.

“The stories of a ‘landscaping dispute’ or a dispute of any sort between Rand Paul and Rene Boucher are erroneous and unfounded. The reason for Mr. Boucher’s bizarre attack is known only to him. Statements to the contrary are irresponsible and unnecessary,” said neighbor Travis Creed.

He added, “Speculation regarding Boucher’s motive has led to an unfair characterization of the Pauls and their home. The Pauls are and always have been great neighbors and friends. They take pride in their property and maintain it accordingly. Rand has enjoyed working on and maintaining his lawn for as long as I have known him.”

The press seems strangely eager to legitimize and excuse violence against Republicans in general. This will not end well.

Related: WSJ: Waiting for an explanation of an attack on a U.S. senator. “This was more than an attack on a neighbor. Now that his injuries are forcing Mr. Paul to miss votes, the assailant has temporarily prevented the people of Kentucky from enjoying their full constitutional representation in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Skaggs and his new close friends in the media may think it’s important for Mr. Paul to change his leaf-raking habits. But all Americans should simply be wishing him a speedy recovery and justice in a court of law.”

ME, FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY: The Lessons Learned From Hurricane Sandy.

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ANGELO CODEVILLA: Reflections on Terrorism, Dumb and Smart.

Peggy Noonan’s observation in the Wall Street Journal that the most recent jihadist mass murderer is “an idiot”—unlike the men who perpetrated 9/11, but like all who have struck us since—provokes more thought than likely went into it. Noonan correctly notes that 9/11 led us to expect more attacks with comparable planning and execution. Instead, we’ve been hit by random idiots, the most sophisticated of whom (the Bataclan murderers) operate at an elementary infantry level.

So what? Our ruling class concludes that more and better policing has precluded attacks on the scale of 9/11, limiting Islamist terrorism to a level with which we can live. But this lumping of terrorism into a single category misunderstands how very different 9/11 was from what has followed—different kinds of perpetrators, different bases of support, a different relationship with Islamism, and different in the dangers they comport for us. Hence they misunderstand what military and police action can accomplish.

Focusing on these differences—especially in the light of the recently released Osama Bin Laden documents and their emphasis on al-Qaeda’s latter-day relationship with Iran—invites us to cut through the establishment’s parrot-chorus of “what everyone knows” about terrorism and to unravel the complexity what we are really up against. The following is the first of a three-part attempt to do this. . . . The billions of dollars in barbed wire, badges, intelligence, and policing inflicted upon America since 9/11 have neither prevented nor thwarted any plans to attack the United States with the sophistication and on the scale of 9/11. The primordial fact is, no one has tried.

Read the whole thing.

I WONDER WHERE THAT CAME FROM? Minnesota county scrambles to control deadly tuberculosis outbreak.

HOW TO DISMANTLE A LITHUANIAN SHOPPING MALL: Music News: Bono didn’t know he was using a Lithuanian shopping mall as a tax haven.

THERE’S PROBABLY A LOT OF INTERESTING STUFF TO BE FOUND IN OLD DATA: The First Evidence of Exoplanets Was Recorded in 1917. A hundred years ago, astronomers had no idea what their observations meant.

UH-OH: Colombia in a Race Against Time to Protect Coffee Crops from Rust Disease.

OUTLAW CHAINSAW BAYONETS, AND ONLY OUTLAW LUMBERJACKS WILL OWN THEM: USA Today Wants to “Rap” With You Kids About the AR-15. “You’ll know the part when you see it.”

More at Twitchy, which rounds up loads of Photoshop parodies. The “Elmo Scope” seems particularly dangerous.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why ‘The Misogynists’ Is a Minor Hollywood Miracle. “How could a film about a Trump-loving jerk be balanced? This indie drama just might surprise you.”

DONNA BRAZILE SEEMS DETERMINED TO FINISH OFF HILLARY ONCE AND FOR ALL: Brazile Blames Clinton’s Health for ‘Basket of Deplorables’ Remark.

Thus the two worst moments of Hillary’s campaign in a single headline, her health scare on September 11th, the anniversary of both the 2001 attack on American soil and Benghazi, and her ‘Basket of Deplorables’ uber-gaffe:

Former DNC chairman Donna Brazile says she doesn’t think Hillary Clinton would have remarked that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables” if she was in “better health.”

Brazile reveals in her just-released book Hacked that she saw Clinton right before she made the “basket of deplorables” comment, and it was the first time she noticed “Hillary did not look well.”

Brazile “noticed her face was puffy,” “her skin looked pale and papery,” and “her eyes were glazed.” She approached Clinton about her health before the speech and observed her to be “wobbly on her feet” with a “rattled cough” so bad Brazile suggested medical attention.

Not exactly buried in the subtext of these quotes is that Hillary will be age 73 in 2020, and clearly, Brazile would like to see fresh blood next time around.

JUDICIAL WATCH: Justice Department Argues Comey’s Leak of ‘Flynn’ Memo to New York Times was Unauthorized, Compares Comey to Wikileaks.

REVIEW: 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT 392 / SRT Hellcat.

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SPENGLER: Curb your liberalism. “Liberal Jews aren’t funny, not, at least, to Jews who know the jokes in their original form.”

Read the whole thing.

DYING TO BE PRESIDENT: How Brazile’s book exposes liberal media’s Hillary health coverup.

Her coughing fits, especially a long one on Labor Day, and a history of falling were pointed out by the popular Drudge Report, some Republicans and smaller, conservative-leaning sites to suggest she was not being honest about her health.

But her campaign always denied anything was wrong — allergies, the candidate and her flacks insisted, caused the persistent coughs, and major news organizations mostly nodded their heads and stayed mum, accepting the official denials without skepticism.

The dam cracked a bit on Labor Day, when an NBC reporter filed a 91-word, four-paragraph story that said Clinton had been unable to finish her speech in Ohio because of a coughing fit.

The truth was dangerous, so the Praetorian Guard sprang to Clinton’s defense. The NBC reporter, Andrew Rafferty, was mocked and insulted, first by the campaign, and then by journalists, including some MSNBC commentators who turned on their colleague as if he had violated a secret oath.

CNN joined the Clinton amen chorus, and at the Washington Post, political writer Chris Cillizza denounced the topic of Clinton’s health as “a totally ridiculous issue” and declared it a “sure-fire loser” for Trump.

“It’s hard to plausibly insist, based on the available data, that Clinton is ill,” insisted Cillizza, who is now at CNN.

They haven’t been calling it Clinton News Network for 25 years for nothin’.

MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN — IN SPACE: An Interview With Space Council Executive Secretary Scott Pace.