LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep — and humans could be next.

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Bill Nye Has Had Enough Of Your ‘Extra Kids.’

In the words of Professor Proton: “Back off, bowtie!”

I REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE TALKING ABOUT A 600 SHIP NAVY: A 355-Ship Navy Could Take Two Decades, Cost $102 Billion A Year. If this is true, we’re doing something wrong.

Related: Is it time for a big fleet of small ships?

QUESTION ASKED: Could North Korea Annihilate Seoul with Its Artillery?

A 2011 study by the Nautilus Institute throws a considerable amount of cold water on this scenario. While the sheer number of artillery tubes could theoretically kill a large number of civilians, operational issues complicate matters and push the number of civilian casualties greatly downward. Despite the thousands of artillery pieces, only 700 heavier guns and rocket launchers, plus the newer 300-millimeter MRLs, have the range to strike Seoul. Only a third would normally be fired at once, and notional rates of fire would be slowed tremendously by the need to withdraw guns into their hardened artillery sites (HARTS) to shelter them from counter battery fire.

Other factors reduce the projected loss of life in the greater Seoul metropolitan area. The city has extensive air raid shelters for civilians that will quickly reduce the exposed population density. The North will struggle to keep these heavy artillery units supplied with shells, particularly with its aging supply system. Finally, U.S. and ROK forces will quickly begin hunting down units participating in the bombardment, causing their numbers to drop almost immediately.

Good to know.

CONGRESS SHALL PASS NO LAW: Press Freedom Group Finds Bleaker Situation for Media in Nearly Two-Thirds of Countries.

In the last year of the Obama Administration, the U.S. dropped yet another two spots down to 43rd.

We should be ashamed.

WELL, GOOD: Drugs already in medicine cabinets may fight dementia, early data suggests.

BREAKING: Ann Coulter to Drop Out of Berkeley Speech. Roger L. Simon explains that “this is because the conservative group Young America’s Foundation backed away, citing safety issues. The irony in all this is nothing looks worse for the left than a bunch of masked goons breaking university windows. Too bad.”

RIP: Oscar-Winning Director Jonathan Demme Dies at 73.

Incongruous as it seems, Demme directed one of the best concert movies of all time — Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense — and with Silence of the Lambs, one of the best horror movies, too.

NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATT YGLESIAS DOES NOT APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN INVOLVED: Drunk Man Arrested After Attacking Armless Security Robot.

BETTER METAL PRINTING: The 3-D Printer That Could Finally Change Manufacturing.

SCIENCE: Ancient humans may have reached Americas 100,000 years earlier than thought.

JEWISH WOMAN BOOED IN GERMANY.

THE ART OF THE DEAL: BREAKING: House Freedom Caucus announces that it now supports GOP health care reform bill with MacArthur amendment.

CHRISTIAN TOTO ON HOLLYWOOD’S POST-BUSH WAR MACHINE: Truth or Propaganda?

HOW TO AVOID A TECH COUNTERREVOLUTION.

THE MORE YOU SWEAT IN PEACE… Beltway Agencies’ Terror Drill to Cover Six Sites Like Paris Attacks.

TESTING THE WATERS: US Navy destroyer fires warning shots at unresponsive, approaching Iranian ship.

The real lede is buried deep in the penultimate paragraph:

Since the nuclear deal with world powers, the hard-line Revolutionary Guard has stepped up its encounters with the Americans. The Navy recorded 35 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and/or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces in 2016, compared to 23 in 2015. With Monday’s event, there have been seven so far in 2017, McConnaughey said. [emphasis added]

I wonder why that is. Perhaps Mr. Obama, back from his extended vacay and back in the public eye, should be asked to comment.

MAURICE STUCKE AND ARIEL EZRACHI: How Your Digital Helper May Undermine Your Welfare, and Our Democracy.

SOME TOPICS ARE NOT UP FOR DEBATE AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY AND FREE SPEECH IS ONE OF THEM: FIRE investigates.

I HAD BEEN TOLD THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Popular belief that saturated fat clogs up arteries is a myth, experts say.

The authors, led by Dr Aseem Malhotra, from Lister Hospital, Stevenage, wrote: “Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong.”

Dr Malhotra and colleagues Professor Rita Redberg, from the University of California at San Francisco, and Pascal Meier from University Hospital Geneva in Switzerland and University College London, cited a “landmark” review of evidence that appeared to exonerate saturated fat.
They said relative levels of “good” cholesterol, or high density lipoprotein (HDL), were a better predictor of heart disease risk than levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as “bad” cholesterol.

High consumption of foods rich in saturated fat such as butter, cakes and fatty meat has been shown to increase blood levels of LDL.
The experts wrote: “It is time to shift the public health message in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease away from measuring serum lipids (blood fats) and reducing dietary saturated fat.

“Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food.”

I’d walk 22 minutes for a ribeye and a Caesar.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Middle America wants to pop a beer and listen to sports talk, they don’t want to be lectured about why Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, Michael Sam is the new Jackie Robinson of sports, and Colin Kaepernick is the Rosa Parks of football. ESPN made the mistake of trying to make liberal social media losers happy and as a result lost millions of viewers.”

But leftist SJW losers are apparently ESPN’s management as well, and they don’t seem to mind their audience becoming more selective, as Ian Faith would say, as long as “those people” out there in the hinterlands aren’t tuning in.

And increasingly, their on-air talent is admitting to just that.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Knife Rights Action Alert: Michigan Switchblade-ban repeal passes Senate; Please contact House Judiciary Committee.

POLITICO: Why Democrats Are Dropping More F-Bombs Than Ever.

The last few months have seen expletives ringing from large sections of the Democratic bench. In a New York Magazine profile this month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) included one “fuck,” two “fucking”s, one “bullshit,” one “pissed off,” one “they suck,” and a “what the hell is going on?” DNC Chairman Tom Perez has awkwardly but assuredly brought profanity into his stump speeches, saying at a January DNC Future Forum, “if you don’t have the trust of the community, then you ain’t got shit,” and telling a New Jersey Working Families Alliance event in March that Republicans “don’t give a shit about people.” Kicking off an eight-state “Come Together and Fight Back” speaking tour alongside Senator Bernie Sanders in Portland, Maine last week, Perez turned to the president’s spending proposals—“They call it a ‘skinny budget.’ I call it a shitty budget.” By Thursday, the shop at Democrats.org was selling “Democrats give a sh*t about people” shirts.

Profanity’s caught on among the more junior ranks too. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy began a healthcare-related tweetstorm in February by saying “Let me count thy ways that the leaked GOP ACA repeal plan will totally, completely, monumentally screw you.” Virginia Governor candidate Tom Perriello’s healthcare take started similarly: “Republicans, this is not a damn game.” And California Congressman Ted Lieu maxed out his character limit in March to tweet, “Mr. President: If there was a wiretap at Trump Tower, that means a fed judge found probable cause of crime which means you are in deep shit.”

It’s enough to make you wonder what the hell is going on.

A laser-guided f-bomb can be a thing of beauty, but Gillibrand, Perez, et al., just seem to be lazily reflecting the frustrations of their constituents.

FASTER, PLEASE: Time for a Congressional Investigation of the Iran Deal, Roger Simon writes.