MEANWHILE, BACK IN REALITY, BERNIE BROS SHOOT CONGRESSMEN AND CNN THREATENS THEIR VIEWERS. Pelosi: The Republican Budget “Stirs” Up Violence.

Reminder:

RATS ON THE WEST COAST, BEDBUGS UPTOWN: Man contracts hantavirus after staying in cabins at California park, family says.

A man was hospitalized with hantavirus, a rare and potentially fatal rodent-borne respiratory disease he may have contracted after staying in cabins at California parks, his family said.

Spencer Fly, 22, began having symptoms of the disease during the Fourth of July weekend, his family told Fox 40. The family wrote on a crowdfunding page they were camping at Lee Vining when Fry began having consistent headaches over five days. One day, he woke up with a 104-degree fever.

“My mom, Haven Fry, and I insisted he return Sacramento with us not knowing how fast this was going to progress,” Fry’s brother wrote.

“After a couple hours in the ER vomiting began and his lungs began to fill with fluid. He was quickly rushed to the ICU where he has now been for 9 days,” he added.

Not good.

NETFLIX AND CHILL: Television’s 10 Best Anti-Heroes of All Time.

Alas, neither Julie Newmar’s nor Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman made the cut.

BRAWN IN AN AGE OF BRAINS: At City Journal, Victor Davis Hanson asks, “Does physical labor have a future?”

Read the whole thing.

PROGRESS? Google unveils new ‘smart feed’ in Search with a ‘follow’ option.

At an unveiling in San Francisco on Tuesday, the Mountain View search giant gave a preview of the new “smart feed” scheduled to roll out for Apple iOS and Google Android mobile devices. It identifies areas of interest selected by a user, and their history of using Search, YouTube and other Google products, to produce a stream of news stories and other information intended to be unique to each user.

“None of us has quite the same mix of passions, interests and goals as the next person,” said Shashi Thakur, Google’s vice-president of engineering for Search. “It’s hard to find one place to stay in the know about exactly what matters to you.”

A “follow” button will appear next to certain search results including those concerning movies, sports, bands and celebrities. Hitting the button puts the topic into the feed.

The feed also relies on Google’s algorithms, which find out about a user’s interests by combing through their search history, the videos they watch on YouTube, music downloaded via Google Play, and their use of all other Google services. Location data is also used, according to Google.

Sounds helpful, but I’ll never be comfortable with that level of tracking.

DIESEL IN DECLINE: Porsche may abandon diesel in push for electric cars, CEO says.

DAVID STEINBERG: The Voter Purges Aren’t Coming, Just Another Silly Democratic Narrative.

I’VE LONG SUSPECTED THIS: That Drug Expiration Date May Be More Myth Than Fact.

SOMETHING THAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, WON’T:

● Shot: Illinois state workers highest paid in nation. Cost of Living Gives Illinois State Workers Top Stop.

—Newsalert, today.

● Chaser: Moving out: Illinois has country’s worst outbound rate in 2016.

—Illinois Policy, January 3rd, 2017.

THE PATRIARCHY — IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Peter Daou goes off on pretty much EVERYBODY after HuffPo reality check about Hillary.

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: A massive botnet was tweeting you porn for months.

BUT MICHELLE OBAMA ASSURED ME LAST YEAR THAT “WHEN THEY GO LOW, WE GO HIGH.” Bill Maher Goes Too Far: ‘Does Trump Have to Actually Blow Putin?’

Earlier: Stephen Colbert’s Shocking Attack On Trump Concludes With A Homophobic Slur: “In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,” which elicited gasps from the studio audience.”

Why are Democrat monopoly institutions such cesspits of homophobia, especially considering that Trump supported gay marriage even before Dick Cheney did?

SAMANTHA POWER, NOT CONTENT WITH KILLING HORDES OF PEOPLE IN THE MIDEAST AND NORTH AFRICA, MEDDLES IN POLITICS: Fmr. U.N. Amb. Power Emerges As Central Figure In Obama Unmasking Investigation: Congress demands answers on why Obama officials demanded classified intel that harmed Trump. I think I know why.

CHARLIE MARTIN: Where Does Global Warming Come From?

The essential measurement on which the climate change debate is based is the Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST). Conceptually, this is really pretty simple: you just put a thermometer on every point on the surface of the earth, take continuous readings for an entire year and then divide the sum of all those readings by the number of readings.

Practically, that presents problems: that’s a lot of thermometers and people use the surface of the Earth for doing other things than taking temperature readings. The reality is that the thermometers are anywhere from miles apart to thousands of miles, and they’re not at all uniform. So to estimate the GAST, the temperature measurements are fed into a model, which includes corrections. When I was writing about this in 2013, the difference between GAST and the predictions of GAST was becoming too big to ignore. Climate scientists then looked for reasons and added new corrections — but some of them were controversial.

Those who take the readings decide nothing. Those who model the readings decide everything.

IF YOU WANT TO UPGRADE ANYTHING, START WITH YOUR TIRES: If you want to upgrade your brakes, start with your tires.

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Sports Equipment.

Plus, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

MEET THE RESISTANCE: Antifa Site Includes Tips on Committing Sabotage.

GOOD LORD: North Korea firing squad carries out public executions in school yards, report says.

The report, released by The Transnational Justice Working Group in Seoul, gathered information from more than 300 North Korean refugees who witnessed the regime’s firing squad executing criminals in public areas to attract large crowds and instill fear in its citizens.

“In ordinary areas outside the prison system, our interviewees stated that public executions take place near river banks, in river beds, near bridges, in public sports stadiums, in the local marketplace, on school grounds in the fringes of the city, or on mountainsides,” the report stated.

The report said people were publicly executed for crimes such as stealing rice and livestock and distributing South Korean media.

Just another paradisiacal workers’ state.

THE MERCEDES OF PICKUP TRUCKS is a Mercedes.

STARRING FELICITY JONES? REALLY? The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Biopic Will Be A Superhero Movie Or Something.

AARON BLAKE: This poll is a warning sign for Democrats.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll, as Mike DeBonis and Emily Guskin report, presents a pretty mixed bag for Democrats. It shows that registered voters say they want Democrats to control Congress to be a check on Trump by a 52-38 percent margin, but it also shows Democrats are — rather remarkably — less enthusiastic about voting than Republicans are. While 65 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning adults say they are “almost certain to vote,” just 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults say the same.

The question from there is which is more predictive of what lies ahead. And the answer won’t necessarily make Democrats feel better.

Great, kid — don’t get cocky.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s National Oil Company On Its Last Legs.

Venezuelan refineries are operating significantly below operational capacity, a product of a lack of investment and maintenance, as well as a lack of technical knowledge (a lot of the highly qualified personnel from PDVSA who rebelled against Hugo Chavez’s regime in 2002 were fired and now work in various other countries, such as; Colombia, Mexico, Canada and the USA). Falling output at refineries means that Venezuela needs to import gasoline, further squeezing the national budget. Refineries are currently working at less than 40 percent of average 2016 levels as state-run oil company PDVSA is importing between 100 and 150 thousand barrels per day of gasoline and between 80 and 90 thousand barrels per day of diesel.

Venezuela’s daily demand for gasoline and diesel are 225 and 170 thousand barrels respectively. Several tankers are waiting off the coast of Venezuela to discharge cargoes as the PDVSA has difficulties in paying their shipping bills, resulting in a penalty of $26 000 per tanker per day. An almost surreal paradox in a country that owns twenty refineries; five in Venezuela and fifteen worldwide.

In the last ten years, Venezuela crude oil production has lost more than 500 thousand barrels per day. Since the beginning of 2017, the country has lost 92 thousand barrels per day. Between May and June 2017, Venezuela’s oil crude production has decreased from 1,951 to 1,938 million barrels per day, representing 13 thousand barrels lost in one month, based on the secondary sources used by OPEC.

“Bad luck.”

CAN I GET ONE OF THESE FOR MY POOL DECK? The Army’s Drone-Killing Lasers Are Getting a Tenfold Power Boost.

ONLY MOSTLY DEAD? After Deciding to ‘Just Let Obamacare Fail,’ Trump Again Lobbying for Healthcare Bill.