INTERRING THE ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ: It’s dying in Iraq, still alive but severely wounded in Syria. Its hideous ideology must also die.

THAT’S A RELIEF — MAYBE: Navy says cyber sabotage played ‘no role’ in USS John S. McCain incident.

Adm. John Richardson ordered an operational pause in all the fleets around the world while the Navy works to determine the factors behind the collision. Richardson tweeted that the Navy will conduct a wide investigation, including a review into the possibility of “cyber intrusion or sabotage,” — though a Navy official told Fox News on Tuesday any possible cyber sabotage played “no role” in the USS John S. McCain incident.

Richardson made clear that there is no evidence of a hacking at this point, but some cyber experts have raised to possiblity given the location of the warships.

Jeff Stutzman, an ex-information warfare specialist in the Navy who works at a cyber threat intelligence company, told McClatchy that “there’s something more than just human error going on.”

It seems likely that either the Navy is getting hacked or our sailors aren’t up to snuff, and neither option is very heartening.

IT’S VERY CLEAR THAT TRUMP DOESN’T MIND DRIVING THE LEFT INSANE: The Gift of Anti-Trump Irrationality. As I keep saying, if the press and the political opposition — but I repeat myself — were just sober, straightforward, and honest they could beat Trump easily. But then, if they were capable of that, we wouldn’t have gotten Trump to begin with.

HMM: The Latest Red Flag For U.S. Shale.

U.S. shale was thought to be the most competitive source of oil out there, and indeed the industry appears to be ramping up production at today’s prices. Shale had adapted to a $50 per barrel market, producers had streamlined operations to make them almost resemble an assembly line, and in a volatile and unpredictable market, the short-cycle nature of shale drilling made it one of the least risky options for drillers.

But in just a few weeks’ time, investors are starting to ask major questions about the viability of shale drilling at such a large scale.

A couple of notable things have occurred in the past month or so. Pioneer Natural Resources, a top Permian producer, raised concerns when it told investors that its Permian shale wells were coming up with a higher natural gas-to-oil ratio than expected, a potentially worrying sign. The company also reported that it had trouble with some of its wells, forcing it to delay some completions.

Separately, Goldman Sachs reported that top investors are souring on U.S. shale E&Ps, with poor performances leading investors to search for ways to “reallocate capital” elsewhere in the energy space. That is big red flag for the shale industry, which is still struggling to consistently post profits despite the highly-touted cost reductions over the past few years.

For consumers, the big benefit to shale is that under current conditions it effectively caps oil at a price which feels great at the pump and feels terrible in Riyadh and Moscow.

For producers, however, things are a little more complicated.

HONESTY IS SUCH A LONELY WORD: Finally, someone on the Left just came out and said it. Being a Republican is apparently no different than being a white supremacist.

In a recent column for The Guardian, former Democratic senator for Wisconsin Russ Feingold clarified what all this controversy about white supremacists and Confederate statues is really all about: Republicans are Nazis.

“The lesson from Charlottesville is not how dangerous the neo-Nazis are,” he writes. “It is the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend’s horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants.”

Finally, finally, someone on the Left just came out and said it. Being a Republican is apparently no different than being a white supremacist. Supporting a lower marginal tax rate puts you in the same company as the Ku Klux Klan. Therefore, punching a Nazi is the same as punching someone wearing a MAGA hat.

There are certain MAGA-hat wearers I wouldn’t advise you to punch.

THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT ACTUALLY “ANTI-FASCIST:” Dershowitz: Antifa ‘trying to tear down America.’ And yes, of course that’s what they’re trying to do.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE NAZIS GONE? They were on the left in Phoenix yesterday. That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

DON’T BE EVIL: One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google.

On Friday afternoon East Coast Time by surprise, I was completely shut down in all my Google accounts (all of my gmail accounts, blog, all of my university pages that were on google sites, etc.) for no reason and no warning. A number of us were stunned and unsure, but clearly we know at this point it wasn’t an accident. Here are some examples commented from best-selling author Nassim Taleb, and they have been retweeted by government officials, and the NYT and WSJ journalists.

My ads-free blog itself is a probability theory site, with 27 million reads and has somewhere near 150k overall followers. It’s been read by Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Nobel Laureates, multiple governments, celebrity athletes around the world, deans of many universities (on the syllabi of same), and a number of TV news anchors. So it’s been a great boon for Google to be noticed so kindly by essentially a charitable site promoting math education. What great people from all corners of the world and at all levels who can enjoy Google, until it suddenly died Friday afternoon.

My background is clean, and without a political or social agenda. I am not promoting any specific viewpoint. I teach probability math and that’s it. Have worked with both the Obama administration and advised on polling statistics for the Trump campaign, am an adjunct professor at three top universities, an editor of the peer-reviewed journal of the American Statistical Association, and wrote a best-selling statistics book (all the proceeds of which I gave to charity!)

Read the whole thing.

Google reinstated his accounts, but not before embarrassing itself and further jeopardizing its “safe harbor” protections.

I DUNNO, BUT I’M PRETTY SURE EVERY PRESIDENT IN MY LIFETIME HAS ORDERED HIS SECDEF TO DO SOMETHING “DEEPLY UNWISE” AT SOME POINT: What if President Trump Orders Secretary of Defense Mattis to Do Something Deeply Unwise?

BITCHINEST DAD EVER: Family Forced to Jump Jersey Shore Drawbridge in Their Toyota RAV4.

Terence Naphys, after paying the $1.50 toll at the Middle Thorofare Bridge that connects the Wildwoods and Cape May via Ocean Drive, was heading across the bridge when a steel metal grate suddenly lifted 3 to 6 feet underneath his car, Naphys told Lower Township police.

Naphys was in the car with his wife, his daughter and his daughter’s friend, and he was worried his Toyota RAV4 would fall the 65 feet down into the water. So he accelerated and jumped the gap.

Like a boss.

BRO, DO YOU EVEN SCIENCE? NYT: We Should Trust Climate Scientists Because The Eclipse.

Somebody needs a reminder that weather isn’t climate orbital mechanics.

VIDEO: This Democrat Senator Is Really Trying Hard to Dodge Questions on His Corruption Charges.

He could stand to take some lessons from Nathan Thurm.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Barack Obama’s Legacy of Lies and Broken Promises on Afghanistan. “On issue after issue, Barack Obama passed the buck, making the situation worse than he found it and leaving his successor to pick up the pieces. Health care, military preparedness, the national debt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea and Afghanistan are some of the instances that come to mind. What is galling is that because he is a Democrat, Obama was never held accountable for his fecklessness (or worse). The press, and the establishment in general, allowed him to skate. . . . Barack Obama’s administration was a horrific failure in just about every way, but he has had the press running interference for him for eight years and counting. His lies and broken promises about Afghanistan are a sobering reminder of what a poor job he did as president.”

IT’S INTERESTING TO SEE THIS IN SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, WHICH HAS BEEN PRETTY PC LATELY: The Unfortunate Fallout Of Campus Postmodernism.

Students are being taught by these postmodern professors that there is no truth, that science and empirical facts are tools of oppression by the white patriarchy, and that nearly everyone in America is racist and bigoted, including their own professors, most of whom are liberals or progressives devoted to fighting these social ills. Of the 58 Evergreen faculty members who signed a statement “in solidarity with students” calling for disciplinary action against Weinstein for “endangering” the community by granting interviews in the national media, I tallied only seven from the sciences. Most specialize in English, literature, the arts, humanities, cultural studies, women’s studies, media studies, and “quotidian imperialisms, intermetropolitan geography [and] detournement.” A course called “Fantastic Resistances” was described as a “training dojo for aspiring ‘social justice warriors’” that focuses on “power asymmetries.”

If you teach students to be warriors against all power asymmetries, don’t be surprised when they turn on their professors and administrators. This is what happens when you separate facts from values, empiricism from morality, science from the humanities.

If you create a generation of vipers, you are likely to wind up bit.

IN THE EMAIL, FROM ZOEY IVERS: Atlantis+ (Doors into the Dimensions Book 3).

THAT DAY TRUDEAU BECAME LITERALLY HITLER TRUMP: Trudeau Pulls A Trump, Tells People To Stop Coming To Canada Illegally. MCGA, Eh?

HOW THE LEFT CHIPS AWAY AT THE WEST:On Manufactured Outrage.

ESPN FLIES PAST FULL POTATO AND INTO TURNIP: ESPN Pulls Asian Announcer Because His Name Is Robert Lee, And That’s Triggering.

DUH: Why are More Women in the Helping Professions? Hint: It’s Not the Patriarchy’s Fault. On account of there being NO patriarchy in the west and all.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Navy SEAL explains what to do if you’re attacked by a dog.

ENVIRO-NUTS WANT YOU TO GET SKIN CANCER: Sunscreen could be killing off the world’s coral reefs.

“I’M HELPING”: If you believe you have the high moral ground, why jump off the cliff by posting fake or misleading photos? To be fair:

“The Twitter account @TEN_GOP, which says its an unofficial account for Republicans in Tennessee, tweeted the photo […] The account is not affiliated with the Tennessee Republican Party. The tweet has been deleted.”

Still, if you believe in the strength of your convictions…why make things up? It’s no better than the “hands up, don’t shoot lie” that fooled so many, especially in the smarter-than-you legacy media. I guess we believe what we desperately want to believe…

IN DC? WHY ARE LEFTY-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPOOLS OF DISCRIMINATION AND ABUSE?  I WONDER IF WE’LL EVER FIGURE IT OUT: Teens say they were harassed during college visit for wearing MAGA hats.

IF THEY HAD MOTHERS* WOULD THEY KISS THEM WITH THAT MOUTH? This ‘F–k Trump’ lipstick is flying off the shelves.

*I have it on good authority the kind of lefty who’d wear this reproduces by fission.