THOSE CASTING STONES SHOULD PROVE THEY’RE PURE:  The Internet is for Porn.

AND IT IS WONDERFUL IN OUR SIGHT:  Senate Tax Bill Repeals Obamacare Mandate.

MY MOM HAD A LONG JOKE, THE PUNCHLINE FOR WHICH WAS “D*MN, IF THEY’RE GOING TO ARREST PEOPLE FOR SWEARING, THE JAILS WILL SOON BE FULL.”  THIS IS KIND OF LIKE THAT, TOO:   Brian Ross Reports Fake News For The Fifth Time, Finally Gets Suspended.  At this point it might be easier to just say “so and so didn’t report fake news.  The rest should consider themselves suspended.”

A LONG WAY STILL TO GO:  New hope for HIV cure.

NEWS YOU HOPEFULLY WON’T NEED:  How to help if you witness sexual harassment at work.

WAYYYYY TMI:  The weirdest places people are injecting fillers.

IT’S GOVERNMENT HOUSING, BUILT LONG AGO, THAT HAS ENDURED A SUCCESSION OF DODGY TENANTS:  Turns out the White House is a real dump.

AT AMAZON, Nano Towels – Amazing Eco Fabric That Cleans Virtually Any Surface With Only Water. No More Paper Towels Or Toxic Chemicals.

A USEFUL CORRECTIVE FROM RANDY BARNETT:

I think that Tom should read what an actual expert on what the Tea Party believed wrote. Because expertise.

And maybe this.

BLOWING AN ENGINE IN THE MOST LITERAL WAY POSSIBLE: Watch a Diesel Engine Literally Explode on the Dyno. “The engine was pushing 146 psi of boost and more than 2000 horsepower when it popped. And hoo boy, did it pop. We’ve seen plenty of blown engines that blew a head gasket, threw a connecting rod, or lunched a valvetrain, but we’ve never seen an engine block just … disappear like that.”

RIGHT NOW WE CAN’T SEEM TO MAKE ONE THAT PROTECTS YOU RIGHT NOW: Can we make a flu vaccine that lasts for life? The flu shots of the future could protect you for decades.

AT AMAZON, save big in Health and Personal Care.

Plus, Holiday Deals in Women’s Jewelry.

“THE LEFT ONLY LOVES AMERICA CONDITIONALLY. I NEVER SAID THIS IN 8 YEARS OF OBAMA:” Stephen Colbert: “England, we need your help. Take us back.”

SHOULD “MADE IN CHINA” BE STAMPED ON THOSE NORTH KOREAN MISSILES? Well, ask yourself how a country so isolated and poor that it can’t properly feed its soldiers obtains the costly and sophisticated materials and technology that go into an ICBM. Or, as Steve Mosher put it on LifeZette today:

“Even more to the point, how did a dirt-poor country that can barely manage to feed its people acquire the sophisticated technical and manufacturing know-how necessary to build nuclear weapons and deploy ballistic missiles? The answer is that it didn’t. Instead, it relied upon its only ally, China — the one country to which it is bound by a mutual defense treaty — to provide these things.”

So, here’s another question: Is China on the one hand telling the U.S. it will will help convince North Korea to stop developing nuclear missiles capable of hitting the continental U.S. while on the other shipping the very parts and know-how that make those lethal weapons a reality? Mosher’s answer is deeply disturbing.

OPEN THREAD: Talk about stuff.

BANG-UP JOB THIS WEEK, SAN FRANCISCO: Wealthy San Francisco residents to get private street back, despite skipping taxes for decades.

OH, THAT FAKE NEWS: ABC News Suspends Brian Ross for Four Weeks Without Pay: ‘Effective Immediately.’

Flashback: ABC News, Brian Ross apologize for report suggesting shooting suspect tied to Tea Party.

ARE THERE ANY IDENTICAL QUADRUPLETS? Identical Triplets Test 3 Home DNA Kits for Accuracy.

AND THE HITS KEEP COMING: Legendary opera conductor molested teen for years: police report.

Plus: Ex-NPR Host John Hockenberry Accused of Sexual Harassment By Multiple Former Employees. Irony: “When she reached out to Hockenberry for the article, he said he was ‘currently searching for employment’ and the last job she could find for him was as a guest host on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show, which has since been scrapped in wake of damning allegations against its host, Charlie Rose.”

DR. STRANGE DIRECTOR: ‘AMERICAN CHRISTIANS’ ARE ‘RACIST,’ ‘GREEDY.’

And another flyover country-themed lovefest from Disney courtesy of its news division’s “Chief Political Analyst:”

Related: Disney Brands Generate Record $40.9 Billion from Licensed Merchandise in 2013.

NEWS YOU CAN ABUSE: In Portland, You Can Steal Cars Over and Over—and Get Away With It. Here’s How. Portland now ranks third among the nation’s major cities for car thefts per capita. And the number keeps rising:

Police say the rise in car thefts is partly a symptom of Portland’s ongoing epidemic of intravenous drug use, which afflicts people for whom a warm, dry place is increasingly difficult to find.

Yes, a lot of cars appear to be stolen to provide temporary shelter. But prosecutors, cops and even defense lawyers say there is something else at work as well—a 2014 Oregon Court of Appeals ruling that, according to law enforcement, has made prosecuting car thieves more difficult in Portland than in most other places in the nation.

“A lot of clients know the right things to say or not say to avoid conviction,” says Kami White, who supervises the minor felonies unit at Metropolitan Public Defenders.

The revolving door for accused car thieves has frustrated police, flummoxed prosecutors and infuriated residents. It summons the helplessness and fury many Portlanders feel in a city with a booming economy but highly visible symptoms of addiction and poverty.

Yet the legal part of it has a simple fix: State lawmakers could close the loophole created by the appeals court. They’ve refused.

* * * * * * * *

The Oregon Court of Appeals judges ruled in Shipe’s favor. Chief Appellate Judge Erika Hadlock wrote in the July 23, 2014, decision that the state was asking the court “to accept too great an inferential leap” in determining that Shipe knew the truck was stolen when he took possession of it. (Hadlock declined comment to WW on her ruling.)

It set a precedent: Carrying tools associated with car break-ins or even operating a car with the wrong key was not enough evidence to prove that someone sitting in a stolen car knew that it was hot.

Portland’s last Republican mayor left office in 1980. Why are Democrat-monopoly cities such cesspits of crime, homelessness, and illegal drug use?

WELL, GOOD: New Clinical Trial Drugs Could Mean You Have Fewer Migraines. I almost never get migraines any more. Some of that is probably just outgrowing them, but I think the regular CoQ10 helps. My daughter found that it helped with hers.

THIS COULD BE AN ENORMOUS TIME SAVER FOR HOLLYWOOD: The Celebrity Perv Apology Generator.

Found via Steve Hayward of Power Line, who writes, “Just keep clicking the ‘Try Again’ button till you come to one that fits the person you have in mind.”

GIMME SHELTER: Michael Walsh on the verdict in the Kate Steinle case.

In other words, the verdict had little or nothing to do with the victim or the defendant; rather, it was a thumb in the eye of the Trump administration, which has since its inception opposed the concept of “sanctuary” jurisdictions as part of its efforts to end illegal immigration…”Sanctuary” from what? Sanctuary from the laws of the United States.

Read the whole thing.