COMPLEXITY: People Have No Clue What Features Their Cars Actually Have.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? “Journalists to use ‘immune system’ software against fake news.” The reliance on ‘bots instead of real live humans (we used to call them “editors”– how quaint!) has already caused problems in financial reporting, which relies on automation. One Business Insider story pointed out that:

Headline price figures for Amazon and for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, were displaying as down by more than 80% as a result of the error, which emerged after US markets closed.

Like automated financial reporting that depends on data input, General Assignment news is not immune to robo-errors. This year, the LATimes “Quakebot” incorrectly reported an earthquake that happened in 1925, and Facebook promoted a bogus story that Megyn Kelly was fired for “being a traitor.” Even super gay-friendly Google’s YouTube had a faulty algorithm that inadvertently censored any YouTube videos even remotely gay-themed.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

AT AMAZON, Electronics Showcase: Off-to-College.

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BOY, MY PAPER ON MILITARY COUPS SURE WAS TIMELY:

VIDEO: Ashley Judd Is Fuming That a TSA Agent Called Her ‘Sweetheart’ and Complimented Her.

RUSSIA STORY: “It was a Brennan operation.”

NOT GETTING IT DEP’T: Mattis claims North Korea diplomacy is working, but Trump intensifies threats.

Has CNN never heard of good cop/bad cop?

NOTE THAT IF THEY WANT TO LAUNCH AN EMP ATTACK, THEY DON’T NEED A WARHEAD THAT WILL SURVIVE REENTRY: North Korea’s miniaturized nuclear warheads were a long time coming.

FIGHT THE POWER:

Related: “Apparently, Damore wasn’t sufficiently afraid. He didn’t see that this was the unacknowledged rule. Google is a safe space, muffling the fear. That in itself is something to be afraid of. When sparing everyone fear is the order of the day, you need to fear you will be deemed the embodiment of the fear that others must be spared. Then you’re completely unsafe. And gone. No man, no fear.” I like the echo of Stalin there. . . .

YOU CAN’T SPEAK FREELY IN HERE, GENTLEMEN — THIS IS WASHINGTON, DC: ACLU Sues D.C. Metro for Rejecting Ads, Including One With Text of the First Amendment.

BLUE ON BLUE: Meet the Bernie Sanders-Loving Missouri Woman Hoping to Sink Claire McCaskill.

Angelica Earl, a 31 year old making her first foray into politics, has hired Sanders-aligned marketing firm Revolution Funding, which raised millions of dollars assisting the Sanders presidential campaign, to promote her campaign. She announced she was running on Wednesday, but says the campaign is already ready to make its “push.”

“I’ve been running for five months now, just keeping everything on the down low getting everything situated,” Earl told the Washington Free Beacon. “I feel like at this point I have enough of a team together that it’s time for a push.”

Earl says she has a campaign manager, treasurer, and field teams situated across the state already. She knows it will be a challenge to beat an incumbent Democrat but says the support she has received has convinced her there’s a chance.

“Everything is moving very smoothly—there is an awful lot of support, it’s uplifting,” she said.

Just because Democrats have tried and failed to get single-payer in Vermont and California is no reason to not to try — and try hard — in reddest Missouri.

Run, Angelica, run!

NICE TO SEE THE ACLU ACTUALLY ACLUING: ACLU Sues DC Metro For Banning ‘First Amendment’ (Literally) And Other Controversial Content.

MICHAEL WALSH: I think we’ve hit peak stupid.

It isn’t like Michael to be such an optimist.

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LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Beaten, knocked down, dragged: A Venezuelan journalist flees country but not the story.

Elsewhere, the Boston Globe warns that “the strife in Venezuela underscores how quickly democracy can die,” but in reality, democracy was on life support there just as soon as voters elected Hugo Chavez back in 1999.

ANATOMY OF A PRESS-ASSISTED COVERUP: When Loretta Met Bill. “In many quarters of the American news media today, seasoned journalists seem incapable of pondering those parts of reality that don’t complement their political worldviews. It goes beyond ‘bias’—we’re all biased. This is negligence.” It goes beyond “negligence.” This is collusion.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT PIRIFORMIS PROBLEMS. Squats, deadlifts and foam rolling seem the best.

DAVID BROOKS IS RIGHT: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O.

DAVID HARSANYI IN REASON: By Firing the Google Memo Author, the Company Confirms His Thesis: The vast majority of the histrionic reactions on social media and elsewhere have misrepresented not only what the memo says but also its purpose.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATIC DONORS SO RACIST? Daniel Loeb, a Cuomo Donor, Makes Racial Remark About Black Leader.

HEADS UP: Asteroid to shave past Earth inside Moon orbit.

A STATE-BY-STATE ECLIPSE VIEWING GUIDE.

BRUCE BAWER: The Mental Self-Oppression of ‘Intersectional’ Racial Identity.

I’M SURE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE “LITERALLY SHAKING” AND “CAN’T EVEN” OVER THIS: ‘Not all cultures are created equal’ says Penn Law professor in op-ed.

Returning to the American cultural values of the 1950s — thrift, gratitude, temperance, continence, among others — would “significantly reduce society’s pathologies,” says Penn Law School professor Amy Wax in an op-ed published Thursday on Philly.com and co-written with Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego School of Law.

Wax’s piece, entitled “Paying the price for breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture,” condemns “the single-parent, anti-social habits, prevalent among some working-class whites,” “the anti-’acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks” and the “anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants” as “not suited for a First World, 21st-century environment.”

In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian on Thursday, Wax said Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior.

Next she’ll suggest that cultures that are doing worse would do well to emulate those norms. Crimethink!

BOY, TRUMP SURE HAS BEEN A WRECKING BALL FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY . . . WAIT, WHAT? Politico: The Democratic Party’s Looming Fundraising Crisis.