HAVE THAT REMOVED: CBS is developing a new series based Bill Murray’s 1981 comedy movie Stripes.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN ABOUT TO COLLAPSE ANY DAY NOW SINCE 1991: The Problem with Hoping for North Korea’s Collapse.

AT AMAZON, save on Drinkware and Glassware.

FASTER, PLEASE: Aging Reversal tests in dogs by 2019 and then in human tests by 2022 if that works.

IS ANYONE SURPRISED? “The front page of The Nation is ready to impeach Donald Trump but eager to help Al Franken.”

ALLIES: Turkey withdraws troops from NATO drill in Norway.

“There was an incident in Norway,” Erdogan told ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party members in capital Ankara.

“They used an enemy chart in Norway. In that chart, there was my name and [Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk’s picture.”

The president said he was informed about the issue by Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik.

“They told me that they are withdrawing our 40 soldiers from there [Norway],” Erdogan said.

“I told them to do that immediately. There can be no alliance like that.”

NATO troops using Erdogan’s name as the enemy seems unlikely. Using Ataturk’s name (next to Erdogan’s, which is rich) seems unlikelier still.

So we have a big excuse about a minor offense (stipulating that it even happened) during a small exercise — which has me wondering if Erdogan isn’t prepping his country for a NATO exit.

IN FINANCE WE CALL THIS A “DEATH SPIRAL:” Law School Won’t Admit New Students. Inside Higher Ed is reporting that Valparaiso University  announced Thursday that its law school would no longer admit new students. The law school is more than 130 years old, but it has been struggling to enroll enough students to function. Only 29 new students enrolled this fall, down from more than 200 as recently as 2013.

Asked why the university didn’t follow the lead of Whittier and simply shut down the law school, [President] Heckler said, “We have a 138-year tradition and very strong people.” […] The university will consider locations anywhere in the country, he said. Further, it will consider affiliations with law schools that do not share the university’s faith, provided there is respect for the law school’s commitment to service. Faculty members would have to support the new location or partner, he said. Depending on location, accreditors and state agencies might also be involved in a review of any proposed change.

Good luck with that.

HEARING: The Way Our Brains Process Sound Is Weirder Than We Ever Expected: Sounds are constantly flickering in our minds. I suspect this cyclic sampling connects to things like synaesthesia, and the behavior of tinnitus and hallucinations.

NOT SO SLY: Sylvester Stallone’s Sexual Assault Denial Already Proven False? Allegations Were Reported Last Year.

BUT OF COURSE: Menendez Blames Racist Americans For Trial, Vows Political Vengeance Against Opponents.

CHANGE? Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe makes first public appearance since ‘coup.’

Zimbabwe’s beleaguered President Robert Mugabe attended a graduation ceremony at a university in the capital Harare on Friday, his first public appearance since he was put under house arrest by the army late Tuesday.

The 93-year-old wore a graduation gown and cap for the event at the Zimbabwe Open University. He announced the ceremony’s opening to applause, but did not make a speech.

It came as the country’s army said it has made “significant progress” in their “operation” after seizing control of state television and the capital’s airport during an apparent coup earlier this week. Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, refused to stand down during a meeting with military officials Thursday, AFP reported.

AND: Mugabe exit plan talks deadlocked.

Insiders said Mugabe, who is holed up at his house with his wife Grace and his family, and close allies Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere and their families, agreed during the delicate talks at State House in Harare yesterday that he could step down as Zanu PF leader at his party’s congress next month and as head of state and government when his current term of office expires by mid next year.

“Mugabe is agreed to go in principle. As a general plan, although the details are not yet established, he has agreed to step down as Zanu PF leader next month and president next year, but he does not want to be removed from office outside the constitution and law framework,” one source said.

“However, the military and its political allies want him to go now; they want him to resign and reinstate (fired Vice-President Emmerson) Mnangagwa and also allow him to become acting president, and then follow the party and government processes leading to an eventual takeover.

“So for now he is going nowhere; he is staying put even at the risk of military escalation and a complete takeover.

The dilemma for the military is to stage a fully-fledged coup and remove Mugabe, but then suffer the consequences of global condemnation, sanctions and isolation which might collapse the country – achieving the very opposite of what they say they want to do. For Mugabe the risk is removal through a coup, harm and humiliation.”

Mustn’t upset the international community when removing the vile dictator, dear.

MEANWHILE: Breaking: Mugabe too old & must go – All Zanu PF provinces.

In a dramatic twist of events, all the ten Zanu PF provinces have passed a vote of no confidence on President Robert Mugabe, and declared the 93 year-old leader – who has been in office for 37 years – too old and incapacitated to lead both Zanu PF and government.

After that, I’m not sure it means much what the international community thinks.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Wisconsin College Democrats leader — who had interned on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign — resigned Tuesday after tweeting “I f—ing hate white men.”

THE FINAL FRONTIER: Scientists found a new Earth-sized planet nearby… and it might be habitable.

Known as Ross 128b, the newly discovered planet orbits a life-friendly red dwarf star that is an estimated seven billion years old.

Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy, making up about 70 percent of all known stars, and tend to hold water-friendly planets in their orbit. What this means is these planets are likely to have an atmosphere and possibly support life.

Ross 128b has a few things going for it that make it a much better candidate to support human life. For one, it has a consistent wobble in its rotation. It also orbits an older star that has probably settled down somewhat. A computer simulation also suggests it might have built up clouds to keep water from evaporating on its surface, giving it a better chance at hosting an atmosphere that could support life.

I’m wary of computer simulations of worlds we’ve never been to when we can’t yet get this one right.

IT ISN’T THEIR OWN IRE THEY OUGHT TO BE WORRIED ABOUT: Sexual Harassment Settlements, Capitol Hill Reporting System Raise Lawmakers’ Ire.

SKYNET SMILES: Atlas Robot Shows Jumping Ability, Including Ability to Execute Backflips (Video).

It’s being programmed even as we speak to go back in time and track down Sarah Connor.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Amazon Key flaw makes entering your home undetected a possibility.

Amazon Key is available to Amazon customers who have bought and installed Amazon’s own Cloud Cam security camera and installed it at their front door. If you’re one of those customers, you can select “in-home delivery” as a delivery method when purchasing something on Amazon. Amazon couriers can then authenticate themselves with your Cloud Cam to unlock the door and enter your home to leave the package. However, they can only do this at a home to which they’re assigned to make a delivery and only at the scheduled time. They are recorded by your security camera as they make the delivery, and they must lock the door when they leave. Amazon also tracks which courier is assigned to the delivery, and only that courier has access.

Rhino Labs discovered that a courier equipped with a simple program can use their laptop to fake a command from your Wi-Fi router to disconnect the Cloud Cam from your network. This causes the camera to stop functioning by freezing the image at the last frame. At that point, the courier could re-enter your home, do whatever it is that they want there, and then exit, reactivate the camera, and lock the door as usual. This re-entry would be undetectable by the resident, and it would appear like a normal delivery in Amazon’s data.

Nobody should trust the internet of things.

MEGAN MCARDLE: There’s good reason to scrutinize claims like the Roy Moore mall story. It’s certainly not to protect a pedophile. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” only ensures a vigorous trade in smudge-pots.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Old & Busted: Just a Third of Police Departments Provide Body Cameras.

—Newsweek, July 7^th, 2015.

● The New Hotness: Police Body Cameras Can Threaten Civil Rights of Black and Brown People, New Report Says.

—Newsweek, Tuesday.

TAMMY BRUCE: CBS News: 44 Seconds On Trump Drinking Water, 0 On Menendez.

Think of them as Democratic operatives with Chyrons and… you know the rest.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Undoing the Dis-Education of Millennials.

I teach in a law school. For several years now my students have been mostly Millennials. Contrary to stereotype, I have found that the vast majority of them want to learn. But true to stereotype, I increasingly find that most of them cannot think, don’t know very much, and are enslaved to their appetites and feelings. Their minds are held hostage in a prison fashioned by elite culture and their undergraduate professors.

They cannot learn until their minds are freed from that prison. This year in my Foundations of Law course for first-year law students, I found my students especially impervious to the ancient wisdom of foundational texts, such as Plato’s Crito and the Code of Hammurabi. Many of them were quick to dismiss unfamiliar ideas as “classist” and “racist,” and thus unable to engage with those ideas on the merits. So, a couple of weeks into the semester, I decided to lay down some ground rules. I gave them these rules just before beginning our annual unit on legal reasoning.

Here is the speech I gave them.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Maggie’s Farm.)

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Tax Reform Moves to Senate, Harassment Accusations Mount and Much, Much Moore.

WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF MISOGYNY? Florida Democratic Party chair apologizes after 6 women complain of ‘demeaning’ behavior. “There was a lot of boob stuff in his office.”

THE ISLAMIC STATE’S OIL BUSINESS: A detailed analysis of Islamic State oil production, from the last six months of 2014 to this year.

How much ISIL received per barrel from the brokers and smugglers became known gradually as information could be extracted from those sources. It apparently averaged about $25 per barrel meaning that ISIL obtained about $40-45 million a month in 2014 from this source. In 2015 that fell to $20-30 million and in 2016 it was $10-15 million in 2016. In 2017 it was down to $5 million or less per month and this decline was verified by ISIL prisoners, defectors and deserters through that period as well as data provided by civilians escaping ISIL controlled territory as well as those few who managed to use cell phones or Internet access to communicate from ISIL territory in that period. The reduced income meant ISIL could not pay its personnel or buy essential supplies from smugglers. These economic woes played a major role in ISIL losing control of the territory it ruled during that period.

Read the entire update.