LEFTY RESPONSE TO LOSING IN THE SUPREME COURT: #AbolishSCOTUS.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Cops: Woman Forced Ex To Have Sex At Machete-Point. The mugshot suggests that the charges are plausible.

FASTER, PLEASE: Pill could make future needle-free for diabetics.

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Plus, deals in Kitchen and Housewares.

BEN RHODES WAS RIGHT. POLITICAL REPORTERS REALLY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING:

A COMPREHENSIVE WELFARE STATE OR OPEN BORDERS: PICK ONE. Bloomberg: Now Even Swedes Are Questioning the Welfare State.

SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR THE NEW SPACE FORCE! Over a million space rocks could strike Earth with more energy than a nuclear bomb, and we don’t know where most of them are.

SOUNDS CRAZY? LISTEN FOR THE CASH REGISTER: Academic Success in Philosophy by Being Outrageous

HEH: McConnell Trolls Critics of Travel Ban Ruling with Justice Gorsuch Photo.

DISAPPOINTING FROM THE SECOND CIRCUIT: Knife Rights responds to 2nd Circuit “Gravity Knife” decision.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Film’s Sharpest Mind Succumbs to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Jason Blum games Hollywood by outsmarting the competition. Until this week, that is.”

He’s certainly woke. We’ll see if his fourth “Purge” movie goes broke.

TEST DRIVE: 2018 GMC Yukon Denali 4WD 10-Speed Automatic.

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Plus, deals in Grocery and Gourmet Food.

SCOTUS: Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Turning Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers Into ‘Abortion Referral Agencies.’

EU BLUES: Lack of CO2 hits EU beer, meat production.

Carbon dioxide production is usually lower in the summer because of the hot weather, but a string of problems across the sector in Europe have caused fertilizer makers to shut down more plants than usual. Though the shortage is Europe-wide, Britain’s gas manufacturers have suffered additional mechanical problems that have further reduced supply.

Overall production of carbon dioxide was already under pressure as the market for the fertilizer ammonium nitrate has weakened, said Nick Allen, head of the British Meat Processors Association.

“Things are getting tight,” he said.

How bad is it really?

This bad: Tesco-owned Booker restricts beer sales.

Food wholesaler Booker is rationing beer and cider because of a shortage of CO2 used in carbonated drinks.

The Tesco-owned retailer, which is used by bars, restaurants and traders, is capping customers to 10 cases of beer, and five of cider or soft drinks.

It is more evidence that a scarcity of CO2 is hurting the food and drink sectors, and comes after Heineken and Coca-Cola faced disruption.

That’s bad.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Can You Really Catch Germs From a Public Toilet Seat? It’s the dirty door handle you should worry about.

SMALL WARS JOURNAL: Time for America to Leave Afghanistan.

Richard A. Carrick:

There are specific reasons why the latest U.S. strategy used to defeat Isis in Iraq/Syria is not transferable to the Afghan conflict. Three of the important strategic elements that made it work are missing in Afghanistan. In Iraq/Syria ISIS was defending a series of fixed positions located mostly in large cities and towns. These locations offered excellent targets for aerial attacks by U.S. planes, drones and missiles with maximum cost effectiveness. Heavy artillery directed by U.S. advisors was also successfully used against these fixed targets. Additionally, Russia periodically applied devastating aerial bombardment in Syria, although not always against ISIS.

In the Afghan war the U.S. military is in the reverse situation with the Afghan/ U.S. forces defending fixed positions in cities and bases. It is the Taliban that is effectively attacking these positions, frequently with suicide bombers. The new U.S. strategy of increasing the aerial bombardment of widely dispersed Taliban positions in rural locations cannot replicate the success of bombing ISIS held cities like Mosul and Raqqa. Although increased U.S. air attacks will reduce opium production, a source of funding to the Taliban, it will not be decisive because the lost revenue will be made up by their covert allies that are increasing their assistance.

The second missing factor is an effective ground force. No matter how destructive an air war, ground forces are needed to take and hold territory. In Iraq/Syria there were large numbers of trained and highly motived local ground forces. These included the Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi Shite militia and Hezbollah (with Iranian advisors) that conducted successful campaigns to recapture the cities and destroy ISIS. The presence of these forces required only limited use of U.S. troops resulting in few casualties. These local forces were motivated not by abstract Western ideas of universal values, but rather their own strong sectarian beliefs and interests.

In Afghanistan, however, after seventeen years of training and assistance by the U.S., most government troops are ineffective even when supported by U.S. advisors and air power.

You can’t get people to fight for an imaginary country. And as I’ve been writing here and elsewhere for years, Afghanistan isn’t a country — it’s a hole in the map where neighboring countries aren’t.

IMPORTANT ADVICE FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: To Counter Loneliness, Find Ways to Connect.

JOHN HAWKINS: 7 Examples from the Last Two Weeks That Show How Dangerous and Insane Liberals Have Become.

“Unhinged” is the word I keep coming back to.

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s largest ISP blocks Tor. “It has become a necessary tool to access blocked news sources online.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Insulin pill instead of shot: How close are we for diabetes patients?

WELL, GOOD: U.S. court dismisses climate change lawsuits against top oil companies.

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California sued Chevron, Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L), and BP Plc (BP.L) last year, seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they say is a result of climate change.

The dangers raised by the complainants are real and worldwide, and that both parties accepted the science behind global warming, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said in the ruling.

“(However), the problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a District Judge or jury in a public nuisance case,” Judge Alsup said.

No matter the judge’s thoughts on climate change, that was a refreshingly sensible ruling.

“THE IGNORANT DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO AN AUDIENCE:” It’s possible that this op-ed by philosophy professor Bryan W. Van Norden in today’s New York Times is a parody. If it’s not, we have to assume that he thinks Herbert Marcuse’s infamous essay “Repressive Tolerance” represents a credible authority to which to appeal when discussing free speech, that readers won’t notice that he assumes his own totally unwarranted infallibility while criticizing J.S. Mill for pointing out the problems in doing just that, and that as “a professor of philosophy at Wuhan University” and therefore an employee of the Chinese Communist government, he and those like him would certainly be among those most likely to be denied a platform if the U.S. government had the power to do so.

END FAT-SHAMING, AND PEOPLE WILL BE LESS LIKELY TO END FATNESS: Heavy teens now less likely to try to lose weight, study says.