JOHN HAWKINS: 5 Ugly Truths About Women That Young Men Need to Recognize.

DOES NOT COMPUTE: Imagine a U.S. Air Force That Never Built the B-52 Bomber.

Although on occasion I do imagine a US Air Force which did build the B-70 Valkyrie.

I WOULD EXPECT AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: What Would Happen If We Nuked the Bottom of the Ocean? “Kurzgesagt framed this hypothetical scenario with two exercises in superlatives: the Marianas Trench and the Soviet thermonuclear bomb Tsar Bomba.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Trump Signs Bills To Build Vital Rural Hydroelectric Dams.

While Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Deanna Archuleta once promised that “You will never see another federal dam,” today’s news should be received with glee by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and filmmaker Spike Lee, who directed her in this 2011 MSNBC promotional clip:

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: U.S. appeals court: Constitution gives right to carry gun in public.

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects a right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense, rejecting a claim by Hawaii officials that the right only applies to guns kept at home. . . .

The ruling issued by a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, came a year after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule either way on the carrying of guns in public.

Two of the three 9th Circuit judges voted to reverse a decision by the U.S. District Court in Hawaii that state officials did not infringe on the rights of George Young, the plaintiff, in twice denying him a permit to carry a gun outside.

“We do not take lightly the problem of gun violence,” Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote in Tuesday’s ruling. “But, for better or for worse, the Second Amendment does protect a right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.”

The decision did not change the court’s earlier ruling that the Second Amendment does not guarantee a right to carry concealed firearms in public.

Judge Richard Clifton dissented from the ruling, saying the Second Amendment does not preclude the sort of licensing rules used in Hawaii and elsewhere.

I’m sure Hawaii will push for en banc review, but this is still big. The opinion is here. Key bit from the summary: “The panel stated that restricting open carry to those whose job entails protecting life or property necessarily restricts open carry to a small and insulated subset of law-abiding citizens. The panel reasoned that the typical, law-abiding citizen in the State of Hawaii was entirely foreclosed from exercising the core Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense. The panel concluded that Hawaii’s limitation on the open carry of firearms to those “engaged in the protection of life and property” violated the core of the Second Amendment and was void under any level of scrutiny.”

ONE SECOND AFTER: Russian hackers infiltrated US power networks and had the ability to trigger massive blackouts.

Symantec first reported on a hacking campaign by the state-sponsored group Dragonfly targeting dozens of victims in the US energy sector in 2017. But this is the first time the DHS has provided detailed information about an incident in an unclassified setting and said the hack affected “hundreds of victims.”

Attacks began in 2016 and continued through 2017, and DHS officials said it’s likely the campaign is still ongoing.

By first penetrating the networks of power companies’ trusted vendors, hackers for Dragonfly, also known as Energetic Bear, were able to access utility networks, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing officials at the DHS.

As was proven with Stuxnet a few years ago, even air-gapped computer systems aren’t immune to hacking.

FASTER, PLEASE: Private jets and business class are shifting to supersonic over the next 20 years.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Georgia Lawmaker Under Fire After Yelling Racial Slurs, Dropping Pants on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Showtime Series.

VIDEO: SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” STARS IN NEW BLOOPER REEL. “Good luck with that moderate Dems. You’re having another McGovern moment. I’m old enough to remember how the last one turned out.”

FAKE HATE: Texas waiter faked “we don’t tip terrorist” note on receipt, restaurant says.

A waiter at a Texas steakhouse made up the viral story about a customer leaving him a racist note, his employer said Monday. The story gained national attention after Khalil Cavil, a 20-year-old server for Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa, Texas, posted a now-deleted image of the receipt he claimed was left for him on July 14.

On the bill, Khalil’s name was circled and the words, “we don’t tip terrorist,” were written at the top.

Cavil wrote in his post, which was deleted as of Tuesday morning: “I share this because I want people to understand that this racism, and this hatred still exists. Although, this is nothing new, it is still something that will test your faith.” Cavil’s Facebook page also appears to have been deleted.

Saltgrass originally said it had banned the customer blamed for the message. But now, the restaurant’s corporate office says it has learned the story was a hoax.

“After further investigation, we have learned that our employee fabricated the entire story,” Terry Turney, COO of Saltgrass Steak House, told the Odessa American in a statement. “The customer has been contacted and invited back to our restaurant to dine on us.”

Perhaps corporate could have looked into the story before banning the customer.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: When colleges say ‘inclusive,’ what they really mean is no conservatives.

Need more evidence that US campuses actively silence conservatives? Then take a look at a stunning new report by the higher-ed watchdog Campus Reform.

The report notes that at SUNY-Albany last year, 64 speakers identified as liberal were handed the podium, vs. just two conservatives.

Many of the speakers were officials who’d worked in the Obama administration, including two Environmental Protection Agency regional directors and the head of Customs and Border Protection.

Events included discussions on “marginalized communities,” “barriers to naturalization for low-income immigrants” and “gender and sexuality from a Jewish lens.”

Part of the reason for the skew, the report says, is the school’s “Strategic Plan,” which calls for a more “diverse” and “inclusive” campus. By “inclusive,” SUNY apparently means: Let almost no conservatives speak.

SUNY-Albany is hardly unique: In 2016-17, liberal speakers outnumbered conservatives 44-4 at the University of Indiana, 30-9 at George Washington University, 9-2 at Alabama and 44-2 at Vermont, Campus Reform also found.

And colleges don’t just favor left-wing speakers: A study last April by Brooklyn College’s Mitchell Langbert of 8,688 tenure-track professors at top liberal-arts colleges found that, of those enrolled in a political party, 10 times as many were Democrats as Republicans. Some 39 percent of the colleges had no GOPers at all.

When taxpayers tire of subsidizing all this partisan indoctrination, we’ll be told it’s because of “anti-intellectualism.”

THE DEMOCRATS’ NEW FACE OF MODERATION: Eric Holder will decide whether to run in 2020 ‘sometime early next year.’

BLUE CITY BLUES: ‘Boulder wore me down.’ They moved here to make the world a better place. Now they’re leaving.

ROBERT SPENCER: Keith Ellison Demands Amazon Stop Selling Books the SPLC Hates. “The MN attorney general candidate comes out strongly against free speech.”

VIDEO: Ocasio-Cortez Super-Flake Super-Cut.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Asian-Americans are showing people how absurd affirmative action is.

Related: Asians Get The Ivy League’s Jewish Treatment.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Hollywood Double Fail on Border, Climate Change. “A new poll says celebrities aren’t impacting popular opinion on two big issues as they hoped.”

It’s weird that Americans refuse to take into account the opinions of climate hypocrites who live behind walls of their own.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are You Being Livestreamed In Your Uber?

GEORGE KORDA: “The U.S. Army at present has a not-too-often encountered problem: it has more soldiers than ever deciding to stay in the ranks. Typically Army retention is about 81 percent; now it’s 86 percent. That’s important because the Army, as reported on April 20, 2018 by CBS News, has lowered its new recruit goals for the year from 80,000 to 76,500 for the year, and after six months just 28,000 new soldiers have joined.”

F-35 TRANSFER TO TURKEY COULD BE HELD BACK BY HOUSE AND SENATE:

Transfers to Turkey of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 would be barred temporarily under a compromise defense policy measure agreed to on Monday, according to House and Senate aides.

Turkish receipt of the fighter jets would be held back until the Pentagon submitted an assessment within 90 days of the measure’s enactment on U.S.-Turkish relations, the impact of Turkey’s planned acquisition of Russia’s advanced S-400 missile defense system and the ramifications for the U.S. industrial base if Turkey is dropped from the international F-35 program.

Given Erdogan’s behavior, this is the right move.

VERY RELATED: Thoughts from last week on Turkey’s decision to buy Russian-made S-400 missiles.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: NYC college offers course on the ‘fall’ of masculinity.

Much like the courses offered on the “Occupy” movement, a course like this could be intellectually deep. But, you know, that’s probably not the way to bet.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: *Poof* Go the Security Clearances and Much, Much More. “Normally, political appointees keep their clearances because the appointee has institutional knowledge that can be of help to future administrations, but it’s fair to say these folks aren’t interested in being helpful.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: NRA, Second Amendment Foundation File Suit Against Seattle Gun-Storage Ordinance. ‘Seattle simply can’t break the law to adopt an ordinance as a political statement.’

The National Rifle Association and Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation are working together with two Seattle residents in the suit against the city. They say the city’s requirement that any guns in a person’s residence must be stored in a locked container unless being carried by the owner or other authorized users violates state law.

“The City of Seattle has been trying to erode state preemption almost from the moment it was passed back in 1985,” Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said. “When the city tried to ban guns from city parks facilities under former mayors Greg Nickels and Mike McGinn, SAF and NRA joined forces with other organizations to stop it, under the state preemption statute. We should not have to repeatedly remind Seattle that they are still part of Washington State and must obey the law.”

He claimed Seattle is intentionally running afoul of the state’s preemption law in order to send a political message.

The message is clear: Knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing deplorable bitter-clingers not welcome here.