WHILE IDIOTS IN AMERICA BAN STRAWS, THE REAL PROBLEM LIES ELSEWHERE: How to Solve the Plastic Crisis: Just eight countries are responsible for most ocean plastic.

Just eight countries in the region are responsible for about 63 percent of total plastic waste flowing into the oceans. Little of that junk has been exported by rich economies. Instead, it’s almost solely generated by Asia’s newly minted consumer classes, the vast majority of whom lack access to garbage collection, modern landfills and incineration. Any progress in reducing ocean plastic will have to start with them.

A boom in garbage is almost always the result of two related phenomena: urbanization and income growth. Rural dwellers moving to the city shift from buying unpackaged goods to buying stuff (especially food) wrapped in plastic. As their incomes rise, their purchases increase. That growth in consumption is almost never matched by expanded garbage collection and disposal. In typical low-income countries, less than half of all garbage is collected formally, and what little is picked up tends to end up in unregulated open dumps. In 2015, scientists estimated that as much as 88 percent of the waste generated in Vietnam is either littered or tossed into uncontained dumps. In China, the rate is about 77 percent. By comparison, the U.S. rate is 2 percent.

Every big city in developing Asia faces this problem. Jakarta’s waterways are choked with plastic trash. In Kuala Lumpur, instances of open dumping line the high-speed train route to the airport. On the outskirts of any Chinese city, loose plastic bags and instant-noodle cups litter every road’s shoulder. Much of this junk ends up in waterways — and, eventually, the ocean. One study found that eight of the 10 rivers conveying the most plastic waste into the oceans are in Asia. China’s Yangtze alone delivers 1.5 million metric tons of plastic to the Yellow Sea each year.

But virtue-signaling in the West is what’s really important.

DISPATCHES FROM THE SEXUAL REIGN OF TERROR: #MeToo and Two Suicides — Anthony Bourdain and Jill Messick.

(Classical reference in headline.)

BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU MAKE POLITICS YOUR RELIGION. Watch: North Carolina socialists chant, celebrating death of John McCain.

ARE WE STILL PLAYING THESE GAMES IN 2018? Deluded Chuck Todd: Media Bias a ‘Campaign Creation’ ‘Not Based’ in ‘Fact.’

Don’t talk to Chuck Todd about the liberal media. The Meet The Press host on Sunday snapped at David Brody, telling the CBN political analyst that dislike of a partisan press is simply a “campaign creation” of the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Todd huffed that it was “not based in much fact.”

Related: “If I worked for a network that employed Brian Williams and Al Sharpton I’d approach this issue with a lot more humility.”

The pose of objectivity was a necessary one in an era of three television networks, a handful of wire services, and a couple of newspapers in all but the biggest cities, but that media world hasn’t existed since the late 1970s. And yet anchors continue to play Mad Men-era sophistry with their viewers. Just think of the media as Democratic operatives with lavaliers, and it all makes sense.

SKYNET FROWNS: UN: Decisive action needed to ban killer robots – before it’s too late.

CNN’S BLATANT DISHONESTY ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA’S SO-CALLED LAND REFORM: Analysis by Jerome Woehrle on Liberty Unyielding.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: No, Liberal Lefties are Not Right-Wing.

Left-wing liberals who are opposed to the identity politics developments on the left increasingly find ourselves accused of being right wing, referred to as “right wing” and scornfully urged to admit that we are right wing by identitarian lefties.

No. Because that is not true.

Heck, liberals who supported Hillary were considered rightwing in 2008 by both Obama and Hollywood elitists.

THIS IS CNN: Radical New Mexico Compound Family “struggled with life off the grid.”

HONEST SOCIALISM AND DISHONEST SOCIALISM: I’ve always regarded the Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyns of the world as honest socialists – they are upfront about wanting workers’ control of the means of production, commodity, and exchange. Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, appears to me to be a dishonest socialist – claiming that she believes in markets while actually wanting to control them. Peter Suderman has more on that theme.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF CONCEALED CARRY: Jacksonville shooting survivor describes “most helpless feeling in the world.”

JAMES DELINGPOLE: It’s not science I don’t trust – it’s the scientists.

WELL, DON’T TELL THEM: The Left Still Has No Clue Why It’s Losing.

And Don’t Tell Them II: Liberal media’s desperate push for Trump impeachment may actually hurt Democrats.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: How to Print an Electric Motor.

HMM: That Dem Move On Super-Delegates Is Less Than It Appears.

The Democratic establishment is kinda tattered now as the far-left wing of the party is rising and will likely produce the eventual nominee in what is certain to be a batch of wannabe Trump challengers even larger than the 17 starters in the 2016 GOP field. With so many seekers it’s quite possible no one will have the necessary majority when the convention opens.

As a sop to the left activists feigning reform, party chairman Tom Perez oversaw the vote to deny super-delegates any say. It sounds great, as many Democrat ideas do.

“Today,” Perez proclaimed Saturday, “we demonstrated the values of the Democratic Party. We trust you, we want you to join the party. We will listen to you, we want you to have a seat at the table.”

But there’s a catch, a big catch. Super-delegates cannot vote on the convention’s initial ballot. Wait for it. However, if there’s no winner then, they can weigh in for the establishment on all subsequent ballots. Some reform.

Window-dressing to appease the Democratic Socialist masses?

PLAUSIBLE: How You Felt About Gym Class May Impact Your Exercise Habits Today. I didn’t like it because I didn’t like any regimented activity, and having people yell at me didn’t make it better. On the one hand, I wish I’d liked it better, on the other hand, my current exercise — lifting, with a bit of running and swimming — doesn’t involve regimented activity either. The Insta-wife and Insta-daughter, on the other hand, like group activities like barre or yoga.

ORGANIZATIONS THAT PURPORT TO ADVOCATE FOR ASIAN AMERICANS FREQUENTLY DON’T: Janie Har reports in Race-Based School Criteria Roils Asian-Americans—Again on how discrimination against Asian Americans didn’t start with the Harvard case. Decades ago, Lowell High School in San Francisco required higher scores for Asians in order to be admitted. That was fine and dandy with so-called advocates for Asian civil rights.  They were more interested in maintaining their reputation with the Left than with actual Asian-American rights.

The monolithic nature of the class of professional Lefties really needs to be written about and discussed more. These days organizations that purport to serve the interests of a specific group seldom do so.

VIDEO: Schweizer Exposes More Joe Biden Corruption — It’s ‘Going to be a Central Issue’ in 2020. “Corruption is being globalized.”

OBAMA JUDGE KILLS TRUMP ORDER TO DRAIN DEEPEST PART OF THE SWAMP: No part of the Washington Swamp is more deeply entrenched than the federal bureaucrat unions. So it was no surprise when the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) filed suit against President Donald Trump’s May 25 Executive Order (EO) directly challenging the bureaucrat unions’ power and perks.

Today, a Department of Justice spokesman hems and haws on what the administration will do in response to an Obama-appointed federal judge’s ruling late Friday striking down most of Trump’s EO. LifeZette’s Connor Wolf puts it all in proper context. This is VIP because if Trump can make Mexico pay for that wall, maybe he can also penetrate the bureaucrat wall that protects Washington against genuine reform.

YOU CAN’T STEAL EXPERIENCE AND KNOW-HOW: The Problem With China’s Powerful Air Force.

This problem is starkly illustrated by China’s ongoing difficulty in producing a high-quality indigenous jet engine.

The problem of technology mismatch, at its root, is that the thief lacks trade secrets and human capital associated with the manufacturing and assembly of a system. At the very least, this absence can make the replication of foreign systems a costly and time-consuming process, as the thief needs to develop manufacturing procedures from scratch. At worst, it can lead to seriously substandard components that reduce the capabilities and reliability of a system. Chinese efforts to reverse engineer certain Russian jet engines during the 1990s and 2000s invariably produced engines with extremely short lifespans, and without the power of their Russian counterparts . Even today, jet engines remain an obstacle for PLAAF fighter modernization, with its early 5th generation prototypes notably underpowered.

Russian engines are less powerful and shorter-lived than their Western equivalents, and Chinese copies aren’t as good as Russian originals.

BUMMER: Aspirin disappoints for avoiding first heart attack, stroke.

SCRAPPLEFACE: 4-in-5 Democrats Would Elect McCain President Now.

I think this is satire, but these days you can’t be too sure.

WELL, GOOD: Verizon Stops Data Throttling Firefighters, Apologizes.

NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: “McCain’s record does represent the views Ocasio-Cortez has defined herself, and the fight she’s leading, against — does that fight pause for R.I.P.s?”

Don’t be silly. Of course it doesn’t.