SOLAR ACTIVITY UPDATE: “Note that the peak for 24 was approximately half that of 23. Also note that we are currently already as low as the minimum that ended cycle 23, at approximately 8.5-9 years into an average-11-year cycle. Theoretically, we still have a couple of years to go before the actual minimum is reached, though 11 years IS an average. . . . Based on all this information, it is my considered opinion that we are about to enter an extended minimum, if we are not already in one.”

Fallen Angels is just a science fiction novel, right guys? Right? Guys?

INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT: No Straw Man Here: The Mask Slips in Santa Barbara.

A little noticed detail in Santa Barbara’s recent drive to criminalize plastic straws, which culminated in the Santa Barbara city council taking testimony from a nine-year-old about the planetary menace, has come to light in recent days. During that council session, councilman Jesse Dominguez said to following in response to citizens who asked “what’s next?”:

“Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate every aspect of people’s lives.”

Take that one in for a moment, for it expresses the core impulse of liberalism today.

As a famous lady once said, “We’re going to take things from you on behalf of the common good.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

THIS IS GETTING REALLY OUT OF HAND:   Facebook blocks ad by Elizabeth Heng, GOP candidate for Congress.

UPDATE (by Charlie): This is the video:

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED: NEW STUDY SAYS WATCHING THE KARDASHIANS ACTUALLY MAKES YOU A WORSE PERSON.

WAS THE MADURO ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT A ‘FALSE FLAG’ OPERATION?

The BBC quotes anonymous firefighters at the scene who say “the incident was actually a gas tank explosion inside an apartment, but did not provide further details.” Venezuelan authorities also said that 7 people had been arrested.

Put two and two together and the possibility exists that Maduro’s government, in the midst of a terrible economic crisis with inflation climbing toward one million percent and empty grocery store shelves, might have engineered a false security situation to give it an excuse to crack down on opponents.

Socialist regimes have no history whatsoever of doing stuff like that.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY: A SIG Integral Eccentric Firearm Silencer Patent Has Been Approved.

THE NEW YORK TIMES ON “THE HIGH SCHOOL WE CAN’T LOG OFF FROM: Twitter rewards us for our mistakes. It isn’t designed to let us grow up.”

To be fair, that’s also true of the Times itself. She’s not mentioned by name in the above column, but it’s obvious that its subtext is the Gray Lady’s justification of hiring Sarah Jeong after years of racist tweets.

UPDATE: “The New York Times stealth-edited their article about Roseanne Barr to remove a header caption after being called out for hypocrisy over Sarah Jeong. This is journalism in 2018.”

The missing header said, “The network’s decision to cancel ‘Roseanne’ over a racist comment will cost it. But when people decide to let racism slide, it costs the rest of us.”

As the Times is learning the hard way.

Speaking of stealth-editing, Christina Hoff Sommers notes that there’s “No mention of Sarah Jeong’s demented tweets on her Wikipedia page. Why? A little group of activist editors won’t allow it. Amazing. See them in action here.”

THE MASK SLIPS IN SANTA BARBARA:  In dealing with the plastic straw crisis, city councilman states, “Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate every aspect of people’s lives.” 

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: Forced marriage: Police ‘turn a blind eye’ to child brides. “Officials at the Home Office received more than 3,800 reports of forced marriages or victims being at risk of forced marriage in the past three years. Hundreds of the victims are children, with the youngest only four years old. However, The Times surveyed police forces and found that fewer than 80 suspects had been charged in this time. It became illegal to force someone to marry in 2014 but only three cases have resulted in convictions.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The greatest places in the world to drink beer.

THIS INVESTIGATION HAS ALWAYS SEEMED IFFY TO ME: Las Vegas Shooting Investigation Closed. No Motive Found.

PEOPLE MAGAZINE MORPHED INTO THE ONION SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Maine Lobster Festival Strips Sea Goddess, 18, of Crown Over ‘Inappropriate’ Social Media Photos.

DISPATCHES FROM THE K-12 IMPLOSION: Get ready for elementary school Drag Queen Reading Hour (video)! “In other words, they want to soften up the kids’ thought patterns, overriding anything they might be learning at home before they advance too far and learn enough actual science to know that human beings are born into one of two genders. If you can confuse them enough in pre-school you have a much better chance of pushing this sort of misinformation on them when they approach adulthood.”

CHANGE: EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon To Start Creating Space Force — Even Before Congress Approves It.

FLASHBACK: Frenzied, Angry Mob Turns on Reporters in a Dangerous Physical Altercation. “You may not remember it. No president was asked about it. No Democrat candidate was made to disown it. It didn’t get much press. Not like this week’s mob.”

As Jim Treacher has said:

GREAT MOMENTS IN PHRASING: David Hogg’s vision: Each member of Congress will have a young person.

FIGHTING FOREIGN INFLUENCE: Trump expected to sign bill blocking money for Chinese Communist propaganda in colleges.

So-called Confucius Institutes hosted by American colleges and universities have long drawn concern from both lawmakers and academic groups for promoting Chinese Communist propaganda and squelching academic freedom.

Since few colleges have acted against this source of free and easy money, the U.S. government is playing its own part.

Under a massive defense authorization bill expected to be signed by President Trump, authorized funding would be blocked from supporting Chinese-language programs at colleges that host the Chinese government-operated institutes. It also blocks funding for programs at Confucius Institutes outside colleges.

China has been getting away with murder for years.

TOO GOOD TO CHECK: Russia Appointed Steven Seagal to Improve Relations with America.

And to think I knew him when…

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Reforming ‘Toxic Masculinity’ at University of Texas.

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BYRON YORK: 12 times Christopher Steele fed Trump-Russia allegations to FBI after the election.

Congressional investigators know that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign, kept supplying allegations to the FBI after the 2016 election — and even after he was terminated as a source by the bureau for giving confidential information to the media.

Because he had broken his agreement with the FBI, bureau procedure did not allow agents to keep using Steele as a source. But they did so anyway — by devising a system in which Steele spoke regularly with Bruce Ohr, a top Obama Justice Department official whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, which hired Steele to search for dirt on Donald Trump in Russia. Ohr then passed on Steele’s information to the FBI.

In a highly unusual arrangement, Ohr, who was the fourth-highest ranking official in the Justice Department, acted as an intermediary for a terminated source for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe. His task was to deliver to the FBI what Steele told him, which effectively meant the bureau kept Steele as a source.

The FBI is a disgrace. It should probably be shut down.

THE TRAGIC BEGINNINGS OF MODERN FIRE SCIENCE: On this day in 1949, the infamous Mann Gulch Fire claimed the lives of 13 young firefighters.

Lewis & Clark had stopped by Mann Gulch and given it its name on their westward journey in 1805. One hundred and forty-four years later, its location in the wilds of Montana was almost as remote as it had been then.

The fire had been spotted by James O. Harrison, a college student working over the summer as a ranger and fire lookout for the National Forest Service. Harrison had been a smoke jumper—a firefighter who leaps out of airplanes to stop remote wildfires—the previous year, but he had decided the job was too dangerous. Once Harrison alerted the Forest Service, a crew of elite smoke jumpers was dispatched from Missoula to fight the fire.

At first, the fire didn’t seem that impressive. Fifteen smoke jumpers, led by 33-year-old Wagner “Wag” Dodge, parachuted out of a Douglas DC-3 into what had become one of the hottest days of the year. Harrison was already on the scene to help. Despite the wind and heat, with their backs to the Missouri River, their position seemed relatively safe as they moved in to bring the fire under control.

But the fire crowned. Now it was in two places. And suddenly, their escape route toward the river was cut off. To get away from the rapidly advancing flames they would have to run up a steep hill toward a rocky ridge. Fire runs much faster uphill than it does on level ground.

Only four made it to the top. Of those, only two—Walter B. Rumsey (21) and Robert W. Sallee (17)—managed to scramble through a crevice in the rocks to safety. Meanwhile, Wag Dodge had a different idea. Recognizing that he could never make it up the hill in time, he lit the grass around him in an effort to create a safe zone that the main fire would pass over. He yelled to the crew to lie down with him inside the zone. But they didn’t understand him. Or they thought him a fool. They kept running.

Dodge survived (only to die a few years later of cancer). But 13 died—including Robert J. Bennett (22), Eldon E. Diettert (19), James O. Harrison (20), William J. Hellman (24), Philip R. McVey (22), David R. Navon (28), Leonard L. Piper (23), Stanley J. Reba (25), Marvin L. Sherman (21), Joseph B. Sylvia (24), Henry J. Thol, Jr. (19), Newton R. Thompson (23), and Silas R. Thompson (21).  Many were WWII veterans who had survived the war, but not the peace.

There was a public outcry over the tragedy. We need to know a lot more about how fires behave and how to best control them, people argued. We need better training and better equipment. And, of course, they were right. We needed all those things; we’d always needed them.  And soon after Mann Gulch Fire, we started getting them. In that sense, the deaths of these young heroes were not in vain. Our willingness to study fire in a serious manner took a giant leap. So, in time, did our knowledge. While fighting wildfires remains frighteningly dangerous, no doubt lives have been saved as a result of that willingness to learn from tragedy.

(My gentleman friend knows that over the last couple of years I have become a bit obsessed with Cry, Cry, Cry’s song about the fire—entitled Cold Missouri Waters. I blame Powerline’s Scott Johnson for this. Scott posted a video of the song a couple of years ago. I’ve probably played it 150 times since them. The Mann Gulch Fire was also immortalized in Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire.)

REX MURPHY: Laurier, trading ‘free speech’ for ‘better speech,’ proves unspeakably clueless still: It’s only when progressives lose control of an issue that they agree to even have it discussed. This is then called a conversation.