SAD NEWS FOR THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH: Glenn reported yesterday that the California Court of Appeal has denied UCLA law professor Rick Sander access to the California Bar’s data on bar passage. As a result, Sander and his ideologically diverse team of researchers will not be able to test for the mismatch effect in law schools. For those who give a damn about helping law students—specifically minority law students—to pass the bar, this is a sad result.

The data supporting the mismatch effect in STEM is strong. But some had criticized Sander’s previous research into law school mismatch on the ground that the database he was working from left something to be desired. Like a good and honest researcher, Sander responded by trying to obtain the best bar passage data in existence—the data kept by the California Bar (the nation’s largest). Litigation erupted.

Here’s the part that gets me: As I discussed in “A Dubious Expediency”: How Race-Preferential Admissions on Campus Hurt Minority Students, some of the very same people who criticized Sander’s first law school study on the ground that his database was inadequate were the ones who actively tried to prevent him from getting the California Bar data. The leftwing Society of American Law Teachers even subtly threatened to sue the Bar if they complied with Sander’s request. I can only hope that one day they will get what they deserve for this.

HEH:

SOCIALISM IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS: Misery of mothers fleeing with young babies amid Venezuela’s collapse.

We found 25-year-old Elisabeth Hernandez at the back of a church food-distribution centre in the Colombian border town of Cucuta.

She was sitting eating a free meal handed out by the church along with her four very young children.

She told us she had fled Margarita Island in Venezuela, hitchhiking by boat and then vehicle before crossing the border into Colombia by foot at Cucuta.

She has already been in Colombia for a month.

Looking at her four tiny children – the youngest is eight months old and still being breastfed and the eldest is six – we’re staggered how she’s managed to do this long journey on her own.

The father of the children left Venezuela a few months ago, abandoning her and the other children, taking their eldest child, eight, with him to Peru. That’s her intended destination too.

Related: Peru imposes new entry restrictions. Passports are now required in an effort to stem the flow of Venezuelans fleeing their country’s economic crisis.

Because racism, I suppose.

KARA SWISHER: How and Why Silicon Valley Gets High. “Everyone’s hoping a little LSD can lead them to the next billion-dollar idea.”

While the use of mind-altering substances here is nothing new, I spoke to just over a dozen people who all said consumption was increasing once again. Obviously, there are major problems with addiction to opiates and alcohol here, as elsewhere. But people in Silicon Valley tend to view drugs differently from those in places like, say, Hollywood and Wall Street. The point is less to let off steam or lose your inhibitions than to improve your mind.

“No one can afford to lose a step here anymore, so they want to hack the experience to make it work for their time-constrained schedules,” said one techie. “You want to be super lucid now.”

Another tech executive compares it to what Bradley Cooper did in the movie “Limitless,” about a man who uses a mystery drug to become much smarter than anyone else. “It was a terrible movie, but the idea of a having a heightened sense of awareness and also being totally functional appeals to people now,” he said. “Whatever can get you to that place without a lot of downside — like addiction — is preferred.”

That is why everyone he knows microdoses, saving the longer-acting drugs like Ecstasy for the rare occasions when they want to party and relax. As always, Adderall is often used to plow through work.

And marijuana, he told me, had become more like drinking a glass of wine, noting that he sees people openly vaping at tech events. Why? “No one does a stupid tweet on weed like they might on alcohol,” he said. “The most that happens is that you get lazy and eat badly.”

It is all, another tech worker said, about the “intellectualizing of drug use as a stimulant for the brain.”

While I can’t think of any actual, successful tech products or services which were developed while tripping, some of this attitude might stem from Steve Jobs advocating that everyone try hallucinogens like he did as a young man. But mostly I’m reminded of the musicians who thought that heroin was the secret to Charlie Parker’s genius, and ended up following his path to self-destruction.

WHY ARE UNIONIZED PUBLIC EMPLOYEES SO PRONE TO SEXUAL ABUSE? I was sexually assaulted by FDNY firefighters on my first day.

Firefighter Gordon Springs, 28, said in a deposition filed in court how he was “sexually assaulted” and humiliated on May 4, 2015, his first day at Ladder Co. 35/Engine Co. 40 near Lincoln Center, a squad dubbed The Cavemen.

Springs and three other probies fresh out of the Fire Academy were ushered to the gym where firefighter Peter Grillo “gave me an aggressive push” and whispered, “This house is really gay,” Springs said.

When he saw that all the firefighters were naked, he said, he tried to leave, but someone held the door shut to block his exit. . . .

Aristy warned Springs not to report the incident: “He told me he could punch me in my face and there was nothing I can do about it.”

The city’s defense: “The firefighters involved in the prank believed it would be a funny way to break the ice with the new members.”

Pathetic.

CHANGE: Democrats strip power away from superdelegates.

So-called superdelegates – members of the Democratic National Committee, elected officials, and other party elders who are allowed to support any presidential nominee they choose – will now be barred from voting on the first ballot to select the nominee at the 2020 Democratic convention unless a candidate has already earned enough pledged delegates through the state caucus and primary elections to secure the nomination. Superdelegates will only be allowed to weigh in on the first ballot if no candidate has earned a majority of pledged delegates and a second ballot is required to choose a nominee – though no convention has gone to multiple ballots since 1952.

The aim of the reforms, DNC Chairman Tom Perez wrote in a letter to DNC members, was to address a “perceived lack of transparency in our presidential primary process” and “perceptions of undue influence in favor of particular candidates.” He was referring to frustrations voiced by those who supported Sanders that the vast majority of superdelegates – who represented about 15 percent of the total delegates – publicly backed then-candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. They did not ultimately change the outcome of the election, but Clinton needed those delegates to clinch the nomination.

The way is cleared for a “democratic” socialist to have a real shot at the Democratic nomination in 2020.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: You think the SJW war on engineering is a joke…And that is your mistake.

WELL, GOOD: U.S. Set to Reject Palestinian Fantasy of ‘Right of Return.’ “The change in policy will be a splash of cold water on Palestinian illusions.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

(Bumped.)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY—KRAKATOA: Beginning in May 1883, it had been throwing up steam and ash. By August 26, explosions were heard every ten minutes or so.   And on August 27, it blew its ever-lovin’ head off with what may have been the loudest noise heard in historic times. It punctured the eardrums of sailors 40 miles away and could be heard clearly more than 3000 miles away.

Dutch authorities put the death toll at 36,417, including many who died in the tsunamis. Tidal effects registered as far away as England.

Most of the island of Krakatoa disappeared. And, of course, GLOBAL COOLING: Average summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped by about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the year that followed. It is said that temperatures did not return to normal until five years later.