RADICAL CHIC, THE GERITOL YEARS: Why Have Seattle’s Police Become Enforcers for the Antifa?

COOL YULE: Branson says Virgin Galactic will send people to space before Christmas.

The billionaire said he is “pretty confident” the space tourism venture he co-founded can achieve this milestone by the end of the year in a Nov. 30 interview with CNN Business.

“We have a brilliant group of astronauts who literally believe 100% in the project, and give it their everything,” he said.

The entrepreneur said that the first few trips into space will be flown by test pilots with no tourists on board. He’ll be the first passenger, he added.

Still, several people are ready to pony up $200,000 to $250,000 for a seat on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.

“I’m not allowed up until the [test pilots] have broken it in a few times, first,” Branson told the business news network. “I would love to have gone on this very [first] flight, but [pilots] are incredibly brave people.”

Godspeed.

I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT HOW COQ10 SEEMS TO HAVE HELPED MY MIGRAINES, AND NOW THERE’S THIS: Efficacy of CoQ10 as supplementation for migraine: A meta-analysis. “Findings supported CoQ10 as a powerful therapeutic preventative agent in regard to migraine duration and the number of monthly migraine days.”

IF IT MOVES, TAX IT: Prominent Chicago mayoral candidate suggests a commuter tax.

On Fox 32’s Flannery Fired Up on Sunday, Bill Daley promised a plan to fix the pension debacle soon. Well, part of his plan came out yesterday during a speech to the venerable City Club of Chicago. Daley is open to a commuter tax.

Time for some history. Businesses and residents were fleeing Detroit in the 1950s and the early 1960s. The solution, Jerome Cavanaugh, the Motor City’s liberal mayor reasoned, was a municipal income tax and a commuter tax. The version of the decline and fall of Detroit you are familiar with is that the deadly 1967 riots fostered the city’s collapse. While it surely hastened it, the seeds of Detroit’s failure, which culminated in the historic 2013 bankruptcy, was planted by Cavanaugh’s income and commuter taxes. Even today Eight Mile Road, the northern border of Detroit, is the demarcation line for poverty and prosperity.

To be fair, Daley is not suggesting a Chicago income tax and he favors amending the pension clause–great idea–in the state constitution that forbids cutting pension benefits.

But if Daley’s commuter tax becomes law, look for the 14-lane Dan Ryan Expressway to be one of the thoroughfares out of Chicago for a multitude of residents and businesses.

If this tax ever comes to pass, there will be an immediate cry for discounts or rebates for people who drive the “right” kind of vehicles into the city.

TESLA FACTORY IS A HOTBED OF RACISM, FORMER BLACK EMPLOYEES CLAIM.

Why is the Democrat-monopoly Bay Area such a cesspit of racism?

THIS IS NICE: Donald Trump will send his presidential plane to pick up the remains of George H.W. Bush in Texas.

The remains of former President George Herbert Walker Bush will return to Washington in the most dramatic and distinguished fashion possible, occupying the plane that normally serves as Air Force One.

President Donald Trump told reporters of the plan aboard the aircraft as they returned from the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

‘So what we’re doing with the plane – we land, and then they come in, and these are great people that run these aircraft. They are unbelievable,’ he said.

‘And they’re taking apart – I don’t think this section. The section up front, They’re taking all of the seats out. … We’re sending the plane, this plane, to Houston. And it picks up the casket.’

Earlier on Saturday, Trump said during a photo-op with Chinese President Xi Jinping that the final flight to Washington ‘is a special tribute that he deserves very much. And it’s my honor. And again, he’ll be missed. He’ll be greatly missed. He was a terrific person and terrific man.’

A magnanimous gesture of respect, and perhaps an olive branch to the Bushist #NeverTrump crowd.

NO TAKEBACKS: Broward County Elections Chief Snipes Rescinds Resignation.

INTERESTING: Metformin’s Effect in Diabetes Linked to Gut Microbiota Changes.

The glucose-lowering effects of the first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes, metformin, have long been thought to be mediated through effects on liver cells, but new research suggests the drug may also significantly affect the gut microbiota and that this may independently contribute to glucose control.

“These results suggest that oral metformin treatment regulates the gut microbiota and bile acid metabolism in individuals with type 2 diabetes,” the authors report in research published in Nature Medicine.

Although evidence links metformin’s effects to activity in hepatocytes, the oral drug reaches high concentrations in the small intestine. In a previous study, people who had undergone treatment with metformin were indeed found to have alterations in gut microbiota.

Gut bacteria seem to matter a lot.

IN THE EMAIL FROM MY FRIEND BRAD TORGERSEN:  A Star-Wheeled Sky.

THE WAYPOINT TO ULTIMATE POWER!

Over a millennium in the past, humans fleeing Earth in slower-than-light vessels discovered the Waywork, an abandoned alien superhighway system that allows instantaneous travel from star to star. The problem: there are a finite number of Waypoint nodes—and the burgeoning population of humans is hemmed in as a result. Furthermore, humanity is divided into contending Starstates. One of the strongest is based on an oligarchy ruling families, but still mostly democratic. The other is a totalitarian nightmare. War seems inevitable.

Now a new Waypoint appears. Might it lead to the long-lost creators of the Waywork? If so, there may be knowledge and technology that will tip the balance in the coming war.

Three people race to make it to the new Waypoint—and beyond. These include Wyodreth Antagean, the reluctant son of an interstellar shipping magnate, Lady Garsina Oswight, the daring daughter of a royal family, and Zuri Mikton, a disgraced flag officer seeking redemption. They are facing an implacable foe in Golsubril Vex, a merciless, but highly effective, autocrat from the Waywork’s most brutal regime. Vex is determined to control the new Waypoint and whatever revelation or power lies on the other side.

Now humanity’s fate—to live in freedom or endless dictatorship—depends on just what that revelation might be.  And who gets there first.

AND THAT TOO IS CHANGING:  ‘Tis the Season.

OR IN OTHER WORDS, IMAGINARY THINGS IN THE WEST, AND A DANGER EVERYWHERE ELSE:  And speaking of white privilege…

WORTH READING:  Voices of Reason.

SOMETIMES, THE WORM DOES TURN:  In Paris, the worst riots in a generation.

WHY?  HuffPo and SJWs Attack A Poor Little Reindeer Named Rudolph.

ONE SUSPECTS THAT’S HIS PURPOSE:  #ParisRiots: Macron’s Fuel Tax And Climate Change Policies Are Destroying France.

GUN BUNNIES, WRITERS… YOU KNOW, FUN:  Writing Guns, The 10,000 Foot View by JL Curtis.

I THINK THAT SAUSAGE IS STUFFED WITH SAWDUST, LIKE END-STAGE EASTERN EUROPEAN SAUSAGE IN THE BAD OLD DAYS:  Has every song been written? “Eenheidsworst” (standardized sausage) in music.