JOHN ELLIS: 5 Modern Myths People Need to Stop Believing.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HOPED: Contaminated synthetic cannabis threatens blood supply, FDA says.

NOT THE ONION: Obama Attacks Wealthy For Big Houses Before Returning To His $8 Million Mansion.

FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE: The Dark Knight Changed Hollywood Movies Forever.

While Batman Begins had one foot firmly planted in the pulpier side of the character, The Dark Knight was filmed like a gritty, atmospheric crime movie, with Nolan taking visual cues from Michael Mann’s bank-robber epic Heat. Rather than heightening Gotham City to the point that a man dressed as a bat makes sense as its public defender, Nolan turns Batman (Christian Bale) and the Joker (Heath Ledger) into jarring archetypes who are incongruous to the world of gangsters and cops around them, and symptoms of an increasingly polarized society of heroes and villains.

Part of Batman’s quest in The Dark Knight is to push the attorney general Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) as Gotham’s hero of the future, an effort that implodes when the Joker attacks and scars Dent, turning him into the monstrous villain Two-Face. Most comic-book antagonists have specific motives of world domination or personal revenge. But Nolan presents the Joker more as an elemental agent of chaos—one who’s interested only in upsetting the natural order of things wherever he goes, and who’s fascinated with Batman because he represents the opposite extreme. It’s a vision of evil as something trollish, amoral, and anarchic. “Some men just want to watch the world burn,” says Batman’s reliable butler, Alfred (Michael Caine)—a line that became an online refrain in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Nolan got to make The Dark Knight exactly as he wanted, focusing on smaller, more practical stunts (the film’s biggest set piece involves a truck flipping over). He didn’t have to worry about setting up future sequels, shooting in 3-D, or doubling down on CGI spectacle to make for a more epic trailer. The film’s colossal success with both critics and audiences meant that almost every future superhero movie had to be more than just a fringe project for its studio. Couple that with the franchise potential of Iron Man, and a film as single-minded as The Dark Knight just couldn’t be made again.

A shame, that.

SCIENCE: CRISPR gene editing possible without using a virus, scientists say.

WASHINGTON POST RETURNS TO FORM:

● 2009: Newsweek, then still owned by the Post, declares, “We Are All Socialists Now.”

● 2017: WaPo introduces new emo slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

● 2018: Embrace the darkness: “God bless the ‘deep state.’”

Woodward and Bernstein could not be reached for comment.

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL: First Human Head Transplant will still happen soon based upon millions in sunk costs.

USA TODAY SPORTS COLUMNIST DEMANDS FIRING OF TAR HEELS COACH FOR CLAIMING FOOTBALL ‘UNDER ATTACK’ OVER BRAIN INJURY FEARS.

GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERSECTIONALITY: Leftist Billboard in Indiana Accuses GOP of Being Communists.

Complete with the  hammer and sickle logo formerly used by the lost nation described as Shangri-La by the New York Times last year.

I eagerly await Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s next interview to make sense of it all.

THE ORAL HISTORY OF APOLLO 11.

KENTUCKY REP. BLASTS ‘PAY-TO-PLAY’ CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES: Ask Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) about Congress and the first thing he’s likely to talk about is his anger about how a representative’s committee assignments are determined by how much money he or she can raise for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

LifeZette’s Connor Wolf got that and more from Massie in a great interview about how to drain the swamp. Connor is doing a series of such interviews with Members of Congress. Go here, here and here for previous installments.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SOCIAL MEDIA: Mob Gets Filmmaker To Apologize For Suggesting Lefties Read Ben Shapiro.

I blame history’s greatest monster, Allegra Budenmayer.

IT’S COME TO THIS: ‘Sorry mom, I’m straight:’ Oversharing mother who blogs about her pride in her ‘rainbow boy’ reveals how other son finally plucked up courage to come out to her as heterosexual.

17 DEAD AND SEVEN INJURED AFTER DUCK BOAT CARRYING 31 — INCLUDING AT LEAST THREE CHILDREN — CAPSIZES ON STORMY MISSOURI LAKE, AS FINAL VIDEO SHOWS ITS BATTLE TO STAY AFLOAT.

Related: Duck boat pilot was also killed in capsizing.

ARCTIC JIHAD: Refugee Violence Now Strikes Remote Corners of Europe.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: THE FAILED PLOT TO KILL HITLER: The July 20^th Plot was not the first attempt to assassinate Nazi Germany’s Führer or even the first by the particular set of conspirators. But unlike most previous efforts, this one came close.

By 1944, the war was going badly for Germany. Victory seemed impossible. A number of German military officers and civilians decided they’d had enough of Hitler and Nazism. Rather than suffer another devastating defeat at the hands of the allies, they wanted a negotiated peace. Hitler’s death, they felt, was a necessary step to get there.

The leaders among the military officers—including General Friedrich Olbricht and Major General Henning von Tresckow—tended to have in common that they were German nationalists, conservatives, and aristocrats. The civilians included former Leipzig mayor Carl Friedrich Goerdeler.

Opposition to Nazism’s policies towards Jews may have been secondary in their minds to just ending the calamitous war by any means necessary. But it was a factor–at least for some. Both Tresckow and Goerdeler expressed such opposition. Some of the participants were part of the Kreisau Circle.

The key figure in the plot was a 36-year-old career officer, Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg—a serious Catholic, conservative and aristocrat. It was he who carried the briefcase containing the bomb into Hitler’s secret headquarters in East Prussia where daily briefings were held. Stauffenberg set it down near where Hitler was to sit and excused himself for a telephone call.

Stauffenberg thought he’d been successful. He headed straight to Berlin, where he had hoped to help execute an elaborate plan to take over the reins of government. But he was mistaken. The bomb killed four individuals in the room. An additional 20 were injured, some seriously. But Hitler’s injuries were only slight. The briefcase is believed to have been moved a bit before it went off.

The conspirators—often including those with only remote connections to the plot—were rounded up. Stauffenberg, Olbricht, and Tresckow were dead by the next day. Altogether, more than 7000 were arrested, and 4980 executed.

Among the dead was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who may or may not have been an active participant of the plot. He was reportedly given the option of (1) pleading his case to Hitler himself; (2) being tried by the so-called People’s Court; or (3) suicide. He chose suicide. The public was told that he had died of a heart attack or a cerebral embolism. He was given a state funeral.

Footnote to history: Stauffenberg’s son, just a boy at the time, went on to become a general in the West German army. “For me,” he said, “there is no question that the plot has saved a little of the honour of Germany.”

WE CAN HOPE: A Tide Flowing Toward Free Speech on Campus.