CLONEBURGER: Lab-grown meat could be in restaurants in 3 years.

The big challenge is making meat that looks, feels and tastes like the real thing. Mosa Meat uses a small sample of cells taken from a live animal. Those cells are fed with nutrients so that they grow into strands of muscle tissue. The company claims it could make up to 80,000 quarter pounders from a single sample.

A Dutch company that presented the world’s first lab-grown beef burger five years ago said Tuesday it has received funding to pursue its plans to make and sell artificially grown meat to restaurants from 2021.

Maastricht-based Mosa Meat, which has in the past also received 1 million euros from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, said it hopes to sell its first products most likely ground beef for burgers in 2021. The aim is to achieve industrial-scale production 2-3 years later, with a typical hamburger patty costing about $1.

I can see this stuff making a passable hamburger, but it just doesn’t seem possible to make a convincing ribeye out of strands.

FASTER, PLEASE: Gene therapy to remove old cells is extending the life of older mice.

AS A LEGENDARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISES, GET IN THEIR FACES AND PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Steven Crowder Confronts Journalist Over Her Unethical Reporting on Him and It Doesn’t Go Well for Her.

Read the whole thing.

I’M EXPECTING AFTERNOON SHOWERS AND AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: US Fighters May Carry StormBreaker Foul-Weather Bomb by Next Year.

The U.S. Air Force’s System Programs Office “is looking at [the bomb and saying], ‘This is going so well’ that they’re pulling the timeline left because they want to potentially field it early,” said Jim Meger of Raytheon’s Missile Systems business development. Meger spoke to Military.com Tuesday during an interview at the Farnborough air show here.

“No matter how challenging a scenario we’ve put into it, the weapon is performing just fantastic,” Meger said.

More procurement wins like this, please.

OH: Bernie Sanders’ Strategist Named in New Cache of Mueller Evidence.

ALSO, ADULTS: Smartphones may trigger ADHD in teens, study says.

Plus: “What if…bear with me a moment…checking social media every 15 minutes keeps us in a state of constant stress & agitation without actually keeping us better informed than the old days of reading the morning paper & occasionally watching the evening news did?”

Related: Social Media As Social Disease.

And, of course, Scott Adams was there first.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS, KIDS:  I agreed with Chomsky today probably for the first time in my life. When asked about Treasonpalooza he said:

[F]irst of all, it is a joke. Half the world is cracking up in laughter. The United States doesn’t just interfere in elections. It overthrows governments it doesn’t like, institutes military dictatorships. Simply in the case of Russia alone—it’s the least of it—the U.S. government, under Clinton, intervened quite blatantly and openly, then tried to conceal it, to get their man Yeltsin in, in all sorts of ways. So, this, as I say, it’s considered—it’s turning the United States, again, into a laughingstock in the world.

Salvador Allende, Juan Batista, Patrice Lumumba and Ngo Diem could not be reached for comment.

HONEY TRAP: Judge Orders Accused Russian Spy to Stay Behind Bars as DOJ Alleges Sex Offered for Political Influence.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Who does she think she is, a New York Times reporter?

SCRAPPLEFACE: Trump Clarifies Russia Quip, 2015 Announcement.

THIS IS OBVIOUS JUST FROM THE NUMBER OF WINE REFERENCES ON FACEBOOK: Alcohol Consumption Among Women Is on the Rise. “People just say — of course you drink. We do too. Moms need it. Cheers.” Female privilege.

Related: How Mommy Drinking Culture Has Normalized Alcoholism For Women.

IT’S COME TO THIS: New Jersey Considers Taxing Tap Water.

When does the inevitable tax on thingy arrive?

FILIBUSTER-PROOF: Liberals Send Female Senate Democrats ‘Pee-Proof’ Underwear to Oppose Trump’s SCOTUS Pick.

THINX and Icon, the companies behind the “period sex blanket” and absorbent underwear for bladder leaks, sent “endurance packages” to senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.).

“THINX and Icon create underwear that champion and support bodies throughout different stages of life,” according to a press release sent by Unbendable Media, a public relations firm. “From first periods to post-menopause and all the little leaks in between, THINX and Icon aim to empower their customers with sustainable solutions, all while breaking taboos around menstruation and bladder leaks.”

The companies said they were sending female Democratic senators urine absorbent underwear to “prepare them for hearings and other potential roadblock attempts in efforts to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation.”

The underwear will help them “protect women’s rights” by blocking Kavanaugh’s appointment, according to the press release.

I guess nobody told them about the Reid Option.

A HOSTILE EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT ON ACCOUNT OF SEX: UTexas makes student reflect on ‘masculinity’ as punishment. “That’s not just discrimination; that’s treating masculinity as a mental health issue, and pretending they have some pretentious duty to correct the supposed defects in my sex for the betterment of all society.”

I hope the Department Of Education looks into this.

I’M INTERVIEWED ON WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO, re the case for more U.S. Supreme Court justices. Appointed, under my plan, by state governors.

MATT DRUDGE WEIGHS IN ON LATEST NEW YORKER COVER: The Left Has a ‘Fetish’ For Trump’s Death.

We’ve seen this movie before, of course.

WHAT? White House Weighing Putin Request to Interrogate Americans Linked to Top Critic Browder.

EVERYTHING IS ILLEGAL:  Laws that presumptively prohibit “disparate impact” require employers, landlords, and recipients of federal funds to justify to a government agency just about EVERYTHING they do.  Maybe even everything.

OIKOPHOBIA ON THE RISE AFTER TRUMP WIN: In “‘Jell-O Girls,’ a Dark Family History Behind a Candy-Colored Dessert,” Times reviewer Jennifer Szalai drops this clanger:

Jell-O, meanwhile, gets the full semiotics treatment, as Rowbottom shows how it went from a modern, scientific foodstuff to a relic of soul-killing suburbia. As sharp as her insights often are, this is a book in which Everything Signifies. Even a digression about the catacombs in an Italian monastery includes some Jell-O symbolism. You occasionally want to tell Rowbottom to ease up: Sometimes a Jell-O mold is just a Jell-O mold.

To paraphrase Pauline Kael’s infamous (and often bowdlerized) quote about Nixon’s voters, I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who lives in suburbia. Who the others are, I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m writing a book review, I can feel them.

(Via John Podhoretz; classical reference in headline.)

FLORIDA, MAN: Natty Ice beer thief shot by gas station owner — who faces attempted murder charge.

According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, 43-year-old Rennie Defoe Jr. of Plant City, walked into the store about 11:40 p.m. and grabbed three 18-packs of Natural Ice from the cooler.

Video released by the Sheriff’s Office showed Defoe strolling out the front door as the store’s father-and-son owners watched.

The son, Mehedeun Hasan of Lakeland, grabbed a 9 mm handgun and chased after Defoe, the video shows. Defoe tossed the beer into his Toyota Camry and climbed into the driver’s seat.

According to investigators, Hasan — seen in the video pointing the gun at the driver’s window — opened fire as Defoe pulled away.

Defoe drove off, but crashed his car less than a mile away.

He was taken to Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center with a single gunshot wound to his left arm and chest, deputies said. He was listed in critical condition, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Hasan, who had no prior criminal history, was arrested on charges of attempted murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, Defoe has a lengthy felony record, including charges of robbery, firing into a dwelling, grand theft and distributing cocaine within 100 feet of a school.

It doesn’t seem like a jury would actually convict — but you never know.

WHAT PASSES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE THESE DAYS: That anti-straw movement? It’s all based on one 9-year-old’s suspect statistic.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Vermont Law School’s Tenured Faculty Purge And What It Portends For Legal Education.

BUT OF COURSE: Bankrupt Puerto Rico Buys Governor a $245,000 SUV. Anger Ensues.

NOT THAT ONE; THE OTHER ONE: Today is George Bush’s Birthday.

Some will protest and say, that’s not true, the president’s birthday was July 6. But we’re not talking about the same person, apparently. Nor his father. Because this George Bush turns only 15 today.

The George Bush I have in mind is not the one whose full name is George Walker Bush, nor the one whose full name is George Herbert Walker Bush, but the one whose full name is George Bush Abdul Kader Faris Abed El-Hussein (no relation to Saddam). And this George Bush was born in Baghdad on July 11, 2003.

We were welcomed as liberators — and do read the whole thing.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Sacha Baron Cohen Meets His Match in California Gun Shop Owner.

GOOD TIMES: What’s behind the government’s record income tax collection.

According to the Treasury Department’s monthly statement, our government collected a record $1.305 trillion in individual income taxes through the first nine months of fiscal 2018.

The figure, which goes up to June, is rising because more people are working and paying taxes.

It may also be heading higher because more folks are cashing in gains made in the stock market.

That’s the good news.

But there’s also some bad news attached to the tax cuts. Washington still ran a deficit of $607 billion over the same nine months — despite all those contributions from hardworking Americans.

Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.