WELL THAT’S NOT GOOD: Oral Contraceptives Tied to Depressive, Psychiatric Symptoms in Teens.

Conceivably related: Hysterectomy May Raise Depression and Anxiety Risk.

GROSS: EPA Issues Violation Notice to San Francisco.

Last month, President Trump warned of a potential violation notice, saying the city was allowing needles and human waste to go through storm drains to the ocean — an allegation denied by city officials.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler also sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter last week alleging waste left by the homeless in San Francisco and other cities was being improperly handled.

Mayor London Breed says the violation notice contains “mischaracterizations, inaccuracies and falsehoods” and says the city’s sewer system is one of the most effective in the country.

Having lived in San Francisco back when it was far cleaner than it is today — and it was gross even then — I’m calling BS on Breed.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Being Young, Active and Physically Fit May Be Very Good for Your Brain.

THE PERFECT 20TH CENTURY STORY FOR 21ST CENTURY AUDIENCES: Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ Punches Fake News in the Nose.

SLIPPERY PEOPLE: Is Joe Biden Turning His Quid Pro Quo into an Obama Scandal?

FASTER, PLEASE: Vitamin C infusion may reduce sepsis death risk. It sounds like this is just vitamin C, not the vitamin and steroids cocktail that has been so successful elsewhere.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: University of Mississippi professor who said ‘MAGA teens are modern day Hitlerjugend’ elected to ‘Faculty Responsibility’ committee.

DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE: Rosie O’Donnell deletes Twitter poll that failed to show support for impeachment.

I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS: Trapped and Alone Under a Shipwreck: Diver on DPV Learns a Lesson For Life. Don’t dive solo.

ANDREW YANG SMILES? Wargaming a Sanders Exit. “If I had to pick a likely beneficiary of Sanders dropping out beyond Biden and Warren, the longshot that comes to mind is Andrew Yang.”

Hmm…

NONWHITE PRIVILEGE: Colleges Create AI to Identify ‘Hate Speech’ – Turns Out Minorities Are the Worst Offenders.

THAT WAS FAST: “Stung by a public outcry, Fairfax County [Virginia] Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. announced Wednesday that he had canceled the suspension and restored to duty an officer who had turned an illegal immigrant over to ICE.”

To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove’s President Merkin Muffley, based on the perilously left-leaning Adlai Stevenson, gentlemen, you can’t enforce the law here — this is the police station!

SOME LADY IN GYM CLOTHES NEEDS TO TOSS A HAMMER AT THEM: Controversy as Apple removes Hong Kong protest app, saying it is ‘illegal.’ A friend on Facebook comments: “Remember back when Apple and Tim Cook made a big show of refusing to help the FBI unlock a terrorist’s iPhone? Remember what a friend of liberty it was then? Remember how willing it was to defy the state? Remember Apple, the principled defender of rights? Well.”

Flashback: Silicon Valley has gone from liberating to creepy.

SH***Y LITTLE AGENCY: IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor. “Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.”

TYLER O’NEIL: Democrats Are Turning America Into Ukraine.

DON’T PANIC: Bogus Poll Supports Bogus Impeachment.

STUART VARNEY: “Let’s call it what it is: Urban warfare in Hong Kong.”

WORLD WAR I DRAMA 1917 WILL PLAY AS ONE CONTINUOUS SHOT:

This type of approach has been attempted before, notably Hitchcock’s Rope in 1948, which played out entirely in one room. The 2011 horror-thriller Silent House and 2014’s Birdman pushed the technique further, one moving in and around a woodland home and the other circulating through Manhattan’s theater district.

What differentiates 1917 is its epic scale, journeying across a vast and chaotic outdoor landscape while remaining intimately focused on its two central characters. Along this odyssey they encounter other characters played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, Richard Madden, Andrew Scott, and Mark Strong.

* * * * * * * *

Mendes will be at New York Comic Con on Thursday for a panel further showcasing how they pulled it off. 1917 opens in limited release on December 25 and expands wide on January 10.

Beyond the Christmas holiday timing, it’s likely not a coincidence that month was chosen, as that’s when Peter Jackson’s brilliant restoration of the Imperial War Museum’s WWI footage, They Shall Not Grow Old, played in American theaters last year. I’ll be really looking forward to reading the reviews of 1917, but the concept sounds awesome.

HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU: The Seven-Year Auto Loan: America’s Middle Class Can’t Afford Its Cars.

That means monthly payments that last well past when the brake pads give out and potentially beyond when the car gets traded in for a new one. About a third of auto loans for new vehicles taken in the first half of 2019 had terms of longer than six years, according to credit-reporting firm Experian PLC. A decade ago, that number was less than 10%.

Car loans that are increasingly stretched out are a pronounced sign that some American middle class buyers can’t afford a middle-class lifestyle.

Incomes have risen at a sluggish pace in the past decade, but car prices have grown rapidly. New technological and safety features, such as larger and more sophisticated multimedia displays, have made even the most basic cars more expensive. U.S. consumers have also veered toward pricier rides such as sport-utility vehicles that tend to dominate auto showrooms. The result is that consumers are seeking bigger loans than ever to purchase a car.

A seven-year loan on a rapidly depreciating commodity doesn’t seem like the smartest idea.

Although to be fair, today’s cars are much more reliable and longer-lasting, so anyone who doesn’t insist on buying new (and all the newest electronics) can find nice deals on three-year lease returns.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More Lower-Cost Degrees, From Purdue, Kaplan and edX. “Purdue University will launch three under-$25,000 online master’s degrees in engineering on the edX platform.”

THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Portland Bans Urinals In $195M ‘Gender-Neutral’ Remodel of Government Building.

LET’S GET SMALL: Portugal’s navy reveals ‘tech guerrill’ unit creating tech toys that kill. “Citing “Martec’s Law”—a proposal by tech executive Scott Brinker that technologies change exponentially while organizational change is a lot harder and slower (and at best logarithmic)—Lt. Mendes told journalists that the Portuguese navy’s procurement process was too slow to bring in cutting-edge technology. As a result, he said, sailors’ cell phones had more computing power than the ships they sailed on. Smaller organizations, such as terrorist cells, could exploit new technologies much faster—as was seen when ISIS turned off-the-shelf quadcopter drones into grenade-dropping bombers.”

MEH, THIS HAPPENED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO: Male student wins homecoming queen title at Tennessee high school.