THIS EXPLAINS SHELDON COOPER’S SISTER: Prenatal testosterone linked to long-term effects in females who share womb with male twin. “Women who shared their mother’s womb with a male twin are less likely to graduate from high school or college, have earned less by their early 30s, and have lower fertility and marriage rates when compared with twins who are both female, according to new Northwestern University research. One explanation for the long-term effects the researchers discovered is changes in behavior, which have previously been demonstrated in girls with male twins.”

So there is such a thing as “testosterone poisoning” after all, it just occurs in women.

AT AMAZON, save in Car Care.

Plus, deals in Sports Nutrition.

RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Trump-Russia-Obsessed Rep. Eric Swalwell Mulling a Run for President in 2020. “I’ll make a decision by the end of the month.”

BLESS HIS HEART: NBC’s Idea of ‘Tough Question’ for 2020 Dem: Is Trump a ‘Racist?’

Reporting for NBC’s Today show on Tuesday, correspondent Kristen Welker touted New Jersey Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker being hit with a supposedly “tough question” during an interview with MSNBC host Chris Matthews that aired on Monday night’s Hardball. In reality, a clip of the alleged grilling showed Matthews urging Booker to call President Trump a “racist.”

“Meanwhile, as the Democratic base pushes issues of racial and gender equality, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker asked tough questions about President Trump by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews,” Welker claimed. The soundbite followed of Matthews teeing up the liberal lawmaker to trash Trump: “Is he racist?” Booker started to respond, but did not immediately say yes, prompting Matthews to cut him off and repeat: “Is he a racist?”

Yes. It’s true. Throughout Trump’s career as both a businessman and politician, he has uttered the words “golf” and “Chicago.” No word yet if he’s ever uttered “Bless his heart,” however.

REMEMBER, WHEN DEMOCRATS LOSE, IT MEANS THE RULES NEED TO BE CHANGED: Elizabeth Warren says she wants to eliminate the Electoral College. I almost want to see a 2020 Trump victory made possible by the National Popular Vote deal just to see heads explode.

WEIGHING THE BENEFITS AND RISKS OF STATINS.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

(Hat tip, Susan Speakman, who knows the true meaning of “Kennedyesque.”)

EWE-INSPIRING RESEARCH: World’s oldest semen makes sheep babies 50 years later.

GIVE HER ENOUGH ROPE…: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Less Popular Than Trump, Hillary.

CHARLIE MARTIN: The Power of Pulp. “Once upon a time, fiction was fun to read. Maybe it’s time to bring that back.”

Some of my favorite reading as a kid was from the pulp racks at various local stores. Inexpensive books with lurid sci-fi covers, written by authors who usually delivered on the cover’s promise.

SKYNET SMILES: A Robot Leg Learned to Walk by Itself Without Programming, in a Scarily Short Time.

OOPS: MySpace lost all music uploaded from 2003 to 2015.

MySpace remained big with local bands long after its wider audience disappeared. I hope none of them trusted all their digital data to someone else’s platform, which is never a good idea.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: 4 Times Before the Boeing 737 Max 8 That Plane Automation Software Went Haywire.

GET YOUR LAWS OFF MY… YOU KNOW: Andrew Yang, Upstart Democratic Presidential Candidate, Comes Out Against Circumcision.

WHAT AN UTTERLY STUPID AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE WAY TO BE PETTY: Germany Plans to Renege on Pledge to Raise Military Spending, Defying Trump.

If confirmed at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the move would mark a fresh step in the gradual estrangement between the U.S. and its erstwhile loyal European ally and comes after Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders for not meeting a 2% military-spending target.

In recent months, Berlin has rebuked Washington’s demands that it limits gas purchases from Russia, ban Chinese components from its communication networks, and prevent German companies from doing business with Iran.

In another sign of Berlin pushing for Europe to chart a more independent geopolitical course, Ms. Merkel is planning an unprecedented summit between European Union heads of government and Chinese President Xi Jinping next year, European diplomats said Monday.

Ms. Merkel publicly pledged last year to increase German military expenditure to 1.5% of gross domestic product by 2024 and bring it closer to the 2% level members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have set themselves as a target. The promise followed mounting and increasingly overt pressure by Washington under Mr. Trump.

Berlin currently spends about €43 billion ($49 billion) or over 1.2% of GDP on defense. Under the new budget plan, unveiled by the finance ministry Monday, the spending would rise to 1.37% of GDP next year, but then decrease again to 1.33% in 2019, 1.29% in 2022 and 1.25% in 2023.

Germany has chosen preemptive surrender to Russia (for energy, which we could supply) and to China (for tech, ditto). Between Erdogan and Merkel, there isn’t much left of an effective NATO.

DAVID HARSANYI: The Gun Control Campaign Against The AR-15 Is Full Of Lies. “Efforts to outlaw the AR-15 are part of an incremental movement to ban all semi-automatic guns.”

If [Joe] Scarborough and others are proposing banning all semi-automatic rifles, then why not handguns? Why not shotguns, which are used more often in homicides than ARs. Because their contention that the AR-15s are especially “dangerous and unusual” compared to other widely-owned guns, simply isn’t true.

Then again, the very notion of “weapons of war” is silly. Every gun is designed to kill, otherwise it would be worthless. And if any weapon that kills can be categorized as a “weapon of war” then the AR has some stiff competition. John Browning designed the 1911 handgun before World War I, and it was subsequently used by the US military until 1986. Now it is one of the most popular handgun designs in the country. It was a “weapon of war.”

Gun restrictionists focus on the AR-15 because it looks like a military weapon. Once stripped of emotion, however, the argument against ARs, which feature the same mechanics as many others firearms, is that they work better. There will always be a gun that works better than other guns. Which is why we know banning them is part of an incremental push towards broader prohibitions.

Molon labe — or just read the whole thing.

A STATEMENT FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA REGARDING THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS BRIBERY SCANDAL: “It is just despicable that these privileged, wealthy families, who already enjoy every advantage, would be so deceitful and unethical in their efforts to secure a coveted spot at Yale, Stanford, or Georgetown, but not at Penn, which — friendly reminder! — is an Ivy League school. It’s extremely exclusive. Very difficult to get into. Definitely harder than Georgetown and sometimes harder than Stanford; it sort of depends on the year.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: New Zealand Attack Shows Us That Tribal Score-Settling Has Infected the West. “The old devils are on the loose and the problem is what to do now.”

Ethnic conflict in the Third World is a dog-bites-man story. What is new about the New Zealand attack is that the terrible plague of tribal score-settling and grievance mongering is now in the West. Not that the West is a stranger to ethnic conflict: the Holocaust, Generalplan Ost, Holodomor, and Polish and Armenian genocides are bywords in themselves. But it was widely assumed that WW2 had seen these off (until Bosnia) and the risks of multiculturalism and mass immigration could be mitigated by immunosuppressive strategies like political correctness and demographic replacement, of which the EU project is a textbook example.

Yet events since 2016 indicate that this strategy is failing despite the suppressants. Pressure from the root causes — whether European colonialism, Islamic slave trading, 9/11, the War on Terror, multiculturalism, populism — are burning through the medication. The old devils are on the loose and the problem is what to do now.

In Europe, this Everything Old Sucks Again wound opened back up in Bosnia almost 30 years ago, and elites there proved unable or unwilling to stop it without outside (ie, American) help. Our own elites haven’t done much better in the decades since.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: TRUMP’S 7% PANEL.

Read the whole thing.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Sex Offender Read to Kids at ‘Drag Queen Story Hour,’ Pro-Family Group Reveals.

YEMEN: Faction fatigue and food warfare.

Very Related: Cocktails from Hell, Chapter 5: Iran Exploits Yemen’s Nest of Wars.

CHANGE: Pennsylvania Senators Unveil Marijuana Bill.

Senator Daylin Leach, and co-author, Senator Sharif Street are circulating their latest proposal, Senate Bill 350, to colleagues for co-sponsorship.

The bill would allow anyone 21 and older to use recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania, and each household could also grow up to six marijuana plants at a time for personal use.

The bill also allows home delivery of marijuana.

That last part seems wise.

WHAT’S AN OXFORD MATHEMATICIAN GOT TO SAY ABOUT FAITH? To meet John Lennox on the street would be a pleasant enough experience, as he is a down-to-earth Irishman with an easy laugh and a gentle manner. He’s the proverbial guy you’d love to have as a neighbor.

He’s also a professor of mathematics at Oxford, an admirer of the great physicist Stephen Hawking, whom he critiqued in an important book, a regular debate opponent of another famous Oxford don, Richard Dawkins, and an articulate apologist for intelligent design and evangelical Christianity.

So why does he claim science and faith are complementary at a time when the former claims to have done away with the latter? He explains it all here on HillFaith in an excerpt from a recent interview on British radio.

UPDATE: Every editor needs an editor and I am no exception. Thanks to all for pointing out my complementary/complimentary stumble.

AN UGLY TITLE IX TRUTH: St. Louis NAACP: ‘The denial of due process disproportionately impacts African American men.’

The St. Louis chapter of the African-American civil rights organization is supporting state legislation to make campus sexual-assault trials more fair to accused students, the Associated Press reports.

It’s a brave decision for the group, which will undoubtedly face hostility from other progressive organizations that have tarred the legislation as harmful to alleged survivors of sexual assault.

“The denial of due process at Missouri’s colleges disproportionately impacts African American men,” John Gaskin III, president of the chapter, wrote in a statement. “And that’s why we call for immediate due process reforms.”

He defended one of the advocates for the legislation, also black, who is financially supporting a group that is pushing for its enactment.

The Kansas City Star tarred Kingdom Principles as a “dark money group” that is “bankrolling ‘The Missouri Campus Due Process Coalition,’ which is buying ads on social media and conducting polling to measure support of the House and Senate bills that would alter Title IX proceedings in the state.”

“Dark money?” Racist much, KC Star?