OFTEN WRONG, NEVER IN DOUBT: Political Experts Aren’t Really Experts. And their track record proves it.

SAME: Larry Summers Says Inflation Has Him ‘More Worried’ Following July Jobs Report.

BUT AT LEAST THEY’VE BEEN SPARED THE HORRORS OF FRACKING: Energy Bills in Britain to Double Next Year. 

JEFFREY ANDERSON: Masks Still Don’t Work. More than two years on, the best scientific evidence says that masks don’t stop Covid—and public health officials continue to ignore it as they impose mandates at schools, colleges and military bases.

Masks are physically uncomfortable, make it harder to breathe, and profoundly compromise human social interaction. But none of that matters to the mask zealots, who are convinced that benefits far outweigh any potential costs. So, where is the proof?

Nowhere — not in the data from the pandemic, and not in the scientific literature (including that zealots’ favorite study from Bangladesh). Read the whole thing.

THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM, PERFORMING AS USUAL: The Chaotic Monkeypox Vaccine Pipeline Is Leaving Everyone Short.

Par for the course.

IT DOES FEEL THAT WAY: Olivia Newton-John’s Passing Is the Perfect Metaphor for the Death of the America I Grew Up In.

THE INSTA-WIFE SUFFERS FROM THIS EVER SINCE A DENTAL MISHAP THAT DAMAGED A NERVE: Study: Tinnitus is widespread, deserves more attention from researchers.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Biden administration says ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is over.

Just keep sending those busses to Washington and New York City.

DARK BRANDON: Now Biden Can’t Even Dress Himself. “This is fine. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the most powerful man in the free world, who doesn’t know where he is or who he is or what’s happening from one moment to the next. Yeah, okay, so he can’t even dress himself anymore. What’s the problem?”

SO STOP WITH THE VICTIM-BLAMING: Men’s higher risk of most cancers may be due to biological, not lifestyle, differences.

DON’T GET COCKY — A CORNERED RAT IS DANGEROUS: Deep State Burns Its Bridges to Get Trump—and Now It’s Fighting for Its Life.

THEY’RE NOW GIVING ADVICE ON HOW TO LIVE ONCE THE GREENS BAN AIR CONDITIONING: 11 ways to sleep better in unbearable heat: No AC? No problem.

I say, start with the parasite class: Ban A/C for DC! “We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.”

I’ll believe it’s a crisis when they start making actual sacrifices.

WHY MIGHT THAT BE? Harris County Really Doesn’t Want Vote Audits. “Remember, this is the county where the voting administrator had to resign over a horribly botched March primary this year.”

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: In the course of five seconds Biden forgets that he already shook hands with Chuck Schumer.

MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT WAS APPARENTLY ISSUED BY A MAGISTRATE JUDGE. I mean no disrespect to federal magistrate judges – who are not Article III judges and are appointed to 8-year terms – but were I the FBI, I probably would have made the effort to try to get a full-on federal judge with a life term to sign off on a unprecedented search warrant for the former (and maybe future?) President’s house. The point of such life terms is to insulate such judges from political influence, and getting a warrant from someone not so insulated, on something as hot as this, is not a great look.

(I am ignoring the angle here that he had also represented employees of Jeffrey Epstein – it’s usually not fair to smear lawyers with their clients – but that’s not the best optics you could hope for either.)

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Judge Who Approved Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Obama Donor, Linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

Related:

A GOOD BEAT, A LITTLE TEQUILA . . . How dancing black holes get close enough to merge.

LABELING AS PROPAGANDA: ‘Made in China’: Apple tells Taiwanese suppliers to relabel products. “Apple told suppliers on Friday that China has begun to enforce its rule that Taiwanese products be labeled as being made in ‘Taiwan, China’ or ‘Chinese Taipei,’ both of which indicate that the island is a part of China.”

To be clear, the law applies to Taiwan-made parts (and other items) shipped to Communist mainland China for final assembly.

ATHENA THORNE: The Great Self-Sorting Continues. “An Axios-Ipsos poll is the latest confirmation of what many people already see happening around them: deeply divided Americans are sorting themselves into ever-redder and bluer states that better align with their personal ideologies.”

We used to get along much better before Washington decided we had to be forced to get along better.

And by “get along better,” I mean “go along with them.”

BE PREPARED: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter for Hiking, Camping, Travel. #CommissionEarned

BACKGROUNDER: Russian Defence Research Expert on AFU performance, the effect of Western weapon supplies.

A balanced interview with Ruslan Pukhov, director of Russia’s Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

NOT IF THEY CAN HELP IT, THAT MEANS: Princeton mum on whether it will investigate prominent professor accused of plagiarism. Ever since the Bellesiles affair I’ve had a pretty low opinion of elite academic history.

Since it’s been a long time, here’s Jim Lindgren’s Yale Law Journal article debunking Bellesiles fraudulent scholarship. (Would YLJ publish an article like this today? Doubtful.)

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Dark Brandon Is Your Nightmare Comic-Opera Dictator. “‘You’ve got a nice constitutional republic here,’ I wrote in a Vercotti Brothers voice. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.'”

Plus:

• See MSNBC toe the FBI’s line in realtime
• The most heartwarming Ring video ever #FJB
• Boy, the news from New York City

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

THE TERM “LATINX” IS ANGLO CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, SO THEY’RE OFF TO A BAD START: ‘Anti-racism, anti-oppression work, equity, and social justice’ commitment required for ‘Latinx’ cluster hire.

Then again, woke politics is basically a white Anglo dysfunction, so. . .

IT’S JOE BIDEN’S POLICY. NEW YORK IS JUST GETTING A TINY TASTE OF IT: “This is horrific,” New York City mayor says of Greg Abbott’s policy as second busload of migrants from Texas arrives.