OPEN THREAD: Now it’s your time to shine.

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS: The promise of direct-to-device.

VERY FEW THINGS ARE AS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SAYS: Are short-term health insurance plans ‘skimpy’ as the Biden administration says?

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Rocket Engine Begins Construction.

DON’T THINK OF IT AS POLLUTION, THINK OF IT AS AN ARTIFICIAL REEF! An Unexpected Haven: North Pacific “Garbage Patch” Teems With Life.

THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY WAS DESTRUCTIVE IN SO MANY WAYS: The Long, Destructive Shadow of Obama’s Russia Doctrine: A series of bad decisions during the Obama years prepared the ground for Vladimir Putin’s war.

ALL ABOUT THE NARRATIVE:

Towards the end of All About the Story: News, Power, Politics, and the Washington Post, the new memoir by former Washington Postexecutive editor Len Downie, there is an irony so huge that only a journalist could miss it. Mere pages after Downie cites that awful, nonsensical cliche that “journalism’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” he relates being forced to retire. It’s January 2008, and Downie is summoned to publisher Bo Jones’s office and informed it is time for him to go. Downie doesn’t take the news well. “I became numb as he discussed the details…I was determined not to show how shocked I was. I did not argue or ask questions.” After retreating from Jones’s office, Downie called his wife: “Something big, something life-changing has just happened,” he said.

It’s a great switchback: the man who wants to afflict the comfortable (why the comfortable should be attacked has never really been explained) was in fact one of the most comfortable—the rich top dog at one of the nation’s wealthiest and most elite media empires. He suddenly finds himself out of a job—afflicted, you might say, with unemployment (although his retirement perks ensured he would have a soft landing).

The reason for Downie’s sacking was the changing nature of journalism. By 2008 the digital revolution had drained advertising dollars, and the Post wanted younger, sharper staffers to handle the change. Soon the paper, which had been owned by the Graham family since 1933, would be sold. The Post was subsequently bought by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in 2013. Since then, the paper, which has always been reliably liberal, has gone hard left, becoming sloppy, hysterical, and rawly radical. Donald Trump drove them insane.

QED: Jennifer Rubin humiliates herself using data from retracted story.

UPDATE:

FASTER, PLEASE: Immune memory research could lead to next generation of epigenetic drugs.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites, ties record for first-stage returns.

MASSIVE RESISTANCE: Anti-Gun Legislators Resorting to Unorthodox Measures in a Post-Bruen World.

READER FAVORITE: Chicago Cutlery Fusion 6 Piece Forged Premium Steak Knife Set. #CommissionEarned

NOBODY IS, BUT THEN WE BLEW THE LAST ONE FOR POLITICAL REASONS: US schools aren’t ready for another pandemic.

YEAH, WE FIGURED THAT: Climate Expert: Gas Car Cancellation Is Intended to End Private Transport.

I think we need to end the bossy class instead.

THIS IS CNN: CNN Deceptively Edits RNC Chair To Paint Her as a Conspiracy Theorist.

It’s not just that the 51 former members of the intelligence community theorized Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation, it is that they did so for explicitly partisan purposes and the media just went along with it. McDaniel is making a case about fake news and implicitly, the media’s unwillingness to combat it when that fake news is spread by Democrats, not pushing wild theories about voting machines or anything of that sort.

Wallace owes viewers and explanation. He knew what McDaniel was talking about on Tuesday, but based off his answers to Coates, he doesn’t care. CNN’s dishonest editing didn’t just allow it to spread a false narrative about McDaniel, it allowed others to do the same. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes panned McDaniel on Thursday as someone who “just can’t say the straightforward sentence.” While secretary and Friday Way Too Early guest host Ali Vitali added, “And of course we will again underscore the fact president Biden did win the election and he did so fairly”

The fake version also made its way around the internet to Mediaite, the Washington Post, the DNC’s website, and HuffPost.

Why on earth is McDaniel going on CNN in the first place? But if she feels like she must, as Glenn wrote in the New York Post after Charlie Gibson’s deceptively edited interview with Sarah Palin in September of 2008: Bring Your Own Camera.

YET THEY ARE UTTERLY CERTAIN ABOUT THEIR OWN DOGMAS OF THE MOMENT: “College professors regularly teach that reality is unknowable, that truth and intellectual certainty are a mirage, that there are no moral absolutes, and that all cultures and ways of life are of equal worth.”

Try suggesting that rape is socially constructed and see how much certainty you will experience in response.

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Was There Just a Jihad Terror Attack in Fargo, North Dakota?

On Friday afternoon, police in Fargo, North Dakota, responded to a report of a car crash at 9th Avenue South and 25th Street South. Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski said it was a “routine traffic accident,” but what happened when they arrived on the scene was anything but routine. A Fargo resident named Mohamad Barakat, 37, opened fire on the officers, killing one and injuring three others. Zibolski said that Barakat attacked the officers “for no known reason,” and authorities have as yet offered no hints as to the shooter’s motive. One of the most obvious possibilities, however, is being steadfastly ignored, as one might expect given today’s media narrative.

As Mark Steyn wrote almost 20 years ago:

TICK TOCK: The timekeeper within: New discovery on how the brain judges time.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Does Biden deserve credit for falling inflation?

MARK JUDGE: Is conservatism capable of accepting victories? Or is it addicted to rage?

American conservatism has recently won several astounding victories. Yet in a disappointing sign that the political Right may be as addicted to outrage as the political Left, conservatives have not taken any time to step back, take a breath, and acknowledge the epochal nature of what has taken place.

In the past few years, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, abolished affirmative action, and protected the free speech of Christians in the workplace.

These are epic decisions. Yet many of those on the Right have not taken a week off or even torqued down their outrage. In one story that was reported, after Roe was overturned, a group of pro-life workers paused to cheer, then minutes later hunkered back down on their desks to continue working. Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, and other popular social media conservatives haven’t even seemed to downshift in their attacks on the “woke.” Mark Levin has a new book coming out about how Democrats ”hate America.” It will drop around the same time as Christoper Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.

Read the whole thing.

BUT IT’S A DRY HELL: Jon Gabriel: You don’t have to be nuts to endure an Arizona summer. But it sure helps.

The Valley enjoyed a surprisingly mild summer this year. Then July hit.

Our weather apps buzz daily about “excessive heat warnings” followed by our smartphones shutting off until we head back inside. No return of our record-breaking 122 degrees; at least not yet. As I write, it’s a balmy 111.

Still, “King of the Hill” best expressed non-Arizonans’ view of our city. Bobby Hill shouted to his parents, “111 degrees?! Phoenix really can’t be that hot, can it?” then steps out of car.

“Oh my God, it’s like standing on the sun!”

“This city should not exist,” his mom replies. “It is a monument to man’s arrogance.”

Which are pretty ironic lines for a cartoon that was set in Texas.

STANDING UP TO BIGOTRY AND MASSIVE RESISTANCE: Ohio college employees could be held ‘personally liable’ for violating affirmative action ban: attorney general.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Parents slam woke Massachusetts school district for axing advanced math  classes to boost ‘equity’, after they attracted too many white and Asian students — with families now forced to hire private tutors instead.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE! Profs help push program that claims math is ‘racist’ because it requires a ‘right answer.’

There’s a right answer on how to deal with institutions that are this thorougly corrupted.

DEAL OF THE DAY: DEWALT 20V Max Cordless Drill. #CommissionEarned

WELL, CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN TRYING TO END THE CAR WITH “ROAD DIETS” AND BANNING GAS STATIONS SO YES: Climate Expert: Gas Car Cancellation Is Intended to End Private Transport.