GIVEN THE REPLICATION CRISIS, YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD DISTRUST AND VERIFY: Distrust the science.

SOMETIMES COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO MAKE BAD DECISIONS:  It’s the Accounting Rules, Stupid!

BREAKING: Fulton County DA Hands Down 10 Indictments in Trump Case.

No surprise, they posted the charges before the grand jury indicted.

UPDATE: Here’s the full, 98 page indictment.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

OLIVER ANTHONY AND THE SORRY STATE OF ROLLING STONE:

I must confess, I often forget Rolling Stone magazine still exists. Once the zeitgeist-surfing Holy Writ of American counter-culture, it hosted the pioneering writers of the boomer generation: Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, P.J. O’Rourke, Hunter S. Thompson. Even as recently as 2020 the magazine boasted accomplished journalists such as Matt Taibbi. But over five decades, the magazine withdrew into the Establishment, just as their boomer readers did. And every now and then the Rolling Stone’s pale cadaver makes a misjudged groaning gasp for life, if only to remind us it’s not quite dead.

The rag mustered one such gasp this weekend. Oliver Anthony, a blue-collar mountain man, went from Appalachian nobody to chart-topping national treasure in no-seconds-flat — or, to be precise, forty-eight hours. A stirring video of him singing his raw original tune “Rich Men North of Richmond” — that decries the powers that be in DC, elite pedophiles and the plight of ordinary working Americans — has resonated like a national guitar with music-loving Americans starved for something authentic.

The working-class factory-worker sings “Republicans and Democrats, Lord I swear they’re all just full of crap” on his song “Doggonit,” like a character from Hillbilly Elegy making a desperate howl at the flyover sky. Seven years on from 2016, the Rust Belt is still rusting, forgotten by establishment and populist politicians alike. And that desperation has found a voice. Four of Anthony’s songs are in the iTunes top ten, including all the top three. The counterculture has a fresh face — and it wears a shaggy red beard.

It’s not just Rolling Stone that’s baffled by Anthony. As America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Country Music Industry Confused By Man Actually From Country Making Actual Music.

SPACE: Meet the SpaceX Crew-7 astronauts launching to the ISS on Aug. 25.

Flashback: Boeing’s Spaceship Problems Show Just How Amazing Musk’s SpaceX Is. That’s from 2021. It’s only become more clear.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What’s the Difference Between AI and Machine Learning?

NOT A PARODY: Gov’t Employees Told To Work From Home Due to Rampant Crime Outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Fran.

RACISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Oracle Internship, Scholarship Opportunities Bar Whites And Asians On The Basis Of Race.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: It’s this bad: Team Biden bails on MSNBC to avoid answering Hunter questions.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BOTCHING THEIR KATRINA MOMENT BADLY: Karine Jean-Pierre’s Maui Fire Comments Devolve Into an Embarrassing Mess of Incompetence.

Nothing says “we care” about those suffering like the White House not even knowing the names of both senators from Hawaii, and in the case of Sen. Mazie Hirono, not even knowing she’s a woman. By no means am I a fan of Hirono as I think she’s one of the worst politicians in America (and certainly one of the most vapid), but calling her a man is a bit harsh. Jean-Pierre’s flubs make it seem like she did zero leg work, and in turn, that makes it seem as if the administration isn’t taking the situation seriously. Rather, it’s just an inconvenient speed bump in the middle of the president’s current vacation schedule.

Honestly, how hard is it to double-check one’s briefing notes before giving a statement to ensure proper pronunciation given the sensitive nature of the topic? Apparently, it’s as hard as Joe Biden answering a question about the Maui fire without appearing like a cold-hearted sociopath. This administration certainly has its characters, and none of them are especially good at their jobs. That’s been a running theme for a White House which campaigned on putting the “adults back in the room.” If these are the adults, then let’s reinstate the daycare.

What is even the strategy here? Is Biden this uncontrollable and his comms department this incompetent? Or is the White House full of people that are so arrogant that they don’t even worry about optics anymore? It’s probably a bit of both when you consider all angles.

They know the DNC-MSM will ignore all of their gaffes, including Biden’s aloof and wildly inappropriate “no comment” line when asked about the Maui fire, and they know that Hawaii is a reliably Democrat state at election time, so why even bother trying?

DAVID THOMPSON: Let’s Do It, But In A Way That’s Less Likely To Work.

Come, huddle round. Let us poke at the Guardian:

We’re a queer couple looking for co-parents to raise a child with.

The parenting pages. Let’s start there.

For us, the ideal parenting setup would consist of three or four of us sharing responsibility for a child (the others involved would also be responsible for providing the sperm).

Providing the sperm. A joyous and maternal turn of phrase. Bodes well.

Read the whole thing.

FIRST, DO NO HARM: ‘Useless’ Organ That Doctors Often Remove May Actually Fight Cancer. “The magnitude of risk was something we would have never expected.”

A lot of antiaging research involves stimulating the thymus or regrowing it.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Gov. Hochul publicly humiliated by Biden administration over migrants.

BLUE STATE CRIME POLICY: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signs law banning firearm advertisements that appeal to children.

WEASELING: “Sarah Lawrence College, outside of New York City, saucily incorporates a quote from the official summary of Chief Justice John G. Roberts’s majority decision in its prompt: ‘Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life.’ Then the school asks applicants to ‘describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced or affected by the court’s decision.'”

GUN TALK: Showing love for the CZ Shadow 2.

CHANGE: The Fall 2023 Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 1.9%, As Law Schools May Reduce Enrollment Due To Dramatic Changes In U.S. News Rankings Methodology.

HOW DID THEY HAVE CLIMATE CHANGE BACK IN THE DAYS OF NEANDERTHALS, WHEN THERE WERE NO SUVs? A climate-orchestrated early human love story. “A new study published in the journal Science by an international team finds that past changes in atmospheric CO2 and corresponding shifts in climate and vegetation played a key role in determining when and where early human species interbred.”

FAIL, BRITANNIA: Why US tech giants are threatening to quit the UK.

Their “tipping point” is UK regulation – and it’s coming at them thick and fast.

The Online Safety Bill is due to pass in the autumn. Aimed at protecting children, it lays down strict rules around policing social media content, with high financial penalties and prison time for individual tech execs if the firms fail to comply.

One clause that has proved particularly controversial is a proposal that encrypted messages, which includes those sent on WhatsApp, can be read and handed over to law enforcement by the platforms they are sent on, if there is deemed to be a national security or child protection risk.

The NSPCC children’s charity has described encrypted messaging apps as the “front line” of where child abuse images are shared, but it is also seen as an essential security tool for activists, journalists and politicians.

Britain wants unlimited ability to read people’s private communications and, given what local police already do with public communications, tech firms would be right to quit the UK.

READER FAVORITE: Beside Table Lamp for Bedroom Nightstand. #CommissionEarned

WELL, YES: Familiarity with a firearm breeds competency rather than contempt.

CHILD ABUSE: Feminists’ Fear and Loathing of Their Own Sons.

HuffPost Personal recently posted an opinion piece titled “I Took My 15-Year-Old Son To See ‘Barbie’ Because I’m Worried He Could Become Ken,” which at first I understandably took to be satire. But no, progressivism is often simply a parody of itself, and that is the case with this HuffPost piece. Beyond its unintentional entertainment value, however, it’s a revealing look into the mindset of feminists who wrestle with the misfortune of having borne one or more male children instead of daughters with whom they can bond over their shared oppression under the boot heel of – ugh – men.

The author is Wendy Besel Hahn (pronouns she/her), a writer and editor and the 51-year-old mother of a 15-year-old son. Her HuffPost article is full of virtue-signaling about her compassionate activism, Trump-hating moral superiority, and determination to raise a feminist son, but it also betrays an underlying, misandrist panic that her son’s very nature is toxic and must be exorcised out of him.

“I’m painfully aware that my son is merely six years away from having more rights in America than I do,” she says, referring to the “privilege” of “bodily autonomy” she “lost” when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

So Hahn was “thrilled” that the smash summer movie Barbie, which has drawn widespread criticism among many conservatives for its heavy-handed feminist messaging, gave her the opportunity to educate her son about “the patriarchal American society we live in today.”

Read the whole thing.

THE FIX IS IN:

Per @reuters Fulton County, Georgia posted the Trump felony charges before the grand jury may have officially returned the indictments. Just shows you what a banana republic we are living in right now. pic.twitter.com/hff3dIvgJR

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 14, 2023

Full details here.

Link was bad before — sorry!

WHAT PEOPLE WANT IS A CAR TO TAKE THEM OUT OF THE BAY AREA: Self-driving taxis get the green light on 24/7 service in San Francisco.