UNEXPECTEDLY!  California Loses Most Tax Revenue in U.S. as Wealthy Move to Tax-Friendly States.

OH, LOOK, THERE’S MY SHOCKED FACE AGAIN:  White House Pressured Facebook to Remove COVID-19 Vaccine Meme, Documents Show.

WHY ISN’T THIS A CLASS ACTION SUIT?  RFK Jr.’s Lawsuit Against Biden Administration Merged With Major Censorship Case.

THERE’S GOING TO BE A LOT MORE OF THIS:  21-Year-Old Sues Doctors and Clinics for More Than $ 1 Million Over Transgender Procedures.

OR AS WE SHOULD CALL IT, THE TRAFFICKING OF MINORS:  Lawmakers Question HHS’ Handling of Unaccompanied Minors.

THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE. SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED:  TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis.

COME ON. IT CAN’T GET ANY WORSE:  Disney, Netflix go on AI hiring sprees as strikes drag on.

AND THE KORAN: VIDEO: Xi’s CCP Is Rewriting the Bible.

ACTUALLY A WAR ON SURVIVAL:  The war on life’s simple pleasures.

“JUSTICE” FOR THE NOMENKLATURA: Charges DROPPED Against Dem Megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried.

JUSTICE: San Fran man arrested for assaulting elderly Asian woman had prior hate crime charge dropped.

OPEN THREAD: Enjoy your time together.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA, DARPA to launch nuclear rocket to orbit by early 2026.

It’s not my nuclear Orion though. But that’s coming.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Everybody in comments is missing the point on the DARPA program.

NASA isn’t doing this. Neither is DARPA. That’s where the money is coming from.

Lockheed Martin will do the craft, and my company, BWXT, is doing the reactor.

Yes, this is the new streamlined contracting approach.

RIP: Randy Meisner, founding member of the Eagles, dead at 77.

MAKES SENSE TO ME: Bizarre True Story: Physicists Once Put a Ferret in a Particle Accelerator.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Five public school employees arrested for failing to report sexual assault of a 15-year-old.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Why Are Wait Times in California Emergency Rooms So Long?

GREAT MOMENTS IN SELF-AWARENESS: People pounce after MSNBC-linked Mehdi Hasan suggests imagining ‘if liberals or the Dems had … an actual propaganda arm.’

Democratic Party operatives from CBSNBCABCPBSNPRNYTWAPOCNN could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE:

(Updated and bumped.)

HMM: Increased step count linked to better health for people with heart failure.

I’d be the last to discourage people from getting exercise, but I always wonder which way the causal arrow works. Maybe the people who are doing better walk more?

IT WOULD BE FUN TO WATCH:

"Sic him on the FDA, if he'd be willing to serve – or, sic him on the CDC." https://t.co/4MikSPxuCt

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) July 26, 2023

THE DARK SIDE OF GREEN (CONT’D): Coast Guard Suspects EV Source of Ongoing Fire Aboard Cargo Ship.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints.

In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.

He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect.

“We’re looking at the range, and you literally see the number decrease in front of your eyes,” he said of his dashboard range meter.

Ponsin contacted Tesla and booked a service appointment in California. He later received two text messages, telling him that “remote diagnostics” had determined his battery was fine, and then: “We would like to cancel your visit.”

What Ponsin didn’t know was that Tesla employees had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service. Last summer, the company quietly created a “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible.

Plus: “In most cases, the complaining customers’ cars likely did not need repair, according to the people familiar with the matter. Rather, Tesla created the groundswell of complaints another way – by hyping the range of its futuristic electric vehicles, or EVs, raising consumer expectations beyond what the cars can deliver.”

IT’S A FAIR POINT: Aliens? Sen. John Kennedy Has Something to Say About Them.

READER FAVORITE: REOKA Cervical Pillow for Neck Pain. #CommissionEarned

FASTER? PLEASE! NASA picks Lockheed Martin to develop nuclear rocket.

The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program may launch as soon as 2027, officials said on a call.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) systems could cut journey times, increase fuel efficiency, and require less propellant, meaning future spacecraft could carry larger payloads than today’s best chemical rockets.

NTP works by pumping a liquid propellant, in DRACO’s case cryogenic hydrogen, through a reactor core, where uranium atoms split apart through fission.

The process super heats the propellant, converting it into a gas and funneling it through a nozzle to produce thrust.

“These more powerful and efficient nuclear thermal propulsion systems can provide faster transit times between destinations,” said Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lunar Exploration Campaigns at Lockheed Martin Space.

“Reducing transit time is vital for human missions to Mars to limit a crew’s exposure to radiation,” he added.

The ghost of Project Orion smiles.