LIGHTNING DEAL: Under Cabinet Lights. #CommissionEarned

IT’S A SHAME: Listeria outbreak: As deaths rise, repeated health violations linked to Boar’s Head facility.

OLD AND BUSTED: The 18 Minute Gap.

The New Hotness? Too Bad to Check: CNN’s Big Kamala-Walz Interview Will Be … 18 Minutes?

In all, the joint interview in Savannah with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – their first since becoming the Democratic presidential ticket – provided one of the clearest looks into Harris’ positions and her plans for the presidency.

“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made?” Bash asked Harris. “Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?” …

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she said. “You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed – and I have worked on it – that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Apparently, Harris used the same exact sentence to explain her border and immigration policy reversals too:

And she pointed to her record as California attorney general, when she prosecuted gangs accused of cross border trafficking, as an indication of her values on immigration.

“My values have not changed. So that is the reality of it. And four years of being vice president, I’ll tell you, one of the aspects, to your point, is traveling the country extensively,” she said, pointing to her 17 visits to Georgia since becoming vice president. “I believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems.”

If your values haven’t changed, then … your policies won’t reflect your values? Or is it that your earlier policies didn’t reflect your values? While this isn’t quite a word salad — it’s at least cognizably coherent — it’s also utterly void of substance. It’s not an explanation of a reasoned process by which a candidate has concluded that earlier positions should be abandoned for better policies. It reveals nothing at all about reversing just one policy, let alone an entire agenda of policy positions that Harris took publicly in 2019 and in 2020, including on CNN.

If that’s the quality of the conversation, small wonder CNN will only run 18 minutes of it — although that has still not yet been confirmed. The practice of taping an interview for editing and later airing is common, but the refusal to release a full transcript seems very odd for a news organization. This is the major-party ticket defending an incumbency; anything they say that’s not specifically off the record should be reported, especially given the lack of media access to this ticket ever since it launched.

In addition to the plentiful word salads, a spectacular Kamala Kinsley gaffe:

“I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse. But…I think it’s really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”

“Was a Republican.”

LEXUS MAKES GREAT CARS, BUT NOT EXCIITING ONES: Lexus Said It Found Its Mojo By Studying European Rivals’ Driving Experiences.

GOODER AND HARDER: NJ residents hit with doubled bills as lawmakers fume at Murphy’s ‘energy disaster plan,’ demand hearings.

HOWEVER MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA, IT ISN’T ENOUGH: Media Conjure Up ‘Fight’ at Arlington Over Trump Wreath Laying.

‘MIGRANTS’ TRY TO BOARD SCHOOL BUSES FULL OF CHILDREN. 2 DAYS IN A ROW. “The alarming incidents occurred in the Jamul-Dulzura Union School District close to the Mexico border — where school bus drivers are now being ordered to skip stops where migrants might be waiting.” Yeah, suck it up and drive ’em yourself, taxpayers!

How amped up about “our democracy” are we supposed to get when the policy of “making it as easy as possible for random people from any country to just walk across the border” is the ironclad position of both major political party establishments despite having the same number of actual supporters as there are Kamala Harris primary voters?

#SCIENCE: Flawed Anti-Hunting/Anti-Gun Study Got the Headlines JAMA Wanted.

NOW AS MUCH AS EVER: Bret Weinstein Calls The Democratic Party ‘An Existential Threat To The Republic.’

READER FAVORITE: Crocs Unisex-Adult Classic Clogs. #CommissionEarned

DON’T GET COCKY: The Left Is Going to Freak Out Over Nate Silver’s Latest Election Model. “That is a nearly ten-point swing in Trump’s favor in the projection model in just a couple of weeks. Even Silver is trying to calm down his leftist readers.”

I’D SAY “DON’T GIVE THEM ANY MORE IDEAS ABOUT WHAT TO TAX” BUT THEY ALREADY HAVE THEM ALL:

Just wait until they suggest capital gains and unrealized wealth taxes for 401(k)s, because “too many millionaires”/“tax the rich”! https://t.co/1sC5dkAiVp

— Carol Roth (@caroljsroth) August 28, 2024

THE FUTURE: After AGI and After the Singularity There Will Be a Computronium Universe.

Perhaps our universe is a simulation running in someone else’s computronium universe.

SEEMS LIKE AN ENDLESS CHORE: New Sisyphus Cooling Technique.

DISPATCHES FROM THE PARTY OF TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY: ‘Hate-Free’ DC Suburb Showers Harassment On GOP Neighbors.

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED BUT I’M HARD-PRESSED TO THINK OF ANY: OMG, Did ABC News Just Do Right by Trump?

BOEING TAKE NOTE: New algorithms could enhance autonomous spacecraft safety.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Shake Shack to shut 6 California locations, including 5 in LA, after state’s $20 minimum wage hike. “It’s the first time the chain will close restaurants for purposes that were not construction-related, a spokesperson told trade publication Restaurant Business, which first reported the news.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: Lexus and Toyota are the most reliable used-car brands, Consumer Reports says.

Americans in the market for a used vehicle can cut their risk of having trouble down the road by considering some brands over others, with Lexus and Toyota topping a newly published list by Consumer Reports.

The nonprofit research and advocacy group’s first-ever ranking of 26 brands has Lexus and Toyota holding a commanding advantage over third-placed Mazda. All three brands have held consistent average or better reliability ratings over the years, Consumer Reports noted.

“Brands like Lexus and Toyota have a history of conservative redesigns, incrementally improving their entire product line, rather than introducing many all-new systems,” said Steven Elek, senior automotive data analyst at Consumer Reports. “Our data consistently shows over time that cars from those brands are reliable when new and they continue to be reliable as they age,” he added.

1990s-era Toyota Corrolas and pickups appear to be particularly reliable:

IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Scientists discover a long-sought global electric field on Earth.

JUST IN TIME FOR AN ELECTION YEAR! Summer COVID surge shows we may have to return to 2020 pandemic measures.

As summer 2024 draws to a close, the U.S. finds itself once again grappling with a surge in COVID-19 infections.

This wave has taken many people by surprise, particularly as the country has largely consigned the pandemic to the past. While public life has pretty much returned to pre-pandemic norms — something almost none of us would have believed in the summer of 2020 — the virus itself has not.

Mutations of the virus continue to occur, and new variants are emerging, posing ongoing challenges to public health and safety. As we look ahead to the remainder of 2024 and into early 2025, we need to take stock of where we are, understand the factors driving this resurgence and better anticipate how the pandemic might evolve.

The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has disrupted summer travel plans, overwhelmed healthcare facilities in certain areas, and left many Americans dealing with the familiar symptoms of fever, cough and fatigue. The summer months, typically associated with lower respiratory virus activity, have instead seen a significant uptick in COVID-19 infections. Several factors contribute to this unexpected surge.

Evergreen: Ignoring Them Is the Only Way Out.

NOW WE’LL ALL DIE OF FREEZING OCEANS: So About Those Oceans That Were Just About to Boil Away…

Assuming you survived the Trump tax cuts and the end of Net Neutrality, that is.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Study: Recreational drug use triples odds of repeat heart emergencies.

MARK JUDGE: Exploding the Left’s ‘Language Virus’ with William S. Burroughs.

CRUEL BUT FAIR: Rape, drugs, adultery, DUI all OK. But if you back Trump, the Kennedys will disown you. “The more you look at the Kennedy family of the 20th Century, the more you realize it is what the Biden family would look like if everyone in it were Hunter Biden.”