I FEEL LIKE THE ANSWER TO THIS HAS TO BE NO: Is PowerPoint Cool Now?

THIS IS HOW LITTLE THEY VALUE YOUR PRIVACY — THEY SOLD IT FOR CHEAP: Automakers Sold Drivers’ Data for Shockingly Low Amounts of Money. “One shocking revelation from the letter is just how little the manufacturers actually profited from selling the data. Staffers from Sen. Wyden’s office investigated the three automakers and found that Verisk paid Honda $25,920 over four years for information about 97,000 cars, amounting to just 26 cents per car. Hyundai was paid just over $1 million for data on roughly 1.7 million cars over a six-year period, totaling 61 cents a car. GM would not reveal how much it was paid, according to Sen. Wyden, though a new report this week from the New York Times suggests the manufacturer sold data for more than 8 million cars.”

BUT NOW THEY’RE PRETENDING IT NEVER HAPPENED: Flashback: That bullet intended for Trump could have completely ripped apart American life.

OF COURSE THEY ARE: Gun Control Industry Shoving Their Cash at the Kamala Harris Campaign.

Think of the gun control industry as a money laundry for Democrats and grifters and you won’t go far wrong.

WELL, THAT’S BIG OF ‘EM: Chevy Will Build as Many Corvette ZR1s as People Want to Buy.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: A healthy diet with less sugar linked to younger biological age.

WELL, YES: The Real Lesson of Venezuela: Never EVER Give Up Your Guns.

As our present situation demonstrates, even an armed population will put up with enormities, but the presence of arms sets a limit.

WELL, LET THE HARDWARE ANSWER THE QUESTION: New model shows cortical implants like Elon Musk’s Blindsight are unlikely to ‘exceed normal human vision.’ I mean, the models haven’t had a tremendous record lately.

END OF AN ERA: Atlas V rocket launches final national security mission.

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: J.D. Vance, the New York Times, and Decency.

As always, if you like these essays, please subscribe.

SCIENCE: FDA approves new blood test for colon cancer screening.

SOMETHING THAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, WON’T:

Since January 2020 the debt has ballooned by 50% from $23 trillion to $35 trillion.

Interest on the debt is also skyrocketed with higher rates, averaging around 5% lately.

Interest on the debt is on pace for $1.5 trillion next year, about 30% of all govt revenue collected. pic.twitter.com/WfNGOGcEjo

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 29, 2024

I’ve kind of got learned helplessness here. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t think anything will be done until there’s a serious crash. Conservatives and small government types should be ready to seize and pounce when it happens, and roll out a Millei-type program of slashing spending. And they should be ready to face extralegal, and possibly violent, resistance to that program from those who want to fill the troughs just one more time.

NORMS:

The standard bearer of Johnson’s party was shot in the head by a would-be assassin two weeks ago and this is the guy who said we needed to therefore speak nicely about our adversaries.

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 29, 2024

Related:

The “democracy” and “norms” party has now fully embraced fundamentally uprooting and remaking our Supreme Court — entirely because they aren’t getting their preferred outcomes in some major cases. That’s the only reason https://t.co/YVqVAOnW6M

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 29, 2024

Also: Biden Calls Speaker Johnson “Dead on Arrival.” Twice.

They advertised Biden as bringing a return to norms and civility. Keep that in mind when you see how they’re advertising Kamala.

Plus:

The Democrat Party just installed a socialist as its nominee who received zero votes.

They cancelled the primary, refused to hold a new one. No one even knows who is running the country.

Has there ever been a bigger political scandal in US history?

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) July 30, 2024

OR ELSE WHAT? Hersh suggests that Harris continues to be under Obama’s control, and “she had better perform.” She’s not the nominee yet. “Hersh also writes that Kamala Harris “often showed little interest” in ‘the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified summary of current intelligence that is prepared overnight by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and delivered by hand to the most vital offices in Washington, including the vice president’s.’ Hersh says that Harris even ‘asked the agency to stop delivering it to her.'”

She’s always seemed more interested in holding the position than in doing the job.

I WANT TAX COMPETITION, NOT TAX COOPERATION: G20 Celebrates Historic International Tax Cooperation, Punts Proposed 2% Billionaire Tax.

BRYAN CAPLAN: What I Told the Chronicle About GMU. “Prudentially speaking, my best response to Walters was ‘no comment,’ but I’m trying to use my tenure nobly by loudly saying what every reasonable person in academia is quietly thinking.”

Plus: “The correct story, in my view, is that far-left faculty feel ‘threatened’ by anything short of 100% control of the university.”

HOW DARE THEY HOLD HER ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT SHE SAID SHE BELIEVES: NYT: Dastardly Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Kamala’s 2020 Positions.

UPDATE (From Ed):

MAKE THEM PAY: Conservative professor disciplined for criticizing DEI gets $2.4 million to settle lawsuit against college.

THE ENEMY WITHIN: Unhinged anti-Israel group at UWM threatens Jewish students, calling them ‘genocidal extremists.’

I’M BEGINNING TO LOSE TRUST IN OUR GOVERNMENT: Another Secret Service Lapse for Trump in Nashville. Well, this was only vaguely a lapse, really. But: “Speaking of the previous debacle on July 13, the Pennsylvania shooting story only gets worse. Newly revealed text messages indicate that Thomas Crooks had been on authorities’ radar for a full ninety minutes before the shooting. The communications were provided by both local and federal authorities.”

Related: Biden Calls Speaker Johnson “Dead on Arrival.” Twice.

STOP THE STEAL: Anti-Maduro protests spread as Venezuelan opposition says he stole vote.

SO WHY ARE THEY TREATING HER LIKE SHE’S “ACTING PRESIDENT?” Kamala Says Joe Is Fit for Office.

There’s a process for making her the acting president. https://t.co/mCiKevACVv

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 29, 2024

The staff and the press can’t just decide that she’s in charge. And for her to be in charge, Joe has to go.

UPDATE: A friend texts:

Remind me already who died and made Kamala Harris the Dem frontrunner. How’s that work? Dementia Patient in Chief trots her out, and that’s that?

Look, I don’t want to be a dick about it, but I’m trying to find the democracy they are saving in this.

It’s in the same place they always keep it.

DUMB BUT FUN: NBC faces FCC complaint over airing ‘obscene’ Olympics Last Supper parody.

DON SURBER: Media Pushes to Elect A Coconut.

SOCIALISTS STICK TOGETHER: Border Czar Kamala Harris Embraced Socialist Honduran Leader Who’s Now Endorsing Maduro’s Stolen Election.