YOU CAN TELL WHO THEY’RE AFRAID OF BY WHO THEY WANT YOU TO BE AFRAID OF: German Election Engineering: After Brutal Solingen Stabbings, Thousands March Against? The ‘Far-Right.’

The “far right” is now anyone who believes things that were dead-ass normal 20 years ago. Or even ten.

JOHN LUCAS: Remember This Guy? “As you can see, the fool in the red shirt with the keffiyeh wrapped around his hips appears to be a young Caucasian, college-age male, maybe even a member of a fraternity. He is a nobody, but his burning of our flag is a desecration. We do not know who he is, but he clearly is identifiable. The U.S. flag he is burning is government property that was hauled down from the flagpole to be desecrated and replaced with a Palestinian flag. He clearly came prepared to burn the flag, as he is carrying a container of flammable liquid that he is squirting onto the burning flag. I met red-shirt-fool’s opposite number on a little-used country road in western Virginia. Our brief encounter gave me renewed hope that outside our Marxist-dominated enclaves, there are still millions of honest and patriotic Americans.”

OF COURSE: Politico: Walz Not Doing Interviews Because Kamala Has No Agenda.

HE HAS A POINT:

We’ve long been told that progressive policies are popular with Americans. But if progressive policies were so popular, Democrats wouldn’t have to hide them from the electorate. If conservative policies were so unpopular with the electorate, Democrats would never copy them.

— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) August 27, 2024

COMMIES ARE SUCH PRUDES: Fighting Sexual Temptation? Play Badminton, Hong Kong Tells Teenagers. M Top officials in the Chinese territory have defended new sex education guidance that critics call regressive. Young people are amused. “Hong Kong teenagers find it all pretty amusing. A few said on social media that the officials behind the policy have their ‘heads in the clouds.’ Others have worked it into sexual slang, talking about ‘friends with badminton’ instead of ‘friends with benefits.'”

Even in Czarist Russia, they pushed free love until they took over, then went all Victorian.

But given China’s birth-rate problems, I’d expect them to be encouraging more canoodling, not less.

HE’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL, BUT HE WON’T STOP: Jack Smith Unveils Revised Trump Indictment.

OPEN THREAD: Wish me a happy birthday.

CHALKING UP A VICTORY FOR SCIENCE:

It took a while, but the majority of Democrats now support nuclear power ☢️ https://t.co/2zbZG1LPI5 pic.twitter.com/XBBNkG0Ci9

— Science Is Strategic (@scienceisstrat1) August 26, 2024

GOOD NEWS, AND A CORRECTION:

Noa Argamani was not "released." Hamas terrorists did not suddenly develop a conscience. She was *rescued* by IDF forces.@telegraph, we've fixed your headline for you.https://t.co/ISvG0Xtu5N pic.twitter.com/fRGLko01y2

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 27, 2024

WELL:

🇫🇷 Liberté, égalité, FAFO-ité https://t.co/WvFCShxl4g

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) August 27, 2024

INTIMIDATION:

Is @NewHavenPD ready – or will it roll over? https://t.co/EmUyRkOKjy

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) August 27, 2024

WHY THEY HATE ELON:

Kroger:

-Had gross profit margins above 20% over the last 5 years
-Is using “dynamic pricing“ to gouge us further
-Paid its CEO $15 million, 502x a typical Kroger employee
-Wants to acquire Albertsons so you have nowhere else to shop

Corporate greed at its absolute worst.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) August 25, 2024

PRO TIP: Buy Radios And Learn to Use Them Before You Buy Another Gun.

LETTING KIDS PLAY? THAT’S RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA, OR SOMETHING: A Cure for Child Anxiety Hiding (and Seeking) in Plain Sight: Don’t just go phone free: Start a Play Club at your school too.

HEALTH: Mitrix Bio Leveraging Mitochondria Transfer for Antiaging.

OUT: INTERNAL COMBUSTION. IN: ELECTRICAL COMBUSTION. Several Vehicles Caught Fire at Rivian’s Illinois Factory Over the Weekend.

NICK GILLESPIE: Is Pavel Durov the Next Julian Assange? The Telegram co-founder may become a free-expression martyr for the terrible crime of enabling permissionless speech.

The French arrest and detention of Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov on poorly specified charges related to failures of content moderation and compliance with law enforcement is an outrage—and a reminder that, at least on the surface, Europe and the United States have fundamentally different approaches to unregulated speech that go back centuries.

Recall that John Milton’s world-changing defense of an unlicensed press, Areopagitica, pointedly excluded Catholics while his former Cambridge classmate Roger Williams was living in what would become Rhode Island and defending “soul liberty” for all people, “paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-Christian.” Bringing charges against, say, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk for failure to moderate content? Maybe. But actually putting them in jail, however momentarily, seems unthinkable.

Unthinkable? I see this as prep for going after Elon Musk. Zuck they can control. Though he’s growing a bit more restive lately:

Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things:

1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans.

2. Facebook censored Americans.

3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Big win for free speech. pic.twitter.com/ALlbZd9l6K

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 26, 2024

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER USE FINGERPRINT ID: Struggling to Unlock Your Phone? You Might Have Lost Your Fingerprints.

Also, police can open your phone without a warrant by scanning your fingerprint if you use fingerprint ID or face if you use face ID. For a passcode, on the other hand, they have to see a judge.

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Science explores where love is found in the brain.

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Out: Soccer Moms and Security Moms. In: Health Moms. Is RFK Jr. the secret to suburban women?

And as always, if you like these essays, please consider a paid subscription. (Bumped).

WHEN I WAS A KID, YOU GAVE THEM DEXEDRINE OR BENZEDRINE, BUT SCIENCE HAS ADVANCED: Most Americans unsure how to help opioid overdose victim.

Or strong coffee if that was all that was around.

DON SURBER: “As I watch the flamboyant antics of the marvelous Tampon Tim Walz skipping across the world stage to the seal-clapping applause of an idiot media, I recall how the media covered Dan Quayle, whose only crime was misspelling potato.”

IT’S ALREADY HERE, ASK ANDY NGO: Mark Simon: Partisan Violence Against MainStream Journalists is Coming to the United States: Violence Against the Press is Seen as Taking the Fight to Political Enemies. Sadly, What’s Driving it is Profitable.

Related: Maduro’s Communist Thugs Help Him Bully His Way to Power.

I WONDER IF BIDEN/HARRIS WILL DO THE SAME THING AFTER OUR ELECTION? “It’s an unprecedented situation in the history of the 5th French Republic: the loser in the election effectively rejects yielding power to the winner. . . . This awfully inconvenient fact remains: Macron’s party got way less votes and MPs than the NPF, yet it is Macron’s party that’s still running the French government, and it is Macron himself making choices on who can or cannot assume power based on what he thinks would ‘weaken France’ or not. It’s insane when you think about it.”

STANDING UP TO BIGOTRY AND BULLYING: Bullied off campus by Boise State students, coffee shop owner continues battle. “A coffee shop owner, ousted from Boise State University due to student backlash over her support for law enforcement, is continuing her legal battle against the school. Sarah Fendley updated The College Fix ahead of an upcoming trial on the current status of the lawsuit she filed which argues her free speech rights were violated by the university.”