EXCITING BUT SCARY: A “Word Processor” for Genes – Scientists Unveil Fundamentally New Mechanism for Biological Programming. “Arc Institute scientists have discovered the bridge recombinase mechanism, a revolutionary tool that enables fully programmable DNA rearrangements. Their finding, detailed in a recent Nature publication, is the first DNA recombinase that uses a non-coding RNA for sequence-specific selection of target and donor DNA molecules. This bridge RNA is programmable, allowing the user to specify any desired genomic target sequence and any donor DNA molecule to be inserted.”

“HEALTHCARE PROTECTIONS:” Judge halts new HHS rule extending healthcare protections to transgender patients.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY: The Fourth of July: America Celebrates a History of Freedom Won by Firearms.

HE’S LEARNED STUFF:

Credit where credit is due, Trump is letting the democrats tear themselves apart in front of the voters, without providing anything dumb for the media to jump on as a distraction. https://t.co/2zVXtyaaBJ

— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) July 3, 2024

Related: Trump’s Silence Shows New Discipline.

THAT WILL BE ITS PRIME ENVIRONMENT: How Well Does the New Toyota Land Cruiser Cruise … Pavement? No, mall-crawling isn’t the reason the new Land Cruiser exists. But face it, it’s how many will be used.

RANDY BARNETT: What the Declaration of Independence Said and Meant: It officially adopted the American Theory of Government: First Come Rights; Then Comes Government to Secure These Rights.

THREAD:

Newspapers are where universities were 10-15 years ago. An old guard of liberal institutionalists remains — people who know that. like universities, newspapers exist to report the truth no matter who it hurts.

— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) July 3, 2024

HEY, EDITH WILSON DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A DISSERTATION: Madam President’s Midwit Manifesto: Reviewing the dissertation of the woman (probably) running the country.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX completes Satrlink launch, brings Direct to Cell satellite total to 103.

HMM: GLP-1 weight-loss drugs linked to rare blinding condition.

LOSERS ON PARADE: Meet the Dartmouth College students and faculty arrested at Hamas-endorsed protest.

RULE OF LAW: Third federal judge rules to block Biden’s Title IX revise adding gender identity.

THE NOMENKLATURA TAKE CARE OF THE NOMENKLATURA:

No one is above the law.

Except Democrats… https://t.co/PdldOUCNfE

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 3, 2024

WAR ON FIREWORKS: A response to the New York Times.

The LAPD had promised to send up drones to monitor the city, threatening to arrest anyone putting on a pyrotechnic display. They would have had to arrest 50,000 or more. The radical left and the libertarian right have both claimed the slogan “Become Ungovernable” as their own. Conservatives like to mock Californians for their willingness to submit to government micromanagement, but there was no acquiescence to authority on this night. There was only cacophony, and it was good and glorious.

As I drove the kids about, I put on a playlist of patriotic songs: plenty of John Philip Sousa and various traditional anthems. (“Columbia, Gem of the Ocean” is underrated. Mine is probably the last generation to learn it in school.) I played two different versions of “This Land is Your Land” as we drove along Slauson and Crenshaw. Heloise and David sang along.

I kept thinking of a famous line from another song I wasn’t playing. “I’m gonna kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight,” the Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn sang decades ago. I saw my city kicking darkness in joy and in fury. To see it put a lump in my throat.

As a kid I was a big fan of Henry Reed’s Journey, one theme of which was the annoying spread of anti-fireworks laws.

ROGER KIMBALL: The United States cannot afford a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. president: The rats are cornered and can be expected to be as vicious as they are unscrupulous.

Has the uniparty changed its song about Joe Biden? There are signs that it has. In the immediate aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week, the narrative broke in two, or at least seemed to break in two. On one side there was horror and — word of the moment — “panic” among the Dems. The New York Times led the way in calling for Biden — for the good of the country — to resign. At the same time, there was considerable push back, encapsulated comically in the observation that dementia Joe “had a cold,” hence his gibbering incoherence. St. Barack weighed in with what appeared to be a supportive post of X: everyone has bad debate nights, he said, but “this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life [Obama meant Biden, in case you were wondering] and someone who only cares about himself [the bad orange man].”

Was Obama serious in his support? A day or two later Tucker Carlson cast doubt on that. “From an unusually good source,” he wrote. “Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention.”

I am not sure what that would mean. In particular, I am not sure that the Dems have taken account of their outstanding black sheep, Vice President Kamala Harris. There is a lot of blithe talk about Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or even, God help us, Hillary Clinton stepping into the breach. In my view, none would be a plausible candidate. More to the point, I am not sure I see how we get to any other candidate than either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.

Be certain that some people are thinking hard on that.

A BURNING QUESTION:

Biden being in charge is pretty scary pic.twitter.com/grUwmjKv1s

— 👉M-Û-R-Č-H👈 (@TheEXECUTlONER_) July 2, 2024

MARK JUDGE: Both liberals and conservatives are wrong about what’s wrong with boys.

OPEN THREAD: Hump day.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA assessment suggests potential additional delays for Artemis 3 lunar lander.

HOW DID WE DO THAT BEFORE SUVs WERE INVENTED? Humans to Blame For Megafauna Extinctions, New Study Suggests.

BLOOD: Startling: Humans Are Absorbing Microplastics, and It Is Increasing Our Risk of Cancer, Diabetes, and Heart Disease.

Flashback: New evidence shows blood or plasma donations can reduce the PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in our bodies.

HMM: Form of B12 deficiency in cerebral spinal fluid found to negatively affect the central nervous system. “In 2014, a team of doctors found themselves having difficulty diagnosing a 67-year-old female patient with symptoms typically associated with B12 deficiency—she had difficulty speaking, tremors and ataxia. Blood tests showed no B12 deficiency. . . . The team conducted a spinal tap to analyze the patients’ cerebral spinal fluid. What came back was a surprise—the patient had almost no B12 in the fluid that bathes the brain and central nervous system, suggesting something was preventing it from crossing the blood brain barrier.”

THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Our Fisker Ocean Just Arrived For a Yearlong Test. Then Its Maker Went Bankrupt. “Hanging above all other questions, though, is what happens now that the company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Will services be interrupted? Will features stop working? Will we be able to get it serviced if we need to, and what will that process look like? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. We’ve never had a company fall into bankruptcy during a long-term evaluation, but we’ll share whatever happens with you.”

LOL, JEN RUBIN:

Aw, Hindenburg is too old said some Germans before electing a monster

— Jen "I dissent " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 2, 2024

In making historical references, it’s helpful to know some actual history.

EXCLUSIVE WHITE HOUSE VIDEO, MUST CREDIT INSTAPUNDIT!

This just won the internet for today. Hands down. 😭😂👏👏

The current scene at the White House:pic.twitter.com/fp9DQ0quSS

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 2, 2024