GOOD LORD: Body Parts Buyers Were ‘Scalping the Babies,’ Planned Parenthood Trial Reveals.

PREDICTION: SF developer joins California high-speed rail board to get it ‘back on track.’

Not sure if congratulations or condolences are in order, but longtime Bay Area housing developer Jim Ghielmetti of San Francisco, has been appointed to the California High-Speed Rail Authority board of directors.

Ghielmetti is the founder Signature Homes, which since 1983 and has been a major player Bay Area housing market. Ghielmetti was a member of the California Transportation Commission until last week.

As for why he took the job, Ghielmetti said, “I’d like to see the train get back on track.”

Prediction: It won’t be.

Yogi Berra was wrong: Some predictions are easy, even about the future.

PROGRESSIVISM IS CARING ABOUT THE LITTLE PEOPLE ‘I’m Starting Not To Care That She Is Brutal To Her Staff.’ “I thought every candidate had a good moment or two, though my memory is blurred by the unrelenting pace produced by too many topics and the tug-of-war for control of the conversation. Klobuchar had some smart answers. I’m starting not to care that she is brutal to her staff. (Why do we care so much about that? 99.9 percent of us will never work for her.)”

That’s Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

BREAKING THE LAST MILE MONOPOLISTS: SpaceX says 12,000 satellites isn’t enough, so it might launch another 30,000. “SpaceX is facing competition in the nascent low-Earth satellite broadband market from OneWeb, Space Norway, Telesat, and Amazon. Broadband delivered by low-Earth satellites should provide faster speeds and lower latencies than traditional satellites, which orbit at much higher altitudes. SpaceX has said it intends to provide gigabit speeds and latency as low as 25ms, but the company hasn’t revealed how much the service will cost.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Kim Jong-Un Propaganda Photo Essay Goes Hysterically Wrong. “And… um… we’re not sure what happened to Kim’s legs in this next photo, but we’re certainly very sure for certain that there was no State-level photoshopping going on here at all.”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS: College Professor Says SpongeBob Is an Evil, Racist, Colonial Monster.

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE… Near-infinite specific thrust from drive that ignores physics.

The basic idea of the Helical Drive, according to the author of that link, is simple. Imagine that you have a mass in a cylinder that is oscillating back and forth. Every time the mass hits the end of the cylinder, it will impart some momentum, accelerating it. Because the mass sequentially collides with each end of the cylinder, the net force is zero, and the only outcome is that the cylinder gets a massive headache.

But, what if—you’re going to love this—you could magically increase the size of the mass when it was traveling in one direction and decrease the mass when it was traveling in the other direction? If the velocity of the mass is kept the same, the force imparted at one end would be greater than at the other. You would have a net force: the cylinder would continuously accelerate in one direction.

Now we just have to fill in the magic part: how do we magically change the mass? The answer here is special relativity. If something is moving at close to the speed of light, its mass will increase. Indeed, the closer the object is to the speed of light, the larger its mass.

So, the answer, apparently, is simple. If we use a very strong magnetic field along the length of the cylinder, then alpha particles (helium atoms with the electrons stripped off) will start to corkscrew around the field. An accelerator in one section can accelerate the ions to as close to the speed of light as possible, while in a different section a countering accelerator will slow them back down. At each end, the ions reflect, imparting momentum to the cylinder.

Even better, the energy lost in accelerating the ions can be recovered when you slow them down, so it’s nearly free acceleration.

There’s just one problem:

Even though the author does a very nice simulation, he has left out the fields that do the accelerating. When we accelerate ions using a magnetic or electric field, the ions push back on the field. There is an equal and opposite force exerted on the electrodes and coils that produce the fields, and those just happen to be in the spaceship, too.

Oops.

COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE COMMUNISM: Jimmy Sham, leader of Hong Kong democracy group Civil Human Rights Front, attacked on Mong Kok street. “Sham is smashed in the head with hammers and spanners by at least four assailants who then flee in a car.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: No Trumpian Dark Horse Will Save the 2020 Dems. “There is no personality lurking over there that is going to lay waste to the field by providing a fighting alternative. They pretended they loved Biden because he was the most electable, but now the two raving socialists are raking in all of the money in what could be the Mother of All Ironies.”

LYING LIARS WHO ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO LIE: Rep. Schiff (D-CA) Tried To Get Kurt Volker To Lie About Trump/Ukraine.

CHANGE: Venezuela Ditches Cuba-Style Controls, Helping Companies Survive. “By design or disarray, economic freedom benefits survivors.”

Indeed.

GOOD: CNN’s Anderson Cooper faces scrutiny for invoking Hunter Biden in Democratic debate.

In 2016, Biden called for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who was seen by the Obama administration, western governments and organizations like the International Monetary Fund as not aggressively investigating corruption. Trump and his allies have alleged without evidence that Biden intervened to support his son’s business interests.

Cooper notably framed the Hunter Biden question by stating outright that Trump has “falsely accused” Biden’s son of “doing something wrong while serving on a company board if Ukraine” and noted “there’s no evidence of wrongdoing by either one of you.”

Some prominent Republicans, including the president’s son, blasted Cooper’s handling of the question about the former vice president’s son.

Cooper didn’t ask a question; he framed an issue in such a way that Biden could easily dismiss it, while also playing the victim card.

It’s the shoddy partisan hackery we’ve come to expect from Cooper.

PROGRESS: South Korea just unveiled a mock-up of its cheaper alternative to the F-35, but the program is still facing problems.

South Korea has displayed the first full-size mock-up of the KF-X fighter jet it is developing with Indonesia, after officials said the program passed key design reviews in September.

The next-generation aircraft being developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) is designed to be a cheaper, less-stealthy alternative to the US-built F-35, and the plan is to eventually replace most of South Korea’s older fighter jets and produce more for export.

The mock-up was displayed on Monday at the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX).

South Korea has ordered 40 of the advanced F-35A aircraft from the United States, the first of which arrived this year. North Korea has condemned South Korea’s purchase of the F-35s, as well as the development of other advanced weapons.

Well, that’s because most of North Korea’s technical prowess is dedicated to nuclear and missile technologies which are virtually ancient compared to fifth-generation jet fighters.

COLD CIVIL WAR: Police Do Nothing as Antifa Thugs Violently Attack Trump Supporters After Minneapolis Rally.

SHOW ME THE MONEY:

Previously: Dem Donors Leak to Press: Biden’s a ‘Weak Front-Runner.’

HMM: Maine High School Suspends Three Girls for Posting Note Accusing Classmate of Sexual Assault.

TYLER O’NEIL: Winners and Losers of the Fourth Democratic Debate.

Losers: Television viewers.

Winners: Drunkblog readers.

DAVID HARSANYI: LeBron Jame$ Is A Coward. “There’s nothing wrong with exporting capitalism. There’s absolutely something wrong about supporting tyrants.”

Only last year, James, a purported champion of social justice, came out in support former quarterback Colin Kaepernick with the vacuous platitude, “I stand with anyone who believes in change.” Anyone? Of course, LeBron’s stand, as with most acts of pretend celebrity bravery, resulted in hosannas being thrown at him by the press, and, more importantly, never costing him a penny.

Americans tend to use word like “stand” and “fight” in their political disagreements, though they never really have to stand and fight for anything. Tank Man stood and fought. The Hong Kong protesters stand and fight. We take to social media and argue. Posting a Nike-approved picture on your Instagram account of Kaepernick—adorned with the $40-million market-test slogan, “Believe in something, Even if it means sacrificing everything”—is not an act of bravery, LeBron.

And that’s fine. All of this just speaks to the relative safety afforded dissent and protest in our political life. In the United States celebrities are free to accuse the president of being fascist dictator or “bum,” and no one is coming to knock on their doors. Watching fabulously wealthy men fretting over their words abroad is a useful reminder of the liberalism we have inherited.

And which they are gladly squandering.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): They’re not so much “squandering” freedom, as selling it.

OH: Gov. Cuomo drops the n-word during live radio interview.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Vaping Crisis Is a Moral Panic Led by Anti-Smoking Crusaders.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: From Hanoi Jane to Climate Hypocrite, Fonda Does It All. “The celebrated star is making a fool of herself with her climate crusade, and the media is making it worse.”

Let’s not forget she survived the most offensive celebrity act of the past 50 years. In 1972 Fonda took her anti-Vietnam war activism to new levels, visiting Hanoi and posing for pictures on a anti-aircraft battery.

The nickname “Hanoi Jane” was born, and it’s never gone away despite her repeated apologies.

Now, sadly, she’s making a fool of herself on the national stage. Again.

Fonda got arrested last week to raise awareness for Climate Change. She vows to keep getting arrested in order to bring more attention to the cause.

“This is a collective crisis, it requires collective action and so I decided to use my celebrity to try to raise the sense of urgency and I moved to Washington and I’m going to get arrested every Friday,” she said.

The media is using Fonda for its own climate change messaging, letting her slide on anything remotely close to a tough but fair question.

To be fair, narratives don’t set themselves.

WEAPONIZED GRIEF: Biden Lied for Years About the Driver Involved in His Wife & Daughter’s Death.

EUGENE VOLOKH: University of Louisville Students Can’t Sue Escort for Exposing Prostitution in the Louisville Basketball Program.

SIGNS AND PORTENTS?

That’s in Florida’s 21st district, which Cook rates as D+9.

But from the replies: “I don’t know anything about her but it will be entertaining if she wins. Twitter will have to bump her from deplatformed straight to a Blue Check.”

Heh™.

COLORADO: Weld Sheriff Steve Reams pans Colorado’s ‘Red Flag’ law. “Governor Polis signed House Bill 19-177 in April, establishing an “Extreme Risk Protection Order,” or ERPO, system to allow police to seize guns from those considered a threat to themselves or others, based on claims from police, roommates, and ex-spouses and other romantic partners, among others. Critics of the measure contend that, among other things, it lacks adequate due process protections, can be used vindictively, and may actually lead to unnecessary violent confrontations between police and subjects of the orders. Advocates claim the law is needed to get guns out of the hands of people in mental health crisis. The law goes into effect in 2020.”

Sort of — 32 Colorado county have said, to one degree or another, they’ll become 2nd Amendment sanctuaries.