FEDERAL STUDY: Perfume Can Prevent Women From Becoming Cardiologists.

The National Institutes of Health is funding research on whether there is bias against women in the government’s peer review grant making process. Results produced by Dr. Molly Carnes, a woman, have concluded that women are at a disadvantage in receiving federal funding for their research. Carnes is the director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Women’s Health Research.

One such paper, published in February, is entitled “Women Are Less Likely Than Men to Be Full Professors in Cardiology: Why Does This Happen and How Can We Fix It?”

The paper was funded by an NIH study that has received $3,927,208 since 2013, including $696,995 this year.

The paper argues that wearing perfume can disadvantage female heart doctors, and men who wear white coats and carry a stethoscope “could foster gender bias.”

“You’ve come a long way, baby” morphed into “fragile desert flower” so slowly I hardly even noticed.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Higher coffee consumption associated with lower risk of early death.

If nothing else, four cups certainly helps lower the risk of early death among those persons nearby grumpy coffee drinkers.

MY INEXPLICABLY BELATED INTRODUCTION TO THE HASHERS: A Drinking Club with a Running Problem.

ANALYSIS: FALSE. We Need Higher Taxes.

Washington enjoys record revenues while saddling us with near-record peacetime deficits, which are set by entitlement law to explode dramatically in the near future, even absent a major war or economic downturn.

Washington does not have revenue problem. It has a spending problem.

Period.

CRIME OF THE CENTURY: Facebook selfies with stolen guns lead to arrest of teen in gun shop smash and grab.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Australia to launch beach-protecting, AI-powered shark drones.

Non-lethal, of course.

TYLER O’NEIL: Raindrops on roses and … burqas on statues?

These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years — we just live in them.

A VIEW FROM PARIS: Americans are lucky to have Trump as President.

OH, GROW UP: Some smartphone-carrying millennials and Gen Zers are so used to texting upon arrival that the sound of a ringing doorbell freaks them out; ‘it’s terrifying.’

“Doorbells are just so sudden. It’s terrifying,” says Tiffany Zhong, 20, the founder of Zebra Intelligence, which helps companies conduct custom research and gather insights on people born in the past two decades.

There’s no published research about doorbell phobia, but it’s a real thing. In a poll by a Twitter user earlier this month that got more than 11,000 votes, 54% of respondents said “doorbells are scary weird.”

Some millennials and Gen Zers say they won’t even consider answering a ring at the door until they’ve checked the security camera.

The doorbell freak-out reflects the ascendance of mediated communication, which means people interacting through technological devices rather than directly. It’s not so much about screen time versus face time as it is a merger of the two.

What do these adult-sized children do when faced with simple household chores like a clogged toilet or a lamp in need of new wiring?

THE THREAT WITHIN: ‘Even if You Close All the Borders,’ ISIS Attacks Wouldn’t Stop. “About 60 percent of ISIS-linked perpetrators were born in the U.S. while another 20 percent were naturalized citizens.”

COURAGE: Let Us Now Praise Muslim Apostates.

Outrageously, Ibn Warraq and Hirsi Ali have found no sanctuary in America’s centers of higher learning, where they regularly find themselves denounced as “Islamophobes.” But they have shrugged off the calumnies and continued to think about the most serious threat facing the Western democracies since the end of the Cold War. Their two recent works, Ibn Warraq’s The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology and Hirsi Ali’s The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It, encourage readers to reflect on the striking parallels between the ideological challenges that America and its allies confronted during the long struggle against international Communism and the current battle against jihadist terrorism.

It might seem counterintuitive to see similarities between an avowedly atheistic revolutionary movement, promising salvation on earth, and the religion of Islam, which guarantees its adherents a sweet afterlife. In reality, Communism was a quasi-religion for its true believers, and Islam has doubled as a totalitarian political system. The West’s victory over Communism was achieved primarily not on battlefields but through a war of civilizational ideas. Millions of people in the free world were once seduced by the utopian allure of Marxism and its kindred ideologies. Communism’s progressive apologists finally had to face the truth in part because of the testimonies of courageous men and women who had witnessed totalitarian movements from the inside. Like today’s Muslim dissidents, Communism’s apostates were denounced by many Western liberals as “reactionaries” and “warmongers.”

Many Western “liberals” have long been at war with what used to be correctly called Western liberalism, and have long acted as though the enemy of their enemy is their friend.

And do read the whole thing.

I DO NOT TRUST THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Popular Robots are Dangerously Easy to Hack, Cybersecurity Firm Says.

Universal Robots’s devices are designed to work directly alongside humans without being confined to a cage for safety, as with many other industrial models. But IOActive was able to remotely hack the software that controls the robot and disable key safety features. This could result in them being programmed to injure the humans around them.

This is particularly worrying, IOActive said, because these machines are large enough and have enough power that “even running at low speeds, their force is more than sufficient to cause a skull fracture.”

With the robots intended for home use – SoftBank’s Pepper and NAO – IOActive found that cyberattackers could use them to record audio and video and secretly transmit this data to an external server.

Anything with a recording or capture device and an internet connection is a potential spy.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: First F-35A Squadrons To Get Full Combat Capability In September.

CHANGE IT BACK: GOPs Want Trump, Congress to Roll Back Obama ‘Overreaching’ on National Monuments.

STAND DOWN: India And China Agree To “Disengage Troops” Along Disputed Border Area.

SCENES FROM RAHM EMANUEL’S CHICAGO: 4 teens among 27 shot, 6 fatally, in Chicago weekend shootings.

RETENTION: U.S. Fighter Pilots in Short Supply As War Demands Grow.

Including active duty, Air National Guard and reserve, the Air Force has a requirement for 20,352 pilots, including 5,292 fighter pilots. The force today has 18,808 pilots. But fighter pilots account for most of the overall deficit of 1,544. The Air Force today is 1,211 short of what it needs.

Wilson laid the blame on commercial airlines that have stepped up efforts to lure military pilots. Most companies require 1,500 hours of flight time for pilots to fly regional airlines, but military aviators can be hired with only 750 flight hours.

To tackle the problem in a systematic way, Wilson for the first time assigned a general to run an “air crew crisis task force.” Brig. Gen. Mike Koscheski, who formerly was chief of strategic planning and integration for the Air Force, will be responsible for pilot recruiting and retention.

More flight time. Less bureaucratic bullcrap.

SARAH HOYT: The Media Can’t Get What It Wants.

But can they get what they need?

OH: Black-clad antifa attack peaceful right wing demonstrators in Berkeley.

Jumping over plastic and concrete barriers, the group melted into a larger crowd of around 2,000 that had marched peacefully throughout the sunny afternoon for a “Rally Against Hate” gathering.

Shortly after, violence began to flare. A pepper-spray wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifas, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself. A conservative group leader retreated for safety behind a line of riot police as marchers chucked water bottles, shot off pepper spray and screamed “fascist go home!”

All told, the Associated Press reported at least five individuals were attacked. An AP reporter witnessed the assaults. Berkeley Police’s Lt. Joe Okies told The Washington Post the rally resulted in “13 arrests on a range of charges including assault with a deadly weapon, obstructing a police officer, and various Berkeley municipal code violations.”

But were they arrested-arrested or merely symbolically arrested?

DANIEL PIPES: Iran vs. Turkey, the MidEast’s Perpetual Rivalry.

Their most major difference concerns the attitudes of their subjects. Whereas Khamene’i enjoys the support of only about 15 percent of the populace, Erdoğan can count on some 45 percent, affording Erdoğan a legitimacy and confidence that Khamene’i can only dream of. In part, this results from longevity under Islamist rule, in part from difference in per capita income, which is only US$4,700 and stagnant in Iran, $10,700 and rising in Turkey.

Regime collapse in Iran is within sight and will diminish Islamism, encouraging Muslims to move toward a more modern and moderate form of their religion. The Turkish government’s greater popularity and more advanced version of Islamism gives it greater staying power that makes it the more worrisome long-term opponent. Thus, the Middle East is likely to witness a grand switch, with Iran on course to moderation and Turkey becoming the region’s supreme danger.

Many in Washington always think that Iran is on the cusp of regime change, and hopefully someday soon they’ll be right. If and when that happens though, I suspect Washington will still be caught as off-guard by Pipes’ “grand switch” as it was by the Shah’s fall in 1978.

BUH-BYE: Japan urges predictable, transparent Brexit ahead of visit by PM May.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said the government would do its utmost to gather information on the Brexit negotiations, which he said remain “fluid”, as well as support Japanese corporate activity there.

He made the remarks at a government task force meeting on Britain’s exit from the EU.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Japan later this week to discuss Brexit, trade and defense with Premier Shinzo Abe. The visit is aimed at strengthening Britain’s relationship with key international investors ahead of the split.

Since the shock Brexit vote, Japan has expressed unusually strong public concerns about the impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom, the second most important destination for Japanese investment after the United States.

A “predictable, transparent Brexit” would be best for everyone. But according to a British expat I was speaking with yesterday, Brussels’ pettiness all-but-ensures a “hard Brexit,” and that British business are already preparing for just that. Perhaps it’s time the May government did as well.

THAT WOULD EXPLAIN… EVERYTHING: Keith Olbermann May Be in the Late Stages of Furious Rabies Based on Twitter Meltdown.

SULTANS GOTTA SULTANATE: Top German lawmakers have urged the EU to halt aid payments to Turkey and halt talks on a new customs union deal.

The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) Martin Schulz, on Sunday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of establishing a political tyranny and called on the European Union to scrap any further negotiations on expanding its customs union with Turkey.

“How much longer can one allow that a president, who has already lost all sense of restraint domestically, also loses every sense of restrained internationally?” Schulz said in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD. “Can we continue to accept that innocent German citizens languish in prisons in a country ruled by tyranny?”

According to the German government, 54 German nationals are being held in detention in Turkey, ten of which for political reasons. Two of the most high-profile detainees are jailed journalist Deniz Yucel and rights activist Peter Steudtner.

RELATED: Macron asks Turkey’s leader to free jailed French reporter.

It’s increasingly clear that Westerners are no longer welcome in Erdogan’s Turkey. Western ideals certainly aren’t.

WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN? Dallas preps ‘mega-shelter’ as Texas braces for more rain.

An immediate respite from Harvey’s wrath seems unlikely to come. The National Weather Service calls the flooding “unprecedented,” and warns things may become more dire if a forecasted record-breaking 50 inches of rain does fall on parts of Texas in coming days. In anticipation of a worsening situation, Dallas is turning its main convention center into a “mega-shelter” that can host 5,000 evacuees.

The rainfall threatens to exacerbate an already dangerous situation, as Harvey’s rains have left many east Texas rivers and bayous swollen to their banks or beyond.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before,” the weather service said. “Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days.”

The truly amazing item is that only two deaths have been recorded so far due to Harvey. A storm and floods like these in almost any other part of the world would lead to much greater loss of life.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Harvey, Fascists, Militarized Police and Much, Much More.