BILL WHITTLE: Republic of Emotion.

This one actually came out a couple of weeks ago, but is even more relevant today after the Google Memorandum.

BUH-BYE: Disney to give Netflix the white-gloved Mickey middle finger in 2019.

Starting in 2019, Disney will operate its own paid video-streaming service. This news came about as Disney announced on Tuesday that it would acquire a majority stake in a video-streaming company called BAM Tech. (Following a 2016 stock purchase, Disney had previously owned a 33-percent stake in BAM Tech.)

Currently, Disney has an exclusive deal with Netflix for streaming its films and TV series; the deal began in 2012 and expanded last year. Terms for that deal, particularly its expiration date, were never publicly disclosed. It’s possible that the Netflix deal’s expiration will line up perfectly with the launch of what Disney describes as “the exclusive home in the US for subscription-video-on-demand viewing of the newest live-action and animated movies from Disney and Pixar.” This paid online service will also include a selection of classic Disney and Pixar content, along with “original movies, TV shows, short-form content, and other Disney-branded exclusives” made exclusively for the streaming service.

Disney already has two or three (more?) of its own streaming channels with original content, but given the breadth and depth of their library and production studios, they’ll probably do just fine with one more.

But then there’s this:

This announcement will bear fruit sooner for the Disney subsidiary ESPN, whose own dedicated sports-streaming service will launch in 2018. This as-yet-unnamed subscription service will deliver broadcasts from leagues like the NHL, MLB, and MLS (the NBA and NFL will not be included).

In the last couple of years, you can’t even give away ESPN for free.

OH: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Threatens ICBM Strike on Guam to Come ‘At Any Moment.’

THIS IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL: American aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam next year, Pentagon says.

A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier will visit Vietnam next year for the first time, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, in the latest sign of growing ties between countries that 50 years ago were engaged in a lengthy war.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis met Tuesday with Ngo Xuan Lich, Vietnam’s defense minister, to discuss further steps in their mutual defense relationship and regional security challenges, the Pentagon said. The two also agreed to expand naval cooperation and the sharing of information.

“Regional security challenges” is a fancy way of saying “China.”

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Can Mayor Rahm Emanuel Manage Chicago?

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY: Nailed (virtually) to the front door of the Church of PC. Cue the wars of religion.

The truth is that the mainstream media outlets may be right that it is an “anti-diversity screed,” in the sense that it offers arguments and evidence where none are typically permitted. In this telling, diversity is more of a faith commitment. [Google’s Vice President of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance Danielle] Brown continued her statement:

Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul. As Ari Balogh said in his internal G+ post, “Building an open, inclusive environment is core to who we are, and the right thing to do. ’Nuff said.”

The striking thing about this is that it is not even an argument. It is at best a reassurance. The statements in it are all creedal. The same belief is expressed, in barely varying language, in three successive sentences. It is less a paragraph containing thought than a kind of mantra or spell.

The reaction on the outside of Google — even from those who support the memo as if it were Luther’s 95 theses — confirms that religious values are at play.

On a long enough timeline, everything becomes a Monty Python bit.

EYE IN THE SKY: U.S. Army Eyes F-35 As Missile Defense Sensor.

The F-35 could essentially support the Army the same way that the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye acts as the eyes of the U.S. Navy for early detecting and tracking of airborne threats. It could provide targeting data to land-based interceptor systems such as Patriot long before those threats show up on ground radars.

An official with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) says a classified forum has been established to investigate how the F-35 community can support the air and missile defense mission.

Richard De Fatta, director of the USASMDC/ARSTRAT’s future warfare center, says discussions are ongoing about how to integrate the Joint Strike Fighter for taking out ballistic and cruise missiles.

“It’s a great capability, so let’s see where it can contribute as an overhead asset,” he said at a Raytheon-sponsored forum here on Aug. 7, ahead of the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We’re seeing where we could go with it and what’s the art of the possible.”

The F-35’s sensor suite and networking capabilities are so ahead of the curve that the military may have only scratched the surface of what the plane can do.

NOAH ROTHMAN: Two terrible choices.

Even if the DPRK can be deterred from mounting a nuclear attack on American assets or allies using a weapon with a return address, it may be harder to deter the North Korean regime from executing covert operations using a nuclear weapon. The cash-strapped DPRK may also be tempted to contribute to the proliferation of those weapons by providing nuclear material or technology to rogue-state or non-state actors. American policymakers will have to hope they can communicate to Pyongyang that the consequences of these actions will be as grave as they would be if the Kim regime were directly responsible for an attack on American assets or allies. Such threats are likely to be empty, and they will ring hollow in Pyongyang.

The other option is no less attractive: neutralize North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. That’s a near impossible task. DPRK nuclear facilities are diffuse, hardened, and underground. Their delivery systems are road mobile and disguised. North Korea’s solid-fueled rocket capabilities may not be 100 percent reliable, but eliminating the necessity of fueling a rocket before launch makes those rockets harder to detect. The most success that American policymakers can hope for is to degrade, not destroy, North Korea’s capacity to make and deliver nuclear weapons.

Any strike on the regime in Pyongyang brings with it the potential for a regional war of the kind humanity has not seen in a generation.

Three US Presidents kicked this can down the road, until it smacked into an ICBM tipped with a miniaturized nuclear warhead.

HMM: FBI conducted predawn raid of former Trump campaign chairman Manafort’s home.

PATRICK POOLE [WITH UPDATES AS THEY COME IN]: Car Ramming Attack on French Soldiers Outside Paris, Arrest Made as Terror Police Investigate.

WELL, GOOD: Bipartisan Pair Asks Sessions to Stop Asset Forfeiture Expansion.

TRUE, BUT… Military Veterans an Untapped Talent Pool for Tech Industry.

About 200,000 service members leave the military each year. Meanwhile, technology firms are creating more jobs than can be filled by college and university graduates.

This confluence of factors has prodded the industry into action, said Chris Cortez, Microsoft’s vice president of military affairs and a retired Marine Corps major general.

Cortez runs the Microsoft Software & Systems Academy, a training program for U.S. military service members who want to transition to IT jobs.

“We looked at the fact that nearly a million people leave military service over a five-year period, and they’re all going to be looking at what they’re going to do next,” Cortez told RealClearDefense. “You couple that with the fact that, at Microsoft, we have thousands of unfilled jobs, and there’s not enough people with a technology background out there. So why not match those two?”

The more relevant question might be, “Can progressive tech firms tolerate all the wrongthink vets would bring with them?”

NORK’S NEW NUKES, ANOTHER ATTACK IN PARIS, AND AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: As Maduro’s Venezuela Rips Apart, So Does His Military.

As Venezuela reels from a crippling economic crisis and deadly street protests, the military has often served as the guarantor of President Nicolás Maduro’s continued power over the country.

But daring challenges to his rule in recent weeks have laid bare a split within the military that could ultimately determine the nation’s fate: a growing number of officers are openly breaking ranks with the president and taking up weapons.

“They speak of resistance, now they think that the model is to use arms,” Cliver Alcalá, a retired Venezuelan general and government critic, says of those who have rebelled.

Venezuela has a history of coups and attempted overthrows at times of crisis, and many in the country now wonder if this is one of those times.

There aren’t any good outcomes left for Venezuela, just an array of options ranging from bad to worse.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED: CNN Reporter Lies About and Smears Now-Fired Google Engineer’s ‘Echo Chamber’ Critique.

There is nothing in the manifesto which supports CNN’s claim that Damore believes that “(all) women aren’t suited for tech jobs.”

Damore’s claim is about how “the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women … may explain” why women and men aren’t represented equally “in tech and leadership,” and that “biological causes” play a role. Damore specifically refuted CNN’s after-the-fact characterization when he wrote that “Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.” Heaven forbid that we start treating people as individuals instead of as member of supposedly aggrieved groups.

Damore could hardly have stated matters more plainly (or correctly, as will be seen later in this post).

When confronted on Twitter to back up her contention that Damore wrote that “women aren’t suited for tech jobs for ‘biological’ reasons,” [Jackie] Wattles had no credible response.

When called out for her lack of evidence, Wattles couldn’t find any. Instead of admitting to that failure and apologizing, she took the despicable, cowardly route and claimed to be able to read Damore’s supposedly evil mind.

The scorpion stings the frog, every time.

ZOOM: Mazda’s engine breakthrough promises big fuel efficiency gains.

Dubbed SkyActiv-X, the engine will be available in 2019 and promises up to 20-30% more engine efficiency than the current SkyActiv-G, and up to 45% more than Mazda’s 2008 petrol engine.

Current gasoline engines rely on a spark plug to ignite their air-fuel mix. The SkyActiv-X will ignite the air-fuel mix spark-free through compression, like a diesel engine. This, according to the Japanese manufacturer, combines the advantages of petrol and diesel engines to achieve “outstanding” environmental and power performance.

Sounds more fun to drive than most hybrids.

TOM KNIGHTON: Man Cleared of Rape Due to Video Evidence Exposes Title IX Abuse.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME — OR ANYWHERE ELSE: Man Rushed to Hospital After Drinking ‘Satan’s Shot’ Vodka.

VIDEO: In New York City, Don’t Ever Travel With Your Guns Legally.

Legally.

NOW HE TELLS US: Best practices for passwords updated after original author regrets his advice.

The problem wasn’t that Burr was advising people to make passwords that are inherently easy to crack, but that his advice steered everyday computer users toward lazy mistakes and easy-to-predict practices. Burr’s eight-page password document, titled “NIST Special Publication 800-63. Appendix A,” advised people to use irregular capitalization, special characters, and at least one numeral. That might result in a password like “P@ssW0rd123!” While that may make it seem secure on the surface (neglecting, of course, that “password” is a bad password), the issue is that most people tend to use the same exact techniques when crafting these digital combo locks. That results in strings of characters and numbers that hackers could easily predict and algorithms that specifically target those weaknesses.

Even worse, Burr suggested people should change passwords regularly, at least every 90 days. This advice, which was then adopted by academic institutions, government bodies, and large corporations, pushed users to make easy-to-crack passwords.

I had been assured that the password science was settled.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Where Do You Stand on Dunkin’ Donuts Taking ‘Donuts’ Out of Their Name?

QUESTION ASKED: Would you get on a pilotless plane?

Even with radical advancements in automation, I’d still insist on a human pilot in the cockpit, just in case.

RED LINE: Trump warns North Korea threats ‘will be met with fire and fury.’

UPDATE:

IT’S COMPLICATED: Here’s How Much One of Tesla’s Solar Roofs Actually Costs.

RON RADOSH: Will President Trump Stand with the Bannonites, or the Generals?