FOLLOW THE MONEY: Someone has emptied the ransom accounts from the WannaCry attack.

More than $140,000 worth of digital currency bitcoin has been drained from three accounts linked to the ransomware virus that hit hundreds of thousands of computers around the world in May.

It’s unclear, though, who emptied the accounts and why. If the WannaCry hackers are finally trying to get their hands on the money, they’ll have to outwit law enforcement agencies from around the globe.

It’s a fresh twist in the mysterious attack that cybersecurity experts have linked to a hacking group associated with North Korea.

North Korea is a family-run gangster organization with ICBMs.

CAN THEY DO THAT? Millennials Unearth an Amazing Hack to Get Free TV: the Antenna.

“I was just kind of surprised that this is technology that exists,” says Mr. Sisco, 28 years old. “It’s been awesome. It doesn’t log out and it doesn’t skip.”

Let’s hear a round of applause for TV antennas, often called “rabbit ears,” a technology invented roughly seven decades ago, long before there was even a cord to be cut, which had been consigned to the technology trash can along with cassette tapes and VCRs.

The antenna is mounting a quiet comeback, propelled by a generation that never knew life before cable television, and who primarily watch Netflix , Hulu and HBO via the internet. Antenna sales in the U.S. are projected to rise 7% in 2017 to nearly 8 million units, according to the Consumer Technology Association, a trade group.

Mr. Sisco, an M.B.A. student in Provo, Utah, made his discovery after inviting friends over to watch the Super Bowl in 2014. The online stream he found to watch the game didn’t have regular commercials—disappointing half of his guests who were only interested in the ads.

“An antenna was not even on my radar,” he says. He went online and discovered he could buy one for $20 and watch major networks like ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS free.

I honestly can’t tell whether this article was written tongue-in-cheek.

TYLER O’NEIL: Trump administration is more effective than it appears.

That was certainly true of his campaign.

THE TYCOON WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD: Fugitive Chinese billionaire may have requested U.S. political asylum.

Citing court-related documents, Boxun reported Guo applied for a visa to the United States multiple times, but after failing to meet certain immigration standards, forged documents with his attorney in order to obtain a visa.

Boxun, known in China for its muckraking journalism, has reported its staff has received threats from Guo and other disgraced officials, including the former deputy director of China’s national security bureau.

The billionaire’s troubles began when reports in China suggested he had been using illegal means to throw business rivals in prison.

Guo, who is believed to have reached the United States at the end of 2014, has become increasingly vocal about corruption among Chinese officials.

The Chinese businessman, whose wealth is estimated to be about $2.2 billion, has been linked to fallen officials in Beijing.

Developing, as they say.

NOBODY TELL NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS: Sex Dolls Are Getting Smarter. Don’t Be Alarmed.

When it comes to lifelike sex dolls (which currently exist) and sexbots (which do not yet), people are prone to two contradictory and misguided beliefs: that only rapey perverts would use them, and that they pose a major threat to our social and sexual order.

Matt McMullen, the man behind the most popular “love doll” on the market, isn’t buying either.

In a recent interview with Mel magazine, the CEO of Abyss Creations and creator of RealDoll, said his creations are not simply about sex and doubts they will ever capture a huge share of the sexual market.

In my Reason sexbot feature a few years ago, I noted that not even the most starry-eyed roboticists, futurists, and philosophers expect sex with robots to become a majority pastime. If the technology gets good enough and the products cheap enough, they might play the same role sex toys and strip clubs do now, without their customers automatically being considered creepy perverts.

Storage would seem to be an issue, especially in smaller apartments.

PATRICK POOLE: Western Countries on High Alert for ISIS Infiltrators in Armed Forces.

IT ISN’T AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS: This Amazon Echo ‘hack’ can turn your friendly home assistant into a covert wiretap.

Vulnerabilities in older editions of the Amazon Echo can let hackers transform the digital assistant into a covert listening device, researchers have claimed. As a result, the exploit, which can be done without affecting the device’s functionality, could place a wiretap in your living room.

Research published on Tuesday 1 August by MWR InfoSecurity detailed how its experts found the Amazon Echo to be susceptible to a physical attack, allowing a hacker to gain control over the device and install malware, listen in on conversations and steal private data.

By removing a rubber base at the bottom of the Amazon Echo, the research team could access the 18 debug pads and directly boot into the firmware of the device, via an external SD card, installing malware without leaving any physical evidence of tampering.

The researchers said they were able to gain “remote root shell access” that enabled them to access the ‘always listening’ microphones on the machines.

Any “hack” requiring physical access to the device is really no different from breaking in and planting a bug — which doesn’t require an Amazon Echo at all.

MARK KRIKORIAN: Why Trump Is Right about Immigration.

The RAISE Act would limit family immigration rights to the actual nuclear family: husbands, wives, and little kids of American citizens and legal residents. The current categories for adult siblings, adult sons and daughters, and parents would be retired. U.S. citizens could still bring in their elderly parents in need of caretaking, but only on renewable nonimmigrant visas (no green cards or citizenship) and only after proving that they’ve paid for health insurance up front.

The second major element in this restructuring addresses the employment-based immigration flow. It is now a jumble of categories and subcategories, the main result of which is to provide steady work for immigration lawyers. The Cotton-Perdue bill would rationalize this mess by creating one, streamlined points system, along the lines of similar schemes in Canada and Australia. Points would be awarded to potential candidates based mainly on education, English-language ability and age, and those who meet a certain benchmark would be in the pool for green cards, with the top scorers being selected first.

The bill would also eliminate the egregious Diversity Visa Lottery and cap refugee admissions at fifty thousand per year, rather than allow the president let in as many as he wants, as is the case today.

The level of immigration—now running at over a million a year—would likely drop by 40 percent, and then drop some more over time, as the number of foreign spouses declined. (Most U.S. citizens marrying foreigners are earlier immigrants, so as they age, and fewer new immigrants come in behind them, the demand for spousal immigration is likely to fall.) That would still mean annual permanent immigration of 500,000–600,000 a year, which is more than any other nation.

None of this seems unduly harsh, or really anything less than perfectly sensible — naturally then, anyone supporting the bill is “literally Hitler.”

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Misery Doesn’t Cause Revolution.

Misery doesn’t cause revolution, whatever you may have been taught. Not in Venezuela, not in Iran, not in North Korea. Certainly the citizens in those countries are miserable, but I don’t think that revolution is about to erupt in any of them. I think that politics is an independent variable, not, as the Marxists would believe, the outcome of certain social conditions. Its causes are spiritual, not material. I think that revolution is an act of hope, not a last, desperate throw of the dice. The revolutionaries think they can change the world, and they think—nowadays, at least—that powerful forces are working on their side. Modern jihadis think Allah is fighting alongside them, for example, while Soviet dissidents believed democracy was a global force aimed at tyrants. Most Iranians believe that nothing of great import ever happens without the involvement of the Dark Forces (CIA and the Queen of England above all). Etcetera.

So it’s political. It’s not the economy, stupid. Ergo, sanctions are not going to do it (mind you, I’m all for sanctions, especially the sort that directly target the tyrants, but that’s because of their political effect). If you want regime change, your main weapons will be political. Above all, you’ve got to support the regime’s enemies and you’ve got to call for a new government and a new system.

In addition to Ledeen’s suggestion, we have unprecedented tools — cyber, institutional, popular culture — for making life very difficult for tinpot dictators. What we’ve lacked is political leadership with the will and imagination to use them.

CHARLIE MARTIN: The Craziest Spy Movie Ever.

THIS IS CNN: CNN’s Jim Acosta Read The Statue Of Liberty Poem, Had A Meltdown When Someone Suggested Immigrants Be Able To Read It, Too.

David Harsanyi provides something close to an old-fashioned fisking.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED SINCE 2010 THAT IT WAS WORKING: Dems suddenly scrambling to come up with ObamaCare fix.

I smell a trap for Republicans.

YES. Want renewable power? Clear the path for nuclear energy.

As entrepreneur Peter Thiel asked last year, “What are we contributing to human prosperity and well-being in the mid-21st century?”

A big part of the answer must be significant advancements in clean and reliable energy.

The developing world is increasingly hungry for power for cooking, refrigeration and air conditioning. As the world looks to decarbonize, no single clean energy source will get us there. That isn’t practical or responsible. The answer has to be found through innovating and commercializing a suite of advanced energy technologies, which in America will produce generations of great jobs that help modernize and grow our economy.

If you aren’t serious about nuclear power, you aren’t serious about carbon reduction or renewable energy.

LADIES’ HOME JIHAD: Burqa Cover Model Graces Magazine Telling Women to Grab Grenades.

IT NEVER LEFT: The Red Menace Is Back.

Read the whole thing.

MATT TAIBBI: There Is No Way to Survive the Trump White House.

The heads – you’re looking at the heads – are beginning to pile up in number. Donald Trump rose to fame as a TV star with his cruel punchline firings of hapless reality-show contestants. As chief executive of the world’s mightiest nuclear superpower, he has now spent most of his first term sowing panic around the world with an ever-tightening pattern of purges and forced resignations.

Like Soviet Commissars promoted during the Great Terror, Trump appointees begin composing their last words from the moment they ascend to high office.

Compared to the comparatively lengthy tenures of notables failures like Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, it’s difficult to see “You’re fired!” as a bad thing.

MEET THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S UNEXPECTED NEW STAR: That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

NOT JUST IN WASHINGTON: In Washington, War Fatigue Is Setting In.

In the wake of more pressing foreign policy challenges, including North Korea’s missile program and the Syrian civil war, the war in Afghanistan has become a lower priority for the United States. Should Washington give in to its war fatigue and pull its troops out of Afghanistan, it’s unclear just how big the drawdown would be. Either way, the presence of fewer troops will force the United States to turn to other measures, such as a greater emphasis on special operations forces and drone strikes, to maintain in its missions in Afghanistan. If, on the other hand, the Pentagon succeeds in sending more troops, the increase will still be only modest, suggesting the United States is interested in conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Regardless of the path the Trump administration chooses, none seem designed to successfully end the war as it rapidly approaches its 16th year.

On December 7, 1941, the US military was under-sized, badly-equipped compared to its enemies, and woefully under-experienced. Less than four years later, Germany and Japan lay in ruins, and wholly or partially occupied by American forces.

Nazi Germany. Imperial Japan. The Taliban.

One of these things is not like the other — in part because we failed to apply the necessary force. If for whatever reason we’re unable or unwilling to do so, then I’m not sure what we hope to accomplish after more than a decade and a half.

RELATED: Trump Says U.S.‘Losing’ Afghan War in Tense Meeting With Generals.

WELL, GOOD: Tokyo and Europe Take a Stand Against Protectionism.

With the Japan-EU free trade agreement, Japan is signaling to the world that it is serious about doing business, and that it can tackle serious liberalization. This is one of the so-called mega free trade agreements – one of the first that is really coming online. However, we must remember that this is just a broad political agreement, it’s an important milestone but we do not yet have a finalized Japan-EU free trade agreement.

There are other things that Japan is trying to achieve in these negotiations, and there is also an element of Japan trying to catch up. When you think about what motivated Japan in the beginning to be very active in insisting on negotiating a trade agreement with the Europeans, they were actually looking at what South Korea had accomplished. South Korea had already negotiated an agreement with the European Union, and this put pressure on Japanese industries, especially the automobile sector. For Japan, this was also about leveling the playing field to make sure that its auto companies have the same level of access that their rivals from South Korea already enjoy.

I would also say there is a newer element, which is that Japan is increasingly concerned that there is a new populist trend of economic nationalism rising that will give way to full-on protectionism.

Neither Smoot nor Hawley could be reached for comment.

STEPHEN KRUISER: Social Justice Site Ponders Whether White Men ‘Deserve’ to Vote.

VIDEO: The White House Press Briefing Just Went Completely Off the Rails.

MEGAN FOX: Guys, Let’s Talk About What Women ‘Should’ Look Like, Mmmmkay?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Yes, it’s not like women ever express opinions on how men should look, or act, or dress, or talk, or . . .

OH: MS-13 doesn’t fear Trump, rival gangs or the police – but they are terrified of La Sombra Negra.

DOESN’T EVERYTHING? Mediterranean diet works better for wealthy people, study finds.

The team investigated other possible explanations for this healthy diet disparity. The findings showed that the wealthier participants ate less meat and consumed more fish and whole grains than those with lower incomes.

The more affluent people also ate a greater variety of fruits and vegetables, which provided more antioxidants and other essential nutrients. The researchers concluded that food quality may be as important for health as how much people eat and how often.

“Money may provide access to a larger variety of foods typical of the Mediterranean diet, such as fruits and vegetables, thus obtaining more adequate intake of essential nutrients,” said the study’s leader, Giovanni de Gaetano.

The broader lesson is that if you want people to be healthier, let them grow richer.

AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR: Opium Revenue in Afghanistan Nearly Doubles Among Eradication Efforts, Addiction Crisis.