PROGRESS? Look Ma, no hands! No steering wheel needed under new Calif. car rules.

MODERN CURRENCY: Here’s what’s next for bitcoin after the SEC killed the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday rejected a proposed rule change that would’ve allowed for the creation of the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund—a decision that has followers of the world’s largest cryptocurrency wondering what happens next.

In its ruling, the SEC said it was unnerved by the lack of regulation in a market that is largely based outside of the U.S., and was worried about the potential for market manipulation.

Fortunately for investors who were hoping to buy into the fund, Friday’s decision won’t necessarily preclude the approval of other proposed bitcoin ETFs. Two other companies are vying to become the first bitcoin-focused ETF, but what might happen next is unclear.

John Galt’s “Get the hell out of my way!” remains relevant.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: All the King Kong Movies … Ranked.

I was always partial to Mighty Joe Young.

PROCUREMENT BLUES: Russia’s New PAK-FA Stealth Fighter Has A Big Problem.

Russia’s Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA stealth fighter program has suffered another delay. Testing of the of the powerful new jet’s second stage engine, which was supposed to start later this year, has been pushed back to 2018.

“At the moment, works are being carried out within the framework of contacts with the Russian Defense Ministry,” United Aircraft Corporation, Sergei Korotkov told the TASS news agency. “Flight tests are underway. We plan to enter the second stage of trials next year.”

The new engine was expected to make its first flight installed onboard the PAK-FA in the fourth quarter of 2017. “The first flight of the aircraft with the new engine is expected in the fourth quarter of 2017,” a United Engine Corporation spokesman told TASS earlier in the year.

Engines are comparatively easy, next to stealth and the advanced avionics needed to bring it all together.

THIS DOESN’T MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER ABOUT IT: Key health insurer backs GOP ObamaCare replacement plan.

AVNER ZARMI: Is Netanyahu Actually Going to Be Indicted Soon?

THEATER OF THE ABSURD: Playgrounds in Movie Theaters? Worst. Moviegoing. Experience. Ever.

For last year’s Captain America: Civil War, my wife and I had the babysitter take the boys to the local multiplex, while we went to see it at the Alamo Drafthouse theater — where they serve cocktails instead of rowdy young boys.

Highly recommended.

KINDA, SORTA, EVENTUALLY: Uber says it will stop using Greyball to evade authorities.

“We are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward,” Sullivan said.

The tool seeks about a dozen data points on a new user in a specific market, like whether the Uber app is opened repeatedly in or around municipal offices, which credit card is linked to the account, and any publicly available information about the new user on social media. If the data suggests the new user is a regulator in a market where Uber is not permitted, the company will present that user false information about where Uber rides are, showing ghost cars or no cars in the area.

Uber said on Friday that Greyball wasn’t just targeting regulators—it used the tool to prevent riders who might aim “to physically harm drivers,” as well as prevent dispatching rides to competitors who might try to disrupt service. Uber also affirmed that it used Greyball to shut down “opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.”

But now Uber is walking back on that last use case for Greyball. Sullivan told the BBC this week that “it would take some time” to enforce the company’s new prohibition on using Greyball to blackball regulators, although the tool will still be used to root out other users that might try to violate Uber’s terms of service.

From the sound of this, Uber drivers will remain just a corporate wink and a nod away from using Greyball to avoid police stings.

JON GABRIEL: Samantha Bee Called Young Man a Nazi. Then Apologized. Kinda.

Samantha Bee is not funny. She hosts a nightly TBS show named “Full Frontal,” which mimics the hard-left fake-news template of “The Daily Show.” The latter show still exists, hosted by the not-funny Trevor Noah, while the not-funny Seth Meyers and the once-funny Stephen Colbert mine the same depleted vein on their own late-night talk shows.

All of these programs are intended as Comedy, but are better described as Urban Liberals Yelling At Americans Who Disagree With Them. Here’s how the formula works:

•Play an out-of-context clip of a Republican.
•Show the host staring into the camera, crinkling his/her nose, opening his/her eyes wide, or tapping his/her pencil.
•Peals of digitally enhanced laughter from the live audience, as home viewers check Netflix.

You don’t tune into “Full Frontal” for jokes or satire, but common snark and mockery of The Other. It’s Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate with a laugh track.

Ouch.

Read the whole thing.

JOB-HUNTING IN THE EUROZONE: Austria Is Hiring a Professional Hermit.

YOU DON’T SAY: IRS Making Gains in Customer Service But Still Falling Short, Says GAO.

“Customer service” is a laudable goal, but ultimately an impossible one when an organization’s mission is the extraction of money by almost any legal means.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: A New Lab-Built Fungus Eats Sugar and Burps Out Drugs.

In seven papers published today in Science, representing a decade of work by hundreds of scientists across four continents, the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 project reports the first fully designed, and partially completed, made-from-scratch eukaryotic genome. Eukaryotes—organisms whose cells have a nucleus and other defined organelles—encompass all complex life: yeasts, plants, hamsters, humans. So writing a custom genome for one is a big deal by itself. But the artificial yeast will have a more stable, easily manipulable genome for scientists to work with, and for the chemical, pharmaceutical, and energy industries to use for a new generation of drugs, biofuels, and novel materials.

Novel, indeed.

NOAH ROTHMAN: Dems’ Irrational Obamacare Exuberance.

Most of the surveys taken since the election that show the ACA is suddenly popular do not break down the responses along demographic and partisan lines, but the surveys sponsored by Fox News do. In August, their survey (conducted by the GOP firm Shaw & Company Research and the Democratic firm Anderson Robbins Research) found 54 percent of respondents disapproved of the ACA with only 41 percent viewing it favorably. Among the disapprovers, 24 percent of Democrats gave ObamaCare bad marks. Flash forward to mid-January and Fox’s poll found 50 percent of adults suddenly approve of the law with 46 percent dissenting, but Democrats drive much of that shift. That survey discovered that, suddenly, only 8 percent of Democrats offered pollsters negative reviews of the law. Republicans and self-described independents’ views remained virtually unchanged.

If Democrats began considering ObamaCare as a proxy for their support of the outgoing president as they stared down the barrel of a Trump administration, it is no coincidence that the ACA’s approval ratings began to correspond with those enjoyed by President Barack Obama in his final days. That also suggests that the boomlet of favorability ratings for the Democrats’ health-care overhaul is chimerical.

This and the Iran Deal are about all they have left of eight years of Barack Obama.

HEADS UP, PREPPERS: There could be a maple syrup shortage on the horizon.

SECURITY THEATER: Muslim Activist Detained After Refusing Staten Island Ferry Bag Check, Predictability Ensues.

UNLIMITED POWER! General Atomics Announces Next-Generation Railgun Pulsed-Power Containers.

“For the past decade, GA-EMS has provided pulsed power in support of the Navy’s railgun program,” stated Nick Bucci, vice president Missile Defense and Space Systems at GA-EMS. “Our next generation HEPPC breaks our own energy density record and exceeds the capabilities of other available railgun pulsed power container solutions. What we have packed into a 10-foot standard shipping container is equivalent to what is currently available in a 20-foot shipping container, doubling the energy density to provide greater flexibility for ship and land-based installations and maneuverability for mobile applications.”

GA-EMS internally funded the development of the HEPPC in support of a Multi-mission Medium Range Railgun Weapons System, which integrates pulsed power, launcher, hybrid missile and fire-control technologies. Each HEPPC includes high-energy pulsed power modules with an energy content of more than 415 kilojoules per module. Each module utilizes GA-EMS’ world-record-breaking high-energy density capacitors.

I was going to write, “Faster, please,” but it doesn’t get much faster than a railgun.

THEY’RE NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS… BUT IT’S ALIENS: Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft?

Astronomers have catalogued just 20 or so of these brief, superbright flashes, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), since the first one was detected in 2007. FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what’s causing them remains a mystery.

“Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven’t identified a possible natural source with any confidence,” study co-author Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement Thursday (March 9). “An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking.” [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

One potential artificial origin, according to the new study, might be a gigantic radio transmitter built by intelligent aliens. So Loeb and lead author Manasvi Lingam, of Harvard University, investigated the feasibility of this possible explanation.

The duo calculated that a solar-powered transmitter could indeed beam FRB-like signals across the cosmos — but it would require a sunlight-collecting area twice the size of Earth to generate the necessary power.

And the huge amounts of energy involved wouldn’t necessarily melt the structure, as long as it was water-cooled. So, Lingam and Loeb determined, such a gigantic transmitter is technologically feasible (though beyond humanity’s current capabilities).

Why would aliens build such a structure? The most plausible explanation, according to the study team, is to blast interstellar spacecraft to incredible speeds.

Incredible, indeed.

VIDEO: Check Out This Shotgun Built from Parts Purchased After TSA Checkpoint.

“SHUT UP,” SHE EXPLAINED: Female-Owned Bookstore Turns Books by Male Authors Backward for Women’s Month.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION: It’s no R2D2, but Knightscope’s crime-fighting robots aid police.

PROMISES, PROMISES: Musk offers to fix Australia’s energy crisis in 100 days.

The Tesla (TSLA) founder was responding to a challenge from billionaire entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes, who wanted to know whether the company was serious in claiming that it could end blackouts in South Australia quickly.

“Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

South Australia’s population of 1.7 million people suffer regular power cuts and energy shortages. In September, much of the state was left without power after a storm damaged crucial transmission lines.

Another major blackout happened last month, after an unexpected spike in demand due to a heat wave.
The Australian government has made solving the problem a priority, and increasing grid storage could help.

South Australia’s renewable energy woes are entirely self-inflicted and easily predicted.

JERK PLANET: Everything About Mars Is The Worst.

CHANGE? AG Sessions Open to Appointing Special Counselor to Review Obama DOJ’s Scandals.

I wouldn’t be opposed to loudly announcing a possible investigation while quietly encouraging resignations.

RETAIL BLUES: RadioShack closing 187 stores in latest bankruptcy filing.

The chain, based in Fort Worth, Texas, previously filed for bankruptcy in 2015, resulting in about 2,400 store closings. Subsequently, General Wireless, a joint venture of hedge fund Standard General and Sprint, acquired it and ran the remaining 1,700 stores.

In a Chapter 11 reorganization petition filed Wednesday in the U.S Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, General Wireless stated it planned to close 187 stores by March 13 and is “seeking to close and liquidate the inventory and other assets of between 530 and substantially all of their stores,” the company said in its filing.

Sprint paid General Wireless a $12 million “wind down payment,” and in return was transferred the leases for 115 stores, as well as equipment and furniture in 245 more stores where Sprint is the primary tenant.

The RadioShack stores that do not close March 13 will remain open and the company will continue evaluating options on them during the bankruptcy process.

RadioShack used to be my Christmas-all-year-round toy store, but today it isn’t just I can’t remember the last time I was in one — I can’t remember the last time I saw one.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: China’s Capital Outflows Just Reversed, Bad News For Global Real Estate.

The world’s greatest overseas real estate binge might finally be over. According to the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), China saw its foreign exchange reserves rise to over US$3 trillion. The unexpected rise is the first in 8 months, and may indicate that the new regulatory crackdown on capital outflows is actually working. This is bad for real estate markets that have seen a sudden surge of buying activity from Mainland Chinese buyers.

China’s capital outflows turned into inflows, meaning more foreign currency went into the country than left. The PBoC found itself with US$6.9 billion more than the month before, a 0.25% increase. This comes after US$220 billion in outflows in 2016, and another $12 billion in January. While it doesn’t seem like a lot in contrast, analysts polled by Reuters expected a drop of more than US$25 billion. Analysts are now adjusting projections since this means China’s foreign reserves are a full US$31.9 billion higher than they anticipated. This could mean that China’s new capital controls are much more effective than analysts had previously anticipated.

Will this be enough to pop the real estate bubble in Western metroplexes, or will Chinese-held dollars find new routes overseas?