PURGE THE UNBELIEVERS: Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts has resigned following his controversial gender diversity comments.

In an interview published Friday, Roberts said the debate over gender diversity in the advertising industry was “over” and he spent “no time” thinking about the issue at Publicis, thanks to its 50-50 gender split, adding that the company had “never had a problem.”

Roberts also suggested that many female and male creatives did not take top leadership roles because they simply wanted to be happy and “do great work.”

Heretic.

THIS IS NOT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN I WAS EXPECTING: Donald Trump signs pledge to crack down on Internet porn.

CIRCLING THE WAGONS: Meg Whitman To Fundraise For Clinton To Take Down ‘Demagogue’ Trump.

ASIA PIVOT: North Korean missile lands perilously close to Japan.

If confirmed, this would constitute the first time a North Korean missile had landed within Japan’s exclusive economic zone on the Sea of Japan side of the island chain. In 1998, North Korea fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and into its economic zone on the Pacific Ocean side.

Wednesday’s actions were the latest apparent protest from North Korea over a decision by Seoul and Washington to bring an anti-missile battery system to South Korea.

The medium-range Rodong missile splashed down inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, within 125 miles of the country’s northeast coast, Japan’s Defense Ministry said.

In flight time, that meant the missile was only 20 or 30 seconds from Japan itself, said Euan Graham, who served as a British diplomat in Pyongyang.

“It’s a clear case of walking right up to the line and just putting a nose over it,” said Graham, now an East Asian security expert at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. “It’s a provocative act.”

Firing missiles at your neighbors doesn’t seem like the best way to dissuade your neighbors from installing antimissile systems.

SECURITY: Microsoft won’t fix Windows flaw that lets hackers steal your username and password.

A new proof-of-exploit shows just how easy it is to steal someone’s credentials.

The flaw is widely-known, and it’s said to be almost 20 years old. It was allegedly found in 1997 by Aaron Spangler and was most recently resurfaced by researchers in 2015 at Black Hat, an annual security and hacking conference in Las Vegas.

The flaw wasn’t considered a major issue until Windows 8 began allowing users to sign into their Microsoft accounts — which links their Xbox, Hotmail and Outlook, Office, and Skype accounts, among others.

Overnight, the attack got larger in scope, and now it allows an attacker to conduct a full takeover of a Microsoft account.

Perfect Privacy advises that to stay secure, “don’t use Internet Explorer, Edge, or Microsoft Outlook, and don’t log in to Windows with a Microsoft account.”

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Huelskamp loses GOP primary after ideological battle.

GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a three-term incumbent and House Freedom Caucus member from Kansas, lost his House primary Tuesday night to challenger Roger Marshall, a physician backed by agricultural interests and several big-spending outside groups.

Huelskamp had lost his powerful seat on the House Agriculture Committee in 2012 after “angering House GOP leadership.”

DON’T DO STUPID SH*T: U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed.

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

This is Iran-Contra on steroids, the other difference being that President Obama was in on the scandal from the start.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Beer Tastes Better With Music.

Then again, it tastes pretty good in silence, too.

MAYBE THEY’LL COMPARE PRIVATE JETS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston to Host Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Glaxo and Verily Join Forces to Treat Disease By Hacking Your Nervous System.

CBS NEWS: Let’s face it — the U.S. economy is going nowhere fast.

It took until now to face that?

UNSKEW! Trump: There’s something ‘phony’ about these polls.

“I see some great polls — I see one from the Los Angeles Times, just came out, where were ahead by 4 or 5 points. I see one from CNN where we are down,” the Republican presidential nominee told the crowd at a rally in Ashburn, Va., on Tuesday.

“I think these polls, I don’t know, there’s something about these polls, there’s something phony.”

Just last week it was Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook making the same complaint.

THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORMHOLE: Life On Earth May Have Been ‘Premature’ In The Cosmic Scale, Researchers Say.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Obama approves 30-day airstrike mission against ISIS in Libya.

I’m old enough to remember when it was Congress that authorized the use of force.

NO ONE’S JOB IS SAFE IN ERDOGAN’S POST-KEMALIST TURKEY:

#BREAKING Turkey fires 94 football referees, other officials after coup – federation

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 2, 2016

It wasn’t a failed coup; it’s a successful purge.

OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ObamaCare’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week.

And it’s only Tuesday.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Japan Cabinet Approves $274 Billion Stimulus Package.

This time it will work.

QUESTION ASKED: Why Did Russia Send ‘The Terminator’ on a Humanitarian Mission in Syria?

The Mil Mi8-AMTSh, nicknamed “the Terminator,” is an assault variant of the veteran transport helicopter, equipped with multiple hard points for carrying missiles and unguided rockets. In several videos of the wreckage we can see a B-8V20A rocket pod.

Nic Jenzen-Jones of Armament Research Services (ARES), an Australia-based weapons monitoring group, told The Daily Beast:

“In this case, the Mi-8 AMTSh appears to have been fitted with two B-8V20A rocket pods, each capable of carrying 20 80 mm S-8 rockets. From the images available so far, it is not clear whether the rocket pods were loaded. The helicopter in question was also equipped with the Prezident-S electronic countermeasures suite, designed to warn and protect the aircraft against anti-aircraft threats emanating from the ground, as well as naval and aerial platforms.”

If the rocket pods were empty, then the helicopter either took off unarmed—rather inadvisable in a war zone—or had fired all of its munitions before crash-landing.

Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not, but the Mi-8 in question was shot down over the same rebel-held Syrian town which may have been subjected to a helicopter-delivered chemical attack last night.

RED LINE REDUX: Rescuers say toxic gas dropped on Syrian town where Russian helicopter shot down.

A spokesman for Syria Civil Defence said 33 people, mostly women and children, were affected by the gas in Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province.

The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search and rescue volunteers, posted a video on YouTube apparently showing a number of men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by people in civil defence uniforms.

Syria Civil Defence workers, who went to the scene of the attack, said they suspected the gas was chlorine but could not verify that.

“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gasses. The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas,” said the spokesman.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.

Another “strong verbal response” may follow from the White House.

ELIMINATING THE MIDDLE MAN: This rare disease brews beer in your stomach.

HEALTH: Meat-eaters may have a higher risk of death, but plants are the answer.

Researchers found that associations between protein intake and risk of death were confined to participants who had at least one unhealthy lifestyle habit or ailment, such as smoking, heavy drinking, obesity or physical inactivity.

Specifically, a 10% increase in animal protein intake was linked to a 2% increase in overall mortality and 8% increase in risk of cardiovascular-related death, Song said. However, a 3% increase in plant protein intake was linked to a 10% decrease in overall mortality and a 12% decrease in cardiovascular mortality.

Why animal protein is linked to mortality and plant protein is linked to a lower risk of death remains largely a mystery, Song said.

That’s just what the cows want us to think.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Suspended VA bosses to return to agency jobs next week.

Two Department of Veterans Affairs administrators in Phoenix who were suspended at the outset of a crisis over delayed patient care will return to work Monday, 19 months after they were put on paid leave and given termination notices.

Lance Robinson, associate director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, will be assigned as a strategic planner at the VA’s southwest regional office in Gilbert, known as VISN 18, according to spokeswoman Jean Schaefer. Brad Curry, the system’s chief of Health Administration Services, will serve as a health systems specialist.

The two men have been focal points in a controversy over the VA’s perceived failure to hold leaders accountable for mismanagement and misconduct that caused a breakdown in care for veterans in Arizona and nationwide.

They each received an almost two-year-long taxpayer-funded sabbatical and new jobs.

BREAKING: Top Jeb Bush adviser leaves GOP, will vote for Clinton if Florida close.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Court rules for middle school, officer in teen’s burp arrest.

ESPIONAGE: FBI agent charged with acting as agent of China.

A veteran FBI electronics technician – who had top secret clearance – was charged by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office on Monday with acting as an agent of China.

The man was identified as Kun Shan Chun and also went by “Joey Chun,” according to the official complaint. He was expected to plead guilty, Reuters reported.

Chun, born in China, began working for the FBI in 1997. Chun’s duties with the FBI included “accessing sensitive and, in some instance, classified information.”

Chun is charged with four counts of working to “falsify, conceal, and cover up by trick, scheme, and device a material fact.” He allegedly did not disclose his ties to foreign organizations and individuals in a written questionnaire submitted to the FBI for his security clearance, and did not disclose to the FBI that he made contact with “foreign nationals during a trip to Europe.”

The criminal complaint against Chun was unsealed Monday, but dated March 2016.

The charges against him came too soon for Chun to mount the new Hillary Defense.