IMPORTANT. MAYBE VITAL:  Documenting the first time a solar flare impacted Earth technology.

COME ON, GUYS! THIS ISN’T FUNNY. WHO BORROWED MY SHOCKED FACE THIS TIME?  Blue states with strong teachers’ unions have lower student literacy levels: study shows.

Mumbles: it’s never there when I need it, and Stephen Green sends it back smelling like a distillery. This is no way to treat a shocked face TM.

A BRITISH CONSERVATIVE’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE PASSING SCENE:  Letter From America – No. 3.

INTO HELL?  This Is How James Talarico Wants to Run the United States.

POLLING IS A GAME OF MISLEADING THE PUBLIC:  Dems Think North Carolina Is a Lock for Them. Roy Cooper Nuked That Narrative With These Remarks.

BOTH LEAD TO ENDLESS DESTITUTION:  “Muslims have finally cracked the code on the West”; For Islam, “Socialism Is THE Trojan Horse” to power — Larry Taunton’s September 11th keynote address.

Fight with everything you got.

THAT THING THAT NEVER HAPPENS KEEPS HAPPENING:  Nigerian National Accused of Voting in Federal Elections.

AS IT SHOULD BE:  Chinese Tourist Faces Federal Charges After Drone Flight Near NASA Launch Pads.

ALL OF THIS:  For thirty years we’ve argued that software deserves First Amendment protection because software is speech. But the Constitution gives us another reason: software is a press. The Free Press Clause protects not merely expressive outputs but the individual’s freedom to possess and use technologies for producing and disseminating expression. The founding-era printing press is the paradigmatic example. That is the original understanding of the clause. Software and open-weight generative models are modern instances of the same constitutional category. Regulation directed at their capacity to produce or disseminate expression and an Americans’ right to own and control them directly implicates the Press Clause even when government characterizes the regulated object as a machine rather than speech.

DEAR BOB. THERE SHOULD BE NO BALLOT FRAUD, PERIOD, AND EVERY SANE PERSON SHOULD OPPOSE IT:  Kavanaugh throws Trump ‘a lifeline’ on mail ballot rules despite Supreme Court rejecting restrictions.

BLINK, BLINK, BLINK:  What Will Be the Ultimate Relationship Between AI and Humans?

AI is NOT a new lifeform. Let me rephrase that title: What will be the Ultimate Relationship Between Giant Calculators and Humans? None. AI is a tool. Get your head out of science fiction and keep on trucking. I write the stuff, and I know when it’s fantasy.

INFRINGEMENT OF BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS:  Oppression By Bureaucracy.

WHO DIED AND MADE WOMEN G-D?  The Mommy Standard.

THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS IS THE UNOFFICIAL SIGN AND COUNTERSIGN OF MY BLOG:  Have You Ever Kippled?

NARRATOR: CLAIRE VALDEZ WAS BORN IN TEXAS:

THIS EXAMPLE OF THE IRANIAN REGIME’S BARBARISM DESERVES MUCH MORE ATTENTION THAN ITS BEEN GETTING: Iran’s Expanding Campaign Against Jewish Targets Outside Israel

OPEN THREAD: One night in this place makes a hard man humble. I can sense the Devil walking next to me.

JUSTICE IN AMERICA: Lone Holdout Juror in Lindsay Clancy Case Gets a Lawyer — and a Safe House.

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Space weather caused a 16-minute train delay in 1848: ‘Our research has a hint of a detective story.’

FASTER, PLEASE: A 3-Year-Old’s Metastatic Cancer Disappeared After Two Doses of Experimental Therapy.

MAKE THE LEFT PLAY BY ITS OWN RULES: Karol Markowicz: Macklemore Is No Free-Speech Martyr: Jewish artists were being canceled long before the controversy over the rapper’s anti-Israel rant.

The scale of the backlash to his concert comments was surprising. Concerts have long been a breeding ground for a self-important musician to deliver his thoughts on the issues of the day. It was boring. It was tedious. It was expected.

So when artist Pink shared a long condemning message pointing out that “Jewish fans bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran sing last night in NJ, not to be ambushed by Macklemore’s anti-Israel propaganda,” it felt new. When Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, said the politicized performance wouldn’t be welcome at his Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, one of Mr. Sheeran’s tour stops, it wasn’t the same old hand-wringing with no action. Few expected that Macklemore would end up canceled from the remaining tour dates. That’s not normally what happens to activists on the left. . . .

It turns out it works both ways. The uproar from people at the Ed Sheeran show, including from non-Jews, put Macklemore’s spectacle front and center. It had been the left’s game and Macklemore was the first time they had prominently lost at it.

The complaints now are about “free speech.” But no one cared about that when Jewish singers, comedians, artists and authors had their speech shut down. The publishing world, in particular, has gotten so impossible for Jewish authors that new Jewish imprints have become necessary for Jewish authors to get published at all.

It isn’t free speech the left is now demanding for Macklemore. It’s free speech for its side only. That’s something our culture can no longer abide.

Sauce for the goose.

I DON’T LIKE TICKS: New Tick-Borne Virus May Explain Mysterious Cases of Severe Illness.

MAGA: Americans are richer than ever — and poverty hits an all-time low. “The good news came despite a wild series of economic headlines in the US and beyond, touching on everything from tariffs to international conflicts.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: It’s not just heartburn — 5 symptoms you may not realize are related to acid reflux.

VENERABLE: Lockheed hopes to sell a new F-16 to U.S. Air Force.

Lockheed Martin is pitching the U.S. Air Force on a new version of the F-16 fighter, designated the F-16G, as a way to replace aging Fighting Falcons faster than the F-35 production line can keep up.

Multiple people familiar with the aircraft told Aviation Week that the F-16G builds on the current Block 70 F-16, Lockheed’s newest production version, and would add conformal fuel tanks, 600-gallon wing tanks, an infrared search and track pod, a Sniper targeting pod and a drag chute. Those additions would extend the jet’s range and give it added sensor capability compared with earlier F-16 models still flying in Air Force squadrons.

The idea of buying new F-16s to fill out the fighter fleet is not new. Then-Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Will Roper raised the option back in 2021, pointing to the active F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina, as a way to add capacity while the F-35 program worked through its own delivery pace. Lockheed builds F-16s and F-35s at separate facilities, but the F-35’s more complex production process has left the Air Force short of new airframes to replace F-16s reaching the end of their service lives.

Why not? The heavily upgraded F-15EX Eagle II has proven to be a real winner, filling in the gaps of our unpardonably small F-22 fleet.