I DISAGREE WITH FRANCIS: Pangram and Substack, why the whining?  My suspicious brain thinks it could be that they don’t want to be found out.

What do I disagree with? Well… first, that using AI detection tools is a good thing. In my experience, including various experiments I’ve run, they are about as good as early COVID tests, and therefore I discourage them for the same reason. If your results are as good as flipping a coin, and if people are going to do the stupid in answer to the test: DON’T DO IT. (Not that I’m going to disable it in my substacks. Couldn’t be bothered.)

Second, I disagree with him on the “tells” of AI. I have found a lot of tells myself (Look, my guilty pleasure if JAFF which at this point is almost all AI written) including an unhinged love for all forms of the verb “perform” used in the most bizarre places and times. Also a certain confusion about how many parents go into making a human which leads to sentences such as “inherited her eyes from one of her fathers.” This stuff seems to crop up consistently, as does an inability to understand physicality or distance. BUT sentence structure and cadence is mostly going to ping all the writers that AI was trained on.  Writers like me whom Anthropic wholesale used as training material. And seriously, people, I was abusing the English language long before AI was a twinkle in a server’s eye. My bizarre tricks of construction are very much the mark of a human being. Also if we’re going to chase sentence structure, there is a lot of room to find witches everywhere.

Mostly I’m tired of all the nonsense. There’s good and there’s bad. There’s entertaining or not. How it’s produced is a matter of complete indifference to me.

Only if you’re using a clanker to write JAFF, can you please for the sake of all that’s holy edit out all the performing? The rest is sometimes hilarious, but the performing is just tedious.

CALIFORNIA DESERVES TO BURN; OR AT LEAST ITS POLITICIANS DO:  California’s War on Goats Could Worsen the Wildfire Crisis. Standard minimum wage and overtime laws now apply to the state’s goat herders, whose animals clear brush and reduce fire danger. The costs are unsustainable.

OF COURSE IT DOES:  Trash “Art” Exhibit Trashes Martin Luther King’s Dream with Racial Agitprop.

THE “CONSPIRACY THEORISTS” KEEP BEING VINDICATED:

We were… right.

– Social distancing was a hoax
– Masks were a joke
– Lockdowns were worthless
– mRNA jabs were dangerous
– Case fatality rate was low
– Ivermectin worked
– Hydroxychloroquine also worked
– Remdesivir was a killer
– COVID came from the Wuhan lab
– Fauci funded it…

— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) July 27, 2026

BORE EAGLE:

Auburn University(@AuburnU) in Alabama has a mission statement for its athletics program focused on DEI.

"The Department of Athletics, in keeping with the mission of the University, and in a spirit of inclusion, encouraging diversity and equitable treatment for all…"

This is… pic.twitter.com/5B6nIOLWuo

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 28, 2026

It’s not 2020 anymore guys, get with the times.

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT:

Residents in the Palisades put up Mad Max barricades because construction site theft is so rampant since Karen Bass directed LAPD to remove police patrols from the neighborhood. As if the fire victims haven't dealt with enough…the vile communist is punishing us further. pic.twitter.com/hiiQ5fydNl

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) July 28, 2026

As Glenn has written, “the breakdown of law and order won’t go as [leftists] hope. Ultimately, the police are there to protect criminals from the populace, not the other way around. Get rid of the police, and armed vigilantism is what you’ll get. And what you’ll deserve.”

Back in 2013, Reason TV released a video about private security forces in otherwise lawless Detroit. It looks like the Pacific Palisades is adopting a similar idea as well.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab to start launching missile-defense missions from Alaska under $266 million Space Force deal.

RICK MCGINNIS: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: New York Goes Down.

When The Taking of Pelham One Two Three came out in the fall of 1974, New York City was building up to a fiscal crisis and a year away from president Gerald Ford’s statement that he would refuse to give the city a bailout, which led to the famous New York Daily News headline “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”.

The exodus of jobs and residents that was underway by the late ’60s shrank the city’s tax base while a budget deficit that began with mayor Robert F. Wagner’s administration in the early ’60s was compounded by Wagner’s successor, John Lindsay, borrowing heavily to improve city services. New York was funding free tuition at the City University of New York and keeping transit fares low while relying on federal aid to make it from year to year.

Meanwhile in the movie theatres the “New York as shithole” genre had come into focus with Midnight Cowboy in 1969, followed by Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Shaft, The French Connection and The Panic in Needle Park in 1971, Super Fly and Across 110^th Street in 1972 and Badge 373, The Seven-Ups, Mean Streets, Black Caesar, Willie Dynamite, Gordon’s War, Hell up in Harlem and Serpico in 1973.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three shared screens in 1974 with Claudine, Three the Hard Way, Crazy Joe and Death Wish and, as the city’s fiscal crisis became global headlines, was followed by Dog Day Afternoon and Report to the Commissioner in 1975 before the cinematic capstones to the subgenre: Taxi Driver (1976) and The Warriors (1979).

Perhaps this genre will be making a cinematic return in a few years: NYC: Begun, the Class War Has.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Fauci Asks China To Engineer New Virus That Just Kills Rand Paul https://t.co/zfEbTtqybi

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) July 28, 2026

IT’S NEWS WHEN A NETWORK COVERS THE NEWS NOWADAYS:

Hats off to @bariweiss and CBS

This is news

And yet it doesn’t read like it was sanitized by the DNC https://t.co/CcrfVYHVW2

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 28, 2026

Related:

Perhaps surprisingly, both the New York Times and the Washington Post have now published articles on the Fauci diaries. Unsurprisingly, both are complete whitewashes. They sanitize his record and reduce the criticism to the suggestion that he may have been a little too…

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) July 28, 2026

Plus:

If Anthony Fauci comes before my committee tomorrow and perjures himself, his preemptive pardon from Joe Biden will not protect him. https://t.co/RxR3SrDNsQ

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 28, 2026

And:

CHANGE: Senate confirms Jay Clayton as Trump’s director of national intelligence, replacing Pulte.

FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists Turn an Old Antibiotic Back Into a Superbug Killer: A small molecule restored vancomycin’s activity against resistant bacteria by blocking a key bacterial enzyme.

ACTUALLY, I’M PRETTY SURE WE ARE:

Just a psa: You came here screaming “they’ll kill me if I go back!” Ok. You can stay and seek asylum.

The asylum ends the second you send cash back, wave their flag, or book a vacation to the “death trap”you escaped.

Pick a lane. We’re not running a hotel for frauds.

— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) July 22, 2026

TREAT DRY EYES: Complete Preservative Free Dry Eye Drops, 0.33 Fl Oz, 2 Pack. #CommissionEarned I use this when my eyes get dry from using the computer after my eye doc recommended it. It works well.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Signs of depression in men that don’t look like depression, according to a therapist. “When most people envision what depression looks like, they may tell you about someone who can’t get out of bed or who is bursting into tears all the time. Mallon noted that this is one of the most stubborn myths out there. In his experience, men’s depression frequently looks like the opposite of falling apart. He has supported men who never cried, never stayed in bed, and never once called themselves depressed. They held down demanding jobs and showed up for everyone around them, all while struggling underneath.”

CHRIS QUEEN: Saints Rookie Christen Miller Shows Why He’s One of Football’s Good Guys.

I DON’T CARE FOR THE NEW STYLES IN DOOR HANDLES: NHTSA Is Looking Into New Regulations Around Door Handle Safety: After several crashes where doors couldn’t be opened, U.S. regulators are assessing whether further rules are needed. I want mechanical door handles, not something at the mercy of a single fuse.

I WAS IN FAIRBANKS THIS TIME OF YEAR AND IT WAS IN THE 80s: Winter Weather Warning Issued as Up to 6 Inches of Snow, 11-Degree Wind Chills Hit in July.

I CAN IMAGINE QUITE A BIT… BUT NOT THAT MUCH: Imagine Thinking More Gun Control is the Answer to California’s Crime Problem.

Tragically, a murderer opened fire at a Fourth of July weekend block party in Compton, California earlier this month, killing 37-year-old Eric Washington and 19-year-old Meah Bordenave-Jenkins and wounding three others. The victims and their loved ones deserve justice. Police arrested one suspect, 54 year-old Antoine Jones, two weeks later and charged him with murder in Bordenave-Jenkins’ death. He deserves prosecution and punishment to the fullest extent of the law. The suspect in Washington’s death is still at large.

California state Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gipson, however, quickly used this latest tragedy to call for…stronger state and federal gun control laws. He cited background checks, age restrictions and so-called “red flag” laws as “basics” that would reduce criminal violence.

The problem with Assemblyman Gipson’s demands, though, is that California already has all three.

Yes, but the next law, fee, tax, restriction, or requirement will work for sure.

DISPATCHES FROM THE OCCUPIED ZONES:

Last week, my mom got a "pied-a-terre" tax notice. She has lived full-time in her townhouse FOR 30 YEARS (she and my dad bought it for under $1 million). She has no other residence.

Is NYC not bothering with basic checking of its own tax lists?

She's 81 and has three weeks to… pic.twitter.com/aS9Nam5Htf

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) July 27, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Plagiarism or jealousy? Youngest black professor in Cambridge history set to publish extraordinary life story — including how he couldn’t speak, read or write during childhood — as he’s now accused of copying others’ work.

Academia managed to rid itself of Claudine Gay but Arday was already on the rise.

The individual cases and names don’t really matter — the production of the proverbial, eternal Arday is the true reason for which the rest of it exists.

What did y’all think “inclusive… https://t.co/MM7Y72n4F9

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 28, 2026

Spy magazine used to call this “Logrolling in Our Time” back in the late ‘80s.

THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT BANE GROCERS: Begun, the Class War Has.

KEEP YOUR CLOTHES FRESH: Dr. Killigan’s Premium Clothing Moth Traps with Pheromones. #CommissionEarned

NEW MICHAEL CRICHTON NOVEL JUST DROPPED:

I had a dream last night that Michael Crichton was still alive and he wrote a book called “Two Weeks to Stop the Spread.”

The book’s main character was a megalomaniacal, narcissistic senior US health official who was using NIH funds to work with China to engineer a virus…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) July 28, 2026