UH. THIS IS GETTING WEIRD:  Taylor Farms recalls salsa, guacamole over salmonella fears after company linked to ‘explosive diarrhea’ outbreak.

FASTER PLEASE:  DHS reports over 1.4M illegal alien departures since January 2025.

UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NOT LIMITED TO SCOTLAND:  It seems that the Scottish Government is willing to go right to the extent of the law and beyond in covering up its actions these days. Since it is judge and jury on itself between elections, it is hard to see how this situation can get any better.

JUST AS RACIST AS THOSE WHO DISCRIMINATE THE OTHER WAY:  The Racists Who Enabled Jason Arday. Can you say “soft bigotry of low expectations”.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

A WORKING SPACE PROBE THAT’S OLDER THAN MOST PEOPLE ALIVE: NASA figured out how to keep its 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe running for yet another year.

AS ARTHUR C. CLARKE SAID, so far all consciousness is found in close proximity to a functioning brain. What if The Brain Doesn’t Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself.

STARLINK ADVANCES SCIENCE: Starlink Satellites Reveal a Hidden Atmosphere 300 Miles Above Earth.

ICYMI: WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN: Thoughts on the 25th Anniversary of InstaPundit.

And if you enjoy these essays, or classic InstaPundit, please either take out a paid Substack subscription, or make a one-time donation here. I appreciate your support.

UPDATE: A reader sends: “I would like to send you a check. Do you have an address I can use?”

Yes, please send to 118 N. Peters Rd. #12-230, Knoxville, TN 37923. Please make any checks out to me, not to “InstaPundit,” which the bank doesn’t like.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Which Cars Cost Us the Most and the Least to Maintain, and Why?

LIGHTNING DEAL: LAUNCH X431 CRP919EBT OBD2 Scanner. #CommissionEarned

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Is This the Most Woke Movie Review … Ever?

Roger Ebert’s legendary status as America’s film critic is well earned.

He still let his progressive views seep into his signature thumb in his later years. That didn’t diminish his place in movie reviewing lore, nor his legacy.

A contributing critic for his self-named site has taken that progressive baton and run with it. Think “Chariots of Fire”-style running.

The review wastes no time getting to the ideological point.

“One Night Only” … is everything that’s troubling about the current conservative capitalist hellscape that is the United States of America writ large.

Ma’am, this is a rom-com review…

There’s so much more.

It makes nods to the very real horrors of today, like tech bro-backed surveillance capitalism, rampant Big Pharma advertisements, and fascist police and politicians controlling our bodies, without ever taking the time to interrogate any of the sources that have led to our current political climate.

If only “When Harry Met Sally…” had brought up the Iran-Contra scandal, it might have been a classic. Oh, well.

Of course, for the same critic, some “politicians controlling our bodies” are perfectly fine:

Ebert certainly became a huge leftwing crank in his later years on Twitter, but the vast majority of his movies reviews never went full Salon or Grauniad. Definitely read the whole thing.

I LIKE MUSCLE: Jeep’s Wildest Ever Grand Cherokee Is Set to Return With SRT Supercharged V-8 Muscle. After a long hiatus, Jeep’s quickest SUV is expected to return with Hellcat power and a modernized platform.

RESCUE MISSION FOR THE RESCUE MISSION: Katalyst Space makes progress in restoring control of Swift servicing spacecraft. “Katalyst said it was planning to upload a ‘significant flight software update’ in the coming days to allow for attitude control in the spacecraft’s current configuration. That will allow the company’s engineers to restore full attitude control of the spacecraft and resume plans to head toward NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

The white American middle class are literally the best people on the planet. All my life I grew up with people dunking on them for their cordial relations and stuffy mores and middlebrow taste but it turns out that everything runs on their largesse. When I was an immigrant kid…

— Anna Khachiyan (@annakhachiyan) August 10, 2026

Update:

Well done. The world stands on the backs of the normies and every artist and freak and mystic and dissident etc needs to remember that. Then it can all balance out and work: When we respect and appreciate each other.

— The Armpit of Truth (@psychmystic) August 10, 2026

YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:

My take on the Arday debacle. Elevator pitch version: 1) Arday is typical of a thriving alternate-universe academia elevating performance art over curiosity; 2) the "anti-racist" people who supported him are either bigots or caught up in recreational tribalism.…

— John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) August 10, 2026

OPSEC:

Here's the straight answer:

"We're not going to tell Iran or anyone else how long they may or may not have to hold out against us." https://t.co/RYkazGHIQ6

— RBe (@RBPundit) August 10, 2026

THAT’S NOT FUNNY (ACTUALLY, YES IT IS): The Joke that Sparked Death Threats for Arynne Wexler.

Wexler shared the fallout from an immigration bit with “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” last week.

Wexler said she was shocked that another joke from her repertoire drew little outrage. She has compared Muslims to pit bulls, suggesting the majority of both groups aren’t violent, but …

She didn’t get blowback from pit bull owners from that routine. Instead, she heard positive feedback from dog owners.

The one that sparked the death threats?

She was at the White House in the spring of 2025 as part of an influencer gathering. She got some face time with spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, and she opened with the riff that caused a kerfuffle. Leavitt brought up President Donald Trump’s work with deportations and securing the southern border.

That gave Wexler an opening.

“I can attest to the fact that deportations are working because my Uber drivers finally speak English again,” she told Leavitt.

“Everyone laughed,” she recalled. “I leave the room and my phone is blowing up … I’m getting so many death threats in my Instagram, to my web site. I was put in touch with the FBI because I was getting so many threats over it … over that joke.’”

“And I put [the gag] on Instagram because I can’t help myself,” she added.

Read the whole thing. And don’t miss the clip of her doing the Pit Bull/Muslims bit.

KEEP YOUR PLACE COOL: Midea 5,000 BTU EasyCool Small Window Air Conditioner. #CommissionEarned

STILL NOT TIRED OF WINNING:

1897 Winchester Trench Guns Coming from the CMP?? YES! Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) CEO Gerald O'Keefe states in addition to the M14 rifles, they are also receiving a quantity of original Winchester M1897 Trench Guns for sale!! What do YOU think, interested in one? pic.twitter.com/rpvmBoqZ8v

— Firearms News Magazine (@FirearmsNewsMag) August 8, 2026

BUT THE WEEK IS YOUNG: The Most Bizarre Thing That Has Been Discovered About Fauci’s Phone So Far.

GET YOUR VITAMINS: Ensure Max Protein Milk Chocolate Shake. #CommissionEarned

NO. GO AWAY. Idaho’s second Aedes aegypti mosquito sparks a search for signs the invasive species has spread.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS VS. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: A Tale of Two Chiefs. “There is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by not deciding more than is necessary to decide. Then there is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by deciding more than is necessary to decide. Which Roberts do we get in each case?”

ALEX BERENSON: URGENT: Tony Fauci appears to have misled Congress in 2024 about his efforts to avoid federal records laws: Joe Biden’s final-day presidential pardon of Fauci will protect him from any potential criminal jeopardy for the episode, but it shows why he may be so reluctant to testify now.