The Substandard is LIVE. Are you a fan of our pop culture podcast, the Substandard? If so, you might be interested to know that they do a Facebook livestream of their podcast (in part) each week. Here is the latest.

John McCain's advice for U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen is worth reading. I saw this on my editorial calendar and hoped to attend, but could not. Still, there are lots of nuggets from McCain worth considering:

“I’m very worried about the erosion of confidence of the American people in the election system, because if we lose confidence in the results of our elections — that we don’t believe them — that attacks the very fundamentals of what America was all about and was founded on,” McCain said. “We have to make sure that we get into this business of cyber warfare,” a likely allusion to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

Suicide is selfish. Perioidically, I will hear the sirens of the Fairfax County Fire Department come to the train station across the street from where I live. This, sadly, is because people often choose public transportation as a means to suicide. (My station, the end of the line, is quite inefficient since trains move more slowly into the station, and suicide attempts there are often a failure.) A tragic local story over the weekend involved a 12-year-old boy attempting to take his life by jumping off an overpass onto I-66, a much-hated highway. He lived. The driver of the car he landed on did not, however live. She was a 22 year old student at a local university. Her boyfriend was able to wrest control of the car and save his life. A tragic story.

Trick, treat, or joke? Over at the Wall Street Journal, my college friend Joe Palazzolo has a classic worth revisiting on how Saint Louis kids tell jokes when trick-or-treating.

Microsoft is in trouble. Imagine giving a demonstration of your product and .. having to install a competitor's. Paniful, yes? Well, a Microsoft employee had to do just that recently, and it was captured on video. Remember, if you want to OptOut of Google, you can, if you're willing to pay the price.

Respect where it's due. Lots of conservatives are (rightly) mocking billionaire Tom Steyer's impreachment petition. Yes, it is stupid. But let's recognize it for what it is: a really efficient email address collection scheme. A million email addresses ain't nothing.

Are you a god? My colleauge Tim Carney at The Washington Examiner has a peculiar habit: asking people who publicly opine on Twitter about their future how it worked out.

Here's a sample: 

Damon Cortesi (October 2007): Wondering what I'll be doing 10 years from now.

Tim Carney (October 2017) So, what is it?

Damon Cortesi (October 2017) Heh, inconceivable to me at the time. Moved to Seattle, quit my job, started a venture-backed business, got married, and even more.

Basically, Tim—who you should follow on Twitter—is basically MediaDC's Tyler Durden.

Planned Parenthood fesses up. Right-leaning pro-lifers know that Planned Parenthood has unsavory ties. Today, however, their tweets from their "Black Community" account stirred much ire when they tweeted:

If you're a Black woman in America, it's statistically safer to have an abortion than to carry a pregnancy to term or give birth #ScaryStats

Our Mark Hemingway responded:

Well, I never thought Planned Parenthood would concede their founding mission was keeping black babies from being born, but here we are.

With my 27 day old baby fussing in the background, I called Planned Parenthood's media line to ask whether this little-followed account was theirs. They haven't responded, but it's linked on their webpage.

Is Trump refusing to read? Hear me out, this is a conspiracy theory worth considering. 

Have you ever seen the president wearing reading glasses? No? He has done so on a handful of occasions, but it's not a public image he often touts. Enter Paul Manafort. Recently indicted, Manafort told Trump he was "not looking for a paid job" on his paper job application. He did, however, put in his pitch letter that he had worked on foreign presidential campaigns.

And yet, now that he has been indicted, those close to Trump are rushing to deny that they knew anything about Manafort's foreign work. Might Trump have missed it because he doesn't like wearing reading glasses? Hmmm.

Considering the few number of photos of Trump sporting glasses, combined with his odd statements, it's not such a bad theory. 

—Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editor

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