IDENTICAL TWIN STUDIES reveal mechanisms behind aging. “In a recent study led by Uppsala University, the researchers compared the DNA of identical (monozygotic) twins of different age. They could show that structural modifications of the DNA, where large or small DNA segments change direction, are duplicated or completely lost are more common in older people. The results may in part explain why the immune system is impaired with age.”

AT AMAZON, 30% off on Kindle accessories.

Also, Spotlight Deals on Blu-Ray.

FROM GREGORY BENFORD, a space science fiction reading list.

HEY, WAIT — I READ MUTANT 59 AND THIS DOESN’T SOUND SO GREAT: Amazonian Rainforest Fungus Eats Polyurethane, Potentially Solving a Big Landfill Problem.

LIST: Favorite Classic Science Fiction.

UPDATE: Had the wrong link before. Fixed now. Sorry!

SOUNDS MORE LIKE STERILIZATION THAN MALE BIRTH CONTROL.

The procedure: a few zaps to the balls with a high-frequency ultrasound and POOF! His swimming friends who threaten your womb with gestation disappear! Well, that’s what happened to male rats in a recently published study. After each rat had two ball-zapping treatments, researchers found that the rat’s sperm count was zero and its sperm-making germ cells were eradicated. (Yay! I think?)

Scientists believe these same results may possibly translate to men, but the risks and full effects of the treatment are still unclear. I am definitely a little confused. After we detonate our partner’s sperm and sperm-producing cells, are we supposed to resurrect them at a later date with a please-friendly-sperm-come-back-to-life incantation if we decide to have babies together?

Like I say, if it works in humans at all it sounds more like a non-invasive replacement for vasectomy.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Grills & Smokers.

THE RACE TO BUILD A REAL STAR TREK TRICORDER. “The two groups announced this month that they are joining forces to launch the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, a $10 million competition to build a handheld, mobile device able to quickly diagnose a range of health problems and measure real-time information such as respiratory rate and blood pressure.”

EDUTOPIA: “Shop” Is Not a Four-Letter Word.

TOM FRIEDMAN WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: China’s Pollution Problem Is Visible From Space. “World Health Organisation guidelines suggest that PM2.5 levels above ten micrograms per cubic metre are unsafe. The boffins have found (as the map shows) that almost every Chinese province has levels above that. Indeed, much of the country’s population endures air so foul that it registers above 30 on the PM2.5 scale, with Shandong and Henan provinces topping 50. Because these readings reflect the average pollution that a typical resident in a province is likely to endure during a given year, they underplay the sharp spikes in pollution that are seen on particularly dirty days, when spot readings go much higher. That is why Beijingers should take little comfort from the fact that the capital’s pollution measures only 35.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: No Money Down!

With public university administrators continually arguing for tuition increases to counter state appropriations cuts, it seems far-fetched that their budget problems could be solved by eliminating student tuition and fees altogether.

But that’s the idea put forth by a group of students from the University of California at Riverside, who in January proposed a new funding model for the University of California system that seeks to solve two of the system’s biggest problems: unpredictable and large decreases in state appropriations, and the steady increase in tuition costs.

Under the students’ plan, called the UC Student Investment Proposal, students in the system would pay no upfront costs for their education but would agree to pay 5 percent of their income to the system for 20 years after graduating and entering the workforce.

Well, this would give universities some skin in the game.

DISCUSSION: What’s the best science fiction for people serving in the military?

BRANDON LARSON: My Case For Mars.

K.C. JOHNSON: Patrick Witt and Yale’s Disastrous Failure.

IN THE MAIL: From Bob Zubrin, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Worried India Shifts Defense Focus To China.

A LAW SCHOOL love story.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Inspector General: IRS Fails to Ensure That Defendants Convicted of Tax Crimes Actually Pay Taxes Owed.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Bedbug Coverup Alleged.

AT AMAZON, Top Deals in Patio & Garden.

LIST: Essential family survival kit for under $300. Not sure I agree with all of these choices, but you gotta love the Slim Jim 100-pack.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Senate Republicans Question Obama’s Plan to Tie Federal Aid to Tuition. “Senate Democrats, not surprisingly, were generally supportive of the president’s proposals, praising his efforts to incentivize colleges and states to bring costs under control.”

FRANK J. FLEMING LAMENTS the Democrats’ rotten primary choices.

CHANGE: Small Business Hiring Flat In January.

UPDATE: But unemployment report falls.

JOHN HINDERAKER ON Eric Holder’s Performance. Emphasis on the “performance.” Plus this: “Executive privilege is like the filibuster: whether it is an outrageous practice or a pillar of our Constitution depends entirely on which party is making use of it. At Commentary, Seth Mandel notes that this is one more in a long series of instances where the Obama administration has acknowledged that Bush and Cheney were right all along. Still, as he points out, you wouldn’t want to hold your breath waiting for Jon Stewart to denounce the Obama administration’s assertions of executive privilege. . . . Eric Holder personifies the thin-skinned arrogance of the Obama administration. For someone who has spent his entire adult life in Washington, his expectations seem weirdly naive.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Number Of U.S. Expatriates Continues To Soar.

HOW CONVENIENT, THEN, THAT IT SOMEHOW BLEW UP: Iranian base that exploded was working on missile to reach the US.

TOM MAGUIRE ON REGULATING SUGAR LIKE ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO.

BOLD PREDICTIONS: Within fifty years Coca Cola and the NFL will be the fodder of campfire stories meant to scare excitable pre-teens. It can’t happen? Sixty years ago Frank and Dean were the Kings of Cool, smoking cigarettes live on national television; now they would get busted and the President of the United States is heckled in his own home for being a smoker.

If high school football were invented today, any school board listening to the injury rate and equipment expense would laugh out loud. It’s days are numbered.

And Coke? Sales will be regulated as cigarettes are today, and sales to minors won’t be legal. And someone somewhere will be charged with child abuse for giving a kid a Coke. Really.

Who dares to contradict this?

UPDATE: Sarah Hoyt does! “I dare contradict it. In the darkest days of the cold war, Heinlein predicted that we’d hang the commissars from their own guts from lampposts. He seems to have missed slightly. We just won the cold war. I predict in fifty years we’ll have won the cultural cold war and we’ll laugh at the idea of government restricting sugar or salt (and possibly alcohol and cigarettes, too). I’m safe predicting this, because command economies don’t do well and if we don’t win and soon, I doubt there will be enough organized civilization left to call me on it. Win-win.”

INVESTIGATING VOTER FRAUD:

Two elections supervisors are taking action after an NBC2 investigation uncovers flawed record keeping and human error allowing people who are not citizens of the United States to vote.

No one knows how widespread this problem is, because county election supervisors have no way to track non-citizens who live here.

So NBC2 did something election officials never thought to do, and found them on our own.

“I vote every year,” Hinako Dennett told NBC2.

The Cape Coral resident is not a US citizen, yet she’s registered to vote.

NBC2 found Dennett after reviewing her jury excusal form. She told the Clerk of Court she couldn’t serve as a juror because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

We found her name, and nearly a hundred others like her, in the database of Florida registered voters.

Read the whole thing.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Holder Should Walk The Plank on “Fast and Furious.”

EUGENE VOLOKH: District Court Judge in Hutaree Case Rejects Government’s Conspiracy Theory Expert.

QUESTIONS: If The Economy Is Improving. . .

If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?

If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in “extreme poverty” at an all-time high?

Lots more of these at the link. You know, if we had a Republican President, I’ll bet the press would be asking these questions every day.

THEY DON’T CALL IT THE STUPID PARTY FOR NOTHING: Tom Blumer: State GOP Establishments Attack Their Base. This is why Tea Party activists are well-advised to take over their own state committees.

BYRON YORK: Team Obama Shocked To Learn Romney Wants To Win.

Late Thursday night, as the political world was obsessing over fallout from Mitt Romney’s “not concerned about the very poor” remarks, the Obama campaign was scandalized by something else Romney said in the wake of victory in Florida. What distressed the president’s re-election team was Romney’s vow to defeat Barack Obama in November.

In a grammatically uneven fundraising email, Obama national finance director Rufus Gifford wrote, “Mitt Romney said just hours after winning the Florida GOP win [sic] primary this week that: ‘We must not forget what this election is really about: defeating Barack Obama.’”

“Mitt’s words weren’t an accident,” Gifford continued. “They’re what he really believes.”

Well, yes, they are. Republicans, Romney included, do in fact want to defeat Obama. In each stump appearance, Romney discusses his desire to restructure economic policy to help create jobs, to reduce federal spending, and to strengthen U.S. foreign policy. To accomplish those goals, Romney stresses, he must first defeat Obama.

Giffords is upset that the Romney campaign has created a “One-Term Fund” to raise money for the effort to defeat the president. The fund’s name comes from Obama’s statement three years ago about his administration’s effort to improve the economy: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition,” Obama said. Romney often mentions that on the stump.

How ungentlemanly of him to bring that up.

FASTER, PLEASE: Cystic Fibrosis Gene Correction Drug Approved by the FDA.

NATHAN HARDEN: “I wonder how many college freshmen fully appreciate how dramatic a difference their choice of a major will make in their economic futures? Maybe colleges should publish this information and distribute it to incoming students. I wonder, if that were the case, what would happen to the enrollment stats for all those gender- and race-studies departments around the country?”

NATE NELSON SAYS Kindergarten-style Payback Isn’t So Bad.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Skepticism About The EU’s Future. “Every opinion poll shows that while most Britons are against joining the Euro (and a substantial minority now favours complete withdrawal from the EU) they gloomily believe that the government will haul them into it by hook or by crook. This isn’t just fatalism – it is indicative of a wide and growing gap between the rulers and the ruled.”

MITCH BERG: Ten Things You Should Do If You’re An “Anybody But Mitt” Republican.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: Junk-Science Double Fail.

SURE TO GO VIRAL: One Cute Thing A Day.

WELL, MY TEN-YEAR BLOGGIVERSARY went better than this.

ARNOLD KLING on the future of higher education.

ACCORDING TO THE FDA, YOUR STEM CELLS ARE NOW DRUGS. I see this as a bit of a stretch where the Commerce Clause is concerned. Of course, I think that abortion is beyond Commerce Clause regulation.

This may also be a good test case for Eugene Volokh’s doctrine of medical self-defense.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Heath Shuler To Retire From Congress.

Well, the Asheville Tea Party has been on his case for two years. He’s wise not to face their wrath.

HMM: Scientists to Breach Buried Antarctic Lake, Untouched for Millions of Years. “After two decades of drilling through miles of Antarctic ice, Russian scientists are about to breach an underground lake that has not been exposed to the surface in more than 20 million years. Lake Vostok, as the body of water is called, is part of a chain of more than 200 lakes hidden beneath the ice, some of which were formed when Australia and Antarctica were still connected. Vostok will be the first one of all to be opened when the drill hits water next week.” I hope the BLUE HADES are okay with this. . . .

UPDATE: Uh oh. No word from Russian scientists for 5 days. I guess the BLUE HADES were not amused. Let’s just hope it stops there. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: What if it’s DEEP SEVEN? Well, even the BLUE HADES are afraid of them. . . .

BOB OWENS: House Dems Disgraceful at Holder Hearing. “They showed up to protect the president, and showed no interest in justice for the dead.”

UPDATE: Democrats Circle Wagons Around Holder.

THIS WOULD BE COOL: DARPA Invests In Megapixel Augmented-Reality Contact Lenses.

AT AMAZON, top deals in HDTV and video.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Charles Sykes, author of A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing. (Bumped).

READER JON TERRY WRITES:

You had a post recently about entrepreneurship in Chattanooga that encouraged me to write you. I’m with a small start-up company in Nashville (which also has a pretty decent entrepreneurial scene!). Our company sells a product that should be dear to your heart. There’s a huge shift in the IT world away from multi-year, centrally planned projects towards self-organizing teams iteratively developing small incremental deliverables in close collaboration with customers. This movement goes by a number of names: Lean, Agile, Scrum, Lean Startup.

In conjunction with cloud-computing, Lean-Agile is revolutionizing IT, shifting power from larger companies to small and (within large companies) from middle management down to line staff. To my mind, it’s all very much in the spirit of your book “An Army of David’s”. LeanKit is an online tool that allows these Lean-Agile teams to easily collaborate from anywhere in the world by modeling their project workflows as sticky-notes on a virtual whiteboard. In fact, while we built it for IT, LeanKit has also been used by construction companies, law firms, universities, sales people and elementary school teachers. Apparently they were all looking for a simpler, more democratic approach to project management, too. :-)

If people are interested in learning more about Lean-Agile, they can check out these Amazon reading lists. And, of course, we’d be thrilled if they would check us out at www.LeanKit.com!

Very interesting.

VIDEO: SpaceX Tests New “Super” Rocket Engines.

SpaceX fired up the rocket engines it will use to help land the Dragon spacecraft as well serve as the emergency escape engines in case of a launch emergency.

The Southern California space startup successfully tested the SuperDraco engine at its Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas. The tests included subjecting the engine to full duration, full thrust and deep throttling demonstrations, providing the company with another step towards offering commercial manned space flight to low earth orbit.

Cool.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Reader Tanya — writes:

From yesterday: ON AMY ALKON’S ADVICE GODDESS RADIO AT THE TOP OF THE HOUR: Why are women more likely to become compulsive shoppers and men more likely to become addicted to pornography? Plus, “How come you have to buy her an engagement ring and she doesn’t have to buy you an engagement boat?”

—
Glenn, I’m recently engaged – and we’re in the early stages of a shift in culture where the lady gets him something high value as well. My main squeeze got a Kindle, a very nice carry piece and accessories for both from me.

Well, good!

PROGRESS: Formation-flying Nanorobots. This isn’t really nanotechnology, though, any more than an iPod Nano is: Theyre roughly the size of these radio-controlled helicopters favored by many InstaPundit readers. Still cool, though, as they’re equipped with much more intelligence.

SHOCKER: “Joyce Foundation anti-gun shills have ties to ATF brass. But remember, kids, if you think that the ATF allowing guns to be smuggled into Mexico was an attempt at ‘under the radar’ gun control, you’re just a lunatic.”

REPORT FROM THE BIG-MEDIA SWEATSHOPS: Former Unpaid Intern Sues Hearst for Labor Law Violations.

ZAP: Earth In For A Bumpy Ride As Solar Storms Hit. “If anything, we’re making things on the grid more vulnerable.”

THE BLAME GAME IN EGYPT.

DONALD TRUMP endorses Romney.

REPULSIVE GRAVITY as an alternative to Dark Energy.

AT AMAZON, up to 30% off on Valentine’s Day clothing gifts. For men and women.

HOW MANY MORE YEARS does the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Have Left?

LIST: 20 books on survival.

IS THIS A BOOK CONTRACT, or some kind of payola?

ANDREW ROBERTS: Heroine Stupor. This is kinda like the Burka/Bikini equivalence trope: One of those things so stupid only intellectuals could possibly believe it.

STAGGERING SALES: Chevy Volt sales drop to 603, Nissan moves 676 Leafs in January. “This one has got to hurt. After a record-best 1,529 units sold in December, sales of the Chevrolet Volt dropped to just 603 in January, part of an overall decline in GM model sales compared to the last month of 2011. The good news in this less-than-half drop? If you look at the year-on-year trend, the Volt almost doubled its sales. In January 2011, Chevy sold 321 Volts.” Well, okay then.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, CHRISTIANISTS WOULD CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Obama: I Pushed Dodd-Frank And Health Care Reform Because Of Christ. “The president said he often falls to his knees in prayer, and emphasized the role of his religious values in determining where to lead the country.”

PROF. JACOBSON: So tell me about Ted Cruz.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Why Did Susan G. Komen Pull The Plug On Planned Parenthood? “Goldberg clearly disapproves of the decision. Though I’m pro-choice, I don’t share the outrage that was roiling my twitter feed this morning. It is, as Josh Barro noted, absurd to pretend that abortion is somehow incidental to Planned Parenthood’s services, and since money is fungible, giving them money is probably helping to fund abortion provision. Since I think this is a very tough issue on which reasonable people can disagree, I can see why the federal government, and private foundations, would decline to fund their operations.” And why other people are now sending in checks to make up the difference.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN . . . OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Feds’ secret no-fly list more than doubles in a year. “Even as the Obama administration says it’s close to defeating al-Qaida, the size of the government’s secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the United States has more than doubled in the past year, The Associated Press has learned. The no-fly list jumped from about 10,000 known or suspected terrorists one year ago to about 21,000, according to government figures provided to the AP.”

Change!

HANDGUN REVIEW: The Kahr CM9.

JOEL KOTKIN: Who Stands The Most To Win – And Lose – From A Second Obama Term.

BARACK OBAMA, THREE YEARS AGO TODAY: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

TESTOSTERONE cuts female cooperation.

ROGER KIMBALL: Matt Drudge: Genius Of Juxtaposition.

MICKEY KAUS: What Does Obama Do All Day? “Are you impressed with the image of Obama-at-work left by Ryan Lizza’s “Obama Memos” piece in the New Yorker? The President’s decision-making method–at least as described in the piece–seems to consist mainly of checking boxes on memos his aides have written for him.”

IN THE MAIL: After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts.

GUNS AND SELF-DEFENSE: New Cato Study: Tough Targets.

The paper makes many excellent points, but I’ll mention just three here. First, the average person tends to imagine that these self-defense situations involve criminals getting shot. Such cases do occur, but the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired.

The second point relates to the first. The average person usually does not hear about defensive gun cases because news media organizations do not consider the incidents worthy of coverage. If a burglar runs away from a break-in when he discovers that someone is at the home and is armed, it may only garner a terse mention in the paper, if it makes the newspaper at all. With no shot fired, no injuries, and no suspect in custody, newspeople typically decline coverage. The point here is not to criticize the news media’s handling of such incidents–rather it is just to remind readers that we tend to hear about criminals using guns to perpetrate crimes, but we do not hear about many self-defense cases. In this milieu, it is understandable why many people would develop negative opinions about guns.

Third, when a gun owner does shoot a rapist or is able to hold a burglar at gunpoint until the police arrive on the scene, it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented. That’s because had the culprit not been stopped, he very likely would have targeted other people as well.

Indeed. Plus, Cato has a new project to track defensive firearm uses. You can help!

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Beyond Blue Part Two: Recasting The Dream.

CHANGE: Indiana Is Now A Right-to-Work State.

OPERATION COUNTERWEIGHT: Building An Unbossable Senate. “It understates the case to say that some conservatives are disappointed with the idea of nominating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to face President Obama this fall. So what to do if and when Romney finally sews this up? The temptation is always there to drop out of the political process. But if conservatives are interested in advancing their cause from beneath Romney’s banner — as they will likely have to — they must think beyond the presidential race and to the elections that will provide context to its result for the next four years.”

UPDATE: Reader Roland Mar writes: “I have been recommending a two part process. If you cannot bring yourself to vote for Obama-lite Romney, vote for the Green Party candidate. The goal is to push them over the threshold of votes to qualify them for Federal funding in future elections. If the Greens can afford to run a real national campaign, their followers will vote for Green candidates in any future election rather than for Democrats like now. The second part is to concentrate getting Conservative/Patriot candidates elected to the House and Senate. Not all Republicans meet that qualification.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Martin disagrees with the Obama-lite business:

Okay, Glenn, your reader is one of those Jack Ripper “Purity of Essence” types. You can say Romney isn’t conservative enough for you, sure. But Obama like?

That’s childish and silly. Hey, we *know* that the Governor doesn’t want to “spread money around”!

Seriously, these POE types are going to get us Four Worse Years. And *then* they will complain and carry on.

Well, Romney’s better than Zeeba, and I’d vote Zeeba over Obama.

COMPARISON: One Year Later, Another Look At Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics.

JIM VANDEHEI: Why Obama Should Be Worried. His other problem is that the press will bend over backwards — or just plain bend over — in order to save his presidency, but if it looks like he’s going down they’ll turn on him and try to prove their objectivity by reporting all the bad stuff they’ve been soft-pedaling to date.

And note this: “Heck, Ron Paul is running only a few points behind Obama, and he’s yet to win more than 23 percent of the vote in a GOP primary or caucus.”

RAND SIMBERG: Nine Years of Space Policy Disaster. (Bumped).

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: The Biggest Career Mistakes Millennials Make.

LIGHTSQUARED UPDATE: Businessman accused of trying to bribe senator denies wrongdoing. “Todd Ruelle, a businessman accused of inappropriately trying to pressure Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to support wireless startup LightSquared, denied any wrongdoing in a letter to Grassley on Wednesday.”

AT AMAZON, Valentine’s Day Gifts: Markdowns and Recommendations.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Charles Sykes, author of A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing.

SMACKDOWN: Keith Hennessey Responds To Ezra Klein’s Obama-Defending Deficit Chart.

MICHAEL WALSH: A Failed “Fast And Furious” Whitewash. “Today’s Capitol Hill hearing on the ‘Fast and Furious’ mess promises drama that may well rival the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings or gangland chieftain Frank Costello’s memorable 1951 testimony in front of Sen. Estes Kefauver’s hearings on organized crime. . . . By turns whiny, petulant and deceitful, Holder would rather accuse his critics of racism than substantively address the scandal. But with each ‘withdrawn’ letter, Friday-night document dump and sudden resignation, it becomes ever more clear that the man who facilitated the outrageous Marc Rich pardon for President Bill Clinton is incapable of shame.”

FRANK J. FLEMING: What We Need In This Country Is More Apathy!

SHARED SACRIFICE: House Approves Bill To Freeze Federal Worker Pay Through 2013.

IT’S LIKE IT’S ALL JUST A CLASS WARFARE SCAM: “BUFFETT TAX” WOULD BE ONLY A TINY HELP IN CLOSING BUDGET DEFICIT. “It’s also a myth that all the ultra-rich enjoy low tax rates. In 2007, the richest 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average tax rate of 29.5 percent and provided 28.1 percent of federal revenues, reports the CBO. On their wages and salaries, many of the ultra-rich pay the top income tax rate of 35 percent plus a Medicare tax of 1.45 percent. . . . So, raise tax rates on Warren Buffett and others to upper-middle-class levels. But recognize that the anti-wealthy populist rhetoric is mostly political expediency. It distracts from the serious issues the country faces — creating jobs and closing long-term budget deficits.” Which is precisely what it’s meant to do. Or more specifically, to distract from how Obama has made the economy and in particular the federal budget deficit and national debt, much worse.

DON SURBER: OBAMA HIDES FROM THE PRESS.

J.E. DYER: God And Bain: What bothers some people about Bain Capital is a problem with government, not business.

THE DISCOVERY PROCESS SHOULD BE INTERESTING: Brian Terry’s Family Files $25M Lawsuit Against ATF. “In any normal election cycle this would be a blockbuster story plaguing the administration. But since the media’s man is running for re-election, expect little if any mention.” Word still gets out.

UPDATE: A reader says it’s a “Claim,” not yet a lawsuit. Hmm. How fast and how much they pay up, if they do, will tell us a lot about how afraid they are of discovery.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: In Colorado, A Business Self-Defense Bill.

Lawmakers will hear testimony on a proposal to allow Colorado business owners and employees the right to use deadly force against suspected intruders.

The bill dubbed “Make My Day Better” expands legal protections to businesses. Colorado homeowners already have those protections under a law nicknamed “Make My Day.”

This isn’t the first time Republicans have tried to give legal protections to business owners and employees. Their proposals have failed in the past when Democrats controlled both chambers.

Sad that a common-sense proposal like this is even controversial.

LEGAL EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Law Firms Keep Squeezing Associates.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Should I Tell My Boyfriend About My Debt?”

PATRICK RICHARDSON: Fisking Eric Holder’s Prepared Remarks for the Fast and Furious Hearing.