HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Obama condemns violence in Syria, can’t secure UN Security Council resolution.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: ‘The Army asked that the letter not be read from the pulpit.’

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: CHUCK SCHUMER GOT THE MOST ENRON MONEY OF ANY DEMOCRAT: This story from the New York Daily News talks about why he got it. “Two months after Kenneth Lay, then the boss of Enron, held a Texas fund-raiser for Chuck Schumer, the senator-elect asked for a review of federal power contracts that eat into utility company profits. A Schumer spokesman denied any quid pro quo, but Enron officials praised the senator’s action in 1998 and said his letter asking for the review was a signal he was keeping a campaign promise to push for energy deregulation.”

ROMNEY wins Nevada.

MARK LEVIN EMAILS that his book, Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for another week.

RICK SANTELLI: What’s wrong with the jobs number: The labor-force participation rate. Obama is suffering “shrinkage.” Explained by Leo Cullum.

I’VE BEEN GETTING ILLITERATE AND ANTISEMITIC EMAILS in response to this link. Without even looking, I knew that Glenn Greenwald had written something about it. And I was right!

UPDATE: I can just add that if George W. Bush had listened to me instead of being a weenie, we’d be a lot better off. Instead, we had to wait until Barack Obama was President to start killing Iranian nuclear-weapons scientists and mullahs. If only Obama had appointed a tough-talking Secretary of State Atrios!

ROSS DOUTHAT: The Media’s Abortion Blinders. “In many newsrooms and television studios across the country, Planned Parenthood is regarded as the equivalent of, well, the Komen foundation: an apolitical, high-minded and humanitarian institution whose work no rational person — and certainly no self-respecting woman — could possibly question or oppose. . . . Three truths, in particular, should be obvious to everyone reporting on the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy. First, that the fight against breast cancer is unifying and completely uncontroversial, while the provision of abortion may be the most polarizing issue in the United States today. Second, that it’s no more ‘political’ to disassociate oneself from the nation’s largest abortion provider than it is to associate with it in the first place. Third, that for every American who greeted Komen’s shift with ‘anger and outrage’ (as Andrea Mitchell put it), there was probably an American who was relieved and gratified. Indeed, that sense of relief was quantifiable: the day after the controversy broke, Komen reported that its daily donations had risen dramatically. But of course, you wouldn’t know that from most of the media coverage. After all, the people making those donations don’t exist.”

UPDATE; Reader Tagore Smith writes:

I’m going to stay out of the argument about abortion, because I think other people are going to cover any point I might make. But I’d like to point out that advocacy for breast cancer research is not entirely (or should not be entirely) uncontroversial. It’s not that I want women to die of cancer- my mother died of a non-sex-specific cancer this year, and all I can say is that I wish she hadn’t. I’m still single, and I’m not ashamed to say that I loved my Mom more than I loved anyone else. Someone else very close to me had a breast cancer scare last year- a biopsy revealed that the growth was benign. So I am certainly not against saving women’s lives through research.

But I am male, and I seem to recall that men die of cancer quite a lot more than women do (I’m not an expert on this subject, so I could be wrong about this.) It seems to me that there is a limited pie available for cancer research, and that quite a lot of that pie is already going to breast cancer research. I think that advocating that more dollars ought to go to breast cancer research _should_ be controversial. The message sent, otherwise, is that men are expendable. I don’t see big blue-ribbon prostate cancer campaigns all that often. Maybe it’s just that the prostate is not as sexy as the boob….

Good point, and one that’s been made here before.

#GREENFAIL: 100 Tories revolt over wind farms. “Critics say wind farms are inefficient because the wind cannot be guaranteed to blow at times of greatest energy demand. They are also said to be unsightly, blighting the landscape. Wind farms are also accused of forcing up energy bills while swallowing disproportionate amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidies.”

A CLEAN-BURNING COOKSTOVE THAT’S specially designed for use in the developing world: “These stoves reduce smoke and harmful gases by up to 80 percent, reduce fuel use by up to 60 percent and reduce cooking time by up to 50 percent compared to traditional cooking fires and stoves.”

UPDATE: Reader Perry Beeson points out that you can get it on Amazon. Might be good for disaster-prep.

ANOTHER UPDATE: here’s the spec sheet. (PDF).

JASON PYE: Obama Goes Christianist on Tax Policy.

AT AMAZON, $100 off Rosetta Stone Level 1-5 language sets.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Law Schools Shrink Part-Time Programs After U.S. News Closed Rankings Loophole.

ANONYMOUS SPIES ON, RECORDS FBI-Scotland Yard conference call.

The online vigilante group has released a 17-minute clip of a Jan. 17 conference call between investigators discussing evidence gathered against members of the group as well as upcoming plans for arrests. The group also released an e-mail sent out by an FBI agent to law enforcement agents around the world with a phone number and password for accessing the conference call.

The FBI has confirmed to the Associated Press that the recording is authentic.

AnonymousIRC, a Twitter account purporting to be connected to the group, sent out a tweet on Friday with a link to an audio recording of the call, followed later by a message that read, “The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”

My guess is, a mole.

UPDATE: When is a hack not a hack?

ZILLA OF THE RESISTANCE HAS MOVED.

CHANGE: Bill Maher Turns on Occupiers, Denounces Them as D-bags That Should ‘Get a Job.’ Wait, I thought they embodied hope-and-change?

YET ANOTHER COLLEGIATE RACIAL THREAT HOAX.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth had told TODAY’S TMJ4 the threats made towards African-American students at UW-Parkside were a hoax.

The sheriff stressed that there was absolutely no danger to the students at UW-Parkside due to this threat. Through the investigation detectives were able to determine that there never was a threat of harm to students at UW-Parkside.

An investigation led authorities to question a female student about the threats. The student allegedly told authorities she had made the hit list because she was not satisfied with the initial response from a resident assistant when that resident assistant was shown the rubber bands that were said to look like a noose. The suspect wanted greater attention to that issue.

Authorities have not arrested anyone in this case. UW-Parkside police said they are trying to protect the perpetrator Friday evening. The name of the woman involved is being withheld in order to provide the opportunity to remove her from campus.

Why are they trying to “protect the perpetrator?”

BLOOMBERG CEMENTS PLACE as Nanny State King.

Meanwhile, a reminder: “A recent study found that mayors belonging to Bloomberg’s group have been arrested at a much higher rate than Tennessee handgun-carry permit holders, for crimes ranging from perjury and embezzlement to child sexual assault.”

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

AT AMAZON, the new laptop releases for 2012.

LAWSUIT: Defendant Breached a Duty Not to Shoot Bottle Rockets Out of His Anus.

PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION: Milwaukee man with a concealed-carry permit shoots a robber in a store… but the store had a sign prohibiting weapons. The prosecutor made the right call. In Tennessee the signs have to be quite specific to have legal effect, but I don’t know about Wisconsin. The FAQ makes it seem that any language is okay so long as the sign is prominent.

Plus, from the comments: “Interesting that the shop with a ‘No Guns’ sign is the one getting robbed.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: How Deleting My Facebook Profile Saved My Love Life.

PHIL BOWERMASTER: Human beings are capable of amazing things. Don’t make excuses. Do something amazing.

GREEN NEWS: Civic Hybrid driver Heather Peters wins $9,800 judgment from Honda in small claims court.

IN THE MAIL: From Eric Maisel, Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning

WEAK: Obama job approval among uncommitted voters at 20%; Update: Obama 44, Santorum … 45?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: New York Times Romney-Bashing Continues. “First he was a robot programmed to accomplish the dark and devious theocratic schemes of the Mormon Church. Now they say Mitt Romney isn’t Mormon enough. . . . A modicum of self-awareness or fairness in the editing process would have caught and redressed the obvious bias of this piece, but apparently that’s not how the Times approaches political stories these days: any stick will do to beat the man who increasingly looks like the next Republican nominee.”

Any weapon to hand.

FRIDAY NIGHT DOCUMENT DUMP: White House gives up more Solyndra docs. “Amid threats by a top House Republican to pursue contempt charges, the White House on Friday sent lawmakers more internal documents related to the $535 million loan guarantee to failed solar firm Solyndra. The White House, in providing the 313 pages of documents, again denied that approval of the loan guarantee in 2009 was influenced by politics, an allegation that Republicans have repeated for months.”

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Why the official 8.3 percent unemployment rate is a phony number—and what it means for Obama’s reelection.

MARK STEYN: So Obama wants to be his “brother’s keeper”? I have an idea for him! “For a start, when he says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper,’ his brother is back in Kenya living on $12 a year. That’s what he was living on at the time of the 2008 election. So all the president has to do in terms of shared responsibility is put a $10 bill in an envelope and mail it to Nairobi or Mombasa or wherever and he will double his brother’s salary.”

LIST: Home Improvement How-To Books.

REAL ESTATE UPDATE: New super-Earth detected, ‘best candidate’ for supporting life.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Did Stainless-Steel Appliances Get So Popular?

PETER BERKOWITZ: Sex Smears And The Rule of Law at Yale. More of the former than the latter, alas. “If Yale and other institutions across the country were fulfilling their promise to educate students, then their faculties would teach that riding roughshod over due process shows ignorance of or contempt for the rule of law. Professors would be teaching that the presumption of innocence is rooted in a commitment to treating individuals as ends in themselves and not as a means to advancing some social goal or another, even if that goal is given the name of equality or justice. And students would be learning that our established and legitimate justice system does not presume guilt, because to do so is to fail to appreciate the limits of human knowledge and the propensity of those who wield power to abuse it. The need to restore due process on campus—and in the directives of the federal government—is urgent.”

UPDATE: Reader John Lucas writes: “A red light violator facing a $50 fine gets more due process than a student at Yale (or most other universities) now.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dave Ivers writes: “I’ve wondered what would happen if every male athlete at Yale looked around a classroom and noticed a young woman looking at them and than filed an ‘informal’ complaint. Under the Yale rules that ‘looking’ at well-built athletes could be a sexual crime. Since the athletes don’t know for sure, shouldn’t they file to protect themselves and then get victim status?”

IS THE SUSAN G. KOMEN FOUNDATION the Left’s latest Wisconsin?

Related: James Taranto: Big Sister Is Watching You: Totalitarian feminism and the smearing of Susan G. Komen. “In truth, Komen was under no obligation to fund Planned Parenthood. Its decision not to do so was not punitive and did not even appear to be. The episode is reminiscent of George Orwell far more than Joe McCarthy. Komen’s actual aim was to extricate itself from the divisive national battle over abortion by severing its connection with a leading combatant.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: As Obama Crows, Real Story Is 10.5 Mil Jobs Deficit.

Obama likes to blame his predecessor for this. And true enough, 4.4 million jobs disappeared during the 2007-08 panic. But after Obama took office, an additional 4.3 million jobs disappeared. So when Obama says “we’ve added 3.7 million new jobs,” he’s not giving you the full story.

We are still 5.6 million jobs below where we were at the peak in 2007. Add to that the 4.9 million new jobs that would have had to be created just to soak up new entrants into the workforce, and all told we have a jobs deficit of 10.5 million.

Read the whole thing.

WELL, WHY CHANGE NOW? “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he would not bring a budget to the floor for a vote this year, the Hill reports, which would make this the third straight year without such a resolution.”

SCIENCE: Study: Sex with Your Ex Can Be a Good Thing. “Researchers at the University of Arizona looked at post-breakup psychological adjustment and ongoing contact among 137 married adults who had recently separated. As you’d expect, people who accepted the breakup were generally better adjusted while those who still pined for it weren’t. But that’s not all: for those who didn’t accept the breakup, making a clean break (the advice everyone gives after a breakup) didn’t leave them any happier than trying to keep up a friendship. And if they stayed in touch with their exes, they were actually doing better if they kept having sex with their partner.”

So in your pre-nup, be sure to provide for post-separation sex. Which I think is the punchline from an old New Yorker cartoon.

ARTIST SPEAKS TRUTH TO POWER: Controversial Artist Depicts Obama Trampling The Constitution.

SPENGLER: Lessons About Iran From Hitler.

CLIMATE-CHANGE CHANGE: Global Warming Engine Unexpectedly Slows.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “Blatant violations of international human rights where terrorists are concerned — only it’s Sweden, not the United States, that’s involved.”

AT AMAZON, 30% off on Kindle accessories.

Also, Spotlight Deals on Blu-Ray.

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: Monsanto lobbyist uses power as FDA food czar to target Amish.

ZEROHEDGE ON THE WARPATH: Implied Unemployment Rate Rises To 11.5%, Spread To Propaganda Number Surges To 30 Year High.

OBVIOUSLY RACIST: “White Parties” in Davos.

A DEVIOUS NOTION! Scott Walker supporters advocate writing in Scott Walker’s name in the primary that will determine who will be his recall opponent. “Wisconsin’s system of open primaries means voters do not have to share a political party’s affiliation to vote in its primary. So, there’s nothing to stop Republicans from voting in a Democratic recall primary — and from writing in Walker’s name.” Then Walker can run against himself!

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, bestsellers in Grills & Smokers.

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.

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!