MICHIO KAKU: HAS A SPEEDING NEUTRINO really overturned Einstein? “Reputations may rise and fall. But in the end, this is a victory for science. No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.”

Remember this when people tell you the science is “settled.”

FAIL: Watching Attack Watch . . . Do Nothing for the Past Nine Days.

AT AMAZON, markdowns in Tools & Home Improvement.

DAY BY DAY on marriage.

AS WELFARE STATE COLLAPSES, GREEKS SUFFER AND FEAR FUTURE: “Sitting in the modest living room of the home she shares with her parents, husband and two teenage children, Stella Firigou fretted about how the family would cope with the uncertainties of an economy crashing all around them. But she was adamant about one thing: she would not pay a new property tax that was the centerpiece of a new austerity package announced this month by the Greek government. . . . Critics say the country has failed to adequately crack down on tax evasion among the wealthiest segments of society — and failed to carry out more focused cuts because it is reluctant to take on some public-sector unions that protect a small, powerful cadre of workers who have deep ties to the governing Socialist Party.”

TAKING YOUR BREATH AWAY: Quite literally.

WILL “SUPER WI-FI” live up to its name?

LEE SMITH: What Hath Obama Wrought. “Some have praised President Obama’s September 20 speech at the U.N. as his most rousing defense of Israel to date. Perhaps so—though that’s not saying much. It rather seems to us that the president merits some credit—but only some—for a growing self-awareness, both of his own limits and of the finer points of American Middle East policy.”

HOW STATE LAWMAKERS pump up their pensions in ways that you can’t.

SCIENCE: Study: Power without status can lead to to rudeness, even abuse. “A new study by three universities shows that people holding positions of power with low status tend to demean others, one of the authors said.”

ELIZABETH WARREN as teaching tool. “And, by the way, is the only thing taxes pay for is education, roads and police protection? Is that it? If that’s all our taxes paid for, Elizabeth, my, we’d be pretty cool with that.”

As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.

Plus, for Warren, some remedial reading.

THIS WEEK in the future.

THOUGHTS ON Television, Truth, And Reality from Peter Wehner.

BOOKS: New Releases In History.

JEFF CARTER: Coming Out As Conservative In A Blue City.

JOHN HAWKINS: 5 Ways To Screw Up Your Life With The Internet.

CHANGE: Millions Shut Out of Mortgage Refinancing, Fed Study Shows. “About 2.3 million homeowners could have refinanced their mortgages last year if they didn’t owe more than their homes were worth or if lending standards weren’t so strict, according to a Federal Reserve study.”

FROM THE NASA PORK-PROTECTION BEAT: Virginia rocket-launch site suggestion a KSC ‘betrayal.’

SOLAR INDUSTRY LEADER: Solyndra Is Our Enron.

“THINK DIFFERENT?” Not In Higher Education.

Many in higher ed believe the analogy with businesses doesn’t apply to them. They think they have a corner on the credential business and right now a credential is the ticket to most good jobs.

Whenever a new competitor enters the higher-education market and tries something different, those at traditional colleges criticize the newcomers as not understanding pedagogy. Just see the negative comments on recent Chronicle articles about online education or StraighterLine, which offers self-paced introductory courses but not degrees.

But what if higher ed lost its grip on the credential business? Perhaps then administrators and professors would be forced to think that there is more than one way to provide a college education.

And as the higher education bubble bursts, that will happen.

BACK TOGETHER: The Legendary V-Roys.

IN THE MAIL: The Annotated Peter Pan.

AMERICA’S top states for business.

MARK STEYN ON EUROPE: It’s the end of the world as we know it. You shouldn’t feel fine.

SHOULD PARDONED FELONS have gun rights?

SOME PHOTOS from my speech yesterday.

UPDATE: Here’s a news story from the Boston Herald.

MARITAL PROBLEMS IN TODAY’S AMERICA: “My Husband Keeps Having Babies With Another Woman!”

PETER WOOD: Mobbing For Preferences.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on magazines. I still subscribe to a few in actual paper editions, and like ‘em that way.

Also, a collection of safes.

UPDATE: Safes link was busted before. Fixed now. Sorry!

GOOD QUESTION: So Why Can’t We Call The New Deal A Wrong Turn? The answer is that doing so would threaten an entire comfy system. Nowadays, to be “progressive” is to be nostalgic for a time before I was born, and such nostalgia must not be challenged. Never mind that the system is collapsing under its own weight anyway . . . .

BUSINESS IS WHERE YOU FIND IT: Lawyers Eye Jobless As Clients. Or make it. “Lawyers should be allowed to win financial damages from companies that refuse to hire unemployed people, according to a coalition of Democratic legislators, progressive advocates and entrepreneurial trial lawyers. The existence of even a few advertisements excluding unemployed applicants in the national marketplace justifies a federal law creating a novel market for legal skills, say the advocates.”

BYRON YORK: How Herman Cain Won Florida. Key quote:

“I liked Cain, but I wasn’t sure he could win,” said Zena, from Washington County. “But after I heard this, I thought it doesn’t matter if he wins or not — I am for this man. He was awesome.” . . .

One other factor should not be underestimated. Yes, the delegates liked what Cain had to say. But how he said it was just as important. With his deep, booming voice and a style that any motivational speaker would envy, Cain can give a rousing speech, and he gave several of them during four days in Orlando. No other candidate, frontrunner or back of the pack, could match him. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his power as an orator sealed the deal for hundreds of delegates. They believed Cain was speaking to them from the heart, and they were carried away by it. As with the Democratic primary contests of 2007 and 2008, never underestimate the power of a stirring speech.

Thought that last observation should perhaps be a cautionary one. Read the whole thing.

IS TELEVISION FINALLY portraying men in a better light?

IRA STOLL: The Buffett Tax Gambit.

By framing the fiscal-policy discussion this way, as a debate over whether the “super-rich” should pay more, Buffett and his allies in politics and the press avoid certain other questions. And those questions are more important ones. Questions like:

• Who should allocate capital, the people who earned it and own it, or the politicians in Washington as influenced by their lobbyists and campaign contributor cronies?

• How did we accumulate $14 trillion in debt so rapidly, and what are the consequences of that?

• How and why has federal spending grown to $3.8 trillion in 2011 from $1.8 trillion in 2000?

As weak a case as Warren Buffett and Barack Obama have for raising taxes on the “super-rich,” it is nevertheless a debate they would almost certainly prefer to some of the alternatives.

Indeed.

UNDER PRESSURE: Obama Loses Cool At Black Caucus Dinner; ‘Stop Complaining’ And March.

EUROPE: Fears Over ‘Shockwave’ Of Greek Debt Crisis.

JOE KLEIN TAKES A ROAD TRIP, and partially gets it.

BRADY ATTACKS helping Rick Perry’s poll numbers?

GENETIC ROOTS OF female promiscuity? “Females who are promiscuous act that way because it is nature’s way of dealing with inbreeding, researchers have claimed.”

MICKEY KAUS AND JENNIFER RUBIN on the Left-Coast / Right-Coast Podcast.

SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS SUFFERING FROM blurry vision?

HERMAN CAIN WINS the Florida straw poll.

CONCONCON: Roxane De Luca liveblogged my speech earlier today. Plus, a political panel and a strategic panel. Larry Lessig will be talking in a minute. Plus, advance copies of his new book. From the blurb: “A onetime friend of Barack Obama, Lessig, a professor of law at Harvard, is as critical of the president and the Democratic Party as he is of Republicans.”

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HOW TO WRITE OFF YOUR JOB-HUNTING EXPENSES: Become A Consultant! Of course, you have to have some income for this to matter . . .

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Your State University Doesn’t Want You. “According to a new survey of college admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, the admissions strategy judged most important is the recruitment of more out-of-state and international students, who can pay significantly more at public institutions. Ten percent of those surveyed also reported admitting full-pay students with lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants, and a majority of schools either use or plan to use controversial commission-paid agents to recruit foreign students (commission-based recruitment is barred in the U.S.).”

Bottom-line quote: “They need the money.”

ROGER SIMON: Bibi Grows Up and Other Thoughts from the United Nations.

DAN MITCHELL: The Tea Party Goes Global: Revolt Of The Greek Tax Slaves. “The fiscal turmoil in Greece is not about fiscal balance. It’s a fight between looters and moochers such as Olga Stefou, who think taxpayers should endlessly subsidize everything, and the shrinking group of productive people who are pulling the wagon and keeping Greece’s economy from total collapse. Not surprisingly, the Greek government has tried to prop up its uncompetitive welfare state by pillaging that group of productive people. But it appears that the kleptocrats may have gone too far and triggered a Tea Party-type revolt. . . . These two stories underscore the message that I’ve been repeating for years. Greece’s problem is not deficits and debt. Red ink and imminent default are bad, but they are symptoms of the real problem of a bloated public sector and the dependency culture created by too much government.”

MICHAEL YON: Grapes.

JENNIFER RUBIN: What Would Chris Christie Be Doing?

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SO MY TALK WENT PRETTY WELL. My proposal to ban Senators from ever serving as President seemed particularly popular.

DOING IN ONE TERM WHAT BUSH DID IN TWO: POLL: Majority Rates Obama ‘Same’ as or ‘Worse’ Than George W. Bush.

YOU HAVE NO FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT to eat food that you grow yourself, says Wisconsin judge. Foodies upset, discover relevance of libertarianism.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanoscale nonlinear light source created.

WELL, OBAMA DID THREATEN TO INVADE PAKISTAN BACK DURING THE CAMPAIGN: Walter Russell Mead: Next: Drone Strikes on Pakistan’s ISI? It’s not like they don’t deserve it: “One should be clear about this; attacks on embassies and on military personnel and positions are acts of war. They are not college pranks, they are not ‘signals’, they are not robust statements of policy disagreement and they are not bargaining chips in an extended negotiation. They are acts of force in violation of international law and they can legitimately be met by acts of force and war in return.”

MYTH: College As A Fairy Tale.

IN THE MAIL: From Thomas L. Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.

WASHINGTON POST: Five Myths About Millionaires. Including this one: “In a speech on Monday, Obama said raising taxes on millionaires isn’t class warfare, but ‘math.’ His math may be off: According to the IRS, those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $1 million paid an average of 23.3 percent in federal income taxes in 2008; those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 12.7 percent; and those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 8.9 percent. Half of American families don’t make enough money to pay income taxes at all.” And that’s the real problem. Everyone should have skin in the game.

UPDATE: A couple of readers suggest that payroll taxes provide the necessary skin. Well, yes and no. On the one hand, payroll taxes for Social Security, etc., are allegedly more like insurance premiums — and they’re not paid by those who aren’t working, or who are working under the table.

On the other hand, the fact that we’re currently enjoying a payroll-tax reduction that will be politically hard to eliminate suggests that where more people have a stake, there’s more pressure for lower taxes. Want to bet that if everyone paid income taxes, and if, as I’ve suggested before, the amount always went up when federal spending went up, we’d see a lot more resistance to increased federal spending?

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST false rape accusations. “How would the Justice Department respond if 25% of all black murder suspects were falsely accused of the crime by white accusers? . . . Now what if I told you that studies over the last ten years have shown that false rape accusations are likely in the ballpark of 25%, and could even be as high as 40%?”

Larry Lessig, at the ConConCon opening.

TEN STAR TREK EPISODES we’re glad they never filmed.

I’M IN CAMBRIDGE FOR THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION CONVENTION. Here’s the agenda. And here’s a news story.

UPDATE: We’re already being attacked in the Harvard Crimson.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ann Althouse invokes Edmund Burke. My own speech will analogize a Constitutional Convention to the “hyperspace” button on the old Asteroids videogame — worth pressing, but only in extremis. Are we in extremis now? I’m not sure, but there’s this.

AT AMAZON, bestselling books on Kindle. Both paid and free.

REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH ON A PERSONAL LEVEL: ‘In a Rush to Meet Your Deadline, We Made an Honest Mistake.’

MAKING THE SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS WORSE VIA POLICY: Cost Of Raising A Kid Rose 40 Percent In Last Decade.

Some related thoughts here and here.

BOB KRUMM IS ASKING FOR YOUR HELP on a counter-terrorism problem.

POLLS: Problems For The President: Americans Give Him Lowest Approval Rating Ever.

MISSING A CAR as a place to keep your stuff.

ED DRISCOLL: Morgan Freeman Admits Hollywood has Failed Its Progressive Mission.

MICKEY KAUS: Is The UAW Running Out Of Money?

DON’T THEY CARE ABOUT THE VICTIMS? Democratic Senate Blocks Emergency Disaster Money.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you write about sex on the Internet.

“WE WON’T PAY:” Greek Middle Class Revolts Against Higher Taxes. “Small business owners in Greece have long been the backbone of the economy and reliable taxpayers in a country where tax evasion is rampant. That, though, is now changing. Self-employed workers like Angelos Belitsakos have had enough of rising taxes and have begun to revolt.”

SATELLITE CRASHES: But where?

STEVE HAYWARD: President Solyndra And His Mean, Green Wealth-Wasting Machine.

MISSING: The vanishing passengers: It’s a mystery as bizarre as it is disturbing – why have 165 people gone missing from cruise ships in recent years?

U.C. IRVINE STUDENTS convicted for disrupting speech.

OBAMA HAS MADE THAT “INTERCONTINENTAL RAILROAD” GAFFE BEFORE. “People misspeak. Sometimes they say things that are wrong. The difference is, the right doesn’t capitalize on everyone of these and try to form a narrative around them about the stupidity of, say Barack Obama. The left can’t seem to help itself, especially when it comes to conservative women.”

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Chuck Heath, Jr., Brother of Gov. Palin, Responds to McGinniss, Random House: ‘One Lie After Another.’

ELIZABETH WARREN’S TARP MONEY: Politico: “The campaign for Democratic Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren said Friday she had been paid $192,722 for serving as chairman of a congressional committee that monitored the 2008 federal bank bailout, three times as much as had originally been acknowledged.”

AIRSHIP RENAISSANCE can’t deal with helium shortage. “The military is so eager to get more airships in the air in places like Afghanistan that industry cannot keep up with its demand for helium gas and helium gas containers.”

So fuel the unmanned ones with hydrogen. It’s not that dangerous, and it’s not like you’re putting humans at risk. Sure, it has a tendency to migrate right through containers, but they could handle that in the 1930s, so we can probably handle it now.

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FUTURE WARFARE: 8 Laser Weapon Systems.

HOW TO fix a car paint scratch.

WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT? “Nano Techno” rap song lures kids to learn about nanotech.

BORN TO BE VIRAL: Robo-crabs compete for female.

PJTV: Roger Simon interviews Dick Cheney about Cheney’s new book, In My Time: A Personal And Political Memoir.

SHOVEL-READY SHIBBOLETHS: We will use revenues to create millions of ‘green jobs’—like the ones eliminated earlier this month at Solyndra.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE at Vanderbilt University.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, THE RICH WOULD GET RICHER WHILE THE POOR SUFFERED. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Harvard Endowment Had 21% Rate of Return in Last Year.

BEHIND PANICKY MARKETS, faltering governments.

MESSAGE FOR PRESBYTERIANS: “Your national church is supporting gun control extremists.”

FORBES: Correcting President Obama’s Myriad Tax Fallacies.

AT AMAZON, new cameras from Canon.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: New Graduate-Student Enrollment Dips for First Time in 7 Years.

CARPOCALYPSE: Now At The UAW. “A bloated management, run-away costs, declining market share, imploding volume, a sell-off of assets and investments, headquartered in Detroit – what is it? No, it’s none of the Detroit automakers. It is their former nemesis and current co-owner, the United Auto Workers.”

CELLPHONES: ‘Stingray’ Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash.

CHANGE: Shaquille O’Neal wages war against a Miami computer geek.

SCIENTISTS STUNNED, SKEPTICAL on reports of faster-than-light particles.