CLIVE CROOK: US Taxes Really Are Unusually Progressive.

If you ask me, Jonathan Chait, a writer I respect, has made an ass of himself in a fight he picked with Veronique de Rugy over taxes and progressivity. She offended him by saying that America’s income taxes are more progressive than those of other rich countries. Chait assailed her “completely idiotic” reasoning, called her an “inequality denier”, “a ubiquitous right-wing misinformation recirculator” and asked if it was really any wonder he cast insults now and then at such “lesser lights of the intellectual world”. (Paul Krugman said he sympathises. With Chait, obviously. The only danger here is in being too forgiving, Krugman advises. Chait may think the de Rugys of this world are only lazy and incompetent, but we know them to be liars as well.)

Just one problem. On the topic in question, De Rugy is right and Chait is wrong. . . . Why, according to the OECD, is the US system so progressive? Not because the rich face unusually high average tax rates, but because middle-income US households face unusually low tax rates–an important point which de Rugy mentions and Chait ignores.

Not surprising. Next we’ll learn that income inequality is actually down, not up! Oh, wait. . . .

HEH: “Instapundit is basically my newspaper.”

As I’ve said before, InstaPundit isn’t a news service, and makes no effort to be balanced. Then again, after following news services closely for over a decade of blogging, I’m no longer sure that is such a difference.

OCCUPIERS BEING PAID to protest CPAC. “I thought these people were against the influence of money in politics?”

THE FINAL VERSION OF MY Southern California Law Review piece on Second Amendment Penumbras is now online. It’s short and to the point. Download early and often (just click the one-click-download button at the top center)! (Bumped).

REASON TV: Inside and Outside CPAC.

EUROPE: Anger in Greece as parliament to vote on bailout.

MIA LOVE IS A BLACK REPUBLICAN RUNNING FOR CONGRESS IN UTAH. Here’s her website, with an interview video. I see she’s accepting online donations, too. David Kirkham likes her.

SCARED: Iran government cuts off internet access as hardline regime makes a stand.

ANDREW BREITBART: “I Got Video From Obama From College.”

STEPHEN GREEN IS LIVING PROOF: Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Is Great for Creativity.

SURE, WHY NOT: A wall-mount flatscreen fireplace. “The Pureflame fireplace comes in a number of different styles to match your decor. Some have a more solid, more traditional look, but all are decidedly modern-looking. After all, it’s fire that’s on your wall.”

(Via Tom Maguire.)

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Clothing.

HERE’S DAVID KIRKHAM’S CAMPAIGN WEBSITE. I see he’s accepting online donations now.

TABLES RESERVED FOR THE HEALTHIEST:

Some residents support the new policy, however, including Martha Haycox, 80, past president of the Resident Advisory Council, who took pains to point out that three independent living residents with health problems are also excluded from the dining room, while many who do use it require wheelchairs or walkers.

“It happened to me twice in one week that somebody at the next table threw up,” requiring hasty clean-up by the maintenance staff, she said. Another time, she said, someone’s wheelchair got tangled in a tablecloth at Sunday brunch and nearly pulled all the food off the buffet table.

“I should be able to have what we call quiet enjoyment,” she said.

“It’s a very upscale community,” said Mr. Volder. “When someone comes in wearing a coat and tie, with guests, they want an ambience of fine dining.”

Read the whole thing.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Administration Backtracks On Birth Control, But At What Cost? This is what happens when you live in a bubble.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Want To Get Over Your Ex? Stop Stalking Him On Facebook.

IF THE ECONOMY IS DOING SO WELL, why is gasoline consumption tanking?

BUT RELAX, IT’S ONLY A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM IF PRIESTS ARE INVOLVED: How Many Kids Are Sexually Abused by Their Teachers? Probably millions. When it’s public-school teachers, it’s just one of those things. Whaddyagonnado?

PUSHING FOR A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT. There’s a new site at WeDemandABalancedBudget.com.

ECONOPHYSICS: Ultra-Fast Trades Trigger Black Swan Events Every Day.

AT AMAZON, New Releases In Science Fiction And Fantasy.

HERE’S Colonel Martha McSally’s Campaign Website. I see she’s taking donations.

ZEROHEDGE: The New Youth Normal: Your Parents’ Basement. Welcome to the era of Hope And Change!

CLAYTON CRAMER: On the right side of the bullet: More Americans protect themselves with guns than you think. “Do law-abiding adults responsibly use guns in self-defense? The evidence we have amassed says yes, and frequently.”

BOB KRUMM: Europe As We Know It.

OF COURSE WOMEN ARE TOUGH ENOUGH TO BE IN COMBAT.

It’s only when Larry Summers suggests that they’re not as good at math that they’re reduced to quivering blobs of jelly.

BUT FOR SOME REASON, YOU STILL CAN’T USE YOURS IN THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT ON TAKEOFF OR LANDING: The Air Force is Buying iPads To Replace Pilots’ Books and Maps.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Im a flight attendant at a major U.S. airline, and I keep current on the talk concerning the onboard experience. I feel you are being much too glib about the latest wrinkle in the electronics use debate.

Pilots dont taxi and takeoff with manuals on their laps. Especially at takeoff and the first four minutes of flight, they are extremely busy and focused on getting and keeping that aircraft in the air. They arent consulting manuals; in fact, they take directions from the air traffic controllers to change headings or attain a certain altitude.

As for the ipads, they would not be used below 10,000 ft, JUST AS PASSENGERS’ ELECTRONICS are not to be used during that phase of flight. The ipads benefit lies in its weight versus the heavy manual case all pilots carry, and its ease of use. Multiply that across an entire fleet, times how many flights a day, and in a year’s time you have considerable savings in fuel AND in a smaller measure, savings on the bodies of pilots hauling around manuals all year.

But as a flight attendant, I want to point out another reason for passengers to power down electronics once the boarding door closes: from that time until the aircraft passes through 10,000 ft of altitude, the most incidents, malfunctions, crashes, equipment failures, and aborted takeoffs have historically occured. And as the person tasked with emptying that aircraft in a crash, or keeping it from emptying if no emergency exists, I want your undivided attention. I want you, the passenger, undistracted, until we are out of that critical phase of flight.

We dont mark 10,000 ft because the view is pretty at that height. We dont mark it because pilots are busy. We mark it because past events have been studied. If you want distracted passengers, unready to egress, or follow cogent commands, go catch a cruise in Italy. But avoid airplanes, please.

Well, that kinda makes sense. But it’s not what the FAA says: “Since I wrote a column last month asking why these rules exist, I’ve spoken with the F.A.A., American Airlines, Boeing and several others trying to find answers. Each has given me a radically different rationale that contradicts the others. The F.A.A. admits that its reasons have nothing to do with the undivided attention of passengers or the fear of Kindles flying out of passengers’ hands in case there is turbulence. That leaves us with the danger of electrical emissions.”

Bottom line: “The only reason these rules exist from the F.A.A. is because of agency inertia and paranoia.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Study of the Day: Gene Therapy Can Restore Vision 1 Eye at a Time.

POPULAR MECHANICS: 7 Ways to Protect Yourself From a Home Invasion.

Also, I’m a big fan of a pistol with laser sights. Just sayin’. Also, if you live in New Jersey, consider moving somewhere civilized.

THE TODAY SHOW IS SO YESTERDAY: OMG! The Internet! Guns! Guns for Sale on the Internet!

Well, did you know you can buy guns over the Internet without an FFL and FBI background check? Only one problem . . .

YOU CAN’T! But that kind of factuality isn’t exactly the stock in trade for Jeff Rossen and NBC’s “national investigative unit.”

No, the Internet is only the means buyers and sellers use to find each other. It’s the modern-day equivalent of what used to be called “newspapers.” A printed publication that ran “classified ads.” I hear they used to be all the rage.

At this rate, the Today show won’t be around much longer either.

BRIDGET JOHNSON REPORTS: Santorum to CPAC: ‘Put Honor on the Line’ and Pick Most Conservative.

THE FINAL VERSION OF MY Southern California Law Review piece on Second Amendment Penumbras is now online. It’s short and to the point. Download early and often (just click the one-click-download button at the top center)!

ETHANOL: House Panel Blocks Sale of E15.

TOM MAGUIRE: I Still Want My Free Lunch! “As Obama prepares to backpedal on his new contraception rule, we continue to be amused by this liberal spin . . . It’s free because someone else pays for it? Not really. The consensus among economists is that, regardless of who writes the check, payroll taxes and employee benefits are mostly borne by the employee in the form of lower wages. Of course, with health insurance there is also a favorable tax treatment so the government is chipping in, but still – its not ‘free’ to employees just because it is not in their paycheck.”

IN THE MAIL: From Stephen L. Pevar, The Rights of Indians and Tribes.

WHY WE SUCK: A New Firewall From Bill Whittle.

FASTER, PLEASE: Ovarian cancer breakthrough could boost survival rate.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Brown vs. Green In The Rust-Belt Battleground.

Green complaints about fracking reached a fever pitch over the past year, but Pennsylvania apparently wasn’t listening to them. The Wall Street Journal reports that the state legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that will make state laws more favorable to fracking, culminating a debate that has been raging ever since massive quantities of shale gas were discovered in the state in 2008.

The vote was close, and fell roughly along party lines. Republicans supported the bill because it promises cheaper energy and job creation in an economically depressed state; Democrats opposed it because of the potential for environmental damage and safety hazards.

Don’t doubt for a minute that legislators in other states in the region—many of which may also have shale gas deposits—are reading the tea leaves in this bill’s passage. The industrial states of the Rust Belt desperately need jobs, and judging by the rapid recovery of energy-rich states like North Dakota and Texas, fracking is beginning to look like their best bet for getting them. The historically warm relationship between the greens and local Democrats could grow downright chilly.

Ironically, if the Greens wanted to reduce domestic petroleum extraction, the best way to do it would be to get the Keystone Pipeline approved and bring in competition from Canada to drive prices down . . . .

MICKEY KAUS: “Yglesias is a nice guy. That’s the point. JournoList encouraged nice guys to try to be nasty.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF PROTECTING student free speech off campus.

AT AMAZON: List: most-used kitchen tools.

Also, today only: I Love Lucy, the complete series, for $70.49.

THE BACKPEDALING BEGINS: White House to Announce ‘Accommodation’ for Religious Organizations on Contraception Rule. My advice to the bishops: He’s on the run — don’t settle for his opening bid.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Can You Pass the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ Test?

As someone known for writing defenses of chain stores and explaining Plano, Texas, to puzzled pundits, I agree that way too many smart people, particularly on the coasts, are quick to condemn middle-American culture without understanding why people value one or another aspect of it. But they were even worse in 1963. That’s the second problem with Murray’s fable: The cultural consensus was not just an illusion. It was an unhealthy one. Instead of promoting understanding, it fed contempt. . . .

With five decades’ distance it’s clear that books as seemingly different as “The Organization Man,” “The Lonely Crowd,” “The Feminine Mystique” and “Atlas Shrugged” were really all about the same thing: the alienation and discomfort of gifted, independent-minded individuals in a society in which the “normal” ruled. The “cognitive elite” felt left out of or oppressed by the country’s culture and, as a result, scorned it.

Now these people have one another.

And they’re out for payback.

NEW RNC AD: “FIVE YEARS LATER.”

PEW STUDY POINTS TO Obama’s Growing Youth Problem. “It’s fair to say that just about everyone has suffered the ill effects of Obamanomics, which has produced growth rates during the 31-month “recovery” that are far below any in modern times. But a new report out of the Pew Research Center shows that when it comes to economic pain, young workers trying to get a start in life have suffered the most. . . . More bluntly stated, Obama’s lackluster recovery is severely punishing an entire generation of workers. They’ll have a much harder time making ends meet today, and will find it much more difficult to save and invest for things they’ll need down the road.”

THE SECOND AMENDMENT CASES the Supreme Court refuses to hear.

PROGRESS: Nuclear Reactor Approved in U.S. for First Time Since 1978. More like this, please.

IN THE UNITED STATES, WE HAVE MEDIA MATTERS: Hacked Emails Reveal Kremlin Astroturfing.

HIT JOB: Guy who “glitter-bombed” Romney worked for Colorado Democrats.

CHARLES GASPARINO: A “Deadbeat” Bailout.

REMEMBER WHEN SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT “A CULTURE OF CORRUPTION” IN CONGRESS? Pelosi might have skirted House ethics rules on campaign solicitations.

BUSINESS AS USUAL IN THIS ADMINISTRATION: Obama Bundler Earmarked Stimulus Money For Donors.

IS INCOME INEQUALITY LIKE GLOBAL WARMING? As soon as everyone starts yammering about it, it goes away. “Trends like this come to seem inevitable because they have been going on for a long time–but since inequality cannot actually rise until the 1% own everything in the world while the rest of us suck on wood chips, the longer inequality has been growing, the closer that trend must be to slowing, or reversing. So the more you feel that inequality growth is a state of nature, the less likely this is to actually be true. And even very smart, knowledgeable people who have read a lot have an abysmal record at forecasting these things.”

JAMES TARANTO: “The symbol of radical feminism is a Venus sign with a fist. The most fitting symbol of mainstream feminism is a Happy Meal.”

RAND SIMBERG: Good News / Bad News On Human Spaceflight Regulation.

FASTER, PLEASE: Cancer Drug Reverses Alzheimer’s In Mice.

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer’s disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing their Alzheimer’s started to disappear within hours, said the research in the journal Science.

“We were shocked and amazed,” lead author Gary Landreth of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio told AFP.

“Things like this had never, ever been seen before,” he said.

The drug works by boosting levels of a protein, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that helps clear amyloid plaque buildup in the brain, a key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

Now if we can just find an Alzheimer’s drug that cures cancer.

RAND PAUL TO OBAMA: “Do You Hate Rich People, Or Just Rich People Who Don’t Contribute To Your Campaign?”

KEVIN WILLIAMSON: A NON-DEAL ON FORECLOSURES.

In Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, Doris Kearns Goodwin (just Doris Kearns in NR’s copy of the book — we’re old-school) has one interesting observation about LBJ: He never got out of the legislative mind-set, and his measure of success when crafting his hallmark programs, from Medicare to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was simply getting the bill passed. Never mind the contents of the program: Just get something signed into law. Tragically for LBJ, he didn’t have a Nancy Pelosi around to tell us that we had to pass Medicare so we could find out what’s in it.

I get the same feeling for President Obama’s new mortgage settlement: Never mind what it does, or whether it does any good, just get everybody’s signature on the deal.

Here’s what it does not do: It isn’t going to prevent a lot of foreclosures (and may in fact cause some), it isn’t going to assuage the terror in the mortgage markets, and it probably isn’t going to clean up the system that caused some number of homeowners to be foreclosed on without proper documentation.

Like the fiasco that was HAMP, this settlement will encourage homeowners to become delinquent on their loans: There’s $10 billion set aside for principal writedowns for delinquent homeowners, but paid-up borrowers only get $3 billion to encourage the refinancing of underwater mortgages.

As always a disincentive to productivity and thrift, an incentive to mooching and looting.

EUROPE’S German Future.

ADVICE TO POLITICIANS: If somebody throws something at you, deck him. You’ll pick up scads of votes.

Plus, from the comments: “PS, when are these courageous white gays going to glitter bomb the anti-gay marriage black bigot in the White House? Or is he too scary because he’s black?” Well, they don’t mind Obama’s opposition to gay marriage because they assume he’s lying.

JOHN HINDERAKER: “This is a year in which it was incumbent on conservatives to pursue, soberly, the overriding goal of evicting Barack Obama from the White House. We didn’t do that; in fact, it wouldn’t be far off the mark to say that we made fools of ourselves by chasing one will o’ the wisp after another. I fear that in November, we will pay the price.”

Do not take counsel of your fears.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

In late September, news agencies all over the world printed this concise cultural analysis made by Afghan mujahedin fighter Maulana Inyadullah, the Ricky Carmichael of eXtreme Musliming:

The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death.

Well, it’s January and I’m drinking a Pepsi and Mr. Inyadullah is probably dead. So, contrary to the dire predictions of the clerk at the food coop, the war had a happy ending for everyone.

The link in the post has succumbed to link-rot, but here’s the source.

LIST: Best books on lawncare.

Also: High-Yield Vegetable Gardening.

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Camp writes that this is the best gardening book.

BUCKING THE TREND: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Seeks Statewide Gun Registration in Illinois. Don’t they already have that?

They should register corrupt pols in Chicago, but that would be all of them, I guess.

DANIEL HENNINGER: A LESSON FOR THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS:

The American Catholic Church, from left to right, is now being handed a lesson in the hierarchy of raw political authority. One hopes they and their supporters will recognize that they have not been singled out. The federal government’s forcings routinely touch other groups in this country—schools, doctors, farmers, businesses. The church’s fight is not the whole or the end of it.

Since he appeared, no other word has been invoked more often to describe Barack Obama’s purposes than “transformative.” Last year, Mr. Obama began to be criticized by some of his supporters for being insufficiently transformative while holding the powers of the presidency—this despite passing the biggest social entitlement since 1965, an $800 billion stimulus bill, raising federal spending to 24% of GDP and passing the Dodd-Frank restructuring of the U.S. financial industry. Naturally an interviewer this week asked Mr. Obama why he hadn’t been more “transformative.” The president replied that he deserved a second term, because “we’re not done.” In term two, it will be Uncle Sam, Transformer.

Transformed into a place where what Washington wants matters more than what you believe.

Related: Eleanor Clift: Did Obama Pick The Contraception Fight To Fire Up His Base?

UPDATE: The Anchoress: You Bet It’s War.

Next: A requirement that mosques sell bacon.

MORE: Hispanics jumping Obama ship over contraception flap.

MORE STILL: A steaming pile of sexism from Hillary Rosen: “This public debate on whether or not the Obama administration’s sensible policy on covering birth control has turned into a boys against the girls fight. And the boys are out of touch and out of line.”

Shut up, boys. This issue is owned by women.

Related: Senate Democratic Women Are Boycotting Morning Joe. Join the club, ladies. Although for most of us, it’s not so much boycotting as forgetting it exists.

FINALLY: Another Rube Self-Identifies:

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan says President Barack Obama hasn’t kept his promise, when it comes to the new White House policy on contraception.

Sources told CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer that Archbishop Dolan feels betrayed after his meeting with the president on the issue late last year.

“All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.”

CASSY FIANO: Accepting Down Syndrome.

KEYSTONE FALLOUT: Canada’s Harper talks oil with China as U.S. faces $4 gas.

LEADERSHIP: In the Oval Office, President Obama refuses to answer if he stands by contraception rule. Says to reporter: “Come on guys.”

UPDATE: Reader Michael Nessler writes: “That’s not leadership, that’s ownership. How dare one of the scriveners ask an off-limits question.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: “I’m going to buy some of these note sets and outlines being sold for my classes. I’ll go through them and find all the mistakes. And then I’ll write exam questions testing on those very same mistakes. If we all did that, the market would dry up pretty quick.”

WILLIAM GIBSON ON NOSTALGIA FOR A FUTURE PAST.

Futurists get to a certain age and, as one does, they suddenly recognize their own mortality, and they often decide that what’s going on is that everything is just totally screwed and shabby now, whereas when they were younger everything was better.

It’s an ancient, somewhat universal human attitude, and often they give it full voice. But it’s been being given voice for thousands and thousands of years. You can go back and see the ancient Greeks doing it. You know, “All that is good is gone. These young people are incapable of making art, or blue jeans, or whatever.” It’s just an ancient thing, and it’s so ancient that I’m inclined to think it’s never actually true. And I’ve always been deeply, deeply distrustful of anybody’s “golden age” — that one in which we no longer live.

Plus, reason to distrust apocalyptic attention-seeking.

A PRO-OBAMACARE PRECEDENT: “We are all familiar with an individual mandate that was authorized by the U.S. Congress and notoriously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court: the affirmative duty of persons of Japanese descent to report to a Civil Control Station. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1943). The distinction between mere prohibition and command played a large role in the internment cases. . . . Korematsu is a perfectly fine precedent: it has never been overruled. Moreover, it is the feds’ best and only precedent. So why don’t they cite it?”

MEGAN MCARDLE: Battle Over California Medicaid Reimbursement is a Preview of Our Future. And it’s not pretty. “It is, of course, absolutely true that you can save a great deal of money by forcing providers to sell things below their cost of goods. It is not necessarily true that this is a sustainable long-term strategy.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: New coating promises to turn an atomic force microscope into an even more useful tool.

ADULT STEM CELLS and “fracture putty.”

AT AMAZON, bestselling laptops.

Plus, markdowns on HP laptops.

WILL FRACKING SAVE OBAMA?

Related: North Dakota produced 534884 barrels of oil per day in December 2011.

BRAVE NEW WORLD: The EU is Considering Using Drones to Police Farm Subsidies, Enforce Environmental Rules.

SCIENCE FICTION HEROINES: Funny, I loved A Wrinkle In Time, but I never thought of it as a girls’ book.

UPDATE: Jane Gawthrop writes: “Madeleine would have loved the fact that you didn’t consider ‘Wrinkle’ a ‘girl’s’ book. My favorite quote from her is ‘A “children’s book” is any book a child will read’. Gracious lady, wonderful writer, sorely missed.”

TEN HANDY smartphone apps for drivers.

STEVE JURVETSON’S PERSONAL APOLLO COLLECTION. I can’t compete, although in my office I do have a piece of Skylab and some plastic spheres manufactured aboard Challenger.

TEST DRIVE: The 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON Justice Sotomayor’s Sesame Street jurisprudence.

RUNNING FOR GABBY GIFFORDS’ SEAT: Col. Martha McSally, First Woman To Command A Fighter Squadron.

AN ADMISSION OF DEFEAT? “Announcing layoffs along with a stock buyback – let’s think about what that means. AstraZeneca did that just the other day, and they’re far from the only ones in this industry (or others) spending billions to buy back their own shares while they’re cutting costs elsewhere.”

Plus: “Here we have all these companies obsessed, basically with keeping their stock prices up, and saying the best thing that they can do with their money is spend billions of dollars on stock. And my view of that is, any company that says that they have nothing to better do with their money, the CEO should be fired.”

NEWT COURTS CPAC with Pizza and $2 Beers.

IN THE MAIL: World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle.

MORE HUMAN-RIGHTS HYPOCRISY: Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón found guilty in wiretapping case. “The Spanish judge celebrated for pursuing international human rights cases was convicted of overstepping his jurisdiction in a domestic corruption investigation on Thursday, the culmination of a spectacular fall from grace.”

(Via Jose Guardia, who offers much more background.)

MARGOT KAMINSKI: Enough, Already: The SOPA Debate Ignores How Much Copyright Protection We Already Have.

DEREK THOMPSON IN THE ATLANTIC: Rick Santorum Is Right: Gas Prices Caused the Great Recession. “This sounds stupid to some writers. (Most of these writers were more likely to find Santorum stupid before he made that comment.) But it’s not very stupid, at all.”

So what does it mean now, when gas prices are predicted to spike 60 cents by May?

GEORGE LEEF: After College, What?

What the study found is not the least bit surprising. Students who learned little in college (as evidenced by scoring in the bottom quintile on the College Learning Assessment) were three times as likely to be unemployed as students who scored in the top quintile, twice as likely to be living at home, and somewhat more likely to have run up credit card debts.

Those findings throw cold water on the smiley face idea that going to college is necessarily a good “investment.” Even some of the top graduates were unemployed and living with their parents and a much higher number of low-performing graduates were. Unfortunately, the study did not seek to find out how many of those graduates were “underemployed” in jobs that high schoolers can do. (Perhaps no further evidence on that is necessary, though, in view of this study.)

Read the whole thing. More grist for the bursting of the higher education bubble.

OBAMA EXPORT ADVISER EXPORTS JOBS. Obvious defense: See, he’s an expert at exports!

NOT EVERYONE IS optimistic about Greece.

ON FEBRUARY 14, SHOW STARBUCKS A LITTLE EXTRA LOVE.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Beyond Blue Part Four: Better Living in the 21st Century. “It’s the pain of these personal setbacks and others like them plus a general sense that the strategies that used to work don’t work anymore that is behind much of the pessimism around us. This is real and it shouldn’t be denied or passed over in silence. But to see where the country as a whole is going, and to develop strategies both for general policy changes and for new personal strategies, we have to look beyond the pain: just as Americans in the last century had to look beyond the collapse of the family farm to see the big picture.”

AT AMAZON, it’s the Jewelry clearance.

CHANGE: Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.

This must be more of that “smart diplomacy” we were promised.

TEN YEARS IN PRISON FOR SUDAFED? “Tough break. That’s 2 to 10 years. Should have committed armed robbery. The average sentence is 2 to 6 months for that in West Virginia.”

HALFTIME IN AMERICA: IowaHawk: A Fistful Of Rebates.

WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU on HGTV.

DAN ABRAMS: The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision. “You may disagree with the opinion, you may think that expanding the ability of corporations to fund campaign messaging is a true danger, or just, as I do, that outside money is a major concern for our democratic system. But that doesn’t change the fact that the political chattering set ought to be far more concerned and outraged by the indolence, indifference or just bias, that has led to the widespread misinformation by the media about what the court actually considered and ultimately ruled.” In other words, it’s of a piece with a lot of their work.