PROF. JACOBSON: Conservative media has come a long way, baby, but has a longer way to go. The liberal media are still dominant: “It’s why reporters can collude at a press conference just after four Americans were killed in Benghazi to make sure the appropriate ‘gotcha’ question was asked not of the officials responsible for the safety of our personnel, but of … Mitt Romney. . . . And it’s getting the job done on Obamacare and the government shutdown. The media almost exclusively blames a potential shutdown on Republicans, when in fact it is Obama and Harry Reid who are willing shut down the government over Obamacare. We’ve come a long way, baby, but we have an even longer way to go.”

As a famous man said, get in their face. Punch back twice as hard.

PLAYING HOOKY: GOP Leader Asks: “Where’s The Senate?”

MORE NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: New Commercial Ship Reaches Space Station. “Orbital Science Corp.’s Cygnus cargo ship pulled up at the orbiting lab Sunday morning. The space station astronauts used their robot arm to grab it. The capsule is making its debut on this test flight, and contains more than a half-ton of food, clothes and other supplies for the six astronauts. It marks a major accomplishment 260 miles up. Only one other private company has ever made such a high-flying shipment.” But now there are two.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP EARLY: The Obama Presidency and Government’s Damaged Brand.

ROBERT POLLOCK: Allow Smoking In Restaurants — But Not In Public Spaces.

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LESLIE EASTMAN: Tea Party California Caucus’ Tech-Based Gameplan for CA GOP Convention.

PETER INGEMI: The Tea Party at the Johnny Appleseed Festival, no Earth Shattering Kaboom (Video).

“THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE” FOR YOUNG WOMEN TODAY? It’s “what do to with their pubes.” Well, then I guess feminism has pretty much reached its endpoint. On the other hand, maybe not, as this is all apparently men’s fault.

WHILE POLITICIANS WRANGLE, A PICTURE FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off from SpaceX’s pad at Vandenberg, carrying Canada’s CASSIOPE satellite to orbit.

MATT K. KEWIS: Goodbye to romance: Are rom-coms worse than porn?

Anyone who has seen the trailer for the new movie Don Jon knows that Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), really cares about his porn. Fewer know that his love interest, Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), is likewise addicted to the sappy fairy tales we call romantic comedies.

I like the juxtaposition. Both things can be destructive. But while porn has a bad reputation, those who peddle unrealistic notions about love and marriage and relationships get a pass. One wonders which of these fantasies have done the most damage to families.

Indeed.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Texting: The Modern Romance-Killer?

Related: Handwritten Revival: A Case For Sending Letters. Also, they’re harder for the NSA to spy on.

FOR YOU PALEO TYPES OUT THERE, the Paleo Rodeo is up!

DOWNSIDES OF THE 21ST CENTURY: UK Planes Facing Laser Attacks. “Thousands of planes coming in to land at Britain’s busiest airports are being endangered by a wave of potentially deadly laser attacks from the ground. . . . Most of the attacks are on large commercial jets, but even military planes carrying injured troops home from Afghanistan to hospitals in the Midlands have been targeted. . . . Last year, 1,570 laser attack incidents were logged with the CAA and in 2011 the figure was 1,911.” Lots of tech talk about banning lasers, but precious little information on who’s behind these attacks. Hmm.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: 6 Valuable Lessons From One-Night Stands.

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K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School Calls Dad To Demand Explanation of Son’s Truancy — When Son Died On School Trip Last June.

GETTING SMARTER: Mercedes-Benz S-Class stability system uses sensors, stereo camera (w/ Video). “According to the company, Magic Body Control combines the advantages of the active suspension system Active Body Control (ABC) with the Road Surface Scan function– a stereo camera that scans the road ahead and registers the road surface and its condition.” Just another step toward autonomous vehicles.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Steps To Seeding A New Lawn.

MORE DIESEL NEWS: 2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK250 BlueTec. I test drove one of these compact sport-utes a couple of years ago and liked it, but the mileage was execrable. The Diesel helps.

SPACE: SpaceX launches upgraded Falcon 9 rocket. “Given the multiple upgrades involved, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and chief designer, said he considered the launching a test flight. Canada’s 1,100-pound Cassiope space weather satellite, provided by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the Canadian Space Agency and the University of Calgary, reportedly got the ride for about $10 million.”

MASH-UP: Knight Rider + Back To The Future = Best show never.

CARL CANNON: Democrat Leaders’ Explosive Words:

It’s hard to say which is worse: that so many prominent Democrats believe they aren’t responsible for any of Washington’s gridlock—or that they’d say these things anyway. Not all that long ago, a presidential spokesman using this language would be talking about murderers who hijacked airplanes or drove explosive-laden trucks into the barracks of U.S. Marines—not political opponents with differing notions about federal spending.

With suicide bombs going off daily around the world and funerals for the Washington Navy Yard victims still taking place, one might expect a modicum of rhetorical restraint from inside the White House. No such luck. For five years now, such metaphors have been the cudgel of choice for administration officials, along with their fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and journalistic fellow travelers.

It all starts with President Obama, who routinely accuses Republicans trying to thwart his spending plans by putting “party ahead of country.” Last January, when talking—as Dan Pfeiffer was this week—about GOP insistence on trading spending cuts for agreeing to raise the nation’s debt limit—the president said he wouldn’t negotiate with those holding “a gun at the head of the American people.”

Joe Biden asserts Republicans are holding the country “hostage” with their spending stance, and in a 2011 meeting with congressional Democrats the vice president agreed with the suggestion that Tea Party groups were “terrorists.”

Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, it starts at the top, too.

Read the whole thing. It’s all fine, as long as Sarah Palin isn’t the one talking.

IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo, Under a Graveyard Sky.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 143.

AN AWFUL LOT OF SENIOR MILITARY GUYS SEEM TO BE GETTING SACKED LATELY: Second-in-command of the country’s nuclear arsenal is suspended as he is investigated for gambling. The story calls this “highly unusual,” but as I say, an awful lot of senior military guys seem to be getting axed all of a sudden.

Meanwhile, from the comments: “Did he bet against the US attacking Syria?” Heh.

COLD OPEN: Last night’s Saturday Night Live mocks ObamaCare. Video at the link.

INFLATION WARNING: America’s dominance of the global helium market is ending. “Relief for the helium market seems destined to come from Russia, long a minor producer. The country has the wherewithal to create a reserve of its own. Gazprom appears to be gearing up to become a big supplier by 2018, just as America’s reserve is set to run dry (if it secures the cash to continue past October). Not everyone will be pleased that an arm of the Russian state may in future hold sway over their medical treatment and their children’s parties.”

SO A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK IS TALKING ABOUT WHETHER THE CURRENT FIREWORKS MEAN AMERICA IS “UNGOVERNABLE.” I was on this back in 2009.

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GREEN ENERGY IS HAZARDOUS TO BIRDS: Should we care?

THE LATEST IMMIGRATION NEWS, FROM MICKEY KAUS: “Without immigration reform to provide labor from abroad, things are so bad in the agriculture sector that some farmers are even training new workers.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: 11 Pieces of Obamacare Conventional Wisdom That Shouldn’t Be So Conventional.

SPYING BLOWBACK: NSA Internet Spying Sparks Race to Create Offshore Havens for Data Privacy: Firms Tout ‘Email Made in Germany’ as More Secure; Brazil Wants Its Own Servers. “Fueled by the controversy, countries are seeking to use data-privacy laws as a competitive advantage—a way to boost domestic companies that long have sought an edge over Google, Microsoft Corp. and other U.S. tech giants.”

All is proceeding as Glenn Derene foresaw.

CHARLIE MARTIN: 13 Weeks: Maybe there’s something to this probiotics stuff after all.

COULDN’T HAVE PUT IT BETTER MYSELF: Why Is Obama Shutting Down The Government?

Related: The White House announced this evening that it would veto any bill that includes a Republican proposal to delay Obamacare implementation and repeal a medical device tax.

I LIKE THE PEOPLE WHO CHARACTERIZE IT AS “AMERICAN:” The map that shows where America came from: Fascinating illustration shows the ancestry of EVERY county in the US.

But this ties in nicely with Michael Barone’s new book.

STACY MCCAIN REPORTS A James Fallows/John C. Calhoun Convergence.

SPYING: EFF racks up another courtroom victory over the NSA: damning docs to follow.

DESPITE ALL THE TALK ABOUT CONGRESS, THIS MIGHT BE THE BIG NEWS OF THE WEEK: HIV in cells eradicated with antifungal drug.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School district accountant accused of stealing $3 million in school lunch money by stuffing it in her bra. Not all at once, which would be difficult even for Dolly Parton. “Oakes earned a $60,000-a-year salary at her job, and has worked for the district for 25 years.”

IT’S STARTING TO LOOK THAT WAY: Dan Mitchell: Are Government Schools A Form Of Child Abuse?

THE GENE POOL SELF-CLEANSES: Weatherman brought to tears over climate change, considers vasectomy.

MOE LANE: “So, yeah, apparently I’m a cultural chauvinist. …Well, somebody‘s got to be.”

WHY PEOPLE CAN OUTRUN HORSES, but can’t outjump cats. Talk about how inferior people are to various animals in various ways, however, obscures our greatest strength: Adaptability. Humans can dive over 500 feet deep on a single breath, climb trees, run down horses, and survive desert temperatures. Very few animals can adapt to so many different conditions.

IGNORING VETO THREAT, HOUSE VOTES TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN AND DELAY OBAMACARE A YEAR: The House sent the legislation to the Democrat-run Senate early Sunday by 231-192, AP reports.

UPDATE: More from Bridget Johnson at PJM.

BLACKED OUT: IRS Documents Reveal Agency Flagged Groups for ‘Anti-Obama Rhetoric,’ Big Three Networks Refuse to Report.

COULD COME IN HANDY IF YOU WANTED TO WIN AN ELECTION OR SOMETHING: N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens. “Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.”

ROGER SIMON: Ignore Glenn’s Advice On IOS7 Upgrade: “Don’t listen to him. Go for it. He’s probably one of those guys who didn’t buy the White Album until six weeks after it came out.” Heh. Well, actually, my mom bought it for my dad as soon as it came out in Germany. I was eight.

WHAT CAN ONE MAN WITH A PISTOL DO? SAVE A LOT OF LIVES. Kenyan Hero’s Harrowing Tale of Rescues in Mall Massacre. “In one of the most memorable images to emerge from inside the Nairobi mall attacked last weekend by Islamic extremists, a 4-year-old girl is seen running toward a man who is reaching out a hand to pull her to safety. The man was Abdul Haji, a 39-year-old real estate executive who rushed to the mall as the attack got underway. He managed to evacuate scores of people to safety, including that young American girl, Portia Walker, and is being hailed in Kenya as a hero. . . . Haji says he grew up around guns and lately had been carrying his pistol with him. ‘I left where I was and I headed straight to the Westgate,’ Haji told ABC News. ‘Luckily on that particular day I had actually carried my licensed gun with me so I didn’t have to go back home to waste time and pick up a gun, I went straight to the mall.’ . . . Haji dismisses all the talk of him being a hero, saying he was just going to the mall to save his brother. ‘I think anybody in the situation would have probably done the same thing,’ he said. ‘[If] he was armed and thinking the worst about his family he would have probably done the same thing.'”

Too bad more people weren’t armed: Nairobi Mall Victims Were Tortured. “The al-Shabab militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last weekend didn’t just kill their victims, they tortured them and mutilated their bodies, according to accounts in Kenya’s media rounded up by USA Today. It makes for rough reading. The stories quote doctors and investigators who describe gouged eyes and dismembered bodies hanging from hooks.”

You know, if this kind of thing keeps happening, people are going to start thinking less of Islam.

I0S 7 MOTION GRAPHICS MAKING SOME USERS MOTION SICK: “It’s not the zoom animations that are responsible. It’s a new ‘parallax’ function that causes the background of the phone to subtly move back and forth, a feature that leads to an effect not unlike car sickness.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 10 things Obamacare won’t tell you: The health exchanges, central to the law, are also its biggest mystery. “You might want to avoid signing up on Day One.”

VIDEO: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp Makes Sexist Remark.

CATFIGHT: Model Punches Topless Protester On Catwalk. (NSFW).

SPACE: Watch Live Sunday as Orbital Sciences’ Spacecraft Heads for the ISS (Again). “The Virginia company is one of two — along with SpaceX — with a contract to deliver cargo to the station now that NASA has retired the space shuttle. Sunday’s expected rendezvous will mark Cygnus’ second time approaching the station, and is a key milestone for Orbital. Engineers will perform the final demonstration maneuvers in a bid to show NASA it has the right stuff. Although Orbital lacks the mainstream recognition of SpaceX, which has already made two cargo deliveries to the station, it is a veteran of the industry and has been sending things into space since 1982.”

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Preserve Battery Life In IOS7. So far, I’m preserving battery life by not upgrading. “Be not the first on whom the new is tried” is my motto where operating systems are concerned. Anybody know if the Mophie Juicepack for my iPhone 5 will work on a 5S? I may upgrade my phone and give the 5 to the Insta-Wife, who’s pondering entering the smartphone world at last.

Also at the link: “15 Tricks To Make The Transition To iOS 7 Easier.”

A TENNESSEE FOOD BLOG: Tennessee In The Kitchen.

LATEST TEEN-PANIC STORY: Friends Without Benefits: What Social Media And Porn Are Doing To Teenage Girls.

THIS IS INTERESTING: OTC Pain Relievers, Age, and Exercise. “Older adults taking NSAIDs respond to resistance training better than those using resistance training alone. Studies on younger adults appear to produce opposite results.”

FAST SUPERSEDANS: 2014 Audi RS7 vs. 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe, 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG S-model.

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K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Coventry Student Suspended for Keychain. “NBC10′s Tony Gugliotta reports tonight that a seventh-grade student in Coventry public schools has been suspended for three days after his friend took a two-inch keychain shaped as gun from his backpack.” This counts as a “firearm replica?” It’s a key fob.

Meanwhile, note that while the schools are reaching new heights of absurdity, they’re not excelling at their supposed job of teaching students:

According to data provided by the state Department of Education, only 68% of students in Joseph’s class are “proficient” in math. Just 26% achieved “proficient with distinction” on the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) tests conducted last year.

Sending your kids to public school is looking more and more like parental malpractice.

SPYING: FBI has been using drones since 2006, watchdog agency says.

FAULTY JUSTICE: Italian Earthquake Scientist Speaks Out against His Conviction. “A year ago an Italian court sentenced six scientists and an ex-government official to six years in prison for manslaughter. More specifically, the judge found them guilty for failing to give adequate advance warning to the population of L’Aquila, a city in the Abruzzo region of Italy, about the risk of the April 2009 earthquake that caused 309 deaths. As they await word of their appeal, the scientists maintain that the true culprit in that disaster was the government’s inability to communicate nuanced scientific information to L’Aquila’s citizens.” The Italian justice system seems to be pretty much a joke.

POPULAR MECHANICS: 5 Tools You Should Keep In Your Car. Number one is the LifeHammer, which has been mentioned here before.

BRUCE SCHNEIER: NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe. “They’re not just spying on the bad guys, they’re deliberately weakening Internet security for everyone—including the good guys. It’s sheer folly to believe that only the NSA can exploit the vulnerabilities they create. Additionally, by eavesdropping on all Americans, they’re building the technical infrastructure for a police state. We’re not there yet, but already we’ve learned that both the DEA and the IRS use NSA surveillance data in prosecutions and then lie about it in court. Power without accountability or oversight is dangerous to society at a very fundamental level.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 40 Things Every Self-Respecting Man Over 30 Should Own. I’ve got most of ’em. I don’t carry a leather wallet, though. Just not practical for me. I carry one of these.

CHANGE IS SLOWER THAN I THOUGHT: “Only about 12 per cent of all commercial aircraft are now Wi-Fi enabled.”

IN THE MAIL: From David Weber, War Maid’s Choice.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 142.

DETROIT’S PENSION MADNESS:

I’m rarely speechless, but I’m having trouble putting my emotions into words after reading the latest report on the Detroit pension situation. Now, I admit it: I’m kind of naïve. Usually when I see an underfunded pension, I think to myself “poor pensioners — undone by a combination of stupid tax rules, volatile stock markets and mismanagement by trustees who tried to restore depleted fund assets with an investment approach you might call ‘desperate optimism’.” Thus, I was not entirely prepared for the new revelations about the Detroit trustees’ custom of handing out annual holiday “bonuses” to workers, retirees and the City of Detroit. Between 1985 and 2008, they handed out roughly $1 billion this way. Had they been invested, one estimate says those funds would be worth almost $2 billion today — or more than half the current shortfall in the funds.

These “bonuses” were used to lower the contribution the city was required to make, to give retirees a little something extra around Christmas time, and to fund individual savings accounts that workers are offered along with their pensions. In 2009, when the financial markets were completely frozen and the automakers were shotgunning through the bankruptcy courts, the pension trust paid 7.5 percent interest into those accounts — which is about 7.5 percent more than they would have gotten at a bank. This while the pension funds were busy losing about a quarter of their value.

I literally slapped my forehead while reading some of the explanations that the trustees offered for their behavior.

They did this for the same reason a dog licks himself: Because they could.

WASHINGTON POST: ObamaCare Fight Re-Energizes Tea Party Movement.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, PHILISTINES WOULD SHUT DOWN SCIENCE EDUCATION. And They Were Right! “On 1 October, NIH will shutter its nine-person Office of Science Education (OSE) and cease to conduct a range of activities designed to foster health science education among elementary and secondary school students and the general public.”

Chris Mooney, call your office.

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IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Poll: Majority Think IRS Targeted Tea Party, Few Believe It Will Be Punished.

The majority of 1,000 likely American voters who participated in a recent survey say the IRS broke the law when it targeted the Tea Party, but few expect punishment

Fifty-three percent said they think the IRS broke the law when it targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups, but 24 percent disagree and 23 percent are not sure.

Just 17 percent believe it is even “somewhat likely” that criminal charges will be brought against any government employees for the IRS’ targeting of these groups, while 74 percent consider criminal charges unlikely, including 27 percent who say they are “not at all likely.”

Thirty-five percent think someone at IRS headquarters made the decision to target conservative groups, while 44 percent believe orders came from somebody who works in the White House and 20 percent are not sure.

Interesting to see the message get out, despite media footdragging. Also interesting to see the lack of faith in the justice system — which is, alas, merited, I’m afraid.

DEBT CEILING: James Taranto: Was Ted Kennedy A Terrorist? Obama, Nixon and the debt threat.

This columnist was no admirer of Ted Kennedy, and we view government efforts to control political speech as an affront to the Constitution. But it would be ludicrous to suggest that Kennedy was a terrorist, even though that is the implication of the Pfeiffer-Times-Yglesias argument. Agree or not with its cause, it had significant popular support, in large part because of the corruption of the Nixon White House.

Here is where the analogy to the Nixon years gets very interesting. The Republicans did not sneak into Congress to stage a surprise attack. They were duly elected in 2010 precisely because of widespread public opposition to ObamaCare. That law was enacted by the requisite majorities, if bare ones, in both houses of Congress. Yet while it was not illegitimate, it felt that way, and it would be fair to characterize its enactment as a failure of democratic governance. Had members of the House and Senate responded to their constituents’ wishes rather than presidential and partisan pressure, it would have gone down to defeat, probably overwhelmingly.

To be sure, backlash against ObamaCare did not prove sufficient to deny Obama a second term. His supporters claim that even if the 2010 election left the question of ObamaCare unsettled, the 2012 election resettled it. The morning after Election Day, it would have been hard to disagree.

Yet Obama is now in a position very much analogous to that of President Nixon in 1973. We now know that government corruption–namely IRS persecution of dissenters–was a factor in Obama’s re-election. To be sure, Obama himself has not, at least so far, been implicated in the IRS wrongdoing as Nixon ultimately was in Watergate. On the other hand, Nixon’s re-election victory was so overwhelming that no one could plausibly argue Watergate was a necessary condition for it. The idea that Obama could not have won without an abusive IRS is entirely plausible.

The Obama supporters who counsel intractability overlook the practical political risk of such an approach. Maybe Republicans will back down in the end, but maybe they won’t. That is to say, Obama’s intransigence could trigger a catastrophic result, and whether it does is beyond his control.

If that happens, maybe the majority of voters will blame Republicans, but maybe they won’t. Courting and then presiding over a catastrophe is not exactly a fail-safe plan for strengthening one’s presidency.

Obama’s line is “the Republicans are unreasonable because they won’t compromise — and neither will I!”

ED DRISCOLL OFFERS some HOPE for Shepard Fairey.

LAURENCE JARVIK: Al Gore’s Hate Speech Made Me Quit Brookings Email List. Jarvik writes:

Does Brookings want to arrest “political terrorists” now? Call in drone strikes? This rhetoric is simply beyond the pale of civilized discourse, a slippery slope of political dehumanization of the opposition.

As you know, Vice President Al Gore and the Republic survived a shutdown in the Clinton administration very nicely. There were shutdowns in the Carter administration, as well. It is called the congressional power of the purse.

After reading this email, I no longer have confidence in Brookings’ rationality, nor its commitment to civil political discourse.

Funny, not long ago we were being lectured on civility.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Worse Is the New Normal: Mid-20th-century assumptions of generational progress no longer obtain.

DIVIDER-IN-CHIEF: Obama slams Republican threats to ‘burn the house down.’ “In comments from the White House press briefing room, Obama reiterated he would not negotiate on the debt ceiling or relent to GOP demands to delay or defund his healthcare law in exchange for funding the government.”

He seems more willing to negotiate with the Iranians than with the Republicans. But this meme, seen on Facebook, suggests that threats of a government shutdown might not carry as much weight as he thinks, at least in some circles.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, THIS SORT OF THING WOULD HAPPEN: KKK wins lawsuit against bakery for discrimination.

UPDATE: Yeah, it’s a satire site. Though these days, how can you tell?

THOSE OLD FOLKS WITH MONEY HIDDEN IN MASON JARS AREN’T LOOKING SO CRAZY NOW: Cyprus-Style Wealth Confiscation Starting All Over The World. Funny how little press coverage this is getting.

ENTERTAINMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY: “Tragedy is when a woman or person of color feels disrespected or bullied. Comedy is when a white man falls into an open sewer and dies.”

DO TELL: Shepard Fairey Says Obama Killed Hope.

CHANGE: Italian Men: Lotharios No More. Basically, they’re too broke to keep mistresses: “Those of my generation I know can barely afford one apartment, let alone two, nor have they ever been able to.”

SUBSIDIZING THE ONE PERCENT: Stimulus funds paid for trees in high-income Denver neighborhoods. I’m beginning to think all that class-warfare talk from Obama was a smokescreen to cover policies aimed at helping rich gentry-class types or something.

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HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? A Small President on the World Stage.

“We want American leadership,” said a member of a diplomatic delegation of a major U.S. ally. He said it softly, as if confiding he missed an old friend.

“In the past we have seen some America overreach,” said the prime minister of a Western democracy, in a conversation. “Now I think we are seeing America underreach.” He was referring not only to foreign policy but to economic policies, to the limits America has imposed on itself. He missed its old economic dynamism, its crazy, pioneering spirit toward wealth creation—the old belief that every American could invent something, get it to market, make a bundle, rise. The prime minister spoke of a great anxiety and his particular hope. The anxiety: “The biggest risk is not political but social. Wealthy societies with people who think wealth is a given, a birthright—they do not understand that we are in the fight of our lives with countries and nations set on displacing us. Wealth is earned. It is far from being a given. It cannot be taken for granted. The recession reminded us how quickly circumstances can change.” His hope? That the things that made America a giant—”so much entrepreneurialism and vision”—will, in time, fully re-emerge and jolt the country from the doldrums.

Yeah, well, I hope that too — but it’ll happen in spite of the crowd in the White House now, not because of them.

CHARLIE MARTIN: Why Are Science And Politics So Hard? “Complicated decision making is complicated. Trying to study how people make those decisions is even harder. . . . People across all points of the political spectrum like to pretend that there is some vast edifice called Science that is intended to arrive at Truth, but the reality is that science is a social process itself, carried out by human beings, with human motivations and frailties. I see no way around it — or rather I think all the other possibilities are worse. Part of that process is what I’ve called the ‘social contract of science’: the understanding that your work must be presented as clearly as possible, that you must make your data available for critical inspection, and that you expect your results to be examined with a critical eye and subject to robust debate. What Kahan’s and Nyhan’s papers may accidentally have done, though, is to call into question whether social science research of this kind can ever be done in a trustworthy way.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Seven Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Running.

BILL GATES: Control-Alt-Delete Was A Mistake.

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: If Chosen Wisely, Existing Drugs Fight Resistant Bugs. “Medical experts have been powerless to stop the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and are increasingly desperate to develop novel drugs. But a new study finds that smarter use of current antibiotics could offer a solution. Researchers were able to keep resistant bacteria from thriving by alternating antibiotics to specifically exploit the vulnerabilities that come along with resistance—a strategy that could extend the lifespan of existing drugs to continue fighting even the most persistent pathogens.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Second-Tier Law Schools Shrink As They Stubbornly Keep Tuition High.

FUNNY THAT THIS DIDN’T GET MUCH PRESS: Greenville Wal-Mart Shooter Picked Victims By Race. “A man who shot four people near a Greenville Wal-Mart in June picked out his victims because they were white, according to several indictments handed down against him.”

RETIRE COMFORTABLY ABROAD on less than $40 a day? “With the low cost of medicine, English-speaking retirement communities and affordable housing, many are heading to tropical destinations, including South America and Southeast Asia where it’s doable to live on less than $40 per day.”

LUMBER: Shades of Gibson Guitar: Lumber Liquidators Raided By Feds. So I’ve become cynical enough that my first thoughts were (1) Does the CEO, like Gibson’s, give mostly to Republicans? and (2) Is this because they advertise on Limbaugh? But I make no apologies for the cynicism; it’s been well-earned.

GOOD NEWS: Finding no life, but lots of water, on Mars. “Curiosity found concentrations of water in the martian soil as high as 2 percent by weight. At that rate, the scientists say, you could extract a couple of pints of water from every cubic foot of martian soil.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: 12 True Tales of Creepy NSA Cyberstalking. “It’s a fascinating look at what happens when the impulse that drives average netizens to look up long-ago ex-lovers on Facebook is mated with the power to fire up a wiretap with a few keystrokes. . . . Some of the abuses were referred to the Department of Justice, but none resulted in prosecution.”