A NEW YEAR, A NEW AGE: The European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2015.

HMM: Fears of mass migration, chaos propel Swiss right-wing populist SVP to biggest vote wins ever.

The Swiss military has trained for refugee-based chaos. More here.

UPDATE: More on the Swiss election.

WELL, IT’S BASICALLY FRAUD: Amazon suing more than 1,000 for fake product reviews.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: An Admissions Surprise From the Ivy League. The Ivy League perpetuates inequality. We need forceful and comprehensive government action to put an end to that. A tax on “excessive” endowments (at some point, you’ve raised enough money) a mandatory Common App with no add-ons for any schools receiving federal money, and a “test-score diversity” program requiring that students scoring in each quintile receive proportional admissions (“An Ivy League that looks like America”), etc. After all, inequality is our biggest problem, except maybe for climate change. And a problem that big requires the moral equivalent of war to solve. No more business as usual!

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RICHARD FERNANDEZ: What Putin Wants In Syria:

The Russian offensive may look futile from Obama’s point of view since it does nothing to create what the administration believes should be everyone’s desired end state: “a peaceful, stable, multisectarian democracy”. Fareed Zakaria notes the president thinks the Iranians and Russians lack the power have to create a stable successor state and therefore Putin’s efforts are doomed. “If Obama’s goal is a peaceful, stable, multisectarian democracy, then it requires a vast U.S. commitment on the scale of the Iraq war. ” He can’t do it. How can Putin?

However, as Tom Rogan at the National Review argues, Putin doesn’t need such a tremendous force because the Russian’s goal is different. It is to ensure that nobody wins, to confirm the stalemate and perpetuate the chaos disrupting a region that was once America’s back yard, probably for decades to come. . . .

The second strategic benefit to the Russian strongman of an ME stalemate is existential pressure on Saudi Arabia. Bruce Reidel, former CIA point man for Saudi Arabia wrote in Brookings that the Kingdom is now on a political knife-edge. “What the future has in store for the kingdom is of great concern to Washington. Within months of becoming king, Salman plunged into what appears to be a quagmire war in Yemen, snubbed President Obama, and endorsed hardline clerics who are opposed to reforms that Obama argues are necessary if Saudi Arabia is to remain a stable partner for the United States.”

The Saudis are now at a crossroads, divided between those who realize ISIS and al-Qaeda are now an existential threat to the monarchy itself, and those who still see cooperation with the jihadis as the only hope for survival. What makes things even more interesting is the division at the top. The current Saudi King was once the prince in charge of funding the Jihad, and his son the crown prince Nayef, was buddies with Osama bin Laden.

Obama’s outclassed here — if, that is, his goals are really those stated above. If, as many suspect, Obama is perfectly happy to see America and Europe weakened on the global scale, then he’s not incompetent at all.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Are college athletic programs responsible for tuition hikes?

THIS IS SEXIST. MEN HAVE PELVIC FLOORS TOO, AND THIS DEVICE IS SOLELY FOR WOMEN. Elvie Is A Connected Pelvic Floor Exerciser That Gives You Real Time Feedback As You Exercise.

DON’T FORGET TO CELEBRATE World Patriarchy Day!

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Conference video: New Methods of Exploring, Analyzing, and Predicting Molecular Interactions.

IT DEPENDS: How Well Do Law Schools Teach Business And Financial Concepts? At the University of Tennessee College of Law, we have the Center For Entrepreneurial Law and a business track where they do pretty well. At law schools in general, on the other hand. . . .

A COMBINATION fly swatter / mosquito zapper. Huh?

21st CENTURY MALADIES: Pictured: The shocking ‘text neck’ X-rays that show how children as young as SEVEN are becoming hunch backs because of their addiction to smart phones.

BETTER ANTIBIOTICS, PLEASE: How Antibiotic Resistance Could Make Common Surgeries More Dangerous. “If prophylactic antibiotics get 30 percent less effective, there will be 120,000 more infections in the U.S. every year from procedures like C-sections and appendectomies.” Or phages, or something.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 892.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Here’s What Would Be Happening if President Romney Had Bombed a Hospital in Afghanistan.

If Romney had been elected in 2012 and in the year before his reelection campaign had bombed a hospital, decided to keep troops in Afghanistan, and had details of his robot assassin program leaked, things would probably look a little different today.

If Romney were president right now, the White House would be surrounded by protesters and candlelight peace vigils night and day. Some would wave American flags, some would wave signs calling for impeachment, some would have pictures caricaturing the president as Hitler or an animal. They would chant “Not in our name!”, or “Bring them home!”, or “Hey ho, hey ho, Romney has got to go!”

If Romney were president, nightly news reports on CBS, NBC, and ABC would have regular features on war crimes, quagmires, and collateral damage. CNN would be wall-to-wall with team coverage of protests, interviews of bombing witnesses, and Anderson Cooper walking through rubble in full body armor.

If Romney were president, every political analyst left of Judge Napolitano would be fretting over the war-weary public turning the upcoming election into a referendum against the president and his party. Vox and FiveThirtyEight would have maps showing how many Senate seats Republicans would lose because of the president’s sure-to-plummet approval rating. And then there’s MSNBC.

If Romney were president, MSNBC would be holding mock war crimes tribunals on Chris Hayes, explaining the ins and outs of the process with expert guests. Lena Dunham would be on Maddow every night aghast (but still giggling!) at this warmonger-in-chief. Chris Matthews would be yelling at Michael Moore, trying to find out when charges would be filed at the Hague.

If Romney were president, Democrats in Congress would be calling for hearings and investigations for each transgression: the bombing, troop levels, and drone policy. Chuck Schumer would hold daily press briefings scolding the wreckless president from behind the glasses perched precariously down his nose. Someone would accurately quote Sheila Jackson-Lee condeming the terrible bombing of the “orphanage in Pakistan”.

But Mitt Romney isn’t president, Barack Obama is, so no one cares.

It’s as if the “antiwar” movement isn’t really antiwar at all.

AND NOT JUST NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS, EITHER: Americans Are More Afraid of Robots Than Death.

Seems like a marketing opportunity for someone.

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SLOW JOE ALMOST GETS IT RIGHT, THEN RETURNS TO PARTY LINE: Joe Biden calls ‘yes means yes’ consent policies ‘tricky.’

Vice President Joe Biden has called current campus consent policies “tricky,” but is apparently still just fine with using them to brand students as rapists.

Biden, speaking at a Domestic Violence Awareness Month roundtable on Thursday, said that current “yes-means-yes” — or affirmative consent — policies can be “tricky,” despite his continuous insistence that schools do more to curb an alleged epidemic of campus sexual assault.

“The cultural norms make it still kind of hard to say, ‘Yes, I’d like you to kiss me,’ or ‘Yes, I’d like you to do that,'” Biden said, according to veteran journalist and Washington Editor for PJ Media Bridget Johnson. “So it’s still tricky.”

Biden seems to be acknowledging just how unrealistic yes-means-yes policies are, yet the Obama administration is doing nothing to halt their spread. Biden is the second person in recent days to be confused by the policy his administration’s hysterical claims have created. In San Francisco, a woman who writes the lesson plans for teaching yes-means-yes policies couldn’t definitively tell students how the policies work.

They’re a facial due-process violation, and their mere existence, coupled with obviously discriminatory enforcement, creates a hostile educational environment for male students.

THIS LOIS LERNER/WISCONSIN CONNECTION SUGGESTS A COORDINATED ATTEMPT BY DEMOCRAT POLITICOS TO TARGET REPUBLICANS: GAB Official’s Relationship with IRS’s Lerner Spanned Personal to Professional. “Kennedy has been extremely defensive about his interaction with Lerner, accusing a state senator of being like U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who fear-mongered about communists in government in the 1950s, when that senator asked Kennedy this week about the nature of the relationship. . . . Although Kennedy may think his relationship with Lerner is off-limits to questioning, simply dismissing it as McCarthyism doesn’t explain why Wisconsin’s top elections official would work so closely with an IRS official who had to leave her job in the Obama Administration because of her targeting of conservative organizations. Kennedy’s own work targeting conservatives may offer more insight than his manufactured outrage in front of a legislative committee.”

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Migrant crisis: Thousands enter Slovenia after Hungary closes border.

THE JIM WEBB DILEMMA: “Webb was alienated first by the McGovern Democrats and then by the Bush Republicans. Like millions of Americans, he doesn’t look like he’s at home in either party today.”

UM, EVERYTHING? George Will: What Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Understand About Income Inequality. “The fundamental producer of income inequality is freedom. Individuals have different aptitudes and attitudes. Not even universal free public education, even were it well done, could equalize the ability of individuals to add value to the economy. Besides, some people want to teach, others want to run hedge funds. In an open society, rewards are set not by political power but by impersonal market forces, the rewards of which will differ dramatically but usually predictably.”

Freedom produces insufficient opportunities for graft. And for demagoguery.