HARRISON BERGERON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: State schools admit they do not push gifted pupils because they don’t want to promote ‘elitism.’ “Bright youngsters told inspectors they were forced to ask for harder work. Others were resentful at being dragooned into ‘mentoring’ weaker pupils.”

RAND SIMBERG ON HIDING THE DECLINE: “I think that there are going to be huge reverberations of untrust throughout many areas of authority resulting from this. As was pointed out early on, it’s not just a scientific scandal, it’s a journalistic one.”

ED DRISCOLL: Editor & Publisher’s Final Years A Cautionary Tale.

JOEL KOTKIN: Is Obama Separating From His Scandinavian Muse?

THE GOP’S SECRET WEAPON: William Shatner?

CLAYTON CRAMER: Guns on trains.

ROGER SIMON: Watch Out, Al Gore: I’m Going To Copenhagen!

DID EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE have an alien origin?

MEGAN MCARDLE: The New Breed Of Deadbeats.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Did the Stimulus Create Jobs? The government’s own job creation data reveal the dangers of a second stimulus.

YOU DON’T SAY: Looming Population Crisis Forces China To Revisit One-Child Policy. “Last year, people 60 and older accounted for almost 22 percent of Shanghai’s registered residents, while the birthrate was less than one child per couple.”

FIRST IMAGES from the VISTA infrared telescope.

HEH: Elevator mural casts you as Adam on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. This is cute.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT WHOLE “War For Oil” thing, anyway?

HOW TO set up a webcam.

ERICK ERICKSON HAS THOUGHTS on What the GOP could be doing to fight Obamacare.

GALLERY: The World’s 18 Strangest Homes.

SOME adoptable animals via Claire Berlinski.

IN THE MAIL: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government.

MARY GRABAR: Why Are Tiger’s Women Getting A Pass?

SURPRISING PRAISE for the George Foreman Grill. I’ve got one, and it’s great, especially for paninis. Haven’t tried it for bacon, though. I’ll have to remedy that omission.

MORE THOUGHTS ON BEATING PARALYSIS from Cynthia Yockey. “The biggest scandal and most heinous atrocity about paralyzing injuries or illnesses in the United States is that the patients are so neglected during their acute care hospitalizations that their muscles and tendons contract and harden irreversibly.”

DAN COLLINS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST CONTEMPORARY AMERICA’S appalling racial insensitivity.

DENNIS MILLER: Swingin’ Copenhagen.

DANIEL GROSS: Deglobalization: The Surpisingly Steep Decline In World Trade.