FASTER, PLEASE: Lenalidomide To Restore Aging Immune Systems?

THIS NEW YORK TIMES PIECE on ObamaCare litigation contains this bit from Jack Balkin:

Jack M. Balkin, a law professor at Yale who supports the act’s constitutionality, noted that “there are judges of different ideological views throughout the federal judiciary” and said that the health care plaintiffs had helped their cause by filing lawsuits in conservative venues.

As an empirical statement, this is probably true. But doesn’t this kind of undermine the whole “defer-to-the-courts” school of liberal constitutionality? Would Balkin similarly dismiss a victory for, say, gay rights in the 9th Circuit? And should citizens, upon being told that it all depends on the “ideological views” of federal judges, conclude that federal judges’ opinions are entitled to no special deference?

CHANGE: Census: Segregation hits 100-year lows in most American metro areas. “It isn’t that the North, which has lagged behind the South and West in integration rates, has dramatically different attitudes on race. Rather, new housing and job opportunities in the South and West have helped to spur integration there.” Less government, more opportunity = less racial division. Dynamism at work!

THE ECONOMIST ON THE INSTAPUNDIT / THIEVERY CORPORATION NEXUS.

REASON TV: How To Balance The Budget:

Apparently you can’t get Nick out of his leather jacket even when you put him in the kitchen!

FASTER, PLEASE: Stem Cell Transplant Cures HIV In ‘Berlin Patient’. I hope this pans out as a general treatment, and isn’t just a one-off or a mistake.

COLUMBIA EMINENT-DOMAIN ABUSE CASE WILL NOT BE HEARD, and Megan McArdle is unimpressed:

So the Supreme Court will not hear the eminent domain case involving Columbia University, which finagled the state into seizing local land and transferring it to the school. That means that the landowners who don’t want to sell have no recourse. Worse, it reinforces the precedent of Kelo–that the government can take land and transfer it to private actors even when there’s only a trivial and dubious public gain involved.

In the case of Columbia, there’s a tangible public loss–they’re going to tear down one of the few gas stations in Manhattan in order to give Columbia’s privileged students more space. And what public benefit does the city get? We’re talking about taking taxpaying private properties and transferring them to a non-profit which will not pay taxes, and will turn a large swathe of Manhattan into a quasi-compound for some of the wealthiest and most privileged people in the city.

Eminent domain is often sold as “the people vs. the powerful.” But in fact it’s property rights that protect the people from the powerful.

NO JOBS? Young graduates make their own. “Mr. Gerber, now 27, isn’t a millionaire, but he’s paid off his loans and doesn’t have to live with his parents (he rents an apartment in Hoboken, N.J.). And he thinks his experience can help other young people who face a daunting unemployment rate.” I have some former students who are doing that, with companies like LuckyGunner and Volunteer Traditions.

WAS IT ALL JUST ONE BIG CON JOB? “Erin Brockovich” Town Shows No Cancer Cluster. “Hinkley, California, the town made famous in the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich, does not show any evidence of an increased rate of cancers.”

NICK GILLESPIE: Evil Bush Tax Rates Made Rich Bastards Pay More Taxes! “For all the yammering about the wisdom or tragedy of extending Bush-era tax rates, precious little hot air has been expended on, like, looking at what effects the goddamn things had on who paid how much tax. Back during the 2008 election, Joe Biden used to say that it was ‘patriotic’ to ask the rich to pay ‘their fair share’ in taxes. What that widely repeated nostrum misses is that the rich (however defined) have been paying a greater share of income taxes in the aughts. Below is a chart from the Tax Foundation that lists the percent of federal income tax paid by each income group. Whatever else you want to say about the Bush tax rates, they made the wealthy pony up more of the whole.”

Yes, the big problem with our current system is that most Americans pay too little in taxes. If I had my way, everyone would pay at least some income tax, however small their income — and that amount would rise and fall, directly, with how much Congress spent that year.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Lange writes: “Gillespie’s article is just one more piece on the pile of evidence that the two most important pieces of tax reform we need are a flat tax (low rate, no deductions) and the elimination of withholding – including FICA. But who are we kidding? This would eliminate opportunities to pay favors to preferred constituencies, and inform the citizenry exactly how much they’re paying for the government they’re getting. Both of which are seen as bad things by the ruling class.” Yes, it’s hard to get the political classes behind anything that reduces opportunities for graft.

HENRY KISSINGER and the moral bankruptcy of “detente.” I always figured he was just saying “nice doggie” while waiting for someone to show up with a stick. And, you know: Someone did. But maybe I give him too much credit.

STUDY: Supplemental Estrogen Can Prevent Breast Cancer.

In recent years, women have heard only bad news about the use of estrogen and progestin to ease symptoms of menopause. In 2002, researchers halted a major government study of so-called combination therapy, part of the Women’s Health Initiative, when women taking these hormones were shown to have a higher risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke. Frightened women abandoned hormones in droves. But now a controversial new review of data suggests some good news: certain women who take estrogen alone, without progestin, to treat menopause symptoms may actually be protected from breast cancer. . . . For instance, among 8,500 women with no family history of the disease, use of estrogen lowered breast cancer risk by 32 percent, compared with similar women taking a placebo. Among the 7,600 women with no history of benign breast disease, like lumps or cysts, those taking estrogen had a 43 percent lower risk of breast cancer.

Read the whole thing.

THE TOP 50 Gawker Media passwords.

INTRODUCING YALE LAW GRADS to the real world.

SANITY ON IRAQ, from Condi Rice.

RIPOFF? No Labels’s T Shirt Looks Mighty Familiar to Brooklyn Artist.

NOT THAT IT’S WARMED THINGS UP ANY HERE: Global Eruption Rocks The Sun. Also, the field of solar science.

OVER AT LAUNCHSPACE, Rand Simberg has thoughts on SpaceX’s triumph.

LOSING WEIGHT THROUGH IMAGINARY EATING: I think, therefore I’m full.

KURT LASH ON Judge Hudson and the Necessary and Proper Clause. “Judge Hudson did not ignore the Clause or dismiss the concept of implied congressional power. Instead, he simply noted that assertions of unlimited federal power are invalid under either the Commerce Power or the Necessary and Proper Clause.”

UPDATE: “Neither necessary nor proper.”

MORE ON THAT arsenic-microbe study.

MICHAEL YON: Believe It Or Not.

IN THE MAIL: Edited by Esther Friesner, Chicks Ahoy.

PJTV: Olbermann-omics: Unemployment Creates Jobs. In that case, can we have Keith start creating jobs now? . . . .

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: Gratuitously Hostile Me.