FIVE MYTHS about women in combat.

CHANGE: Global Economic Rebound Weakens on Quake, Oil Price, European Debt Crisis.

CRIME: The Most Dangerous Cities In America.

CONRAD BLACK: A World Of Financial Ruin. “Unless the United States has the most spectacular cognitive awakening since Brunhilda, if not Lazarus, the laws of arithmetic are going to assert themselves in Zeus-like terms. Meanwhile, the European Union is a water-logged vessel in a tempest, frantically bailing.” Since we have the worst political class ever, I’m a bit pessimistic about how this is likely to turn out.

JAY SCHALIN: “Startup America” Will Have A Bad Ending.

CHANGING A NATION, one tweet at a time.

A PROFILE OF “SUPERAGENT” ANDREW WYLIE. Helen used to babysit for him when she was a student in New York.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on Father’s Day gifts in Tools & Home Improvement.

Plus, a sale on Bosch cordless tools.

KENNETH ANDERSON had a nice visit at U.Va Law School. I visited there years ago — back when I was single — and found the law school and faculty as nice as he describes, though I found Charlottesville to be a rather small town if you weren’t a student. Knoxville seemed positively metropolitan by comparison.

IMPORTANT NEWS: Former Miss World Wins Damages After Being Branded Racist and Xenophobic. With bonus hot-babe photo.

CHANGE: Gas Tanks Are Draining Family Budgets: “Households spent an average of $369 on gas last month. In April 2009, they spent just $201. Families now spend more filling up than they spend on cars, clothes or recreation. Last year, they spent less on gasoline than each of those things. . . . Only twice before have Americans spent this much of their income on gas. In 1981, after the last oil crisis, Americans spent 8.8 percent of household income on gas. In July 2008, when oil price spiked, they spent 10.2 percent. Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, have risen just 1.9 percent in the past year. That’s only just enough to keep up with inflation.” And only if the measure of “inflation” doesn’t include gas prices.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Supreme Court Makes It Official: California A Failed State. “Let there be no mistake: when you produce so many criminals that you can’t afford to lock them up, you are a failed state. Virtually every important civil institution in society has to fail to get you to this point. . . . California used to be the glory of this country, the dream by the sea, the magic state. Now it produces so many criminals it can’t pay to keep them locked up. This is partly a blue social model thing.”

POLIWOOD: The 2011 Cannes Film Festival: Anti-semitic or Simply Boring?

BILL WHITTLE: TURNCOAT NATION.

SALENA ZITO: Centuries later, Scots-Irish attract political courters.

When national campaign strategists consider targeting an ethnic voting bloc to swing results in their direction, they typically consider blacks or Hispanics.

Yet, an ethnic group they often overlook — the Scots-Irish — are the voters the Republican Party persuaded in 2010 to swing back to GOP candidates, after they swung toward the Democratic Party in 2006, experts say.

As the 2012 election approaches and both parties eye the White House and U.S. House and Senate seats, strategists from both parties say the Scots-Irish again could be critical to winning.

Note the appearance by James Webb. Maybe this is why he’s not running again? . . . .

BARNEY FRANK’S FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS:

If you want to watch a corruptocrat start sputtering like Porky Pig with allergies, confront him with three simple words: conflict of interest. Asked this week about his role in securing an ex-lover’s highly coveted job at government mortgage giant Fannie Mae, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank retorted:

“Aba-dee aba-dee aba-dee aba-dee.”

Or that’s what it sounded like, anyway. Frank was rather miffed about the recent disclosure that he helped former lover Herb Moses land a job with the behemoth lender while sitting on a House committee that regulates lenders a decade ago. The Boston Herald reported Thursday that Frank immediately invoked the Everybody Does It card: “It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Frank then switched to the Everybody Knew defense: “It was widely known. It was out there in the public.”

Next, he dismissed any controversy about his ethical judgment with the Nobody Cares shield: “It’s nonsense.”

No doubt he’ll spring the Homophobia Card on critics at an opportune moment to ice his multitiered cake of excuses.

Funny thing. Not too long ago, it was Frank himself counseling fellow Democratic scandal magnet Rep. Maxine Waters to butt out of Boston-area OneUnited Bank’s bid for $12 million in federal TARP bailout funds because of conflict-of-interest odors. Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into OneUnited and owned stock holdings estimated at $350,000.

Frank’s exact words to Waters: “You should stay out of it. … You should stay away from this.”

Do as I say, not as I do.

THE POLITICS OF FOOD: “China, India and Saudi Arabia have lately leased vast tracts of land in sub-Saharan Africa at knockdown prices. Their primary aim is to grow food abroad using the water that African countries don’t have the infrastructure to exploit. Doing so is cheaper and easier than using water resources back home. But it is a plan that could well backfire.”

IT TAKES A GREAT NATION to build a great . . . dog park?

SO DON’T SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON THE COMPUTER: The growth of “Facebook depression.”

PROGRESS: Stinky feet could pave the way for better ways to stop mosquitoes. But is that a path we want to tread?

SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Pretty Girls Get Free Stuff.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Shoes. Don’t tell The Manolo what’s #1. . . .

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” I’VE BEEN HEARING ABOUT: Dancing With A Dictator In Sudan. “In Darfur, the Khartoum regime has cleared millions from their lands, allowing ethnic groups allied with the government to move into the deserted areas. In the oilfield areas of southern Sudan in the 1990s, the regime strategically killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of indigenous residents to facilitate Chinese oil exploitation. In the Nuba mountains during the late 1980s and 1990s, the vast majority of locals were forcibly displaced by Sudanese government attacks, and hundreds of thousands died. The international community threatened real consequences during and after these incidents and after other targeted crimes against civilian populations. But the consequences never came.”

WELL, WE’VE ALREADY HAD THE SUMMER OF LOVE: Headline: Brace Yourself For The Summer Of “Sluts.”

WELL, GOOD: Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output. Key bit: “What makes the new fields more remarkable is that they were thought to be virtually valueless only five years ago.”

UPDATE: Reader Roger Baumgarten writes: “It’s only a matter of time before the Obama administration targets them for destruction.”

And reader Bobby Clarke writes: “Another point from that story about Texas oil: Lots of jobs, and lots of money. All sorts of jobs – very well paying blue collar, white collar, supply, support (restaurants and real estate and construction). And the money can stick around for a long long time – Texas got a couple of huge cities, lots of hospitals (world class ones in Houston), University systems, roads – all sorts of good stuff. For the life of me, I do not understand why states that are struggling are not begging geologists to come look for oil.” Good point. Or even paying them to.