COMING TO NEW YORK? The Turkish Taxi Of Tomorrow.

A ROUNDUP OF fellowships for aspiring law professors.

DID THE SINGULARITY just happen on Jeopardy? The Singularity is a process, more than an event, even if, from a long-term historical perspective, it may look like an event. (Kind of like the invention of agriculture looks to us now). So, yeah. “In the CNN story one of the machine’s creators admitted that he was a very poor Jeopardy player. Somehow he was able to make a machine that could do better than himself in that contest. The creators aren’t even able to follow the reasoning of the computer. The system is showing emergent complexity.”

UPDATE: Come with me if you want to live.

IN THE MAIL: From Kay Hymowitz, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys.

BUT OF COURSE: Human Rights Watch Appoints Terrorist (and “Human Rights Activist”) to Middle East Advisory Board.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UNLV President Plans For “Fiscal Collapse.” “UNLV President Neal Smatresk told a somber Faculty Senate on Tuesday that the administration was planning a kind of bankruptcy to deal with its budget crunch.”

Related item here.

ED DRISCOLL: The Samizdat Remains The Same.

SPENDING AS A SHARE OF GDP: Projections vs. Reality.

HEH: Obama budget: Life is short, eat dessert first. “Even the Washington Post, which endorsed Obama in 2008 and has not supported a Republican for President since 1952, said Obama’s budget was full of ‘gimmickry,’ and called Obama the ‘Punter-in-Chief’ for failing to address America’s looming budget problems.”

TODAY ONLY: At Amazon an iPod dock/clock radio/speaker system with subwoofer for $79.

RANDY BARNETT WILL BE TESTIFYING BEFORE THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE THIS MORNING on why ObamaCare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. Hey, maybe next time they’ll have this kind of hearing before they pass the bill . . . .

DUCK AND COVER (CONT’D): A Legal Manual For An Apocalyptic New York.

Major disasters like terrorist attacks and mass epidemics raise confounding issues for rescuers, doctors and government officials. They also pose bewildering legal questions, including some that may be painful to consider, like how the courts would decide who gets life-saving medicine if there are more victims than supplies. But courts, like fire departments and homicide detectives, exist in part for gruesome what-ifs. So this month, an official state legal manual was published in New York to serve as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a widespread epidemic.

Hmm. I’m all for preparedness, but I do wonder what’s spurring this flowering of interest among the authorities. If there were a Republican in the White House it would all be put down to paranoia. So if it’s not paranoia, then what is it?

UPDATE: Reader Roland Mar emails:

Dr. Reynolds:

I am not totally out of the loop on matters of defense and terrorism. I am a retired Peace Officer who has had a sideline as a writer in the field, both in print and online under a pseudonym. This manual is another of many signs that disturb me. Consider:

1) the interview with the Deputy Director of the Port of San Diego who apparently admits that WMD [or Weapons of Mass Effect, the latest PC iteration of the concept] have been caught entering the country.

2) Obama’s statement that we could ride out a WMD attack.

3) Obama’s statement that if we are hit with a WMD strike, we would go to the UN first, and not retaliate.

4) The large numbers of Other Than Mexican/Central Americans caught crossing the border [and the knowledge that we only catch a small fraction of the illegals who make it in].

5) Now public planning for the imposition of Emergency Powers. I don’t deny the need for such powers, or consider them intrinsically evil. But they are coming to the fore in an interesting context; including an administration that demonstrates fecklessness and utter incompetence at a time of international turmoil.

I would add some knowledge of the subject gained during my career.

Something bad is about to happen. I am quite glad I live in a small town in the mountains.

Well, that’s encouraging.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO’D VETO A CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET IF DEFENSE CUTS WERE TOO DEEP: And they were right! “Exit question: Now that Obama’s gone to the mat over just $15 billion in defense spending, where does that leave the left’s ancient belief that if we simply start cutting defense — which is mostly waste anyway, don’tcha know — our fiscal troubles will be over?”

ED MORRISSEY: The Strange Racist Attack On Herman Cain: “While young conservatives chased out a white-supremacist recruiter from CPAC, it seemed that one site on the Left felt more comfortable with racist attacks. AlterNet, a site that proudly proclaims its ‘strong content’ and ‘huge readership and reach,’ offered its analysis of Herman Cain’s speech at CPAC by calling the former CEO of Godfather Pizza a ‘monkey in the window’.”

OBAMA KNEW: White House Had Year Of Warnings On Egypt. And yet they were still caught flat-footed.

DON SURBER: De-Fund The FCC. “People are free to quote you in context, out of context, not quote you, and even misquote you. Free speech is a God-given right and how dare this commissioner get between me and God? His agency is an outdated relic of the Victrola era. Get rid of it.”

IPHONE UPDATE: Reader Geoff Lackey emails: “You’ve been writing about this lately, so I thought I’d pass this on: Yesterday, about a week after Verizon announced its iphone data plans, AT&T notified me that the size of my data plan was now doubled (2GB up to 4GB) with no rate increase. Wow, this free-market competition stuff kinda works. Someone tell Obama.”

MAN BITES DOG: Dishonesty at ThinkProgress.

Related item here.

ADVICE TO THE REPUBLICANS FROM STANLEY KURTZ:

Tea Party moxie and the shellacking notwithstanding, the GOP establishment remains reluctant to highlight Obama’s radicalism. I understand the reasons for this, and they are by no means trivial. While Obama’s policies are opposed by many, he remains personally popular. It seems disrespectful to attribute an ideology to the president that he himself won’t own up to. Words like “radical,” much less “socialist,” sound impolite. Yet, without defining the president in a way that happens to be not only politically advantageous, but true, I doubt Obama can be stopped. Telling the truth about this president is how we shellacked him to begin with. . . . Perhaps I’m wrong and “the president’s abdication of leadership” sound bite will be enough to defeat “the GOP’s heartless cuts.” Even so, as an alternative, I suggest: “Obama’s radical plans are leading us off a cliff.”

Above all, seek clarity.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: What is the new GOP Congress doing to help military voters?

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” How Obama Lost The Egyptian People.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Argentina Holds Confiscated U.S. Air Force Cargo. “Relations between Argentina and the U.S. have deteriorated rapidly since U.S. President Barack Obama said in January that he would visit El Salvador, Brazil and Chile next month, skipping Argentina.”

IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? World Bank: Food prices at “dangerous levels.”

JENNIFER RUBIN WONDERS: Why have a press conference like THAT?

Obama and his advisers seem to have convinced themselves that most problems are a matter of “messaging” or “communication.” But when Obama communicates a flawed message or misrepresents facts, he compounds his own difficulties, making it that much more difficult for his allies to defend him and all the more easy for opponents to demonstrate that he’s not leading on the crucial issues of the day.

I never thought he’d make me nostalgic for Bush’s communication skills. And yet . . . .

LOYAL OBAMA SUPPORTER NPR thanks Obama for money in the budget.