END OF THE WORLD COMING IN just 1 billion years?

At least we may avoid a Festinger moment.

ALEX KOPPELMAN IN ADWEEK: The National Magazine Award and Guantánamo: A Tall Tale Gets the Prize — Scott Horton’s Harper’s story about detainees’ deaths doesn’t hold up.

TOYOTA IS UPPING PRIUS PRODUCTION: 36,000 units headed to U.S. this summer. They may find customers: I paid $4.19/gallon this weekend. Yeah, it was a ripoff interstate joint, but still.

DEVASTATION IN JOPLIN, MISSOURI: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo, The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III.

ILYA SOMIN: Gary Johnson vs. Ron Paul.

UPDATE: Obama Campaign Digging For Dirt On Chris Christie.

JUDD GREGG: Debt Crisis Might Force Us To Do The Right Thing.

IN THE FUTURE, ALL THE THERAPISTS WILL BE WOMEN: AND THEN WHAT?

We’re supposed to believe that the emerging problem is that men who need help won’t seek it because they have a prejudiced preference for a male therapist. We’re not supposed to think that when the profession is thoroughly dominated by females, it will change in all sorts of subtle ways, conceiving the female norm as the norm. That’s funny. When the field was male-dominated, feminists (and others) critiqued it as imposing the male norm on females. But it’s always the females who are wronged.

Well, that’s axiomatic.

UPDATE: An author/reader emails:

You know, what you said about therapists applies exactly to writing/reading, too. When young adult SF was dominated by male writers, they claimed girl readers were being discriminated against. Now, when almost all YA books are either written by females or have a female main character, they whine that boys are PREUJUDICED and won’t read female writers or girl characters. As the mother of boys and an ex tomboy, I want to slap them all. No I don’t want affirmative action for male writers/characters. I figure e-publishing will take care of that. I just want the whining to stop. (Yes, I am probably a horrible woman.)

Whining will stop — or at least drop off precipitously — when it is no longer rewarded, and not before.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Patio, Lawn & Garden.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF: Dear Bono: Get Your Facts Straight. “At a concert in Mexico City, Bono repeats the ‘90% lie’ about U.S. gun shops selling to cartels.”

CHINA FOOD CHOICES reshaping world markets. “World food prices climbed to record highs this year after drought and flooding reduced harvests in major producers such as Australia and Russia. Although prices have come down somewhat, analysts noted a decline in key reserves and other evidence that markets for basic food commodities may now be persistently tight. . . . Now, with key reserves of many commodities at or near record lows, World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the world is ‘one shock away’ — a major crop shortfall in a large nation, a run of bad weather — from a serious food crisis. The potential fallout is clear: Rising food prices were partly behind recent unrest in the Middle East, and the bank estimates that food inflation has pushed tens of millions of people into poverty over the past year.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Some Observations As Mitch Daniels Bows Out.

RANDY BARNETT: Tort Reform, Double Deference and the House GOP’s Fair-weather Federalism. “Although I support reforming medical malpractice rules to protect doctors from false accusations and runaway jury awards at the state level, the so-called HEALTH Act now pending in the House violates the GOP’s Pledge to America to justify all of its legislation by identifying its constitutional authority in the enumerated powers of Congress.”

DAVID LAT: “Is Johnathan Perkins, the 3L who famously (or infamously) admitted making up a story about how he was racially profiled and harassed by university police, going to receive a J.D. degree from UVA Law — today, or in the future?”

LADY GAGA’S NEW ALBUM trading at a steep discount.

OF COURSE SHE DID: Cynthia McKinney speaks in support of Khadafy on Libyan state TV.

PAWLENTY PREVIEWS his Presidential announcement.

ROBERT SAMUELSON: The economy is better than we think. “Although a recovery — as defined by academic economists — started about two years ago, it hasn’t felt like one. Of the 8.7 million payroll jobs lost in the recession, only 1.8 million have returned. The recovery rivals the slowest since World War II and faces continued threats. High oil prices. Europe’s debt crisis. Unexpected inflation. Washington’s bickering over the federal debt ceiling. All true. But it’s also true that the recovery seems increasingly self-propelled. Americans are shopping again, albeit with less fervor; exports are improving; companies are hiring. Massive government spending and the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates seem less crucial to growth. Although this is good news, the pervasive post-crisis gloom prevents us from acknowledging it.” Hmm.

UPDATE: A Wall Street reader emails:

What does it say about the Washington Post, that its economics columnist describes the current round of price hikes as “unexpected inflation”? Either the Post’s editors are stupid, their scribe is stupid, or they think their readers are stupid. I think I know the answer.

Well, it’s been “unexpected” for a lot of people, it seems.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Obama Throws Palestinians Under The Bus As World Hails His Courage. If I were the Israelis, I wouldn’t count on this. Or at least, I’d expect to wind up under the bus myself. But then, sooner or later that seems to be where everyone winds up . . .

Tangential question: The phrase “thrown under the bus” is used a lot with regard to Obama, but where did it originate?

UPDATE: Various readers send this link from Word Detective. And reader Adam Odak writes:

The expression “thrown under the bus” was originated by Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys. It occurred after a loss in which the entire team played poorly but ultimately lost on a last-second chip shot field goal miss by Lin Eliot. As the team bus was departing without Eliot, someone asked where he was. At that moment the bus went over a speed bump and Irvin famously quipped, “that’s him”. It lifted the team’s gloom and they went on to make the playoffs. Eliot was not on the bus because Jimmy Johnson had dismissed him after the game.

No link, though.

BECOMING A GREAT LAW PROFESSOR: “The highest achievement of a law professor today is creating a new concept or theory that is used widely by other academics in the field.”

Hmm. Well, I guess the Standard Model is the best I’ve done.

DANIEL DREZNER: “With all the doings in the Middle East, it’s easy to miss developments elsewhere. Let’s take a look at Eastern Europe, shall we? Like Belarus, in which the latest developments suggest a uniquely Belarusian path to misery.”

HMM: Sen. Boxer Again Tells ABA to Get Tough With Law Schools On Reporting Employment Data.