BRENDAN O’NEILL: “You couldn’t have asked for a better snapshot of the chasm that divides today’s so-called expert classes from the mass of humanity than the snow crisis of Christmas 2010. They warn us endlessly about the warming of our planet; we struggle through knee-deep snow to visit loved ones. They host million-dollar conferences on how we’ll cope with our Mediterranean future; we sleep for days in airport lounges waiting for runways to be de-iced. They pester the authorities for more funding for global-warming research; we keep an eye on our elderly neighbours who don’t have enough cash to heat their homes. . . . Anyone with a shred of self-respect who had predicted The End Of Snow would surely now admit that he was wrong. But no. Perhaps the most revealing thing about the snow crisis is that it was held up as evidence, not that the experts were mistaken, but that the public is stupid.”

TODAY ONLY: Elliptical Trainer sale. This one might actually fit in my basement.

I HAD HOPED TO MAKE IT DOWN AND COVER THIS, BUT ALAS, I COULDN’T: Decommissioned U.S. Navy ship scuttled off Cayman Islands to create artificial reef. But maybe I’ll get down there later in the year and do a video dive report.

Meanwhile, here’s a nice pre/post sinking video from the folks at Sunset House.

UPDATE: Reader M.C. Parsons writes:

As a 22 year old Lt. I was the Chief Engineer of the Kittiwake. The video brought tears – the last to go down was my stateroom.

She was commissioned in 1946 as a forward sub tender. She worked on the recovery of the Challenger and picked up quiet a few sunken air craft. One sailor had a bumper sticker that read, “Fly Navy, divers need the work”.

When visitors asked me, “What’s a Kittiwake” I always quipped, “Its what you get when you drag a cat through the water.” That always pissed the skipper off.

Thanks for sharing the video.

Heh. It’s always sad to see a ship retired, but this is a better home than being broken up. She’ll bring pleasure to many people — and fish.

BLIZZARD FAIL UPDATE: New York City’s No-Show SEIU Snow Jobs. Will Bloomberg do anything?

PUBLIC PENSION UPDATE: Assembly bill caps public worker pensions.

Spooked by the University of California’s pension revolt – in which its highest paid executives are threatening to sue unless UC fattens their retirement benefits – a Democratic state lawmaker introduced a bill Thursday to prevent all public employees from gaining dramatically increased pension benefits.

And Republicans are applauding.

“You’re witnessing a moment of bipartisan joy,” said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-San Bernardino, vice chairman of the Higher Education Committee. “I’m ashamed that I didn’t think of this myself.”

The UC executives, some of whom earn more than $700,000 a year, want their pensions calculated as a percentage of their full salary, not just the first $245,000, the cap imposed by the Internal Revenue Service.

Read the whole thing. And expect to see more of this sort of thing in coming years.

“IF WE GOT TO FIGHT, WE GOT TO FIGHT:” Pistol-packin’ manager answers robber with hot lead.

Dihanna McCullock says she is a fighter, and Thursday she proved it. Two men, one armed with a knife and one with a gun, attacked her. She always wears a gun on her hip for protection, and she says there is no doubt it saved her life. . . . McCullock carries ‘the Judge’ in a holster. It’s a pistol that shoots a shotgun shell as well as .45 caliber bullet. McCullock said the robber’s bullet just grazed her right arm. She fired back a shotgun blast at point blank range.

Are you sure you hit him? “Yes, I’m positive. I’m positive. I’m a good shooter. Definitely a good shooter. My husband taught me well.”

The two robbers took off running, dropping her wallet and the knife.

John McCullock says he taught his entire family to shoot, and he is proud of his wife. “If we got to fight, we got to fight. I’m glad that she did.”

The Judge is a revolver by Taurus, popular with judges for under-robe wear.

SCIENCE: Lice DNA Study Shows Humans First Wore Clothes 170,000 Years Ago. “A new University of Florida study following the evolution of lice shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, a technology which enabled them to successfully migrate out of Africa. . . . The study also shows humans started wearing clothes well after they lost body hair, which genetic skin-coloration research pinpoints at about 1 million years ago, meaning humans spent a considerable amount of time without body hair and without clothing, Reed said.”

GREAT MOMENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL FASHION HISTORY.

STACY MCCAIN: Best. Republican. Scandal. EVAH!

WELL, THIS IS ENCOURAGING: With The Dollar In Freefall, The System Is Breaking Down. “What Hazlitt knew, and Nixon didn’t, is that inflation has great momentum. The price level can withstand significant monetary abuse, but once inflationary expectations cement they are impossible to dislodge without extreme economic and political pain, as Ford, Carter, and Reagan soon discovered. The similarities between then and now are obvious.”

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader writes:

The dollar has RALLIED eight percent since the November election. Seems Europe and Japan have bigger problems than we do.

I wonder if that’s a positive sign or not . . . .

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR: Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter Demands Evidence of White House Corruption, Gets It.

UP TO 54% OFF ON Blu-Ray and DVD.

CHANGE: Internet Freedom Alert: Obama Admin Pushing Ahead Today with Dangerous “Internet Trusted Identity” Scheme.

UPDATE: Reader Bill Rickords emails:

That guy is right about the Feds getting into the “trusting” part. And Intels new motherboard and chips are the lynchpin in this. Called – South Bridge – They have a hard coded chip level anti copy thing that any info the TV and or Movie or RIAA folks label will simply be refused to run at the chip level and there is nothing you will be able to do. Software cant route around it. Nasty stuff.

And he is also right about the right and this anti neutrality trope that has been foisted out and about by ATT, CBS and all the other media as “regulating the net” is rubbish. ATT sent out memos to their troops to call Neutrality “regulation” and they knew the Right would glom onto that word and run with it. They are the ones that want to control the speed and most importantly they absolutely have to control “ACCESS” none of their business models work without controlling BOTH access and content. They want to control and sell the speed of your access and by prioritizing bits and letting them through the pipes based on who pays up first and most. Neutrality has nothing to do with “regulating” the net. It says they can’t do that. Best to try and keep the net as a utility open to all.

They’ve already deployed the most effective copy-protection of all from my perspective: They don’t make anything I’d want to copy anyway. But here’s my FCC Testimony on “network neutrality.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader sends this correction:

The reader email you published from Bill Rickords has one error that should probably be corrected. While Intel does make technology that could help enforce the “Trusted Identity” scheme, the name for that technology is not South Bridge, it’s Trusted Computing. A “south bridge” is simply a chip on the motherboard that helps with
input/output functions — *any* input/output functions. (The “north bridge” is the chip that delivers data from memory to the processor; the names come from the traditional diagram layout, where the processor is drawn at the top of the diagram, the “north bridge” chip below it, and the “south bridge” chip even further down the diagram). Just because a motherboard has a “south bridge” chip on it does *not* mean that it can enforce what you do with your PC; the name you want to look for there is the so-called “Trusted Computing” scheme.

Whatever it’s called, I don’t like it. If my computer doesn’t belong to me, why am I paying you for it?

A READER SENDS THIS QUESTION FOR SOME REPORTER TO ASK OBAMA: Q: If you were in the Senate today, and knew that the vote to raise the debt ceiling was going to pass, would you give a similar speech blaming a lack of leadership and vote no?

This is Obama in 2006.

GLOBAL SPAM LEVELS decline dramatically.

VERIZON FINALLY LANDS THE IPHONE.

ANDREW CUOMO, LIVING IN SIN! “The Cuomos are a famously Catholic family. They use that to their political advantage at every turn.” Well, sure, when it’s to their advantage. That doesn’t mean it should stop them from doing what they want, though. What is this, the 17th century? But Professor Bainbridge opines: “Living in sin is bad enough. Living in sin with fake fairy godmother Sandra Lee is beyond the pale.”

At least he’s not living in sin with Sara.

UPDATE: Reader Randy Wilde writes: “What do you mean, ‘at least’? NOBODY doesn’t like Sara Lee!” Well, that’s my point. If it were Sara, we’d all be jealous.

THE PALEO RODEO: A Paleo-diet blog carnival.

READ IT AGAIN, JOHN: “I thought it was a good idea for the Constitution to be read aloud on the floor of the House of Representatives as that body kicked off its new session. The reading reminded those present of the contents of our fundamental law and symbolized a commitment to adhere to that law. But what seemed like a good idea turned out to be a great one. For instead of good naturedly going along with the exercise, or suffering in silence, a number of leftists publicly displayed their lack of comfort with, if not contempt for, the Constitution. Thus, the public received its clearest indication to date that the left regards the words of the Constitution as an impediment to its agenda.”

CORRECTING PAUL KRUGMAN on Texas. That’s not a subject on which I’d expect Krugman to possess any particular degree of expertise.

MICHAEL WALSH: The Rising Dictatorship Of The Bureaucrats.

CORNEL WEST IS BACK: “I do have some sympathy for West here, though, because I think PC folk have failed — over a long period of time — to give him the feedback that would have kept him from developing this absurdly inflated style of speech, with its danger of missteps like this, and the self-serious demeanor that makes his mistakes especially funny.”

REDSTATE: Gov. Pat Quinn (D, IL) about to destroy IL Amazon affliliates? I should note that the State Rep. who wanted to do this in Tennessee — a long-time incumbent — was handily defeated last November. But that’s why Tennessee is Tennessee . . . and Illinois is Illinois.

UPDATE: And Tennessee is getting a big Amazon distribution center. “Gov. Phil Bredesen termed Amazon’s announcement ‘a strong endorsement of Tennessee’s business climate.'” Take that, Illinois! (Thanks to reader Charles Browning for the tip. I didn’t know this.)

IN DEFENSE OF THE USELESS UNIVERSITY. I think that knowledge for its own sake is great. I just don’t think it should be purchased with massive quantities of borrowed money. And I’m betting that Socrates would have agreed. A Ferrari is beautiful, too, but we don’t encourage 18-year-olds to mortgage their futures for one. Meanwhile, I’m not so sure that the flow of academics from other countries to the U.S. disproves the notion that the U.S. is experiencing a higher education bubble. Rather the contrary, I would think.

UPDATE: Reader Tim Maguire writes:

Agreed that knowledge for its own sake is a good and valuable thing and I also think every university education should include a certain amount of it, but building a course of instruction around the humanities is a luxury of the affluent. The rest of us need jobs. So if we want to promote the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, then we should promote the affluence that will allow people the luxury to pursue it.

Yes, the humanities originally flourished under rich patrons. Now they need a rich society. Yet, interestingly, folks in the humanities tend to argue against policies that promote a wealthy society.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.