EPISTEMIC CLOSURE in France. “According to a poll, 57% of the French public and 70% of French Socialists believe that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) was the victim of a set-up (I couldn’t find a gender split on the numbers). The French have an admirably long history of political intrigue. Yet, it seems a bit rich for Socialists to overwhelmingly take the side of the wealthy powerful politician with a history of sexual abuse allegations against what appear to be quite credible allegations of a poor Guinean refugee.” Actually I’d say it’s fairly typical. The more they talk about equality, the more they implement aristocracy.

MICKEY KAUS: “Was it a good idea for Democrats to kill off the Ryan plan by forcing a vote in the Senate? Once it’s clear the plan isn’t going anywhere, it’s not so scary anymore. Dems needed to keep the monster alive, no? . . . I’m not saying the Dems have lost the Medicare weapon. But the Senate vote has decreased the issue’s power–-when it was supposed to do the opposite. It seems like a classic misguided consultants’ play for short-term media advantage.”

HMM: “I always thought he would be useful.”

CHANGE: Stubborn Jobless Claims Just Keep Climbing Higher. “New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to 424,000 last week from a revised 414,000 in the prior week, pointing to a painfully slow improvement in the nation’s job markets.” Unexpectedly! Again!

But wait, there’s more: Q1 GDP Misses Expectations, Personal Consumption Unexpectedly Dives. There’s that word again.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Dismissing a Holdout Juror in the Middle of Deliberations Because “His Mind Is Bent . . . Against the Prosecution.”

COULD CONJOINED TWINS share a mind? “Brain imaging is inscrutable enough that numerous neuroscientists, after seeing only one image of hundreds, were reluctant to confirm the specific neuro­anatomy that Cochrane described; but many were inclined to believe, based on that one image, that the brains were most likely connected by a live wire that could allow for some connection of a nature previously unknown. A mere glimpse of that attenuated line between the two brains reduced accomplished neurologists to sputtering incredulities.”

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Judge Orders U. Va. To Release Climate Documents.

FATHER’S DAY GIFT IDEAS, in Kitchen, Home and Garden.

INSTAVISION: Summer of Liber-Tea: Getting the Party Started for 2012. I talk with the Utah Tea Party’s David Kirkham about what’s next for Tea Party activists. Including the amazing power of just showing up.

And here’s the Freedom Connector link he mentions.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, THE FEDS WOULD BE USING SECRET LAWS TO SPY ON AMERICANS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says. “Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a ‘dragnet’ for massive amounts of information on private citizens.”

Related: Patriot Act renewal too important to debate. Hey, Rube! Feel the change!

INDIANA: Time Running Short For State Corn Crop. “Barely half of Indiana’s corn crop for 2011 is planted and several million acres of seeds still must go into the ground with just a week remaining before Wednesday’s optimal planting deadline. However, rain and thundershowers keep peppering fields statewide, preventing heavy equipment from getting into the fields without damaging fragile and valuable soil.”

Related: Rain, wet fields wreck spring planting time. “Many of Ohio’s farmers are facing a crisis as record rains that fell this spring have prevented them from planting crops. As of the start of this week, only 11 percent of the state’s corn crop had been sewn, compared to the nearly 90 percent average for this time of year.”

UPDATE: G8 Warned Of Pending Food Crisis.

Related: Report: Government Decisions Fueled 2008 Food Crisis. ‘In 2008, the food crisis and especially the increase of the rice price was due largely to political choices.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Farmer-reader Bart Hall emails:

Glenn, just a couple of key things. “Optimal planting date” for corn is governed by when local weather typically becomes hot enough to threaten corn pollen, and therefore yields. What I suspect most of these guys’ll do is shift to beans (soybeans) because the planting window is a few weeks later. There is also more manoeuvring room with beans because you can always shift to a lower “number” bean variety, which will ripen in a shorter period of time, though yields will be somewhat weaker.

The corn supply problem, however, could be more or less solved by ending ethanol subsidies and eliminating requirements for its inclusion in the motor fuel stream. Very little corn is eaten by humans as corn — corn flakes, tortillas, corn meal, grits, and so on. The remainder is essentially an industrial feedstock, deconstructed into constituent components like corn-starch, corn-syrup, corn oil and so on to be used as ingredients in all manner of highly processed products of quite dubious nutritional value. The other major destination for corn is as a livestock feed, but usually only when it’s cheap, since least-cost ration formulation programs will readily identify appropriate substitutes if corn becomes too spendy.

Yes, the ethanol issue is behind most of this.

A. BARTON HINKLE: Big Brother Is Watching You: Overreaching law enforcement puts privacy rights at risk.

SCOTT JOHNSON: The Real Unemployment. “The mainstream media are so desperate to portray economic trends in optimistic terms that a lot of our current malaise is left unexplored. I think this is especially the case with respect to unemployment. The scope of the suffering created by large-scale long-term unemployment has somehow failed to register. The real unemployment will never get in the books, so to speak, at least so long as a Democrat is president and an election is looming.”

SMART DIPLOMACY: As Obama Ignores Latin America, Foes Rush In.

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER? “John Edwards was a cad, but that isn’t why he may be indicted.”

Mostly, I just remember how the press covered for him. Keep rockin’!

THE DREAMER GOES DOWN FOR THE COUNT: Walter Russell Mead on Obama and the Middle East.

I had never thought there were many similarities between the pleasure-loving Charles II of England and the more upright Barack Obama until this week. Listening to his speeches on the Middle East at the State Department, US-Israel relations at the AIPAC annual meeting and most recently his address to the British Parliament the comparison becomes irresistible.

“Here lies our sovereign king,” wrote the Earl of Rochester about King Charles:

Whose word no man relies on.
Who never said a foolish thing
Or ever did a wise one.

This seems to capture President Obama’s Middle East problems in a nutshell. The President’s descriptions of the situation are comprehensive and urbane. He correctly identifies the forces at work. He develops interesting policy ideas and approaches that address important political and moral elements of the complex problems we face. He crafts approaches that might, with good will and deft management, bridge the gaps between the sides. He reads thoughtful speeches full of sensible reflections.

But the last few weeks have cast him as the least competent manager of America’s Middle East diplomatic portfolio in a very long time.

Read the whole thing.

WILL CHINA HAVE AN ARAB SPRING? “China’s leaders should learn from what happened right next door, in South Korea. I’ll call it the Kimchi Revolution.”

AMERICA’S BUILDING the 21st Century mall.

JAY COST: “With Mitch Daniels having taken himself out of the GOP nomination battle, the field has come into sharp focus, and the view is not good for President Obama and the Democrats. If one were only to read commentary and analysis from the mainstream media, this would surely come as quite a shock, as the GOP field is usually portrayed as uninspiring and lackluster. But then again the MSM is often behind the curve when it comes to the Republican party, seeing as how most journalists and pundits do not identify with it or the modern conservative movement that animates it. Most are politically aligned with Obama, and so unsurprisingly they think his would-be Republican challengers are second-raters.”

INSIDE-THE-BELTWAY INSIDER TRADING: House members in the know score ‘abnormal’ stock profits, study says.

Well, this isn’t news. Then there’s the scandal at the Department of Education. And the one at the FDA.

CHANGE: Krauthammer argues for Paul Ryan in 2012, or GOP will ’sink’ on Medicare.

YOU CAN WIN A HUNDRED GRAND, with the Power Line Prize.

CHANGE: Key Jewish Donor Breaks With Obama. The first of many, I suspect.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Clothing.

IF BY “BARRY GOLDWATER,” you mean someone who is vilified by the mainstream media for no particularly good reason other than partisan politics, then yes. Thanks for helping, David.