JENNIFER RUBIN: Losing a Repeal Vote, But Winning The War Against ObamaCare. Key bit: “Every Democrat in the Senate is on record as supporting the health-spending bill, even as a growing chorus of Americans are calling on them to repeal it. And every Republican in Congress has now kept their promise to the American people — even as the bill’s implementation continues to break the promises Democrats made about what the bill would do.”

IN THE MAIL: From Andy Kessler, Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs.

CONFIRMED: Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey free again: “I am ok. I got out. I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated , my car ripped apar& supplies taken . . . will tell the story later . Thank you all. I just need to rest now.”

INSTAVISION: I talk about the Obama Administration’s new approach to civil defense, and how it resembles the old approach. (Bumped).

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: 42.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? And The List Of Drug Shortages Keeps On Growing…

JENNIFER RUBIN EXPLAINS THINGS TO THE CIVICS-CHALLENGED: Supreme Court Justices Aren’t Bloggers.

BAYH AND BENNETT: Sainted moderates reap lobbying bucks.

BOB CORKER has introduced his new spending-cap bill. Among other things, it would “Put in place a 10-year glide path to cap all spending – discretionary and mandatory – to a declining percentage of the country’s gross domestic product, eventually bringing spending down from the current level, 24.7 percent of GDP, to the 40-year historical level of 20.6 percent.” I’d prefer 18 percent, but I’ll take this if I can get it.

ON SALE, TODAY ONLY: Deadwood: The Complete Series.

REPORT: Egyptian Blogger Sandmonkey Arrested?

UPDATE: And he’s reportedly been freed now. Stay tuned.

SAY IT AIN’T SO: The ever-increasing cost of education is not sustainable.

Higher education in America, historically the envy of the world, is rapidly growing out of reach. For the past quarter-century, the cost of higher education has grown 440%, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Education, nearly four times the rate of inflation and double the rate of health care cost increases. The cost increases have occurred at both public and private colleges.

Like many situations too good to be true–like the dot-com boom, the Enron bubble, the housing boom or the health care cost explosion–the ever-increasing cost of university education is not sustainable.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

The funny thing about the higher ed bubble not being “sustainable” is that you can’t walk 5 feet on any college campus right now without hearing the word “sustainable.” It’s this decade’s “diversity.”

Please withhold my name. As you can see, I’m in the bubble, too.

Yes, most campuses even have an “Office Of Sustainability” now. Which is ironic, since the very existence of those offices is a sign of a hothouse environment that is, ultimately, unsustainable.

NARRATIVE FAIL (CONT’D): Groups Whose Quotes Used By Soros Group to Attack Glenn Beck, Repudiate Anti-Beck Effort. “Over the past few days, three of the groups used to corroborate the false charges raised by Jewish Funds For Justice have repudiated the letter arraigned by the George Soros proxy. All three weren’t contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided. Not surprisingly the only group/person not raising some objection to the letter has an association with George Soros.”

UPDATE: EXCLUSIVE: Holocaust historian’s quote used to slam Beck without permission.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: A Perfect Storm For Wheat. “The global wheat market is caught between freezing winds and a sirocco. Prices, up 13% since the start of December, likely will keep rising.”

AN OBAMACARE WAIVER SUGGESTION: Reader Mike Reinhardt emails: “Congress should offer a most-favored-nation type of amendment to ObamaCare–where all companies and organizations get the benefit of any waiver given to any of them. Simple fairness.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION? Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February.

TRANSPARENCY, ALL RIGHT: Dems object to GOP gov’t transparency probe. “Some Democrats in Congress objected Wednesday to early steps taken by the new Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to conduct a broad inquiry into President Barack Obama’s promises to improve government transparency.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Did SEC Staffer Surf Porn While Investors Got Burned? “A former regional supervisor at the Securities and Exchange Commission missed an alleged $550 million Ponzi scheme that was unfolding at the same time he was caught accessing pornography on his office computer, according to a report obtained by CNBC.”

JAMES TARANTO: “Death Panels” Revisited: How Sarah Palin helped defeat ObamaCare’s deceptive advertising. “Obama ran for office on opposition to the individual mandate, then made it the centerpiece of his signature legislative initiative. Perhaps this should have been ‘lie of the year.’ At PolitiFact.com, it wasn’t even a runner-up.”

That’s because PolitiFact has mostly been about PoliticalCover.

EGYPT AND THE GROWING PROBLEM OF GLOBAL INFLATION. “So the next time someone tells you that the US Dollar and the policy that backs it doesn’t matter to the price of the Number One food staple for 3 billion of the world’s people (rice), forward them the math. Risk managers like me wouldn’t be perpetuating higher food prices by trading them with a bullish bias if we didn’t fully expect American policy makers to let its currency burn.”

UPDATE: Reader Stu Wagner emails:

Isn’t this an intelligence failure on the magnitude of WMD in Iraq? The French, Germans, Russians, Egyptians (especially the Egyptians!), and our CIA, all got it wrong. The difference being that as a result, Bush emancipated a country. Here, Obama may lose one. I’m waiting for this story on the cover of the NYT.

“Waiting” being the operative term.

THE IMPORTANCE OF drawing the line between “rape” and “bad sex.”

And some related thoughts here, from after the Hofstra bogus rape allegations. Not to be confused with the Duke bogus rape allegations. “We’re told that such situations are rare, but nobody really knows. . . . I’ll note that — as in this case — many of those innocent men in jail are probably black, and they’re there in part because white feminists have made even the notion of skepticism unacceptable in the discussion of rape allegations.”

UPDATE: False Rape Accusations Are Not Rare.

PJTV: Clueless in Cairo? Do US Leaders and Journalists Understand Egypt? Plus, Roger Simon calls for Geraldo Rivera to be canned.

UPDATE: Gerard van der Leun on how people think.

WHO LOST EGYPT? “This is a massive collapse of our intelligence establishment and our diplomatic corps.” Well, Egypt isn’t lost yet. But the failures of the establishment are certainly apparent.

ROBERT SPRINGBORG IN FOREIGN POLICY: Game Over: Mubarak will hold on.

While much of American media has termed the events unfolding in Egypt today as “clashes between pro-government and opposition groups,” this is not in fact what’s happening on the street. The so-called “pro-government” forces are actually Mubarak’s cleverly orchestrated goon squads dressed up as pro-Mubarak demonstrators to attack the protesters in Midan Tahrir, with the Army appearing to be a neutral force. The opposition, largely cognizant of the dirty game being played against it, nevertheless has had little choice but to call for protection against the regime’s thugs by the regime itself, i.e., the military. And so Mubarak begins to show us just how clever and experienced he truly is. The game is, thus, more or less over.

Well, maybe. Meanwhile, are the pro-Mubarak goon squads the equivalent of SEIU goons? As far as I know, the SEIU doesn’t own any camels.

SO THE HOPEFUL PHASE OF THIS REVOLUTION SEEMS TO HAVE PASSED: Anti-Mubarak Protesters Scream for “Jihad” While Attacking other Egyptians.