KATIE GRANJU IS AGAINST pretrial diversion for the well-connected. “I will be sure Judge Sword is aware that, via her own admission on tape that I will provide to him if he would like to hear it, this drug dealer knew for hours that my teenage son was in critical condition, likely dying inside the house trailer of two other drug dealers, yet she chose to do nothing. She did not call 911. She did not call one of Henry’s family members. She did nothing. And she knew exactly what was going on.”

BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: “Obama is not just Obama, he is a machine. Romney is not just Romney he is now the only defense against the Obama machine.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: CheaterVille Has The Scoop On LGBT Infidelity Data.

FROM POLITIFACT TO POLITISPIN? Romney campaign says 92.3% of the jobs lost under Obama were women’s jobs. Politifact says the number’s right, then scores him “mostly false.”

From the comments: “They’re too embarrassed to have a ‘true but damaging to our preferred candidate’ category.”

UPDATE: Reader Myk Zagorac writes:

Check out the grade they gave to Obama’s oil production claims here where they end with the bit “The suggestion of the ad, however, overstates the administration’s role in achieving these results. Much of the increase in production during under Obama has come from state and private lands that the president does not control.”. Yet they gave that claim a “mostly true” rating. How hypocritical!

Hacks. And another reader emails:

Not an unusual phenomenon lately. Take a look at what the did to Governor McDonnell. Half true after they say “he’s right on the numbers”

“McDonnell said Republican governors head seven out of 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates, providing proof that the GOP has a better record on jobs than Democrats.

He’s right on the numbers, but on shaky ground when he insists Republican stewardship has brought those results.”

It’s like they’re determined to make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad or something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “Perhaps it should instead be called Politiflack.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Hot water rising for Rep. Miller, son. “Rep. George Miller, D-CA, has cultivated a reputation for honesty and high ethical standards, but that image may suffer amid revelations about two cases in which he and his lobbyist son came to the aid of powerful campaign donors and troubled California companies.”

Background: Miller helped three of lobbyist son’s clients.

ALEXIS MADRIGAL: It’s Technology All The Way Down. “To be human is to be a user (and maker and remaker) of technology.”

PREVENTING COLLISIONS with cars that can share information.

AT AMAZON, loads of new coupons.

ZIMMERMAN CHARGED WITH SECOND DEGREE MURDER, turns himself in.

AND PERHAPS LIFE CAME TO EARTH THE SAME WAY, FROM MARS: The Amazing Trajectories of Life-Bearing Meteorites From Earth.

About 65 million years ago, the Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a mass of well over a trillion tonnes. We now know the immediate impact of this event–megatsunamis, global wildfires ignited by giant clouds of superheated ash and, of course, the mass extinction of land-based life on Earth.

But in recent years, astrobiologists have begun to study a less well known consequence: the ejection of billions of tonnes of life-bearing rocks and water into space. By some estimates, the impact could have ejected as much mass as the asteroid itself.

The question that fascinates them is what happened to all this stuff.

Today, we get an answer from Tetsuya Hara and buddies at Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan. These guys say a surprisingly large amount of Earth could have ended up not just on the Moon and Mars, as might be expected, but much further afield.

In particular, they calculate how much would have ended up in other places that seem compatible for life: the Jovian moon Europe, the Saturnian moon Enceladus and Earth-like exoplanets orbiting other stars.

Somewhere, Fred Hoyle is smiling.

BALTIMORE POLICE CHIEF: Black Crowd’s Assault on White Tourist Not Hate Crime. Just “drunken opportunistic criminality.” Well, that’s a relief.

SPACE EXPLORATION: Revisiting the old humans-vs.-robots argument. It’s fine to explore with robots. But space exploration isn’t very important if we’re not ultimately going to colonize. If it’s just for the science alone, then I’d rather put the money into biomedical research or something else with a more tangible payoff.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Well Does Scotch Age in Zero Gravity? A Distiller Launches Some to Find Out.

WORLD’S FASTEST RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR. In junior high, my friend Steve Proffitt wrote one that was faster, because it contained only one line of actual code. It just always output the number 43, because, as he explained to the stunned instructor, “43 is the most random number. It has a randomness coefficient of 1.” Everyone who was there still remembers this great moment for science.

AT AMAZON, up to 65% off on sunglasses.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Everybody’s Worried Now. “A year ago, the notion that Smith College — with a $1 billion endowment, high student demand, and frequently cited educational quality — was raising existential questions, particularly about its economic model, seemed a fairly radical notion. But an idea that seemed striking in the past — that elite liberal arts colleges might have to make significant changes in the next few years if they are to remain relevant (or present) in the current educational market — is now the hottest topic in the sector.”

DAVID BRIN ON TECHNO-OPTIMISM AND TECHNO-PESSIMISM:

Is the bold future of our youth being killed by gloomy science fiction? Or has Sci Fi grown more dour as a reflection of our mood? Glenn Reynolds interviews authors Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge in a thought-provoking inquiry: Why We Need Big, Bold Science Fiction: “While books about space exploration and robots once inspired young people to become scientists and engineers—and inspired grownup engineers and scientists to do big things—in recent decades the field has become dominated by escapist fantasies and depressing dystopias.”(Hey… I’m TRYING, dammit!)Almost as if deliberately proving the point, TED speaker Paul Gilster rails against techno-optimism in a desperately wrongheaded essay that really should be read in order to understand the problem with today’s well-meaning left. Paul does us all a disservice by conflating a multidimensional landscape with a digital, either-or choice – confusing “optimism” with complacency.

Indeed. Here’s the column he’s referencing.

SPIN: WaPo skews presentation of a poll on the Obamacare case to bolster the argument that the Court should defer to Congress.

Only 25% of Americans — random Americans, not likely voters — want the law upheld in its entirety. 67% want it stricken down in whole (38%) or in part (29%). But the WaPo article on the poll is headlined: “More Americans expect Supreme Court’s health-care decision to be political.” On the is-it-law-or-politics question, 50% think the Court will go mostly on partisan politics, and only 40% think the Court will do what it purports to do and decide the case based on the law (or even mainly based on the law).

Do you see what WaPo is doing there? Highlighting the answer to the is-it-mostly-political question serves the agenda of those who want the law upheld.

Much more at the link.

SYSTEMS AND FAILURE: Why We’re Still Learning The Lessons Of The Titanic.

Major disasters often occur after such long, uneventful stretches. Before the partial meltdown of the reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979, no U.S. nuclear plant had experienced a serious accident for 25 years. Similarly, before the blowout of the BP Macondo Prospect well in April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig had gone seven years without a serious mishap while drilling some of the deepest wells on the planet. “When you think you have a robust system, you tend to relax,” Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke University, tells Popular Mechanics. Over time BP and its contractors began to cut corners: Alarms that would have warned of a gas leak were silenced, safety checks canceled. The blowout preventer—a last-ditch device intended to shut off a runaway well—was only partly functional. And workers were constantly urged to drill faster. That kind of culture invites trouble.

This phenomenon was the subject of an excellent article by my colleague Greg Stein recently.

WELL, UNLESS YOU’RE ALLERGIC, I GUESS: Dogs Lower Workplace Stress.

HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR INCOME IN A YEAR: “Last month, I reached a milestone. A year and three months after I got downsized, I was making over twice what I was making at the job that downsized me. Apparently, getting downsized was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

INTERVIEW WITH TSA SCREENER reveals “fatal flaws.” Yeah, I know, dog bites man.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Hans Bader: Staggering Law School Debts Will Lead to Exploding Debt Disaster for Graduates and Taxpayers.

ANTITRUST: Why Is Apple Getting Cored In Washington?

HOW DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION WORKS: Saddled With Social Costs, French Car Makers Bid Adieu To Domestic Manufacturing.