TOP RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES ARE LEAKING MILITARY SECRETS:

For 15 days in late 2009, Internet users in 36 countries, including China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, viewed sensitive information about U.S. weapons technology that was supposed to be for American eyes only.

The disclosure, which prompted a rebuke from a U.S. State Department official, came from a Georgia Institute of Technology course for federal employees and contractors on infrared technology used in weapons-aiming systems for aircraft, ships and tanks. Asked by instructor David Schmieder to copy the course onto a DVD, Georgia Tech’s media staff instead uploaded it to servers.

“I completely forgot the course’s access was restricted,” Media Quality Control Supervisor Edward Bailey told university investigators, according to documents obtained from Georgia Tech through a public-records request.

The lapse by Atlanta-based Georgia Tech illustrates how colleges and federal arms-control regulators are often lax in enforcing Americans-only limits intended to prevent theft of military technology from U.S. campuses. Even as they enroll more graduate students from countries such as China and Iran, universities are conducting more research that is restricted to American citizens and permanent residents because of its national-security implications. Foreign governments are targeting universities to “obtain restricted information or products,” the FBI said in a 2011 report.

But is this all just a tempest in a teacup?

TALENT ISN’T EVERYTHING: Five Secrets to Freelance Success.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Middle class dysphoria – What does the new American Dream look like? Inflated college tuition, lower home ownership rates, and compressed wages.

UPDATE: Reader Leith Tidwell writes: “I wonder what possible BFD might have happened two years ago that caused incomes to stagnate? Anyone? Anyone?”

COMING SOON: An Amazon Smartphone?

The smartphone hardware business is a tough racket, especially because most mobile phones in the U.S. are sold at carrier stores and kiosks, and not purchased online. But it’s worth noting Amazon’s strong (and unique) advantage in hardware merchandizing: It already sells physical goods. To everyone. From shoes to cameras to camping stoves, it’s probably the world’s most trusted source in online sales, and, just as it does with the Kindle Fire, it can push an advertisement for an Amazon smartphone to everyone who hits its front page.

It’s a marketing advantage that no one can touch.

An Amazon smartphone — fully integrated with Amazon storefront features — would also fit nicely into the company’s stacked ecosystem. The Kindle Fire does a fine job of goosing digital download sales, but it’s not the device consumers carry all the time. The Fire isn’t always within arm’s reach. So imagine, instead, a truly mobile hardware device that would provide dead-simple hooks into the Amazon buying experience, 24-7.

Well, the phone world is overdue for a shakeup.

HOW TO MAKE PROGRESS AGAINST CLUTTER. With a strong recommendation for The Hoarder in You. by Robin Zasio.

CLAIM OF LIBEL AGAINST A JUDGE gets surprisingly sympathetic treatment from court.

OVERPLAYING IT A BIT? Football spiked: Obama to address nation on Bin Laden anniversary live from Afghanistan.

Remember when people said it was Republicans who were trying to distract America from domestic economic problems with foreign wars and jingoism?

INSIDE THE FIRST production-ready electric airplane. It’s actually a hybrid.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 Ways To End A Sex Drought. Really I would have thought “get out of the house” was obvious, but apparently not . . . .

AT AMAZON, cookbooks for grilling and barbecuing.

#OCCUPYFAIL: Cleveland Bomb Suspects Part Of OccupyCleveland. But “not representative,” of course. Well, it’s not like they were Tea Partiers so don’t expect this to get a lot of coverage.

UPDATE: Jim Treacher has screenshots from their Facebook pages. They look pretty representative to me . . . .

Plus, Treacher comments: “Remember, everybody: Whenever an Occupier commits a crime, he’s not really an Occupier. All Occupier crimes are completely unrelated incidents, because shut up.”

ANN ALTHOUSE ON ELIZABETH WARREN AND DIVERSITY HIRING:

But you see, in faculty hiring, the question isn’t whether this particular candidate is good enough. The question is why does this person with excellent credentials get selected from the pool of applicants who all have excellent credentials? Why did Warren move up the ranks of the law schools the way she did?

Her identification as a member of a minority group in the Association of American Law Schools directory would help. Why are the schools reticent about saying that they consider minority status a plus factor in hiring? Why aren’t they out-and-proud about diversity? Law schools have fought for the proposition that diversity is a compelling state interest, justifying racial discrimination. . . .

Is this reticence about the decency of affirmative action happening here because they want to help Warren in her Senate race? Is it because if she didn’t really have that factor going for her but the schools used it, then… well… who, really, is hurt? Who was the next person in that pool of applicants? No one knows. Look away.

Hey, but who else might be cheating, claiming minority status that’s not really true? Now, now, you’re not supposed to think about that. It’s quite unseemly, isn’t it? Impolite.

Whenever possible, impoliteness is substituted for argument. Best that some subjects just not be brought up at all. Plus, some related thoughts from John Rosenberg.

UPDATE: More from Orin Kerr and Brian Leiter.

THE SHRINKING LAW SCHOOL: “The critics of legal education are right.”

MEMORY AS A CONSUMER DURABLE. “People often shrink from driving to a distant, promising restaurant, flying to a new country, trying a new sport–it’s a hassle, and the experience won’t last that long. That’s the wrong way to look at it. When you go bungee jumping, you’re not buying a brief experience: You’re buying a memory, one that might last even longer than a good pair of blue jeans. . . . A corollary: if memory really is a durable, then you should buy a lot of it when you’re young. That’ll give you more years to enjoy your purchase.”

I followed that advice, and I’m glad.

JALOPNIK: Holy Crap! How Did Anyone Survive This Explosive Audi Crash? “Judging pictures of gnarly car crashes is sort of an occupational hazard around here, so it’s with some authority that we say this is the worst car crash we’ve seen someone survive in five years (probably since this).”

SORRY, BUT MIKE BLOOMBERG IS THE LAST GUY ROMNEY SHOULD BE COZYING UP TO. What would it take to make me vote for Obama? An awful lot, but Bloomberg on the ticket might do it . . .

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark says I’ve got this all wrong:

I’m LMAO at this story. My reading of it is that Bloomberg is so radioactive that in secret is only way that Romney can huddle with the mayor of NYC. Savor it. Proof that Bloomberg is a troll: the mayor of NYC stinks so badly that Romney can only meet him in secret.

P.S. If true, kissing the troll may have more to do with ferreting out intent of third party mischief via Americans Elect 2012 or other means.

Good points all.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY ON Ray LaHood’s Cellphone Obsession. And deficient math skills. . . .

SEVEN TIPS to help you move anything.

DAMON ROOT: Affirmative Action And the Supreme Court.

CITY LIVING LEADS TO more coronary artery calcification.

ROGER SIMON: Obama’s New Nomenklatura.

A REPORT FROM SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY: Meet The People Who Are Building Our Future.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Beyond Austerity.

TODAY, observing Victims of Communism Day. “The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so.”