SO WHEN A FEDERAL JUDGE ARGUES FOR GUN BANS, I guess he’ll have to recuse himself on gun-rights cases in the future.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals. New stuff all the time.

FRANCE: After Dissing Depardieu’s Self-Proclaimed Tax Figures, French Government Forced to Admit That 85% Tax Is Entirely Plausible.

Related: While Depardieu Undergoes Criticism, Le Monde Contrasts the Star’s Current and Future Homes.

MEDIA: Senate resolution tells Village Voice to take down ‘adult entertainment’ section.

Lawmakers said that website, Backpage.com, ends up promoting child sex trafficking in the United States. . . .

“As news reports of pimps and traffickers using Backpage.com to advertise sexual services by minors continue to increase, we cannot leave our children defenseless,” Kirk said. “The profit-first mentality at Village Voice Media, which prioritizes the rights of pimps, not children, must end.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) co-sponsored the measure.

Won’t they think of the children?

21ST CENTURY BUSINESSES: Maker Mom Builds Cookie-Cutter Empire With 3-D Printers.

CHANGE: One Out of Every 6.5 Americans Is on Food Stamps. “The new all-time record number of recipients, 47.7 million (up from 31.6 million when Obama took office) exceeds the combined populations of Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.”

From Woodstock Nation to Food Stamp Nation. Forward!

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: ABA: Law Schools Admit More Non-J.D. Students to Offset Decline in J.D. Enrollment.

IN THE FLESH: The Embedded Dangers of Untested Stem Cell Cosmetics. I can see using untested stem-cell procedures for, say, liver regeneration. But cosmetics?

TURNING THE INTERNET into a closed shop.

A BAKING BLOG: Butter Me Up, Brooklyn!

HMM: Scientists Link Obesity To Gut Bacteria. “Obesity in human beings could be caused by bacterial infection rather than eating too much, exercising too little or genetics, according to a groundbreaking study that could have profound implications for public health systems, the pharmaceutical industry and food manufacturers. Researchers in Shanghai identified a human bacteria linked with obesity, fed it to mice and compared their weight gain with rodents without the bacteria. The latter did not become obese despite being fed a high-fat diet and being prevented from exercising.” Read the whole thing.

PREACHING Microbial Supremacy.

SO I MENTIONED THIS KITCHENAID MIXER the other day. We did buy it, and the Insta-Daughter used to to make whipped sweet potatoes the other night and pronounced it a winner. Haven’t tried to make butter, though.

SEE, THIS IS WHY PEOPLE hate Vegans. Not all of them are that self-righteous. But the 90% who are give the other 10% an undeserved bad name . . . .

FREEDOM: 35 Things That Were Banned In 2012.

HEH: White House Petition: Deport Piers Morgan. I say keep him at CNN, where he serves as an anchor for their brand. . . .

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Yes, there really is a Higher Education Bubble.

The big difference between the bubble metaphor as classically used and the bubble metaphor as applied to higher ed is simple: higher ed is a (mostly) non-profit industry. While colleges and universities issue debt (and with ratings agencies downgrading some higher ed institutions there is a small financial bubble in these securities that appears to be losing air), the higher ed bubble is less about profits and stocks than it is about capacity. We have built too much inefficient capacity in higher ed, and the bursting of the bubble won’t be manifested in a falling value of Yale stocks and bonds or of diplomas, but in a constricted hiring market, the closure of some institutions and painful contractions at others. It is also manifested in an excessive growth of student debt, much of which will not be repaid.

Just as some cities were more vulnerable in the housing bubble, so some departments and some programs are more vulnerable in higher ed. Just as some of the consequences of the housing bubble were felt quickly while others will work themselves out over an extended period of time, so some consequences of the higher ed bubble are already being felt while others will be with us into the future. Just as well managed, efficient construction companies were able to ride out the bust while highly leveraged and inefficient companies went under, so some higher ed institutions will manage the transition reasonably well while others will undergo great stress and even collapse. And just as people continue to need houses no matter what is happening in the housing market, so the business of earning and awarding diplomas will go on — even if methods change.

Look away from the difference between non-profit and for-profit industries, and higher ed looks to be in something very much like the early corrective phase of a classic boom and bust cycle. Overcapacity and over investment in some branches of higher ed is already leading to pressure to shift students out of the humanities and liberal arts and is likely to spread to law programs, where costs continue rising despite signs that enrollment may have already peaked. . . . Unrealistic prices and unrealistic expectations about how those prices will hold up; unrealistic investments predicated on unrealistic growth and revenue expectations; expensive structural inefficiencies developing over a long period of favorable market conditions exposing many firms to devastating losses if conditions change: these classic indicators of bubble dynamics all characterize American higher ed today.

Read the whole thing, which is in response to this post by Daniel Drezner that I had missed because it’s behind a paywall. But hey, Mead has responded, probably better than I would have, so I’m calling it a win!

CHRIS CHRISTIE criticized for establishment thinking, rejection of new ideas. “Claiming you’re resisting the ‘easy way’ when you refuse to do that is pure sophistry.”

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Appellate Court Affirms Dismissal of Placement Data Lawsuit Against New York Law School.

Plaintiffs allege that the disclosures cause them to enroll in school to obtain, at a very high price, a law degree that proved less valuable in the market-place than they were led to expect. We hold that defendant’s disclosures, though unquestionably incomplete, were not false or misleading. We thus affirm the dismissal of the complaint. . . .

We are not unsympathetic to plaintiffs’ concerns. We recognize that students may be susceptible to misrepresentations by law school. As such, “[t]his Court does not necessarily agree [with Supreme Court] that [all] college graduates are particularly sophisticated in making career or business decisions” (MacDonald, 2012 WL 2994107, at *10). As a result, they sometimes make decisions to yoke themselves and their spouses and/or their children to a crushing burden because the schools have made misleading representations that give the impression that a full time job is easily obtainable when in fact it is not.

Given this reality, it is important to remember that the practice of law is a noble profession that takes pride in its high ethical standards. Indeed, in order to join and continue to enjoy the privilege of being an active member of the legal profession, every prospective and active member of the profession is called upon to demonstrate candor and honesty. This requirement is not a trivial one. For the profession to continue to ensure that its members remain candid and honest public servants, all segments of the profession must work in concert to instill the importance of those values. “In the last analysis, the law is what the lawyers are. And the law and the lawyers are what the law schools make them.” Defendant and its peers owe prospective students more than just barebones compliance with their legal obligations. Defendant and its peers are educational not-for-profit institutions. They should be dedicated to advancing the public welfare. In that vein, defendant and its peers have at least an ethical obligation of absolute candor to their prospective students.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but a win’s a win and I’m sure New York Law School will take it. Just remember this stuff when you hear academics going off about greedy businesses that prey on consumers. . . .

WHY YOUR PHONE needs antivirus software.

GOOD: Horrible ACTA Treaty Dead In Europe.

AT AMAZON, one-day shipping until 3 pm ET today if you want it there by Christmas.

NUANCE: Hagel apologizes for calling diplomatic nominee ‘aggressively gay’ in 1998. Like gun owners, those people should know their place and act ashamed.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More On North Carolina’s No-Show Classes.

Athletics-related motivations are not to blame for the breakdowns within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of African and Afro-American Studies, in which hundreds of students — half of whom were athletes — received credit for no-show classes and benefited from unauthorized grade changes.

That was what one might call the positive takeaway from the latest investigation into the scandal, this one comprising two new reviews by former North Carolina Gov. James Martin and the management consulting firm Baker Tilly (both tapped by UNC). In laying all the blame on the department’s former chair and his then-assistant, the reports also cleared faculty in the department of any wrongdoing, and found that the bogus classes and grades do not appear to have extended to other departments.

But the news was far from all good for the university: evidence of erroneous classes and grades extends all the way back to 1997 — a decade earlier than UNC had previously documented — and it indicates that the number of courses that were not managed or graded properly is quadruple what UNC had previously reported. . . .

The entire inquiry into African and Afro-American Studies was prompted after a former tutor allegedly helped a football player plagiarize a paper for the class. Scrutiny of the role of athletics in the scandal exploded this year, following reports of star athletes with suspect transcripts, and of those courses sometimes being packed with athletes. Of the 54 suspect classes identified in an earlier review into the department (a fraction of the 216 identified in the new report), nearly two-thirds of the enrolled students were athletes, the News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

But Martin and his team found no evidence that administrators, coaches or tutors knew what was happening in the department or directed athletes to those classes in particular. They emphasized Thursday that athletes did not receive any added benefits beyond what other students in the classes got.

Word gets around. But remember this when people criticize online schools and other alternatives . . . .