SILKWORMS HACKED to spin spider-like silk.

AT APPLE, A FINAL CUT FIASCO THAT HAS PRODUCERS LEAVING FOR AVID. Why do software companies do stuff like this again and again and again?

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Artificial molecular motor controls molecular transformation.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: China Cringes As North Korea Thumps Chest.

DAN MITCHELL: New Unemployment Numbers Are Good News for the White House, but the Silver Cloud Has a Dark Lining. “If the unemployment rate drops because hundreds of thousands of jobs are being created each month, that’s obviously good news. But if the jobless rate falls because the government estimates that lots of people have become discouraged and dropped out of the labor force, then that’s not good news.” Well, it is if nobody notices.

Related: James Pethokoukis: What the plunging unemployment rate really means for Obama’s reelection. “Those headline economic numbers are terribly misleading, hardly reflecting the devastation most Americans still see every day. An 8.5 percent unemployment rate? Please. If the size of the U.S. labor force was as large as it was when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.9 percent. But since so many people have gotten discouraged and stopped looking for work– and thus disappeared by government statisticians — the jobless number has been artificially depressed. A better gauge of the jobs picture is the broader U-6 rate, which includes part-timers who would rather have full-time jobs. It stands at a whopping 15.2 percent.”

UPDATE: Even over at MSNBC, 58% say the economy isn’t improving.

ANDREW CUOMO’S BIG IDEA: Building a Convention Center? In Queens? Okay, I thought Knoxville was behind the curve when the city fathers jumped on the Hey, let’s build a convention center and bring in lots of outsiders with money boom back in the previous century. And I was right. But Cuomo’s way, way behind the curve. And while Queens is a perfectly nice place, it’s not a glamor destination. This just looks like another white-elephant politicians’ project. What’s sad is that by the standards of New York politicos, Cuomo’s considered smart and innovative.

SO ALL OF A SUDDEN, a bunch of people on Facebook are sharing this article: No, You Can’t Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much.

Reminds me of this Robert Heinlein quote:

It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please — this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!

So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)

Still good advice.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on flashlights.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Being There: The Obama Sequel.

THE OTHER REASON EUROPE IS GOING BROKE: DIRIGISME:

Even Europe’s best-performing large country, Germany, is about 20 percent poorer than the U.S. on a per-person basis (and both countries have roughly 15 percent of their populations living below the poverty line). While Norway and Sweden are richer than the U.S., on average, they are more comparable to wealthy American microeconomies like Washington, D.C., or parts of Connecticut — both of which are actually considerably wealthier. A reporter in Greece once complained after I compared her country to Mississippi, America’s poorest state. She’s right: the comparison isn’t fair. The average Mississippian is richer than the average Greek.

Europe is undergoing not one but two simultaneous economic crises. The first is a rapid, obvious one — all about sovereign debt, a collapsing currency and austerity measures — that we hear about all the time. The second is insidious but more important. After decades of trying, Europe as a whole still can’t quite figure out how to be flexible enough to compete in the global economy.

Europe hasn’t tried all that hard to be flexible, because flexibility generally comes at the expense of power on the part of the political/managerial class.

PAYOLA POLITICS: DOJ Steers Countrywide Settlement Cash To Leftist Groups With Dem Ties. “The untold story of the Obama Administration’s widely reported, $335 million discrimination settlement with Countrywide Financial Corporation is that, under a secret Justice Department program, a chunk of the money won’t go to the ‘victims’ but rather leftist groups not connected to the lawsuit.”

GREG LUKIANOFF: Clear campus rules needed on ‘harassment.’

THE CONTRARIAN VIRGINIA POSTREL: How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy.

MEDICINE: Technological Healing. “A leading researcher says digital technologies are about to make health care more effective. But is so much data really beneficial?”

#ABAPRFAIL: ABA President Has Little Sympathy for Unemployed Law Grads. That’ll play well.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does The First Amendment Protect Your Right To Speak For A Living?

HANS VAN SPAKOVSKY: The White House Is Wrong – The Senate Conducted Business During Its ‘Recess.’

FROM GARY TAUBES, a response to that New York Times piece on obesity and weight loss that I linked the other day. “In the past decade, clinical trials have repeatedly demonstrated that when obese and overweight individuals consciously restrict the carbohydrates they eat, but not calories, they not only lose weight, on average, but their heart disease and diabetes risk factors improve significantly. Their insulin resistance, in effect, resolves. Those of us who have lost weight ourselves and witnessed the effect of these diets on our patients can confirm that this is exactly what happens.”

And note how the government has caused America’s obesity problem. Plus, a roundup of dietary advice. Plus, the truth is out there.

CLEVER BOOK OF THE WEEK: Gay Men Don’t Get Fat. Not sure that’s true, though.

UPDATE: Reader Mike Billings writes: “Uh, two words: Barney Frank.”

SEEING A CHILD LIKE A STATE.

In the early 20th century Helen Todd, a factory inspector in Chicago, interviewed 500 children working in factories, often in dangerous and unpleasant conditions. She asked children the question: “If your father had a good job and you didn’t have to work, which would you rather do—go to school or work in a factory?” 412 said they would choose factory work. One fourteen year old girl, who was interviewed lacquering canes in an attic working with both intense heat and the constant smell of turpentine, said “School is the fiercest thing you can come up against. Factories ain’t no cinch, but schools is worst.”

The recent expansion of the “ASER-like” simple assessments of literacy and numeracy skills of all children in a village based approach provides an accurate, and chilling, picture of just how little learning is going on inside schools in many poor countries. The ASER data can show the learning profile, the association of measured skills and grade completion, by showing what fraction of children who have completed which grade can read a simple story (expected of a child in grade 2) or do simple arithmetic operations. Take Uttar Pradesh in 2010. By the end of lower primary school (grade 5) only one in four children could divide. Even by grade 8, the end of upper primary only 56 percent could. Similarly, by grade 5 only 44 percent could read a level 2 paragraph and by grade 8 still only 77.6 could. A large plurality of children, even of those that had persisted and been promoted through eight full grades or primary school—roughly 8000 hours of available total instruction—were either illiterate or innumerate or both.

Even these children can however see the disparity in accountability between them and their teachers. The regular civil service teachers in Uttar Pradesh are massively privileged: making over three times the market wage, no accountability, not even to show up for work, and able to mistreat students with impunity. Data from the 2005 India Human Development Survey (Desai, Dubey, Vanneman, and Banerji 2008) show that 29 percent of parents report their child was “beaten or pinched” in government schools in the previous month. Worse, a child from the poorest group of households is almost twice as likely to be beaten or pinched in a government school than a child from the richest group of households. This is in contrast to private schools which show no income favoritism in beating. Studies consistently find absence rates of regular teachers in government schools in UP around 25 percent—not to mention low rates of effort when in attendance.

Fire ’em and privatize. For the children.

A WARNING FROM CANADA FOR THE GOP: Don’t ignore the grassroots. “The key is what happened from 1984, when our McCain-Romney figure (Mulroney) took over, until 1993, when his party essentially disappeared. On two fronts, Mulroney ignored his base.”

GLENN GREENWALD ASKS, if Reynolds was evil in 2007, why isn’t Barack Obama evil now? Indeed. Especially since I was just blogging, and Obama is actually, you know, killing people. It’s like all that anti-war stuff was just cheap partisan posturing or something.

Meanwhile, here’s my original post, which Greenwald doesn’t link, natch. And here’s my response to critics at the time, where I note that I was in line with a succession of Democratic figures. And, apparently, anticipating the Era Of Hope And Change. More here.

MASSACHUSETTS: VOTERS NOT ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET FOR JOE KENNEDY III. “Joseph P. Kennedy III’s bid to become Camelot’s newest knight, with a run for the congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, drew swift warnings yesterday — Massachusetts voters don’t want a coronation, and the Kennedy name isn’t the shining armor it once was. Some Republicans even welcomed the idea of a Kennedy in the race — just the thing to energize this blue state’s GOP and bring in vital donations.”

Best quote from Kennedy so far: “Dude, I’m at work.”

BYRON YORK: Is New Hampshire too white, too old, too godless?