GLORIA ALLRED SEIZES ANY WEAPON TO HAND. I don’t think you want to invoke these Victorian-style statutes in an era of Bill Maher, but go ahead.

Plus, Eugene Volokh schools Allred on the actual law involved. That’s not her area of expertise. She’s more like a game-show host.

Meanwhile, I’m amazed nobody’s ever complained about Gloria to the California Bar. Or maybe Gloria is vulnerable to a class action suit. Kind of a media “toxic tort” action. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Steve Schubart writes: “I can’t get in trouble for calling Gloria Allred an attention whore, can I?” Truth is a complete defense.

THIS IS SAD: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theatre Dead at 72.

NASA BOSS SAYS Mars will be colonized by private ventures, not government. “Dr. Simon Worden, director at NASA Ames Research Center, told The Register that the agency was firmly enmeshing itself with the private sector, citing cooperation on the Dragon capsule being developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX team as a good example. NASA developed a heat shield material called PICA (Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), capable of withstanding 1850 degrees Celsius (3360 degrees Fahrenheit), and gave it to SpaceX, who manufactured it. . . . This kind of cooperation has a long history, he pointed out. The age of discovery that led to the European colonization of the New World was funded by governments and royalty, while the process of getting out there, subduing the locals who were living there at the time and colonizing places, was a largely private operation.”

SOMEWHERE, ANDREW BREITBART IS SMILING: Louis C.K. drops correspondents’ dinner after conservative outcry. “Louis C.K. has pulled out as host of the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Assn. Dinner following conservative complaints about the comedian’s past comments about Sarah Palin.”

Good. I wouldn’t want President Obama to have to explain this to Sasha and Malia.

Now what about Bill Maher? Among others.

Breitbart image comes from here.

And, by the way, is there a page somewhere that collects all the comedians and lefty talk-radio hosts who’ve used sexist and scatological language about Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, etc? It might come in handy.

UPDATE: “What will happen to all the left-wing comedians after all the attention to Limbaugh’s ‘slut’ controversy?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The left’s respect for women: a look back.

THE RISE OF COUNTER-ROCKET TECHNOLOGIES. “Counter-rocket technologies have vexed the military in recent years, despite myriad efforts at developing an effective system. But the Pentagon’s giving yet another rocket-destroying system a try. This one’s called the Accelerated Improved Intercept System, or AI3. Earlier this week, the Army awarded manufacturer Raytheon a $79.2 million contract to develop the apparatus. And the Pentagon wants the job done fast: They’re hoping to test the device in a mere 18 months.”

MORE ON SPACE DEBRIS: Lockheed’s Space Fence Prototype Starts Tracking Space Junk With Advanced Radar.

REASON TV: Remy: Cough Drops-The Mandate (featuring Sandra Fluke).

MORE BLOWBACK: BOYCOTTING LOUIS CK FOR HIS MISOGYNISTIC LANGUAGE ABOUT SARAH PALIN:

Another pig….and a media association has hired the pig, Louis C.K., to be their headliner for the big media dinner? Really? I am not going. I refuse to go. Everyone in the media should join me in this boycott. . . .

Here is a sample of what he said about Governor Sarah Palin and you tell me whether any member of the media should sit in the crowd while he speaks to them:

Louis C.K. says of Palin: “her f*** retard making c***” and “the baby that just came out of her f**** disgusting c***.”

To Palin: just “stick your t** in its mouth and shut up.”

And here is more: ”…her f***** retard making c****”

Need more to convince you? Here is what he says on twitter:

“I want to rub my father’s c*** all over Sarah Palin’s fat t***”

By the way, there is more, lots more.

How would President Obama explain this to Sasha and Malia?

More from Melinda Henneberger in the Washington Post.

If Obama can’t hang out with comedians who have used vile sexist language against Sarah Palin, he’s not going to be hanging out with many comedians. But maybe he should have thought of that before he inserted himself into — or, more accurately, drummed up — this affair.

UPDATE: Reader Donald Gately writes:

My prediction: The Fluke story will be dead by the end of the weekend. The narrative is shifting again, as it becomes obvious to everyone that for every 1 liberal woman who has been maligned, conservatives can show 20 non-liberal women who have been maligned in much nastier terms. And without a peep of protest from self-proclaimed feminists and defenders of womankind.

For this reason, I suspect that this story is about to drop off of the news as even the thickest people at MSNBC and CNN realize that this “issue” is turning against the Democrats. Just like the OWS thugs.

Yeah, have you noticed that it’s only people on the right who are still following the Occupy movement?

THE NEXT WAVE IN TSUNAMI SCIENCE.

Last year’s earthquake and tsunami was a catastrophe for Japan — but a problem averted for Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, partly due to luck and partly due to the success of long-range tsunami tracking. Now researchers are working to bring that success closer to home.
If a similar ocean wave were to target the U.S. coastline in the future — and seismologists say that’s only a matter of time — the emergency response should be much improved, thanks to the lessons learned from last March’s super-tsunami.

Well, good.

DUELING HEADLINES.

CONDI RICE: The Promise of Russia’s Urban Middle Class. “Putin has staked his legitimacy on prosperity and order, but he seemed not to understand that a prosperous population would demand respect, too. In declaring that he would be president again and then engaging in election fraud during the December parliamentary voting, he insulted the Russian people. Many are fed up with a political system that sometimes behaves more like a natural resources syndicate than a national government.”

BEST SPACE STORIES of the week.

BRYAN PRESTON: Is Sandra Fluke An Op Being Run From The White House?

HOMELESS BY CHOICE: How To Live For Free In America.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Won’t Christian Men Date Women Who Go To Their Church?

THIS IS DISTURBING: ISDA Says Greece In Default, CDS Will Trigger.

UPDATE: Various Wall Street readers say this was expected, and is as good an outcome as could happen.

AT AMAZON, warehouse deals in Grocery & Personal Care.

#GREENFAIL: Government-subsidized green light bulb carries costly price tag.

The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.” There was also a “Buy America” component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.

Now the winning bulb is on the market.

The price is $50.

Retailers said the bulb, made by Philips, is likely to be too pricey to have broad appeal. Similar LED bulbs are less than half the cost.

That’s okay, they’ll just force people to buy it. It’s the American way! Meanwhile, there are still some incandescents left, but when they’re all gone, that’s it.

TOM MAGUIRE: Scouring the NYT archives on Critical Race Theory: Joel Pollak 6, Soledad O’Brien 0. “I think we can count on the NY Times to present critical race theory in as gauzy and flattering a focus as possible, so let’s see how they described it over the years.”

UPDATE: Reader Erik Andersen writes: “Saw the latest post on Critical Race Theory. Reminded me of this law review note.”

SPACE: Researchers suggest magnetic anomalies on the Moon are the result of asteroid collision. “In the nearly five decades since the first lunar surveys were conducted as part of NASA’s Apollo program, scientists have advanced a number of increasingly complex theories to explain the vast swaths of highly magnetic material that had been found in the some parts of the Moon’s crust. But now a team of researchers from Harvard, MIT and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, have proposed a surprisingly simple explanation for the unusual findings – the magnetic anomalies are remnants of a massive asteroid collision. As described in a paper published March 9 in Science, the researchers believe an asteroid slammed into the moon approximately 4 billion years ago, leaving behind an enormous crater and iron-rich, highly magnetic rock.”

FIVE HIGH-TECHNOLOGY Space-Junk Solutions.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Narrowing The New Class Divide.

HOPLOPHOBIA: OMG! Shotguns Shells! In A Church! Near Children! OMG!

MORRIS DEES BECLOWNS HIMSELF: The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Now Writing About Pickup Artists as Hate Groups. “Take note, America: Having consensual sex (Roosh is not a rapist, but a seducer) with someone you don’t actually like and then never calling her/him again will land you in a reputation-ruining SPLC report.”

Ah, but it’s not your reputation the report will be ruining. . . .

Plus, from the comments: “SPLC goes from fighting George Wallace to fighting Tucker Max. Can you get any more pathetic?”

And: “Also, I’ll wait and see if SPLC goes after Playboy for the ‘Top 10 Conservative Women We’d Like to Hate Fuck’ feature they ran on their website a couple of years ago.” It’s not hate when it comes from Democratic contributors.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “A professor at one of the most expensive universities in America comes out in favor of more government support for higher education. Waddy expect from a former Enron adviser? But the innumeracy here is troubling.”

I doubt that Krugman will seize on this argument, but if you price college tuition in gold things don’t look nearly so bad . . . .