SUDDENLY, IT’S OFFENSIVE TO BE OFFENDED.

JOHN STEELE GORDON: George Orwell, Call Your Office.

Intellectuals, especially in the social sciences, have a nasty habit of thinking that, ‘This is the way the world should be, therefore this is the way the world can be.’

Sometimes the mind just boggles.

The Atlantic has an article this month with the title “Americans Want to Live in a Much More Equal Country (They Just Don’t Realize It).” I am always curious when intellectuals announce that the people (who in the American constitutional system serve as the sovereign power) don’t know what’s good for them (What’s the Matter with Kansas?) or don’t even know what they want.

Implicit in all of these revelations, of course, is the firmest, if never directly expressed, belief of the Left: That the average person is too stupid to run his own life, let alone make public policy decisions. Those few, those happy few, that band of liberal intellectuals, must do that for them.

Well, just look at their successful track record!

BASED ON QUESTIONABLE SCIENCE, Paul Quinn College bans pork in dining halls. Including bacon. Bacon!

WELL, JUDGES DON’T HAVE TO STAND FOR ELECTION: Despite GOP protests, 9th Circuit to go through with costly Hawaii conference. “The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told Senate Republicans late last week that it would go through with a conference in Hawaii later this month, despite GOP complaints that the conference could cost $1 million or more at a time of fiscal crisis.” Also, that’s like, what, a week’s cost for Air Force One?

ANOTHER FAKE HATE CRIME: Man who claimed he was beaten for being gay admits he made it all up after police receive video of him hitting HIS OWN head after back-flipping off a curb.

FINANCES: U.S. Debt Just Grew by $11 Trillion. “Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap — the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness — rose by $11 trillion.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bernanke Just Assured That The Student Loan Bubble Will Be The Next “Financial Stability Issue.”

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama And The Damage Done. “As noted before, I began my career in the Foreign Service during the Carter presidency, and ended it during the Obama presidency: two horrific bookends.”

SO, WHY ISN’T USING SEX TO CON AN OLD MAN OUT OF $775,000 as bad as rape?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do Female Authors Dominate Young-Adult Fiction?

RICHARD KAHLENBERG: The University of Texas’s Weak Affirmative-Action Defense.

REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS! (LOCAL EDITION): La. film tax break program needs limits, budget group says. “Louisiana has spent more than $1 billion over the past decade to attract movie productions to the state, but hasn’t received much in return besides the prestige of hosting big-name Hollywood actors, according to a report released today. The left-leaning Louisiana Budget Project suggests state lawmakers should put tighter limits on the generous film tax break program, lessening the credits offered and capping the amount of money it can cost the state each year.” Actually, it should be abolished, as should similar programs in almost every other state. And this is something state Tea Party groups might even make common cause with lefties on.

RIPPING OFF TAXPAYERS: The California State Sport.

HEY, WHERE’S THE “BARACK OBAMA, MURDERER” COMMERCIAL? Another Fast and Furious gun surfaces in murder plot.

UTAH: America’s Utopia?

A new Gallup poll confirms what we already suspected at Via Meadia: despite incessant insinuations in the MSM that life among the Latter Day Saints could be anything other than a hell on earth, Mormon Utah is the most pleasant state in the union to live in. More than half a million Americans were asked to assess the states using a range of metrics from availability of good jobs to workplace relations to standard of living to optimism about the future, health, and education quality . . . . Contrary to what we’ve seen in the NYT, the tolerant, hard-working Mormons in Utah seem to be doing just fine, judging by many Americans’ standards. Perhaps Mitt Romney shouldn’t hide his Mormonism but confidently own it and be proud of his religion’s focus on values, strong communities, public service, and compassion for the poor and sick.

Doesn’t fit the narrative.

JAY COST: The Race Is Romney’s To Win.

GREEN CRONYISM: E-mails about clean-energy loans provide new details on White House involvement. “President Obama’s staff arranged for him to be personally briefed last summer on a loan program to help clean-energy companies, two months before the program was thrust into headlines by the collapse of its flagship, the solar com pany Solyndra, records show. About the same time, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley resolved a dispute among administration officials over another project in the program, clearing the way for a $1.4 billion loan, according to documents and sources familiar with the situation.”

BRYAN PRESTON: Why Team Obama Ran with the Dishonest ‘Mitt Killed My Wife!’ Ad. “As I wrote yesterday, we’re dealing with something in the Obama campaign that we haven’t seen much at the top of American life, except in the worst moments of the Clinton era. We’re dealing with a president who is entirely without any sense of ethics, honor or morals. He has lived a lie for most if not all of his life, hiding his true political convictions in gauzy language that makes him appear reasonable and moderate. Having lived a lie, what’s one more lie, in the service of keeping himself in power?”

HAS THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN finally gone too far? It’s only August. They’ll top themselves several more times before November.

AT AMAZON, Digital Deals.

CAN THAT OBAMA AD BE A BIGGER FAIL? YES IT CAN! Joe Soptic, the Anti-Romney Cancer Ad Steelworker, Admits Bain Capital Offered Him a Buyout (Video).

RULE OF LAW: Obama Ignores Own Executive Order On Gitmo Detainee Rights.

PROF. JACOBSON: Elizabeth Warren daughter secretly behind effort by Mass to register 500k welfare recipients (Update – Court docs added).

THESE ARE OFFICIALLY APPROVED VIOLENT MOBS: White House told authorities not to crack down on ‘Occupy’ protesters, documents show.