HAVE BAD CARS GONE EXTINCT? That’s what technology and market competition will do for you. If allowed.

METAPHOR ALERT: No Shovel For Obama. “It was a rather odd sight: as an array of museum officials, including former first lady Laura Bush, took up shovels at the groundbreaking for the first national museum dedicated exclusively to African-American history and culture, the nation’s first black president sat watching, no shovel in hand. . . . Protocol does not seem to have played a role. Turns out, presidents throughout history have wielded shovels for groundbreakings.”

SCIENCE: Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results May Be Due to Bad Cables. See, when you build an expensive accelerator, you want to go with the Monster Cables. Sure, they cost more, but they save you a lot of embarrassment in the long run. . . .

COMPENSATION and blood donations.

STEPHEN GREEN IS drunkblogging the last GOP debate of 2012.

TECHNOLOGY: Deadly Avalanche Highlights Airbag.

The weekend avalanche that killed three skiers near Stevens Pass, Wash., was the single-deadliest such accident in three years, but it highlighted a safety device that likely saved the life of a fourth skier caught in the slide. Three skiers were buried alive in Sunday’s avalanche, which occurred outside the boundaries of the Stevens Pass ski resort. Skier Elyse Saugstad, however, had time to deploy her “avalanche airbag backpack” as the onrushing wall of snow struck.

Well, good.

AT AMAZON, top deals on HDTVs and video.

INSTAVISION: The Three Principles That Make The Tea Party Tick. I talk with Prof. Elizabeth Price Foley, author of The Tea Party: Three Principles. What the Tea Party is about, why it’s winning, and why it’s okay that there’s not a Tea Party Candidate for President this time. Plus, a Bearded Spock appearance.

INFOGRAPHIC: A guide to Mad Men bed-hopping.

I MISSED THIS THE OTHER DAY: How Starbucks Became The Darling of American Gun Owners. “In states that allow open carry for licensed gun owners, Starbucks has refused to put up signs in protest – though some other businesses have. Gun-control advocates have started a boycott, but gun owners are answering with a ‘buycott.'”

Well, Starbucks should be rewarded for refusing to bow to bigots.

BESTSELLERS IN digital photography and video.

BROKEN PROMISES: President’s Estimates Versus Actual Unemployment After Stimulus.

GOOD: Researchers discover what cancer cells need to travel. “Researchers have identified two key proteins that are needed to get cells moving and have uncovered a new pathway that treatments could block to immobilize mutant cells and keep cancer from spreading, said Richard Cerione, Goldwin Smith Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine.”

CRONY CAPITALISM (CONT’D): Documents show Obama’s FCC used regulatory muscle to destroy LightSquared’s competition.

NICK GILLESPIE: Three Ways To Take Birth Control Out Of The Presidential Race.

FASTER, PLEASE: Experimental Drug Helps Prevent Brain Injury.

IF THE ECONOMY’S IMPROVING, why is dependency on the government growing? If you’re selling big government, that’s an improvement.

COULD GAS PRICES hit five dollars a gallon?

NICE WORK, SQUIRRELS. OH, AND SCIENTISTS. Russian Scientists Grow Pleistocene-Era Plants From Seeds Buried By Squirrels 30,000 Years Ago.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Your Car Is Spying On You, But For Whom?

Cars equipped with telematics systems such as OnStar or Hyundai Blue Link have two-way links to service providers that relay GPS data. The operators of these services do, indeed, have the ability to see where you are, how fast you’re going, and what state your car is in mechanically. They can also track and remotely disable a stolen vehicle. The Nissan Leaf uses a similar two-way connection to regularly send data on usage and location to Nissan, which the company uses for future electric vehicle development. But these services aren’t supposed to work without driver permission. The car can initiate a call in an emergency situation, such as when an airbag is deployed, but otherwise the driver must authorize an external connection to the vehicle.

Companies have been caught snooping, though.

They’ll keep it up unless it’s too expensive.

OUT: “OPERATION CHAOS.” IN: OPERATION EQUILIBRIUM. I don’t actually think this is a good idea, or that a brokered convention would be good for anything except pundit fantasies.

LOUIS WOODHILL: Gasoline isn’t going up — the dollar is going down. Plus this: “Right now, the threat posed by rising gasoline prices is not just to family budgets. An even greater danger is that the government will use escalating oil prices as an excuse to do something stupid.”

HE’S A SCIENTIST — you can’t expect him to be good at math: “If Gleick obtained the other documents for the purposes of corroborating the memo, why didn’t he notice that there were substantial errors, such as saying the Kochs had donated $200,000 in 2011, when in fact that was Heartland’s target for their donation for 2012? This seems like a very strange error for a senior Heartland staffer to make. Didn’t it strike Gleick as suspicious? Didn’t any of the other math errors?”

UPDATE: Judith Curry on Gleick’s “Integrity.” “The end result of Gleick’s actions are to cede the high ground to Heartland, especially in light of the fact that Heartland had invited Gleick to a debate shortly before the theft of the documents occurred.”

EAT MORE TURMERIC? Curcumin Boosts Neurogenesis In Aged Rats. Any way, it’s hard to argue with this: “What we really need: Ways to make younger and healthier stem cells that can be injected into the body in various places as we age.”

CHANGE: Buyers hang on to new cars longer than ever.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I’ve listened to the stats for over two years now. I am guessing there are quite a few guys like me. My household income is comfortably in the top 2% for the nation (hey, it’s Northern NJ. You need to make $250k just to own a house around here. Well, NOW you do…). I drive a 1998 Ford Explorer. The sport model. I’ve owned it since it was new and it’s got 160k miles on it. My wife has the “new” car, bought in 2008 when our first child was born. It’s a Toyota.

I’m a dirty finance guy, so I guess that means I should driving a BMW (Audi is the car of the last 5 years, actually). When your income is tied to the fortunes of the market and the country as a whole, current “riches” do not entice you to overspend. My house is also modest, and it makes me sad to see people who overextended themselves being given all sorts of second and third chances to stay in a house they never deserved in the first place.

Keep my name off it if you choose to comment me.

Punishing virtue and rewarding vice — that’s the policy these days.