LOOKING FOR UNCLE LEO: Eric Muller writes: “I’m pretty sure you’ve read over the years that I’ve spent time trying to piece together what I can of the life of my great-uncle Leo who was deported and murdered by the Nazis in 1942. It came to my attention fairly recently that the Nazis actually FILMED my great-uncle’s deportation … but the movie (surprise!) disappeared after the war. It would be incredibly meaningful to me if I could find the movie. To that end, I’ve made a little youtube video of myself explaining about my great-uncle and the deportation and the movie and asking young Germans to help me locate it (if it still exists tucked away in an attic somewhere). I’m 100% convinced that crowd-sourcing and social media are the only ways something like this could possibly turn up. I speak German in it but if you click on the “close captioning” button it plays with English subtitles. Would you be willing to post this on Instapundit and ask your readers to brainstorm ways of getting it on German social media?” Done!

PAINFUL TRUTH: A Small Business Owner Explains the Hard Facts of Obamacare to Employees.

REVERSE-PANOPTICON: Logging Life with a Lapel Camera: A startup believes people will want a photographic record of their lives, taken at 30-second intervals.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LAST NIGHT: Sarah Hoyt: Get Off The Floor.

WAPO: SNICKERING AT DAVID BROCK, MEDIA MATTERS.

AT AMAZON, Bestsellers in Movies & TV.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY: My Popular Mechanics Column: Our Intellectual Property Laws Are Out of Control.

THE LETHALITY OF LONELINESS.

DON’T PICK ON MILLENNIALS: Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON LAUGHTER: “Are they laughing at you or laughing with you? Your brain can tell the difference.”

THE HILL: Top Dem Tax Writer Calls For IRS Officials To Resign. “The ranking Democrat on the House’s tax-writing committee on Wednesday called for two senior officials at the IRS to step down over the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) said the acting commissioner of the IRS, Steven Miller, and Lois Lerner, who runs the IRS’s section on tax-exempt organizations, should resign.”

LIKE PMS FOR MEN: Irritable Male Syndrome. Hmm.

FLASHBACK: Emails reveal Justice Dept. regularly enlists Media Matters to spin press.

Also: Emails Show Holder Justice Department Colludes with Lefist Outfit to Attack PJM Writer.

GARY LIBECAP: Save The Fish.

PAUL HSIEH: Did The White House Try To Get A Conservative Columnist Canned? “According to Dr. Milton Wolf, the answer is ‘yes.’ And he should know, because the columnist was him.”

POLITICO: Behind The Curtain: DC Turns On Obama. “Obama’s aloof mien and holier-than-thou rhetoric have left him with little reservoir of good will, even among Democrats. And the press, after years of being accused of being soft on Obama while being berated by West Wing aides on matters big and small, now has every incentive to be as ruthless as can be. This White House’s instinctive petulance, arrogance and defensiveness have all worked to isolate Obama at a time when he most needs a support system.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: “The real scandal is that all these complicated tax rules exist. If we would just eliminate the corporate income tax, then people could organize groups, or not, just as they please. And the IRS would not be in the position of deciding what counts as excessive political activity.”

TEXAS: GLOBAL GREEN ENERGY PARAGON!

Yes, you’re reading that graph right. Texas—oil hungry, SUV-driving, fracking-friendly Texas—reduced its carbon emissions more than the usual green suspects of California, Germany, and Europe. The Energy Information Administration released a report yesterday full of emissions data for the fifty states over the first decade of this century. The state with the biggest absolute emissions reductions: Texas.

Not only are total and per capita emissions down deep in the heart of Texas, but its economy is producing more dollars per unit of carbon dioxide emitted (a metric known as the “carbon intensity” of the economy).

Despite the reductions, Texas still has higher carbon emissions than any other state. Greens are seizing on this fact as evidence that the Lone Star State is environmentally derelict, but focusing on the total emissions rather than the sharp downward trend misses the larger point: Texas is finding ways to become more carbon-efficient without gutting its energy industry.

Except for the greens, I think gutting the energy industry is the real goal. Carbon emissions are just the tool.

AND YET THEY SEEM NO CLEANER: The Administration’s Taking a Big Bath on Scandals. “I confess, when I woke up this morning, I half expected to find that Obama had confessed to being one of our lizard overlords, or made an offhand mention of the time he’d had the CIA price out a drone attack on Mitt Romney’s headquarters.”

AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling cookware.

Also, today only: Sex & the City: The Complete Collection (Deluxe Edition), $74.99 (57% off).

MEDIA MATTERS: If the DOJ is investigating you, you probably deserve it, you hacks.

Related: The US Dept of Justice is apparently the paramilitary wing of Media Matters.

UPDATE: The Atlantic: Why Eric Holder’s Excuse for Spying on Reporters Isn’t Enough.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun: Announcing Online Masters Degree in Computer Science in Collaboration with Georgia Tech and AT&T.

JIM TREACHER: “The only difference between this week and every other week for the last 4 years is that for once we’re not the only ones paying attention.”

JAMES BOVARD: A Brief History of IRS Political Targeting. “The IRS has usually done an excellent job of stifling investigations of its practices. A 1991 survey of 800 IRS executives and managers by the nonprofit Josephson Institute of Ethics revealed that three out of four respondents felt entitled to deceive or lie when testifying before a congressional committee. The agency also has a long history of seeking to intimidate congressional critics.”