STACY MCCAIN ON THOSE WHO DON’T GET THE NEW JOURNALISM.

SPACE: The Case For Alien Life.

FOR PEOPLE WHO TAKE “GOING PALEO” REALLY SERIOUSLY: Larvae Breeder, Coming to a Kitchen Near You.

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON Jeff Bezos’ WaPo purchase.

Also, you can buy her The Substance of Style on Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Highly recommended.

THE SCAPEGOAT SPEAKS: Imprisoned “Innocence of Muslims” producer Nakoula Nakoula: ‘I want the world to see the truth.’

UPDATE: From the comments:

By the way — Nakoula Nakoula is in hiding, through no fault of his own. George Zimmerman is in hiding, through no fault of his own (because the police questioned him, they let him go, and then the politicians decided that wasn’t good enough). The Benghazi survivors are in hiding, through no fault of their own.

Is this the hallmark of the Obama era?

It seems to be. How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 89.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE / SMART DIPLOMACY UPDATE: Germans’ Fear Of American Spying Surges.

TITLES OF NOBILITY: California Public Employees’ Magical Immunity To Traffic Tickets.

If you dream of never paying another traffic ticket for the rest of your life, become a government employee in California. The OC Register reports that, thanks to a long obsolete program, hundreds of thousands of drivers in California can run red lights, drive down toll lanes without paying, and park illegally—with total impunity.

Those drivers have special license plates that were introduced 30 years ago to ensure police anonymity and protection; cars bearing them are registered without any home address appearing on DMV records. They eventually became unnecessary once laws were passed making all DMV information confidential. But the plates have since become a widespread perk of government employment: hundreds of thousands of judges, district attorneys, jail guards, National Park Service rangers, city council members, city attorneys, lawmakers, and other officials who face little threat of being targeted by criminals now enjoy the privilege. . . .

Officials can pass the plates to spouses and children, keep them when they retire, and can even retain them for three years after switching to private sector work. And government oversight is so ineffectual that protected plates have been obtained by people with no connection whatsoever to government employment. One woman with the plates was found not to be a government employee nor related to one. She committed 411 violations without penalty.

It seems that in blue California, some people are more equal than others. Our guess is that similar shenanigans are taking place in other states, red as well as blue. Journalists should be on the lookout for routine abuses of power like this. If not exposed and kept in check, the culture of entitlement behind them will grow, feeding higher level corruption.

Laws are for the little people. So why should the little people respect them — or those whose authority derives from them — either?

BRAD SMITH: The IRS Attack On Political Speech. Only some political speech . . . .

DATING ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM: What it’s like to look for romance when “a big smile can be frightening.”

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Also, up to 50% off on guitars. Electric and acoustic.

And, today only: Save 35% on Popchips.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: For some, college not worth the debt. My latest USA Today column for today is up.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE / SMART DIPLOMACY UPDATE: Drone strikes kill militants in Yemen; Americans urged to leave.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PANICKED EMBASSY CLOSINGS: White House: ‘Core’ of al Qaeda remains ‘greatly diminished.’

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES WARNED ABOUT EMBASSY ATTACKS FOR MONTHS: “Why Is This Coming Out Now?”

UPDATE: Note this: “An intelligence official said the controversial NSA programs that gather data on American phone calls or track Internet communications with suspected terrorists played no part in detecting the initial tip.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: How Obama Got The Al Qaeda Threat So Wrong.

DEMOCRATS PUSHED TODD AKIN, TOO: Democrats Push Tea Party Primary Challenger to Mitch McConnell.

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE ANTI-SCIENCE, DO YOU? New study links arming teachers with more polite students.

JAMES TARANTO BUSTS THE DAILY NEWS: True ‘Lies:’ A New York tabloid has trouble with the distinction.

In this case, what Friedman describes as a lie is no such thing. Nor is it a joke, or even an inadvertent falsehood. It is a true statement, and Friedman acknowledges as much. His dispute is over its implications, not its accuracy.

The comment in question was part of what Friedman describes hyperbolically as “a war between the states”–actually a verbal argument between the Big Apple’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the Old Dominion’s Gov. Bob McDonnell. Bloomberg “railed”–Friedman’s verb–that a plurality of firearms used in New York City gun crimes came from Virginia. “We’re getting killed, and we’re getting killed with guns . . . from elsewhere,” moaned the mayor.

Whereupon “the office of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell tried to turn the tables, arguing that Virginia’s ‘homicide and robbery (rates) are significantly lower than New York City’s.’ ” A McDonnell spokesman “stood by the governor’s claims, and made a city-to-state comparison, noting that New York City’s murder rate (5.1 per 100,000) was higher than the state of Virginia’s (3.9 per 100,000).”

Virginia’s murder rate is 23.5% less than New York’s, which certainly seems to us to be “significantly lower.” And Friedman concedes the accuracy of these figures. His dispute is over how to interpret them.

Of course. One must establish the narrative first. By the way, what kind of guns do Bloomberg’s bodyguards carry?

THAT’S WHAT EQUALITY MEANS: I get a lot of emailed press releases from GWU prof. John Banzhaf, but this one takes the cake: Gay Couples May Be Pressured into Marriage: Benefits May Be Terminated for Unmarried Same-Sex Couples. Well, yes. Just like straight people!

UPDATE: Mayo Clinic employees must marry to keep getting same-sex partner benefits.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Obama Who?

Critics of the president are convinced that Barack Obama will do lasting damage to the U.S. I doubt it.

Obama came to power in the third year of large Democratic congressional majorities. In his first referendum, he lost the House and may soon lose the Senate; in other words, there followed a somewhat normal reaction against a majority party. Obama’s popularity rating is well below 50%, despite an obsequious media, and a brilliantly negative billion-dollar campaign that long ago turned Mitt Romney into a veritable elevator-using, equestrian-marrying, canine-hating monster.

In the second term, there is little of the Obama bully pulpit left. “Make no mistake about it” and “let me be perfectly clear” can incur caricature, not fainting. “Really,” “I’m not kidding,” “I’m serious,” “in point of fact,” and “I’m not making this up” often prove rhetoric hints that the opposite is true. When Obama warns about gridlock in Washington, the “same old tired politics,” the dangers of a tyrant or king in the White House, the need for an honest IRS, or the perils of government surveillance, these admonitions have tragically become a psychological tic to warn us about himself. Former jokes about siccing the IRS on his enemies, or using Predator drones to go after suitors of his daughters are as eerie as comedic. . . .

Americans are always up for a good class war. Obama gave them one, with all the talk of the “one percent”, “millionaires and billionaires”, and the “pay your fair share” boilerplate. But to be a good class warrior also requires the pretense of populism. Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich were at least not habitués of Martha’s Vineyard, did not make second homes out of tony golf courses, did not have the family jetting to Aspen and Costa del Sol to take time off with those who forgot when to quit their profiting. How can a president so rail at the 1% and yet so wish to play, vacation, and be among those who didn’t build their wealth?

The president’s signature achievement? He has established a precedent that the president can play all the golf he wishes without being caricatured as a distracted would-be aristocrat.

Jimmy Carter’s four years had short-term consequences — almost all negative — but little long-term damage. Obama’s eight years in theory should have far more lasting ramifications, given the huge debt, radical appointees, job-killing regulations, and dismal economy of the last five years. Yet we are learning that he is proving even a more inconsequential figure than was Carter. And so likewise in years to come, even his true believers will talk more of an iconic Barack Obama before and after he was president — but rarely during.

Let’s hope.

GIRL-ON-GIRL ACTION: Girls And The Female Gaze.

Like this?

GREGORY KANE: Why Carol Swain demands honesty about Trayvon Martin.

FRANK J. FLEMING: Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that we’re all too stupid to talk on the subject of race.

So a lot of people — even those who didn’t vote for him — had hoped that with the election of Barack Obama as president, we’d be moving to a post-racial society.

How’d that work out?

Just swimmingly.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: A woman I briefly dated is telling people I sent her crotch shots. But it wasn’t me! And she’s showing them to all of her friends. On the other hand, there’s this: “This person is much more well-appointed than I could ever hope to be. I feel like I’m in an impossible spot. I cannot exactly show everyone my more modest equipment to prove that this is not me.” Wait a while, and some of them will probably come back around and find out for themselves . . ..