MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Combating The Asteroid Threat.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: By the way, we won the Iraq War.

Plus: “Isn’t it odd how everybody stopped keeping a death toll of Americans killed overseas on January 20, 2009? But then, as the great lady once said: What difference does it make?”

ARAB SPRING NOT LOOKING SO SPRINGLIKE: Egypt’s Immobile Government Losing Grip on Security.

Security has become a huge problem in Cairo and other cities in Egypt. Large numbers of police have gone on strike over the past few months, leaving Egyptians at the mercy of armed gangs and vigilante groups. The situation for minorities is especially dangerous. The government tends to “condemn” violence and promise “transparent” investigations into events like this weekend’s fighting. President Morsi even condemned attacks on Christians as “an attack on me personally,” yet nothing much seems to improve.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood government continues to run low on funds (President Morsi recently had to go looking for handouts from Libya and Iraq, of all places), and soon it won’t be able to continue to prop up Egypt’s shaky economy. Subsidies for cooking gas and bread, among other goods, are a huge burden for the government but canceling them would be unacceptable to many Egyptians. Security and the economy are bad and getting worse.

Which leads us to wonder: what happens if the Brotherhood fails?

Many in the Brotherhood are okay with the violence, but it doesn’t seem to have shut down opposition, and — by killing tourism, the main source of vital foreign exchange — it has only weakened the government overall. Meanwhile, is there anyone sending guns to the Copts?

MORE ON HIGHER EDUCATION’S DIVERSITY PROBLEM. But don’t worry, it’s not nearly as serious a diversity problem as it would be if things were reversed.

VIRTUAL PRESIDENT: Bill Whittle On Dealing With North Korea.

URBAN FUTURE NOT TURNING OUT AS FORECAST: Why the Next Great American Cities Aren’t What You Think.

America’s urban landscape is changing, but in ways not always predicted or much admired by our media, planners, and pundits. The real trend-setters of the future—judged by both population and job growth—are not in the oft-praised great “legacy” cities like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, but a crop of newer, more sprawling urban regions primarily located in the Sun Belt and, surprisingly, the resurgent Great Plains.

While Gotham and the Windy City have experienced modest growth and significant net domestic out-migration, burgeoning if often disdained urban regions such as Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Charlotte, and Oklahoma City have expanded rapidly. These low-density, car-dominated, heavily suburbanized areas with small central cores likely represent the next wave of great American cities.

There’s a whole industry led by the likes of Harvard’s Ed Glaeser, my occasional sparring partner Richard Florida and developer-funded groups like CEOs for Cities, who advocate for old-style, high-density cities, and insist that they represent the inevitable future.

But the numbers tell a different story: the most rapid urban growth is occurring outside of the great, dense, highly developed and vastly expensive old American metropolises.

This comes as no surprise. Read the whole thing.

ED DRISCOLL: Life After Television. “Of course, there’s another reason why millions don’t like TV. Just don’t expect it to be addressed by the big three networks, Time-Warner-CNN-HBO, AP or Yahoo anytime soon.”

By the way, if Netflix wants something that will really pull eyeballs, they should do a new season of Firefly.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Home & Kitchen.

Also, today only: Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Vol. 1-6, $64.99 (55% off).

CONSISTENCY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Obama declares Tuesday ‘National Equal Pay Day,’ despite paying female staffers less than male counterparts.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Had Labor Participation Held Constant, Unemployment Would Be 11.1 Percent. It’s a good thing so many workers are discouraged, then. Forward!

UPDATE: Small Business Hiring Outlook Falls To 1-Year Low.

MICKEY KAUS ON WHAT COUNTS AS AN IMMIGRATION “DEBATE.”

JOBS GOING WHERE THE FREEDOM IS: AR-15 Maker to Move from Oregon to Texas. Texas is okay, but feel free to bring your factories and jobs to Tennessee.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: David Brooks on universities and practical knowledge.

AT LEAST THERE’S PLENTY OF SPACE IN THERE: No, The Actual Libertarian Movement Didn’t ‘Go Nuts’ — It’s Just The One Inside Bill Maher’s Head.

A DECADE AGO, some bloggers speculated that outrageous bias over the war and, later, over elections, would kill the mainstream media. Maybe it’s just taking a bit longer than we expected: Free-fall: Adjusted for inflation, print newspaper advertising revenue in 2012 was lower than in 1950. Meanwhile, the TV folks wonder why so many people aren’t watching any more. . . . .

HOPEY-CHANGEY: “It’s like ‘Lord of the Flies’ . . . [Obama] is cannibalizing donors.” Plus: “We’d like to see some results for the money we’ve already given.” Wouldn’t we all.

ROLL CALL: Obama Budget Strategy Irks Democrats.

NO WONDER HE’S ACTING SO DESPERATE: Obama’s Approval On Guns, Immigration, Deficit Underwater. “Forty-five percent approve of the president’s push to reform the nation’s gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, while 52% say they disapprove.”

And just look at this survey of police officers on gun control. It’s a damning indictment of pretty much the entire Obama approach to guns and crime.

SMELLING BLOOD: McConnell will block gun bill until Dem leaders give details. “Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced he will block gun-control legislation Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants to bring to the Senate floor. McConnell signaled he will not allow the legislation to move forward until he has a better sense of what’s in it.”

Wait, don’t you have to pass it to find out what’s in it?

UPDATE: Related: Gun Law Drafted In Secret.

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON what was wrong with Meryl Streep’s version of Margaret Thatcher.

IRS WANTS TO TAX LUNCH AT FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE.

WAS THERE ANYTHING SHE COULDN’T DO? Margaret Thatcher Helped Invent Soft-Serve Ice Cream. “As a chemist for food manufacturer J. Lyons and Co. in the 1940s, Thatcher was part of the British research term that made soft-serve ice possible, according to The Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey, citing a 1983 New Scientist article. Thatcher, and colleagues, invented a way add more air into the ice cream so that it was less dense and used less ingredients, which also made it more cost-effective. The new formula also made it possible to push ice cream through a machine as soft-serve in the signature swirl we’re familiar with today.”

NEWS FROM THE STATE OF DECLINE: Man Faces Charges After Defending Himself from a Bear in His Own Yard.

Richard Ahlstrand, of Auburn, Massachusetts, faces criminal charges after encountering a bear in his back yard and shooting the damned thing to avoid being mauled or eaten. Specifically, as noted at Reason 24/7, he’s charged with “illegally killing a bear, illegally baiting a bear, illegal possession of a firearm and failure to secure a firearm.” All of these charges, once translated from Massachusetts to American, seem to stack up to outrage that Ahlstrand didn’t make his yard completely inhospitable to animals that are rarely seen in the area, and then investigated a suspicious noise with a weapon in hand rather than cower under the bed. Worst of all, he actually defended himself when he encountered danger.

As I note in my Second Amendment Penumbras piece, now that the Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to self defense, such prosecutions should fail.

DEPRESSING THOUGHT: How Awful Our Current Leaders Are.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Thatcher’s radical transformation was necessary. But its work remains incomplete.