RICHARD EPSTEIN: Our country has had its fair share of racist travesties, but the George Zimmerman verdict is not one of them.

AS YOU CAN SEE, I’M EXPERIMENTING WITH HAVING COMMENTS ON INSTAPUNDIT. It’s all explained here, if you’re just tuning in.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Shale Boom And Income Mobility:

A fascinating map of American income mobility has been making the blogging rounds today. The map is based on a study that the NYT notes is being hailed as “the most detailed portrait yet of income mobility in the United States.” The study found that metro areas with greater income heterogeneity had greater social mobility. Gawker used the findings to sing the praises of public transportation, and Matt Yglesias found that the results confirmed his own belief in the merits of mixed-income neighborhoods. But there’s another factor at play here: America’s shale boom.

If you haven’t already, take the time to look at the interactive map over at the New York Times, and if you’re so inclined, read David Leonhart’s insightful analysis of the study. Looking at that NYT map, we can see that North Dakota and eastern Montana are the most upwardly mobile areas in the country. It’s no coincidence that those blue shaded areas overlap the Bakken formation, one of the largest shale oil and gas plays in the United States. And energy-rich Texas, home to the oil-rich Permian basin and the Eagle Ford shale formation, is also relatively upwardly mobile.

It’s funny that people who are nostalgic for the 1950s economy don’t favor the kinds of industries that powered the 1950s economy.

JOHN HINDERAKER ON comparing George Zimmerman and Barack Obama in 140 characters. And, in light of “he/it/they,” I should note that the @instapundit Twitter feed is all me. Just like InstaPundit, except that Ed Driscoll has the keys here at InstaPundit to fix catastrophic typos or post on earthshaking breaking news if I’m offline.

SOME POTENTIAL BAD NEWS ABOUT RESVERATROL. It’s a small study, but . . . .

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 75.

THOUGHTS ON ALL THOSE CASES where the Obama Administration lost 9-0: “When a president pursues policies that require such expansive federal power that he can’t get a single justice to agree, something is probably amiss.”

SCALIA EXONERATED OF GODWIN’S LAW VIOLATION. Very interesting. And shame on the New York Times, and others, for misreporting this.

BEWARE the Reverse-Mussolini Fallacy. “People fall prey to the Reverse Mussolini Fallacy any time they make an argument to the effect that ‘bad people believe X, therefore X must be wrong.’ The flaw in this reasoning is that bad people can still be right about some things. In the abstract, almost everyone recognizes that. But many still fall prey to the Reverse Mussolini Fallacy in practice, even if they understand its flaws in theory.”

WELL, YES: Ed Morrissey: A Federal Bailout For Detroit Is A Terrible Idea.

BYRON YORK: ObamaCare Battle Takes Bizarre Turn. “The Affordable Care Act originally passed the House in 2009 with 220 votes, all but one of them Democrats. Recently 251 members of the House, including 22 Democrats, voted to postpone for one year implementation of the heart of the act — the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. If this were any other issue, liberal commentators might see a governing majority emerging in favor of delaying Obamacare.”

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY . . . OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Will NYT’s James Risen go to jail?

DAVE HARDY IN REASON: Why Gun Owners Are Right to Fight Against Gun Control. “The anti-gun crowd doesn’t want ‘compromise.’ They want confiscation and control. . . . Understanding the rejection requires understanding gun owners’ shared experiences. Compromise requires that both parties relinquish something. If your counterpart’s position is ‘give me this now, and I’ll take the rest later,’ there is no real compromise to be had. Over decades, that has been precisely the experience of American gun owners.”

HYPOCRISY ALERT: Remember when Barack Obama Supported ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws? Neither Does He.

On Friday, President Obama launched a distraction move against Stand Your Ground laws. He made the move during his remarks on the Zimmerman verdict, despite the fact that Stand Your Ground laws played no role in that case.

Well, back in 2004 Obama was a state senator in Illinois. John Fund writes that at that time Obama sponsored SB 2386, “which broadened the state’s Stand Your Ground law by shielding the person who was attacked from being sued in civil court by perpetrators or their estates when a ’stand your ground’ defense is used in protecting his or her person, dwelling or other property.’

“S.B. 2386 passed the Illinois state senate by a 56–0 vote on March 25, 2004. It sailed through the state house with only two ‘nay’ votes. Both chambers were controlled by Democrats.”

Bringing that up now is a “distraction,” I suppose.

CONN CARROLL: Libertarian Populism Rising.

OBVIOUSLY, THE PROBLEM IS THAT NOT ENOUGH ASIANS WENT TO OXFORD OR SOMETHING: Asian American lawmakers to press Obama on diversity in administration.

Of course, if you want a cabinet that looks like America, we really need more people from Texas.

A GRAND EXPERIMENT: I’m going to try opening comments on InstaPundit, as the new rollout of tech at PJ Media will allow one sign-in to work across the whole site. I’ve opened ’em up before — and, for that matter, Ann Althouse did it once when I was away, to much excitement — but this new system should be much better. It’s set up so you can ignore them if you like — you’ll have to affirmatively choose to see them by clicking on the little balloon image. To comment, you’ll need a PJ sign-in, but that’s easy — just click on “register” at the upper right. Or, if you hate the idea of having comments on InstaPundit, just continue as usual and nothing will be different.

One note: I don’t know how much time I’ll spend reading comments (I’ve taken to quoting Napoleon’s “Ask me for anything but time!” a lot lately) but if you have a correction, or something else of considerable importance, just email me as usual. And take note of the Comment Guidelines.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, from Althouse, some thoughts on going comment-free.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Another complaint about the “defunding” of public higher education. There’s no doubt that states are, in general, contributing a smaller portion of the funding for public universities than they used to. But a lot of that isn’t so much because they’re philistines, as because — like all public funding — higher education funding is based on politics. Back when most states didn’t do much besides funding K-12, roads, law enforcement, maybe a state mental hospital and orphanage, and a state university or two, that didn’t matter as much. But with the explosion of state spending on other programs, and the growth of public employee unions, there’s much more competition for that money than there used to be. And academics are a weak constituency compared to all the much larger and better-organized groups competing for state money. (Ironically, most academics probably favored the creation of those competing budget lines. This was consistent with their political orientation, but unwise from a standpoint of their long-term interests.) So now state legislatures are sending more money elsewhere, and there’s less for higher education, especially since students can always make up the difference with student loans.

Or it may be that, like even wealthy parents, legislators just don’t think the value has kept up with the cost.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Holding The Line. “Colleges’ effort to increase tuition revenue, now the dominant form of funds for most colleges and universities, is running headlong into a public that is reluctant to pay much more for higher education. That is truest of all for wealthy families.”

There’s increasing skepticism about whether the value offered matches the increasingly high prices. And with some reason. You could write a book on this phenomenon.

THEY TRY THIS A LOT: BUSTED: Left Wing Plant at Houston Pro-Zimmerman Rally Is Far Left Activist.

EDUCATION: Teaching With Eyes Closed.

GENERAL CARTER HAM: Sure, We Knew Benghazi Was A Terror Attack Right Away. “The former head of U.S. forces in Africa, General Carter Ham, told the Aspen Security Forum that it quickly became clear the assault on the American consulate in Benghazi last year was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous demonstration. ‘It became apparent to all of us quickly that this was not a demonstration, this was a violent attack,’ Ham said. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially had portrayed the embassy attack as a response to an inflammatory internet video.”

Filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

THE HILL: Conservatives move to force Boehner’s hand for Benghazi investigation. “Republican leaders are coming under new pressure from conservatives to allow a House vote on legislation that would form a special committee to investigate the Benghazi, Libya, attack. Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) is circulating a discharge petition that would force GOP leaders to allow a House vote on forming a committee to investigate events leading up to the terrorist attack last year on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Obama administration’s response.”