UH OH: Democrats Have A Full-Blown Akin On Their Hands.

UPDATE: Colorado: The Rape State. (Bumped).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Colorado lawmaker Joe Salazar issues apology over rape remark.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Long Lines, Tall Tales, and Federalized Elections. “This is a solution in search of a problem, because long lines and long waits were the rare exception, and usually occurred in early voting sites, and not on Election Day. Washington, D.C., has no business intruding into state control over elections for a problem that is not widespread.”

MY DUE PROCESS WHEN EVERYTHING IS A CRIME PIECE, now with over 13,000 downloads, is still #1 on SSRN. Not sure where the traffic is coming from now.

REPORT: Russia Meteor Was Largest in More Than a Century.

JENNIFER RUBIN: Why Rand Paul Is Formidable.

SO MUCH FOR “without fear or favor.”

SHELDON ADELSON, TAKE NOTE: Upworthy — or, How we are losing the internet to lowest of low information young liberals. “The Elizabeth Warren post at Upworthy is a prime example of how low information is combined with a political agenda to create a meme which is based on a lack of understanding, but very, very catchy.”

Some related thoughts here. (Bumped).

THREE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS about the Russian meteor.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: “Last week, a Finnish anti-piracy agency copied the CSS and HTML of The Pirate Bay. Today, TPB announced that they have filed a police report and are preparing to sue for copyright infringement.”

JOURNALISM: AP: Rand Paul Quote Was The Opposite Of What We Reported.

SCIENCE: DOJ Researchers Conclude Assault Weapons Ban Won’t Cut Gun Violence. The science is settled. You can’t argue with science. You don’t want to be a science-denier, do you? Well, I guess some people do:

Justice Department researchers have concluded that an assault weapons ban is “unlikely to have an effect on gun violence,” but President Obama has not accepted their report as his administration’s official position.

“Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to US gun homicide and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapon ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence,” the DOJ’s National Institute for Justice explains in a January 4 report obtained by the National Rifle Association. “If coupled with a gun buyback and no exemptions then it could be effective.” That idea is also undermined by the acknowledgement that “a complete elimination of assault weapons would not have a large impact on gun homicides.”

The research in that report didn’t stop Obama denouncing “weapons of war” during his State of the Union speech on February 12.

Sigh.

ROBERT VERBRUGGEN BUSTS David Frum’s Ignorance On Guns.

CHANGE: Egyptians In Mad Scramble For Dwindling Dollars.

THE HILL: Tea Party challenger to McConnell emerging.

PENELOPE TRUNK: Universal Preschool Is Bad For Everyone.

The idea that kids should learn to read, write, and add when they are very young has been thoroughly disproven, and in fact, this sort of structured evinronment is so bad for boys that it puts them on an early path to being labeled low performers. This is why the rich don’t even bother with preschool—they know their kids will be fine without it. And almost all the research to support preschool is based on lower-income statistics, like preschool keeps kids out of prison.

Kids want to be with their parents when they are young, and given the choice, 84% of women would rather be home with their kids than work full-time. The universal preschool proposal ignores the needs of both these constitutent groups. . . .

This country is already an absolute mess because we funnel kids through an education system for fifteen years to get to a college system that is a ponzi scheme. Even the research that supports preschool concludes that an all-around lousy school system undermines the positive impact of preschool.

We need to admit that kids do not need to go to our schools to be educated. One of the largest education trends is middle class parents taking kids out of school. The most expensive private schools model a homeschool environment because kids can learn through self-directed exploration. They don’t need school.

Middle class parents recognize this and don’t want their kids to suffer through an antiquated education system that was established to educate kids to be factory workers.

But politicians still see value in regimentation.

HYPOCRISY: Democratic senator pushing higher taxes faces outstanding $1,200 tax penalty.

JOURNALISM: Conservative columnist resigns after Kentucky paper refuses to run op-ed on publication’s liberal bias.

JOHN HINDERAKER: What’s News And What Isn’t. “The liberal media manifest their bias not primarily by writing things that aren’t true–although that sometimes happens–but rather, by selecting what they do and do not report as news. Major scandals and events of great importance are simply ignored if they do not reflect well on the Democratic Party, while minor stories receive endless attention if they advance the liberal agenda. You could illustrate this every day; here are a few examples from today’s news.”

AUDIO: I was on Russ Roberts’ EconTalk Podcast.

And reader Marvin Lewis writes:

I was enjoying your discussion with Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast.
You mentioned your old Mobius Dick albums on mp3.com. On a lark, I went
looking and found some files at the Internet Archive.

Thanks for helping me have fun on the internet today.

You’re welcome. And thanks for finding that! I hope people like it. I should note that the cool guitar lick on Robosexual is from Skunk Baxter. (It’s licensed).

I also recommend the Extended Club Dance Edit of Upload Your Mind, featuring Ngozi V. Uti. And Superluminal might be worth your time. And the guitar on Trust Your Leaders is by my brother, Jonathan.

GUN CONTROL PROPOSAL IN WASHINGTON: “Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around? As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn’t hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia.”

THE LEFT’S WAR ON WOMEN: CBS Anchor and former MSNBC contributor Rob Morrison charged with strangling and threatening wife Ashley.

MICKEY KAUS: Immigration Double Kabuki.

AND IT’S DEEP AND WIDE: There’s Real Danger Lurking In David Frum’s Ignorance.

THE FIRST BIONIC HAND that can feel.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: “Asteroids are nature’s way of asking: ‘How’s that space program coming along?'”