ED DRISCOLL: Notes From Atlantis. “It’s fascinating, in 2013, witnessing the ongoing collapse of our own culture — and in particular, the complete collapse, decades ago, of what was once called ‘middlebrow culture,’ to watch a show titled Civilisation – that itself is from a civilization that effectively, no longer exists.”

STIMULUS! Americans Buy Enough Guns in Last Two Months to Outfit the Entire Chinese and Indian Armies. And it’s not like they were badly armed before. . . .

BOSTON HERALD: MIT Regrets Role In Swartz Tragedy.

DOWN IN RED STATES, UP IN BLUE STATES: States Flirt With Major Tax Changes:

Hopes for overhauling the federal tax system are fading in Washington, but in some state capitals, tax reform experiments – some far-reaching – are fast taking shape.

Across the South and Midwest, Republicans have consolidated control of state legislatures and governorships, giving them the power to test long-debated tax ideas.

Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, for instance, called on Thursday for ending the state’s income tax and corporate taxes, with sales taxes compensating for lost revenue.

A similar plan is being pushed by Republicans in North Carolina. Kansas, which cut its income tax significantly last year, may trim further. Oklahoma, which tried to cut income taxes last year, is expected to try again.

Laboratories of democracy.

THE HILL: NRA President Predicts No Assault Weapon Ban.

REMINDER: Friday night document dump: Gun criminal David Gregory is above the law.

Contrast the treatment of Aaron Swartz.

MEANWHILE, THE EPA SCANDALS CONTINUE: Glitches mar EPA release of first batch of ‘Windsorgate’ emails.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency posted a file late today containing approximately 2,100 of a promised first tranche of 3,000 “Windsorgate” emails sent by and to the agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson.

Jackson admitted last month to using the non de plume “Richard Windsor” on a government email account. She said the name came from her dog and that she only used the account for internal messaging within EPA.

It is against federal law for government officials to use email accounts bearing fake names to conduct official business.

Technical glitches marred the release, however, as a link on the EPA web site to the emails initially would not work. Later in the afternoon, it would only open to a cover letter explaining that only 2,100 emails were being released today instead of the promised 3,000.

The country’s in the very best of hands. And laws are for the little people. Just ask David Gregory.

WANT TO CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMEMBERS ABOUT GUN CONTROL? Ruger Makes It Easy.

JORDAN WEISSMAN: The Real Threat To Monogamy Today. “It seems reasonable to suggest that instead of pointing a finger at the internet for Jacob’s relationship habits, we can keep things simple and just blame Portland, where going to a bar, going to a concert, or even going to work would probably leave him surrounded by available women. Better yet, not only could the city’s sex-ratio explain why he finds himself dating so many different women, but it might also clarify why so many different women are willing to date him: scarce alternatives.”

This is precisely what the Insta-Wife’s forthcoming book, Men On Strike, is about.

LOOKING FORWARD TO INTERSTELLAR EXPLORATION.

Why did it seem more reasonable half a century ago? “Of course we were crazy in a way,” says physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In the late 1950s Dyson worked on Project Orion, which aimed to build a manned spacecraft that could go to Mars and the moons of Saturn. Instead of using nuclear reactors to spew superheated hydrogen, as NERVA did, the Orion spacecraft would have dropped small nuclear bombs out the back every quarter of a second or so and surfed on the fireballs. “It would have been enormously risky,” says Dyson, who planned to go to Saturn himself. “We were prepared for that. The mood then was totally different. The idea of a risk-free adventure just didn’t make sense.” A few years after Orion ended, Dyson outlined in Physics Today how a bomb-powered spacecraft might travel to a star.

These days it’s easier to outline why we’ll never go. Stars are too far away; we don’t have the money. The reasons why we might go anyway are less obvious—but they’re getting stronger. Astronomers have detected planets around many nearby stars; soon they’re bound to find one that’s Earthlike and in the sweet spot for life, and in that instant they’ll create a compelling destination. Our technology too is far more capable than it was in the 1960s; atom bombs aren’t cutting-edge anymore. In his office that morning, Les Johnson handed me what looked like a woven swatch of cobwebs. It was actually a carbon-fiber fabric sample for a giant spaceship sail—one that might carry a probe beyond Pluto on rays of sunlight or laser beams.

Culturally, I’d say our attitudes toward risk are less sane now. But ultimately, not going is probably riskier for the species.

TRANSCRIPT: Jodie Foster’s Golden Globe Speech. When I was in law school at Yale, she was an undergraduate and she hung out with my roommate for a while. She seemed nice, but she’s matured since.