IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THIS ALSO SENT AUDIO AND VIDEO: GPS bracelet uses social media to protect Civil Rights Activists.

A gun would help prevent kidnappings, too, of course.

READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Susan Freeh recommends Forge: Thrall Web by T.K. Anthony. She writes: “It is science fiction with a heart and brain. Two galaxy spanning civilizations heading for a collision, the winner of which will decide if mankind are “mere creatures” or free. At the book’s center are the lives of a small group of people who recognize the gathering storm, and attempt to avert it, even as those they should be able to trust have been co-opted or misled.”

SO IF THERE WERE ANY BIG-NAME REPUBLICANS ON THIS LIST OF OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS, WOULDN’T WE HAVE HEARD BY NOW? “There are 4,000 Americans affiliated with offshore accounts identified in the documents. Among them is Denise Rich, a Grammy-nominated socialite who helped secure the presidential pardon of her ex-husband, Mark Rich, who was indicted on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran. As of April 2006, she had $144 million stashed in a trust in the Cook Islands. She gave up her U.S citizenship in 2011 for Austrian citizenship.”

The pardon, as this story fails to mention, was granted by Bill Clinton. Attorney General Eric Holder was instrumental in securing it.

DOMO ARIGATO, PROFESSOR ROBOTO: Students, meet your robot professor. Not ready for primetime yet, perhaps, but there will be improved models.

AMERICA HASN’T LOST ITS CAPACITY TO INNOVATE, at least where pizza is concerned. “It’s an industry that Americans pioneered and continue to dominate. Homegrown brands are expanding throughout the developing world. The uniform customer experiences they provide are triumphs of industrial engineering and efficiency systems management. And they are constantly spending money to create and introduce new products.”

Hmm. This is uncomfortably close to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash:

When it gets down to it–we’re talking trade balances here–once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwaves in Tadzhikistan and selling them here–once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel–once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would consider to be prosperity–y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

Oops. I’m not sure about the first three, either.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Only Age Group With Higher Unemployment Than a Year Ago Is … 20somethings.

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SAILING: WATCH: Oracle Team USA Sending it on San Francisco Bay. “I suppose after racing on this boat, everyone on board can safely say that they’ve hit the pinnacle of their sailing career. I mean, what else could naval architects come up with that is more ridiculously awesome than this?”

BITING BACK: Video: Parents Turn on Fossil-Fuel Protesters at Tufts. “Meant to remain private, this video was inadvertently leaked to the Internet, where it’s stirred up a backlash against the protesters. Parents are shown taking matters into their own hands. . . . By their own testimony, these protesters believed that their rudeness would win them recruits. They’ve been shocked by the negative response. The campus fossil-fuel divestment movement exists in a bizarre bubble.”

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: WSJ: More Than 50% of Law Graduates Aren’t Making a Living.

A HUGO: Meryl Yourish emails: “The extremely talented Julie Dillon has been nominated for a 2013 Hugo Award. One of the pieces of art she did last year was the cover for Book One of The Catmage Chronicles.” Nice cover work.

GLAD TO BE OF HELP: Reader David Karlson emails:

I enjoy reading your blog and appreciate the links to the varius news stories that you post.

I also wanted to thank you for posting about Luckygunner.com. I have been able to purchase both magazines for my rifle and ammunition that I can’t seem to find locally. They have been very quick to fill the order and the quality is just fine.

Yes, I just ordered some ammo from them the other day. All my experiences have been good, and they seem to be weathering the shortages as well as can be expected.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Five years in to the Great Recession, the economy still isn’t putting people back to work. Huh. What could’ve happened five years ago to disrupt the American economy’s traditional ability to create jobs?

IF IT SAVES JUST ONE LIFE, IT’S WORTH IT: Cops Who Shoot Innocent People Should Have Their Guns Taken Away. But actually, I’m okay with giving the cops the benefit of the doubt if they make a mistake during a fast-moving and highly-charged situation — at least, so long as they’re willing to give civilians engaged in self-defense the same consideration.

DAILY BEAST: Four Reasons Why Obama’s Week Totally Sucked. Plus an unimpressive consolation prize.

HMM: Do eighty percent of life’s defining moments take place by thirty-five?

LET ME RECOMMEND THE MOVIE UPRISING in connection with this story. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Remembered By Holocaust Survivor Aliza Mendel. “The 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising was the first large-scale rebellion against the Nazis in Europe and the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, it became a symbol of struggle against impossible conditions, illustrated a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other acts of uprising and underground resistance by Jews and non-Jews alike.”

IS DAVID STOCKMAN the next Ron Paul?

DIVERSITY AND INTELLECTUAL DECLINE AT BOWDOIN:

The Klingenstein report nicely captures the illiberal or fallacious aspects of this campus doctrine, but the paper’s true contribution is in recording some of its absurd manifestations at Bowdoin. For example, the college has “no curricular requirements that center on the American founding or the history of the nation.” Even history majors aren’t required to take a single course in American history. In the History Department, no course is devoted to American political, military, diplomatic or intellectual history—the only ones available are organized around some aspect of race, class, gender or sexuality.

One of the few requirements is that Bowdoin students take a yearlong freshman seminar. Some of the 37 seminars offered this year: “Affirmative Action and U.S. Society,” “Fictions of Freedom,” “Racism,” “Queer Gardens” (which “examines the work of gay and lesbian gardeners and traces how marginal identities find expression in specific garden spaces”), “Sexual Life of Colonialism” and “Modern Western Prostitutes.”

Regarding Bowdoin professors, the report estimates that “four or five out of approximately 182 full-time faculty members might be described as politically conservative.” In the 2012 election cycle, 100% of faculty donations went to President Obama.

Sounds like a diversity problem to me. My advice to potential students: Don’t borrow money to go there.

OUT: WHITE PRIVILEGE. In: Thin Privilege. “I am a small person, a naturally small person. And that makes my life a whole lot easier in many, many ways.”

THE JOYS OF Aerial Fitness Class & The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

I VAGUELY REMEMBER THIS SHOW FROM WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID: It’s About Time, which was basically Gilligan’s Island, with astronauts, and in the Stone Age instead of on an island. Also, no Ginger or Mary Ann. But Exene Cervenka was a fan. Aaron Funk, too.

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WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Sen. Bill Nelson announces NASA’s plan to capture asteroid.

But why not leave it to private-sector companies like Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries?