THE INSTA-WIFE’S BOOK, MEN ON STRIKE, GETS MENTIONED IN THIS DAILY MAIL ARTICLE on women wondering why men are less interested in having kids these days.

In Asia there’s a new tendency for men to go their own way – with thousands shunning marriage and kids for a life of independence and control, which no family court can destroy. The same thing is happening across America and Canada.

In fact, author Helen Smith PHD recently published a book entitled Men on Strike, where she notes that: ‘America has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going on strike. They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates.’

Now, it’s happening here in Britain. This isn’t because men are ‘selfish’ or commitment-phobic pigs (as women frequently like to suggest). Rather, it’s because they’re tired of being ousted from families, of being shafted by sexist divorce rulings and being denied the most basic paternal rights.

These guys know that any child they have with a woman would be her baby, not their baby.

Lesson of the decade: People respond to incentives, even perverse incentives.

THOSE RIOTOUS “YOUTHS” AGAIN: Sixth Night of Violence in Sweden.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Even Politicians Tire of Failure-Prone, Freedom-Threatening Fusion Centers.

The Department of Homeland Security’s pet fusion centers, intended to “serve as focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between the federal government and state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT) and private sector partners,” have instead managed to enrage people across the political spectrum by finding bogeymen under every conceivable bed. They’ve targeted Occupy protesters and Ron Paul supporters as threats to the republic, and even listed the American Civil Liberties Union on a map detailing “terrorism events and other suspicious activity.” Just about the only people they haven’t targeted are actual terrorists — an omission that has drawn criticism for the Massachusetts franchise of the DHS network. No wonder politicians are starting to question whether the money dedicated to these factories of Fail are well-spent.

I was opposed to the creation of the Homeland Security department from the beginning. Nothing has happened since to suggest that I was wrong. And while we’re reliving the past, read this, and this. And this. Not much progress over the past decade. . . .

I JUST RAN ACROSS this Cathy Seipp piece from 2002. “Big-government fans like The American Prospect and The Nation seem to imagine that blogs, which are by definition creatures of the free market, ought to be pre-approved by some sort of official bureaucracy. The tongue-clucking reminds me of the teacher’s pet who was always raising her hand to protest, ‘Miss Jones! Miss Jones! Johnnie’s reading ahead again! Unsupervised!'”

I still miss her.

AT AMAZON, Digital Deals.

Also, what everyone needs: Star Trek Into Darkness Starfleet Phaser Limited Edition Gift Set, $79.99. Plus the film in Blu-Ray.

THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER REPORTS that Hillary’s new book will be the occasion on which she comes out as a bisexual. Hillary hopes this will make her seem cooler; bisexuals everywhere fear it won’t do anything for their image. Plus, going after Valerie Jarrett?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Pricey Beef Puts Heat on U.S. Grilling Season. “As Americans prepare for Memorial Day—the official kickoff to a summer grilling season of burgers and T-bones—rising beef prices have some consumers balking in the grocery aisles. Retail beef prices are widely expected to set new records in coming weeks after wholesale prices, or the amount meatpackers charge sellers for beef, hit an all-time peak this past week.”

You might want to consider strategic shopping. Related: Lessons From Extreme Cheapskates.

DEREK THOMPSON: The Falling-Bridge Lesson: The U.S. Infrastructure Failure Is Still Totally Inexcusable. Well, as I’ve noted before, the stimulus was supposed to go for fixing bridges, but feminists complained that it would produce too many jobs for burly men, and Obama wilted under their fierce glare.

KOREA: Plastic Surgery Capital Of The World?

PROGRESS IN IMMUNOLOGY: The Magic Molecule of Immunity? “It isn’t often that an entire field of medical science gets turned on its head. But it is becoming clear that immunology is undergoing a big rethink thanks to the discovery that antibodies, which combat viruses, work not just outside cells but inside them as well. The star of this new view is a protein molecule called TRIM21. . . . The significance of the group’s finding is just sinking in. It gives medicine a whole new angle on infection, and it just might crack the hitherto almost insuperable problem of how to cure viral infections, rather than just prevent them by vaccination.” Faster, please, as we like to say around here.

JOURNALISM: Male Reporters Harden Stance In Defense of Weiner.

Also, Is Joan Walsh Racist?

DAVID MOSHMAN: Sexual Harassment And Academic Freedom. “The topic of sexuality, then, is subject to the same principles of academic freedom as any other topic. Sexual harassment is wrong because it is harassment, not because it is sexual.”

AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, thinking small.

EDUCATIONAL: Wait, Schools Require a Doctor’s Note for Sunscreen?

UPDATE: Reader George Milonas writes:

We pediatricians are being inundated with permission slips all day long. My paperwork has doubled over the last ten years in no small part because of idiotic school rules requiring parents and docs to sign off on virtually every common sense OTC item. They range from Tylenol and ibuprofen to hand lotion, sunscreen, and bug spray. Each requires its own special form. This is in addition to the actual prescription meds we prescribe like antibiotics and inhalers. It’s absolutely ridiculous when you consider these kids can literally sign for their own abortions without their parents’ permission.

Yes, it is.

IT’S NOT OFFICIALLY OUT UNTIL NEXT MONTH, but the Insta-Wife’s book, Men On Strike, has been shipping from Amazon and it’s already piling up positive reader reviews. Buy two: One for yourself, one for your local library!

HOPE THIS PANS OUT: Breakthrough on Huntington’s disease. “We are the first to show that it is possible to prevent the depression symptoms of Huntington’s disease by deactivating the diseased protein in nerve cell populations in the hypothalamus in the brain. This is hugely exciting and bears out our previous hypotheses.”

HERE’S A FULL-LENGTH REVIEW of Bill Ardolino’s Fallujah Awakens.

TAXPROF: Roundup: The IRS Scandal, Day 16.