MORALISTIC CLAPTRAP, IN MY EXPERIENCE, MOSTLY STEMS FROM JEALOUSY OR POSTURING: On Older Men, Younger Women, and Moralistic Claptrap: Hugo Schwyzer owes Johnny Depp an apology. But, then, Hugo Schwyzer owes pretty much everyone an apology.

ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL: A reader who requests anonymity emails:

The NSA scandal has become The One Ring, focusing all Americans on the potential of the other scandals.

Those other scandals were of two kinds: frivolous waste or targeting specific groups. As a people, we are mostly inured to government frivolous waste. The targeting specific groups by a small part of the government apparatus was of more concern. But, hey, those groups are Somebody Else, and they do weird things and have abnormal beliefs. And even if the targeting was deliberate rather than accidental, even if it wasn’t just a couple of rogue apparatchiks, it wasn’t targeting us, the
majority of Americans. And, plausibly, that Somebody Else “had it coming”.

But the NSA scandal has made it clear that the government apparatus may very well be coming for You: whoever You are, wherever You are, whatever You believe. To mix metaphors, this one action by the NSA, arguably the most secret government apparatus on the face of the planet, has pulled back the curtain just enough to give us all a glimpse of a nascent Orwellian Ministry of Love.

With all those other scandals–the ATF’s gun running to cartels, the EPA’s privacy leaks and fake email accounts, the Benghazi crew left to die, the DOJ’s AP phone harvesting, the Attorney General’s lying to three separate federal judges about Rosen, the IRS’s targeting tea party and Christian groups, etc.–the president’s approval rating was holding firm. But now that the public has seen the One Ring, they are beginning to understand that the entire apparatus might very well intend to rule them all.

Yes, it does put things in a different perspective.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student Loans Subsidize Waste. “When students have little hope of completing an academic program, subsidies are not just a waste of taxpayers’ money, but a waste of these young people’s time and effort at a crucial age. Too often, they drop out with a sense of failure, poor work habits, and perhaps a sizeable debt.”

THE PERILS OF GRANDSTANDING: Judge: Obama sex assault comments ‘unlawful command influence.’ So what about his comments on the Zimmerman trial? . . .

UPDATE: Yes, yes, I know that there’s no such thing as unlawful command influence in the civilian legal system. I’m just noting his tendency to politicize criminal cases.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

Isn’t it interesting that here, in a case in which he is in the chain of command, he spoke out forcefully and, evidently, too pointedly. Contrast that with the Gosnell case, in which he had no part in the executive hierarchy but dodged answering questions with the invented excuse, “I can’t comment on it because it’s an active trial.”

I’m a Fed, so please don’t use my name.

Yes, consistency is not his strong suit. But, to be fair, no one has ever really demanded it of him.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times.

FOR THOSE WONDERING IF THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN WAS HACKED, THERE’S THIS: NSA gets early access to zero-day data from Microsoft, others. It’s still speculative, of course, but see how this kind of behavior by government erodes trust. . . .

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Weiner wife Abedin being probed over employment status. “One of the Senate’s most aggressive investigators is probing longtime Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s employment status, asking how she got a sweetheart deal to be a private six-figure consultant while still serving as a top State Department official. Abedin, one of Clinton’s most loyal aides, is married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who’s in the midst of a vigorous effort to beat back his own scandal and become mayor.”

“IT’S EASY TO BLAME AN INANIMATE OBJECT:” Emily Miller: Bushmaster CEO breaks silence on Newtown school shooting.

MODERN FARMER: The Inside Story of a “Juror Revolt” in Amish Raw Milk Trial. Note that Judge Reynolds is no relation here. Interestingly, the lawyer was named Glenn Reynolds, and is no relation to the judge, or me. At least, no close relation: I was once told that all Reynoldses were basically kicked out of England in the early 18th Century and came over together in three chartered ships. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it’s consistent — pretty much every one in my line of ancestry was kicked out of Europe at some point.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “I’ve served on 2 juries in my life–one acquittal, one guilty–but not for several years. With all I’ve seen in the last few years, I have reconsidered listening to a judge’s instructions. I’ve lost a lot of respect for the court system with the plea bargaining and prosecution antics I’ve read about. Not saying I’m for jury nullification, but I no longer naively look at a court proceeding as an impartial search for the facts. I guess I never should have.” Probably not.

And Mac Overton writes that we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of pasteurization, sending this:

The final proof of the benefits of pasteurized milk came when Straus began providing milk to an orphanage that had seen death rates as high as 42% from tuberculosis and other milk-borne diseases. The orphanage was located on Randall’s Island in the East River. All the milk it used was provided by a single herd of cows kept on the island, so it was easy to control the milk the orphans drank.

Straus started pasteurizing the orphanage’s milk in 1898. Within a year, the mortality rate dropped to 28%, and continued downward in the years that followed.. . .

In 1913, a typhoid fever epidemic struck New York, claiming thousands of victims. By now there was proof that typhoid fever was carried by milk, and that it could be killed through pasteurization. New York City finally stopped dragging its feet. By the end of 1914, 95% of the city’s milk supply was pasteurized. By 1917, nearly all of the 50 largest cities in the nation required pasteurization; the rest of the country would follow over the next several years.

The impact of pasteurized milk on public health was nothing short of astounding. In 1885 the infant mortality rate in New York City was 273 per 1,000 live births -more than 27%. By 1915 the infant mortality rate was 94 per 1,000, a drop of two-thirds.

Hey, I’m not knocking pasteurization.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Pet Supplies.

THE ONE CONSTANT IS THEIR HAND IN YOUR POCKET: Classic: States debate taxing green cars to recover lost gas tax revenue.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to the notion that, because gas taxes pay for roads, it’s unfair for those who aren’t buying gas to get what critics call a literal free ride. This problem is more pronounced with bike riders who argue for reconfiguration of entire cities’ roads without throwing a whole bunch in the pot. But the larger point is how elaborately stupid, counterproductive, and at odds with themselves idiotic governments become in using our money to push for one policy with subsidized products, only to turn around and complain that all those subsidies are costing them money. Um, yes, that’s what we were saying years ago when you started subsidizing these cars with thousands of our dollars and lecturing us about how awesome it was going to be. STEP AWAY FROM THE RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINES IN YOUR MINDS. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

Indeed.

ADDING “COLLEGIALITY” AS A CRITERION FOR TENURE: I’m skeptical that, in practice, collegiality will mean ideological conformity. There’s enough of an academic monoculture already. Socrates was regarded as uncollegial. Galileo, too.

ACE: “It all started with a third-rate break-in into a reporter’s computer…” “So who? Who has the motive, means, and opportunity? Who would want to do this who could do this?”

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My Boyfriend Wants To Have Tantric Sex Without Orgasms. I’m Not So Cool With That.

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THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Senate Staffers Told To Pretend Top Secret Documents Are Not Widely Available On Web.

SO WITH CBS NEWS’ SHARYL ATTKISSON’S COMPUTER HACKED, a reader emails: “Did a politicized bureaucracy spy on the Romney/ GOP campaign and interfere with a Federal election?”

It gets harder and harder to write such suggestions off as absurd.

UPDATE: It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to pull out some of the Romney campaign’s computers and see if they show the kind of evidence that CBS’s experts found on Attkisson’s computer?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Myk Zagorac writes: “I don’t think you could show any such tampering as I’m guessing they’ve been long since repurposed. But, weren’t iPads and laptops stolen out of a Romney staff member’s car? Why leave a hacking trail if you don’t have to?” I’m sure that was just a coincidence.

HISTORY: Bizarre pictures reveal the unlikely trend for photographs of breastfeeding mothers in Victorian-era America.

YA THINK? IRS shakeup needed after scandal, chairmen of Congress’ tax-writing panels say.

Related: Giuliani: FBI’s Mueller ‘Terribly Disengaged’ in IRS Scandal. Funny, he had a pretty good reputation. Another officeholder’s credibility sacrificed to protect Obama?

JERRY BOWYER: Let’s Talk About Sex: Why More Babies Means More Economic Growth.

RADLEY BALKO: The Marketing Of Police Militarism.

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: The Biggest Threat to the Economy Could Come From Outer Space.

Imagine waking up just after midnight to a sky so bright you swear it must be early morning. Imagine seeing the Northern Lights as far south as Cuba or Hawaii. Imagine that the same phenomena behind both has also generated electric fields in the ground strong enough to power small electronics. That’s what happened in 1859, when the earth was struck by the most severe geomagnetic storm ever recorded.

Forget asset bubbles, recessions, or hurricanes—space weather could prove far more economically harmful. A severe geomagnetic storm—a sudden, violent eruption of gas and magnetic fields from the sun’s surface—could prove particularly devastating. If the 1859 storm, known as the “Carrington event,” were to recur today it could cause trillions of dollars in economic damage and take years to recover from, according to estimates.

The sun would sneeze and the economy could shatter.

Yes, I’ve been recommending hardening our systems against this and other disasters for years. It would have been a good use for the “stimulus” money, except that it would have produced too many jobs for burly men. Related item here.

JESSE WALKER: The Oath Keepers On Edward Snowden.

LIKE HERPES, THEY KEEP COMING BACK: Democrats Quietly Renew Push for Gun Measures.

FLASHBACK: Justice Dept – ‘To Our Knowledge’ We Did Not Hack Attkisson’s Computer.

Related: IRS tracks your digital footprint: The IRS has quietly upgraded its technology so tax collectors can track virtually everything people do online.