PIERS MORGAN UPDATE: WaPo: Yeah, Morgan got pwned last night. “Eric Wemple at the Washington Post confirms that Shapiro wasn’t intransigent — he was just a lot smarter than Morgan and beat him at his own game.”

Shapiro, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!

Plus: “None of this should be surprising, coming as it does from a disgraced former tabloid editor and ex-talent show judge. Indeed, a quick look at Morgan’s oeuvre, which includes stints at the News of the World, which was shuttered during the phone hacking scandal, and the Daily Mirror, from which he was fired for publishing fake photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, and one understands that Morgan is incapable of nuance.”

UPDATE: Jim Treacher: Piers Morgan loses gun-control debate to Ben Shapiro.

MORE: CNN Host Obliterated During Interview Malfunction.

INTERVIEW: Athol Kay on hot married sex.

WHAT HAPPENS when China goes “Gray.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Law school is not a “scam” but you don’t want to end up like Liz Wurtzel. True in so many ways. And note this: “It should be said, however, that Wurtzel says she loved being in law school, but then again she didn’t really go to law school, she went to Yale.” Heh.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Fibers spun from carbon nanotubes have the conductivity of copper and the strength of advanced composites.

A SUPERIOR PREDATOR: Baby Sharks Can Sense Danger, Even Before They’re Born.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Doug Reed, Watergate Fiction.

Also, from John Henry, Packaging Machinery Handbook: The complete guide to automated packaging machinery including packaging line design.

SO I GUESS WE KNOW WHO’S STICKING UP FOR NICKELBACK: People With Low Self-Esteem Defend Slighted Brands.

FINANCIAL SECURITY: Make Friends Instead of Worrying About Money? Not sure I’m buying this.

UPDATE: Related. Courtesy of reader Kenneth Mitchell.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Confessions Of A Gun-Loving Journalist.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: EXCLUSIVE: DEA agents arranged prostitute for Secret Service agent. “All three DEA special agents admitted that they had paid for sexual services of a prostitute, the investigation also found, and ‘used their DEA Blackberry devices to arrange such activities.’ In addition, the report says the agents tried to destroy incriminating information or initially lied to investigators about the incidents. All three agents have high-security clearances.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: How Much Can We Cut Defense?

Not that I disagree with the fundamental premise: our defense budget is large, and can probably be cut back a lot. I mean, we could save a huge amount of money just by cutting back to the spending levels of . . . the United States, ca 2007.

Ah, yes, back in the frugal Bush years. But there’s a more serious point:

I would like to see someone specify how far we could cut. Should we be spending the same amount as China? Twice as much? Would that be a stable equilibrium, or would we be encouraging the emergence of global competitors who would then force us to spend more again?

When I think about this, I think of Google. It’s safe to say that Google spends more than anyone else on the development of web services, including improving stuff that they aleady spend more on than anyone else, and do better than anyone else, like . . . web search. You could argue that they should stop, because it’s a waste of money: they’ve already got the top ranked search engine, and webmail program. Why continue to spend money making those things better when they’ve already got such a dominant position?

And to some extent, I am sure that this is right. Google could spend less on development, and still maintain its position as top dog. Web search is characterized by enormous network effects: Google searches are so useful precisely because everyone else is using Google. That lets them gather loads of information about what links are the most useful responses to a given search–and thereby improve search for all of you. That’s a big barrier to potential competitors.

But it seems important to know how much less they could spend–particularly in the context of a budget discussion, where we’re proposing cuts.

I don’t think that many strategic advisors would recommend Google cut back its spending to the level of its next biggest competitor.

Nope.

PRIORITIES: Walker To Cut Income Tax, Rahm To Ban Guns. “Just a little more than an hour apart, but worlds away in leadership are Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker. Thursday, Walker announced today that the budget he will sign this summer will include ‘significant’ cuts to the income tax rates. Rahm, on the other hand, plans to introduce a gun ordinance.”

ELI LAKE: Four Months After Benghazi Attack, Where Are the Killers? The Administration doesn’t seem to be trying very hard here.

HOW’S THAT ARAB SPRING WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Nation in Distress: Egyptian Pound Plummets. “The Egyptian economy fell into disarray when Morsi, fearing a public backlash against the terms and conditions, initially postponed the IMF deal. The Egyptian pound crashed and foreign reserves ran out, driving up prices for basic goods. As the pound continues to fall, Qatar has offered something of a band-aid in the form of a $2.5 billion loan, but real stability depends on IMF involvement. . . . What is clear is that Morsi and his government don’t have the answers. The Muslim Brothers have spent most of their short time in government settling old scores and consolidating their grip on power instead of making allies and moving the country forward.” Good thing nothing like that could happen here.

KIMBERLY STRASSEL: The Real Gun-Control Consensus. “Despite the press’s exuberant efforts to cast congressional gun supporters as having changed their minds, there has been no actual movement.”

THIS IS PROBABLY BAD NEWS FOR CHUCK HAGEL: Pastor for Obama’s inaugural drops out over anti-gay sermon. “Louis Giglio, a Georgia-based pastor who had been selected to give the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration, has dropped out from the program after reports that he gave an anti-gay sermon in the 1990s.”

EMILY MILLER: David Gregory’s privileged firearms fandango: D.C. attorney general should prosecute NBC host.

NRA 1, OBAMA 0: White House may consider funding for police in schools after Newtown. Wait, weren’t the lefty pundits telling us that only an idiot NRA shill would endorse this idea? And someone should ask Rahm Emanuel if he’s changed his position . . . .

BUT OF COURSE: Virginia Democrats push to loosen voting rules.

POINTS AND FIGURES: Everyone’s Moving Away. “People are leaving the less fiscally sound states for other states that are in better fiscal shape. They are also starting to follow jobs. Job growth in states like California has been anemic compared to states like Texas. . . . Long term trends for states that aren’t increasing their populations are not good. The productive classes are leaving. That leaves behind the very wealthy, and the people on government assistance.”

UPDATE: Reader J.C. Rhoades sees a downside:

We should be wary of succumbing to excessive Schadenfreude…I lived in Monument, CO for three years after retiring from the military and in that time watched the beginnings of the exodus from California. All the lefties flowed into that beautiful, then fairly conservative state and turned it into LA East. Granted, the Peoples’ Republic of Boulder has always been proto-totalitarian and Denver, being a large city, was suffering a Blue infestation but the Left Coasties, like termites leaving a hollowed-out house, came in from Kollyfornia and tipped the Rocky Mountain state into the Dem column for a generation.

I just hope to God that doesn’t happen to, say, Texas or Wyoming or Louisiana.

Yes, we need an education/orientation program for blue-state refugees. Perhaps the State Policy Network folks could put something together.

NEW PLAN: TAXING YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE. “One proposal popular with economists is treating some portion of employer-provided health insurance as taxable income on a filer’s tax return, an idea proposed by Hillary Clinton and accepted by many Democrats during the 2008 campaign. If a health plan is valued at more than $14,000, for example, the sum above that could be treated as taxable income.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: COLLEGES LOSE PRICING POWER:

Facing stagnant family income, shaky job prospects for graduates and a smaller pool of high-school graduates, more schools are reining in tuition increases and giving out larger scholarships to attract students, Moody’s concluded in a report set to be released Thursday.

But the strategy is eating into net tuition revenue, which is the revenue that colleges collect from tuition minus scholarships and other aid. College officials said they need to increase net tuition revenue to keep up with rising expenses that include faculty benefits and salaries. But one-third of the 292 schools that responded to Moody’s survey anticipate that net revenue will climb in the current fiscal year by less than inflation. . . .

The financial pressures signal that many schools are starting to capitulate to complaints that college has become unaffordable to many American families, observers say. At least two dozen private colleges froze tuition this fall, roughly double the previous year’s total.

“It’s pretty clear that pricing power of colleges has reached an inflection point,” said John Nelson, a managing director at Moody’s who oversaw the survey team.

Can I say “I told you so?” Because, you know, I did.

ED DRISCOLL: Turning Japanese? I Really Think So.