CONTROVERSY OVER SEX WEEK AT UT. My only objection — besides noting that when I was in college, every week was sex week, and I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today — is that the whole thing seems kind of lame and contrived, and so very derivative of what’s already been done repeatedly at other schools. It reminds me of many years ago when my then-Dean wanted to get together a group to discuss this new thing called Critical Legal Studies, a couple of years after everyone quit caring about Critical Legal Studies.

ADAM WINKLER: Did The Assault Weapons Ban Kill Gun Control? “Gun-control advocates will no doubt mourn the demise of Feinstein’s assault-weapons proposal. Yet, they may soon be asking if the proposal lived too long—just long enough to dash hopes of enacting any meaningful reform. Banning the sale of assault weapons was a bad idea from the start. These guns may be scary looking, but they are rarely used in criminal activity. While involved in a handful of high-profile mass shootings, including in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado, these weapons aren’t a significant contributor to gun violence overall.” Nope. It’s all about imagery, magical thinking — and culture war.

IN LINE WITH MY ADVICE: GOP lawmaker offers bill to prevent Cyprus-like run on savings accounts. “The measure from Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) was inspired by the banking crisis in Cyprus, which sent shivers through the markets this week when it considered assessing a levy against all bank deposits to help pay for a bailout of its major banks. . . . Long said Wednesday that his resolution, H.Res. 129, was introduced to ensure the U.S. never considers a levy on deposits.”

More here. Call your Representative and ask him/her to cosponsor.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Jones writes:

Rep. Billy Long’s introduced resolution against a Cyprus-like raid on bank deposits is nice–certainly a lot better than no resolution on the point at all. But it’s only a resolution. Which means exactly nothing, legally speaking. Congress passes resolutions all the time, on matters both profound and frivolous. We need legislation, not resolutions. Sure, a future Congress could just repeal legislation prohibiting such things, or ignore it. But that in itself would be a warning sign. Nobody’s going to notice or care if they violate a resolution.

Fair point.

METAPHOR ALERT: “Tree gifted by President Obama to Israel this morning is dug up hours later for ‘pest’ testing.” “This, after that car breakdown.”

SHOCKER: The man who shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” last summer has reportedly converted to Islam and prays up to five times a day.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is chicken making kids gay? But why “shame” her for asking that? Is there something wrong with being gay?

REPORT: A Drone the Size of a Mosquito Buzzing Over Your Backyard? Judiciary Committee weighs pitfalls and benefits of domestic drone surveillance.

I KINDA EXPECTED THE 21ST CENTURY’S FIRST FORAY INTO INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL TO BE MORE . . . DRAMATIC. Did Voyager 1 Just Leave the Solar System? Nobody Knows for Sure.

ARE LABOR UNIONS trying to blow up the immigration bill? “Union officials are trying to kill a bipartisan immigration reform bill by insisting on stringent protections for domestic construction workers, Republicans and business lobbyists charged Thursday.”

THE “FRACKING” REVOLUTION comes to China.

YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY: At Amazon, markdowns on USB flash drives.

Also, markdowns on Micro SD cards. Plus, discounts on external hard drives.

SHOCKINGLY, YOU CAN’T SAVE CITIES WITH HIPSTER SUBSIDIES: Richard Florida Concedes the Limits of the Creative Class. “The so-called creative class of intellects and artists was supposed to remake America’s cities and revive urban wastelands. Now the evidence is in—and the experiment appears to have failed. . . . Burning money trying to become ‘cooler’ ends up looking something like the metropolitan equivalent to a midlife crisis. . . . the creative class doesn’t have much in the way of coattails.”

Shockingly, “largely childless” demographics don’t do much for growth. Plus: “The fastest job growth has taken place in regions—Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Omaha—whose economies are based not on ‘creative’ industries but on less fashionable pursuits such as oil and gas, agriculture and manufacturing.”

NON-PARTISAN: Hey, why is ‘non-partisan’ OFA ‘FACT’ trolling GOP using @BarackObama Twitter account?

BRIDAL DESIGNS crafted from roadkill. The 21st century isn’t turning out as I’d expected. . . .

AT AMAZON, deals in Computers & Accessories.

THE COMFY CHAIR STOOL REVOLUTION: Pubs Are Becoming Second Offices. “We knew WiFi was valuable for getting reliable access to work emails or quickly downloading large documents – what we didn’t expect was that Brits do so much of this in pubs, this may reflect how pubs are changing to become more flexible spaces throughout the working day and into the evening.”

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

STUDENT MAKES CHAIR out of rubber bands. “An art student started making a ball of rubber bands in class – and 65,000 bands later it has stretched into the world’s bounciest office chair.”

Plus: “Within minutes, they’re jumping up and down on it. It’s a reliable chair and feels very safe – every office should have one.”

TEN COMPANIES CHASING INNOVATIONS THAT REALLY MATTER. Well, some of them.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do Libertarians Really “Want a World Without Moral Judgments”?

Also: Is Reason’s Foreign Policy “Morally Vacuous” and “Historically Ignorant”?

INSIDE THE AMERICAN HOUSEWARES CRAZE. “What’s interesting is that these two trends—exquisite artisanal chicken coops and high-end kitchen robots—are growing at the same time. What’s even more interesting is that they may not be opposed. After all, if you’ve got perfectly fresh eggs, shouldn’t you also get the top-notch equipment to turn them into perfect hollandaise? And now that women are in the workforce instead of the farm kitchen, shouldn’t that equipment save time as well as labor? Which is to say, shouldn’t it let you walk away and do something else?”

MEGAN MCARDLE: Why Do Economists Urge College, But Not Marriage? “College improves your earning prospects. So does marriage. Education makes you more likely to live longer. So does marriage. Yet while many economist vocally support initiatives to move more people into college, very few of them vocally favor initiatives to get more people married. . . . Which makes me gravitate towards a more parsimonious explanation: all economists are, definitionally, very good at college. Not all economists are good at marriage. Saying that more people should go to college will make 0% of your colleagues feel bad. Saying that more people should get married and stay married will make a significant fraction of your colleagues feel bad. And in general, most people have an aversion to topics which are likely to trigger a personal grudge in a coworker.”

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Obama’s Middle East policy in tatters: U.S is now less popular in the region than at the end of the George W. Bush administration. Popularity might not be the best gauge of success — but it’s hard to think of any other metrics on which Obama has done better. And, of course, one of the promises of his campaign was that by electing a black man with an Arab-sounding name, we’d do better with the region than we did with Bush. Not so much, as it turns out.

WINNING THE WAR ON MEN MEANS MORE SINGLE MOMS:

Men are becoming less appealing to women. Meager earnings tend to make a man less marriageable. And as men are skipping college in greater numbers, their wages are dropping.

But as we noted yesterday, the turn away from marriage hasn’t made men any less likely to father children. As a result, single motherhood is on the rise, and boys growing up without fathers will face even worse odds of successful employment and marriage.

Men are doing worse, but female hypergamy remains a strong force. It makes a poor combination.

UPDATE: Reader George Milonas writes:

I think most men would deny they’re in decline. Men are having just as much sex but without the legal liabilities marriage impose on them. All I’m hearing from women in these articles is that men need to grow up and take responsibility for their actions, meaning they need to legally sign a paper imposing government sanctions on them if said marriage dissolves. There is no question that men are getting the shaft from the courts financially when divorce occurs. Furthermore women are also more likely to get custody of any children as well as more decision making responsibility.

Men have wised up after hearing horror story upon horror story from their older friends and family when the court system utterly destroyed their lives and have simply decided to go galt from the entire marriage process.

Divorce courts have become the ultimate nanny state intrusion into the lives of men and the average man has decided that it simply is not worth the risk. Exactly how is that irresponsible to the man? This is the ultimate unexpected consequence Virginia slim gets.

Yes, this is the precise thesis of the Insta-Wife’s forthcoming book.

POLL: Even Democrats skeptical Obamacare will improve health care quality, reduce costs.