NOW ON YOUTUBE: My InstaVision interview with Texas Tea Party congressional candidate Katrina Pierson.

Her website is KatrinaForCongress.com.

LEGAL PROFESSION UPDATE: NALP: Associate Salaries Remain Flat. And note the massively bimodal salary curve, with the average dragged way above what most new associates actually make because of the skinny-but-tall spike that represents biglaw starting salaries. Bottom line is that unless you get a biglaw job, you probably won’t make more than between $45K and $65K to start. That’s not terrible — unless you’re carrying six-figure debt, in which case it is terrible.

LESSONS IN MANLINESS: From The Hobbit.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How an Engineer Earned 1.25 Million Air Miles By Buying Pudding.

WHEN REAL LIFE OUTPERFORMS CONSPIRACY THEORIES: The Clinton Foundation’s man in Cairo was also the Muslim Brotherhood’s. “How did the Clinton Foundation come to select El-Haddad to be its man in Cairo? We can only speculate. But we know that Huma Abedin (wife of Anthony Weiner) is one of Hillary Clinton’s most trusted advisers. We also know that both of Abedin’s parents have been major figures in the Muslim Brotherhood. The same is true of El-Hassad’s father — a top foreign policy adviser for ousted president Morsi, according to the Free Beacon. It’s a small world, about which Andy McCarthy has more to say.”

A COMMENT ON THE TOM DELAY CASE: “Between Ted Stevens, the IRS case, and now this — people are going to seriously start asking if there’s organized use of the federal government against Republicans.” The Delay case was a state prosecution, but prosecutor Ronnie Earle was clearly playing politics, as were the DOJ people going after Ted Stevens. And the IRS folks, too, obviously.

Meanwhile, what accountability for Ronnie Earle now?

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: “I Bet They Wouldn’t Even Let You Pass Out Constitutions on Constitution Day.”

CAN THE U.S. AND CHINA GET ALONG IN SPACE?

A PATENT BATTLE OVER Yoga Pants.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER’S CAR: It’s Not A Bug, It’s A Feature. Heh.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Senior Treasury Dept Officials Knew of IRS Targeting in Spring 2012, Documents Suggest. “New documents are raising questions about when senior Treasury Department officials, including deputy treasury secretary Neal Wolin and even former treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, learned about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tea-party groups. They suggest top brass at the Treasury Department may have been aware of the scandal in spring of 2012, a year before it became public.” One can only presume that they knew, and didn’t mind.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Circuits of graphitic nanoribbons grown from aligned DNA templates.

AIRSHIP 2.0: Inside the Lighter-Than-Air Revival. They’ve been proclaiming a lighter-than-air revolution most of my life. I hope it comes true.

SO I’VE BEEN USING THE SAME EDDIE BAUER LAPTOP BRIEFCASE FOR GOING ON A DECADE, and I decided it was time to put it out to pasture. I wound up buying this Everki laptop briefcase — which I first saw in an ad on InstaPundit, actually. Two things that I like a lot: (1) Pockets galore. It’s full of zippered mesh pockets so you can store things separately and see what you’re looking for easily, something aided by the bright orange of the interior; (2) The fact that it opens up fully — the Eddie Bauer only unzipped partway and I was always plumbing the dark depths trying to find a black USB stick or something. The black ballistic nylon exterior is a bit humdrum, in my opinion, but the Insta-Wife actually likes it better than the olive-green of the Eddie Bauer, so it’s a matter of taste. The center compartment is such that you could throw in some underwear, a couple of shirts, and a travel shaving kit and turn it into an overnight bag if you’re good at traveling light. There’s also a separate Kindle/iPad slot and — though it’s kinda sad that it’s needed — the “checkpoint friendly” design means you can just zip it open and lay it flat on the X-ray conveyor rather than having to dig your laptop out.

DESPERATION IS THE MOTHER OF SENSIBILITY: Desperate UK Turns To Shale Gas.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO USA TODAY REPORTER: I have information that undercuts your story, but won’t tell you what it is.

The USA Today response: “You can’t seriously ask me not to publish something on the basis of information you won’t share.” With this DOJ, the normal rules of seriousness don’t apply.

UNDER OBAMACARE, Uncle Sam turns creepy.

Also: “It’s my first time.”

INDEED: Life Without Antibiotics Would Be Nasty, Brutish and Short(er). And that’s the way we’re headed, unless something is done. Earlier post here. And, of course, there’s always phages.

MESSAGING: Ted Cruz: “Why is President Obama threatening to shut down govt to shove Obamacare down Americans’ throats?”

Steve Stockman: “The president’s promise to shut down the government is childish and disrespectful.”

John Boehner: “While the president is happy to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, he won’t engage with congress.”

AUBREY DE GREY: Google’s Calico project means that hearts and minds have been convinced that we can defeat aging.

BUT THE PROSECUTION ACCOMPLISHED ITS GOAL, WHICH WAS BATTLESPACE PREPARATION: Tom Delay’s conviction overturned.

AT NRO, KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ INTERVIEWS THE INSTA-WIFE about her new book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters.

DAVID HARSANYI: Yes, Americans Like the Debt Ceiling – And it Matters.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 133.