INVEST YOUR OWN MONEY? Or Pay Off Your Kids’ Student Loans? If that’s the choice, go with #1. If you can afford to pay off the loans, too, well, that’s a nice gesture. But here’s the key bit: “Unfortunately, there will be no scholarships or loans for retirement.”

BAH. IF YOU DO SQUATS, you don’t need butt enhancement. I’m proof!

I DON’T THINK THIS IS RIGHT, AND I CERTAINLY HOPE THAT IT ISN’T: What if everything we’ve come to think of as American is predicated on a freak coincidence of economic history? And what if that coincidence has run its course? My experience is that you read articles like this a few years before some new economic driver appears. But while I have a near-Kurzweilian faith in technology as an economic driver, it is, by necessity, faith, not knowledge.

That said, I think a lot of leftists like to believe there’s a fixed pot of goodies, and then arrogate to themselves the power to distribute its contents. Declinism fits their preferences better than growth.

MICHELLE MEYER ON THE NEW REPUBLIC: How Not To Correct The Record.

Recently, I wrote about the Zimmerman trial and my disappointment (if not complete surprise) at how irresponsible many journalists, scholars and lawyers have been in reporting, discussing, and drawing conclusions from that case. As I noted there, one of the most serious, and most obviously incorrect, of the many widespread errors about the case is that Zimmerman racially profiled a seven-year-old black child. Now, the original police log of Zimmerman’s calls has been available to everyone with an Internet connection and two minutes to spare since March of 2012. Nevertheless, on July 16, 2013, The New Republic published an essay in which a distinguished law professor wrote the following (emphasis in original):

. . . Zimmerman was an edgy basket case with a gun who had called 911 46 times in 15 months, once to report the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy.

That sentence contains three factual errors (the broader article contains others), two of which I noted in my prior post. First, and probably of least importance, many of Zimmerman’s 46 calls (reporting 43 incidents) were made to the non-emergency police number (not just to 911). Second, and of more import, Zimmerman made 46 calls over 7.5 years (not over 15 months). Third, and most egregiously, Zimmerman’s call (to the non-emergency police number) regarding a seven-to-nine-year-old black boy was placed because Zimmerman was “concerned for [the] well being” of that child, who was walking unaccompanied on a busy street (see page 37).

After being alerted to at least some of these errors, TNR eventually edited the sentence. Two changes were made — one acknowledged at the bottom of the TNR article, and one unacknowledged — while a third error was left unaddressed. The acknowledged change addresses the least damaging of the three errors: TNR replaced “called 911” with “called the polics [sic],” thus implicitly acknowledging that many of GZ’s calls were to the non-emergency number rather than to 911. A more damaging error remains: that GZ made 46 calls within “15 months,” instead of over a period of 7.5 years, as the call log readily shows.

But it’s TNR’s unacknowledged change in response to the third, most serious, error that really chafes. Here’s how the sentence now reads (once again, italics in the original):

. . . Zimmerman was an edgy basket case with a gun who had called the polics 46 times in 15 months, once to report on a seven year old black boy.

Seriously?

That’s the part of the narrative they can’t let go of. Like Charlie Rangel, if they admit it’s not 1963 anymore, their whole worldview — and position therein — is at risk. (This is also why Zimmerman — who would qualify as a “diversity hire” on any law faculty in America — must also be pigeonholed as “White.”) The “Distinguished Law Professor,” by the way, is Richard Thompson Ford of Stanford. Ford is the author of The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. The Zimmerman case would seem to be a pure instantiation of that thesis.

PEOPLE DO NOT ALWAYS BEHAVE “RATIONALLY:” They Finally Tested The ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ On Actual Prisoners — And The Results Were Not What You Would Expect.

DAVE HARDY: “No Retreat” Laws As A Racial Issue. “So in the end, no retreat or stand your ground laws actually benefit minorities more than they do whites! The Tampa Bay Times was trying to reverse the actual effects, in order to generate story that fit its narrative. The reason why my figures almost exactly parallel those of the Times is simple: there were only one white on black and one black on white self-defense cases in the sample.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How An Introvert Can Be Happier: Act Like An Extrovert.

DISCRIMINATION: College Republicans Dubbed Security Threat, Refused Entrance to Obama’s Campus Speech. “Ten College Republicans were dubbed a security threat and refused admittance to President Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Central Missouri on Wednesday. Despite the fact that the students had tickets to the event, security personnel turned them away at the door to the recreation center where Obama gave a speech on economic policy, telling the group it wasn’t about their politics but the president’s safety.”

This is consistent with the Administration’s general strategy of treating political opponents like enemies of the state.

UPDATE: What should people do? (1) Sue. (2) Demand that colleges not host Obama for speeches in the future. If he’s not safe around the College Republicans, he shouldn’t be on campus at all. If they do have him on campus, protest noisily outside — and file lawsuits trying to injoin his appearance. On public university campuses, barring people based on political affiliation — which is what’s going on here — is a first amendment violation. (3) Make a stink to the university’s big donors.

BRUCE THORNTON: Christian Tragedy in the Muslim World. “We are living through one of the largest persecutions of a religious group in history.”

#WARONTEXAS: Breaking: Holder Tries to Re-grab Texas, Announces Nationwide Attack on Election Integrity. The goal is to delay any changes in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling until after 2014.

DIVIDER-IN-CHIEF: Race relations have plummeted since Obama took office, according to poll. “Only 52 percent of whites and 38 percent of blacks have a favorable opinion of race relations in the country, according to the poll, which has tracked race relations since 1994 and was conducted in mid-July by Hart Research Associations and Public Opinion Strategies. That’s a sharp drop from the beginning of Obama’s first term, when 79 percent of whites and 63 percent of blacks held a favorable view of American race relations. . . . The increased division is a long way from the hope for improved race relations that fueled and accompanied Obama’s 2008 victory.”

Related: Obama Barely Edges Zimmerman in New Poll.

Also: Family rescued by George Zimmerman from car accident cancels press conference in fear of “blowback.” The White House and its minions — Sharpton, et al., — whipped this up. It may have helped them with their base, but it’s ugly stuff and people are recognizing that.

I’M BEGINNING TO LOSE CONFIDENCE IN FACEBOOK: Facebook removes the same posts, and blocks Michael Z. Williamson again, for which they apologized for removing before.

NOT-SO-PHONY SCANDAL UPDATE: Exclusive: IRS watchdog reviewing claims of improper audit of Tea Party farmer. “The IRS’s internal watchdog is reviewing allegations that the agency improperly audited a Tea Party owner of a small Virginia farm whose repeated clashes with a local environmental group and the county over zoning laws have made her a cause celebre for property-rights advocates.”

MORE TROUBLE FOR TERRY MCAULIFFE: Former worker raises concerns about Greentech’s progress.

Plus, a connection with Tony Rodham’s visa scandal. Yes, that’s Hillary’s brother Tony.

HUMA UPDATE: The good wife? Oh, give us a break!

Related: She’s Even Worse: Why We’re Mad At Huma. “Mind you, from what the couple now tells us, she knew when she was pushing him to run that he’d kept up the sexting for months and months after he left Congress. And, as the two were plotting his political comeback, Abedin posed for soft-focus People Magazine photos painting the picture of a happy family that had moved on from Weiner’s indiscretions.”

And don’t miss this piece from Andrew McCarthy on the things about Huma it’s apparently impolite to bring up.

Related: Questioning The Timing.

AT AMAZON, special savings on Levi’s. For men and women.

Also, 25% or more off on Dockers For Men.

Also, today only: Vornado 154 Whole Room Tower Fan, $59.99 (50% off).

MEGAN MCARDLE: Obama’s Speech Is A Confession Of Impotence.

Obama has been promising green jobs for years, and failing to deliver them for just as long. There’s little evidence that more environmentally friendly energy sources will be net job creators. The middle class may enjoy bluer skies if we convert more of our power generation capacity to wind and solar. But we’ve no reason to think that they’ll enjoy more green in their wallets.

The manufacturing innovation institute, meanwhile, is just another iteration of an idea that’s been around for longer than Barack Obama has. Go to any Rust Belt city and you’ll find research campuses, innovation institutes and similar institutions named after hopeful politicians who promised that a new manufacturing base would coalesce around this exciting agglomeration of creative minds. Unfortunately, in most instances it has turned out that manufacturing bases would rather coalesce around cheap land, low taxes and acres of uncongested freeway.

Besides, the problem in America is not that we suddenly lost our manufacturing mojo. In fact, we’re still very good at it; according to the Boston Consulting Group, the inflation-adjusted value of our manufacturing output has more than doubled since 1972. But our manufacturing employment is down by one-third, because production is highly automated in most industries. Even small metalworking operations now use computer-aided design and robots as much as they do grizzled machinists.

The same problem besets other areas the president leaned hard on … evergreen promises like better education and infrastructure. These are splendid ideas — America’s port and rail infrastructure badly needs updating, and a better-educated workforce is a worthy goal. But these things will not magically produce loads more manufacturing jobs, much less boost the income share of the middle class to 1970s levels. They will make the economy somewhat more efficient, we hope. But that efficiency, if it comes at all, will be decades away. And especially in the case of education, it may not come.

We have a very good idea of how to construct port architecture capable of receiving a supertanker. On the other hand, we are not very good at keeping inner city and rural kids from dropping out of high school. And the main policy lever that Obama has at his disposal — pouring more money into the school system — is not very well correlated with improved outcomes. In fact, we’ve been trying it for decades in our nation’s worst schools, with not much to show for it.

Read the whole thing.

VIDEO: Jesse Watters Confronts Charlie Rangel on Zimmerman Demagogy. Note that Rangel can’t let go of the idea that Zimmerman is white. He has to hold onto that, or he can’t pretend it’s still 1963. And if it’s not still 1963, he’s just a pathetic corrupt tax-evading pol instead of a bold crusader for justice. Problem is, it’s not still 1963.

OUT IN THE REAL WORLD: Houston woman stands her ground, fatally shoots man wielding knife.

UPDATE: Andrew Branca analyzes.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 77. I think that Paul Caron does a real service by collecting all this stuff every day. I’m sure it’s a lot of work. Feel free to thank him in the comments at his blog if you’re so inclined, as I’ll bet he didn’t plan to keep it up this long. . . .

THE NEW YORK TIMES ADDS A CORRECTION ON SCALIA:

Ann Althouse puts Justice Scalia’s remarks in context. He spoke on day 3 of a convention. The day before, William F. Meinecke of the Holocaust Memorial Museum gave a presentation on law, justice and the holocaust. Justice Scalia’s musings appear to have grown out of that talk. The Godwin’s Law joke, then, was inapt.

Nice to see it noted.

JAMES TARANTO: The Politics of Contempt: Obama pivots for the 973rd time.

When somebody feels the need to describe his feelings as genuine, it’s a safe bet that they’re actually insincere. The alternative would be to assume that he is admitting to habitual insincerity–saying, in effect: Unlike all my other pronouncements, this one is genuine. But that poses a liar’s-paradox problem: A candid acknowledgment that one is habitually insincere would be inconsistent with the underlying reality of habitual insincerity.

Thus pure logic dictates that the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent was merely posturing when he tweeted this morning that he was “genuinely sad to see supposedly neutral news orgs mocking the idea of a ‘pivot’ to jobs.”

Actually, our (admittedly cursory) search turned up only one such org, ABC News, whose website yesterday featured the headline “Obama Pivots to Economy . . . Again.” If that seems sarcastic, it is only very mildly so, given that reporter Mary Bruce thoroughly documents the president’s perseveration.

Plus:

Also, which scandals exactly are “phony”? The biggest scandal is the one that raises serious questions about the legitimacy of Obama’s re-election. Here is what President Asterisk himself had to say on the subject way back on May 13: “If you’ve got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and non-partisan way, then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions. And people have to be held accountable, and it’s got to be fixed. . . . I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it.”

We’re sure his outrage over the phony scandal was genuine.

Ouch. And: “On the other hand, Obama’s certitude about his own superiority, his utter contempt for his political adversaries, even for those whose priorities differ from his–now that’s genuine. It is the central feature of his political character, and the proximate cause of–pardon the cliché–Washington’s current ‘dysfunction.'”

HIGH SPEED RAIL CRASH kills 78 in Spain.

ACCOUNTING TODAY: Congress Probes Status of IRS Officials and Documents in Tea Party Scandal.

Even Joe Scarborough is getting testy over the White House’s stonewalling.