MEDICINE: “Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.”

WHERE HAS ALL THE AMMO GONE? “If the ammunition makers are producing more ammunition than ever before—regardless of government contracts—why is there no ammo on the shelf? Simply put, other people are buying it before you do. This is basic supply and demand. When demand is high and supply low, prices increase. And my friend Tim could not have bought it all. Speculation has also played a role.”

THE DEATH SPIRAL OF PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX RATES: “A more progressive tax code now leverages the negative impact of slow economic growth. The share of all individual income taxes paid by the top 1% has risen to 41.8% in 2008 from 17.4% in 1980—but almost two-thirds of the income from the top 1% comes from nonwage income, including capital gains, dividends and proprietor’s profits.”

MORE OF THAT MYTHICAL VOTER FRAUD: Voting Early and in More Than One State. “North Carolina’s State Board of Elections is referring evidence to prosecutors that five people appear to have voted in both North Carolina and in Florida. The information the board is passing on wasn’t gathered by government officials, but by a private watchdog group called the Voter Integrity Project.” Yeah, the government officials don’t seem very interested in prosecuting or investigating this kind of stuff, for some reason.

THE HILL: Reid guts Senate gun control bill. “The gun control bill headed for the Senate floor bears little resemblance to the far-reaching proposal President Obama unveiled after the deadly shooting in Newtown, Conn. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided the federal assault weapons ban will not be a part of the base bill and warned Tuesday an expansion of background checks to cover private sales might not make the cut, either.” Good.

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Number of Undetected ‘City Killer’ Asteroids ‘Very Large,’ House Panel Told. “Until the recent Russian impact, quite a few people thought those of us who were even aware of this or dare mention it were on the kooky side.”

JOE PAPPALARDO: The Race To Cash In On Earth Orbit.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

FOURTH CIRCUIT: Open carry of a handgun not grounds for “reasonable suspicion” to detain. Where open carry is legal.

THE DANGERS OF A SOLAR STORM. This is why we should be hardening our infrastructure now. But, of course, such an approach would produce too many jobs for burly men. Can’t have that.

Related item here.

A WISH THAT’S LIKELY TO COME TRUE: Why We Need More Solar Companies to Fail.

INSTAPUNDIT AND PJM WILL BE DOWN FOR AN UPGRADE LATER THIS EVENING/MORNING — so don’t panic.

WHEN THERE’S NOT ENOUGH MISCEGENATION: Skulls of early humans carry telltale signs of inbreeding, study says. “The presence of the Xujiayao and other Pleistocene human abnormalities therefore suggests unusual population dynamics, most likely from high levels of inbreeding and local population instability.”

INCENTIVES: The real mystery here isn’t “Why so many babies?” The real mystery is “Why so few marriages?” And we have an answer. The missing word is “hypergamy,” though.

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SCIENCE: China Is Engineering Genius Babies. This is just the sort of thing that James Miller said to watch out for.

MONARCH IN THE MIDDLE: Jeffrey Goldberg Interviews King Abdullah II.

It is not necessarily good to be the king of a Middle Eastern country that is bereft of oil; nor is it necessarily so wonderful to be the king during the turmoil and uncertainty of the Arab Spring. It is certainly not good to be the king when the mystique that once enveloped your throne is evaporating.

But when a squadron of Black Hawk helicopters is reserved for your use, and when you are the type of king who finds release from the pressures of monarchy by piloting those Black Hawks up and down the length of your sand-covered kingdom—then it is still good to be the king.

Read the whole thing.

WELL, THERE’S THAT WHOLE EATING-PEOPLE THING: Why We Shouldn’t Bring Back The Saber-Toothed Tiger. But actually, this argument is kind of dumb, since it basically boils down to an it’ll-hurt-the-fundraising-strategies-of-environmental-groups argument.

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY: Savor the Richly Deserved Defeat of Feinstein’s ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban.

Related: Holy cow: Not even 40 votes in the Senate for the assault-weapons ban, says Reid.

UPDATE: Newtown reports surge in gun permit applications.

SHOCKER: Study of world-famous Stingray City finds human interaction drastically alters stingray behavior. That was my second dive, back in 1989. It was a fairly new site, then.

THE JERRY SANDUSKY OF CLIMATE SCIENCE? The Yale Alumni Magazine on Michael Mann. Of course, this article was written before the latest dump of ClimateGate emails. . . .

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Electronics.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Where Higher Education Went Wrong, a Reason symposium featuring me, plus a bunch of smarter people.

GOLD DEPOSITS created by earthquakes?

FINALLY: Scientists Build A Phaser.

BUSH-HATING LEFTY OCCUPY FAN launches into bizarre “God hates fags” rant.