IS THERE ONE FOR BEER, TOO? 17 Genes For Food Preferences Identified By Italian Researchers. There’s one for bacon, so. . . .

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: PA 1st-Grader Accidentally Brings Toy Gun To School, Turns It In, Gets Suspended. Lesson learned: It is best not to come to the attention of the authorities. Really, public schools are looking less and less healthy for children and other living things.

SO WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Milky Way Could Have 100 Million Planets Hospitable for Complex Life.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Why Modi Is No Erdogan.

CAR GUY CONFESSES: I flunked Driver’s Ed.

UNEXPECTEDLY! In a Single Year, Basic Hospital Prices Soar — And Experts Aren’t Sure Why.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 393.

DEMOGRAPHICS: The Pope vs. Cat Ladies.

UPDATE: Amanda Marcotte sounding kinda defensive here.

CRONYISM AT THE EXPENSE OF CONSUMERS? WHEN TERRY MCAULIFFE IS GOVERNOR? Virginia Reiterates: Uber and Lyft Are Illegal, And Need to Provide Services Less and Lobby Government More.

As my post yesterday about how Lyft drivers were being cited and having cars impounded in Austin, Texas, made clear, in the uncertain, shifting, and highly varied legal and regulatory environment across the nation for “e-hailing” apps like Uber and Lyft, the companies have a tendency at times to operate first, and see what cities try to do to stop them later. (Which in many cases is to try to fine, ban, limit, or otherwise harass them.). . . .

Today the state of Virginia loudly and firmly reiterated that this superhelpful, wonderful, makes-life-easier-for-nearly everyone, technical innovation in rides-for-hire is not permitted, and thus prohibited, in that state. There is nothing so helpful to the public that our public defenders won’t try to destroy.

As currently constituted, Uber and Lyft provide insufficient opportunities for graft.

BERGDAHL FALLOUT: Terrorist Swap Raised In Tight Blue-State Midterm Race. “President Obama’s decision to swap five high-level Taliban detainees for a U.S. soldier who wandered off five years ago has emerged as an issue in the race to unseat U.S. Rep. John Tierney, and is dividing members of the state’s congressional delegation. . . . President Obama’s decision to swap five high-level Taliban detainees for a U.S. soldier who wandered off five years ago has emerged as an issue in the race to unseat U.S. Rep. John Tierney, and is dividing members of the state’s congressional delegation.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More on that UNC athletic scandal.

Rashad McCants, the second-leading scorer on the North Carolina basketball team that won the 2004-05 national title, told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that tutors wrote his term papers, he rarely went to class for about half his time at UNC, and he remained able to play largely because he took bogus classes designed to keep athletes academically eligible. . . .

McCants also told “Outside the Lines” that he even made the Dean’s List in Spring 2005 despite not attending any of his four classes for which he received straight-A grades. He said advisers and tutors who worked with the basketball program steered him to take the paper classes within the African-American Studies program.

McCants’ allegations mirror and amplify many of those first made public in 2011, when the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer began to report about widespread academic fraud at UNC. The scandal has centered on the African-American Studies classes that many athletes took in order to remain eligible. The newspaper reported in December 2012 that basketball players on the national championship team accounted for 15 enrollments in the classes. A UNC internal investigation found that 54 classes in the department of African and Afro-American Studies were either “aberrant” or “irregularly” taught from summer 2007 to summer 2011. That investigation only went back to 2007, according to the school’s review, because the two senior associate deans who conducted the probe were told by Karen Gil, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to focus on that time frame.

Seems pretty corrupt. It’s like the whole system cares more about money than educating students.

And, in fact:

“I thought it was a part of the college experience, just like watching it on a movie from ‘He Got Game’ or ‘Blue Chips,'” McCants said. “… when you get to college, you don’t go to class, you don’t do nothing, you just show up and play. That’s exactly how it was, you know, and I think that was the tradition of college basketball, or college, period, any sport. You’re not there to get an education, though they tell you that.

“You’re there to make revenue for the college. You’re there to put fans in the seats. You’re there to bring prestige to the university by winning games.”

So yeah, pretty much.

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “REPUBLICAN OVERREACH” THE LEFTY BLOGGERS ARE GOING ON ABOUT: In Pittsburgh, Leon Panetta questions prisoner swap with Taliban. “A former top adviser to President Obama on Wednesday questioned the release of dangerous terrorists in exchange for an imprisoned American soldier as anger spread among lawmakers in Washington over the secret deal to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.”

DISCOVERY: ‘Victims Can Lie as Much as Other People.’ “According to the article’s author, Simon Marks, during the years Somaly Mam was supposedly trapped in a Phnom Penh brothel she was actually attending school in her hometown of Thloc Chhroy. Her fellow villagers remember her as a happy, pig-tailed teenager.”

Related: Nick Kristof’s White-Knighting.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Fourth Of July Store. Plan your party now.

Plus, take 25% off Helly Hansen outerwear.

MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION EVER: Special Counsel Investigating 37 Cases of VA Retaliation Against Whistleblowers.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY — OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: California Legislators Want to Tell College Kids When to Have Sex.

JAMES TARANTO: Who’s More Competent? 43 beats 44, 48% to 42%.

This has to hurt: A plurality of respondents in a new Fox News poll “believe the administration of former President George W. Bush was more competent [than] the Obama administration,” the Hill reports. “Forty-eight percent say the Obama administration is less competent, while 42 percent say it is more competent.” Although the question didn’t include the option, 7% volunteered that they rated the two administrations “the same.”

Not surprisingly, partisans favor the president from their party, with 76% of Democrats siding with Obama and 81% of Republicans with Bush. But independents also favor Bush, albeit by a considerably smaller margin: 47% to 34%, with 14% “the same.”

Another way of putting it is that 55% of all respondents and 61% of independents think that Obama is at least as incompetent as Bush–which, given the latter’s reputation toward the end of his term, is quite damning of the current president.

Obama’s legacy will be rehabilitating Bush’s legacy.

THE OBAMACARE DEBACLE ISN’T GOING AWAY: Roll Call: Fiscal Diagnosis Only Gets Tougher for Health Care Law.

For Democratic lawmakers who were hesitant to sign onto the sweeping 2010 health care law, one of the most powerful selling points was that the Affordable Care Act would actually reduce the federal budget deficit, despite the additional costs of extending health insurance coverage to the uninsured.

Four years after enactment of what is widely viewed as President Barack Obama’s key legislative achievement, however, it’s unclear whether the health care law is still on track to reduce the deficit or whether it may actually end up adding to the federal debt. In fact, the answer to that question has become something of a mystery.

In its latest report on the law, the Congressional Budget Office said it is no longer possible to assess the overall fiscal impact of the law.

How convenient.

AUSTIN BAY: D-DAY: Rangers Lead The Way.

SPYING: Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance. “The company said wires had been connected directly to its network and those of other telecoms groups, allowing agencies to listen to or record live conversations and, in certain cases, track the whereabouts of a customer.”

THE VA SCANDAL ISN’T GOING AWAY. The Hill: Acting VA chief: 18 vets died on Phoenix wait list.

THAT’S INTREPID: Student With Pepper Spray Disarmed Gunman in Seattle. A gun would have worked better, I expect, but it’s a “gun-free” zone, so only gunmen have them.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: New York Post: Schumer’s IRS. “Did Chuck Schumer try to use the IRS to sidestep the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling — and stick a dagger in the heart of conservative groups?” Sure looks like it.

OBAMA IN 2008: It’s offensive that John McCain is saying I’ll negotiate with Hamas.

Obama in 2014: Negotiating with Hamas.