AT AMAZON, deals on best-selling coffee.

Plus, up to 50% off on Men’s Athletic Shoes.

Plus, today only: Up to 80% Off More Than 500 Educational Kindle Books.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sen. Mike Lee introduces bill to direct federal funding to alternative higher education.

Someone get him a copy of my book?

JAMES TARANTO: ‘Parity’ or Parody? Optimistic economists have some funny ideas:

Subtract women’s earnings from men’s, and the smaller the number, the closer an economy is to “parity.” The reductio ad absurdum helps illuminate the problem: If there were no economic activity whatsoever, the formula would yield 0-0=0. Perfect parity!

In the real world, an economy in which men outearn women can come closer to parity in two ways: through rising female earnings and through declining male earnings. If parity is a desirable outcome in and of itself, we should stop hectoring young men to “man up,” stop playing videogames, and follow the example of their industrious female counterparts. The lads are doing their part to promote gender equality!

Joyce Jacobsen, the Wesleyan University economist who conducted the “Gender Inequality” study for Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus on Human Challenges, acknowledges that women’s rising earnings and men’s falling ones tend to move in tandem: “As women’s participation rise in the work force, men tend to work less, often starting work later in their lifespan and retiring earlier.” But her methodology does not account for that. Instead, it simply takes male earnings for granted and counts the earnings difference between the sexes as an economic “loss.”

That’s problematic for another reason: It assumes that in a society with more traditional sex roles, women contribute nothing of value. Gross domestic product measures only commercial work, not unpaid domestic (in the sense of household) work. It doesn’t capture the reality that a traditional marriage–or, for that matter, its reverse, a union between a working woman and a “house husband”–is an economic unit to which the homemaking spouse makes a vital contribution.

As we’ve noted, Scandinavian countries have promoted “gender equality” by employing armies of child-care workers, most of them female. That is, they get paid to take care of other women’s children. That counts toward the GDP figures, whereas it does not when mothers care for their own children at home. It’s not immediately obvious that the Scandinavian way leaves society as a whole better off.

Read the whole thing.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard Business Review: The Degree Is Doomed. “The value of paper degrees will inevitably decline when employers or other evaluators avail themselves of more efficient and holistic ways for applicants to demonstrate aptitude and skill.”

MY GUESS IS THAT IT WOULD SUCK FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE, BUT SO DOES THE STATUS QUO: The Complex Calculus of a North Korean Collapse.

RADLEY BALKO: Exposing Corrupt Prosecutors.

TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Some find health insurers have no record of them: As consumers try to use new medical policies, many find their insurers have no record of them.

CHANGE: Rumblings: More Republicans looking forward to midterms now than at this point in 2010. “Any indicator that the GOP in 2014 might somehow outperform the big red wave of 2010 is noteworthy, but timing is everything here. I think. In January 2010, ObamaCare hadn’t passed yet. Scott Brown was headed for victory in the Senate, imperiling the Democrats’ chances of getting it done. Republicans hadn’t reached peak outrage. In January 2014, we’ve just wrapped up three months of technological disaster, mass policy cancellations, and arbitrary weekly top-down tweaks by HHS to America’s new health-care regime. We may be at peak outrage now. I don’t think so — wait until small businesses start cutting insurance to their employees later this year — but it’s not unimaginable.”

PRIORITIES: The Hill: Begich misses jobless vote for speech in Hawaii.

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) missed a procedural vote on extending unemployment benefits to deliver a speech to a lobby group in Hawaii, The Hill has learned.

Begich delivered a keynote speech Wednesday morning to the American Aviation Issues conference, an annual event hosted by the American Association of Airport Executives. He also held two fundraisers for his hotly contested Senate race and met with Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) to discuss Alaska-Hawaii issues, according to a Begich aide. Elected officials from Hawaii and Alaska often work closely together on national issues to help give the states more clout.

The first-term senator is a top Republican target and will likely face a tight reelection battle this year in his heavily Republican state.

Yeah, but it was chilly on the East Coast.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Is Phone Sex A Sign Of Conscious Thought?

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE, DOUBLE STANDARDS EDITION: TV gives ‘Bridgegate’ 17 times more coverage in 1 day than IRS scandal in 6 months.

YOUR SIDE SEEKS TO IMPOSE IT’S BELIEFS, MY SIDE SEEKS JUSTICE: Eugene Volokh: “In many ways, the U.S. News & World Report op-ed condemning Catholics verges on self-parody.”

MICHAEL BARONE: The Cause Of Partisan Bitterness? Competent Political Competition.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Video Games.

Also, deals in TV, Audio, & Video.

HONESTLY, DID YOU EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE? Feds pick Obama supporter to lead probe into IRS tea party targeting.

CHANGE: Huy Fong Foods to start making Sriracha in Texas?

AUDIO: Mark Steyn On Bridgegate: You Can Compare This To Obama’s Closing Of The National Parks.

I GUESS THIS IS MORE EVIDENCE FOR THE VALUE OF VITAMIN D: Light skin in Europeans stems from ONE 10,000-year-old ancestor who lived between India and the Middle East, claims study.

ALMOST DONE WITH THIS WEEK’S BOOK PROMOTION: Was on The Independents, a great new show on Fox Business with blogosphere fave Matt Welch, Fox & Friends, taped Stossel, and I’ll do Lou Dobbs in about an hour. Also spoke at the Manhattan Institute at lunch, which will be on C-SPAN’s Book TV in a few weeks. Plus seemingly endless radio and print interviews. Sadly, none of the above is available online, but here’s a video of me talking with the WSJ’s Mary Kissel.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Should Dress Like Frank Underwood.

EVEN AT MOTHER JONES, THE QUESTION IS: Is Graduate School a Racket? Plus: “By chance, I was talking to a professor buddy of mine about this just last week. His take was quite different: he thinks that unions love adjuncts and part-timers and have largely abandoned the interests of full-timers. This is because three part-timers produce three times more union dues than one full-time tenured professor. State legislatures love part-timers too, because three part-timers cost less than one full-time tenured professor. As a result, the number of tenure-track positions in his department has gone down from 22 to 8 in the past couple of decades. This is not because they have fewer students. They have more. It’s because the vast majority of classes are now taught by part-timers.”

ON STRIKE: At Forbes, an interview with the Insta-Wife.

CAT OUT OF THE BAG: “Aliens Exist,” Says Canada’s Former Defense Minister.

InstaPundit readers have been in on the truth for a long time.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Office & School Supplies.

Also, Warehouse Deals in Grocery & Personal Care.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Woman pulls gun from genitals during sex act after aliens argument upsets her.

A domestic dispute that resulted from an argument about the existence of space aliens ended when Jennifer McCarthy of Santa Fe allegedly pulled a handgun from her genital area and pointed it at her boyfriend.

McCarthy was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault on a household member after she allegedly stopped performing a sex act with a silver Smith and Wesson and pointed it at her boyfriend’s head.

“Who is crazy, you or me?” she reportedly asked him, referencing the earlier argument about aliens.

Well, at least that question has been definitively answered. . . .