DUDE, DON’T BUST MY BUBBLE: Sorry, the amazing new Hoverboard is a hoax.

EZRA KLEIN’S diversity problem. As diverse as a Howard Dean meetup, an MSNBC anchors’ convention, or an Obama Campaign HQ. Perhaps with work, Ezra Klein can achieve the diversity of a Tea Party rally. But I doubt it.

FASTER, PLEASE: A Genetic Entrepreneur Sets His Sights on Aging and Death.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

To do that, the company will build what Dr. Venter says will be the largest human DNA sequencing operation in the world, capable of processing 40,000 human genomes a year.

The huge amount of DNA data will be combined with huge amounts of other data on the health and body composition of the people whose DNA is sequenced, in the hope of gleaning insights into the molecular causes of aging and age-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

Slowing aging, if it can be done, could be a way to prevent many diseases, an alternative to treating one disease a time.

“Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease, but it’s not a disease itself,” Dr. Venter said in an interview. Still, his company will also work on treating individual diseases of aging.

Well, actually, it is a disease. The FDA just doesn’t recognize it as one.

GARY LIBECAP: Three Cheers For Fracking: Thanks to secure property rights, this technology has the power to resuscitate our lagging economy. The political class views this stuff askance, though, because secure property rights reduce the opportunities for graft.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: A former policeman convicted of tipping off a terror suspect is now a senior official at the IRS.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 301.

EUGENE KONTOROVICH: Federal Court Holds Life Sentence For Piracy Unconstitutional: Why That Was Wrong.

SALON BECAME A HARDCORE RACIST MAG SO GRADUALLY I BARELY NOTICED: Why I can’t stand white belly dancers.

THE U.S. ECONOMY’S Big Baby Problem.

The thing about an increasingly childless economy is that it has major implications for consumption. Just look at this new data from a Gallup survey released today on the average daily spending of families. Even after you control for income, age, education, and marital status, families with young kids spend more every day. These are the sort of spenders you want in a weak economy following a great deleveraging.

The upshot is that when we think about economic growth, some of the most discussed variables on editorial pages and cable news include policy choices like Obamacare and tapering and tax rates, or international events like China’s shadow banking system and the Crimean invasion. And that’s fine: policies and global events do shape lending and spending behavior.

But buried underneath these headlines is the glacier of demographics, the steady and unyielding force of human numbers to shape the economy. The drop in U.S. fertility rates in recent years has almost certainly had a negative effect on consumer spending (and, in turn, lower birthrates are probably an outcome of the recession). In particular, childless couples don’t need space for more kids so they’re less likely to buy homes in the suburbs, depressing demand for housing in an economy that could [use] more bought homes.

One reason people are having fewer kids is that the costs have been artificially inflated even as the benefits have been reduced. I had some related thoughts in this piece.

RAND SIMBERG: Time To End Our Dependence On Russian Spaceships. Yes.

SMART DIPLOMACY: Hillary Clinton’s remarks on Hitler seen as strategy.

JOHN BOEHNER, explained.

AT AMAZON, half off sale on drip coffeemakers.

Also, home-brewing and winemaking gear under $100.

Plus, today only: 50% Off Original Penguin Menswear.

And, also today only: Up to 53% off select Criterion Collection titles, on Blu-Ray and DVD.

INSTAVISION: Punishing The Productive: I talk with Cato’s Dan Mitchell about Obama’s new budget, the deficit, and more.

TO MAINTAIN THE BOGUS RACE-CARD NARRATIVE ON THE ADEGBILE DEBACLE, NPR SAYS “A HANDFUL OF SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS” JOINED REPUBLICANS TO VOTE AGAINST HIM.

Here are the folks NPR considers “Southern Democrats.”

Chris Coons (Del.)

Bob Casey (Pa.),

Mark Pryor (Ark.),

Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.),

Joe Manchin (W.V.),

Joe Donnolly (Ind.)

John Walsh (Mont.)

And of course Harry Reid (Nev.) who did it for procedural grounds.

Not exactly Sons of the Confederacy.

Welcome to Dixie, North Dakotans!

UPDATE: Related: Shaheen dodges reporters after controversial vote. “New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen fled the scene of the vote Wednesday – following her decision to support President Obama’s controversial nominee for U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.” So it was “controversial” in that stronghold of the Old South, New Hampshire.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From the comments: “Bipartisanship is the new racism.”

MORE: Yeah, the version that’s online now has changed. As I’ve noticed before, they do that. I saw Jonah Goldberg tweeting with a producer — sorry, can’t find the tweet now it’s buried — who was saying that it was written as “Senate Democrats” but read as “Southern Democrats” and promising that it would be fixed in later feeds.

DESPITE ALL THE SPYING AND EAVESDROPPING, THEY KEEP MISSING THE BIG STUFF: Intelligence Failure, Revisited.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: John Boehner backs holding IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt. “Lerner set off the matter last year when she acknowledged IRS officials gave added scrutiny to conservative groups, leading President Barack Obama to fire the acting IRS commissioner and giving the agency a major black eye.”

But now we’re told it’s a “phony scandal.” Do people usually take the Fifth in phony scandals?

Related: President Obama Is Part Of The Problem In IRS Scandal. Hey, he knew about spying on the Senate oversight committee. How likely is it that he didn’t know anything here?

UKRAINE: More Warplanes:

The Pentagon also announced, in response to what officials said were requests from Eastern European NATO members over the past week, that it would more than double the number of aircraft it has based in Lithuania as part of a regular alliance air-defense patrol.

The patrols over the Baltic nations were initiated a decade ago and are rotated quarterly among NATO members that have the appropriate aircraft. The United States, by coincidence, is in charge of the patrols this quarter and is sending six F-15 fighter jets and a KC-135 tanker to add to the four F-15s already deployed at Lithuania’s Siauliai Air Base.

Related: Turkey permits US warship to transit Bosphorus to Black Sea.

UPDATE: Heh.

HARRY SIEGEL: Spike Lee And Other Sentimental Segregationists.

IT’S THE LAW OF THE LAND! BUT I GUESS THE TERRORIST ANARCHISTS HAVE WON. Administration Extends Obamacare Grandfathering for 2 More Years. Where, exactly, does the legal authority to do this come from?

Plus, most hilarious part of all: “senior administration officials denied a political motive.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Thoughts On The Texas Primary Results.

There’s an obvious trend here, then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison challenged Gov. Rick Perry, but with no serious contest this year for governor (and not much of a contest for senator), Republican turnout stayed up and, despite the national hoopla for Davis, Democratic turnout declined somewhat rather than surged. Looking further back, Democratic turnout spiked in 2002 when Laredo banker Tony Sanchez ran a self-financed campaign that brought many Hispanics to the polls; in 1994 and earlier years, Democratic turnout was consistently about twice as high as Republican turnout and five times as high in 1982. What I think is happening is that up through 1994, many voters chose Democratic ballots, because Democrats won most down-ballot offices and state legislative seats and were at least competitive in governor and senator contests. If you wanted to affect the outcome, you voted Democratic. Republicans’ increasing success — they now hold all the down-ballot offices and significant majorities in both houses of the legislature — means that nowadays if you want to affect the outcome, you vote Republican. So the Republican turnout edge in 2010 and 2014 substantially overstates Republican strength in general elections; in the six contests for president, governor and senator starting in 2008, Texas has voted between 54- and 58-percent Republican.

Hmm.

THE HILL: It’s WWIII Between CIA, Senate: Senators Alarmed By Alleged CIA Spying On Committee.

Senators on Wednesday expressed alarm at explosive allegations that the CIA might have spied on their computers to keep tabs on their controversial review of Bush-era “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

Lawmakers from both parties said that if the allegations against the CIA prove true, intelligence officials might have violated the law — and certainly violated the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

“I’m assuming that’s it’s not true, but if it is true, it should be World War III in terms of Congress standing up for itself against the CIA, ” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told The Hill.

Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) confirmed Wednesday that the CIA inspector general was investigating accusations that the covert agency had peered into the panel’s computers. But she didn’t comment on reports that the investigator has referred the matter to the Justice Department.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), an ex officio member of the Intelligence panel, said the charge of spying is “extremely serious.”

“There are laws against intruding and tampering, hacking into, accessing computers without permission. And that law applies to everybody,” he said.

Brennan in a statement said he was “dismayed” by the “spurious allegations,” which he said were “wholly unsupported by the facts.”

His statement was released Wednesday evening as McClatchy reported that the computer spying was allegedly discovered when the CIA confronted the Senate Intelligence panel about documents removed from the agency’s headquarters.

If the CIA was spying on its own oversight committee — with the President’s knowledge — that’s much worse than Watergate. And if there was this kind of illegal spying going on, what else was there?

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Seven Energy Policies To Make Russia Pay Over Crimea. “Russia’s economy is barely growing and is increasingly dependent on energy production. Oil and gas account for more than half of Russia’s federal tax revenues and about 75% of total exports. Three-fourths of natural gas shipments go to Europe. Europe is dependent on Russia, but the tables are starting to turn. . . . Luckily, this gas-oil price link is starting to break down, thanks to limited liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and other advances. Here are seven energy policy steps that the West should adopt, all of which have the side benefit of undermining Putin.”

SMART DIPLOMACY^TM UPDATE: Hillary walks back Putin-Hitler comparison.