A STRONG GENETIC COMPONENT for male homosexuality. “For gay rights activists, it’s a dilemma. Does it help or hinder their cause if science shows that homosexuality is partly or largely biologically determined, rather than a lifestyle choice?” I dunno, but for scientists, it should just be a question of, you know, what the facts are.

STEVE WOZNIAK on innovation.

IT’S POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: Report: White House secretly counted dental plans in Obamacare enrollment numbers; Without counting dental plans, Obamacare would have missed its goal. When your Potemkin Village is so unconvincing that even Vox is pointing out the papier-mache and chickenwire. . . .

AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: ‘Bubble Boy’ Disease Cured With Stem Cells. “Evangelina, a twin, was born with a severe immune disorder caused by a genetic aberration that makes her vulnerable to any and all bacteria and viruses; even a simple cold could be fatal. But doctors at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Broad Stem Cell Research Center gave her a new treatment, using her own stem cells, that has essentially cured her disease. She’s one of 18 children who have been treated with the cutting-edge therapy, and the study’s leader, Dr. Donald Kohn, says that the strategy could also be used to treat other gene-based disorders such as sickle cell anemia.”

FREE SPEECH IS LIKE A TRAIN: WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT YOUR STOP, YOU GET OFF. Oxford cancels student-group-organized debate on abortion.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Video: How living-donor transplants can save — and transform — lives.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 560.

ED MORRISSEY: Obama’s Immigration Ploy Smacks of Contempt for ‘Stupid Americans.’

GRUBERGATE’S INSIDER PROBLEM:

So let me finish by noting what I actually find disturbing about the whole Gruber episode. It is not that voters aren’t particularly well-informed; voters could not possibly be well-informed about all the issues that our government deals with. No one can be, which is why, when people ask me my opinions about foreign policy nowadays, I say, “I don’t know. Looks like a hard problem to me.”

Nor is it that politicians lie to voters. We reward them for lying, because we want to be told that we can have everything we want, plus a pony, and the only cost will be that some undeserving layabout will get their benefits cut off, or some very rich person we don’t like will have to sell the second yacht and pay higher taxes instead. We should not be surprised when they tell us exactly that. I’m not saying that I approve of this, mind you; I’m just saying that the way to stop it is not to tut-tut at the politicians, but for voters to stop demanding that they give us the pretty moon.

No, what really disturbs me is the sight of so many journalists acting like insiders. . . .

That politicians should try to exploit the accounting rules was inevitable; that is what people do with accounting rules. I’m not saying that’s what the rules are for, or that they do no good; I’m just saying that about eight seconds after your rules are made, some bright Johnny will start figuring out a way to game them.

What is not inevitable is that journalists should effectively sanction this by saying it’s no big deal. We don’t have to get elected, after all. And those politicians and policy makers aren’t our bosses; the reading public is. We shouldn’t act like we’re part of the insider clique that decides what other people need to know — no, worse, that decides what other people do know. If we knew this all along and voters didn’t, that doesn’t mean voters don’t have a right to be outraged. It means that we’ve lost track of whose side we’re on.

On the contrary, I think it means that most journalists have chosen a side, and are sticking with it come hell or high water.

Related: ABC, NBC Nightly Newscasts Now 10 Days into Ignoring Gruber Scandal.

JOURNALISM: “So… he did what was in his interest then, and he’s doing what’s in his interest now. Noted.”

A NEW AND COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE STUDY BY JONATHAN GRUBER SAYS SHE’S RIGHT: Elizabeth Warren Pitches “You Didn’t Build That 2.0.”

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TRIFECTA: Slouching Toward Liberty: Can America Survive without Common Values?

ASHE SCHOW: The coming war between sex-positive feminism and affirmative consent.

UPDATE: As predicted, the growth of a new, “fast-growing” legal specialty: Suing colleges on behalf of the falsely-accused.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ayaan Hirsi Ali destroys American ‘feminism’ by discussing the real war on women. “Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a harsh critic of Islam’s treatment of women, said Wednesday that modern American feminism is focused on ‘trivial bullshit’ and needs to be reclaimed.”

Yes, there are two Ashe Schow links in this post. She’s really been on fire lately.

ROGER KIMBALL: A “particularly dangerous moment.”

UPDATE: NBC poll: Executive amnesty is… pretty unpopular with just about everybody. “Shockingly, only 63 percent of Democrats in that survey expressed support for an executive order. Even more surprisingly, that poll found that immigration reform via executive order is not especially popular with even Hispanic voters. Just 43 percent of Hispanics polled support an executive action creating legal status for millions of illegal immigrants while 37 percent disapprove.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: J. Christian Adams: Obama, Our Modern John C. Calhoun.

CHARLES BLAHOUS: Gruber and Barro Are Wrong to Assume the Public is Stupid. “Jonathan Gruber, Josh Barro and others are trying to persuade you that others’ failures of integrity, analysis, and policy design are your fault, simply for wanting a better healthcare market. Do not believe them. They are wrong on the ethics and wrong on the substance.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of Maine latest college to adopt ‘yes means yes’ consent policy. Trouble is, it’s really more like a “yes means maybe” policy.

The policy allows consent to be withdrawn at any time and makes clear that silence is not consent (which kind of negates the consent-through-actions part) and a history of past sexual activity does not equal consent. The policy also states that consent for one sexual activity does not equal consent for another activity, meaning consent must be ongoing throughout the encounter.

And of course, consent from someone who has had alcohol cannot be taken at face value, either. (An accused student, however, cannot plead drunkenness in arguing that he believed he had obtained consent.)

How does an accused person prove they obtained consent? That’s unclear. The only obvious way to prove one’s innocence in these situations (filming the encounter) is prohibited by the policy.

A representative from UMaine did not respond to a Washington Examiner request for clarification prior to press time.

The tuition goes up, the college experience goes down. How long can that go on?

UPDATE: From the comments:

My son just went through a mandatory meeting at his school and he came away with this:

“Everything is sexual harassment and there is nothing you can say or do to keep out of trouble.”

Sounds like a hostile environment based on sex to me. And again, it seems to me that colleges are overestimating their attractiveness to applicants in light of this kind of stuff.

PRIMARY SOURCES: How a New FOIA Bill Could Force More Government Transparency.

ROLL CALL: End of the Road for Michael Boggs Nomination? “Nominated in December 2013, Boggs came under fire by civil rights groups and Georgia Democrats for votes he cast as a Georgia legislator between 2001 and 2004, including a vote to keep the Confederate insignia on the Georgia state flag, one to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and a vote to restrict access to abortion.”

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE: Connecticut woman, 25, had sex with friend’s 10-year-old son while babysitting: police.

ALEXA SHRUGGED: My ObamaCare Story In 1 Picture. “THIS is why Obama had new insurance premium prices held until AFTER the election! Last year, they were posted October 1st.”

WHEN YOU HAVE NO SHAME, EVERYTHING IS A BADGE OF HONOR: White House: Obama wears GOP criticism as ‘a badge of honor.’

But, you know, it’s not just the GOP. They’re getting criticism even from places like the Washington Post and the New York Times. And if blacks understood how much harm they’d get from expanded illegal immigration, they’d be criticizing him, too. Heck, according to NBC’s new poll, even Latinos aren’t so hot on it.

So why’s he so eager to do it? It seems like an effort to do what Labour did to Britain. How’s that working out for ’em?

JOURNALISM: BuzzFeed Publishes Big Hit On Uber, Turns Out Buzzfeed’s Chairman Is Invested In Uber’s Competition.

Plus: Ben Smith responds to critics, Twitter is unamused.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Why Did So Many People Flunk the Bar Exam This Year?

It’s technically true that this year’s crop of grads was “less able” than before, if you use their pre-law-school test scores as a proxy for their smarts. The median LSAT score among students at American law schools has declined every year from 2010 to 2013, according to an analysis by Jerry Organ, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas. Last year, Organ found, law schools admitted 50 percent more students with low LSAT scores than they did three years ago.

Those numbers suggest that students might have been less prepared, but the figures may not be dramatic enough to explain this year’s bar results. Organ analyzed how LSAT scores have tracked with scores on the exam in the past, and he found that this year’s J.D.s should have performed slightly worse. Instead, they bombed.

Organ and additional law professors point to another culprit: a software glitch that affected test-takers for hours in July. At the end of the first day of testing, people who took the test in one of 43 states in which test company Examsoft administers the bar exam were unable to upload their answers for hours, stretching into late evening. The error eventually led states to extend the upload deadline; students went back to work on the test the following day. Examsoft said no answers were lost, but many feel that the time spent contending with software issues and the anxiety that resulted may have hurt students’ performance on the rest of the test.

Back in the ’90s I chaired a committee that looked at our grads’ bar passage rates, and we found that the LSAT score was a very strong predictor for bar exam performance — much stronger than college or law school grades, for example. That’s not really surprising, given that they’re both big standardized tests aimed at similar populations. But declines in LSAT scores are only sort of declines in student quality. LSAT scores are pretty good predictors of first-year grades, and of bar passage, but not especially good predictors of career success in lawyers.