VIGOROUS EXERCISE for people with bad knees. I do intervals, and they don’t seem to bother my knees. Machines (like the elliptical) do, though. Squats seem to make everything better. But my knees don’t have anything physically wrong, like torn cartilage. When they hurt, it’s usually some sort of muscle imbalance. My knees used to hurt whenever I got tired (my dad has always experienced that too). I think it was because one muscle gave out before others so that my kneecap was pulled out of place. Since I started doing squats, that has gone away, presumably because all the muscles are now strong enough.

On a related note, yesterday I was approached by an NRA lawyer who I’ve met numerous times over the years, but I totally didn’t recognize her until she got close enough to read her nametag. That was because she’d lost a lot of weight, which she explained was because she’d seen my reference to Gary Taubes, followed his instructions, and the pounds just melted away. Another satisfied InstaPundit customer!

SPACE: SpaceX to Try Launching Reusable Rocket Again Monday.

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YESTERDAY WAS THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY of the eruption of Tambora. “The April 10, 1815 eruption of Tambora in what is now a part of Indonesia caused 1816 to be known as ‘the year without summer.’ Crop failures due to freezing temperatures in New England caused migrations toward the midwest.. Migrations, civil unrest, hunger, and disease happened in Europe as well. A volcanic eruption of this magnitude is rare but could happen again at any time. If it does expect very expensive food and freezing temperatures on some summer days.” Ugh.

WHAT A PUTZ: Victim-Blaming: Garry Trudeau Blasts Charlie Hebdo’s ‘Hate Speech.’

I think he’s just jealous because nobody cares about his work enough to threaten him any more.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Biden: Make community college ‘free’ like high school.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A GOOD DEVELOPMENT TO ME: 75% of Harvard Law Students Do Not Matriculate Right Out Of College.

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SO I’VE BEEN AT THE NRA CONVENTION, SHOOTING INTERVIEWS FOR PJTV. But I did manage to attend the Crime Prevention Research Center dinner, a star-studded event featuring Ted Nugent, Dana Loesch, Katie Pavlich, and a host of other stars. And to my surprise, I won their first-ever Academic Award. In retrospect they did seem a bit anxious to confirm my attendance.

LIZ SHELD: Scenes From The NRA Exhibit Hall.

CATHY YOUNG: The Media’s Believe-The-Survivor Syndrome. “Before the Rolling Stone story imploded but when Erdely was already being criticized for failing to seek comment from the alleged rapists, the left-of-center media monitoring site Media Matters pointed to several articles on campus rape in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate which also failed to meet that standard. But this is less a defense of Erdely—whose reporting, we now know, was indefensible—than an indictment of her colleagues.”

JEFF YANG: The Sad Racial Farce of Mindy Kaling’s Brother:

Recently, however, Kaling’s brother Vijay Chokalingam unveiled a project of his own, and while it has been getting a lot of attention, it hasn’t generated quite as many laughs — either from observers or from his famous sibling, who told him it brought “shame upon their family.”

You see, Chokalingam revealed that, as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, he engaged in a daring (his view) or ridiculous and offensive (pretty much everyone else) scam: He applied to medical school claiming to be African-American.

Chokalingam had spent his college years as a “hard-partying frat boy,” and achieved a less than stunning 3.1 GPA. Upon facing graduation and exploring his med school options, he realized that fellow Indian-Americans with his grades were getting turned down from the universities of his choice — but that “black, Hispanic, and Native American applicants with my grades and test scores were much more likely to gain acceptance.”

This revelation led him to make the decision to pose as a black man, both to “dramatically improve” his chances of admission, and to illustrate the unfair advantage that blacks and other underrepresented minorities receive when applying to prestigious schools.

To accomplish this goal, Chokalingam shaved his head of its naturally wavy black locks, trimmed his “long Indian-American eyelashes,” checked “black” under the optional race/ethnicity declaration and submitted his application to 14 schools under his childhood nickname “JoJo.”

He received invitations for in-person interviews at 11 schools, results that he claims support the notion that African-Americans garner special privileges that are unavailable to whites or Asians. And now that the statute of limitations on his act of fraud has expired, he’s looking to write a book on his experiences, titled “Almost Black: The True Story of an Indian American Who Got Into Medical School Pretending to Be an African American.”

Sigh.

WHEN LAW SCHOOL APPLICANTS are the wrong sort of bees.

REALLY? BECAUSE IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE HE’S BEEN HITTING IT PRETTY . . . OH, WAIT: Roll Call: Obama Still Taking It Slow On Marijuana.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 702.

THESE DAYS, APPARENTLY, THEY CALL EVERYTHING TREASON — EXCEPT, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL TREASON: Air Force general who warned of ‘treason’ for A-10 comments is removed.

THE POOR DEARS: House Democrats Forced to Choose Sides in Iran Debate.

YA THINK? In Campus Rape Tribunals, Some Men See Injustice.

Mr. McLeod, 24 years old, is suing Duke for his diploma, arguing the university unjustly made him an example to show a get-tough approach. “I believe that I’m wrongfully accused,” he says. “I believe that it was an unfair process and I believe I had something I earned taken away from me.”

His case is part of a broad and rapid change in how U.S. colleges and universities deal with sexual-assault allegations. Campuses have rewritten policies to lower the burden of proof for finding a student culpable of assault, increasing penalties—sometimes recommending expulsion. In the process, schools find themselves in legal minefields as they try to balance the rights of accuser and accused.

Mr. McLeod’s suit is one of more than 30 that men have brought against U.S. campuses since January 2014 alleging due-process violations in sexual-assault cases, says A Voice for Male Students, an advocacy group. . . .

In the past five months, court filings show, St. Joseph’s University, Amherst College and Swarthmore College have reached sealed settlements with former students who were accused of sexual misconduct and sued in federal court. The Education Department says it doesn’t track how many accused students have brought Title IX complaints.

A judge in Mr. McLeod’s case last year granted an injunction preventing Duke from categorizing him as expelled, saying Mr. McLeod “demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits” of his arguments at a trial now scheduled for February 2016.

Mr. McLeod has a pending Wall Street job offer that requires a diploma, according to his suit. An Australian citizen, he now attends the University of Sydney to complete his degree. “I didn’t want to speak out, I just wanted my degree,” he says. “I loved Duke.”

The woman who accused Mr. McLeod didn’t respond to email inquiries. Duke says her advocate at the Duke Women’s Center, who helped represent her before the disciplinary panel, declines to comment. . . .

“I find it staggering, absolutely staggering, that these parallel judicial systems have been built up in universities,” the elder Mr. McLeod says. “They have considerable power to destroy a person’s life.”

A judge in January allowed the younger Mr. McLeod to add defendants, including the psychologist who conducted his and other Duke Title IX sexual-misconduct investigations—and whom North Carolina later barred from such investigations, citing evidence she wasn’t properly licensed. The psychologist didn’t respond to inquiries.

It’s a debacle. Thanks, Obama.

JOURNALISM: Bloomberg Fell For Bull Because It Wanted To Believe. “Bloomberg ran a story that Nancy Reagan was endorsing Hillary Clinton. It was a fake story that Bloomberg picked up without hesitate and ran. It had to yank the story and apologize. Who the hell would even believe a story like that? The Media. Just like liberal reporters immediately believed Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) stormed out of an interview and turned out the lights — another story that was not true in any way, shape, or form — the press believed this because they want to believe.”

And they want you to believe.

MODERN DAY SERVITUDE: One-Eighth Of South Carolina Inmates Were Jailed Over Child Support Payments. Walter Scott Was One Of Them. Nobody should be imprisoned over debt.

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WHEN SOUND BITES BACKFIRE: Global warming didn’t give Malia asthma: President’s smoking more likely to cause daughter’s health problem than climate change.

President Obama blames global warming for his daughter’s asthma. Today that’s politically useful spin, but the science says something different. If you’re looking for a culprit, it just might be Malia’s dad. . . .

Whether there is a link between asthma and global warming, Malia herself hasn’t really experienced much. The high school junior was born in 1998, when temperatures spiked. By some measurements, the world hasn’t warmed significantly since then.

Which brings us back to her father and his Marlboros. The president, who quit smoking years ago, has long kept his tobacco use out of doors. That’s a common-sense tactic for folks who have trouble quitting. But sometimes, science can show that common sense has less sense than you think.

Research funded by the National Institutes of Health has shown that smoking outside doesn’t totally protect children from secondhand smoke. Even when smoking is done outside, nicotine in infants’ hair is five times higher for babies with outside smoking parents than non-smoking parents. Smoking-related chemicals in infants’ urine is seven times higher. Other studies have found similar results.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “tobacco smoke is one of the most common asthma triggers,” and “if you have asthma, it’s important that you avoid exposure to secondhand smoke.”

No father wants to feel that his habits might hurt his children. But sometimes you have to look in the mirror to find the guilty party, not search the stratosphere for a hidden culprit.

Ouch.

UH HUH: Facebook claims ‘a bug’ made it track non-users. “The bug caused the company to place cookies — a common way to track people’s browsing habits on the Web — on ‘some’ people’s browsers even if they had never visited Facebook.com to sign up for an account. . . . However, the tracking was ‘inadvertent’ and Facebook has begun to work on ironing out its code, Allan claimed.”

THIS WAS NEWS TO ME: Meeting under trees in the dark of night, and other stories from Venezuela’s struggling guerilla resistance. “Militant opposition activists know they cannot topple Maduro by themselves but hope to keep up pressure and be ready to help detonate a full-blown crisis if public unrest and internal divisions put his government in danger.”

Anticommunist guerrillas are always good. Those who successfully topple the regime are better.