CHANGE: General: China Space Threat Drives U.S. Space Warfare Buildup. “Hyten’s complete remarks on the Chinese space threat and the U.S. response are set to be aired Sunday on 60 Minutes. The program will also reveal one of the Air Force’s new systems for space warfare, a high-technology laser-guided telescope.”

TED CRUZ: Clinton Foundation Should Return Foreign Donations. Then they’d have no money left.

No loss to charity, though: Only 15% of Clinton Foundation Donations Go To Charities. It’s like it’s just a big money laundry or something.

ISN’T IT JUST DRINKING WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE? Drinking Alone: A Bad Idea or a Toast to Oneself?

WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE IT ISN’T: Young Arabs Agree: Israel Isn’t Arab World’s Major Problem.

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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Youngstown State University student government removes ‘Straight Pride’ posters. “Campus leaders said that while they believe the posters were meant as satire, the message was inappropriate. . . . The posters counter the school’s mission to create a diverse campus, university spokesman Ron Cole told WFMJ-TV. Officials are investigating possible student code violations, and disciplinary action may follow.” Badthink must be punished!

IF YOU’RE UP EARLY TOMORROW MORNING, YOU MIGHT WANT TO WATCH C-SPAN. John Lott emails:

I will be on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Saturday morning from 7:45 to 8:15 AM to discuss recent developments on guns. I was originally supposed to appear with someone from Bloomberg’s Everytown for an entire hour, but, as Bloomberg’s people consistently do, they refused to be on the show with me. Instead, they will be on immediately after me from 8:15 to 8:45 AM. Many times I have gotten calls from TV producers asking me to be on a TV show only to be disinvited once the Bloomberg people say that they won’t go on with me.

Telephone calls during the segments are appreciated. If you call during the time that Bloomberg’s person, Ted Alcorn, will be on and ask him why Bloomberg’s groups continually refuse to appear on shows without any opposition, possibly that might embarrass them enough to change their approach. The last couple of times that I have been on the Brady Campaign had gotten their members to call in to the show.

It’s not surprising that the Brady folks want to deliver a speech rather than engage in debate.

DIAGNOSIS: “American political theorists are basically fiddling while Rome burns, talking about pie-in-the-sky versions of democracy, when they can’t even figure out how to keep crazy people out of positions of significant power.”

HEH: Starting to come around to the idea that a woman who became famous for carrying a mattress around campus isn’t the picture of mental health.

FROM ARMENIA TO NOW: The Islamic Genocide of Christians: Past and Present. As our President says, if they bring a knife, you bring a gun.

IF THEY’RE NOT CAREFUL, PEOPLE WILL START TO THINK THAT MUSLIM STUDENTS ARE UNPATRIOTIC: ‘American Sniper’ events derailed by Muslim student complaints at University of Maryland.

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NO, THEY FOUND IT EXHILIRATING: No one at Rolling Stone apparently found it curious that Erdely stumbled upon festering rape scandals at the 3 institutions that comprise the trifecta of left-wing hate objects—organized religion, the US military, and that bastion of male privilege, fraternities.

A NEW GADGET FROM GARMIN: The Garmin nuviCam LMTHD is a combination dashcam, GPS, lane departure warning, and collision warning device, all in one. “The $400 GPS device features a 6-inch touchscreen with pinch-to-zoom and Garmin’s free lifetime map updates, as well as Garmin’s HD Digital Traffic with real-time traffic updates every 30 seconds. The navigation system is voice activated, and can predict time delays or find detours when you’ve hit a particularly nasty traffic snarl. But the nuviCam’s biggest trick is what you’ll find on the opposite side of the GPS screen. A built-in HD dashcam that continuously records, and saves a timestamped video with GPS location data if it senses an impact. The camera records to a 4 GB microSD card (included), and can even take photos—say, to document damage or capture license plate photos in the event of an accident.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: At UPenn, campus leaders quash effort to address biased professors.

OUT: “HELICOPTER PARENTS.” IN: “DRONE PARENTS.” “A Tennessee father who followed his eight-year-old daughter to school with a drone has now decided to ground it in the wake of the attention his flight has garnered. According to WVLT, a Knoxville, Tennessee television station, Chris Early decided to launch a drone to monitor his child’s walk to school after she requested that she be allowed to walk on her own.”

ISIS: Under The Black Flag. “ISIS isn’t a terrorist organization. It’s a transnational army of terror.”

HEADY STUFF:  An Italian neurosurgeon named Sergio Canavero claims he plans to conduct the world’s first head transplant soon, and it should only take about an hour.  Valery Spiridonov, a 30-year-old computer scientist from Vladimir, Russia, is the first person to volunteer for the procedure.  Spiridonov suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a rare, genetic spinal muscular atrophy disease.

In a meeting of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons this June, Dr. Canavero plans to detail the specifics of his surgical procedure.   In a February article in the Surgical Neurology International Journal, Canavero described the basics of how he plans to fuse the spinal cord of Spiridonov’s head with that of the donor (cadaveric) body.  The goal, according to Dr. Canavero, is “immortality.”  Apparently, elderly wealthy individuals are already lining up for this procedure, in the hopes of replacing their frail, older bodies with fresh, 20-something ones.

NYU Bioethicist Arthur Caplan says Dr. Canavero’s plans are unethical, because the surgical technique for spinal surgery isn’t perfected, the chance of immunosupressive rejection is high, and the brain may not be able to “integrate” with a body with which it isn’t familiar.  According to Caplan, “[T]he most likely result is insanity or severe mental disability.”

Dr. Canavero seems to be a legitimate neurosurgeon with the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, but his obsession with becoming the first successful surgeon to perform a head transplant is a bit Frankenstein-y.   He does seems more legitimate, however, than some prior high profile oddballs, such as Dr. Richard Seed, who made a big splash in the late 1990s when he proclaimed he wanted to perform the first human cloning.

But then again, recent media reports suggested that Dr. Canavero’s talk of head transplants was all an odd publicity stunt for a video game called Metal Gear Solid.  But just today, it’s being reported that Dr. Canavero has filed a sworn affidavit with Italian police, denying that he has anything to do with the game maker, and that it’s using his likeness without his permission.

If Dr. Canavero is legit, this could be the beginning of a very interesting chapter in transplant history.  I think it would be pretty weird, though, to put an older person’s head on a hot, young body.  I kind of liked the old school notion of  achieving immortality via the ‘brain in a jar” scenario.  But bodies are nice.  Stay tuned.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Lesbian Teacher Pleads Guilty to Criminal Sexual Conduct With Teenage Girl. “A former Grant High School science teacher has pleaded guilty to having inappropriate sexual contact with a female student with whom she exchanged about 14,000 text messages during a four-week period last fall. Erin Katharine MacDonald, 26, pleaded guilty to two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with the female student. In exchange for the plea, four additional charges were dismissed. . . . MacDonald faces up to two years in prison when she is sentenced in Newaygo County Circuit Court on May 4.”

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Bill Ayers to University Students: America’s ‘Game Is Over’ and ‘Another World’ Is Coming.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Cal State-Northridge Halts Class Registration Until Students Complete Feminist Anti-Sexual Assault Video Game. Indoctrination before education.

HOW CHRISTIANITY invented children. “Today, it is simply taken for granted that the innocence and vulnerability of children makes them beings of particular value, and entitled to particular care. We also romanticize children — their beauty, their joy, their liveliness. Our culture encourages us to let ourselves fall prey to our gooey feelings whenever we look at baby pictures. What could be more natural? In fact, this view of children is a historical oddity.”

SPACE TELESCOPES ARE EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS: Most powerful space telescope ever to launch in 2018.

As the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates 25 years in space this week, NASA and its international partners are building an even more powerful tool to look deeper into the universe than ever before.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be 100 times more potent than Hubble, and will launch in 2018 on a mission to give astronomers an unprecedented glimpse at the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

“JWST will be able to see back to about 200 million years after the Big Bang,” NASA said on its website.

It described the telescope as a “powerful time machine with infrared vision that will peer back over 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe.”

The project has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers for its ballooning costs—now at about $8.8 billion, far higher than the initial estimate of $3.5 billion.

But NASA has promised to keep the next-generation telescope on track for its October 2018 launch.

Meh. Compared to ObamaCare, that’s not much of a cost overrun.

SURE, THAT’S WHAT THEY SAY, BUT WE KNOW IT’S REALLY FOR DEFENSE AGAINST ALIENS: Proposal Would Put Laser Cannon on ISS to Blast Space Junk.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Taya Okerlund, Hurricane Coltrane.