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WELL, THE OLYMPICS ARE OFTEN HELD IN REPRESSIVE REGIMES: Boston City Employees Banned From Criticizing Olympics.

YES, THESE ARE The Crazy Years.

SPENGLER: Why Europeans Envy The Jews.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Models’ Pubic Hair Triggers Instagram Brouhaha.

CONFESSIONS of a serial rapist.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE AUTO WORLD: Well That Didn’t Work: Turns Out Americans Didn’t Want a $70K Luxury VW. Go Figure. I know a professor who bought one because she wanted a luxury car but didn’t want her colleagues to think she was putting on airs, but I guess that’s a small market. Nice car, though.

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GOOD IDEA, THOUGH I BELIEVE JURASSIC PARK HAD THE SAME SAFETY DEVICE: Scientists Develop Technique Aimed at Preventing Spread of Bio-Engineered Organisms. “The scientists have given a common type of bacterium a unique genetic code that makes it dependent for survival on unnatural amino acids that must be fed to it. If such organisms escaped into the wild, where those amino acids are not available, they would die.”

YES, YOU CAN CATCH A COLD FROM BEING COLD: “Yale researchers studying the rhinovirus — the common cold virus — have found a link between temperature and our body’s ability to fight a cold. The colder we get, the easier it is for the rhinovirus to trounce us into sniffling, sneezing defeat.”

PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Finally Obtained: David Gregory Arrest Warrant Affidavit.

This is likely the final chapter in the saga of our two-year long fight to obtain important documents regarding the non-prosecution of David Gregory for possessing on Meet the Press an illegal high-capacity ammunition magazine.

The short version is that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department warned NBC News that it could not possess an actual high-capacity magazine, but NBC News went ahead and did it anyway. The MPD recommended a warrant for Gregory’s arrest, but that request was nixed by the D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan because — my paraphrase — Gregory was just too nice a guy and had no other criminal intent.

That attitude stood in stark contrast to the D.C. Attorney General’s vigorous prosecution of other lesser-known people who also were nice people and had no other criminal intent, but violated D.C.’s gun laws.

Know your place, peasants!

I TRY TO TAKE A CONSTITUTIONAL WHENEVER MY SCHEDULE AND THE WEATHER PERMIT: The Benefits Of A Lunch-Hour Walk. “A new study finds that even gentle lunchtime strolls can perceptibly — and immediately — buoy people’s moods and ability to handle stress at work. . . . On the afternoons after a lunchtime stroll, walkers said they felt considerably more enthusiastic, less tense, and generally more relaxed and able to cope than on afternoons when they hadn’t walked and even compared with their own moods from a morning before a walk.”

WELL, THIS IS INTERESTING: How Asteroid Magnetic Fields Could Have Protected Hitchhiking Lifeforms.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Top Tammany Democrat Silver Arrested — Is Andrew Cuomo Next?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 623.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Brandeis student journalist Daniel Mael on free speech and the campus culture war. “I’m generally careful about where I am on campus. I’m not saying anything would happen, but you just have to be careful in a day and age in which people are calling for violence and are openly supporting the murder of police officers. . . . I have many kids who privately approach me and thank me and say I did the right thing. Professors, too. But there hasn’t been as much public support.”

Sixty grand a year for this environment.

OBAMACARE UPDATE: Colorado Chaos Shows ACA Troubles.

Under the ACA, the Colorado insurance market is in chaotic flux. The NYT reports that the premium for one standard midlevel silver ACA plan rose this year by 36 percent in one part of Colorado, while in another part a premium for the same plan dropped by almost 40 percent. Apparently many insurers set their prices low to attract customers, but it’s no longer clear if the low rates will be sustainable in the long-run. . . .

One takeaway from this article is that’s far too early to tell how well the ACA is doing at keeping premiums down. It will take a while before the markets settle out and we see what the actual average premiums are, and it’s not really possible to assess how well that part of the ACA is working until then. In the meantime, workers are increasingly feeling the bite of rising costs. Uncertainty for many, rising costs for some: not a pretty picture for U.S. health over all.

It’s like the whole thing was just a cobbled-together scheme whose main purpose was political.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: As Obama vows Iran sanctions veto, Boehner invites Netanyahu to address Congress.

MILO YIANNAPOULOS: ‘Yes, I was a racist… and I’m mentally ill’: Shanley Kane in shocking social media meltdown. And yet so many people listened to her, feted her, excused her behavior, and gave her money, because social justice!

SHE’S A DEMOCRAT, SO PARTY AFFILIATION DOESN’T MAKE THE HEADLINE: Perjury, obstruction among charges recommended against Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE MEDIA PRODUCES: People Who Like Republican Policies Hate Republicans Anyway, Without Knowing Why. Talk of “outreach” is fine, but when the press demonizes you all day everyday, outreach is hard. If the GOP wants to get ahead, it needs to go after the real enemy. I’ve offered advice on that in the past, to much praise but little effect.

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MICHAEL BARONE: Obama’s attempt to turn the page undermined by policy failures. “The bigger problem for Obama and the Democrats is that the perceived failures of the stimulus package and Obamacare have undermined the case for big government as much as the perceived success of the Reagan economic policies strengthened the case for cutting it back. ‘Because I won’ is a look back to the past, not a formula for the future.”

UPDATE: Noah Rothman: Obama’s shtick is getting tired, even with some Democrats.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Only 38% of Law Students Are Paying Full Tuition. This widespread discounting is not limited to legal education. Basically, if you’re paying full tuition, you’re something close to a sucker.