I’M NOT SAYING THAT IT’S ALIENS. BUT IT’S ALIENS. Mystery Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres Has Mysterious Partner.

I mean, come on. Wake up, sheeple!

GREAT STRIDES IN SCIENCE:

UPDATE: Ouch.

IT’S NOTHING YOU WANT, THAT’S FOR SURE: Baddest Bug: C. Diff Hits Half a Million Americans. “The number’s probably been undercounted for so long because many people get sick after they leave the hospital. And the study showed people are not just getting infected in hospitals. They are getting infected in doctors’ offices, the dentist’s chair, and in other healthcare settings.”

FIRST THE FCC, NOW THIS: Obama to ban bullets by executive action, threatens top-selling AR-15 rifle. No, this isn’t somebody’s paranoid fantasy. At least, it isn’t somebody’s fantasy.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The Anemic Law Jobs Recovery.

21ST CENTURY CRIME-CONTROL: DNA Phenotyping To Make Drawings Of Criminal Suspects.

WELL, IF MY 21ST CENTURY CAR IS GOING TO HAVE AN INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE, THE ENGINE SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE A FRICKIN LASER IN IT: Lasers Could Boost Engine Efficiency by 27%. “In a conventional internal combustion engine, a mixture of fuel and air explodes to push down a piston, converting chemical energy into mechanical energy. The explosion is triggered by spark plugs that live at the top of the combustion chamber, using sparks to ignite the fuel air mixture. This works fine, but it’s not particularly efficient, since the ignition point is at one edge of the chamber. Engines move fast enough, and the combustion cycle is short enough, that the entire mixture doesn’t have a chance burn completely, leading to unburned fuel, which is bad for both engine efficiency and the environment. Lasers can fix this problem by igniting the fuel in the middle of the combustion chamber instead of at the outer edge. This results in a much more complete burn, so you get more bang for your buck, literally. Also, lasers can be fired with nanosecond timing (multiple times per combustion cycle if necessary), and even targeted at different areas of the combustion chamber. The increased energy output allows for leaner fuel-air mixtures, increasing overall fuel efficiency by 27 percent while lowering emissions. Really, it’s a much better way to do things. Which should not be surprising. Because lasers.”

THE MARKET, SHOCKINGLY: What Happened To The Rare Earths Crisis?

DAVID BERNSTEIN & ILYA SOMIN: The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism.

WHY DON’T WE ONE-UP THEM BY BLOWING UP A REAL IRANIAN NUCLEAR-RESEARCH FACILITY? Iran Just Blew Up a Fake American Aircraft Carrier: It’s meant as a show of strength during talks over Iran’s nuclear program.

AUSTIN BAY: Remembering Iwo Jima.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Watchdog Accuses Harry Reid of Ethics Violations.

ANDREW CLINE: The New Hampshire primary to come, if current journalism is a clue.

A seasoned Washington reporter — distinct in his fashionable black jacket, pressed jeans and once shiny dress shoes now caked with New Hampshire mud — approaches a woman who clutches a Sharpie and a copy of Rubio’s last book.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I ask what you thought of the senator’s speech?”

Woman: “I thought it was great. I liked how he related to average people, you know? I don’t hear a lot of candidates talking about how to make it easier for low-income families to succeed in America.”

Reporter: “It didn’t bother you that his second cousin once removed said Tom Brady wears ladies underwear?

Woman: “Who said that?”

Reporter: “Rubio’s second cousin once removed. He said it at a Miami fund-raiser three weeks ago. Thus far, Rubio has failed to disown his cousin, denounce the comment, or apologize to Tom Brady for it.”

Yeah, pretty much. And reporters wonder why nobody respects them.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 658.

MSNBC’S MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY applauds racial violence.

REMINDER: PolitiFact is dishonest and partisan.

IT’S SEX CRIMINALS ALL THE WAY DOWN: Embattled Green Leader Resigns as IPCC Chief.

The head of the world’s preeminent climate change organization resigned this week after being accused of sexual harassment in his home country of India. Rajendra Pachauri stepped down as the chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change, an ignominious end to what has been a tenure tinged with scandal. . . .

Pachauri is no stranger to the salacious, having penned a fictionalized autobiography full of boasts of sexual exploits, nor is this the first fracas in which he’s been involved. Five years ago he was accused of raising huge sums of money for his foundation on the basis of bogus IPCC claims that Himalayan glaciers were not long for this world.

I wonder if “social justice” type movements pose a disproportional attraction to people with sociopathic tendencies.

STEVE CHAPMAN: The Black Family in 1965 and Today: Poor black neighborhoods are not the unassisted creation of poor black people, but largely the malignant result of factors beyond their control. Well, except to the extent that politicians they vote for are not beyond their control, and have made things worse.

CANADIAN FREE-SPEECH ACTIVIST EZRA LEVANT IS CROWDFUNDING A NEWS STUDIO. More on that project here.

His site is TheRebel.media.

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IN USA TODAY, Scott Walker writes on not taking the media’s bait.

SEE, NOT KNOWING IF OBAMA’S A CHRISTIAN IS OVER-THE-TOP PREJUDICE NOT ACCEPTABLE IN TODAY’S SOCIETY. BUT THIS IS OKAY: Dem Rep: ‘Tea Party People’ Want To Bring Back Segregation, Get Rid Of Women’s Rights.

THE SKULLS OF HIS ENEMIES: Scott Walker Is Set to Deliver New Blow to Labor in Wisconsin. That’s the New York Times headline, and while it’s accurate enough — the unions hate this, and with reason — it’s also a major advance for workers’ rights.

UPDATE: “One thing those of us who are pro-union need to ask ourselves is why so few Americans belong to unions presently. It is facile, lazy, and simply wrong to blame the anti-union efforts of Reagan, Walker, the Kochs, Whole Foods, Walmart and the like. If you say it is the anti-union policies of the past thirty five years, then you are simply ignoring the fact that when American unions formed in the 19th century and struggled to build in the first third of the 20th century, the anti-union sentiment of the corporations and most politicians was much stronger than today, and the lot of the average worker was harder. Lazy people blame others. If those who originally fought to create our unions had such an attitude, unions would never have been established in the first place. Part of the problem is that the Left failed to criticize unions as their leadership often evolved to having more in common with the bosses than with their own members. As the Left moved away from worker issues in the Sixties to Civil Rights, the anti-war movement, feminism, and cultural issues, blue collar workers became alienated from those who were now largely content to support labor by merely singing Woody Guthrie and Weavers songs. The Left largely came to look down their noses at workers because of attitudes regarding culture and the war, only honoring workers when their issues were tied to something else, such as the largely Mexican-American United Farmworkers Union or access to jobs for women.”

CIVIL LIBERTIES UPDATE: U.Va. professor to receive academic freedom award at CPAC for defending due process.

James W. Ceaser, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, will be honored at the Conservative Political Action Conference for his defense of due process in the wake of a Rolling Stone article telling the now-discredited story of a brutal gang rape at the school.

Ceaser, in an article for the Weekly Standard, defended due process by calling out his own employer for the way it handled the Rolling Stone debacle.

“Even on the level of future policy changes, this problem can only be properly addressed if it is presented in an unbiased way, not in terms of a preconceived framework,” Ceaser wrote. “The moral dimension of disregarding the truth also cannot be forgotten.”

Ceaser argued that the truth never mattered in the Rolling Stone article, because even when the story was abandoned by the magazine, it was used by activists to further their agenda.

But Ceaser’s refusal to condemn his university for an imaginary crime or give in to mob justice has earned him the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Award for Academic Freedom, presented by the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

“These times require a thoughtful and courageous voice on college campuses, and Professor Ceaser has been such a voice,” Michael W. Grebe, president of the Bradley Foundation, said in a press release. “A man of intellectual rigor, principle, and moral clarity, James Ceaser is a beacon for all academia.”

Most academics, alas, are go-along-to-get-along types.