MAKER REVOLUTION? Reinventing American Manufacturing.

MORE HYPERMASCULINE CLEANING TIPS: Reader John Wismar writes: “As long as you’re touting cleaners that actually work, I’d like to pass along a plug: Dawn Power Dissolver. Sadly it’s getting hard to find. I hope they don’t discontinue it…. This stuff makes cleaning up my stainless steel frying pans, grill grates, etc., MUCH easier. Gets all the baked on grease & crud off. And, if needed, I follow up with Barkeeper’s Friend to remove any remaining discoloration.”

DEATH OF THE AUTOMOBILE — ANOTHER FANTASY? Southern California stuck in drive. “Southern California has long been a nurturer of dreams that, while widely anticipated, often are never quite achieved. One particularly strong fantasy involves Los Angeles abandoning what one enthusiast calls its ‘car habit’ and converting into an ever-denser, transit-oriented region. An analysis of transit ridership, however, shows that the region is essentially no better off than when the the modern period of transit funding began in 1980, with the passage of Proposition A, which authorized a half-cent sales tax for transit. In 1980, approximately 5.9 percent of workers in the metropolitan area (Los Angeles and Orange counties) used transit for their commute. The latest data, for 2013, indicates the ridership figure has fallen to 5.8 percent.”

Planners prefer transit, because it makes people easier to control — and facilitates graft regarding routes, station locations, etc.

THE 1980S CALLED. . . . Meet the NATO Crews Watching the Skies For Russia’s Next Move.

CIVIL WAR BREWING for the cultural left? “The coalition of moderate liberals, sceptical intellectuals, and radical progressives that once stood together against the conservative ‘moral majority’ is beginning to fracture. In the absence of a compelling external opponent, the internal tensions of this coalition are becoming more visible.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Median U.S. Household Income Continues To Decline.

IT’S POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: Woman Showcased by Obama in SOTU is a Former Democratic Campaign Staffer; Woman apparently the only economic success story in Obama’s America.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 622.

URBAN PLANNING IS ABOUT CONTROL: Looking Back: The Ideal Communist City.

As is sometimes asserted by urbanists today, the new socialist cities were about more than mere economic growth; they were widely posed as a means to develop a new kind of society, one that could make possible the spread of Homo sovieticus (the Soviet man). As one German historian writes, the socialist city was to be a place “free of historical burdens, where a new human being was to come into existence, the city and the factory were to be a laboratory of a future society, culture, and way of life”.

Elements of High Stalinist culture was evident in these cities; the cult of heavy industry, shock worker movement, youth group activity, and the aesthetics of socialist realism. This approach had no room for what in Britain was called “a middle landscape” between countryside and city. Throughout Russia, and much of Eastern Europe, tall apartment blocks were chosen over leafy suburbs. Soviets had no interest in suburbs of any kind because the character of a city “is that people live an urban life. And on the edges of the city or outside the city, they live a rural life”. The rural life was exactly what communist leaders hoped their country would get away from, therefore Soviet planners housed residents near industrial sites so they could contribute to their country through state-sponsored work.

With this assumption, Soviet planners made some logical steps to promote density. They built nurseries and preschools as well as theatre and sports halls within walking distance to worker’s homes. Communal eating areas were arranged. Also, wide boulevards were crucial for marches and to have a clear path to and from the factory for the workers. The goals of the “socialist city” planners were to not just transform urban planning but human behavior, helping such spaces would breed the “urban human”.

As is common with utopian approaches to cities, problems arose. Rapid development, the speed of construction, the use of night shifts, the long working days, and the inexperience of both workers and management all contributed to frequent technological failures. Contrary to the propaganda, there was a huge gap between the ideal of happy workers thriving in well-managed cities and the reality.

The planners promise more than they can deliver, time after time. And someone else pays the price, time after time. All planners should first have to read James Scott’s Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes To Improve The Human Condition Have Failed.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Where The Sugar Babies Are. “In recent years the rising cost of student debt has given birth to an odd phenomenon: a population of ostensibly generous older men who appear poised to solve the higher-education crisis, one student at a time. Once a relatively underground subculture, this benevolent group of men is coming to the rescue across the country, essentially volunteering to subsidize the students’ tuition costs. But that description could be, shall I say, sugarcoating it. . . . Statistics aside, the fact that this path has become increasingly popular among so many young women is a damning indictment of the country’s higher-education system.” You could write a book on it.

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THIS KIND OF GOT BURIED UNDER THE STATE OF THE UNION HYPE YESTERDAY: Holt v. Hobbs: Unanimous victory for Muslim prisoner in religious rights case.

Related: From Eric Rassbach (Becket Fund) on what Holt v. Hobbs means for religious liberty.

JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO, OBAMA WAS HOLDING UP YEMEN AS A MODEL FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: Shiite insurgents control Yemen’s presidential palace and residence.

Everything he touches. . . .

ASHE SCHOW: Strangely missing from Obama’s State of the Union address: Campus sexual assault.

Don’t get me wrong, the Obama administration is terrible on the issue of sexual assault, as it’s behind the disintegration of due process rights for accused students. But after all the fuss President Obama made last year about the issue — the “It’s on us” campaign and numerous attempts to convince the world that 20 percent of America’s college women will be raped — you would think he would say something about the issue.

But nothing. Not one word in his nearly 6,500 word speech was about campus sexual assault.

How odd, considering victim extraordinaire Emma Sulkowicz was in the audience as a guest of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and considering just how big an issue this was last year.

Maybe it’s because of the pushback the “1 in 5 college women will be raped” statistic has received. Maybe it’s because the policies being created by the hysteria surrounding that statistic are being challenged by lawmakers, students, colleges — even Harvard Law professors.

Maybe it’s because the UVA story imploded, and they don’t want to call attention to the White House connection there.

UPDATE: “Applications to the University of Virginia dropped for the first time in 12 years as students made their decisions amid an uproar about a now-discredited story over a gang rape on campus.”

SURE, TAKE OUT YOUR FRUSTRATIONS AND ANXIETY ON FOX, THEY WON’T BEHEAD YOU: Paris mayor threatens to sue Fox for insulting Paris and injuring its honor (with ‘no-go zones’).

If you want to further “prejudice” the “image” of Paris — and France more generally — in the United States, it’s hard to imagine a better means than by suing it on these grounds. Instead of being seen as a city that was incorrectly accused of having “no-go zones,” Paris will be seen as a city that tries to use its country’s speech-restrictive laws (again, assuming French laws authorize such a claim) to go after foreign media. Big improvement!

And that’s especially so given the obvious implications of such a lawsuit: Imagine a world in which governments whose “honor” and “image” has supposedly been “prejudiced” by allegedly false statements start trying to impose legal consequences on the speakers — with the decisions about truth or falsity made by the legal system of the very country that was supposedly dishonored (or the capital of which was supposedly dishonored). Can’t say that this is a wise proposal on the Paris mayor’s part.

Funny, I could have sworn that there were a lot of people marching for free speech in Paris recently.

WAPO: Why Democrats are so frightened of Joni Ernst. “By drawing on her uncommon, interesting personal story as an Iowa farmgirl and Army National Guard combat veteran, and relating to her fellow Iowans, Ernst captured one of the most reliably liberal Senate seats in the country — one that had been held by now-retired Democratic senator Tom Harkin for 30 years. While Ernst’s opponent ridiculed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for being a farmer, Ernst embraced her roots and produced one of the most memorable, viral campaign ads of the 2014 cycle. . . . But even more than losing a critical Senate seat, Democrats are frightened by Ernst because she is a woman who has a strong conservative philosophy and message that appeals to a lot of people. Democrats can’t dismiss Ernst as a token, because she didn’t run as one. Everything about her biography and style blunts the Democrats’ usual criticisms of conservative women.”

ENEMIES OF THE STATE: Democrats put target on ‘corporate deserters.’

Congressional Democrats said Tuesday they would seek any and all avenues to curb offshore tax deals, kicking off a new effort to punish what they call “corporate deserters.”

Senior Democrats on both sides of the Capitol brought back legislation to make it more difficult for corporations to merge with a foreign competitor and shift their legal address abroad.

“We believe we need fairness in the tax code,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said at a news conference announcing the legislation.

Democrats introduced the legislation last year as well, at the same time President Obama and other senior officials in the party questioned the patriotism of companies like Pfizer Inc. and Walgreen Co. that looked into so-called corporate inversions.

After Congress deadlocked over the tax deals in 2014, the Treasury Department put in place new rules targeting the economic benefits for companies that reincorporate offshore. But both lawmakers and the Obama administration said tougher measures would require action from Congress.

See, you’re a “deserter” because starting a company is just like enlisting in the military! And that attitude is sure to promote economic growth!

FROM TAM, questions about an Atlantic gun piece, and its author.

I’LL BELIEVE IT’S A CRISIS WHEN THE PEOPLE WHO TELL ME IT’S A CRISIS START ACTING LIKE IT’S A CRISIS: 1700 Private Jets Fly To Davos Discussion On Global Warming.

Related: “It turns out that global warming causes private jets.” Then where’s mine?

FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS: President Obama gives up on 77 cent wage gap statistic.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama tried to continue the myth that women are paid drastically less than men, but there’s a catch — he didn’t repeat the debunked claim that women earn 77 cents to the dollar that men earn. . . .

But Obama’s speech is missing any mention of just how differently men and women are paid. Perhaps this is because the Bureau of Labor Statistics pointed out that it’s not Congress but women’s own choices that result in the supposed wage gap.

And maybe it’s because the White House knows this to be true, as Betsey Stevenson, member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, admitted last April.

Even with the false statistic removed, Obama does a disservice to women by continuing to tell them they’re all victims.

Yeah, but narrative uber alles.

WHY OBAMA SAID SO MANY NICE THINGS ABOUT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: They’re huge sources of campaign donations for him.

DRUDGE SUMS UP:

OVERALL, THIS IS GOOD NEWS. BUT. . . U.S.-built Ebola treatment centers in Liberia are nearly empty as outbreak fades. Key bit: “‘If they had been built when we needed them, it wouldn’t have been too much,’ said Moses Massaquoi, the Liberian government’s chairman for Ebola case management. ‘But they were too late.’”

WELL, I CERTAINLY WOULDN’T RECOMMEND WATCHING IT SOBER: Stephen Green Will Be Drunkblogging The State Of The Union.

UPDATE: Rand Paul’s response.