GOODY, GOODY: House Investigation of Susan Rice Scandal Expanding.

SKYNET SMILES: Electric and Magnetic Fields Drive Soft, Flexible Robots.

HEALTH: Experts reverse themselves on prostate cancer screenings.

Men younger than 70 with no signs of prostate cancer should no longer be discouraged from checking their PSA levels, according to guidelines proposed Tuesday by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

But experts said a positive test might leave some men confused about what to do next.

In all fairness, that’s not an uncommon result after listening to experts.

TOURISTS ARE IDIOTS: Berlin’s Kreuzberg section “has decided to erect a protective wall for the wall itself…” Yes, a wall to preserve the Berlin Wall, or what’s left of it. Tourists insist on taking chunks home.

SALON: “There can be no joy in such incompetence”: Journalists call for Sean Spicer to be fired following “Holocaust center” comments.

Say, did anyone at Salon ever get fired for publishing pieces explicitly defending pedophilia?

Because to some people, that might seem worse than an awkward comment comparing Assad to Hitler.

BUSINESS INSIDER: What ever Trump said to China about North Korea, it seems like it worked.

Well, it’s way too early to tell.

While China has signed onto every UN Security Council resolution against North Korea since 2006, “it has, of course, watered down most if not all of those Security Council resolutions because it has not wanted to agree to sanctions that might create instability in North Korea,” Glaser said. “And if it won’t cause instability, it’s probably not likely to be tough enough to cause Kim Jong Un to rethink his strategy and priorities.”

So while China may have been swayed to act against its own interests by the Trump administration’s military posturing, another more credible threat could have moved the needle.

“I think that [the Chinese] are quite worried about what Trump might do in the area of trade and economics — that’s really credible,” Glaser said.

I suspect Rex Tillerson’s “strategic patience is over” comment and Trump’s retaliation against Syria’s Assad regime helped move Beijing’s needle.

THE DARK SECRET AT THE HEART OF AI: No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem. To be fair, we don’t really understand how natural intelligence works, either.

VIOLENT MASS HOMOPHOBIA IS ALWAYS DESCENDING IN THE UNITED STATES, AND YET LANDS ONLY IN MUSLIM-DOMINATED REGIONS: More than 100 gay men reportedly sent to “prison camps” in Russia’s republic of Chechnya.

LEFTIST MILLENNIAL PROTESTORS FLIP OFF MEMORIAL FOR COMMUNIST VICTIMS.

Ahh, tomorrow’s blame-the-victim DNC-MSM journalists today! Or as they say at David Horowitz’s Front Page Website, “Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out.”

PAST HER PRIME? Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls Lindsey Graham one of “the women of the Senate.” “Justice Ginsburg is 84 years old.”

UPDATE: Tom Maguire emails that this report is wrong:

RBG was listing past winners of the Allegheny College Civility award she was sharing that year with the late great Antonin Scalia.

The 2013 winners were Feinstein and Graham. 2014 winners were “the women of the Senate”.

His post is here: “Perhaps Ms. RBG’s speechwriter should enroll in a remedial ‘Clarity in Communications’ class with Sean Spicer, but no, she did not peg Sen. Graham as a woman.” (Bumped, for error-correction.)

POST-VETTING: Germany eyes Islamic extremist motive in Dortmund, arrests 1.

PART II IN THE TENNESSEE STAR’S SERIES ON THE CONSTITUTION: FEDERALISM.

DAVID BYLER: How Trump Picked the Democratic Lock and Won the Presidency.

SAVINGS: Walmart to offer discounts for ordering at home, picking up at the store.

I use Amazon Prime only for the convenience of two-day shipping. If the nearby Walmart offers better prices without the $99 annual membership fee, I can imagine a lot of people giving up Prime.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1434: How To Prevent The Next IRS Targeting Scandal.

WASHINGTON PANEL: Populist Surge a Result of 2008 Recession.

Meh. This panel seems to have focused entirely on Marxist-flavored economic determinism, and ignored the cultural blowback in Red America after eight years of top-down Progressive do-goodism.

I’d argue that the cultural angle was at least as important as the economic, and probably more so.

WELL, YES: Forget France, Italy Could Be Markets’ Big Risk.

Italian bonds also came under pressure and continued to weaken on Wednesday, even as French debt steadied. Those moves came as investors looked beyond France’s election to the problems of Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone.

Investors say those problems form a worrying list: weak growth, banks with bad loans, and sky-high public debt. Italian bonds have been supported by the European Central Bank’s bond buying program, but many analysts expect that will be scaled back next year.

Indeed, many investors believe that should Ms. Le Pen win, Italian markets could be the biggest casualty.

“If Le Pen gets in, I think Italian spreads would balloon in anticipation of a breakup of the euro,” said Paul Griffiths, chief investment officer of fixed income and multiasset at First State Investments . Mr. Griffiths is avoiding Italian banks and keeping a light exposure to Europe as a whole.

Italy got into so much trouble because adopting the euro gave Italians the opportunity to borrow against Germany’s credit rating.

This is just one of the many reasons the euro was doomed from the start.

HILLARY AND OBAMA’S LIBYA DEBACLE: From Responsibility to Protect to Slave Markets.

If a Republican President had invaded Libya and overthrown its government, then left bloody chaos, terrorism and rampant arms smuggling behind, our courageous press corps would be all over the story like a chicken on a June bug.

But fortunately all this happened under President Obama, so we don’t hear all that much about it. And when we do, nobody tries to assign blame to the arrogant ignoramuses who “organized” this disaster.

But the latest news, that slave markets are now operating in Libya, where desperate black Africans are being bought and sold as slaves, ought to trigger some kind of response. . . .

Again, if Republicans were responsible for this it would be the Biggest. Disaster. Ever.

As it is: crickets.

How about that.

HMM: US Residential Solar Is Set for a Radical Makeover.

The problem plaguing the market is not demand, but how demand is being met.

Many articles have analyzed the cause of the current turmoil and what it means for the industry going forward. In a recent GTM article, Andrew Beebe pointed to a rapid commoditization of hardware and financing, as well as a proliferation of specialized productivity tools, to explain how local solar installers have steadily eaten up market share from the retreating national brands.

The overhead-intensive, vertically integrated model has given way to more agile local providers who can deliver better service and better pricing. We at PowerScout have seen this trend developing firsthand throughout our partner network.

The other problem is solar just isn’t that economical. I ran the numbers on our house, and they weren’t encouraging. Even with the cold-but-sunny winters we enjoy on the Front Range and generous tax subsidies, our projected cost savings would only amount to three or four thousand dollars — spread out over 20 years. Take away the tax breaks — i.e., forcing the neighbors to pay for our solar panels — and we’d lose a little money on the deal.

And if everybody converted, in the end we’d all take a loss.

DEATH STINKS: Guitarist J. Geils Dead at 71.

FAKE NEWS: “Morning Joe has a mission: Take down the President. Watch the show—if you must—and you will get the idea rather quickly.” This would be more likely to succeed if anyone watched Morning Joe.

And given that Joe was actually excited about Evan McMullin, well. . . . I mean, was there ever any sadder and more ineffectual candidacy in national politics?

UPDATE: John Leo says I’m unfair to link this post, and emails: “Your item today alleging that Joe Scarborough is out to take Trump down is overblown. I watch the show every morning. He doesn’t like Bannon, but he gives Trump due credit for the deftness, speed and timing of the Syria strike, and he had Dick Durbin on this morning saying what a great set of generals Trump has behind him now, compared with (as Joe added) the assholes (not Joe’s word) the Democrats picked and featured in the ‘60s.”

I literally never watch Morning Joe, so my apologies if my post overstated his Trump hostility.

SHOCKER: Poll: Top Ten Most Popular Governors Are All Republican.

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OVER AT HOT MIC: Unpacking Aaron Blake’s belated admission that Susan Rice has a “completely unhelpful tendency to say the wrong thing to the media.”