NOBODY TELL NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS: One woman reveals what it’s like to sleep with a male sex doll as we explore a future where robots will decide who they want to MARRY.

GUNFIRE IN TEHRAN AS DRONE BUZZES IRAN’S CAPITAL:

Sustained gunfire rang out over central Tehran on Monday afternoon as anti-aircraft guns targeted what officials said was a drone flying over the Iranian capital.

Many residents ran to rooftops and craned their necks to see what was happening. Others sought shelter as bursts of machine gun fire echoed through the streets.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Tehran Governor Isa Farhadi as saying that the gunfire targeted a drone near restricted airspace in the capital.

It still isn’t clear who owned the drone.

The ayatollahs are nervous. They deserve to be.

RELATED: Don’t dismiss a “simultaneous strategic bombing strike” as “shock and awe.” The ayatollahs don’t dismiss it. A “simultaneous strategic bombing strike” is the kind of operation an unnamed nation with strategic bombers and missile systems might conduct with the goal of severely damaging an unnamed rogue nation’s nuclear weapons program.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Is a college degree the new high school diploma? “Patterns indicate that the factors propelling earlier increases in the returns to higher education have dissipated.”

If only there had been some sort of warning.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot:

In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled “Mediasaurus,” in which he prophesied the death of the mass media—specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. “Vanished, without a trace,” he wrote.

The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances—”artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page”—swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.

“[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality,” he lectured. “Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it’s sold without warranty. It’s flashy but it’s basically junk.”

* * * * * * * * *

As we pass his prediction’s 15-year anniversary, I’ve got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It’s gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren’t going extinct tomorrow, Crichton’s original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.

—“Michael Crichton, Vindicated, His 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target,” Jack Shafer, Slate, May 29, 2008.

Chaser:

In his own way, Trump has set us free. Reporters must treat Inauguration Day as a kind of Liberation Day to explore news outside the usual Washington circles. He has been explicit in his disdain for the press and his dislike for press conferences, prickly to the nth degree about being challenged and known for his vindictive way with those who cross him. So, forget about the White House press room. It’s time to circle behind enemy lines.

Washington reporting has long depended on a transactional relationship between sources and journalists. Journalists groom sources, but sources also groom journalists. There’s nothing inherently unethical about the back-scratching. When a reporter calls an administration source to confirm an embarrassing item, the source may agree to confirm as long as the reporter at the very least agrees to listen sympathetically to the administration’s context. But Trump’s hostile attitude toward the press, his dismissal of CNN for attempting to ask a question at the last conference, and his underhanded ploy at the last conference where he loaded the audience with cheerleaders has muted that mutualism. It’s easy to predict that instead of negotiating with reporters as equals, his administration will advance its agenda by feeding more pliant reporters material the way a trainer rewards circus animals.

—“Trump Is Making Journalism Great Again,” Jack Shafer, the Politico, today.

Related: “OUCH! IowaHawk burns media, aka ‘the opposition party’, with their OWN words and stats:”

Just think of the MSM as Democrat operatives, and it all makes sense – not least of which, their extended hibernation between November of 2008 and November of 2016.

UPDATE: And speaking of that extended hibernation, Michael Ramirez illustrates it as only he can: “Rip Van Reporter.”

THE BATTLE OVER OBAMACARE: The Christian Science Monitor says for many folks the problems with ObamaCare are personal, not political. Well, of course. This article attempts to give pro and con positions a fair shake, but dances around the fact the government forced many citizens to buy a product they didn’t want.

SNOW FIGHT: Soldiers from the 75th Infantry Division fighting in new fallen snow. Today’s StrategyPage Battle of the Bulge photo. The photo was probably taken on December 24 or 25, 1944. As the caption says, the 75th Infantry Division’s 290th Infantry Regiment landed in France on December 14. (Yes, this is an excellent photo — grim and gripping.)

TRAGIC: Eugene Cernan, Last Man To Walk On The Moon, Dead At 82. I’m sure he expected to see us return there before he died.

WELL, IT WAS THE MIOCENE EPOCH, YOU KNOW: Fossils from ancient extinct giant flightless goose suggests it was a fighter.

NATIONAL CARRY RECIPROCITY: Why Not?

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Campuses Buckle Under Obama Policies: If Betsy DeVos Is Really Hostile To Higher Ed, All She Needs To Do Is To Double Down On Obama Initiatives.

YET ANOTHER REASON WHY “OPEN OFFICES” SUCK: It’s not just loud and sniffly, open offices are actually hurting our brains.

JEFFREY TUCKER: My Lyft Ride with a Black Trump Supporter on MLK Day.

“Here it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I’m supposed to be all upset that Trump attacked John Lewis, but Trump is right. Lewis said he is not a legitimate president, so yeah Trump got upset. What exactly is Lewis doing to improve the lives of the poor in this town? Nothing. At least Trump has some ideas. He seems to care.”

Ok, now I’m listening.

“I’m glad Lewis marched in the protests so long ago,” she continued, “but you have to do more than march. That’s all these people do is march. Meanwhile, there are sections of Atlanta I’m afraid to drive in. And I say that as a black woman! It’s not even about race. Many blacks in this town live better than white people anywhere in the world. But there’s whole communities that have been forgotten. They are paid off with welfare checks but they don’t have skills or jobs, and they fear for their lives on their own streets.”

She was just getting going, so I wondered how far I could push this. What about Obamacare?

Explosion.

“Don’t get me started. My premiums are through the roof. I can’t afford it. Because I drive all day and night making money, I’m not poor enough to get any subsidies. So this year I’m going to have to pay $750 on my tax return because I can’t afford to buy insurance. But I can’t afford the health care either! And have you seen those deductibles? If anything should happen to you, you go bankrupt. I’ll tell you who benefitted from Obamacare. Not the poor. It’s the insurance companies and the government.”

Sea change you can believe in.

WHAT’S SAD IS THAT THIS IS NEWSWORTHY: Court Says Tossing A Flashbang Grenade Into A Room With A Toddler Is ‘Unreasonable’ Police Behavior.

WE CERTAINLY CAN’T HAVE THAT: Parents Furious Over ‘Misogynist’ Dating Assignment That Encouraged Girls to Be ‘Lady-Like’

GIANT FLARES WIDER THAN EARTH: We can now watch solar storms in real time, and it’s going to be epic.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE:

No.

READER BOOK PLUG: From reader Michael Gebert, The Fooditor 99: Where To Eat (And What To Eat There) In Chicago.

I WONDER IF THEY’LL BE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE “WOMEN’S MARCH:” Women Who Voted For Trump, In Their Own Words. There were rather a lot of them, you know.

MISSING NO MORE: FBI arrests wife of Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen.

The charges against his wife, Noor Salman, included aiding and abetting his attempts to support ISIS, as well as obstruction of justice.

FBI agents from the bureau’s San Francisco field office picked up Salman outside her home in Rodeo, Calif., law enforcement sources said.

Salman is set to make her initial appearance in federal court Tuesday in San Francisco. She had moved to Contra Costa County after the shooting.

The charges were filed in the Middle District of Florida – the jurisdiction in which the nightclub massacre took place. Following her initial appearance, the plan is to fly Salman back to the Middle District of Florida where she will continue through the judicial process.

HMM: Noor Salman, Wife of Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen, Arrested. Why now, all of a sudden?

WELL, GOOD: Conservative Professors at Wake Forest Speak Out.

COULD THIS BE MOTHER NATURE COMING UP WITH HER OWN SOLUTION TO AMERICA’S OBESITY PROBLEM? Salmon with large tapeworms arrive in the U.S.

SPRING FASCISM PREVIEW: University Hosts MLK Day Teach-In on ‘Oppressive Fashion Trends.’

(Classical reference in headline.)

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK: Air Force Academy cadets marching in Trump inaugural parade must commit to the left.

“Turn your head all the way to the left,” Master Sgt. Nicole Haun told the formation of cadets during practice. “Snap it.”

Haun is the school’s top expert in military drills and ceremony.

“We’ve been practicing this whole week,” she said. “I don’t think anything will go wrong.”

Still, a few cadets did an involuntary head shake at the left-turn order. In all the marches they’ve been on they’ve learned to respond to the command “eyes right” – the usual location for military reviewing stands where cadets turn to honor their superiors.

“Eyes left is no different from eyes right,” Haun said. “It’s just in reverse.”

Hubbard and his classmates were too excited at the prospect of greeting the new commander in chief to fret over the neck turn.

“It’s pretty cool,” Hubbard said.

Indeed.

WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES: Martin Shkreli Pelted with Feces at Canceled Milo Yiannapoulos Event at UC Davis.

Cost of California resident students living on UC Davis campus is $35,000 a year. Parents and students, choose where to spend your money wisely.

(Classical reference in headline.)