On Rutgers coach firing, Hannity laments: “I Kind of Like Old-Fashioned Displine.” Watch.

Remembering Martin Luther King.

Roger Ebert, the great film critic, has died. He was 70.

Now that I have your attention, I want to make a simple point about the intersection of journalism and public goods.

This week we were treated — and I mean that sincerely — to a conservative show of support for a White House proposal to fund the mapping of the human brain. Unfortunately it comes at a time when conservative trolling of less grandiose, publicly funded scientific research is at a historic high*.

So while President Obama hit a sweet spot with the BRAIN project, the right has simultaneously been in hysterics about the National Science Foundation funding a study of duck genitals. Well that study, it turns out, yielded some interesting results, including new information about the evolution of duck vaginas into the shape of clockwise corkscrews, to fend off forced copulation by male ducks, which have counter-clockwise, corkscrew shaped penises. Fascinating! Read More

If you were looking for calm reassurance over the standoff with North Korea today, cable news wasn’t your friend.

Full-size version.

GOP voter suppression tactics got a decent if not overwhelming amount of coverage during the 2012 election, as did the general consensus that it ended up backfiring on Republicans in a big way. But most of the MSM narrative comes through the prism of white people, on both sides of the issue, talking to each other. Hunter Walker went to a panel on vote suppression and GOP ‘outreach’ at the annual National Action Network (the group founded by Al Sharpton) yesterday and filed this report. The headliners were Charlie Rangel and freshman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. Really worth reading.

Lots of prison terms are way to long. There are too many people in prison. And Eric Holder seems to agree.

Unlike gays and immigrants, why guns are the one wedge issue that will not go away. Fascinating stuff. And what gun control advocates are trying to do about it.

Taking over at Heritage, ex-Sen. DeMint echoes agenda against ‘the 47%.’

Texas A&M sees drive to let students opt out of having their fees going to the school’s ‘GLBT’ center.

Best part of story may be the slight hat tip to patriarchy in the local acronym.