With so many White House scandals—and new ones popping up every day—how are average citizens supposed to keep track? Wouldn't it be nice if Obama went on ESPN and mapped them all on a bracket?

Why wait for next year's March Madness when you can start May Madness today? Introducing the Obama Scandal Bracket! Click here for a full-size version and vote for the scandal you think will bring down the president.

Just when you think you have seen it all …

We’ll start by noting yet more evidence that the IRS’s audits of political groups was entirely inequitable in nature:

When the Barack H. Obama Foundation sought tax-exempt status to raise money for good works in Kenya, the Internal Revenue Service provided quick help.

The IRS approved charitable status for the foundation, which was run by President Obama’s brother and named after his father, in about a month’s time. The IRS also agreed to give the group this important financial status retroactively, back to 2009, when it had begun its fundraising.

The 34 days the IRS’s Cincinnati office took to process the foundation’s application stands in contrast to the waits of several months — and sometimes longer than a year — that several conservative groups say they experienced with the same office. Obama has apologized, saying Americans have a right to be angry that the office improperly targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

And more:

The Internal Revenue Service scandal involving the apparently unjustified targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups has also hit home with the Hispanic community.

George Rodriguez, former president of the San Antonio Tea Party, said that when the organization applied for non-profit status, leaders were intimidated by IRS workers with excessive paperwork and meddling questions.

“They asked us all sorts of things that were out of the norm,” Rodriguez, now head of the conservative South Texas Alliance, told Fox News Latino. “We knew these questions were not the norm and we had our suspicions about them.”

Rodriguez said the group received a questionnaire from the IRS with “well over 50 questions,” including inquiries into who the group met with, where they held their meetings, who was in attendance and what the subject of their internal emails were.

“They should have been worried about the numbers, not who we were meeting with,” he added. “It was flat-out dirty politics.”

Despite all of this, Steven Miller claims that the IRS’s targeting of conservatives was “absolutely not illegal.” He won’t tell us whether it was “unethical,” “appalling,” “unprofessional” or whether it “smacked of police state tactics,” however. And I guess we’re not supposed to worry about the legal/ethical issues raised by this bit of news:

NBC’s Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS  deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election …

The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? …

More:

The Internal Revenue Service’s watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president’s re-election campaign.

The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. He said he didn’t reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages, and his disclosure came as part of a routine update to Treasury leaders. At the time, Republican lawmakers were complaining publicly about alleged IRS targeting of tea-party groups.

The revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration. It was one of several new details that emerged during a contentious four-hour House committee hearing Friday, held one week after an IRS official revealed at a legal conference that the agency had taken “absolutely inappropriate” actions in targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for often heavy-handed scrutiny.

Among other disclosures: The conference revelation was itself stage-managed. Ousted IRS acting Commissioner Steven Miller testified he planned it with the director of the division in question. Republican lawmakers expressed amazement that IRS officials didn’t tell them first.

The hearing left numerous other fundamental questions unanswered, however, including who ordered the targeting and why it continued so long, pointing to a protracted investigation ahead. Mr. Miller conceded the agency likely disciplined the wrong employee in one effort to address the problem. Another was reassigned in the agency’s Cincinnati office, but he couldn’t provide the employee’s name.

And we are supposed to believe that there is nothing criminal about any of this? I trust at least that we won’t have to have a prolonged debate about how incredibly unethical and dirty all of this is.

Here is more on the “stage-managed” disclosure:

Last week, Lois Lerner, head of the tax exempt division of the Internal Revenue Service dropped a bombshell: The IRS had been applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups claiming tax exempt status.

The revelation came seemingly out of the blue, in response to a question during a panel at an American Bar Association conference, leaving the audience baffled, according to reports.

As it turns out, it was not a spontaneous revelation. The question, said outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, was planted, as part of a prepared strategy for the IRS to release this information to the public.

Under questioning from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, Miller said it was a “prepared Q and A,” and the question, which came from tax lawyer Celia Roady had been discussed in advance as well.

Roady told U.S. News and World Report later Friday afternoon that Lerner had personally contacted her and requested she ask the specific question. Roady said she did not know at the time what Lerner’s answer would be.

Why on Earth didn’t Lerner or Miller simply announce the information? Why didn’t they tell anyone in Congress? And why did they hide the information during election season? Isn’t this the kind of news that voters ought to know about before they go to the polls?

Again, am I supposed to believe that nothing illegal or unethical went on around here? Because I’m having trouble doing so.

I don’t know if Orwell could have dreamed this up:

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.
“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’” Schock declared.
“Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?” asked Schock. “The content of one’s prayers?”
“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller replied.

After Schock pressed him further, Miller explained that although he couldn’t comment on the specific case, it would “surprise him” if that question was asked.

I presume that someone will have the nerve to tell us that this doesn’t constitute a blow against freedom of religion.

If you are looking for some kind of reassurance that the people responsible for this scandal are being punished, well, don’t read this story:

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

[…]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also reacted to the revelation late Thursday, stating the news was “stunning, just stunning.”

And there are probably more stunning revelations to come. Like, you know, this:

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency’s Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS’ regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today.

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

The 2010, 2011 and 2012 bonuses were awarded during the period when IRS harassment of the conservative groups was most intense. The newspaper obtained the data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Only government would respond to incredibly unethical—and possibly illegal—behavior by giving those responsible for the unethical/illegal behavior bonuses. Oh, and when the IRS is not engaging in illegal/unethical behavior, it is acting like the Keystone Kops:

In March 2012, the Human Rights Campaign and The Huffington Post made public confidential tax documents from the National Organization for Marriage. The Human Rights Campaign said it obtained the documents from a “whistle-blower” who mailed them to the gay rights group’s Washington headquarters.

In a similar incident, ProPublica, an investigative journalism Web site, asked the I.R.S.’s Cincinnati office for the applications of 67 nonprofits, both liberal and conservative. When the I.R.S. responded, it inadvertently included applications for nine conservative groups that had not yet been granted tax-exempt status, a violation of confidentiality law.

When ProPublica realized what it had — including the application from Crossroads GPS, the conservative group founded by Karl Rove and other Republican strategists — it alerted the I.R.S., which warned the journalists that “publishing unauthorized returns or return information was a felony” punishable by up to five years in prison. ProPublica ProPublica redacted certain details and published the documents anyway.

Representative Peter Roskam, Republican of Illinois, hit on a different explanation. “On the one hand, you’re arguing today that the I.R.S. is not corrupt, but the subtext of that is you’re saying, ‘Look, we’re just incompetent,’ ” Mr. Roskam said. “It is a perilous pathway to go down.”

Is there anyone out there who is still willing to claim that there is no scandal here? And if so, what are those people smoking?

Do you ever feel as though you've stepped into some kind of fictional parallel universe? The IRS scandal is starting to take on the dimensions of a dark satirical netherworld -- Evelyn Waugh with a dollop of Orwell thrown in.

The Coalition for Life of Iowa applied for tax-exempt status in 2008, opening itself up to ten months of interrogation by the IRS. The organization's board was ordered by the IRS to sign a sworn declaration that they would never protest or picket Planned Parenthood, and they were obliged to answer questions like the following:

Please detail the content of the members of your organization's prayers.

IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, asked about this during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, couldn't bring himself to say that such a demand was out of line. The most he would offer was that it was surprising.

Not anymore, it isn't.

Alongside the big three scandals currently rocking the nation, another is brewing within the U.S. military. According to a recent Pentagon report, 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted last year—that’s up 35 percent from 2010. The increase is due to victims being more willing to report the crimes and also a broadening of the definition of “sexual assault.”

Contrary to the Pentagon's report, there have been reports that these numbers are incorrect due to false reports of sexual assault:

False complaints of sexual abuse in the military are rising at a faster rate than overall reports of sexual assault, a trend that could harm combat readiness, analysts say.

From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 — a 4 percent increase.

During the same period, the number of what the Pentagon calls “unfounded allegations” based on completed investigations of those reports rose from 331 to 444 — a 35 percent increase.

In 2012, there were 2,661 completed investigations, meaning that the 444 false complaints accounted for about 17 percent of all closed cases last year. False reports accounted for about 13 percent of closed cases in 2009.

Despite the disparity in number of assaults, lawmakers are still calling for changes, and President Obama spoke out for more oversight by the military in the proper handling of sexual assault cases. The situation has been made even worse by reports that some service members responsible for preventing such crimes have been allegedly involved in sexual assault themselves. 

In response to the scandal, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the armed services to immediately re-train, re-credential and re-screen tens of thousands of military recruiters and sexual-assault prevention officers. Lawmakers are also considering stripping commanders of their sole authority to decide whether complaints of sexual assault go forward.

During congressional hearings on the issue of sexual assault in the military, Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh came under fire for citing a “hook-up culture” for part of the problem. He was accused, in essence, of blaming the victim. Welsh quickly recanted, saying, “I am sorry about that because there is nothing that is further from the truth as far as I personally feel.”

Even if Welsh didn’t mean to blame the victim, there are some who do. One study found that half of the women polled think that rape victims are to blame for “wearing a short skirt, accepting a drink or having a conversation with the rapist” or “dancing in a provocative way or flirting.”

When it comes to sexual assault and women in combat specifically, columnist Phyllis Schlafly wrote that “military women are already complaining about increased sexual assaults, and of course those problems will skyrocket. Only men will be deemed at fault because it is feminist ideology that men are innately batterers and women are victims.”

Some of the left lashed out at Schlafly for blaming the victim instead of the man: “If the rate of (male-on-female) sexual harassment goes up when women serve in combat positions, only men will be deemed at fault because only men will be at fault.”

While I am no lover of radical feminism and am opposed to women in combat positions (for reasons other than sexual temptation), I think it is a mistake for conservatives to blame the victim in any fashion when it comes to sexual assault. I think to do so shifts blame from where it belongs—on the evil actions of the perpetrator—and reinforces the perception that conservatives don’t care about women.

The argument that women should not serve in the military because they might be sexually assaulted assumes that men in our military have no self-control. This is an unfair assumption—about men in general. It has been my experience that a good man behaves himself no matter how a woman acts or dresses or how intimate their working conditions are. And he especially behaves himself when she is simply a co-worker and not doing anything to “tempt” him other than being a woman. 

Bad men rape women. Bad men assault women. Bad men take advantage of women even when women have placed themselves in compromising positions, which still does not make her “responsible”—no more than the homeowner who leaves his door unlocked is “responsible” for getting robbed.

What do you think? Should conservatives be careful not to blame the victim when making arguments about women in combat, or do you think this is a legitimate argument despite heightened sensitivity to the issue, particularly among young women—a group conservatives are trying to win over?

Since reading Kevin Williamson’s post at NRO’s The Corner on his abbreviated night at the theater (previously discussed here on Ricochet), I’ve pondered how I, as a police officer, might respond to a similar set of circumstances if such were to unfold in Los Angeles. 

For those not yet abreast of the facts, they can be distilled thus: Last Wednesday, Mr. Williamson and a date attended an off-Broadway performance of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.  They were chagrined to find members of the audience “talking, using their phones, and making a general nuisance of themselves.” Among the most flagrant offenders was the woman seated next to Mr. Williamson, who, despite the standard pre-show admonition to turn off all cell phones, and despite Mr. Williamson’s entreaties to stop, insisted on using hers throughout the performance. She suggested Mr. Williamson mind his own business. 

A protest to the theater management during the intermission brought no relief, so Mr. Williamson took matters into his own hands – minded his own business, you might say – snatching the offending instrument from the woman’s hand and launching it across the room.  The woman slapped him, then stormed off to summon a “black-suited agent of order,” who promptly ushered Mr. Williamson and his date to the door and out into the Manhattan night.

“There is talk of criminal charges,” he ominously concludes his post.  “I will keep you updated.”

So presumably the police were called, and with Mr. Williamson and his date having departed, the responding officers were left with only the complaining party and her companions to offer a version of what had happened, a version that surely omitted facts inconvenient to the woman’s case.  Mr. Williamson likely has been named as the suspect in crime report now being investigated by some beleaguered detective for the NYPD.

But in our hypothetical, which occurs at a theater here in Los Angeles, the phone-chucker, whom we’ll call him Mr. W., is still at the scene when Officer Dunphy arrives, as is the woman whose phone was chucked. We’ll call her, just choosing a letter at random, Miss C.

Miss C. tells the horrifying tale of seeing her phone snatched from her hand and flung across the room, perhaps resulting in damage. Mr. W. counters by relating his pleas to the woman that she stop using the phone during the performance, and the lack of intercession by the theater management when such was requested.

So, here is Officer Dunphy’s dilemma: While Miss C.’s conduct was boorish, it was not against the law, at least up until the moment she slapped Mr. W.  But in grabbing and throwing Miss C.’s phone, Mr. W. has committed a battery and an act of vandalism, both of them misdemeanors.

Officer Dunphy cannot help but sympathize with Mr. W., whose immediate arrest Miss C. now demands. Who among us has not experienced a similar impulse at a play, concert, or movie theater? Who among us would not have to repress the desire to hurl the phone across the room with Miss C. still attached? But, while the greater offense against civilized society may arguably have been committed by Miss C., the law is the law. As the misdemeanors alleged did not occur in my presence, however, I cannot lawfully arrest Mr. W. on probable cause; Miss C. must make a citizen’s arrest, which she is only too happy to do.

“But,” I say to Miss C., "Mr. W. claims that you struck him, an act that also meets all the corpus delicti of a battery. He too is lawfully entitled to place you under citizen’s arrest.”

Miss C. is of course indignant, as would be expected of someone whose exaggerated sense of entitlement allows her to use her cell phone during a live performance. “Officer Dunphy,” Mr. W. says, “If I’m going to the hoosegow, then by golly, so is she.”

At which point Miss C., facing the prospect of a long and unpleasant experience, very likely says, “The hell with it,” or words to that effect, and recants her desire to arrest Mr. W. I then document the incident and the countering allegations on a crime report, which in due course will be funneled through the bureaucracy of the LAPD and the city attorney’s office before being forgotten, a process that will waste the time of many people along the way.

As a police officer I cannot endorse Mr. Williamson’s conduct that night. But not all justice is achieved in the courtroom, and my sense is that in tossing that woman's phone across the theater, Mr. Williamson served the cause of justice. He may get a wrist-slap to go along with his face-slap, but I suspect that rude woman will think twice before she uses her phone in the theater again.

Rock and Roll can only happen - really happen - in the Free World. The protesting, rebelling and emoting; the open lusting, longing and exulting - these are Free World luxuries. Rock and Roll expresses the bigness of our wishes, hopes and dreams, and expresses our anxiety, frustration, and confusion in response to what the Free World has become. The joyful side of today's version of freedom, and the dark side, are both there.

I like a good road trip with good rock and roll. I've recently taken a couple trips in my new car, and have particularly enjoyed the satellite radio. Between the Classic Rock, Classic Vinyl and Deep Tracks stations, I'm all set for my ride. I find that the songs help me cope with the unbelievably sad and worrying news that relentlessly sideswipes us today.  It gives me relief and reminds me how fun and exciting it is to be free.  It expresses the indignation I feel about assaults on liberty, the rage I feel about the abuse of children and the revulsion I feel toward Brave New World artificiality.

So here is a list of songs that, for me, convey the joy of freedom and the frustration over what the "Free World" has become. From the Beatles line "I read the news today, Oh boy....." to Pink Floyd's line "Hello, hello, Is anybody in there?" to Earth Wind and Fire's line "Bless the Children", I think you'll see what I mean.

Cream - "I Feel Free"

Neil Young - "Rockin' in the Free World"

Richie Havens - "Freedom"

U2 - "Beautiful Day"

Grateful Dead - "Box of Rain"

Grand Funk Railroad - "We're an American Band"

Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb"

Traffic - "Dear Mr. Fantasy"

John Lennon - "Give Me Some Truth"

George Harrison - "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Rolling Stones - "Gimme Shelter"

Marvin Gaye - "What's Going On?"

The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again"

The Beatles - "A Day in the Life"

Jimmy Hendrix - "All Along the Watchtower"

Jackson Browne - "Running on Empty"

Eric Clapton - "Blues Power"

Queen - "The Show Must Go On"

Coldplay - "Fix You"

Phil Collins - "Another Day in Paradise"

Led Zeppelin- "Stairway to Heaven"

Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"

Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Can't Stop"

Fleetwood Mac - "Landslide"

Joe Cocker - "With a Little Help from My Friends"

That's my list. What's yours? What songs particularly convey the ups and the downs of living in the "Free World" today? Alternatively, what song or songs would you add to this list?

Back in January I posted here lamenting the sudden absence of Milt Rosenberg from the WGN radio lineup. Today I was gratified to discover that he has launched his own program on the Internet. Appearing as his first guest is friend of Ricochet Mark Steyn. What’s not to like about that?

If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Rosenberg you can consider yourself blessed to discover him now. If, like me, you were a regular listener to his show on WGN, you can consider yourself equally blessed to hear his voice once again.

Welcome back, sir.  We’ve missed you.

(And a note to the management at WGN: I haven’t listened to your station since Milt Rosenberg’s last show.)

The audience question at an otherwise sleepy conference that allowed the IRS to ever so slightly frontrun the revelation that it targeted conservative organizations was, it turns out, planted by the IRS. 

The Internal Revenue Service wrote and planted the question asked on May 10 that led to the IRS scandal, the questioner said in a statement today.

Celia Roady, a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Washington, said she received a call May 9 from Lois Lerner, the mid-level IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations. Both were planning to attend a tax conference the next day in Washington.

Here's the question that was asked:

“Lois, a few months ago there were some concerns about the IRS’s review of 501(c)(4) organizations, of applications from tea party organizations. I was just wondering if you could provide an update.”

Just wondering, baby. An IRS official scripted that breezy question, so that the IRS could appear to be nonchalantly coming clean about a minor infraction that it knew would be revealed in a few days. This is almost theatrically evil. 

Rob, let's get to work on the screenplay, shall we? We're going to need a parking garage.

Lady Ricochet readers: If you were upset about potentially losing your right to bear an oversize soft drink in New York City, perhaps you will take comfort in knowing that at least some rights remain vigilantly protected by the Bloomberg regime:

The command was read [in February] at 10 consecutive roll calls. Each of the city’s 34,000 officers, in theory, got the message: For “simply exposing their breasts in public,” women are guilty of no crime.

Whether any officer encountered such a brave-hearted, bare-chested soul is not clear, nor is the reason for the Police Department’s concern about such matters in the dead of winter...

“I thought you had to have body paint,” a female officer said.

“No,” the first replied. “You don’t need that.”

(Mayor Michael Bloomberg points to that which is legal in New York City.)

Because now, even more information has come out.

Start with the fact that we have yet another resignation:

President Obama on Thursday appointed senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as that agency manages a scandal stemming from its targeting of conservative groups. The appointment is effective May 22.

More changes in the IRS leadership team were announced Thursday as well, with Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division, planning to retire on June 3, according to an IRS statement.

Obama on Wednesday demanded and accepted the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller. The president said it is important to have a new leader for the organization while it attempts to put in safeguards to ensure the special screening of political advocacy groups does not happen again. Werfel has agreed to remain in the new job through Sept. 30.

Anyone who thinks that Grant’s resignation is just coincidental likely would be a good target for those seeking to unload subprime mortgage packages. Also, this is yet another nail in the coffin of the claim that responsibility for bad behavior was confined to low-level employees.

It’s also worth noting that the latest incredibly ridiculous excuse for the IRS scandal—courtesy of incredibly ridiculous people—is that the IRS abuses were justified by a “doubling” of claims from tea party groups for tax exempt status since the Citizens United ruling. The problem is that this excuse is utterly shredded by, you know, facts:

Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.

In fact, applications were declining, data show.

Top IRS officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” and “9/12.”

Both Steven Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner until he stepped down Wednesday, and Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s exempt-organization division, have said over the past week that IRS officials started the scrutiny after observing a surge in applications for status as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups. Both officials cited an increase from about 1,500 applications in 2010 to nearly 3,500 in 2012. President Obama ask Mr. Miller to resign on Wednesday.

The scrutiny began, however, in March 2010, before an uptick could have been observed, according to data contained in the audit released Tuesday from the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.

The number of 501(c)(4) applications for all of 2010 was actually less than in 2009.

“It doesn’t bear out the statement that there was a surge in 2010,” said Bruce Hopkins, a tax attorney specializing in nonprofits. “That’s inconsistent with what Lois said last week.”

Facts don’t matter to liars, of course. But they should and do matter to those of us who are morally decent and intellectually honest.

And who better to illustrate that than Dita von Teese, a Vargas girl made flesh.

Behold: Dita is wearing the first-ever 3D-printed dress, created by designer Michael Schmidt:

With the help of architect Francis Bitonti, Schmidt used digital rendering technology to design the dress and then collaborated with Shapeways, a 3D printing company, to create the dress with a fabric-like substance called powdered nylon. The final product was painted black and covered with 12,000 black Swarovski crystals.

The gown is made of thousands of plastic joints that are tiny enough to allow the material to drape like fabric. Bitonti started with Schmidt's iPad sketch of the gown and then created a computer model of the "network of curves" of Dita's body to match the gown to her shape. "Her body actually became an input for the software," he said. 

The technology is intriguingly disruptive, in that it hands a jealously guarded creative pursuit -- fashion design -- to the hoi polloi. "You can use an iPhone app to take 40 photos of an object, and the software will then stitch the photos together so you can recreate, modify and print the design," explained Duann Scott, a "designer evangelist" at Shapeways, the 3D printing startup that manufactured the gown. 

One of these is a real wine review:

1. Overall character is that of a sex-loaded scarlet; endowed, jaunty and erotically scented with every part smelling and tasting provocative, flamboyant and blooming. Its gorgeous, vaunting style is burning, mantling and amorous with an extravagant softness that is grandiose, exotic and pursed lipped. There is an edginess, sophistication and dominating air that questions whether your palate has the true aptitude to handle the complete clutch of this much worldliness.

2. This supple, chocolatey, full-bodied blend of cabernet franc and merlot teases the palate with a spicy, jammy, in-your-face hit of blackberries laced with Swiss cacao by way of cherry blossoms in the dewy morning. The hibiscus nose, heady with fruit-forward notes of nectarine and plum, lulls you into submission and then hits you full-bore with neon purple magic-marker tannins on the finish. As much at home beside a slab of bloody prime rib as it is gracing an earthy pot-au-feu, this isn't the flirty tween in the cutoffs by the pool. This is her mother in the diamonds on the chaise-longue, checking you out and finding you wanting. Serve the rabble your Mondavi cab; keep this one for yourself. 91.

Okay, which is the real one? (Answer at the bottom of the post.)

I'm a big wine lover (and cocktail fan), but have always suspected that much of the language thrown around in the assessment of wine is the purest nonsense. I operate on a fatally pedestrian "yummy," "whoa, even yummier!" "sweet Lord above, this is the yummiest" metric, so I'm at a bit of a loss when somebody starts declaiming about straw-peachy noses and the hint of the barnyard and, heaven help us, flaccidity. 

A website called i09: We Come From the Future shares my skepticism. A Robert T. Gonzalez makes the following points:

1. Wine experts contradict themselves. Constantly: 

Statistician and wine-lover Robert Hodgson recently analyzed a series of wine competitions in California, after "wondering how wines, such as his own, [could] win a gold medal at one competition, and 'end up in the pooper' at others." In one study, Hodgson presented blindfolded wine experts with the same wine three times in succession. Incredibly, the judges' ratings typically varied by ±4 points on a standard ratings scale running from 80 to 100. Via the Wall Street Journal:

A wine rated 91 on one tasting would often be rated an 87 or 95 on the next. Some of the judges did much worse, and only about one in 10 regularly rated the same wine within a range of ±2 points.

Mr. Hodgson also found that the judges whose ratings were most consistent in any given year landed in the middle of the pack in other years, suggesting that their consistent performance that year had simply been due to chance.

It bears repeating that the judges Hodgson surveyed were no ordinary taste-testers. These were judges at the California State Fair wine competition – the oldest and most prestigious in North America.

2. Expert wine critics can't distinguish between red and white wines. You've probably heard about this one:

In 2001, researcher Frédéric Brochet invited 54 wine experts to give their opinions on what were ostensibly two glasses of different wine: one red, and one white. In actuality, the two wines were identical, with one exception: the "red" wine had been dyed with food coloring.

The experts described the "red" wine in language typically reserved for characterizing reds. They called it "jammy," for example, and noted the flavors imparted by its "crushed red fruit." Not one of the 54 experts surveyed noticed that it was, in fact a white wine.

3. We taste with our eyes, not our mouths:

Actually, scratch that. We taste with our eyes, ears, noses, and even our sense of touch. We taste with our emotions, and our state of mind. This has been demonstrated time after time after time.

Research out of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab has shown that people will rate food as more enjoyable if it's consumed in the relaxed atmosphere of a fine dining environment, as opposed to a noisy fast food restaurant.

A 2006 study, published by the American Association of Wine Economists, found that most people can't distinguish between paté and dog food.

A recent New Yorker piece describes a followup to Brochet's 2001 study, wherein he served wine experts a run-of-the-mill Bordeaux in two different bottles:

One bottle bore the label of a fancy grand cru, the other of an ordinary vin de table. Although they were being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the bottles nearly opposite descriptions. The grand cru was summarized as being “agreeable,” “woody,” “complex,” “balanced,” and “rounded,” while the most popular adjectives for the vin de table included “weak,” “short,” “light,” “flat,” and “faulty.”

4. Wine critics know wine reviews are b*****t. Rodriguez quotes Joe Power, editor of Another Wine Blog:

There is no hard science involved in reviewing wine, no real way to quantify results, no test cases, and certainly no verifiable set of standards that everyone adheres to. Everyone makes up their own processes for reviewing from Wine Spectator to us and all of the way down to the most recent person who just discovered how easy it is to set up a blog of their own.

When asked point blank what he thought of the aforementioned results from Robert Hodgson's study (see Exhibit A) wine-maker Bob Cabral said he was "not surprised":

In Mr. Cabral's view, wine ratings are influenced by uncontrolled factors such as the time of day, the number of hours since the taster last ate and the other wines in the lineup. He also says critics taste too many wines in too short a time. As a result, he says, "I would expect a taster's rating of the same wine to vary by at least three, four, five points from tasting to tasting."

Rodriguez ends by citing MIT behavioral economist Coco Krume, who recently performed a meta-analysis of the language used in wine reviews. She found that reviewers 

tend to use "cheap" and "expensive" words differently. Cheap descriptors are used much more frequently, expensive ones more sparingly. Krume even demonstrated that it's possible to guess the price range of a wine based on the words used in its review. "From a quantitative standpoint," Krume writes, "there are three types of words more likely to be used for expensive wines":

• Darker words, such as intense, supple, velvety, and smoky
• Single flavors such as tobacco or chocolate versus fruity, good, clean, tasty, juicy for cheap wines
• Exclusive-sounding words in place of simple descriptors. For example, old, elegant, and cuvee rather than pleasing, refreshing, value, and enjoy
• Additionally, cheap wine is preferentially paired with chicken and pizza, while pricey wine goes with shellfish and pork

Using her scientific metric, Krume goes on to create the most expensive-sounding wine review ever penned: "A velvety chocolate texture and enticingly layered, yet creamy, nose, this wine abounds with focused cassis and a silky ruby finish. Lush, elegant, and nuanced. Pair with pork and shellfish." If that sentence made you yearn for a glass of classy red, congratulations, there's a very real chance you're a pompous *****.

(The real wine review is #1. I made up #2.)

While we're all lost in the Benghazi, DOJ, and IRS scandals (and the anticipation that the President will eventually just decide to hit for the cycle and quarter troops in the homes of Americans), it bears noting that an earlier White House exercise in making the Constitution an outhouse accessory came back to the fore this week. From Damon Root at Reason:

In a decision handed down Thursday morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that Obama violated the Constitution by making a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board in 2010 when the Senate was not actually in recess. In an unprecedented move two years later, when the Senate was holding pro forma sessions for the precise purpose of denying him the lawful ability to make a recess appointment, Obama simply ignored this legal impediment and made four purported recess appointments anyway, including the addition of three members to the NLRB.

In its decision, the 3rd Circuit strongly rejected Obama’s unilateral action. “Nothing in the text of the Clause or the historical record suggests that it is intended to be a type of pressure valve for when the president cannot obtain the Senate‘s consent, whether that be because it has become dysfunctional or because it rejects a president‘s nominations,” the court held. Indeed, the opinion continued, under the government’s interpretation, “If the Senate refused to confirm a president‘s nominees, then the president could circumvent the Senate‘s constitutional role simply by waiting until senators go home for the evening.” So much for the separation of powers.

This is the second major ruling against Obama’s recess appointments. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voided all three of the president’s 2012 additions to the NLRB. As Chief Judge David Sentelle held in that case, Obama’s actions “would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the President free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.”

This week, we've been told over and over just how much members of the Obama Administration know they didn't know.

It's the week of:
• the IRS "I dunno"
• the Benghazi blame dodge
• and the AP-AG answer refusal/alleged recusal.

But today I discovered something else that a member of the Administration maybe didn't know she didn't know. And this time it hit close to home. You see, last summer, I had the audacity to suggest that the Department of Education ought to fine Yale University for failing to report multiple cases of sexual assault -- as required by law. And if they didn't, then what's the point of having an Office for Civil Rights, anyway?

Within days, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, Russlynn Ali, took to the pages of The Huffington Post to call me out by name, attack my op-ed, and call into question my credibility:

"Mr. Harden's post makes a number of inaccurate and misleading claims...He suggests that "a significant fine" should have been levied against Yale "if the government wants to send the message that it takes the law seriously." He concludes that "it looks as if a well-connected university like Yale is considered above accountability."
Not one of these characterizations is accurate. "

... With respect to Mr. Harden's disappointment that OCR did not fine Yale -- the law does not authorize OCR to assess fines.

Lo, and behold: Ten months later, I'm scanning the headlines this morning and what do I see? The headline "Yale Fined $165,000 for Underreporting Sex Offenses":

Following a seven-year investigation, the Department of Education has fined Yale $165,000 for failing to report four incidents of forcible sex offenses ...

Is it possible that Russlynn Ali really didn't know that her office has authority to levy fines? Hmm ...

That got me thinking: It's natural for us to be skeptical of all the political amnesia coming out of the White House these days. The lack of self-knowledge in the Obama Administration may well be unprecedented in the history of political corruption. But maybe, just maybe, there are some hacks in this administration who are so incompetent--so blissfully ignorant as they went about accidentally using the IRS as a political war machine, and going all police state on the news media -- that they really, actually, truly didn't know anything that they or anyone else around them was doing, or did, or asked them to do, or even had authority to do.

How else would you explain the fact that the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education went on record saying the Department of Education had no authority to levy fines against Yale University ten months before the Department of Education did exactly that?

I can't stop asking myself: What didn't the Assistant Secretary not know she didn't know?

One more question: What would you all say is the more dangerous trait in a politician, anyway? The tendency to lie? Or the tendency to not know what the hell you're doing?

Before anyone calls me on Godwin's Law, I'd just like to say that I don't believe in Godwin's Law. (For reasons we can perhaps discuss another time.)

Anyway, to my headline. Though I'm not saying Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler are peas in a pod, I do think there are certain similarities going on in the way their administrations work - as I argue in more detail here.

Did Obama personally order the IRS to persecute Tea Party and Conservative charities? I doubt it. No more than he directly ordered his Department of Justice to launch those two raids on Gibson; nor than he ordered the EPA to launch its various hit jobs on the coal industry.

But then, he didn’t need to. It’s called the Fuhrer Prinzip. You don’t need to get a direct order; you just need to anticipate the leader’s wishes and act accordingly. Get it right and much career success will follow. Get caught and the leader can plausibly deny that he didn’t know anything about this nefarious scheme which of course, had he known, he would have nixed.

The thing I love about you Americans is that you take your checks and balances very seriously. And your guns. If this goes on much longer, you're going to need them all.

All you 24 fans can grab your popcorn and beer because Jack is back. Fox is rekindling the popular show as a miniseries called 24: Live Another Day, starring Kiefer Sutherland.

Unfortunately, it will run at half the length, with 12 episodes instead of the full 24. The show will be in chronological order but will skip some hours and is expected to kick off on Fox in the summer.

While I can’t wait to hear Jack Bauer say in those raspy tones, “Do Your Job!” and kick some terrorist butt, I’m disappointed by the 12-episode series. A big part of the excitement of 24 is the seamless ride through the entire day. I wonder how much that will change by skipping hours.

While this new “limited edition” of 24 is being slated as a “miniseries,” I’ve noticed that most dramatic series these days run about half the time they used to. Nothing is more frustrating, and unsatisfying, than settling in for a good show and having it over in 10 episodes (Game of Thrones!). Just when you’re really getting into it, it’s over. And even worse is when, after three or four episodes, they play a re-run or take a break for several weeks (ahem, Lost!).

I remember the days when a series started in late summer or fall, ran straight for 25 to 30 weeks, and then the re-runs would start. But, those were the good ole days.

I understand the shortened seasons are due to money. It’s just more expensive to make television now. But isn’t advertising more expensive too? Don’t you make money with every show you air whether there are 12 episodes or 24—especially if it’s a popular series? If anyone can explain this trend to me, I’d appreciate it.

As for the show, any other 24 fans out there looking forward to seeing some subtle conservative-minded antics on display and good old-fashioned heroism that spawned “Jack Bauer for President” bumper stickers? I, for one, can’t wait. It will be a welcome relief from watching news of real-life scandals where there aren’t any Jack Bauers to save the day.

Further proof that a huge swath of academic research being done today results from researchers daring each other to see how bizarre their projects have to get in order to scare off funding. From Science Daily:

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

...  The researchers collected data on bicep size, socioeconomic status, and support for economic redistribution from hundreds of people in the United States, Argentina, and Denmark.

In line with their hypotheses, the data revealed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to support redistribution, while less wealthy men of the same strength were more likely to support it.

"Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that -- at the psychological level -- individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way," says [researcher Michael Bang] Petersen. "In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution."

Men with low upper-body strength, on the other hand, were less likely to support their own self-interest. Wealthy men of this group showed less resistance to redistribution, while poor men showed less support.

There are a couple of crumbs of crazy here. First is the fact that someone actually underwrote this study (although it becomes more intelligible when you learn that the research came out of California and Denmark). Second is the fact that -- reading this account, anyway -- it's not clear that the findings actually support the conclusion. Based on this account, there seems to be an awful lot of variability within the strength classes based on income. Maybe the spread is tiny by comparison to the difference between groups, but you can't tell from how this is written.

What rankles the most, however, is the characterization of opposing redistribution as the "self-interested position." We're talking about the confiscation of property here, albeit legally. If you think it's more important to retain a chunk of your income to support your wife and kids than to have that money deployed to make sure that the CEO of Solyndra has just the right Montblanc rollerball on his desk, is that really the apex of avarice?

What about those who think minimizing redistribution is the practical position? Those who acknowledge the need to pay taxes and are probably even amenable to a social safety net, but who believe that, beyond that threshold, it quickly devolves into a sucker's game for all involved? If a logically thought-out position results in you keeping more of your own money, does that still render it intrinsically greedy?

If we had no New York Times, where would we get our morning humor? From "An Onset of Woes Raises Questions on Obama Vision," today:

Yet Mr. Obama also expresses exasperation. In private, he has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty’s character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama’s desire to be liberated from what he sees as the hindrances on him.

First things first. If you are not familiar with the film (heck, even if you are), read John Podhoretz's brilliant review from 1998.

OK, so Obama wants to go Bulworth? What would that mean? The point of Bulworth is that a senator stops being a phony who says what he has to and starts promoting socialism. No, really. A major part of the film is when, um, Warren Beatty starts rapping about socialism.

My husband asks, "How would Obama even "go Bulworth"? Let us know just how liberal he is? Let us know he hates the GOP leadership? We got it, em kay?"