Been kinda heavy around here ... and with the coming double dip recession it's about to get moreso .... but until then, there's this:

The Definitive Ranking of Every Movie in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe

my list, bottom up style:

A. Barton Hinkle on Anti-Choice Liberals

14 Americans Per Day Are Now Renouncing Their Citizenship

tangential but applicable: Greg Beato on Helpful Hackers vs. College Regulators

Since I've been dealing with textbooks a bit more lately: [Jonathan H. Adler] Environmental history errors in a high school textbook

WELL, I GUESS IT’S TOO LATE NOW. MIGHT AS WELL BUY THAT SUV I’VE HAD MY EYE ON: Eight Years Ago Today: UN Scientists Say We Have Only Eight Years Left To Stop Global Warming.

On the other hand, maybe we managed to bring things under control just in time: Seven years after former US Vice-President Al Gore’s warning, Arctic ice cap has expanded for second year in row.

Related: Ed Driscoll: Snowfalls Are Now Just a Thing of the Past.

MICHAEL WALSH: The World Barack Obama and Eric Holder Have Made: Baltimore, 2015. “You voted for it, America. And now you’re going to get it, good and hard.”

ANDREW KLAVAN: Actors Quit ‘Ferguson’ Because ‘Truth is Subjective!’

OUR LEADERS: As Baltimore Burns, O’Malley Speaks Out, Hillary Tweets About Bumper Stickers.

ERICK ERICKSON: If Only President Obama Weren’t Black.

It must be comfortable and convenient for President Obama to assume the opposition to him is because of his race. He can negotiate a bad deal with Iran and conclude the public hates it because he is black. He can tell people they can keep their doctors then take their doctors away from them and console himself that the anger of the public is just racist. He can see a solid position in Iraq and Afghanistan squandered as ISIS overruns us and, when people point it out, conclude it’s just because of his skin color. People can drop out of the workforce because they can’t find jobs and when their stomachs rumble and their mouths grumble, President Obama can look himself in the mirror and think it’d all be different if he were not a black man.

If only President Obama weren’t black, maybe he would realize that people don’t dislike him because he is black, they dislike him because he is a self-absorbed ass.

If he weren’t black, he never would have been elected, of course. That’s the only reason people voted for him. And even that didn’t work out as hoped.

JAMES BOVARD: Baltimore Riot: Remember O’Malley’s Anti-Gun Law. “After Baltimore descended into chaos, remember that Gov. Martin O’Malley was so proud of the anti-gun law he got enacted into 2013. We have seen that Baltimore police did not or could not defend people – and O’Malley’s law makes it far more difficult for citizens to acquire the means to defend themselves.”

Best. Headline. Ever. (For Conservative & Liberal Fundraising Purposes.)

Ronald Bailey Reports that Libertarians Are the WEIRDest People in the World

“REYNOLDS’ LAW” GETS REDISCOVERED YET AGAIN: An inconvenient truth about homeownership: Policies aimed at decreasing inequality by helping the poor buy homes often do the opposite.

DANIEL HANNAN: Why conservatives have more empathy than liberals.

If you start from the conviction that you’re standing up for the underdog, you will naturally assume that your political opponents are for the powerful. You will subliminally screen out evidence that challenges that view. As Danusha Goska put it in American Thinker not long ago, “Never, in all my years of leftist activism, did I ever hear anyone articulate accurately the position of anyone to our right. In fact, I did not even know those positions when I was a leftist.”

Do rightists also caricature their opponents? Yes, but not to anything like the same extent. A 2012 study by Jesse Graham, Brian A. Nosek and Jonathan Haidt asked conservatives and liberals to answer a series of questions as themselves, and then to answer them in the imagined personae of a typical conservative and a typical liberal. It found that the liberals were the least able to accurately to guess their opponents’ views, seeing conservatism as a kind of moral failure.

Yes, very few lefties can pass the ideological Turing Test.

ETHICS RULES ARE ONLY FOR REPUBLICANS: Shouldn’t @ABC News explain their @GStephanopoulos policy to their viewers? How can he cover the Clinton scandals with his clear conflict?

ANOTHER EXCUSE CRUMBLES: The Clinton Foundation Is Wrong: Canadian Law Doesn’t Prohibit Donor Disclosure. Love the update: “After this article was initially published, the Clinton Foundation sent The Federalist two links (here and here) allegedly supporting its contention that federal law in Canada prohibits public disclosure of the names of charitable organization donors. Unfortunately for the Clinton Foundation, neither link supports the organization’s rationale for deliberately withholding donor information from the public. In fact, one of the links actually includes information that directly contradicts the Clinton Foundation’s assertion.”

Related: In 2013, The Clinton Foundation Only Spent 10 Percent Of Its Budget On Charitable Grants.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Washington Post: The Clintons, a luxury jet and their $100 million donor.

PRESCIENT: Camille Paglia on feminism from 1995. “I began to realize this in the Seventies when I thought women could do it on their own. But then something would go wrong with my car and I’d have to go to the men. Men would stop, men would lift up the hood, more men would come with a truck and take the car to a place where there were other men who would call other men who would arrive with parts. I saw how feminism was completely removed from this reality. I also learned something from the men at the garage. At Bennington, I would go to a faculty meeting and be aware that everyone hated me. The men were appalled by a strong, loud woman. But I went to this auto shop and the men there thought I was cute. ‘Oh, there’s that Professor Paglia from the college.’ The real men, men who work on cars, find me cute. They are not frightened by me, no matter how loud I am. But the men at the college were terrified because they are eunuchs, and I threatened every goddamned one of them.”

Plus: “[You can't have] the Stalinist situation we have in America right now, where any neurotic woman can make any stupid charge and destroy a man’s reputation. If there is evidence of false accusation, the accuser should be expelled. Similarly, a woman who falsely accuses a man of rape should be sent to jail. My definition of sexual harassment is specific. It is only sexual harassment–by a man or a woman–if it is quid pro quo. That is, if someone says, “You must do this or I’m going to do that”–for instance, fire you. And whereas touching is sexual harassment, speech is not. I am militant on this. Words must remain free. The solution to speech is that women must signal the level of their tolerance–women are all different. Some are very bawdy.”

Greens extend estimated point of no return – by 25 years!

Failed Earth Day Predictions

News Flash: North Korea Wins Earth Day for Record 45th Year in a Row!

ED DRISCOLL: Day After Earth Day, New York Times Tacitly Admits Environment Fine, No Need to Panic.

“We’ll observe Earth Day when the EPA observes the law.” So, never then?

SO ACCORDING TO JONATHAN CHAIT, THE EVIL REPUBLICANS AREN’T JUST “CLIMATE DENIERS,” THEY’RE NOW AGAINST HAVING ANY SORT OF CLIMATE AT ALL!!!!

STANDING UP FOR SCIENCE: Bill Gates Defends Meat Amid Environmental Criticism: “Evolution turned us into omnivores,” the tech billionaire says. Do vegetarians believe in evolution?

FROM JON GABRIEL AT RICOCHET, A bullet-point summary of the New York Times’ 4500-word story on Hillary’s corrupt uranium deal. Key bit: “Hillary’s State Department approved the deal and Russia bought Uranium One. Putin can now sell this nuclear fuel to Iran.” Actually, they’re all key bits.

Related: NYT Reporter: Clinton Officials Lied About a Meeting Taking Place, Unaware of Photo Evidence.

UPDATE: Politico: Hillary Clinton struggles to contain media barrage on foreign cash.

Yes, "The Clintons Have Been Disorganized and Greedy," But the Republicans Are Still "the Stupid Party"

WHEN AMERICA SLIPS BEYOND PARODY: Bill Clinton’s Wife Condemns ‘Scourge Of Sexual Assault’ In First Big Speech.

Steve Chapman on Hillary Clinton’s Double Standard on Money and Politics

BUT YOU WROTE A PIECE CALLED “IF HILLARY CLINTON WERE MALE,” YOU’D BE A SEXIST PIG. The Hill: If Carly Fiorina Were Male.

In truth, all Hillary ever did was marry well. But you’re not allowed to say that, because if you kept pointing it out, it might hurt the Democrats. Fiorina, of course, enjoys no such protection from the press, so she gets hit pieces like this one from reliable lefty hack Brent Budowsky.