JAMES LILEKS: Looking Back at ‘Tomorrowland’: The Mad Men Season Finale. “Fitzgerald be damned, you can have as many acts in your life as you wish; but remember, while it’s perfect in Tomorrowland, it’s never open today.”

HOPE: NASA Ames’ Worden reveals DARPA-funded ‘Hundred Year Starship’ program.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Just How Ridiculous Are Government Salaries and Benefits? “Which do they get: defined benefit pensions, or defined contribution retirement plans? The answer is ‘yes.'” Alas, that doesn’t describe my situation. Of course, maybe that’s why Tennessee remains solvent . . . .

DAVE HARDY 1, RATTLESNAKE 0.

BIG GOVERNMENT’S government-union firewall. “The AFL-CIO may have once represented the interests of steelworkers, auto workers and teamsters, but now the largest union in the AFL-CIO is AFSCME. In fact, 2009 was a historic year for Big Labor: for the first time in American history the majority of union members now work for the government, not the private sector.”

UPDATE: Mark Hemingway: Unions Are Desperate For a Tax-Paid Pension Bailout.

JIM TREACHER: It’s like you can’t even shove somebody anymore without getting handcuffed. “Are these teabaggers so sensitive that they can’t even take a friendly little shove? They had to violently grab this heroic truth-seeker and put steel handcuffs on him? I thought this was America! Come see the repression inherent in the system!”

Related: Joe Miller: That blogger who got arrested followed me into the bathroom.

THE HILL: Almost half of likely voters view healthcare reform unfavorably. Frankly, that seems low to me.

THOM LAMBERT: Must the President Defend Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Prince Charles Edition.

ANDREW BOSTOM: Geert Wilders, Western Sages, and Totalitarian Islam. “Wilders’ assessment not only comports with scholarly observations made (primarily) before the advent of the postmodern Western scourge of cultural relativism, it is supported by contemporary hard polling data from 2006 -2007, and a more recent follow-up reported February 25, 2009. At present, overwhelming Muslim majorities — i.e., better than two-thirds (see the weighted average calculated here) of a well-conducted survey of the world’s most significant and populous Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries — want these immoderate outcomes: ‘strict application’ of Shari’a, Islamic law, and a global caliphate.”

CHANGE: Violent French Protests Show Why A New Debt Crisis Is Inevitable.

CLUELESS: MSNBC contributors can’t figure out why so many women are part of the Tea Party.

IRAQ: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

“GO AROUND THEM, go right to the people.”

MARKDOWNS ON sweaters and fleece. I love fleece.

CHANGE: National Debt Up $3 Trillion on Obama’s Watch. And for nothing. . . .

LARRY RIBSTEIN: The roots of foreclosure-gate: incentives and lawyers.

SHOCKER: New Post poll finds negativity toward federal workers. “More than half of Americans say they think that federal workers are overpaid for the work they do, and more than a third think they are less qualified than those working in the private sector, according to a Washington Post poll.”

JIM TREACHER: “Here’s Sean Bielat, the Republican challenger to Barney Frank’s once-unassailable Congressional seat, being heckled by none other than Frank’s boyfriend, James Ready.”

UPDATE: See the video here.

DEMOCRATS COME TO THE ASSISTANCE of Tea Party candidates.

COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Have Scientists Finally Discovered Evidence for Psychic Phenomena?

DENIAL at the Brady Campaign. Well, it’s pretty much all they’ve got left.

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF wonders what I meant by my bacon-abuse post. I thought it was pretty obvious. I’m against hate crimes — though, like the Christian Science Monitor, I’m not sure that bacon really counts. But I do think that Obama’s inept approach to these issues has made the American public more fearful than it was under Bush, and as a result, more anti-Muslim. The polls certainly demonstrate this shift, and it’s hard for me to see what else would account for it. When people trusted Bush to keep them safe, they weren’t scared. They don’t trust Obama to keep them safe, so they’re more scared. As the President himself suggests, when people are scared, they tend to lash out. . . .

UPDATE: Dan Riehl weighs in.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And doesn’t let go. And just to be clear — yes, I think this is exactly what Friedersdorf was doing.

LAPTOP THIEF RETURNS PROFESSOR’S DATA. Which is a good thing: “Unfortunately, I have been bad at backing up my computer.”

PUBLIC PENSIONS: A growing drama with no happy end in sight. “The bottom line is that promises like these cost a lot of money and the states don’t have the cash.”