UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PROTEST TURNS VIOLENT: “A tuition protest at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee turned violent. . . . The protest was part of a national Day of Action, challenging lawmakers in each state to stop cutting funding from education.”

Two thoughts: (1) This is more violence than all the Tea Party protests put together, despite the media fearmongering; and (2) Running out of other people’s money stinks, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: Berkeley reader Konrad Miller writes:

Hey Prof Reynolds-

I’m a Chemical Engineering student at UC Berkeley.

Regarding Prof. Bainbridge’s comment on being more productive than just whining: on the same day all that people were marching for more free money from a bankrupt state and “eco-justice”, my peers and I were calculating the efficiency of adiabatic interstage cooling for a Thermodynamics Midterm. As Bill Whittle writes, there are 2 tribes here at Berkeley: people who have actual things to do, and people who just want to complain without, you know, doing things.

Doing things is eeeviilll.

RENTAL CARS: Sanitary as a public restroom?

REPUBCLIC: SAVING THE REPUBLIC, one click at a time?

More from Roger Kimball.

UH OH: New York Times: Is The Recovery Losing Steam? Was there ever a recovery at all, or was it just a matter of pumping air into a leaky tire?

IN THE MAIL: From Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism.

TUCSON TEA PARTY: Gabrielle Giffords Thinks You Are Stupid.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY on the problem with the Value-Added Tax.

CLIMATEGATE: Frank Tipler: ‘The Science is Settled,’ They Told Copernicus.

CAPTION FUN at the New York Times.

SHIKHA DALMIA: Busting The Well-Endowed: It’s Time To Cut Federal Funding For The Arts.

HOPE: Dems Race to Pass Health Care Bill as Tea Partiers Plan Town Hall Wave.

Democrats are racing the clock to pass health care reform ahead of a wave of Tea Party-driven town hall meetings planned for the spring recess — the kind of gatherings that nearly derailed the package last August.

But there’s a big difference this time around. Last summer, Democrats were encouraged to hold the town hall meetings, and they were blindsided by the backlash, which was recorded and promoted in countless YouTube clips. This time around, they have a good idea of what’s coming — and they’re lying low, in case work on health care carries over into the recess.

Stupid constituents.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Boss Rangel and the Spirit of 1876.

POLITICO: State Polls Show Gathering Storm.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON the U.C. Budget Protests. “Look. I’m as frustrated as any UC stakeholder with the state of affairs. It would be nice, however, if our students could put their energy to something more useful than unconstructive whining.” Good luck with that.

SIGN OF THE TIMES? Neiman Marcus serves corn dogs.

TEA PARTY TV: Boom: Michelle Moore, Dana Loesch & The Grassroots Resurgence.

JIM TREACHER: You’ve got yourself a deal, Viacom.

PEGGY NOONAN: What A Disaster Looks Like: ObamaCare will have been a colossal waste of time—if we’re lucky.

COLLEGE STUDENTS laid off.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “The more members you have, the more members you have who can do something disastrous to your party’s public image. Couple that with the rise of electronic media, which gives whistleblowers more avenues to express themselves, and can magnify a peccadillo into a scandal almost overnight, and you have . . . the Republican Party of 2006. Or the Democratic Party of 2010, as our sister publication reports.”

HEADING FOR THE SCRAPYARD? The S.S. United States.

ANDREW CUOMO, “father of the subprime mortgage?”

JOE HICKS: Hey Rube!

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT:

Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it’s no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn’t one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general’s report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.

A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf “repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault” and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens “for personal gain.”

Ugh.

YES. I BLAME KEITH OLBERMANN. Anti-Bush Truther shoots up Pentagon; Should we play the political blame game?

UPDATE: Anti-Tea Party Crowd Disappointed Again.