NEW YORK POST: Has Mike Bloomberg Finally Read The First Amendment? Hey, maybe we can get him to look at the rest of the Bill Of Rights someday. . . .

UPDATE: Maybe Nurse Bloomberg should spend more time worrying about the NYC bedbug explosion.

L.A. TIMES: What Barack Obama’s really saying at all these cross-country stops to collect money.

SCOT-FREE: U.S. ends webcam probe; no charges. “Federal prosecutors on Tuesday closed their investigation into Lower Merion School District’s secret use of software to track student laptops, saying they found no evidence that anyone intentionally committed a crime. The decision, announced by U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger, ended a six-month probe by the FBI into allegations that district employees might have spied on students through webcams on their school-issued laptops.” The civil suits remain, however.

UPDATE: Reader Brian Abbott is unimpressed: “It’s funny how intent never seems to be relevant when it’s your average schmo that messed up. Then prosecutors are all caught up with the ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ mentality.” That may be unfair, but you do get the feeling that they’d have tried harder if it were people spying on government workers and not the other way around.

HIGHER ED BUBBLE UPDATE: Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education. “Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent. Arizona State University, for example, increased the number of administrators per 100 students by 94 percent during this period while actually reducing the number of employees engaged in instruction, research and service by 2 percent. Nearly half of all full-time employees at Arizona State University are administrators.”

UPDATE: Related: Is The College Business Model Broken?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Joe Glandorf emails:

And how many of those new administrators have deep, political, histories? In Massachusetts its “amazing” how many idiot politicians suddenly acquire academic “expertise” at the end of their political careers.

Is it any wonder why virtually the only government subsidized educational “choice” is at the collegiate level? I mean, how many ex-politicians want to work at a high school?

Heh.

WASHINGTON POST: Gun-toting soccer moms a scary thought in D.C. area, but not out west. The irony of DC politicians trying to protect “their culture” against outside civil-rights agitators is sweet.

THUGGISH: Rep. Pelosi calls for investigation of WTC mosque opposition. Is she going to start with Harry Reid?

JAMES POULOS: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises.

ANDREW COULSON: School Choice and “Weakonomics.”

KENNETH ANDERSON: Work, Compensation, and Retirement Age: Lessons from the Professors.

The dilemma is this, inelegantly stated. The argument for working longer says that we need the productive labor of these people. Fine. But if you look at workplaces — this debate over universities is a good example — what we see instead is a perceived need to get these workers out of the way to make way for a new generation that will be more dynamic, innovative, produce the new ideas, methods, innovations, etc., that will increase productivity and hence standards of living. Whether you think that is true of university professors or not — it is not a stretch to believe that this is a problem for the economy as a whole.

On the one hand, we demand that older people work longer. On the other hand, we want them out of the way so that new and younger people will new ideas and energy and innovations will carry productivity forward.

Which is to say, we would ideally like to have the younger generation take charge — take control — and also to compensate them for that. We also want the older generation to continue to work — but commensurate with their productivity. When we say “productivity” here, however, we mean not just in a narrow sense, but in a broader sense of productivity that includes a propensity to innovation and the creation of a shared climate of innovation that, fairly or unfairly, is adjudged to favor the young.

Read the whole thing. Plus, a poll.

HANDING OUT PARDONS ON BIGOTRY, OR SOMETHING: Good news: Obama spokesman says it’s okay to oppose the Ground Zero mosque.

A “PLUG AND PLAY” SOLAR ARRAY?

VIDEO: Harry Reid Arguing Against Birthright Citizenship.

CLAYTON CRAMER’S THE ARMED CITIZEN has also been targeted by the “Righthaven” bullies. If you’d like to donate, here’s the link. Personally, I’ve sent a hundred bucks each to them and to Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg. I don’t like it when people go after bloggers.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Why not put up a bleg?

Ask software developers to create a browser plug-in that warns the user before linking to a Stephens Media web site. The problem with an Internet boycott is that people click on links–and only rarely stop to wonder about the corporate affiliations of the site they’re linking to.

So let’s ask somebody to create a Firefox plug-in that does the heavy lifting for us–install the plug-in, and see a Javascript alert (“Do you really want to connect to the Total Flaming Assholes [tm] at the Las Vegas Review-Journal or other mind-sucking affiliate of that embodiment of evil, Stephens Media?”).

Any takers?

UNDER THE LOGIC OF THE LATEST NINTH CIRCUIT DECISION, I’d like to introduce myself as the new Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit. Mmm. Just putting on these robes makes me feel smarter. . . . .

LOSS OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE: Bug, Or Feature? “The lack of public confidence Brownstein notes might better be seen as a rational response to what is becoming a decade of incompetence in DC combined with bad faith elsewhere.”

UPDATE: Readers like this: The Mauve Decade, the “Me Decade,” the “Decade of Incompetence.” Me, I’ll be happy if it’s only a decade . . . .

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER PRINTER BLEG POSTS, READERS WRITE IN: Reader Rob Ives emails:

I have a small HP wireless laser printer (1022nw) which has been great, but I think the low priced Samsung wireless printers (I have one at home) are impossible to beat. The prices are so low they are hard to believe. Just try “Samsung laser printer” at Amazon.

You mean like this? Reader Tom Armstrong emails:

Epson R series. I bought an R300 a couple of years ago on eBay for $40 (newer model R340 is available for <$75 on eBay). It prints directly on CD’s which is handy on occasion and does a decent job printing photos. But most of all, there are vendors selling generic ink (again on eBay), for less than $2 per cartridge. It has separate cartridges for each color so you don’t throw away the whole color cartridge because you’re out of blue. I buy a case of 24 (6 of each color), for $35, free shipping. And the ink quality is as good or better than Epson ink. It’s a really good “throwaway” printer.

Reader Martin Pease writes:

I am in charge of supporting a remote sales force. The single biggest technical problem I encounter is printers, and the main culprit is HP. Drivers that don’t work right, tons of crapware installed from the CD, dozens of services installed in Windows… For my own personal printer, I bought a Brother MFC-J630W multifunction printer. It has wired, wireless and USB for connectivity, it installs a minimal set of software, and it just works. I am recommending Brother printers to all the people I support over HP models. They tend to be a bit cheaper, too.

I’ve had good luck with HP in the past — my early-1990s LaserJet 4L still works — but they seem to have cut quality lately. And there’s an InstaPundit bonus. A reader emails: “Good news! You recommended Brother wireless laser printer has been reduced on Amazon to $99! Can’t beat that!”

Meanwhile, William Stoddard is bucking the HP-haters: “For Michelle Dornath-Mohr’s benefit, I’d like to say that I’ve been buying and using Hewlett-Packard printers and multifunctions for years. I traded in my previous HP printer for a multifunction early this year, not because it had stopped working, but because it was no longer possible to download a printer driver compatible with my current operating system; they seem to last forever, and at least for inexpensive models, the output quality is pretty good. My new multifunction has full wireless capability, which is handy. So I recommend looking at HP.”

And Jonathan Bailey writes:

I just delivered my oldest daughter to UofA in Tucson and I bought her a Canon Pixma MP560 that cost about $150 ($50 after Apple rebate). It’s an all-in-one unit that prints, scans, copies and faxes. Canon has one tank of ink per color, so using up one color doesn’t require you to by a whole new cartridge, just the color you are out of at roughly $12.00. Also, the scan feature of Canon printers and scanners create multi-page PDF files, unlike HP all-in-ones that create a separate TIF file for each page. I use an HP for work (at home) but find I need to use the Canon on the family computer to scan documents (frequently), meaning I do a lot of running back and forth between computers with a thumb drive. Can’t speak for the other printer
brands out there but I’m happy with the Canon.

Hope this helps. The Canon is showing at just $79.99 at the moment, so that’s pretty cheap.

BOMBSHELL STUDY: Oral Sex Is In: “High school boys, rejoice! Perhaps it was Clinton’s infamous sex-ed lesson that oral sex isn’t technically sex, but whatever the reason, a new study says oral sex is occurring a lot more often.”

WHEN YOUR HUSBAND NO LONGER PROVIDES “added value.” Plus this: “Progressive wives are less happy than traditional wives.” Most people are about as happy as they decide to be.