POOR MATH: Economic Study: Despite Administration Claims, Poor Are Not Getting Poorer. “In his mid-April speech on the budget deficit, President Obama echoed conventional wisdom when he cited the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer as a reason to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to reduce the national debt. Research, published at The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, from Cornell economist Richard Burkhauser, Joint Committee on Taxation economist Jeff Larrimore, and Indiana University economist Kosali Simon, however, suggests that the president’s piece of conventional wisdom isn’t entirely accurate. According to the findings, while the rich have indeed been getting richer, for the last 30 years so too have the poor and middle class.”

WE NEED FULL-BODY SCANNERS AND CUSTOM MANUFACTURING: In one store, you’re a Size 4, in another a Size 8, and in another a Size 10 — all without gaining an ounce.

For men’s clothes it’s better, but not that much better. Luckily, technology may come to the rescue.

AN INTERVIEW with Steven Pressfield. His book Do The Work is still free on Kindle.

UPGRADE: Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color Becomes a Full-On Android Tablet. “Version 1.2 of the Nook Color’s firmware launched Monday morning, bringing Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) to existing users of the e-reader tablet. The software includes expansions to web surfing on the device, including Adobe Flash and Air support, as well as the ability to receive e-mail. The company also announced the launch of the Nook App store. Customers are now able to download and use apps on their Nook Color devices, while still being able to purchase books from the Barnes & Noble reading catalog.”

Plus this: “At a paltry $250, the Nook Color’s bottom line bests the priciest of the new tablet debuts, many of which start at upward of $500.”

MAKING ULTRA-SHARP 3D Maps. “Technology originally developed to help missiles home in on targets has been adapted to create 3-D color models of cityscapes that capture the shapes of buildings to a resolution of 15 centimeters or less. Image-processing software distills the models from aerial photos captured by custom packages of multiple cameras.”

A PATENT FOR protein-based electronic circuits.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off in Tools & Home Improvement.

KING & SPALDING UPDATE: Did Coca-Cola pressure law firm out of DOMA defense? “Maybe they can change their slogan to ‘Have a Coke and a smile, but not an attorney.’”

JOHN TIERNEY on narcissism. “Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in ‘we’ and ‘us’ and the expression of positive emotions.” It’s not just music where that’s happening.

COFFEE PRICES: Say It Ain’t So, Joe: Coffee Prices Hit 34-Year High. I believe it — I’ve been shocked lately.

UPDATE: A couple of readers wonder when the White House will launch an investigation into price-gouging coffee speculators . . . .

MORE: Stephen Green emails: “The Administration assures us that there’s nothing unseemly going on in Venezuela.”

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

WORLD’S LAST TYPEWRITER FACTORY closes its doors.

UPDATE: Or maybe not.

FIRE ANTS ASSEMBLE as “super-organism.”

HMM: Boehner opens door to cutting U.S. oil tax breaks.

Related: Obama Rails Against Oil Subsidies, Gave ACORN $3 Billion in Stimulus. There’s always money for cronies.

SUPERHYBRID: A supercharged Lexus CT200h.

LOOKING FOR alien mining.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE: “One step closer, and the terrorist gets it!”

MICHAEL YON: The Mysterious Well: To The Bottom.

IN THE MAIL: But the Greatest of These Is Freedom: The Consequences of Immigration in Europe.

WILL COLLIER ON why gas prices are skyrocketing.

UNDERFUNDED / OVER-GENEROUS PUBLIC PENSION UPDATE: States face $1.26 trillion shortfall in funds to pay retiree benefits. “The study, to be released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States, found that the pension and health-care funding gap increased by 26 percent over the previous year. Pew officials said the growing shortfall was driven by inadequate state contributions, an aging population and market losses that accompanied the recession.”

UPDATE: Public Pensions, Once Off Limits, Face Budget Cuts.

MORE ON THE CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY MOVEMENT: You know what’s sustainable? Tuition that people can afford without crushing debt. Start there. Worry about the paper cups later.

PEOPLE ARE NOTICING THE HIGHER-EDUCATION BUBBLE in all sorts of unlikely places.

Also, here. “The truth is, there is no Santa Claus, dot-com stocks are not invincible, home prices will not experience double-digit gains every year and most college degrees are not worth decades of debt.”

TRIG TRUTHERISM: Pejman Yousefzadeh carries the stone of Sisyphus.

MORE ON EFFORTS to tax nonprofits. As I’ve said before, the nonprofit sector is now huge, and governments are desperate for revenues, so this is no surprise. And, given that college and university folks have generally favored higher taxes for everyone else, I doubt that they’ll get as much sympathy as they once might have.