TRYING TO INTIMIDATE Ann Althouse.

KEITH HENNESSEY: Deficits are an important but incomplete metric. “Washington traditionally focuses its attention on the federal budget deficit, the difference between government spending and revenues. We need to expand our scope and think about two allocation decisions made in each year’s budget debate. The first decision is how much of society’s resources we want to allocate to the federal government. For sixty years from 1950-2009 this number was surprisingly stable.”

TOM FRIEDMAN WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Prominent Chinese blogger charged as crackdown deepens. “Chinese police have arrested prominent writer Ran Yunfei for challenging the ruling Communist Party, people close to the blogger said on Monday, the latest in a string of arrests in a deepening crackdown on dissent. . . . The arrest was confirmed by another person close to Ran, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution for speaking to foreign reporters.”

WHY THERE ARE so many potholes.

BLOGGING FROM inside Libya. “Look. Back then, there was no satellite television. There was no proper media, you know? We didn’t know what was going on in the outside world. All we heard was Qaddafi, Qaddafi, Qaddafi, ranting at America, America, America. But now, it’s different. Now we know what’s going on in the world. Now we have Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, you name it.” (Via Gerard van der Leun).

ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S five best performances.

HIGHER EDUCATION: Students Should Check Their Entitlement At The Door. It’s not just students.

GOING KOCH-CRAZY: The Paranoid Style In Liberal Politics.

Plus, how the two-minute two-year hate was organized: Remember when “Common Cause” was supposed to be a non-partisan good-government group? Me neither. But I do remember the 1990s, when the same sort of thing was ginned up against Richard Mellon Scaife and the WSJ editorial page. The important point is to ensure that there are no voices of opposition that have not been delegitimized. Feel the gleichschaltung!

UPDATE: Related: Is Media Matters breaking the law in its ‘war’ on Fox News?

ORIN KERR: A Significant Test Case in Seattle on the Lawfulness of Ex Ante Search Limitations in Computer Warrants.

PSYCHOLOGY: Stanford researchers find that young people shown what their faces will look like in their 60s become more willing to save for retirement.

ANDREW KLAVAN: Breitbart In Context. “The sliming of Andrew Breitbart was, to some extent, inevitable, part of the price of doing journalism these days—especially conservative journalism in an industry whose leftist establishment routinely treats conservatives with the genteel thuggery of narrative distortion.”

The best thing you can do for Breitbart right now? Buy his book.

DEPENDS ON WHETHER PEOPLE WANT TO DRIVE CARS FUELED BY COAL: Will Japan’s nuclear woes dampen electric vehicle enthusiasm?

THE DAVIS-BACON ACT’S Jim Crow roots.

IN THE MAIL: From Andrew Breitbart, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!

ROGER SIMON: The Coming, And Why The Left Doesn’t Understand Iran. “The message of the short film was clear: The current crisis in the Middle East (Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, now Syria… all of it) is a harbinger that the Mahdi (the hidden one, the Twelfth Imam) was coming soon and that, in the ensuing chaos and destruction, Khomeini’s version of Shia Islam would shortly rule over the entire globe.” I think they just can’t wrap their mind around religious apocalypticism that doesn’t come from that old bugbear, the Christians. (Bumped, because this is important).

Here’s a direct link to the Iranian movie in question, with subtitles. No subscription required.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Footvoting: Blacks Flee Blue States In Droves. “When whites leave failing blue cities and states, the pundits call this racism: all those white Californians fleeing Nancy Pelosi’s utopia for less ambitious jurisdictions where ordinary people can do things like get jobs and buy homes are clearly pathetic trailer trash hicks too dumb, too selfish and above all too racist to understand the gloriously multicultural blue beauty of California today. So what are we going to call the young, educated Blacks making similar choices? Dumb cracker racists? . . . Most Blacks of course still vote blue at the ballot box, but more and more of them are voting red with their feet.”

Punish talent and talent will flee. Skin color is unrelated. Plus this: “The failure of blue social policy to create an environment which works for Blacks is the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States.” It’s all about oligarchy, not egalitarianism.

WELL, YOU CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH THEM: Watchdog knocks Obama administration on transparency. “More than two years after he took office the success of President Obama’s open government directive is still very much in doubt, according to a prominent government transparency watchdog.”

ROGER KIMBALL: Calling Things By Their Right Names: A Lesson From Confucius. Not including “kinetic military activity.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Washington Post: Student Loans Not Always A Good Idea. You think?

UPDATE: A reader emails: “It seems one aspect fueling the higher education bubble hasn’t been overtly factored into the equation, and that is the near complete failure of the public school system to produce competent, literate, skilled young people ready to enter society. Many feel they have no choice but go to college to get the skills necessary for someone to hire them. It didn’t used to be that way. My grandfather went to school through the 5th grade before he had to quit and go to work to help support his family. He could do complicated math in his head, knew how the government worked and could recite American poetry for hours. He’d be more than a match for a current high school grad.” Indeed.

CHANGE: Jerry Brown’s Proposal to Abolish California’s Redevelopment Agencies Would Help End Eminent Domain Abuse.

COMING: A blessed event for Khaddafy and his blonde nurse?

AT AMAZON, top deals in electronics.

MICKEY KAUS CHARGES OBAMA WITH “Humanitarian Imperialism” and observes: “I think that label will stick. And in a true empire–in this case, the empire of UN approved human rights enforcement–war never really ends. Always someone to protect somewhere. Imagine living in imperial Britain in the mid-19th century. There would almost always be a war or police action–actual shooting and killing–going on.** For a true empire to work– even, or perhaps especially, a humanitarian empire–war has to be routinized. You’ve got two wars going already? No need to change the president’s schedule to start a third. Tour Latin America. Talk about your NCAA brackets. Don’t give a big speech–I mean, you don’t call a press conference every time the police run a sobriety checkpoint do you?”

I don’t think the Obama Administration is this clever, but these charges may still resonate with some.

ILLINOIS: In worse shape than Portugal?

WHY THEY HATE US: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Upset By U.S. Gay Marriage Moves.