AT AMAZON, a bunch of new releases on Kindle.

BECAUSE TO THEM, POLITICS IS SPORTS AND RELIGION ROLLED INTO ONE: Why did the anti-Palin protesters think it was right and good to shout her down? “I know these protesters believe they are the good people with the right values. So explain this to me.”

HEATHER MACDONALD: Radical Graffiti Chic.

GOVERNMENT MOTORS: “A hybrid electric Chevrolet Volt believed to have sparked an overnight blaze in a garage in Barkhamsted last week, reignited again on Monday.”

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Murphy writes: “What the story omits is that they were also charging an after-market electric car at the same time. Three things to blame, and the least likely one is the Volt.” Well, stay tuned — and try to show Chevy more forbearance than the state-controlled media gave Toyota, I guess.

CROSSING THE STREET into the 21st Century.

STARTING IN JUST A MINUTE, PJTV will provide live streaming Tax Day protest coverage.

ETHANOL IMPACT: U.S. Corn Reserves Hit 15-Year Low. “Rising demand for corn from ethanol producers is pushing U.S. reserves to the lowest point in 15 years, a trend that could lead to higher grain and food prices this year.”

KEITH HENNESSEY: The President’s “matching deficit reduction” claim is off by a trillion dollars (or more).

CALL ME A CYNIC, but I think this whole story is just an excuse to run the thong-bikini pictures.

CIVILITY: It’s Now Patriotic to Call Paul Krugman a !@%$#%@ Hypocrite.

KENNETH ANDERSON: Understanding the UN’s Incentives in the Missing Climate Refugees Kerfuffle.

CATHY YOUNG: Sexual Assault on Campus–Is It Exaggerated? If exaggerating it gets the exaggerators money and/or power, then yeah. Count on it.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!

STANDARD & POOR’S TREASURY DOWNGRADE: The rating agencies are always the last to know. “As in the case of Enron, the smart money gets gone long before credit downgrades start hitting the headlines. As noted in this column, PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund, got clear of U.S. Treasuries some time ago, following the lead of a number of hedge funds. The oil-exporting countries are dumping U.S. debt, too. Perhaps they know something we don’t?”

UPDATE: Inflation-adjusted federal spending per capita. “A hundred years ago, federal spending for each person was the equivalent of $200 in today’s dollars. After FDR, with all of his massive public spending, it was $1,000. This year, it’s over $12,000. How long can this continue?” Not much longer. And if something can’t go on forever, it won’t.

CHANGE: PJM revelations on Holder terrorism prosecutions spur Rep. Peter King to demand answers.

VIDEO: Tricia Willoughby, the 14-year-old girl who spoke — over boos and heckling — at the Tea Party rally in Madison.

RAND SIMBERG IS live-blogging a space-law conference. “I’m attending the fifth annual conference on space law hosted by the law school at the University of Nebraska, which has a program in space law, partially sponsored by USSTRATCOM (fifty miles up the road at Offut AFB in Omaha). The conference looks to be an interesting program, with a lot of international participation. The focus this year is on commercial space regulation.”

WHAT EVERY DRIVER NEEDS: A Finnish-Built, Wood-Burning El Camino.

A NISSAN LEAF BUG: “Japanese automaker Nissan acknowledged that it would investigate complaints that some Leafs randomly don’t start, a problem caused by the vehicle’s air conditioning system. The issue was reported in both the U.S. and Japan.”

TRANSPARENCY: White House website skews deficit numbers ahead of national tour.

SO WHERE’S OBAMA? 13 killed as protests continue despite Assad’s pledges to lift Syria’s emergency rule.

IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint, 1636: The Saxon Uprising.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Student Newspaper Scoops Big Media, Forced To Kill Story, Runs Blank Page Instead.

JUSTICE, TOO MUCH AND TOO EXPENSIVE: Joe Hoffman and Nancy King on Habeas Corpus. “Federal habeas review of noncapital state criminal cases is unnecessary, because state courts now do the vast majority of that work. Worse, the misuse of habeas as one more round of appeal in routine state criminal cases will eventually cheapen habeas’s currency. . . . The question is not how much review it might take to achieve perfect compliance with constitutional rules governing criminal cases, because that’s a goal we can’t reach. The question, instead, is how much review makes sense before it becomes a wasteful, possibly harmful, endeavor.”

IN RESPONSE TO MY HIGHER-EDUCATION BUBBLE POSTS, reader Edwin Leap sends this on the high cost of medical education. “The thing is, American health-care is expensive. But so is medical education. As we embark on this century, what are the odds that physicians with $240,000 loans for medical school will be able to offer inexpensive care? What are the odds they will enter low-paying specialties? They might be interested in charity care at first, but when the first loan payments come due all the good intentions in the world won’t change the fact that lenders want their money back.”