COMING TO AMERICA IN DAYS: 1,500 Hyundai Sonata hybrids.

WHAT CONGRESS IS DOING WITH (OR TO) the NASA budget. It’s not too late for them to do the right thing, though.

IN THE MAIL: The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution.

WHILE JIMMY CARTER VISITS HIS “FRIEND” FIDEL: “227 – That is the number of political arrests that took place in Cuba just in the month of March.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: As Colleges Slash Budgets, Presidents Defend Their Pay.

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS GOING AFTER UNIONS:

In a March 16, 2010 campaign speech to state union leaders, California Gov. Jerry Brown urged them to “attack” his Republican opponent, warning that their election would spell big trouble for their members. What a difference a year makes: Last week, as he signed a bill that cuts $8.2 billion from the state’s $27 billion deficit, mostly by slashing labor costs, Brown was also, according to the Associated Press, urging his former campaign allies to be open to the pension concessions being pushed by Republican state legislators. Those concessions will cost union members billions. Two weeks before that Brown told six state unions to expect pay cuts of up to 10 percent.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country in an equally blue state, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley faced 15,000 union workers massed a the state capitol in protest of O’Malley’s own budget proposals, which will make only a modest dent in the $19 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $16 billion in retiree health care. O’Malley plaintive defense at the rally was notable as much for its chutzpah as for its liberal parochialism: “You will not find in Maryland the sort of Midwestern oppression that you find in Ohio and Wisconsin!”, he declared.

Midwestern oppression? How about Maryland and California duplicity?

What, one wonders, would Democratic governors and mayors do if they did not have Republican governors for comparison? In fact, the wage cuts and increased employee pension contributions being proposed in California, Maryland and New York are actually greater, on a per capita basis, greater than those being pressed by Republicans Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Scott and Chris Christie.

Needs must, when the devil drives.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: The Real Economy Is Emerging As The Stimulus Is Winding Down.

MICHAEL BARONE: GOP Shouldn’t Panic If Whites Become A Minority.

A WIRELESS PC-to-TV Link for 99 bucks. “The Veebeam Wireless HD system lets you stream all of the audio and video content you love from your PC directly to your TV without a tangle of cords or expensive in-wall wiring.” Sounds kinda cool.

UPDATE: Reader Mike Couvillion writes: “Saw your post on the Veebeam. Sorry to say that streaming to a TV is neither new, nor is this particular device very good for it. Other devices like the WDTV Live or the Xtreamer have been around for some time and work much better for the same price range. One can even do streaming like this with the XBox360 and/or the PS3. The WDTV and Xtreamer work well and are as cheap or cheaper than this device. I’ve used all three and prefer the Xtreamer for its feature set.”

PROF. JACOBSON: After Goldstone Recantation, Eliminate The U.N. Human Rights Council.

CHANGE: GOP Anti-Appropriators Break Up The Spending Party. “A third difference: the earmark ban. Short of kicking members off the committee, the chairman used to use earmarks — the promise of more pork or the threat to strip existing pork — to enforce loyalty from other appropriators. That’s why Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., calls earmarks ‘the gateway drug to a spending addiction,’ and it’s why banning them could save taxpayers much more than a more simplistic accounting would suggest.” Gee, who could have predicted that?

REUTERS: Incomes, not jobs, could sink Obama re-election. “While jobs are growing, incomes are not. And income growth — or the lack of it — political scientists agree, is the economic variable with the most impact on national elections. Strong growth in real disposable personal income led to huge victories for Reagan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Weak or negative growth doomed Jimmy Carter in 1980, George Bush in 1992 and John McCain in 2008.”

UNDERMINING THE DEMS? Bill Clinton: Government Shutdown Might Not Be “Traumatic” For Economy.

THE GANG OF 88 WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Duke lacrosse accuser arrested in boyfriend’s stabbing.

NEW PARASITE COALITION FORMS: Momentum building for online piracy legislation.

A recent list of legislative recommendations from White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel included controversial measures such as expanding federal wiretapping statutes to include copyright offenses and mandating longer prison sentences for offenders.

With leaders in both parties and the White House all marching in lock step toward the need for increasing enforcement efforts, the small but vocal opposition appears unlikely to gain enough traction with its warnings of potential censorship to derail the legislative momentum.

Hey, rubes: Is this what you voted for when you voted for change? Because it’s what you got.

CAPTAIN’S JOURNAL: I Renewed My NRA Membership Today.

HOW HIGHER EDUCATION UNIONS PLAN TO RESPOND to this year’s “crushing blows.”

MICKEY KAUS: Has California’s shiny new independent redistricting commission already been captured by the left?

THE HILL: Poll: Public Sees GOP As More Reasonable In Budget Debate.

SLASHDOT: U.S. Government Domain Seizures Failing Miserably.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Is It Time To Get Out Of Afghanistan?

WAR ON THE YOUNG: Naive college kids don’t realize that big-government servitude awaits. “Unemployment was 25.7 in February for teenagers and 15.7 percent for those 20 to 24 years old, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recent college grads are despairing of landing anything above the fast-food counter, where they face stiff competition from millions of recent immigrants.”

REPORT: It could be a year before Japan’s reactors are fully under control.

IF YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY, my Sunday Washington Examiner column is on lessons from the Japanese disaster: From “Just In Time” To “Just In Case” — Disaster Preparedness And Resilience.

DEBUNKING STEINBECK: “‘Travels With Charley’ for 50 years has been touted, venerated, reviewed, mythologized as a true story, a nonfiction account of John Steinbeck’s journey of discovery, driving slowly across America, camping out under the stars alone. Other than the fact that none of that is true, what can I tell you?” He added, “If scholars aren’t concerned about this, what are they scholaring about?”

A lot of people seem to be asking that sort of question lately.