TODAY ONLY: 61% off on Doctor Who on DVD.

AS I KEEP SAYING, THAT’S NOW THE BEST-CASE SCENARIO: Eric Alterman: Hey, Obama’s Looking A Lot Like Jimmy Carter These Days.

UPDATE: Reader Wayne Moore writes: “Obama has left Carter territory and entered James Buchanan territory.” That’s what I’m afraid of.

MASSACHUSETTS POLITICS: Third House Speaker in a row up on criminal charges.

ACADEMIA, here I come!

BRYAN PRESTON: The guy that NPR executives and the New York Times and your average Subaru-driving Whole Foods shopper were afraid George W. Bush was? Rick Perry is that guy.

CRIPPLING ORNL CYBER ATTACK originated with this phony email.

STATE DEPARTMENT WANTS TO KNOW THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR BIRTH when you apply for a passport.

UPDATE: See the update at BoingBoing. But a reader who requests anonymity — and looking at his email I can see why — writes:

I’ve been a long time reader of your site and the post about the passport and birth certificate caught my eye today.

I am getting married in the Bahamas on May 7th and my fiancé and I did a “scouting” mission last year for locations. I called it marriage recon, she called it vacation, lol.

Anyways, I never had a passport before last year, so I went to my local post office with my short form birth certificate to apply for my passport and was told that it was required I present the long form birth certificate.

Now, I’m no “birther”, but not being a fan of Obama I joked to the postal employee that, “I needed to present my long form birth certificate to get a passport, but not to be President?”

We shared a laugh and then I went home to order my birth certificate from an online service the state sponsors here in Massachusetts. I still use the joke that I had to provide more documentation to travel an hour south of Miami than Obama did to become President.

Just thought I would share.

Heh.

DR. WES FISHER: Implications Of The Physician Tag-And-Release Program: “Recently, a disturbing trend of monitoring physician quality and accountability has taken another ominous turn: tracking physician’s movements at scientific conferences (so called “tag and release”) using RFID tags imbedded in attendees name badges at national scientific sessions. . . . It is no secret that these societies make a significant portion of their operating revenues from industry sponsors at these meetings. By instituting tracking, the value of their membership’s privacy has taken a back seat to the income generated from tracking revenues.”

IN THE MAIL: Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?: Hard-Hitting Lessons on How to Get Real Results.

PHIL BOWERMASTER: Here’s your Sputnik Moment!

SPACEX WANTS TO GO TO MARS: “‘We’ll probably put a first man in space in about three years,’ Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. ‘We’re going all the way to Mars, I think… best case 10 years, worst case 15 to 20 years.'”

SHOCKING POLL: Extremist Teabagger Californians Want Givebacks From Public Employees. “Seventy percent of respondents said they supported a cap on pensions for current and future public employees. Nearly as many, 68%, approved of raising the amount of money government workers should be required to contribute to their retirement. Increasing the age at which government employees may collect pensions was favored by 52%.” Hey, it’s time for some of that shared sacrifice we’re always hearing about.

SO MUCH FOR SMARTPHONE PRIVACY: Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives, travels, risk of disease—even our political views. “Back at MIT, scientists who tracked student cellphones during the latest presidential election were able to deduce that two people were talking about politics, even though the researchers didn’t know the content of the conversation. By analyzing changes in movement and communication patterns, researchers could also detect flu symptoms before the students themselves realized they were getting sick.”

Plus this: “The patterns are allowing us to learn how to better manipulate trends, opinions and mass psychology.” I have some related thoughts here.

A CALL FOR Activism At The Gas Pump.

TOM BLUMER: Maxed Out America: Coming Sooner Than You Think.

Plus, introducing the PJI “Maxed Out America” initiative.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Will The Khan Academy Knock Out The University Degree?

TARGETING THE NONPROFIT SECTOR: Boston Sends Nonprofits Requests for Tax-Like Payments. Well, the nonprofit sector is financially huge now — it’s not just a few schools, hospitals, and orphanages any more — and states will be looking harder and harder for people who aren’t paying their “fair share.” So expect more of this. . . .

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Who will be washed away by the preference cascade?

Pathological altruism?

How the Journalism Sausage gets made.

The sad fate of Amazon Tote.

Caitlin Flanagan trips over a shark.

At the Northwestern Law Review, an online symposium on the Tea Party and popular constitutionalism.

A simple weight-loss plan that worked.

China’s Train Wreck.

They told me if I voted for John McCain, the FCC would be cracking down on broadcast indecency — and they were right!

Burn a Koran, rake in the cash?

Val Kilmer’s best role ever.

When academic politics turn lethal.

Good question: Where is your Syrian Humanitarian Flotilla Erdogan?

FISCAL TIMES: When Oil Prices Double, Recession Often Follows.

UPDATE: How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya? Retirement money fears now grip a record majority of working Americans. “A new Gallup Poll out this morning finds a record 53% of Americans who aren’t retired figure by the time they reach their so-called golden years they won’t be able to afford it. That percentage is up about 20 points since 2002.”

CHANGE: Crude Oil Climbs As Middle East Violence Accelerates.

UPDATE: Related: The Oil Situation Could Be Worse Than We Thought.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Elizabethan Grand Strategy.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Nature: Reform the PhD system or close it down. “The system of PhD education in the United States and many other countries is broken and unsustainable, and needs to be reconceived. In many fields, it creates only a cruel fantasy of future employment that promotes the self-interest of faculty members at the expense of students. The reality is that there are very few jobs for people who might have spent up to 12 years on their degrees.”

More on this here.

CHINA PLANNING to cut U.S. Dollar reserves? I just saw Fareed Zakaria explain yesterday that people wouldn’t ditch the dollar because they have nowhere else to go. . . .

UPDATE: Silver Surges To All-Time High.

Note this piece on the purchasing power of old-style silver dimes vs. non-silver dimes. Since the piece is a week old, of course, the difference is even bigger today.

GAS PRICES TOO HIGH? Buy a new car! Food-price inflation cutting into your budget? Get a better job!

Who said there were no easy answers?

FROM ARNOLD KLING: A Fiscal Fable For Our Times.