ILYA SOMIN TO MICHAEL GERSON: Actually, Libertarians Aren’t Selfish. And people who would spend other people’s money on charity aren’t generous, I should add.

IS ELECTRICITY the bottleneck for Japan’s recovery? This is why surplus capacity is good.

CHANGE: CBO Puts Health Care Safety Net on Critical List.

PRIORITIES: Rural Louisiana Flooded To Save New Orleans.

DISASTER PREP: Village unscathed by tsunami – thanks to mayor’s ‘crazy idea.’ “Wthe mayor of the Japanese coastal village of Fudai ordered a 51ft-high wall built in the 1970s to protect his people from the potential ravages of a tsunami, he was called crazy, foolish and wasteful. But after Fudai survived the monster wave that followed the 11 March earthquake unscathed, he is now regarded as a saviour.”

AT AMAZON, a sale on patio and garden items.

UPDATE: Link was wrong before, fixed now. Sorry!

AT PAJAMAS, an exclusive report from the Ferrari Challenge.

BOB ZUBRIN IN THE WSJ: How We Can Fly To Mars In This Decade — And On The Cheap.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, WE’D HAVE SMARMY TV PERSONALITIES LECTURING US ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Bill Maher: If You Celebrated Bin Laden’s Death, You’re Not Really A Christian.

UPDATE: I guess these are some of those “Christianists” Andrew Sullivan is always warning about: Four Dems vote ‘present’ on honoring Bin Laden mission.

MUCH ADO ABOUT gas prices.

READER DAVID WHIDDEN DECLARES VICTORY: “When all the New York Times can complain about is the color of buildings in Baghdad, can we officially say that the war was a success? Oh the horrors of tackiness! If only we had left Saddam in power!”

Well, we’d have been spared this: “In downtown Baghdad, a police headquarters has been painted two shades of purple: lilac and grape. The central bank, a staid building in many countries, is coated in bright red candy cane stripes. . . . Baghdad has weathered invasion, occupation, sectarian warfare and suicide bombers. But the latest scourge, tastelessness, may prove the toughest to overcome.”

STIMULATION, Sidwell style. “The latest scandal unfolding at Sidwell Friends, the school the Obama children attend, confirms all your worst ideas about what elite private schools are like.”

ENERGY CAVE: In the middle of the night, President Obama approves more drilling: “In what can only be described as a victory for Republicans, President Obama has, in the wee hours on a Saturday morning, announced that he will direct federal agencies to approve more drilling for oil and gas off the Alaska and Gulf coasts. His motives are transparent, even to Reuters. . . . The question is, why announce a big policy reversal at the quietest moment in the news cycle? Well, because it is a reversal, which point both victorious Republicans and anti-oil liberals will be making as loudly as possible with delight and outrage, respectively.”

Related: Obama: Hey, Let’s Start Drilling In Alaska! “I guess demonizing the oil companies isn’t having the desired effect.”

A one day sale on Quicken Deluxe 2011.

WHY MEN hate The Notebook.

ILYA SOMIN: Admiral Yamamoto And The Justification Of Targeted Killing.

SLEAZY: Disney wants to trademark “Seal Team Six.”

LOVE VIA AN email typo.

THE PAPER THAT BRANNON DENNING AND I WROTE ON MCDONALD V. CHICAGO is still Number One on SSRN.

THE NLRB’S ironic lawsuit against Arizona.

IN THE MAIL: From Daniel Solove, Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security.

THE ECONOMIST: Higher Education Bubble: Blowing Up Grad School. More here. “The ultimate benefit seems to be a substantial wage premium, and comparisons of that premium to average levels of tuition or incurred debt make college look like an incredibly good deal. The tricky thing is that there may well be an identification problem: it could simply be the case that students who go to college earn more, because the types of students that go to college are the types that have characteristics (intelligence, discipline) that translate into higher earnings. University degrees could simply be expensive signaling mechanisms at best, in this world, and massively wasteful cultural institutions at worst.”

Related: Down To Business: Higher Education Is Ripe For Technology Disruption. “If you think online degrees will remain just a niche, consider the time when Borders and E.F. Hutton were touting their superior in-person experiences.”

Or is it really a student loan bubble?

What can’t go on forever, won’t. The increases in tuition and indebtedness we’ve seen over the past couple of decades can’t go on forever, so they won’t.

GEORGIA REPUBLICANS TO NEWT GINGRICH: Sorry, but you’re no Herman Cain.

GREENLANDERS: Hey, you know, this whole global-warming thing might not be so bad.

BILL QUICK: Why Mitch Daniels Shouldn’t Be President.