MADISON ON THE PACIFIC: Costa Mesa takes a stand on the costs of a public workforce.

SO WAS HE ATTRACTED BY THE “HOPE,” OR THE “CHANGE?” “South Park” Jihadi Was ’08 Obama Volunteer. “The radicalized knucklehead convicted of threatening the lives of the ‘South Park’ creators signed up as a volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, but by the time Election Day arrived he had concluded it would be a violation of Islamic law to vote in the U.S. election, according to court records.”

AT AMAZON, it’s the summer Pool Sale.

DYNAMIC RANGE: Republican Professors Award More High and Low Grades Than Democratic Professors. I’m surprised they were able to get a significant-sized sample of Republican professors . . . .

HOW DO UNIONS affect state budgets?

LAWPROF BLOGGER TOM SMITH reviews Walter Olson’s new book, Schools For Misrule: Legal Academia And An Overlawyered America. “Walter Olson thinks that American law schools are the origin of some very bad ideas, in something like the way bats are said to be the reservoir of certain nasty viruses in Africa: the germs of pernicious concepts incubate there in relative obscurity between epidemics, erupting occasionally to spread destruction and misery. Sadly, Olson is not entirely wrong.”

HMM: “As a Libertarian, you ought to love the way government buildings are ugly.”

POLLING: Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal Virginians.

GEORGE WILL ON CALIFORNIA: Golden State Blues. “In 1967, five years after California became the most populous state, novelist Wallace Stegner said that California — energetic, innovative, hedonistic — was America, ‘only more so.’ Today, this state’s budget crisis is like the nation’s, only more so.”

IN THE MAIL: Knock ’em Dead – Secrets and Strategies From the Insiders.

DAN MITCHELL ON MEDICARE: Would You Prefer Privatization, Or A Death Panel.

JESSICA WAKEMAN: Why I Don’t Feel Too Bad For Maria Shriver. “Rumors of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity and sexual harassment have been going on for years. Arnold’s wandering penis (and hands) pre-dates his governorship of California, a role that staunch Democrat and Kennedy scion Maria Shriver helped him win. So, while this situation undeniably sucks, I’m not boo-hoo-hooing for her. I believe Maria Shriver was either willfully ignorant of or willing-to-put-up-with, Hillary Clinton-style, her husband’s cheating and sexual harassment. How could she not be aware of it, in some way? . . . I expect better from my smart, feminist political ladies (and yes, that includes you, Hillary Clinton, as much as I love you). But addressing the cheating/sexual harassment/abuse publicly was apparently not on the table for Shriver, which strikes me as hypocritical.” Politics trumped principle, until he was out of office. Then politics didn’t matter.

Related: When cheating scandals become beauty contests. I think Arnold’s the loser here.

SPAIN’S SOCIALIST UTOPIA mugged by reality. “Up until now, anti-government protests in Spain have been relatively few and far between, partly because of the strong ties that labor unions have with the ruling Socialists. But Spain’s nascent youth democracy movement is a spontaneous grassroots groundswell that is not left versus right but rather young versus old.”

UPDATE: Jose Guardia: Sorry, but those guys are no tea partiers. “From afar it’s tempting to romanticize the protests taking place in Spain right now, but they are not definitely a wakeup from Socialist utopia, but a call to delve further into it.”

DEAR CONGRESS: Your Credit Application Has Been Turned Down. “Our records indicate that your annual income for the 2011 taxable year was $2,170,000,000,000. You have requested a credit limit of $17,000,000,000,000. These figures exceed the American Public’s debt-to-income guidelines for credit issuance.”

MICKEY KAUS: Who You Calling A “Rationer?”

THAT’S NOT YOUR MOMMY ANYMORE: A Zombie Survival Book For Kids. So does this mean that Zombiemania has finally jumped the shark?

VIDEO: John Fund On The 2012 Field. It autoplays, so watch your volume.

TODAY ONLY: Markdowns on Wii games and gear.

REASON TV: L.A. Rally: Don’t Believe What Your Teachers Tell You.

BARNEY FRANK BLASTED for Debt Ceiling panic. “This is Barney Frank’s M.O. — burn the house down, then take his hand off of the gas can and say, ‘It’s (the GOP’s) fault.’”

JIM TREACHER: Leave Ronald McDonald Alone. “Things can seem bleak these days — wars, unemployment, gas prices, food prices, the thriving career of Shia LaBeouf — but look on the bright side. We can’t have too many problems as a society if people have the luxury of worrying about a circus clown who sells hamburgers to children.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: The Party Of Tax And Scare.

CHINESE NOW WORLD’S top buyers of gold.

ORBITZ SNUBS MEDIA MATTERS: Well, Media Matters doesn’t drive any traffic, as far as I can tell. Apparently, their only real function is to help liberal journalists self-herd. So why would anyone else pay any attention?

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN WE’D SEE WHISTLEBLOWERS PURSUED WITH A VENGEANCE. And they were right! “When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as ‘often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.’ But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined.”