PENELOPE TRUNK ON the best alternative to grad school.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Massachusetts Colleges Scramble in Post-Earmark World.

SCIENCE: Sexist Men More Attractive To Women Looking For Casual Sex. I’m sure the Pick-Up Artist community will be unsurprised at this revelation.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Gibson Guitar Slams Feds For Wood Raid.

NUCLEAR POWER FOR MOON AND MARS BASES: A reactor for the equivalent of 8 Earth-bound homes would be the size of a carry-on suitcase.

WHY YOUNG AMERICANS increasingly support gay marriage but not abortion.

NOVELTY ITEM: A stretch Nissan Leaf limo.

THE “IMPOSSIBLE DREAM” OF GIVING EVERY CIVIL LITIGANT A LAWYER: Triaging Appointed-Counsel Funding and Pro Se Access to Justice.

Personally, I don’t think you should be able to jail people for “civil” failures like not paying child support. If they’re jailing you, it’s not civil, in my opinion. And for that matter, in this case it looks too much like imprisonment for debt, notwithstanding the fiction that it’s “really” for contempt of court. None of which undermines the point of the article.

BACK TO SCHOOL THOUGHTS from Walter Russell Mead. “Life in school is life in bureaucracy. You follow the rules, do what you are told, and rewards follow. The real world was never very much like that, but the parts of the real world that look most like school (like for example law firms, universities and government and private sector bureaucracies) have their heads on the chopping block.”

SHREDDED: SEC Record Purges At Odds With Other Agencies. “While the SEC directed its staff for years to purge certain investigative records, other agencies in the United States and abroad that enforce financial laws have instructed that similar documents be kept. Law enforcement authorities in related lines of work have preserved records of inquiries even if those probes never led to charges against anyone. Regulators and archivists said that the records could be a valuable source of information for investigators probing other cases and could help hold the authorities accountable.” Well, we can’t have that.

KNOWING THIS WILL MAKE HIS SPEECH ON SAVING THE ECONOMY THAT MUCH SWEETER: Obama Plans Trip to Bali.

BLAMING OBAMA FOR THE ECONOMY: Poll: 65% Give Obama Thumbs Down On Economy: Just 28% Of Americans Polled Say Things Are Going Well. “Only a third of all Americans approve of how President Barack Obama is handling the economy, according to a new national survey. And with a CNN/ORC International Poll also indicating that more than three-quarters of the public say the country is in bad shape right now, there’s little wonder why the president is getting such low marks.”

Related: “The worst part is that, with the economy on the brink of a double-dip and consumer confidence falling off a cliff, this guy’s mind is still so preoccupied with the campaign that he can’t muster a moment of presidential leadership without counterprogramming it against a Republican primary event.”

IS BLOGGING A JOB, OR A TEMPTATION? “Yes.”

BUYING DOMESTIC IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE WELL-INFORMED: Obama Labor Boss Buys Canadian-Built Car: Says purchase was to show support for American workers. “To show her support for American workers, President Obama’s labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.” Okay, this goof isn’t really about arrogance — arrogance and the Chevy Equinox don’t go together much — but about the difficulty government officials have in understanding markets. If Obama’s Labor Secretary can’t even figure out where her own car is made, how well can she understand the rest of the economic stuff she’s supposed to be “managing?”

PERHAPS HE SHOULD PROMISE TO NAME SUZE ORMAN SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: Perry Needs To Address His Personal Spending Issues. Actually, if it let him run commercials comparing Suze Orman to Tim Geithner that would undoubtedly attract votes.

ANOTHER LAME ASSAULT ON CITIZEN PHOTOGRAPHY: Man Faces 75 Years In Prison For Recording Police. To even consider such charges is to prove oneself unfit for public office of any kind.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on select HP printers.

ILLINOIS: State Pays Sex Offenders To Babysit.

UPDATE: Alcoholic Truck Drivers Now A Protected Class.

CHANGE: Gallup: Obama’s Approval Hits All-Time Low of 41 Percent Among Women.

OOPS: Solyndra Filing A Disaster For Obama. “Wow, which radical right-wing deathbeast Obama-hating Rethuglican Web site ran that headline? Err, NBC’s Bay Area affiliate.” Yeah, this whole “Green Jobs” thing isn’t working out so well.

UPDATE: Solyndra solar company fails after getting controversial federal loan guarantees. “A company that served as a showcase for the Obama administration’s effort to create jobs in clean technology shut down Wednesday, leaving 1,100 people out of work and taxpayers obligated for $535 million in federal loans.” Follow the money.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “You will be shocked to learn that Solyndra’s majority owner, Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, was a major fundraiser for the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign.” Like I said, follow the money.

What’s amazing about the Obama Administration isn’t the corruption, which we’ve seen before. It’s the crudity and obviousness of the corruption.

Coupled with ineptitude. Reader Patrick Kelly writes:

I read the WaPo article on Solyndra. This quote from Solyndra’s CEO really stood out:

“This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate,” Solyndra chief executive Brian Harrison said in a statement. “Regulatory and policy uncertainties” made it impossible to raise capital to quickly rescue the operation, he said.

I guess that’s what you get when you dance with the devil. The same government that can take other people’s money to make your company work can also regulate your company to the point where you can’t raise capital from any other source.

Oft evil will shall evil mar.

REALLY? AGAIN? In a bizarre repeat of a high-profile incident last year, an Apple employee once again appears to have lost an unreleased iPhone in a bar, CNET has learned.

VIDEO: Austin Bay: The Libyan War of 2011.

300 BUCKS OFF AUTOCAD FOR MAC, and it’s still pretty darn expensive. On the other hand, you could have gotten millions for a single Mac with AutoCad on it just a few decades ago . . . .

A NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER tips his hand. My advice on seeing it: Draw 4 cards.