ARIZONA FIGHTS HIGHWAY DUST STORMS WITH HAIKU.

PERSISTENCE is learned from fathers.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Another Greek Tragedy: The U.S. Postal Service. “The US Postal Service is an yet another outdated remnant of the 20th century blue social model that needs to go the way of the steamboat, but because the institution is so deeply ingrained within the Federal bureaucracy, no one wants to see the truth.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON STUDENT LOANS: The New American Helots: Our indebted graduates are the modern indentured class.

UNPERSUASIVE SPIN: ‘This wasn’t a political move’: David Plouffe fails miserably at spin attempts on deportation waivers, leaks.

NEW YORK: Charlie Rangel Spending More Money Than He’s Raising.

IF YOU WANT PRIVACY, YOU CAN BUY IT: “Phil Zimmermann and some of the original PGP team have joined up with former US Navy SEALs to build an encrypted communications platform that should be proof against any surveillance. The company, called Silent Circle, will launch later this year, when $20 a month will buy you encrypted email, text messages, phone calls, and videoconferencing in a package that looks to be strong enough to have the NSA seriously worried. Zimmermann says that surveillance by the state and others has increased vastly over the last few years, and privacy improvement are again needed.”

I remember after 9/11 when there was a brief and nasty effort to somehow blame Zimmermann — when, in fact, the hijackers relied not on strong encryption, but on the ineptitude of intelligence agencies, using open Yahoo accounts with names like “Soldier of Allah.”

ON FATHER’S DAY, the PSA test controversy. (Via Newsbeat 1).

PRECEDENT: Why conservatives should applaud Obama’s decision to ignore the law.

HOW LOW HAVE THEY SUNK? “Environmentalists pushing U.S. officials and other nations to end subsidies for fossil fuel industries are hunting big game: Teen pop star Justin Bieber.”

TODAY IS FATHER’S DAY, but you can still send an Amazon Gift Card.

Also, today only: 99-cent Kindle Mysteries & Thrillers.

CHANGE: Pennsylvania Public Defenders Rebel Against Crushing Caseloads.

The situation in Luzerne is not an isolated one. As funding falls and cases continue to flood the system, many already-stressed defender programs across the country are being pushed to the very brink of collapse. And with little hope of state or federal action to remedy the problem, a small but growing number of defender offices are rebelling, suing states and counties over excessive caseloads that their attorneys cannot handle without violating their clients’ constitutional right to effective representation.

Reader John Steakley comments: “To all doctors who think socialized medicine is a good thing, take a look at your future.”

IS PEAK OIL A POLITICAL PHENOMENON? “The oil in the ground will run out some day. But as the discovery of proven reserves continues to significantly outpace the rate of extraction, the claims that we’re facing immediate shortages looks trashy. . . . So no. I’m not lying awake at night worrying about imminent peak oil. There’s plenty of extractable oil, and renewable energy will eventually supplement and replace it. But will politics get in the way of energy extraction? The United States has huge hydrocarbon reserves, yet regulation is preventing drilling and shipment, leaving America dependent on foreign oil.”

ANNALS OF THE 1%: Taxpayers Pay $1.2 Million for Lunch with Warren Buffett. “An anonymous donor on June 8 paid $3.46 million to Glide, an antipoverty group in San Francisco, for the privilege of having lunch with Warren Buffett. Is the donation tax-deductible? Experts say most of it probably is, meaning taxpayers in effect will pick up about $1.2 million of the tab.”

TRACK RECORD: US Secret Service accused of multiple prostitution incidents.

MICHAEL BARONE: ‘Angry’ money gives funding edge to GOP and Romney.

LIFE AMONG THE REDNECKS CONVERTS BRITISH “GREEN:” Lovelock goes mad for shale gas. “Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”

OBSERVING FATHER’S DAY AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: Growing Up With A Fat Dad. He was a bum, but don’t worry, he eventually became a Vegan and then everything was all right.

PROF. JACOBSON: Explain to me again why they are called “reporters”?

That’s not reporting, it’s transcribing. No, actually, it’s not even transcribing.

I don’t know what it is, but I do know you don’t need a Masters Degree in Journalism, or two years of an unpaid internship, whichever comes first, to do it.

Did the Washington press corps ever hear the phrase, “I’m not a potted plant”?

Neil Munro apparently did. Which means he has no business being a reporter in the age of Obama.

Indeed.

IN LAS VEGAS, bloggers honor Breitbart.

AT AMAZON, new stuff coming out on Blu-Ray.

STACY MCCAIN IS “keepin’ up the skeer.”

And, inevitably: Hitler finds out that charges against Aaron Worthing have been dropped.

THE EUROPEAN ATROCITY you never heard about. “It is important to note that the expulsions are in no way to be compared to the genocidal Nazi campaign that preceded them. But neither can the supreme atrocity of our time become a yardstick by which gross abuses of human rights are allowed to go unrecognized for what they are.”

ARE DANGEROUS MEN more attractive to women?