READER BOOK PLUG: Reader C.L. Stegall writes: “Hi, Glenn! Would love for you to mention my novel on Instapundit.” Okay. It’s The Weight Of Night.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Can Bankruptcy Solve Student Loan Woes?

ANDREW MORRISS AND LOTTA MOBERG: Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign Against ‘Harmful Tax Competition.’

WELL, THIS IS PRETTY MUCH HIS APPROACH TO EVERYTHING, ISN’T IT? Obama campaign effort spends more in June than it takes in.

EINER ELHAUGE: Roberts’ Real Long Game? By upholding Obamacare, the Chief Justice has given Republicans a legal framework to support privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

PUNCTURING THE MUDDLED THINKING OF E.J. DIONNE.

THE OTHER DAY I POSTED A BLEG FOR LAPTOP BACKPACK RECOMMENDATIONS, and then got distracted and never compiled them. Sorry! Here they are:

Reader Patrick Carroll writes:

I’m a backpack consumer they way most women are shoe consumers. I currently use a Lowepro backpack for (simultaneously) hauling a Dell 17″ XPS, Apple 15″ Macbook Pro, camera, chargers, and misc other supplies. I have a convertible REI backpack-to-suitcase for overseas travel while hauling a computer or two, but a lot of my friends are in love with the “Mother Lode Weekender.”

Reader Rob Chilton emails: “Our son uses this one, after we got it for him, I had to have one myself! Great for laptop transport.” I think that’s the one I have in my car as a go-bag. Several other readers recommended this one too.

Reader Stephen Gorisch likes this one:

I got a Swiss Gear notebook backpack.

from a BestBuy about 7 years ago when I was still in school after using one of those hideous over the shoulder bags for several years, and right away was impressed with it. It’s built for a 15.4″, but housed my 17″ laptop quite snugly, and has plenty of padding in the pocket for the laptop AND for your back. While carrying a laptop, I don’t think I’ve ever once been poked by it because of all the padding. There’s also plenty of room for real notebooks, school books, reading books, etc. And the best part is that it has all these little pockets, including pockets within pockets, and not 1, but TWO pockets for beverages, be it your morning coffee, coke, or VitaminWater. Have I mentioned I love pockets?

The one I have has lasted me since I bought it, and it has been used almost every day in one fashion or another. Now that I’m gainfully employed and lucky enough to be able to walk to work, I still use it every day for my computer and programming books and notes, and it’s only just now starting to show a little bit of wear. The straps are still very well attached despite being slightly frayed at the edges, and one of the plastic rings that served no purpose for me other than to keep my hands occupied while I was walking has split (I think it’s a keyring). It’s still attached, but the plastic there did finally wear out and break it. I fully expect the bag to make it another 3-4 years, after which I will be replacing it with exactly the same thing if I can.

I’m not really sure if mine started the trend, as I don’t really remember ever pushing them, but since I started working here, 4 of the 9 employees where I work have bought them for their laptops.

Seriously. It’s well built, roomy, and very comfortable to wear with or without the laptop.

Reader Robert Reynolds (no relation) writes: “Hey Glenn.. here’s a backpack recommendation: The 5.11 COVRT 18. I’ve been abusing it for a couple of years now, and it is super-rugged. The interior laptop pouch easy holds my rather large laptop, and there are tons of other pockets. It also serves as my daily-carry bug out bag.”

Capt. John Votaw writes:

In answer to your readers request for laptop backpack reviews. I am a mooring master which requires me to board and disembark from ships on a regular basis. I need protection for my laptop, as well as room for rain gear, a book or two, and “office supplies.”

I have been using the “Surge” by North Face for two years and have been quite satisfied. Sturdy, lots of room, great balance between small and large compartments.

There’s a women’s model, too.

Reader Marilee Goodwin writes:

My brand recommendation for a laptop backpack is FUL. The quality is fantastic. I bought one at Costco 2 years ago for my middle school son. He hated going to his locker so the backpack was full everyday. In spite of a full year of abuse, he asked me not to get him a new backpack for 2011-2012. After two years, except for a bit of fraying at the edges, the FUL backpack is still in good shape.

I am a stay at home mom and don’t have to move my laptop often. When I have needed to, I have ‘borrowed’ my son’s backpack. It has a nicely padded space for laptops that I could trust it when I was traveling. I have since purchased a FUL backpack for myself and will buy one for each of my four kids for the next school year.

Reader Sarah Powell emails:

I walked all over Austin with the Jansport “Merit”. It had a padded enclosure for the laptop in the first large compartment; a second, equally large compartment; two smaller pouches on the front perfect for power cord and mouse and for wallet/keys/ID/etc. I could also reach around and dig into those pockets without taking the backpack off.

What she’ll probably need most is volume — she’ll need at least a folder or two, a spiral with tear-away notebook paper, a pencil bag, and any books/textbooks to fit into the backpack in with the laptop.

If the Caroline will be doing lots of walking, get shaped/contoured shoulder straps. Water bottle pockets are handy so you can stay hydrated.

Meanwhile, minimalist advice from reader Dan Scherk: “Buy any cheap backpack. Wrap laptop in a spare sweater to protect from bumps, and so you’ll always have one handy. Study hard.”

That last is probably the most important.

NEW OBAMA SLOGAN? “Welfare Is Sexy!”

I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOT GUIDANCE COUNSELORS. “A small number of schools around the country—the University of Arizona and Austin Peay State University in Tennessee being most prominent among them—are now experimenting with new ways to use data mining to help track the performance of their students and guide them towards the majors and courses that suit them best. Although the two systems use slightly different methods and technology, the core principle is the same: by tracking students’ grades, course history, and use of online learning materials, a computer can determine when a student is in danger of falling behind and suggest steps to get him or her back on track. The hope is that this will decrease the number of students who drop out or spend additional years in college because of a switch in majors.”

FLIPFLOP: Flashback: Obama praised welfare work requirements his administration just gutted.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Obama Administration Backs Bankruptcy Option for Some Student Debt. Actually, as Brian Lehrer noticed when I was on his show last week talking about my book, Obama and I are pretty much on the same page about a lot of this higher education bubble stuff.

OBAMA MARKS RAMADAN WITH SPECIAL MESSAGE: “Islam is part of the fabric of our Nation. . . . This year, Ramadan holds special meaning for those citizens in the Middle East and North Africa who are courageously achieving democracy and self-determination and for those who are still struggling to achieve their universal rights.”

BAD NEWS FOR RETIREES: Treasury Yields Hit New Lows.

WHAT A WINNING CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN LOOKS LIKE: Post-Aurora, Don’t Expect New Gun Laws.

ALEXANDER COCKBURN has died.

CHARLES COOKE: Colorado Crime Was Not About Guns, But About People.

Related: Don’t blame the parents.

WAR ON PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: Cop Took Cell Phone Used to Film Him, Lawsuit Alleges Retaliation.

The war on cameras continues in Point Marion, Pennsylvania, with a federal lawsuit filed by a man whose cell phone police confiscated. Gregory Rizer says he was at a friend’s house, filming a police officer he felt was being aggressive in his questioning of his quadriplegic friend about the whereabouts of her cousin.

The police officer, Kevin Lukart, confiscated the cellphone and Rizer was eventually charged under the state’s wiretap law, a common prosecutorial tactic against those who film police officers in states with two-party consent or other wiretapping laws. The charges were dropped by the state attorney in February (the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in 1989 and again in 2005 that police officers don ‘t have an expectation of privacy under the wiretapping law) and Rizer says in his lawsuit the memory card was missing (surprise!) when his cell phone was returned to him.

So it’s theft as well as abuse of power?

UPDATE: I suppose I should take this opportunity to once again plug Morgan Manning’s excellent piece on photographers’ rights, as well as my own piece (coauthored with John Steakley) on a due-process right to record the police.

PROF. JACOBSON: About Those Polls.

FREEDOM: In Advance Of Ramadan, Indonesian Govt. Starts Massive Censorship Push.

KATIE PAVLICH: FLASHBACK: Armed Woman in Colorado Saves Lives, Prevents Massacre.

ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: California parks director resigns amid scandal. “State Parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned this morning and her second in command has been fired after officials learned the department has been sitting on nearly $54 million in surplus money for as long as 12 years. The moves come in the wake of a scandal, revealed by The Bee on Sunday, in which a deputy director at State Parks carried out a secret vacation buyout program for employees at department headquarters last year. That buyout cost the state more than $271,000.”

Hey, it’s not your money, peasants. It’s theirs.

OPERATION FAT AND FURIOUS: Obama Pushes Food Stamps In Mexico.

JAMES TARANTO: With Extreme Prejudice: How ABC News “investigates” a horrific crime.

Simply as a matter of journalistic craft, the report was appallingly shoddy. Ross pointed the finger at an innocent man based on nothing but the coincidence of a common name and the man’s residence in the same city of 325,000 where the crime took place.

Let us amend that. There was one other factor, and this is what makes the ABC error not just amateurish but sinister: the innocent Jim Holmes’s involvement with the Tea Party. For more than three years liberal journalists have falsely portrayed the Tea Party as racist and potentially violent. After the January 2011 mass shooting in Tuscon, Ariz., speculation immediately began that the suspect was a Tea Partier. Even after it was proved that he was not, the New York Times published a despicable editorial blaming conservatives anyway.

Ross and ABC were out on this limb alone. Either other journalists learned their lesson from Tucson, or it didn’t occur to them to look for a political motive this time (it was a more plausible hypothesis in a shooting that targeted a politician).

It is reasonable to interpret Ross’s hasty unsubstantiated report as an expression of hostility–bigotry–toward the Tea Party and those who share its values, which are traditional American ones. ABC’s carelessness here is in sharp contrast with the way the mainstream media treat criminal suspects who are black or Muslim. In those cases they take great pains not to perpetuate stereotypes, sometimes at the cost of withholding or obscuring relevant facts such as the physical description of a suspect who is still at large or the ideological motive for a crime.

Oikophobia is no less invidious than other forms of bigotry.

True, though Brian Ross probably can’t spell it.

JOURNALISM PROF. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Slow to learn: Lesson for journos in Brian Ross’ egregious error on ABC.

Brian Ross’ appalling error linking the Tea Party movement to the suspected Batman-movie shooter in Colorado demonstrates anew how slow journalists can be in grasping an elementary lesson of disaster coverage: Resist temptation to report more than you can immediately verify.

In the hours just after a disaster, journalists tend to be especially prone to error and imprecision, as Ross, the chief investigative correspondents for ABC News, amply demonstrated in declaring today on Good Morning America:

“There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year.

“Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes,” Ross added, “but it is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo.”

The suspect arrested in the shootings early today at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, is named James Holmes. But he is not the “Jim Holmes” to whom Ross referred, and the suspected killer has no known connections to the grassroots Tea Party movement, which advocates restraints in government spending. . . . Whatever the reason, his error on a television program that attracts 4.5 million viewers was inexcusable — and eminently preventable.

In the swirling uncertainty that invariably marks the hours after a disaster, journalists are well-served to show deliberation and restraint, to be mindful that error and distortion often blight the first reports of dramatic events.

Plus, the emptiness of ABC’s apology.