HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: LSAT-Takers Down 4.9%, to Lowest Level Since 2001.

DRONE UPDATE: Rand Paul threatens hold on FBI nominee over domestic drone policy.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN TO DOJ: “Stop The Witch-Hunt.”

SO APPARENTLY THE BLACK COMMUNITY HAS FIGURED OUT THAT GEORGE ZIMMERMAN IS HISPANIC: Baltimore police say they are investigating a witness account that a group of black youths beat a Hispanic man near Patterson Park Sunday while saying, “This is for Trayvon.”

Wait until they find out that he’s also black . . . .

INVASIVE SPECIES UPDATE: Lionfish Beyond Reach of Divers Worry Researchers. This is consistent with what I heard when I was on Cayman last — they’re getting scarce down to 100 feet or so, but remain quite common below that. Tech divers, of course, can go considerably deeper, but there aren’t enough of them to deplete the lionfish population.

NANCY PELOSI’S HUSBAND: A deadbeat boss, sued for backpay.

IOWAHAWK DROPS THE HAMMER: “Of all the young black shooting victims in this country, you can name 1. Because you’ve been trained like a circus seal to bark on command.”

PUTTING THE “FASTER” IN “FASTER, PLEASE:” Elon Musk Thinks He Can Get You From NY to LA in 45 Minutes. “A massive vacuum tube — mounted either above ground or even under water — would be combined with a magnetic levitation system used on conventional bullet trains. That means no friction, no wind resistance, no chance of collisions, and insanely high speeds.”

ENEMY OF THE STATE: Prof. Jacobson: Feds want Zimmerman, any way they can get him — This no longer is about George Zimmerman, it’s about a Department of Justice serving political interests.

GREAT STORY: Couple on the way to Dave Matthews concert pick up hitchhiker – only to discover he IS Dave Matthews. “Stuck with a flat tire and no cell phone, the Grammy-award winner was staring down the barrel of being a no-show for his own gig until Kraus intervened.”

ADVICE TO THE NEW YORK TIMES ON how to write about “hookup culture.”

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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE, ADMINISTRATIVE BLOAT EDITION: What Do 2,358 College Administrators Do?

UC’s annual spending exceeds that of most state governments, amounting to roughly $100,000 for each of its students. Much of this is unrelated to instructional function. The university’s bureaucracy is famously monumental, centralized and costly: Aside from a full cohort of administrators and support staff at each of the 10 campuses, the central office in Oakland employs more than 2,000 workers, a staggering number (2,358 full-time employees, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System). There are 10 “divisions” in the Office of the President, for example. Its “external relations” division lists more than 55 managerial-type employees on organizational charts, and that number doesn’t include support personnel.

The “business operations” and “academic affairs” divisions are much larger. One senior non-UC university president said to me once that the central office could be reduced by more than half and the university wouldn’t suffer.

Or, probably, notice.

WHY ARE THE DEMOCRATS SO RACIST? National Journal: The United States Senate Just Lost Half of Its Black Senators. “On Tuesday, Rep. Edward Markey became Sen. Edward Markey. In doing so, the Democrat brought the Senate’s black membership from 2 to 1. . . . Cowan’s exit leaves Republican Tim Scott as the only black U.S. senator.”

CELEBRITY IDIOCY: #NoJustice: Kim Kardashian Forgets Her Father Represented O.J. Simpson.

JUSTICE: Illegal searches? Forest Service cop sees half his Utah drug cases tossed. “A law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service — described as an ‘overzealous cop’ by a defense attorney — accounted for half the simple possession of controlled substance cases dismissed in Utah’s federal court in 2012 after evidentiary issues were raised, according to an analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS (CONT’D): Is Sugar Really Toxic? Sifting through the Evidence.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY MINORITIES WOULD COWER IN FEAR FROM RACE-HATE WHIPPED UP BY A DIVISIVE PRESIDENT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! By the way, George Zimmerman’s parents are in hiding because of all the death threats.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Obamacare contractor under investigation in Britain.

ASTROTURF? DOJ helped bogus “student group” target George Zimmerman and the Sanford police chief.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTION: Anti-Freeze? Brake Fluid? Do You Know What’s In Your Lube?

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Nuclear Crisis Averted, Obama’s EPA Pick Is Expected to Sail Through Senate Confirmation.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My USA Today column on the Department of Justice and “Crony Journalism.”

DID TRAYVON MARTIN DIE in a gay-bashing attempt?

UPDATE: Zimmerman Was a Democrat, Voted For Obama, Tutored Black Kids (Video). As Paula Deen learned, that’s no protection when the narrative demands a sacrifice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “If Jeantel told prosecutors that she had discussed with Trayvon Martin the notion that George Zimmerman might be a homosexual predator—which might have indicated that it was Martin who was doing the ‘profiling’—would that have been a Brady violation to have not disclosed it to the defense? It seems awfully convenient that reports of homosexual stereotyping are coming to light only now . . . ” I’m pretty sure it would have been.

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