ASTRONOMY: Who knew a monstrous Saturnian hurricane could look so lovely?

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Students Question Whether Canceling Classes Helps Address Social Justice Issues. No, it doesn’t. Next question?

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NOT EUROPE! THINGS LIKE THAT NEVER HAPPEN THERE! Nigel Farage On “Wholesale, Violent Revolution” In Europe.

MASSACHUSETTS: Markey, Gomez declared Senate primary winners. “GOP businessman Gabriel Gomez and Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey have been declared the nominees in the special Senate election battle. Markey beat his Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, by double digits, according to multiple reports. Gomez, a political newcomer and ex-Navy SEAL, beat former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and state Rep. Dan Winslow, who trailed badly in third place.”

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND COLLEGE RAPE STATISTICS: Brown Spectator author rips apart inflated campus rape stats. “’One in four’ chant should be abandoned and replaced with the more appropriate, albeit less catchy, 1 in 400.″

LIFE IN OBAMA’S POST-RACIAL AMERICA: Black Politician Says Asian Sculptor Racially Unsuitable To Do Civil Rights Sculpture.

AT AMAZON, spring markdowns in Tools & Home Improvement. From paint to power tools to ceiling fans.

LOW-INFORMATION VOTERS: ObamaCare Poll Finds 42% Of Americans Don’t Know It’s The Law.

Which explains why this is a good idea: GOP Finally Engages Mommy-Blogs. Only a decade after they became big, but. . . .

TIME CRYSTALS: Wasn’t there a Golden Age science-fiction story by that title?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Duke Faculty Say No. “Duke University faculty members, frustrated with their administration and skeptical of the degrees to be awarded, have forced the institution to back out of a deal with nine other universities and 2U to create a pool of for-credit online classes for undergraduates. . . . Pfau said the effort would have represented an ‘intensification of the view that all courses are commodities’ and worried the Semester Online effort would stifle hiring by allowing universities to send students to online for-credit classes offered by other universities rather than hiring faculty to teach those subjects on their own campuses. Pfau argued courses are ‘zero sum game’ and if a student can take a class from elsewhere it won’t be offered at Duke.”

BEWARE THE REACTIONARY REPUBLICANS.

ARE YOU KIDDING? I MEAN, WHO DOESN’T? Have you ever wanted to see a Hollywood biopic about the budding romance between young Bill & Hillary?

WHAT COULD GO WRONG: Pentagon Paying China — Yes, China — To Carry Data. “The Pentagon is so starved for bandwidth that it’s paying a Chinese satellite firm to help it communicate and share data. U.S. troops operating on the African continent are now using the recently-launched Apstar-7 satellite to keep in touch and share information. And the $10 million, one-year deal lease — publicly unveiled late last week during an ordinarily-sleepy Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing — has put American politicians and policy-makers in bit of a bind. Over the last several years, the U.S. government has publicly and loudly expressed its concern that too much sensitive American data passes through Chinese electronics — and that those electronics could be sieves for Beijing’s intelligence services. But the Pentagon says it has no other choice than to use the Chinese satellite. The need for bandwidth is that great, and no other satellite firm provides the continent-wide coverage that the military requires.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Explaining superparamagnetism.

ANOTHER self-publishing success story.

AN ONLINE VIDEO CHAT AT 7 PM TONIGHT (EASTERN): Edward Jay Epstein on Annals of Unsolved Crime-The Amanda Knox Ordeal.

BILL HENDERSON: Is Law School Reform Going to Come Top Down or Bottom Up?

HANS VAN SPAKOVSKY: Justice Department Failure: Suit Filed Over DOJ Refusal to Clean Up Voter Rolls. “Two Mississippi counties have more eligible voters than residents.”

HOW TO TELL WHEN IT’S TIME TO REPLACE YOUR TIRES.

When I was younger, poorer, and stupider, I drove on crap tires. In college I once put a set of two-ply, polyester, bias (non-radial), Israeli-made recaps on my Beetle, because they were less than ten dollars apiece. I’m not sure I could have bought worse tires if I’d tried. The next set I got were bottom-rung radials from One Price Tires, but the difference was so amazing it was like having a new car. Now I don’t scrimp. Especially with safety-related stuff, I follow more of an aircraft-style replace-before-failure policy where car repairs are concerned. Of course, I’m also not a broke student any more.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Are You His Girl? Or His Call Girl?

ROGER L. SIMON: Will the Koch Brothers Save Los Angeles?

So media liberals are having a hissy fit and circling their wagons. One of their prizes may be destroyed or, worse, converted (actually, the paper’s been in miserable shape for years).

They are asserting that the Kochs and blue, blue Los Angeles are a terrible fit and that such a purchase would be a disaster for all concerned — the paper, the city, and even the Kochs (for whom USA Today sheds crocodile tears).

But is this true?

Despite media attempts to portray them as conservative barbarians, the Kochs, like Los Angeles, are socially liberal. David Koch, who ran for vice president in 1980 as a Libertarian (not a Republican), quite publicly announced he is pro-gay marriage. This issue is the litmus test for Westside Los Angeles nowadays, bar none. (No wonder the media glosses over the Kochs’ views on this.)

What may no longer be a litmus test for Los Angeles is New Deal/Great Society-style economics. Even some of the more devout liberal true believers are beginning to face reality. Keynesianism isn’t working — from Athens to L.A.

Los Angeles, when I arrived back in the early 1970s, was one of the most powerful cities in the world, the media and lifestyle capital for the planet. It is now the shell of its former self, its pothole-filled streets and cracked sidewalks lined with empty storefronts, its freeways crowded and outdated.

No one knows how many are really unemployed and I don’t think anyone wants to know. The statistic would be too stark, as are the statistics for unfunded pensions, etc., which leave Los Angeles and California teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

Something has to change and you would think that would be fertile ground for the free market-oriented Koch brothers.

A good newspaper could do a lot for Los Angeles. As a longtime Angeleno, and no slouch in the media department himself, Roger knows.

DAN MITCHELL: Even Libertarians Have Fantasies.

CHE GUEVARA, LOSER: If the CIA had done a better job publicizing this photo of Che Guevera, a lot of student dorm rooms would look less morally idiotic.

SO IS DAMAGE DONE IN THE COURSE OF A LAWFUL SEARCH A TAKING? SEEMS LIKE IT HAS TO BE COMPENSABLE. This, however, seems excessive:

McCoy contended that Curtis couldn’t return home after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin.

“To be specific, Mr. Curtis’ home is uninhabitable. I have seen a lot of post search residences but this one is quite disturbing. The agents removed art from the walls, broke the frames and tore the artwork. Mr. Curtis offered his keys but agents chose to break the lock. Mr. Curtis’ garbage was scheduled to be picked up Thursday, the day after he was snatched from his life. A week later, the garbage remains in his home, along with millions of insects it attracted,” the letter says.

Curtis was once charged in the mailing of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge, but the charges were later dropped. The investigation shifted last week to another man who had a falling out with Curtis, and that suspect appeared in court Monday on a charge of making ricin.

There should also be punitive damages here. Law enforcement officials often do extra damage during a search to “send a message.” The message here is, we went off half-cocked and made fools of ourselves. Someone should pay.