NEWS YOU CAN USE: What Is Everyday Life Like for a Bodybuilder with Huge Muscles?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Gabriella Hoffman: Going To College Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be. “A new study from McKinsey & Company reveals that 45 percent of four-year college graduates now work jobs that don’t require college degrees. The study also revealed that one-third of college students believe their four-year education insufficiently prepared them for lives as adults.”

21ST CENTURY PROSTITUTION: The New Prostitutes. “They were not human-trafficking victims in the classic sense. They stayed close to their families. They all came to New York to take advantage of a growing black market — an underground economy that offered them life-changing money, and with a remarkably low barrier to entry. The real temptation wasn’t drugs or alcohol, but the promise of social mobility.”

If we made it legal, that would also make it safer.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 60.

RADLEY BALKO: Questions For Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. “Is it standard procedure for ABC agents to jump out on college students in the parking lots of stores that sell alcohol? (According to the local paper the Daily Progress, several other students were apprehended the same way.) Is it standard procedure for them to draw their weapons?” Drawing a weapon and pointing it without a reason for self-defense is an assault.

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE: A review of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think.

PROF. JOSEPH CAMPBELL IS NOT AMUSED: Vomit humor and scandal: Inane ‘Drunk History’ TV show promotes Watergate media myth.

HOW THEY DO THINGS IN OUR NATION’S CAPITAL CITY: Metro rips out Phantom Planter’s flowers at Dupont Circle station.

The transit system regularly pleads poverty, yet employees devoted supposedly valuable time to remove more than 1,000 morning glories, cardinal flowers and cypress vines that Docter donated to the city — albeit without permission. The plants would have bloomed from August to October in a patriotic display of red, white and blue.

Instead of greenery today and colors to come, the 176 flower boxes along the top stretch of the escalators at the station’s north entrance now feature dirt, a few straggling stems and the occasional discarded soda can.

“It never occurred to me that Metro would think it was more efficient to rip out the plants than to let someone water them,” Docter said. Metro tore out the foliage without waiting to solicit the neighborhood’s opinion, as it said it had planned to do.

“We want to meet with the community and see what the community would like. We will move forward with their wishes, as long as they are reasonable, sustainable and safe,” Michael McBride, manager of Metro’s Art in Transit Program, said June 21.

No meetings have taken place since then. Local leaders were aghast that Metro ignored their wishes for a compromise to keep the flowers in place.

“They paid people to tear out plants that everyone loves? Well, this is cause for insurrection. Talk about fixing something that’s not broken,” said Robin Diener, a member of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association board of directors.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

EVEN IN AN AGRICULTURAL BREADBASKET, SOCIALISM PRODUCES THE SAME RESULTS: Argentina Applies Law That Jails Hoarders as Bread Price Surges.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on cookbooks.

Also, 25% or more off on Cuisinart Grill Pans.

And, today only: 3M MP225a Mobile Projector with Free Spare Battery, $124.99 (58% off).

WHO’S A JOURNALIST? My New York Post column responds to Sen. Dick Durbin’s contempt for the Internet.

WHICH IS DEADLIER: Chicago? Or Cairo? Well, in Cairo the people are fighting for freedom and political self-direction. In Chicago, they’ve pretty much given up on that.

PETER INGEMI: Pope Drops Bombshell, Media Ignores.

THE HILL: Obama loses altitude, needs solid wins six months into second term. “Obama’s year to date has been marked by a combination of failures, distractions and uncertainties.”

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: House Tea Party Brigade is Washington’s most independent political force.

Among the most prized and frequently claimed — yet least often demonstrated — virtues in establishment Washington is political independence. Politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties routinely insist that they are independent. There are even two senators who call themselves “Independent” but both caucus with Senate Democrats and almost never vote contrary to the wishes of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The truth is there is only one genuinely independent political force in Washington these days, the Tea Party, a fact that is abundantly demonstrated by the future prospects for the recently passed immigration reform bill in the Senate.

Generally, in Washington parlance, “independence” means ignoring what your constituents want in order to do what the media wants.

POLICE OVERREACHING: Video of TN DUI checkpoint goes viral on Youtube. It’s kind of sad to hear legal advice that you should follow police orders even if they violate your rights. But I’m glad to see this kind of video, and I think identifying officers by name is a good choice. Even if they don’t do anything illegal, a bit of social shaming may encourage better behavior.

E. HOWARD HUNT WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Cameras Catch Mystery Break-In at Whistleblower’s Law Firm.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Upholding The Third Amendment.

MORE IRS SCANDAL: Many IRS Seizures Are Illegal, Government Report Concludes.

YEAH, AND THAT’S A PROBLEM: Why “we only spy on foreigners” doesn’t work any more for the NSA. See, Glenn Greenwald is outraged about spying on foreigners too. I’m not. But spying on Americans is qualitatively different because of the much greater likelihood of political abuse.

BUT YOU CAN TRUST THEM WITH YOUR HEALTH RECORDS: NYC cases show crooked cops’ abuse of FBI database.

THE HILL: Five unanswered questions about the NSA’s surveillance programs. I believe that I can answer this question: “Are there other programs that we don’t know about?” Yes.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: I’m worried that will be on my tombstone: “She had a great Twitter feed.” She does, though. Especially if you want to follow events in Turkey.

TRANSPARENCY: White House vetoes public seeing Obama’s thanks to librarians.

White House officials vetoed all public airing of a video of President Obama thanking the American Library Association Sunday for helping inform the public about Obamacare.

“We were specifically told by the White House to only show it [the video] once to conference attendees, and [the] White House said we aren’t able to send it out,” Jazzy Wright, Press Officer for ALA’s Washington, D.C. office, told the Washington Examiner.

The ALA, which is a tax-exempt 501(C)(3) foundation, agreed last weekend during its annual meeting in Chicago to help the president get the word out about Obamacare.

As a result of the partnership between Obama and the group, librarians across the country will be “navigators” handing out White House-approved information about the new government health insurance program.

These things defy parody.