2016: Rick Perry Courts New Hampshire Activists.

THE COMMUNISTS WILL FILE THE LAWSUIT THAT WILL BE USED TO HANG THEM, OR SOMETHING. Capitalism fells communism in Marx-Engels copyright flap.

SNOWDEN ERA PERSONAL ELECTRONICS: The Rise of Ultra-Private Smartphones.

CHANGE: SpaceX Sues To Break Satellite Launch Monopoly. “Saving money is only one of Musk’s arguments for choosing his upstart company to launch government sats. Here’s another: ULA Atlas V rockets that launch Air Force and spy agency satellites use Russian RD-180 engines to get into orbit. Musk argues that this fact makes a national security asset vulnerable to the whims of international diplomacy.”

WELL, WE DON’T HAVE DDT ANY MORE. A New Tool To Fight The Tsetse Fly.

HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM: “U.S. Reporters Grill Obama in Asia: Did You Like Your Green-Tea Ice Cream?” Really, you could get this stuff for minimum wage.

ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY ON THE SCHUETTE DECISION: A close call in court for equal protection: The drive for equal outcomes is held in check, for now. “For now” being the key phrase. I think it’s very important for the GOP to take the Senate this year, but I’m not seeing as much seriousness on that front — from either the Tea Party or the establishment — as I’d like.

NFL CHEERLEADERS DON’T DO IT FOR THE MONEY:

But should people be outraged? For that, we still need to know why these women do it.

They are not, after all, being forced. They audition for spots on the team, and the reason that management can get away with being so obnoxious is that for every woman who makes it, many more would love to take her spot. So they must get something out of their performance: status, the joy of dancing in public, esprit de corps.

It seems conceivable to me — indeed, likely — that women who get a spot on the local cheerleading squad enjoy better job prospects and enhanced dating opportunities. Forget whether these women should want to date men who want to date them because they like telling people that their girlfriend is a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. I’m sure cheerleaders like the oohs of appreciation they get when someone drops the name of their squad, just like journalists don’t mind the reaction when they tell folks they work for the Economist or the New York Times. And while you wouldn’t want someone whose only interest in you was your prestige employer, you probably wouldn’t really mind if they considered that a small plus factor.

The team, then, has something these women value. Should we be angry that the team trades it on the best possible terms?

It’s basically the athletic equivalent of an unpaid internship.

They also get access to NFL players, which may have significant value.

RESPECT, AND THE LACK THEREOF: Chuck Hagel’s Russian Counterpart Won’t Return His Calls.

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ED DRISCOLL ON DAVID GREGORY AND NBC: Demon With A Glass Jaw. “It’s awfully rich for NBC to be complaining about news and opinion stories being ‘vindictive, personal and above all – untrue,’ when that’s been the near day-to-day playbook of NBC since, oh, January 20th, 2009, to pick a date at random.”

JAMES TARANTO: Mutually Assured Derision: The State Department makes a hash of diplomacy.

Wait, it gets worse. Some of Foggy Bottom’s tweeters are deadly earnest, making them totally defenseless against post-Soviet sarcasm. On March 26 Jen Psaki, State’s top spokesman, tweeted this: “To echo @BarackObama today-proud to stand #UnitedForUkraine World should stand together with one voice.” In an accompanying photo, a smiling Psaki gave a left-handed thumbs-up while holding up in her right hand a sign with the #UnitedForUkraine hashtag and her Twitter handle, @statedeptspox.

Yesterday, National Review Online’s Patrick Brennan reports, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official Twitter account started including the hashtag in its tweets on the subject. Example: “[Foreign Minister Sergey] #Lavrov: Our US counterparts must compel the acting officials in Kiev to bear responsibility for the current situation #UnitedForUkraine.”

Barack Obama’s political operation frequently sees its Twitter hashtags “hijacked” by conservative antagonists. Remember #WHYouth? But in domestic politics, mutually assured derision is just good clean fun. Partisan politics thrives on antagonism. If the purpose of the domestic hashtags is to motivate Democratic base voters, conservative mockery is a help rather than a hindrance.

At Foggy Bottom, however, they seem utterly clueless as to what the Russians are up to.

And to think we were promised Smart Diplomacy^TM back when Obama was new!

AVRIL LAVIGNE PICKED THE WRONG WEEK TO GO ALL RACIST. And I definitely picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

PETER WOOD: High Art Deserves a High Place in Higher Education.

And here’s a blast from the past. One of the reasons I like the folks at the Cordair Gallery is I see them pushing in this direction.

IRONY: Economist called genius by left backs Proposition 13-style wealth protection.

Piketty’s central thesis is that the world has returned to its pre-World War I norms of extended periods of slow growth that will result in a further stratification of wealth in which the 0.1 percent fare better than everyone else. This is not because of the Occupy theory that the economy is rigged in an evil way to help them. It’s because of Piketty’s theory that during extended periods of slow growth, the mega rich will see their sophisticated investments in capital (stocks and other financial instruments) gain more share of a society’s wealth than everyone else accumulates through their earnings (salaries).

Many economists on the left love this thesis as providing a grand theoretical way to understand how the world has come to be the way it is — a way they don’t like. Paul Krugman leads the way, proclaiming, “This is a book that will change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics.”

It’s gotten respectful reviews from some free-market economists, and some pretty good takedowns, starting with Tyler Cowen’s essay. (Here’s a round-up of links.)

But whether you think it’s hooey or too high-falutin’ or just arcane, if you’re a believer in Proposition 13, Piketty’s emergence gives you fabulous ammo with which to shoot back at the George Skeltons, Peter Schrags and Harold Meyersons — all the lefty pundits who say it is the prime evil force driving California’s downfall. Piketty says states that have property taxes that penalize homowners if their homes increase in value are imposing what amounts to “America’s secret middle-class tax.”

I guess he’d be for indexing of income tax rates, too, then.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: Parent to Obama: Let me tell you about the Common Core test Malia and Sasha don’t have to take but Eva does.

I wonder if the anti-Common Core people will start protesting at Sidwell Friends, St. Albans, and other tony DC-area private schools where politicians’ kids go? Because that’s what lefties would do.

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PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: What Is the Difference Between Harry Reid and Most Other Public Servants? “Well, for starters, most other public servants are not nearly as rich as Harry Reid is. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, but the way in which Reid has acquired his wealth ought to raise more than a few eyebrows.”

WILL HIGHER EDUCATION go the way of travel agents?

BY THE TIME I WENT TO ORDER THIS T-SHIRT, IT WAS SOLD OUT. But I admire the sentiment on the back.

I WANT ONE, EVEN THOUGH MY FIREPLACES ARE GAS. Physics-exploiting axe splits wood in record time. I had a wood-burning fireplace in my first house, and I do miss it sometimes.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: What Law Schools Can Teach Colleges About Lowering Tuition:

And yet overall, college tuition keeps on rising. Which raises the questions: If law schools can reduce their tuition, why can’t other parts of higher education? And do institutions only lower their prices when demand falls?

“I don’t think it’s the case that law schools can do it and colleges can’t,” said Charles Clotfelter, a Duke University economist. “It’s that law schools have done it and colleges have not.” Farish agreed. There is no reason law schools and undergraduate schools alike can’t find ways to save students money, he said. Roger Williams has also frozen tuition for undergraduates, keeping it at $29,976 annually.

“A lot of schools are being, frankly, unimaginative,” Farish said. “It’s abundantly clear that the rising costs of the past 20 years have collided with the economic realities. At the risk of indicting an entire industry, I think we’ve been kind of lazy in our thinking. We always just pass on the costs to students and their families.”

Yes, but colleges will have to change. They’re just a few years behind law schools in all of this.

AND THIS IS APPEALING, WHY? A Web-Connected Sticky Note That Bosses You Around.

ISN’T THIS HOW BOLOS GOT THEIR START? Armed Russian robocops to defend missile bases.