THEY’RE ALL FULL OF HOT AIR ALREADY:  The chair of the House Administration Committee, Candice Miller (R-MI) is considering the use of blimps to monitor the airspace around Capitol Hill.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: This is Why High School Sucks for so Many Kids: 16 Yr Old Photog Threatened by Admin for Selling Pics.

I ASSUME SO:  Could hackers bring down an airplane?

The officials from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) were not at all happy about what they were hearing. An unshaven 32-year-old from Spain, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, was talking about cockpit computers and their weaknesses and security loopholes. Specifically, he was telling the EASA officials how he had managed to buy original parts from aviation suppliers on Ebay for just a few hundred dollars. His goal was to simulate the data exchange between current passenger-jet models and air-traffic controllers on the ground in order to search for possible backdoors. His search was successful. Very successful.

The salient question is:  What are airlines doing to reduce this vulnerability?

GOOD: Mobile Call Quality Gets a Long-Overdue Upgrade: Wireless companies and a few ambitious startups are racing to make your cell-phone calls better.

Why, exactly, do cell-phone calls often sound crappy? Jerry Gibson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies wireless networks, says that at the network level there are a number of reasons. You simply might not have good signal reception, and even if you do, the base station closest to you is probably considering all kinds of factors—the load on the cell site, the time of day, and network use projections—in order to decide how to allocate bandwidth for your call.

To improve sound quality, wireless carriers have been upgrading their networks to support technologies often referred to as HD voice or wideband audio. While old telephone and cell-phone networks cut out some of the high and low frequencies in voice calls, wideband audio includes a wider range of frequencies to make calls sound better, letting you hear more high and low tones. In the United States, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile use VoLTE, or voice over LTE, to send audio atop their fast LTE networks. Sprint currently offers advanced voice service over its 3G network, though Ron Marquardt, Sprint’s vice president of technology innovation and architecture, says a move to VoLTE is inevitable.

Faster, please.

THE DEBLASIO EFFECT: You’re 45 percent more likely to be murdered in deBlasio’s Manhattan.

“City Hall better wake up soon,” a police source said. “When murders and shootings go up in Manhattan, everyone is affected,’’ he said, pointing out that crime impacts business, tourism and the city’s economy as a whole.

He said there are a variety of reasons, from the plummeting number of “stop-and-frisks’’ to the fact that the city needs more officers. “The cops’ hands are tied,’’ he said.

It’s regressing back to the Ed Koch/David Dinkins days.

SPYING: Obtained Emails Show FBI’s General Counsel Briefly Concerned About Privacy Implications Of License Plate Readers.

TALK TALK: Here’s how badly we’re getting ripped off by our mobile phone providers.

AUSTIN BAY: Counter ISIL’s Truck Bombs with Real Close Air Support.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 8 Essential Tips To Keep Your Phone’s Battery Healthy.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: While D.C. Downplays Risk, U.S. Sees Shocking Rise in Terror Arrests This Year: It’s only May, but 2015 has seen 40 U.S. individuals arrested for terror charges, nearly double the combined total for 2013 and 2014.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Angry Faculty Savage New York University. “A real estate development/management business with a predatory higher-education side venture.”

Ouch.

MICHELLE OBAMA TO GRADUATES:  At Oberlin College’s commencement, she advises graduates to “shape the revolutions of your times.” She also told them:

Here at Oberlin, most of the time you’re probably surrounded by folks who share your beliefs. But out in the real world, there are plenty of people who think very differently than you do, and they hold their opinions just as passionately. So if you want to change their minds, if you want to work with them to move this country forward, you can’t just shut them out. You have to persuade them, and you have to compromise with them.

Mrs. Obama’s disconcerting reference to “revolutions” aside, the sentiment she articulates of surrounding oneself with those who think differently is laudable, as is “compromis[ing] with them.”  But notice that her focus is on “chang[ing] their minds” and “persuad[ing] them” so that you can “work with them to move this country forward.”  The problem she and her husband have had over the last 6+ years is that they don’t seem to grasp the value of actual compromise— as in, you win some, you lose some.  Their idea of “compromise” is persuading, cajoling or pressuring others to change their minds.  Newsflash: that isn’t compromise.

FIRST THAT BOGUS GAY-MARRIAGE STUDY, now this Alice Goffman beat-down by Steven Lubet, in which he both suggests that her research is fraudulent and notes that she — seemingly without realizing it — admits to committing a felony in the course of conducting it.

I do not know if Goffman’s editors and dissertation committee held her to a journalist’s standard of fact checking. There is no footnote for the hospital incident in On the Run, and her dissertation is not available from the Princeton library. Alas, it is now too late to obtain any additional documentation, because Goffman shredded all of her field notes and disposed of her hard drive.

Who does she think she is? Hillary? But the felony part is worse — it’s conspiracy to commit murder.

A few days after the funeral, “the hunt was on to find the man who had killed Chuck,” whom the 6th Street Boys believed they could identify. Guns in hand, they drove around the city, looking for revenge. This time, Goffman did not merely take notes – on several nights, she volunteered to do the driving. . . .

Taking Goffman’s narrative at face value, one would have to conclude that her actions – driving around with an armed man, looking for somebody to kill – constituted conspiracy to commit murder under Pennsylvania law. In the language of the applicable statute, she agreed to aid another person “in the planning or commission” of a crime – in this case, murder. As with other “inchoate” crimes, the offense of conspiracy is completed simply by the agreement itself and the subsequent commission of a single “overt act” in furtherance of the crime, such as voluntarily driving the getaway car.

I sent the relevant paragraphs from On the Run to four current or former prosecutors with experience in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Their unanimous opinion was that Goffman had committed a felony. A former prosecutor from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was typical of the group. “She’s flat out confessed to conspiring to commit murder and could be charged and convicted based on this account right now,” he said.

This seems a rather serious professional breach. Related: “The professor and the thug, entirely different lives, separated by the thinnest of margins.”

It’s a bad week for social science.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 748.

WHITER THAN A VOX EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING. WHITER THAN A NATION FUNDRAISING CRUISE. WHITER THAN AN MSNBC ANCHORS’ MEETING. WHITER THAN A HOWARD DEAN MEETUP. Analysis: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Events Are Nearly All-White…

ASHE SCHOW: Colleges between a rock and a hard place on campus sexual assault.

College campuses have it rough these days. It’s easy to blame them for the current state of lawsuits stemming from sexual assault complaints, but a lot of the blame should be placed on the federal government.

It was the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that published the “Dear Colleague” letter that has been used by colleges to institute pseudo-court systems designed to make it easy to expel accused students. For their part, the colleges aren’t exactly happy about this new world.

“A university is not a court of law and the same rules that apply in criminal cases do not apply to student conduct proceedings,” said a spokesman for James Madison University. “No matter how the proceedings are handled, at least one of the parties will likely be unhappy with the results and may choose to go to federal court.” . . .

The universities are being forced into this untenable position. Nancy Gertner, a feminist and former federal judge, summed up the current culture surrounding campus sexual assault thusly: “If you find for the man, you’re bound to be criticized. If you find for the woman, you are not.”

Josh Engel, an attorney in Ohio who has been taking on cases from accused students, described this sentiment last year.

“All the incentives for the school are lined up at the moment to encourage them to throw kids out. Schools do not get any credit from the Department of Education because they provide adequate or more-than-adequate due process,” Engel told the Washington Examiner. “All the Department seems to be concerned about these days is results, which is, ‘how many kids have you disciplined?'”

And as far as the Department of Education goes, what is considered acceptable behavior and what constitutes a university response are constantly changing.

What’s sad is the unwillingness of universities to file suit and oppose the Department of Education here. The higher education establishment has made clear that it cares more about money than about fairness.

WALKER SUGGESTS HE’LL SKIP FLORIDA GOP PRIMARY:   “If we chose to get in, I don’t think there’s a state out there we wouldn’t play in, other than maybe Florida, where Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, in some of the polls, are essentially tied,” Walker told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.  It is an incredibly expensive State, but sitting out a race entirely seems wimpy to me.

YOU SPELLED “COURT JESTER” WRONG: Why Joe Biden Is (Almost) King Of The Internet.

I THINK IT’S A SMART GOP MOVE:  A half-dozen GOP Senators have signed onto a bill sponsored by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) that would require drug companies that sell contraceptives to file an OTC (over-the-counter) request with the FDA.  It’s a smart move to battle the inane #waronwomen accusation incessantly hurled at the GOP.  But guess who opposes this move?

The Colorado Republican’s push to make birth control available over-the-counter is not winning him more allies among women’s reproductive health groups, however.

Groups like Planned Parenthood have opposed the idea, which they argue could drive up contraception prices.

The group has pointed to ObamaCare’s contraception mandate — requiring insurance plans to cover all FDA-approved forms of birth control — and said that insurers may no longer cover the medication if it’s not prescribed by a doctor.

So let me get this straight: A coalition of GOP Senators is trying to make contraceptives more readily available to women by making them OTC, but liberal/progressive groups like Planned Parenthood oppose the idea, simply because women might actually have to pay for their contraceptives rather than get them free?  Besides, I’m not convinced that merely making contraceptives OTC would alter Obamacare’s mandate that they be provided for free.  Seems to me Planned Parenthood’s opposition is purely ideological: They can’t stand the idea that their #waronwomen narrative against Republicans could be proven patently false. Plus, far fewer women (especially young women) will need to go to Planned Parenthood if they can just go to the local drugstore and obtain contraceptives.  That would leave Planned Parenthood mostly in the business of STD testing, pregnancy testing and abortions.

KIRSTEN POWERS: Stop Dropping The “Bigot Bomb.”

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on bestselling products, updated every hour.

Also, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Featured Digital Deal. The deals are brand new every day, so browse and save!

THE ANSWER IS THAT COLLEGE ISN’T FOR EVERYONE:  A part-time English instructor at the University of Nevada, Brittany Bronson, has an oped in the New York Times lamenting the problem of “underemployment” of her students (and herself).

Much ink has been spilled over how choosing the right major is crucial to avoiding underemployment. Talk to sociology majors graduating this month; I doubt they’re expecting to go straight into high-paying jobs. And it’s no secret that graduates of elite universities, whether they studied astrophysics or English, have better career trajectories than those from lower-tier schools.

But when it comes to students like mine, pursuing a humanities degree or maxing out student loans for the best available education are not options. They don’t always have the luxury to prioritize the intellectual experiences offered on a college campus over the monetary ones that demand their attention away from it. Their choices are shaped by immediate economic concerns more than their hoped-for, dreamed-of careers. . . .

For today’s college graduates, the path to underemployment begins early, and those with certain levels of financial privilege will have an easier time avoiding it. Despite my students’ practical choices of less expensive educational paths, they are still some of the most likely to struggle. As you learn quickly here in Vegas, the game isn’t rigged, but the odds don’t work in your favor.

Yeah, life sucks sometimes.  Wealthy kids have more options than poor kids.  And it’s hard to get a job, particularly in a crappy economy, when your major is art history.  But does Ms. Bronson ever consider that either she or her students would have been better served by going to a trade school for high-demand, relatively high paying jobs such as plumber, electrician or carpenter? Apparently not.  College isn’t for everyone, and most of today’s college students–and society as a whole–would be better served if they stopped pretending to be interested in college and pursued a needed trade.

ELIZABETH WARREN’S HOUSE-FLIPPING PAST: Before the crash that she blamed on speculators, Senator Elizabeth Warren made a bundle by flipping houses. Senator Hypocrisy.

ANNALS OF OUR RULING CLASS: The Great 2014 Cashout: Landrieu lands at oil-rich lobbying firm.

Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu was a centrist Democratic senator, and so of course she is now working at a lobbying firm. She was also very friendly to the oil industry, and so it’s unsurprising she cashed out to Van Ness Feldman, a firm heavy in the oil and gas industry. . . .

Like Dicks, Landrieu was an appropriator. Landrieu was also chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Van Ness Feldman’s client list includes energy companies American Electric Power, Warren Buffett’s Pacificorp, Danaher, the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and utility Puget Equico, among others. . . .

Through the revolving door, Landrieu follows her classmates Saxby Chambliss (DLA Piper), Mark Pryor (Venable), Carl Levin (Hongman) and Mark Begich (Brownstein Hyatt). Did I miss anyone?

More arguments for my revolving door surtax. This would be a good campaign issue for an enterprising Presidential candidate.