AT AMAZON, save in Car Care.

Plus, bargains on bestsellers in Beauty and Grooming.

VIDEO: GreenPeace Co-Founder Says ‘The Whole Climate Crisis Is Not Only Fake News, It’s Fake Science.’

DINOSAUR TURDS: On this day in 1784, William Buckland, geologist, Anglican priest, and all-around eccentric, was born. Among his contributions to science is this: He was the first to realize that those funny shaped rocks that fossil hunters like Mary Anning had been uncovering were fossilized dinosaur excrement. He named them “coprolite,” and you can buy yours on Ebay today.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Actress Debra Messing Posts Empowering ‘Vagina’ Cupcakes, Gets Trashed As Transphobic And Issues Apology.

I DON’T THINK WE UNDERSTAND THE CLIMATE WELL ENOUGH TO even consider geoengineering it.

PRIVACY: Former Florida police officer accused of using federal databases to prowl for women.

HMM: More-Educated People More Likely To Follow Mediterranean Diet.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? How to know if you’re flying on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane.

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS I HAVE FORESEEN: White House Might Put Colleges on the Hook for Student Loans: Executive order under consideration would require schools to take financial stake when students don’t repay.

The White House is weighing a measure that would require colleges and universities to take a financial stake in their students’ ability to repay government loans, an effort that could squeeze loan availability to students and reduce defaults.

For several months, Trump administration officials have been discussing enacting such a mechanism or making a push for one in Congress as part of a broader effort to combat rising college costs.

In the administration’s budget proposal released Monday, officials made brief mention of a “request to create an educational finance system that requires postsecondary institutions that accept taxpayer funds to have skin in the game through a student loan risk-sharing program.”

Such a proposal could be included in a coming executive order addressing higher education, several officials said.

You heard it here first. Though remember this? Senate Democrats push for colleges to have “skin in the game” on student loan defaults. “In a call with reporters, Senators Richard Durbin of Illlinois, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts highlighted a package of new and existing proposals aimed at reducing the burden of student debt. Durbin acknowledged that the senators had had ‘limited success’ in getting Republican support for the measures, but said they will be a centerpiece of the Democratic agenda in the Senate in 2014. One of the more controversial new proposals, to be introduced by Reed, would require colleges with high student loan default rates to pay a penalty to the government that is proportional to the defaulted debt.”

So Trump can honestly say this is an idea with bipartisan support.

Flashback: “Up until now, the loan guarantees have meant that colleges, like the writers of subprime mortgages a few years ago, got their money up front, with any problems in payment falling on someone else. Make defaults expensive to colleges, and they’ll become much more careful about how much they lend and what kinds of programs they offer.”

THE TRAGEDY OF BALTIMORE: Since Freddie Gray’s death in 2015, violent crime has spiked to levels unseen for a quarter century. Inside the crackup of an American city.

Baltimore’s last Republican mayor left office before the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper. As Rich Lowry noted in 2015, “Baltimore’s decline is all Democrats’ work.”

SO THAT HAPPENED: Alyssa Milano Apologizes for Claiming to Be a Trans Gay Disabled Immigrant Lesbian of Color. “If Milano has felt the Boot of Oppression at any time in the last 20 years, it was probably Gucci and she was probably wearing it.”

SLS SHOULD BE CANCELED, AND THE MONEY SENT TO SPACE PROJECTS THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY FLY: NASA 2020 Budget Proposal Targets SLS Megarocket.

ENDGAME: US withdrawing last of its embassy personnel from Venezuela.

THAT’S NICE, BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT IS AN ECM SUITE FOR MY BUGATTI: F-16 Fighter Jet Sets off Police Radar. Also, a Bugatti.

DIGITAL HORSE, VIRTUAL BARN DOOR: Could social media become weaponized?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, WTF? EDITION: Actresses Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin indicted in case alleging bribery to get kids into colleges.

According to the documents, a total of 50 people were charged, including the actresses, chief executives, college coaches and other prominent people, in the nationwide college admissions cheating scam.

Prosecutors say parents paid an admissions consultant $25 million from 2011 through Feb. 2019 to bribe coaches and administrators to label their children as recruited athletes to boost their chances of getting into schools.

Prosecutors allege that fake athletic profiles were also made to make students look like strong high school athletes when they actually weren’t.

Authorities say the consulting company also bribed administrators of college entrance exams to allow a Florida man to take the tests on behalf of students or replace their answers with his.

What this tells you is how (overly) important a college degree is in our society.

PLEASE CLAP: FEC fines Jeb Bush super PAC over foreign donation.

The Federal Election Commission on Monday doled out $940,000 in fines to the super PAC that backed Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential bid and a Chinese-owned corporation that made illegal donations to it.

The unusually large FEC fines came after the commission found evidence Bush’s super PAC took money from a foreign national, which is prohibited under federal election law. The super PAC, Right to Rise, was fined $390,000 for the violation, while the FEC gave an additional $550,000 fine to American Pacific International Capital, Inc. The company had donated $1.3 million to Bush’s super PAC in the spring of 2015, as Bush was gearing up for a run for president.

And:

The FEC did not find that the donations were “knowing and willful” violations of the law, according to new documents released on Monday.

The donation came after Jeb Bush’s brother Neil, who sits on the board of APIC, discussed a contribution in February 2015 with Gordon Tang, another APIC board member who is a Chinese national.

Yes, that Neil Bush.

ANALYSIS TRUE: Before Ilhan Omar, Barack Obama Mainstreamed Anti-Semitism In The Democratic Party.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Build a Mind-Reading Machine.

ROGER SIMON: Trump’s Most Daunting Task: Educating on Socialism.

Those of us who believe in the market, even with the usual reservations, should be preparing for battle.  We have in our corner that some Democrats (Omar, AOC, etc.) are heading off a cliff.  That’s to the good, but complacency is our enemy.  As the left would say, the struggle continues (la lucha continua) .  Let’s turn it back on them.

Read the whole thing.

JOHN HAWKINS: The 5 Big Problems with Andrew Yang’s $1000-a-Month Universal Basic Income Proposal.

HEH: ‘Everything Is Bad And The World Is Ending And You Shouldn’t Have Kids,’ Says Party Of Progress.

BRUCE BAWER: So What if the Clinton Foundation Fleeced Norway? Bring on the Chardonnay! “Norway’s leaders gave $100 million of taxpayer cash to those charlatans.”

JAMES BOVARD: Ethiopia crash of Boeing 737 Max might be latest example of backfiring safety efforts. “Investigators have only begun sorting out this tragedy but some experts suggest that the plane’s automated safety software may have prevented the pilot from preventing the fatal plunge. If software and sensors designed to prevent crashes actually increased the risk of catastrophe, then the Boeing accidents are another reminder that safety policies can have unintended fatal consequences.”