Photo: Flickr/Tony

• Lydia DePillis says Washington, D.C. needs a fiscally-conservative alternative to the lefty D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, the only think tank focused on the city’s local government.
• Are participants in marathons and other event-based fundraisers really donors in the same sense as direct-marketing donors? Tom Belford says no.
• Pork Barrel Barbecue has released a barbecue-scented fragrance. Really.
• It’s not clear why repairing ill-maintained local transit infrastructure ought to be a federal responsibility.
• Last but not least, Conan O’Brien spoke last week at Dartmouth’s commencement:

  

Photo: Flickr/lynx81

• The District of Columbia government has sometimes been commendably lenient in enforcing its arbitrary zoning restrictions. Except sometimes it decides to enforce the regulations for political reasons.
• Mailer Mailer debunks seven common myths about e-mail marketing. They point out, for instance, that sending lots of messages doesn’t necessarily lead to more unsubscribes.
• Reach Mail, meanwhile, offers advice on the best time of day to send marketing e-mails.
• Phew: demand continues strong for workers with MBAs. (Not so much for JDs, though.)
• Last but not least, Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than physical books.

Photo: Flickr/Emily Lewis

• Keith Houston’s Shady Characters offers the secret history of glyphs like the octothorpe (#), the interrobang (‽) and the pilcrow (¶).
• The Washington Wizards have new uniforms. It’s about time.
• Megan McArdle suggests Groupon isn’t really a good deal for businesses, which may explain why deal quality seems to have declined of late.
• How Rand Paul is reshaping the debate in the Senate to promote limited government.
• Last but not least, the Pew Center is the latest group to release a superficial online quiz that tries to group people politically based on 20 questions. How does it categorize you?

More people would rather live here than anywhere “liveable.” Photo: Flickr/Martin Haesemeyer

• Why cities that people actually want to live in aren’t counted as “liveable” cities.
• Progressives are wrong, Burt Folsom explains: early Christians’ social compact was about private charity, not government redistribution.
• A neat infographic shows how long load times can drive website visitors away.
• Do sanctimonious op-eds about why atheists are better help atheists’ public image?
• How the minimum wage increases unemployment.
• Last but not least, Alex Tabarrok reports that the federal government is finally starting to sell off some of its assets. Uncle Sam owns fully 30 percent of the country’s land area.

Photo: Flickr/Kayla Bailey

• Mark Steyn reminds us that “a ‘multicultural’ society needs not sensitivity training but insensitivity training — that’s to say, thicker skins.”
• This infographic reminds us that text fundraising is very, very expensive–and that giving is capped at $10 per gift.
• “Megabus and Coach USA are owned by the British company Stagecoach Group, and they have fundamentally changed the way Americans—especially the young—travel, so much so that they may help kill plans for new railroads.”
• Dependency on government continues apace: 1 in 7 Americans use food stamps.
• Last but not least, The EPA has produced a rap about climate change. Seriously.

Photo: Flickr/clydeorama

• Which Alex Semin will show up in the playoffs? I hope it’s this one.
• Hard work is passe, Hamilton Nolan writes. He suggests Americans not work one minute over eight hours a day. I can’t express how much I disagree.
• Ronald Bailey suggests that even the wisest bureaucrats might not be able to resist the human temptation to overreact to perceived risks.
• Brian Clark argues that concise writing and effective writing may be at odds.
• Is there really a wage gap between men and women?
• Last but not least, the District of Columbia is taking land from private landowners and giving it to a private developer who will use it for politically-approved purposes.

Photo: Flickr/schickr

• Prioritizing tasks can be hard. Trent Hamm offers some advice on how to distinguish the important from the merely urgent.
• Why is your marketing copy not converting? Copyblogger has some ideas.
• “Every piece of the ‘success story’ of the auto bailout,” Todd Zywicki argues, would “seem to be in error.”
• Regulatory capture in reverse: heavily regulated industries are protesting a Florida proposal that would remove licensing requirements for professions like interior design and dance instruction.
• Timeliness and concision are the keys to successful marketing on Facebook, Lauren Drell reports. Equally as important: asking your supporters to engage.
• Last but not least, Readability is an intriguing new online tool to make long-form online text easier to read in the browser. The Chrome extension is pretty nifty, but I haven’t taken the plunge to purchase the full service.

Photo: Flickr/coltera

• Municipalities are contracting out various public services like libraries and parking enforcement to private enterprises, and the Washington Post outlines some of the challenges of this approach. Unfortunately, the Post inaccurately describes this as privatization, which is when government divests itself entirely from a current function. Contracting the function while maintaining ultimate responsibility for its provision is simply outsourcing.
• Stephen Smith points out that when it comes to “privatization” of government parking facilities, “the ‘owners’ are barely even allowed to set their own prices, nevermind decide to use their land for, *gasp* something other than parking.”
• Adam at PlayNice.ly looks into what’s required to establish a merchant account for credit card processing. Smashing Magazine covers the same ground and suggests a few payment processors. Fundraisers should take special note of Adam’s warnings about PayPal, which may impose long-run costs hidden by its easy setup.
• The reliably progressive StreetsBlog argues that it would be a mistake to cut federal funding for bike paths and rail transit, which it argues are cost-effective. But even if a program is cost-effective, does that mean the federal government ought to spend money on it?
• Last but not least, Oregon lawmakers rick-roll the legislature:

  

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Photo: Wikimedia/Gage Skidmore

• Rep. Paul Ryan makes the case for his 2012 budget. My colleagues at Heritage give it two cheers, and Ross Douthat calls it the “triumph of policy” over politics.
• E.J. Dionne warns that Ryan’s budget would mark the end of progressive government, which is actually a good thing.
• A new report released by the New Organizing Institute both offers insights into e-mail advocacy and explains why careful testing is important.
• Megan McArdle explains that the complexity of accounting practices means  it’s perhaps futile to try to design a corporate tax without “loopholes” of any sort. “A corporate income tax,” she writes, “needs to start by calculating income, and as anyone who has ever looked at a corporate financial statement knows, that’s really complicated.”
• Mark Hemingway points out the facts about who has received campaign donations post–Citizens United. We shouldn’t forget, though, that principle is a better way to make policy than a cui bono analysis.
• Last but not least, Trent Hamm makes the case that your leisure time should not be spent idly. Leisure time, he writes, “can provide all the space you need to take on personal goals and get involved in things you might not otherwise enjoy.”