You were all very helpful with my wifi vs. 4G question last week. So now that I have this thing–any guidance on cases? Are the Apple Smart Covers good? Anyone have a case with a built-in keyboard they like?

Maybe most importantly, anyone with kids have a case they think is particularly sturdy in terms of drops?

I’ve got a little post over at the Standard about Talking Points Memo catching Obama making a hash of history. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

In mocking the GOP, Obama cited an anecdote about Hayes in which, upon using the telephone for the first time, he said, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?”

“That’s why he’s not on Mount Rushmore,” Obama said. “He’s explaining why we can’t do something instead of why we can do something.”

But Nan Card, curator of manuscripts at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Ohio, told TPM that the nation’s 19th president was being unfairly tagged as a Luddite.

“He really was the opposite,” she said. “He had the first telephone in the White House. He also had the first typewriter in the White House. Thomas Edison came to the White House as well and displayed the phonograph. Photographing people who came to the White House and visited at dinners and receptions was also very important to him.”

While often cited, Card said Obama’s cited quote had never been confirmed by contemporary sources and is likely apocryphal. A contemporary newspaper account of his first experience with telephone in 1877 from the Providence Journal records a smiling Hayes repeatedly responding to the voice on the other line with the phrase, “That is wonderful.”

But it wasn’t until just now that I put my finger on what really bothers me about Obama’s remarks. It’s not that he’s ignorant of history. It’s that he’s denigrating a former president of the United States.

Look back at that snarky passage about Hayes. Have you ever, ever heard a president speak so cavalierly about one of his predecessors? Mind you, Obama isn’t taking issue with policy–he’s not saying that the Monroe doctrine was a foolish idea or that it was evil not to pursue emancipation more vigorously. He’s just pointing and jeering: Hey, look at how stupid that old dude was!

The fact that the basis of Obama’s jeering is incorrect is nearly beside the point. Even after everything else from the last four years, the scope of Obama’s narcissism retains its ability to surprise.

Update: GFAW in the comments with a further observation:

[T]he *most* narcissistic aspect of this wasn’t just the fact that he glibly mocked another president. The worst part really was “That’s why he’s not on Mount Rushmore.” As if not being on Mt. Rushmore proves that a president sucks.

Hey, Barack — James Madison and John Adams called. They wanted to let you know that you’re a prick.

And maybe they will be!

But it does kind of remind me of “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”

Bryan Caplan and Steve Sailer get a little blue-on-blue violence going on the subject of American society, cultural bubbles, the primary duties of the state, the coercive nature of taxation, and libertarianism’s problems with accommodating nationalism.

Galley Sis M.A.L. sends in the following hilarious note about her NCAA picks:

My March Madness bracket from last year was done based on mascots, specifically, which mascot could beat the other mascot in a fight. Sadly, this did not work and I came in close to last–although not dead last–in my pool.

This year I’m doing a slightly different take. It’s still based on mascots, but only cats win (or cat family, e.g. tiger, wildcat). If a cat wasn’t in the match-up, then I picked the bear (or bear family). Because I love bears, obviously.

If neither a cat nor bear was in it, the next decision branch was “animal always beats human.” And in the case of animal vs. animal (or human vs. human) the fiercer one won.

At the end of the day, my Final Four came out as Kentucky, Baylor, Kansas State, and Cincinnati, with Missouri over Cincinnati in the final.

He’s reading the LA Times so that you don’t have to. And he collects all of the gold, for your pleasure.

This strikes me as a missed opportunity for high-level funny.

I’m more divorced from college basketball today than I’ve been since I was 10-years-old, having seen neither a single game nor even a tourney bracket. So my sole contribution is to remind readers of this fantastic Gus Johnson highlight reel. Boom goes the dynamite.