Recommended reading

• Jennifer Rubin criticizes Republican anti-intellectualism while Shikha Dalmia says that intellectuals bear much of the responsibility for the disdain many hold towards them. Just as we shouldn't celebrate stupidity as a virtue, we should also maintain a healthy skepticism towards those armed with impressive credentials and grand designs. Personally, I think that education should not lead towards arrogance and a belief one can run the lives of others, but an awareness of just how complicated the world is and an appreciation of one's own limitations.

• Sending your kid to the wrong public school can get you sent to jail. And while I've tried to imagine what grocery stores would be like if we ran them the same way we run public schools, Fran Tarkenton ponders how the NFL would operate if it adopted the public school model.

• Daniel Indiviglio wonders if Congress is out to kill the debit card while Tim Carney says that Wal-Mart is as much to blame as anyone for the coming spike in banking fees. President Obama and Sen. Dick Durbin have offered some nonsense on the matter, which also brought a rebuke from the president of the American Bankers Association. 

• Peter Suderman offers some tales from the stimulus package. 

• Hey, at least we're not Italy. Although Californians probably shouldn't be too smug.