Morning Constitutional – Monday, 15 March 2010

Good morning, everybody. Alice is still number one, Jennifer and Jamie broke up, and Jack might be heading over to NBC. Now, enjoy your morning constitutional:

Kansas, Kentucky, Duke and Syracuse take number one seeds in NCAA men\’s basketball tournament. One of us is officially cheering for a 16-1 upset of UVM over Syracuse.

In an op-ed to the Times, Michael Gorbachev defends perestroika and ponders Russia\’s future.

San Francisco is experimenting with augmented reality with their BART mass transit system. For instance, hold up your iPhone to a BART station and see when the next trains are coming.

FiveThirtyEight has an impressive analysis of swing voters in the upcoming UK election.

Panic after a television station in Georgia broadcasts a mock newscast on Saturday night with a fake report on Russia invading the country.

Duck of Minerva has a really interesting round-up of local Afghan media perceptions of Operation Moshtarak.

In Texas, militant evangelical group Repent Amarillo celebrates a victory in forcing a local swinger\’s club owners to put their building up for sale.

Ezra Klein on Sens. Wyden and Gregg\’s effort to reform the tax code.

\”Barring something unexpected, the bailout will end up costing taxpayers less than the savings-and-loan implosion of the early nineteen-nineties. The government could conceivably end up making money.\” Although Geithner\’s financial rescue plan is working, success comes with a political price.

Is the U.S. getting frustrated over structural issues and misaligned incentives within the NATO alliance?

The Globe has a piece on Senate chief parliamentarian Alan Frumin. Interestingly enough, he got the job when his predecessor, Bob Dove, was fired when GOP leaders grew frustrated with some of his decisions involving—you guessed it—reconciliation.

Live-blogging the end of civilization: Texas Board of Education actually removing Jefferson from history standards just the beginning. More from the Times.

Finally, a haiku.