WILLIAM JACOBSON: “There is something strange about the Obama administration’s diplomacy. We speak softly to our enemies, but use a big stick against our friends.”

MEGAN MCARDLE ON UNIONS AND OLIGOPOLY: “I think it’s great that people who maybe weren’t cut out for college had a decent way of earning a good living, getting ahead a little. I think it’s really sad that era is over, especially for people who were encouraged to bet their whole futures on a deeply troubled industry. It’s just that I’m also aware that the reason people could have well-appointed jobs-for-life was an oligopolistic cartel which was able to cut rich side deals in order to buy labor and political peace. The culmination of this was the hideous junk of the 1970s, which is the kind of place that oligopolistic cartels tend to end up. But that doesn’t make all this any less tragic for the workers.”

YESTERDAY I ASKED IF THERE IS A BLOG ON UNNECESSARY APOSTROPHES: And many readers sent links to The Apostrophe Abuse Blog! Thank goodness. Unnecessary apostrophe’s are among the most pressing problem’s that American’s face.

Ugh, it hurts just to type that, even in jest. . . .

KATHERINE MANGU-WARD: The Southern Lifestyle Will Rise Again. I’ve liked Garden & Gun since it first came out. I’d still like to see more “gun” though.

DEBT AND TAXES: The CBO’s Dire Predictions.

ANOTHER ROUNDUP OF IRANIAN REVOLUTION NEWS at the Berman Post.

CQ POLITICS: Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” Bill Gaining Steam.

He may have faded from the national political scene a year ago, after his dark-horse presidential run came to naught, but Rep. Ron Paul ’s influence is still being felt in campaigns and policy debates across the country. Indeed, the latest legislative priority of the libertarian Texas Republican — auditing the Federal Reserve — has gained support in unlikely quarters.

Paul’s legislation, popularly known as the “Audit the Fed” bill, has drawn 244 cosponsors, ranging from Ohio’s John A. Boehner , the conservative Republican floor leader, to Michigan’s John Conyers Jr. , the liberal Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Some Democrats have even picked up on Paul’s rhetoric. “It’s time to yank the shroud off the Fed and shine some light on these events,” New York Democrat Edolphus Towns , chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at a hearing last week about the shotgun marriage between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch last fall to stave off the latter’s collapse.

Paul’s efforts have only gained in political significance since the Obama administration unveiled its proposal to give the Fed new powers over the financial regulatory system.

The sentiment was certainly showing at Monday’s Nashville Tea Party protest.

TIME FOR a 28th Amendment? We need something. I favor the somewhat-related Truth-in-Legislation Amendment.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Video: Energy Czar hasn’t read cap & tax, either. I think only the lobbyists have. . . .

WELL, DUH: “Beer Rules.”

HAR DE HAR HAR: Video: Press corps now openly laughing at Obama’s backtracking on taxes.

A 13-YEAR OLD SWAPS HIS IPOD FOR A FIRST-GEN WALKMAN: “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.” Heh.

IS IT RIGHT TO CENSOR WIKIPEDIA TO PROTECT A REPORTER? Is it right to censor reporters to protect others?

WHEN WAXING ELOQUENT ABOUT CHURCHILL, don’t get too carried away. And remember that when you support entering into a war, you inevitably are supporting something in which a lot of ugly things will happen, and it’s no fair pretending otherwise after the fact.

REPORTING FROM THE cap-and-trade Tea Party protest at Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) office.

REP. JARED POLIS ON the Administration and the DOMA brief.

OUCH: Scripps columnist: MSM eating out of Obama’s hand. I don’t think that the press is “off balance and frustrated,” though. I think it’s compliant and complicit.

ANDREW BREITBART: The Rise and Fall of Perez Hilton.

MICHAEL KINSLEY ON RATIONING: “Here is a handy-dandy way to determine whether the failure to order some exam or treatment constitutes rationing: If the patient were the president, would he get it? If he’d get it and you wouldn’t, it’s rationing.”

NEW HAVEN FIREFIGHTERS, EMILY BAZELON, and social privilege.

“TRAITORS:” I remember when calling people treasonous was wrong.

A BUNCH OF STEEP MARKDOWNS ON HEADPHONES. As I’ve mentioned here before, I like the Sennheiser PX-100s a lot. The Insta-Daughter likes ’em too — in fact, she appropriated my pair and I had to order some more.

LIVEBLOGGING the Nashville Tea Party. “Guest veteran gets huge cheers from the crowd, ‘I was offended by being called a racist redneck teabagger,’ says our veteran, who is an African-American female.”

UPDATE: More from Nashville’s Channel 5: Thousands Protest Obama Policies In Nashville.

Four thousand local protestors took over Legislative Plaza Monday to protest a new energy initiative by President Obama. The “tea party” protest also took aim at universal health care.

The event marked the third time this year protestors have held similar rallies in Nashville.

“More than half of Americans feel the way I do,” said protestor Karen Entz. “That should be represented on the national news, and it’s not.”

Protestors said they felt like their conservative voice has not been heard. They want that to change.

Yes, it’s a much higher crowd estimate than the Tennessean blog above. The Tennessee Tea Party site claims 2,500. Perhaps the folks at the Tennessean accidentally omitted a zero? . . .

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LAWYERS LOOK AT problems dealing with the economic downturn. Meanwhile, The Blogging Prof notes some misplaced priorities.

MADOFF: Where’s the money? “So far, prosecutors have come up with very little about this case. And under the tutelage of the clever lawyer Ike Sorkin, Madoff has given almost nothing up. No singing in jail. (Maybe he should have been waterboarded.) We don’t know if his wife or two sons were part of the scam. Nor do we know where most of the money — estimated up to $65 billion — has gone. . . . The thing about a Ponzi scheme is others besides Ponzi can get rich. And there are names in circulation of people who may also have gotten rich. But where’s the money? When will these people be brought in to testify under oath? The thousands of other smaller investors and charities who were totally ripped off by Madoff could recover a lot more if these big shots are finally hammered.”

UPDATE: More commentary at the White Collar Crime Blog.