REASON TV: John Mackey’s Conscious Capitalism: The Whole Foods CEO on health care, veganism, and free markets.

This is an excerpt. Full-length interview is here.

CLAYTON CRAMER on the Supreme Court, gun control, and the Fourteenth Amendment.

OUR DOGS WILL GET new cancer drugs before we do. Plus this: “I’d like to see a change in US Food and Drug Administration policy where people with just a few months left to live should be free to try drugs that are currently in stage I trials or even drugs which have only been tried on other animals. If you are going to die then you should be free to try anything. If I had several months left to live due to cancer I’d rather try experimental drugs even if they might kill me sooner. If the result was simply to rule out the further use of an otherwise promising drug as least I’d die for some constructive purpose.”

CAN YOU TELL IF SOMEONE IS DANGEROUS by looking at their face?

INTERESTING: Why Texas Will Resist the Call for a Unified Grid.

MERIT-BASED PAY CUTS for academics? Well, for me to be overpaid is definitionally impossible, but that’s not true for others . . . .

SCIENTISTS MAKE DESKTOP BLACK HOLE.

IN THE MAIL: Richard Epstein on “card check:” The Case Against The Employee Free Choice Act.

STEVE CHAPMAN: Mortgage Madness, Again: The trouble with the Federal Housing Authority’s easy-money policies.

THE BAUCUS BILL: “A Fiscal Fantasyland.”

JENNIFER HENDRICKS: Body and Soul: Equality, Pregnancy, and the Unitary Right to Abortion.

ERIC SCHEIE: Certain Opinions Are Worse Than Torturing Dogs To Death.

MICKEY KAUS HELPFULLY OFFERS a new business plan for The Atlantic.

CONSTANT-DOLLAR DOW: Today’s 10,000 is really 7,537. Or, in another metric: “It cost about 30 ounces to buy the 10,000 Dow last time. Now it costs less than 10.”

UPDATE: A reader sends this Bloomberg screen grab showing Dow over CPI. “In
real terms, we’re near the bottom of the dozen year range.”

THE FIVE FACES of Jerry Brown.

LIMBAUGH FANS STARTING A punt the NFL campaign? “I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season—including the Super Bowl.”

I’ll take that pledge too! [You never watch NFL football anyway. -- ed. Oh, right. Never mind.] I’ll bet there’s a big overlap between Limbaugh fans and NFL fans, though, so it’ll be interesting to see who wins out in a battle for loyalties. . . .

TAXPROF: State And Local Tax Revenues By Source.

RACISM ON CAMPUS:

According to the data, not all races are considered equal in the college admissions game. Of students applying to private colleges in 1997, African-American applicants with SAT scores of 1150 had the same chances of being accepted as white applicants with 1460s and Asian applicants with perfect 1600s.

The results of the study come three years after Jian Li, a rejected Princeton applicant, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. He alleged in the complaint that he had been discriminated against based on his race when he was denied admission to the University.

Read the whole thing.

5’10″ AND 120 LBS is too fat for Ralph Lauren?

Related: Ralph Lauren goes after Web site BoingBoing.net after it mocks heavily Photoshopped ad. I admire BoingBoing’s “up yours, Ralph” response. As a famous man said, punch back twice as hard!

GATEWAY PUNDIT: More Than 85 Days After Public Beating Of Ken Gladney Charges Still Not Filed Against SEIU Thugs …Update: Media Matters Mocks Gladney. Maybe this means there’s nothing to the story. Or maybe it means the fix was in. But this is clearly true: “Could you even imagine if this would have happened to a black Obama supporter? It would have been all over the state-run media.”

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, KID: Enjoy this organic, gluten-free lollipop!

TIM CAVANAUGH ON ELIOT SPITZER ON THE ECONOMY: When Your Neighbor Loses His Job It’s A Recession. When You Screw A Whore Behind Your Wife’s Back, Get Caught, And Lose Your Job, It’s A Catastrophic Economic Meltdown. “Spitzer’s purple and unmanly overdescription of the Great Recession does remind us of what is most loathsome about Spitzer.”

DIALOGUE: Iran Hanged A Man Last Week For Gay Sodomy.

SO DON’T WORRY, YOUR HEALTH RECORDS WILL BE SAFE: Former police association contractor charged with snooping on ‘Joe the Plumber’. “A former contractor for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police has been charged with rummaging through state computers to retrieve confidential information about ‘Joe the Plumber.’ . . . The State Highway Patrol says that Gerke used a law-enforcement computer network on Oct. 16, 2008 to access personal information about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. . . . The Dispatch revealed several questionable checks of state computer systems for confidential information about Wurzelbacher after the presidential debate. Helen Jones-Kelley, then director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, authorized several computer checks on Wurzelbacher that the state inspector general concluded had no legal purpose.”

POLITICO: No Snowementum: Centrist Democrats still not sold on health care.

VIDEO: SOUTH PARK goofs on ACORN.

THOUGHTS ON guarding assets against hyperinflation.

You could write more than one.

UPDATE: Some firsthand advice from a friend who was a year ahead of me at Yale Law:

For the past 3-4 years, I managed a clinical trials project in Zimbabwe and so have had personal experience in doing business in a hyperinflationary economy. I changed USD daily in order to stay ahead of nearly daily price doubling of all commodities, and so hauled around suitcases full of currency. In any case, real estate never lost its value there- I negotiated to buy a headquarters for the project and such dealings were always done in Rand or USD, not in local currency, and in fact, the experience was that real estate actually increased in real value, as cash fled to it as a hard asset. Smart money also went into shares of “Old Mutual” – a publicly traded private insurer that had exceptional cash management skills, and so purchases were often denominated in shares of that company rather than in Zim dollars, since the shares kept pace with inflation. Old Mutual shares’ real value could be measured, because it was traded not just in Harare but in London as well.

Bottom line – minimize cash, maximize real estate and shares in critical product consumer companies.

Well, real estate is cheap right now.

HEALTH CARE TO BANKRUPT STATES? Bredesen warns cost to state could exceed $3 billion.

Gov. Phil Bredesen warned Tuesday that pending federal health care legislation could cost Tennessee far more than the $735 million “best estimate” his administration previously has cited.

The $735 million would stretch over five years, but “in addition, there are huge unknowns for the states in this reform,” Gov. Bredesen said, estimating that those costs, if realized, could exceed another $3 billion from 2014 to 2019. . . . “I’m glad they’re trying to do it without increasing the federal deficit, that certainly is important,” said Gov. Bredesen, a Democrat who has been critical of the plan’s impact on states. “But to turn around and increase the state deficits as the way to handle it that does not seem a very appropriate way to do that.”

Nope. But they’re hoping that no one will notice in time.

8 EXPERTS LOOK AT the future of U.S. spaceflight.

IF YOUR RIGHT TO BUY THIS SORT OF THING DEPENDS ON YOUR POLITICS, then why expect that health care will be any different?

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “This should be all over Fox all day long. It should also be all over the internet. We’ll see if right leaning journalists are smart enough to figure out it is dynamite. Most right leaning journalists are sort of like the Palestinians though, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

CAMILLE PAGLIA ON OBAMA AND THE MEDIA. “The mainstream media’s failure to honestly cover last month’s mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. was a disgrace. The focus on anti-Obama placards (which were no worse than the rabid anti-LBJ, anti-Reagan or anti-Bush placards of leftist protests), combined with the grotesque attempt to equate criticism of Obama with racism, simply illustrated why the old guard TV networks and major urban daily newspapers are slowly dying. Only a simpleton would believe what they say.”

THE DOW’S AT ITS HIGHEST POINT IN A YEAR, but the dollar’s at a 14-month low. If you priced stocks in constant dollars, would they be up?

PAYOLA? “Why did Olympia Snowe vote for Obamacare? One reason could be that Maine has a ‘public option’ insurance plan that is going broke, and state officials are hoping Obamacare can save it.”

I just admire the name “DirigoChoice.”

UGH. Holtz-Eakin: Baucus Bill Would Impose 23% Marginal Tax Rate Increase on Middle Class.

MICKEY KAUS: I knew they’d find a way to punish Ford. “The new UAW contract with Ford apparently does not give America’s surviving non-bankrupt automaker parity with GM and Chrysler, reports Bloomberg. . . . Ford, GM and Chrysler workers used to have more or less equal status within the UAW. Now the union has a reason to give GM and Chrysler an edge wherever possible.”

A SALE ON men’s boots and shoes.

I DON’T SEE A DOWNSIDE TO THIS: GOP senator’s protest grinds Senate to a halt. “At issue is one of Coburn’s top issues — greater transparency in government — as well as his sworn enemy, the powerful Appropriations Committee. Coburn had added to the energy and water bill a provision requiring reports that agencies are required to send to the appropriations panels be made available to other lawmakers and to the public. It’s part of his drive for greater transparency in government.”

MSNBC calls this a “pet idea” of Coburn’s by way of diminishing it. It might more accurately be called “another broken campaign promise” on the part of Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership.

“CANNOT EVEN BE QUESTIONED:” San Jose doctor faces ouster for questioning police and firefighter disability claims.

SO MUCH FOR the post-racial America. Which is, I think, precisely the point. It was a trap, and it worked. . . .

NICK GILLESPIE on Chris Matthews’ Limbaugh-assassination fantasies.

UPDATE: Matthews Withdraws His Bond Villain Death Wish For Limbaugh.

HMM: Antitrust implications of an NFL Limbaugh boycott.

CHANGE: House Dems now represent richest regions.

BARNEY FRANK catches Hell on Castro Street.

TARGETING POLICE for video stings.

RAND SIMBERG: Iranian Nuke Crisis Creates Giant Headache for NASA.

CAR LUST: What’s In A Name?

MICHAEL MOORE GETS tough question from GWU student.

MEDICALLY INCORRECT: Baucus Bill Bull: The Hypocrites In DC Are Trying To Pass a Doozy.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S cunning plan.

WORKING AFTER RETIREMENT BOOSTS HEALTH? That’s good to hear, since it’s looking like most of us will be . . . . .

PJTV — OBAMA ON GAY MARRIAGE: John Aravosis and Daniel Blatt talk with Roger Simon.

DON SURBER: End the War On Scouts.

DOW INDEX BREAKS 10,000. Well above the previous low, well below the previous high. Is it a real recovery, or just a sucker’s rally? Like I would know. . .

FTC TO BLOGGERS: You’ve got us all wrong. “We are not planning on investigating individual bloggers. . . . We’re not interested in playing gotcha in the gray areas.”

UPDATE: FTC charged with being misleading and deceptive.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ann Althouse doesn’t trust the government. At least, not fully after she’s parsed the statement.

MORE: I’m reminded of what Clay Whitehead said about Nixon’s use of the FCC against his critics: “The main value of the Sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it drops.”

Especially since, when it does fall, it’s often revealed as much duller and flimsier than it looked when it was suspended up in the air.

15 ABORTIONS in 17 years.

And I’ve only had the one.

WATCH OUT, KINDLE: First photos of Barnes & Noble’s E-Reader.

THE EMPTY IDEA of authority.

CHANGE: Geithner Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: The Hill: Limbaugh fires back at ‘fool’ Jackson Lee for NFL floor speech. I think this whole NFL thing is a Limbaugh-set trap for the press and Democratic pols, and it’s working . . . .

ENERGY SECRETARY STEVEN CHU: “I would put every cent into electric cars.” Did he really say this?

IS RICK PERRY covering up the execution of an innocent man?

A GLOBAL-WARMING tipping point?

ROBERT REICH UTTERS fundamental heresy.

And no, it’s not even this statement: “It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life ‘so we’re going to let you die’.” That’s just for openers.

EXPECT MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: ” A proposal to increase employee pension benefits at the region’s main water supplier — at a time when water-rate hikes are hitting recession-weary customers — was withdrawn yesterday.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Hezbollah Isn’t A Model For Afghanistan. I’m amazed that anyone would think otherwise . . . .

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO EXERCISE: Exercise can extend survival even in ‘oldest old’. “The three-year survival rate was about three times higher for active 85-year-olds compared with those who were inactive. Getting less than four hours of exercise weekly was considered inactive; more than that was active. . . . Active octogenarians also reported less depression and loneliness and a greater ability to perform daily tasks. Similar benefits have been shown in people in their 60s and 70s, but there has been little research about exercise benefits in people in their 80s.” Of course, maybe people who don’t have the energy to be active are just closer to dying . . . .

MY NEXT LINE OF WORK: Hybrid Cars May Include Fake Vroom for Safety. I’m going to start recording and selling “engine tones,” the way people now sell ringtones. I think I’ll partner with IowaHawk.

MICHAEL YON: Afghan Lunacy.

12 HOTTEST GEEK GIRLS. Geek girls are usually hot, in my experience.

IN THE MAIL: Harry Turtledove’s latest, The Golden Shrine.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY: The Rise And Fall of ObamaMarketing.

REASON TV: Cuban Punk Rocker Gorki Aguila on Music, Life, and Getting Led Zeppelin Records in Cuba. “Gorki Águila is blunt in his assessment of Fidel Castro’s half century of revolution: ‘Communism is a failure. A total failure. Please, leftists of the world-improve your capitalism! Don’t choose communism!’ Águila, a Havana resident, wears homemade anti-government t-shirts, frequently denounces the Castro brothers as geriatric tyrants, and heads up perhaps Cuba’s only explicitly political punk band, Porno Para Ricardo. And because of his stubborn belief in free speech, he is routinely arrested on charges of ‘social dangerousness.’”

Compare to the “rebel” posers here in the States . . . .

Plus, from the comments: “Someone please send it to Michael Moore and all the other Castro apologists.”

“WASHINGTON IS NUTS:

As boom- and bust-prone as high finance always has been and remains, the greatest systemic risk to our economy is not Wall Street. It’s the growing federal debt (and weakening dollar) being enacted by those Washington politicians — the ones who want to protect us from Wall Street.

It soon may be not a risk but a certainty of generations-long economic stagnation and hard times as a direct result of “unsustainable” and ever-growing national debt, driven by a federal budget almost half of which is to be paid for each year by borrowing money — primarily from China — and already weakening the dollar such that foreigners are trying to get rid of their dollars any way they can.

Yes, when you have the worst political class in your nation’s history — as we do now — your economic prospects tend to dim.

SOUTH CAROLINA: The Fox News of states?

TREASURY, INCORPORATED. “To sum up my position: the theory and practice of corporate and securities law are unprepared for the presence of a control shareholder, like the government, that also enjoys sovereign immunity from the federal securities laws and state corporation law.” Do the individual government officials enjoy similar immunity?

SPOILING THE APOCALYPTIC FANTASY: What Actual Mayans Are Saying About 2012. “In fact, the idea of a countdown to cataclysmic apocalypse is a Western, not Mayan idea, say some Mayans who are getting fed up with the hype.”

CUB SCOUT ZACHARY CHRISTIE will be allowed back in school. On the other hand, here’s another idiotic zero-tolerance story. As I’ve said before, it’s no wonder people are abandoning public schools in droves.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Is Health Care Reform Falling Apart?

MORE FROM WALTER OLSON on FTC blog-regulation overbreadth.

TECH THAT TECH: Charlie Stross on why he hates Star Trek.

THEY WANT TO BELIEVE: “Various media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC and FoxSports.com, have attributed fabricated racist quotes to Rush Limbaugh . . . . Bizarrely, nobody running these career-killing ‘quotes’ seems to question why they weren’t of previous interest.” Apparently, nobody thought to run this by the legal department, either. “How is it that when Righties quote Lefties, they have video, audio, and notarized confirmation from the Pope, but when Lefties ‘quote’ Righties, they have Wiki entries contributed by ‘Cobra’? ”

Nobody tell Keith Olbermann about my abortion . . . .

CHANGE: Still on the Job, but Making Only Half as Much. “That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.”

iFRAME: Apple’s new video format.

GAY COMMUNITY increasingly at odds with Democrats.

Related item here.

BOOSTING THE ECONOMY, with regulatory hyper-enforcement.

BUT DON’T WORRY, HEALTH CARE WILL BE HANDLED WITH COMPASSION: IRS: Infant Formula Not Deductible by Mother With Double Mastectomy.

MICKEY KAUS: “Unions Bend the Curve! ‘Card check’ may be stalled in Congress, but Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo report that public employee unions are still successfully bankrupting states and cities. . . . The justification for public sector unionism is way weaker than that for private sector unionism. ‘[Government] workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes,’ as former N.Y. Liberal Party leader Alex Rose puts it. And the right to strike, in the hands of key public unions, approaches a blackmail power. But the political strength of the unions is such that even most Republicans, at the state and local level, are scared to question them. They gelded Arnold Schwarzenegger. You want to be next?”

POLL: 44% Favor Health Care Reform, 50% Oppose.

IS IT REALLY OIL GOING UP, OR IS IT THE DOLLAR GOING DOWN? Oil Jumps to $75 to hit one-year high.

TV CRITIC: “The Obama administration is dangerous to press freedom.”

DISPASSIONATE JUDGES and Easter Bunnies.

The difference is, I’ve met an Easter Bunny. Okay, actually I’ve met one fairly dispassionate judge, too, but I don’t have a photo.

POLL: Americans, In Reversal, Back Afghan Surge.

WEIRD: Rep. Robert Wexler resigning from Congress.

MARIA SHRIVER, cellphone scofflaw.

Laws, like taxes, are for the little people.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN wrote an essay on how the recession is affecting the porn industry. It was slotted for a magazine, but I guess it wasn’t cheery enough. So she’s published it herself.

NOT A BIG SURPRISE: Video: Lindsey Graham heckled at South Carolina town hall.

MOZILO’S FRIENDS ON THE HILL: Democrats block probe of Countrywide scandal.

ED DRISCOLL: Made-up Limbaugh Quotes.

Given that Wikipedia once featured a picture of me in an “I had an abortion” t-shirt that was actually an old photoshop from Allahpundit, I wouldn’t place too much reliance in what Wikipedia and its cousins say about people, especially when they’re at the focus of ongoing controversy. . . .

UPDATE: Video: Chris Matthews Muses On Killing Rush Limbaugh. This is who these people are, and this is what they do.

HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY: Dollar loses reserve status to yen & euro. But that’s good because . . . if it weren’t good, President Obama wouldn’t allow it!

THEY DON’T CALL IT THE “NATIONAL FELON’S LEAGUE” FOR NOTHING: What is, and isn’t, acceptable in the NFL.