MORE “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Alienating an ally with “mistreatment.” More here.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: More than a bad day: Worries grow that Barack Obama & Co. have a competence problem.

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, “Do you think they know what they’re doing?”

The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Yes, it’s early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It’s a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House.

Read the whole thing. There’s also David Broder’s report of doubts. And Don Surber has comments, too.

UPDATE: Why Obama Is Stumbling. Plus, Irrational Exuberance?

GUN PROPAGANDA INTERFERING WITH SAVING MEXICO? Well, note this:

Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals. Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

So all this talk about U.S. gun shops arming Mexican gangs with bazookas was just gun-control propaganda, then?

(PARTNER NOT SHOWN). With a Heinlein reference, in place of Ayn Rand.

OSAMA BIN ELVIS?

READ MY LIPS: No new waxes! “The painful Brazilian wax and its intimate derivatives are in danger of being stripped from salon and spa menus if a recent proposal to ban genital waxing is passed by the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling.”

UPDATE: Reader Lou Minatti suggests an alternate headline: New Jersey Politicians Support Bush.

MY EARLIER POST ON CONDOM SALES led reader Mark Sicignano to write: “Just an example of people choosing to ‘Go John Thomas’?” Well, it beats going John Galt, if you ask me . . . .

DENVER POST: When Will Atlas Shrug? Like I said, Ayn Rand is getting a lot of attention for a dead lady.

UPDATE: Colbert whistles past the graveyard.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From the comments: “If Colbert had any guts at all he’d now retire the O’Reillyoid character, rename the show the Hopebert Report, and thenceforth ape the likes of Matthews or Olbermann.”

RON SILVER has died.

UPDATE: A remembrance from his friend Roger Simon. Plus, courage.

CININNATI ENQUIRER: Thousands Gather for ‘Tea Party.’

UPDATE: Cincinnati Tea Party Demonstrates Downtown.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Cincinnati Tea Party organizers email:

We can confirm
> 5000 attendees to the event, “a city on the square”
> 1674 people signed a petition to ask local governments to reject stimulus funds

Pretty impressive.

THE NEW FALLOUT 3 TRAILER, set in a “post-apocalyptic Washington, DC.”

MICHAEL SILENCE NOTES A MEDIA REFERENCE TO A “HANDFUL” OF TEA PARTY PROTESTS AND SAYS “LET’S COUNT ‘EM:”

Cincinnati, Nebraska, Tampa, Lexington, Ridgefield, Conn., Raleigh, Orlando, D.C., Staten Island, Pasadena, Boston, Rochester, N.Y., Jacksonville, Minnesota, Cleveland, Columbus, Mo., Little Rock, Ark., Philadelphia, Kansas City, Harrisburg, Green Bay, Salt Lake City, Fullertown, Lafayette, Boise, Monterey, Maui, Yonkers, Utah, Tucson, Phoenix, Hoboken and Chicago, to name a few.

Also, I guess it’s just been a handful of blogs writing about it.

Maybe the writer meant this handful of coverage.

By the way. If you want to follow extensive coverage of the party, one guy sitting in Knoxville, probably from his couch, is doing just that.

Memo to MSM: Google.

Heh. Indeed.

UPDATE: And Denver — don’t forget Denver! And St. Louis! And New York!

Related thoughts from Ed Driscoll.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Cincinnati reader Jeff Riley was at the protest and emails: “I was thrilled at the turnout here in Cincy, however I wasn’t thrilled with the lack of coverage by the local media. Trust me on this, during the Bush Adminstration when they had 4 people show up at the local Federal Building and protest against the war they were all over it. When 3500 (estimated) people show up to protest the bailout they just shrugged. People were pissed and are realizing that the media is doing much more that shilling for Obama, that they are willing participants in the propaganda effort. Every time they do so they lose a bit more credibility and people are turning them out and getting there news elsewhere.”

MORE: Frank Wilson has further thoughts on what we’re not being told.

STILL MORE: More than 150 tea parties scheduled.

THE CINCINNATI TEA PARTY IS UNDERWAY, and a reader sends this photo via Blackberry.

Also, reader Russell Sayre sends this aerial view: “This was taken from the 17th floor of the U.S. Bank Tower above Fountain Square in Cincinnati as the rally began. I have no idea how many people are there, but the square is pretty full, which rarely happens.”

Yeah, it’s kind of cool the way people are sending me coverage in realtime via Blackberry and cellphone. Somebody should write a book about this phenomenon . . . .

UPDATE: Another.

And John Galt appears again.

Plus, another appearance by the Debt Star. It’s everywhere!

UPDATE: Compare the coverage above with this early report from the Cincinnati Enquirer. They’re actually very fast for a newspaper, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Blanchard sends the pictures below, and writes: “Great crowd. This is only getting started…. The square was packed – a larger crowd than what Oktoberfest usually draws, even without the promise of cold beer.”

Plus, reader Steven Murray writes, “There were thousands there, I believe.” Here’s a pic from him.

MORE: Kami Eickson emails:

Hey Glenn, was at the Cincinnati tea party this afternoon and got quite a few shots, a great turn out and some great posters were displayed at this event. They predicted between 4-6,000 people showed up, the square was packed.

However, one thing I wanted to mention was the Counter Protester, of which there was one that I saw. This woman was just wandering around waving a flag and yelling “OBAMA!” and “YES WE WILL”. There was some media there, but one camera man was ONLY covering her and interviewing her. You know, because she was so brave to stand up to these evil conservative protesters!

That’s change you can believe in!

Indeed. She sends this pic of a stylish “Got Tea?” t-shirt.

And reader Ed Steiner writes:

One of the local TV stations–WCPO– did a hatchet job on the Tea Party. The nerd said he had to leave the rally because a few people insulted him and spit at him due to media bias. The spitting, if it occurred, is of course out of bounds, but not unheard of in the Bush years, when the lefties had the saliva going. The station did a 30 second scan of the Square and then did its own internal Fairness Doctrine by highlighting the few Obama supporter signs and doing an interview with the local Dem Party chief. WCPO is a part of the soon to be Ch11 Scripps newspaper/TV empire. The WCPO website highlights the forthcoming second stimulus package and what people can get from it. Thanks for the coverage.

Well, don’t thank me — thank all the folks who sent me pics and reports! Speaking of which, here’s a Cincinnati tea party photo gallery. (Bumped).

More blog reportage at The Virtuous Republic.

The last word? Heh. “Maybe now Rick Moran will deign to grace the tea parties with his support.”

Okay, maybe this is the last word.

Another photo gallery.

Plus, another blog report with photos, from Dadvocate. Nice picture of the Debt Star poster.

Here’s more blogging.

More photos and reports, plus video, at Bizzyblog.

Also, video here and here. And still more here.

And on the “Debt Star” sign, Michael Albrecht emails:

That’s me in the blue shirt holding the sign.

There was a young girl, maybe 13-14, who had one too. If you add the one the one on the Dadvocate site, that makes three. I spot a trend.

I was most impressed by how civil it all was.

Cincinnati elected a Democrat on the West end of town who promptly voted for a bill he admits to never reading (the stimulus bill). I thought people signing documents, like mortgages, without reading them was what got us into this mess in the first place. I guess if you add 6 zeroes it makes it all OK.

Spending money we didn’t have on things we didn’t understand is what got us into this mess, and, by God, it’s what’ll get us out of this mess!

RON ROTUNDA: Is the stimulus law constitutional?

UPDATE: More thoughts from Jack Balkin.

THE WHITE HOUSE LAUNCHES A PRO-PORK POLITICAL ASSAULT: “Should be interesting to see if all the Facebook Obamites, assorted young people, Hope-Changers of all stripes will rise out of the trenches for a big bayonet charge in aid of ‘President Obama’s bold approach … for long-term prosperity.’” Plus, from the comments: “I find this ‘community organizing’ on the national level just a bit alarming. It isn’t for the benefit of the people. It’s for the benefit of the kleptocrats in government, and the Community Organizer in Chief.”

In a somewhat related note, reader Robert Sykes doesn’t like the Newsweek “Silence Rush” cover:

I think there is a very serious, very important issue here.

The President publicly identifies a private citizen (Limbaugh) for vilification, and his spokesmen repeat it several times. Then a “major” publication calls for his silencing on their cover. Furthermore, this citizen is already controversial, and he is supported by only one-third of the people, making him a sort of pariah and easy victim.

There are many deluded wackos out there like Sirhan Sirhan and Hinckley who might take all this as orders to kill Limbaugh. God forbid such lunacy! It would constitute a giant step towards the nazification of America, and it would have been instigated by the President and the press.

I doubt that David Frum’s prose could move anyone to murder, or much else. But this campaign is unseemly behavior for the President, and if something like that were to happen, it would be fair to blame them, as they are always blaming talk radio for “hate.” Regardless, this continues a trend of thuggish and unserious behavior that we first saw during the campaign. I think that, ultimately, it will harm Obama more than his enemies, though. It suggests that he doesn’t value the dignity of the office, or see the Presidency as anything apart from himself.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “It’s reminding me of the Clinton administration’s efforts via the mainstream media to demonize conservative talk radio with blame after the Oklahoma City bombing.”

DAVID BRODER: End of Obama’s Honeymoon: “Among those who follow government closely, there has been an unmistakable change in tone in the past few weeks. These are not little Rush Limbaughs hoping that Obama fails. They are politicians and journalists measuring him with the same skeptical eye they apply to everyone else. . . . Meantime, on the main challenge — the economy — the criticism has begun to infect the mainstream media as well as the conservative wing.”

I think one reason for the demonization of Rush Limbaugh — and, even more significantly, the coordinated attack on pro-Obama critics — has been an effort to forestall this development. I also think it’s backfired.

AT AMAZON, a big Easter toy sale.

HARTFORD COURANT: Chris Dodd: A Few Real-Estate Deals Among Friends.

HIRE OUR MEMBERS or we’ll insult you again!

DON SURBER: The Spirit of 1943. “We could not afford to be a Nation of Geithners, so to speak.”

ECONOMIC INDICATOR? Hard times at the hair salon.

“HE SOLD HIS BOAT FOR ME.”

LITTLE ROCK TEA PARTY UPDATE: Lincoln Events Marked by Protests. “During Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s re-election events Saturday which included an appearance by Vice President Joe Biden, members of the Arkansas Tea Party held their own get-together. Why? To protest. . . . Members had no qualms about voicing their opinion… saying the government is putting too much money in all of the wrong places. They also say Sen. Blanche Lincoln does not listen to the people of Arkansas.”

IN THE MAIL: The American Dream: Walking in the Shoes of Carnies, Arms Dealers, Immigrant Dreamers, Pot Farmers, and Christian Believers.

NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN: Franklin mom brews up tea bag protest over stimulus. “She is behind one of a handful of protests around the country that aim to bombard the White House with tea bags and protest notes in time for the nation’s April 15 tax filing deadline.” The very first tea party protests were organized by mom-bloggers. Is this a mom thing? Anyway, here’s her website. For those who can’t attend a tea party protest, it’s an alternative.

LONDON TIMES: Top Democrat in holiday home intrigue: Senator Christopher Dodd bought a share of the house in Galway 15 years ago. “A holiday home in Connemara is at the centre of a growing row in America involving a prominent Democrat politician, a convicted insider trader and the former president Bill Clinton. The purchase of the home by Senator Christopher Dodd is being examined by the US Senate ethics committee after allegations that Edward Downe Jr, a businessman convicted of insider trading, acted as a ‘middle man’ in the deal.”

THOUGHTS ON THE SUPREME COURT AND THE HAYES DECISION: “If domestic violence offenses are serious enough to take away one’s Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms, then these offenses are serious enough to be felonies.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: Barack and Beijing. “Of course, what the Chinese are worried about is not that the United States government will default on its bonds. That obviously won’t happen. The Chinese concern, now being expressed openly for the first time, is that the U.S. will adopt the standard debtor’s remedy of inflating its currency and paying back its debts in shrunken dollars. Why are the Chinese worried about this? Because Barack Obama’s budget proposes to borrow trillions of dollars, injecting them into the U.S. economy without any offsetting wealth being created. . . . With their shot over the bow, I think the Chinese are telling Obama that they don’t like his budget.”

LONGEVITY UPDATE: Old age begins at 27: Scientists reveal new research into ageing. Well, this should broaden the support for the proposal I made in Forbes last week . . .

ANGRY OVER TAXES IN GEORGIA: “News that one in 10 Georgia lawmakers is a repeat violator of tax laws has fueled a call for a rewrite of the state’s tax code. And it’s not just conservatives who feel that way. When a series of President Barack Obama’s appointees to senior posts revealed they hadn’t paid their taxes, the anger grew. When the Georgia Department of Revenue distributed a list of outstanding taxes owed by 19 unnamed legislators, frustration boiled further.” Taxes are for the little people. We’re governed by an gaggle of Leona Helmsleys.

WHY PJTV IS THE COMING THING: Online TV blurs line between channel surfers, Web surfers.

A REPORT FROM THE Little Rock, Arkansas Tea Party Protest. 200 people showed up; pics at the link. Plus, Clayton Cramer reports from Boise. “I guess that we should consider the 100-150 people that turned out for the Boise Tea Party today to be pretty decent.” Indeed.

CHANGE: President Obama signed a law that bans federal funding of any research that leads to the destruction of human embryos just two days after lifting Bush-era restraints on it. I wonder what else was in that bill that nobody read . . . ?

IS AYN RAND relevant?

Well, Atlas Shrugged is currently #27 on Amazon, which isn’t bad for a dead lady.

Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER BRIGHT SPOT: Economic downturn hasn’t hurt condom sales. Hmm. Guns and ammo are selling like hotcakes, too. How about booze?

LAPSES IN JOURNALISTIC ETHICS? What we need is full disclosure.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING: “The cigarette tax is a great example of Big Government hypocrisy on Big Tobacco. They claim to want to penalize smokers for the health-care costs they create through their nicotine addiction, but the funds will go primarily to health-care costs to non-smokers: children. In reality, they needed a big new revenue stream to pay for another giveaway, and decided to get it from smokers. . . . Most nanny-staters claim that they’re acting in benefit of smokers by increasing taxes, as that will provide further incentive for them to quit using the product. However, if people actually did stop smoking, it would bankrupt government, which needs a large smoking tax base to provide billions in cash on state and federal levels. If we propose the reverse — if we outlawed tobacco rather than taxed it — would Congress eliminate S-CHIP? Of course not. They’d just look for something else to tax.”

YEAH, THAT’LL WORK: South African men are ‘raping women to cure them of being lesbians’.

TOMORROW, A CINCINNATI TEA PARTY ON FOUNTAIN SQUARE, AT 3 P.M. Details at the link. If you go, please send me pics!

TELEGRAPH: Britain is Fighting a War — And We Are Too Soft On Our Enemies.

WHAT THE HOUSING BUBBLE COLLAPSE has done to Baby Boomer wealth. And boomers will probably vote for a big intergenerational wealth transfer to make up the difference . . . . (Via TigerHawk, where one commenter observes: “Interesting how taxes go up when the Boomers needed them…as they went down when the Boomers were in prime earning years…”).

ALEC BALDWIN: Supply-Side Economist?

PEW: Stop the Presses? Many Americans Wouldn’t Care a Lot if Local Papers Folded. That’s a sign that they haven’t been paying enough attention to the customers.

RON PAUL BUMPERSTICKER? You might be a terrorist!

CLAY SHIRKY ON newspapers and thinking the unthinkable: “That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen.”

Plus this: “Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” Related thoughts from Ed Driscoll.

CHANGE: Barack Obama Apparel steeply marked down.

UH OH: Obama: Have ‘Absolute Confidence’ in T-Bills. Did previous administrations find it necessary to issue such attention-getting assurances?

UPDATE: Reader Bill Keane writes:

It is unsettlingly reminiscent of the comment made by Secretary of Treasury John Carlisle during Grover Cleveland’s second term. Attempting to reassure the public about the federal financial stability, Carlisle said “Treasury would meet demands for payment in gold so long as it has gold lawfully available for that purpose.” That reassurance (as you may well guess) did nothing to calm the public or the markets.

Oh, goody.

GREENS OBJECT to “science-based” wolf decision.

TURN THE PAGE: “We have exhausted the use of Rush as an attention-getter,” says WH official.

Plus, “Irony is dead.”

WELL, A DEFENSE BOOST WOULD BE A KIND OF “STIMULUS,” I GUESS: “The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the Obama administration to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time.”

THE AMAZING ORIGIN OF PLAY-DOH.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:

PITTSFIELD — A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother’s semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery.

Good grief.

ROSS DOUTHAT: The case for small government.

A TEA PARTY CLAIMS VICTORY. Plus, there’s going to be a PJTV contest for the best sign photo from a tea party protest — not sure of the details, yet, but you can upload your pics for the events here and they’ll be eligible.

WASHINGTON POST: Obama’s New Tack: Blaming Bush.

Hope and Change and it’s not my fault! But Bush didn’t make him spend a trillion dollars on partisan pork, or spook the markets with destructive talk and policies.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE PUBLICITY: A summer student conference on Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged.

NOT LIKELY: Will Krugman Call Obama Narcissist-in-Chief?

LOTS OF men’s clothing on sale. Cheap!

DODGING THE Palmieri police?

BY A TAX ATTORNEY: The Ballad of Tim Geithner.

TODAY KANSAS CITY SAW ITS fourth weekly “tea party” protest. Pictures and video at the link.

And here’s some excellent video from last week. Note that they marched on Claire McCaskill’s office and she wound up voting against the Omnibus bill. As the photo below demonstrates, while these things aren’t getting a lot of national coverage so far, they’re getting plenty of local media, and that’s something that Congressional offices notice. Scroll down or click here for pics and a report from Columbus, Ohio.

UPDATE: More on the Columbus Tea Party here. And I love this picture.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Columbus Tea Party video. (Bumped).

ADVICE TO THE PRESS: Give Us The News, or Go Away.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Is Losing Focus. “We’ve been hearing a lot of criticism of Barack Obama in recent days from pro-Obama corners — from celebrity investor Warren Buffett, from moderate conservative columnist David Brooks, from one of the Democratic Party’s deepest thinkers, William Galston — all along the same lines.”

R.S. MCCAIN: The Re-Education of David Brooks.

TAXPROF: “State Tax Revenues Fell 3.6% in 4Q 2008.”

JAMES LILEKS, STEPHEN GREEN, AND MORE, on the latest PJM Political.

CALLING FOR A Million Middle-Aged Men and Women March.

STRING THEORY: Anecdotes from Jim D’Addario.

TOM MAGUIRE: “They told Glenn that if he voted for McCain we’d have a President who was an out-of-touch cheerleader for the economy. And they were right!”

You know, the great thing is that I don’t even have to do the work anymore — just come up with the idea and let others run with it. . . .

THIS WILL MAKE PEOPLE MISS BLAGOJEVICH: Illinois Governor to Propose 50% Increase In State Income Tax.

INSTEAD OF THE ECONOMY, let’s talk about Peanut Butter.

LIVEBLOGGING THE LULA-OBAMA PRESS CONFERENCE. “Obama’s talking progressive policies, Lula is talking about free trade and business.”

ASKING QUESTIONS: “The S.C. Republican should ask why Clyburn, a member of the ‘post-racial’ party of Hope and Change out to end ‘cynicism,’ is so invested in finding racism in every debate on policy — and then he should follow up by asking just who conservatives need go to for permission to reference countries populated by blacks, or activities engaged in by blacks, given that clearly Democrats believe they own them.”

“SMART DIPLOMACY:”

Should the US Ambassador to Iraq speak Arabic? Should he have Middle Eastern experience? Should he have deep background in working with the military in counterinsurgency operations?

Would two out of three “yes” answers be enough?

How about zero for three?

Hmm.

STIMULUS: ORNL gets big budget lift for work on fusion project.

IMPROVED BONE IMPLANTS, with nanotechnology.

DAMON ROOT: The American Federation of Labor’s shameful record on race.

CELLPHONE PICS ARE COMING IN from the Columbus, Ohio Tea Party protest, currently underway. I’ll just note that these don’t look like the “spoiled yuppies” that lefty critics are denouncing. And is that a picture of the Debt Star in the background?

UPDATE: Like I said:

Lots more pics here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Vassaux emails: “Hi Glenn! Yes, the Debt Star (first seen here by me) was on the back of my sign. I guessed at about 200 people in attendance, I didn’t think that was too bad for a cold Saturday morning, and I do feel that the event was not well publicized. We did have a little fun, (my son and I), but it didn’t feel like an angry leftist protest of any kind. I guess conservatives don’t do it that well. Maybe with a little practice, we’ll get better.” I don’t think you need to get better at being angry. But, hey, it’s worked for the Left. . . .

MORE: Much more here, from Justin Higgins. Plus, video.

IN THE MAIL: The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History.

POLIWOOD: How Do You Get A Movie Made?

WTNH: Dodd woes continue with Irish cottage:

Senator Chris Dodd always likes to talk about his Irish roots – especially around Saint Patrick’s Day – but details about his purchase of a cottage in Ireland are coming back to haunt him.

This week’s Quinnpiac University Poll indicates Dodd may be a getting a chilly reception from voters here in Connecticut. . . . Now, free-lance columnist Kevin Rennie has published a report in the state’s largest newspaper connecting Dodd’s purchase of two-thirds interest in a cottage in Ireland at a bargain price, to a man Dodd helped with a presidential pardon.

“The guy he bought it from was the business partner of a man he had gotten a pardon for from Bill Clinton the year before,” Rennie said. “Senator Dodd had paid a lot less for that two-thirds interest than it was worth.”

Much more at the link.

MORE ON THE ADMINISTRATION’S GORDON GEKKO GAMBIT:

It definitely reminds me of Gordon Gekko’s famous “greed is good” speech from Wall Street, where he said that “greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.” However, Summers is wrong to suggest that American investors and corporations have lost too much of their greed. To the contrary, the constant lobbying of every interest group under the sun for more and more government bailout money suggests that they are just as greedy as ever. Even firms that have already received a hefty dose of handouts are lobbying for more. The problem, of course, is that their greedy impulses are being channeled into the unproductive activity of lobbying Congress for subsidies rather than into the development of more and better products for consumers.

In and of itself, greed is neither bad nor good. The key question is whether it is channeled towards socially beneficial activity that increases wealth and promotes economic growth or whether it is directed towards lobbying the government to take away money from one set of interest groups and direct it to another. At this point, it is often easier for corporations to satisfy their greed by lobbying for government funds than by engaging in productive activity. As Gordon Gekko put it in his speech, “[t]he new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest.” Failing firms are using their very failures as justification for seeking bailouts.

It is also ironic that Summers cites an excess of “fear” as one of the main dangers facing the American economy. Ironic because the administration he serves has itself been stoking that fear in order to undercut opposition to its programs. As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel puts it, the crisis is “an opportunity to do things you could not do before . . . You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” An obvious corollary to this notion is that the “opportunity” will be even bigger the more “serious” people believe the crisis to be.

Indeed.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I’ve long criticized Maxine Waters for seeming to display a truly astonishing lack of knowledge about the financial system her committee regulates. Apparently, however, she does have some sources in the financial industry.”

CAPITALISM MAGAZINE: On The Left-Wing Reaction to John Galt, Ayn Rand, and Tea Parties. “That they protest too much is an indication that they do understand.”

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple Empire.

ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS: Could Obama Be Just Too Awesome? “While the president’s brilliant radiance may fill us with boundless ecstasy, it could actually hurt the eyes of those unused to such light.”

PJTV: Chinese Harassment of the U.S. Navy.

TENNESSEE MOM launches her own tea bag protest.

THE “BOOBIE BUNGALOW?”

UPDATE: Reader Ernest Gudath notes this picture of a “Boobie Bungalow” billboard. Amusing juxtaposition.

FROM “CATASTROPHE” TO “NOT SO BAD?” We must distinguish between “bourgeois truth,” which is concerned with sterile facts, and “revolutionary truth,” which is concerned with what will promote the revolution.

A CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE, from Mark Steyn. “Canada’s biggest disseminator of Internet hate is the Government of Canada.”

AMITY SHLAES: No Representation Without Taxation.

ATLAS AMERICA SHRUGS:

America just wants to be loved and henceforth we will measure the success of our foreign policy according to the Gallup global polls that so fascinate our media, foreign policy experts, and Department of State. It’s empirical! And also – if it’s not too much to ask – America wants not to have too much to do with anyone else, except on a strictly commercial and, okay, okay, sometimes charitable, do-gooding basis. Got that part? We’ve got our own problems and our own issues, if you haven’t noticed. We’ve realized multilateralism is good for that, though not necessarily the way you thought: we plan, by the way, to be multilateralists just like you. We’ll even pay over our .7% GDP for development, and to the corruptniks, rent-seeking kleptocrats at the UN, no less, because frankly it’s easier to send the check to one address than try and keep all those Africans alive on retrovirals that need constant attention, constant organization, constant management, constant unilateral care – but then will you just fuck off and leave us alone to figure out our new social-democratic tax system?

Be careful what you ask for.

CHANGE:

The Obama Administration disclosed on Friday that it will no longer claim the power to detain terrorism suspects under the label “enemy combatant,” even while claiming broad authority to detain those who are a part of terrorist networks or who supplied “substantial support” to such forces. The authority, it said, extends to places other than battlefields if Afghanistan, but did not say where else detainees might be seized. . . . Here is the definition of detention authority, without the label “enemy combatant,” that the Obama Administration outlined Friday: “The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any peson who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.”

So there. Related: Obama Administration Asserts Broad Detention Authority.

Plus this: “It appears on first reading that whatever they call those they claim the right to detain, they have adopted almost the same standard the Bush administration used to detain people without charge — with one change, the addition of the word `substantially’ before the word ‘supported.’ This is really a case of old wine in new bottles.”

Also: “Maybe President Bush should just have changed the name of Guantanamo. Then he could have announced that there were no longer any enemy combatants at Guantanamo.”

IS THE WHITE HOUSE Going Galt On Us?

ASK DR. VODKAPUNDIT: Doesn’t Anyone Want a Job In The Treasury Dept.?

SOME STORIES DON’T SURPRISE: Congress Keeps Automatic Pay Raises.

J.K. ROWLING, IT’S NOT: Keith Olbermann and the Ring of Assassins.

ASK THE QUESTION: “What am I getting for my federal Income Tax?” Get fired.

TYPICAL: “A New York Times editorial blames America’s gun lobby for 11 deaths in Alabama — but ignores 16 deaths in ‘gun free’ Germany on the same day.” The honesty we’ve come to expect on these issues.