AN Obama Bubble?

MORE PROBLEMS for Eric Holder? Just remember, conservatives — Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood got knocked off during the appointment process, only to be replaced by . . . Janet Reno.

PRINCE HARRY: A “royal Walt Kowalski?”

I MIGHT BE A JEW! “Believe it or not, she thought I was a Jew because when we met I was holding a copy of Glenn Reynolds’ book An Army of Davids. No, this is not a joke.”

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Dodd could face serious challenge in re-election bid.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd is up for re-election next year, and will likely face the stiffest challenge in his political career. This could prove to be as big — maybe bigger — than U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s 2006 re-election bid. . . .

Dodd’s popularity in the state has fallen as quickly and as sharply as the Dow Jones. His approval ratings are below 50 percent for the first time in his political career. And he still has to deal with the controversy surrounding the preferential treatment on two home mortgages he received. He’s promised to release all the documents related to the Countrywide VIP program once the Senate Ethics Committee completes its investigation.

Of course, there’s no actual reason for him to wait until then, except that he doesn’t want you to see them now. And this is fun:

In fact, there’s already a grassroots effort coming out of Woodbury called Dump Dodd 2010. They’ve registered with the Federal Elections Commission as a Political Action Committee, allowing them to raise money and contribute to a potential challenger; they’ve launched a Web page (www.dumpchrisdodd.com), and they’re hawking Dump Dodd buttons and bumper stickers. (The material on the Web page is not flattering or unbiased in its view of the senator. It’s slanted to cast the senator in the most unfavorable light possible — surprise.)

They’re also urging supporters to write letters to the editor to their local newspapers expressing their disappointment and disapproval of the senator — and mentioning the Web page in those letters — in an effort to recruit supporters for the movement.

It looks like another hard-fought Senate campaign is shaping up here in the land of steady habits.

Stay tuned.

THROWING ISRAEL to the wolves?

COURTESY OF JACK BAUER, a new form of torture.

HMM: Obama Says Recession Requires Scaling Back Promises.

IS OBAMA OFFERING a revival of Clintonism?

JOE THE PLUMBER TO FOREIGN REPORTERS: “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

UPDATE: Video.

FROM MEGAN MCARDLE, a story that previews what government-run health care would be like . . . .

LIVE-BLOGGING the Golden Globes.

I’M SURE IT’S AT THE TOP OF BARACK’S PRIORITY LIST: Anne Hathaway Demands Explanation For Rick Warren.

CRITICISM OF CHARLIE RANGEL AND NANCY PELOSI:

Furthermore, Mrs. Pelosi has failed to keep her promise to have the House Ethics committee finish their probe by Jan. 3 into Rep. Charlie Rangel’s failure to report income taxes on a Caribbean villa, his usage of four rent controlled apartments in Harlem, his involvement with an offshore firm asking for tax exemptions, Mr. Rangel’s use of official House stationary to solicit funds for a school in his name and contributions from an oil company to the school. Mr. Rangel is also committee chair for the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in the new Congress, which makes the changes in the fairness rules circumspect.

In the meantime, Mrs. Pelosi has not asked Mr. Rangel to put down his gavel while a House Ethic’s subcommitte expands the investigation into his activities.

So much for ending the “culture of corruption.”

A SALE ON GARAGE-ORGANIZING STUFF. I’ve got the Gladiator workbench and cabinets. I always kind of wanted the “garage refrigerator,” but — not being Jay Leno — I don’t really have the garage to justify it. But it seems cool, somehow. I always wanted to put in the floor tile, too. . . .

UPDATE: On the garage refrigerator, reader Stan Beck writes: “Remember…..man’s rule #1 — the garage fridge is for beer ONLY! Except for refrigerated manly snacks such as beef jerky or chip dip.” A nice chardonnay is right out.

CAMERA ADVICE: A reader emails: “Can you recommend a decent point and shoot (fairly compact) digital camera? My budget is between $200-$250. I’ve been using my SONY HANDYCAM for still shots, etc. but that’s not really what it’s intended for. I’m not really a photo enthusiast and take many closeups (pictures of toys) as well as pictures of buildings and landscapes.”

There are so many good digital cameras in that range that it’s hard to go wrong. But they’re still selling the Canon Powershot SD770 for $159, and that seems like quite a deal to me, as I mentioned before.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Cummins writes to recommend this Samsung. I’ve never used a Samsung digital camera, but for $132 it seems hard to go wrong, and I like the fact that it has a wide-angle lens. With pocket cameras you find yourself wishing for more wide-angle more often than for more telephoto, at least in my experience.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Richardson emails: “I bought my Canon Powershot SD770 on Black Friday from Amazon. The price was the same $159 that you mentioned in today’s post. It is my first digital camera as my first love is still film. It is a sweet little camera. The best thing about it is the price. I was in Sam’s Club yesterday in Asheville and their price was $199. $40 bucks less than Sam’s Club is sweet and mine also included an extra 4GB SD card.”

IT’S NOT JUST A GUSSIED-UP PRIUS: Popular Mechanics reports on the first hybrid-only Lexus.

AUTOBLOG IS COVERING the Detroit Auto Show. Just keep scrolling.

SOME STREET FIGHTER IV VIDEO leaks at CES.

DISCUSSING “SUGAR DADDIES” over at THE XX FACTOR. The discussion has been hot and heavy for a while, so just keep scrolling.

THE SUN BEGINS TO RISE on Obama’s energy plan.

OBAMA IS BACKTRACKING ON CLOSING GUANTANAMO BAY any time soon. Apparently he’s concluded that it’s not as easy as it sounded back during the campaign.

INDEED: More than ever, state pension reform must begin. And not just in Pennsylvania. Whether you call them underfunded or overgenerous, they’re unsustainable in a lot of places.

PAUL HSIEH: Universal healthcare and the waistline police.

IN THE MAIL: From P.C. Hodgell, The God Stalker Chronicles.

A SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES REPORT AND PREDICTION:

He also said the show will become more serialized and more “science fiction” for the rest of the season (Woo Hoo!). Surely that means we’ll get nine awesome new episodes then Fox will immediately cancel it and replace it with something that has the word “Dancing” in the title.

Ouch. Well, it’s happened before. Possible minor spoilers at the link.

GET THE SEX YOU DESERVE. From the comments: “If you’re going to blame it for increasing the general standard of living and wealth to the point that somebody can earn money writing this drivel about sex instead of laboring in the heat (or cold) to scrape up enough food to stay on the topside of the dirt for another 24 hours, Capitalism will take the rap.”

UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PENSIONS PRODUCING RESISTANCE? Fullerton city council says no to pension increases. “Now comes Fullerton’s city council, which this week voted against a contract to increase most government workers’ pensions by 25 percent, retroactive to the employee’s hire date. The council had approved the new deal in a closed door session, according to the Orange County Register, but then backed away from it when one council member made the pension increase public. . . . We keep wondering, given moves by local governments up and down the state, is this the latest brush fire in a coming conflagration that could touch state pensions?”

Given that the state’s broke, and taxpayers are already suffering, I’d count it as likely.

A COMPELLING REASON for a space program.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: City Employee Pay Is Outpacing Private Sector, Report Says. “Bolstered in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s spending, the average New York City employee cost the city $107,000 a year in wages, health insurance, pension and other benefits in the 2008 fiscal year, an increase of 63 percent since 2000, according to a new report. City worker compensation grew twice as fast as that of employees in the private sector and elsewhere in the public sector during the same period. . . . The increase was driven by contractual raises that outpaced the inflation rate, and by the rising cost of health insurance and pension benefits, said the commission, a business-backed research group.”

ABC NEWS: Obama Site Linked to ‘Bush Shoe Toss’ Event.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES: Bad economic times are boom times for economists and policymakers — who are, you know, supposed to keep us out of bad economic times . . . .

MORE ON Clint Eastwood and Gran Torino.

It’s certainly doing well at the box office. Plus, what a writer’s dream: “Novice screenwriter Nick Schenk managed to get a copy of Gran Torino into Eastwood’s hands and the legendary actor/director/composer decided to star in and direct the movie without changing a word of dialogue.”

HMM: Obama Calls for ‘Grand Bargain’ on Economy: ‘Everybody’s Going to Have to Give’. Really? Even the takers?

Plus, Stephanopoulos takes dictation: “The big treat of the day was having Malia and Sasha Obama tour visit our This Week control room. The girls got on my executive producer’s headset and gave me the question they most want their Dad to answer.” In other words, it was like most Obama interviews . . . .

DAVE KOPEL continues his investigation of Pro Publica, an “investigative journalism” outfit that seems rather political. Certainly no outfit similarly financed by right-leaning money would get as much of a pass. . . .

UPDATE: Pro Publica spokesman Mike Webb emails: “ProPublica is going to have a response to Dave Kopel’s article on Monday. So I hope you’ll link to that when it’s up.” I will.

YUK: Hospital Scrubs Are a Germy, Deadly Mess. We need to go back to the strict sanitation mindset of the pre-antibiotic era. Because we’re rapidly entering the post-antibiotic era, and nanotechnology/biotechnology probably won’t be ready to take up the slack for 20 years.

MEET THE NEW CHEF, SAME AS THE . . . Obama keeps Bush’s White House Chef.

TIM BLAIR: Peace Lovers Love Hate.

BARACK OBAMA kidnaps Jack Bauer? (Via Big Hollywood).

MORE CNN VIDEO QUESTIONS.

P.J. O’ROURKE: “Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn’t president yet?”

CNN DIGS ITSELF IN DEEPER: “Given that CNN’s own staff can’t vouch for the video first-hand, and that very serious questions have been raised about its credibility, I don’t see why CNN would want to double-down on this one.” Because they figure they can get away with it.

WASHINGTON POST: Obama’s Attorney General Pick Faces Growing Criticism.

HMM: What Did Leon Panetta Know About Rendition And When Did He Know It? I guess if we get a “truth and reconciliation commission” people can ask him about it, along with various members of Congress. But, heck, he’ll probably just claim executive privilege and spoil the fun . . . .

TURNING RETIRED 747S INTO hotels. As the piece notes, with the aviation downturn there may be plenty of those available soon.

WILL THE FATE OF THE CONSTITUTION turn on an 8×10 framed certificate?

WHAT EVERYBODY NEEDS: A personal submarine.

WELL, IF YOU ASK ME, free markets are “social justice.”

REMEMBERING 60 years of fun from Wham-O. With some vintage video.

“IT WAS THE ZIONISTS’ FAULT.”

TIM NOAH: Robert Rubin’s Free Ride.

HAPPY ABOUT THE SUNSTEIN APPOINTMENT, at the Wall Street Journal. My own thoughts on the subject, at Forbes, are here.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON NOTES some ironies of the past year.

REFRESHING THAT memory. “The Johnson campaign of 1964, in which Moyers played a key role, smeared Goldwater as a reckless warmonger and portrayed LBJ as a man of peace, even as Johnson was planning the ‘escalation’ in Vietnam.” Yet that story has been buried and nearly forgotten and Bill Moyers recast from hatchetman to wise old head. That’s nothing to what we’ll be seeing in the way of revisionist history as the Obama Administration establishes its not-so-new approach.

ARNOLD KLING:

You will hear Keynesians cry over the “lost output” that results from having unemployment. That is somewhat misleading. The reason we are getting less output from home builders, mortgage securitizers, and auto makers is that we do not want so much from them. Putting them back to work doing stuff people don’t want may produce output in an accounting sense, but in economic terms it is still lost output.

We certainly don’t need many more houses at the moment.

MARK STEYN: The “oldest hatred” lives, from Gaza to Florida.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: My Comment to the FCC on DRM.

IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo and Julie Cochrane, Honor of the Clan. The latest in Ringo’s Posleen series.

ANOTHER EDITORIAL ON CHRIS DODD AND CHARLES RANGEL:

Rep. Rangel is a perfect storm of embarrassment for his party. He has been charged with occupying several rent-controlled New York apartments when he was only entitled to one, taking tax breaks for residences in both Washington, D.C., and New York when he was only entitled to one, failing to report rental income from a vacation home, and arranging tax breaks for donors to the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York.

Sen. Dodd was the beneficiary of two loans arranged by the president of Countrywide Financial, a major player in the collapse of the housing market, and he was also the sponsor of legislation allegedly helping Bank of America after it purchased Countrywide. Sen. Dodd has been criticized for refusing to release the details of the two loans which would clarify whether he received preferential treatment. As long as he stonewalls, Sen. Dodd will be an embarrassment to his party.

Democratic candidates in 2006 ran successfully against what they described as a Republican culture of corruption and promised to clean things up. That promise has been greatly undermined by Rep. Rangel and Sen. Dodd. If they do not have the grace to step aside as chairmen while under investigation, their colleagues should intervene.

Yes, they should.

OBAMA GIVES CIA INTERROGATORS a pass on torture. Of course he does.

UPDATE: Maybe he’s following Cass Sunstein’s advice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Col. Douglas Mortimer emails:

Of course, indeed. Just this week, NPR (Terry Gross?) had some British yak talking about how he hopes during Eric Holder’s confirmation hearing, he is asked whether he thinks waterboarding is torture. The guest went to say that he hopes Holder says “yes,” and that he then goes on to investigate and prosecute everyone who was involved in waterboarding terrorist suspects and who was involved in approving the decision to allow it.

Yeah. Right. Like that’s gonna happen.

I’d be surprised. Plus this: Obama Taps CIA Veteran As Adviser On Terror. To a position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. “The president-elect’s decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

MORE: TalkLeft: “This reminds me of Bush’s tendency towards recess appointments to get around Senate confirmation.”

JOHN CONYERS: Michael Moore’s catspaw?

CAN CALIFORNIANS GET THRIFTY? “With a $40 billion deficit looming, conspicuous consumption is going to have to go out of style in the land of swimming pools and movie stars.”

WORRIES ABOUT CENSUS FRAUD IN 2010. Are they justified? I dunno.

FROM MACWORLD, a look at the new iWork and iLife releases.

UPDATE: Also, a report on new features in iPhoto ’09. And, from CES, a bunch of new camera and video products, though it’s kind of weirdly set up since you mostly can’t actually buy them yet, but it looks like you ought to be able to.

NICK GILLESPIE: The secret life of the American teenager is boring as hell.

OVER AT POPULAR MECHANICS, I opine on the Oregon GPS mileage tax proposal.

MICHAEL YON: Don’t be dissing the British/American relationship: “What I can say, is that the significant combat I saw with British soldiers made me respect them more with each battle. Yes, it’s true their gear needs serious upgrading. The British government needs to spend billions to upgrade the hardware. But when it comes to the soldier, British soldiers are extremely well-trained, courageous and ready for a big firefight at the drop of a hat. Our brothers and sisters are vastly outnumbered at Helmand Province in Afghanistan. I think about them several times a day and am concerned that they might take serious losses this year. . . . There is no real complaint against the British other than they need to field their military with better gear. The British fight very well, but they need better gear.”

HEH: Somali Pirates Receive Ransom, Hilarity Ensues.

THE SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR an important affirmative-action case.

TENNESSEE’S VERSION of the Madoff affair? Nice house.

THUMBS UP FOR GRAN TORINO: “Driving home, I was thinking: Clint Eastwood is the best Hollywood guy ever.”

Plus this: “This is a good movie for people who like cars and guns and tools.”

And, from the comments: “It says something about America that the toughest guy in the movies is 78 years old.”

Vaguely related item here.

UPDATE: Randy Barnett liked Gran Torino too.

DANIEL DREZNER on the known unknowns of the economic crisis.

FABIUS MAXIMUS: New reports about Mexico, the failing state on our border.

ATLAS SHRUGGED: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.

5,4,3,2,1 MILLION: The incredible shrinking inauguration crowd. “Maybe Obama is just another run-of-the-mill Democrat president. After all, Lyndon B. Johnson had 1.2 million people show up for his inauguration in 1965, and that was 44 years ago.” But nobody’ll be counting, so the narrative won’t suffer too much. Related item here.

UPDATE: Inaugural Rentals Begging for Takers. “”I’m blown away by how little demand there is . . . Initially, we were flooded with calls from people looking for [inaugural] housing. For about four or five days, the phone would not stop ringing. . . . But now we have apartments as low as $150 a night that we can’t get rid of.” When I was in DC, I talked to a cabbie who said he would take off a couple of days around the inauguration, because with all the crowds, traffic and blocked streets he wouldn’t make any money. I wonder if Adrian Fenty’s overoptimistic predictions might actually encourage people who would otherwise have gone to stay home, rather than face the kind of gridlock that 5 million people would have produced. The WaPo article suggests that this is the case.

BILL RICHARDSON’S INVESTIGATION: Remember that U.S. Attorneys hoohah?

CNN NOW CLAIMS THAT THE GAZA HOSPITAL VIDEO IS GENUINE: But Charles Johnson isn’t convinced.

UPDATE: Neither is Ed Morrissey.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “This is CNN’s evidence?”

GETTING THE RESEMBLANCE: Yeah, I saw Garth from Wayne’s World in that picture, too. Certainly not Julia Roberts.

IT ISN’T EASY Labelling Green.

SPECIALTY GPS UNITS FROM GARMIN: “The Approach G5 GPS system comes preloaded with 5,000 golf courses, allowing golfers to pinpoint exactly where they are on the links and calculate yardage to any point on the course.” Not out yet, but soon.

A BUNCH OF coffeemakers on sale. I still have the one I blogged about in 2006, and it still works fine.

UPDATE: Er, sorry, that would be the DeLonghi. I gave the Black & Decker to my brother in law, and as far as I know it’s working fine too.

SOME KITCHEN ADVICE from Megan McArdle.

THE EURO-SPEC HONDA INSIGHT gets 53 mpg. With gas prices down, people have quit paying as much attention to this stuff, but they’ll be back up sooner or later.

THIS IS INTERESTING: NASA Renegades Pitch Obama Team New Post-Shuttle Plan.

JONATHAN ADLER: “The LA Times reports that Eric Holder actively sought to blunt opposition to President Clinton’s pardon of members of two pro-Puerto Rican independence terrorist groups.”

WAYNE BLEDSOE: Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of 69’ was more steamy than we knew.

NETBOOKS: Hands on with little laptops from Asus, and a bunch of minis from HP.

I AGREE: “Look, if you have a study you want funded, apply for funding. If you just want public support for a nice chunk of cash to go toward promoting alternative medicine, I say no no no no no no no.”

Not all “alternative” medicine is quackery, and not all “alternative” medical advocates are quacks and con-men. But that’s the way to bet, in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: CalPERS Made A Bet — And Lost. “CalPERS made aggressive investments in real estate at the worst possible time, when inflated property values had peaked and were already beginning to decline. . . . The magnitude of the losses almost ensures that CalPERS will raise employer contribution rates. Pension fund officials have warned state and local governments that they may be hit with fee increases of between 2 percent and 5 percent of payroll beginning as early as 2010. If the recession deepens and sales and property taxes continue to fall, that will be a very difficult burden for governments to bear.”

INDEED: “One thing I find interesting in reading various authors who discuss the history of the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict is how the role of the USSR in exacerbating the conflict, and the role of its demise in providing an opportunity for a potential settlement of the conflict, is generally completely, or almost completely, ignored.”

PALM INTRODUCES an iPhone competitor, to positive reviews.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: A new way to make structurally pure carbon nanotubes. Faster, please.

RETAIL SALES AREN’T ALL DISMAL: ATF is running out of Form 4473 due to “unprecedented demand” for guns.

AT THE HARTFORD COURANT, wondering when Chris Dodd will keep his promise to release his mortgage records.

TERRY MCAULIFFE: Suddenly sounding Southern.

MICKEY KAUS offers a pick for Car Czar.

IN THE MAIL: Poul Anderson’s David Falkayn: Star Trader. Baen is reissuing all of Anderson’s classic Polesotechnic League stories, which are among the best in libertarian-themed science fiction.

FINALLY: The Arab Street fears that “the Jews have gone crazy.”

OBAMA AND REGULATION: In Forbes, I explain why libertarians should be (reasonably) happy with the Sunstein pick.

WHO’S AFRAID OF JOE THE JOURNALIST? “If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. senator, why can’t a plumber be a reporter?”