METAPHOR ALERT: Strong winds blow away red carpet laid out for Obamas’ send-off.

REMEMBER WHEN HE PROMISED A MORE HUMBLE AMERICA?

Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America.

While lesser mortals – the Pope, Queen Elizabeth and so on – are usually happy to let their hosts handle most of the security and transport arrangements when they venture beyond their home shores, the United States creates a mini-America on the move to ensure that nothing is left to chance.

If he were a Republican, we’d be hearing about the “Imperial Presidency” in the American press. Instead, such criticism is left to the British.

DON BOUDREAUX: “PRO-BUSINESS.”

There are two ways for a government to be ‘pro-business.’ The first way is to avoid interfering in capitalist acts among consenting adults – that is, to keep taxes low, regulations few, and subsidies non-existent. This ‘pro-business’ stance promotes widespread prosperity because in reality it isn’t so much pro-business as it is pro-consumer. When this way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing consumers, and only for pleasing consumers.

The second, and very different, way for government to be pro-business is to bestow favors and privileges on politically connected firms. These favors and privileges, such as tariffs and export subsidies, invariably oblige consumers to pay more – either directly in the form of higher prices, or indirectly in the form of higher taxes – for goods and services. This way of being pro-business reduces the nation’s prosperity by relieving businesses of the need to satisfy consumers. When this second way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing politicians. Competition for consumers’ dollars is replaced by competition for political favors.

The fact that more than 200 American business executives are in India with the President is cause to fear that any pro-business policies he might adopt will be of the second, impoverishing sort.

Wall Street and corporations, generally, are likely to prefer the second version, but taxpayers and consumers should not.

Plus, from the comments: “Does anyone doubt that an effort is being made to create a private sector employment bubble that it is hoped will not pop until after the 2012 election? The Fed is pumping and Obama is angling for export dumping; Hell, these guys think that cash-for-clunkers was great, so why would anyone be surprised if they started advocating subsidized exporting (de facto or de jure).” Not that it’s working for them so far.

THE GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN BOGEYMAN: “First, Cantor didn’t threaten a shutdown. He was answering a question. Secondly I wonder if the author of this dribble remembered that our Federal government is currently operating without a budget and there isn’t any party gridlock. Third, the President not Congress, decides the scope of any shutdown. Cantor can’t shut the government down, only the Chief Executive can do that. Fourth, Cantor’s ‘petty demands’ are precisely the reason why Republicans were swept to power in the House and made huge gains in the Senate. People want fiscal sanity back and if Republicans don’t deliver then they’ll likely be sent packing. People want spending cuts and the growth of government scaled back, not just arrested.”

BARBARIANS: Look Who Tried To Stop Rescue Of An Arab Boy.

FROM CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, a guide to cancer etiquette.

ED DRISCOLL: “MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems determined to live out Groucho’s famous quip that he has his principles, and if you don’t like them…well, he has others.”

CHANGE: World Bank Chief Calls For A New Global Gold Standard.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “If Obama can’t see this for the problem that it will be for him he is a horribly stupid man.”

KEITH OLBERMANN will be back on the air Tuesday. I promise to watch him as much as I did before he was suspended.

UPDATE: Related thoughts:

The act is not at all what Olbermann says it is. It’s a very old act: The fire and brimstone preacher.

The left has become horrifically sanctimonious. They have become what they hated in the right back in the 60s.

Every issue for the left is a moral issue on the level of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. So, their opponents are always wicked devils consumed with sin.

And, it’s their job to save us from eternal damnation.

Olbermann is just the secular version of the fire and brimstone preacher.

Just nowhere near as attractive or moving.

Oh, I don’t know. I saw Olbermann drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Why Is Ron Paul Supporting Spendthrift Spencer Bachus for Committee Chair? “Bachus is not just an out of control spender. He is directly implicated in the most important domestic failure of the last decade: the refusal to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fight over the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform.”

HOWARD NEMEROV LOOKS AT the election and the Second Amendment.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Outlet Sale.

CHANGE: Janet Daley: The West is turning against big government – but what comes next? “So a generation after the collapse of totalitarian socialism, its democratic form is finally crumbling as well. And, oddly enough, the latter may take longer than the former to unravel.”

ERIC SCHEIE: “I don’t like to gloat. But if I did, I’d be pretty happy about what happened here in Michigan on Tuesday.”

Plus, a warning: “It has to be remembered that the voters weren’t voting for Republicans so much as they were voting against arrogant, entrenched, power which has been wielded these recent years by Democrats.”

CLARITY, NOT COMPROMISE: Ed Morrissey has some further thoughts in response to my Sunday Washington Examiner column.

U.S. AND EUROPE renew vows on nuclear security.

COPYRIGHT AND CULTURE: Newly enemies.

25-50% OFF OF Kids’ Toys For Christmas.

BARRY RUBIN: My son’s soccer team loses every game because his coach tries to force equality. So I took over the coaching duties for a day …

HERE COME the drones.

A CAUSE FOR WORRY: “Whoever invented the ‘laptop’ probably didn’t worry too much about male reproductive health.”

JOE BIDEN WANTS “to seize the power of the patriarch.”

JAMES JOYNER ON UNWED MOTHERHOOD: “I’m not sure what’s shocking: That the rate for blacks has tripled in my lifetime or that whites have now surpassed the level of pathology Moynihan described.”

COMING SOON FROM MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE BEN BARTON: The Lawyer-Judge Bias in the American Legal System, being published by Cambridge University Press. “Virtually all American judges are former lawyers. This book argues that these lawyer-judges instinctively favor the legal profession in their decisions and that this bias has far-reaching and deleterious effects on American law.”

IN THE MAIL: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America.

MY SUNDAY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN IS UP: Forget Talk of Compromise or Confrontation: Republicans Should Seek Clarity.

WANT TO HELP WOUNDED SOLDIERS? Please support Project Valour-IT.

BILL WHITTLE: What We Believe: Gun Rights.

DAVID FREDDOSO: 2010: The year when Democratic women lost and were replaced by Republican women in Congress.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK: While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Sales of Cheese.

When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.

But in a series of confidential agreements approved by agriculture secretaries in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Dairy Management has worked with restaurants to expand their menus with cheese-laden products.

But remember, they’re smarter than you.

And maybe this explains the trend toward turning pizza into cheese toast that I’ve complained about in the past.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: “No president in my lifetime has fallen from heaven to earth as rapidly as President Obama.”

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: An indoor electric turkey-fryer? I think I’ll stick with the oven, though fried turkeys are supposed to be quite tasty, and at least this has less risk of explosion than the more traditional turkey-fryer.

UPDATE: Reader Gerald Dearing has one and likes it:

Been using the indoor turkey fryer for almost a year now. Not just for turkeys. Has a more capacity and better recovery time than any other household fryer I’ve found. Makes great fries, chips, chicken and anything else. An advantage is the lid and the safety power cord. I’ve done turkeys for family and guests, using Alton Brown’s brining technique, to great reviews. Explosions? Properly thaw the bird and use the right oil level, shouldn’t be a problem.

Not up my alley, but interesting.

MY SUNDAY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN IS UP: Forget Talk of Compromise or Confrontation: Republicans Should Seek Clarity.

GLENN FLEISHMAN: What We Talk About When We Talk About Bandwidth. “And, yes, I did just explain that the Internet is a series of pipes.”

ED DRISCOLL: Follow the truthiness.

Related: Obama was to the Democrats what Watergate was to the Republicans.

AT THE CONGLOMERATE: Agenda for the 112th: Masters Forum on a Business Law Agenda for the New Congress and the President.

IS THE KINDLE KILLING INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES?

Besides the crushing economy, Carpe Librum suddenly faced yet another new competitor: e-books and e-readers such as the Kindle and Nook, which have finally taken off after years of attempting to lure consumers away from printed books. According to the Association of American Publishers, for instance, e-book sales were $39 million for August, a 172 percent increase over August 2009 ($14.3 million); calendar year to date, sales grew 193 percent. Throw in big-box retailers like Target and Walmart with discounted bestsellers, and buying books has never been more convenient—a trend that’s been devastating to traditional, independent sellers who mostly stick to list prices in exchange for offering a more selective stock and helpful clerks.

Sorry to see Carpe Librum close — but I have to say, I get most of my books via Kindle now, and most of the rest via Amazon.

EGOTISM TRUMPS PRAGMATISM at the White House.

DON’T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK. And this is a good time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors, too.

MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT Joe Biden’s motorcade problems.

WHO NEEDS BATTERIES? Hand-cranked flashlights and radios.

UPDATE: Reader Tom Kenyon writes:

RE: WHO NEEDS BATTERIES? Hand-cranked flashlights and radios.

I would like someone to make a battery-free cell phone so I can make crank calls.

Groan.

LABOR FORCE STATS spell bad news for Democrats.

BAD NEWS FOR BARNEY FRANK: “The mockery has only just begun.”

Related: The Madness of King Barney.

ED DRISCOLL called the “Don Draper Presidency” first.

INTERESTED IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS? Check out Bill Quick’s discussion forum.

Related: List: Disaster Preparedness gear.

MORE ON the state-level Tsunami. “Republicans have more seats in state legislatures than at any time since Reconstruction.” That’s something that Scott Rasmussen and I talked about yesterday.

NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA: Indebted and Unrepentant. “Another division is likely to compete for center stage in the next two years: the split between, on one side, California and New York—two states, deeply in debt, whose wealthy are beneficiaries of the global economy—and, on the other, the solvent states of the American interior that will be asked to bail them out. This geographic division will also pit the heartland’s middle class and working class against the well-to-do of New York and California and their political allies in the public-sector unions.”

THE TINGLE IS GONE AT MSNBC: Olbermann Suspended! GOP Wins! And Stephen Kruiser of PJTV gets a new friend:

RELATED: “Hypocrite: In 2004, Keith Olbermann said MSNBC’s election office pool was ‘conflict of interest.’”

(Bumped).

FLORIDA TV STATION HAVING TROUBLE finding someone to oppose open carry on-air.

SCIENCE: Engineered yeast could produce low-cost plastics from renewable resources.

DEREK LOWE: Where Drugs Come From.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Don’t Fear The Briar Patch, Matt Taibbi.

EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Radioactive rabbit trapped near Richland.

THEY’RE ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Extinct Bears Found Underwater.

HOME ROBOTS GUARD HOUSES.

2010′s 100 BEST Movies and TV on Blu-Ray.

Related: Best Movies and TV on DVD.

IF YOU MISSED IT LAST NIGHT, check out my interview with Scott Rasmussen on what comes next between now and 2012.

WHERE’S MY SALMON? Fatty Fish Protects Against Prostate Cancer.

WHO NEEDS A HYBRID? Audi launches pair of new TDI-powered A4 models; sedan to get 53.5 mpg. “Packing 2.0-liter TDI engines, the pair of new models – a sedan and an Avant (wagon) – boast near best-in-class fuel economy ratings of 53.5 mpg (U.S.) and 51.1 mpg, respectively. . . . Increased efficiency often comes at the expense of performance, but Audi claims that its 2.0-liter TDI mill makes no such sacrifice. Engine output is listed at 136 horsepower and torque at 236 pound-feet which combine to propel the A4 sedan to 62 miles per hour in 9.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 134 mph. The wagon, with its added weight, completes the sprint to 62 mph in 9.8 seconds and continues to 129 mph before packing it in. Both models feature a six-speed manual trans with slightly lengthened gear ratios, some aerodynamic tweaks aimed at improving drag and come shod with low-rolling resistance tires.”

MICHAEL SILENCE: “It’s people like Olbermann who have made ethical journalism a George Carlin joke.”

THE TEN WORST STATES FOR BUSINESS IN AMERICA.

JESSE FOX MAYSHARK EXPLAINS why East Tennesseans love their guns. Nice piece. (Via SayUncle).

POLITICO: Centrist Dems rip ‘tone-deaf’ White House.

IN THE MAIL: From Mary Elizabeth Strunk, Wanted Women: An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover. Love the cover art.

WANT TO HELP WOUNDED SOLDIERS? Please support Project Valour-IT.

NOW THEY TELL US: SEC eyes hedge fund backed by Barney Frank pal. “Sussman made headlines last month when the Herald reported that U.S. Rep. Barney Frank flew to the Virgin Islands last Christmas on Sussman’s $25 million Dassault Falcon 2000EX luxury jet along with Sussman’s fiance, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Frank’s partner James Ready.”

NEW IBD/TIPP POLL: Americans’ Message To New Congress: Less Gov’t, Please.

A new IBD/TIPP poll on public attitudes suggests that Tuesday’s event was less an election than an intervention: Stop what you are doing; you’re hurting us all.

A majority of the public wants Washington to stop the spending that has exploded the budget deficit. In a listing of top priorities for Congress, cutting the deficit by cutting spending came in No. 1, cited by 53%. (Fully 73%, including a majority of Democrats, said this is a “high priority.”)

Will they listen?

THOUGHTS ON the ephemeral nature of political power.

OUR CREDENTIALED-NOT-EDUCATED GENTRY CLASS: New York, Arkansas…You Know, the Midwest.

CHANGE: Twitter Hires Hill Staffer To Help Pols.

THINKPROGRESS festoons itself with updates of shame.

VIA THE MIRACLE OF AMAZON RECOMMENDATIONS, sandwiches that keep for three years without refrigeration. But I couldn’t find any canned cheeseburgers. . . .

UPDATE: Robert McManus writes: “Big deal. Haven’t you ever heard of Spam on Wonderbread? It has the half-fife of plutonium.”

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Obama calls for compromise, won’t budge on tax cuts.

POLIWOOD: Voices in American Film: Ozark Mountain Men v. Mahattan’s Upper Weird Side. Plus, how the Oscar process really works.

ON ELECTION DAY, the words mattered. “Obama seems to confuse disagreement with his policies with attacks on his character. And that’s why he meant what he said when he used the word ‘enemies.’ Many of the voters who cast their ballots Tuesday understood that.”

THE RISE OF THE “EDUPUNK.”

Related: The growth of online learning on campus. As the higher education bubble talk continues, look for more stories like these.

CHINA BUSTS U.S. FOR SOCIALISM. And fiscal irresponsibility.

Cui Tiankai, a deputy foreign minister and one of China’s lead negotiators at the G20, said on Friday that the US plan for limiting current account surpluses and deficits to 4 per cent of gross domestic product harked back “to the days of planned economies”.

“We believe a discussion about a current account target misses the whole point,” he added, in the first official comment by a senior Chinese official on the subject. “If you look at the global economy, there are many issues that merit more attention – for example, the question of quantitative easing.”

Ouch.

INTERESTED IN WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.

“HE’S JUST TRYING TO GET MY ATTENTION, I THINK, IN THE END:” Mick Jagger (maybe) on Keith Richards’ book. I wish Bob Simms were still alive. He’d know if all this were true.

JOHN STEELE GORDON: “A Short History of Midterm Elections: If the past is indeed prologue, then Republicans shouldn’t get too cocky.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

THE DON DRAPER PRESIDENCY?

Peggy Noonan: “Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility.”

It reminded me of Heather Havrilesky: “The move is classic Don Draper. He announces abruptly that he has evolved — instead of actually evolving.”

Plus, this conclusion from Noonan:

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.

Americans don’t want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They’ll vote no on that.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Numerous readers are still blaming Noonan for her earlier Obamamania. Reader Barry Dauphin writes: “So why did she fall all over him two years ago? He had even fewer accomplishments then.”

Like Draper, he can be seductive on short exposure. And reader Lawrence Loretoni writes:

I’m glad to see that Ms. Noonan’s eyes seem to be open at last. But she, like so many other Republican “moderates,” spent several months in 2008 lecturing the rest of us lower-class knuckle draggers about how Obama’s “superior temperament” and other star qualities made him a better choice than McCain for President. It would be nice if at least one of these pundits had the common decency to admit they were wrong. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dodd Harris says the comparison is unfair — to Don Draper:

I don’t think that analogy is entirely fair – to Don Draper. This last season was about the harrowing of Don Draper, just as this political season was the harrowing of Obama. But Don at least *experienced* it before not really changing. He was tortured, pushed to his limits, and forced to at least acknowledge his past failures. In the end, he chose the easy fix, but he at least plumbed the depths of his own manufactured past before doing so.

I’ve seen no sign Obama has done any of that. He’s still blaming everyone but himself.

Well, that’s the difference between real life and fiction, I guess . . . .

MORE: The Anchoress emails:

That Don Draper/ Obama comparison was brilliantly insightful. It squares well with this piece by Santiago Ramos who examines the shallow emptiness that is being revealed in Draper, and his confusion, but it also rings with Hiawatha Bray’s comments at the bottom of the piece. Bray mentions that Draper is bothered by women who are actual adults…I would argue that Obama too is bothered by adults…he wants the voters to be childlike, chanting three-word catchphrases and buying the product. he does not want adults who actually question, dare to oppose or wish to peer below the surface. Don Draper, indeed. A grad student could write a thesis on it!

And probably will!

POLICE ASSAULT CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST in Minneapolis.

UPDATE: Yes, this is the Joel Rosenberg who writes fantasy/science fiction novels. They’re good, too.

And Minneapolis needs to take lessons from Bill Haslam’s Knoxville. (Bumped).

THE PUZZLES OF PROCRASTINATION. It’s often rational, though. Often, work done early turns out to be wasted, something researchers get around through definitional shifts.

JAMES TARANTO: ObamaCare, a Catastrophic ‘Success.’ “Not long ago, progressive pundits and pols were insisting that the reason Democrats lost in 1994 was because they rejected President Clinton’s efforts to establish ObamaCare, and that if the legislative outcome was different this time, so would be the electoral one. Mission accomplished! The GOP gained more seats this year (at least 60, with 4 of 9 uncalled races trending trunkward, compared with 52 in 1994) and will have a bigger majority in the 112th Congress than in the 104th (at least 239, vs. 230 then). Now the best the progs can do is insist that this week’s election had nothing to do with health care but was all about ‘the economy’–as if the president and Congress rammed through a government takeover of one-seventh of said economy, and voters just didn’t notice.”

WELL, THOSE’LL BE LIMITED ONCE OBAMACARE KICKS IN: Lung cancer deaths cut by CT scans. “For the first time, a large study shows using CT scans to screen smokers and ex-smokers can reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent by catching lethal tumors earlier.”

GROUPS PRESS BOEHNER: First cut should be lawmakers’ salaries. I don’t think members of Congress are overpaid, really. I’d rather see a cut in staff.

ARRESTED FOR Contempt of Cop?

MIAMI HERALD: Florida Tea Party Pretty Darned Happy About How Things Are Going.

OPEN CARRY ACTIVISM IN CONNECTICUT.

Connecticut needs to take lessons from Bill Haslam’s Knoxville.

HMM: The Arkansas Supreme Court orders a new hearing in the case depicted in the documentary “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.”

UNEMPLOYMENT GETS WORSE: Thousands of Democrats to be jobless in Washington.

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES IN CLOSE RACES unexpectedly pull ahead in New York.

THOUGHTS ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. I think the Roman Republic ended because its political class had more loyalty to themselves than to the republic.

KEITH OLBERMANN: In Memoriam.

Related: Olbermann’s Raw Deal.

TALIBAN: “We are winning: Why should we negotiate?”

TROUBLE ON THE BORDER: The University of Texas at Brownsville closes its campus because of bullets from across the Rio Grande.

ENHANCING MATH SKILLS with electrical brain stimulation?

LIST: Best books of 2010.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Scott Rasmussen about what the elections meant, and what libertarians and Tea Partiers should do next. Plus, what is the GOP leadership good for?

FASTER, PLEASE: Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Generated to Further Treatments for Lung Disease.