COEXIST: One-legged Afghan Red Cross worker set to be hanged after converting to Christianity.

THOUGHTS ON caring about sports.

NOBODY TELL THE FIRST LADY:

The rest of the menu for the 100 or so guests at the White House bash is tailgate-friendly even if served inside the Executive Mansion: bratwurst, kielbasa, cheeseburgers, deep-dish pizza and Buffalo wings with sides of German potato salad, twice-baked potatoes and assorted chips and dips.

What about our national anti-obesity campaign? Is this any kind of an example to set?

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Dobbs writes: “I get the impression that healthy eating for the Obamas is a lot like ObamaCare — make rules that demand a particular behavior, but then issue waivers to a privileged class who can be exempt from them.”

SAYUNCLE blogged the Super Bowl commercials.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on grilling tools. Hey, grilling season is just around the corner. I hope!

TIMOTHY SANDEFUR responds to Akhil Amar.

CLARICE FELDMAN: The Incredible Lightness of Obama. “The Egyptian, an 82-year-old with terminal cancer, easily bested the community organizer, the man elected by people who quite clearly confused the last presidential election with an American idol contest. While many who elected the American president probably do not yet realize it, it is lucky for them that he lost the showdown, for had he not, the results would have created worldwide havoc and devastation.”

UNEMPLOYMENT RATES: Male vs. Female.

UPDATE: Mark Perry emails: “This is an old Carpe Diem chart. That chart is from this post. And here’s an updated chart through Jan. 2011.”

SO I EXPRESSED SOME DOUBT when I linked this story initially, but apparently it’s true: CNN: Obama adviser mistakes 4-star general for waiter.

Four-star Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli — the No. 2 general in the U.S. Army — says he is absolutely not offended that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett mistook him for a waiter at a fancy Washington dinner this week and asked him for a glass of wine.

It could have happened to anybody, Chiarelli tells CNN.

“It was an honest mistake that ANYONE could have made. She was sitting, I was standing and walking behind her and all she saw were the two stripes on my pants which were almost identical to the waiters pants — REALLY. She apologized and will come to the house for dinner if a date can be worked out in March,” Chiarelli wrote in an e-mail.

It’s a good thing Sarah Palin didn’t make this mistake. Because if she did, it would be a univerally reported indicator that she’s an idiot and should never be allowed anywhere near issues of public policy. Luckily, since it was Valerie Jarrett, it’s all in good fun.

Much more discussion here.

SO FAR, MY MAIN TAKE ON THE SUPER BOWL is that the commercials seem really disappointing. The one with the guy getting repeatedly kicked in the balls merely inspired an unfortunate association with the bottom-feeder insurance company it advertises. And that was the only memorable one. . . .

THOUGHTS ON THE DECLINE OF MALE SPACE. And the beginnings of a renaissance? If you’re watching the Super Bowl from an elaborate Man Cave, then you’re part of it. . . .

TOM MAGUIRE: Winning The Future In Egypt (Ongoing…).

THE ONION: Obama Caught Lip-Syncing Speech. “After Obama slips up during an address on health care, White House officials are forced to admit the president occasionally uses a backing track for important speeches.”

JONATHAN ADLER ON COMMON CAUSE’S FILIBUSTER FLIP: “This sort of flip-flop is expected from partisans, but not from purportedly non-partisan, good-government organizations.”

YEAH, WHO WANTS A RELIABLE OIL SUPPLY FROM A FRIENDLY NEIGHBOR? Big Green Groups Tell Obama To Tell Canada To Drop Dead. It’s almost like these people want to hurt the economy.

BILL GATES ON THE VACCINES/AUTISM HOAX:

Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it’s an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn’t have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts — you know, they, they kill children. It’s a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.

Yes, they are.

STEEP MARKDOWNS ON Men’s Clothing.

I’D NEVER HEARD OF PHILLIP GIRALDI, but Pejman Yousefzadeh says he has more influence than he deserves.

HOW TO REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT TO ZERO. Heh.

CHANGE: “I’ve noticed my commute on BART has become substantially more crowded the past few weeks. Somehow I doubt it’s due to a sudden surge in employment. Might it stem from the ever-increasing gasoline prices? You know… the ones that when it happened during the Bush administration made for screaming headlines yet now warrant barely a whisper? Funny how that works.”

YESTERDAY I WROTE ABOUT RESILIENCE ENGINEERING AND POWER SUPPLIES. Now reader Chris Birkett emails:

I work for an electrical utility. When I first started there, in the late 70’s, we were taught about the separability and redundancy built into the system, which was designed by cold war engineers. Each region had its own generation, subtransmission, and distribution components, and could be operated as a separate entity. The regions were connected at a high level for efficiency and redundancy. Not true today. No one wants generation plants anywhere near, so they are far away and out of mind. I remember standing on top of a mountain, looking down and seeing the fragile thread of the transmission lines across the desert. The strongest impression I had was one of vulnerability. We still have a comparatively robust system with a fair amount of redundancy at lower levels. But like the rest of our infrastructure, much of the system is old and overloaded. Solar panels and high speed rail won’t solve the problem. We need a national program to rebuild our infrastructure, combining people who are willing to sweat and get dirty with the most effective of the new technologies we have developed. In the meantime, I just remembered that I am overdue for maintenance on my portable generators…

Yeah, we’ve pinched pennies by reducing robustness. That’s a poor practice that produces rotten results.

UPDATE: Reader Jeffrey Hollister writes:

If Obama back in ’09 had used the gazillions in ‘stimulus’ funds for an FDR-style plan to rebuild roads, bridges and the power grid, the actual work on the associated projects would probably be going into high gear right about now. Between the skilled jobs directly generated and the multiplier rate of those jobs, the unemployment rate would be heading downward without the need for statistical hocus-pocus; state and local governments’ balance sheets would gradually be repairing themselves through added tax revenue; and Obama himself would be a prohibitive favorite for reelection next year, even without the assistance of his MSM sockpuppet corps. But rebuilding the country and stimulating the economy (the real one, not the public-sector hog trough) was never Obama’s objective. Has everyone forgotten Robert Reich’s call to congressional Democrats to make sure they keep stimulus funds out of the hands of ‘white male construction workers?’ Just in case anyone HAS forgotten, here’s the video…

Yes, and the feminists wanted to be sure that the money didn’t go to white male construction workers, too.

Last November, President-elect Obama addressed the devastation in the construction and manufacturing industries by proposing an ambitious New Deal-like program to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. He called for a two-year “shovel ready” stimulus program to modernize roads, bridges, schools, electrical grids, public transportation, and dams and made reinvigorating the hardest-hit sectors of the economy the goal of the legislation that would become the recovery act.

Women’s groups were appalled. Grids? Dams? Opinion pieces immediately appeared in major newspapers with titles like “Where are the New Jobs for Women?” and “The Macho Stimulus Plan.” A group of “notable feminist economists” circulated a petition that quickly garnered more than 600 signatures, calling on the president-elect to add projects in health, child care, education, and social services and to “institute apprenticeships” to train women for “at least one third” of the infrastructure jobs. At the same time, more than 1,000 feminist historians signed an open letter urging Obama not to favor a “heavily male-dominated field” like construction: “We need to rebuild not only concrete and steel bridges but also human bridges.” As soon as these groups became aware of each other, they formed an anti-stimulus plan action group called WEAVE–Women’s Equality Adds Value to the Economy.

The National Organization for Women (NOW), the Feminist Majority, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and the National Women’s Law Center soon joined the battle against the supposedly sexist bailout of men’s jobs. At the suggestion of a staffer to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, NOW president Kim Gandy canvassed for a female equivalent of the “testosterone-laden ‘shovel-ready’ ” terminology. (“Apron-ready” was broached but rejected.) Christina Romer, the highly regarded economist President Obama chose to chair his Council of Economic Advisers, would later say of her entrance on the political stage, “The very first email I got . . . was from a women’s group saying ‘We don’t want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.’ ”

No matter that those burly men were the ones who had lost most of the jobs.

Or, you know, fixed things like electrical grids. The feminists won. So the money went elsewhere, and we got . . . er, what did we get, anyway?

MORE: A reader emails: “In the past, many utilities maintained a 60-90 day coal inventory at the power plants. Now I’ve heard that some state regulators have forced the utilities to reduce their inventories in order to keep rates low. As low as thirty days.” So if coal shipments are delayed by weather, etc., that could be a problem much sooner than in the past.

MORE STILL: Reader Dan Harlan writes: “As much as I would like to blame Obama for not doing anything about the sorry state of the American power grid, I have to give credit where it is due. The Bush administration did nothing after the northeast regional blackout in 2003, which should have been the wake up call for the entire country. I don’t know why anyone is surprised about the lack of any real stimulus in the so-called stimulus bill. The main problem with Keynesian Economics has always been the fact that governments do not spend money for economic reasons, they spend it for political reasons.”

IN THE MAIL: The Fathers Know Best.

PROFESSIONALISM: “A Secret Service agent assigned to protect Nancy Reagan is recovering after accidentally shooting himself in the hip at a sheriff’s department shooting range.”

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH enlightens the constitutionally uninformed.

THE SPIN IS KIND OF FRIENDLY, but the ATF gun-running story makes the L.A. Times. Key bit:

Dick DeGuerin, who represents Houston gun dealer Bill Carter, owner of Carter Country, said the company is now being threatened with a federal indictment as a result of multiple sales to purported straw purchasers — sales he said were not only reported to the ATF, but which federal agents encouraged Carter Country employees to complete.

“What’s going on now is some of these agents are scared of their own careers, and are afraid to own up to the fact that they encouraged Carter Country to go through with these sales,” DeGuerin said. “The breakdown came with, what did the ATF do with the information that Carter Country was delivering to them? Apparently, they didn’t do much.”

Background here. Bottom line: Hundreds or thousands of guns made it to Mexico with the ATF’s connivance, even as the ATF was loudly trumpeting that it was . . . finding U.S.-origin guns in Mexico. Was this a book-cooking PR operation, or just utter incompetence? Either way, seems like another candidate for budget cuts.

LOOKING AT PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM: “It has been the experience of REACTS that many people express some of the preliminary symptoms of ARS (Acute Radiation Syndome) — particularly nausea — due to their anxiety. It is important that responders and medical care providers are able to recognize the difference between real victims and those who are simply afraid.”

And don’t forget to Duck And Cover!

AT AMAZON, new book releases in History.

DOES AMERICA HAVE A LAWYER PROBLEM, OR A LAW PROBLEM? My Sunday Washington Examiner column is up.

UPDATE: Reader Karl Keller emails:

Your column today about the law being the problem, and not the lawyers, brought to mind one of the key points made in Federalist #62 — in my view, among the greatest of the papers. There Madison wrote:

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.

Alas, our Founders were wise, and Madison among the wisest. Too bad much of our political class fails to understand them.

Or maybe it understands them all too well.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Obama Preaches the False Religion of Corporate Social Responsibility. “Wrong. The social obligation of business is to sustainably maximize long-term profits for shareholders. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

I JUST HOPE THERE’S NOT A “BLUE HADES” COLONY DOWN THERE OR SOMETHING: Scientists Race To Breach Antarctica’s Lake Vostok. “Russian scientists are set to pierce through Antarctica’s frozen surface to reveal the secrets of an icebound lake that has been sealed deep there for the past 15 million years.” Admit it, it sounds just like a thousand horror-movie setups.

UPDATE: Reader Russ Hochstetler writes: “Let’s hope this isn’t the start of ‘A Colder War’.” Yeah, I was kinda feeling a Stross vibe in that news story.

TYPOGRAPHY FOR LAWYERS.

MORE ON COMMON CAUSE, FROM DON SURBER: What is unforgivable is the outright hypocrisy over the filibuster by this faux-nonpartisan group of lefties.

Plus this: “By the way, hate speech is protected — as is corporate speech, even from those corporations who pay no taxes at all — such as Common Cause.”

UPDATE: Reader Robert Schenck writes: “I think when they start calling for the lynching of Clarence Thomas you’re allowed to spell it ‘Kommon Kause’.” Korrect.

CHANGE: Is 1099 Repeal a Controlled Burn of ObamaCare or Uncontrollable Wildfire?

CHANGE: Ahmadiyya Muslim community launches ‘Muslims for Loyalty’ campaign. “The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA is spreading the word that, despite all the bad press — by way of terrorist attacks, honor killings, and the like — Muslims have a duty to be peaceful and loyal to the United States.” What’s sad is that this is newsworthy, at this late date.

WHAT A BLOG CAN DO FOR YOU: “I personally have gone from having no influence whatsoever to having extremely little influence. To me, that’s a major upgrade.”

MORE ON THE FAILURE OF STATE MULTICULTURALISM. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are basically unemployable in productive fields have chosen it as their rice bowl.

But Nick Cohen writes in The Guardian that appeasement may be over. “I am not sure the prime minister understands that he is taking on a sensibility as much as a political platform. Because Britain was never invaded by the Nazis, and never suffered from any of the other versions of 20th-century tyranny, there is an unforgivable frivolity about our dealings with totalitarianism. Dilettante bureaucrats, journalists and intellectuals play with extremists and their ideas with the insouciance of men and women who know that they will never have to suffer the consequences of coping with extremists in power. The best gift the British can give the world in this moment of crisis is to imitate the crowds in North Africa and say enough of all of that. It is time to break away from a shameful past.”

EGYPT: A LETTER FROM SALIM MANSUR. “I am more convinced now, as I wasn’t when Paul Kennedy wrote about the rise and fall of great powers, that the West has gone over the tipping point in its terminal decline. That intelligent people, or people who claim to be intelligent, (I have in mind the talking heads in the U.S. media such as Chris Matthews or Fareed Zakaria) cannot make the difference between the sham of the Muslim Brotherhood talking about freedom and democracy and the generic thirst in man to be free. These are the people who have like the Bourbons learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They are glibly about to put the Lenins of our time into trains heading for Moscows of our time, they find nothing odd that they are pushing for the Muslim Brotherhood to be taken into governing when everything needs to be done to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out.”

EXPLOSIVE ARCHAEOLOGY: Chinese find caucasian mummy too hot to handle.

Shades of Kennewick Man. Science must not be allowed to overturn the favored narrative.

A ROUNDUP OF Valentine’s Day gift ideas and markdowns.

CHART: The GOP Galaxy. This chart could also make for a good game of Crisco Twister. Not that I’ve every played that game or anything. No sir.

PALIN VISIT CANCELED OVER THREATS, ATTACKS.

GETTING A JOB AFTER 50? Good luck. Obviously we need more Age Discrimination suits, and affirmative action for older job applicants.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown writes: “That kind of puts a damper on the whole raise the retirement age plan of action. Or do we want a bunch of 50 yr olds starving in their upper middle age?” I believe you mean “late youth.”

And reader Greg Joyce emails: “I’m guessing your tongue is in cheek when you say more age discrimination suits are needed to help the unemployed over 50. I’m on the wrong side of 50 and was recently laid off when our hi-tech company closed shop. If someone doesn’t want to hire me because of my age, that should be their right. Whatever, I started my own company. Job security is a myth anyway.”

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH EXPLAINS WHAT ISN’T WORTH YOUR TIME. My days of not taking Yglesias seriously have certainly come to a middle.

HOPE AND CHANGE: ST. LOUIS SOUP LINE PROTEST Forms at Claire McCaskill’s Delmar Office.

Photos and video at the link. Also, more video here, and more photos here.

MEDIA MATTERS blows it again. I think they’re actually a right-wing plot to dissipate as much Soros money as possible to no real effect.

SO MAYBE IT’S GLOBAL FREEZING AFTER ALL? It keeps looking more and more like Fallen Angels. Or maybe a John Ringo novel. I don’t want to live in either. . . .

BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: “The idea that suppression of freedom will make human nature angelic is the fable of the leftists. Freedom as practiced for two hundred years in the USA produced the kindest most generous and most prosperous society the world has ever known.”

MORE PUBLIC PENSION PROBLEMS, THIS TIME IN PITTSBURGH: City Officials May Need Hail Mary Pass As Unfunded Liability Hits $700 Million. “By relying on outdated actuarial tables, making only minimum payments, and failing to limit benefits as the number of active workers paying into the plans fell, Pittsburgh has accumulated a $700 million unfunded liability, and its 29.5% funding level is among the lowest in the U.S.”

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” I WAS TOLD ABOUT: Obama Administration Distances Self From Own Envoy to Mubarak. I’ve never been a fan of Frank Wisner myself, since my space-policy days, and I’ve never thought he’s a good choice for anything mission-critical. Apparently, I’m right again. But then, I wouldn’t have given him the mission. . . .

UPDATE: A reader points out that Frank Wisner was vice-chairman of AIG. Like I said, not a good choice for anything mission-critical. The reader adds: “I also doubt that he had much to do with the implosion; he was involved with the political side. However, it is an interesting connection that another former AIG exec has such a high position in the Obama administration (in addition to Holbrooke, a former board member). I am not trying to start a conspiracy theory, but it is curious.” The added links are mine, for background.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES TRYING TO SHUT DOWN TUCSON TEA PARTY? “We were having a town hall/forum on mental health on Feb 18th and one by one the County Prosecutor and Sheriff have spoken to our speakers and intimidated them to the point where they will no longer speak. This really can’t happen.”

It used to be that Democratic sheriffs in Mississippi smeared innocent groups as a bunch of violent brutes. Now, apparently, it’s Democratic sheriffs in Arizona who do that.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE, as portrayed by The Simpsons.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard Study: Hey, Maybe Not Everyone Should Go To College.

And note this comment in particular.

CHANGE? WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT CHANGE? “The Obama administration has been a golden age for lobbyists, which is a big part of the reason why Washington D.C. and its suburbs are now the nation’s richest province.”

ED DRISCOLL: The Manic-Depressive MSM.

CHANGE: “So hotshot financial types are hoarding nickels, apparently. This can’t be a positive sign for the economy.” Well, when a 5-cent coin is worth 7 cents, it’s a pretty good buy.

WHAT “ZERO TOLERANCE” TEACHES: The Lesson to You Schoolchildren for Today: People in Authority Are Often Idiots.

WELL, LET’S HOPE: The Tunisian Revolution Is Looking Like A Success.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Computer Outlet sale.

PAUL HSIEH: America’s Other Drug Problem: “During the past year, medical professionals have received alarming reports about critical shortages of important drugs. These drugs aren’t the common over-the-counter medications that consumers purchase in their local drugstores. Rather, the shortages are in various injectable drugs typically administered to seriously ill patients in hospitals.”

MY GUESS IS, THEY MISSED THE WINDOW FOR THIS: Aptera: We need government money to bring vehicle to market.

GRIDEYE: A tool for predicting power blackouts.

Related: Rolling blackouts in Texas cause gas shutoffs in New Mexico. Remember, tightly coupled systems experience cascading failures. Think resilience engineering, people!

CANADA FOLLIES: Rex Murphy: “Human Rights” Meets Its Match In The Microwave Oven. “How long must it be before provincial and federal political parties come out of their respective caves of cowardice and timidity and pronounce on the degradation of human rights in Canada? The public are so far ahead of the politicians on this issue that it has become a matter of wonder why the politicians continue to hold back.”

PATERNALISM IN ALL FORMS, BUT why no job paternalism? asks Robin Hanson. “Why are kids allowed to attempt to pursue mostly ‘dead end’ careers as actors, musicians, or athletes against their parents wishes? Why are young kids allowed to take classes preparing them for such career attempts?” Perhaps it’s an admirable humility as jobs that look good at a given moment often turn out to be lousy in a decade or two, and vice versa.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “The nanny-state is maternal, not paternal. Moms prefer clean, safe jobs like acting, singing, and teaching. Dads are the ones who encourage kids to take jobs where they have to get their hands dirty and there is risk.”

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

Related: List: Recommended survival gear for your car or SUV.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “Look, if Godzilla appeared on the Mall this afternoon, Al Gore would say it’s global warming.” Followed immediately in the transcript by [Laughter].

CHANGE: Egypt’s ruling party leadership resigns in newest shakeup.

SO I LINKED TO AMAZON’S VALENTINE’S DAY COOKWARE SALE THIS MORNING, and some readers wrote that they didn’t think much of this item, a knife holder called “The Ex,” by Raffaele Iannello. It does seem to take a view of violence toward men that society would never accept if it were directed at women.

Can you imagine a knife holder like this, only with a female figurine, being routinely sold and viewed as some sort of a “gag” item? I can’t.

Certainly I expect it would create quite a stink, as all the usual sources weighed in on how this reveals our culture’s contempt for women, yada yada. And it wouldn’t get a pass as simply “edgy.” Would it?

More thoughts here.

SAVING AFRICAN CHILDREN’S LIVES with genetically-modified cassava. “While non-modified cassava supplies just one-fifth of daily protein requirements, the extra protein is enough to supply the needs of infants on a typical cassava-based diet (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016256). Fauquet says his root could save 1 in 4 African children from a potentially fatal condition called protein-energy malnutrition.”

IN THE MAIL: From Greg Egan, Zendegi.

OKAY, I LINKED SPENGLER LAST NIGHT, BUT THIS PASSAGE HAS RELEVANCE for those who are excessively optimistic about a “fight the power” revolution in Egypt:

Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, “The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.” Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical.

In fact, the vast majority of Egyptians has practiced civil disobedience against the Mubarak regime for years. The Mubarak government announced a “complete” ban on genital mutilation in 2007, the second time it has done so – without success, for the Egyptian population ignored the enlightened pronouncements of its government. Do Western liberals cheer at this quiet revolt against Mubarak’s authority?

Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt’s First Lady, continues to campaign against the practice, which she has denounced as “physical and psychological violence against children.” Last May 1, she appeared at Aswan City alongside the provincial governor and other local officials to declare the province free of it. And on October 28, Mrs Mubarak inaugurated an African conference on stopping genital mutilation.

The most authoritative Egyptian Muslim scholars continue to recommend genital mutilation.

It’s not the fall of the Berlin Wall.

HEY, LOW-SODIUM COOKING IS LABOR-INTENSIVE, I GUESS: Ever heard of too many cooks, Mayor? Bloomberg spends $245,000 of taxpayers’ dough employing THREE chefs at Gracie Mansion.

UPDATE: A reader who has dined with Bloomberg says he doesn’t spare the butter or salt on his own plate.

GOOD NEWS: I could outrun a Neanderthal. So I guess it’s safe for me to go back to that time-machine research now.

HE’S UNDOUBTEDLY RIGHT: The Hill: Harper touts Canadian oil imports as best for America’s security interest. Environmental groups, however, seem determined to stop this — as they seem determined to stop pretty much all other new sources of energy. With people freezing in the dark across a good-sized swath of the U.S. this week, even as oil breaks $100/barrel, their complaints may get a less sympathetic hearing than previously.

FASTER, PLEASE: Researchers “Grow” New Blood Vessels. “Synthetic blood vessels that can be made in advance and stored until surgery could help patients undergoing heart surgery, hemodialysis—cleansing of the blood in cases of kidney failure—and other procedures. Laura Niklason, an anesthesiologist and biomedical engineer at Yale University, and her collaborators have grown blood vessels using human cells and tested them in baboons, showing that they provoke no immune rejection and avoid common complications of synthetic vessels, such as clotting, bursting, or contracting over time. Researchers hope these studies will show that the vessels are safe enough to win permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials.”

AT AMAZON, a Valentine’s Day sale on cookware.

HEH: “The Fish Filet™ Commercial KFC Doesn’t Want You To See (Anymore).”

GALLUP: Underemployment At 19.2%.

I WAS NEVER A FAN OF THAT ROTTEN GLOBAL COPYRIGHT TREATY. Wikileaks ACTA cables confirm it was a screwjob for the global poor. Among others.

I DIDN’T SEE SARAH PALIN’S SPEECH LAST NIGHT, but Randy Barnett saw it, and emailed: “I must admit it was an impressive speech. The first I have heard her give since she accepted the VP nomination, only much better. Reaganesque even.” When Sarah Palin is getting that kind of praise from Georgetown law professors, it suggests that there’s something missing from the narrative. Is there a transcript somewhere?

UPDATE: Sorry — video link before was wrong. Here’s the right one. And here’s a C-SPAN link. Plus, here’s Byron York’s report.

HMM: “The Distributed ‘Party of We’ Is Already In Control.” I don’t think that’s quite right. I think that claims that “code trumps law” are premature, at least. Power, ultimately, grows out of the barrel of a gun, not a modem.

On the other hand, there is a certain Army of Davids quality to the analysis: “This really is a moment when centralized top-down legacy systems are coming into conflict with distributed, decentralized, bottom-up systems — and not understanding them at all.” That’s clearly true.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: For Lila Rose, Planned Parenthood video ‘sting’ is about revolution. “The ultimate goal of this new generation of right-wing muckrakers is the overthrow of the perceived liberal-leaning mainstream media narrative on touchstone political issues such as guns, racism, and abortion. Rose casts her work in light of the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and her videos are the tinder for peaceful social insurrection.”

Plus this:

The videos are “possibly unfair coverage,” but no more unfair than the preponderance of news coverage directed at, for example, the Natonal Rifle Association in the past, says Mr. Patrick, who has studied how media organizations present conservative viewpoints.

“The classic NRA story from The New York Times or The Washington Post was a reporter would go to an NRA convention of 80,000 people and find some dummy in the parking lot with a coonskin hat and interview him,” he says. In the case of the Live Action videos, Patrick adds, “they might have found the dummy with the coon skin hat” at Planned Parenthood.

Indeed. Though in this case, the dummies worked at the clinics. And Planned Parenthood has the JournoList crowd plotting their media defense. I’m in favor of legal abortion, but this stinks.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark emails:

Here is an example of a type of action cheered by liberals and the left in the past confident that their oxen would never be gored; perhaps with good reason given the limited numbers of news outlets in the past and the control that a handful of gatekeepers exercised. None of them imagined the open source paradigm for news and commentary, and what that might mean for politics. All I can say to the Planned Parenthoods of the world and their supporters is, “get used to it”. Not even the Journolistas of the world can cover for them now. We’ve moved to an age where the consequences of belief and policy will be documented, publicized, and politicized.

And, of course, inevitably I have to say: They told me if I voted Republican, women would be getting abortions from unlicensed quacks in sleazy back-alley clinics without state oversight. And they were right!

DAVID CAMERON: STATE MULTICULTURALISM HAS FAILED. Why yes, yes it has.

PAPER THAT DECLARED “THE END OF BLOGGING” now run by famous blogger.

CHANGE: America’s Most Miserable Cities: “California has never looked less golden, with eight of its cities making the top 20 on our annual list.”

HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS transformed New York’s sex trade. “It’s hard out there for a pimp—especially now. Changes in the sex industry have rendered them superfluous.” I see it as just an extension of the “comfy chair revolution.”

WELL, THEY SAID “SMART DIPLOMACY,” NOT “SMART DIPLOMATS.” BUT STILL. Ex-Ambassador Left Luxembourg Embassy in ‘State of Dysfunction,’ Watchdog Finds.

Described as “aggressive, bullying, hostile, and intimidating,” President Obama’s ambassador to Luxembourg left the U.S. embassy there “in a state of dysfunction” and unable to carry out its duties after her recent exit, according to report released this week by the State Department Inspector General.

Cynthia Stroum, one of President Obama’s top 25 fundraisers — a bundler who raised more than $500,000 for the his campaign — was chosen for ambassador in 2009. Since then, auditors say her autocratic, bossy and demanding style led to complete failure of the embassy in Luxembourg’s ability to function as an arm of the U.S. government in one of the world’s smallest and wealthiest nations. . . . Stroum, who had no apparent qualifications for the job, quit last week, citing business and family obligations.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WE WERE PROMISED, I GUESS: “Wikileaks cables reportedly indicate that, consistent with its policy of selling out friends in order to curry favor with enemies, the Obama administration betrayed British military secrets to Russia as part of the New Start treaty.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON who’s who in Egypt.

MARCIA MORRISSEY: Hoist that Lantern; Shake that Salt!

DARRIN MOORE ON FACEBOOK: “If Obama thinks a leader should step down simply because large crowds of people protest in the streets of the capitol for a week or so, I’ve got an idea.”

LIFE’S LITTLE METAPHORS: Democrat on House Financial Services Committee declares bankruptcy.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on Blu-Ray.

SPENGLER: Food And Failed Arab States. “Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, beholden to foreign providers for nearly half its total food consumption. Half of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. Food comprises almost half the country’s consumer price index, and much more than half of spending for the poorer half of the country. This will get worse, not better.”

IS BILL NELSON in trouble?

MORE ON THAT “UNLICENSED ENGINEER” SCANDAL AT THE NORTH CAROLINA DOT: North Carolina Transporation Secretary Doubles Down:

Bryant said Lacy was trying to intimidate Cox and his neighbors and suppress their rights to petition government officials.

“No one signed it as an engineer,” Bryant said. “They simply put together their feelings and their information. When we can’t do that without fear of potential criminal prosecution, that takes away our rights.”

A spokesman for Perdue said the governor, a Democrat, had pledged to take politics out of transportation planning. . . .

Transportation Secretary Gene Conti, a Perdue appointee, said the DOT has used residents’ feedback to change the Falls of Neuse project. He endorsed Lacy’s request for an investigation.

Disgraceful.

UPDATE: Reader Steven Lantz — a Professional Engineer — emails:

Suggest the NCDOT “investigation” also look into the technical credentials of a State Transportation Secretary with the following academic resume:

Ph.D., Anthropology, Duke University, 1978
M.A., Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, Duke University, 1978
B.A., Sociology/Anthropology, Eastern Michigan University, 1971

Not much in that there regarding engineering & transportation unless he happens to use the anthro degree to analyze road rage on the Carolina Byways.

Heh.

BRING YOUR OWN HOT CHOCOLATE: The St. Louis Tea Party will be protesting at Claire McCaskill’s office on Delmar Blvd. tomorrow. If you’re there, send me a pic and a report.

RETRACTO THE CORRECTION ALPACA is going after NPR.

ROBERT FARAGO: High-Cap Mag Bill Story Started By Senator Dick Durbin.

RUBE: Matthews loses his tingle over Egypt, declares himself “ashamed.”

GLENN BECK VS. Michelle Goldberg. Like Ann Althouse, I find Beck’s delivery hard to take. On the other hand, he’s correct here, and Michelle Goldberg is displaying her deep ignorance. I mean, really, we’re going on ten years since 9/11 and the idea of an “Islamic Caliphate” is news?