HMM: Land-Deal Advisor Resigns from Calpers. “The real estate investment manager who led the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest pension fund, into a money-losing land venture has resigned as an adviser to the fund, a spokeswoman for MacFarlane Partners said on Saturday. . . . Calpers said earlier this month that its probe centers on around $50 million in payments that outside managers made over a five-year period to ARVCO Financial Ventures LLC, a firm headed by former Calpers board member Al Villalobos, to win the pension fund’s business.”

HONEY, I SHRUNK THE PARTY: No one’s expecting an Inquisition, though. But then, nobody ever does . . .

ABC NEWS ANCHORS: What ACORN Scandals?

HOWARD MORTMAN: Progress! WashPost front-page note: “We’ve also changed the name of Style and Arts to Arts and Style.” Boy, with the problems facing the newspaper business, you can’t take anything for granted!

THE COPENHAGEN QUESTION: “Anyway, how can there be a big climate change conference that everyone must fly to? If the situation is really so dire, why don’t they video-conference?”

Yeah, I gave a lecture to the Nashville Bar Association’s environmental section by Skype just a couple of weeks ago. But that’s me: Mr. Green! Travel restrictions, like taxes, are for the little people. But anyway, good for Obama for not flying to Copenhagen! “How big is the carbon footprint of a presidential overseas trip — or a presidential trip anywhere? Honestly, the man is set up to do his job in the White House, and he’s well protected there: Why does he ever leave that place? Ditto for all the other world leaders. Why are we supposed to cut back when they do not?” Er, because travel restrictions, like taxes, are for the little people?

And why not stay home for fundraisers, which are not only carbon-explosions but also a net financial loser: “Deval Patrick received $600,000 from donors who wanted to lunch with Obama. Federal taxpayers probably spent at least $2 million on transportation and security for the President. Commoners suffered lost wages and productivity when they found subway stations closed, streets closed, their scheduled airline flight stopped at Logan, etc. Local flight schools alone suffered at least $10,000 in lost revenue. It would be a lot cheaper if we said that every day for the next 8 years the federal government will write a $1 million check to the person of Barack Obama’s choice and in return the President will agree to stay at his desk and work.”

Stay at his desk and work. I’m beginning to discern a theme here — but note that while the costs of Obama’s travel fall on all sorts of people, the benefits go where Obama steers them. Hey, maybe that’s a theme, too . . . .

SOME REAL TEA PARTY ACTIVISM IN CINCINNATI: Justin Binik-Thomas emails:

The Cincinnati Tea Party organized a four day demonstration to urge local congressman Steve Driehaus to vote against the Healthcare bill in the House. He is the only local representative who has not committed to a “ney” vote. We organized an unprecedented four-day “We Surround Him” demonstration to show our commitment to liberty and resolve on the issue.

The first three days of the demonstration were surrounding his district. We had members stationed at all busy exits around I-275 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. These members passed out educational materials to vehicles and pedestrians. The finale was yesterday, Saturday, when we surrounded him. Members surrounded the Carew Tower in Cincinnati where his local office is located. We invited Congressman Driehaus and his 2010 opponent Steve Chabot to speak about Healthcare after the rally. The Congressman declined our invitation. Speakers offered solutions to the “crisis” such as allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines and tort reform.

Here’s a report, and here’s another. And, courtesy of Binik-Thomas, here’s a pic.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, penalizing fat people.

THE REASON FOR OBAMA’S THIN SKIN: “It truly didn’t matter what anyone said about W, because he had such a firmly established core being, it matters utterly what the critics say about the UR’s clothes, because there is no emperor.”

MARKDOWNS ON coffeemakers.

ST. LOUIS TEA PARTY to throw document parties.

UPDATE: Reader J.R. Ott writes: “What is so absolutely fascinating to me as a teacher is that adults are learning how to keep government in check even as the public school system stifles any civics education.”

SAM VENABLE IS DISAPPOINTED IN THE PLAYBOY MARGE SIMPSON FEATURE:

For some strange reason, I actually thought Marge would be a bit more randy on the pages of this magazine than she is on her hit TV show, “The Simpsons.”

You know, like maybe Playboy would broach the delicate question of Blue Hair Everywhere? Or give her a forum to expose Homer as a bumbling bedroom buffoon.

Silly me.

Well, Playboy isn’t what it used to be, and neither are most other magazines these days.

I GET AROUND: Reader Christian Aranda emails:

I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your musical choices. Quite some time ago when you said you were listening to BT, I thought it was ‘cool’ but mostly unimpressed. If you haven’t run across it yet, there is an incredible amount of snobbery where it concerns electronica. I’ve fallen victim to this, having ‘graduated’ from Trance and moving on (and staying with) breaks, techno, minimal techno.

When I read that you were listening to Plump DJs, I was impressed. When you casually mention Luciano (Lucien Nicolet) I was stunned! He is one of my all-time favorite DJs, along with people like Loco Dice and Steve Bug. Most people wouldn’t even find this stuff — I’ve only found it after ten years (yikes!) going to clubs.

Where do you get your music from? . . . Also, you should consider going to DEMF in Detroit sometime. I think you’d enjoy the festival. I went this past May and couldn’t believe the diversity of the people there. You wouldn’t be the oldest by about 40 years! (There were walkers and wheelchairs!)

Well, my techno-production days are — well, not over, perhaps, but on hiatus; between the blog, the PJTV, and everything else, I don’t have time (or maybe it’s just neural processing) left to make music. But I try to keep up. People send me things, I poke around on the web, and I read MixMag etc. semi-regularly. I don’t, however, worry much about what’s “cool,” just about what I like since there’s nobody around here to impress anyway. . . . (I even like Crystal Method and Juno Reactor, both of whom are out of favor with the cool kids at present, I think. Is Anders Trentemoller still cool? I’m not even sure.) Still, I”m sure I miss more than I should but what can you do? “The tragedy of life is that not all values can be realized.” But once you’re realizing all you have time for, you can’t really complain . . . .

NEW JERSEY’S JESSE VENTURA?

HEY, WAIT, I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS GOING TO LOVE US: Hundreds of Kabul University students led the latest protest, burning an effigy of US President Barack Obama.

JENNIFER RUBIN: “I don’t know Joanne Lipman, whose op-ed in the New York Times asks the salient question: was 9-11 bad for women? Maybe she is a cagey humorist, a sly provocateur who seeks to remind us that for some victimologists, it’s always about their peculiar gripe. But I suspect Ms. Lipman is serious.”

JOHN J. MILLER reports on a Five For Fighting concert. You can see my interview with John Ondrasik here.

BOOKS I WOULD RECOMMEND TO THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH ME: That’s a theme of the blogosphere lately. I find it kind of hard, though: Everybody disagrees with me about something. But number one on my list for people who, in the current political alignments, are mostly on the other side of issues would be James Scott’s Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes To Improve The Human Condition Have Failed.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Don’t Let U.S. Capitalism Go the Italian Route.

KRISTOFER HARRISON ON Obama and Afghanistan.

CONVERGENCE: HP Brings Touchscreen and App Power to the Printer. Like an iPhone that prints! Er, and doesn’t fit in your pocket . . . .

ONSTAR IS WATCHING YOU: “On its way to doing the 1/4-mile in 11.07 seconds at 128 mph, a Hennessy-tuned 700-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V hit .99 longitudinal G as it left the start line. By the end of the run the phone inside the car was ringing, and it was your friendly neighborhood OnStar representative wondering ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Ok, not quite… but they did have some questions.” So is this comforting or disturbing?

JUST BECAUSE I HAVEN’T LINKED TO IT IN A WHILE, check out Rick Lee’s photography blog.

MICHELE CATALANO: Naked Justice.

IF YOU MISSED IT ON XM OR SIRIUS, the latest PJM Political is now online, with Fred Barnes, Stephen Green, Tim Pawlenty, Andrew Breitbart, Dana Loesch, and more.

JOHN SCALZI ON the coolness of science fiction.