How the netroots brought down Obama’s spymaster.

CALIFORNIA UPDATE: “While the state is wallowing in a $28 billion deficit over the next 18 months, newly-elected lawmakers got new cars. From $32,000 hybrids to $46,000 Cadillacs, their new rides will cost taxpayers an estimated $1.3 million.”

Plus, Dan Walters says official budget deficit estimates are way too low.

DEE DEE MYERS: Favreau’s Sexist Photo Is No Laughing Matter. “At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously? At what point do people get punished in ways that suggest this kind of behavior, this kind of thinking, is unacceptable? At what point do we insist there will be consequences?” Based on experience, it’s at the point where the person is a Republican . . . .

But maybe Favreau is just preparing for a career in advertising.

JERRY POURNELLE: “The economy outside is frightful, but our machines are so delightful…”

WHY YES, YES IT IS:

Is this what you call chutzpah? Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut has demanded that the chief executive officer of General Motors resign because of the management of GM during his tenure.

Isn’t this the same Sen. Dodd who along with his House counterpart Rep. Barney Frank continued over the years to tell the public that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fine upstanding organizations with no financial problems while they were in fact in the process of collapsing?

Additionally, wasn’t Sen. Dodd the one who took sweetheart loan deals from Countrywide Financial?

But I can’t answer this one: “Why are there no demands for Sen. Dodd to resign from the U.S. Senate?”

SCUBA GEAR: Reader David Pomeroy writes:

I doubt you remember me, but we met briefly at the happy-hour after you spoke about your book at the Reason panel in DC a few years back. Anyway I have since joined the Marines and, while stationed in Okinawa, taken up scuba diving! I saw your photo today and I was compelled to write you about scuba gear. I see your dive guide has a SeaQuest BCD. I’ve got a ProQD with i3, which is a lever on the left pocket that replaces the low-pressure inflator hose, and I love it. The downside is it’s not a back-inflate, but it’s nice not having to reach up to adjust buoyancy. The hose connects around back and then under your arm so it stays out of your way. My other gear is a ScubaPro Mk17 1st Stage, G250v Reg and R295 Octo, and a Suunto Cobra 2 Computer. I’m really happy with all of it. I googled your archives and I didn’t see any scuba gear reviews! What do you dive with? Any thoughts from your readers?

I dive with a Dacor Viper regulator (no longer made) and a Seaquest Passport travel BCD. I’ve been thinking of replacing the Dacor with an Atomic T2 or B1, or maybe an Apeks T100, but honestly I’m perfectly happy with the Dacor. My dive computer is a Suunto Vyper, replacing the Suunto Favor S that I used to use. I’m quite happy with it, though some complain that it’s kind of a cautious computer. I (usually) regard that as a feature, not a bug, though it can be a bit bossy at times. Still, better bossy than bent. The Vyper has also been replaced by the Vyper 2, which — if the usual pattern holds — is even more finicky.

JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS: Questions Arise About the Obama/Blagojevich Relationship.

UPDATE: Action in Illinois: “In separate statements, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones said they will call a special legislative session next week to repeal the state law that now gives the governor the power to fill Mr. Obama’s seat. Both said they will press instead for a special election to fill the remaining two years of Mr. Obama’s term.”

MORE: How Deep Is This Muck?

Plus, What happens next?

ANDY STERN: “A Democratic source confirms that SEIU President Andy Stern is the ‘SEIU official’ referred to in the federal complaint against Rod Blagojevich.”

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from Investor’s Business Daily.

SOME GOURMET FOOD GIFTS for under 25 bucks.

INCREASED PUBLIC INTEREST in blacksmithing. Having made roman lorica segmentata armor — riveted by hand! — back when I was in high school, I have some interest in this stuff. It’s pretty cool; one of my students even runs a blacksmith-supply business.

AT NRO, a discussion of deflation. I’m still expecting snap-back inflation down the line, but I could be wrong.

THE AUTO BAILOUT IS STALLING:

Bailout nation is in trouble today as reports circulate that the little-three bailout deal does not have the votes in the Senate to pass. Also, Nancy Pelosi wants a lot of Republican votes in the House, but it doesn’t look like she’s gonna get them. One key point missing from the Democratic proposal is a strict compensation condition, whereby GM wages and benefits must equal Toyota’s. The difference right now is roughly $75 for GM and $48 for Toyota. This is the Sen. Bob Corker proposal, and he himself is opposed to the bill because of the absence of any strict compensation conditions.

Nancy Pelosi calls the deal a barber shop, where everybody will take a haircut. But there is no UAW haircut. And that may turn out to be a real deal-blocker.

The bailout is unpopular with the public. I’m surprised that more GOP politicians aren’t taking an anti-bailout stance, since it’s an opportunity to align action with both public sentiment and small-govermnent principles.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS:

Legacy costs for pensions and health care create the major cost disadvantage for U.S. auto companies. But governments are far more imbedded with unfunded or underfunded pension and health care liabilities than any auto company. Minnesota teachers, as an example, are in retirement for an average of 27.4 years, nearly as long as some of them have worked. What should we say when the public-employee pension fund managers come clamoring to legislatures for more funds? Should we say, “Let them go bankrupt,” as some have suggested with our industrial companies?

You can’t bail out everybody, you know. We may have that forcefully illustrated, soon, as the political class seems unaware of these limits . . . .

PLUMMETING YOUTUBE RATINGS for Obama’s fireside chats.

HEH: Hypocrisy: Senator Dodd (D – Countrywide) Wants General Motors CEO To Resign. Boy, it’s sure a target-rich environment out there today.

KATIE GRANJU: Note to President-Elect Obama: just tell the truth. “No more lies, please, Mr. President-Elect. Come clean on whatever your dealings have been with Blagojevich in this matter, and let’s put it behind us and move on.”

UPDATE: Time is already calling this BlagoGate.

Fans of Jerry Pournelle’s future history will remember Greg Tolland. Obama was already reminding me of him a bit. Now, a bit more.

CHARLIE RANGEL’S WAR: “Several newspapers have called for Mr. Rangel to step down – and he should. But that would let Mrs. Pelosi off the hook. If Mrs. Pelosi is to be taken at her word – ‘the most open and honest government in history’ – and if the public is to believe that she will enforce the rules equally, she must remove Mr. Rangel from his chairmanship.”

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

ED DRISCOLL: Red Queen’s Race.

BALLS AND BRAINS: The quality of a man’s sperm depends on how intelligent he is, and vice versa.

AT TREASURY, partying in “The Cash Room.”

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF PRESIDENT BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, the government would try to get hostile editorialists fired. And they were right!

OF VIRUSES and missing honeybees.

MAKING THINGS CLEAR: “The U.S. Attorney in Chicago says his office is making ‘no allegations’ that President-elect Barack Obama was aware of any alleged scheming by arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.”

TOM MAGUIRE: I Need Help On The Latest Rezko-Obama Story.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Iraq At The End Of The Surge.

INDEED: “With the indictment of the Democratic Governor and his purported interest in Mr. Rezko, I think Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is just about on the verge of losing his near mythic status among the Washington-New York media.”

UPDATE: What did the SEIU know and when did they know it?

Plus, Marc Ambinder on what this means for Team Obama.

MORE: “This crap is perfect antidote for all of us who think that deep down, things are different.” Hope and change!

And Happy International Anti-Corruption Day!

DETROIT NEWS: Democrats must crack the whip on wayward Rangel.

Time: Rangel’s Troubles Create a Problem for the Democrats.

CNN: Rangel Not Stepping Down.

UNEMPLOYMENT: Hitting men harder than women. More from Daniel Drezner, who notes a major error by Linda Hirshman that slipped past those layers of editors and fact-checkers. (Thanks to reader John Chilton, who adds: “What was that about standalone bloggers?” Maybe we’re not obsolete yet!)

UPDATE: Hirshman responds in the comments, and Drezner responds to her response. And there’s more discussion over at Megan McArdle’s.

A WORLD GOVERNMENT? It seems beyond the ability of our political class to govern even nations. . . .

WHAT A DEAL! Al Gore as a green go-fer in an Obama administration?

IN THE MAIL: The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J.K. Rowling.

THE CHICAGO WAY: Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, chief of staff, arrested. “In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himself as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.”

UPDATE: Another chance to play Name That Party!

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Simply put, it is the most breathtaking corruption scandal in the history of Illinois politics.” Now that’s saying something!

A copy of the criminal complaint is here. (PDF).

MORE: Related? A complaint on the Rezko/Obama land deal.

A REPLY TO JUDGE WILKINSON ON HELLER: Unraveling Judicial Restraint: Guns, Abortion, and the Faux Conservatism of J. Harvie Wilkinson, III.

GEORGE WILL: Broadcast ‘Fairness’ Fouls Out.

HMM: Grad School Enrollments Drop, Business & Law School Enrollments Increase, During Recession.

GOOD NEWS: Malaria Vaccine Effective in Latest Trials. If this pans out, it will be a huge boon to humanity. Thank GlaxoSmithKline, and the Gates Foundation, if so.

A BID TO DESPISE: Government encouraging discrimination against white men. In the name of equality!

APPARENTLY, I’M OBSOLETE: “A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.”

InstaPundit is far more efficient than HuffPo, though. That’s one advantage of being a stand-alone.

UPDATE: Reader Rob McNickle emails: “You may be obsolete, but with millions of page views per month, you are much too big to fail. I feel a bailout coming…..”

I’d like my billion in gold, please, just in case.

ONCE YOU GO BLACK, you don’t go back.

JOHN TIERNEY on the Drug Czar controversy.

MORE RANGEL MUCK:

The ethical clouds hanging over Rep. Charlie Rangel grow thicker by the day.

Thursday, it came to light that Rangel’s campaign committee steered some $80,000 to his son’s Internet company for work that Politico.com’s Luke Rosiak and Glenn Thrush describe as “poorly designed” and shoddy.

So how can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi practically guarantee when the ongoing House Ethics Committee probe into Rangel’s conduct will conclude?

Yet she’s doing exactly that.

So, is the “fix” in?

The smart money is on “yes.”

NICK GILLESPIE: “When the history of this awful moment of bailout hysteria is written, there’ll be a chapter or 20 on the complete bogosity of what might call ‘the infrastructure flim-flam’—the idea that government can boostrap the economy out its funk by hiring two guys to dig a hole and a couple more to fill it in.”

My prediction: It’ll be the Big Dig taken nationwide.

THE PRESIDENT-ELECT’S TOP PROP.

REDEFINING ENGLISH, at Harvard.

IGNORING SKEPTICS on California’s global-warming policy? More here.

IN NATURE: Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy. (Thanks to reader Josh Gourneau for the link).

JAMES SHERK: UAW Workers Actually Cost the Big Three Automakers $70 an Hour.

Plus, economic questions: “Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler rely heavily on an economic impact study by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in making their case for a financial bailout. This report claims that the simultaneous failure of these three companies would result in a loss of 3.3 million jobs nationally in the same year as the company shutdowns.[1] However, this estimate is based on highly dubious assumptions.”

DOES MORE SLEEP make for better doctors?

MORE BIG-MEDIA TROUBLES: Zucker says NBC may scale down programming hours.

TOM MAGUIRE on lefties unhappy with Obama.

Plus, schadenfreude?

TURNING OUR COUNTRY AROUND!

JAMES TARANTO on The biggest political upset since Barack Obama crushed Hillary Clinton.

CALIFORNIA UPDATE: Schwarzenegger warns of state worker layoffs.

SENATOR FRAN DRESCHER? Well, the children in the Senate could use a nanny. . . .

Grand Cayman, BWI. This is Lauren, a dive guide, who’s from New Zealand. When she posed, I asked her to “look intrepid.”

IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE? Not so much.

HEH: ‘I Have Never Been So Glad To Listen To My Wife’s Nagging’.

Grand Cayman, BWI. This is Georgetown Harbor, and as I mentioned earlier I did a couple of dives — Eden Rock and Cheeseburger Reef — within one or two hundred yards from this site and the reefs looked good.

CHIP SALTSMAN announces run for RNC chairmanship.

UPDATE: Related item from A.C. Kleinheider.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s Saltsman’s website, and here are his thoughts on an online campaign for the GOP.

HAYEK RESPONDS TO BILL KRISTOL.

SO DO YOU BELIEVE HIM? Obama: Don’t bother stocking up on guns. “As gun sales shoot up around the country, President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that gun-owning Americans do not need to rush out and stock up before he is sworn in next month.”

UPDATE: Reader John Steele writes: “How about a poll? You asked a question but we don’t have a way to tell you how we see it …” Okay, time for another Insta-Poll!

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Merry Christmas! “The important thing is to not be afraid.”

Meanwhile, Amazon’s “12 Days of Holiday” link, mentioned earlier, now reads 12 Days of Christmas. Good for them. Don’t be afraid!

HALF-PRICE ON game-room supplies and equipment. The dart boards and poker chips I understand, but I’m not sure why the cat-bed wound up on the list.

THE INTERNET MIGHT HAVE STOPPED HITLER: “In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II. ‘Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler’s criminal plot would not have succeeded – ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day,’ he said.” So, bloggers, be proud of your vital work!

THOUGHTS ON piracy and terrorism.

CLASSICS: Best DVDs of 2008.

OBAMA: Still smoking.

MEDICARE TO COVER PRESCRIPTION HANDGUNS? I think the government should buy everyone a handgun. To stimulate the economy!

KILLING PROSTATE CANCER with nanotechnology.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Why the emerging auto bailout sucks.

UPDATE: Fausta Wertz: Throwing good money after bad.

VIRGINIA POSTREL on the psychology of financial bubbles.

Plus, “Stoking Fear Everywhere You Look.”

SOME CAYMAN OBSERVATIONS: So, by request, I featured a bunch of non-diving photos this time. But the diving was good. Weather was iffy the first couple of days, and the only place we could dive was South Side, which is usually too rough. That was nice: Laura’s Reef, Ned’s Tunnels, etc. provided excellent diving. Water temps were coolish for this time of year — 77-78 degrees — probably because of Paloma. I dove with a hood most of the time, and had a fleece-lined spray jacket for the boat as it was windy during the surface intervals. These made the difference between being uncomfortable and being happy. My philosophy for diving: Make sure you stay warm. Even in the tropics with an air temperature above 80 you can be miserably cold if you don’t take proper steps.

The reefs seem to be doing well. Doug Weinstein and I have argued for years on how the marine environment is doing. Both of us think that, overall, we’re seeing fewer fish than we saw back in, say, 2000. We dove a few places — La Mesa, for example — where the fish were in huge thick schools, but overall there don’t seem to be as many. The reefs, on the other hand, seem better, and there seems to be a lot of new soft coral.

What’s more, I dove a couple of sites very close to the busy Georgetown Harbor (which often has five or more cruise ships) and found that things looked not only good, but better than the last time. So that’s a good sign.

The Cayman economy still seems to be humming. There was no visible shortage of tourists, and various waitresses and bartenders that I interviewed reported that business hadn’t fallen off, and that bookings for the winter high season, just beginning, were still good. Not sure how the banking and finance sectors are doing (much of that’s kind of quiet) but as one local told me “0% tax still beats 35% tax” whatever the global economy is doing. I wonder how long that can last, but while we were there there was a big conference of captive insurance company folks, so apparently it’s still working. There’s still a lot of condo construction, and I wonder how much new building Grand Cayman can take.

One sign that things may not be quite as rosy as they seem: I noticed that service staff seemed far more eager to please, and far more grateful for tips, than a couple of years ago. I don’t know if that’s psychology, or reflective of an actual reality, though.

As always, I had a nice time. I’ve been going there since ’86 and, despite all the changes, it feels like a home away from home.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

MORE BIG MEDIA FINANCIAL PROBLEMS: “The New York Times Company plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.”

Plus, Hey, conservative billionaires, wanna buy a newspaper? And calls for a journalist bailout.

UPDATE: Tribune Company files for bankruptcy. Notice how little blame the declining quality of the news-media product is getting, as compared to discussions of the auto industry’s problems. And yet . . . .

MORE ON THE PRESS’S INEXPLICABLE “Depression Lust.”

MORE ON HORMONES from Michael Greenspan.

GAS PAINS for Hugo Chavez.

ROGER SIMON: For once I agree with Chris Dodd. Yeah, but if only Dodd would take responsibility for his own misdeeds as eagerly as he doles it out to others . . . .

UPDATE: Steve Sturm wonders what politicians know about making cars. Yeah, if GM ran like the federal government it would be in even worse shape . . . .

SOME FEMINISTS aren’t giving a pass to Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau.

UPDATE: Reader Brian Hancock writes: “Waiting for the bumper sticker: ‘Have you groped your cardboard Hillary today?'”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here. “If this is supposed to be excused as a ‘youthful indiscretion’ because Favreau is ‘so young’ then I think Obama’s judgment in continuing to rely professionally on someone so ‘young’ and irresponsible and offensively sexist can reasonably be questioned.”

MORE ON VACCINATION FEARS. I had a column on this subject a while ago.

MICHAEL YON REPORTS from the front lines in Afghanistan.

THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of Stalin’s terror famine. And Walter Duranty’s betrayal. Some related thoughts from Ilya Somin.

IN THE MAIL: Harry Turtledove’s The United States of Atlantis. The Insta-Daughter, meanwhile, recently finished The Household Gods, which is a good book, and perhaps especially good for teenage girls.

PROPOSITION 8: The Backlash.

ANOTHER EXCITING INSTA-POLL!

AT HOMELAND SECURITY, ALL AMERICANS ARE EQUAL, BUT MICHAEL BOLTON IS MORE EQUAL: So I was flying home Saturday, on the plane with Michael Bolton and his band — he’d played at Cayman Jazzfest, which we skipped, but Doug Weinstein (a horn arranger of some ability) sat next to Bolton’s trumpeter on the plane and had a nice conversation, which was probably enhanced by the fact that she’s cute.

But when we were waiting in line for immigration, a fellow with a blue blazer and a badge came and took Bolton (who was wearing a black pullover that said “royalty” on the back) and two sidekicks (a personal assistant and a bodyguard, by appearances) out of the line and whisked them ahead of a lot of other patiently-waiting folks. This was repeated at the customs station. I’d be curious to know what policy permits such special treatment; it was poorly received by those waiting in line.

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

A LOOK AT WAL-MART VS. FEMA in response to Katrina. So which approach will the Obama Administration emulate?

AMERICA’S CHICKENS, comin’ home to cross the road.

FORGET DAVID GREGORY: Let Greg Packer host Meet The Press. “I mean, he’s got Gregory’s unerring CW-spouting capacity, plus he’s got Tim Russert-style blue collar street cred. He’s a ‘highway maintenance worker,’ for Chrissakes! I think NBC missed a bet here.”

TIM BLAIR: LICENSE ALL WRITERS? In which Timothy Egan is invited to fix a leaky toilet, and otherwise subjected to a delightful old-fashioned Fisking.

ANONYMITY AND THE LAW in the United States.

RADLEY BALKO ON S.W.A.T. RAIDS AND COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

IN THE LONDON TIMES, Richard Munday on combatting terrorism: If each of us carried a gun . . .
. . . we could help to combat terrorism.

The Mumbai massacre could happen in London tomorrow; but probably it could not have happened to Londoners 100 years ago.

In January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back – and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down.

Today we are probably more shocked at the idea of so many ordinary Londoners carrying guns in the street than we are at the idea of an armed robbery. But the world of Conan Doyle’s Dr Watson, pocketing his revolver before he walked the London streets, was real. The arming of the populace guaranteed rather than disturbed the peace.

Nice to see such thinking across the Atlantic. Edwardian London was a place better-adapted to the threats we see today than today’s London is. How long can that situation continue?

ANDREW BREITBART: I Believe Hillary’s Cardboard Cutout. “The aggressive iconography of two young drunk men taking advantage of a life-size cutout of a woman – especially a powerful one – would bring an elite college campus to a standstill, force a housecleaning of a Fortune 500 company, ground the Air Force Academy and would, in most cases, ruin the career of a Republican staffer or elected official. . . . However, the Democratic double standard on political correctness kicked in immediately as the feminist establishment, the media and even Mrs. Clinton herself came forth to save the fast-rising Obama wordsmith.”

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: A case of a government bubble bursting?

POLITICO: Liberals Voice Concerns About Obama: “Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices. Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left. Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.” They told me that if I voted for John McCain, we’d get a third Bush term. And they were right!

D-DAY FOR THE OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE CASES: “Despite the Obama opponents’ obvious passion, which has been burning for many months often under the political radar, few legal observers believe that the required four justices will vote to hear arguments on the cases.”

HOW SUPERSIZING seduces.