PHIL BOWERMASTER on libertarians and transhumanism.

FROM PRIMETIME TO PARODY in just one week.

BODY LANGUAGE. “I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.”

UPDATE: “Let’s cut Obama some slack about this photograph.”

XENI JARDIN: The Book vs. The Kindle: funny videos about the Kindle’s user rights shortcomings.

LIGHTNING GUNNERS Take to the skies.

AT AMAZON, an eclectic Friday Sale.

I THINK IT’S THE MOLE PEOPLE DRILLING UP FROM BELOW: Mysteriously High Tides on East Coast Perplex Scientists. “From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet. The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s a puzzle for scientists who’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Mitchell writes:

Your note about anomalously high tides is matched by the item about the Fermi Paradox. The answer? The aliens are here NOW, hiding in the L2 lagrange point on the far side of the Moon. Their ship is powered by some exotic drive involving a small black hole; hence the higher than normal tides.

See how it all ties together?

It all makes sense now.

LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD: Parental genes fight for control during child development.

WELL, DANG: Toyota may not produce a Hybrid Yaris after all.

JULIE AND JULIA: A movie involving food and blogging. What’s not to like? Plus, a recipe for herb roast chicken with pan sauce.

ASK DR. HELEN: Marriage Myths Dispelled and Does Size (of The Ring) Really Matter? A discussion with Alex Wellen, author of Lovesick.

STEVE CHAPMAN: A Hole They Dug for Themselves: There’s nothing surprising about the crises in state budgets. “The crisis in state budgets is not an accident, and it wasn’t unforeseeable. For years, most states have spent like there’s no tomorrow, and now tomorrow is here. . . . If they had known the revenue flood wasn’t a permanent fact of life, governors and legislators might have prepared for drought. Instead, like overstretched homeowners, they took on obligations they could meet only in the best-case scenario—which is not what has come to pass.”

WE MAY NOT BE ALONE, BUT STATISTICALLY WE’RE LIKELY TO BE LONELY: Fermi Paradox Points to Fewer Than 10 Extraterrestrial Civilizations.

IS THE GOVERNMENT making people fat?

DELIVERING MALARIA VACCINE via mosquito?

ARE AMERICANS warming to the idea of Chinese and Indian cars?

MY POPULAR MECHANICS COLUMN: Collision Course: The Need For Better Space Junk Regulations.

IN THE MAIL: From David Wessel, In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic.

REASON TV: I talk with Nick Gillespie about stuff.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Democrat resists subpoenaing VIP mortgage records. “House Democrats have declined to subpoena available records that might reveal whether other members of Congress got discounted VIP mortgages from subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. similar to the sweetheart deals given Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad.”

OUCH: My Mazda RX-8 is on the “cash for clunkers” list!

And I was just blogging about how happy I am with it. But . . a “clunker?” I guess it should make me feel better about the fact that the program is being stopped. Or should it?

FOLLOWING UP ON YESTERDAY’S POST ABOUT THE CHEAP AND GOOD FLIP MINO HD VIDEO CAMERA, I notice that Gizmodo really likes the Kodak Zi8. For $180 (about the same as the Flip) the Kodak has image stabilization, 1080p recording, and an SD slot. Plus an external microphone jack (key) and the ability to take 5 MP stills. Sounds like the perfect guerrilla-videographer’s tool. But the Kodak won’t be out until September.

TAX FOUNDATION: Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%. “Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the ‘rich’ are not paying their fair share of taxes. Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.”

BYRON YORK: Probe Finds New Clues in AmeriCorps IG Scandal.

JOHN STOSSEL: The unseen costs of minimum wage laws.