OUR DICTATOR-FRIENDLY POLITICAL CLASS: Saif Qaddafi’s connections with the British establishment are typical of the links between wealthy dictators and Western politicians. “Money, even foreign money (and particularly that Saudi money), has always been able to buy access to Western statesmen. But in the last decade or so, the proportions have subtly shifted. The democratic West has become relatively poorer, while a clutch of undemocratic ’emerging’ markets have become richer.” Which, coincidentally, is in no small part the result of our political class’s policies. Also, note the appearance of Frank Wisner. I’m surprised Benjamin Barber didn’t get a mention.

WISCONSIN SHOCKER: Missing senators rely heavily on union campaign dollars.

ZING: Obama Gets a Smackdown from Gov. Walker. “I’m sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay. And I’m sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts.”

LITTLE MISS ATTILA has thoughts on sex.

HMM: Treasury: China’s holdings of US debt jump 30 percent based on annual revision of data.

IS LIBYA a dangerous precedent?

HEH: WISCONSIN PROTESTER PHOTO OF THE DAY.

Today’s labor movement. I’m discerning a theme.

CHEVY VOLT GETS panned by Consumer Reports. “When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy.”

Of course, there’s another angle.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol — midday today — dealing with the fact that, at long last, they’ve been locked out. The Althouse-and-Meade team has clearly provided the best reporting out of Madison.

UPDATE: From the comments:

Ironic to see that lady rambling on about her mentally ill brother who depends on social services.

The demonstration she’s at is all about protecting union pay and benefits at the expense of other items in the state’s budget. Especially social services.

The more the unions get, the less is left over for social services. It’s pretty much a zero-sum game at this point. The state is broke and someone’s going to get less money. The only question is who.

Indeed.

HEARING FROM the TSA Blog Team. I’m not sure what I think of this.

WHY KOCH INDUSTRIES IS SPEAKING OUT: “Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.” But it’s awesome for the politically-connected.

AMAZON COMING UNDER increasing sales-tax pressure.

AT AMAZON, a winter clearance sale in automotive goods.

ONCE AGAIN, Krugman gets Texas wrong.

WE’RE ALL SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE NOW: I’ve written about the mainstreaming of survivalism before. Here’s yet another example. I think that preparing for climate-change apocalypse is just one step shy of getting ready for the zombie hordes, but whatever. Since the disaster you face is usually not the one you prepare for, he’ll still be ready for something.

If you’re more interested in this, you might check out Bill Quick’s survival-prep discussion forum. And here’s a list of recommended disaster-prep gear. Plus, some bug-out bag recommendations.

MICKEY KAUS IS NOW UP AT THE DAILY CALLER. Kausfiles.com will point there shortly.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Erwin Chemerinsky says those other law schools are “remarkably resistant to change.”

You know what I would love in a new school — one that “wasn’t bound by decades of tradition”? A deliberate decision to embrace tradition. Let’s get a bunch of tough Socratic lawprofs in front of a classroom of students. And that’s it. Perfectly cost-effective. You can save money on admissions too by going old-school. Make it an old-fashioned GPA/LSAT meritocracy (and flunk them out if they don’t perform).

Plus, a poll.

JOHN HINDERAKER: The Left’s Unhappy Koch Habit.

JENNIFER RUBIN: What is the Alliance For Justice?

GEORGE WILL: TRAIN MANIA. “Generations hence, when the river of time has worn this presidency’s importance to a small, smooth pebble in the stream of history, people will still marvel that its defining trait was a mania for high-speed rail projects. This disorder illuminates the progressive mind. . . . To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.”

Plus this: “The average intercity auto trip today uses less energy per passenger mile than the average Amtrak train.”

UPDATE: A Devo reference:

I know I let you tell me what to do/
you were confident you knew best/
now things aren’t working
like you want them to/
your confidence is what i detest

Devo references are usually apt.

HOW TO make a local backup for your Gmail account.

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT and an Internet tipping point. “Social media sites have played a huge role in the prodemocracy surge—but states have also been very good at using technology to suppress their people.”

That reminded me of this, from an item on China I linked last night:

In addition, the regime directed a number of employees (the so called “fifty cent party,” named for the amount of money they receive for each pro-regime Internet posting) to register with Twitter; these individuals immediately began cranking out posts denouncing the “Jasmine Revolution” as illegal and claiming it was a secret plot by the United States. Search terms related to the “Jasmine Rallies,” including the word “Jasmine” itself, were rapidly banned from Chinese websites. Ironically, “Jasmine” is the name of a Chinese folk song that was a favorite of Jiang Zemin, and was publicly sung by Hu Jintao, meaning that censorship of the word also wiped out “patriotic” posts meant to praise CCP leaders.

All this, and many other repressive measures both in cyberspace and the real world, took place before the first actual rallies.

Luckily, nothing like this could ever happen here.

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

CHEAPER THAN A GENERATOR: Markdowns on power inverters.

DAILY BEAST HIRES TRIG TRUTHER. Plus the key question: “Who gets custody of all the ghost bloggers?”