A GOVERNOR SAYS, don’t bail out my state: “Community bankers tell me that they are now at a competitive disadvantage for being careful about who to lend to, because others that were less disciplined will get a federal bailout. This is also true for states. Those that have been fiscally responsible will pay for or lose out to the big spenders. California increased spending 95% over the past 10 years (federal spending went up 71% over the same period). To bail out California now seems unfair to fiscally prudent states.”

Plus this: “Federal appetites may know no bounds. But the federal government’s ability to borrow is not limitless. Already, our nation’s unfunded liabilities total $52 trillion — about $450,000 per household. There’s something very strange about issuing debt to solve a problem caused by too much debt.”

KENNETH ANDERSON: Saying goodbye to The New York Times. “Why pay $600 a year for home delivery for a partisan opinion magazine available free on the web?”

BOOM TIMES FOR SPAM: Er, the actual, canned-meat variety, not the bogus email. My favorite line:

Because it is vacuum-sealed in a can and does not require refrigeration, Spam can last for years. Hormel says “it’s like meat with a pause button.”

Yum! One thing that isn’t clear from the story is whether people are buying lots more spam because it’s all they can afford now, or whether they’re stocking up against possible hard times yet to come; seems more like the latter than the former.

On the other hand, there’s an uptick in consumer confidence. So which way does that point?

WASHINGTON POST: Ex-Lobbyists Have Key Obama Roles. “Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to change Washington, vowing to upend the K Street lobbying culture he encountered when he joined the U.S. Senate. But more than a dozen members of President-elect Obama’s fast-growing transition team have worked as federally registered lobbyists within the past four years. They include former lobbyists for the nation’s trial lawyers association, mortgage giant Fannie Mae, drug companies such as Amgen, high-tech firms such as Microsoft, labor unions and the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress.”

Plus this artful phraseology:

In a 2007 speech, he said he was “running to tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over. They have not funded my campaign. They won’t work in my White House.”

A few days later, he changed the phrasing to say that lobbyists “are not going to dominate my White House.”

Quite a backslide. It’ll be interesting to see if he can even live up to the watered-down promise . . . . How big a deal is this? Well, you can make too much of these appearance issues, but on the other hand, he promised an entirely new kind of government. So far, that’s looking a lot like the similar promises of rectitude from Congressional Democrats in 2006, promises that — to put it mildly — weren’t borne out once the election was over.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Mullen emails:

It’s quite a backslide to say go from saying that the days of lobbyists setting the agenda are over, to saying that they are not going to dominate my White House?

No, it’s a backslide to go from saying that “they won’t work in my White House” to saying that they won’t “dominate” it.

TAXPROF: Rangel Hires Accountant to Scrub Tax Returns. Big roundup at the link.

RICHARD EPSTEIN on a lawsuit that could endanger your health. We interviewed Epstein on a related topic; you can listen to the interview here.

WILL WILKINSON: “Megan McArdle has been righteous on the Detroit bailout.”

GAY-BOYCOTT PROBLEMS for the Sundance Film Festival.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON AN AUTO BAILOUT: Is the UAW the problem?

IN THE MAIL: Doug Laycock et al.‘s Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts.

TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Search for anti-police blogger costs $88,000.

Unsuccessful efforts to uncover the identity of Internet bloggers critical of the Memphis Police Department and its top officers will cost the city $88,000.

The city filed suit in state court in an attempt to identify the people behind a Web site called MPD Enforcer 2.0, but the lawsuit was eventually dropped.

The legal bill for that suit has arrived, and The Commercial Appeal reports it totals about $88,000. The city’s legal department declined giving a breakdown on the legal expenses, and the police department had no comment.

Hey, it’s not as if budgets are tight or anything.

HERE’S STILL MORE on that censored Chris Dodd interview where he was asked about his relationship to Countrywide, mortgage fraud, etc.

HELPFUL ADVICE FOR JOE LIEBERMAN, from Frank J. Fleming. I think Joe should give it a try!

AUX ARMES MALLS, CITOYENS! Reader Frank Vance emails:

Listening to Economist James Smith on the Hugh Hewitt show on the way home tonight, and he essentially stated that the depth and length of the downturn in the US economy largely depends on how much consumers spend during the upcoming Christmas season.

Looks like it is time to once again deploy the Retail Support Brigades!

People like Anand Gupta saved us after 9/11. I hate to call upon them again, but America is in need. Will they answer this time?

UPDATE: Michael Ubaldi sends this sitrep from the front:

Out on the town last night, driving through moderate-to-heavy suburban/urban traffic — seeing bustle at mall complexes and packed restaurant parking lots — I thought the scene contradicted some observations on the spirit of consumers. Certainly, retail is down; but not out.

The economy, surrender? Nuts!

We shall fight them in the strip malls, we shall fight them in the restaurants, we shall fight them online — we shall never surrender!

Well, okay, they can have Chuck E. Cheese if they want.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple computer, iPhone, etc., news.

DIDN’T JOE BIDEN ALREADY TELL US THIS? Barack Obama is warned to beware of a ‘huge threat’ from al-Qaeda.

IT’S POLIWOOD with Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd. Don’t miss it! It’s free to everybody, no registration required. (Bumped, because the no-registration thing wasn’t working last night. Hey, it’s beta . . . .)

GIANT LOSERS: Fannie, Freddie . . . and Frank?

HEATH SHULER for Senate?

VIA BAILOUTS, turning the U.S. auto industry into American Leyland. Plus, from the comments: “They are not car companies any longer. They are benefits distributors that happen to also make vehicles on the side.”

SO I’VE PRAISED THE Universal Package Opener, but will manufacturers change things in ways that make it obsolete? We can only hope.

DAVID BROOKS: “Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. . . . It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.”

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: More Questions for Prospective Obama Administration Members. My own favorite: “Have you ever sat in a sermon you regretted? If so, why did you continue to sit in the church or synagogue. What, you say it was a mosque? Please see form 13B-iii.”

I BLAME CATHARINE MACKINNON: “For the second time this year, a professor at the University of Iowa has taken his own life after being accused of sexual harassment.”

THE END OF THE RED POWER TIE? I’d say it’s almost time for a comeback . . . .