THE GENERATION THAT WOULD CHANGE THE WORLD IS STILL LOOKING FOR ITS CAR KEYS:

Does former President Bill Clinton regret his error-strewn defense of his wife’s Bosnia sniper-fire story? Does he regret mis-informing voters in Boonville and Jasper, Indiana? “I regret that people like you care more about that when whether she served the troops,” he told reporters today in Terr[e] Haute, per ABC News’ Sarah Amos.

Does anybody know how to play this game?

COSMOTOPIA? All science fiction, all the time.

Meanwhile, reader Aaron Pastula writes: “Have you ever assembled a collection of recommended Sci-Fi reading from your readers? Particularly good places to start for ‘first timers?'”

Yeah, but it’s been a while. Here’s an older post, and here’s another. Plus this.

Any reader recommendations?

GUNS AND BITTER: Obama on small-town PA: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia. That’s gonna win ’em over.

UPDATE: Owing Austan Goolsbee an apology? “Behind closed doors — among his fellow educated, upper-class liberals — the real Obama sounds very different from the one who threatened to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Huffington Post has audio. And there’s this reaction: “It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking.” But Armando thinks he’ll get away with it. Plus, Obama’s response.

MORE: “Why not just call them rubes?”

STILL MORE: Jim Geraghty notes that after the Jeremiah Wright debacle, Obama is in a poor position to cast aspersions on angry, bitter xenophobes.

Plus these thoughts on playing both ends against the middle: “Perhaps when Obama returns to Pennsylvania to ask for votes, he will charm the locals with tales of the aging Bay Area hippies who just do not understand how US trade policy is destroying the our manufacturing base and the lives of upstanding Americans in the heartland who bowl better than he does.” Heh.

MORE STILL: Obama had better hope that this reaction isn’t typical:

First of all, Pennsylvanians…especially those of us in the western part of the state, really get irked when we are called “midwestern.” The Midwest doesn’t start until the Ohio border, and unless you’ve lived in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, you wouldn’t get the difference.

Second, the comment about “people who are different” is just so insulting to those of us who live in or around Pittsburgh, an area noted for its ethnicity. I can go 25 miles in any direction from where I live and see churches, temples, neighborhoods, signs, social halls, stores, etc., for many different ethnic groups from every part of the world. I can also pass through many small towns and not notice anyone who is hoping for a remake of “Deliverance.” Honestly, Obama is such a sham. He doesn’t have a clue about anything having to do with real life. What an idiot.

OK…I’ve ranted!

Best,
Jean Spik
Moon Township, PA

Like I said . . . .

KENNEDY AND the doctors. Dr. Hans Kraus may have saved civilization.

TOM MAGUIRE is enjoying the Democratic primary season way too much.

CREATING fake grassroots.

I’M NOT SURE THE DIFFERENT FACTIONS WILL EVERY REALLY GET ALONG: “A teenage driver was killed in a car-to-car shooting at a freeway off-ramp early Thursday in the latest in several recent fatal roadway attacks in California.”

Striking video. (Via Classical Values.)

UPDATE: Heh: “Made from 100% post-consumer recycled material.”

COURTESY OF THE GERMAN GREEN PARTY: Autobahn speed limits? That’s just wrong.

ANOTHER WRONG-HOUSE RAID, by the ATF.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE IPHONE: A roundup of iPhone and other cellphone news. My venerable cellphone will have to be replaced sometime in the foreseeable future, but I don’t think it’ll be with an iPhone.

A REPORT FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY: With photos.

3 Rs AND A B: Blogging added to Tennessee school’s curriculum.

HILLARY laughs off Colombia questions.

ED DRISCOLL EMAILS, wondering whatever happened to the Church of Kos?

INSTAPUNDIT’S IRAQ CORRESPONDENT, Major John Tammes, emails:

All of us over here working with the Iraqi Army have been extra busy lately. Your readers are probably aware of events the last few weeks.

What I have seen in the area of Iraq I have been working is an Iraqi Army that is showing that it can adapt and improve. This is a major step forward for them, if you consider their previous Amry’s showings against the Iranians and us. They were inflexible, repeated mistakes and feared reprisals for even suggesting a change. To be sure, the Iraqi Army has a ways to go, but what I have seen lately is encouraging.

One other thing I should mention – the attitude of the units I have dealt with seems a little better than I would have expected. When I met some of the jinood (soldiers) recently, they seemed a bit more focused on the job. Again, they have a ways to go – but it is improving.

The photo is of an NCO and a Warrant Officer in one of the transportation units that had been in action lately. They had taken some losses, but were keeping up on their maintenance and keeping the trucks rolling.

Thanks, Major John.

WHY PEOPLE DONATE TO BLOGGERS:

Back in aristocratic days, some aristocrats took real pride, and got real pleasure, from being patrons of scholars, musicians, artists, poets. Today, ordinary people like me can take this pride, and enjoy this pleasure, by supporting you and your work. Thank you for giving me, and many like me, the opportunity to take part in your work by helping to support you financially. I hope this does give you a freedom to think about and write about what you consider most interesting and important.

Every man a king!

HILLARY, OBAMA, AND “street money” in Philadelphia.

DO MEN RUN THE WORLD? As Scott Adams says, you shouldn’t get too excited because those are other men.

UPDATE: Okay, here’s the precise quote, worth breaking out:

Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there. We men like to think we’re in charge because most of the top jobs in business and government are held by men, but I have a shocking statistical insight for you men–THOSE ARE OTHER MEN. The total percentage of men in those top spots is roughly .0000001 percent of the male population. I’m not one of them. I just draw cartoons and write these stupid books. Chances are, if you’re a man reading this, you’re not running the world, either.

Indeed. It is also the case, as the column linked above notes, that the interests of those men who do run the world are often in some, er, tension with the interests of those who do not.

EXERCISE: “Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond can delay biological ageing by up to 12 years and prolong independence during old age, concludes an analysis published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.” If there were a pill that could do this, you’d buy it.

DID PRIORITIES FADE WITH THE NEWS CYCLE? Lack of international coordination threatens high-tech early-warning systems for tsunamis. On the other hand, there are low-tech answers, too:

“I can’t tell you how many lives we would have saved,” he says, “if people just knew to run away when the water backed out.”

Indeed.

A LEXUS VERSION OF the Prius?

AN OBAMA grassroots myth?

JACOB SULLUM ON ‘Human rights’ in Canada.

SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME HERE: Olympic ‘Thugs’ Rejected By Japan: “Chinese security guards who have been encircling the Olympic flame as it makes its way around the world will not be welcome in Japan.”