IT’S A CRISIS OF CAPITALISM! Food shortages in Cuba.

RANKING LAW SCHOOLS by financial aid.

GAS IN TENNESSEE DROPS below $2.80 a gallon.

ROGER SIMON: EVERYTHING MUST GO!

PJTV:

RUSSIA LEADS THE WAY in orbital space tourism. So far, anyway.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Self-assembled square arrays may lead nanotechnology to very small electronic devices.

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS ASTEROID INSURANCE: “A mini asteroid collided safely with Sudan this week, but mega disaster looms with nearly 1000 hazardous near-Earth objects roaming our universe—plus even more dangerous ones we haven’t spotted yet. With no response plan for the worst-case scenario in place anywhere on Earth, four-time shuttle astronaut Thomas D. Jones offers a call to arms against the coming cosmic storm.”

PJTV: John Hinderaker on ACORN and Voter Fraud. Flash version, free to nonsubscribers.

Plus, Mary Katharine Ham, Andrew Ian Dodge, and Scott Ott on what’s happening. Also free.

UPDATE: Related — charges of fraud in Ohio.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The HDTV version of Hinderaker should work for nonsubscribers, too.

MARK STEYN held not guilty of hate speech. Sad that we’re grateful for such an obvious verdict . . .

IT’S NOT LIKE TIPPING A COW: How to tip a monkey.

REASON TV on saving Social Security. “Worried about the viability of Social Security? Unless you’re already collecting it, you should be!”

Plus, Pimp My Walker!

THE FIRST IMAGE from Google’s new GeoEye satellite. When I wrote about private spy satellites back in the 1980s, people thought it was farfetched but in fact I wasn’t sufficiently optimistic.

THANKS! Welcome to the Platts Cellulosic Ethanol and Biofuels conference, here’s your Escalade.

ETHANOL UPDATE: It’s switchgrass season in Tennessee. Story and video at the link.

THE BAD NEWS NEVER STOPS: Oh No! Gas Prices Are Falling!

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Hawking: If we survive the next 200 years, we should be OK.

Hawking, in an exclusive CNN interview, said that if humans can survive the next 200 years and learn to live in space, then our future will be bright.

“I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space,” said Hawking, who is almost completely paralyzed by the illness ALS.

“It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”

I agree with him.

JIM MANZI: “This is a ferocious bear market, but, so far, it is an almost exact repeat of what happened after the collapse of the .com bubble about 5 years ago. In fact, if we were to repeat that experience, we would see further declines from where we are today.” But what about the TED spread?

JOHN LEO on Dana Milbank’s reporting.

HERE’S THE LATEST ON Chevy’s Equinox Fuel-cell Vehicle.

I drove it a few months ago — my report is here.

IN THE MAIL: John Gartner’s In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography.

I’M KIND OF TIRED OF ELECTION NEWS, but Gateway Pundit is on a roll. Just keep scrolling.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ON COUNTRYWIDE: Dodd Should Take the Stand. Under oath.

I JOKED EARLIER about stockpiling food, but in fact I had a conversation the other day with someone at the University who said quite a few of her friends were doing that. And these are lefty-artsy types, not traditional survivalists. Is it a sign of growing economic panic, or is it just part of the mainstreaming of survivalism? Or maybe both?

UPDATE: Problems with letters of credit?

ROGER SIMON on racism in the blogosphere.