GAS FALLS below $2 a gallon.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Al Franken’s recount isn’t funny.

THE EXAMINER: No Bailout Without Big Changes in Detroit. “If President-elect Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really want to help Detroit get back on its feet, they will tell the UAW it must accept wage, benefit and pension cuts that put the Big Three’s labor costs at the same level as the Asian automakers here. That won’t guarantee the survival of the Big Three, but it will let them compete on equal terms – and give them a real chance to survive.”

DON’T WORRY: Your positions are secure.

MELISSA CLOUTHIER: Shame on John McCain for Not Defending Sarah Palin. “What rock is Senator McCain hiding under and why can’t he show himself for a moment to defend his running mate? . . . Once again, John McCain’s actions betray the character traits conservatives abhorred about the man during his years in the Senate: He would spit in a friend’s eye to win the favor of an enemy.” On the upside, he’s making a lot of Republicans feel better about losing to Obama. It’s all part of the healing!

UPDATE: Reader Edward Tabakin writes:

I have a simpler explanation for why McCain isn’t defending Palin against the smears. He hates her. She drew bigger crowds, more enthusiastic crowds, more loving crowds that he could ever get. Remember, the initial plan was to send her out to small towns and rural America, to rally the bitter clingers of Bibles and guns to McCain’s side. But there came a moment — maybe in the Friday rally where he announced her as his pick, maybe during the convention — where both McCain and Palin realized that she could go to Klamath Falls National Forest and draw a bigger crowd than he could in Red State, Texas, and that forced McCain to do joint rallies with Palin. She could whip the crowds up for him, get a big, big roar, bigger than he could get on his own. The problem was, for her, the cheers were from the heart; for him, from a sense of duty. It’s the political version of the eternal triangle.

My feeling is that anyone caught in that situation might have that sort of reaction. That it’s happening to Senator McCain makes it all the sweeter.

Ouch. But I think there’s something to this. I mentioned early on that the campaign faced problems with the #2 overshadowing the #1. Of course, this response only makes McCain look smaller.

NOW, A “CAR CZAR”? While I of course back the trend of putting law professors in charge of absolutely everything 100%, I repeat my earlier question: When have we ever solved anything with one of these “czar” positions?

Plus, is the Obama Transition Team looking at implementing “congestion charges” on U.S. roads? “The new programs would be paid for with massive new tax hikes, including a per-mile driving tax that would begin with ‘proof of concept’ trials as early as 2010. The tax would initially be one cent per mile to generate an estimated $32.4b a year. An extra one cent per gallon in the federal gasoline tax would generate another $1.8b, and a national sales tax on cars of one percent would generate $7.6b.” Would this offset the promised tax cuts for 95%?

UPDATE: Heh: “I don’t know about you, but I really look forward to purchasing my new U.S. Government Model 1 Car when the new models are introduced in 2011. Of course, the Model 1 will be the only car legally sold in America by then.” Plus, exclusive Model 1 video!

DON’T MESS WITH THE LAPTOP:

Arizona State University student Alex Botsios said he had no problem giving a nighttime intruder his wallet and guitars.

When the man asked for Botsios’ laptop, however, the first-year law student drew the line. . . .At that point, the law student wrestled the bat away and began punching Saucedo, Botsios said.

“I basically grabbed him and threw him this way, and he held onto the bat so it threw him to the ground,” he said. . . . “It’s my baby,” he said. “Don’t mess with my computer.”

In the picture accompanying the story, the robber looks rather the worse for wear.

BLOOMBERG: Boehner Demands Federal Reserve Identify Recipients of Loans.

MINIMIZING MEDICAL DEVICE PROBLEMS, using nanotechnology.

AT GAY PATRIOT: Stop the protests, begin the introspection.

Good idea, though maybe a spa event is taking things a bit too far. I mean, there’s chilling out, and then there’s chilling out.

DAVID CORN IN MOTHER JONES: Did Obama’s economic envoy cause the mortgage crisis? Well, judging by what the Obama campaign has said in the past, yes.

KATIE GRANJU: “I have been very struck by the obvious efforts President Bush is making to set a tone of civility and optimism with regard to his successor’s imminent arrival in The White House. There has been an explicit demonstration on his part of respect for President-elect Obama, and for the change in administration. No hint of sour grapes, or even misgivings on his part are evident. . . . At a time when the nation is so bitterly divided by partisanship, Bush’s leadership in this area is more than just for looks. He is demonstrating to the world how responsible, civil democratic transition should look. It’s pretty inspiring, and makes me proud to be an American.”

BUILDING A BETTER L.S.A.T.: Predicting Lawyer, Not Law Student, Success.

FROM LONDON TO TIMBUKTU in a biofueled flying car.

IN THE MAIL: Know It All: The Little Book of Essential Knowledge.

A NEW THEME FOR AMERICAN POLITICS: “Pious Insufferability.”

CAMILLE PAGLIA ON OBAMA AND THE MEDIA: “Obama’s ability to stay on his feet and outrun the most menacing waves that threaten to engulf him seems to embody the breezy, sunny spirit of the American surfer. In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media’s avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama — even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. . . . Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.” Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Michael Barone. Joking or not, I think he’s right.

BOB ZUBRIN: Solve the financial crisis by destroying OPEC. “By making America a flex-fuel vehicle market, we will effectively make flex-fuel the international standard, as all significant foreign car-makers would be impelled to convert their lines over as well. Around the world, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of sources. These include current commercial crops like corn and sugar; cellulosic ethanol made from crop residues and weeds; methanol, which can be made from any kind of biomass without exception; as well as coal, natural gas, and recycled urban trash. By creating such an open-source fuel market, we can enormously expand and diversify humanity’s fuel resource base, protecting all nations from continued blackmail, robbery, and indeed, in some cases, starvation, induced by the oil cartel.”

CHRIS DODD INTERVIEW, CENSORED:

Scott hosted a weekday 5 to 7 p.m. drive-time talk show until Oct. 29. That was the day he taped a combative interview with U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut (pictured with Mutual Housing chief Seila Mosquera during a recent tour of New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood).

The interview focused on two controversies that have dogged Dodd recently: He received personal “VIP” loans from Countrywide Financial, a predatory lender he was supposed to be regulating as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. And he helped craft a $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill designed to spur new small-business and homeowner lending — but which turns out to be designed instead to enable banks to buy other banks. . . .

The result was riveting radio. But WELI’s listeners never got to hear it. Asked why the interview never ran, Todd Thomas, Clear Channel’s regional operations manager, said, “That’s something that happened behind closed doors.” He declined to comment further.

I wonder if fairness-doctrine fears are already having a chilling effect. As Clay Whitehead said about Nixon’s use of the FCC to intimidate critics, the value of the sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it falls. . . .

There’s audio at the link. (Bumped).

HEH: On January 20th, we’ll see a “historic transfer of power from one Harvard grad to another.”

SUPPRESSING ARTHRITIS by manipulating cell behavior.

BACK TO THE BARRICADES: Matt Welch notes that free markets are under attack again.

OBESE WOMEN ARE MORE IMPULSIVE — but obese men are not?