SOME TRAFFIC REPORTING from Tom Vanderbilt.

SWINE FLU UPDATE: WHO chief says world should prepare for severe flu.

BUY NOW, WHILE YOUR DOLLARS ARE STILL WORTH SOMETHING: Fed’s Plosser Says Inflation to Increase, Warns of Complacency. I suspect that he’s grossly underestimating the problem. But I hope I’m wrong.

WHY DON’T I GET ASSIGNMENTS LIKE THIS? Test-driving the Aston-Martin DB9.

THE NEXT STEPS FOR SWINE FLU: Predictions, Protection and Prevention. ” Federal health officials will probably recommend that most Americans get three flu shots this fall: one regular flu shot and two doses of any vaccine made against the new swine flu strain. Having had annual flu shots for the last several years gives ‘little or no immune benefit’ against the new virus, the officials said on Thursday as they released more details of blood tests briefly described on Wednesday.”

A PREGNANT 66-year-old woman.

SPACE STATION KITCHEN UPGRADED, Astronauts Drink Own Urine to Celebrate.

75 MOVIES every man should see.

FACTCHECK.ORG: Pelosi’s tortured denials.

Plus, Boston Globe: “It now seems clear that top Democratic leaders like Pelosi knew about the policy, and chose not to challenge it.”

Until they felt the fierce moral urgency of change!

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? “Here we have President Obama and his administration saying, ‘Here we are for the common, middle class people,’ and here he is not letting 150 5- and 6-year-olds into the White House because he’s throwing a lunch for a bunch of grown millionaires.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: WOMEN ARE unhappier than ever. Despite all those choices:

Oh, how I loathe this liberal meme about choice and happiness! Though liberals believe fondly in “the right to choose,” they also love to say that choice makes us sad — but they only seem to mean that choice in the economic sphere is bad. (Notice how it softens you up to accept the crappy car the government wants you to drive and the good-for-everybody health care system it would like to provide.)

Anyway, why are women so sad? I think it’s because we think about our feelings so much and care so much about being happy.

Nothing is worse for happiness than a cultivated sense of entitlement.

CHINA: Don’t expect us to cut greenhouse gases.

SOME MORE Bussard / Polywell Fusion news. Faster, please!

TAXMAN TAKES HALF OF TEENAGER’S VIRGINITY earnings.

BARACK OBAMA: Conservative President! It turns out that the fierce moral urgency was really just about not having a Texas accent. Who knew?

WHY ELECTRIC VEHICLES still have air intakes.

JOHN SCALZI IS TALKING TO BUTTER, and the butter is talking back. “It takes a special sort of person to eat an entire stick of butter as it should be consumed, on its own, as a singular digestive experience. I see now that you’re not that person.”

BURGERS BECOME steadily more refined.

AUTO BAILOUT WATCH: Investor Confidence Ebbs. Gee, I wonder why? Plus, bad news on auto production and sales.

IN THE MAIL: Paul Chafe’s Genesis, a space-colonization novel.

DUELING STATESMEN. But only metaphorically, not in that Andrew Jackson sense.

UPDATE: Related item from Toby Harnden.

THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE (CONT’D): Obama Faces Pitfalls With ‘Surgical’ Tack on Detainees.

“PUNITIVE LIBERALISM” at Ogilvy & Mather.

IS THERE A MEMBER OF CONGRESS DUMBER THAN ALAN GRAYSON? Well, sure — it’s Congress we’re talking about — but still . . . .

TEA PARTY PROTESTS: Being emulated in Spain.