IMPROVED BONE IMPLANTS, with nanotechnology.

DAMON ROOT: The American Federation of Labor’s shameful record on race.

CELLPHONE PICS ARE COMING IN from the Columbus, Ohio Tea Party protest, currently underway. I’ll just note that these don’t look like the “spoiled yuppies” that lefty critics are denouncing. And is that a picture of the Debt Star in the background?

UPDATE: Like I said:

Lots more pics here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Vassaux emails: “Hi Glenn! Yes, the Debt Star (first seen here by me) was on the back of my sign. I guessed at about 200 people in attendance, I didn’t think that was too bad for a cold Saturday morning, and I do feel that the event was not well publicized. We did have a little fun, (my son and I), but it didn’t feel like an angry leftist protest of any kind. I guess conservatives don’t do it that well. Maybe with a little practice, we’ll get better.” I don’t think you need to get better at being angry. But, hey, it’s worked for the Left. . . .

MORE: Much more here, from Justin Higgins. Plus, video.

IN THE MAIL: The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History.

POLIWOOD: How Do You Get A Movie Made?

WTNH: Dodd woes continue with Irish cottage:

Senator Chris Dodd always likes to talk about his Irish roots – especially around Saint Patrick’s Day – but details about his purchase of a cottage in Ireland are coming back to haunt him.

This week’s Quinnpiac University Poll indicates Dodd may be a getting a chilly reception from voters here in Connecticut. . . . Now, free-lance columnist Kevin Rennie has published a report in the state’s largest newspaper connecting Dodd’s purchase of two-thirds interest in a cottage in Ireland at a bargain price, to a man Dodd helped with a presidential pardon.

“The guy he bought it from was the business partner of a man he had gotten a pardon for from Bill Clinton the year before,” Rennie said. “Senator Dodd had paid a lot less for that two-thirds interest than it was worth.”

Much more at the link.

MORE ON THE ADMINISTRATION’S GORDON GEKKO GAMBIT:

It definitely reminds me of Gordon Gekko’s famous “greed is good” speech from Wall Street, where he said that “greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.” However, Summers is wrong to suggest that American investors and corporations have lost too much of their greed. To the contrary, the constant lobbying of every interest group under the sun for more and more government bailout money suggests that they are just as greedy as ever. Even firms that have already received a hefty dose of handouts are lobbying for more. The problem, of course, is that their greedy impulses are being channeled into the unproductive activity of lobbying Congress for subsidies rather than into the development of more and better products for consumers.

In and of itself, greed is neither bad nor good. The key question is whether it is channeled towards socially beneficial activity that increases wealth and promotes economic growth or whether it is directed towards lobbying the government to take away money from one set of interest groups and direct it to another. At this point, it is often easier for corporations to satisfy their greed by lobbying for government funds than by engaging in productive activity. As Gordon Gekko put it in his speech, “[t]he new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest.” Failing firms are using their very failures as justification for seeking bailouts.

It is also ironic that Summers cites an excess of “fear” as one of the main dangers facing the American economy. Ironic because the administration he serves has itself been stoking that fear in order to undercut opposition to its programs. As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel puts it, the crisis is “an opportunity to do things you could not do before . . . You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” An obvious corollary to this notion is that the “opportunity” will be even bigger the more “serious” people believe the crisis to be.

Indeed.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I’ve long criticized Maxine Waters for seeming to display a truly astonishing lack of knowledge about the financial system her committee regulates. Apparently, however, she does have some sources in the financial industry.”

CAPITALISM MAGAZINE: On The Left-Wing Reaction to John Galt, Ayn Rand, and Tea Parties. “That they protest too much is an indication that they do understand.”

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple Empire.

ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS: Could Obama Be Just Too Awesome? “While the president’s brilliant radiance may fill us with boundless ecstasy, it could actually hurt the eyes of those unused to such light.”

PJTV: Chinese Harassment of the U.S. Navy.

TENNESSEE MOM launches her own tea bag protest.

THE “BOOBIE BUNGALOW?”

UPDATE: Reader Ernest Gudath notes this picture of a “Boobie Bungalow” billboard. Amusing juxtaposition.

FROM “CATASTROPHE” TO “NOT SO BAD?” We must distinguish between “bourgeois truth,” which is concerned with sterile facts, and “revolutionary truth,” which is concerned with what will promote the revolution.

A CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE, from Mark Steyn. “Canada’s biggest disseminator of Internet hate is the Government of Canada.”

AMITY SHLAES: No Representation Without Taxation.

ATLAS AMERICA SHRUGS:

America just wants to be loved and henceforth we will measure the success of our foreign policy according to the Gallup global polls that so fascinate our media, foreign policy experts, and Department of State. It’s empirical! And also – if it’s not too much to ask – America wants not to have too much to do with anyone else, except on a strictly commercial and, okay, okay, sometimes charitable, do-gooding basis. Got that part? We’ve got our own problems and our own issues, if you haven’t noticed. We’ve realized multilateralism is good for that, though not necessarily the way you thought: we plan, by the way, to be multilateralists just like you. We’ll even pay over our .7% GDP for development, and to the corruptniks, rent-seeking kleptocrats at the UN, no less, because frankly it’s easier to send the check to one address than try and keep all those Africans alive on retrovirals that need constant attention, constant organization, constant management, constant unilateral care – but then will you just fuck off and leave us alone to figure out our new social-democratic tax system?

Be careful what you ask for.

CHANGE:

The Obama Administration disclosed on Friday that it will no longer claim the power to detain terrorism suspects under the label “enemy combatant,” even while claiming broad authority to detain those who are a part of terrorist networks or who supplied “substantial support” to such forces. The authority, it said, extends to places other than battlefields if Afghanistan, but did not say where else detainees might be seized. . . . Here is the definition of detention authority, without the label “enemy combatant,” that the Obama Administration outlined Friday: “The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any peson who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.”

So there. Related: Obama Administration Asserts Broad Detention Authority.

Plus this: “It appears on first reading that whatever they call those they claim the right to detain, they have adopted almost the same standard the Bush administration used to detain people without charge — with one change, the addition of the word `substantially’ before the word ‘supported.’ This is really a case of old wine in new bottles.”

Also: “Maybe President Bush should just have changed the name of Guantanamo. Then he could have announced that there were no longer any enemy combatants at Guantanamo.”

IS THE WHITE HOUSE Going Galt On Us?

ASK DR. VODKAPUNDIT: Doesn’t Anyone Want a Job In The Treasury Dept.?

SOME STORIES DON’T SURPRISE: Congress Keeps Automatic Pay Raises.

J.K. ROWLING, IT’S NOT: Keith Olbermann and the Ring of Assassins.

ASK THE QUESTION: “What am I getting for my federal Income Tax?” Get fired.

TYPICAL: “A New York Times editorial blames America’s gun lobby for 11 deaths in Alabama — but ignores 16 deaths in ‘gun free’ Germany on the same day.” The honesty we’ve come to expect on these issues.