FULL CIRCLE: Edwin T. Snell launches recall of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

TOM BLUMER: “Since when did it become taxpayers’ duty to feed a family with $80,000 in the bank?”

MARK STEYN: “The Economist is the latest of the smart guys to notice that President Obama is proving strangely unlike the guy they told us he was back in late October.”

AN IMPORTANT VAMPIRE UPDATE from Moe Lane.

CHAS FREEMAN: The victim of “powerful bloggers.”

RIO BRAVO: Allen Barra says it’s “Still Popular and Hip at 50.”

IN CALIFORNIA, a new Gold Rush.

WHILE PEOPLE DISS WALL STREETERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS FOR GREED AND HIGH LIVING, note that the most expensive home in America was built by a TV producer. With its own dedicated “gift-wrapping room.” Funny how Hollywood excess doesn’t get the same kind of censorious scrutiny . . . .

UPDATE: “Class warfare immunity.”

THE JOHN GALT PRESIDENT! Reader Bruce Giese emails:

The rest of the world became inflexible and inefficient socialist/communist states which relied on the US providing a dynamic consumer market. Our allies had weak militaries and big nanny governments. Our enemies had an easy scapegoat.

Obama and Congress are taking us down the same path as our allies, and the dynamic US ‘Atlas’ is shrugging. I wonder if this terrifies our allies and enemies alike?

Mostly the allies, I’d guess. But this raises an interesting thought: If you were a closet Randian and wanted to discredit big government for generations by running it into the ground, in what ways would you act differently from the Obama Administration so far? The combination of grandiose promises and inept execution, and the repeated elevation of tax cheats to high office, certainly argues in favor of that analysis . . . .

UPDATE: Applying Occam’s Razor.

INTRODUCING The SUGAR Act. Making too much sense to ever become law . . . .

GETTING DESPERATE in New Hampshire?

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Get the Feeling You’re Being Watched? If You’re Driving, You Just Might Be.

Drivers — many accusing law enforcement of using spy tactics to trap unsuspecting citizens — are fighting back with everything from pick axes to camera-blocking Santa Clauses. They’re moving beyond radar detectors and CB radios to wage their own tech war against detection, using sprays that promise to blur license numbers and Web sites that plot the cameras’ locations and offer tips to beat them.

Cities and states say the devices can improve safety. They also have the added bonus of bringing in revenue in tight times. But critics point to research showing cameras can actually lead to more rear-end accidents because drivers often slam their brakes when they see signs warning them of cameras in the area. Others are angry that the cameras are operated by for-profit companies that typically make around $5,000 per camera each month.

If it weren’t for revenue, they wouldn’t use them. When they say otherwise, it’s an outright lie. If you don’t believe me, try an experiment: Pass a law in which all camera revenues go to the state’s general fund instead of the municipality’s coffers, and then see how many of these get put in place. But even without that experiment, there’s this:

But a study in last month’s Journal of Law and Economics concluded that, as many motorists have long suspected, “governments use traffic tickets as a means of generating revenue.” The authors, Thomas Garrett of the St. Louis Fed and Gary Wagner of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, studied 14 years of traffic-ticket data from 96 counties in North Carolina. They found that when local-government revenue declines, police issue more tickets in the following year. Officials at the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police didn’t respond to requests for comment.

I wonder why not.

UPDATE: Note that once Georgia lengthened yellow-light times, red-light cameras became unprofitable. “The drop in citations is due, in part, to a state law that went into effect Dec. 31 that mandated a one-second addition to the yellow phase at all camera intersections. In January 2008, Lilburn had almost 1,500 citations issued at its three intersections with cameras. In January 2009, that figure plunged to about 300, said Bill Johnsa, Lilburn’s city manager. . . . Since the state law was put into effect, the city’s net revenue on red-light cameras has been reduced to zero or less, Treadway said. The city pays more than $30,000 a month for the service and needs almost 700 citations just to break even, he said.” If all you care about is safety, then, you can accomplish as much by adding a second to the yellow light. If you care about revenue, though, you’ll shorten yellow-light times — as some places have done — even though that’s worse for safety.

HARRY REID calls John Roberts a liar.

TAXPROF: A Republican tax travesty.

HMM. IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES THIS LOOK LIKE a lefty response to the Tea Party protests? Nobody likes to feel left out! And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

That said, I agree with this: “Any bank that’s ‘too big to fail’ means that it’s too big for a free market to function.” And, as I noted, Jerry Pournelle has been saying the same thing since November. Perhaps there’s common ground to be found; it’s not as if what’s been going on in the financial sector has been true free-market capitalism anyway.

NICK GILLESPIE: Obama on Pot: Har Har Har, The Joke’s On You!

HMM: Vindictive people make less money.

SAMSUNG TAKES NETBOOK COMPUTING to the next level. A bit pricier, but maybe worth it for an 11-hour battery? For the money you could buy a cheaper netbook and a supplemental universal laptop battery that you could take when you needed it, and leave behind (and save the weight) when you don’t.

HMM: Freddie Mac’s Duel With Regulator: Does It Report Government’s Role in Its Losses?

That would spoil the narrative. But somebody should ask Rahm Emanuel about this . . . . Here’s a choice bit, though:

When Freddie Mac’s executives concluded a few weeks ago that they had to disclose that the government’s management of the McLean company was undermining its profitability and would cost it tens of billions of dollars, the firm’s regulator urged it not to do so, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

Freddie Mac executives refused to bend. The clash grew so severe that they threatened to go to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees corporate disclosures, to secure a ruling that the regulator’s request was out of line. The company’s regulator backed down, the sources said.

Remember, when a private company wants to cover up billions in losses and the responsibility for them, that’s a major scandal and proof of the evils of capitalism. But when a government regulator does the same thing, that’s just how people are, these things happen, whaddyagonnado? Plus, more evidence that the country’s in the very best of hands:

After the companies were taken over, investors around the world who buy the companies’ debt and mortgage investments weren’t willing to pay top dollar, reflecting doubts about whether the U.S. government would stand behind the firms if they faltered further. As a result, mortgage rates initially rose, further depressing house prices, contrary to what the government intended when it took over the firms.

Then, earlier this month Freddie Mac lost its chief executive, longtime banker David Moffett, who joined the company at the government’s behest in September. He clashed with government regulators who pushed him to take steps that would forgo revenue opportunities. Freddie Mac is now looking for a new chief executive, chief operating officer and chief financial officer — and having trouble finding them.

Gee, why would a business that the government has taken over and mismanaged have trouble recruiting fall guys senior executives in this political climate?

PJTV: Focus on China. “You don’t hear much lecturing of China these days. China is lecturing us.”

Plus this: The People’s Bank of China flexes its muscle in call for a new reserve currency.

THE WAGES OF HELLER: Massachusetts Trial Court Holds Gun-Storage Law Unconstitutional. Interestingly, the prosecutor agreed and decided not to appeal.

ROGER SIMON THANKS PAT OLIPHANT: “Oliphant – whose work I usually find humdrum in the extreme – has done us a favor. Deliberately or not, he has dropped the oldest of phony Leftist pretenses – that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same.”

Also, the case of Roger Cohen.

A LOOK AT making gas from coal. But of course, there’s a downside: “It’s the very fact that coal-to-liquids could work that make them such a scary idea for people devoted to fighting climate change.”

Then they should demonstrate their sincerity by supporting nuclear power, so that we can have electric or hydrogen-powered cars without greenhouse emissions. They may not like those either, of course, but if we’re facing a greenhouse crisis everyone will have to sacrifice something. Right?

Meanwhile, progress in making biodiesel from algae.

MICHAEL YON: Obama On Afghanistan: Disappointing. “The President’s words were disappointing. He talked about our goal to reach a force level of 134,000 Afghan soldiers and 82,000 police by 2011. This is not even in the neighborhood of being enough. Further, the increase of 21,000 U.S. troops is likely just a bucket of water on the growing bonfire. One can only expect that sometime in 2010, the President will again be forced to announce another increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan.” Yon has been sounding the alarm on Afghanistan for over a year, so his thoughts are worth reading. He also notes that not everyone is as negative as he is.

Also, read this coverage at The Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE: Major Anti-War Groups Staying Quiet About (Or Supporting) Obama’s Afghan Escalation. “Liberal groups don’t want to distract from passing Obama’s enormous domestic agenda.”

You can always count on those guys to support the troops — as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House.

SAYONARA TO Social Security surpluses. Compare to my earlier comments on 401(k)s.