DAVID ZARING: Do the executive compensation restrictions in the TARP prove that executive compensation matters?

WELL, I’M COMFORTED: Pakistan: Mullah Omar Is Here, But Isn’t A Threat.

A TIGER WOODS HOROSCOPE from an “astro-sexologist.” Would’ve been more impressive if it had come out before the scandal . . . .

ANTI-OLYMPIC MURAL CENSORED IN VANCOUVER. The Olympics are all about local elites trying to look good to elites from elsewhere.* The little people shall not be allowed to get in the way.

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* Well, looking good and, you know, graft. But that goes without saying.

VIDEO: Sarah Palin and William Shatner do dueling dramatic readings on Conan. Interestingly, Palin gets lots of applause from the Tonight Show audience.

CAN I CALL ‘EM, OR WHAT? Back in September, noting a continuing pattern of White House incompetence, I predicted: “Expect this to play out in thumbsucker columns on whether America is ‘ungovernable.'”

And, right on cue, here’s Matthew Yglesias: “The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable.”

Funny, that dumb cowboy Bush seemed to get a lot done with fewer votes in Congress. . . .

Plus, from the comments: “There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to ‘become ungovernable.’ There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough. If you hadn’t become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a ‘progressive’ and that last year’s election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of ‘progressive’ policies you might have seen this coming.”

Or, as Ed Morrissey noted a while ago: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

UPDATE: Moe Lane says Matt and I are both right. “The country is indeed ungovernable. …By Democrats.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “What I appreciate especially is how Matthew notes that the smarter elements are starting to pick up on some observation of his…”

MORE: Ed Morrissey offers some fresh thoughts.

Plus, reader Zachary Terry writes: “That silly, silly Constitution. It always seems to get in the way. In all seriousness, though, wasn’t the United States intended to be relatively ‘ungoverned?’ Why is it not surprising that blatant deviation from the intended structure and function of our national government has led to this quandary?”

Can we get a T-Shirt that says Proudly Ungovernable Since 1776?

Further thoughts over at TalkLeft. “I suppose this is all a set up for a Truman-like ‘Do Nothing Republican Congress’ campaign in 2012 by Obama. Of course that will require the Democrats lose the Congress in 2010. Hey, wait a minute . . .”

FINALLY: Reader John Hendrix writes:

The MSM didn’t start saying things like that until Carter’s fourth year.

So can we now say that the Obama’s main achievement was to get the MSM to go all “The country is too big for one man to govern” in his first year instead of his fourth year?

Yeah, it’s like Carter on fast-forward or something.

KEITH HENNESSEY: The “using TARP funds for stimulus” gimmick.

FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION: IowaHawk Explains Climate Math. In his day job he has to know something about statistics . . . .

JAMES TARANTO: Do Nothing, Majority Says: ObamaCare is now almost as unpopular as it is monstrous.

UH OH: Interest increases central to looming debt crisis.

WOULD A PLANETARY ONE-CHILD POLICY DOOM THE WELFARE STATE? “A welfare state is in one sense a big Ponzi scheme. Without increasing numbers of people entering the scheme, there is no money to pay the people receiving the money.”

A DOUBLE-STANDARD on sex scandals?

DANIEL DREZNER: China’s Soft Power Hits The Brick Wall Of Economics.

HARRY REID slips lifetime coverage limits into health care bill.

TOBIN HARSHAW ON CLIMATEGATE in the New York Times: “So, will the old ‘Nothing to see here, folks, move right along …’ strategy keep climate skeptics at bay? Actually, it’s not even keeping some climate scientists from demanding that the document leak be more thoroughly investigated and that their colleagues show more neutrality in their research. . . . Perhaps the lesson of Copenhagen is that raw politics and thinking critically don’t mix. One hopes, however, that the politics of science allow some room for open debate. That doesn’t mean letting your opponents run roughshod over the facts. Nor does it involve shutting off their microphones.” Read the whole thing.

RICH LOWRY: Reid’s health care bill “tottering.” “Since the Senate debate began, the bill has only gotten more unpopular. It’s all still in flux obviously, but we just might be watching the bill fall apart before our eyes.” Let’s hope. Somebody give it a push?

JOHN TAMMES on electronics books and his father.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

HAVING AN INQUISITION, Global-Warming style.

YEAR OF THE GUN: Tennessee Demonstrates Trend of Looser Laws.

MICHAEL S. MALONE: An Obituary For Obituaries. “You probably didn’t read the story – because what red-blooded American reads a newspaper anymore? – but apparently the nation’s newspapers, having already lost their editorial dominance to cable news and the Web, their sports coverage to fan sites, their classifieds to Craigslist, and their editorial pages to the blogosphere, are now under heavy assault on their last profitable redoubt: the obituary page.”

PJTV: Bruce Bawer reports from the Copenhagen shadow conference. Best part is when Tom Harris defends the skeptical scientists and demands the United Nations release the evidence that its climate-change claims are based on.

THE INSTA-WIFE WILL BE ON THE BIOGRAPHY CHANNEL AT 8 PM TONIGHT, talking about Canadian “pig farmer” serial killer Robert Pickton.

DECLAN MCCULLAGH, CBS NEWS: Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review. “As the science scandal known as ClimateGate grows, the largest U.S. physicists’ association is finding itself roiled by internal dissent and allegations of conflict of interest over a forthcoming review of its position statement on man-made global warming.”

SO DOES THIS MEAN ED BEGLEY, JR. EATS BABIES? Can organic produce and natural shampoo turn you into a heartless jerk? “New research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.”