VERONIQUE DE RUGY notes that, Obama’s claims notwithstanding, the Bush Administration was hardly about deregulation: “Obama’s assertions to the contrary, the 43rd president was the biggest regulator since Nixon.”

MEGAN MCARDLE AND DANIEL DREZNER on stimulus problems.

KARL LAGERFELD ON FUR: Heh.

OBAMA-BIDEN ON HAMAS? ““Hamas has to decide between bullets and ballots – either it lays down its arms and acts democratically, or it continues as a terrorist organization and is treated as such.”

A NICE STORY: Man connects with Jewish ancestors’ history on visit to Germany.

MORE LIKE A TAX CUT, I’D SAY: Low gas prices are kind of like a $1 billion daily bailout.

FIND OF THE YEAR: 1937 Bugatti Type 57S found in a barn.

IN TIME MAGAZINE, the Top Ten Outrageous Earmarks of 2009. Number Two is the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, funded by, er, Charles B. Rangel, in a fashion that gave rise to scandal. Extreme Mortman says this is evidence of why the U.S. Government needs a Department of Irony. Don’t give ’em ideas; they’ll want to name it after themselves.

HELP FOR THE TOP TEN New Year’s Resolutions. As voted for by readers.

MORAL CLARITY in Gaza. “Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people. . . . There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.”

UPDATE: Alan Dershowitz: Hamas are the real war criminals in this conflict. They can’t be war criminals. They’re neither Republican nor Jewish.

MORE: Root causes.

A BIG JUDICIAL APPOINTMENT for Charlie Crist.

INSTA-POLL:

BRYAN CAPLAN: “Valkyrie, Bryan Singer’s film about the 1944 officers’ plot against Hitler, is worth seeing. But I’m admittedly a little biased. After all, my first academic publication (in the Humane Studies Review) has a whole section on the philosophy of tyrannicide. In hindsight, I’m amazed that people who don’t think twice about killing conscripts (or even civilians) are so reluctant to justify violence against serial killer statesmen. What could be less objectionable than trying to stop mass murder by killing the specific individuals most responsible for it?” What, indeed?

MARK TAPSCOTT: “Car Sales Are Up! No, Really They Are!! Well, Maybe Not Exactly Up But …..”

THE BLAGO VORTEX: “Really, it’s fascinating how one crooked state pol can ensnare both the new presidential administration and Congress. The Obama team is lawyering up, the Senate will be sued, and the grand jury in Illinois will spend months reeling in more witnesses who, in turn, may implicate still more politicians. It’s hard to recall a single figure who has caused as much consternation and litigation.”

UPDATE: Some Roland Burris gun hypocrisy.

RESCUING EAST TENNESSEANS: Erin Brockovich to visit fly ash spill site. “She is coming to Kingston with a law firm she consults for. She wants to take some of her own samples and try to answer questions.”

A CHARLES RANGEL-INSPIRED QUESTION: “How would you feel if you gave money to a candidate for political office and found out that it was being used to pay his/her parking and traffic violations?”

HMM: 2008 Military Times poll: Wary about Obama: “When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey. In follow-up interviews, respondents expressed concerns about Obama’s lack of military service and experience leading men and women in uniform.” Let’s hope he’ll perform in a way that wins their confidence.

FROM SUSANNAH BRESLIN, something I didn’t know about Caroline Kennedy:

In a fit of pique that bordered on the bizarre, she shaved off one eyebrow. “My face,” she offered by way of explanation, “is too symmetrical.”

I wonder if it was the right, or the left?

UPDATE: “Bordered?”

MICKEY KAUS looks at the Iseman libel suit against the NYT.

MIKE RAPPAPORT: Can the Senate refuse to seat Roland Burris?

TYLER COWEN: “We’re in a race to see whether politics will become the dominant means of allocating financial wealth in this country. That could be the single biggest domestic issue today, but too few economists are speaking up about it.”

WAS 2008 the year of reckoning for pensions? If it wasn’t, 2009 will be.

GOOD QUESTION: “How come Rep. Charlie Rangel (NY) owns so much property in New York and an expensive villa in the Dominican Republic? — all of this on a representative’s salary. . . . You must have your own pet peeves about many politicians who after a lifetime of moderate income retire to a posh life style, or about locals who stuff bribes into their underwear. If so, join me in my hope, and support my plan for relief. It’s called the net worth test, an internal revenue gimmick invented to convict Al Capone, the famous prohibition gangster.”

JIM WOOTEN: “Suppose now that U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and others on the left will argue for a return of the draft? Or was that proposal in 2003 only directed at George W. Bush? Said Rangel then in calling for a reinstatement of the draft: ‘If indeed the president believes war is necessary in terms of our national welfare, then he has to believe that sacrifices need to be made, and those sacrifices need to be shared. We have to kick up a notch the sense of patriotism and the sense of obligation.’ The left wants a draft because they think one will turn us into a nation of pacifists.”

My idea of “shared sacrifice” includes a Congressional pay cut, and other give-backs from the “takers.” Think there’s any chance we’ll see that?