MICHAEL S. MALONE: Did De-Regulation Just Turn Around The U.S. Economy? “Readers of my ABCNews column or Wall Street Journal opinion pieces will remember that I’ve regularly listed four things that needed to be done to improve the U.S. economy. Now the first one has fallen: mark-to-market accounting. . . . That still leaves three to go: 1) Make Sarbanes-Oxley voluntary; 2) Abandon options expensing as unrealistic; and 3) Leave the capital gains tax alone. We’ve now seen what an improvement of just one of those can do. Adoption of all four will bring us back to prosperity.”

A DISTURBING NEW PROBLEM: Electric Vehicle Range Anxiety.

BEST TV series finale ever?

BACK IN 2004, MOVEON MADE A POLITICAL SPOT about how Bush was saddling our kids with too much debt. The folks at RedState have updated it for 2009. Best political parody of the season.

KNOXVILLE MAYOR (AND GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE) BILL HASLAM has resigned from Mayor Bloomberg’s antigun group. “He did so because he believes MAIG has expanded its mission in ways that go far beyond fighting criminal gun use, including a number of ideas that he does not share.”

FIGHTING ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT INFECTIONS WITH PHAGES: I’ve been reading about this for most of my life, and it seems like such a good idea. So why aren’t we, you know, doing it routinely? Oh, wait, here’s one reason: “The Food and Drug Administration was another story. Since 1963, the agency has mandated a strict approval process for all medications sold in America. Phage therapy has yet to be subjected to it, so Wolcott had to petition his state regulatory board to allow him to administer it only to people who had exhausted all other options. Then, because you can’t find phages in U.S. pharmacies, he had to trek all the way to the former Soviet republic of Georgia to get it. There it’s sold over the counter like eyedrops. He bought, for $2 each, three clear glass bottles, each filled with a liquid containing hundreds of types of phages.” Plus this: “Our whole regulatory environment has been one major thing that has slowed people down.” Faster, please.

CHEAP solar power.

EXTREME SHEEPHERDING, with L.E.D.s. (Thanks to reader Lenora Daniel for this link).

JOHN SCALZI AND I HAVE similar views on spending, saving, and debt. I don’t know if that’s because we both grew up poor, or what.

IN THE MAIL: From Kerry Patterson: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Hartford Courant: Poll: Dodd Would Lose To Simmons. “A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Connecticut U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd now trailing former Republican Congressman Rob Simmons and two other possible GOP challengers for the 2010 election.”

This could be why:

While the Senate Banking Committee headed by Chris Dodd is considering new regulations for the hedge-fund industry, prominent hedge-fund manager worth billions schedules $1,000-a-head fund-raiser for Chris Dodd at an exclusive NYC club. (Attn. Rob Simmons, Sam Caligiuri: By peddling his influence, Chris Dodd will be able the raise the sort of campaign cash you only can dream about.) . . . No, siree, all that dough he got from AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, etc., and those mortgages from Countrywide never influenced his actions one little bit.

Oh, yes. How exclusive is that NYC club? It has no minority members, and it wasn’t until a reporter raised a stink did the Dodd campaign move to find another (undisclosed) location for the fund-raiser.a

Endless hypocrisy, on your dime.

UPDATE: Reader Ted Siegel writes:

While I can’t stand Senator Dodd, the blog you link is unfair to him and the “exclusive” NYC club. This club, the Harmonie Club, was founded by Jews when they weren’t allowed into the Metropolitan Club across the street. The Harmonie Club (which I have visited as a guest) is very welcoming to all races and religions. An analogy would be with a traditionally-Jewish fraternity that is officially open to everyone– this fraternity might not have any minorities (or non-Jews), but by no means should be considered racist.

Well, if Republicans were involved it probably still would be, but good point.

LEAVING US BEHIND? Chinese/South African cooperation on pebble-bed reactors.

PLANNING TO ATTEND A TEA PARTY PROTEST? Please join the PJTV citizen reporter corps and help with coverage. PJTV will have crews out, but with 300-500 tea parties scheduled, no media organization will be able to cover them all. So cover them yourselves, and let PJTV help get the word out!

MICHELLE OBAMA: More popular than Barack.

IN ANTICIPATION OF BIGGER CROWDS, Tampa’s Tax Day Tea Party has been moved to Lykes Gaslight Park in downtown Tampa.

MICHAEL YON: Jingle Bombs.

HERE’S A REPORT on the on-again-off-again Cape Coral, Florida Tea Party protest: “Hundreds filled Jaycee Park on Wednesday for a tea-themed show of populist outrage. . . . The events have gained traction nationally as the country grapples with a souring economy and the government’s attempts to stave off financial collapse through stimulus spending and an intervention into the banking sector.”

More here: “Hundreds showed up at a tea party in Cape Coral, and they were not happy. The political activists expressed their anger over taxes and what they call out-of-control government spending. . . . This was just one of many tea parties in Southwest Florida. Many others will be held April 15th.” As I’ve noted, these things do get local coverage, even though national media have largely ignored them.

IS HAROLD KOH being “borked?”

A GENETIC INFLUENCE ON age of virginity loss.

THOUGHTS: Why the Tea Party Movement is important to us.