HEH: Desperate for Privacy, Obama Publishes Letter to His Kids.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: “To chair the 2009 governing board of the U.N.’s flagship agency, the multibillion-dollar globe-girdling United Nations Development Program, dedicated to promoting good governance and ending poverty, the U.N. has now picked–wait for it–the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

She asks: “What do Obama and Susan Rice propose to do about this?”

NO RECIDIVISM HERE: Police: Home invader dies after teen hits him in head. It should be dangerous to invade people’s homes.

JIM PINKERTON: What should be at the center of the U.S. stimulus package.

IN THE MAIL: Jeff Jarvis’s new book, What Would Google Do? Looks quite interesting.

REASON TV: Barack Obama Promised to Bring Change to Washington. How’s that Working Out So Far? It’s a parade of fresh faces! Er, well, there’s one I haven’t seen in government before, but I think that’s a picture problem . . . .

JAMES TARANTO ON GEITHNER’S TAX PROBLEMS AND TAX SIMPLIFICATION:

Did Geithner have an incompetent accountant? Maybe. A Senate Finance Committee statement reports that he prepared his own returns for 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005.

We’re tempted to say America needs a Treasury secretary who is smart enough to figure out his own taxes. But such a cheap shot would be beneath us. Instead, we are going to make a serious point:

America needs a tax code simple enough for the Treasury secretary to figure out.

Indeed. And simple enough for the Ways And Means Chairman to figure out, too!

TOM BLUMER ON the Pelosi-Obama-Reid economy.

ARNOLD KLING on the nonlinear returns to government spending. “At $100 trillion in additional government spending, the United States would be operating like Zimbabwe, with similar results. So to talk about ‘the’ multiplier, as if it were linear, has to be wrong at some level.”

ANOTHER QUESTION FOR Eric Holder. This time, on his expansive view of executive power.

MATT WELCH: Budget-Slashing Measures Lead to Replay of My Idyllic Childhood. “So what happens when bankrupt cities finally start cutting back on services? The L.A. Times went to San Diego to do a semi-scare story on the subject, and discovered…unsupervised skating.”

MAX BORDERS: The Economy is Not a Machine. It’s more like an ecosystem, far too complex for any central planner to “fix” — or even understand.

HE’S EVERYWHERE: A roundup of Obama magazine covers.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Frustrated Engineers Battle with NASA over the Future of Spaceflight.

CALIFORNIA UPDATE: “As regular state workers braced for unpaid two-day-a-month furloughs, top staffers in the state Assembly walked away from their jobs last month with richer pensions that are likely to cost taxpayers a bundle.”

STEVE MARTIN, THE SUPREME COURT, AND DOUBLE STANDARDS: In the New York Post, I have some thoughts inspired by the Herring opinion.

MICKEY KAUS: “kf discovers that the mood in Washington among veteran Beltway Dems is a lot more skeptical of Tim Geithner’s innocence regarding his tax errors than public reaction by offical Dems (or some GOPs) would lead you to expect.”

IMPEACHING Bruce Ackerman?

PATRICK MCGOOHAN HAS DIED. And I didn’t know this: “He was a contender for the original James Bond role. As legend has it, he turned down the role on moral grounds.”

More here.

BAILOUT THOUGHTS FROM JERRY POURNELLE: “The bailouts continue, or at least the distribution of money. Barack Obama is now making vague threats against the Democrats if they don’t quickly vote to give him $350 billion, the other half of the mysterious bailout package that was supposed to end our problems. I haven’t been told where most of the first half went, and there seems to be little information on what Obama will do with the second half, but he assures us it is vitally needed and Right Now. . . . I don’t think that handing Obama $350 billion will save the country; but if he were to spend it by making the payments on defaulting mortgages, it would cost a lot less than what they are planning, and who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to sing.”

REBECCA AGUILAR UPDATE:

Rebecca Aguilar, a former KDFW/Channel 4 reporter, has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Fox-owned station, asserting that her “documented history of complaining about the treatment of Hispanics and Latinos by her employer” led management to suspend and ultimately fire her.

Aguilar, who worked for 14 years at the station, was put on paid suspension in October 2007 after her interview with an elderly West Dallas salvage-business owner who had shot and killed two people, whom he believed were burglars, within three weeks. The story drew national attention and sparked debate about whether Aguilar had “ambushed” the man or was just doing her job in getting an exclusive story that rival stations also wanted.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday in Dallas County district court, contends that KDFW took Aguilar off the air immediately after “pretextual and fabricated criticism about a particular story.” She was then terminated by the station in March.

Well, I was one of the critics, and my criticism was quite sincere. I suspect that when the jury sees the video, her case will collapse.

UNDERFUNDED, OVERGENEROUS, OR JUST PLAIN MISMANAGED? Public Pensions: Rotting From Within.

CHENEY: “The Iraq War was worth it.”

CAMILLE PAGLIA on Obama’s early stumbles.

MICHAEL YON on education and challenges in Afghanistan.