THIS IS NOT THE HOPE I WAS LOOKING FOR: Government liabilities rose $2 trillion in FY 2010: Treasury. “The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2010 with net liabilities swelling more than $2 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed on Tuesday. The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government’s liabilities exceeded assets by $13.473 trillion. That compared with a $11.456 trillion gap a year earlier.”

Just the other day, one of my colleagues told me he was planning a trip to Barbados, “while my dollars will still buy something like that.”

CHAOS IN IRANIAN PORT? I hope it leads to something.

GUNS GET THROUGH, but microphone shuts down Dallas airport. From last summer, but still . . . .

HEY, I THOUGHT THE SALON FOLKS were supposed to be anti-torture. I guess everything’s up for grabs these days.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK ASLEEP: Heh: “Yesterday Department of Homeland Security Secretary said that her department was working hard to protect American Citizens 24 hours/day, 7/days a week, 364 days a/year (yes she said 364). She did not, however, say whether they were protecting us in all 57 states.”

STOP THE PRESSES: States With Lower Taxes, Smaller Government, Fewer Unions Seeing The Most Population Growth.

CHANGE: Alberto Gonzales Returns To DoJ. Related: Obama Administration Caves On Indefinite Detention. Remember the fierce moral urgency of change?

OBAMA TAKING CUES from Bloomberg’s anti-gun group?

SUBSIDIES FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY are drying up. Well, we’re out of money.

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING AFTER: OUR EYES. “Sadly, the nationwide survey (conducted Sept. 8 through 12 by Harris Interactive) showed that only a small minority of those most at risk get the yearly eye exams that could detect a vision problem and prevent, delay or even reverse its progression. Fully 86 percent of those who already have an eye disease do not get routine exams, the telephone survey of 1,004 adults revealed.”

BLOCKBUSTER VACCINES OF THE FUTURE? Faster, please.

BILL AYERS WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Eric Holder Warns Of Danger From “Homegrown” Terrorists. Plus, is Holder espousing the dreaded Unitary Executive theory? Why yes, yes he is:

Turning to how terror suspects are tried, Holder said he still believes the “decision as to how people get prosecuted, where they get prosecuted, is an executive branch function. Even if those suspects are being held now at Guantanamo Bay. Holder said Congress should not be interfering with that.

“It’s — from my perspective — a constitutional issue,” he said.

They told me if I voted for John Mccain . . . oh, hell, this is too easy.

Related: The Education Of Eric Holder:

Two years ago the only thing we knew about Reid, Padilla, the Lackawanna Six et al was that Bush was shreddding the Constitution and Gitmo needed to be closed. Two years ago the the DHS was fretting about right-wing haters.

Indeed.

MARKDOWNS ON gifts for cooks.

BRIAN AITKEN IS HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

NEWEST FASHION ACCESSORIES: Nipple Enhancers.

This was all forecast by John Brunner in Stand On Zanzibar. They were called “nipicaps,” and were remote-controllable so women could signal their interest to desirable men. That’ll be the next model.

BREASTFEEDING BOOSTS BOYS’ BRAINS, but not girls’. Must resist obvious cheap jokes. . . .

PIGFORD UPDATE: Lee Stranahan: How To Get $50K From The Government For “Attempting To Farm.” “One common misconception is that Pigford is about people who defrauded the government by pretending to be farmers. From the research I’ve done, there’s almost nobody who pretended to be a farmer. The shocking truth is that you didn’t have to fake a farming resume to collect $50,000 — all you had to do was to make a credible enough claim that you ‘attempted to farm.'”

BILL WHITTLE: A Nation Of Desire.

LIFE AMONG the coffee nerds. But even nerds face inflation:

In 18th-century London, the slang phrase for withdrawal as a method of birth control was “to make a coffee-house of a woman’s privities, to go in and out and spend nothing.” (This, according to a contemporary dictionary of vulgar slang.) All these years later, freeloading is still an issue. Zeigel says he sees students come into the Golden Roast with their own food and drinks, just to use the free Internet. Shaun Parrish says there’s a reason why Java no longer has free refills—they can’t afford to. Because while he doesn’t like to think of coffee as a commodity, it is one, and it’s one with skyrocketing prices.

Indeed. Plus this: “Still, Harb says he’d love it if more coffee drinkers in Knoxville appreciated the quality stuff, even if they’re not all buying the $25 per cup Kopi Luwak he sells. (Those are the Indonesian coffee beans that have been digested by civets for a supposedly mind-blowing, amazing brew. I did not try any.)”

ANNOUNCING THE 2010 Feynman Prizes In Molecular Nanotechnology, from the Foresight Institute.

MORE ETHANOL FOLLIES: Engine Makers Sue To Block E15 Ethanol. “Most car fuel sold around the country is a mixture of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, known as E10, but ethanol supplies, and Congressional mandates for using ethanol, are rising much faster than the market is absorbing the fuel. So in October, acting on the petition of an ethanol industry group, the agency approved a 15 percent blend known as E15, for cars from the 2007 model year and later. . . . The retailers are not enthusiastic about E15 for a variety of reasons. One is that most stations run off a single set of underground tanks, and if these are converted to E15 and only some cars can use that fuel, the stations would have nothing to offer other customers.” So we’ve got a surplus as a result of government subsidies. Now, of course, we have to have a mandate to try to overcome the subsidy-generated surplus. Then we’ll have mandate-generated distortions resulting from efforts to overcome the subsidy-generated surplus. Which will probably produce a subsidy to gas stations to help them deal with the mandate-generated distortions that were put in place to overcome the subsidy-generated surplus, after which . . . .

FCC COMMISSIONER MEREDITH BAKER: Hands Off Tomorrow’s Internet. How about we abolish the FCC?

UPDATE: Reader Tim Peters emails:

The last paragraph of this article asks, “Why does the FCC plan to intervene in a rushed manner, days before the year’s end, in the one sector of the economy that is working so well to create consumer choice, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity?”

A very simple and obvious answer comes to mind. Power.

The internet has done more to shape political and cultural opinion in the last ten years than any other vehicle. (As I’m sure you’re well aware) It has also exposed the warts on the ruling elites and their shills in the main-stream media. It has been the lynch pin of the tea party movement and the ever growing opposition to centralized, top down, always increasing state control. It was crucial in the shaping of the public perception which led to this fall’s electoral debacle for the democrats and that’s why they seem so determined to forge ahead. Julius Seizure is just the front man.

Indeed.

PARODY BECOMES REALITY IN SPAIN: Muslim Student Files Complaint Against Teacher … for Talking About Ham.

MIRACLE IN MEMPHIS: A visit to FedEx’s SuperHub, where technology powers the global economy while you sleep. “In many ways, the SuperHub dwarfs its ‘big brother,’ Memphis International Airport. The SuperHub is a world unto itself, with a hospital, a fire station, a meteorology unit, and a private security force; it has branches of U.S. Customs and Homeland Security, plus anti-terror operations no one will talk about. It has 20 electric power generators as backup to keep it running if the power grid goes down.” Plus, talking to Fred Smith.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it might be time to stop pretending you’re all about science.”