IT’S NOT LIKE HE HAS MORE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS: Obama weighs in on baseball instant replays. “Obama suggests MLB consider allowing more replay; says he won’t prejudge a policy review.”

ANGRY BRITS HIT BACK: Obama’s antagonism to BP is rooted in desperation and prejudice.

SO IS THIS HOPE, OR CHANGE? U.S debt to rise to $19.6 trillion by 2015.

NATIONAL DEFICIT COMMISSION MEMBER: “The market-worshipping, privatizing, de-regulating, dehumanizing American financial plan has failed and should never be revived.”

It’s hardly surprising that President Obama’s deficit commission has become a font of unintended (if wince-inducing) hoo-larity. Nor is it a shocker that diabolically effective labor organizer Andy Stern would be brazen about re-molding government to benefit public sector workers at the direct expense of the rest of us. Still, there’s something irritating about seeing a presidentially appointed deficit commissioner and inner circle FoB uncork statements like these.

They told me that if we elected Barack Obama President, we’d see commie labor goons attacking the free market with official sanction. And they were right!

CHANGE: France selling 1,700 buildings to help cut debt. “The sale is part of a larger effort to streamline bureaucracy in a country where more than a third of workers are employed by the state.”

I’VE LOST FAITH IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS: MICKEY KAUS DIDN’T WIN! Here’s his concession statement. Excerpt:

I’m a blogger. I spent about $40,000. I had one part-time aide, a recent college grad who was prepping for his LSATs. We had no headquarters, no pollsters, no highly paid strategists and consultants. We had a couple of laptops and an old Volvo. And we still ripped off more than 100,000 votes from a three term incumbent because there is a large group of voters who are dissatisfied with the prevailing dogma of the Democratic party. . . . The pols are leading us down a dead end. This election has shown their weakness.

Indeed.

BLANCHE LINCOLN hangs on to win in Arkansas.

UPDATE: White House: “Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Politico: Labor: All Bark, No Bite?

Dan Riehl: Labor Under The Bus? “Oh yeah. Markos has already flushed Halter from his site – down the memory hole. But Rick Wilson screencapped it. Heh! Meanwhile, the WH rubs it in, flushing big labor under the bus. File this under a big finger in the chest in the shower!”

So long as it’s just a finger.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Goo-Goo Genocidaires: The Blood Is Dripping From Their Hands. “Of all the mass murderers, genocidaires and enablers of the twentieth century, one group of collaborators does not get its fair share of condemnation and moral loathing. Unfortunately Americans have never really come to terms with the terrible things they did, we have never really named and shamed them, and we have never diagnosed and exposed the bad ideas that led to some of America’s most fateful and costly blunders. Until we do, our society is at risk of repeating these errors. The people I have in mind are the ‘goo-goo genocidaires,’ the willfully blind reformers, civil society activists, clergy, students and others whose foolishness and ignorance was a necessary condition for tens of millions of deaths in the last hundred years. Unreflective, self-righteous ‘activists’ thought that to espouse peace was the same thing as to create or safeguard it. As a result, tens of millions died.”

I GUESS THIS IS MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Clinton urges rich Latin Americans to pay ‘fair’ tax share.

THE CASH-STRAPPED CAYMAN ISLANDS will be able to borrow more. When I was there, the economy was noticeably worse than previously. Various people in the local economy were using terms like “imploding” and “collapse” to describe the government’s financial situation. Tourism is down, but to a very large degree the government runs off of fees from financial transactions, and there are a lot fewer of them than there used to be. Unfortunately, their government, like most, increased its spending to the limit during the good times and now finds itself overextended during the bad. This is playing out in various ways — civil servants may be taking a pay cut, and things like marine-preserve upkeep are taking a beating, just as new threats (like lionfish) require more. (Some wealthy benefactor should put a bounty on lionfish, soon.) Even in a tropical paradise with comparatively honest and competent government, things are tough nowadays.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Havanich writes: “Instead of wealthy investment bankers funding tournaments, we should suggest to the Chinese that eating Lionfish (which are supposed to be tasty) enhances sexual performance. It would help the rhinoceros, too!” Well, everyone knows that lionfish are much more potent aphrodisiacs than rhinoceros. And reportedly eating lionfish stimulates desire in women, too. I read it on the Internet!

MARKDOWNS ON CAR ELECTRONICS.

GENE HEALY: Repeal The Seventeenth Amendment?

In a related note, reader Donald Kochan sends this paper on how the 17th Amendment affected the Supreme Court’s willingness to overturn state laws. And some old thoughts of mine on Senate reform.

SCIENCE: “A new study shows that gay men really are leaner than straight men. And conversely, it also found that gay women tend to be heavier than their heterosexual counterparts.”

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY: Experimental Free-Space Quantum Teleportation. Okay, we’re not there yet . . .

STUDY: Women unimpressed with modest men. “Research has revealed women don’t like modesty in a man. Instead, cocky types are more likely to win their hearts, with Simon Cowell’s arrogant attitude more appealing than Hugh Grant’s bumbling on-screen behaviour. Other men also find male modesty an unattractive trait – perhaps because they believe that bashful boys are letting the side down.”

Plus this: “Changes in gender roles that have afforded women more financial independence have not yielded relaxed demands for men.”

WANT TO DO “PUBLIC SERVICE?” GO TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR.

BILL WHITTLE: Graduation Nation: A Commencement Address You Won’t Hear on Campus, But You’ll Need For Your Future.

DANA LOESCH: “Newsweek is acting like a jealous sorority girl.”

TURNABOUT: Awesome: Israeli students trying to organize flotilla to Turkey.

HEH: “Remember, the side with the protest babes always wins.” Especially when they’re well-armed . . .

SHOCKER: Britons link Islam with extremism, says survey.

OKAY, I SEE THE ARGUMENT THAT OBAMA’S “ASS KICKING” BIT WAS UNPRESIDENTIAL, but to me, the biggest negative was that it made clear that we’ve got a President who doesn’t know whose ass to kick.

Related: Who’s In Charge Here?

Also: Spill reveals Obama’s lack of executive experience.

LEADERSHIP FOR AMERICA: Miles of Oil Containment Boom Sit in Warehouse, Waiting for BP or U.S. to Use.

THE THORNY PROBLEM OF “Sexsomnia.”

TWO APPROACHES TO curbing student drinking problems.