TIM CAVANAUGH: “One of the horribly fascinating things about following the real estate market from 2006 until, well, today actually, has been watching how long the body managed to keep running and twitching after the head was blown clean off.”

THE END OF REASON? Thoughts inspired by rereading The Road To Serfdom.

HOW TO BEAT THE LONDON COPS on a terrorism stop. But the real fun is in the comments.

MICHAEL YON: Moving Heaven And Earth.

IN THE MAIL: Caliphate, from Tom Kratman.

MY SUNDAY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN: Consent of the governed — and the lack thereof. Plus, why the federal government resembles Schlitz.

UPDATE: “The cure for both problems is Sam Adams.”

TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE (CONT’D): Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed. “Levin repaid the credit Friday, Chambers said, after being contacted by Roll Call.”

SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMS FROM MEN: On The Rise.

GRIM REALITY and the newspaper business.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Congressional Estimates Show Grim Deficit Picture. “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.”

Ann Althouse comments: “The number is utterly incomprehensible. If you think it is not, I’m going to assume it is because your brain has less, not more, capacity than mine. Please don’t stumble embarrassingly over yourself trying to prove otherwise.”

And, from the comments: “I think the number will be higher. There will be ’emergencies’ and ‘unforeseen circumstances’. Plus, there’s the dead-weight loss from the new energy taxes he’s proposing and the forced spending on health insurance, that are bound to dramatically shrink the economy.”

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader disagrees with Althouse: “The deficit numbers are perfectly understandable when viewed as a fraction of GDP, and compared to parallel historic episodes. Obama is simply racing the US toward the insolvency tipping point.”

JOHN FUND ON RICK PERRY’S VICTORY AND THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT:

The late House Speaker Tip O’Neill once said “all politics is local.” Texas Governor Rick Perry won last night’s GOP primary by standing that adage on its head and nationalizing the race. He pounded his main rival, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, as a Washington insider and tagged her as “Kay Bailout” for her support of the 2008 rescue of major financial institutions.

Mr. Perry said the results were a triumph for conservative principles: “Texas voters said ‘no.” They said ‘no’ to Washington bureaucrats making decisions that state leaders and citizens should be making for themselves.” He won 51% of the vote, with Tea Party activist Debra Medina pulling in another 18% of the vote. By avoiding a runoff, Mr. Perry put himself in a good position to take on former Houston Mayor Bill White in the fall.

Some Tea Partiers supported Debra Medina, but — as with Scott Brown — more seemed focused on supporting a candidate who could win.

Related: Medina Lost, But Tea Party Set The Tone For Texas Primary.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Hanshaw writes:

An opinion on the Texas Tea Party and Rick Perry: Rick Perry was an early Tea Party adopter. He was at the April 15, 2009, Tea Party in Austin, and gave a rather spirited defense of states’ rights, even raising the possibility of secession, kinda, sorta. At least, it was reported as such. Was Medina the Tea Party candidate? She certainly tried to pick up the mantle, but the fact is that Perry is as much a Tea Partier as Medina. I would put Medina in the category of self-anointed Tea Party candidate. I suspect we will see more people pronouncing themselves as such.

Yes, and some will be false-flag plants. And “kinda-sorta” is putting it mildly. I mean, it wasn’t like Vermont or anything.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Austin reader Audrey Baum writes to remind us that Perry was initially booed at his 4/15/2009 appearance:

…but he is a very skilled politician and had the audience cheering him by the end of his speech. John Cornyn was also there but was booed off and on during his entire speech and finished quickly. The crowd was definitely anti-establishment but Perry was able to turn the crowd around. He reads his audience very well.

I voted for Perry in the primary only because a vote for Medina would possibly cause a run-off and waste money better spent on defeating the Democrat. I also felt that we need a dependable “No” vote on Obamacare and we are better served with Hutchison staying in the Senate for now. Perry is a slick, good-ol’-boy but at least he has kept the state running reasonably well (don’t get me started on his obsession with toll roads).

That’s the kind of pragmatic thinking I’m talking about.

LEARNING TO speak microbe.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Obama’s health care pitch to Democrats: Trust me.

WHAT’S in a name?

ROBERT SHILLER ON the housing crisis. “American mortgage institutions encourage people to take a leveraged position in the real estate market, which is quite risky because home prices can and do decline, as we have learned so painfully. Leverage a risky investment 10 to 1 and you can expect trouble — and we have plenty of it today.”

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS: How To Handle Sudden Unintended Acceleration.

ER, THESE DAYS? “Does the entire wedding industry these days seem like one big racket to you?”

ROGER SIMON: Academy Awards? There Goes the Neighborhood!