MATT WELCH: What Beer Deregulation Can Teach Us.

I personally find it particularly meaningful that government and industry and (I presume) anti-drinking scolds colluded to criminalize a behavior that wasn’t just victimless, but downright awesome; and that the removal of that appalling bit of illiberal nannyism helped usher in a phenomenon I would have bet the house against two decades ago: a thriving and variegated American industry of delicious beermaking.

And given that, what’s wrong with making deregulation a “starting point”? Imagine for a crazy moment a world in which the default expectation would be for government not to flop its grotesque belly onto the forehead of various industries, not to meddle in the affairs of pre-pubescent drink vendors, not to redistribute $20 billion a year (give or take) of our money to mostly well-heeled agriculture companies just to make sure they don’t face competition from poor people. I’m not talking about no regulation here, but rather the idea that if such-and-such activity isn’t hurting anybody it shouldn’t be subject to governmental micro-managing, license-imposing, winner-picking, and even arrest.

Indeed. Read the whole thing. And there’s also this: “Did you hear about the guy who got arrested after a government sting operation revealed he was giving free rides to folks who were drinking to keep them from drunk driving? . . . Barney Frank likes to say that ‘government’ is just the name for ‘the things we choose to do together.’ That pleasant description somehow doesn’t ring true here.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “The New Deal is demographically obsolete. You can’t fund the dream of the 1960s on the economy of 2010.”

IS DAVE WEIGEL’S COMMENT SECTION like sex?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: “Obama could still restore his standing with the American people if he copied the Clinton of 1995 and abandoned his unpopular agenda. But he won’t.”

Plus this: “The common denominator here is that a largely conservative electorate has always wanted lower taxes, smaller but more competent government, fewer overseas commitments, honest government, and officials who live like the public they represent — and it can’t seem to find that package in any party or candidate being presented to it. Indeed, the Obama medicine is now seen as worse than the Bush disease, in that he less competently oversaw the war in Afghanistan, blew apart the budget, and lives more royally than any Republican.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I wish that Krugman had walked his readers through this quite a bit earlier, of course, but better late than never. . . . I wish Paul Krugman would do some explaining–about the source of his differential skepticism. For all that I admire Paul Ryan’s courage in arguing that there ought to be some relationship between inflow and outgo, I’ll believe the cuts when I actually see them. Which is the same way I feel about health care reform.”

GLENN LOURY: The regime of political correctness is collapsing.

MEDIA MATTERS: Busted.

A ONE-DAY-ONLY treadmill sale. So should I buy one of these and make it into a treadmill desk? Or some treadmill, anyway. . .

UPDATE: Here’s a whole blog on treadmill desks.

ED DRISCOLL: David Letterman: From Avant-Garde to Palace Guard.

RICH BAEHR: Past Week’s Primaries Strongly Reflect ‘Enthusiasm Gap’ between Parties. “Republican primary turnout was two or three times that of the Democrats, and the much maligned tea party movement is one big reason why.”

ED DRISCOLL: Ezra, Coordinate! Ezra, Coordinate!

FEDERAL JUDGE COLLUDES? If this report is accurate, impeachment is warranted.

FROM STUART SCHNEIDERMAN: Some thoughts on courage.

MORE ON JAPAN, AND “PEACE THROUGH VICTORY DAY:” Reader Josh Fagan writes:

I read Giangreco’s Hell to Pay recently. I believe it was you who linked to it a while back that made me aware of this book; and what a good book it is. It thoroughly details what it would have taken to invade the jap home islands, and left me wondering whether we could have actually ever forced them to surrender without the additional shock to their regime of using the few atom bombs we had in our arsenal against them.

Maybe give it another plug. This book certainly counters the pervasive anti-American narrative under which we exist.

Done!

RUTH WEDGWOOD: Paul Kagame and Rwanda’s Faux Democracy. “If you’re a betting person, here’s a safe bet: On August 9, the balloting in the east African state of Rwanda will give world-famous military leader Paul Kagame yet another seven-year term as president. The astonishing margin of victory will impress even the modern grand viziers of Central Asia. The outcome is quite easy to predict, when no other candidates are allowed to campaign. Given this and much else besides, it’s time Washington began to create some distance from a man who has earned his reputation as a de facto despot who terrorizes critics and does not shrink from political violence.”

DAVID HARSANYI: Separate Marriage And State.

IN THE MAIL: Athwart History: Half a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations: A William F. Buckley Jr. Omnibus.

NEW YORK TIMES: The Coming Class War Over Public Pensions. “The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide. The have-nots are taxpayers who don’t have generous pensions. Their 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts have taken a real beating in recent years and are not guaranteed. And soon, many of those people will be paying higher taxes or getting fewer state services as their states put more money aside to cover those pension checks. At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a ‘t,’ as in titanic and terrifying.”

CAMPAIGN SHAMELESSLY FOR OBAMA AND WHAT DO YOU GET? Washington Post Tumbles Over Worries On Stanley Kaplan Unit. “While there was plenty of ink spilled over the deal the Washington Post (WPO) cut to sell Newsweek for a dollar, today the company faces a much bigger issue: the impact on its Stanley Kaplan unit from tough new Department of Education rules on student loans for applicants to for-profit colleges and universities.”

Oops. I don’t see, by the way, why this should be limited to for-profit institutions.

YOU DON’T SAY: New York Times: “As my colleagues Campbell Robertson, Justin Gillis and I reported on reaction, scientific and otherwise, to a government report on the fate of the oil in the gulf, it emerged that the Obama administration faced something of a credibility gap in conveying its findings to some gulf residents, environmental groups and even scientists.”

Meanwhile, Lou Dolinar notes that much of what we were told about the oil spill wasn’t true:

Careful studies have revealed that the media-beloved “giant underwater oil plumes” have disappeared or maybe never existed in the first place. You can also forget about methane tsunamis, an “extinction-level event,” killer oil-laced hurricanes, and vast governmental conspiracies.

Meanwhile, parts of the Gulf have reopened for fishing and shrimping, and the EPA is expediting testing of the rest of it. The administration has even indicated that it’s considering an early end to its drilling moratorium.

Of course, they don’t mention the aliens. . . . .

LIKE A VIRGIN.

THE “RIGHT-WING JUDY GARLAND?” Ann Coulter to headline Homocon party for gay conservatives next month in New York City. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

NEW FOR 2011, the Chevy Volts-Wagon.

SHOCKER: Medicare Actuary Doubts the Health of Medicare’s Trust Fund.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Julian Assange, WikiJournalist: Is the Wikileaks “editor-in-chief” a journalist or an activist? Or both? I think he’s a tool. But whose?