THOUGHTS ON Asperger’s and morality.

GEE, DO YOU THINK? White House begins groundwork to avoid blame for tax increases. That’s going to be tricky, though, given that he promised not to raise taxes on people making less than $250K a year.

WHERE DID THE GLOBAL WARMING GO? The President Explains It For You.

JOHN FUND: Democratic incumbents are running scared and the fear factor is only intensifying. “The nonpartisan Cook Political Report released a new update on the 2010 elections yesterday. A full 54 Democratic seats in the House are now rated as “highly competitive,” with nearly half already seeing the GOP challenger running even or ahead of the Democratic incumbent. Only six GOP-held seats are in play as possible Democratic pickups. Republicans need to win 40 seats to take back control of the House. Nervousness in Democratic ranks will be heightened even more by Cook’s finding that a total of 95 Democratic seats are potentially vulnerable — almost two-fifths of the entire Democratic caucus.”

HMM: Deflation? “The prices of US goods and services, excluding food and fuel, fell last month for the first time since 1982 as aggressive measures to stimulate economic growth failed to inflate the cost of living. The core consumer price index fell 0.1 per cent in January, labour department figures showed , as prices for new cars and housing dropped from the previous month. Prices including food and energy rose a less-than-projected 0.2 per cent.” On the other hand, producer prices jumped more than expected, so what does that mean?

SPAIN BLAMES ECONOMIC CRISIS on “Anglo-Saxon conspiracy.”

ROGER SIMON: The Zernike Kefuffle: Clinging To Racism. “So what’s the deal with this clinging to racism – or racial accusations – on the part of some liberals? Well, I think it reflects a significant and growing insecurity that they are no longer the cool guys. Via the Tea Party movement and other things, libertarianism – a rather attractive and even hip ideology – is taking over the right. People who love freedom are drifting rightward leaving the left with moribund unions and big government, neither of which seem to work. Liberals don’t have much of a belief system anymore and not enough reason to think highly of themselves, as they used to. Something’s wrong. Therefore, the other side has to be bad.”

Related item from Dan Riehl: “I’d bet money that were Zernike to hear similar rhetoric with the same dialect from a friend or colleague, she wouldn’t give it a second thought, let alone mis-characterize it as racist. One way or another, that is what they do to all of us on the Right. And whether they do it intentionally, or not, doesn’t matter. We can’t allow them to keep getting away with it. We need the Andrew Breitbarts and Jason Matteras of the Right; they deserve our encouragement and support. They can help us move this movement forward in ways we never have before. The Left realizes it. So, don’t expect them to relent. Standing up to the Left always puts a target on your back. It’s long past time for the Right to shoot back.”

You know, I was telling the Insta-wife last night that I thought Breitbart’s “despicable person” call-out of Zernike marked a sea change in responses to bogus charges of racism. I believe I was right.

VIDEO: Andrew Breitbart confronts Max Blumenthal at CPAC.

UPDATE: Some background here. “Breitbart’s having a good week at CPAC, isn’t he?”

TOM BLUMER: Big Business As An Opponent Of Free Markets. “But for two serendipitous events, they would have sold us out.” Free-market capitalism is great for everyone besides the capitalists, so it’s not surprising they prefer a cozy arrangement with the government . . . .

FLASHBACK: The joys of the Flexible Flyer.

UPDATE: Reader Byron Matthews shares a memory of the wheeled version, the Flexy-Racer. I had a nasty accident on one of these when I was four, going down a steep concrete driveway. Serious road-rash; the scars on my knees and elbows are still barely visible today if you know where to look. And I do. . . .

CHARGING KEITH OLBERMANN WITH homophobia and transphobia.

A NEW WORLD: So yesterday afternoon I wondered if my new camera had come from Amazon. Did I go out and check the garage? No, I clicked on Amazon, where it said “Delivered — Garage.” Then I went out to the garage . . . . Yes, it’s the 21st Century.

RESPONDING TO OLYMPIC BULLYING with poetry.

SCOTT JOHNSON: The Case of Rashad Hussain, Part 2.

EVIDENCE THAT NORTHEASTERN PROFESSOR JACK LEVIN DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT: Reader John Galvin sends these data on education:

Boston: High school or higher: 78.9%
Huntsville: High school or higher: 85.7%

Boston: Bachelor’s degree or higher: 35.6%
Huntsville: Bachelor’s degree or higher: 36.1%

Boston: Graduate or professional degree: 15.3%
Huntsville: Graduate or professional degree: 12.7%

So Huntsville AL beats Boston in 2 out of 3 categories and isn’t far behind Boston in the third, especially when you consider all the college teachers, lawyers and doctors in Boston.

Less casual bigotry in Huntsville, too . . . .

UPDATE: I see that Levin has apologized, though not publicly.

WHITE HOUSE declaring “legislative war?”

MOE LANE NOTES THE PRECEDENT: Pitchforks, torches now acceptable for political demonstrations. “Feel free to pass that around the next time somebody has the vapors about a Tea Party protest…” Yes, as I noted yesterday it seems an unwise precedent for them to establish.

UPDATE: Reader Gregory Taggart writes: “Hey, where were all the African Americans at that protest? I didn’t see any; therefore, the left is racist. (For that matter, where were all the people who could act or read their lines?)”

Not just an all-white mob with torches and pitchforks, but worse: a no-talent all-white mob with torches and pitchforks! Well, remember, they’re union workers so they’ve always been opposed to paying them according to their, uh, performance . . . .

ARIZONA: The dark side of special tax deals.

UPDATE: Related: Indictments in Iowa.

GOOGLE: Making $500M a year from typos? Nice work if you can get it.

IN THE MAIL: From Thomas Goetz, The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine.

STEVE CROWDER: Capitalism, WTC 7 & The Real Government Conspiracy At Ground Zero.

GREEN SHOOTS: Okay, maybe not in the economy, but in my front yard now that the snow’s melted.

KICKED OFF A FLIGHT FOR BEING TOO SMELLY? John Scalzi is okay with that: “If you reek so bad that more than just the people next to you notice, that’s not at all unreasonable. You’re all in a flying tube with recycled air for hours. Other people shouldn’t have to marinate in your feculence.”

SPARTACUS, TEA PARTY LEADER, whatever.

SHOCKER: BARACK OBAMA, contradicting himself on ACORN.