HELPING DANA MILBANK get his head around the facts.

SECRETS TO A loving, lasting marriage.

CAR LUST: Things You Don’t See Every Day.

KRUISER CONTROL: As King James Heads Off to Miami, Chris Matthews Heads Off the Deep End.

RICHARD LANDES: The Hidden Costs of Jew-Baiting in England.

MICHAEL WALSH: Forget Dave Weigel — the Real Issues Are the ‘JournoList,’ MSM Groupthink, Transparency, and Advocacy Masquerading As Journalism. “With the JournoList outed, the public now has a clear right to know whether the Washington Post, via one of its employees, facilitated an unprofessional collaboration among ostensibly independent reporters and columnists, about which their readers knew nothing – the lame jokes and cheap shots and locker-room swagger, while embarrassing, are just collateral damage. If this were about any other profession than journalism, reporters would be all over it, screaming about transparency.”

CARBON FOOTPRINT. Heh.

JOHN HINDERAKER: The Voters Are Catching On.

YOU THINK? Lack of jobs increasingly blamed on uncertainty created by Obama’s policies.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I am an instructor in a technical school. It puts me in good position to stay close with my industry (auto service). Each year I am on a job hunt for up to fifty students, and you can bet I keep close tabs on what local employers are thinking.

The past two years, but this year especially, the single most common thought passed on by employers has
been “I’m not sure I want to hire anyone right now, until we know what’s going to happen with taxes and medical coverage”. This is understandable, as these two items make up huge parts of a business’s outgoing spending. Not knowing what they will be nailed with, a LOT of small employers are taking the only safe road. They are putting expansion and hiring plans on hold, till the business environment regains some sanity.

I think they may have a long wait, and signs indicate that’s exactly what local employers are expecting.

Ugh. Yeah, that matches up with what I’m hearing, too.

MORE: Reader David Moynihan emails:

You ain’t kidding about business uncertainty.

I’m a not-as-small publisher these days. Kindle+ Amazon ending its 5-year practice of burying all my titles in search results have sent sales skyrocketing, tripling last year and up around 80% this year (that’s up from Xmas, and before things like 70% royalty agreements from Apple+Amazon take effect this month).

Foreign rights alone (I print books in the UK+EU) are sufficient for me to hire somebody just to kind of wander around NY, drop off proofs* to local indie stores, run my twitter+facebook ‘n such. Recent college grad would kill for this. And I cannot pull the trigger, ‘cuz I have no idea what the future holds.

Instead, I’m commissioning translations and works for hire from established “names” in the field of smutty books, and I may hire an editor from New Zealand or Australia to do anthologies. The people I’m commissioning from are OK with it, but I’m not exactly serving the youth of America, many of whom are offering to work for me for free (a common industry practice I don’t approve of.)

*By proofs, I mean for my three non-smut imprints, which do make money, but of course I’ve been audited and will be again, so it’s like I’m running six separate lines of business. From my basement.

I hear a lot of things like this. It’s a job or two here and there, but across the country it adds up to a lot of jobs not being created.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Unacceptable Risk: The Troubling Medical Helicopter Safety Record.

PROF. WILLIAM JACOBSON: Greenwald Agonistes.

MARKDOWNS ON sports and outdoor gear.

THE UPSIDE OF empty-nest syndrome.

ED DRISCOLL: Video: New Black Panther Party President Admits Voter Intimidation.

WHAT WOULD THE EARTH LOOK LIKE if it stopped spinning?

DATING IN YOUR THIRTIES: “Do your best to find someone before you get here.” Is that really true?

UPDATE: Reader John Barton writes:

Is it true? God,no. At least from a man’s perspective, and I suppose it depends on where you live.

I performed a controlled experiment, in a way. I was single in my twenties, got married, divorced after a few years without kids or other obligations, and so was single again in my mid thirties. (I’m now mid forties, married with two kids.)

The second go-’round was entirely different than the first. By contrast, in my thirties, I knew myself far better, and was a better date as a result. I knew women far better, which was almost more important. And, unlike my twenties, I had some coin in my pocket, and could pursue far more interesting dating activities as a result.

I lived in New York at the time. Perhaps there are cities where the list of eligible women for mid thirties men becomes limited. Not New York. There, the reservoir of smart, accomplished women open to relationships without the immediate expectation that it should necessarily be leading somewhere deeper is bottomless.

Two related points:

– New York has scale sufficient so that no two women you date will have social overlaps. That matters. It is surely more difficult to be open to a number of relationships if your partners are members of the same social groups.

– I learned how the older divorced man may end up with the twenty something second wife. (Wasn’t my experience, my wife is my age.) Immediately post divorce, one is probably not inclined to look for a serious relationship before a certain amount of time has passed. Whether a women in her thirties is interested in finding a husband or not, the man is probably conscious of the woman’s biological clock. It’s not fair to abuse her time without an intention to consider deeper commitment. This isn’t the case with a woman in her early twenties, however. It’s easier to date a younger woman without thinking about the long term. And so, from such no pressure relationships may sometimes come marriages. It’s harder to explain the red sports car.

Well, sports cars are just cool. No further explanation needed.

UPDATE: Reader Cindy McNew writes:

“Is this true?” It’s quite true, although I think it’s not necessarily tied to age per se but more to how early your friends get married. What this person describes began happening to me in my twenties–when all your friends get married, surprise! there are no more single people in your immediate environment. You then have the choice of making a new batch of single friends–if you can find them–and navigating between a couple of different “groups” or sticking with what you know. And it’s true that as you move into your thirties, ordinary single people without a lot of baggage and hang-ups are harder to find, because if they didn’t have a bunch of hang-ups they’d probably be married already.

Bummer. And reader John Spomer writes:

Regarding the quote “Do your best to find someone before you get here,” you asked, “Is that really true?” I can give you a resounding YES. I was dumped by my partner of 5-1/2 years about two years ago. I’m 36 now, and dating opportunities have been scarce, at best. This, despite that I go to the gym every day after work, and am in the best shape of my life. Of course, the fact that I’ve lost a good portion of my hair probably doesn’t help.

Well, dang. All I can recommend is wearing an InstaPundit t-shirt while you work out. The ladies can’t resist that.

RECIPES FOR renegade planets.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

A COOL home-office workspace.

BIG HOLLYWOOD: WATCH: ‘Inception’ Stars Trash Evil, Stupid Cheney & Palin — Preach Hypocritical Environmentalism.

REDUCE STRESS by changing how you think.

HOPE CHANGE: Rasmussen: Investor confidence hits 2010 low.

AN EAST TENNESSEE TRAFFIC RESOURCE: Dave Foulk Traffic.

CHANGE: First Batch of DARPA’s Synthetic Blood Delivered to FDA, Could Be on Battlefields Soon.

WHO ARE THE RUBES? (CONT’D): Obama US Attorney expected to stand behind federal gay marriage ban.