DAN RIEHL: The New Incestuous Immature Beltway Journalism. New?

THEY USED TO BE KNOWN FOR QUALITY: The ignominious fall of Dell. My experience with Dell has generally been good, and in fact, my old Dell Inspiron 700m laptop still works, though it doesn’t get much use anymore. Others, however, have had less positive experiences.

UPDATE: Reader Anthony Williams writes:

I work in the IT department of a private college, where all of our staff and faculty computers are Dell Optiplexes. I’ve worked here for ten years, and I well-remember the GX270s and 280s. However, my experience with them does not square with Bill Snyder’s rather harsh report. We did have a number of GX270s fail (and some GX280s, but mostly the 270s), and I talked to Dell customer service a number of times about them, as did my colleagues on the Helpdesk. It was the customer service representatives who first told us to look for bulging or leaking capacitors, and who told us they were seeing a problem with those motherboards. In every case, they quickly sent us a replacement board (with an on-site technician) with a minimum of fuss, and the replacements all worked perfectly well. A lot of our GX270s and 280s failed, but I don’t think it was anywhere near 97%.

Dell is a big company, and I’ve found the quality of their customer service varies dramatically between representatives. Some are quite knowledgeable, and others…well, aren’t. It’s certainly possible that some customers got good service (as we did) and some got poor service (as the University of Texas apparently did). Nevertheless, my first-hand experience with this particular problem was quite positive. We informed them of the problem, and they quickly fixed it. That’s the service I expect from any company who warranties their product.

Indeed.

TEST-DRIVING A Mercedes electric supercar.

A WAR ON SCIENCE? Oil spill commission long on environmentalists, short on engineers.

IN BED: Washington Post fails to disclose blogger’s ties to White House.

A week after a Washington Post blogger was forced to resign, in part, because conservatives felt that the paper wasn’t properly labeling his political ideology, an examination of West Wing payroll statistics by RAW STORY reveals that the Post is failing to disclose another blogger’s connection to the White House.

Read the whole thing.

UH OH: Apple `stunned’ to find iPhones show too many bars.

BUY YOUR LIFE INSURANCE BEFORE YOU TAKE THE TEST: Scientists have developed way of predicting how likely a person is to live beyond the age of 100.

THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY now has a blog.

SHOCKER: Factory Orders Drop — Unexpectedly!

TOP NEWS OF THE DAY: Angelina Jolie Is Bored With Acting, Considering Retirement.

IN THE MAIL: From F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty.

FROM PJTV AND ROGER SIMON: THE BATTLE OF NEW OIL-LEANS.

WILL PETRAEUS change the rules of engagement in Afghanistan?

HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY to Ringo Starr.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Don’t expect objectivity from this Obama oil spill commission appointee.

SHOCKER: As economy falters, Obama prepares to attack Republicans.

POLITICO: Obama Speech Fans Immigration Fight. On the upside, maybe that’ll distract people from the economy, the war, the gulf oil spill . . . .

JIM TREACHER describes Internet fame.

JONATHAN LAST on wargames as teaching tools.

Dave Kopel and I had some similar thoughts a while back.

ONE-DAY ONLY SALE on The Three Stooges DVD collection.

BLOOMBERG: Employment in U.S. Probably Dropped on Census Cutbacks. “Employment fell in June for the first time this year, reflecting a drop in federal census workers as the decennial population count began to wind down, economists said before a report today. Payrolls declined by 130,000 last month, according to the median estimate of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Private employment, which excludes government jobs, rose for a sixth consecutive month, the survey showed.” Although headline unemployment dropped a bit, it’s because of people giving up.

UPDATE: Obama Finally Figured Out How To Drop The Unemployment Rate. “So stifle the economy and scare employers into not hiring that people simply give up looking for jobs, and therefore are not counted in the unemployment rate.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Payrolls in U.S. Fell 125,000 in June; Jobless Rate at 9.5%. “Payrolls declined by 125,000 last month as the government cut 225,000 temporary workers conducting the 2010 census, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. Economists projected a decline of 130,000 payrolls, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Employment at companies rose 83,000. The jobless rate fell to 9.5 percent from 9.7 percent as the labor force shrank.”

NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR PATERSON, Vetoing 6900 bills.

YOU DON’T SAY: U.S. housing market remains fragile despite low mortgage rates.

THE HILL: NRA: Kagan a threat to gun rights.

RON RADOSH: Lessons From The Russian Spy Arrests.