APOCALYPSE MAYBE: Top 5 Ways the Universe Could Wipe Out Humankind.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: We Are Not Greece: Decline Is A Choice.

DAVID BROOKS: Be More Like Germany:

The American stimulus package was supposed to create a “summer of recovery,” according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is scuffling along.

The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.

Obamanomics has been a failure, as it was clearly destined to be from the beginning. More thoughts here. “Brooks’ column was not only spot on, but a surprising indictment of everything the Obama administration has done since Inauguration Day. . . . Imagine that: German unemployment is now down to where it was before the financial crisis began! Not only is ours not even close to that, most economists expect U.S. unemployment to rise in the coming months.”

I BLAME THE EXTREMIST, ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC OF THIS ADMINISTRATION: Gunshot Fired At GOP Headquarters.

ALAN SIMPSON didn’t need to apologize.

LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check Out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.

AT AMAZON, a one-day sale on Starbucks coffee.

REASON TV: If You Think Your State is Broke Now, Just Wait Until The Public-Sector Pension Bomb Detonates!

Obama’s Economy: “It was supposed to be the summer of recovery. But the recovery isn’t happening, and consumers, employers, and investors have registered their votes on Obamanomics: thumbs down. The drop-off in housing sales tells us that despite historically low interest rates and available credit, consumers are nervous and lack confidence about the future. Better not to buy now. The stock market, the best indicator we have about expectations for the economy, has nosedived as well.”

Related: Second Quarter GDP Revised Down. “The GDP number for the second quarter got revised sharply downward by a third today, dropping from the initial estimate of 2.4% last month to 1.6% in the intermediate revision. The number represents a hard rebuke to White House attempts to paint a rosy long-term economic picture, as the anemic growth rate may indicate even more trouble ahead for joblessness.”

Well, as noted below, “No wonder the U.S. economy isn’t creating jobs when anyone who makes money and creates more jobs immediately becomes a political target.”

FRANK J. FLEMING: Suggestions on How We Should Treat Our Congressmen.

SOME QUESTIONS FOR ABC NEWS.

SISSY WILLIS: GOP powers that be are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. “The national GOP is being disintermediated via the Internet. No wonder they’re upset.”

Related: Betrayal: AK GOP HQ Phone Banked For Murkowski On Election Day. “There are additional reasons why we may soon see what amounts to a civil war within the GOP in Alaska, one that could easily spill over nationally, infuriating the Republican base if the establishment attempts to steal this election for Murkowski. And Murkowski will do the GOP brand no good among the grassroots if she pulls a Sorry Charlie Crist and opts for another route.” If these reports are true, it’s a bad sign in more ways than one.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes: “This is one more instance to make the point that the states’ party apparatus is the Achilles’ heel of all national political parties. The national political parties, like DC generally, can’t be everywhere at once. Control the state party apparatus and shenanigans like the AK GOP phone bank become more difficult if not impossible.” Absolutely.

Also: Just How Badly Has the NRSC Screwed Up? Worse Than You Think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: NRSC sends lawyer to help Murkowski, will not aid Miller unless nominated. Dynastic insiders getting insider help? Bad optics, as they say . . . .

MORE: Reader Lawrence Loretoni emails: “Re the NRSC helping out Murkowski – it’s as if they didn’t learn anything from 2006 and 2008…or don’t care about any possible lessons imparted by us unwashed, stupid masses. Hope not, but if that’s the case – then maybe they shouldn’t get too optimistic about their chances this year.” The Republican leadership needs to straighten this stuff out fast, or they’ll not only find themselves out of a job, they’re likely to find themselves hounded by activists when they move to their next job.

STEVE CHAPMAN: Inconvenient Stem Cell Facts.

DRILL BABY DRILL: The Hill: “A bipartisan think tank that analyzed the Interior Department’s response to the BP oil spill has concluded that recently imposed safety mandates are sufficient to allow resumption of deepwater drilling.”

BOSTON HERALD: Protesters head to sea over Obama administration’s fishing regulations.

ABOARD THE FISHING TRAWLER BULLDOG – Around noon, at least 20 fishing vessels began circling Vineyard Haven’s harbor, blasting their air horns and displaying banners to protest President Obama’s restrictions on commercial fishing that they say threaten their livelihood.

Two U.S. Coast Guard Zodiac boats intercepted the flotilla of protesters minutes out from the president’s vacation paradise, but were keeping their distance and have so far made no attempt to stop the fishermen either physically or by radio.

But there was no sign along the sunsplashed holiday coast – other than the contingent of Coasties – that the president or the federal government had taken any notice of the protest. On a handful of pleasure boats out on a sunny day, however, civilian boaters gave the thumbs-up sign, waved and blew their air horns. The White House referred comment to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the fisheries, where a spokesperson could not be immediately reached.

Read the whole thing.

QUESTIONS I NEVER CONSIDERED: Does Dressing Up as a Cop, Staging Fake Traffic Stops, Looking for Drugs, and then Keeping the Drugs Violate the Fourth Amendment?

STANDING UP FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS in Montgomery, Alabama.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Scapegoating For-Profit Colleges: Obama tees up another private industry for punishment. “No wonder the U.S. economy isn’t creating jobs when anyone who makes money and creates more jobs immediately becomes a political target.”

UPDATE: Reader Josh Strodtbeck writes:

Josh Strodtbeck
to pundit

show details 10:26 AM (13 minutes ago)

Although my sympathies lie with for-profit education, the availability of cheap credit to students is largely responsible for inflating the education bubble. The restrictions on federal aid to private colleges are a nice first step; rather than calling for the floodgates to remain open, the WSJ ought to be calling for the restrictions to be extended to public universities as well. Ideally, the federally backed student loan program would be ended entirely. As in the housing market, subsidizing risky borrowers creates distorting incentives and misallocations of capital. Who says we need everyone in America to have a straight-to-Starbuck’s college degree? If we needed them, they’d pay for themselves.

Indeed.

COPS REALLY GOING WILD AGAINST SCRUTINY: Woman Charged For Watching Arrest From Own Front Porch:

The resisting-arrest conviction last week of Felicia Gibson has left a lot of people wondering. Can a person be charged with resisting arrest while observing a traffic stop from his or her own front porch?

Salisbury Police Officer Mark Hunter thought so, and last week District Court Judge Beth Dixon agreed. Because Gibson did not at first comply when the officer told her and others to go inside, the judge found Gibson guilty of resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer.

Gibson was not the only bystander watching the action on the street. She was the only one holding up a cell-phone video camera. But court testimony never indicated that Hunter told her to stop the camera; he just told her to go inside.

Pathetic and thuggish. What was Mark Hunter afraid of?

DAILY CALLER: Newsweekly falsely speculates arson suspect is Tea Party activist: Writer says Tea Party activists can’t take a joke.

A writer for a St. Louis alternative newsweekly tells The Daily Caller he does not regret speculating in a story that the suspect of an attempted arson of a Democratic congressman’s campaign office was a Tea Party activist.

It turns out that the suspect in this week’s firebombing of Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan’s campaign office in St. Louis was actually a liberal blogger and former paid campaign worker for Carnahan’s campaign.

“As to the legions of Tea Party adherents who are calling for my head: No, I have no regrets. I was having fun — at their expense,” River Front Times reporter Chad Garrison said in an email.

Related: TPM Muckraker Comes Clean – Admits Their Blogger Is Suspected Carnahan Firebomber.

UNINFORMED BLATHER ABOUT UNINFORMED BLATHER at the New York Times. “The American people haven’t gotten any stupider lately, but there has been a precipitous decline in the competence of those who write for the New York Times. I think it is now safe to say that the average New York Times columnist is not as smart as the average American.”

ACTUALLY, I THINK NATURE BEAT HIM TO IT: How Andrew Breitbart Makes James Cameron Look Like an Ass.

CHANGE: Banks back switch to renminbi for trade. “A number of the world’s biggest banks have launched international roadshows promoting the use of the renminbi to corporate customers instead of the dollar for trade deals with China. HSBC, which recently moved its chief executive from London to Hong Kong, and Standard Chartered, are offering discounted transaction fees and other financial incentives to companies that choose to settle trade in the Chinese currency.” This does not strike me as a declaration of faith in the managers of the U.S. economy.

MARKDOWNS ON Tools And Home Improvement.

BELDAR: Pap And Twaddle From David Broder. An evergreen headline!