PROLONGING THE RECESSION. “What we are seeing, in other words, is Barack Obama’s economy–the foreseeable consequence of the terrible economic policies that he, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have imposed or threatened to impose on the nation. There will of course be a recovery, as always; but that recovery will be much stronger and faster if Congress makes clear that it will block any further assaults on the economy in the form of cap and trade, massive tax increases, and so on.”

DATING SECRETS OF EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN WOMEN. They revolve around having the state play the role of husband.

PEER-TO-PEER REVIEW: How ‘Climategate’ Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement, Part I.

WHERE SHOULD YOUR TAX MONEY GO? Prisons, or Colleges?

JACK SHAFER: The failings of the New York Times ethics cops. “The paper’s 54-page ethics guidelines—a Rube Goldberg-ian chastity belt that appears to have been hewn by a platoon of lawyers—and the Times’ application of them neglects the most corrupting influences facing its writers and editors: the pressure to conform to the consensus view.”

DON BOUDREAUX: On the private provision of public goods.

HIDE THE DECLINE: British Met Office head defends blown forecast of mild winter.

SUPPORTING OLD MEDIA COMPANIES by taxing Google? How very French.

IF ELVIS HAD LIVED, he’d be 75 today.

ED DRISCOLL: The Ultra-Flexible WMD Definition It’s all about the narrative.

MASSACHUSETTS UPDATE: Using “Hate Group” Push-Polling Against Scott Brown.

BLOGGING FROM MT. LECONTE, with some truly excellent photos.

BOB OWENS: Did Abdulmutallab Want to Fail? Eh, No. Another conspiracy theory bites the dust. You know, I thought it was the party out of power that was supposed to go insane. . . .

HEY, WE’RE NONE OF US AS YOUNG AS WE USED TO BE: Portraits of an aging, decaying Biosphere 2.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Prominent Voice In Health Care Debate Took Money From The Administration.

MORE ECONOMIC GLOOM: Massive Jump In Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) Benefits – Up 43% In One Month!

UPDATE: More on unemployment here. And forget unemployment — note this chart of how many actual jobs there are. So while the official unemployment number seems to have leveled off, some might say that’s just, er, hiding the decline in actual employment.

And note this:

The report showed there were 929,000 “discouraged workers” who had given up looking for a job, up from 642,000 a year earlier. Chris Rupkey, an economist with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, called the rise in discouraged workers “a simply astonishing number that borders on the frightening.”

“If they were still looking for work and counted as the unemployed, the unemployment rate would have been 10.5 percent,” he said. “This clearly isn’t your father’s recession. It is looking more like your great-grandfather’s. Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Call me crazy, but I’m beginning to think that whole “stimulus” thing has been a bust.

MORE: Unexpectedly, AP hammers Obama administration on jobless report. “Unemployment has not gotten better; it has gotten worse, and the statistics have hidden the real decline in 2009. Until now, only a few media outlets bothered to highlight the problem. The AP has finally made it clear — and that will mean a lot more attention in 2010 to the failed Porkulus legislation and the fumbled economic strategies of the Obama administration.”

ERIK SOFGE field-tests a massage chair. But he didn’t do the comparison test.

IN THE MAIL: From Tommy Newberry, The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream.

ADVICE FOR LAW STUDENTS on coping with a tight job market.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: 9 reasons why the Dec. jobs report is bad news for Dems.

WALTER OLSON: Richard Blumenthal: guns, tobacco, and grandstanding AGs.

TOM BLUMER: Fan & Fred: Frauds By Design?

WIRED: Senator Demands IP Treaty Details.

D.B. GRADY: Why Heads Should Roll.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ON Chris Dodd’s poor personal decisions. “Far more troubling was Dodd’s relationship with mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, which appears to have given him a sweetheart deal on a pair of loans under a VIP program called “Friends of Angelo,” named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Though Dodd was cleared of wrongdoing by the Senate Ethics Committee, he should have known better than to accept special terms from a company whose regulation he oversaw. And then there was Dodd’s cottage in Ireland.”

UPDATE: A reader notes that the L.A. Times waited until Dodd withdrew and the seat looked safe for the Dems to level this criticism. I think that’s right — at least, I don’t remember any LAT editorials condemning Dodd earlier. Did I miss something?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kevin Murphy notes:

The LA Times editorial ends, however, with an incredible falsehood:

“This failure to properly account for what looks very much like a gift from a wealthy acquaintance is similar to the shenanigans that ended the political career of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.”

IIRC, the “shenanigans” that ended Stevens’ career were those of the federal prosecutors.

Good point.