PAUL MIRENGOFF: The Tea Party Movement and 2012.

DIRTY TRICKS? A reader emails that if you put lincoln memorial washington dc into Google Maps, you actually get directions to the FDR. I’m guessing it’s a google-bomb attack on the Glenn Beck 8/28 rally attendees. Here’s the Mapquest version.

UPDATE: Reader Julian Ferry writes:

There is a link below the descriptions on the google map called “report a problem”.

I would recommend that all readers who click on the map also click on that link, and do indeed report the problem. It will be interesting to see how fast google fixes this problem.

It will.

JAMES OBERG: UFO book based on flawed foundation: Eyewitness accounts require hard look, even if witness is a pilot.

BRAZIL’S AGRICULTURAL MIRACLE.

It has become the first tropical agricultural giant and the first to challenge the dominance of the “big five” food exporters (America, Canada, Australia, Argentina and the European Union).

Even more striking than the fact of its success has been the manner of it. Brazil has followed more or less the opposite of the agro-pessimists’ prescription. For them, sustainability is the greatest virtue and is best achieved by encouraging small farms and organic practices. They frown on monocultures and chemical fertilisers. They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants. They think it is more important for food to be sold on local than on international markets. Brazil’s farms are sustainable, too, thanks to abundant land and water. But they are many times the size even of American ones. Farmers buy inputs and sell crops on a scale that makes sense only if there are world markets for them. And they depend critically on new technology.

Read the whole thing.

OH, GOODY: CHART OF THE DAY: Today’s ‘Good’ Unemployment Data Masked A Huge Jump In Emergency Claims.

THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE until the market improves. “The US Securities and Exchange Commission has vowed to bring more high-profile enforcement actions against Wall Street over the financial crisis.” Nothing says restore optimism to capital like threatening innovative prosecutions!

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE is up!

INSTAVISION: I talk with Scott Bullock of the Institute For Justice about the libertarian public-interest law firm’s work on behalf of monks who want to make caskets, victims of civil forfeiture, and more. And yeah, this one’s YouTubed so you don’t have to be a PJTV subscriber. But hey, you can still subscribe!

RICH KARLGAARD on distinguishing between hope and lies.

A POSSIBLE WAY TO predict solar flares? If this pans out — and I’d say it’s pretty iffy — it would be a big deal.

YEAH, WE BAD: Humans Drove Cave Bear To Extinction?

BACONOPOLIS, THE SQUEAKQUEL.

IT’S ALWAYS OUTRAGEOUS WHEN A POLITICIAN SPEAKS THE TRUTH: Fake outrage over Alan Simpson’s twist on the phrase “sucking on the government tit.”

HMM: Study: China to gain top spot in electric vehicle sales by 2015; U.S. will remain hybrid haven.

HEH: Candid photo captures the haunting beauty of the federal postal service, which is only losing $1 billion a month.

HMM: Nissan Taunts Toyota Over Sudden Acceleration In New Ad.

STREAK: A review of the new Dell tablet device.

INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE busting MoveOn for hypocrisy about Target and corporate speech.

THE SECRET OF THE GERMAN POSTWAR ECONOMIC MIRACLE: “Ordoliberalism.”

IN THE MAIL: From Michael Z. Williamson, Do Unto Others.

SENATOR SCHUMER’S ATTEMPT TO SILENCE POLITICAL SPEECH. Given what people are saying about him and his colleagues, you can see why he’d want to. . . .

PROF. JACOBSON: Another Failed Eliminationist Narrative.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Didn’t everyone already know Ken Mehlman was gay? “I thought everyone knew he was gay. For another thing, who cares about Ken Mehlman anymore? . . . Oh, I hear the dog-whistle. He’s calling the Oprah crowd. Family, friends… supportive… he wants Democrats, women, etc., to care about him. Don’t hate me because I’m/I’ve been a Republican. Love me, because I’m gay, and oh! how I’ve anguished in the company of Republicans.”

Gay, schmay. I wasn’t overwhelmed when Helen and I interviewed him a few months before the Republicans’ 2006 election debacle, though he did his best to explain away the GOP’s problems. He just didn’t seem to “get it.” Not that the Republicans seem to have learned a lot since. . . .

Related: Ken Mehlman Is Gay And I Don’t Care. “Considering that Ken Mehlman’s name hasn’t crossed my mind in quite some time, I find it hard to get too terribly excited about his turn-ons.”

TAD DEHAVEN on government’s unwanted economic distortions. “Over the past eighty years, the public has become conditioned in times of crisis to turn to their rulers and demand that they ‘do something.’ That the rulers had a hand in the crisis is all too often either unrecognized or it’s a secondary concern.”

CENSORING SPEECH via “professional ethics?” This will not enhance the reputation of social work as a profession.