MUNICIPAL BONDS: The real problem isn’t default.

SLICING SPINAL CORDS with scissors.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE is not enthused with the Republican field. Well, based on the past two years I’d vote for a syphilitic camel if he ran against Obama. But I’d rather not have to. But remember, it’s early yet — at this point in the previous cycle, it looked like it was going to be Hillary vs. Rudy. And Barack Obama was just a nice young man who’d given a speech at the convention.

UPDATE: DaTechGuy reminds us of what we don’t know about 2012.

HOW “NON-PARTISAN” IS COMMON CAUSE? This much.

DON SURBER: Don’t Over-Intellectualize the Palin Hatred:

On the day John McCain selected her as his running mate, great panic hit liberals.

Who is she, they wondered? . . . Judging from the leaked JournO-list messages from the time (that being a forum of third-rate journalists, PR people and college students) the liberals scrambled to find a way to attack this “unknown” person in order to protect Obama.

All the intellectual pretension came later, tinsel on a Christmas tree that was slapped together and put up in a hurry.

That it has lasted is only because liberals are good at this. . . . This is not to say that Sarah Palin does not deserve criticism. But what makes “Palinoia” an obsession instead of an intellectual pursuit is that it is based on the panic and desperation of August 29, 2008, when John McCain put her on the ticket.

The pseudo-intellectual arguments to rationalize that hate came later.

Read the whole thing.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? One Day After Securing A Huge Deal With China, Boeing Lays Off 1000 American Workers.

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, new rules on civility? Maybe they can get Steve Cohen to put in an earmark . . . .

Personally, I think we’ve got bigger problems.

CHANGE: Washington Post staff morale drops over new makeover. Hey, they’ve added Jennifer Rubin and doubled their blog-driven traffic.

WHAT THE WORLD WAS WAITING FOR: Steampunk Sarah Palin Comics: “Yes, Obama blew up in the explosion too, and is now part machine and called ‘Robama.’ By the way, the guy talking to him is John McCain and he has a robot arm. Anyway, they network a bunch of robots that can be controlled by Palin’s robot body and they all go off to save the world from the evil oil/nuke organization. And of course the Russians, who, as Robama informs us, have assembled a force along their border with Alaska. . . . Although to be fair to the book, Steampunk Palin defies classification into any literary genre, unless there’s a genre I’m unaware of simply called ‘WTF?!?'”

PATTERICO: No, Glenn Beck Did Not Tell His Viewers to Shoot Anyone in the Head.

UPDATE: How to slide into blogworld irrelevance.

TOM MAGUIRE has thoughts on Gary Taubes’ Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It.

Plus, here’s Michael Fumento on Taubes, and Taubes on Michael Fumento.

NPR’S “ON POINT” PROGRAM goes audience-shopping?

CHANGE: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Steps Down In Unexpected Shakeup. Hmm.

UPDATE: “Alternate headline: Creepiest Person In World Fired. . . . Because of his cavalier approach toward privacy issues, Schmidt needed a team of PR guys to follow him around like street sweepers at an elephant parade.”

JENNIFER RUBIN: What will Obama do at the U.N.?

AT AMAZON, the Digital SLR store.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Kevin Williamson about his new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, why educators like socialism so much, which American president is most socialist, and more. (Reposted from below, in case you missed it.)

SHANNON LOVE: How many real “rubes” were there? “Did Obama and other major leftists ever truly think that Bush’s policies were unnecessary or did they just adopt a position of opposition to differentiate themselves in the political marketplace? Did any of these people oppose Bush’s policies on principle after careful study or did they just see hysterical criticism of Bush as a useful political tool they could use for selfish purposes?” Well, I’ve got my own theories on that.

OUCH: “The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner hosted a dinner for the guy holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner in prison … and the media does not get the irony of this at all.”

DANIEL HENNINGER: Will Afghanistan Be A Forgotten War? Plus, what Spirit Of America is doing.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE: You will be assimilated.

MORE ON MARTIN LUTHER KING’S GUNS:

There’s nothing unusual about this. Many civil rights activists—including those who publicly engaged in non-violent forms of resistance—kept guns for self-defense. T.R.M. Howard, the Mississippi doctor and mutual aid leader who founded the pioneering Regional Council of Negro Leadership, slept with a Thompson submachine gun at the foot of his bed. During the murder trial that followed the horrific lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Howard escorted Till’s grieving mother and various others to and from the courthouse in a heavily-armed caravan.

Similarly, John R. Salter, one of the organizers of the famous 1963 sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Jackson, Mississippi, said he always “traveled armed” while working as a civil rights organizer in the South. “I’m alive today because of the Second Amendment and the natural right to keep and bear arms,” Salter said.

Around ten years ago, maybe a bit longer, my law school had a program where ex-Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver (with whom I went to law school) came to speak. It was heavily attended by Knoxville civil-rights veterans, and I think some of my colleagues were surprised when an elderly black preacher launched into a defense of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. I wasn’t, though.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN WE’D JUST BE BOMBING VILLAGES IN AFGHANISTAN — AND THEY WERE RIGHT! 25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off Map. “An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents.”

Ah, remember the fierce moral urgency of change? Me neither.

MORE BLOOD ON HER HANDS THAN SARAH PALIN: “The Governors Highway Safety Association says pedestrian deaths increased in the first half of 2010 and the First Lady’s program to get Americans to be more active could be partly responsible.”

Megan McArdle is skeptical, as she should be. More from Ed Morrissey.

LOOKING AT a private Space Shuttle replacement.

PROGRESS WITH FLYING CARS. I don’t want an airplane with a steering wheel, though. I want a Jetsons style flying car.