ALAS, WHAT THEY NEED IS A SHRINKING PUBLIC SECTOR: Euro Zone Private Sector Shrinks First Time in 2 Years.

BOB CORKER: China Trade Bill Is Terrible Public Policy.

MATT HOLZMANN: The China Currency Farce In Congress.

We are watching the spectacle of one of America’s great kabuki plays unfold this week on Capitol Hill. Harry Reid and his confederates are trying to blame China for America’s current ills and retaliate with the tools of Smoot Hawley. But the only problem is that they are 20 years too late and a trillion dollars short. That’s how much of our debt the Chinese government now holds.

15 years ago I trekked up Capitol Hill and across to the Pentagon with my colleagues in the electronics manufacturing industry to plead with Congress and the Department of Defense that China had undervalued their currency and was beginning to destroy America’s manufacturing base. At the time the RMB Yuan was 8.6/$. Today is 27% stronger at 6.3/$.

At the time, the American printed circuit manufacturing industry which we were representing was selling $10 Billion/year of product globally with a 60% market share. Today, that industry in North America is @ $ 2.6 Billion in a global industry worth $56 Billion. The United States industry’s market share is @ 5%. And this is a very high technology business. There are no excuses for this loss.

No, but there are explanations.

SONIA ARRISON ON HOW WE’RE GETTING healthier and wealthier. Current circumstances notwithstanding, she’s right. I should mention that she’s got a new book out.

JAMES TARANTO: The Gray Lady’s True Colors: The proof of the pudding is in the tweeting. “For those lacking basic Twitteracy, ‘RT’ is short for ‘retweet,’ which means that Roberts was repeating a tweet from the account of ThinkProgress, a highly partisan left-liberal opinion site. This would be unremarkable coming from, say, the editor of the Times editorial page. From Roberts, however, it reinforces perceptions that the Times’s news coverage is biased in favor of the left and against the Tea Party. . . . One imagines that Roberts doesn’t mean to be partisan–that he thinks TP is making an interesting, salient point whose merits are obvious to all right-thinking people. Which, of course, would be entirely consistent with what we suspected about the Times back in January.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): US Starts New Fiscal Year With $14.837 Trillion In Debt, $142 Billion Increase In Two Days. Actually, I think it’s working out exactly as planned.

THOSE ORDERLY BRITS: Mob takes emergency water supplies during Banbury shortages. “A water delivery driver in Oxfordshire was forced to abandon his supply of emergency bottles after he was threatened by a group of residents. The incident took place on Sunday after two Thames Water pumps at the Bretch Hill Reservoir in Banbury failed.”

DAVID HARDY: Ruling in Heller II challenge to DC’s replacement laws.

DAVID FREDDOSO: A Letter To The New York City Protesters. “Those people you left stuck in traffic have a hard time paying their bills and rents and health insurance and mortgages. They worry about things like finding decent schools for their children to attend and making sure they don’t get fired at work, and fixing leaking roofs and chimneys. You know what they don’t worry about, ever? Smashing patriarchy and capitalism.”

UPDATE: Photos: The Occupy Wall Street Movement Sure Is White. “Remember when the media was obsessed with how many minority members attended Tea Parties?”

THE OBAMA STIMULUS should have been more manly?

THE DEMOCRATIC SENATE DEBATE IN MASSACHUSETTS WAS BLOGGED here, and here. Also here (in the comments).

OCCUPY WALL STREET AMERICA: Obama Flies to St. Louis to Raise Dough… Tea Party Breaks Out.

UPDATE: “Rude, racist” Obama supporters?

GREEN FAIL (CONT’D): $200 million green-tech subsidy results in -100 jobs. “Are you getting the impression that a visit from Obama or Chu might be the kiss of death for green-tech companies? Obama shows up to promote Solyndra and the company sinks into bankruptcy, taking over a half-billion taxpayer dollars with it. Chu personally delivers the jobs-stimulus check to NREL, which then starts trimming jobs.”

CALIFORNIA — a reality-optional zone?

SOLIDARITY: Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney to boycott Univision debate over Rubio report. “Five Republican presidential candidates are boycotting a proposed Univision debate due to allegations that the Spanish-language media giant tried to strongarm Sen. Marco Rubio, a vice-presidential shortlister, with a controversial story about a relative.”

A TEN-YEAR BLOGGIVERSARY. That’s old in blog-years.

BUG-LIKE ROBOTIC DRONES becoming more bug-like. “If two research stipends recently handed down are any indication, the micro-drones of the future may have tiny hair-like sensors all over their bodies and big, compound eyes.” Well, bugs are good at what they do.

UH OH: Italy credit rating slashed by Moody’s from Aa2 to A2.

WHEN POWER IS decoupled from notions of duty.

AT AMAZON, the Kids’ Halloween Store.

THE BOSTON HERALD will be livestreaming video of the Scott Brown / Elizabeth Warren debate in just a few minutes.

UPDATE: Oops — I misread the PR email from the Herald. It’s just a Democratic debate.

I MENTIONED THIS IN PASSING EARLIER, BUT IT DESERVES ITS OWN LINK: White House kept Democratic senators hanging on the phone. “Obama left his party’s top senators, who had assembled for a conference call, hanging on the phone for nearly 20 minutes before National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling came on the line with a seemingly vague notion of what the call was supposed to be about, Democratic sources said.”

The disorganization and lack of courtesy is a hallmark of this White House, and bespeaks management problems that go well beyond any deficiencies in policy. Bad staff work keeps embarrassing Obama, but this sort of tone is set from the top.

SHIKHA DALMIA: Why Smart Presidents Do Stupid Things.

The most depressing spectacle on the political landscape right now (besides a potential second term for Barack Obama) is the party of Lincoln entertaining the presidential ambitions of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann—women with better hairdos than heads. One needn’t be a GOP-hater like Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd to be dismayed by the growing anti-intellectualism of the party. Even David Brooks, a conservative commentator, has observed that Republican disdain for liberal intellectuals has morphed into a disdain for all intellectuals.

But modern intellectuals, having abandoned honest inquiry for unabashed activism, must themselves bear some blame for the backlash.

Two thoughts. First: Even David Brooks? Really? Second: Intellectualism, in today’s society, isn’t about intellect. It’s just a pose, like hipsterism or faux-redneckism. Most of those people who self-identify as intellectuals aren’t especially bright, they’ve just adopted a lifestyle that’s littered with what they think are markers of intelligence. But read the whole thing. And I think that this is right: “So why do intelligent people consistently make such a hash of things? Because they are smart enough to talk themselves into anything. Ordinary mortals don’t engage in fancy mental gymnastics to reach conclusions that defy common sense. But intellectuals are particularly prone to this.”

UPDATE: But who will defend David Brooks?

FASTER, PLEASE: Protein ‘switches’ could turn cancer cells into tiny chemotherapy factories.

HOW EASTMAN KODAK lost its focus. “More than cheap film, the emergence of digital photography is what really killed Kodak’s business. Ironically, Kodak invented digital photography back in 1975. Unfortunately, for them, they have not been able to leverage the technology in a profitable way. Memory cards simply don’t offer the same kind of margins as film. Today, when people snap away on their smart-phones and post the pics to the Internet, there’s no money to be made for Kodak. . . . Was there mismanagement and complacency at Kodak? Probably. Was the acquisition of Sterling Drug for $5.1 billion a poor use of capital? Yes. But in the end, the company was mainly a victim of what economists call ‘creative destruction’: technology simply changed too much for Kodak to handle.”