THE ANCHORESS: Funny that the press doesn’t care much about extrajudicial detention of Americans, or the latest Fast-And-Furious developments, huh? Those are only threats to civilization if there’s a Republican in the White House. Which is why fans of civil liberties should always vote for Republican presidents, since they’re the only ones that get press scrutiny.

FRANK J. FLEMING: We ‘Lazy’ and ‘Soft’ Americans Don’t Deserve Obama. “Obama is actually a great president. And we’re just a lousy country.”

You could write a book on this theme.

BOB WOODWARD: Sitting Next To Al Gore is “Taxing,” and “Unpleasant.” At least he didn’t bring up that chakra business. . . .

SHOULD HISTORY BE black-and-white?

This reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes discussion:

Q. How come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?
A. Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just that the world was black and white then. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Q. But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?
A. Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
Q. But… But how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn’t their paints have been shades of gray back then?
A. Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the ’30s.
Q. So why didn’t old black and white photos turn color too?
A. Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?

It’s no surprise that Calvin’s dad is a lawyer. . . .

GUNS TO MEXICO, CONT’D: Video: US approved large escalation of legal gun sales to Mexico. “Remember when gun-control activists insisted that loose purchasing regulation of American firearms had led to a massive uptick in arming the drug cartels in Mexico? Advocates demanded action to curtail gun sales in the US, and the Obama administration responded with new efforts at the ATF and Department of Justice — including Operation Fast and Furious. Now it seems that the big spike in arms supply to cartels didn’t come from local gun shops at all, but from the US government approving a rapid increase in direct sales from manufacturers to the Mexican government, whose purchases got diverted to the cartels — a fact known to the Obama administration all along.”

THIS SEEMS LIKE NEWS: Germany: War With Iran Can’t Be Ruled Out.

OKAY, SO SOMEBODY NAMED WILLIAM DAVID DAVENPORT sent me an email just now accusing me of scrubbing a link to my Lower Education Bubble piece and of hypocrisy about airbrushing. But I haven’t scrubbed any links to that piece, which is several months old. Nor am I, as he suggests, ashamed of it. Why would I be, as it’s proven more correct all the time?

I emailed him back, but his email address bounced, and the link he provided to a purported discussion over at Steve Sailer’s place didn’t work, so I have no idea what this is supposed to be about.

AT LEAST YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY HER: Meet The Website Editorial Director . . . Who Doesn’t Exist.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Dear Sugar says “Stop Whining!”

Your parents helped you pay for your undergraduate education while you were a student and, presuming you didn’t graduate at 25 (a presumption which may or may not be correct), they also paid your monthly loan bill during the years immediately following your graduation. They’ve declined to continue to pay not because they wish to punish you, but because doing so would be difficult for them. This strikes me as perfectly reasonable and fair. You are an educated adult of sound mind, able body and resilient spirit who has absolutely no reason not to be financially self-sufficient, even if doing so requires you to earn money in ways you find unpleasant.

You say you’re grateful to your parents for helping you pay for your undergraduate education, but you don’t sound grateful to me. Almost every word in your letter tells me that you’re pissed off that you’re being required to take over your student loan payments. I point this out because I think it’s important that you acknowledge your anger for what it is. It does not rise out of gratitude. It rises out of the fact that you feel entitled to your parents’ money. You’re simply going to have to come to grips with the fact that you aren’t.

Well said.

MICHAEL TOTTEN’S BOOK, The Road To Fatima Gate, which is excellent, has won the Silver Book Prize from the Washington Institute For Near East Policy. Congratulations, Michael!

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: What Happened At The White House Roundtable.

More here. No word on whether they discussed my proposal.

And note this: “For-profit colleges seemed to feel snubbed by the White House after they were left off the invite list for the private meeting. . . . not one for-profit educator made President Obama’s guest list.” That makes me think this is really about lining up support from a traditional Democratic constituency group, rather than actually addressing the problem, particularly as there has been some creative thinking coming out of the for-profit sector folks.

PROTESTING ELECTION FRAUD IN MOSCOW?

CHANGE: Future Nissan Leaf could be cheaper, may have more range, will have wireless charging option.

UH OH: Chevrolet Volt Battery Issues Growing, Safety Findings May Have Been Suppressed.

Plus, GM: Buyback program? What buyback program?

WENDY KAMINER OFFERS SOME FIRST AMENDMENT THOUGHTS ON THE OCCUPY PROTESTS, but misses the double standard involving groups like the Richmond Tea Party. She writes:

But toleration of 24/7 occupations proved a risky strategy: allow people to engage in an activity and they’re likely to infer a right to do so — especially if that presumed right is violently withdrawn. Belated eviction efforts involving instances of police brutality, militarism, and media black-outs have only exacerbated the sense of occupational entitlement and imbued occupiers with some moral as well as legal high ground.

In addition, by tolerating and, in some cases, sympathizing with protesters one day and seeking to evict them the next, absent an orderly regulatory process, city officials have exposed themselves to arguable claims that they’re arbitrarily violating rights previously afforded.

But by “tolerating” illegal behavior by Occupy protesters — a Democratic constituency, if a somewhat dissident one — even while expecting Tea Party protesters to have all their paperwork in order (and, in the case of the City of Richmond, auditing them when they dare to complain), cities have also sent the message that they’re arbitrarily discriminating among groups based on message and affiliation. I would have liked it if Kaminer had included some discussion of this point.

NEAL STEPHENSON ON WHERE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD GO:

The needs of the world are great: New forms of energy, space transportation and infrastructure all need to be tackled with imagination and innovation, he said. He grew animated as he discussed his latest initiative: He is now pushing for a return to a can-do American culture that can “get big stuff done.”

He is trying to carve out a place for science fiction to help by, well, predicting the future. Wait, that’s not quite it: He wants science fiction to help by creating the future — supplying the imagination and inspiration to the next generation of engineers and scientists, just as writers like Stanislaw Lem helped inform and usher in the space age. And as he might have done by giving engineers a vision of the Metaverse, though he doesn’t say that part out loud.

He is doing it through Hieroglyph, a project of writers who hope to reignite the popular imagination to “develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale,” as he put it in a recent essay in World Policy Journal, with fiction that returns to its techno-optimistic roots.

Faster, please. Plus, a key quote: “We can’t Facebook our way out of the current economic status quo.”

UPDATE: Had the wrong link before. Fixed now. Sorry!

ADAM THIERER: Online Sales Tax Won’t Fill Budget Gaps.

MICHAEL COHEN: When Democrats Became Doves. “With the GOP candidates eager to call Obama weak-willed on foreign policy, it’s worth looking at how Democrats got stuck with this tag.”

YOU DONT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE A REFUGEE. Or maybe you do. Tax Practitioner Flees California for Nevada. “There comes a point where decisions are forced on you. With the growth of my business, I looked at possibly hiring another tax accountant in 2010. When I ran the numbers, I found that I would lose money by hiring a productive tax accountant. That’s because of all the regulations and costs that I would immediately incur if I had an employee. I’m not stupid: If I lose money by hiring someone, I’m not going to do it.”

SOMETHING HOPEFUL: The End of Stagnation and the Coming Innovation Boom.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on snow removal gear. Also, portable generators. Hey, if you wait until the blizzard comes, even overnight delivery won’t help you . . . .

ELEVEN HIGHLY EFFICIENT CARS that aren’t hybrids.

DEATH TO PENNIES?