THE ANNOTATED RICK PERRY. He’s the son of penniless tenant farmers? I thought all Republicans were born-rich fatcats who went to prep schools and private universities.

Plus this: “When he reads a speech without his teleprompter, as in Charleston, he is more fluent and natural than when President Obama reads a speech with his.”

UPDATE: The intellectually incurious Barack Obama. “Obama’s just-released ‘summer reading list’ doesn’t offer a lot of evidence even for the ‘reads very widely’ thesis. It’s heavy on the wrenching stories of immigrant experiences, something the President already knows quite a bit about. … Maybe the release of this list is a bit of politicized PR BS designed to help the President out. If so, it’s sending the wrong message. Which leads me to suspect it might actually be real.”

As I’ve said before, for all the talk there’s not much actual evidence that Barack Obama is especially bright.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Inequality Grows As Poor, Ignorant Atheists Swamp US.

The stereotype, held apparently by none other than the President of the United States, is that religious people are less educated and less affluent than cosmopolitan and sophisticated seculars. The bitter clingers handle snakes, guns and Bibles in West Virginia; the seculars discuss literature and economics at swank parties in Georgetown.

In fact, some recent research reveals, it is almost the other way round. According to the American Sociological Association, the uneducated and the poor (often of course the same people) are dropping God like a hot brick; the ‘bitter clingers’ are increasingly better educated and more affluent than the unchurched.

As far as I can see, this is bad news for everybody.

Read the whole thing.

TODAY ONLY, a Panasonic cordless phone/answering machine with two handsets and wired base for $54.99. I’ve got the two-line version of this one and it’s really good. The wired base works during a power outage, too.

CONSERVATIVES CLAMOR for Paul Ryan. “Ryan is the perfect 0bama foil. He is patient and kind while Obama is brittle and testy. He is utterly genuine while Obama is phony. Ryan is the boy next door, the guy you can count on. People respond warmly to him. Paul Ryan is low-key and likable while the current WH occupant is high-strung, high-maintenance and extremely arrogant. Ryan has great intellectual credentials and has always been an authentic conservative thinker. His relative youth would contrast nicely with our hapless president’s tired, old act.” Gosh, I remember when Obama was young and dynamic. . . .

IT’S ALL OVER for the University Of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants’ union. “The TAA was central to the protests that took place at the Capitol last February and March.” They will not be missed.

Plus, from the comments: “The nail in the coffin was no longer having ‘union dues …automatically deducted from the paychecks of the 2,700-2,800 graduate teaching assistants at Madison’.” Yep. Without the government to collect their cash for them, they’re not viable. And yet they’re supposed to be sticking it to the Man!

MICHAEL BARONE: Gay Marriage A Tricky Issue For Obama, GOP. “As a candidate for U.S. senator and president, Obama said he opposed same-sex marriage. As president, he says he still does but his opinion is ‘evolving.’ This may reflect a split between Democratic core constituencies. Affluent liberals overwhelmingly favor same-sex marriage. But most black voters are opposed. In a 2008 referendum in California, 70 percent of blacks voted against same-sex marriage. A same-sex marriage bill was defeated this year in Maryland after black Democratic legislators opposed it. Same-sex marriage would be legal in California and Maryland were it not for opposition by black voters. Mainstream media reporters pepper Republican presidential candidates with questions about the issue but seldom ask Obama about it. But if it’s a fair question for Republicans, it’s a fair question for Democrats as well.”

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND, if you were out, you know, having a life or something:

Bad news for U.S. wheat growers. Plus, a GOP mistake.

Advice to professors, even with tenure: Have a backup plan.

Another reason why men are fleeing colleges.

Hurricane pre-preparedness advice.

Why are environmentalists bitterly opposed to “ethical oil?”

When bears terrorize women.

Be realistic about planning for college costs.

Civil rights progress: Man wins handgun lawsuit against Chicago.

Young Americans voted for Obama, but now see their dreams shrinking away.

Anonymous lawprof blogger revealed as inconsequential lawprof blogger.

More on guns and British history, from Joyce Malcolm.

LOW RATES, No Interest: “A major problem, of course, is that current low interest rates are a result of falling confidence in the economic outlook. It’s cheaper than ever to borrow, but that’s because no one wants to borrow.” How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Ryan emails:

I think one underappreciated factor is the difficulty buyers are having in taking advantage of those rates. Anecdotally, at least, it remains extremely difficult to get a loan, even for well-qualified borrowers. Banks are no doubt gun-shy given their weaknesses and recent experience, but an increased regulatory burden also seems to be an issue.

I’m a case in point. I haven’t had any W-2 income (except from a part-time National Guard gig which ended with my retirement at 30 years’ service) for years, and last year when I was buying the current Hog Manor, mortgage underwriters were alarmed by this. For two decades my principal income has been on 1099s (consulting returns), K-1s (partnership returns), and from investments (also reported, mostly, on 1099s). My income has been high but variable — I was living by my wits, but living well, before it was cool. I had $2million plus in cash and zero debts — I paid for college and grad school as I went, and didn’t borrow a dime. I run a credit card (one) for travel, but pay it off every month.

I’m an ideal borrower, right? The guy who doesn’t need the loan?

Apparently not. I had no credit score (not a low credit score, NO credit score, like a newborn baby. I’m 53!). After months of messing around with underwriters, I simply cut a check for the house.Didn’t do my nonexistent credit score any good but put a roof over my head. The divorced couple I bought from were delighted to get the check, as were all the realtors involved. (listing broker, my buyers’ agent). The bankers didn’t care about the lost mortgage opportunity — they get paid the same whether they lend or not; with the long-needed demise of the brokers who were paid for originating paper without respect to quality, we now have misaligned incentives in the other direction. “The pendulum done swung.” My price was about $340k below the peak appraisal. I expect the house is now worth $100k less than I paid, but it’s a good “machine for living” so I am happy.

Funny thing: who is more likely to be in a position to make his payments five years from now, the 1099 flexible-career dude, or the guy with a W-2 from GM or some green-jobs boondoggle? If you can answer that, you are overqualified to work in banking. But we knew that.

I ride my bike around town and could show anyone properties that I looked at in 2009 and 2010 that are still for sale. Some of those had been on the market for two years already. The market is not clearing; other, empty properties are going unlisted because they are so far underwater, and/or listings are saturated.

One question: what happens to the people who haven’t saved a couple of million, or haven’t earned it in the first place? A lot more of them than there are of me.

I’m sure.

AT AMAZON, up to 80% off on Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 student/teacher editions.

A LOOK AT the housing bubble in Bel Air. It’s worse than you think. “Here is someone that waited one year too long to exit the market. If this home was put on the market in early 2007 it would have fetched $1 million and more easily. Yet listing it in September of 2008 when the markets were imploding in historical fashion was not exactly good timing. The chase to the bottom is rather clear. It went from a listing price of $1,495,000 to the current list price of $870,000. Will this home sell at that level? . . . Of the 23 homes listed on the MLS for Bel-Air 3 are short sales and one home is listed as a foreclosure. Yet this does not tell us the entire story and this is the continuing saga of problems that we will be facing for years to come.” Chasing the market down is the worst mistake you can make but I keep seeing people do it. (Via NewsAlert).

TIPS FOR NEW LAW TEACHERS.

JOSH MANDEL: Ohio’s Marco Rubio? “Mandel looks maybe half of his 33 years, but he’s already accomplished more in his decade-long career in public service than many politicians have in a lifetime. He’s a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Iraq. A former city councilman in Lyndhurst, a suburb of Cleveland, he led the fight for the first property tax rollback in the county’s history. As a state legislator, he won landslide victories in a heavily liberal district. When he ran for state treasurer, he got more votes than Gov. John Kasich.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Unhappy Milestone at U. of California: Tuition Overtakes State Funds. “For the first time, students will pay more in total to attend the University of California in 2011-12 than the 10-campus system will receive in state funding.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Social Security disability program on verge of insolvency. “Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can’t find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs. The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that’s been running in the red for years.”

IT’S NOT JUST LAW SCHOOLS WITH FUNNY NUMBERS: Law Firms Exaggerate Profits Per Partner.

As the WSJ notes, profits per partner is “often used by lawyers and law-school students to judge the success of a firm.” So after law students are mislead about their chances of being employed by a large firm, the firms mislead them about their profitability.

Hey, it’s the good thing the legal profession is regulated.

Now maybe one can see why lawyers hate the idea of publicly traded law firms. Imagine if law firms faced the scrutiny of public securities markets. I don’t actually think that law firms are deliberately lying. The problem is that they persist in using an easily manipulable number instead of a more reliable metric.

Indeed.

MICHAEL S. MALONE: Here’s how Obama can save his career: Resign! “I don’t mean that in a flippant, or even partisan, way. Rather, let me explain how a smart resignation, properly done, can be a ‘win’ for all parties involved – not least yourself.”

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “NEW CIVILITY” WE WERE HEARING ABOUT: Maxine Waters: “The Tea Party can go straight to hell.”

LIFE AFTER DEBT: In this month’s market upheavals in the United States and Europe, we are witnessing the end of a seven-decade economic experiment. But does anyone have any clue what comes next? “The post-war era witnessed not only the triumph of Keynesian economics, but also the establishment of public pensions throughout the Western world. Almost all these pension plans were set up on a pay-as-you-go basis that provided high rates of return to the first generation of pensioners (which, perhaps not coincidentally, was the generation that voted them into existence) at the cost of an unfunded commitment to later generations. Public pension plans are the biggest element in the off-balance-sheet obligations of states, which also include unfunded health-insurance liabilities and the 2008 guarantees to the banking system. In most countries these ‘implicit’ public debts dwarf their traditional obligations traded in the bond market. In the United States, the total long-term commitments for Social Security, public sector pensions, and Medicare have been estimated at over 300 percent of GDP on the basis of current policies.”

Debts that cannot be paid, won’t be. Commitments that cannot be honored, won’t be. Guarantees that can’t be followed through on, won’t be.

WHAT IF OBAMA pulled an LBJ? “Some will scoff at the notion that Obama and his large ego would walk away from the office, but LBJ was also rumored to think pretty highly of himself. It’s a low-probability outcome, but it isn’t a zero probability outcome.”

MY ADVICE TO THE CHINESE: Don’t get too carried away with the Schadenfreude. Likely as not, your turn is coming, and it will probably look more like the Tai Ping Rebellion than Greece.

CHANGE: My Husband Is Now My Wife.

WHEN LAW PROFESSORS FEEL THE NEED FOR ANONYMITY, and when they don’t.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY you should be skeptical of things you read on the Internet. Or off it, for that matter.

JANET DALEY: UK riots: The end of the liberals’ great moral delusion. “The Left has gone into overdrive in its attempts to rewrite the history of the riots, but the public knows the truth. . . . There is no national debate about the epidemic of riots and looting that spread through our cities like a bush fire. Out there in the real world, where people go about the normal business of life, there is no sign of the heated argument that the media is so determined to air. In fact, I cannot remember a time when there has been such crushing unanimity on a matter of public importance: the answers to the questions of why this happened, what went wrong when it began to happen and what needs to follow in its aftermath are considered so blindingly self-evident as to be beyond rational disagreement.”