LAW SCHOOL GRADUATION SPEAKERS. Harvard gets Alec Baldwin. Nebraska has Clarence Thomas.

FRACK, BABY, FRACK: “The Energy Department wants to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner. Say, isn’t that how the administration justified its offshore drilling ban?”

(Headline via Daniel J Sobieski of IBD.)

TAILSPIN: Obama’s numbers on economy reach new low in NBC/WSJ poll.

At Commentary, Peter Wehner adds:

If a year from now the economy is more or less in the same condition as it was two years ago, last year, and what it is now—Obama will be the easiest incumbent to beat since 1980. It’s not impossible for Republicans to lose such an election, but it would be mighty hard.

To coin a phrase, don’t get cocky. If anybody can blow a major election, it’s the GOP.

RELATED: “Bin Laden Coup Won’t Help Obama in Budget Fight,” Byron York writes.

MAN BITES DOG: WaPo scolds Democrats on Medicare policy.

RELATED: “WaPo editor tweets liberal bumper sticker thoughts.”

Don’t worry, the Post’s ombudsman will apologize once again for his paper’s port-side tilt in late November of next year.

FORBES: SEARS RESEARCHING POSSIBLE MOVE FROM ILLINOIS. More at Crain’s Chicago Business:

“We will sit down with the Sears people . . . and I’m sure we’ll work out something that will work for the company, but more importantly for the common good,” [Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn] said.

Hoffman Estates-based Sears reportedly has been in discussions with North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey to move. The news was first reported in the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper.

“We do owe it to our associates and shareholders to consider options and alternatives and intend to be very thoughtful and thorough in our deliberations,” a Sears spokesman said in a statement. “It is still very early in the process.”

Hoffman Estates Mayor Bill McLeod said he has been talking to Sears “off and on for the last couple of years because we were aware” that the company’s state and local incentives will expire in 2012. He said he spoke with the governor about the issue several weeks ago.

California state officials recently visited Texas to find out why it keeps eating their economic lunch. Perhaps it’s time for representatives from  Illinois to visit there as well, before not changing any of their anti-business policies.

(H/T: Newsalert.)

RELATED: Veronique de Rugy: “Yes, the U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Is High.”

THE GREAT BOOKS ACCORDING TO ME: The Autumn of the Patriarch, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This novel in the form of a prose-poem is to my mind the greatest of Garcia’s novels, surpassing even One Hundred Years of Solitude.  The Spanish is magnificent, but as Garcia Marquez has said, so is Gregory Rabassa’s translation.

MARKDOWNS ON kids’ and baby clothing.

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING — Except the Guardian: “Why don’t we love our intellectuals?”

Perhaps these recent items from Christopher Hitchens and James Taranto might answer that question.

(Via Tim Blair.)

COASE BARGAINING OVER THE DEBT CEILING AND THE DEFICIT?:  According to Grover Norquist, the Republicans in Congress plan to bargain with the President on a sliding scale.  Writes Norquist at the Corner:  “Second, and this is sheer genius, Boehner has put a sliding-scale price on debt-ceiling increases. Hey, Obama, you want to buy a debt ceiling increase of, say, $2 trillion that would take you past the next election? Fine, the going price is two trillion dollars in real spending cuts. Cannot afford that and hold your spending coaliton in place? Fine, you can buy a month of debt-ceiling relief, worth about $125 billion, for the reduced price of $125 billion in spending cuts. The price of the debt-ceiling hike is the the same amount — or more — of real spending cuts.”

I haven’t quite decided whether this is clever or too-clever by half.  And I’m not quite sure if this bargaining is truly “Coase” bargaining in the fashion of the law and economics final exam my class took yesterday morning; in what sense is one side “paying” the other?  (Over at Volokh, I solicit comments on this last question; general view is that it is not because neither side is bribing the other.  I also ask what you would change in the story in order to turn it into a Coase situation.)

IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING? “‘Introduction to Labor Studies’ – My First-Hand Account.”

GERMAN TV FAIL: Star Trek’s Maquis NOT Involved In Bin Laden Mission.

Well, that’s what they want you think, anyhow. Those guys are rogue agents — they’d think nothing of violating the Temporal Prime Directive.

ENTIRELY UNRELATED: “Five times the conspiracy theories turned out to be true.”

TANGENTIALLY RELATED: Speaking of violating the Temporal Prime Directive and crossing the Star Wars and Star Trek streams in the same post, check out these fun Star Wars propaganda posters.

AT AMAZON, Bestsellers in Software.

TEENAGER ARRESTED IN NORTH DAKOTA FOR FILMING COP.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is losing his voice, but he’s still here and he’s still one of the best damn writers around.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, MARIA SHRIVER ANNOUNCE SEPARATION.

REPORT: “Microsoft Will Announce Acquisition of Skype Tomorrow Morning,” writes Kara Swisher at the Wall Street Journal.

LONG WAR JOURNAL: Keeping track of US air strikes in Pakistan. There are limits on the robustness of the data, as LWJ explains at the site, since much of it can’t be corroborated by independent journalists, but Bill Roggio is a crucial source of information. (Actually, I haven’t put that strongly enough.  In this area, for those of us without inside government information, Bill Roggio is an indispensable source of information.)

WHY RICHARD GOLDSTONE?

INSTAVISION: Glenn Reynolds is still on vacation this week in a top-secret undisclosed location, but before leaving, he managed to record a few interviews for PJTV at the recent NRA national convention, including, “Of Arms and the Law: David Hardy on the Growth of Individual Gun Rights:”

Has the Second Amendment finally been embraced by our lawmakers and courts? Glenn Reynolds talks with lawyer and Of Arms and the Law blogger David Hardy on the expansion of gun rights and where the fight continues.

“The Second Amendment may be the most interesting aspect of constitutional law right now.” — David T. Hardy

Tune in here or click on the screen capture below to watch:

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: “Yemeni Man Screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ Tries to Rush Cockpit on AA Flight to San Francisco.”

MONDAY NIGHT MAYHEM: Wise Men and Loud Mouths: PJTV’s Poliwood Tackles the Best and Worst Sports Announcers of All Time:

CHRIS CHRISTIE: Obamacare’s Medicaid Mandates Are Hurting New Jersey.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? “Gallup: For first time, majority of Republicans support third party.”

“THERE WERE ONLY 12 PLAYBOYS — NOT MORE — IN THE WORLD. They were charming and spoke languages and behaved well with women. I think that today most of the fun has gone. To go with a girl to Tahiti was incredible. Now everybody goes to Tahiti. This generation can do anything, but it’s less fun.”

WELCOME BACK CARTER: Unemployment? Inflation? Stagflation? Yes, it’s Sucking in the ’70s once again, to coin an album title.