ED DRISCOLL: LOST IN A SUPERMARKET. “How must it feel to walk out of a recording studio knowing that your group just nailed the dirtiest, nastiest, rudest heavy metal song ever recorded in the history of man, and then 20 years later hear it on the speakers of a suburban supermarket walking down the frozen food aisle? Back when I was a kid, rock and roll was something hard and bracing with a veneer of still being slightly ‘underground’ that you had to seek out; supermarket muzak was all syrupy strings and soothing melodies. At some point in the mid-1990s, I guess, that all went out the window.”

True, but speaking as an ASCAP member myself, I’m pretty sure that what they think when they hear their music, however butchered, in the frozen food aisle is mostly ka-ching! Especially 20 years later, when even rock musicians are thinking about their retirement accounts.

YEAH, BLOGGING’S BEEN A BIT LIGHT BECAUSE IT’S MY BIRTHDAY. Back to normal later.

AIR TRAVEL: Feds Sign Off On Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Conservatism is starting to have an identity-politics problem all its own. I think conservatism needs to spend less time defending candidates for who they are, and more time supporting candidates for what they intend to do.”

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT THROUGH THE AMAZON LINKS on this page, or through the searchbox in the right sidebar. By doing that, you’ve put a little money in my family’s pocket at no cost to yourself. As always, it’s much appreciated.

QUESTION: How Long Will My Retirement Savings Last?

Depends on what you invest in.

EUGENE VOLOKH ON “GUNPOWDER LUST:” “The shooting sports aren’t Olympic sports because of ‘gunpowder lust,’ just like archery isn’t an Olympic sport because of ‘arrow lust.’ It’s an Olympic sport because it’s a highly demanding athletic event (though it demands somewhat different forms of athleticism than, say, basketball), and — secondarily — because it’s an event with a long historical link to a tradition of military service. Dismissing respect for the sport, and the desire that children have an opportunity to learn about this sport, as a manifestation of ‘gunpowder lust’ strikes me as a form of prejudice against guns that’s hard to rationally defend.”

Related: “Boris Johnson is a moron. . . . The sheer idiocy of this speaks volumes of the rot at the heart of British society and its decadent political class.”

MORE IRENE COVERAGE from Brendan Loy. Also, Roger Kimball.

Meanwhile, Gerard van der Leun spots a contradiction: “On Friday, city officials issued what they called an unprecedented order for the evacuation of about 370,000 residents of low-lying areas, warning that Hurricane Irene was such a threat that people living there simply had to get out. Officials also made what they said was another first-of-its-kind decision, announcing plans to shut down the city’s entire transit system Saturday.”

FREE SPEECH: Class action suit says Florida Highway Patrol illegally tickets motorists who warn others about speed traps. “Campbell says he felt as if the trooper thought it was a personal affront. According to Campbell, the trooper did not like the fact somebody was ratting him out.” You’re not actually supposed to ticket people for “personal affronts.”

MARKDOWNS ON pens, pencils, and markers.

FROM NANNY STATE TO GRANNY STATE: “Grandparents have become the family safety net, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

UPDATE: Reader Clifford Grout writes: “Grandparents were often the family safety net before the fall of extended families and the rise of the welfare state. If we’ve come full circle, then… what’s the point of continuing the welfare state? Wondering…”

Empowering politicians and employing bureaucrats, apparently.

LAPTOP-BATTERY UPDATE: No, not the lithium-ion kind. Professor Cleared of Battery Charges For Closing Laptop Lid On Student’s Hand. “A jury voted “not guilty” in the trial of an assistant professor who had been charged with battery of a student by allegedly closing a laptop lid on her hands. Frank J. Rybicki, an assistant professor of mass media at Valdosta State University, in Georgia, had been suspended while the trial was under way, but he will be teaching now that he has been cleared, according to university staff and a supporters’ page on Facebook.”

REVERSING TOOTH DECAY with peptide paint.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Sex In Restaurant Bathrooms On The Rise.

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: College Board’s Leader Paid More Than Harvard’s. “The president of the College Board, the nonprofit owner of the SAT entrance exam, has seen his compensation triple since 1999 and now gets more than the head of the American Red Cross, which has more than five times the revenue. The value of Gaston Caperton’s compensation was $1.3 million including deferred compensation in 2009, according to tax filings, also surpassing that of the president of Harvard University.”

It’s nice to be a “nonprofit.”

MORE ON THE GIBSON RAID: “Why would the government use armed agents to attack one of the few major manufacturers of anything remaining in the United States?” It’s like they don’t want to see the economy recover or something.

UPDATE: What a coincidence! CEO of Gibson Guitar a Republican Donor. And their Democratic-donating competitor, Martin, uses the same wood but wasn’t raided. Well, when you’ve got a President who jokes about tax audits as revenge for a personal slight, it’s hard not to be suspicious, isn’t it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

MORE: On the joking-about-audits front: “This is why an astute President never jokes about such things. But this is not a very astute President.”

RON BAILEY: For Pete’s Sake, Go Get Your Kids Vaccinated Already! “Look, vaccines are not perfectly safe. Nothing is. But the scientific evidence clearly shows that the health benefits strongly outweigh the costs. Consider that up to 30 percent of people who get bacterial meningitis die. And especially note that yet another report finds no evidence for a link between vaccination and autism.”

HOW WIRELESS CARRIERS HAMSTRING YOUR SMARTPHONE: “A team at the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research has uncovered, for the first time, the frequently suboptimal network practices of more than 100 cellular carriers. By recruiting almost 400 volunteers to run an app on their phones that probes a carrier’s networks, the team discovered, for example, that one of the four major U.S. carriers is slowing its network performance by up to 50 percent. They also found carrier policies that drained users’ phone batteries at an accelerated rate, and security vulnerabilities that could leave devices open to complete takeover by hackers.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: The Endless Economic “Recovery:”

If you needed another metric by which to measure the failure of Obamanomics, new numbers released Friday show that two years after the recession ended the economy still hasn’t fully recovered.

* * * *

Obama likes to blame the depth of the downturn for the “painfully slow” recovery. “We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight. It’s going to take time,” he said — nearly a year ago.

The claim is bogus. This recession lasted only slightly longer than the 1981-82 contraction — 18 months vs. 16 — and wasn’t as severe when measured by peak unemployment.

But the economy came screaming out of that downturn, and in three quarters was already well into an expansion. The 1973-75 recession lasted 16 months, but also took only three quarters to fully recover.

Better policies.

UP TO 45% OFF on binoculars.

A PLEA TO THE G.O.P.: Don’t Pull A Digital Nixon. New media are important, and will be more important than ever in 2012.

BUSINESS WEEK: The Slow Disappearance of the American Working Man. “The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. . . . The portion of men holding a job—any job, full- or part-time—fell to 63.5 percent in July—hovering stubbornly near the low point of 63.3 percent it reached in December 2009. These are the lowest numbers in statistics going back to 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs, a barely noticeable improvement from its low point last year—and still well below the depths of the 1982-83 recession, when employment among prime-age men never dropped below 85 percent. To put those numbers in perspective, consider that in 1969, 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job. Men who do have jobs are getting paid less.”

UPDATE: Reader Dave Schipani writes: “You know, Glenn, between this and the eroding numbers of men in college, we must be part of the most incompetent patriarchy in history. I don’t know about you, but I’m writing an angry letter of complaint to my chapter president.” Heh.

Related: The Hill: GOP senator: White House ‘failed miserably’ on economy. Ya think?

SISSY WILLIS: “First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened.”

MORE IRENE UPDATES from Brendan Loy.

UPDATE: Thoughts on disaster-prep from The Anchoress. I was an Explorer Scout.