HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): 90 percent of Americans say economy stinks.

MICKEY KAUS: Obama’s Best Hope: A Supreme Court Defeat On ObamaCare.

NPR: New Boom Reshapes Oil World, Rocks North Dakota. “Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, according to the Energy Information Administration, it imports less than half. And by 2017, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world’s largest oil producer. Places like Williston are the reason why.”

Wow, I knew it was big, but I had no idea it was that big. But read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Okay, here’s more:

Amy Myers Jaffe of Rice University says in the next decade, new oil in the US, Canada and South America could change the center of gravity of the entire global energy supply.

“Some are now saying, in five or 10 years’ time, we’re a major oil-producing region, where our production is going up,” she says.

The US, Jaffe says, could have 2 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be drilled. South America could hold another 2 trillion. And Canada? 2.4 trillion. That’s compared to just 1.2 trillion in the Middle East and north Africa.

Jaffe says those new oil reserves, combined with growing turmoil in the Middle East, will “absolutely propel more and more investment into the energy resources in the Americas.”

Russia is already feeling the growth of American energy, Jaffe says. As the U.S. produces more of its own natural gas, Europe is free to purchase liquefied natural gas the US is no longer buying.

“They’re buying less natural gas from Russia,” Jaffe says. “So Russia would only supply 10 percent of European natural gas demand by 2030. That means the Russians are no longer powerful.”

The implications here are huge. If I were Russia and Saudi Arabia, I’d be subsidizing U.S. environmental groups in an effort to stop, or at least slow, the process.

NICK SCHULZ: Repeating the Hoover Mistake: Paul Krugman and The New Republic.

ED DRISCOLL: Venture Socialism: the Logical Endpoint of Obamanomics.

ROGER KIMBALL: Is Obama Right? Has America “Gone Soft?”

No, there is nothing flaccid about American business. There’s plenty of keenness on its “competitive edge.” It’s far and away the most productive and innovative economic machine in the world.

What’s “gone soft” and lost its “competitive edge” is American government, which can’t see a pile of money it doesn’t wish to expropriate in order to feed its “spread-the-wealth-around” socialist appetite and which sees government as the adversary rather than the enabler of business. That’s the rotten softness we have to worry about.

Indeed.

I GET THE BEST INTEREST RATES AT THE PONZI NATIONAL BANK: This Is The Type Of Story That Makes People Freak Out About China’s Underground Banking System.

METRICS: Turns Out, The South Is A Pretty Nice Place To Live. “The advantages of the South — especially the advantages of the 21st century South — are less well known (and, somehow, Southern coastal cities are frequently overlooked as major cities). Oh, there are books and TV shows, songs and movies about Dixie — but, as Habeeb points out, they’re often misleading caricatures or dwell too heavily on the South’s past. Little has been done to update the popular image of the region, which is now economically inviting and culturally reassuring — perhaps because those who spin popular images, from the president to junior reporters, haven’t taken the time to really understand the South for themselves. That happens to be Habeeb’s thesis.”

To be honest, we’d rather word didn’t get out. Stay away! In fact, I need to point this out: The South is a cultural desert, across which ride Klansmen on horseback and NASCAR fans in F350 Dually pickups. The cultural center is Wal-Mart, and the occasional tailgater before a lynching. Gunshows are disdained as the domain of pointy-headed intellectuals, because they also sell books. No, really, that’s all true — stay away! For the love of God, stay away!

UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard emails: “I wish to add that we have fire ants, sinkholes, red tide, shark attacks, huge and regular brush fires, sandspurs, sunburn, hurricanes (though, unexpectedly!, none in the last couple of years). Yes, for the love of God, stay far away!”

And the chiggers. Beastly critters you want no part of. Stay in Massachusetts!

HOW GOOGLE DROVE SAMSUNG AWAY: “The patent licensing agreement between Microsoft and Samsung this week set off a firestorm of childish tit-for-tat between Microsoft and Google. But more telling is what Samsung had to say about its relationship with Google: ‘Samsung knows it can’t rely on Google. We’ve decided to address Android IP issues on our own,’ a Samsung official told The Korea Times.”

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: Is Turkey Really a ‘Vibrant Democracy’? A closer examination reveals a nation sliding into dictatorship.

UPDATE: Oops. It’s not Claire Berlinski, it’s Okan Altiparmak.

REPORT: Anwar al-Awlaki killed in Yemen. Hope it’s true.

CHANGE: More bad news for bank customers: Debit card fees. “Bank of America will start charging debit-card users $5 a month to pay for purchases. The move comes as the cards increasingly replace cash and as banks look for ways to offset the loss of revenue from a new rule that will limit how much they can collect from merchants.” Taking money out of my pocket, and putting it into merchants’ pockets instead. Thanks, feds!

THE RISE OF THE FLAT TAX produces Morning In Albania. “Today, the flat tax idea is perhaps even more politically remote, in the United States, than it was in 1985. However, the rest of the world caught on to the idea. Today there are at least forty governments with flat tax type systems, most of which made the switch in just the last decade.”

Our political class doesn’t like a flat tax because it provides insufficient opportunities for graft.

FASTER, PLEASE: SpaceX To Develop Fully Reusable Rocket, Make Humanity a Multi-Planet Species.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he’s lecturing us about how America’s gone “soft”? Really?

IN FORBES, BILL FLAX WRITES: Forget Multiculturalism: Restore The Anglo-Saxon Philosophy Of Liberty.

FROM FACEBOOK, BEST ELIZABETH WARREN PARODY/RESPONSE YET: This was posted by Ashtad Bin Sayyif, but I’m not sure if he’s the original author or just reposting. Anyway, it goes to the core problem. Are you the state’s property, or not?

AT AMAZON, Manager’s Specials on groceries.

PRESIDENT IMPOTENT: Durbin says Democrats don’t currently have the votes for Obama jobs bill.

ROBERT FARAGO: ATF Death Watch 89: 40 Fast and Furious Firearms “Found” in Dallas.

THE BLOGPROF hangs up his keyboard. He will be missed.

RICHARD POLLOCK: No Adults in the Room: No More ‘Wise Elders’ to Advise the President. “The demise of the wise men — or some approximation of it — is an interesting tale about changes in our own political culture. It can find its roots in the political upheaval of the 1960s. Young political radicals challenged the Democratic establishment, particularly its decision-making. They derided decisions made by political veterans and chipped away at the influence of the wise men. In the name of democratic reforms, they sought to change our presidential selection process. . . . At that moment, partisanship began to rule over statesmanship.”

DONALD SENSING: Well done, President Obama.

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