AND YET THEY PROMISED US “HOPE:” Nation’s Mood at Lowest Level in Two Years, Poll Shows.

HOPE AND CHANGE: Obama’s $3 million S.F. dinner — the complete guest list.

FIRST SARAH PALIN AND SCOTT WALKER, now it’s lefties wishing for Donald Trump’s death. “Why do these people, many of whom are professionals, feel no fear in expressing such death wishes in the open?” Because they suffer no consequences?

MARY GRABAR: Writing Teachers: Still Crazy, After All These Years.

WHEN THE PRESIDENT DOES IT, IT ISN’T ILLEGAL.

IMPORTANT ADVICE FROM ANDREW KLAVAN: How To Behave During An Islamic Massacre.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: Obama To Boeing: Drop Dead. “This could well be the most outrageous insult yet to the free market economy. . . . Remember those two recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board? The guys making these decisions about the commanding heights of the American economy have never even been confirmed by the Senate.”

WHEN REAL LIFE IMITATES HELLCATS: Ringer Scandal Costs Cheerleading Team Title.

MICHAEL WALSH: The Divide For 2012.

JOHN CLEESE: Hey, what happened to London?

GUT-BACTERIA MAPPING finds three global varieties. “In much the same way that every person has one of eight common blood types, each of us may contain one of several possible bacterial communities, suggests new research.”

INDIA NOT ENTIRELY PLEASED: Obama Wants To Curb Medical Tourism. I suspect his plans will have precisely the opposite effect.

THAT’S TRICKY: Budget group: New Obama budget plan would fail, could cause tax trigger to be pulled. It’s like they’re only happy if they can raise taxes.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Using “Nanodisks” for drug delivery.

MARKDOWNS ON portable DVD players.

INSTAVISION: Women and Islam: Are Western Feminists Ignoring the Plight of Women in Afghanistan? Not entirely, according to my guest (and colleague this semester) Christyne Vachon of HelpWomenHeal.org.

HMM: Site to Match Law Students With Law Firms (Like Medical Students, Hospitals). “The website aims to eliminate law schools as middlemen in legal recruitment and is modeled after the ‘match day’ system that places medical students with medical schools seeking residents.”

FREEDOM: Business owner casts reasonable doubt on accuracy of speed cameras. “Five times and counting before three different judges, the Prince George’s County business owner has used a computer and a calculation to cast reasonable doubt on the reliability of the soulless traffic enforcers. After a judge threw out two of his tickets Wednesday, Mr. Foreman said he is confident he has exposed systemic inaccuracies in the systems that generate millions of dollars a year for town, city and county governments.”

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

RESEARCHERS SUCCEED IN quantum teleportation of light waves. “The new breakthrough is a major step toward building safe, effective quantum computers.”

UPDATE: Reader Tom Brosz writes: “What exactly does an ‘unsafe’ quantum computer do?” I wondered about that too. Causes false-vacuum collapse or something, I guess. Which would be bad.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Time For A L’il Abner Revival?

WHAT THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY CAN LEARN from the oil industry’s response to the BP blowout.

FROM FORD, a list of the 25 most electric-vehicle-ready cities.

GET THINGS DONE: Steven Pressfield’s Do The Work has just come out. Unlike his novels, this is a book on how to get things done — something successful novelists know about.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Rankin points out that the Kindle edition is free. Even better!

IN THE MAIL: From Dr. Anthony Youn, In Stitches.