FORGET INVESTING FOR RETIREMENT, now it’s saving for retirement: “All the ordinary folks out there counting on 8-10% annual returns on their investment portfolios to salvage their retirements are headed for trouble. . . . At this point, I think that most people who are likely to be reading this blog should be targeting a savings rate in the range of 20-25% of income, more if they can manage it. Since this is approximately five times what the average American household is saving, this notion is likely to be met with fierce resistance.”

HOPE: Federal judge orders Salazar to act on drilling permits within a month.

MADISON SCHOOLS WILL CLOSE AGAIN, so that teachers can protest — leaving poor children deprived of their free school lunches yet again. Will no one think of the children?

From the comments: “It’s like Greece, but with snow!”

HOUSE VOTES TO OVERTHROW CZARS: “Republicans successfully added an amendment to the continuing resolution that would leave President Barack Obama’s senior advisers on policy issues including health care, energy and others out of a job.”

TODAY-ONLY SALE: Klipsch Home Theater Sound System.

THEY’RE NOT EXACTLY PAUL REVERE, but the Wisconsin Senate Democrats’ flight has inspired a poem.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Tsunami Heading To Campus.

WHITE HOUSE ASKS JUDGE WHO DECLARED OBAMACARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL TO ORDER IT IMPLEMENTED: “The Obama administration is asking a federal judge who struck down the healthcare reform law to clarify that states must still implement the overhaul as the appeals process plays out.”

CHANGE: Consumer prices show inflation turning up.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Police Refuse to Give Gun Possession License Because of “Association” with Criminals, New Jersey Courts Reverse.

GOV. WALKER: The next Calvin Coolidge? “Coolidge became famous nationwide during the Boston Police Strike of 1919, when nearly three fourths of that force left work. Mobs roamed Boston, breaking windows and looting stores for two nights. The mayor managed to restore order with local militias. Then Coolidge called in the entire state militia, which broke the strikers’ will. Coolidge made a famous declaration: ‘There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.'”

MORE ON “THE NEW CIVILITY:” Group targets Speaker Boehner’s house.

When did demonstrating at the private homes of politicians or corporate executives become an acceptable way to voice one’s political opinions?

Nearly two dozen activists from DC Vote swarmed House Speaker John Boehner’s Capitol Hill residence at 7:30 Thursday morning, chanting “Don’t tread of D.C.” and “No taxation without representation” to protest congressional “meddling” in the District’s local affairs, in particular a House continuing budget resolution that would cut $80 million in federal payments and prohibit the city from using local funds to pay for needle exchange programs and abortions.

Have fun folks. You are establishing precedents that will return on you threefold.

Related: Speaker Boehner’s home targeted by mob protest.

JOHN HINDERAKER: One More Thing About Wisconsin.

A common theme of the union demonstrators in Madison today was that Governor Walker is a “dictator.” This showed up on sign after sign. It sheds light, I think, on how public union members in particular, and liberals in general, think. What is going on here is that the voters of Wisconsin have elected a Republican Governor and–overwhelmingly–a Republican legislature, precisely so that they can get the state’s budget under control.

What the Democrats don’t like isn’t dictatorship, it is democracy. That is why the Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate fled the state en masse–they prevented a quorum, so that a vote they were going to lose couldn’t take place. Once again, it is democracy they are trying to frustrate, not dictatorship.

One could make the point more broadly about the organized labor movement. The unions’ top priority is to eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections. Why?

I think we know.

UPDATE: “To quote Bill Hobbs, ‘Democrats believe in democracy – except when they lose’.”

TENNESSEE FOLLOWS WISCONSIN’S LEAD: “The Senate Education Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to abolish collective bargaining between teachers unions and school boards across the state.”

UPDATE: Reader G.L. Carlson emails: “Well, no. OUR democrats didn’t run and hide. They lost, but they’re not pusillanimous wusses.” Good point.

JAY CARNEY: Making us nostalgic for the smoothly believable presentations of Robert Gibbs.

THIS IS SELDOM A GOOD SIGN: Going after “Food Hoarders” in Taiwan.

STEPHANIE FRIED: A luckier woman covering Cairo. “It wasn’t celebratory that night Lara Logan was attacked. It was terrifying.”

AMERICA IS SAFE: Obama’s TelePrompter Escapes Budget Axe.

CHUCK SIMMINS: Prognosis: Inflation. “Your increase in costs from 2005 to 2010 depended upon what you bought. Unless you bought the exact mix that goes into the CPI, you saw a different CPI, your personal CPI. If you are like me, your personal CPI went up a whole lot more than the government’s CPI.”

Related: The Return Of Stagflation? “So inflation is back in the picture and unemployment is rising again. Does the phrase ‘Carteresque’ come to mind?” As I’ve said before, at this point “Carteresque” is probably a best-case scenario.

MORE ON THE TILTED KILT, where Wisconsin’s Democratic legislators hid out. “We now know what they call ‘Hooters’ in Scotland, apparently.”

UPDATE: Walker to Dems: ‘You Can’t Have Conversations If You’re Not at Work’.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Runaway Dems now subject of the new “Badger 14” blog. Where the focus is mostly how to get them out of office.

Plus, Wisconsin teachers who can’t spell.

AT AMAZON, recommended gardening supplies.

INSTAVISION: I talk with Sen. Bob Corker about the budget, the national debt, and the CAP Act. Corker: “There was a lot of disappointment that the President didn’t show leadership on an issue that we believe is the most important domestic issue that we face as a country.” (Bumped).

ANN ALTHOUSE: After all those efforts to paint Tea Partiers as using violent images and rhetoric, these pictures from Madison have got to hurt.

Plus, a call for assassination? Hey, Lincoln was a Republican, too. Where are the “civility police” now?

UPDATE: “Walker 2012: Maybe on the top of the ticket, maybe in the veep slot. You heard it here first.”

WILL OHIO BE THE NEXT WISCONSIN? “Thousands of union protesters and Tea Party activists jammed the Ohio Statehouse Thursday as senators gathered to hear additional testimony on controversial Senate Bill 5. . . . Tea Party backers were chanting that they are defending taxpayers. They said they support the bill. . . . The bill, as it is proposed by Sen. Sharon Jones, R-7th District, would strip public employees of collective bargaining rights and weaken binding arbitration for police and firefighters.”

PLUMMETING DOWN THE ECONOMIC LADDER: A reader sends this depressing tale:

You occasionally post links to articles about the state of the job market, especially for new college graduates, but perhaps what I’m seeing as I look for work, may be interesting.

I’m in my 50s, with no degree, but have been working in the software industry ( support, software development, program management) since the mid 1980s. I’m working only about 20 hours/week for a mom-and-pop company on the west coast at essentially fry-cook wages.

My employer just cut my hours from 40/week to 20 in January. No benefits, no insurance, no vacation accrual, no sick leave.

I’ve been applying for work in my field and for warehouse work, customer service work, janitorial work, clerical work and mechanical assembly work since September 2010. I’ve had one interview with a contracting firm that went nowhere. I even got a food-handler’s permit this month so I could work in a hamburger joint — more on that, below.

Here’s what I see as I look for employment:

– In my industry, HR departments are the gatekeepers. They feed resumes into HR software that categorizes applicants based on keywords for software applications and experience. If your resume doesn’t contain the magic set of keywords and years of experience, it clearly goes into the bit-bucket. In the past, if I could talk to the manager, I could often show him what I’ve done, offer to work at a reduced rate until I proved myself. But with the HR firewall, there’s no way to do that. And I won’t salt my resume with fictional skills.

– I tried applying for some kind of work at the grocery store where I shop, but all applications are taken online and once again, my resume, rich with IT-type work, clearly doesn’t match some profile.

– I applied in-person at a couple of nationally-known fast-food restaurants close-by. The counter help at one barely spoke English and called the manager to the front to speak with me when I asked about a job. With a heavy Spanish accent, she told me to appy online.

– I applied online to 4 or 5 famous fast-food restaurant chains. I’ve heard nothing, other than the automated response from one that simply indicated “No Openings”

The distortions in our job market come from a few different directions, I think. For one thing, landscaping work, restaurant cooks and wait-staff, construction labor all were frequently done by college students on summer vacation or working their way through school. Now, these are often done by illegal immigrants, putting severe pressure on the low-end of the market.

At the high end, for IT at least, the huge influx of H1B visa workers squeezes folks like me out of the IT/computer market pretty handily. I see IT jobs like QA Tech ( “software tester” ) and telephone support jobs that now require computer science degrees. Unless you’re testing NASA man-rated space software or something for the Large Hadron Collider, this is serious overkill.

As for me, I’m staying afloat by selling the stuff I own that has some kind of value.

When that’s gone, I’ll be looking for the highway overpass that has the best view, I guess.

Regards, [Redacted].

P.S. Don’t use my name if you choose to post/excerpt this. That’d wreck what microscopic chances I might have. Thanks.

So I don’t know what advice to give this guy. Any thoughts from InstaPundit readers? Maybe I should set up an InstaPundit Help-Wanted page or something. . . .