TOBY HARNDEN: The pivot: Mitt Romney throws Bill Clinton’s ‘economy stupid’ dictum back in Barack Obama’s face.

GOOD: Tor/Forge E-book Titles to Go DRM-Free.

“IT’S STILL ABOUT THE ECONOMY — AND WE’RE NOT STUPID.” Mitt Romney’s Victory Speech.

UPDATE: Prof. Jacobson: “Please only disturb me if it’s really important, like if it turns out Obama ate more than one dog.”

YES, THAT’S IT: Too ugly for TV? No, I’m too brainy for men who fear clever women.

Beard is certainly unattractive, but the real ugliness is in her soul, as demonstrated by her post-9/11 remarks that America had it coming.

UPDATE: A partial defense.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN has a new son. I hit his tipjar. Diapers are expensive.

WELL, TO BE FAIR, AS PROPHECIES GO this one was pretty much in the barrelfishing category.

ABC NEWS: Then-Senator Obama Didn’t Show Up for Vote on Student Loan Bill in 2007.

HOW TO FIX your car’s weatherstripping.

JIM TREACHER: And now it’s time to play: How Deep Did They Bury the Lede? “Hey, that’s what he gets for having a similar skin color to someone we’ve all been instructed to hate. Well done, Spike Lee. Nice job, NBC. Keep up the good work, ABC. And to everyone else who’s been using a shooting in Florida to foment hate and divide people by the color of their skin, kudos. Don’t let this attack, and similar attacks across America, bother you. If you had a conscience, we never would’ve heard of you in the first place.”

This whole post-racial presidency thing is turning out to be something of a disappointment.

BUT, HONESTLY, WHO DOESN’T? Marines Want Better Networks, Sensors — And Terminator Vision.

The Leathernecks want data networks that can keep them connected all the way from the decks of their ships to the beaches they storm. They want online search tools that rely on natural language instead of keywords (like the rest of us). And they want software that can sift through the oceans of data their wartime sensors and cameras collect — including tools that can scan through faces in a crowd, like the Terminator, and alert Marines to danger.

That’s according to the Corps’ blueprint for its science and technology needs over the next 20 years. Communications are a big, gaping hole for the Marines of the present, and the Marines want to hand their successors more seamless, networked ways of talking. That’s on top of other wish-list material, like advanced sensors that can sniff drugs and homemade bombs — oh, and laser-stopping goggles.

Just make sure the antivirus is good.

ARE WOMEN ENSLAVED BY MODERN PARENTING? I’d say it’s more that women are enslaved by intra-gender status competition, which is manifested in parenting among many other things.

Meanwhile, amidst all the talk about “clingy” children I’m flashing on a Big Bang Theory reference: Leonard’s psychiatrist-mother, who has a book entitled Needy Baby, Greedy Baby.

Anyway, some related thoughts of mine are here. And as always, I strongly recommend Bryan Caplan’s take.

WHEN PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND REALITY collide.

UPDATE: Reader Sandra McWhorter writes:

So, reading the comments here’s the bottom line: Conservative bloggers work hard, they eventually earn a following and their readers reward their efforts. Prog bloggers work hard enough (according to their “we’re all special” lifetime handlers), they deserve so they whine when big gov/soros/fellow Che lovers don’t pay them what they want for carrying the water. Easy… Capitalism vs socialism. The former when left alone has never failed. The latter, um…

Indeed.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What Kind Of Condom Would Einstein Have Worn?

DUCK AND COVER: Researchers study costs of ‘dirty bomb’ attack in L.A.

I guess it’s a good time to link my “Duck and Cover” piece for The Atlantic again.

Also this video.

AT AMAZON, Mother’s Day Gifts.

IS AMERICA’S “AUTISM EPIDEMIC” JUST A RESULT OF OVERDIAGNOSIS?

SNAKES: An InstaPundit prediction is fulfilled by David Frum. Referencing Obama’s juvenile snake-eating, I commented: “New Media Matters spin: See, he’s practically undergone Navy SEAL training!”

And sure enough, Frum writes:

Likewise, you wouldn’t think there’d be much scope to doubt the Americanism of one who bets his presidency on a mission to kill Osama bin Laden face to face rather than by the less risky means of a drone strike. Anyway, a lot of 100% Americans have eaten exotic foods. Teddy Roosevelt favorably compared the flesh of young bears to the taste of pork.

My friend in the Special Forces boasts proudly:

“‘Snake Eaters’ is a military slang term for Army Special Force (aka “Green Berets”), and YES we DO eat snakes. This is part of our survival training, although I have slayed and eaten snake in the field to supplement the rations, and because basically, snake tastes good.

“I have encountered snakes (and eaten them) throughout my career. I have eaten cobra in Thailand (and drank the blood mixed with Mekhong whiskey), Eastern Diamondback in Mississippi and copperhead North Carolina. For what it’s worth, I prefer rattlesnake; tastes like chicken.”

Well, like the dark meat in my experience. But I prefer dark meat. (And yes, I’ve eaten rattlesnake many times). But I’m claiming this prediction as fulfilled. Sure, it’s Frum instead of Media Matters, but, really, that’s pretty close these days.

Also, despite Frum’s claim, the passage wasn’t found by the Romney Campaign, but by the Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher.

UPDATE: Reader Rich Chapman writes:

The problem with eating dogs is not that eating dogs is exotic, like eating snakes.

The problem with eating dogs is that dogs are our friends. Snakes are not our friends.

I don’t think snakes are really capable of friendship.

VIDEO: MIA LOVE’S SPEECH FROM THIS WEEK’S UTAH NOMINATING CONVENTION.

And a reader notes that another Tea Party candidate got nominated this weekend: Chris Stewart. I’m told he’s a PhD in economics, and a fan of the Austrian school.

UPDATE: And I’m told now that that’s incorrect. It’s his campaign manager who has the PhD. It’s Correction Tuesday here at InstaPundit today . . . .

SO IF “THE WAR ON TERROR IS OVER,” can we abolish the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security now?

WILL AUTOMATED CARS save fuel? “Drivers cause all sorts of problems. They hit the brakes too much and accelerate too quickly. That can waste a third of the gas on a typical drive. Bad driving also creates traffic jams. In the U.S., drivers waste two billion gallons of fuel each year while stuck in traffic, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute. Just think of the gas burned in that 2010 Chinese traffic jam that lasted almost two weeks.”

TECHNOLOGY: The 1916 Owen Magnetic: Jay Leno’s Classic Hybrid. Hybrid technology isn’t exactly new.

SPACE: In Pursuit of Riches, and Travelers’ Supplies, in the Asteroid Belt.

ROGER KIMBALL: Iceland Leads The Way!

I DON’T USUALLY REPRODUCE PRESS RELEASES, but this one is right up my alley. It’s from Planetary Resources, which just officially announced their plans:

Planetary Resources, Inc. announced today its plan to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals. Through the development of cost-effective exploration technologies, the company is poised to initiate prospecting missions targeting resource-rich asteroids that are easily accessible.

Resource extraction from asteroids will deliver multiple benefits to humanity and grow to be valued at tens of billions of dollars annually. The effort will tap into the high concentration of precious metals found on asteroids and provide a sustainable supply to the ever-growing population on Earth.

A single 500-meter platinum-rich asteroid contains the equivalent of all the Platinum Group Metals mined in history. “Many of the scarce metals and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space. As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything from microelectronics to energy storage be reduced, but new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications,” said Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.

Additionally, water-rich NEAs will serve as “stepping stones” for deep space exploration, providing space-sourced fuel and water to orbiting depots. Accessing water resources in space will revolutionize exploration and make space travel dramatically more economical.

“Water is perhaps the most valuable resource in space. Accessing a water-rich asteroid will greatly enable the large-scale exploration of the solar system. In addition to supporting life, water will also be separated into oxygen and hydrogen for breathable air and rocket propellant,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.

Of the approximately 9,000 known NEAs, there are more than 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon. The capability to characterize NEAs is on the critical path for Planetary Resources. To that end, the company has developed the first line in its family of deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series. The spacecraft will be used in low-Earth orbit and ultimately help prioritize the first several NEA targets for the company’s follow-on Arkyd-300 Series NEA swarm expeditions.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, said “Our mission is not only to expand the world’s resource base, but we want to increase people’s access to, and understanding of, our planet and solar system by developing capable and cost-efficient systems.”

“The promise of Planetary Resources is to apply commercial innovation to space exploration. They are developing cost-effective, production-line spacecraft that will visit near-Earth asteroids in rapid succession, increasing our scientific knowledge of these bodies and enabling the economic development of the resources they contain,” said Tom Jones, Ph.D., veteran NASA astronaut, planetary scientist and Planetary Resources, Inc. advisor.

Planetary Resources is financed by industry-launching visionaries, including Google CEO Larry Page and Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group, who are committed to expanding the world’s resource base so that humanity can continue to grow and prosper:

– Eric E. Schmidt, Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The pursuit of resources drove the discovery of America and opened the West. The same drivers still hold true for opening the space frontier. Expanding the resource base for humanity is important for our future.”

– Ram Shriram, Founder of Sherpalo, Google Board of Directors founding member and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “I see the same potential in Planetary Resources as I did in the early days of Google.”

– Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The commercialization of space began with communications satellites and is developing for human spaceflight. The next logical step is to begin the innovative development of resources from space. I’m proud to be part of this effort.”

The company’s advisors include film maker and explorer James Cameron; General T. Michael Moseley (Ret.); Sara Seager, Ph.D.; Mark Sykes, Ph.D.; and David Vaskevitch.

Founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Planetary Resources, Inc. is establishing a new paradigm for resource utilization that will bring the solar system within humanity’s economic sphere of influence by enabling low-cost robotic exploration and eventual commercial development of asteroids. For more information, please visit www.PlanetaryResources.com.

I wish them complete and rapid success.

KEEPING IT CLEAN: High-end video of high-end detail job on high-end Ferrari.