REASON: The Recovery That Wasn’t: Three and a half years later, White House officials are still making wildly optimistic comments about the economy they mismanaged. “By his own criterion, Obama deserves to be judged harshly. Headline unemployment, which the incoming administration projected to top out at 8.0 percent as long as its landmark February 2009 stimulus package was passed, has yet to be lower than 8.0 percent. The labor force non-participation rate—the percentage of healthy, working-age Americans who are no longer actively seeking a job and therefore not counted in headline unemployment statistics—has steadily climbed from 34.2 percent (then a two-decade high) in the month before Obama took office to 36.2 percent as of press time. Meanwhile, administration officials have spent the intervening time claiming, absurdly, that the economy is on the mend.”

Related: James Pethokoukis: Does this look like an economy that’s moving forward? 9 reasons why it really doesn’t. “I would like to believe the U.S. economy is firmly back on track and headed toward renewed prosperity. A slow track, to be sure, but at least things are moving forward. That would be something, at least. Except the data show a recovery in reverse, headed the wrong way.”

THIS WEEK IN the future.

RECOMMENDED READING: Debunking 9/11 Myths, by the editors of Popular Mechanics.

BUILDING CHEAP BATTERIES to circumvent the grid.

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Performance Pretenders: 10 Malaise-Era Muscle Cars. “Automakers slathered flashy paint and taped racy stripes and stickers to the hoods of the cars, but these 10 just couldn’t get’er done at the dragstrip.”

RICHARD EPSTEIN: The Preacher-In-Chief. “It is not possible to have such a thin and immature understanding of how an economic system is put together by accident. That can only arise from the failure to adopt the right premises in the first place.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: Why Are We Spending So Much Money On College? “For an increasing number of kids, the extra time and money spent pursuing a college diploma will leave them worse off than they were before they set foot on campus. . . . The price of a McDonald’s hamburger has risen from 85 cents in 1995 to about a dollar today. The average price of all goods and services has risen about 50 percent. But the price of a college education has nearly doubled in that time. Is the education that today’s students are getting twice as good? Are new workers twice as smart? Have they become somehow massively more expensive to educate?” Her analysis sounds right to me.

She is, by the way, back to blogging.

FASTER, PLEASE: American Startups Leading A Healthcare Revolution. “Someday soon, computers, robots, and microchips will take over much of the medicine business from human beings. Picture a vast database, for example, with access to your personal and family medical history, the results of medical studies from all over the globe, medicines being tested in current studies, calculations on success rates of various pills and treatments—and then imagine a device in your home capable of running your personal information through that database to figure out why you’ve been feeling weird for the past couple days.”

Andy Kessler has been predicting this for a while. Personally, I’m worried that ObamaCare may slow the adoption of new lifesaving technologies.

NATIONAL SECURITY: Parents of SEAL Team Six member say unit endangered by Obama administration statements.

UPDATE: Leon Panetta: When The President Does It, It’s Not Illegal.

TMI ABOUT CHUCK SCHUMER AND EATING LAUNDRY DETERGENT: “Schumer’s not done. For his next press conference, he plans to lambaste manufacturers of electrical outlets for making them look so much like kissy-faces.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: You’re a White Male; He’s a White Male; Everyone’s a White Male—-But Me.

NYU: The Beast That Ate The Village?

AT AMAZON, it’s the videogame clearance sale.

THE FIX IS IN: J. Christian Adams: Don’t Expect Much From The DoJ Inspector General’s Report On Fast And Furious.

SO HOW TO NOTE THE ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11? In the past I’ve given shooting lessons to a Marine, I’ve taken the day off from blogging, and I’ve even gone to a Tea Party.

This year, as in most past years, I’ll just keep on blogging as usual. And here’s a link to my original 9/11 coverage — just scroll on up. At this late date, I don’t have much new to say on 9/11. But these predictions held up pretty well.

The picture above is by my cousin-in-law Brad Rubenstein, taken from his apartment that day. You might also want to read this piece by James Lileks.

And here’s a passage from Lee Harris’s Civilization And Its Enemies.

Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe.
…
They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish.

They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for — yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part — something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means.

The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason — it is his reason, and not ours.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating today.

You should also watch this memorial, made shortly after the attacks. It’s still quite powerful.

UPDATE: Sarah Hoyt: “Has it really been eleven years?” A must-read post that’s more about the present than the past.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Chicago teachers rain friendly fire on Team Obama. Some people think this whole thing is being staged so that Obama can have a Sister Souljah Moment with a public-employee union. But the image of well-fed angry entitlement that the strike presents may do more harm than that could redeem.

THE HILL: Oversight Chairman Issa forced to delay ‘Fast and Furious’ hearing. “Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has been forced to postpone a hearing on an inspector general’s investigation of “Operation Fast and Furious” until next week. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, told Issa in a recent letter that after 17 months of investigating the botched gun-tracking operation, the lengthy report would not be ready for public release until later this week, at the earliest.”

Note to The Hill: The operation wasn’t “botched.” And it wasn’t a gun-tracking operation.

WAPO POLL: Romney, Obama In Statistical Tie Among Likely Voters. In a poll with only 23% Republicans.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Survey: Few Employers are Planning to Hire During the Fourth Quarter.

BOB WOODWARD ON ABC ABOUT THE DEBT CEILING: Obama Did Not Lead.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: 25 And Deep In Debt: My Experience.

At 25 years old, I have $188,307.22 in student debt, all of which is my sole financial responsibility.

That exorbitant number was abetted by easy lending with a co-signer, negligence and lack of awareness, over-borrowing and the exponential growth of tuition.

I work both a full-time and part-time job, and abide by a strict budget. Yet, I still sleep in my parent’s basement and am dependent for food, gas and health insurance.

I am told I am not alone.

Sadly, not at all. But others can be saved from this fate, at very little expense.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY ON OBAMA’S IPHONE FLUB:

As President Obama fumbled with an iPhone, the blogosphere recalled he had earlier falsely bad-mouthed President Rutherford B. Hayes as a technological troglodyte. It’s not his error that annoys but his arrogance.

For a man who would have Americans believe that he and his big government are smarter than anyone, it might help if the president could show some evidence of it when he lectures others.

Instead, Obama bumbled around on an iPhone at a campaign stop with no idea how to master the device, triggering a viral response on the Internet about his past pontifications on history and technology.

Indeed it did.

Plus this: “Hayes unleashed the free market. Obama not only has done the opposite, he hasn’t even mastered today’s telephone.” Ouch.

HIGH GAS PRICES: WHO KNEW?

You know, I don’t drive much. I don’t even leave the house much. But sometimes I have to go out, and sometimes I even need to gas up the car, but since I do it infrequently, I’m not always aware of the gas prices.

So, imagine my surprise when I went to my favorite gas station and found “regular” gas running at 4.19 per gallon. Yeah, even higher than that picture!

Yes, I was shocked, and while I pumped my $40 worth, I chatted with the fellow on the other side of the aisle who was watching the digit-counters while shaking his head.

“I hadn’t realized gas had gotten so expensive,” I said.

“You live on Mars?” he asked.

“Well, you know, I’m not even seeing it being reported on in the headlines,” I answered. “I just lost track.”

“That’s true,” he said, as though it was a new awareness. “Usually there are news reports…”

Yeah, there are. Pulling away with my not-full tank of gas, I considered the media silence on these high gas prices, and I began to get mad. Once upon a time — and not that long ago — high gas prices were leading stories on nightly news programs. Grim-faced anchors introduced stories of family budgets becoming strained; earnest reporters shoved microphones into the faces of working people and asked whether they were having to make hard choices. It was all very solemn and serious. People were choosing between food and fuel, and winter was coming, and home-heating oil would likely be sky-high, too, and we all knew whose fault it was, didn’t we?

But now, with gas at $4.19 — higher, near the expressway — here in New York? Not a whisper. Not a headline.

Gosh, if only Mitt Romney had “big oil” pals. We’d hear about this story every night, and I wouldn’t have been so surprised, today.

If only. See, if you want media scrutiny of the regime, you need to elect a Republican president. It’s as simple as that.

WHEN OBAMA COULDN’T USE THE IPHONE, he naturally blamed the phone’s owner, not himself. “Of course he did. Blaming other people is the default option for Barack Obama, after all. I’d call him a one-trick pony, except that ponies are cool.”