WHY IS THE RECOVERY SO SLOW? David Boaz rounds up just one day’s worth of reasons.

STALINESQUE MEDIA HATE SPEECH: CNN’s Roland Martin Prescribes ‘Shock Therapy’ for PJ Media’s David Steinberg, on Twitter.

Related: “Though tempting, it might not be a good idea to lobby CNN to suspend Martin again. I sort of like how he’s showing the world who he really is, and what his continued employment says about the network which employes him.”

DON SURBER: Say Goodnight, Newt.

A FAKE HATE CRIME IN KANSAS CITY? Tom Maguire Smells A Rat. Well, stay tuned.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: How Green Gullibility, Hyperpartisanship Are Wrecking The Climate Movement. “One of the biggest intellectual failures of the global green movement against climate change is the persistent failure of its leaders and spokespeople to grasp the way their own advocacy fatally undermines their credibility.”

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: ‘Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse’ & Other Hot New College Courses.

Mock all you want, but some people take this pretty seriously. Others think you should broaden your focus.

JOHN GALT WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Lisa Belkin: Women Should Be Angry At Men’s “Opting Out.”

Apparently, women should always be angry.

MICKEY KAUS: “Hunger Games is a compelling allegorical plea for social equality, against unchecked illegal immigration and union bureaucracy. Seneca Crane is a maybe-too-obvious stand-in for the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).” Heh.

WHEN A DISSERTATION GETS “HEAVY EDITING.” “Thomas Sowell views the white professor writing a dissertation for a black student as engaging in a misguided act of sympathy. At some level, I wish that as deplorable as the act is, it was out of compassion. My own observations revealed anything but compassion.” It is not compassionate to allow your students to learn less than they should.

One might respond, of course, that the entire dissertation process has little value except as a form of hazing and as a barrier to entry. But such an argument might prove too much, as we lawyers say.

AT AMAZON, an Outlet Sale on clothing and accessories.

Plus, today only: Norelco 8250XL Shaver for $49.99.

THE FRACK NATION DOCUMENTARY: Doing quite well on Kickstarter.

TODAY’S KINDLE DEAL OF THE DAY: 77 cookbooks for all tastes, $2.99 and under.

ROGER SIMON: Europe Will Never Forgive the Jews for Auschwitz. “The Jews are living reminders of the moral failure of Europe. This leads to the projection of guilt on Israel and the remaining European Jews.”

TEST-DRIVING THE 2012 Ford Taurus Ecoboost.

LINE UP HERE to be rescued by the alien spaceship. I can’t think of a worse place to wait out the apocalypse than among thousands of New Agers.

SURPRISINGLY SOUGHT-AFTER: Turkish Bootleg Star Wars Figures From The 1980s.

CHANGE: A GOP Grows In Brooklyn. “Officials this week may formally crown Republican attorney David Storobin the winner in last week’s special election for ex-Sen. Carl Kruger’s seat in the borough’s 27th Senate District. (Kruger was convicted of corruption and forced to step down.)”

WHO LOVES INFLATION? Wall Street Loves Inflation.

HAS THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION been good for women? Did it elect more Democrats? Because as far as I can tell, that’s always good for women.

DUDE, WHERE’S MY HATE CRIME? “This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy.” Not worthy of media attention, since it can’t be used to promote the Democrats.

UPDATE: But see this.

CHANGE: IRS Increased Audit Rate of Richest Americans by 63% in 2011.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? “I was in Australia earlier this month and there, as elsewhere on my recent travels, the consensus among the politicians I met (at least in private) was that Washington lacked the will for meaningful course correction, and that, therefore, the trick was to ensure that, when the behemoth goes over the cliff, you’re not dragged down with it. It is faintly surreal to be sitting in paneled offices lined by formal portraits listening to eminent persons who assume the collapse of the dominant global power is a fait accompli. . . . Greece’s total debt is a few rinky-dink billions, a rounding error in the average Obama budget. Only America is spending trillions. The 2011 budget deficit, for example, is about the size of the entire Russian economy. By 2010, the Obama administration was issuing about a hundred billion dollars of treasury bonds every month — or, to put it another way, Washington is dependent on the bond markets being willing to absorb an increase of U.S. debt equivalent to the GDP of Canada or India — every year. And those numbers don’t take into account the huge levels of personal debt run up by Americans. College-debt alone is over a trillion dollars, or the equivalent of the entire South Korean economy — tied up just in one small boutique niche market of debt which barely exists in most other developed nations.”

No organization can survive corruption and ineptitude at the top forever. And we’ve had the worse political class in American history for a while now, though its rottenness has really accelerated lately.

UPDATE: A longtime reader emails:

I’m a Canadian, and you might be interested to know that the Harper government are working very hard (in the background) along the same lines as the Aussies. They are doing everything possible to diversify Canada’s export markets away from the US as fast as possible, for example the pipeline to move Alberta and Saskatchewan oil to world markets via the sea, not to the US. Ditto aeroplanes, rail cars, fibre-optic electronics, robotics, lumber, and a wide range of other products.

The quiet back-room planning is driven by the alarming extent to which the Obama administration has already deeply damaged the US economy (compared to Canada) with its policies, actions, and insane deficits. The Harper government are now moving to shut down US environmentalist activity in Canada — “We’re not going to be your National Park.” says the PM — and are already developping scenarios for maximum-possible disconnect from the States in the event Obama and his crew are returned to power in the coming elections. [no name please if published … in spite of my present location I continue to follow Canadian politics very closely and have children living there. If it weren’t for Canada’s lack of truly free speech, draconian gun laws, and miserable health system, I’d be moving back.]

Ugh.