MIKE GODWIN, COVER YOUR EARS. Feeling the results of gleichschaltung.

PROF. JACOBSON ON THE DANGERS OF “BLOGGER BURNOUT.” I’m still around. But I suppose it’ll get me too, someday. But today is not that day!

UPDATE: No, that doesn’t mean that I’m “grimly hanging on.” Quite the contrary at this point.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “I Have a Boyfriend, but I Want a Sugar Daddy, Too.”

AT AMAZON, Digital Deals.

Plus, over 100 mysteries on Kindle for 99 cents.

THIS WEEK IN MOTORCYCLE NEWS: Naked Rider Gets A Ticket For Not Wearing A Helmet.

DURHAM COUNTY D.A.’S OFFICE still an embarrassment.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS turn into inventors.

IS THE MAINSTREAMING OF SURVIVALISM, the product of economic despair?

CHANGE: Commercial Space Shuttle Replacements Complete Wind Tunnel Testing. “Two of the companies competing in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program have been busy in the wind tunnel. The overly secretive Blue Origin broke its silence this week with pictures of its unique capsule design and Sierra Nevada Corporation also released news of its Dream Chaser, completing scale model wind tunnel testing in Texas.”

TEST-DRIVING the new Audi S7. I drove the A7 last year and was quite impressed. The S7 should just be . . . moreso.

UPDATE: Reader Marc Greendorfer writes:

Interesting review you linked to on the new Audi S7. Likewise for your previous review on the A7.

We recently traded in our fairly new (2010) Audi A5 for a 2012 A7. I loved the A5, but it was my wife’s daily driver and for her 90+ mile daily commute, mostly on freeways, the smaller size and harsher ride of the sports oriented A5 was a problem. So with much regret on my part, she traded in the A5 for the A7.

The A5 had the 3.2 six cylinder with and the a7 has a 3.0 supercharged six cylinder with an eight speed automatic. We were always pleased with the mileage on the A5, especially given the level of performance it provided (usually in the low 20s in the city, high 20s on the freeway), but the significantly larger A7’s mileage is actually better that A5’s. City mileage is about the same but we’re getting a bit over 30 mpg on the freeway. I think a lot of this has to do with the 2 extra gears in the transmission, but it may also be that the 3.0 supercharged engine is more efficient generally. In any event, I was surprised to see the concern about fuel economy in your initial review of the A7, as it’s been a nice surprise for us.

And the rest of what you say about the A7 is definitely what we’re experiencing. It’s a big, comfortable, sporty ride with very adequate power and a lot of welcome tech features. The fact that it’s a hatchback (albeit one with a low roofline) makes it pretty much a do-everything vehicle for us. I suspect we will keep this Audi for a lot more than two years.

Sounds nice. Yes, the hatchback is a very useful feature.

LOVE FOR SALE? Well, maybe internships. You know, I just pointed out that I don’t have interns at InstaPundit, but I was missing the whole revenue-model approach . . . .

Also, a larger lesson: “School no longer prepares kids to either get or keep jobs, and internships are springing up to fill the gap. This is partly an indictment of our educational system and partly a statement about how the job market is changing.”

THIS SEEMS QUITE WRONG TO ME AS A MATTER OF FIRST AMENDMENT DOCTRINE: Facebook “likes” aren’t speech protected by the First Amendment–Bland v. Roberts.

CAMPAIGN ADS: The Audacity of Bubba.

Former President Bill Clinton appears in a new Obama campaign ad suggesting that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, even though Clinton himself repeatedly spurned opportunities to capture or kill the 9/11 mastermind.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon that Clinton’s appearance in the ad was “just astonishing.”

“It’s pretty preposterous to suggest that he ran an aggressive counter-terrorism shop,” Gerecht said of Clinton. “Far, far from it. The notion that President Clinton was focused on the issue, was aggressive on the issue and was willing to really put his presidency on the line to go after bin Laden is absurd.”

In a 2006 interview on Fox News Sunday, Clinton animatedly claimed he “worked hard to try to kill [bin Laden].”

The facts suggest otherwise.

Yes, Clinton blew his shot at getting bin Laden before 9/11 — and when that was dramatized in The Path To 9/11, the Clintons used their influence to ensure that the made-for-TV movie never aired again. And it still hasn’t. It’s not available on DVD, either. (For more on this see Blocking The Path To 9/11 with Andrew Breitbart.)

Of course, any commercial where Bill Clinton is talking about honor and integrity is automatically a joke.

DAMON ROOT: The New York Times Flipflops on Judicial Restraint. “Shouldn’t the Times’ editorial board try a little harder to avoid openly contradicting itself like that?”

They’re just phoning this stuff in now.

WHO NEEDS A BOTTLEOPENER, when you can use a Buttleopener?

TRANSPARENCY: FCC Approves New Rule on Political TV Advertising.

The Federal Communications Commission approved new regulations Friday requiring broadcasters to publish political advertising data online, a move that could shed light on who is trying to influence elections amid unprecedented campaign spending.

Television stations already are required to track purchases of political advertising and make the information publicly available, but posting it on the Web will make it easier to access. Only stations affiliated with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in the top 50 media markets will be required to post data on new ad buys this year, with smaller stations expected to follow in 2014.

I’d like to see the New York Times’ advertising figures, too. Since they supported this rule, perhaps they’ll provide them. . . .

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Sports, Exercise, and Outdoors.

DOG-EATING PRESIDENT JOKES ABOUT EATING DOGS. Jim Treacher tweets: I win. No blenders were mentioned, however.

Also: Jimmy Kimmel jabs Obama/Holder over Fast and Furious; most of D.C. media/Hollywood celebs scratch heads.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVER-GENEROUS PUBLIC PENSION PLANS: How Retirement Benefits May Sink the States.

Government retiree costs are likely to play an increasing role in the competition among states for business and people, because these liabilities are not evenly distributed. Some states have enormous retiree obligations that they will somehow have to pay; others have enacted significant reforms, or never made lofty promises to their workers in the first place.

Indiana’s debt for unfunded retiree health-care benefits, for example, amounts to just $81 per person. Neighboring Illinois’s accumulated obligations for the same benefit average $3,399 per person. Illinois is an object lesson in why firms are starting to pay more attention to the long-term fiscal prospects of communities. Early last year, the state imposed $7 billion in new taxes on residents and business, pledging to use the money to eliminate its deficit and pay down a backlog of unpaid bills (to Medicaid providers, state vendors and delayed tax refunds to businesses). But more than a year later, the state is in worse fiscal shape, with its total deficit expected to increase to $5 billion from $4.6 billion, according to an estimate by the Civic Federation of Chicago.

Rising pension costs will eat up much of the tax increase. Illinois borrowed money in the last two years to make contributions to its public pension funds. This year, under pressure to stop adding to its debt, the legislature must make its pension contributions out of tax money. That will cost $4.1 billion plus an additional $1.6 billion in interest payments on previous pension borrowings.

Business leaders are now speaking openly about Illinois’ fiscal failures.

Let’s just be thankful that the folks running our national budget don’t think the same way as . . . uh oh.

See, the thing is, some people say that people aren’t clever enough to plan for their own retirement. But what makes anyone believe that people can then be clever enough to plan for other people’s retirements?

Or as one commenter says:

So Nocera made bad, costly decision after bad, costly decision, and his conclusion is “The 401(K) is a failed experiment”?

Let me guess: the solution is a government-funded retirement for everyone. Yes, that’ll work out just fine. Nocera can retire, and I can pay for his retirement with my tax money.

Only if politicians value buying his vote more than yours.

UPDATE: Reader Joe Glandorf writes:

Nocera doesn’t seem to notice that defined benefit plans, both public and private, have failed and (for the public sector) are on the verge of failing, massively. Does he not know that all these beneficiaries will get downgraded from what they were “promised”? Yes, as recently as 20 years ago, managing a 401-k or IRA was expensive as well as challenging. Today, however, a complete investment novice can go on-line and quickly find a low cost, highly diversified, automatically re-balancing investment program from a number of sound investment firms (I use Vanguard) for one’s IRA if not an employer’s 401-k. These will, essentially, duplicate what any pension fund has historically done. The difference is that the beneficiary will know each step of the way where they REALLY stand and can control their spending and expectations accordingly. But that would take most people about 30 hours to do some thorough research. Apparently, this is too much for the Nocera’s of the world to expect from anyone; actually do some work understanding how to provide for your own financial security.

Of course, that won’t help you if you raid the fund to pay for new granite countertops. But then, that’s what our political leaders have been doing on a national scale for years.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader writes: “One recurring theme that I’ve noticed with 50-60 something NY Times columnists, and indeed men of that age in general, is that their financial woes involve a messy divorce earlier in their life. For people who are wondering why young men don’t ‘man up’ and marry, they may want to consider the effect of one example of divorce-induced financial ruin after another.” Well, that’s what the Insta-Wife’s forthcoming book is about.

And reader Jeff Randles emails: “If I raid my 401k then I’ve got the granite counter tops. If the government raids my 401k, then somebody else gets the granite counter tops.”

MORE: A reader who asks for anonymity comments: “Just wanted to point out that Teresa Ghilarducci was the Democrat operative that proposed the GRA to a congressional committee as a replacement for the 401K. That was what triggered the blogosphere backlash and the subsequent backpedaling of Democrats when it was suggested that they were trying to seize peoples’ 401K and IRA accounts. So having Joe Nocera quote her in his article about his 401K is a bit telling, don’t you think?”

MORE STILL: Reader Theodore Simon spots an irony:

‘What, then, will people do when they retire? I asked Ghilarducci. “Their retirement plan is faith based,” she replied. “They have faith that it will somehow work out.” ‘

Isn’t that precisely what Congressional Democrats always offer as their excuse for doing nothing to ensure the long-term viability of Social Security and Medicare, that in the end, it will “somehow work out”?

As I say, if people are too dumb to plan for their own retirements, they’re probably too dumb to plan for other people’s, too. And certainly there’s no evidence that the folks in Washington are any less dumb than the public at large.

STILL MORE: Reader John Primmer writes:

Professor Reynolds: Isn’t it telling that when a 60 year old NYT columnist wakes up to the fact that he has messed up his retirement plans, he turns to a “behavioral economist at the New School.” And the advice he gets is “OMG this is truly a mess. We must devise a new system to fix it.” As another reader observed, you can go online and have access to gobs of information that can help you make sound investment decisions. Or you can call on financial consultants employed by dozens of low-cost brokers/custodians, such as Schwab, Fidelity, T Rowe Price, E Trade, et al. In contrast to most politicians, reputable financial advisors realize that their advice has consequences and they will be judged on their performance.

Heh. Indeed.

THE HILL: Senate Democrats plan another trap for Romney with female voters.

I think Romney should promise that, if elected, he will seek to extend sexual-harassment law to cover members of Congress. Then ask Senators where they stand on that issue . . .

RAND SIMBERG: Rectification Of Names. “The ‘War on Terror’ may be over but the fight against Islamism continues.”

ELIZABETH WARREN: “Funny, she doesn’t look Siouxish.”

CREEPING ISLAMIZATION? British Docs Busted For Offering Female Circumcision.

MARK STEYN: Democrats Should Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. “My point is that self-loathing cultural relativism is so deeply ingrained on the left that any revulsion to dog-eating is trumped by revulsion to criticizing any of the rich, vibrant, cultural diversity out there in Indonesia or anywhere else. Most polygamy in the developed world is nothing to do with Mormons: It’s widely practiced by western Muslims, whose plural marriages are recognized de facto by French and Ontario welfare departments and de jure by Britain’s pensions department. But ‘edgy’ ‘transgressive’ leftie comics on sad, pandering standup shows will reserve their polygamy jokes for Mormons until the last stern-faced elder in Utah keels over at the age of 112.” Or until Mormons start sawing off heads. Transgressiveness has its limits.

Plus this:

Obama’s appetite for dogs isn’t as critical as his appetite for spending and statism. But it was part of his cool. “Mitt Romney isn’t cool,” declared Brian Montopoli of CBS News this week in a story headlined “Can Mitt Romney Make Boring Sexy”? For economically beleaguered Americans, the more pertinent question is: “Can Barack Obama Make Cool Affordable”? It’s not just that Obama ate the dog, but that he’s screwing the pooch.

Indeed.