ECONOMY: Can The USA Save The World? “There’s a potentially big fiscal headwind coming and Congress is really going to have to face the music.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

The yearend fiscal wall is a “known known”. What’s NOT known is how the federal government will look after election day. Will Harry Reid have a last chance to roll a hand grenade into a GOP White House? Will a lame duck Obama let the economy hit the wall, handing the GOP an economic disaster? Will Boehner look to sabotage a second Obama term? Global capital markets have no way of knowing what incentives the executive and legislative branches will have.

And by the way, it’s even-money the US hits another debt ceiling just as the fall campaign goes into overdrive.

Happy Easter!

Oh, goody.

JOHN DERBYSHIRE CANNED BY NATIONAL REVIEW. This does not come as a complete surprise, even to someone like me who didn’t really follow him very closely. Here’s a link to the piece he was canned for, though when I clicked it I got “connection reset.”

Related: M.J. Rosenberg out at Media Matters.

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED! Food activists proved wrong about fat are now setting their sights on sugar. Yeah, but how can you trust an article written by a guy named Bacon?

OBAMA TO THE IRANIANS: If you like your nukes, you can keep your nukes. “US President Barack Obama has signaled Tehran that the Washington would accept an civilian nuclear program in Iran if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent claim that his nation ‘will never pursue nuclear weapons.’”

Let’s hope it’s as big a lie as the one about keeping your health insurance. . . .

TODAY ONLY: Up to 50% off on women’s denim.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Jobs Of The Future. “In my father’s childhood, people shot their dogs when they got sick. In my childhood, we took them to the vet to have them put down. Now they get bone marrow transplants. Like all infant industries, pet health care on this scale is developing and will develop further as the economy changes, but it’s just another of the many new niche industries with the potential to offer good pay at many different skill levels.”

PROFESSOR JACOBSON: DOING THE JOB THE ALLEGEDLY PROFESSIONAL MEDIA WON’T:

The latest wildfire spreading through the media and blogosphere is that armed neo-Nazis are patrolling Sanford, FL, in anticipation of trouble if George Zimmerman is not charged in the killing of Trayvon Martin. In what has become a prime example of media malpractice, none of the major publications spreading the rumors bothered to check with local law enforcement. I did, and the Sanford Police deny any indication of neo-Nazi patrols. . . .

For The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Mediaite, and The Daily News to spread such thinly-sourced claims without verification at a time when racial tensions already are high is irresponsible in the extreme.

Remember when people were saying that if we left news reporting to the blogosphere we’d just get a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors and spin?

HOME INVASIONS FAIL in the face of armed homeowners. But there’s no press coverage to speak of, because it can’t be turned to the service of the preferred narrative.

TOM BLUMER: The Administration’s Press. And Its Propagandists.

IS THE NEW SPACE ENTREPRENEURIALISM GETTING READY TO TAKE OFF? Maybe.

While winding down the program, the agency has laid off 9,200 prime contractors, who in turn laid off thousands of subcontractors. Most staffers have been spared, although some have left NASA to pursue dreams no longer achievable at a diminished government agency. Many of these astronauts, scientists, and technologists are entering the startup world. “They are very bright and used to working on projects on a very large scale,” says Ted Schlein, a managing partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has funded three companies led by NASA vets, including Kemp’s.

But that’s not the really big news. This is:

The simultaneous rise of Silicon Valley and decline of state-sponsored space exploration could affect the career paths of a generation. More than 40 percent of the students attending one of the nation’s premier space programs, at Georgia Institute of Technology, now want to work for space-related startups instead of large NASA contractors such as Lockheed Martin (LMT), says professor Robert Braun, who left his post as NASA’s chief technologist last year. “The NASA brand is still pretty strong,” he says. But more and more students “want to work for a startup and get their hands dirty.”

That seems like a very, very good sign to me. Related item here.

THINGS THAT WORK: So the Mazda sits a lot, especially in the winter: I don’t like to drive it when the weather’s bad, especially when there might be salt residue on the road. And now that the Insta-Daughter is driving, her car often blocks it in. That means that the battery sometimes gets low. I don’t really worry, because I’ve got a jumpstarter, but since that can’t be good for the battery, I bought a NoCo Genius charger to keep it on trickle-charge. Works like a charm. Also good for reviving dead batteries.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “I got the Duracell model from Amazon about a year ago when my stepdad stopped driving his car regularly. Does a nice job and under $20 bucks.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Ladies: You’re Not as Good in Bed as You Think. “The bottom line is that if your sex life is bad, you bear at least some of the blame — maybe even an entire half of it.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Adding To The Toolbox For Making Complex Molecular Machines.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST: 1966 Chevrolet Impala SS 427 Convertible reminds us of days long gone.

WORST WEDDING GUEST EVER: Attacks Bride, Slow Dances with Groom, Leaves in Cop Car.

DAVID GOLDMAN: Short Supply, Not Middle East Tensions, Push up Oil Prices. If only we had, I dunno, a friendly country nearby that was willing to sell us oil or something.

GENERATIONAL WARFARE: GERMANY SET TO TAX YOUNG. “Germany is proposing to levy extra taxes on the young to pay for the costs of the country’s growing numbers of old people, under government plans for a ‘demographic reserve’ levy.” I’m guessing that emigration rates will climb, not just because of the taxes but because of what the taxes portend.

BOB OWENS: Bunkers, Food, Armor: Disaster Prep Hits Mainstream.

I didn’t realize how mainstream it had become until Costco sent me an e-flyer: “Get Your Home And Garden Stocked For An Emergency And Save!” It promoted emergency preparedness, the top suggestions being a month of food storage supplies and emergency garden seeds.

Modern prepping has come a long way from the survivalists of the late 1990s.

As I wrote a while back, we’re all soldiers of fortune now. And if this stuff interests you, you might want to check out Bill Quick’s disaster-preparation forum. Also, here’s a list of some key supplies, and here are some bug-out bag recommendations.