HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Exclusive: U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse.

ANOTHER REASON TO REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS: Google Appeases Hollywood But Rankles Internet Freedom Watchers. “Google’s nod to Hollywood with its decision to demote in its search results sites accused of copyright infringement raises questions about fairness and the ability of suspected violators to challenge the move. The Motion Picture Association of America has praised the Internet search leader’s announcement on Friday, while some advocates of Internet freedom have panned it or had a lukewarm response.”

Also, I think we should limit motion picture copyrights to 28 years. After all, at some point you’ve made enough money.

PAUL RAHE: Romney’s Declaration Of War. “In choosing Paul Ryan as his Vice-Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney has opted to go for broke, and he has indicated that he is a serious man — less concerned with becoming President of the United States than with saving the country from the disaster in store for it if we not radically reverse course, willing to risk a loss for the sake of being able to win a mandate for reform.”

JAZZ SHAW: Paul Ryan boosts Romney with strong gun-rights record.

AT AMAZON, it’s the August headphone sale.

Also, today only: Kyocera Revolution Paring and Santoku Ceramic Knife Set, $37.99 (52% off).

HMM: Huge crowds line Manassas streets for Romney-Ryan. “Susan Ferrechio, The Washington Examiner’s crack congressional reporter traveling with the Romney-Ryan press bus troupe today, offers a photo of the crowds lining the streets of Manassas, Virginia, as the political caravan makes it way through downtown. How to explain such crowds if Obama is leading in Virginia, one of the key swing states? Either the Romney advance team did a phenomenal job of generating interest before today, or there is a continuing surge in electoral momentum for insurgent change-agent candidates like that which powered the Republican sweep of the 2010 races.”

More Manassas reporting from crack blogger Stacy McCain.

PHOTOSHOP FUN with the latest Obama effort.

AT 77, Social Security Confronts Its Own Mortality.

To paraphrase IowaHawk: You know what will kill Social Security as we know it? Social Security as we know it. Really.

Maybe we need to pursue the Longevity Dividend.

AT AMAZON, hot new releases in Movies & TV.

GALLUP: More Seniors Prefer Ryan Budget Plan than Obama’s.

LIFE EXTENSION AND GENE THERAPY: AN UPDATE FROM AUBREY DE GREY.

TWEET OF THE DAY: “Has anyone asked what Paul Ryan’s relationship is to Trig Palin?” I’m sure the question has occupied at least one blogger’s mind.

ACTUALLY, THE CODENAME IS “SCORPION STARE” and it’s not actually about surveillance.

Much more here. Hope and change!

PROF. JACOBSON: No longer on the donation sideline. “I just donated to the Romney-Ryan campaign. And in case you were wondering, maxed out. For the first time in my adult life I was proud to do so. It’s not just about Romney-Ryan, it’s about who we are up against.”

THE ARGUMENT FOR ROMNEY-RYAN: Mort Zuckerman: Under Obama, the New American Dream Is a Job. “What we have been living through is a breakdown of the great American jobs machine. Jobs have long been the best social program, the best economic program, and the best family program in America. No longer. The jobs are not there. Unemployment today is the worst since the Great Depression. . . . All the net jobs created during the Obama administration have been part-time jobs. An estimated 35 million Americans are trapped in jobs they would have left in better times. Fewer Americans are working today than in the year 2000, despite the fact that our population has grown by 31 million and our labor force by 11.4 million since then.”

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

THAT OLD PRESS-PANIC IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE: Whatever Happened To The Huttaree Militia?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Hard Times Spread for Cities: Rising Health, Pension Costs Top the List as Municipalities Struggle to Recover From the Recession.

BOB ZUBRIN: Our Emissary on Mars, Budget Woes on Earth.

WHY MORE GEEZERS are getting it on.

A CHAIR THAT MAKES SCARY MOVIES SCARIER: “The chair artificially induces body hairs to stand up, intensifying a person’s response.”

KEITH HENNESSEY: The Campaign Politics Of The Ryan Budget. “Every ‘cut program X by Y%’ quote about the Ryan budget will be relative to an unsustainable spending path. The irresponsible part isn’t the proposed spending cut, it’s the promise to keep spending growth going without specifying how you’ll pay for it. If President Obama were proposing tax increases to match his future spending growth, then this would be a fair attack. But he is not. More generally, the Obama fiscal path and campaign message rely on the false presumption that everything will be OK if we raise tax increases only on the rich and make small, mostly painless spending cuts. This is incorrect. Whether you support spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination, you need to make big, structural fiscal policy changes to get on a long-term sustainable fiscal path. Our federal government spending path is seriously out of whack and minor adjustments won’t fix it.”

HUMANS ON MARS: The Craziest, Weirdest, and Most Plausible Plans in History.

MICKEY KAUS: “Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is certainly open to attack. I oppose it. Dems might make great use of it as an issue. But President Obama is a highly imperfect Medicare defender, having agreed to take Medicare away from 65 and 66 year olds in the failed ‘grand bargain’ talks with John Boehner. Indeed, according to the NYT, Obama thinks he didn’t get enough credit from the press for his willingness to throw Medicare under the bus.”

BRYAN PRESTON: Flashback: Paul Ryan vs Barack Obama, February 2010. Video at the link.

GERALD SEIB: Romney’s Ryan Pick Ensures Different Kind of Race. “The Ryan pick wasn’t the safest one Mr. Romney could have made—not by a long shot. But as the author of the budget plan that most clearly delineates the view of limited government that most Republicans hold, and with more specificity and crystalline explanation than most can muster, Mr. Ryan best guarantees the country will get the kind of philosophical debate worthy of a presidential campaign.”

Meanwhile, reader John Borchers sends this cautionary image:

UPDATE: John Fund: Smart Democrats Should Be Worried.