IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL ONLY BECOME STRONGER . . . MEDIA MATTERS FAIL: Rush Limbaugh’s Ratings Increase By 60 Percent.

Video courtesy of Jim Treacher, who also mocks David Brock’s limp book sales.

And notes that the SEIU had to pay protesters $20 to show up at the Supreme Court. Nothin’ for nothin’ and damn little for a dollar. When that’s your motto, what do you expect? . . . .

JOHN PODHORETZ: “The panicked reception in the mainstream media of the three-day Supreme Court health-care marathon is a delightful reminder of the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals. . . . The strength of the conservative arguments only came as a surprise to Toobin, Greenhouse and others because they evidently spent two years putting their fingers in their ears and singing, ‘La la la, I’m not listening’ whenever the conservative argument was being advanced.”

UPDATE: Chris Matthews: I’m pretty surprised to learn that the mandate might be unconstitutional. “I was totally unprepared because of the way people talked.”

WILL THIS BRING ON GLOBAL COOLING? Modified microbes turn carbon dioxide to liquid fuel.

JOHN HINDERAKER: “President Obama has fanned the flames of hatred in the Trayvon Martin case, and has not said a single critical word about the outrageous actions of the New Black Panthers, who offered a $10,000 bounty on George Zimmerman–the same New Black Panthers on whose behalf Eric Holder quashed a federal criminal prosecution; or of Spike Lee, who tweeted a wrong address for Zimmerman, presumably to facilitate harassment or even murder; or of the many liberals who have posted on the @killzimmerman Twitter feed; or of the many other Democrats and liberals who have indulged in an orgy of hate with respect to Mr. Zimmerman. President Obama’s interest in the victims of violence is selective: he cares if they look like the hypothetical son he doesn’t have.”

In other words, he’s a racist hatemonger. Just to be clear. So much for hope and change.

Hope is what he promised. Hate is what he’s delivering.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has never heard of scheduled posts, apparently. I was happily asleep at 3:18. Funny that someone who’s been blogging as long as Sullivan has never heard of scheduled posts. He seems to live in an insular little world. But still, you’d think that one of the interns would have known.

As for “nutball,” well, I think it’s entirely fair to call a man whose political machine spreads racial and gender division for political advantage a hatemonger. Sullivan has his own reasons for feeling grateful to Obama, of course, and that may color his views.

But at least some people are showing some sense: Civil rights leaders condemn Sharpton’s call for escalated civil disobedience. But where was Obama?

CHINESE POWER PRODUCTION not screaming “recovery.”

Well, neither is U.S. power production.

DAN RIEHL: Does New Sanford PD Video Show Zimmerman With Broken Nose? As I keep saying, stay tuned.

OBAMA’S worst week ever? Nope. Just his worst week so far.

ANN ALTHOUSE TAKES ON Charles Pierce’s Racist Attack On Antonin Scalia.

Calling a man of Italian ancestry “Tony” when that isn’t his nickname? Isn’t that on the level of calling a Latino “Jose” or a black man “Leroy” (or some such stereotypical name)? . . . Pope? More anti-Italian (and anti-Catholic) stereotyping crap, which Pierce probably thinks is just fine, indeed hilarious, because it’s against a conservative.

Par for the course for Pierce. Plus, from the comments: “They never seem to see the racism that they and their friends tend to be guilty of. That’s why they smear Thomas in racist terms. Smeared Palin and Bachmann with sexism (apparently, they’re nailing the WI LG with the same kind of nonsense). It’s why we see Tom Hanks on stage with a guy in blackface at an event that had a remarkable lack of racial diversity.”

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “Several readers write that since the French are upset that accused 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui might face the death penalty, perhaps we should have him jump out a window at police headquarters instead. Much neater, much less simplistic.”

NEWS: PHOTOS: Street fires, violence in Spain protest.

Related: Watching Spain, Uneasily. “Was it only yesterday that Italy’s prime minister announced that the crisis was ‘almost over’? Why yes it was. . .”

BUYER’S REMORSE: Peggy Noonan: This Obama character seems increasingly dishonest and devious to me.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “My God, Glenn! Noonan? What next, a reconsideration from T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII?”

PROF. JACOBSON: Yeah, We Were Serious.

JIM TREACHER: Has Obama called David and Elaine McClain to make sure they’re holding up okay? “They’re the elderly Florida couple whose address Spike Lee tweeted because he thought it was George Zimmerman’s. Presumably because he wanted people to go there and discuss things calmly. . . . ‘Fearful for their safety, and hoping to escape the spotlight, the couple have temporarily moved to a hotel.'”

Plus: “Somebody please try to justify this. Seriously. Tell me why this is okay. Tell me why this doesn’t matter. Tell me how this helps. Tell me how anyone involved in this fiasco expects us to just forget what they’ve said and done.”

Also: “And remember Obama’s $35K-a-plate fundraiser at Spike’s house just two months ago? I’m sure they’d both prefer if you didn’t.”

MORE ATTACKS ON JEWS IN FRANCE, leading the New York Times to worry about . . . a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment.

KAUS TO OBAMA: This is a secure border?

WELL, TO BE FAIR, IF HE HAD A SON IT WOULDN’T LOOK LIKE THEM: The parents of two British students murdered in Florida have criticised President Barack Obama for his lack of compassion over their sons’ deaths.

“We would like to publicly express our dissatisfaction at the lack of any public or private message of support or condolence from any American governing body or indeed, President Obama himself.

“Mr Kouzaris has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and is yet to even receive the courtesy of a reply.

“It would perhaps appear that Mr Obama sees no political value in facilitating such a request or that the lives of two British tourists are not worthy of ten minutes of his time.”

The rebuke follows Mr Obama’s personal intervention into the shooting in Florida of a young black teenager by a white-Hispanic neighbourhood watch captain.

He’s a divider, not a uniter.

THE HILL: Rep. Ryan’s budget passed by the House with 10 GOP defections.

More GOP members defected from the Ryan budget than Democratic members voted for Obama’s — since, you know, nobody at all voted for Obama’s budget yesterday.

STILL WAITING: The Quest For A Male Contraceptive Pill.

RAND SIMBERG: What Ion Propulsion Means for Boeing—And Our Future in Space.

AT AMAZON, 25% or more off on select laptops.

A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO, I plugged reader Lloyd Tackett’s post-EMP disaster novel, A Distant Eden, and although I haven’t gotten around to reading it in my largely nonexistent spare time lately, it produced this praise from reader Doug Strunk:

Glenn, since I ditched my cable TV last week I’ve been reading lots. I started Hunger Games night before last … then I saw your link to Tackett’s new e-book. I read the preview from their site and bought it immediately. As soon as I got home from work, I began in earnest. Wife finally made me put it down around 2am. Overslept and had to work late to catch up… but tonight I’m probably going to finish it in a few hours. Very fast read.

The book’s prologue gives all the valid warning you need. It’s not the typical story telling arc of character development. When the Apocalypse happens, there’s no time for a learning curve. I hope to never find out, but in that world if you’re not in survival mode you’re dead quick. The author makes that point early and often throughout the book. I’ll be giving the book very high review stars on Amazon.

Tell Tackett he better be writing the next one already…

You heard him, Lloyd.

STEVE CHAPMAN: Hey, you know what alleviates poverty? Capitalism! “Even communists eventually have to make peace with reality.” Academics and media folks, not so much.

SO WHERE IS EVERYBODY? 10 Billion Earth-Like Planets May Exist in Our Galaxy.

About 40 percent of red dwarf stars may have Earth-sized planets orbiting them that have the right conditions for life.

Red dwarfs – which are smaller and cooler than our sun – are extremely common, making up 80 percent of stars in the galaxy. Their ubiquity suggests that there are tens of billions of possible places to look for life beyond Earth, with at least 100 such planets located nearby.

The new estimate comes from a team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS planet-hunting telescope to look at a sample of 102 nearby red dwarfs over a six-year period. The telescope checked for a characteristic wobble from the star, indicating that at least one planet was tugging on it while orbiting around.

We need interstellar travel. Faster, please!

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Mom Decides Parenting is Not for Her and Leaves. “This morning’s TODAY Show featured a segment on a woman who chose to leave her husband and two young sons (ages 3 and 5 at the time) while on an extended research trip to Japan because she realized she didn’t want to be a mom anymore leaves my chest tight and my gut aching.” A woman who does this is a heroine of feminism. A man who does this is a louse.

ARE YOU A MICHAEL CLAYTON?