WELL, TECHNICALLY THESE ARE MARKDOWNS on the new MacBook Pro, but I’m not sure they were worth an email announcement.

MAKING THE CASE for organ transplant markets.

PROF. DONALD DOUGLAS covers the really important news. Bikinis are involved.

POWERING A HOUSE WITH A PLUG-IN PRIUS. “Toyota said it will start testing a vehicle-to-home (V2H) system with the Prius Plug-in in Japan by the end of the year. The trial will involve a two-way power-supply system in which the car could supply the home with power in the event of a black-out. About 10 Toyota City homes will be involved in the testing.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bloomberg: Law Grads Are Now ‘Indentured Servants’ to the U.S Government.

AND YET, THEY’RE STILL TOO DAMN SLOW: Yale researchers find that the US Food and Drug Administration is faster than its Canadian and European counterparts when doing reviews for drug approvals.

YESTERDAY’S BLOG POST ABOUT THE NIKON D4 BROUGHT THIS EMAIL FROM ROGER SIMON: “Saw your write up of the D4. Just bought the Sony Alpha A-57 from Amazon and it’s great!…. and thousands less than the price of the Nikon. Sony is doing interesting innovative stuff. (I bought a Tamron 18-200 lens to go with it, instead of the kit).”

IF YOU’RE FAT, BLAME NIXON.

REASONS WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO HAVE KIDS. “They teach you how to care for someone fragile and how to let go of someone competent.”

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS DOING FINE, Caldwell, NJ edition.

HMM: Bill Clinton’s Words Could Haunt Obama Today.

President Obama’s campaign speech on the economy today will be delivered in the same spot where Bill Clinton delivered a 2010 campaign speech Obama might just as soon forget.

In September 2010, Clinton told his Cuyahoga Community College audience in Cleveland that Democrats deserved two more years to fix the nation’s economy.

“The Democrats are saying something like this: ‘We found a big hole that we did not dig. We didn’t get it filled in 21 months, but at least we quit digging,'” Clinton said at the time. “‘Give us two more years. If it doesn’t work, vote us out.'”

Uh oh. Here’s the video.

UPDATE: On Facebook, Jon Ham comments: “Ha! Clinton is so smart he was able to screw Obama two years before Obama even realized it.”

SMART DIPLOMACY UPDATE: Australia Turning to China?

#NARRATIVEFAIL: DNC Spokesman: Some of Bush’s Tax Cuts Helped the Middle Class.

SO THE PHOTOSHOPS of the original iconic photo from the early Obama era are still coming in. Here’s one by reader Mike Gebert:

MICKEY KAUS ON THE STIMULUS FAILURE:

It would be reductive and predictable for me to point out that all three of these Obama-era problems have a single cause: public employee unions, which helped delay the stimulus, which protect non-essential jobs along with essential jobs, and which negotiate unsustainable layoff-inducing benefits packages (because it’s easier to win a union leadership election if you increase the benefits of 90% of your members while laying off 10% than if you lower the benefits of 100% of your workers by 10%–and piss them all off).

So I won’t do that. …

I also won’t point out that FDR didn’t have to deal with public employee unions. And when his WPA faced a strike by traditional unions, he broke it.

FDR couldn’t make it in today’s Democratic Party.

WALL STREET NOT SO HOT ON OBAMA ANY MORE. Really? After three years of being demonized, they’re not eager to open their wallets to the demonizer-in-chief? Nope. “In all, POLITICO’s analysis found that 49 donors who had given $100,000 or more to Restore Our Future had previously given to Democratic candidates for various federal offices. Those donors have accounted for nearly $18 million of Restore Our Future’s $56.5 million haul.”

UPDATE: Why Is This Man Whining? “Obama’s blaming his predecessor for his own record as his first time comes to a close is incredibly unbecoming. Listen to his tone in the video. The whining makes him unlikable. But it is not just the tone that is off.”

AT AMAZON, deals on Instant Video.

Also, today only: Panasonic TC-L42ET5 3D HDTV with a $75 Promotional Credit, $799.99.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Jobless Claims, Inflation and Deficit All Rise. Actually, it looks like inflation dropped less than expected, which is still unexpected, I guess.

UPDATE: Initial Claims Miss Big, People Falling Off Extended Claims Soar To 135K, CPI Plunges Most Since December 2008. “This is the 22nd expectations miss in the last 25 reports.”

Related: Foreclosures up for first time in 27 months.

A JOURNALIST READER WHO I’M SURE WOULD PREFER ANONYMITY WRITES: “I know this game gets tired, but imagine, just imagine the months of fury, the global advertising boycotts, the anguished Senate investigations if a network did this with our current president.”

Yeah, several readers have emailed that they’re canceling HBO, having previously resisted doing so because they liked Game of Thrones. Hey, there’s always the Roku