ZIMBABWE UPDATE: Opposition braced for dirty war as Mugabe clings on to power.

POLITICO: No Campus Surge for Obama in Pennsylvania.

TODAY WAS THE FIRST REALLY NICE DAY in a bit, and although I was busy I managed to get out with the D300 and take a few pictures. I took Ken Rockwell’s advice and turned the saturation way up. This worked well for the flower, but I think it was a bit much for the already-vivid green of springtime grass in Tennessee. He’s in California, where I think the colors tend to be a bit muted. Still, it looks good.

Don’t know why he brought his Mercedes to the park for polishing, but he looked like he was enjoying it.

A REPORT FROM BAGHDAD.

VIDEO: Charlton Heston on gun rights.

G.M. ROPER on the politics of hope.

SOME PEOPLE WOULD CERTAINLY LIKE FOR THIS TO BE TRUE: Dan Senor: Condoleezza Rice Is Pursuing the VP Spot. And it’s probably good for McCain if a potential running mate has more actual experience than both of his potential opponents put together.

WORKING TOO HARD CAN GIVE YOU A heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack. You oughta know by now.

ECONOMICS: Reader John Lewis emails a number of center-right blogs:

I’m a long time reader and fan of your blogs and a staunch Republican, but am increasingly worried that the approach to ignore or minimize economic bad news is not going to work in this election cycle. It seems to me that none of you are particularly interested in economics, however, I’m afraid that we are all going to be interested by the time this business cycle is over. There is a very good chance that the unemployment rate will be significantly higher this November than November of 1996.

This may well be true; we’re overdue for a recession — we haven’t had a really deep one in over 25 years — and my sense is that there remains a lot of economic idiocy still to be wrung out of the system, which is what recessions are for.

Speaking for myself, though, I’m not an econo-blogger. I tend to be over-pessimistic, but I guess I have tuned out a lot of the media econo-doomsaying because they’ve been predicting massive economic collapse for pretty much my entire sensate life and so far it hasn’t come. Plus, at the moment they’re playing their usual pre-election gloom-and-doom game in the hopes of helping the Democrats.

Which doesn’t mean that the economy is necessarily doing better than they say, since their bias is exceeded only by their laziness and ignorance. As I noted some years ago about their Iraq reporting, the fact that they’re transparently playing up bogus bad news doesn’t mean that there isn’t genuine bad news that they’re not reporting, because reporting that would require knowledge and effort. So you can’t just apply “Kentucky windage” and assume that things are better than the reports say. They may actually be worse, just in a different way than is reported . . .

Lewis continues:

There are a large number of recent proposals and actions by both Democrats and Republicans that fly in the face of any sort of capitalist belief system and will almost certainly serve to extend the depth and duration of the downturn. Bailing out homeowners? By whom? Renters? I shudder to think about how socialist we could become under a Democratic administration. The proposals by Clinton and Obama have been astounding.

Bottom line is that I am surprised by how little interest has been shown by conservative (or libertarian) blogs in the ongoing financial crisis. There seems to be no one in the conservative political blogosphere standing up against these dramatic expansions of government programs and interventions into our markets.

He’s right about this. The bailout-and-regulation proposals seem more like payoffs and power-grabs than good policy to me. Anyway, here’s a post by Professor Bainbridge that addresses some of these issues. And I love this bit: “bursting of bubbles inevitably leads to ‘a kind of speculative frenzy in regulation.’”

We’re probably seeing that now.

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails:

Defending free markets and letting risk takers take their lumps is simply outside the realm of polite public discourse these days.

Most folks in hedgefundland are seething at the upcoming spin of the regulatory and tax ratchets, but the chattering classes only extol an expansion of the regulatory gobbledygook that got us here.

Bernanke’s repeated blinking when confronted with chaos, first during the SocGen debacle in January and recently with Bear Stearns, left laissez faire folks no political cover.

Free market types assume silence is preferable to calling in mortar fire on themselves.

Well, that’s a cheerful take. If the folks in hedgefundland are unhappy with what the Chattering Classes are saying, my suggestion is to do something about it. Emailing bloggers is a start, but only a very small one!

And Sean Hackbarth protests that he’s been covering this stuff.

MORE: Thanks, Gerard. And it’s hard to argue with this: “If They Could Do Math, They Wouldn’t Have Been Journalism Majors.”

A REASON TO SIGN UP FOR ANONYMIZER?

The online behavior of a small but growing number of computer users in the United States is monitored by their Internet service providers, who have access to every click and keystroke that comes down the line.

The companies harvest the stream of data for clues to a person’s interests, making money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches.

The practice represents a significant expansion in the ability to track a household’s Web use because it taps into Internet connections, and critics liken it to a phone company listening in on conversations. But the companies involved say customers’ privacy is protected because no personally identifying details are released.

Kinda irritating, anyway.

OUR FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT: Not Bill Clinton, but Warren Harding. Though the two share some traits.

POCKET ROCKET: Remembering the Acura Integra GS-R.

JOHN BIRMINGHAM: Bring on the Multiverse!

A NEW KIND OF POLITICS: “Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) declined twice Saturday to personally repudiate a liberal radio host’s declaration that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a ‘warmonger.'”

Apparently, Obama lacks the backbone to repudiate any of his supporters. I’m not the first to note the contrast here. I expect the press to give him a pass on it, but people will notice nonetheless.

THE LONDON TIMES: Iran joined militias in battle for Basra. Another thing that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to hear about, I suspect.

VIDEO: motorcycle-jumping records broken. Plus, sword-swallowing and gratuitous dancing girls. And fireworks! What’s not to love?

ANDREW BOLT NOTES “a marker indicating what a PR disaster the Olympics have turned out to be so far for China, when even Rudd is now nervous about saying he’ll go.”

HEH: Gore-o-theism?

NOTE FROM THE DEAN: My colleague Greg Stein has published two form letters for Deans to use in response to U.S. News rankings changes, in the Chicago Tribune. And I love the bio tag at the end.

IN THE MAIL: Two books by Liz Williams, Snake Agent and The Demon and the City, both in the science fiction / fantasy “Detective Inspector Chen” series. I haven’t read ’em but they sound vaguely reminiscent of Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archive or Tim Powers’ Declare.

BEWARE THE HEALTH RISKS OF BLOGGING!

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment. . . .

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths.

But that won’t stop the story from rolling on as if these things have been proven! Blogging can be stressful, but it’s not digging ditches. If you think otherwise, you’ve never dug a ditch. (Via Memeorandum). Which is not to say that bloggers shouldn’t get away from the computer now and then. Maybe even yoga for geeks!

Plus this: “I guess it’s all individual but for God’s sake if it’s killing you go work for the Ny Times, seems to be a cakewalk over there.” Indeed.

Best take: “I hear waitressing is kinda tough.”

And yeah, I’m linking to the New York Times a lot this morning. Just trying to help ’em out!

MORE: Laughing at death. And more death-defiance here. Say, now that blogging turns out to be such a highly dangerous endeavor, will that mean the end of “chickenhawk” slurs in the blogosphere?

NATURALLY: “An impressive list of earth-friendly possessions.” Buy ’em all!

UPDATE: Green beards for environmental hypocrites. Don’t miss the picture of the house.

INDEED: “The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.” (Via TSM).

THE NEW YORK TIMES looks at the mainstreaming of survivalism:

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”

I actually wrote a column on this very phenomenon a couple of years ago. It’s real.

UPDATE: More on disaster preparedness here and here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Lou Wainwright emails:

Also, don’t neglect the impact of World War Z! Evaluating my family’s future prospects in light of a Zombie War has been humbling – especially living in Boston, as far as possible from the natural barrier of the Rockies. Having read the book I’m giving significantly more consideration to the depths of our reserves, perimeter defense, surrounding geography, and survival without gas or electricity…not to mention researching the purchase of a katana and other suitable decapitation tools.

Maybe that explains the interest in knifeblogging! But don’t worry Lou, I’ve gotcha covered.

MORE: Reader William Casey emails: “Almost every book on survival preparedness talks about having a year’s supply of food stockpiled. What if you have to evacuate the area hurriedly and permanently?”

You should have a “bugout bag” with necessities, and you might also want some MREs you can throw in the trunk. But obviously you can’t take more than a week or two worth of food when evacuating. The rest, alas, will be left for the zombies, who won’t properly appreciate it. . . .

Here’s a helpful instructional video on the subject from (who else?) the Zombie Squad. And some further suggestions here. You may also wish to include firearms. Note that shotguns, according to Hollywood, are the only firearms generally effective against evil. Here’s a big bugout bag roundup, including firearms, from Say Uncle, though he unaccountably neglects the zombie angle, somewhat diminishing his credibility.

STILL MORE: Background on the Zombie Squad.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF “WE” IS: “Seeing yourself as a part of a tradition and accepting service and sacrifice within that tradition — that’s not ‘we’? Devising a magnificent, marketable political persona — that’s not ‘I’?”