“I’LL BE TURNING 50 IN A WEEK:” Obama’s Senior Moment.

BRYAN PRESTON: Women’s World Cup: Obama’s Golden Touch Continues. “As for the president, I’m hoping he can do me a favor. Cheer for the Yankees from now on? And Duke and OU? And the Redskins, Giants and Eagles? And Manchester United? And refrain from weighing in during next year’s Olympics at all?”

AT AMAZON, markdowns in the Automotive Outlet.

THIS WEEK IN GOVERNMENT FAILURE.

LOOKING AT THE PAYOFFS from space technology.

COPING WITH FLOODS, at Minot Air Force Base.

ERROR IN THE ROGER CLEMENS TRIAL: Deliberate, Or Inadvertent?

DEBATING THE RIGHT TO TAKE PICTURES AT SECURITY CHECKPOINTS.

Just note Morgan Manning’s piece on photographers’ rights. And reader Doug Levene comments:

The confusion seems to arise from the determination by various police agencies to prevent anyone from taking pictures of their little empires.

The writer doesn’t mention this in her article, but if you fly into JFK on an international flight, there are signs everywhere prohibiting photography – and the use of cell phones since they might have cameras in them – in the customs/immigration area, including the booths where the customs officers are and at the baggage carousels. To add insult to injury, while you wait for your bags, officious officials wander around telling people to turn off and put away their cell phones. So this is the first introduction that foreign visitors get to the Land of the Free. I cannot imagine what public purpose this ban serves.

Well, it might make it harder to take photos when celebrities get special treatment.

IT WAS EASIER TO DO THAN TO UNDO.

KEITH HENNESSEY: The Substance Of The Budget Negotiations.

BENJAMIN WITTES: Seven Errors In Today’s New York Times Editorial.

UPDATE: Reader Marc Greendorfer writes: “What makes Wittes’ post all the more entertaining is the context. The NY Times, and the rest of the liberal media, have attacked the Tea Party as being obsessed with the Constitution. Yet the Times, it of the ‘Bush destroyed the Constitution’ theme, can do no better than to riddle their own Constitution obsession with errors and outright lies. Meanwhile, the Tea Party continues to get the Constitutional issues (limited Federal powers, etc.) right.”

IS OBAMA FACING A “Munich moment” in Asia? Sen. James Webb (D-VA) says so.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: St. Obama And The Debt Dragon.

Note well this pattern of suddenly turning to the neglected debt: Obama lectured for most of 2008 that “drill, baby, drill” was silly, given his belief that increased supply would only marginally affect then climbing prices, and his religion that high gas prices are good in that they make wind/solar subsidized energy more attractive, encourage less energy use and thus cool the planet, while favoring government mass transit rather than the mindless individual’s use of a private car. Then as reelection neared, he tapped the strategic petroleum reserve on the logic that while drilling more new oil does not lower prices, pumping previously drilled oil most surely does.

Note well that suddenly Obama called for withdrawal in Afghanistan, on the logic that, while a few months ago a surge, a new commander, and a sustainable commitment were vital to winning the “good war,” now, with reelection looming, it is time to start packing it in.

Plus this:

To save us, we would have to slash two or three entire departments (e.g., perhaps energy, education, agriculture, etc.), end all agriculture subsidies, raise the retirement age, freeze cost of living raises for Social Security, clamp down on food stamp and entitlement abuses (almost 50 million now receive them), and do far, far more — while encouraging the private sector to drill, mine, grow food at unprecedented rates, as government trimmed regulations and revised the tax code to encourage wealth creation.

But it is far easier to create monsters and joust over the slices of a shrinking pie. So the current economic paralysis will persist as we continue demonizing the mythical “them” — until we stop acting like Greeks cursing better off Americans as if they were German bankers who are to be damned for their success.

Demonization, followed by a “disgusted-headmaster act,” is all Obama seems capable of.

LARRY CORREIA’S Monster Hunter books are, reportedly, exploding in popularity. Well, good.

FIXING SCARRED VOCAL CORDS with injectable gel.

LONG BASELINE: Space telescope to create radio ‘eye’ larger than Earth. “A Russian space telescope conceived during the Cold War is set to launch on Monday. When it reaches an orbit that will extend almost as far as the moon, the RadioAstron mission will sync up with radio antennas on the ground, effectively forming the biggest telescope yet built, with a ‘dish’ spanning almost 30 times the Earth’s diameter.”

MARKDOWNS ON bestselling men’s sneakers.

REVIVED INTEREST in flywheel cars. “The automakers Volvo and Jaguar are testing the possibility of using flywheels instead of batteries in hybrid electric vehicles to aid acceleration and help engines operate more efficiently. The devices could reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent and would cost a third as much as batteries. Volvo will begin road-testing a car with the technology this fall.” It’s an old idea, but technology has improved. “”Most hybrids with batteries provide a 15- to 25-kilowatt boost of power. The flywheel can deliver 60 kilowatts in a way smaller package.” With some catches.

NOT BY ACCIDENT: How Certification Rules Impede The Growth Of Virtual Schools.

IT’S NOT EASY BEING ALPHA. “Life at the top of a baboon troop isn’t all fun and games, since the alpha male must constantly struggle to maintain his social position. A new study in Science shows that alpha males suffer from much more stress than the second highest-ranking baboon, and tend to exhibit the same amount of stress hormones as baboons much lower in the hierarchy.”

WELL, GOOD: GAO: E15 Not Coming To Gas Stations Any Time Soon.

ASTEROID ARRIVAL: Dawn Spacecraft Slips Into Orbit Around Vesta.

WILL THE WEB FILL UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE TURING PROGRAMS? “When will algorithms for processing the text history of social media discussion forums become powerful enough to basically fake being you? Imagine years of your postings on Facebook or Google+ (G+) processed by some fancy algorithms that use all that material to try to act like a Turing machine and fool others into thinking they are really interacting with you.” Technically, a “Turing Machine” is something different, but here it’s basically shorthand for “software that will pass a Turing Test.” Which on Facebook or Twitter might not be that hard. . . .

Plus this comment: “I was thinking that we will be able to detect when Turing Machines take over comment writing from simpler minds when their posts become more interesting. I figure we’ll need software that detects a rise in posting quality as a sign that a person has been replaced by a machine.”

RON RADOSH: Why AMC’s Breaking Bad is “Simply the best program on television.”