Elin Nordegren has agreed to a $750 million settlement from Tiger Woods and other conditions. That's a lot of settlement.

CNN is looking for a successor to Larry King.

Max Borders provides a comprehensive review of the Cash for Clunkers program.

Verizon will sell the iPhone starting in January.
Good news!

I have come to be a fan of Megan McArdle.

I'm a big fan of Google maps. I study them quite a bit, but MapQuest has a new beta version.

When women start wearing shorter skirts, that is a sure sign that the recession is ending.

The next frontier: appearance discrimination. Well, I confess. I like good looking people better than ugly people.

How much does the new iPhone really cost? $187. 51.

Byron York has a detailed report on the Al Gore sex scandal.

The Supreme Court extended gun ownership rights nationwide.
People have the right to bear arms. So is that the end to gun control?

Sen. Robert Byrd, former member of the Ku Klux Klan, has died.

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt: the car of the future?

If you are looking for a new cell phone, the HTC Aria is one that may be worth consideration.

Adolf Hitler had to beg for a car loan in 1924. He wanted a Mercedes. The outcome is not known.

The Economist has a good essay on debt. Debt is like alcohol, it induces a sense of euphoria. Then the euphoria goes away, and you need to get it back.

WSJ has a good article on recent economic policy featuring Keynesian economics. This is the economic policy associated with the New Deal, which prolonged and worsened the Depression of the 1930s. I know that Republicans have bought into it in recent years, but it is a total mistake.

Eleanor Cliff: Al Gore is the butt of jokes again.

American Enterprise Institute: We are already raising taxes on the middle class. That was a given all along.

Byron York: Democrats are heading for disaster in November.

Rasmussen: Almost a majority (48 percent) of Americans see government a threat to individual rights. I absolutely agree. There is no limit to what the government will try to do to us.

BP may file for bankruptcy in the coming months.

General Stanley McChrystal is out as commander in Afghanistan. He is replaced by Gen. David Petraeus.

Business leaders say Obama's economic policies are stifling growth.

America needs a fat president? Like William Howard Taft, I suppose, or Grover Cleveland.

North Korea in an unprecedented live broadcast televised its soccer team playing in the World Cup. Their team lost to Portugal 7-0.

California license plates may show digital ads.

Doctors across the country are limiting new Medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates.

Joran Van der Sloot has recanted his confession to Stephany Flores' murder.

Cars that get more than 30 mpg have declining sales compared to 2009. The size of smaller cars don't fit what American families need, and they are not as safe as larger vehicles.

Network news talk shows yesterday all focused on Tony Heyward's yachting, but ignored Obama's golfing while the Gulf oil spill gushes on and on.

Many people see census takers as the embodiment of an intrusive government.

Tea and coffee protect your heart.

Michael Barone quotes William Galston, a Democratic thinker. "Democrats must face the fact that much of the legislation that seems both necessary and proper to them looks quite different to the portion of the electorate that holds the balance of political power. And they must face a choice as well—between (to be blunt) the politics of conviction and the politics of self-preservation. They can continue on as they have been going since January 2009, or they can adopt a concerted strategy designed to take the edge off public anger and reduce their losses."

Barone: "It reminds me of the old story about the advertising agency and the dog food. The best ads in the world failed to increase sales of the dog food. So they sent a market researcher in and found the reason: The dogs didn’t like the dog food. The Democrats’ problem is similar. The American people don’t like the dog food (“legislation that seems both necessary and proper to them”) produced by the Obama Democrats."

Charles Krauthammer on the Congressional hearings about the BP oil spill:

These hearings are always political theater. No one expects you'll get real information and you certainly won't get real information when you're company is under investigation criminally by the attorney general of the United States. Of course he is going to be cautious, non- disclosive, and lawyered up.
I must say I welcome these rituals. We haven't had a good Inca ritual slaughter since the Goldman Sachs hearings. I have talked about this before where they take a virgin to the top of a mountain, and everyone goes home happy except for, of course, the virgin. Here, because we have a scarcity of virgins, we send a CEO instead and they whack him around for a whole day and everybody goes home happy. The only difference is our procedure has let blood, but a lot more talking. I'm not sure which is preferable. Nobody expects anything out of these. Hayward, he didn't play into the expectation of the Democrats, he played it very neutral, and that's why nothing essentially was learned.

AP: The "doc fix" came too late. Medicare payments will be slashed 32 percent for June. "Congress is playing Russian Roulette with seniors' health care," Dr. Cecil B. Wilson, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. "This is no way to run a major health coverage program."

The Senate passed the "doc fix," which temporarily postpones a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.

AP: Utah has executed a convicted murderer by firing squad.

Rasmussen: Boozman 61 percent, Lincoln 32 percent.

Blake's Think Tank: Left-wingers won't lift a finger to help Lincoln this fall. 

Consumer prices have fallen for the second consecutive months. Good, as long as we don't head into a deflation spiral.

Stuart Buck's Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation is an intriguing book.

It must be the season for schools to change athletic conferences. Arkansas schools that are part of the Gulf South Conference are talking about bolting to join another conference or to start a new one. The usual reason is money and in this case they want to save money. Arkansas schools travel all the way to Alabama and Georgia to play games. See here to identify the member schools.

Talk Business rates the Arkansas Senate race "safe Boozman."

Texas and Oklahoma schools will stay in the Big 12 after all. 

Michael Barone: "How bad a defeat did labor unions suffer when Sen. Blanche Lincoln defeated their candidate and won the Arkansas Democratic runoff last week? That's like asking how Custer fared at Little Big Horn."

James Carville: In Louisiana, it's just one damn thing after another.

Jimmy Dean has died.

Scott Gottlieb: The critics were right about ObamaCare. And the bad news is coming faster than you think.

The Toyota Prius is no. 10 on a list of the 10 most annoying car owners.

John Brummett predicts that the Arkansas 2nd Congressional race between Joyce Elliott and Tim Griffin will be a "holy war."

A question that we all want answered: Is a college degree still worth it?

The answer is no.

The NYT says that Tiger Woods has lost his confidence.

BP's oil spill has taken ObamaCare off the front page, but you can still follow it at ObamaCare Watch.

So Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State are headed for the Pac-10.

If you have your own employee health care plan, you may have to forget it. 

See also here. 

Peanut-free zones

Hey, let's ban peanuts on airplanes because some people have peanut allergies. Okay, let's ban cookies and deserts from restaurants because they are life-threatening to diabetics.

Inside Higher Ed: "Some prominent liberal academics are soliciting short essays from faculty members and graduate students to document a pattern in American history of major social advances being opposed by conservatives who "cry wolf" about the impact of proposed reforms. The campaign -- known as the "Cry Wolf Project" -- hasn't been officially announced. But conservative bloggers obtained some of the solicitations of essays and published them this week, along with considerable criticism."

For more on "crying wolf" see here. 

AP: Joran Van der Sloop says he knows the location of Natalee Holloway's body. But he does not have a history of telling the truth.

Jason Tolbert: Blanche Lincoln said today she did not cast the deciding vote on health care. Today Blanche Lincoln said she did cast the deciding vote for health care in May. Which is it, the flip or the flop?

Taxprof: Your mortgage interest deduction may be in jeopardy.

The ADG reports that the sparks are already flying in the Joyce Elliott/Tim Griffin race. Griffin is a "morally bankrupt candidate," and Elliott is the state's "most liberal" state lawmaker.

Real Clear Politics: Blanche Lincoln won the runoff because of Bill Clinton and her anti-union message. But she need not expect any union support from here on in.

Jason Tolbert on internet coverage of Arkansas politics: "Personally, I found Powerline blog posts on Arkansas’ Third Congressional to be 90% spin and sizzle with about 10% actual facts."

Never mind yesterday

Public Policy Polling advises Democrats not to spend another dollar on Arkansas elections this year. There are many more races in which Democrats have a better chance at success in the fall.

Marc Ambinder has an analysis of the Lincoln/Halter race and the role of the parties involved. He has this to say about the union role: "The unions MADE this race about the unions. They made a statewide Arkansas race into a race about something outside the orbit of the state's concerns. Arkansas is not a high density labor state. It may be true that a lot of voters did not appreciate being used as proxies for labor's war against moderates, a war that started with Lincoln's vote on a (seemingly) obscure part of labor law ... a campaign issue which never really surfaced."

He also notes that "There wasn't much ideological room between Halter and Lincoln." He can't tell what the race was really about. Everybody wanted to send Washington a message, but it's not clear what the message was.

Absolutely agree with that. 

Arkansas is definitely not part of the anti-incumbent trend around the country. Blanche Lincoln defeated Bill Halter 52-48 percent. In no case that I can think of right now was any incumbent defeated. Many of them had already retired. Labor organizations just wasted $10 million on Bill Halter.

See also here. 

Jason Tolbert finds that some early signs favor Lincoln.

Cal Thomas' column on Helen Thomas was deleted. Here is a link for it.

Some prejudices are tolerated by elites in this country. Examples: One can regularly smear political conservatives as know-nothings; Evangelical Christians as believers in a fantasy; Roman Catholics for their church's stand against abortion and birth control; and Republicans as greedy people who care only about profit and power. Bill Maher regularly serves up a menu of these prejudices on his HBO program. Comedy Central is working on a cartoon series mocking Jesus Christ, but altered a sketch featuring the Prophet Muhammad for fear of a Muslim backlash. Some prejudices must be controlled.

AP: Joran Van der Sloot has confessed to killing Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru. Now what about Natalee Holloway?

John Brummett says that all the runoffs today are tossups. No one can predict their outcome.

Jason Tolbert's take is here. 

Jason Tolbert endorses Blanche Lincoln today.

Even a casual observer of the Senate race will see that the far left groups and national labor unions has descended upon our state to make a statement by outing Sen. Lincoln. Their clear objective is to send a message to any Democrat that they better fall in line with their leftist agenda or else they will be replaced.
Now don’t get me wrong. Sen. Lincoln is far from a conservative. She is not and has made it clear in her campaign. But to replace her with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter would be a colossal mistake in judgment, at least for a conservative voter.

Helen Thomas retires after saying that Jews ought to "get the hell out of Palestine."

Jennifer Rubin on Helen Thomas: "Apparently, there is no limit to how far one can go — provided Jews are the object of the venom."

Glenn Reynolds: The bubble in higher education is heading for a bust. The whole thing sounds a lot like the housing bubble. People are willing to go deeper into debt, credit is easily available, but the payments are a killer. And you can't just walk away from a student loan like you can a bad mortgage.

Is college really a pathway to prosperity? 1. You can  pick up a skill like nursing or computer programming. 2. You can earn a credential that employers want even if they don't care what you know about English literature. It shows them that you are willing to show up for work on time. 3. You may, repeat may, hook into a social network that can include jobs and opportunity.

You should shoot for No. 1.

Inside Higher Ed: "If public universities are really committed to promoting access, affordability, and quality, they should consider increasing their funding by accepting more undergraduate students instead of raising tuition and restricting enrollments."

Blanche Lincoln has a new ad with Bill Clinton, blasting Bill Halter's union support.

The AP's spin is that since voters aren't clamoring for repeal of health care they are willing to give it a chance. But repeal seems rather hopeless right now.

VHS came to America in 1977, or 33 years ago. I purchased a Beta player/player earlier for, I think, $750. All the talk then was about BetaMax. When VHS showed up, it was better. I don't recall when I purchased a VHS machine, but it could not have been much later.

FBI crime statistics show that if you are armed you are safer.
This is what John R. Lott argues in More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws. 

Jason Tolbert: Did the White House offer Bill Halter a job if he would not run against Blanche Lincoln?

AP: Joran van der Sloot was arrested in Peru in the murder of a woman. He was suspected in the disappearance of an Alabama girl in Aruba five years ago.

Ford is planning to stop production on their Mercury lline.

The worst call in baseball history.

Top 25 conservative TV shows of the past 25 years.

Jason Tolbert asked D. C. Morrison who he would vote for in the runoff, Blanche Lincoln or Bill Halter? He said,

“If I knew, I would tell you,” said Morrison insisting that he is still undecided. But he did add this – “Sen. Lincoln is in this runoff largely because of one comment.” Morrison explained that when Sen. Lincoln referred to the people speaking out against the health care bill as “un-American,” he decided that he would run against her. He described that moment as a “tipping point” for him.

I  have to agree. I was shocked when I heard her say that. Also if she had voted against the health care bill, she'd be sitting pretty right now and probably heading for victory in November.

Looks like seniors will get no COLA increase in Social Security payments for 2011. This will be the second consecutive year without an increase.

Megan McArdle: What to do about Social Security? None of the answers are good.

The reaction to Robbie Wills' negative attack on Joyce Elliott is, well, negative. He may have lost the election right here.

AT&T is planning to cap data usage for iPhones.

All Althouse: Al and Tipper Gore separate after 41 years of marriage.

John Brummett compares the Lincoln/Halter race with the 1972 Senate race between John McClellan and David Pryor. The two races are similar. Pryor was the young turk who was expected to win, but the old bull McClellan tore him up in a debate in which McClellan went after Pryor's labor supporters. Lincoln needs to agree to a debate, and quickly. She should be prepared to attack, attack, and attack his labor connections.

Tunku Varadarajan on the politics of the oil spill: Fix it or own it.