WELCOME BACK, CARTER:



Lifted from PowerLine.

ANN COULTER: "The worst thing about Occupy Wall Street is that it's ruining a good cause: hating Wall Street."

UNDETERRED by the failure of Solyndra, Obama’s Energy Department gave more than $1 billion in taxpayer money to two more solar companies.... One $737 million loan is expected to create 600 temporary jobs and 45 permanent jobs.

The explanation why.

THE AMERICA INVENTS ACT (patent protection) is better for small business. Perhaps so, but the whole patent process is so arcane I'm not convinced that this makes much difference.

CORMORANT: flying from beneath the sea.

MICHAEL BARONE: Congress Softens Stance on High-Skilled Immigrants.

[I]t's apparent that the United States needs more high-skill immigrants -- job creators rather than job seekers. The death of Steve Jobs (whose birth father, it turns out, was an immigrant) reminds us that highly talented individuals can be huge national assets.

The response in the House of Representatives has been a bipartisan push for more green card slots for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) graduates of American universities.

And it appears that the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, is interested. This is noteworthy because Smith has been an implacable opponent of any bill containing legalization or amnesty provisions.

But Smith agrees that it is a travesty not to admit STEM graduates educated at American universities who want to apply their talents in this country.

He does have some concerns. He points out that graduates with doctorates are far more productive than those with just master's degrees.

Here's an interesting tidbit from one of the professional engineering newsletters I subscribe to. Look who else is searching for PhDs. Of the 28 positions posted, only five (in bold) are from U.S. institutions.

PhD: University of South Hampton, UK
PhD: Nanyang Technological University
PhD: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
PhD: Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden
PhD: Umeå University, Sweden
PhD: University of Technology of Compiègne, France
PhD: Louisiana State University
Post-Doc: Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden
Post-Doc: Qatar University
Post-Doc: Qatar University
Post-Doc: University of Exeter, UK
Post-Doc: The University of Hong Kong
Post-Doc: University of Nancy, France
Faculty: University of South Hampton, UK
Faculty: The IMT Institute for Advanced Studies
Faculty: Texas A&M University
Faculty: Harbin Institute of Technology
Faculty: University of Groningen
Faculty: University of Western Sydney, Australia
Faculty: Washington University, St. Louis
Faculty: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty: Shandong Academy of Science
Lecturer: University of Western Sydney, Australia
Research Assistant: United Arab Emirates University
Research Assistant: Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Researcher: Australian National University
Researcher: Honeywell, Czech Republic
Researcher: Honeywell, Czech Republic

It may be a bit late.

IT MIGHT actually be easier to teach the deer to read ....

U.S. CAR COMPANY gets $529 million government loan to build electric cars in Finland.

THE NEW REPUBLICAN VISION for modern social safety nets. Read it.

A LITTLE FORESIGHT would have been useful. Hindsight is (almost) always 20-20.

Linked from Instapundit.

FROM THE IEEE: iCANDY. At the end of the slide show, you can click through to see more.

MARYBETH HICKS: Some Belated Parental Advice to [OWS] Protestors.

WHAT'S SO SMART about smart growth? "It’s definitely for some people; mostly those without kids, cars or the urge to garden. Smart growth involves stacking development on top of transportation nodes – think high rises at the Metro station. If that’s what you’re for, more power to you. But if it’s not, why should those who live on top of the Metro station get to dictate how others travel?"

As usual, it's about control.

BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG STUPIDITY: Ban over-the-counter asthma inhalers to save the ozone layer.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Poster Kids for New Health-Care Model Won't Participate in Model Program.

HMOs didn't work before, and they won't work now short of coercion, which is the hallmark of ObamaCare.

PAUL GREENBERG on the Obama bus tour. He's still oblivious to reality.

DEMOCRATS abandon Obama on jobs bill -- again.

FEDERAL JOBS: Washington [D.C.] Tops List of Richest Areas in Nation. I wonder why?

[ADDED]: And yet Maryland faces a $1 billion budget shortfall. Again, I wonder why.

IS YOUR CHOICE OF FOOD a fundamental right? Not in Obama's America.

DEMONIZING WALL STREET?

[T]op 10 CEOs have an average salary of $43 million, which pales in comparison with America's top 10 celebrities, who earn an average salary of $100 million.

But the liberals demonize Wall Street. Hollyweird celebrities may be rich, but they don't control the billions of dollars of corporate assets which the liberals covet.

As I've repeatedly argued, it's all about control.

HEARD ON THE RADIO. The National Weather Service's long-range forecast for winter in the mid-Atlantic states: "It's either going to be colder than normal, warmer than normal, or normal."

Nothing like covering all the bases.