IN THE MAIL: Elvin T. Lim’s The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush. The subtitle may make it sound a bit like a Bush-bashing book, but in fact it’s about a decline that has taken place over decades.

TODAY IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of the Tunguska event.

DEMOCRATIC ATTACKS ON MCCAIN’S MILITARY RECORD: “When Obama loses in November, these schmucks can look back at such tactics and pinpoint where it all started going downhill. These same people whine like little b—hes at the slightest criticism of Barack Obama. But they go right into the gutter when attacking John McCain.”

UPDATE: With Wesley Clark, “we’re a long way from George Marshall.”

OUCH: In ’survival mode,’ newspapers slashing jobs. “The increasingly rapid and broad decline in the newspaper business in recent months has surprised even the most pessimistic financial analysts, many of whom say it’s too hard to tell how far the slump will go.”

No wonder they’ve been telling us we’re in the midst of a second Great Depression. For them, it’s been true.

The minutes from the last City Council Meeting are now available.

The Chemung County Chamber of Commerce’s Trolley Tour Into Mark Twain Country begins its 2008 summer Tuesday and will be operating on the holiday on Friday.

IN THE MAIL: Lawrence Alexander’s Rubicon, and Cintra Wilson’s Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny. The reader reviews on Alexander’s book are amusing.

I predict that if Obama is elected President, we’ll see no more last-days-of-Rome books from left-leaning authors. Anyway, the Caligula example is unfair. He only named one ass to the Senate, while we have many more in ours. . . .

DON SURBER:

Question: What is the reaction to the Heller ruling in Canada?

Answer: Some Canadians are wondering why they cannot have guns, too.

Because that would be too American! And not being American is the core of Canada’s sense of national identity, apparently.

JERRY POURNELLE ON SHORT-TERM THINKING:

Five years ago we were told that increased refinery and oil pumping capability in the US would do no good because it would take five years for those to affect gas pump prices. Query: if we had greatly increased supply over the past five years, would not oil be at about $75/bbl, still high, but not headed to $200? And if we do nothing to increase supply now, where will oil go? . . . We are in a time of national emergency, but it does not affect the politicians, who continue business as usual.

My response to those who say that increased drilling is pointless because it won’t yield immediate results — like Arnold Schwarzenegger –is why worry about the greenhouse effect, then? Nothing we do will cool the planet immediately. Yet we’re told immediate action there is vital. In

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SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: More on Chris Dodd’s Countrywide mortgage deal, in the Hartford Courant. “Dodd declared he will not trust our leaders unless he gets to see certain national security documents. Dodd insists, however, that we trust him when he says he didn’t know he received special treatment when he borrowed nearly $800,000 from Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2003. Dodd continues to refuse to release the standard documents (commitment letters, good-faith estimates of costs and fee summaries) that accompany every residential mortgage. They might confirm Dodd’s contention that he received the same deal that anyone shopping the rates could have secured in the spring of 2003. Or maybe they won’t.”