Link blag

In a statement, the White House tries to thread the needle on Iowa:

"The President respects the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage. Although President Obama supports civil unions rather than same-sex marriage, he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal rights under the law."

Drezner:

[...] On style, Obama does get an A-. I loved this bit from Helene Cooper's NYT story: "In a rare show of emotion from the international press, many in the room stood up and cheered after Mr. Obama was done [with his press conference]." C'mon, an American was on the global stage and not one shoe was thrown? Man, times have changed. Meawhile, as for Michelle Obama, there's this priceless AP quote from a Buckingham Palace spokesman: "We don't issue instructions on not touching the queen."

WSJ: U.S to Lift Some Cuba Travel Curbs...

President Barack Obama plans to lift longstanding U.S. restrictions on Cuba, a senior administration official said, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit families there as often as they like and to send them unlimited funds.

The gesture, which could herald more openness with the Castro regime, will fulfill a campaign promise and follows more modest action in Congress this year to loosen travel rules.

reason: Too Crazy to Fail...

The dynamic duo of global finance, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan jefe Hugo Chavez, cut the ribbon on the Iran-Venezuela Joint Bank today. Speaking in Tehran, Chavez spoke of his economic model: "Capitalism needs to go down. It has to end. And we must take a transitional road to a new model that we call socialism."

David Frum: Obama's formula for disaster...

[...] In these and so many other ways, President Obama is building an economy for the 21st century of accreting waste and inefficiency, massive bureaucracy, slower productivity growth, and lagging prosperity.

I don’t blame him for borrowing the money to blast the U.S. and world economies out of their current rut. I blame him for accompanying his borrowing with a slew of long- discredited statist interventions. These will hugely burden those future Americans who inherit the job of paying off his debt.

I second that.

Obama answers question about America's standing in the world (video)

Mint.com: A visual guide to inflation

Wal-Mart deserves a Nobel peace prize?

CNET gets a look inside Google's servers, which all have their own 12V UPS battery! They've come a long way since 1998.

Rocketboom: If time was infinite and space was finite... (video)