We are likely to have a double-dip recession, and this is why. Your Uncle Sam has been having a hard time because he spends more than he makes. He engages in much unproductive behavior and wastes a lot of money on things that he doesn't really need. He is easily influenced by his irresponsible children, Nancy and Harry, whose mantra is: "Spend, Sam, spend." Sam is also sloppy with his finances. His record keeping is poor, and he is frequently ripped off by people who claim to be his friends. Recently, Sam experienced a big drop in his income, because his employer (the American taxpayer) had been taking financial hits.  So Sam did what he's best at -- he borrowed and spent more, more than ever before.  Then things began to turn a bit sour.

Here's a shocker.  The HFR, after checking to make sure its glass is really just half-full, raises it this week to... this is not easy, how did this glass get so heavy?... to... take a deep breath... to Hillary Clinton. How is that possible?  Two words:  Eritrea and Honduras. *** Oh, what about that other Clinton?  The one hogging the headlines in Norkland?  Was there some sinister sellout, some secret deal Slick made with the Norks to the grave detriment of his country?  The answer is no. *** The more the HFR sees these town hall protests escalate, the more it thinks that concern over ZeroCare is just the proximate cause.  The real underlying cause is anger over how their country (and in many cases themselves personally as voters) was suckered into electing Zero in the first place. And the more the HFR sees how this anger is escalating, the more it looks at Zero as LBJ redux, only faster.  For the anger is not going away until Zero does.  It took 3 years to get rid of Lyndon Johnson (1/65 to 3/68 when he announced he wouldn't run again, and he coasted from then on).  The anger today, however, will not wait that long, not even close.

Former President Bill Clinton has returned from North Korea with Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two U.S. journalists seized five months ago along North Korea's border with China, charged with espionage, and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. This is great news for the two women and their families.  All of us should rejoice they have been freed from their unjust imprisonment.  But whether this is good for the United States depends on how much ransom President Obama has agreed to pay. With regard to America's enemies, the Obama foreign policy has been all appeasement, all the time.  It's rarely ever a good idea to help your enemies and hurt your friends, but that does seem to be the agenda of the 44th president.

While you were cruising peacefully through life this last week, the picaroons in Washington set new lows for governance of their citizens.  "Picaroon" means a pirate, a thieving scoundrel. One example:  Zero's Department of Transportation (DOT) is claiming that the computers of car dealers become government property upon participating in the cash-for-clunkers program.  It's another object lesson as to the critical importance of achieving and maintaining solid protection and privacy from prying picaroons - for yourself physically and virtually via  your computer. Last week we talked about one way to do this with Cryptohippie.  Now let's discuss several more ways.  First, do you know about RFID?

If Congress, under a revised "cash for clunkers," suddenly required every car and truck in America (all 250 million of them) to be immediately destroyed and replaced with new cars and trucks that got better gas mileage, would the country be worse off or better off? Congressional Fantasycrats would say "better!" - so let's apply their logic to housing. Why not knock down all houses built in America before 2000 and replace them with new and more energy-efficient houses? Wait -- we already evidenced the results of that experiment -- it happened in New Orleans. Rather than the government directly knocking down the houses, Hurricane Katrina did it for us. Many in Congress argue that the reason New Orleans is still a mess - after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars - is because of federal, state and local government mismanagement and corruption. Yes, but now don't they want the government to run the health care system? And these folks are telling us that their new medical system will cover more people, will cost less, give us better care and not add to the budget deficit -- hmmm. Fantasyland!

The second, third, fourth and fifth most important reasons why private health insurance costs so much are: Improvements in medicine and medical technology;  frivolous lawsuits;  state mandates;  and cost switching. But the most important reason why private health insurance costs so much is because it really isn't insurance at all.  It's a baroque form of third party prepayment.

There's good reason why the 66 Democrats in the House who represent districts that were carried either by George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008 are thinking about bailing on Mr. Obama's signature issue of "health care reform." Lawmakers who support the president's plan will face some sharp questions at their town meetings during the August recess.  In a Rasmussen poll released July 22, 44 percent of respondents supported Mr. Obama's effort; 53 percent were opposed. The poll's internals suggest the situation is worse for Mr. Obama than these numbers indicate.  The only age demographic to express support for the plan were 18 to 29 year olds, which, the 66 can tell you, is the demographic least likely to vote in midterm elections.  Will health care reform be, as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) predicts, Mr. Obama's "Waterloo"?  Will its failure "destroy my presidency," as Mr. Obama said himself?  That would be true only if the president makes it so, if he's more like Carter than Clinton.

There's always a certain fascination watching tyrannies coming unstuck, and the convulsions of the Iranian regime are more colorful than most., You'd expect this from such a rich and ancient culture, and from such clever and imaginative people who specialize in illusion.  Last week (7/24) all these qualities were on display in Tehran, at a central mosque where Hashemi Rafsanjani was preaching to the faithful.  There were masses of people in and around the mosque, and at a certain point in a scene that would have delighted Fellini, the two sides faced off in a chanting contest.  The pro-regime crowd shouted "Death to America!"  The much larger pro-democracy crowd responded, "Death to Russia!"  Then came from the pro-regimers: "Death to Britain, Death to Israel!"  And the reply:  "Death to China!" Which pretty much sums up the contemporary strategic landscape, enacted in a Persian morality play in front of a mosque in Tehran.  Plus this: The stench of panic is now widespread in Iran.