I posed this scenario to a political science class last night. I thought Agitator readers would be interested in pondering it, too.

You’re the captain of a small yacht. A group of media elites has rented your yacht for a private party. Mid-cruise, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann get into a heated argument. Pushing and shoving ensues. Both fall overboard. The sea around them is rough and infested with sharks. Without quick action they’ll surely drown or be eaten. You only have one life preserver.

Hence, the conundrum.

Do you (a) open a nice bottle of wine, or (b) slip below deck to take in a movie?

Looks like my episode of Bullshit! is now available on YouTube, at least for the time being. My appearances begin in part two, but I’d encourage you to watch the whole thing. It’s really a fantastic episode all-around.

Plus, gratuitous nudity!

Larry Kudlow:

Am I the only one who saw weakness when President Obama and his departing chief of staff Rahm Emanuel gave each other big, fat, full-bore hug following their speeches at the resignation event in the White House’s East Room on Friday?

Remember, this is on global television. And it has to do with the very top of the United States government. Our friends and enemies were all watching.

I think the hug lacked dignity. It did not send a message of American power and forcefulness. So I fret about the reaction around the world to this kind of fraternity-like emotionalism in full public view.

Why not just a dignified, stand-up, serious handshake? That’s what Reagan would have done. A strong handshake shows friendship, respect, and even affection. But a big fat hug seems to go over the line.

Perhaps I’m overreacting to this. But when it comes to the presidency and the behavior of our top leaders, I think the image we want to send at home and abroad is one of serious strength of purpose. Not some kind of collegiate squeeze. Somehow the Obama-Emanuel embrace seemed demeaning — to the presidency, to our officialdom, and to our strength of purpose.

Let’s cross ‘em off: Barely-veiled homophobia? Check. Vague, imperialistic prattle about “projecting strength”? Check. Ridiculous attempt to make political hay of Obama’s personal actions and mannerisms? Check. Rhetorical rogering of Ronald Reagan’s corpse? Check! Strong, strong showing, Mr. Kudlow!

Up next, does Obama’s embrace of the pedestrian four-in-hand tie knot—as opposed to the aristocratic Windsor favored by his predecessors—signal his secret Marxism? BigGovernment.com investigates!

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published today, Heritage Foundation founder Ed Fuelner, American Enterprise Institute boss-man Arthur Brooks, and The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol caution limited government activists to keep the military free of their waste-slashing scythes. Because when it comes to waging peace through war, our two ongoing conflicts and troop presence in 156 countries apparently isn’t enough. More robust, please.

(Elsewhere in think tank land, Cato recently put out a study calling for significant cuts to the military, including bringing both current wars to an end, while Brookings star defense scholar Michael O’Hanlon takes the Brookings-esque position that proposals to cut the defense budget “deserve some thought,” then adds—in case that came off too decisive—that “[i]t is too soon to make decisions on these issues, perhaps, but not too soon to start considering them.”)

Blogging at the Economist, Will Wilkinson issues a pretty devastating critique of the Fuelner/Brooks/Kristol piece, as well as a challenge to the tea party movement:

Messrs Brooks, Feulner, and Kristol have offered the tea-party movement an excellent opportunity to show what it’s really made of. Will it allow itself to be captured by Washington’s establishment conservative elite? Will it follow the example of the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Weekly Standard and fight, fight, fight for big government, just as long as it’s big government bristling with the tools of conquest and mass death? Or will it recognise that war is the health of the state, the enemy of liberty, and the bane of humanity and stand up to the big-government Washington war machine?

I’m putting my money on capture. Never bet against Bill Kristol.

Amen to that. I’m still trying to figure out why any serious person would still give Kristol a platform from which to dispense military strategy. The guy is the Matt Millen of the foreign policy world. Only Millen at least had a pretty distinguished playing career before wreaking devastation from the front office.

But Wilkinson’s right. If the tea party is serious about cutting government, there’s plenty of fat to be trimmed at the Pentagon, not to mention reforming the dishonest and misleading way war spending isn’t counted in the federal budget.

If they want to disprove the sentiment that they’re just fronts for the GOP, this would be a darned good place for tea party leaders to distinguish themselves.

• While in state custody for falsely filing a criminal report, a teen is raped by a juvenile counselor. The girl got 12 months for filing the false report. The counselor got probation for raping her.
• Great roundup of recent commentary on criminal justice issues in Mark Bennett’s Blawg Review.
• I think someone should start a website that takes bets on when the latest anti-gay ranting politician gets caught in his own gay sex scandal. Now taking wagers on Michigan prosecutor Andrew Shirvell. I’ll bet the under on 18 months.
• Judge strikes down Ontario’s anti-prostitution laws.
• Okinawans protest U.S. military bases. Why, again, do we still have a huge military presence in Japan? Or, for that matter, why do we have troops and/or bases in 156 of the world’s 202 countries?

• Dogs on Twitter.
• Reason.tv at the One Nation rally.
• Look out!
• Puppycide: Oakland police kill 11-year-old arthritic lab after responding to a false burglar alarm. I guess they did at least leave a note. Bonus Bambicide incident from the same department last May.
• To increase ad revenues on your website: Break your ads.
• Staten Island students take a field trip to the morgue, find deceased classmate’s brain in a jar.

Conspiracy theorists, fire up your mimeograph machines!

Susan Reverby, a women’s studies professor at Wellesley College, published a paper detailing the joint research program between the U.S. and Guatemalan governments. From 1946-1948, doctors enabled men in prison to be infected with syphilis by allowing prostitutes carrying the disease to visit them. From there, they studied inoculation techniques. The tests, which also involved mental hospital patients, involved nearly 700 subjects, according to the study.

Without detailing the nature of the research, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a joint statement apologizing for the program. They said they would launch an investigation into the “specifics” of the study.

“The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical,” they said. “Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health.

More here.

I’m still traveling, so there probably won’t be much more blogging today.

So here’s an open thread.

Something to get you started: A coroner’s inquest has cleared all police of any wrongdoing in the Erik Scott shooting.

Let’s go with “Sinnerman,” by the late, great Nina Simone.