INDEED: After Barack Obama hype, a backlash.

No human being can meet the wildly inflated expectations that accompany the rookie senator's every move. It can't help that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Obama 'a leader that God has blessed us with at this time.'

That's the kind of remark that can turn voters into problems. Most Americans famously resent being told an election is over months before the polls open or that God is taking sides. . . . While McCain has complained about media favoritism toward Obama, most recently about NBC News' tilted coverage, maybe he ought to encourage it. Resentment over the media love affair with Obama might be McCain's most powerful weapon. The fawning coverage exaggerates even routine Obama events, and when he fails to meet giddy expectations, the excuse machine warps into overtime. That, in turn, creates another unappealing layer of media-imposed conventional wisdom.

I think that's right.

WELL, I COULD USE ONE OF THESE: An 'undo' button for reality.

INTELLIGENT ROBOTS IN SPACE: 'The existence of a race of sentient alien robots might be not just possible, but inevitable. In fact, we might be living in a 'postbiological universe' right now, in which intelligent extraterrestrials somewhere have exchanged organic brains for artificial ones.' They're probably living in advanced virtual-reality universes, where they engage in the alien equivalent of sex with supermodels, which also explains why we never hear from them.

HMM: 'Annenberg-Gate' - It's not the crime, it's the cover up. (Via Tom Maguire). I suspect that anything damaging has vanished by now anyway. It's Chicago, after all.

HEH: 'Oh, come on! If you want to people to be upset about waterboarding, don't demonstrate it on lawyers.'

WHEN EARLY RETIREMENT isn't exactly retirement. 'But in reality, many of these people left--or are leaving--their corporate jobs to follow their own personal passions from their home-based business where they hang the 'Open' sign.' The Insta-Wife was just remarking that she's always overhearing women at the gym say they're running home eBay businesses.

I THINK I DRANK SOME OF THIS, ONE NIGHT IN -- OH, NEVER MIND: Japanese sake brewer produces cellulosic ethanol. 'One of Japan's largest sake manufacturers, Gekkeikan, has announced the development of a new 'super yeast' able to produce cellulosic ethanol from non-edible parts of plants, such as paddy straw and chaff. The super yeast that produces alcohol was created with genetic engineering, by integrating koji mold genes that produce cellulolytic enzymes into sake yeast.'

BATTLEGROUND POLL: McCain Now Ahead by 1. Plus this: 'Obama's lead in the RCP National Avg continues to slide, down to just 1.2%.' Yes, every new poll seems to show a drop. No wonder Obama and his netroots backers are lashing out this week.

KILLING DEADLY HOSPITAL BACTERIA with nanotechnology.

CORRECTING OBAMA ON THE TOPIC OF AMERICAN SELFISHNESS: 'Whatever the case is with his own selfishness, the evidence of an internationally superior American generosity is impressive, beginning with the numbers on our charitable giving. We give twice as much as the British per capita, and according to The American magazine, seven times as much as the Germans and 14 times as much as the Italians. Even in inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount given each year just keeps getting larger, and meanwhile, we do far more volunteer work than in other industrialized countries.'

Obama's comments seem to echo the claims of U.N. official Jan Egeland that the U.S. response to the Indian Ocean tsunami was 'stingy.' That charge was bogus -- there was over a billion dollars in private tsunami relief from Americans -- and it turned out that the U.N. wasted a lot of its own relief money on overhead. But that's how it is with nanny-state approaches: They dampen private impulses toward unselfishness, even as officials line their pockets. Is this what Obama wants?

TEST-DRIVING THE NEW CORVETTE ZR1. With video.

GREEN GASOLINE: Gasoline produced from biomass could be in fuel tanks by 2010 with new technology.

Plus, progress on Algae biofuel.

PLAYING BY Chicago Rules. 'Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics. And the senator is embarrassed enough by what he did that he misrepresents it in the prologue of his political memoir, 'The Audacity of Hope.''

A LOOK AT gender and law review submissions.

IN THE MAIL: Tethered: A Novel. By Amy MacKinnon, who, if I'm not mistaken, is married to Jules Crittenden.

MARK SAFRANSKI: Let's not rush into Cold War II.

SCATTERED, SMOTHERED, COVERED IN LOVE: Obama and the Big Networks: 'In isolating stories on the ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasts that were mainly focused on Obama, the center says, 42 percent were positive and 7 percent negative.'

A NEW INSTA-POLL:

ECONOMY AND FUN? Reviewing the new Jetta TDI: 'Better yet, the Jetta TDI is nearly as much fun to drive as the GTI.'

A LOOK AT biofuels, food shortages, and policy.