3 Up 3 Down

3 Up

Manufacturing: OK, it’s this bad. Scrounging for good news, we found that durable goods production, along with housing starts, are up slightly. Not enough to signal a restarting of the idled Nylon line at the Invista plant on the South River, but enough to keep alive flickers of hope, since that prospect depends on renewed demand for carpet, which fell off a cliff last year. It ain’t much, but it’s something.

Stiffened spine: All right, so President Barack Obama was a tad late getting to the diss dictator party. At midweek, he came out with his harshest language yet against the crackdown on election protesters in Iran. Then American officials told Iranian diplomats they could forget attending Fourth of July festivities at U.S. embassies. It all drew a sneer from bogus Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Anything that riles Ahmadinejad can’t be all bad.

Fiscal sanity: Well, this isn’t cause for dancing in the streets either, but California Republicans have demonstrated enough gumption to reject a Democratic plan to slash $11 billion from the state budget. Why is that a good thing? Because the state is $24 billion in the red. Republicans rightly say the plan didn’t go far enough. Where’s Gray Davis when you need him? Just think: Only $13 billion more to get back in the black.

3 Down

Mark sanford: South Carolina’s governor, fond of ditching state cops on his various travels, was two-timing while his wife sat home with their four kids? Shocking. We’ll skip the sanctimony over a marriage left in ashes. But how about going AWOL and lying about it? That’s gets a fella fired in most places. So, governor, how about just stepping down instead? We know South Carolina government can run without you.

Cap and trade: While the nation’s gaze was cast elsewhere — on Iran and the Metro crash in Washington, namely — federal lawmakers quietly nudged ahead the so-called cap-and-trade scheme that will require carbon emissions violators to pay fat permit fees. So who actually will foot the bill? Utility consumers to whom the costs will be passed. Thanks for that.

Say it ain’t so, Joe: So, Vice President Biden says, here’s why universal health care is needed: “The Buick LeSabre is made in Ontario, Canada,” Ol’ Joe told a town hall crowd in Ohio. “The UAW workers in Canada makes the same wage as the UAW worker in the U.S.” but production is cheaper because of nationalized health care. The problem? LeSabre production halted four years ago. Before that, it was made in the U.S., not Canada. And there is no UAW in Ontario. So, you were saying?