Blogger (and University of Tennessee Law School faculty member) Glenn Reynolds writes “DUDE, WHERE’S MY RECESSION?” and notes:

“U.S. unemployment lines got shorter last week, as the number of people filing for the first time for unemployment benefits fell by 18,000 to 365,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended May 3, the Labor Department reported Thursday.”

Mr. Reynolds should have peeked out his backdoor first:

[Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee] said the first quarter was the third worst on record, and the second quarter “is certainly shaping up to be worse than that.” This is more evidence that the economic slowdown is spreading beyond the ‘bubble’ states (like California and Florida) and impacting state and local government tax revenue in other states too.The article mentions that Tennessee is cutting 5% of their state workforce. This is the typical negative feedback loop at the beginning of a recession: a weak economy leads to less tax revenue leads to state and local job cuts that further weakens the economy.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers (and thanks Mr. Reynolds, for the link). I don’t think the quote above inferred “in deep recession” or even in some kind of recession as much a precursor to an economic downturn exacerbated by bad decision making. Whether you fail to save or borrow beyond means, it’s still bad decision making. How do you know when you “are in a recession” anyway?

And he should take one bet - whether or not Instapundit will be removed from the Google index for hostile commentary this.