Lou Dobbs has got to have the best gig on TV — or anywhere, for that matter. He not only has his own nightly show, but he’s managed to do the same story every night, “the outsourcing of America.” Every time we see it, it reminds us of Jim Glassman’s admonishment when he appeared on Dobbs’ show: “You went to Harvard, Lou — you should know better.”

Every night, he lays the blame for job loss (real or imagined) on…

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Apparently our blogger-in-chief fell asleep on some beach in Florida while attending the NAM Board meeting, and was MIA for some time, but has now been found.

The Board meeting went pretty well — John Engler’s first meeting as the new President of the NAM. The mood was very good, and business appears to be good for most all manufacturers. We heard the phrase “best year on record” more than once from manufacturers large and small.

There were some highlights, like one small manufacturer who makes bricks and is shipping them to Macao and whose bricks are being used in Disney Hong Kong. Imagine that, US bricks to China. How’s that for a success story?

We also heard from Commerce Secretary Gutierrez. He talked about Social Security and made an interesting point, i.e., that under private sector pension rules, there would be no doubt that Social Security was broke. It dawned on us that as much as the AFL-CIO protests that there’s really nothing wrong with Social Security, would they be willing to apply the same rules to their private pensions? Let John Sweeney mull that one over.

Finally, the Board passed resolutions on energy, trade, and Social Security, and over 100 Board members — again, both large and small — signed a letter calling for quick passage of CAFTA.

The NAM today announced an ambitious plan to launch its own satellite by decade’s end. In making the announcement, the NAM Board, meeting in Aventura, Florida, took note of the sheer ambition of the plan. “We recognize this is a heroic effort”, the Board said in a statement, “but these times demand bold moves.”

The deal calls for NAM-member manufacturers to provide component materials at cost. As a result, this satellite will cost billions less than the off-the-shelf Best Buy or Wal-Mart models.

When fully operational, the satellite will beam pro-manufacturing programming — both overt and subliminal — around the globe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Using the latest “smart” satellite technology, it will also be able to detect and block any programming from other satellites at odds with the NAM message.

Launch is planned for late ’09 from a specially-built launch pad to be constructed on the roof of the NAM headquarters in Washington, DC. Thanks to leading recycling technology from America’s manufacturers, the payload will actually be delivered by millions of pages of regulations from the Federal Register. Still to be determined is whether this one-way trip will be manned with volunteers from the trial bar.