HERE’S ANOTHER CONUNDRUM FOR YOU: While listening to the radio this morning, I heard a business analyst type explaining that the unemployment rate would be unlikely to go down anytime soon because manufacturers have found that they can produce as much - or more - with fewer workers than they could pre-recession; therefore there is no incentive to hire more workers.

On the other hand, Social Security is in such bad shape that there is serious talk of both increasing FICA taxes and retirement ages.

Isn’t there just a bit of a disconnect here? What’s the net gain to raising employment taxes and retirement ages on people who are increasingly likely to be permanently unemployed?

SARAH PALIN: The truth behind the White House/s budget spin.

AXE BEATS SCALPEL -- by a factor of nearly 10 to 1.

GLOBAL HAWK orders cut to pay for sensor fix. Yep. It’s the sensors that cost the real money. The aircraft is just a truck.

PUNISH MISUSERS OF BODY SCANNER IMAGES.

[An] amendment by Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to an aviation bill pending in the Senate was approved 98-0 [that] would prohibit anyone with access to the scanned body images, whether security personnel or members of the public, from photographing or disseminating those images. Besides a prison term, violators could be fined up to $100,000 per violation.

So what’s the point? Beyond moral preening, that is. Does anyone with a lick of common sense (there’s that common sense word again. --Ed.) seriously believe that even the most egregious violation will ever be punished by imprisonment or a $100K fine?

THE OBAMA BUDGET: Life is short, eat dessert first. “His policies are all about self-indulgence in the present, to be paid for with either long-run economic decline, or painful sacrifices by future generations.”

Cut the damn budget. It’s too late for a scalpel; it’s time for an axe.

UNCLE SAM charges up electric cars. I dislike saying it, but “I told you so.”

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE DOG when he finally catches the car he chasing? William Jacobson on Shirley Sherrod’s filing suit on Andrew Breitbart.

The cost of defending the lawsuit, at least in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably covered by insurance. The chance to take the depositions of Obama administration and NAACP officials, to investigate Sherrod’s connections to left-wing advocacy groups, and to expose the Pigford case intrigues — priceless.

He gets run over.

NASA BUDGET takes a hit. As expected. There are, however, two potentially good elements. One, increased funding for commercial rocket and space companies to develop transport to the International Space Station; and two, reduced funding for satellite data collection about the Earth and its “changing climate.”

INTERFAX: [Russian] Mission to Mars is possible in 20 years.

THE MAN [OBAMA] has the depth of a sheet of paper.

VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL Ken Cuccinelli will be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee at 9:30 am EST on the constitutionality of the ObamaCare individual mandate.

It can be seen live here starting at 9:25 am.

An archived version should be available by the end of the week.

STARDUST-NExT MISSION:

On January 15, 2006, the Stardust spacecraft completed one history-making mission and began another. Returning from a rendezvous with Comet Wild 2, the spacecraft approached Earth and jettisoned the capsule containing particles collected directly from the comet, as well as interstellar dust medium. The capsule landed safely and on-target southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, completing the world's first sample return from a comet.

Now this spacecraft is on a new record-setting mission: a visit to Comet Tempel 1. Comet Tempel 1 was the comet previously targeted by the Deep Impact mission, making Stardust-NExT the first-ever follow-up mission to a comet.

The close encounter will occur at 8:48 PM PST today. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory link is here.

[Update & bump] The Tempel 1 images are here.