WHY ARE THE ZEALOTS obsessed with smoking? And not just smoking, e-smoking.

The short answer is that liberals are Puritans - obsessed with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

OOPS! THIS MAY NOT have been such a good idea after all. Madison Doctors Give Dr. Note To Andrew Breitbart and Protesters Who Missed Work.

Via Instapundit.

WISCONSIN REPUBLICAN SENATOR: We don’t plan on pursuing criminal charges for missing Democrats.

No, they should plan on recalling and defeating them in the next election. That’s the appropriate punishment.

HOME MAINTENANCE TIPS: (1) don’t put stringy things (like celery tips) in the garbage disposal, and (2) don’t use a toilet plunger to clear the resulting clog.

I knew (1), but there were only a couple, and they were already in the sink, having fallen off the cutting board enroute to the garbage can. Well, the disposer clogged at the diverter, but just barely - water was still flowing through the disposer, but more slowly than normal.

If it had been fully clogged, I’d have crawled under the sink, uncoupled and cleared the diverter, checked the trap, reassembled the whole mess, cleaned up the water that inevitably drips out, and gone about life.

But ... it was still draining, so it clearly wasn’t fully clogged. So I thought that maybe if I put just a bit of overpressure on the diverter clog with the plunger, it might clear out. So I tried it - “one plunge only” to paraphrase the Soviet captain in The Hunt for Red October.

That led to tip #2. Even as gentle as I tried to be, something inside the garbage disposer gave way and I had several gallons of water on the kitchen floor, and more water on the basement floor underneath.

The kitchen - and basement - are now relatively clean (and drying). Tomorrow I go under the sink to remove, and probably replace, the garbage disposer.

Lesson learned - the hard way.

HEH: The Obama administration has a reputation for "transparency," but that's because it’s all talk; when it comes to meeting, lobbyists “are being required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

FROM THE LEFT: Obama budget cuts target working poor, middle class and students.

Why don’t we be honest and call “social programs” what they really are -- “slavery programs?”

NERVOUS LIBERALS TO CONGRESS: Get your grubby hands off Social Security.

Robert Greenstein of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Thursday the debt commission plan [for Social Security] is flawed in ... how it deals with Social Security, and members looking to make it the basis of a plan [to reform Social Security] should be wary.... Greenstein said he originally did not object to reforming Social Security ... but ... rushing to do it now could lead to a botched reform.

“If you try to do everything all at once, you run a greater risk of producing a plan that has serious flaws,” he said.

Well, yeah -- witness ObamaCare, which (if I remember correctly) was a ‘left-leaning’ rush job.

WALMARTS CAUSE CRIME: At least that’s the theory one D.C. politician is using to prevent a WalMart from opening in her district.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk [of petty theft]. Addressing a small, anti-Walmart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn’t resist the temptation to steal.

Did the commisar, er, ... commissioner stop to think that those same youths she fears could turn to crime could also get jobs? Undoubtedly, since jobs might take them off the welfare plantation.

I PAID FOR YOUR PENSION and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

CHRIS CHRISTIE to Chris Matthews: I can lose weight ... and you’ll still be stupid.

CHINESE SHENZHOU 8 MISSION could last up to 3 weeks, apparently in preparation for a future manned mission.

The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft will fly with no crew on board, and will be sent to rendezvous and dock with China's Tiangong 1 space laboratory, expected to be launched at some time before Shenzhou 8 flies. The descent module of Shenzhou 8 will return to Earth at the end of the flight, carrying the experiment package.

Interesting. The space laboratory hasn’t been orbited yet, and the “manned” spacecraft will be unmanned. Why am I reminded of carts and horses?

SMARTER CARS? There’s an app for that. As if distracted driving weren’t enough of a problem already.

ANOTHER FOX NEWS OPINION POLL: Would you support a bill ending collective bargaining with public employees? Yes, 90%; No, 7%; Not Sure, 2%.

THE HUMMINGBIRD FLIES:



A new pocket-size drone dubbed the Nano Hummingbird for the way it flaps its tiny robotic wings has been developed by AeroVironment for DARPA. Watch the video at the link.

The next step? The Hellhound Project ....

BAN BOTTLED WATER. But it's not the bottles that are my concern; it’s what’s in them.

THIS AIN’T YOUR DADDY’S UNION. The link to American Majority Action is here.

APOCALYPSE NOW: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor.

DAY BY DAY trys to interview one of Wisconsin’s fleeing Democratic senators.