HOW TO START A LAWN MOWER: Let your wife do it.

A bit of background to start: we have two lawn mowers; the first is a manly 42" riding lawn tractor, complete with electric start and lots of knobs, levers, buttons, switches and attachment points for all kinds of accessories. The second is a 21" pull-to-start push lawn mower with only the stop bar and a single primer button -- nothing else to push, pull, twist, or attach.
Late Sunday afternoon, I finished the major mowing with the big, manly machine, and went to the shed to get the push mower to finish up some trim and mow the ridiculously small patch of grass we laughingly call our back yard. An hour later, the sun was down, I was exhausted from pulling ... and pulling ... and pulling the start cord. The machine never uttered so much as a wheeze.

So the next morning I called my wife out, since she's always been able to get it started. We checked the oil (OK) and the gas (half a tank, but she wanted it filled anyway). Then she bent over, gave the primer bulb three long, careful pushes, grabbed the start cord and the safety bar, and pushed the lawn mower away from her rather than pulling on the cord. It fired up and was running smoothly before she stopped pushing.

Next time, she mows the yard.

DEMOCRATS NEED A SPINE to stand up to tea party. So when they can't formulate a coherent response, the Democrats' backup plan is have Maxine Waters tell the Tea Party to "go straight to hell." Classy.

NO GUNFIGHTS AT THE SALOON: concealed carry restrictions relaxed, crime rate drops. Imagine that....

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: Stop exporting American jobs. This OpEd may be the first I've seen to admit that America's manufacturing drain is -- at least in part -- a result of our own regulatory and tax structure.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: a ten-step plan to make sense out of nonsense.

Reduced to one step: "Pay no attention to the talking head behind the TV screen."

DANGER: America is losing its edge in innovation.

Norm Augustine is the former CEO of Lockheed Martin. His book, Augustine's Laws, is both funny and a first-class systems engineer's bible.

Added Note: I just finished perusing my monthly IEEE Control Systems newsletter and noticed that at most 10-20% of the author names in the newsletter were of foreign origin.

CAT IN A BOX: Shadow would dearly love to do that to Diamond -- but he wouldn't get off the box.

CAN THERE BE A DECENT LEFT? At this point in time, I have to wonder.

A LOVELY PHRASE FROM 2010: "blowhard preventer." Expect to see many more blowhard preventer failures in 2012.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Why Affirmative Action Should Stop.

More here.

THE STUPIDEST IMMIGRATION REFORM IDEA you haven't heard about. Well, I agree that the reason given for ending dual citizenship isn't the brightest, but the notion of holding dual citizenship -- or being a 'citizen of the world' -- doesn't sit well with me either.

STEALTH GUN CONTROL ACT denied.

IEEE-DESIGNED PORTABLE POWER STATIONS go on trial in rural Nicaragua. I can see how useful they'd be in emergency situations.

PAUL KRUGMAN and the Ozone Fairy. Where are the unicorns and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

PARENTS OF SEVEN TOLD: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again.

You have to wonder how nanny-staters can live with themselves.

BREATHE LESS: Climate Prostitutes, Charlatans and Comedians.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER than mere words. Taxes are for little people.

MICHELE BACHMANN on the National Labor Relations Board's lawsuit to prevent Boeing's move to South Carolina: “If the NLRB would also be continuing their current stance, they may not last very long. Once they see what I do to the EPA, they may shape up.”