TAKE THE QUIZ: Which presidential candidate most nearly matches your opinion? The quiz asks you to both select an answer for each issue and then weight the issue in terms of importance to you.

My first matches were Huntsman and Santorum, neither of whom is at the top of my list. My top two, in fact, were at the bottom. On retaking the quiz (changing one answer) and changing the weights, my top two matches were Bachmann and Perry. One of the two is on my short list.

The variability is due, I think, to the remarkable consistency of the Republicans on the major issues, the fact that the answer selections tend toward the extremes of each candidate's position, and the weights. Without changing my answers, I can bring almost any candidate to the top merely by changing the weighting.

Try it yourself.

THE TOTAL COST ... for a 17-day round trip vacation to Hawaii for the President and his family and staff and security is an estimated $4,113,038.

That's interesting, but it's only taxpayer money. Here's a more interesting fact: both Presidents Bush spent every Christmas holiday at Camp David in Maryland so their security details would be able to spend as much of their Christmas time as possible at home.

Linked from the PJ Tatler.

IN LESS THAN SIX WEEKS, 56,000 people applied for a permit under Wisconsin's new concealed carry law and thousands more bought handguns, swamping the state agency handling the required background checks.

It's beginning to become evident that people are becoming less trustful of the government to keep them safe and secure.

TERRY PAULSON: The Lighter Side of Conservative Truths.

PHOTOS from the new World Trade Center tower.

THE HUMANITIES' REAL ENEMIES: "The humanities are indeed in mortal peril, if not dead already. But neither our governors nor our state legislators are the assassins. Our humanities professors are."

THERE WOULD BE MORE UNICORNS if Democrats would quit eating them for lunch.

More on unicorns here.

IRAN PREPARES its first team of astronauts for space. First defection from space now expected in 2017.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The EPA'S Fracking Scare. Wouldn't want to further endanger the government's wind and solar subsidies, now would we?

OFFSHORE OIL & GAS LEASE SALE: Small Companies Stay Away in Droves. Big Oil is easier to control -- and more profitable; Little Oil can easily be regulated out of existence.

NARCISSIST IN CHIEF: Only three other presidents might outrank me.

PAUL GREENBERG: Innocence in Triplicate.

GO GREEN and pollute the planet. Those pesky unintended consequences never go away.

A VOTERS' GUIDE TO REPUBLICANS:



Linked from Hot Air.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING.