MICHAEL BARONE ON OBAMA: Industrial Age Solutions to Information Age Challenges.

His favorite high-tech project is to build enormously expensive high-speed rail lines like the one Jerry Brown is pushing in California.

Meanwhile, Google is developing self-driving cars that will be able to move faster and more efficiently than current cars because their 21st century technology, like the 19th century technology of fixed rails, effectively prevents cars from colliding.

Nineteenth century fixed rails take you where the railroad, or its government subsidizer, wants you to go. Self-driving cars will take you where you want to go, with as many stops as you like along the way.

Read it all.

PAUL GREENBERG: Soldier's Song. Read it all, because the past unremembered will be the future

THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT: health premiums skyrocket by $3,065.

GREAT NEWS: your children don't belong to you.

AIRLINES: bring your own entertainment.

UNITED NATIONS CONSIDERS 'TAPPING' WEALTHY NATIONS — the U.S. in particular — through a host of global taxes, says 'the time has come' to redistribute wealth.

No, the time has come for the U.S. to withdraw from the UN.

REALLY LONG-RANGE PLANNING.

ACCORDING TO A NEW PUBLIC OPINION STRATEGIES POLL, Utah's Mia Love is now beating her Democrat opponent 51-36.

And Democrats are not taking Love’s blooming well.

The leftist magazine Mother Jones is now attacking Love as an “anchor baby” and police are investigating a packet of racist pictures sent to Love’s mayoral office.

Few things anger liberals more than seeing a successful immigrant adopt conservative policies and win as a Republican. That is why the liberal noise machine will stop at nothing to destroy Love. So far it seems Utah voters are ignoring them.

Good for her.

DON'T MESS WITH AN OLD WOMAN.

An old woman prospector shuffled into town leading a tired old mule. The old woman headed straight for the only saloon to clear her parched throat.

She walked up and tied her old mule to the hitch rail. As she stood there, brushing some of the dust from her face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

The young gunslinger looked at the old woman and laughed, saying "hey old woman, have you ever danced?"

The old woman looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No, I never did dance ... never really wanted to."

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old bag, you're gonna dance now," and started shooting at the old woman's feet.

The old woman prospector - not wanting to get her toe blown off - started hopping around. Everybody was laughing.

When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old woman turned to her pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers.

The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately.
The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost deafening.

The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old woman and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old woman's hands, as she quietly said, "Son, have you ever licked a mule's butt?

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No, ma'am ... But ... I've always wanted to."

There are a few lessons for us all here:

1 - Never be arrogant.
2 - Don't waste ammunition.
3 - Whiskey makes you think you're smarter than you are.
4 - Always, always make sure you know who has the power.
5 - Don't mess with old women; they didn't get old by being stupid.

I just love a story with a happy ending, don't you?

From my email.

DON'T TEXT AND SMOKE. That's why I don't carry a cell phone....

PLANET EARTH.

STEPHEN STROMBERG is a local activist masquerading as a Washington Post editorial writer. In this post he uses Mitt Romney's view on charity as a precursor to attack Romney for 'dishonesty' (as if Obama has been less dishonest). Ignoring the issue of 'honesty' I would remind Mr. Stromberg and his fellow liberals that spending other people's money on 'charitable' activities of (at best) dubious worth is not a universal value.

VOTE FOR OUR CHILDREN:

THE ENTITLEMENT SOCIETY. Random thoughts from the retirement lane. Leaving the grocery this morning with my shopping cart, a young woman in her Cadillac Escalade displayed her (lack of) courtesy by not stopping to allow me to cross the parking lot. As she passed, I noted the Obama/Biden 2012 sticker neatly attached to the Cadillac's rear bumper.

SOME THOUGHTS about the faculty lounge: "These two faculty members had the critical thinking skills of a couple of gnats and no ability to understand anything outside their worldview."

Another reason the higher-education bubble is about to burst.