AN ECONOMY HEADLINE to be proud of: Best. Economic. Contraction. Ever. Good article too.

RAMESH PONNURU: Just ignore Obama. Good advice, not just for the Republican party, but for states and individuals as well. Fight him if you must, block him where you can, and ignore him as much as possible. Don't give him any publicity.

MARCO RUBIO: no border enforcement, no amnesty, no path to citizenship. "[I]f there is not real language in this [immigration] bill that guarantees that nothing else will happen unless these [border] enforcement mechanisms are in place, I won’t support it."

FROM MY EMAIL: Welcome to the 21th century, where less is more.

Phones ~ Wireless
Cooking ~ Fireless
Cars ~ Keyless
Food ~ Fatless
Tires ~ Tubeless
Dress ~ Sleeveless
Youth ~ Jobless
Leaders ~ Shameless
Relationships ~ Meaningless
Attitude ~ Careless
Wives ~ Fearless
Babies ~ Fatherless
Feelings ~ Heartless
Education ~ Valueless
Children ~ Mannerless
Women ~ Pantieless
Politicans ~ Gutless

Everything is becoming LESS but still our hopes are Endless. In fact I am Speechless.

PINHEAD BUREAUCRATS threaten family with possible prison sentence for rescuing a baby deer.

With every passing day, it's becoming more and more evident that subnormal intelligence is a requirement for becoming a goverment bureaucrat.

"SINCE FDR, the Democrat Party has governed over 12 presidential terms with seven presidents, who combined, accounted for 15 female nominees as compared to the GOP's nine terms, six presidents and 17 female nominees. It seems the "Party of Women" is actually the Republican Party, which doesn't fit the mold cast by Democrats of a party filled with pregnant, barefoot soccer-moms who forgot to pay for their birth control."

Poor Mitt Romney: "A list of the governor’s cabinet members over the entirety of his tenure shows 11 women and 16 men, for a percentage over his term of 40 percent."

JUST TRY TELLING HIM THAT: Obama is not king.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Selective fire (i.e., fully automatic) AR-15 with 30-round magazine is "suitable for personal defense use in close quarters" (but only if you're a government employee).

UNLEASH DARWIN:

From my email.

THE 'NEW' AMNESTY PLAN: What could go wrong?

The Heritage Foundations has a better idea.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER asks gun retailers to suspend sales of assault weapons: "[I] if measures get passed that limit these type of weapons, it won’t help if more of them have recently been sold."

Uh, Chuckie, why do you think gun sales have gone through the roof? My dealer has told me that manufacturers are no longer even accepting orders because they can't begin to fill the ones they already have on backorder.

Congress is the best salesman the gun manufacturers have....

SMOKERS face huge ObamaCare surcharge. Let's see. Obama told us we must buy health insurance; Obama told us we can't be denied for pre-existing conditions; and Obama told us premiums wouldn't be risk-adjusted.

I guess I missed the "politically disfavored exception" to that no-risk-adjustment part.

"CENTRAL PLANNING FAILURES always lead to more central planning."

WHAT! ME WORK? Surely you jest. More in a continuing series.

AMERICANS BOUGHT ENOUGH GUNS in the last two months to outfit the entire Chinese and Indian armies. More proof here (comments). I've always been able to buy ammunition whenever I go to the range, but I've had to search, and my last trip, the range store had limits on .22LR ammunition.

OUTSMART OBAMACARE: outsource. If 'going protean' becomes popular, there will be an unprecedented boom in small business. I suspect it could lead to economic boom times.

AN APPROPRIATE USE OF TECHNOLOGY.

From my email.

WHY DOES BENGHAZI MATTER? "Once the September 11th attack in Benghazi is seen for what it was -- a highly coordinated and highly successful operation by terrorists who were said to have been vanquished -- that calls into question the Obama administration's Middle East foreign policy."

That is why it matters.

OBAMA ADMITS he does like shooting.

IRAN REPORTS lofting monkey into space. Unfortunately, Ahmadinejad returned safely to Earth.

PAUL GREENBERG: Not to Call names, But....

GUN CONTROL: the view from my email.

Drunks buy assault vehicles; so shouldn't we require background checks on all assault vehicle buyers?

LAUGHTER: Seattle gun buyback becomes gun show.

WALKING BEACH CRITTERS.

TEXAS SENATOR TED CRUZ invites gun manufacturers to move to Texas. Here's his letter (click the images to expand):

I would've recommended that the banks cease doing business with the City of Chicago.

INCOME DISTRIBUTION VS. AGE: Where do you fit in? You might be surprised.

THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT, for increasing my wealth. Not my income, my wealth. Too bad about those taxes you thought you were going to get....

"EMPLOYMENT IS DEAD IN THE WATER because opportunities for organic expansion are few and the cost basis of doing business in the U.S. keep rising. That vise forces businesses large and small to reduce labor costs while boosting productivity. There is no other way to stay solvent in a post-bubble, over-capacity, over-indebted consumerist economy awash in too much of everything but energy, common sense and fiscal prudence."

Read it all.

OBAMA: 'Never mind' about deficits. Send him a pea (one pea only).

DANIEL J. MITCHELL: Expect civil disobedience if politicians try to undermine the Second Amendment.

“HYBRID WING” uses half the fuel of a standard airplane.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD: "New Obama team likely to live down to expectations."

NEWT GINGRICH: A Sterile View of Collective Action.

Go through [Obama's inaugural speech] and replace the words “together,” “one nation,” and “one people” with “the federal government,” or “bureaucrats” and you will have a better sense of why he is wrong.

Read it all.

MORE ON the unintended consequences of electronic medical records. Are you really sure you like ObamaCare?

GO AHEAD: Mess with the NRA.

TEXAS is looking better and better.

HOW 'BOUT THAT? The Constitution applies to President Obama too.

THINKPROGRESS calls the Republican plan to apportion electoral college votes by congressional district “Grand Theft Election.”

They stole the election 'fair and square' and aren't about to let the Republicans take it back.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:

Original here.

ROBERT A. HALL: I'm 63 and I'm Tired.

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked hard since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought Mc Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble use their own money to help them.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America provided to them. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have:

1. the economy of Zimbabwe,
2. the freedom of the press of China,
3. the crime and violence of Mexico,
4. the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and
5. the freedom of speech of Venezuela.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Sharia’s law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly in an all-knowing government.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must not complain when Saudi Arabia uses the money we pay for their oil to fund mosques and madras Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think gay people choose to be gay, but I #@*# sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from "cool" people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially those who aren't working, but living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track citizenship for any Hispanic who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the kind of citizens we need.

I'm tired of the trashing of our military by latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's a deal for those folks. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, while the critics of our military can be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia because the girls were Christian -- then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has looted the public treasury for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about "innocent" mistakes, "stupid" mistakes or "youthful" mistakes, when all of us know they think their only mistake was getting caught.

I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement who have air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I'm real tired of people, rich or poor, who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I'm tired, but I'm also glad to be 63, mostly because I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.

From my email.

SOLVING THE IMMIGRATION PUZZLE:

The immigration system is like a jigsaw puzzle. If one or more pieces are out of whack, the puzzle makes no sense. To fix the system, Congress must make sure all of the pieces fit together, logically and snugly.

Bush and Bolick make a good argument for comprehensive reform. I have no quarrel with the basics, but to get me to sign on, they will have to convince me that the borders will be secured as part of the process. For example, a logical way to proceed is to tie the number of amnesties granted to the reduction in number of illegal crossings.

CHARLES PAYNE: The Nature of Cats and Men. It should be retitled "Why I Like Cats."

FOUR MORE YEARS: Lots of audacity, not much hope.

ENDING GUN VIOLENCE requires commitment (of Democrats).

MOST STOLEN GUNS end up with criminals.

Where is Obviousman when you need him?

SO WHY AREN'T THEY HAPPY? Europe's Wishes Came True.

“RIGGING” THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM is bad only when it hurts Democrats.

ARMING THEMSELVES: Police in Iowa city to buy their own semi-automatic AR-15s.

Hmm. I can't decide whether this is an argument for or against gun control.

FASTER PLEASE: Unions Crumble Without Stimulus Spending.

DANG! I should have bought a Glock.

OBAMA PROMISES to fix inequality after making it worse. If the definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, then liberalism is a clear marker for institutionalization.

BETWEEN SAD AND SICKENING: a liberal view of future America.

GUN CONTROL: An AR-15 might be a woman’s best friend.

EVEN GOVERNMENT UNIONS: Unions suffer steep decline in membership. Not steep enough on the government side, though.

TRUST US: You don't need want to know how the government works.

WHY WORK when you can live the good life on welfare?

IS LIBERALISM DOOMED? "The left’s real enemy isn’t Republicans, it is arithmetic."

It's a pity they failed 4th grade arithmetic....

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: America's mayor. Or nanny....

WILL THE LAST CALIFORNIAN please turn out the lights (that is, if there are any lights left to turn out).

BIPARTISANSHIP, OBAMA STYLE: "The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat."

Stephen Green (VodkaPundit) responds.

TECHWISE CONVERSATIONS: Will machines ever master translation?

OH, REALLY? "I think the majority of us feel strongly — even the majority of gun owners feel strongly — that we need to make some sacrifice[s] to our freedoms, if that’s the way to put it. We need to make some sacrifices to what we might want to have, in order to safeguard our children."

Not in my neck of the woods, James. We have guns to protect our families.

TIME FOR SOME POLITICAL COURAGE. After all, it’s for the children.

Put some of the GOP women out on the steps surrounded by moms and kids who protected themselves from scumbag criminals through the magic of firearms. Ask why the liberals are willing to sacrifice women to be raped, gays to be bashed, and minorities to be intimidated, all in order to disarm law-abiding citizens. Maybe some of the kids can even read their letters talking about how thankful they are that Mommy was able to use her Glock to keep her family from being murdered by that thug the liberal judge released on a technicality.

Punch back - and always remember that a sword has two edges.

RISK FACTOR: Is your identity worth stealing (third item)?

Not mine.

DEAR DEMOCRATS: You own Obama and everything his presidency has wrought. Please stop comparing him to successful Republicans.

UNEXPECTEDLY: The NRA has a higher approval rating than the president because it's in sync with Americans' beliefs.

NEVILLE (CHAMBERLAIN) AGAIN: Obama Promises ‘Peace in Our Time’. And as far as the Obama/FDR comparisons go, wasn't Roosevelt the President when World War II began?

I CAN SEE 2014 from that gun show.

RADIO TALK SHOW HOST MARK LEVIN painted a stark picture of the reality facing the country – the rise of tyranny – but he also offered hope in one word: “fight.”

ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS: Obama's Great Health Leap Forward Backward. Alert reader #2 has it exactly right: "they’ve taken the highest paid person in the department and turned him/her into a data entry clerk”.

Recalling my own career, as soon as PCs (and PowerPoint) became prevalent in the workplace, the artists were laid off and the engineers ceased doing engineering and became responsible for their own art. It's much easier to do engineering art than engineering design, so it takes very little imagination to figure out what happened ... and what will happen to medicine.

DEEP SEA DIVING: I've known about living undersea for quite a while, but at a thousand feet?

Linked from Instapundit.

CONSTITUTION? What Constitution? Welcome to Obama's second term.

HILLARY CLINTON: What difference does it make? Republicans, why weren't those follow-up questions asked?

GOLFER PHIL MICKELSON and the Laffer curve. Will California learn anything if when he leaves? Unlikely.

SUSAN BROWN: Obama's Definition of 'Liberty'. More succinctly, "You have the liberty to do whatever I demand."

ABOUT TIME: A New Fleet Of Robot Asteroid Prospectors Will Launch By 2015.

My grandchildren will certainly live to see the first space colonization; my children might.

MORE ON OBAMA'S INAUGURATION ADDRESS: long on audacity, short on hope. But plenty of dope.

UNEXPECTEDLY: State Department delays Keystone pipeline decision.

NAKED PARTISANSHIP.

WHO'D'VE THUNK IT? Mafia invests in 'green energy' scam.

PURDUE GOT A NEW PRESIDENT: The United States of America should have.

HATE MAIL from that loving, tolerant Left. I wonder how the emailer would feel if he/she/it were Google-mapped?

HISTORY SHOWS freedom drives a car. Which explains the liberals' constant push for mass transit.

AYN RAND and the criminalization of everyday life.

Instapundit has an interesting thought: "Nowhere do the political classes care all that much for freedom. Freedom provides insufficient opportunities for graft, and ego-stroking. Freedom obtains in spite of political classes, not because of them."

OBAMA'S POWER "derives not primarily through economic influence ... but through its growing power to inform opinion and regulate everything from how people live to what industries will be allowed to grow, or die."

Read it all.

MICHAEL BARONE: "House Republicans are learning they can't govern from just one house of Congress. But they can shine the spotlight on Senate and White House Democrats' inability or unwillingness to govern."

RURAL AMERICA, take note: “Obama‘s vision for America is 'essentially urban.'”

MAN OUTSOURCES own job to China. I'd do it, too, except that ... I don't have a job.

RIGHTS? You thought you had rights?

NO SINGLE PERSON CAN. Neither can any single government.

But single persons, acting individually in a capitalist economy, can.

OBAMA INAUGURAL’S liberal definition of rights. The problem with 'positive rights' is that they come firmly attached to 'positive control'.

JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM: Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?

OBAMACARE: the gift that just keeps on giving taking.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: "If conservatives have ensured that there are millions of semi-automatic assault weapons in American society, liberals' unprecedented expansions of free expression have led to an alarming number of unhinged Americans on our streets, nursed on sick games like 'Grand Theft Auto' and hours of watching odious movies such as 'Natural Born Killers.'"

BRENT BOZELL: Protecting Hollywood campaign funding.

SOCIALLY LIBERAL FISCAL CONSERVATIVES: "I'm going to be straight with you. I never had much respect for your political acumen before, but you're a sucker."

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: "We [humans] are a plague on Earth". Feel free to lead by example and remove yourself.

SARAH PALIN on 'the children' and Washington hypocrisy:

Clearly, there is no shortage of hypocrisy coming out of Washington, and this is just one example. Americans can expect to be inundated with rhetoric and doublespeak for the duration of this administration. It is truly Orwellian. So it is absolutely imperative that we keep our eyes and ears open; don't allow yourselves to be sucked in or lulled to sleep. Our freedoms are being compromised, our common sense insulted, and our children exploited. We must be vigilant and engaged, and we must remain hopeful that a better day is coming.

As usual, she gets to the heart of the matter.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK (IN A RECESSION):

A guy stopped at a local gas station, and after filling his tank, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and watched a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind him and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was 25 feet behind filling in the hole.

The men worked right past the guy with the soft drink and went on down the road. "I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can into a trash container and headed down the road toward the men. "Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going on here with all this digging and refilling?"

"Well, we work for the government and we're just doing our job," one of the men said.

"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the taxpayers' money?"

"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us: me, Elmer and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree, and Leroy here puts the dirt back.

Elmer's job's been cut ... so now it's just me an' Leroy!

From my email (naturally).

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Want to save the Republic? Win the next election. Don't immolate yourself trying to save liberalism from itself. If your conservative philosophy is indeed right, winning will come. As Margaret Thatcher said serenely of the Labor Party socialists she later overthrew: 'They always run out of other people's money.'"

Wise words, but quoting Henry Louis Mencken, "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." That time is here.

COMMON CORE: Orwellian new government education standards. All the education you serfs need to know....

I was once in favor of a common 'core' curriculum. That was until I found out who was developing it.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA reports on the Obama inauguration.

FEDERAL GUN POLICIES you may never have heard of.

PAUL GREENBERG: In His Own Words. Some thoughts about eternal values.

FAT TAXES may kill you.

WHAT MAKES MASS MURDERERS TICK? It's not as obvious as we may have thought.

I AGREE with his argument except that social engineering is most emphatically not engineering.

OBAMA'S INAUGURATION SPEECH:

He included the invocation of the military as an example for us to follow when resolving our political differences. He cast as heartless villains anyone who wanted to reform any of our welfare-state programs. He did at least acknowledge that we must reduce our deficits, but in the same breath expressed an absolute refusal to do anything but raise taxes to solve the problem.

The best we can hope for is 4 more years of gridlock.

A LESSON IN BIG GOVERNMENT: Government scientist gets fired for telling the (politically incorrect) truth.

LAUNDRY CAT:



There's more here.

PEGGY NOONAN: No one has good faith but Obama.

PENNSYLVANIA GIRL, 5, suspended for threatening to shoot schoolmate with pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles.

Disciplinary action is required, but not against the little girl. The school administration, principal, and teachers involved should be canned immediately, their teaching certificates lifted, and they should never be allowed on a school campus again.

FORGET THE GUN CULTURE. What about the fatherless culture? "Dads, by getting up and going to work each day, send a powerful message every day to their children: Hard work wins. There are no short cuts. The outcome is unknowable. But the effort is entirely within your control."

NO MORE boring home improvement projects: the DeWalt AR-15 nail gun.

Yes, it's a fake (nail gun).

WHY ARE AMERICANS WORKING LESS? "While there are a number of factors, the phenomenon is due mainly to a variety of public policies that have reduced the incentives to be employed: food stamps; Social Security disability; unemployment insurance.... As the burden of government spending increases, this creates an ever-growing incentive for more and more people to figure out ways of riding in the wagon while simultaneously imposing higher and higher costs on those pulling the wagon."

REACTION ENGINES: An interesting video, but there is no 'there' there.

STEVE CHAPMAN: Gun Control's Potemkin Village.

DAY BY DAY: Strike while the iron's hot.

I CHOSE to go to the shooting range today rather than be beseiged by the Inauguration hoopla on radio and television. I wasn't alone; all the shooting positions were filled the entire time I was at the range. Talking around, one of the employees at the gun shop agreed with Edwin Olwin in the Minnesota Star Tribune: "Obama has been the best gun salesman around."

NEWT GINGRICH: House Republicans must use the power of the purse.

“The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse — that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

Real negotiations can only begin after the House has defunded parts of Obama's government.

A REMINDER (from my email):

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever, to 46 million people.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us... "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."

Our government cares more for animals than humans.

GUN APPRECIATION DAY at my local gun range.

Not having been there today, I'm not sure the crowd was any larger than normal for a Saturday; on weekends, waiting time to get a shooting station is usually at least a half-hour or so.

FLUSH TWICE and other crappy products courtesy of the green movement.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Second-Term Reckonings.

MANUFACTURING IS RECOVERING; unionized manufacturing isn't.

SEN. TED CRUZ: Obama is ‘High on His Own Power’. He's certainly high on something....

POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Anonymous Warns of ‘Insurrection in America’ Due to Obama’s Gun Grab.

HOUSE GOP: We'll raise the debt ceiling for three months -- to allow the Senate to pass a budget. After that, no budget, no pay. It won't solve the debt crisis, but ....

HAVE YOU NO DECENCY? If you have to say it, you probably don't.

IS THE HONEYMOON OVER?

Rasmussen, today.

PANETTA: People Don’t ‘Need’ Assault Rifles. Yeah, and they don't need thousands of newspapers, or hundreds of television stations, or more that $250,000/year earnings....

CONNECTICUT DEMOCRAT introduces the Keep Gun Manufacturers Alive Act of 2013 in the House of Representatives: a $2,000 tax credit for turning in an 'assault weapon' for destruction. Let's see now. I can go out at buy a new AR-15 for less than $1,000; turn it in for a tax credit of $2,0000; and then go out and buy two, maybe three, more.

It's too bad Rep. DeLauro will only allow me to turn in only one weapon per year....

MORNING EXAMINER: The sequester is going to happen.

GOOD QUESTION from my email: "Why is it the progressive liberals who steal guns then go and kill movie goers and children in school have never been NRA members?"

Ft Hood - registered Democrat - Muslim
Columbine - too young to vote - both families were registered democrats and progressive liberals
VA Tech - wrote hate mail to Pres Bush and to his staff - registered Democrat
Colorado Theater - registered Democrat - staff worker on the Obama campaign - occupy wall street participant progressive liberal
Connecticut School Shooter - registered Democrat - hated Christians

The common thread is that all of these shooters were progressive liberal democrats.

They were also insane.

LIBERAL IS A SYNONYM FOR STUPID: New York’s recently passed gun control law stunningly fails to include any exemptions for law enforcement officers, and technically prohibits police from ever bringing guns on school grounds or possessing extended ammo magazines.

THAT'S TWO: Weapons stolen from N.Y. home of gun owner named on Journal News website. Someone needs to be sued....

PEOPLE NOT REQUIRED: the Internet of Things. Thanks, but include me out.

GUN CONTROL: the irrationality of the reality-based community.

THANK OBAMACARE: Pennsylvania hospital to stop baby deliveries.

COMING SOON: ObamaMiles. More control, more bureaucrats, more corruption.

JOURNALISM DIDN’T JUST DIE. It went to work for the enemy.

"CAN WE EVEN speak of the rule of law as a meaningful concept when we combine an explosive regulatory state with near-absolute prosecutorial discretion?”

UNEXPECTEDLY: ObamaCare "more like fascism".

LITTLE JOHNNY:

A teacher goes around her class asking each of the kids what do they need at home?

Joey says; "A computer." The teacher replies, "That would be very useful."

Kimmy says; "A new lawn mower" and gets a similar response.

Little Johnny pops up and says; "At my house we don't need nothing!"

The teacher asks him to think again carefully, as everybody needs something.

Little Johnny replies: "No, I'm sure. When Obama was re-elected, I remember my dad saying, 'Well, that's the last ... thing we needed.'"

From my email.

ARE GUNS THE PROBLEM? No, liberals are the problem.

YES. Is America an Idiocracy? Any remaining questions?

GUN CONTROL is a way of rubbing Middle America’s face in the fact that it doesn’t run things. Click through the links to read it all.

PAUL GREENBERG: Darby Rides Again. We need more William O. Darbys.

ALASKA SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI is "breaking with Republican leadership in the debate about raising the U.S. debt ceiling, saying the country has a duty to assure it can pay its bills." In other words, it's more important for Americans individually to go bankrupt than it is for the U.S. to quit overspending.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Head Start finally gets tested -- and flunks. Unexpectedly, of course.

To be expected (equally of course): a demand by Democrats to pour even more money into it.

MICHAEL BARONE: Ivory-tower Obama can't abide views he doesn't share. That's only a surprise to someone who's been asleep for the last 4 years. We call them Democrats.

STATES WILL BE GIVEN EXTRA TIME to set up health insurance exchanges. The correct reading of this article is that the Obama administration will give itself extra time to coerce States into implementing ObamaCare.

ROGER KIMBALL: This metamorphosis will require a permit (which I can't have).

The sheer absurdity of Kimball's experience reminds me of a few months ago when my old computer suffered a massive heart attack. I managed to revive it by reinstalling the original Microsoft XP operating system from the CD. Then I got online to restore all the service packs, patches, and upgrades that had accumulated over the years only to be informed by Microsoft that I needed Internet Explorer 8 to download the service packs. Original XP came with Internet Explorer 6, so I tried to download Internet Explorer 6 from Microsoft. Sorry, it said, you can't upgrade Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8 without Service Pack 1, which can't be downloaded with Internet Explorer 6.

I gave up and bought a new computer.

A BLOW to ObamaCare. A stealth backdoor to single-payer healthcare stomped out. Good.

ALLEN WEST joins PJ Media. Congratulations, sir.

AMERICA: Go meddle in someone else's business.

IF ONLY: Time for Republicans and Democrats to get a divorce? For the children, of course....

ANTHROPOMORPHIC NOUNS (from my email):

We are all familiar with a herd of cows, a flock of chickens, a school of fish, and a gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is a pride of lions, a murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of baboons. Baboons are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious,
most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Believe it or not... a congress!

A CONGRESS OF BABOONS! That pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington....

You just can’t make this stuff up.

LOUISANA GOV. BOBBY JINDAL: Eliminate income and corporate taxes. It's a bold move, and one almost certain to be fought on the grounds that it's regressive. But I suspect that if it is approved, much to the surprise of the 'experts', Louisana will prosper.

Is Virginia Gov. McDonnell following Gov. Jindal's footsteps?

OBAMA ON SPENDING CONTROL: “[I]f you can encourage your readers to have their young children write Obama about their angst regarding the national debt, he will publish 23 ways to address federal spending.” I'm sure they'll be as effective as his gun control orders....

GOOD QUESTION:

More here.

HE'S A UNITER: “If whites and minorities were once on different economic and social tracks, they sure aren’t anymore. Downward mobility is now a shared American experience.”

NEWT GINGRICH: Picking fights the Republicans can win.

"OUR PRESIDENT is taking policy advice from 8 year olds now. Things will likely improve with their superior maturity and experience."

BAN FIREARMS NOW: Sixty percent of high school and college students say they plan on owning guns at a later stage in life. Read the comments.

THE TIPPING POINT has been reached:

[Mitt] Romney lost [the 2012 Presidential election] because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.

Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.

The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.

Taking back America is, I'm afraid, going to be a slow, state-by-state effort using the Tenth Amendment.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Confessions of a gun-loving journalist. Since he lives in Maryland, I wonder how long it will be until his guns are taken away....

REVEALED: the massive new liberal plan to remake American politics.

Note that their three big goals are for all practical purposes essentially ballot-stuffing initiatives. Democracy is not for the little people.

INVESTMENT THOUGHTS for Wile E. Coyote. No matter how hard you try, with Obama and Congress at they helm, you're going to wind up "burnt to a crisp, squashed flat or at the bottom of a canyon."

TEXAS GOV. RICK PERRY responds to Obama’s gun control announcement.

TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH: Obama's new executive orders on gun control. I have to agree with the commenters: "half as well at twice the cost" dramatically overestimates the Administration's competence.

SMALL BALL: Why our fiscal debates amount to nothing.

The left is trying to avoid a fundamental transformation of the structure of our entitlement programs, since liberals believe the structure of those programs is key to their legitimacy and purpose, and so key to sustaining a just society.

The right is trying to avoid a fundamental transformation of the relationship of government and society in American life, since conservatives believe the structure of that relationship is essential to American freedom and prosperity.

The left would rather see American life altered (with a significantly larger government, a smaller and less active civil society, and a more consolidated but less dynamic economy) than see our welfare-state institutions reformed.

The right would rather see our entitlement system altered (with lumbering universal entitlement programs turned into means-tested and market-based safety-net systems for the elderly and the poor) than see the character of our society transformed.

My sense is that the next American revolution has begun; it will be fought in the towns, cities, and states as Americans decline to be controlled by activist governments. Here are some examples.

GOP SHOULD BECOME the party of the 'parenting' class.

[C]onservatives should concentrate on the anxieties of the parenting class because if they are not addressed in ways that take heed of both the significance of traditional values and the importance of free-market, small-government principles, they will eventually be addressed in ways that undercut both.

Well, yeah, it would be nice to have some adults in charge for a change.

A SHORT ESSAY on Western intellectualism. Includes this nugget: "Your right to speak [doesn't] include a right to be taken seriously."

LIBERALS pay more here.

IF YOU CAN'T WIN ON GUN CONTROL, change the name to gun safety.

LOOK! a squirrel!

NOT QUITE: Workers are raiding their own funds.

"WE'RE GOING TO LOOK BACK AT THIS DECADE as the dawn of the commercial space age. ... The energy we see now -- the economic motivation to go into space -- we haven't seen that before."

HEH. “The people who are doing the most to reduce emissions, by biking or taking the bus, were the people who experienced the highest levels of exposure to pollutants.”

NO. WITH OBAMACARE, we have an obligation to die.

REAGAN WAS THE 'GREAT COMMUNICATOR'; Obama is the 'Great Divider'.

A PREVIEW of likely gun control recommendations. Some of the recommendations make sense, like improved background checks, but only if there are explicit legal procedures for adjudication of rejections. Closing the 'gun show loophole' could be accomplished by requiring the show sponsor to maintain a link to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for the duration of the show, but true private sales (from me to my neighbor, for example) are realistically uncheckable.

Banning 'assault weapons' and 'high capacity magazines' is just plain silly. There's no essential difference between an 'assault' rifle and the Remington semi-automatic .22 I owned as a teenager 50+ years ago. My .22 also had a 'high capacity' (15-round tubular) magazine ... 50 years ago!

With handguns, magazine capacity is essentially irrelevant, since even someone as unpracticed as I can swap an empty magazine for a full one in less than a second (which I do routinely at the gun range).

I can live with the data/coordination/enforcement proposals if -- and it's a big if -- gun owner privacy were respected and guaranteed in law. For example, by jailing the owners and employees of the Journal-News, razing their building, and salting the earth underneath.

MOCKERY IS THE BEST MEDICINE: targeting the gun control hypocrites.



You can support Project Veritas here.

OBAMA'S CHILDREN ARE PROTECTED.



Are yours?

DEMOCRATS: Yes, let's hold the debt ceiling hostage.

Heh.

OBAMA, RACE AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Why the Second Term Will Be Worse (Part I) and (Part II).

OF COURSE: Let's disarm the victims.

CHUCK HAGEL: A man to watch -- carefully.

HISTORICAL FACTS that aren't.

THE PUBLIC INAUGURATION of a new moral McCarthyism.

BEING 'HIP': talking about the people means it is OK to live unlike the people.

FAA TO PILOTS: Don't text and fly.

SOON TO COME: the Inflatable Space Station.

A LONG, LONG TIME AGO ... there were 'public servants'. In a galaxy far away.

THE GREAT AMERICAN GUN FRENZY:

Why would people buy a type of firearm — “assault rifles” — that might become illegal to own? Why buy something that might soon be taken from them?

These gun buyers suspect that whatever legislation comes into existence will not grab the guns they now buy. It will not be a confiscation. In America, with over 300 million guns in private hands, that would be too difficult to manage. Buying a gun now that will soon be merely prohibited from future production, purchase and sale makes sense.

The impetus for this gun-buying surge? It’s more than the lure of the forbidden, or soon-to-be forbidden. It’s more, also, than an urge to get something valuable now before it becomes too expensive — or even nearly impossible to get, legally — later. At least part of the motivation comes from a desire to put as much firepower and weaponry into private hands as possible . . . while it remains possible.

Bingo! Read it all.

PROSPECTING FOR OIL OR GOLD? Check the time.

THERE'S DOPING ...

... and then there are just dopes.

GO TO SCHOOL with the gang of your choice.

Instead of appropriately dealing with gang-related violence, an independent Chicago school closure commission is recommending no school closures because such a move could force students to cross gang lines.

So in Chicago, gang violence is the “new normal” and instead of combating and gaining some control over the problem, city leaders are simply accommodating it.

Wow. Gangs of street punks are now influencing public policy and million dollar decisions. It looks like they really have won.

Gang leadership ... the Chicago way.

PAUL KRUGMAN: The Mostly Solved Deficit Problem. Read the comments. Then throw in the trillion dollar platinum coin and the 14th Amendment solutions, and you're left with the powerful impression that Democrats shouldn't even be allowed to play with Monopoly money.

HEH. "I don't think I've entered the political arena. As a blogger, it's more like I'm sitting in the bleachers throwing rotten tomatoes. Need more tomatoes."

"[W]HO CARES ABOUT FACTS, when you are on a liberal crusade that makes you feel morally superior?"

WHEN WILL Barack Obama contribute his ‘fair share'? My guess? Just before Hell freezes over.

CONNECTICUT GOVERNOR: “We have different laws that make it substantially easier to buy weapons without sufficient background checks in states like Virginia, and Florida, because we’re on I-95, the road system that runs from Florida through — through Maine, we’re going to see those weapons come into our state. Let’s close those loopholes.”

"The common factor seems to be I-95. I would support closing it, and shutting down the entire Department of Transportation death machine."

WHY SO SERIOUS? Is conservative despair justified? Maybe not, but sometimes it sure seems that way. Liberalism would be a lot more tolerable if there was a hunting season on them.

JAMES CAPRETTA: The Budget Battles Ahead. It'n not what I'd really like, of course, but it matches with an earlier suggestion of mine ... fight with delaying tactics for the next two years, make sure the Democrats are held responsible for their tax increases, and prepare legislation addressing tax reform, Social Security reform, and Medicare/Medicaid reform in the next Congress in which they have a majority.

PEOPLE AREN’T STUPID. "That’s why, as the illiberal-liberal establishment embarks on another orgy of 'ban the guns' rhetoric, people are rushing out in unprecedented numbers to arm themselves. It’s not only to protect themselves against the thieves who might creep into their houses at night to steal the family silver; it’s also to protect themselves against the suit-wearing thieves who practice their trade by wielding the levers of state power."

HOSPITALIZED IN NYC? You may have to 'suffer a bit'" to prevent extra pain pills from piling up in the cabinets of New Yorkers who no longer need them, where they can pose a health risk if they’re abused."

Megan McArdle has more.

This is standard liberal philosophy: punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS is a critical component of feeling competent and autonomous as individuals, rather than relying on the goodwill of a super-powerful, unassailable government.

AUSTRALIAN gun control. Do we really want to go there?

COLIN POWELL: There’s ‘a dark vein of intolerance’ in the GOP. Well, if he means that Republicans don't suffer fools gladly, there's probably an element of truth in that statement. But that doesn't make the GOP racist; it makes the Democrats fools.

OLD MEDIA discovers that elections have consequences. More Obama => less consumption => less advertising => less journalists.

I'm pleased to announce that I'm only partly to blame; I gave up my subscription to the Washington Post in order to resubscribe to National Review (and buy a few hundred extra rounds of ammunition with the change).

HOW TO AVOID THE DEBT CEILING: issue IOUs. California did, and look at where they are now....

JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO: the cowardice of the Journal News.

MICHAEL BARONE: History suggests that era of entitlements is nearly over. The only question is whether America can survive until 2017.

IT'S BEGUN: Janet’s List claims first success.

NEVER. When is the Best Time to File for Medicare?

JEEZ: teacher cites fear of children in discrimination suit. Thirty-five years teaching, and she's scared of young children? This reads to me more like a case of someone who doesn't want to give up a cushy, non-working sinecure.

SIGN THE PETITION: Make the White House a Gun-Free Zone! I signed.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD.

IF THE GUN CONTROLLERS WIN....

IT'S NOT about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg? "The ordinary people were not happy. They loathed the Emperor's interference in every detail of their daily lives."

PRETEND GUN CONTROL: "I recommend banning phased plasma rifles in the 40-watt range. No one needs more than 25 watts for home defense." Those unicorn horn bullets have also got to go....

Click through to the Frank J. Fleming post and enjoy.

LIBERAL 'TOLERANCE' on display. An argument for home/charter schools.

THE TRUTH about semi-automatic firearms.



This ought to be required watching for every television talkig head, since their degree of ignorance is simply astonishing. (Actually, their degree of ignorance about nearly everything is astonishing.)

WHAT IS IT ABOUT GUNS that makes people crazy?

GAMES IN SCHOOLS: Making “Ender’s Game” a Reality (text here).



If you're familiar with the original "Ender's Game" novella, it has much to say about violent games in the context of the current gun control debate. It's only briefly alluded to in the podcast.

END BULLYING: Ban violent words.

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL GREG ABBOTT: "The Second Amendment is not a philosophical belief; it is a constitutional guarantee."

DANIEL J. MITCHELL: We Should “Reform” Payroll Taxes, but only if that Means Personal Retirement Accounts.

Correct. And I have proof.

HEH: NASA JOHNSON STYLE.



Well, if it encourages more young people to enter space sciences, I'm all for it.

OF COURSE: Privacy Issues Causing "Backlash" Against Domestic UAV Use. My solution would be less law ... encourage Americans to use the UAVs to spy on our various government agencies.

GO AHEAD, tax 'the rich' some more. Since the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act (the 'fiscal cliff' legislation), my wealth has increased substantially; enough to join the NRA and buy that new gun I've been eyeing. My taxes, not so much.

For you Liberals out there, there is a significant difference between wealth and income; wealth isn't taxable; income is. Your 'tax the rich' scheme has had the effect of significantly increasing my wealth without affecting my income (which is quite modest) at all.

Live with it.

ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE AIRCRAFT: NASA funds ‘green’ aviation technology partnerships. I'm actually somewhat surprised; I would have thought that 'environmentally responsible aircraft' is Obama-ese for 'bird'.

IF THERE WERE EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW, what would be the point of being a Very Important Person?

UNEXPECTEDLY: Laws are for little people. Meet one of those little people. He's not the only one.

"THERE IS AN ACADEMIC, PEER-REVIEWED, LONG-TERM STUDY of the effect of various public policies on public, multiple shootings in all 50 states over a 20-year period performed by renowned economists at the University of Chicago and Yale, William Landes and John Lott. It concluded that the only policy to reduce the incidence of, and casualties from, mass shootings are concealed-carry laws."

COIN TRICKS: the 'Trickel'. The Canadians already have the Loonie....

GOOD THING I didn't teach the cats to wipe.

SO, BILL, tell us what you really think. The video was made pre-election, but that doesn't make it any less relevant.

IF IT SAVES JUST ONE LIFE: I just joined the NRA.

IF IT SAVES JUST ONE LIFE: Boy, 15, Uses ‘Assault Rifle’ to Fight Off Intruders.

OH, MY: FAA warns flight attendants about exploding coffee filters. I can see the headline now: "Whatsit Airline Flight XYZ downed by exploding coffee filter."

Clearly we must immediately ban assault coffee filters on airplanes.

BEWARE OF WHAT YOU WISH FOR: "Obama has already gotten his dream of a vastly increased government, federalized health care, near-zero interest rates and record debt to force higher taxes. The problem now is that there are not enough millionaires and billionaires to make up for the shortfall. And if interest rates rise just a bit, the debt will bury us all -- fat cats and thin cats alike."

IF IT SAVES JUST ONE LIFE:

Last week, for example, a mother in Georgia used a .38 revolver to protect herself and her children from an intruder. Taking Joe Biden’s line — which he appears to have inherited from the president — one could quite easily construct a case to issue all mothers with revolvers whether they like it or not. Wait, you object to having a gun in the house? You think that arming all of America’s mothers sounds expensive? You’re not sure that’s the best idea anyway. Civil liberties? Yes, yes, but if it saves just one life . . .

The sword cuts both ways....

ON THE PROPER USE OF GUN CONTROL: Armed Dad shoots robbery suspect, defends baby son.

NO APOLOGIES:



The link is here.

COMPUTER HISTORY: The SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system. SAGE just barely predates my entry into the electrical engineering field (there was no such thing as computer engineering in 1962).

It's hard to comprehend how much radar and computer engineering have improved in the last 50 years. For example, the iPhone you carry in your pocket or purse is thousands of times more powerful than the SAGE's massive AN/FSQ-7 computer.

IF IT SAVES ONLY ONE LIFE, we should ban guns. Oka-a-ay.

HEH: a simple observation.

IT’S NOT “GAME OVER” — It’s time for the GOP to counterattack.

Obama and his minions are serious about defeating us, so we need to be serious about defeating them. Let’s banish cheesy talk about “Working together for the good of the country.” The only thing that is good for this country right now is defeating Obama’s leftist agenda, fully, completely and in detail. You can’t work with him, you can’t compromise with him, you can’t convince him. He’s a progressive Terminator and the Constitution is Sarah Connor.

Read the whole thing.

STILL A POMPOUS ASS....

THE LIMIT to executive orders? Impeachment.

FREE SPEECH MAY NOT ALWAYS BE PRETTY, but the alternative is usually worse.

LIBERAL AUSTIN TEXAS BACK IN THE NEWS: "City of Austin and Travis County officials plan to take steps to ban gun shows on city- and county-owned property — and potentially even curtail them on private property within the city limits." Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott noticed: "If Austin or Travis County, try to ban gun shows they better be ready for a double-barreled lawsuit."

WHY THE AR-15 is too dangerous for me to own.

JONAH GOLDBERG: a petty decision by a petty man.

TIME TO GIVE UP or time to fight on?

JUSTICE: Judge Jeanine Pirro fires back. How does The Journal News feel to be on the receiving end of return fire?

THE PROJECT TO REPLACE OBAMACARE. Follow the links for the details.

AS GOVERNMENT GROWS, so does dependency. It's all about control, you see.

PAUL GREENBERG: Angle of Repose.

THEY MUST BE BANNED! High Capacity Bank Accounts Equal Mass Prosperity.

A TRILLION ISN'T ENOUGH: Make it a $1 quadrillion platinum coin. Then we won't have to worry about the debt ceiling ever again. At least not in my lifetime.

I hope.

HIGHER HEALTH CARE PREMIUMS could cause Obamacare to death spiral. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. I want ObamaCare to die before it kills me.

I'm seriously considering paying the 'tax penalty' -- if necessary, does Medicare Part A qualify for avoiding the penalty? -- and going cash only for future medical care.

MORNING EXAMINER: The Republican surpluses. Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend of states and citizens just ignoring the federal government. STFU and massive civil disobedience may be the most viable means of dismantling the statists' desire of a redistributionist welfare state.