FINALLY: PowerLine's Week in Pictures. My favorite:

A LOOK AT HOW SATELLITE DATA helps us understand Earth’s changing wildfire patterns. Any day now, science is going to discover that fires burn where the fuel is....

OBAMA ON SYRIA: I vote 'present'.

ALLISON BENEDIKT says parents who send their kids to private school are 'bad people'. Via Bing search, apparently she is -- or was -- a bad person.

GREG GUTFIELD AND THE FIVE react.

Not mentioned in the video: the fact that tuition at many, if not most, private schools is less than the per-capita tax expenditures for most public schools.

MILDLY CREEPY BEHAVIOR CONTROL from ... your grocer? I don't know whether to be pleased (that the researchers are Republicans from my alma mater) or upset (that they're food nannies).

I think I'll settle on upset.

HEADLINE TEMPLATE: "Obama bungles (fill in topic)." Today's topic is Syria.

THE ELECTRIC WARSHIP: The USS Zumwalt takes shape.

TRUTH: “Obama Promises Syria Strike Will Have No Objective. Let me be clear. Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave.”

ATHEISTS call 9/11 memorial cross 'grossly offensive'.

Tough shit. Even as someone who's personally agnostic, I find American Atheists 'grossly offensive'. Get it through your fat heads, fellas, you don't speak for me.

IT’S THE COOLEST SUMMER IN A CENTURY, and you can thank global warming.

CRUZ ON SYRIA: destroy Syria's chemical weapons; then get out.

Sen. Cruz has it correct. The strategic issue for the United States is the proliferation/use of chemical weapons. If the position of the U.S. is that chemical weapons must never be used, by anyone, then it must intervene, destroy the weapons, manufacturing sites, storage facilities, and delivery systems -- and then leave.

"IS ANYONE SURPRISED that polls show race relations have been getting worse since his [President Obama's] election?"

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-Texas, went on the Rush Limbaugh show Wednesday to ask listeners of the show to sign the petition in support of the proposal at dontfundobamacare.com. Within minutes of Cruz’s appearance on the show, the website crashed due to heavy traffic.

TEST SUCCESSES: Two Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) interceptors fired from the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville successfully engaged two cruise-missile target drones in the missile’s first "over-the-horizon" test scenario.

BLINK? No, punt: President Obama turns to Congress to OK strike against Syria.

Obama votes 'present' -- again.

SYRIA: Obama talks tough, carries matchstick.

Update: asks Congress to light it for him.

HUGH HEWITT: Is Obama the worst president ever?

Obama's tenure is a vast desert of anti-achievement, a landscape of waste and ruin on every front at home and abroad, save on the ability to mobilize voters who don't know or don't care about the state of the country or the world.

So, yes. Next question....

HERE'S THE CHALLENGE: Every 250 milliseconds, reconfigure a machine with 300,000 potential settings so that it pulls particles from one of three ion sources, tickles each of 500 quadrupole magnets to boost the particles (moving as fast as 80 percent of light speed) to within 0.1 percent of a precise energy, then hurl them down one of four delivery paths so they irradiate exactly the millimeter-sized volume of a tumor buried deep in a patient’s brain.

Do that and you, too, can win triple honors at this year’s National Instruments Graphic Design System Achievement Awards.

AL GORE'S HOT AIR has added a new intensity (6) to the hurricane intensity scale of 1-5.

OPEN SPACES: a 'green' movement designed to keep the hoi polloi (little people) out.

COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER: Obama's red line.

A BIT LONG, but a fascinating journey: The Hunt for the Magnetic Monopole. When I was in school, lo those many years ago, magnetic monopoles couldn't exist....

JUAN WILLIAMS on the 50 years since Martin Luther King's speech. I agree with almost everything Williams writes, except for this:

But make no mistake, if you are born poor and black in America in 2013 you still face a very tough road.

Strike out 'and black' and I would agree with every word.

WOULD YOU let a robot draw your blood? Probably, as my arm is still swollen, sore, and the bruise has only now gone down to the size of a quarter from the time I had blood drawn last week.

SOME LIBERALS are very, very afraid of Ted Cruz.

SLATE MAGAZINE has declared that it can no longer refer to the Washington Redskins by their name. Neal Boortz (and others) have renaming suggestions.

I'm personally sympathetic to the commenter who wrote "I get the /snarc on this post, but how sad that the actual Washington Redskins NFL organization, team and players have nothing to do with this cuz it's all about the blind PC idiot panderers whose lives are so miserable that they waste them further trying to make everyone else's just as miserable."

But then ... I do really, really like this new name: "The Washington, Maryland, Northern Virginia Area Football Group of Inclusion, Diversity, Tolerance and Government Assistance."

PREDATOR DRONE makes first arrest in U.S. Hellfire missiles are frowned on domestically....

GOING FERAL! Or “So long, and thanks for all the fish...” A tenured professor leaves academia to venture outside the ivied halls. More here.

TEN SHOCKING LESSONS a huge Texas conglomerate has foisted on public school students. One would think that given the scope of the bias revealed, CSCOPE would be deader than the proverbial doornail, but like the hydra and ACORN, it keeps coming back.

What I find disturbing is not the biased curriculum (though that's disturbing enough), it's the fact that CSCOPE is a non-transparent, privately funded 501(c)3 nonprofit (shades of liberal complaints about Tea Party groups!) operating within the state-funded Regional Educational Service Centers.

MIT PROFESSOR: global warming is a ‘religion’. It takes an MIT professor to recognize the abundantly obvious?

FIFTEEN THINGS you need to know about the oceans:

1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles.(Kelly, age 6)

2) - Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3) - If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike , age 7)

4) - Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson . She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5) - A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8)

6) - My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)

7) - When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8) - Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9) - I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6)

10) - Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)

11) - When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)

12) - Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8)

13) - On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14) - The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)

15) - My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

If you didn't smile at one of these, you need to find a better sense of humor.

BILL CLINTON: Voting should be as easy as buying an 'assault weapon'. I agree; buying an 'assault weapon' requires in-person registration; filing a 'true-and-correct' document under risk of perjury; two (in Virginia) photo ID's; and a criminal background check. Plus a significant amount of money.

Yes, voting should be that easy.

HIGH DEDUCTIBLE PLANS creating health care [cost] slowdown. Which explains why they're being banned under ObamaCare.

CAN AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE get into the University of Tokyo? Probably not, but Harvard or Yale should be easy....

On the other hand, if the AI had to attend classes at either university, it would probably be a smoking ruin within hours of attending its first class.

I WANT ONE: the perfect retirement car.



Now if only it could fly....

HEH: Ban lead bullets; create more forest fires. California needs more forest fires.

INSTAPUNDIT: "Colorblindness was an admirable goal in the 1960s, but nowadays it threatens an entire, lucrative, industry."

NEWT GINGRICH: Egyptian Realities vs. American Fantasies.

The old adage "He may be an SOB, but he's my SOB" still applies.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The dog days of democracy.

THE MINDSET of a liberal. Assuming one can properly describe a liberal as having a mind....

AS A DEMOCRAT, I am disgusted with President Obama. Another Democrat wises up ... too late.

NOTE that The Guardian is a liberal British newspaper, but I find myself going to it more and more frequently for coverage of topics our U.S. mainstream media refuses to cover.

OBAMACARE: The more Americans know, the more they oppose.

DAMMIT, follow the law!

OBAMACARE AND IMMIGRATION REFORM may make immigrants cheaper to hire than citizens. Unions should be thrilled.

Those unintended consequences sure are pesky, aren't they?

'STOP AND FRISK' doesn't target minorities, it protects them.

THE GOOD NEWS: part-time employment increases may not be due to ObamaCare.

THE BAD NEWS: employment still sucks.

A NEW MEANING for the phrase 'to faithfully execute the laws...'.

OBAMACARE AD CONTEST: Speaker John Boehner steps up to the plate.

HEH:

Just weeks ago, Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn tore the anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in her right knee and fractured her tibia during a harrowing ski accident in Schlamding, Austria.

Vonn was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Schladming.

Concerned that she wouldn’t be ready for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the U.S. Olympic Committee announced today that her spot on the U.S. Olympic Team would be filled by Barack Obama.

U.S. Olympic officials said Obama deserved the spot on the team because no one has ever taken a country downhill faster than he has.

From my email.

OBAMACARE TO END HEALTH PLAN used by 100,000 New Jerseyans. But that's okay; they're all 'little people'.

ANOTHER WAY FOR REPUBLICANS TO PICK UP SENATE SEATS: Rural Coloradans to vote on breaking away as 51st state, angered by liberal policies on guns, energy. If it works, Texas could form 5 states: North Texas, South Texas, East Texas, West Texas, and ... Austin. Four out of five ain't bad.

IF YOU LIKE DRONES, you'll love these. Hint: they're not all air vehicles. Scroll through the gallery.

DEMISE of the Wichita Lineman.

Linked from Instapundit.

Eric Holder sues to block Louisiana school choice.

This Louisiana case is typical: Holder wants to keep the archaic residue of the civil rights movement alive forever, as a club with which to beat the Southern states, and as a means of screwing African-Americans. After all, if blacks can’t escape from terrible schools, their employment prospects will be lousy. They likely will be welfare-dependent, and therefore reliable Democratic voters for decades to come.

The new slavery. Keep 'em on the plantation at any cost.

AND YET HE KEEPS COMING BACK: Bill Clinton foundation has spent more than $50M on travel expenses.

OH, TO HAVE HAD A CAMERA. A bumper sticker I saw this morning: "That OBAMA sticker on your car might as well read 'I'M STUPID'."

FIFTEEN CANADIAN THINGS that Ted Cruz should also renounce. Well, except for the letter 'ZED'.

SUPERCOMPUTING a quieter wind turbine. So the birds will never hear their executioner.

Lots of snark in the comments. Obviously wind energy isn't popular with those who are 'lucky' enough to have one in their back yards....

RAMESH PONNURU has some thoughts about Ted Cruz.

I'm curious. Since the Democrats like Barack Obama so much, why are they so virulently against another minority ethnic first-term Senator immediately moving up to the Presidency? Do they know something we don't about first-term Senate 'grandees' moving up to become President?

JUAN WILLIAMS: Why I'm calling out civil rights hustlers.

The Left desperately needs more men like Williams.

WILL OBAMA wait for UN on Syria strike? Of course he will. Then he'll wait a few more days to gauge which way is blowing before enthusiastically leaping on whichever bandwagon is the more popular.

IT ISN'T BIAS, it's teamwork!

MICHELLE MALKIN: The Oberlin College 'hate crimes' were a hoax.

John Leo comments: "[Since] the narrative is all-important, why bother with facts?"

FLY A U-2 RECONNAISSANCE SPYPLANE. The two-place model is the trainer for new pilots.

JUST ANOTHER SUNDAY ON THE GOLF COURSE ....

A nun walks into Mother Superior's office and plunks down into a chair. She lets out a sigh heavy with frustration.

"What troubles you, Sister?" asked the Mother Superior. "I thought this was the day you spent with your family."

"It was," sighed the Sister. "And I went to play golf with my brother. We try to play golf as often as we can. You know I was quite a talented golfer before I devoted my life to Christ."

"I seem to recall that," the Mother Superior agreed. "So I take it your day of recreation was not relaxing?"

"Far from it," snorted the Sister. "In fact, I even took the Lord's name in vain today!"

"Goodness, Sister!" gasped the Mother Superior, astonished. "You must tell me all about it!"

"Well, we were on the fifth tee... and this hole is a monster, Mother -- a 450-yard Par 5, with a nasty dogleg right and a hidden green... and I hit the drive of my life. I creamed it. The sweetest swing I ever took. And it's flying straight and true, right along the line I wanted ... and it hits a bird in mid-flight!"

"Oh my!" commiserated the Mother. "How unfortunate! But surely that didn't make you blaspheme, Sister!"

"No, that wasn't it," admitted Sister. "While I was still trying to figure out what I was going to do, this squirrel runs out of the woods, grabs my ball and runs off down the fairway!"

"Oh, that would have made me blaspheme!" sympathized the Mother.

"But I didn't, Mother!" sobbed the Sister. "And I was so proud of myself! And while I was pondering whether this was a sign from God, this hawk swoops out of the sky and grabs the squirrel and flies off, with my ball still clutched in his paws!"

"So that's when you cursed," said the Mother with a knowing smile.

"Nope, that wasn't it either," cried the Sister, anguished, "because as the hawk started to fly out of sight, the squirrel started struggling, and the hawk dropped him right there on the green, and the ball popped out of his paws and rolled to about 18 inches from the cup!"

Mother Superior sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, fixed the Sister with a baleful stare and said ...

"You missed the f**king putt, didn't you?"

From my email.

A METAPHOR for ObamaCare.

YOU ONLY THOUGHT THE U.S. WAS $16.9 TRILLION IN DEBT; the real number is
a bit higher.

NOTE to married couples: have lots of slaves kids, America needs them.

LOBBYING? Or payback?

GLENN REYNOLDS on transforming America: Is a Constitutional Convention the answer? Probably not, given the political class pretty much ignores the current one.

IT'S ONE PRETTY CAR: Clemson University unveils its six-seat hybrid.

POWERLINE'S Week in Pictures. Here's my favorite.

The NSA one was a close second.

HEH: A really, really green campaign.

YEAH, because unions were on the forefront of racial equality. My take? Now that blacks have been allowed to join unions, liberals want to keep them on the plantation.

We begin the liberal lead up to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's speech on the National Mall....

EDUCATION SPENDING SOARS. Education? ... not so much.

NOT SO FAST: Congress is still in an ObamaCare trap. But they'll ignore it since both parties' butts are in the wringer.

Remember: ObamaCare is for little people.

HEH: Texas organization will arm and train 500 mothers to use guns during 'National Empowerment Day'.

THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS is proposing changes to its Code of Ethics. My recommendation was to put a period after the word 'persons'.

CHAMP FLIES; lights out.



If the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) missile were ready for operational testing, I have the perfect site: Damascus, Syria.

ADDED: all offense, no defense.

ON OBAMACARE, "the lesson for Americans is that Democrats who passed ObamaCare didn't even understand what they were doing to themselves, much less to everyone else."

FINALLY, PAYBACK TIME: Just $431,000 to go. Shouldn't take much more than the rest of her life.

YOUR HELP IS HURTING: How church foreign aid programs make things worse.

The context of this post is church missions to foreign countries, but isn't the same true domestically, particularly for government welfare programs?

PANDERING IS ALIVE AND WELL: House defends Essential Air Service program in amendment votes.

THE TERROR ALERT THAT WAS: Even the media may be catching on.

A GLIMPSE into the fevered mind of an Obamaphile. The American Glob responds.

I'd comment, too, but I think the picture on the American Glob link tells all you need to know about Obamaphiles.

MORONIC 'CONTROVERSY': Any excuse for morons to cry "racism!"

BURN YOUR OBAMACARE CARD: A nationwide ‘draft resistance’ could defeat compulsory coverage. That's exactly what I intend to do.

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND PRESIDENTIAL LIES: Every untruth damages the nation.

When Barack Obama squanders his own credibility with his glib lies, he is not just injuring himself during his time in office. He is inflicting a lasting wound on the country as a whole.

But we the voters are not blameless. Having chosen an untested man to be president, on the basis of rhetoric, style, and symbolism, we have ourselves to blame if we now have only a choice between two potentially tragic fates....

It's not fatal -- yet. I hope.

UPDATE: I'll give Victor Davis Hanson the hopeful last word.

FROM E Pluribus Unum to Ex Uno Multa Mendacia in only 4-1/2 years.

HELP WANTED: a tragic hero.

NOW EVEN THE PUBLIC SECTOR is cutting part-timers' hours due to ObamaCare.

OF WHAT? Oklahoma man found in septic tank pleads guilty.

THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING: Two million bikers to meet ‘Million Muslim March’ in DC on 9/11.

DID THAT INCLUDE THE MEDIA? Only 15 show up at Bloomberg anti-gun rally.

IT'S JUST BLOOD.

Chris Matthews: Republicans call Obama “Obama” to delegitimize him. And Democrats called Bush "Bushitler" to ...?

I call Chris Matthews a twit because he is one.

POPULAR SCIENCE: Let's Get Rid Of 16:9 Laptops Forever. Except for one little detail -- on my computer, while I'm playing with those spreadsheets and documents, I typically have three or more windows open at once. I can scroll a document (or spreadsheet) easily, and the extra width allows me to keep both documents visible while I work.

Windows 8's one screen, one app drives me nuts. As do smart phones and tablets....

CLEARLY Fox News watchers.

WILLIAM TELL in modern times.

JEFF JACOBY: How to fix the presidential debates.

BEST GUN SHOW SIGN EVER:

From my email.

NEWT GINGRICH: Ephesus and Ataturk.

DEPENDS ON WHICH FOUR: “If 4 members of Congress were killed in Benghazi would we have a Watergate-style select committee today?”

WORKS & DAYS: Obama bets against human nature — and usually loses. As I was telling my sister earlier today, liberals expect you to behave as they, in their infinite wisdom, believe you should behave.

And of course because of the extra burden their intellectual and moral superiority places upon them, they cannot be expected to live by the rules they place on the 'little people'.

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED: Welfare a better deal than minimum wage.

UPDATE: Non Sequitur nails it:

WE MEAN IT THIS TIME: Tingles has really, really lost his mind. I would point out that, like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, Matthews has a diploma, but that would be insulting the scarecrow.

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING? The EPA!

Heh.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Obama has surpassed Jimmy Carter. It wasn't that hard to do.

SPACEX'S GRASSHOPPER steers side-to-side in new video.



SpaceX moved the rocket way from it's launch platform by more than 300 feet, giving Grasshopper the chance to show off its lateral moves as it flies itself back to its landing spot and sets down with a gentle touch.

A DRONE IS NOT A DRONE, it's a UAS.

JEFF JACOBY: Fort Hood victims deserve Purple Hearts.

WOW! Newt Gingrich argues that Eric Holder gets one right on crime:

Seventy percent of prisoners rank in the lowest two levels of reading ability, according to the National Institute for Literacy. Many studies have shown that prisoners who obtain a G.E.D. while incarcerated are dramatically less likely to return to prison than those who do not. One of the greatest steps we could take toward rehabilitating prisoners and reduce the chances they return to prison is to use new learning technologies to give them better opportunities for work when they reenter society.

Every prisoner in America, unless they have a college degree, should spend a significant portion of their time working through free, personalized online learning systems like Khan Academy or Duolingo. At the same time, they should take digital courses focused on rehabilitation to help them learn to be decent members of society. Their privileges in prison and evaluations for parole should be tied to progress in such a program. Even a decade ago this would have been cost-prohibitive to implement for all prisoners, but today much of the material is available virtually for free.

Technology may also offer us better ways to hold people who aren’t dangerous accountable for breaking the law. For many non-violent offenders, electronically-monitored probation or parole could be much more productive than prison, allowing offenders to stay in the community, work, keep their families together, and avoid learning from the hardened criminals in prison, while still restricting them significantly. Some combination of GPS and video could monitor to make sure they go only where permitted, stay within a curfew, and avoid further criminal activity.

While I agree with Gingrich on the concept, I don't think anyone in his right mind would trust the government -- especially the federal government -- to run any rehabilitation program(s) well.

ALMOST HALF OF ALL AMERICANS with individual health plans will get subsidies under ObamaCare. And just who will pay for the subsidies? Think 'taxpayer'.

McCLATCHY: Will Obamacare rollout be smooth sailing or a ‘train wreck’? So what's the question?

IF OBAMACARE IS THE LAW OF THE LAND, then why does the Obama administration keep ignoring it?

WHEN YOU SUBSIDIZE THINGS, you get more of them. Bad behavior included.

AND IN OTHER (NON) NEWS: Businesses claim ObamaCare has forced them to cut employee hours.

The White House claims this is 'anecdotal'. Someone needs to tell them that the plural of 'anecdote' is 'data'.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

MARCO RUBIO: “I believe that this president will be tempted, if nothing happens in Congress, to issue an executive order as he did for the Dream Act kids a year ago, where he basically legalizes 11 million people by the sign of a pen.”

Should he do so, Congress should fight tooth-and-nail in court to defeat it. Over the years, Congress has ceded far too much power to the Executive branch.

ALMOST HALF OF ALL AMERICANS with individual health plans will get subsidies under ObamaCare. And just who will pay for the subsidies?

Think 'taxpayer'.

ASSOCIATION FOR UNMANNED VEHICLE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL (AUVSI): Lockheed Martin testing new version of Fury UAV.

Certainly an interesting looking vehicle.

NEWT GINGRICH: Breakout in Boston.

BREAKING NEWS: Ted Cruz birth certificate an obvious forgery.

Jonah Goldberg: "To hell with them."

MORNING EXAMINER: Just another lawless day at the White House.

U.S. EXPATRIATES BALK AT TAX LAW: American Citizen Renunciations Are Soaring.

Is anyone surprised?

IEEE INSTITUTE: Educational Calculator Makes Students Think. I'm impressed. This is the only calculator that should be allowed on high school and junior college campuses.

GO BROWN: Private sector employment is still below its January 2007 level, while oil and gas industry jobs are up by almost 51%.

MORNING EXAMINER: Are Democrats prepared to run on single payer in 2014? My question: Are Liberals, especially unions and Government employees willing to step down to the level of healthcare quality they would get in single-payer? Or is single-payer only for the little people? And are the little people also willing to take a step down in quality?

OBAMACARE: Taking Away Americans’ Health Coverage.

Harry Reid explains.

TECH FOCUS: Prosthetic Limbs Offer a Sense of Touch.

RESEARCHERS: A dozen asteroids are 'easily retrievable' with current spacecraft.

ACHIEVING RACIAL HARMONY:

From my email.

INTERIOR SECRETARY: I don't want any climate-change deniers in my department. None of that ugly science stuff here.

TEXAS aims to be commercial spaceflight hub. It'll work as long as they don't try to overfly Austin.

“AID IS JUST A STOPGAP. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid.”

Read the comments for a demonstration of the ignorance of liberals.

EXCESSIVE SNICKERING NOT PERMITTED: Whitey Bulger found guilty; Serendipity smiles upon MSNBC’s Touré.

OBAMACARE: the Law of Unintended Consequences enacted.

ANOTHER SOLDIER joins the Democrat 'War on (older) Women'.

DUSTING OFF THE THIRD AMENDMENT: A Creative Response to Domestic Spying.

3-D PRINTING TOO HARD? You Too Can Make a Gun Law-Defying, Nail-Firing Space Gun.

MISSOURI FAIR BANS rodeo clown wearing Obama mask; golf course clown not banned after a similar performance.

THE DISHONOR SYSTEM: A user’s guide to committing fraud on the ObamaCare exchanges. I'd much prefer to just ignore ObamaCare, but the law makes it nearly impossible to buy just insurance, so widespread use of the 'dishonor system' may be Americans' last recourse.

HURRAH! Feds save beer drinkers from the possibility of slightly increased prices.

CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION doesn't usually go after individuals -- unless you make fun of the government.

No buckyballs for you.

SELF INCRIMINATION: You have the right....

GOVERNMENT IS DANGEROUS. Handle with care.

YOU DON'T NEED AN ID TO VOTE, but you will to buy nail polish remover.

BARBARIANS AT THE CAMPUS GATES: "[I]f the battle comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are bound to win." Instapundit responds: "If law students acted this way, I’d write all 50 states’ bar examiners to note their conduct, with names named."

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: NPR admits it slandered South Dakota. Well, kinda, sorta.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: NPR admits it slandered South Dakota. Well, kinda, sorta.

MATT LABASH understands science: "[T]wo out of three times it takes only a matter of months-to-a-few-years until studies published in respectable peer-reviewed medical journals are either fully refuted or need to be walked back. Thus confirming my suspicion that it is a fool’s errand to set your watch by health “experts,” since you can never be sure which time zone they’re living in."

HYPOCRISY ALERT: But, but ... interns aren't "employees".

"HASN’T THE TIME COME to ask whether any person of good will can continue to be a Muslim? We keep hearing that the terrorists and their supporters are a minority, although polls are disquieting at best. But if there is a Muslim majority that does something beneficial to counterbalance the evil of terrorism, where is it? The cardinal rule of epistemology is, by the fruit we know the tree. What is the fruit of Islam? The world’s patience, one hopes, has limits."

FIRING THE GRIZZLY: a fully 3D printed rifle.

ON TRAVEL: blogging will be intermittent the next several days.

BLOOMBERG’S LATEST FITNESS PLAN: Slow elevators to make people take the stairs. Best comment: "So, handicapped people in wheel chairs have to take slow elevators. Why does BloominIdiot hate handicapped people?"

HARRY REID is a nasty little demagogue.

SEN. TIM SCOTT agrees.

ANOTHER OBAMACARE CASUALTY: families.

DESPITE OBAMA'S BEST EFFORTS: "it's 'Brown Jobs,' not 'Green Jobs' that are growing."

ACCORDING TO DEMOCRATS, Obama's constitutionally empowered to Do Good For The People [if] he thinks Congress is dragging its feet too much [on amnesty].

Obama could unilaterally amnesty “those with a longtime presence in the United States or those with U.S.-citizen family members.” National Journal ... is more specific in listing candidates for the next administrative amnesty: “parents of ‘Dreamers’ or parents of children who are citizens because they were born here, people who are employed, people who are caregivers, and so on.”

Another means of accomplishing the same thing would be to grant Temporary Protected Status to all Mexican and Central American illegal aliens (some 80 percent of the total), based on unstable conditions in their countries. Alternatively, the administration might send the message that any illegal alien applying for asylum will be approved, waiving the statutory one-year deadline after arrival to file such applications.

Whatever the pretext, the supporters of amnesty are clearly moving toward support for extra-constitutional measures.... The implicit suggestion is that, with regard to immigration, the nation is in a state of emergency that justifies the chief executive to rule by decree.

If Congress permits such policies, the United States can kiss it's status as an independent nation goodbye.

WHEN PAY RAISES aren't necessarily good things.

THOMAS SOWELL: “A fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can put it on for him.”

THE PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR who tweeted an insult about fat Ph.D. candidates must design — and then undergo — obesity sensitivity training.

While he has not been terminated the university, his punishment is rather severe considering that he is a tenured professor.

As a former professor myself, I believe it's not severe enough. Is it time to rethink tenure?

STARING INTO the fiscal abyss.

Between Detroit’s bankruptcy, the multiple bankruptcies in California, the acquisitions of Newsweek, the Boston Globe and most famously the Washington Post at fire sale prices, the media inventing racism-driven stories out of whole cloth, leftwing sexual predators and misogynists either running for office or already in office in major cities on both coasts, and a gaffe-prone president trying desperately to implement his agenda piecemeal through executive orders, we may very well be witnessing the wholesale collapse of the large portions of the century-old “Progressive” model.

As Instapundit is fond of noting, "What can't continue, won't."

OBAMA TO GIVE Presidential Medals of Freedom to President Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Oprah Winfrey. Best comment: "If I got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from a guy who got a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, I’d probably phone that ceremony in."

HEH: Darrell Issa is winning the Internets.

THE FEARMONGERS ARE HARD AT IT AGAIN: Is sequestration putting Earth at risk?

This is utter and complete bull...arkey. And aside from the obvious, this is a military system. Isn't that the Liberals' goal in sequestration -- defenestration of the military?

SURPRISED? NOT ME. Taxes rising faster under Obama than under any other president.

NOT AT MCDONALDS YET: the $325,000 Frankenburger.

WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN:



Here's a second video announcing the Free at Last PAC.

RELATED: Battleground Texas.

IT HICCUPS OF THE WEEK. Among others, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey loses, Port of Virginia wins.

FIVE QUESTIONS for Obama's 3 p.m. press conference today. My bet is that none will be asked, or if asked, answered.

UPDATE: More questions.

CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE:

After a tiring day, a commuter settled down in his seat and closed his eyes. As the train rolled out of the station, the young woman sitting next to him pulled out her cell phone and started talking in a loud voice:

"Hi sweetheart. It's Sue. I'm on the train".

"Yes, I know it's the six thirty and not the four thirty, but I had a long meeting".

"No, honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting office. It was with the boss".

"No sweetheart, you're the only one in my life".

"Yes, I'm sure, cross my heart!"

Fifteen minutes later, she was still talking loudly.

When the man sitting next to her had enough, he leaned over and said into the phone,

"Sue, hang up the phone and come back to bed."

Sue doesn't use her cell phone in public any longer.

From my email.

HEH: Lapdogs fess up; AP admits ‘wrongly’ inserting words to fix Obama gaffe.

IRS AGENT: Tax agency is still targeting Tea Party groups. Well, there is an election coming in 2014....

I'D RATHER ban candidates from politicking until 30 days before an election.

COLORADO LANDLORD TO MARINE: Get rid of your guns or get out.

UPDATE: Not so fast, bucko....

CURIOSITY'S FIRST BIRTHDAY: NASA has high hopes the Mars rover's winning streak will continue.

HIGHER EDUCATION is a government-created cartel. And government wants to keep it that way.

IEEE SPECTRUM: The Making of Facebook's Graph Search.

HUH?

Republicans are not giving special Obamacare exemptions to churches. Translated into American English, Republicans are unwilling to grant exemptions and waivers to bad policy to their friends; they want to fix the policy.

Racial polarization is all the GOP’s fault. Translated into American English, it's racially polarizing to woo (and win) minority voters from the Democrat plantation.

MESSENGER: Goodbye, Earth.

TOO BIG TO FAIL: Megabanks are a creature of government, not of unbridled capitalism.

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY, your robot may be listening.

MEGYN KELLY reportedly taking over 9 p.m. slot in Fox News prime time lineup. Please, no. Let her replace Shepard Smith in the 7 p.m. slot.

AN OCEAN OF DOUBT. So sink a few oil tankers; that should take care of the problem....

AMAZON FOUNDER says he clicked on Washington Post by mistake. If the Chinese published it, it must be true.

DETROIT MANAGER: We Could Have A Clean Balance Sheet In 14 Months. The $64 question is whether Detroit can keep that clean balance sheet. My guess is not without hiring a new citizenry....

THE NUCLEAR OPTION: How Journalism 'Professionals' Killed the Washington Post. My daily subscription is worth about what I pay for it; that is, zero.

YOU JUST THOUGHT you could move to escape poverty. Today the Jeffersons wouldn't have a chance.

PUBLIC SERVANTS: They serve each other and gouge you.

I WANT OBAMACARE, but ... you go first. I think $950/mo -- or even $661/mo pretty well explains why ObamaCare will bo bust. Eight to twelve thousand dollars/year pays for an awful lot of doctor visits.

Let people buy catastrophic health insurance, what used to be called hospitalization insurance.

BREAKING NEWS: President unilaterally moves Charleston (SC), Savannah (GA), and Jacksonville (FL) to the Gulf of Mexico.

THE NATIONAL DEBT: Wednesday, August 12, 2009. Here it is today.

MEMO TO ELIZABETH WARREN: Oh, yes, we did build that.

UNDER THE BUS, WITH THE REST OF HIS PROMISES: Where's that 5% unemployment rate Obama promised by 2013?

BILL KRISTOL: "Al Qaeda's not on the run. We are."

BUSYBODY POLITICS: "[T]he key to busybody politics, and its endlessly imposed "solutions," is that third parties pay no price for being wrong. This not only presents opportunities for the busybodies to engage in moral preening, but also to flatter themselves that they know better what is good for other people than these other people know for themselves."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: If only our foreign enemies were Republicans. Wait, wait. I thought Republicans were the Taliban.

OH, REALLY? Republicans are destroying civilization. Hmm. Let's look at the facts.

Post-Reagan, there have been 4 Presidents, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Two of the four were Democrats, and since George H. W. Bush served only one term, the Democrats have controlled the Presidency for 4 of seven terms. Democrats have controlled the Senate for 7 of 13 Congressional sessions, and the House for 5 of 13 Congressional sessions.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each had one Congressional session where Democrats also controlled both Houses of Congress; George W. Bush had two Congressional sessions where Republicans controlled both Houses.

Democrats have controlled 2 or more of the House, Senate, and Presidency for 7 of the 13 Congresses since Reagan.

During Reagan's 8 years in office, Democrats held the House of Representatives all 8 years, by significant margins, and held the Senate for 6 of the 8 years. In words even a Daily Kossack can understand, Ronald Reagan never once had a united Congress of his own party.

And you expect me to believe Republicans are destroying civilization??

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Never take a liberal to a gun fight.

AETNA EXITS OBAMACARE EXCHANGE after Maryland rejects proposed rates.

UPDATE: Now Connecticut.

MICHAEL BARONE: Congress can take away your entitlements. But they won't. The Obama administration will, though, if it believes it politically expedient to do so.

JAPAN LAUNCHES talking humanoid robot into space to be company for the ISS astronauts.

BREAKING NEWS: Obscure workplace-violence trial starts.

THE GREAT STONE WALKWAY through the Wood Chip Sea to the Bridge to Nowhere over the Great Mulch Berm into the Lost Forest is now complete.

Blogging will resume shortly.

YOU ONLY thought you needed guns.

RNC: Take your miniseries and shove it!

Bravo.

HOW BAD is the ammunition shortage?

OBAMA'S AMERICA: If the Government does it, it isn't illegal. Duh.

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING: In Centreville, not far from where I live. One person shows for ObamaCare event. No wonder I didn't hear it....

SEEN ON THE INTERNET:

In the comments here.

POWERLINE: The three rings of the climage change circus.

The next meeting should be scheduled for Bermuda; it could be called the 'Bermuda Triangulation'. I'd also suggest that the environmental 'movement' save the Earth on its own dime.

IF THIS BEAR were a human and registered to vote, he wouldn’t vote Democrat. And he wouldn't be hungry, either.

ASTUTE OBSERVATION: Washington, D.C. Is Protectionist Hell. "It’s protectionist Hell for most things. That’s how they think there."

MEGAN MCARDLE: thoughts on McDonalds and the minimum wage. The Left's useful idiots are in full-throated outrage.

WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Black Self-Sabotage.

CONGRESSMAN KEITH ELLISON: ‘There’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it’.

That's because it's mine, Keith, and I intend to keep it.

WHY NO ‘CHILDPROOF’ GUNS? I'll be generous and attribute the question to liberal naiveté, not liberal stupidity.

SARAH PALIN living rent-free in the minds of the mainstream media. Vacant minds have plenty of room....

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FREAKIN' KIDDING: Seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language.

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

Here's a word I'd suggest using for the Seattle Office of Civil Rights: "downsized." As in permanently.

[UPDATE & BUMP] Instapundit calls the language police "illiterate idiots." He's right.

THE YOUTH DEMOGRAPHIC is highly overrated. "[I]n this economy, the old people are the only ones who still have money."

POPULAR SCIENCE: Creating screensavers with the Newton X-ray space telescope.

FEMINIST GROUP EXCLUDES Anthony Weiner and Bob Filner from ‘worst offenders’ of women’s rights list. Of course; they're pro-choice. Being a jerk and serial harrasser doesn't count.

WHO ARE those masked zombies?

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS:

From my email.

AL-QA’IDA IS ON THE RUN; that's why we're closing 22 embassies in the Mid-East and north Africa.

OBAMA PUSHES FORWARD with anti-suburban campaign. It's much easier to control a densely packed population.

Be sure to click through to Mirengoff's earlier post.

LET'S PARTY!

GOV'T KNOWS BEST? White House creates 'nudge squad' to shape behavior. Mandates are reserved for when 'nudges' don't work....

POWERLINE'S week in pictures. Here's a sample.

NOT DISADVANTAGED BLUE-STATERS. Who serves in the military? I noticed, both times I was in Iraq.

WHY THE BRITISH MEDIA IS SO IMPORTANT: they're not nearly as PC as U.S. media. Here are two examples of what you won't find in the U.S. mainstream media.

EVEN THE NSA HAS STANDARDS:

From my email.

”WOMEN — We Treat You Like Dirt, But At Least You Can Kill Your Unborn Children!”

Proof: if any is needed.

THOMAS SOWELL: The trajedy of isolation.

NEWS YOU CAN USE:

San Antonio Spurs Lineup Set to Contest NBA Title Are Mostly Black Men

Democrats Set to Pass Obamacare Are Mostly Liberals

From this PowerLine post.

WOMEN BACK late-term abortion ban by narrow 35-point margin.

A CASE OF asses being the law.

INDIVIDUAL MANDATE: the soft underbelly of ObamaCare.

SEVENTY-SEVEN PERCENT of jobs created in 2013 are part time. So maybe we should consider a part-time Congress and President. Oh, never mind; we already have a part-time President.

THE POOR DEARS ON CAPITOL HILL don’t want to pay for their own ObamaCare. How dare they be treated like little people!

EXPLAINING WHY I PREFER PAPER (WHEN I CAN): Online bank heists just the latest in a long string.

MORNING EXAMINER: Libertarian populists giving establishment Republicans headaches. Good. It's time for the establishment (both sides) to take a hike.

THE DEATH OF POPULISM: Plenty of pleaders for rich and poor, but no politician speaks for the common man.

NEWT GINGRICH: Curing Bureaucratic Health Care.

I'm on board with much of what Gingrich is proposing in this article. America would be far better off if, for example, the money being spent on ObamaCare were instead being spent on basic research in genetics, regenerative medicine, and brain diagnostics as Gingrich suggests.

I'm less on board with his 'big data' initiative which, as the evidence from the NSA debacle suggests, is far more likely to become a political weapon than an analytical tool.

OBAMANOMICS: the soft bigotry of low expectations.

OBAMACARE PREMIUMS lower than expected in Maryland, but they're still going up. Florida, Georgia, and Indiana expect premiums to rise as well.

Surprised? You shouldn't be.

LET THE BUBBLE BURST: Obama faces homeownership plunge. I'm sure that's okay with him; he wants those little people to move into downtown high-rises where he has better control.

YES, PLEASE DO LECTURE US about phony scandals.

OBAMA AS a Comparative President Assessment Specialist.

Making Jimmy Carter look good since 2009.

BARACK OBAMA ... "just can’t do the job of president and he doesn’t really want to anymore. Not in the system we have, anyway. So he’ll be a mouthy dictator and endlessly unhappy critic for three more years, and the Democrats and the media will go on pretending that he’s a god-king."

Read it all.

INSTAPUNDIT: "[T]he most damning thing to come out of the Bradley Manning affair is that we put people like Bradley Manning in such sensitive positions."

HMM:

CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.

Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency’s Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

Talking to Congress?

OBAMACARE'S KEY FLAW: It forgot the patients. But, but ... patients are little people. Little people shouldn't mustn't be allowed to take care of themselves.

Details here.

CONFIDENT YET? New Government website to answer ObamaCare questions for businesses crashes on first day.

FLORIDA GOVERNOR wants an apology from Jesse Jackson. Instead of demanding an apology, Florida should just boycott Jesse.

YES, WHEN EPA REGULATIONS STOP KILLING JOBS. New EPA chief: Can everybody please “stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs?”

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: Mall vandalization a result of sequestration?

Perhaps the accused vandal was mad because White House tours have been canceled....

IRS CHIEF: Please, not ObamaCare. ObamaCare is for little people.

IEEE HISTORY CENTER: the history of hearing aids. Even though I've lived as an adult through the electronic revolution (tubes to transistors to integrated circuits), I still find myself somewhat surprised by the relative recency of electronic hearing aids.

HICKIES.

PRINCE GRAPE and magical fairy dust. In my experience, unexpected is not a synonym for unwanted.

HEH: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow calls President Obama a liar.

SO, CAN THEY FIND THOSE SPAMBOTS THAT KEEP BUGGING ME? NSA program reportedly allows analysts to track emails, chats, web searches.

Then it might be worth it....

MICHAEL RAMIREZ calls it 'The Income Gap'. I call it 'The Bridge to Nowhere'.

IF WE DID IT, it can't be wrong: MIT clears itself of wrongdoing.

BARNEY & CLYDE: You have much to learn....

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS upset that ObamaCare applies to them. What's good for the goose and all that....

BROKEN RECORD: Obama already in reruns on tax and spending hikes. If the Obama administration was a television series, it would have been in reruns in 2010....

NO MORE MANDATES; just 'nudges'. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Creep-O-Meter just hit 11.