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.