NSA DIRECTOR says dozens of attacks were stopped by surveillance programs. I can be convinced, but you're going to have to show me evidence.

HOUSE MAJORITYY LEADER ERIC CANTOR: ‘Increasingly Clear’ Obama ‘Does Not Have a Coherent Plan’ for Syrian ‘Catastrophe’.

Charles Krauthammer agrees.

BIG HEALTH CARE: How Obamacare — and Big Hospitals — Will Raise Health Costs.

Unexpectedly (of course).

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Metadata helps find terrorists -- and Obama voters. So ... [snark intentional] Obama voters are like terrorists?

THE MOST UNIQUE ECLIPSE IMAGE YOU’LL EVER SEE

Here's how it was made.

MORNING EXAMINER: Will Democrats really kill immigration reform over the Cornyn amendment? I certainly hope so. I want it dead, dead, dead.

UPDATE: It isn't looking to good for immigration supporters.

NYC'S SURFACE-BOUND CITIBIKES are so last week.

CARTOON OF THE DAY.

IT'S EASY TO BE APPALLED AT THESE TWITS, but can you imagine the damage they could do if they actually resorted to governing?

Goodell didn't fine them enough. And the suspension should have been ejection from the 2013-2014 'season'.

DC MEDIA & WHITE HOUSE: more inbred than a 7-toed Kentucky lot lizard.

As someone who has been watching the media closely for twenty-years, I can tell you that even without all this incest, the media would still be guarding Obama's palace just as aggressively as it does now. Family relations have nothing to do with it.

Our media would be just as corrupt, just as unwilling to dig into scandals, just as obsessed with The War On The WomanParts and gay marriage; just as dishonest, partisan, and lazy were no one in any way related to top officials within the Obama administration.

These relations are not the cause of the media's corruption; they are a symptom of it.

Sad, but undoubtedly true. They are part and parcel of the regulatory state.

PARANOID GOVERNMENT: What do to about ‘federal fringe’. It's satire (I think).

Instapundit: "I think they should be disarmed and sent for mandatory therapy."

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES rule human genes cannot be patented.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: "Green energy, Global Warming, the list is long -- if it involves energy and the Government is involved, you can be sure that the science is bad, the economics is worse, and the corruption is total."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: America's Vast Margin of Error. Only today, it's half-vast and declining rapidly.

ESSENTIAL LIBERTY: They Came for Your Guns. Instapundit comments: "Don’t be ridiculous. A gun registry would be in violation of federal law. Our law enforcers would never break the law."

WHY DOCTORS are bailing out of health insurance. I can understand. My wife and I will soon be joining a 'concierge plan' at a cost roughly similar to that described in the post.

Catastrophic care is a problem, but for us, at least partly solved by Medicare Part A, which we can't get out of anyway. My expectation (read as hope) is that insurers will eventually step in with AFLAC-type insurance plans, which will simply pay a fixed flat daily dollar amount for every emergency room/hospitalization visit.

EVERY TIME, it's money over principle. Academia at its best....

MISS ME YET? More Americans now view George Bush favorably than Barack Obama.

Heh.

YOUR CAT may be even smarter than you think. They are, and mine have trained me well.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. On l'affaire Snowdon: If any legislation results, it should be named the SCI Clearance Holders' Protection Act of 2013, since the granting of new clearances is about to come to a sudden, screeching halt. On the bright side, however, maybe -- and I emphasize maybe -- the government will learn something and quit trying to classify the obvious.