SO TELL ME about California's vaunted public education system.

OBAMA loses the foreign-policy elite. I'm not convinced that's much of a loss, but it does indicate that he's convincing more and more of the political 'establishment' of his utter incompetence.

THE APOTHECARY: Seven things you need to know about ObamaCare's individual mandate.

The bottom line appears (to me) to be this: if you're currently uninsured, the individual mandate probably won't apply to you; you can remain uninsured.

UPDATE: the uninsured are paying attention.

TELEVISION RATINGS: MSNBC down by double digits. MSNBC should be happy it's only a double-digit decline; triple digit declines are sooo ... permanent.

NYC MAYOR BLOOMBERG is the best friend of Second Amendment advocates. Well, maybe. I think President Obama is -- at worst -- a close second.

MORE ON 3-D PRINTING: NASA has successfully conducted a hot-fire test on a 3-D printed injector that delivers propellants to power a rocket engine. Early data from the test indicated that the injector "worked flawlessly" at pressures up to 1,400 pounds per square inch and at almost 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The injector is the largest 3D printed engine component ever.

GO TO COLLEGE or you’ll die alone in misery.

DID YOU KNOW? Edison coined the term “bug”. Today we call them "features".

CONCRETE ARROWS: A bit of aviation history. More here.

NEWT GINGRICH: "Congress should pass a law allowing the Keystone pipeline and blocking any attack on Syria. That would be a major step toward putting America back on a rational, reasonable strategic direction."

Read it all.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED: North Carolina Charity Threatened With Arrest For Feeding Homeless People.

NASA'S PLAN to put a landsail rover on Venus.

Warning: annoying commercial at link.

WHAT!? Subsidies aren't free?

MOOD DISORDER:

So, Jesse Jackson, Jr., 17 year veteran of the US Congress, suddenly gets a "mood disorder" (about the same time he learned he was to be indicted) and is going to prison for 2.5 years. Because his "mood disorder" was so severe, he has become disabled and will receive $8700 per month as a disability payment as well as $45000 a year from his congressional pension, a total of about $150K per year. Here is the link.

Is this a great country or what?

By the way, I have had a rather substantial "mood disorder disability" ever since Obama got elected in 2008. I have not committed any felonies, have not been convicted and sentenced to prison and I don't get squat - other than a higher and higher tax bill every year and the privilege of watching our federal deficit grow every day of the year.

Apparently, crime, dishonesty and breach of trust does pay.

But only if you're a member of the political class.

HOW TO BE A PROGRESSIVE: Unspoken rules.

TWITTER WARS: Conflicts Between FAA, NTSB Said To Be Rising. Punish first; investigate later.

HOT AIR: Should conservatives resist the race tu quoque? Like most conservatives, I try to avoid the 'so's your momma' arguments, but still ... there has to come a time when the liberal narratives, with ill-fitting anecdotal evidence shoehorned in, must be forcefully rebutted.

OBAMA’S CREEPING AMNESTY PLAN. Only amnesty will give Democrats enough votes to stay in office.

WI-FI VS. CELLULAR: Why invest in cellular picocells instead of using the Wi-Fi ones we already have? Um, because I paid for -- and am paying for -- my home Wi-Fi network?

I should point out that Robert W. Lucky is a well knownpioneer in the field of data communications, and makes a number of good points in his article. That said, my home Wi-Fi network is still mine.

Read the comments as well.

I SUPPORT WAR WITH SYRIA. Well, almost.

BYRON YORK: Republicans want a 2016 candidate who’s fearless; that’s what Ted Cruz is selling.

TO MISQUOTE DON RUMSFELD, you go to war with the President you have....

CAL THOMAS: Young America needs to hear Ashton Kutcher's message:

The road to success remains what it has always been: hard work, believing in yourself, never taking "no" as the final answer and making right moral choices. These have been proven throughout history to better any life and improve even the worst of circumstances.

If we know such things to be true, why are they not taught and modeled in today's culture? For many, it could lead to less reliance on government. Politicians would become less necessary. If such principles were again taught in our public schools, someone might sue for imposing someone's "moral values" on others.

Envy, greed and entitlement are the unholy trinity of failure.

A worthy message indeed.