SAY IT ISN'T SO! Even the New York Times begins to admit Obama is global flop.

TOUGH QUESTIONS for the President:

Asked by Julie Pace of the AP if he slept well, he said, “I’m still on 4 am time.”

Another reporter asked Obama if he like the ice cream dessert in the shape of Mt. Fuji served at the state dinner.

Obama nodded, saying, “They have the green tea at the bottom that I’ve spoken of having when I was six, and I was very pleased,” Obama said.

“It was delicious.”

These things we really need to know.

IS IT JUST ME, or has America seemed steadily more third-world since Obama came in?

THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF THE AMERICAN LEFT: "[P]rogressive movements need to do a better job empowering the people whose interests they claim to serve."

The answer, of course, is that progressives don't want to empower them, they want to control them.

SPACE-X gets closer to making a reusable rocket.

VOX.COM'S MASTHEAD -- the smartest thinkers, the toughest questions -- is a lie.

“WE GET IT OREGON — You People Live in a Cartoon.”

OF COURSE NOT; THEY'RE NOT 'VICTIMS': Asians not ‘people of color.’

PJ MEDIA: ‘Microclimates of Totalitarianism’.

TREE-RING CIRCUS: Michael Mann versus National Review.

OBAMA SUPPORTER can't find job with Obama administration. Okay, there's obviously more to the story than is reported in this link (and I commend both the father and his daughter for their resourcefulness), but still....

SPRING LEAVES, Week Seven: finally, some real green.

Almost all the trees are showing leaves now, although the taller oaks are still in the 'just beginning' stages. The beech trees have begun to leaf out, and it's always startling to see how fast they go from bud to full leaf.

Last week's picture is here, and of course you can click back in time from there.

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#3):

"If Bundy can break the law, why can’t I?”

Yes, just who does Cliven Bundy think he is?

An illegal alien?

Or the President of the United States?

PIKETTY'S PEOPLE: the income inequality struggle isn't at the bottom -- it's at the top.

The richest of the rich (a Warren Buffett, say, or a George Soros) also have a vested interest in making sure that in making sure that their position at the top of the heap is not challenged by wannabe magnates. Higher taxes (which they can easily afford) would be a small price to pay for keeping the not quite so wealthy riffraff out. And that’s a good part of why they fund what they fund and why they vote how they vote.

They're having a hard time because those wannabes are so damned inventive.

SPAM: How a tiny minority makes wavelets.

ACADEMIA'S CORE VALUES: "cowardice in the face of Islamists and timidity in the face of intolerance."

Read it all.

REPUBLICRATS TAKE NOTE: Tea Party, Rand Paul Stomp Establishment in Maine GOP Convention Straw Poll.

Anyone who thought the Tea Party dead is dead wrong.

ON KEYSTONE PIPELINE, Democratic stalwart Laborers Union finds itself outbid by one enviro-billionaire.

Heh. $38M just doesn't go as far as it used to....

IS FREE SPEECH endangered in America? More than free speech -- freedom itself.

I'VE WONDERED ABOUT THAT MYSELF: How Did We Survive Childhood Before the ’90s Safety Nannies Came Along?

But it’s worth thinking about the consequences of raising a generation or two of bubble kids and definitely worth considering how we can give our kids more unstructured time to invent, to create, and to imagine — to just be – free from structure and hovering helicopter parents. Because it’s becoming apparent that all the hovering and over-parenting, rather than helping our kids, has led to a generation of approval-seeking, naval-gazing, adult dependents who cannot navigate the world of adulthood without Buzzfeed or a government official telling them what to do and what to think about everything.

Well said. I think my children were the last generation to grow up 'nanny-free' -- but just barely.

TAXATION is the deadbeat brother of innovation.