A NUCLEAR DEAL with Iran is imminent.

GREG GUTFELD: 'Gun-free zone' is liberalspeak for ‘sitting duck’.

THE CLINTONS: Kardashians without the class.

MY FIRST MOUSE:

Since I have a wireless mouse with no ‘tail’ to grab, whenever I reach out for it Rusty uses his nose to push my hand away from ‘his’ mouse.

NEWSPEAK: An A-to-Z guide to political correctness. PowerLine suggests annual updates, but I suspect that will not be often enough.

A THOUGHT ON OBAMACARE:

I'm a 54 year old consulting engineer and make between $60,000 and $125,000 per year, depending on how hard I work and whether or not there are work projects out there for me.

My girlfriend is 61 and makes about $18,000 per year, working as a part-time mail clerk.

For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, which also happens to impose a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 per month.

For my girlfriend, the same exact policy, same deductible, costs $1 per month. That's right, $1 per month. I'm not making this up.

Don't believe me? Just go to www.coveredca.gov , the ObamaCare website for California and enter the parameters I've mentioned above and see for yourself. By the way, my zip code is 93940. You'll need to enter that.

So OK, clearly ObamaCare is a scheme that involves putting the cost burden of healthcare onto the middle and upper-income wage earners. But there's a lot more to it. Stick with me.

And before I make my next points, I'd like you to think about something:

I live in Monterey County, in Central California. We have a large land mass but just 426,000 residents - about the population of Colorado Springs or the city of Omaha.

But we do have a large Hispanic population, including a large number of illegal aliens, and to serve this group we have Natividad Medical Center, a massive, Federally subsidized county medical complex that takes up an area about one-third the size of the Chrysler Corporation automobile assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois (see Google Earth View). Natividad has state-of-the-art operating rooms, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fully equipped, 24 hour emergency room, and much more. If you have no insurance, if you've been in a drive-by shooting or have overdosed on crack cocaine, this is where you go. And it's essentially free, because almost everyone who ends up in the ER is uninsured.

Last year, 2,735 babies were born at Natividad. 32% of these were born to out-of-wedlock teenage mothers, 93% of which were Hispanic. Less than 20% could demonstrate proof of citizenship, and 71% listed their native language as Spanish. Of these 876 births, only 40 were covered under [any kind of] private health insurance. The taxpayers paid for the other 836. And in case you were wondering about the entire population - all 2,735 births - less than 24% involved insured coverage or even partial payment on behalf of the patient to the hospital in exchange for services. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

Now consider this:

If I want to upgrade my policy to a low-deductible premium policy, such as what I had with my last employer, my cost is $886 per month. But my girlfriend can upgrade her policy to the very same level, for just $4 per month. That's right, $4 per month. $48 per year for a zero-deductible, premium healthcare policy - the kind of thing you get when you work at IBM (except of course, IBM employees pay an average of $170 per month out of pocket for their coverage).

I mean, it's bad enough that I will be forced to subsidize the ObamaCare scheme in the first place. But even if I agreed with the basic scheme, which of course I do not, I wouldnever agree to subsidize premium policies. If I have to pay $482 a month for a budget policy, I sure as hell do not want the guy I'm subsidizing to get a better policy, for less that 1% of what I have to fork out each month for a low-end policy.

Why must I pay $482 per month for something the other guy gets for a dollar? And why should the other guy get to buy an $886 policy for $4 a month? Think about this: I have to pay $10,632 a year for the same thing that the other guy can get for $48. $10,000 of net income is 60 days of full time work as an engineer. $48 is something I could could pay for collecting aluminum cans and plastic bottles, one day a month.

Are you with me on this? Are you starting to get an idea what ObamaCare is really about?

ObamaCare is not about dealing with inequities in the healthcare system. That's just the cover story. The real story is that it is a massive, political power grab. Do you think anyone who can insure himself with a premium policy for $4 a month will vote for anyone but the political party that provides him such a deal? ObamaCare is about enabling, subsizdizing, and expanding the Left's political power base, at taxpayer expense. Why would I vote for anyone but a Democrat if I can have babies for $4 a month? For that matter, why would I go to college or strive for a better job or income if it means I have to pay real money for healthcare coverage? Heck, why study engineering when I can be a schlub for $20K per year and buy a new F-150 with all the money I'm saving?

And think about those $4-a-month babies - think in terms of propagation models. Think of just how many babies will be born to irresponsible, under-educated mothers. Will we get a new crop of brain surgeons and particle physicists from the dollar baby club, or will we need more cops, criminal courts and prisons? One thing you can be certain of: At $4 a month, they'll multiply, and multiply, and multiply.

ObamaCare: It's all about political power.

From my email.

BEHEAD START: Jobs for Jihadis program at the Department of State.

FEDS: America Should Adopt ‘Plant-Based’ Diet.

So eat more bacon.

It’s modestly surprising how ignorant liberals are of the food chain; pork, beef, venison. mutton – hell, even fish – are ‘plant-based’ foods.

The cartoon, by the way, can be found here.

IMPRIMIS: Jason L. Riley on race relations and law enforcement.

GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS: Gov. Scott Walker may bring reality back to an Ivy League-suffocated government.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Americans should drink more coffee. I drink between 8-12 cups a day, so I’m doing my part to make up for all you slaggards out there....

ELECTRIC INDUSTRY warns of power shortages with EPA power-plant rule. I don’t have any problem at all with power shortages in blue states provided the red states refuse to supply cross-border power to the blues.

NOTE TO EPA: Ideological fervor Hot air is not an alternative source of energy.

FROM MY EMAIL: Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.

YOU’VE GOT OBAMACARE. But do you have health care?

SEAFOOD FRAUD: Is it really cod you’re eating?

AIR FORCE considering A-10 replacement for future close air support. I’m certainly no aircraft expert, but I’d think seriously about upgrading the A-10 instead of replacing it.

GET COVERED, AMERICA:

Oops, wrong picture....

More at Powerline’s Week in Pictures.

IT’S EARLY DAYS YET, but Hillary Clinton is already running what looks like the classic campaign of a loser.

Each [Gore, Kerry] lost when they struck people as having no beliefs other than that they deserved to be president. And right now, Hillary Clinton looks a lot more like this kind of candidate....

Good.

CALIFORNIA’S NO DRONE ZONES. I prefer the obvious solution – redefine drones flying below 400 feet as clay pigeons and let the problem take care of itself.

ROOTING OUT MALWARE with a side-channel chip defense system. Interesting technique. Too bad it won’t work on personal computers....

DILBERT on true internet freedom.

NET NEUTRALITY: “If you like your internet, you can keep your internet.”

THANKS APPLE: Pilot and wife use iPads to navigate and safely land plane after total electrical failure leaves them flying blind.

MAJOR QUESTIONS in the net neutrality debate. The wise thing to to keep government regulation far, far away from the internet.

SHOULD EMPLOYERS give paid time off for volunteering? No. Absolutely not. Keep the ‘social justice’ movement out of the workplace. And out of the IEEE as well: it’s a professional organization, not a social justice one.

IF YOU LIKE HBO’S GIRLS, you might be an overeducated overcredentialed insular dumbass.

MORE ON QUALIFICATIONS VS. COMPETENCY: The non-mystery of Scott Walker’s college career.

Howard Dean seems to think that Walker is ‘unknowledgeable’ because he has no college degree, but seems to be totally unaware that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry S Truman are among the eleven presidents who did not have college degrees.

I might add that Ronald Reagan, whom I regard as the best President in my lifetime, graduated from tiny Eureka College, certainly not an ‘elite’ institution like Harvard or Yale.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Bizarre aircraft. I know I’m showing my age, but 13 of the 17 were within my lifetime, and 7 of them I’ve actually seen.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUSINESS MODEL: I don’t think it’ll fly outside of government....

THE SCOREKEEPER writes about Mike Rowe, qualifications, and competency.

Our so-called ‘ruling class’ has long mistaken qualifications for competency. With the assistance of the Obama administration, that may be changing.

TAKING ON HIGHER EDUCATION:

There is still a lot of respect in the country for the hard sciences and the people who teach them, but with the partial exception of economists and business school professors, much of the public has been losing its veneration for social science professors and humanities professors for some time.

What we are likely to see is a steady and long term pressure against the ‘research university’ model outside of the natural sciences, with politicians (often supported by voters who want cheaper tuition) pushing to increase teaching loads. Teachers would be paid to teach, not to write critical gender study analyses for peer reviewed publications of little interest to the average voter.

About time. Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s governor, is taking the lead, and I’d like to see what Carly Fiorina (another potential candidate to my liking) has to say.

ROSETTA IMAGES show comet 67P/Churyumov-Serasimenko becoming active as it nears the sun. Also interesting is the video showing how Rosetta’s orbit is maintained.

CALL OFF THE DOGS? No way. Hillary’s 2016 election candidacy is going to be a slimefest.

Grab extra popcorn; 2016 is going to be interesting.

QUALITY VS. QUANTITY: China's new stealth fighter isn't great, but it may not need to be.

Two thoughts: (1) When I was working new programs for Lockheed Martin, ‘quality vs. quantity’ was always a big issue, especially for aircraft programs. (2) Read the comments; the ignorance is astounding.

FINALLY: Private space exploration begins. Now that there’s an economic incentive for private enterprise.

The administration’s disinterest in space exploration has been about the only good thing to come from ObamaLand.

D’JANGO OBAMA UNCHAINED: Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan from five years ago today. His 2012 reelection did nothing but deepen his narcissistic personality disorder.

My post from 2010 is here.

NATIONAL SUICIDE: Obama’s plan to combat ISIS.

IS INSANITY an impeachable offense? If not, it should be.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO'S craven 'drop dead' to New York's smokers. Since smokers politically tend to lean left, I’m surprised that he doesn’t demand that e-cigarettes be subsidized.

OBAMA ON ‘VIOLENT EXTREMISM’: Kill ‘em with kindness. Maybe he should gore ‘em with his army of unicorns....

PRESIDENT SELFIE: Worthless as a community organizer, too.

KINDA, SORTA AMUSING until you realize that Obama thinks he’s Moses.

FIRST THERE WAS FISKING; now there's ‘harfing’.

POWERLINE: Inside the global warming scandal.

Data goes where the funding is.

WHAT HATH GUTENBERG WROUGHT? New pioneers in printing. Nice article.

PROGRESSIVE SPEAK: Tolerance is hate. (Or is hate tolerance?)

Or maybe, just maybe, progressive ‘tolerance’ is intolerant.

MALLARD FILLMORE on the ‘benefits’ of a liberal arts education.

More here.

TOO NUANCED: Marie Harf infers critics not smart enough to get her jobs-to-combat-ISIS comment.

Too nuanced?

IS THERE ANYTHING REPUBLICANS CAN’T DO? How the Republicans invented Elizabeth Warren.

DILBERT: It’s a good day when ....

THANKS, OBAMA: Keystone XL could have prevented this.

LIKE OBAMACARE? You’ll love ObamaNet.

GOVERNMENT: regulating people out of jobs.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM will require measles vaccinations for incoming students. But will it be enough to keep out illegals and progressives?

IN TEXAS, NO LESS: Federal judge temporarily blocks Obama's immigration executive action.

Texans have balls. Big brass ones.

TEXAS WOMAN terminates activities of convicted sex offender. She killed him.

YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID and California is proof.

THERE'D BETTER BE a 'none of your damn business' box to check: Lenscrafters offers nine marital status choices.

CONN CARROLL: Obama's failed presidency. But is he a failed President? By my standards, certainly. But as Instapundit notes, "Before you can judge it a failure, you must know what he set out to accomplish."

In his own mind, I suspect Obama considers himself to be a successful President.

TEXAS: is it crazy or is it real America? Real America, which is why 'reality' America can't stand it.

MICHAEL BARONE on the emerging democratic minority. It can't come too soon....

TO ALL THE KIDS who survived the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and '60s:

We survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then, after that trauma , we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads.

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes..

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes , white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight.Why?

Because we were always outside playing ... that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.

And we were okay.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem..

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs , no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

We had friends and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping- pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms, and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and - although we were told it would happen - we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend' s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers,problem solvers, and inventors ever.

The past 50 to 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If you are one of those born between 1925-1970, congratulations, and share this with others who didn't have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT to have two lousy secretaries of state battle it out to become the next losing candidate for the President of the United States?

AS LONG AS THEY DON'T HELP HER: Eleven Democrats who could help themselves by challenging Hillary.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Why the Space-X rocket landing on a sea-based platform is so hard. So hard, in fact, that yesterday's attempt following the launch of the DSCOVR spacecraft was called off because of bad weather at the landing barge site.

OBVIOUSLY NOT. Can a Liberal commit a hate crime?

LEFT-WING HATE GROUP calls Dr. Ben Carson an 'extremist'. This is what happens when the inmates are allowed to run the asylum....

COMMENT OF THE DAY: "Democrats: unable to leave well enough alone since Aaron Burr."

From this post.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, when Obama leaves office, we'll only be $20,000,000.000.000.00 in debt.

HEH: Corrupt Presstitutes.

THE 'TWINS':

Daisy (left) and Shadow are litter-mates although they are as different as night and day.

THE HILL: Tea Party lawmakers may take on McCain. I admire Sen. McCain, but I do think it's time for him to pass the baton to someone new.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL: end ObamaCare, don't mend it.

THOMAS SOWELL on Obama's 'blame America' game: it's payback for years spent nursing petty grievances.

BREAKING CAPITALISM one franchise at a time. Another Obama administration power grab.

CARBON NANOTUBES: building an elevator to orbit. Is there anything nano-engineering can't do?

CONGRATULATIONS, NOT CONDEMNATION, SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN ORDER: Day After Pilot’s Murder Video, Jordan Criticized for Executing Convicted Terrorists.

INTERESTING THEORY: 'Liberal guilt' made NBC's Brian Williams lie. I prefer the 'arrogant, narcissistic bastard' theory myself.

INSTAPUNDIT on people who just need killing: "Nazis and Islamists are in that class, and deserve to be treated accordingly. When you kill enough, the rest skulk off and pretend they never believed the stuff they were shouting, and doing, when they could get away with it."

LOGIC HAS NEVER BEEN HIS STRONG SUIT: Obama's comparison of Christianity, radical Islam defies logic.

And his weak suit is transparent.

POWERLINE'S Week in Pictures is up. Lot's of NBC's Brian Williams cartoons (he's stepped down, at least temporarily), but the best one is this:

The 'biker bar' is good, too.

DARWIN AWARD WINNER: Robber with Toy Gun Killed by 67 Year-Old Victim with Real Gun.

INSTAPUNDIT: "There’s no bigger hotbed of racist hackery in Congress than the Black Caucus...."

A NEW USE for nanoballs. And no, it isn't about President Obama....

OBAMA AGAIN shows his contempt for America and the West.

Reading the comments about Obama possibly being a 'closeted Muslim' got me thinking: could that be the reason he cannot bring himself to say the words "Islamic terrorism"? Truly I don't think so; while he is clearly a religious fanatic, his 'religion' is progressivism.

WHAT'S NEXT? barbeque pits and campfires?

BARACK OBAMA, a moral and historical ignoramus. And that's being polite.

PAUL GREENBERG: How to Divide People.

APPEASEMENT is a narcissistic act.

A LOGICAL RESULT OF AGGRESSIVE FEMINISM: Guys and (plastic) dolls.

OBAMA DOES HAVE A STRATEGY - and it is frightening.

U.S. GOVERNMENT wants automakers to put self-braking cars on the road. If they do, I want something in my car that will trigger the brakes of that a$$hole tailgater behind me. Better yet, lock 'em up solid.

PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITIES use taxpayer money to feather their own nests rather than build new ones.

MORE TO TAX AND REGULATE: FAA intends to encourage commercial activity on Moon.

COOPERATIVE LIVING, the monthly magazine sent out every month to NOVEC (Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative) customers every month had a good cover this month. It renamed the Old Dominion the 'Cold Dominion'.

FAA COMMERCIAL SPACE OFFICE seeks budget increase to hire more staff. Just a thought - perhaps they could regulate a bit less?

THE ISIS DEATH CULT: "The commanders in ISIS are not lunatics. They are calculated, savvy and entirely convinced they are following the commands of their religion."

Just as President Obama and his co-inhabitants of the 'reality world' are entirely convinced they are following the commands of their religion.

I'M CONVINCED that this Barack Obama

has more spine than the one currently in the White House. (Remember, the one in the White House is the draft version....)

MICHELLE MALKIN has thoughts about real journalists.

COULDN'T HAPPEN IN A MORE APPROPRIATE CITY: Minimum Wage Hike Closes San Francisco Bookstore.

A FRESH FACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. As of right now, Walker is my top choice. A final decision awaits his thoughts on foreign policy.

TWEET OF THE WEEK -- from Nigeria. Turnabout is fair play....

POWERLINE on the environmental media's "reverse Lake Woebegone effect". I might add that it applies to the Left generally.

NEW PC 'MICROAGGRESSIONS': Move over “racism” and “white privilege” – “singlism” and “married privilege” are the new kids on the politically correct block!

The PC clowns are indeed clowns, but I have to give one thing to them -- they're very inventive clowns.

IF THERE WAS a vaccine against bullshit, there would be no Democrats. Yeah, I know I should lighten up, but I'm getting a little tired of this anti-Tea Party, anti-Republican crap by a bunch of 'reality world' bubbleheads who couldn't find their collective asses with both hands tied behind their backs.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, OF COURSE: Where does 'Political Correctness' come from?

Not surprising in the least.

HARRY, LARRY, AND ??? Who's the third stooge going to be?

New thought: Did Larry batter Harry? See the pictures at the link.

ALWAYS TRY TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE:

From my email.

TEXAS LAWMAKERS want apology to entire state after [Rep. Alcee] Hastings calls it ‘crazy state’.

Just to remind you, Hastings represents Florida's 20th district (Ft. Lauderdale). He was impeached by Congress and removed from office as a federal judge in 1989. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 after the Senate mistakenly did not ban him for ever running again for any federal office.

I suspect Hastings is in for a rude surprise. "Don't Mess With Texas" isn't the official state motto (yet), but it may as well be.

SPACE-X will try another booster landing on its next launch.

'SELFIES' KILL: NTSB concludes that taking 'selfies' likely contributed to a deadly plane crash in Colorado.

Not pilot error; pilot stupidity.

HERD IMMUNITY applies to guns as well as vaccinations.

You don't need to thank me.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: A return to minimm-wage federalism. I'd prefer to abolish the minimum wage altogether, but this will work.

A GLIMPSE inside the 'reality' bubble. It's interesting to see that Sarah Palin has firmly established herself inside their heads.

INSTAPUNDIT: "Stupid anti-science Bible-belters."

AMERICAN VIGNETTES: These daily posts are a new (well, since last November) feature at Don Surber's blog. Some of these exceptional Americans are famous, most are not. All made America better. This is a list of them with links, updated daily. Go. Bookmark it. I did.

WHOLE FOODS: where you can find the vaccine-fearful.

BARNEY & CLYDE on animal heaven:

This is what Heaven looks like to a (formerly) abused cat.

HEY, IT'S ONLY YOUR MONEY -- and your kids.

A REAL LEADER: King Abdullah quotes Clint Eastwood.

"He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn't seen," said Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., a Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, who was in the meeting with the king. "He mentioned 'Unforgiven' and he mentioned Clint Eastwood, and he actually quoted a part of the movie."

Hunter would not say which part of "Unforgiven" the king quoted, but noted it was where Eastwood's character describes how he is going to deliver his retribution. There is a scene in the picture in which Eastwood's character, William Munny, says, "Any man I see out there, I'm gonna kill him. Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only going to kill him, I'm going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down."

Since President Obama can't -- or won't -- lead, he should follow or get the hell out of the way.

GLENN REYNOLDS: Three ways to 'do something' about poverty.

ELIZABETH WARREN VERSUS THE 401(K): the 401(k) wins handily. I'm reminded of the old aphorism that the way to build a small fortune is to start with a big one. Not so; the way to build a small fortune is to start with a 401(k) -- and leave it the hell alone.

FLYING THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES: NASA proposes drone helicopter for Mars exploration.

THE GREATEST THING about “American Sniper” is this — its box office take shows the ninnies, for now, remain a minority.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS PAC takes aim at Hillary Clinton. Don't color me surprised when she bows out of the race, citing 'health issues' or something similar, after American Crossroads has exhausted its funding.

MORE ON the Liberal thought police.

OBAMA TO RELEASE national security strategy as urgency over the Islamic State grows. Frankly I don't know why he bothers, since we already know what it is: delay, obfuscate, delay some more, and then declare victory after it's too late to do anything that could make a difference.

IT'S A LITTLE LATE to join the Romney campaign.

BLOCKING ROBOCALLS: I agree with the painful shock technique myself.

ROSETTA IS WATCHING: spacecraft sees fascinating changes in comet 67P.

OBAMACARE IN FOUR SENTENCES:

1. In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to uninsure the insured.

2. Next, we require the newly uninsured to be re-insured.

3. To re-insure the newly uninsured, they are required to pay extra charges to be re-insured.

4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured, who became uninsured, and then became re-insured, can pay enough extra so that the original uninsured can be insured, which will be free of charge to them.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is called "redistribution of wealth" ... or, by its more common name ... socialism.

From my email.

KEEPING THEM RICH: Environmentalists praise the Saudis as an ally in fight against Keystone.

BUNK BED:

Shadow and Diamond have converted our family room sofa into a bunk bed. When not outside, it's mostly where they stay.

ED DRISCOLL: The Left is slowly devouring itself. Kind of reminds me of a scene from Heinlein's Glory Road, where a golem was forced to devour itself. The only difference is that the Left is doing it voluntarily....

I posted on the Jesse Walker link here.

GUN CONTROL: a proper ending to a home invasion.

TIPPING POINT? ISIS burns captured pilot alive.

The only way to stop an evil like ISIS is to crush it -- dramatically, visibly, finally.

The Obama administration should begin recruiting allies and laying plans for an armed assault on the territory controlled by ISIS, with the objective of wiping the group off the face of the Earth, once and for all, in a manner that will deter imitation.

That, I think, will happen. But the leader will be Jordan under its King Abdullah, a warrior. The best the U.S. can hope for is that our pansy President will follow in his footsteps.

ADDED THOUGHT: Every country who arrests or has arrested an ISIS-related terrorist should immediately extradite him/her to Jordan for prosecution under their laws....

FROM ONE WHO SHOULD KNOW: Chris Kyle wasn’t a savage; he killed savages.

EARTH'S INTERPLANETARY DUST traced to comets by Rosetta probe. Comets are 'dusty'. So how do we know they aren't 'interstellar swiffers'?

MANDATORY SICK LEAVE: another way to make the poor poorer. And keep people on the government dole.

OBAMA'S BUDGET: Tax more, borrow more, spend much more.

NOW TELL US how you really feel about liberals:

The word for when a person erects in his mind a false image of a group of people, and sees them only as that image, that false stereotype, and moreover it is a despicable stereotype, one that robs them not just of dignity, but of their very humanity… that word is bigot.

Something rotten, very rotten has happened to the Left just in my lifetime.

They used to be champions of free speech; and now they are its most vehement opponents.

They use to be able to give some sort of argument or logical reason for their position, even if an incorrect argument; now they have no argument, none of them, aside from wild and insincere accusations delivered in a mechanical fashion without any hope of being believed, phony as a three-dollar bill.

They used to be firmly on the side of the workingman; now they hate the workingman as a white racist oppressor.

They used to be in favor of free love and the sexual liberation; now they object to rocket scientists wearing shirts with cartoon women printed on them, they object to science fiction magazines showing a scantily clad warrior princess slaying a monster, and they call all sex rape, and demand strict segregation of women and men. On the same day as these protests, they appear in front of the Pope, writhing on the ground naked with crosses and crucifixes inserted into their vaginas. So the Puritan rules apply arbitrarily, without sense or order, to anyone or no one.

They used to be in favor of Blacks and other minorities; now their disgust for all the impoverished and dispossessed is plain to see. All they want is to keep the Blacks on the plantation, addicted to welfare, addicted to crack, their children aborted, their parents unwed.

They used to be in favor of the Jews, and other minorities; now they kneel to Islamic Jihad at every opportunity, vowing that those who slander the prophet of Islam will no be in the future, and ergo the Left now curse the Jews, and pray daily for the destruction of Israel, and a new Holocaust in the warhead of a Muslim nuke.

What? You say that his the not what the Left says? That they say they are creatures of purity, goodness, and sweetness, who live only to help others out of the depth of their hearts and the depth of your wallet? No, that was the old Left, back when the Left still had some scraps of sanity and intelligence.

They serve Sauron and have forgotten their own names.

They do not say what they are, because, if you listen to them, they say that words mean nothing, that truth is relative, that all civilizations are no better than savagery, that no religion is better than another, and that anything which is not illegal is allowed. So of course they say they are perfect angels: because the word has no meaning to them, no words have meaning, and telling the truth is not correct. Only political correctness is correct.

Now they have gone fullbore barking moonbat mouthfoaming evil.

Linked from Instapundit.

WHAT NOW? Washington's federally-driven economy has hit the wall. Personally, since I live here, I'd like to see the federal government 'deflated' even more -- much more -- to make the region more livable.

LEFTSPLAINING "political correctness".

A "political posture...that treats identity politics not just as an ideology but as a trump card, that maintains a rigid orthodoxy while regarding itself as subversive, that uses a series of contrived outrages to feed a bureaucratic machine."

Makes sense to me.

HOW BEST TO HANDLE NET NEUTRALITY: Do nothing. Leave well enough alone.

HOW TO FUND 'FREE' COMMUNITY COLLEGE: tax the Democrats' donor base.

FINALLY: Awakening to the damage done by teachers' unions.

A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME: Smaller drones aren't a major threat to aircraft.

YOU GOTTA LOVE THE CANADIANS.

A big earthquake with the strength of 8.1 on the Richter scale hit the Middle East . Two million Muslims died ..

Iraq and Iran are totally ruined, and the governments don't know where to start providing help to rebuild. The rest of the world is in shock.

The USA is sending troops to help.

Saudi Arabia is sending oil.

Latin American countries are sending supplies.

New Zealand is sending sheep, cattle and food crops.

The Asian continent countries are sending Labor to assist in rebuilding the infrastructure.

Britain is sending medical teams and supplies.

Canada, not to be outdone, is sending two million replacement Muslims.

From my email (naturally).

LIBERATION MYTHOLOGY: For when you have nothing more to lose.

Pat Moynihan told us that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Obama has freed himself from this manner of tyranny. If he dislikes facts, he ignores them and substitutes others, which he finds more attractive.

More proof of my earlier assertion that progressives deal in 'reality', not reality.

ECONOMICS: When breadbags weren't funny. It wasn't that long ago, either.

MORE: Feminist fool failure.

JUST FOR LAUGHS: Go ahead and click here.

BREAKING NEWS: All clear at Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, after suspicious package prompted White House lockdown. I'd be tempted to sent them a load of bullsh*t, except for the facts that (a) everything going to the White House is inspected off-site first, and (b) they already have a more-than-adequate supply.

BOEING AIRCRAFT COMPANY to build the next-generation Air Force One replacement. (President Obama wore the current one out.)

The only other option is the Airbus A-380, manufactured in France. The A-380 might have been appropriate for President Obama, but not for a real President of the United States of America.

THE MAGIC THAT IS OBAMA: 118 "I's" in 33 minutes. Once every 17 seconds; that's gotta be a record -- even for him.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

THE UPPER MIDDLE CLASS is ruining America. Strangely, his 'upper middle class' is my 'rich' -- and their nanny-state government factotums.

DAWN SPACECRAFT approaches the asteroid Ceres:

The pictures will get better as Dawn begins to orbit.

IGNORING REALITIES, Obama sticks to his comfort zone.

A week after his State of the Union address, political observers are still trying to figure out what President Obama's game is. That's because rhetorically and substantively, he seems to be in another world.

And that's the point: he is -- literally -- in another world. In the not-too-distant past, Obama would have been a prime candidate for commitment to a mental health institution.

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA! NASA spacecraft almost to Pluto.

OBAMACARE 2.0: More government spending perpetually chasing the costs imposed by more government mandates.

ACTUALLY IT'S $3,999.999.999,999.95: Obama proposes $3.99 trillion budget.

FAT WARS: Obesity-fighting implant approved by FDA.

OBAMA'S WORLD: a 'Life of Julia' for everyone. Stated more succinctly, Americans are too infantile to live their own lives without government intervention.

ANOTHER CASE OF MY BEING RIGHT: A new study suggests the economic return on a college degree may be a lot more modest than you think.

FEAR A DRONE ATTACK? Here's a solution.

For when it's out of shotgun range....

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Stanford threatened with lawsuit over MLK Day protest. I know Stanford's got the bucks, but I'd like to see the protestors sued, individually and severally.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Has Robocar Safety Been Hyped?

SO TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T ALREADY KNOW: Obama lacks plan to stop Islamic State grand vision.

SPACE COMMERCIALIZATION: Google, Fidelity fuel SpaceX with $1B investment.

CHEAPER GASOLINE: Obama didn't build that.

Not even close.

WISCONSIN GOV. SCOTT WALKER surges in Iowa poll.

UPDATE: Walker won. Walker is, right now, my favorite candidate.

REMY: I need a hashtag!

OBAMA'S BUDGET: Bad policy, bad politics.

HEH.

TROJANS: they're not just software any more.

INSTAPUNDIT on Western cultural sensitivity: "Because no culture is any better than any other ... who are we to say that killing everyone in an enemy held city and building a pyramid of skulls outside is wrong ... ?"

"THE GOAL OF PROGRESSIVISM is not to make the world rational; it’s to make the world Portland.”

SO WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? It's only taxpayer money.

A LESSON Barack Obama apparently hasn't learned.

ECOLOGIST'S AIRBORNE SCANNERS see the trees — and completely miss the forest.

In the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, [Gregory] Asner has designed a one-of-a-kind, ultra high-tech, airborne laboratory — inside a twin-turboprop plane. It offers a faster, more exhaustive way to map how humans have destroyed land, from the deserts of the American southwest to the deepest depth of the Amazon.
[emphasis added]

Of course humans couldn't possibly improve the land....

CARLY FIORINA: A surprise star in Iowa's presidential sweepstakes. I liked her take on Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State: "Mrs. Clinton, flying is not an accomplishment, it is an activity."

JEFF JACOBY: Gun rights should cross state lines.

Down the street or across the country, a valid driver’s license is all you need to lawfully get behind the wheel of a car. If you’ve met your state’s conditions to be issued a license — passed the test, submitted your fingerprints, paid the fee — there’s not a state in the country that won’t honor it.

A valid license to carry a firearm should be treated the same way.

Make it part & parcel of the driver's license. Just as there are restrictions (corrective lenses required), there should be permissions (concealed carry permitted).

MICHAEL BARONE: "Because I won" is not a policy formula for the future.

WHAT LOW-INFORMATION VOTERS (and progressives) look like.

OBAMA'S HAPPY TALK is contradicted by reality. I've finally come to the reluctant conclusion that Obama (and progressives generally) truly believe their claptrap. They're so immersed in their 'reality' world that to say something is true is to make it so.

SEVEN SECRETS to being miserable in the Land of Opportunity. Actually there's just one secret: be a progressive.

BLOWING SMOKE: New York Times columnist invokes his black privilege again. Or is it 'color' privilege? I may be a bit behind in my knowlege of the ever-changing progressive lexicon.

CONSERVATIVE MUSLIM’S OPINIONS produce “existential worry” at University of Michigan.

Mallard Fillmore explains.

THE WAYBACK MACHINE: some leftover thoughts from the State of the Union speech.

I think 'yawn' is the best response. Congress should go about its business, let the coffin nails (vetoes) pile up, and wait for 2016.

HEY, NASA, WAKE UP! You're getting to bureaucratic. NASA (and all government agencies for that matter) has always been too bureaucratic, but I'll give them this: their work did pave the way to lower the cost of spaceflight to the point where commercial enterprise can take over.

WHAT HAPPENS when you buy a new mouse. I guess the old one couldn't stand the abuse....