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....