A GOOD-NEWS STORY: Even storm troopers have hearts.

SPACE-X: Yes, it was a success.

UNFORTUNATELY TRUE: Too many Americans are morons. Click through for other thoughts from Townhall's Shawn Mitchell.

THE SERVICE MODULE of China's lunar orbiter is back in lunar orbit.

What's amusing (in a ghastly sort of way) is that this is a Chinese website and it correctly used the term 'braking' to describe the deceleration required to transfer to a circular orbit. The English-language source I used for the link called it a 'breaking' maneuver.

THE PRESIDENT'S DUTY of good-faith performance. Using the term 'good faith' in the same sentence as 'President Obama' is an oxymoron.

WHY DIDN'T Obama go to Paris?

It wasn't 'bad optics', and it wasn't a mistake; it was intentional.

NATIONAL SECURITY: CIA bides its time.

"As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - attributed to Richard Grenier.

EXTREMISM IS ON THE RISE, but there remain moderate Muslim leaders who can win Islam's future. They had better win; otherwise Islam has no future.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: Charlie Hebdo edition.

Go and see the rest.

A VANDERBILT PROFESSOR is teaching an undergraduate course this spring semester called “Police Violence and Mass Incarceration.” Lisa Guenther:

Since November 25th, we have used our bodies to decry such injustice on the streets and in shopping centers across our city....

On Friday, December 12th, hundreds of students, clergy, and concerned Nashvillians marched through the city after a vigil for Eric Garner and all victims of police brutality,” the document continues. “With tears in our eyes and the names of the slain on our lips, we stood together to declare that Black Lives Matter. We marched together and held die-ins on the cold asphalt, shutting down roads, intersections, and, with the help of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the interstate.
(emphasis added)

Hypocrisy, anyone?

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN KITTYVILLE:

Rusty and Daisy take their mid-afternoon naps.

REMEMBER THIS — "Big Business and Big Government are often natural allies, and their enemy is free enterprise and smaller competitors."

LONE WOLVES run in packs.

JAKE TAPPER AT CNN:

I say this as an American — not as a journalist, not as a representative of CNN — but as an American: I was ashamed.

Join the crowd.

A COMMENT from this post on the new Charlie Hebdo cover.

If we in the West are going to debate why killers kill and not send soldiers to fight back, I think we all need to renew our first aid training and learn how to make bandages out of bedsheets. Our future is as victims of violence.

We march. We debate. We feel civilized. They bomb. They shoot. They kidnap. Who wins?

My Red Cross first aid certificate is valid until December of 2015. Is yours?

My concealed carry permit is valid until 2018. Is yours?

CALLING FOR GOVERNMENT CONTROL, not gun control.

More precisely, calling for control of government, not control of guns. The police seem to be in agreement....

EXTREME STUPIDITY: Obama calls for (long postponed) conference to 'combat violent extremism'. Note the new acronym (CVE) and the dutiful avoidance of the 'I-word'.

COOKING TIP: How not to make cheese toast.

A SMALL GOOD-NEWS STORY: You won’t believe what Chick-fil-A did for a homeless man.

DC MAYOR literally hates guns.

“If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have any handguns in the District of Columbia,” the Washington Post quoted the mayor as saying. “I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible.”

I'm sure the Jihadis will take note.