WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Turns Out Obamacare Is Going to Limit Your Choices. “Prices on the insurance exchanges that will make their debut on Oct. 1 will, by broad consensus, mostly be higher than you were paying before,* but lower than some studies had projected. And why is it lower? The answer, it appears, is that state and federal regulators have been pushing insurers to hold the cost down. In some cases, insurers have simply pulled out of the market, as Aetna did when Maryland asked it to lower prices by 29 percent. In other cases, such as Kaiser Permanente in California, the companies have gone ahead offering high priced insurance that few people seem likely to buy. But it’s been clear for a while that most of the insurers who stayed on the exchanges, at least in states with aggressive pricing policies, have been keeping their costs down by restricting the number of authorized providers in the policies they offer on the exchange.”

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MARK TAPSCOTT: A defunding debate scorecard: How ‘Modern Republicanism’ is protecting Obamacare. Too good for a breakout quote. Read the whole thing.

LESSONS FROM KENYA: Once Again, Gun-Free Zones Kill.

STILL SPEAKING: Ted Cruz Pulls An All-Nighter To Defund ObamaCare.

STANDING UP AGAINST SEGREGATION at Hamilton College.

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails: “My high school daughter is interested in small, rural, liberal arts
colleges. Hamilton just dropped off my ‘must visit’ list.”

TAX NOTES: The IRS Scandal: Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic.

Related: Christian Science Monitor: Why retirement of Lois Lerner doesn’t end IRS tea party scandal.

Also: Network News Blackout On Lois Lerner Retirement.

UPDATE: Lois Lerner’s Lawyers Negotiating with Oversight Committee on Immunity.

MICHAEL BARONE: Government shutdown polls not the same as 1995-96. “My interpretation: Voters are quietly picking up on the fact that Barack Obama doesn’t do policy very well, certainly not nearly as well as Clinton did.”

IT’S NOT REALLY A “CEILING” IF YOU KEEP RAISING IT: Washington Post: A recent history of America’s debt ceiling, in one interactive graphic. “If lawmakers and the White House can reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling this fall, it will be the 40th time the limit was raised since 1980.” Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Make your plans accordingly.

SEQUESTRATION IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Members of Congress Got $1.7 Million in Free Trips in August.

MICKEY KAUS: Why Bill Clinton Doesn’t Sleep With Hillary, But In A Separate Hotel: “I buy that explanation, don’t you? Logistics over love! Good to see New York’s journalists strip away the veneer of BS and get to the truth of the matter.”

THE HILL: Reid unites grumbling caucus, has votes to pass spending bill. Make ’em vote for it, ObamaCare and all. On a roll-call vote.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURE: President Of Iran Arrives In New York.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, POVERTY ACTIVISTS WOULD COMPLAIN ABOUT HARSH LAWS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Little Sisters of the Poor sue over Obamacare fines, contraception requirement. “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized a contraception mandate that ignores the fact groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor are religious organizations, according to a lawsuit filed to protect them against fines for refusing to comply with an Obamacare mandate.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: Voters Like Republican Ideas So Why Don’t They Elect Republicans? I think a lot of it’s the press, and Hinderaker agrees:

Given those numbers, you would think that Republicans will sweep in 2014–increase their hold on the House, and take the Senate. But that isn’t what voters have in mind. Rasmussen also finds that currently, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic Congressional preference poll by 40%-37%. It’s a paradox: voters prefer Republicans on the issues, but still lean toward voting for Democrats. One could speculate about why that is true; I think it is obvious that the press’s ceaseless attacks on Republicans are part of the explanation. That is a longstanding problem, but the numbers suggest that Republicans will do best if they keep pounding away on the issues, especially the ones where voters are predisposed to favor them.

Yes, but they need to take a wider view and figure out ways of neutralizing the dying traditional media. Also, repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!

CHANGE: Moody’s Alters Costa Rica Outlook To Negative.

MEN: The New Second-Class Citizens.

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PAUL RAHE: After Cruz Has Said His Piece. . . .

UPDATE: Oh, Hell, here’s the key bit:

What the hearties in the House are doing — and what Ted Cruz is doing — is signaling to the discontented that there really is another way. They can vote Republican in 2014; and, if they do so big time, there will be a correction of course.

The leadership of the Republican Party hates this. Like Jeb Bush in early 2009, they want “to get beyond Reagan.” They want to surrender on immigration; they have designed a Republican healthcare bill that is little more than Romneycare writ large; and they desperately want to make nice with the Democrats. They do not really want a change of course. They merely want to take their turn as managers of the administrative entitlements state. They want to take advantage of discontent without having to commit themselves to a reduction in the size and scope of the government.

If they hate Ted Cruz — if behind the scenes they are feeding the media attacks on him — it is because he is threatening to throw a monkey wrench into the works. They hated the Tea Party. Initially, in 2009, they tried to dismiss it and get on with the process of surrendering to the Democrats on the healthcare question; and then, in August 2009, all hell broke loose in the town meetings, and Charles Grassley and the rest of them found that they had to back off. The Republican tide of 2010 kept them cornered, but the Tea Party folks did not have a plausible candidate to run for the nomination in 2012 and the whole thing subsided. Now the regulars are once again fully in charge — and along comes this maniac Cruz who threatens to revive the fervor of the Tea Party and force the Republicans to move in the direction of smaller government.

Yep. Pretty much.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Ted Cruz’s Long Speech. “I am not crazy about Cruz’s plan to block cloture on the House resolution, but I applaud his speech. Obamacare is unpopular, and Republicans should pound away at it non-stop. Within the last few hours, reports have surfaced that House Republicans may attach a one-year delay in Obamacare’s individual mandate to the Senate’s ‘clean’ continuing resolution. Obamacare may also feature in upcoming debates over raising the debt ceiling.”

Hang it around their necks every chance you get.

THEY’VE REALLY BEEN PUSHING GLOBAL WARMING, AND I THINK THIS IS BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN GETTING A LOT OF PUSHBACK LATELY: Popular Science Shuts Off Comments.

GUN RIGHTS: Kerry to sign UN arms treaty.

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign an arms trade treaty opposed by the Senate and the gun lobby as early as Wednesday, and Republicans aren’t happy about it.

Kerry’s plan to sign the treaty on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week has sparked immediate criticism from GOP opponents. “This treaty is already dead in the water in the Senate, and they know it,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services. “The Administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats.”

A majority of Senators oppose the treaty because it covers small arms, making ratification impossible in the short term.

Republicans should push a non-ratification vote in the Senate now, and get Democrats from swing states on record. And we need to push, instead, for the international human right to be armed.

I HATE LINK ROT: Scoping and addressing the problem of “link rot.” When linking back to an old news story, I’ll usually try to link to an InstaPundit post that summarizes and quotes it, as well as linking it, rather than just putting in a straight link. That way, if the direct link goes bad (as happens all too often) at least readers can easily get the gist. I wish that sites, especially big new sites, would take link integrity more seriously.

HEH: Think Progress: ‘Cruz Filibuster Is So Meaningless We’re Gonna Keep Writing About It While It’s Happening.’ So Think Progress is still a thing? Huh.

SO THERE’S HOPE FOR CONGRESS: “Brain Dead” Might Not Mean Brain Dead After All.

REVEALED: Climate Change Activist David Suzuki Doesn’t Actually Know Anything About Global Warming Data.

WIRED: How a Crypto ‘Backdoor’ Pitted the Tech World Against the NSA.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Kid expelled for playing with airsoft gun in own yard.

Two seventh grade Virginia Beach students previously suspended for shooting an airsoft gun have been expelled, WAVY.com has learned.

During a hearing Tuesday morning, Aidan Clark and Khalid Caraballo were expelled in a unanimous vote. Clark was offered the option of attending an alternative school, but his father, Tim, told WAVY News’ Andy Fox he will be homeschooled.

Caraballo will attend an alternative school.

Like thousands of others in Hampton Roads, Khalid Caraballo plays with airsoft guns. Caraballo and his friend Aidan were suspended because they shot two other friends who were with them while playing with the guns as they waited for the school bus.

The two seventh graders say they never went to the bus stop; they fired the airsoft guns while on Caraballo’s private property.

Aidan’s father, Tim Clark, told WAVY.com what happened next lacks commons sense. The children were suspended for possession, handling and use of a firearm.

Khalid’s mother, Solangel Caraballo, thinks it is ridiculous the Virginia Beach City Public School System suspended her 13-year-old son and Aidan because they were firing a spring-driven airsoft gun on the Caraballo’s posted private property. “My son is my private property. He does not become the school’s property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school.”

The bus stop in question is 70 yards from the Caraballo’s front yard.

Homeschooling is the right solution. The school district should worry that others will follow suit. And the parents should (1) file suit: (2) oppose funding for the public school system, which has obviously gone off the rails.

DAVID HARSANYI: Are Robots Killing The Middle Class? More wishful thinking on joblessness. “The economy grows, innovation ratchets up — but jobs do not. Even during the 2000s, when productivity grew at a faster pace than it had in decades, median income declined slightly. Is creative destruction breaking the middle class? Has technology outpaced our ability to adapt? Are robots destroying the prospects of a vibrant future? Maybe. But the theory has a few holes. For starters, technology always kills jobs. American industry did not stumble upon innovation in 2007. The first ATM machine was installed in 1969, after all, and some of you may never have spoken to live bank teller. Are today’s modernizations really more disruptive than those hatched during the first half of the 20th century or the Industrial Revolution? It seems unlikely that Facebook is a bigger game-changer than the mass production of the automobile. . . . Question: Which one of these things is more likely to undermine economic activity: a) Twitter b) over 12,000 new pages of regulations added by this administration.”

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TEST DRIVE: 2014 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG 4Matic. I remember when zero-to-sixty in five was a big deal. Now we have massive sedans that can do it in under four.

A FAMILY TRUCKSTER FOR THE 21ST CENTURY? Driving the VW Crossblue Prototype.

TED CRUZ IS CURRENTLY filibustering ObamaCare. Well, kind of: “Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, rose to speak on the Senate floor at 2:41 p.m. He stood up to in opposition to Obamacare, he said. And he said he would continue to speak until he could no longer stand. It’s not a filibuster. But it’s looking like it may be a very, very long speech from the Texas senator who has been the center of attention in D.C.’s budget fight, and the Senate leader in a doomed-to-fail movement to strip funding for Obamacare out of any resolution that Congress passes to fund the government. If Congress fails to come to an agreement, the government will shutdown at the end of September.”

Video here.

CHANGE: Lefty celebs on board with DDT-friendly Malaria No More’s Power of One campaign.

SCENES FROM INSIDE the Apple Store. “From behind the Genius Bar, I can check the customer queue on a laptop or on an iPod I keep holstered on my belt. The wait time hangs over everyone’s head. When customers have to wait more than five or ten minutes for their appointment, they get antsy. When the wait time pushes thirty minutes, they get murderous.”

POPULAR MECHANICS: 7 Builds We Love From World Maker Faire New York 2013.

IMAGES: Average Women’s Faces In Different Countries.

IT WORKED SO WELL FOR DEMOCRATS IN COLORADO: Terry McAuliffe Pledges Colorado-Like Gun Control if Elected.

20TH CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My Life Of Hell In An Afghan Harem. Okay, in Afghanistan, most relationships are probably more like 11th Century relationships. . . .

SHIKHA DALMIA: Obama’s University Scorecard Plan Deserves an “F”: It will promote a political agenda, not educational goals. Now there’s a surprise.

SPACE: Incredible Technology: How Solar Sails Could Propel the First Starships.

FROM THE COMMENTS TO AN EARLIER POST ON THE SENATE STRUGGLE:

There’s an aspect to this that has gotten lost in all the inside baseball and it’s kind of the dog that isn’t barking:

Ten months ago after Obama was re-elected, the news was all about how the Republican party was on its last legs and about to die. If you had said back then that in September of 2013 the debate would be about whether to defund Obamacare, and the tax increases, new spending, and end to the sequester, etc would be completely off the table and that a “win” for the President would be defined as maintaining discretionary spending at an Eisenhower percentage of GDP with the Bush tax cuts for the middle class permanently enshrined in federal law…you would have been considered a total wackjob.

We haven’t won, but we’re playing a weak hand pretty damn well.

Good observation.

UPDATE: A comment to Nick Gillespie’s article, below:

It is really insane when you think about it. In a sane world Obama and the Dems would be begging the House to delay Obamacare so they could try and fix the worst things about it and the story would be all about if the Republicans are so cynical they will do harm to the country in order to stick the Dems with the blame. Instead, in the insane world that is Washington, the story is about how cynical and evil the Republicans are for wanting to stop all of this harm from happening to the country.

We live in a bearded-Spock world, a world where Charles Krauthammer and Tucker Carlson yuk it up over Ted Cruz birtherism.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Dodd-Frank Strikes Again.

IN THE MAIL: The War on Football: Saving America’s Game.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 138. Lots of new items today.

IN RESPONSE TO MY USA TODAY COLUMN, Nick Gillespie writes: Don’t Forget to Blame Senate Democrats and Harry Reid for any Government Shutdown. Good point! Nick writes:

Whatever else you can say about the House of Representatives and President Obama, at least these folks have consistently produced spending documents in rough approximation to legal requirements (to be sure, Obama’s latest offering, showed up two months late and $5.2 trillion long when it came to increasing deficits over the next decade).

In contrast and despite a solid one-party majority, the Senate has passed exactly one budget in the past four years and in most of those years, they didn’t even produce the necessary document as mandated by law. Instead, we were treated to journalistic valentines to former Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the guy in charge of the Senate budget wonkery, by a pliant press.

As my colleague Ed Krayewski reminds us in his essential survey of “4 Washington Scandals That Still Matter,” the Democrats couldn’t pass a budget even when they controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House. It’s been the Senate all along that’s been the problem, at least since Sen. Harry “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” Reid (D-Nev.) has been running that godawful show.

Yes. If you’re outraged over budget theatrics, you need to change control of the Senate.

UM, FALLEN ANGELS WAS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION STORY, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? The Sun That Did Not Roar.

This is the height of the 11-year solar cycle, the so-called solar maximum. The face of the Sun should be pockmarked with sunspots, and cataclysmic explosions of X-rays and particles should be whizzing off every which way.

Instead, the Sun has been tranquil, almost spotless.

As W. Dean Pesnell, the project scientist for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, dryly noted, “We’re not having much of a solar maximum.”

A week ago, a solitary sunspot blemished an otherwise blank yellow disk. In the ensuing days, a few more specks appeared, but even a small explosion, or coronal mass ejection, last Thursday seemed like the halfhearted effort of a slacker star.

“The truth of it is there isn’t a lot going on,” said Joseph M. Kunches, a space scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center. “It’s been a bit of a dud. You look at the Sun today and you say, ‘What?’”

Are we heading for another Maunder Minimum?

IT’S ABOUT TIME: FAA to recommend lifting ban on electronics during takeoffs, landings.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Will Obama’s Ego Cause Him To Force A Government Shutdown?

REASON TV: Anarchy In Detroit: Threat Management.

SCANDAL WITH A HUMAN FACE: Profiling One of the IRS Scandal’s Early Victims. “Littleton, who gave up trying to get tax-exempt status and shut the organization down because of the hassle, went on to start two more groups that were among 162 organizations on a list obtained by USA Today and released last week. . . . ‘We just thought we were doing something wrong in the application process … but we also jokingly said that if there was a government list for the IRS, the NSA and the TSA, we were probably on it,’ said Littleton. ‘At the time, it was funny. It isn’t so funny anymore. To me, this just proves our point even more that our government has gotten too big, especially if they can get away with stuff like this.’”

YA THINK? High Profile Cases Show A Pattern Of Misuse Of Prosecutorial Powers.

It’s hard to imagine the U.S. as a place where citizens have to fear overzealous prosecution, but last week’s reversals in the cases of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and five New Orleans police officers are part of a troubling pattern reminiscent of the Soviet criminal justice system — a system in which the state is always right, even when it is wrong.

In both cases, the judges who overturned the original trial-court verdicts cited instances of prosecutorial overzealousness and abuse of power, making the two cases the latest high-profile trials to run aground on the basis of misconduct by the state’s attorneys.

The high-profile cases in recent years run the gamut from the ancient offenses of murder and rape to increasingly esoteric details of campaign finance and contractor law.

In 2008, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, was charged by federal prosecutors with failing to report gifts. During the campaign season, Barack Obama said Stevens needed to resign “to put an end to the corruption and influence-peddling in Washington,” and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, moved to have Stevens expelled.

Stevens lost the election, but three months later, FBI agents accused prosecutors of withholding exculpatory evidence that could have resulted in the senator’s acquittal. Newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asked the court to vacate Stevens‘ conviction, but the damage already had been done.

The prosecutors’ misconduct destroyed Stevens‘ reputation and political career and affected the balance of power in the U.S. Senate in favor of Democrats.

Circumstances were not entirely different in the prosecution of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was accused by local Democratic prosecutor Ronnie Earle to influence state elections with corporate money.

Hmm. If only we could find a common factor here. Meanwhile, the tribunes of the press are acting more like party organs: Networks That Touted Tom DeLay’s 2010 Conviction Now Silent About His Acquittal. Love the Stephanopoulos pic.

But if you want to rein in prosecutorial misconduct, I have some suggestions.

TRAIN WRECK: “Family Glitch” in ObamaCare could leave 500,000 children without coverage. Old spin: If you oppose ObamaCare it’s because you want kids to die! New spin: Hey, what’s a half-million kids in the scheme of things?

JAMES TARANTO ISN’T SANGUINE about defunding ObamaCare. But hey, at the very least it’s a chance to force a lot of vulnerable Democratic Senators to vote in favor of that turkey with an election on the horizon.

REMINDER: In 2009, President Obama “Joked” About Having His Enemies Audited By The IRS.

HMM: Former F.B.I. Agent Pleads Guilty in Leak to A.P.

Federal investigators said they were able to identify the man, Donald Sachtleben, a former bomb technician, as a suspect in the leak case only after secretly obtaining A.P. reporters’ phone logs, a move that set off an uproar among journalists and members of Congress of both parties when it was disclosed in May.

Mr. Sachtleben, 55, of Carmel, Ind., who was an F.B.I. agent from 1983 until 2008 and was later hired as a contractor, has agreed to serve 43 months in prison for the leak, the Justice Department said. His case is the eighth leak-related prosecution under the Obama administration. Only three such cases were prosecuted under all previous presidents.

Call me cynical, but I think these prosecutions are less about national security, and more about keeping people from talking about the many looming Obama scandals. Particularly with the phone-records angle here. The Obama Administration is acting like it has something to hide — and, no doubt, it does. Meanwhile, is the kiddie porn thing trumped up as punishment? Or is a guy with a Top Secret clearance really involved in kiddie porn? Either way, it doesn’t make the national security apparatus look very good.

AFRAID OF DISCOVERY: John Hinderaker: Obama Administration Quietly Caves On True The Vote Case. “Is this related to the retirement of Lois Lerner? I don’t know, but it seems that the Obama administration has decided to cut its losses on the IRS. . . . Maybe Obama really is President Asterisk.”

DANA MILBANK JUMPS ON THE DEMOCRATIC BANDWAGON, proclaiming that the GOP is dangerously moving us close to a government shutdown. But as I keep noting, there won’t be a shutdown unless Obama vetoes the budget. Why not equal time for how Obama’s ego has put him in another dangerous “red line” situation?

UPDATE: From the comments: “If the federal government shuts down, who will be left to conduct armed raids on Amish dairy farmers and guitar manufacturers?” Quelle horreur! And speaking of damaged brands. . . .

JEFFREY LORD: Cruz Leads The Reaganite Rebellion.

BYRON YORK: GOP flinches at Obamacare plan devised by Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee. I don’t think things are as disorganized as they seem. I see it this way: (1) Effort to defund — if it succeeds, it’s a win. If it doesn’t, it’s forced a lot of vulnerable Dems to vote in favor of ObamaCare just before it goes into effect: (2) ObamaCare goes into effect, producing a train wreck of increased premiums, implementation snafus; (3) In 2014, GOP can say if you want this repealed, you’ve got to give us both houses of Congress — and, in 2016, the White House.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: IRS Has Produced Only 10% of Docs Responsive to Demand by Congress.

GALLUP: Americans’ Belief That Government Is Too Powerful Hits New High. “Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two percent now say the government has the right amount of power. Few say it has too little power.”

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Disgraced Lois Lerner out at Internal Revenue. Disgraced is right. She’s radioactive. It’ll be interesting to see who, if anyone, is willing to hire her.

Related: “Lois Lerner is being held responsible for her gross mismanagement of the IRS tax-exempt division.” Well, it’s a start.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College-educated workers are taking jobs that don’t require degrees. And in doing so, driving the less-educated out of those fields. Old argument for college: Go to college so you don’t have to be a waitress! New argument for college: Go to college so you have a shot at that waitressing job!

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

THE NEW REPUBLIC: Scandal At Clinton, Inc.

PERHAPS THIS WILL BE THE COMPROMISE IN THE DEFUNDING-OBAMACARE BUSINESS: Movement To Strip Congress Of ObamaCare Exemptions Gains Momentum.

HMM: Crossfit’s Dirty Little Secret.

This seems kinda like the New York Times scare piece on deadly, deadly Yoga. Any exercise overdone or done badly is dangerous.

MICHAEL BARONE: History matters in German elections, and in ours, too.

WELLNESS PROGRAMS: A reader emails:

Today at my Knoxville primary care Doctor’s office I had the now mandated annual “Wellness” visit for those over 62, per Medicare. At the last visit the Dr. said he was required to provide it (no cost to me, right…) or be fined, so I relented and scheduled it. They gave me a four page questionnaire to take and fill out. I filled it out in pencil, fwiw. Essentially, my and my familie’s history. Now understand, I have been with him 16 years and have a least 3 volumes of ‘charts’. As we finished I asked her where this report went from here. She said it would be scanned and be available to Humana, for the reimbursement. From there, she didn’t know…HHS? So I asked if I could request it not be ‘shared’. A slow smile came over her face and she looked up and said – of course! Ha! I found a way to allow their compliance and resist this dubious exercise. Maybe we can start a movement! If you expand on this, please leave me anonymous. When it’s death by a thousand cuts I want to pick my spots.

Or break the knife.

BRYAN PRESTON: Obamacare Shutdown Showdown: 2013 Is Not 1995, and Cruz Can Win.

MSNBC’S TOURE: “Kenya Is Located On The North Coast Of Africa.”

A CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: Fed-Up NY Man Sets Up Hidden Camera to Find Out Who Was Repeatedly Stealing His Pro-Gun Sign – What He Discovered Blew Him Away. “He just didn’t expect that person to be a uniformed police officer.”

DAVE HARDY PUBLISHES a leaked White House document relating to the NRA.

IT’S POLITICAL: The Campus Rape Myth.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Will Obama’s Ego Cause Him To Force A Government Shutdown?

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Suspended Student May Be Expelled for Rest of the Year for Playing With Toy Gun…in His Own Yard. Sending a kid — especially a boy — to public school is looking more and more like parental malpractice.

TOO BAD MORE PEOPLE WEREN’T ARMED: SAS hero of the mall massacre: Off duty soldier with a handgun saved 100 lives as terrorists ran amok.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: From Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.

It is optionality that makes things work and grow — but it takes a certain type of person for that. Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United States (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these people fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant.

Indeed. Also:

No one at present dares to state the obvious: Growth in society may not come from raising the average the Asian way, but from increasing the number of people in the “tails,” that small, very small number of risk takers crazy enough to have ideas on their own, those endowed with that very rare ability called imagination, that rarer quality called courage, and who make things happen.

Universities aren’t the best place to look for those people, either.

EXCEPT THERE WON’T BE A SHUTDOWN UNLESS OBAMA VETOES THE BUDGET: White House: GOP shutdown threat ‘utterly irresponsible.’ Will Obama veto it? It depends on whether his ego is in the driver’s seat.

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WELL, THAT GETS MY VOTE! Republicans Will Win The Government Shutdown PR Battle If They Promise Voters Private Jets. “If someone had said in 1903 (when the Wright brothers first took flight) that flying would within the 20th century become a pedestrian and often bothersome necessity, that person too would have been laughed out of the room. But with government on all levels consuming exponentially less capital in the early part of the 20th century, huge technological leaps were taking place thanks to extra capital in the private sector funding all manner of commercial experimentation. To deny the correlation between small government and big private sector advances is to ignore basic economics. . . . To state what’s obvious, Republicans should talk about how much better our lives will be, how much more we’ll earn, and how much more often we’ll be blown away by staggering technological innovations if the federal government is consuming much less of our hard-earned money. In short, Republicans should talk about the private jets we’ll all eventually own if the economy-suffocating growth of government is reversed by the Republican Party.” Nonsense. Obamaphones are “investments.”

THE MIRACULOUS POWER OF MEAT: A lifelong vegetarian told she would never have children has given birth to triplets after she started eating meat.

LEE STRANAHAN REPORTS FROM BEIRUT: Do American Christians Care About Syrian Christians?

MIKE RAPPAPORT: The 14th Amendment Equality Requirement Does Not Apply to the Federal Government.

Related thoughts from Will Baude.

INSTAPUNDIT READERS KNOW THAT I LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT CLEANING SOMETIMES, from the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (it really is magic!) to the multi-functional Barkeeper’s Friend. (I’m a Virgo. We’re clean.) But over the weekend I got this Bissell carpet spotcleaner and it did very well. Our carpets generally have an easy life, but I traipse back and forth between the kitchen upstairs and the Insta-Bunker downstairs several times a day carrying coffee, red wine, etc. (And when my sister-in-law visits, the same thing happens with her going upstairs to the guest room). About once a year we get a carpet cleaner to come and clean the carpets, which gets rid of the inevitable spots. But half an hour with this gadget and they were all gone. We had a Hoover steam-vac some years ago, but I don’t know if the cleaners are better (that’s my guess) or if this gadget is just better, but it worked like a charm. Paid for itself with one use.

ROGER SIMON: Islam Needs An Intervention.

HMM: Unlike 1995, Americans say they would blame GOP, Democrats equally for shutdown. I suspect this reflects two things: Obama’s political skills being inferior to Bill Clinton’s, and the traditional media having less power.

FIRST LOIS LERNER OUT, NOW THIS: Exclusive–IRS Offers True The Vote Tax Exempt Status, Files to Dismiss Lawsuit. Reportedly, they were worried about discovery. I can imagine.

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: Plucking A Chicken In 14 Seconds With The Homemade Whizbang Chicken Plucker. Actually, it’s pretty impressive.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Will Obama’s Ego Cause Him To Force A Government Shutdown?

THROWING THE BABY OFF THE BACK OF THE SLEIGH: IRS Official At Heart Of Tea Party Scandal Retires.

REASON TV: Anarchy In Detroit: How Ordinary Citizens Are Stepping Up. “But while politicians, unions, and investors slug it out in bankruptcy court and grasp for their share of what little cash is left, ordinary citizens are left to fend for themselves in a city with no functioning government. This is Reason TV’s coverage of what happens when people are left to their own devices and forced to come up with creative ways to pick up the pieces and find solutions in a city they once loved.”

HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY TO the Victory Girls.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: A Girl And A .22. “The fastest growing consumer segment in the firearms business is women. . . . A handgun makes the short woman tall, the anxious woman less afraid.”

MARK MECKLER: I Double Dare You, Mr. President: Veto the Defunding of Obamacare.

“MY BOYFRIEND IS A REAL NEANDERTHAL.” “REALLY? THAT’S AWESOME!” Man Uses Spear to Save Girlfriend from Mountain Lion. “After the incident conservation officers scoured the surrounding countryside in search of the animal. With the help of a cougar hunter, they found the animal’s carcass a short distance away from the house. It appeared to have died from the spear-inflicted wounds.”

My favorite part is this bit, though: “Officials say the dead cougar was a three-year-old male and an investigation is undergoing to find out what made it aggressive towards humans on the island.” The answer, of course, is that they’re delicious and no longer shoot cougars. He just miscalculated about the whole spear thing.

And, yeah, time for the obligatory David Baron, call your office bit.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE is up!

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Galaxy’s Core Is About To Explode. Larry Niven, call your office.