“DRUNK AND STUPID:” Shockingly, not a valid legal defense to arson charges.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on how things are going. And playing what if?

UPDATE: Michael Nehring writes on Facebook: “What says more about America–that we always, ALWAYS manage to refrain from an anti-Muslim backlash, or that progressives are always, ALWAYS, convinced that one is on the way?”

THOUGHTS ON the fall of the Berlin Wall.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND home-charging issues.

ANNALS OF MARKETING, WEIRD EDITION: The Weezer / Snuggie Bundle:

Alternative-rock band Weezer, known for its hipster coolness, is using possibly the uncoolest thing on the planet to promote its new album: a blanket with sleeves. If you buy a Weezer Snuggie (a Wuggie) for $30, you get their new album, “Ratitude,” for free. They also have a deluxe pack, where you get a ZEBRA Snuggie and a special edition of the CD that has four extra tracks.

Is it a sign of the times?

WANT TO HELP WOUNDED WARRIORS? It’s not too late to support Project Valour-IT.

MY APOLOGIES TO THE KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE BAR ASSOCIATION: They had invited me to speak, and I thought I’d sent my regrets, but I just got an email saying that they never heard from me. I try not to let things like that fall through the cracks, but I’m not terribly organized and I don’t have anyone else keeping my calendar or correspondence up for me. Sorry again, folks.

MORE ON BOGUS “COP KILLER” WEAPONS, from Bob Owens. “Ironically, more of the wounded soldiers are possibly alive today because of Hasan’s media-hyped choice of weapons.”

IN THE MAIL: From Andre Agassi, Open: An Autobiography.

ROSS DOUTHAT: Life After The End of History. “Twenty years later, we still haven’t come to terms with the scope of our deliverance.” That’s because many of our opinion-leaders don’t regard it as deliverance at all.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN:

“Going postal” is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker–archetypically a postal worker–“snaps” and guns down his colleagues.

As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub–disconcertingly–“Going Muslim.” This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan.

Read the whole thing.

U.N. BUDGETS and follow the money.

DON SURBER: “What is it with jihadists and strip joints?”

INSTAVISION ON THE ROAD: I talk with folks from free-market think tanks around the country at the State Policy Network conference in Asheville, North Carolina. There are lots of interesting people doing interesting things at the state level all over the country. I talk with Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute, Starlee Rhoades of the Goldwater Institute, and Jennifer Butler of SPN. I also did a panel on media with Bob Anderson of 60 Minutes and Melanie Kirkpatrick of the WSJ. (Bumped).

IT JUST GETS WORSE: ABC News: Officials: U.S. Aware of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda.

RANDY NEAL bought a Droid phone and posts a review. He likes it. Hey, Randy! I want a Kindle app, though.

MICKEY KAUS: “Robert Reich sure seems to be saying that Obama should have focused on the economy and put off health care reform. . . . You could say it’s a bad sign for Obama if Reich has ejected from the health care express. On the other hand, if there were a theatrical, left-cultivating, personal-branding semi-economist who was going to get attention for himself by jumping ship, it would be Robert Reich. He’s sort of a canary in the coal mine in this respect.”

POLITICS DAILY: Obama and the Media: Is the Critic-in-Chief Too Thin-Skinned? Yes.

UPDATE: Related item here.

MORE ON ignoring the warning signs.

PRESS STUPIDITY ABOUT GUNS CONTINUES: Or maybe it’s just dishonesty:

The media is wasting very little time informing us that the weapon used by Major Nidal Malik Hasan in his rampage at Fort Hood was a “cop killer.”

Ft. Hood terrorist used a cop killer FN-Five Seven tactical pistol—20 round clip — Examiner

‘Cop Killer” Gun though to Be Used in Ft. Hood Shooting, Offiicals Said — ABC News

Fort Hood shootings: gunman used ‘cop killer’ weapon in massacre at US Army base — UK Telegraph

Ironically, there is no known record of that weapon even being used to kill a police officer in the United States, and there is a distinct possibility that Sgt. Kimberly Munley, wounded while engaging Hasan, may have been the first American law enforcement officer ever shot with a Five-seveN.

How did the Five-seveN get it’s “cop killer” reputation, then?

It was created in a Brady Campaign press release in February of 2005.

Funny how often things work that way. Where are the “layers of editors and fact-checkers” when you need them?

UPDATE: Several readers write, and Wikipedia reports, that the FN is used by Secret Service protective details. Can we say “weapon of choice for President Obama’s bodyguards” then?

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader who says he’s a special agent with the Secret Service says that they don’t use the five-seven. What? Could Wikipedia be wrong?

HOPE: State Worker Beat Up At SEIU Meeting.

ROBERT SAMUELSON: Are the United States, Japan, Great Britain, and other first-world nations in danger of defaulting on their debt? Or, maybe, the “soft default” of inflating it away.