NICK GILLESPIE: Obama’s State Of The Union was a “failure.”

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “So is his Presidency.”

A DETAILED LOOK AT Rand Paul’s plan to cut $500 billion.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on jewelry. Valentine’s Day isn’t far off.

IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING.

THE NEW YORK TIMES GOES TO (SPY) WAR. “So CIA has a big policy disagreement with him! From which an old-timer like me would draw the conclusion that CIA is behind the Times’ campaign. To the Times’ great shame.” As always, it’s never in doubt that they’re tools. The only question is whose.

WHY THEY’D RATHER TALK ABOUT SARAH PALIN (CONT’D): CBO: Social Security to begin running permanent deficits this year, not 2016. “This isn’t the only horrible news in the report by a longshot, either. CBO’s projected deficit for this year is a cool $1.5 trillion or 9.8 percent of GDP, which is just two-tenths of one percent less than last year’s all-time budget-buster. And there’s not much revenue relief coming from new jobs: CBO expects that unemployment will remain above eight percent through 2012 and won’t get back to a historic norm of 5-6 percent or so until 2016. This ship has already started to sink, in other words, and yet Captain Hope chose to use his annual megaphone last night to talk about stuff like high-speed rail.”

BLIZZARD IN DC: A good night for Al Gore to get a massage.

YOU CAN’T FOOL THOMAS FRIEDMAN: It’s Sputniks All The Way Down.

Sadly, not the Webb Wilder kind.

UPDATE: David Kirkham emails:

Obama is right. This is our Sputnik moment and we better take heed of history. The Soviet Union fell because they ran out of money. I know. For 2 years I watched the slow death spiral of The People’s Aircraft Company–Poland’s crown jewel in their socialist state. PZL Mielec produced 3 MiG’s a day at the height of the Cold War. By everyone’s account they were “too big to fail.” I was there the day the MiG factory crashed. I saw the smoking wreckage of 20,000 men’s and women’s lives, abandoned by men with lofty credentials who thought they knew more than those they turned out into the cold.

Well, the men with credentials mostly did okay.

PRESIDENT BARACK GRANHOLM. “‘We need a moon shot,’ said Granholm in the Huffington Post. ‘This is our Sputnik moment,’ echoed the president on Tuesday. . . . Granholm envisioned a transformation of Michigan from Rust Belt to ‘Green Belt’ with massive, European-like, public investments in infrastructure and alternative energy. ‘In five years, you’ll be blown away,’ she predicted in what would become her signature line. Ironically, thousands of state jobs were blown away as Granholm’s vision diverted pols’ attention from much-needed reforms to the state’s budget and business climate. Since her speech in 2006, the state’s unemployment rate has exploded from 7.4 percent to 11.4.” America as Greater Michigan? Well, Michigan’s been okay for the pols and their cronies — though lately, even that’s not so true anymore.

UPDATE: Winning The Future!

MORE: “WTF Was Spot-On… There Were a Lot of WTF Moments In That Speech.”

TRACY QUAN: Don’t Cry For The Tiger Mom.

WASHINGTON POST: Rep. Paul Ryan 1, ObamaCare 0. “The most important thing said [by Foster] today: in so many words, moving toward defined contribution health care has more potential than price controls to bring about real efficiency gains and higher productivity in the health sector, and slow the pace of rising costs. That’s a very big deal.”

ARE WE APPROACHING a supersonic jet comeback? Hmm. If I really thought this were likely in the near-to-mid future, I guess the thing to do would be to buy property in Australia and New Zealand. Or maybe Fiji?

HOLLYWOOD’S first Gulag movie.

YOU WANT A “SPUTNIK MOMENT?” HERE’S YOUR FREAKIN’ SPUTNIK MOMENT: US Budget Deficit to Pass $1.5 Trillion This Year.

See, the thing about Sputnik was that it was really scary, because it meant the country was in danger — if the Russians could put a satellite overhead, they could put an H-bomb on New York in 20 minutes. That’s why we responded with a big change in how we did business.

This is really scary too. Where’s the serious response? And no, more of the same doesn’t count. A 5% across the board spending cut — real year-over-year cutting, not a cut against projected growth — would only barely begin to count as serious. Freezes and other flimflams don’t count at all.

I WILL NOT BE AN EARLY ADOPTER: Apps that turn your smartphone into a wallet.

MARKDOWNS ON LED TVs. And more TV markdowns here.

A TYRANNY OF THE HEAVILY ARMED?

America is no longer a democracy. It is now a tyranny of the heavily armed. That is Barbara Ehrenreich’s claim in today’s Los Angeles Times. Along with her colleague Frances Fox Piven, Ehrenreich is an Honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. In today’s Op-Ed, Ehrenreich does her best to pretty up Piven’s call for rioting in America, while painting conservatives as gun-mad assassins.

I sense that the left is now running scared. The Nation erred in allowing Piven to call openly in its name for rioting in America. They’re likely even more worried now about damage to the Nation’s reputation than they are determined to silence conservatives. But at this point, they probably figure the best defense is an aggressive offense. Ehrenreich’s wild Op-Ed is the result. Here you will read what the Nation crowd really thinks of America.

Meh. It’s not like the “bitter clinger” line is anything new. The trouble is, these folks liked the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat, so long as it wasn’t actually, you know, proletarian. ‘Cause those proles are just icky.

Meanwhile, since Ehrenreich seems to be trying to gloss over what Piven was calling for, let’s remember what those Greek riots she liked so much involved:

At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.

Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

Hooded protesters. Molotov cocktails. Three dead by fire, four hospitalized. This is Piven’s idea of a proper “people’s movement.” This is the kind of violence she was advocating. This is what she’d like to see happening in America, to Americans. And this is what her allies are trying to minimize, or distract attention from, by making false accusations aimed at innocent parties. Just for the record.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Just a quick thought on your Piven updates. The phrase “Hooded protesters. Molotov cocktails” made me initially think “that is doubly despicable, Priven & Ehrenreich are also Klan supporters”?

They don’t have a problem with the Klan’s choice of means, anyway. And reader George Wilson emails: “The ‘tyranny’ is the fear that a molotov cocktail might not be a match for Desert Eagle .50 or an AK-47.” Yes, there’s nothing more tyrannical than someone who refuses to be intimidated.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Scot Echols writes: “So let me see if I’ve got this right. Is Piven pissed off that the Tea Party protests weren’t violent?” I’m pretty sure that’s not it, but that’s an understandable mistake . . .

MORE: Dodd Harris sends this helpful illustration:

IGNORING THE ECONOMIST and going for a PhD anyway.

FORGET THE TIGER MOTHER: Roar Of The Lion Father.

SOTU: THE PRESIDENT AS MICROMANAGER: “Obama sounds remarkably similar to the CEOs I used to listen to on earnings calls: the ones with mediocre EPS and a failing business model.”

BAD SELF-CONTROL AT AGE 3? It’s probably going to last.

COOL: Engineer Develops Own Life-Saving Implant.

MICHAEL YON EMAILS:

Glenn,

Tonight, I read a detailed message on a private forum from a highly experienced combat writer. Unfortunately, due to the bylaws of that forum I cannot reprint it. What I can say is that it sounds like the US Marines are waging death and destruction on the Taliban in a way the Taliban are not used to. Average patrol finds 1 IED and kills 1 Taliban and they are going night and day.

I made these photos on those battlefields.

Thanks, Michael.

REPORT: Mercedes fast-tracks C-, E- and S-Class hybrids.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: Why Egypt Matters To You. “The fact that we are supporting the Mubarak regime may not be immediately obvious to most Americans, but it is the central fact about America to every Egyptian alive–to 83 million people in the heart of the Middle East.”