ANN ALTHOUSE: Who invited Peter Yarrow to the Wisconsin protests? And why was he the only entertainer on the bill? Plus, some political-media history.

I CAN’T BELIEVE TEDDY rented the whole thing.

FRANK BUCKLES, THE LAST LIVING U.S. WORLD WAR ONE VETERAN, has died.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: “In judging teachers’ claims, we might compare their lives with the lives of, say, farmers or welders or interstate truckers.”

DEAD TALIBAN IN CHORA. Be sure to click through and view the panoramic photo.

IN ITALY, worries about a flood of Libyan “boat people.”

RON RADOSH: Blaming Israel, Ignoring Radical Islam at J Street’s National Conference. Yeah, yeah, I know: Dog bites man. But somebody’s got to point it out now and then.

STILL MORE ON WISCONSIN: New Media Meade catches protesters leaving the Capitol and the scene outside — including the scoop from police that anyone who wants to stay will be allowed.

SO THE RADIO-CONTROLLED HELICOPTERS WERE PRETTY POPULAR: I even got an email from a former student last week saying that her husband was happily playing with one that he’d ordered through the site, which was cool. But a reader sends this on where to go next if you want to:

I guess you’re getting inundated, but hey, it’s a distraction. I’m not a flack for the Blade company, just a really happy hobbyist who enjoys their products.

There’s actually a “growth path” for micro helis for those who find they love their little syma but want something more flexible/quicker/better performing. The Blade company has created three different micro-helis, one for each skill level (beginner / intermediate / advanced). They’re all roughly the size of the syma, but are much more flexible & responsive. For example, they all include replaceable rechargeable batteries and external chargers, allowing you to have longer flight times by using multiple batteries. They are also available as “Ready to Fly” (RTF) or “Bind and Fly” (BNF). RTF versions cost ~ $30 more and include an inexpensive transmitter/controller. BNF versions allow you to use a “for real” digital transmitter/controller, which is more expensive but can be used with any BNF vehicle, including helis and other aircraft. They are more expensive than the Syma, but they’re by no means outrageous, and parts are common & cheap.

Beginner: Blade mCX2 RTF.

Intermediate: Blade mSR RTF.

Advanced: Blade mCP X BNF.

A radio “to rule them all:”

That last helicopter is due out in March. Check out the video (under “media”), it lets a skilled pilot do all the wacky stuff the big ones do in his or her own living room.

I never got into RC aircraft because I thought the price of getting started was going to be in the thousands, and I’d just drill whatever I got into the ground at the first try and that’d be it. The truth is there’s a world of fun to be had for very reasonable prices.

Yes, and even grown men need toys. Or maybe it should be “especially.”

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Love writes: “Or, you could head down to the airport and start taking lessons in personally controlled helicopters. It adds a whole new level of realism.” And expense. Though my nephew had his helicopter license by 18. He financed it by working for a helicopter-flight place and getting the instructor-rated pilots to give him time.

AS THEY SHOULD: Tea Party Members Vow To Hold GOP Accountable.

UBIQUITOUS VIDEOCAMERA UPDATE: Reader Paul Stinchfield emails: “With all the recent videos of leftists and union thugs assaulting Tea Party people, now seems like a good time for you to do another post on compact, easy-to-use video cameras. If it’s not on video, it didn’t happen.”

I think most people who are out marching or covering marches have a camera by now. But I like the Kodak Zi8 (which can take an external microphone) and the rugged, waterproof Playsport. And, of course, the old reliable Flip Mino.

UPDATE: Reader Richard Palmer emails: “Glenn, The advice to conservatives about recording everything is important. The fact that Sarah Palin did her interview with Katie Couric without bringing her own camera crew still amazes me. The stakes are just too high. Besides, the payoff could be huge.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kevin Rahm writes: “Two cameras should be used when possible and three would be ideal. One to chat with the psycho thug, one about 10 feet away to record the thug punching a 5’1″ super girl and the third from a higher angle to put it all into perspective.” Yes, I’ve recommended the multi-camera approach myself in the past. The main camera should be conspicuous, the others less so.

WISCONSIN: MEADE IS THE NEW MEDIA. “And watch for the indications that the police are on the protesters’ side.”

UPDATE: Related: “There is hate in their eyes.” “These are people who don’t respect diverse viewpoints. In fact, they’re so afraid I’ll present a diverse viewpoint, that’s why they try to heckle me and shut down every live shot. They’ve made it clear, that what they want to make it harder for me to do my job. They are proud of that when they disrupt a live shot, when they really trample over the First Amendment rights or the First Amendment’s obligations of a reporter. Now, I am not saying that’s all of the people. Those are the people that come here and heckle and try to disrupt things. I look in their eyes – there is hate in their eyes. They don’t want to hear any kind of viewpoint that is different from their own. That’s why they do what they do.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “The left hates violence. Unless they lose an election, that is.” “Now the most interesting thing about this stuff is this is going up on the net, right on twitter. No attempt to hide it, spoken openly. . . . because the left counts on the media to ignore it.”

MORE: V Is For Vitriol.

STILL MORE: Union Chief Doesn’t Condemn Comparisons of Wisconsin’s Walker to Hitler.

MORE STILL: Reader Phil Dean emails:

I don’t think it’s fair to presume that the police in the clip are “on the protesters’ side”. What he said was, “All these people have decided that they are working with us to help with their protest.”

Police “work with” protest groups of all political stripes to manage events. That does not equal any kind of endorsement. It also seems from what the cop says that he seems to assume that Meade is actually one of the union protesters.

Eh, good point.

LOTS OF COVERAGE OF THE TEA PARTY POLICY SUMMIT, at PJTV.

WELL, WELL: Breaking: Iran Has Several Military Bases in Libya.

MARKDOWNS ON Levi’s For Men.

Also, boys’ denim.

A FIRSTHAND REPORT FROM a Jasmine Revolution rally in Shanghai.

YA THINK? We Should Be Drilling For Oil In the U.S.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: Marxists. I Hate These Guys. Eric Hobsbawm was a nasty old tyrant-lover and enabler of mass murder. That he flourished is evidence that the academy will accept the worst into its bosom, so long as they lean left. Even after the Wall came down and the true horror and failure of Marxism could not be denied, he didn’t really change his views, just the excuses. He was no hero. That he is being praised by a man whose latest book is On Evil only completes the irony. He should be remembered as the horror, and the cautionary example to academia, that he was.

Yes, I know: Do not speak ill of the dead. But when that maxim was originated, there were no communists or nazis yet.

UPDATE: Father Do Not Forgive Them. They Know Damn Well What They Do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, my mistake. I thought, somehow, that Hobsbawm had died. Oh, well — all the more reason to speak ill of him now, then. He might even hear it.

EZRA LEVANT: For Europe, Alberta oil is too dirty. Isn’t Libyan oil too bloody?

Where did Moammar Gadhafi, the brutal dictator of Libya, get the money to pay the foreign mercenaries who are butchering his people? How did he pay for those French-made fighter jets strafing protesters?

Europe, mainly. Europe buys 80% of Libya’s oil. Other than terrorism, that’s pretty much the only thing Libya exports. . . . None of this is news. It’s olds. It’s been going on for years. What’s new is last week, the very week when Gadhafi and his son told the world they’d fight democracy protesters to the last bullet, was the week the European Union chose to criticize Canada’s oilsands because — get this — they say we have 20 more grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule of oil than Libya does.

It’s true, it takes more energy to produce oil from Canada’s oilsands than from Libya’s desert because we have to steam it out of the sand.

European oil imports from Iraq and Nigeria have the same carbon footprint as our oilsands. Those countries burn off the natural gas that comes up when they pump oil — an illegal environmental practice in Canada. And oil from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela has even higher carbon emissions.

Our European friends are silent on all of this.

It’s showboating, since Canada only exports oil to the United States. If Europe wants to make a big deal out of not liking the oil we’re not selling to them anyway, that’s fine. But fair’s fair. If they don’t like Canadian oil because of 20 grams of CO2, let’s insist they swear off oil with blood in it.

It’s like all this green stuff is just a political tool or something.

ON WISCONSIN, IN THE DETROIT NEWS: AWOL Dems defy ballot box.

It’s part of a disturbing trend by Democrats to embrace a by-any-means-necessary approach to governing. We saw it during passage of Obamacare, when the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate blew up the rules to block a filibuster. In Massachusetts, Democrats used after-the-fact law changes in a failed attempt to keep a Republican from succeeding Ted Kennedy.

Obama trashed bankruptcy law to move the United Auto Workers ahead of General Motors’ and Chrysler’s secured creditors. And his regulatory agencies are bypassing Congress to enact policies he knows the elected representatives would never approve.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

IN FLORIDA THIS MAY, a conference on suspended animation.

AT AMAZON, markdowns in HDTV and video.

PJTV: Alexis Garcia interviews Ron Paul at the Tea Party Policy Summit.

SHIKHA DALMIA: Long Live The American Dream: There are many reasons why India and China have nothing on us.

SO TODAY IS BEING CALLED THE TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE TEA PARTY. The ramp-up was more a process than an event, beginning a couple of weeks earlier. But here’s a post from two years ago exactly. Here’s one from Feb. 21st, and here’s another, plus an Insta-Poll. Here’s a post from Denver on Feb. 17, and here are pics from Seattle on Feb. 16. Plus, getting in Obama’s face in Mesa, Arizona that weekend.

Plus, my early look at the movement from April 15, 2009. And give InstaPundit reader Donald Gately credit for prescience. On December 27, 2008 he wrote:

You say that A.N.S.W.E.R. would love to see Icelandic-type protests here. But what if folks under 30 or 40 or 50 started staging large public protests about the Ponzi-scheme that is Social Security? What if taxpayers started staging massive protests about public pensions that let government employees (many of whom don’t have to participate in Social Security) retire at 50 with 90% pay – even while common taxpayers have to ratchet back their own retirement dates? What if financial and real-estate workers started staging protests about their jobs disappearing while the Democrats in congress do everything in their power to preserve cushy UAW deals? What if parents in neighborhoods with failing schools started actively protesting the stranglehold that the teachers unions have over their childrens’ education?

Those types of protests would likely un-nerve the left, and might actually lead to Change that the rest of us can believe in.

Pretty much how it’s worked out. . . .

UPDATE: A reader points out the importance of the March 15 Cincinnati Tea Party. Yeah, I think that overhead shot of the crowd by Russell Sayre actually did a lot to convince people that these events were getting big.