SEN. INOUYE will go along with earmark ban. When Obama came out with his eamark-veto promise, my mother suggested we needed a PorkBusters Victory Logo. Could be!

QUESTION: Why Is Wall Street So Addicted To Prestige Colleges?

MARKDOWNS ON KITCHEN SMALL APPLIANCES.

PRO-IMMIGRATION “ACTIVIST” ARRESTED FOR DEATH THREAT AGAINST REPUBLICAN LEGISLATOR:

A self-described Massachusetts “political activist” was arrested Monday night and charged with sending a threatening e-mail to Florida Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, an hour after the Arizona shooting that killed six and critically injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

The unsigned e-mail, sent to Snyder’s state House of Representatives address on Jan. 8, told the legislator to “stop that ridiculous law if you value your and your familie’s lives.”

Snyder has proposed a bill cracking down on illegal immigration for Florida in a manner similar to what Arizona has done.

Obviously, all the hate-filled rhetoric aimed at Arizona set this troubled person off. Will the Democrats please stop it with the violent, eliminationist talk before more people are inspired to violence?

UPDATE: Pintado, 47, is a student at the University of Massachusetts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “You would think a 47 year old student at the University of Massachusetts could spell the possessive of ‘Family.'”

MATTHEW VADUM ON FRANCES FOX PIVEN: Socialist advocate for mob violence complains she is target.

Related thoughts from David Mastio. And here’s what those Greek riots Piven wanted to see emulated in America were like:

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.

Just a reminder, since Piven’s defenders keep trying to make it sound as if she were calling for Gandhi-like nonviolent resistance, when she was quite explicitly calling for violence.

Plus, “The real armed tyranny is the one Piven seeks to impose.”

OBAMA’S EGYPT STATEMENT FAILS TO IMPRESS. “The Obama team, after assuring us it didn’t much care about the outcome in Egypt, is now, in the vaguest possible terms, trying to say that it was instrumental all along. Except it wasn’t. And it still isn’t doing anything to force Mubarak off the stage. If Obama really wanted a speedy transition and really heard the Egyptian people, wouldn’t he have cut off aid?”

Related: Leading From The Rear.

MEGAN MCARDLE: HOW SHOULD THE U.S. BREAK ITS PROMISES?

The first thing to point out is that legally, changing social security benefits would not be default, because (as the Supreme Court has already ruled), beneficiaries have no legal, contractual right to their benefits. They enjoy them at the sufferance of Congress, and Congress has the perfect right to change them.

Yes People who buy Treasury bonds are known as creditors. People who rely on the government’s Social Security promises are more like . . . suckers.

UPDATE: Reader Betsy Gorisch emails: “Considering how GM’s bondholders were treated, maybe it’s possible that creditors, as well as those relying on Social Security’s promises, could also be known as suckers.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mike Kozlowski writes:

As a retired member of the US Air Force (1978-98), I remember quite vividly when the Clinton Administration told us in the mid-90s that we had no entitlement to lifetime medical care upon retirement and that our dependents had no right to that either, no matter what the recruiters had said for nearly half a century. We were told at the time that everyone was really sorry about this but that there really was no choice, that we’d have to sacrifice for the greater good. We do get medical care, but we have to pay for it now, out of our retirement checks.

I have a feeling that a lot more people are going to find out what it’s like when Congress decides what you’ve been told all these years isn’t true any more.

One way or another, a promise is worth exactly as much as it costs the promise-maker to break it, and no more.

CONTROL: Apple blocks Sony Reader app from iPhone. “Apple Inc has blocked rival Sony Corp’s electronic book application from the iPhone because it would have circumvented Apple’s system for buying content. The scrap is the latest in Apple’s long history of tense relations with media companies.”

IS HE REAGAN? Or is he Gorbachev?

I MENTIONED THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS EARLIER, and a reader sends this review by Roger Kimball, which I had somehow missed before.

RICK SCOTT ANNOUNCES A PUBLIC PENSION REFORM PLAN for Florida.

ROGER SIMON’S NEW BOOK: “The good folks at Encounter Books, including its director the redoubtable R. Kimball, have decided to reissue my memoir Blacklisting Myself in paperback form with the new title of TURNING RIGHT AT HOLLYWOOD AND VINE: THE PERILS OF COMING OUT CONSERVATIVE IN TINSELTOWN.”

OMNIBUS LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS, based on U.S. News reputation rank, The Conglomerate’s crowdsourced ranking, SSRN downloads, and the Princeton Review rankings.

HOPE: New Bipartisan Senate Push For Spending Cuts.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama’s Antique Vision of Technological Progress. “If you put together Obama’s resistance to just about any serious changes in entitlement spending with his antique vision of technological progress, what you see is an America where the public sector permanently consumes a larger part of the economy than in the past and squanders the proceeds on white elephants like faux high-speed rail lines and political payoffs to the teacher and other public-sector unions. Private-sector innovation gets squeezed out by regulations like the Obama FCC’s net neutrality rules. It’s a plan for a static rather than dynamic economy.”

UPDATE: Dodd Harris emails: “Obama looks more like Wesley Mouch with each passing day.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Walker writes: “…and Jeff Immelt is Orren Boyle.”

TOTAL STATE EXPENDITURES by funding source.

CHANGE: The Hill: Senate Democrat says he’ll support balanced budget amendment.

THE QUESTION FOR CONSUMERS: “Should you hold onto your depreciating dollars or spend them now on something that will hold its value a little better?”

Does this provide an answer? “And here’s another sobering chart from Calculated Risk: Job loss severity in postwar recessions. As you can see, this one is the by far the worst, and it’s on track to being the longest. Good times!” I think this is that hope-and-change all the kids were excited about back in ’08. . . .

JOE GANDLEMAN: Will Obama Be Known as Having ‘Lost’ Egypt?

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Valerie Jarrett to uniformed general: More wine, garçon!

Jarrett was seated at the head table along with several other big-name politicians and a handful of high-ranking military officials. As an officer sporting several stars walked past Jarrett, she signaled for his attention and said, “I’d like another glass of wine.”

Garçon!

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, who was seated next to Jarret, began “cracking up nervously,” our tipster said, but no one pointed out to Jarrett that the man sporting a chestful of medals was not her waiter.

Let’s hope this tale has grown in the telling.

HOWARD STERN ON THE BEDBUG PROBLEM: Bring Back DDT!

CHANGE: Dictatorships Stockpiling Food. “Authoritarian governments across the world are aggressively stockpiling food as a buffer against soaring food costs which they fear may stoke popular discontent.” Of course, that will drive food costs up. . . .

WISCONSIN ATTORNEY GENERAL declares ObamaCare “dead.” It’s only mostly-dead, and there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Bailey writes: “On the other hand, there’s this from Monty Python and the Holy Grail… Here’s hoping.”

PROF. JACOBSON: New Media, New Game.

AL QAEDA ON BRINK OF using “dirty bomb.” According to this report, anyway. Well, they’re easier to make than a true nuke, and in some ways more destructive.