IT’S AMAZING HOW THINGS CHANGE WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: AARP Suddenly Open To Social Security Benefit Cuts. On the other hand, the AARP — which is basically an insurance pitch masquerading as a seniors’ advocacy organization — has shown itself willing to sell out its constituency in the past, so maybe they just see this as an opportunity to peddle variable annuities or reverse mortgages or something . . . .

CHICAGO GUN REGISTRY a miserable failure.

YOU DON’T SAY: Stagflation Creates a Dangerous Position for Economy.

WHY 70% INCOME TAX RATES won’t work. Which is not to say they won’t be tried. . . .

PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS revealed as paper tigers again. This time in New Jersey. “Even Thursday, when their doom was obvious, the unions didn’t seem to get it. At the rally, they sang songs about the working class and the rich, as if they were coal miners ekeing out a meager wage, as if middle-class taxpayers were the greedy mine owners.”

It’s amazing how the power dynamic shifts when you run out of other people’s money.

UPDATE: Wisconsin Video: The scene at the Capitol the night the Senate passed the budget reform bill. Impotent, entitled rage.

The comments seem to underscore my earlier point about how it’s hard to get good goons these days.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Twilight Of The Unions? I predict an underbus moment for them before the 2012 elections.

MICKEY KAUS: Weinergate: The Search For Meaning. “Weiner is a victim of web-driven macho partisan cocooning. That is, it was the fight-back partisanship of the Daily Kos community that gave him a group of linked-up followers he could make himself a hero of. This included dozens or more women (real or virtual) who idolized him whom he could contact in the space of a coffee break. Weiner was arrogant enough to think he could get away with recklessly exploiting his fame and status in this Web niche in part because he figured his pack would always defend him in a pinch. He was too essential to the fight. The ingenious instant wisdom of the Kos crowd would be too powerful in a clinch. He was almost right about that, though in the end it proved a delusion.”

MICHAEL BARONE: My Take On The Latest Republican Polls.

YA THINK? Don’t Look Now, But Stagflation May Be Here.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Greek Crisis Is A Warning To Europe, U.S.

HOW CHINA could fail like Japan. If it does, it won’t be as peaceful.

BBC TO APOLOGIZE over faked footage.

MY BROTHER’S NIGERIAN FATHER-IN-LAW is always looking at the flocks of Canada Geese on the lake behind their house and wondering why Americans just let them hang around and don’t eat them, especially as they’re pests. Now we’re seeing a changed attitude: New York: Culled Geese Are Bound For Tables, Not Dump.

This year, at least, the city’s slaughtered geese will not go to waste: They will go to feed hungry Pennsylvanians.

Last summer, much of the outcry prompted by the roundup of hundreds of geese in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, in the name of airline safety focused on the fact that after the geese were gassed, their bodies were dumped in a landfill, leaving literally tons of tasty, high-protein free-range meat (an adult goose can weigh 25 pounds) to rot in garbage heaps. The authorities said the state had not established safety protocols for processing and consumption of wild goose meat.

In response to the criticism, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has arranged to truck this year’s captured geese to Pennsylvania, where they will be slaughtered and then distributed to food banks there.

I like the idea of eating invasive or annoying species instead of just killing them. That, of course, is the point of the Locavore Hunter blog, whose proprieter, Jack Landers, is declaring victory. Now if we can just see them opened to regular hunting until their numbers drop. . . .

UPDATE: Oregon takes a less progressive approach. For shame. What have they got against hungry poor people?

AT POWER LINE, covering the really important stuff. And yes, I think I’ve been eclipsed.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Inspector General: IRS Did Not Follow Law in 38% of Seizures of Taxpayer Property. That’s a pretty high error rate.

STOPPING the Gaza Flotilla.

BARRY RUBIN: My Adventures As An Alleged Terrorist.

WHAT, THEY HAVE COLBERT AND THE DAILY SHOW TOO? In Cambodia, Comedians Double As Government Propagandists.

GEORGE WILL likes Ted Cruz.

HOUSING SLUMP creates a ghost town in Nevada.

FROM THE DEATHSTAR’S P.R. DEPARTMENT: An Open Letter to Beloved Academy Award Winning Hollywood Actress Natalie Portman. Plus, a swell departmental motto.

GALLUP: Generic Republican Beats Obama 44-39. You know who that’s good for? Mitt Romney. He’s the most generic Republican out there.

MICHELE BACHMANN AND THE EMPATHY CARD: “That Barack Obama is without a clue when it comes to the economy is no revelation, but that he lacks empathy–traditionally a Democratic refrain–is a bold and interesting twist. The fact is that Obama does often seem to be weirdly detached from the problems he ostensibly is trying to solve.”

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Dobbs notes that Dean Barnett was on this issue three years ago. I miss him.

BAD REVIEW: Obama Fails to Justify the Legality of War in Libya.

SENATE KILLS ETHANOL CREDIT: “Senate Republicans joined Democrats on Thursday in an overwhelming vote to end an important tax break for the ethanol industry, the first of many niche tax breaks GOP lawmakers are looking to close.”