DAILY CALLER: Big Labor Is Literally Threatening Businesses.

PAUL RAHE: Why Obama Is Keeping Geithner: “Geithner’s resignation in the face of a catastrophe would not only be an admission of failure. It would inevitably be the first step towards a change of policy. The introduction of new men is nearly always preparatory to the introduction of new measures. Geithner is a weakling. Had he been a man of strength, he would have resigned on an issue of principle when it became clear that his advice regarding economic policy was unwanted. In the current circumstances, President Obama needs – or thinks he needs – a weakling in Geithner’s post.”

JAZZ SHAW: Canadian Oil Sands And America, Part 1.

ABOUT TIME: Bruce Schneier’s Telepathic Takeover of the TSA.

Bruce Schneier is a telepath of unimaginable power. That’s the only possible explanation for the stunning reversal at the top of the Transportation Security Administration.

For years, Schneier, the well-known security gadfly, has blasted the TSA for its brain dead approach to passenger screening: the “security theater” of naked scanners and slipped-off shoes; the focus on terrorist weapons instead of the terrorists themselves; the one-size-fits-all security protocols, instead of measures driven by the latest intelligence. For years, the TSA ignored his critiques.

But late last month, at the Aspen Security Forum, TSA chief John Pistole opened his mouth — and Schneier’s words came tumbling out. Pistole said it was high time to “recognize that the vast majority of people traveling every day are not terrorists.” To “try to apply some more common sense to the process,” even.

Forget patting down kids and telling people with top secret security clearances to take off their shoes. “I think we can do a different way of screening children that recognizes that, in the very high likelihood, they do not have a bomb on them,” he said.

Besides, he added, “the best layer of security we have … is intelligence.”

Well, that is a change.

DAVE HARDY: Comparing British And American Riots.

Meanwhile, reader Bruce Quam sends this flyer from 1940 and says it may be time for a repeat. Heh. But Britain, while gun-constrained, isn’t quite gun free. Actually, you know, opponents of the foxhunting ban managed to put a half-million people on the streets of London a few years ago. Bring ’em back with guns, which foxhunters presumably own, and you could settle this riot business pretty quickly.

AUSTIN BAY: America’s Strategic Leadership Deficit.

The 3 a.m. crisis phone call Hillary Clinton featured in a brilliant, now iconic campaign ad targeted Candidate Obama’s lack of prior executive experience — a not-so-subtle attack on Obama’s lack of development as a leader. In the 2008 general election, Republicans repeated Clinton’s argument.

At the time, a majority of American voters decided Obama’s developmental deficiency did not matter. Hope and change polemics, with the aid of teleprompters, Hollywood stagecraft and major media cheerleading, camouflaged Obama’s weakness.

Crisis has exposed his weakness, and it matters. Consider an indicative anecdote. During critical budget discussions at the White House involving House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, President Obama left the room with this parting shot: “Don’t call my bluff, Eric.” Obama meant to say “I’m not bluffing,” but angry and defensive, he muffed it. Subsequent events demonstrate Obama was bluffing, so his emotional reaction telegraphed his political strategy. . . .

What leadership skills Obama possesses he honed as a community organizer, slang for a political leader mobilizing a neighborhood to attack real and perceived injustices perpetuated by the larger community. This is an us-versus-them gambit where the organizer relies on rhetorical skills and media magnification to spread a message of blame. Mobilization using wedge issues differs from community-building — that requires a leader who bridges differences and unites in order to achieve.

Not seeing so much of that.

DANIEL MITCHELL: English Riots, Moral Relativism, Gun Control, and the Welfare State.

THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS: Five Guys Has The Best Burger On The Planet.

STEPHEN GREEN: “For a while now, Glenn Reynolds has argued that ‘Jimmy Carter is the best-case scenario’ for Obama — because it’s been pretty obvious for a while now. But it’s only this morning that I figured out the why.“

SCIENCE: Computer Models Show that Towing an Iceberg to a Drought Area Could Actually Work.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Poll: 73% Of Americans Think Country Is On Wrong Track.

Related: Majority Of Public Loses Faith In Government Ability To Fix Economy: “Barely one in four Americans has confidence that the federal government has the ability to fix economic problems, and most share Standard & Poor’s indictment of the country’s policy-making process, according to a new Washington Post poll.”

IN BRITAIN, HERETICAL THOUGHTS? Telegraph: If British shopkeepers had the right to bear arms, vicious thugs would think twice before looting. “Britain’s gun laws are among the most draconian in the world, yet the nation has some of the highest levels of violent crime and burglary in the West, and there is no shortage of gun crime in major cities such as London and Manchester. While criminal gangs are often able to acquire firearms on the black market, ordinary law-abiding British citizens are barred from owning guns for self-defence. The riots in London, the West Midlands and the North West should prompt a renewed debate in Britain over the right to bear arms by private citizens. The shocking scenes of looting across the country are a reminder that the police cannot always be relied upon to protect homes and businesses during a period of widespread social disorder. The defence of life and property can never be entrusted solely to the state, not least when there is a complete breakdown in law and order. As we have seen this week in Britain, when individuals are barred from defending their own property from mobs of vicious thugs, sheer anarchy and terror reigns.”

As Joyce Malcolm has demonstrated, the right to bear arms was traditionally an Anglo-American right, and persisted in Britain well into the 20th Century.

SPEED: Pentagon’s Mach 20 Missile Ready for Ultimate Test.

RON BAILEY: The Man-Made Miracle Of Oil From Sand. Not just oil. It’s “ethical oil,” not “conflict oil.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: TWO LAW SCHOOLS FACE CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS over fraudulent placement data.

VIDEO: Yesterday’s Solar Flare Was Biggest In Years.

FASTER, PLEASE: A self-assembling microbot for drug delivery?

SINGULARITY 2045? Ray Kurzweil predicts a breakthrough in artificial intelligence will enable the emergence of near immortal transhumanists by 2045. That’s a little late for me. Can we try 2030?

NONLETHAL WEAPONS: Three Taser Deaths Jolt Police Departments.

ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY: Limited government, federalism and the Affordable Care Act.

WILL APPLE’S BAN make the Galaxy Tab more attractive? “Suddenly this is the tablet computer that Apple doesn’t want you to have. It was so intent on stopping its sale to Europe that in the same week the tablet became available in the U.K., Apple filed a 44-page complaint to a German court last week.”

DER SPIEGEL: How Obama Disappointed The World. Heck, he’s disappointed me, and it’s not as if my expectations were very high to begin with.

TOM BLUMER: Dumping On The Tea Party.

ADVICE TO COLLEGES: Want disciplined, hard-working students? Recruit farm kids.