SAVE THE PLANET: Buy an AR! “It’s like the health benefits of red wine or coffee. Is there anything an AR can’t do?”

WASHINGTON EXAMINER SPECIAL REPORT: THE OBAMA YOU DON’T KNOW. Highlights:

From the introduction:

“Beyond the spin and polls, a starkly different picture emerges. It is a portrait of a man quite unlike his image, not a visionary reformer, but a classic Chicago machine pol.”

Chapter 1: A childhood of privilege, not hardship

Michelle Obama says “Barack and I were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or possessions.” In fact, for much of his life, Barack Obama has enjoyed privileges and opportunities denied to most Americans.

Chapter 2: Myth of the ‘rock star’ professor

Though initially popular as a University of Chicago Law School adjunct lecturer, he was not ranking among the top professors, according to student evaluations.

Chapter 3: The 1997 speech that launched Obama

His 2004 Democratic National Convention speech got the big headlines, but a previously unreported 1997 Obama speech did far more to launch him with big backers with big bucks.

Chapter 4: For the slumlord’s defense, Barack Obama, Esq.

It was a frigid January and the slumlord who put his tenants on the street without going through the required eviction process got off with a $50 fine. His lawyer went on to be elected president of the United States.

Chapter 5: Obama’s toughest critics on the Left

Long before he ran for president, radical critics accused Obama of selling out Chicago’s poor to the Daley political machine.

Chapter 6: The poor people Obama left behind

Altgeld Gardens housing advocate Hazel Johnson welcomed the young Obama into her kitchen. Then she never heard from him again after he won his first election.

Chapter 7: The myth of Obama as state senate reformer

When the real reformers asked for his help, State Sen. Barack Obama was nowhere to be found.

Chapter 8: Obama’s state pension fund scheme

It worked for Rev. Jesse Jackson against the Fortune 500, so State Sen. Barack Obama used it to get millions for his friends from Illinois’ biggest public employee pension funds.

Chapter 9: Obama’s Arab-American network

Syrian emigrant Tony Rezko had lots of Arab-American friends in the Chicago business community who shared his enthusiasm for Barack Obama.

Chapter 10: Obama brings Chicago politics to Washington

Surprised by Solyndra? Don’t be, it’s just one of many examples that demonstrate Barack Obama is doing things in Washington the same way he did them in Chicago.

Too bad the legitimate press Democratic Party operatives with bylines didn’t report this stuff four years ago.

TASTEFUL: Obama campaign now selling its version of American flag, complete with ‘O’ logo.

I KEEP REFERENCING FALLEN ANGELS, AND NOW THIS: Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Another Record. “Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.”

DON SURBER: “The blowback from supporting people you don’t know is an ambassador dead in Benghazi.”

NATIONAL DEBT? I DON’T REMEMBER! “A lot of politicians are dishonest, but Barack Obama may be in a league by himself. He appeared on the David Letterman show last night, and Letterman asked him about the national debt (somewhat surprisingly). Obama’s answer was a masterpiece of prevarication. He described how the debt originated, and claimed, falsely, that he inherited a $1 trillion deficit. In fact, this country had never run a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion until FY 2009, the first year of the Obama administration. (And, no, Bush isn’t to blame for it; the Democratic Congress waited until Obama was in office to pass the vast majority of the bloated spending for that fiscal year.) Letterman, to his credit, went on to ask Obama how much the national debt actually is. Obama evidently knew that if he said $16 trillion his audience would be horrified, so, incredibly, he pretended not to know! You have to see it to believe it.”

Plus, secret video footage.

MORE JIM MESSINA PHOTO FUN.

Meanwhile, a reader emails:

Two-word phrases people could write on their hands for Obama:

$16 Trillion
$4.50 gas
Christopher Stevens
8% unemployment
Fast Furious
1st Amendment
2nd Amendment
Bitter Clingers

C’mon people, co-opt the meme!

Heh.

MASSACHUSETTS NEWS: UMass/Herald poll: Brown pulling ahead of Warren. “There also is some troubling news for the well-financed Warren campaign. Despite spending millions of dollars to tarnish Brown’s image, the GOP incumbent’s popularity has actually increased in the last nine months. Brown is now viewed favorably by 57 percent of registered voters, up nine points from a UMass Lowell/Boston Herald poll conducted in Dec. 2011. Brown’s unfavorable rating actually has dropped six points to 29 percent. He is also drawing 22 percent of voters who say they will vote for President Obama.”

#OBAMAFAIL: Al Qaeda, ex-Gitmo detainee involved in consulate attack, intelligence sources say.

Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda — with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.

That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week’s deadly assault a “terrorist attack” — the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a “spontaneous” act.

It just gets worse.

OF COURSE: Stuxnet Blowback: Techniques used by government-backed malware are surfacing in the code used by ordinary cyber criminals.

BLU-RAY DEAL OF THE WEEK: The Robocop Trilogy, $15.99.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Fake Gold Bars Turn Up In Manhattan.

HOW TO PREVENT A DATA-LOSS DISASTER. “Cloud-based backup services fall into two camps: You can store select files in the cloud for remote access, or you can use a service that automatically backs up all your data. The former (Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive boast the best features) lets you park your files in “smart” folders that show up locally on your computer’s hard drive but are also mirrored in the cloud. Once there, these files can be easily shared with friends—a great way to pass around large files without overwhelming anybody’s email inbox. . . . Storing a few files in the cloud is simple and fast, but none of the Dropbox-like services comes even close to giving you full automated backups. For a task that titanic, the biggest names are Carbonite ($59 a year gets you unlimited storage) and Mozy ($72 for a year of 50 GB of storage). But the best pick for most users is Code 42’s CrashPlan+. Techies in the know favor CrashPlan+ for its price (you get unlimited storage for $50 a year), ease of use, and wide range of features. But what really gives CrashPlan+ the edge is that, unlike its competitors, it holds on to your deleted files forever; most other services permanently delete files from the cloud after they’ve been off the computer for 30 days.”

A lot of InstaPundit readers left Carbonite for Mozy during the Limbaugh kerfuffle. They seem happy enough. I haven’t heard much about Crashplan+.

GOOGLE SPANS ENTIRE PLANET WITH GPS-POWERED DATABASE. “According to Google, it’s the first database that can quickly store and retrieve information across a worldwide network of data centers while keeping that information ‘consistent’ — meaning all users see the same collection of information at all times — and it’s been driving the company’s ad system and various other web services for years.”

YA THINK? Yahoo News Badly Needs An Upgrade.

BACKSTAGE WITH OBAMA: Post-American Bandstand.

A CREEPY PHOTO OF OBAMA CAMPAIGN MANAGER JIM MESSINA inspires more quick-meme fun.

JAMES CAMERON on the Cinematic Arms Race.

BUT I THOUGHT HE’D ALREADY LOST? Rasmussen: Romney 47, Obama 46.

AT AMAZON, up to 54% off on TV shows on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Also, up to 50% off on women’s outerwear.

ANNALS OF THE .0001%: Obama speaks next to “a custom-designed tower of $800-per-bottle champagne that dominates the main room at Jay-Z’s 40/40 nightclub.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Financier Eased Obama Aide’s Path From Government.

GOAT, SCAPED: DOJ Deputy AG Jason Weinstein resigns, AG Holder cleared by Fast and Furious report.

More here. I hope the Romney Justice Department will take a closer look at this.

THOSE WHO WERE YAMMERING AT BREITBART ABOUT THE SHERROD VIDEO ARE NOTABLY SILENT NOW: “Complete” video of Romney missing 1-2 minutes of remarks on the 47%. “The last 48 hours of media commentary has evinced an interesting, and entirely unsurprising, double standard, or perhaps triple standard. When undercover videos of ACORN and NPR by James O’Keefe or of Planned Parenthood by Lila Rose get published, the media immediately insinuates that they contain deceptive editing and demand that the full videos get released — even though media organizations like the broadcast networks rarely if ever operate by that same standard. Mother Jones ripped O’Keefe at the time for not providing all of the video from his undercover exposé of NPR . . . . Actually, O’Keefe eventually released all of the video of the ACORN and NPR stings, which didn’t change their stories at all. But the video of Mitt Romney at a May fundraiser from David Corn and Mother Jones brings us a new innovation — the triple standard. William Jacobson, Moe Lane, and The Blaze discovered that, contrary to claims made by Corn and MJ, the video wasn’t complete at all — and had a significant gap at a critical time in Romney’s remarks.”

Do not trust content from Mother Jones.

CHANGING THEIR STORY: Administration now admits Benghazi was a “terrorist attack.”

That must come as a comfort to Mr. Nakoula.