EUROPE: Asking a socialist to embrace austerity is like asking a prostitute to embrace chastity: it’s simply not part of the business model. True here, too.

RACISM IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: “I don’t care if a bunch of white kids got killed.”

ED MORRISSEY: Shame on Congress for Robbing Hurricane Sandy Victims.

NOTE: When people say things like “don’t let this moment pass without acting on gun control,” what they’re really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren’t thinking clearly.

CHANGE:

In the olden days, when leftists wished to argue against gun owners, they claimed that guns were phallic symbols and that the excessive love of guns demonstrated latent homosexuality. Keep oiling and loading that pisstool, big boy. We know what you’re really doing….Can we not now claim that excessive fear of gun ownership indicates a streak of homophobia. They don’t want to ban guns. We know what they really want to ban.

Well, phallophobia, anyway. Which seems about right.

RACISM IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: RG III, ‘Cornball Brothers,’ and the Blackness Code: The new enforcers of racial authenticity use racist logic to define blackness. “It could be a comedy routine on Saturday Night Live — the notion of a black man standing before some kind of Blackness Panel to determine if he’s black enough. What would be the qualifications? Who would the questioners be, and what would they ask? How would the scoring work, and would there be a talent requirement? Singing and dancing, possibly? And an oath of black allegiance at the end?”

AT AMAZON, 50% or more off on Select Car Audio.

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Ways to End a Sexual Dry Spell With a Bang. Er, is there any other way?

ANN ALTHOUSE: “Americans like their guns, and yet the elite class is suddenly adamant about gun control. I think it’s funny that those who act like they’re so much wiser than the clinging-to-their-guns peasants so often let it show that they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

MORE ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Joyce Carol Oates: “If sizable numbers of NRA members become gun-victims themselves, maybe hope for legislation of firearms?”

Related: Actress Marg Helgenberger: ‘One can only hope’ NRA members get shot.

WELL, WHEN IT TAKES THE COPS 20 MINUTES TO SHOW UP, IT MAKES SENSE: Gov. Bob McDonnell: Consider Guns For School Officials.

READER STEPHEN JOHNSON EMAILS: “I am puzzled why the Republicans continue to want John Boehner to remain speaker. He is genuinely not good at his job.”

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE MEDIA, from Stephen Hunter.

IN OTHER NEWS, HILLARY IS EXPECTING A GALLBLADDER ATTACK ANY DAY NOW: Inquiry Into Libya Attack Is Sharply Critical of State Dept.

UPDATE: Full Benghazi Report Here.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling kitchen utensils and gadgets.

WELL, IT MAKES SENSE, WHEN THE POLICE TAKE 20 MINUTES TO SHOW UP: Tennessee Considers Training And Arming Schoolteachers To Protect Against Shootings. (Via M.D. Creekmore).

THIS DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Hartford Courant poll shows 67% opposed to new gun laws.

MESSAGE TO HOWARD KURTZ: Come to Knoxville, I’ll spend an afternoon explaining things at the range (no charge!), and you won’t embarrass yourself with nonsense terms like “high-magazine clips” when talking about guns. Really, if you want to “lead a national debate,” you need to actually know stuff. On this subject, the vast majority of journalists quite clearly don’t.

UPDATE: Related: New York Times Embarrasses Itself On Guns — Again! “What is it about the Times and arithmetic?”

FRUITS OF FRACKING! Natural Gas-Burning Megaships Soon To Leave U.S. Ports.

UH HUH: Coffin Features Built-In Sound System.

QUESTIONS: Does the cultural War on Young Men contribute to mass murders?

SHOCKER: Congress Sees Holes In Benghazi Report.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: War’s Paradoxes: From Pearl Harbor to the Russian Front to the 38th Parallel.

SOME PEOPLE SEEM TO: Amy Alkon: Boys Will Be Boys. Got A Problem With That?

Hey, get ’em a copy of The Dangerous Book For Boys. And if they’re girls, get ’em The Daring Book For Girls.

SOME RACIST OUTBURSTS are more newsworthy than others. It’s all about the narrative.